free. My comfort is, that, if I am blamed, it will be by all parties. A little peace of mind for the rest of my days is all I ask, to balance the gout.

I have writ to Madame de Guerchy about your orange-flower water; and I sent your ladyship two little French pieces that I hope you received. The uncomfortable posture in which I write will excuse my saying any more; but it is no excuse against my trying to do any thing to please one, who always forgets pain when her friends are in question.

1014. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

I AM here, in this supposed metropolis of pleasure, triste enough; hearing from nobody in England, and again confined with the gout in both feet: yes, I caught cold, and it has returned; but as I begin to be a little acquainted with the nature of its caresses, I think the violence of its passion this time will be wasted within the fortnight. Indeed, a stick and a great shoe do not commonly compose the dress which the English come hither to learn; but I shall content myself if I can limp about enough to amuse my eyes; my ears have already had their fill, and are not at all edified. My confinement preserves me from the journey to Fontainebleau, to which I had no great appetite; but then I lose the opportunity of seeing Versailles and St. Cloud at my leisure.

I wrote to you soon after my arrival; did you receive it? All the English books you named to me are to be had here at the following prices. Shakspeare in eight volumes unbound for twenty-one livres; in larger paper for twenty-seven. Congreve in three volumes for nine livres. Swift in twelve volumes for twenty-four livres, another edition for twenty-seven. So you see I do not forget your commissions: if you have farther orders, let me know.

Wilkes is here, and has been twice to see me in my illness. He was very civil, but I cannot say entertained me much. I saw no wit; his conversation shows how little he has lived in good company, and the chief turn of it is the grossest bawdy.' He has certainly

1 "I scarcely ever," says Gibbon, who happened to dine in the company of Wilkes in September, 1762, "met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice; his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency."-WRIGHT.

one merit, notwithstanding the bitterness of his pen, that is, he has no rancour; not even against Sandwich, of whom he talked with the utmost temper. He showed me some of his notes on Churchill's Works, but they contain little more than one note on each poem to explain the subject of it.

The Dumenil is still the Dumenil, and nothing but curiosity could make me want the Clairon. Grandval is grown so fat and old, that I saw him through a whole play and did not guess him. Not one other, that you remember on the stage, remains there.

It is not a season for novelty in any way, as both the court and the world are out of town. The few that I know are almost all dispersed. The old President Henault made me a visit yesterday: he is extremely amiable, but has the appearance of a superannuated bacchanal; superannuated, poor soul! indeed he is! The Duc de Richelieu is a lean old resemblance of old General Churchill, and like him affects still to have his Boothbies. Alas! poor Boothbies!! I hope, by the time I am convalescent, to have the Richmonds here. One of the miseries of chronical illnesses is, that you are a prey to every fool, who, not knowing what to do with himself, brings his ennui to you, and calls it charity. Tell me a little the intended dates of your motions, that I may know where to write at you. Commend me kindly to Mr. John, and wish me a good night, of which I have had but one these ten days.

1015. TO THE COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

THOUGH I begin my letter to-day, Madam, it may not be finished and set out these four days; but serving a tyrant who does not allow me many holiday-minutes, I am forced to seize the first that offer. Even now when I am writing upon the table, he is giving me malicious pinches under it. I was exceedingly obliged to Miss Hotham for her letter, though it did not give me so good an account of your ladyship as I wished. I will not advise you to come to Paris, where, I assure you, one has not a nip less of the gout than at London, and where it is rather more difficult to keep one's chamber pure; water not being reckoned here one of the elements

1 Mrs. Boothby, mother of Prince Boothby. See vol. i. p. 80. To ancient Boothby's ancient Churchill's flown.

Sir C. H. Williams' Isabella.-CUNNINGHAM.

of cleanliness. If ever my Lady Blandford and I make a match, I shall insist on her coming hither for a month first, to learn patience. I need have a great stock, who have only travelled from one sick bed to another; who have seen nothing; and who hear of nothing but the braveries of Fontainbleau, where the Duc de Richelieu, whose year it is, has ordered seven new operas besides other shows. However, if I cannot be diverted, my ruin at least is protracted, as I cannot go to a single shop.

Lady Mary Chabot has been so good as to make me a visit. She is again gone into the country till November, but charged me over and over to say a great deal for her to your ladyship, for whom she expresses the highest regard. Lady Brown is still in the country too; but as she loves laughing more than is fashionable here, I expect her return with great impatience. As I neither desire to change their religion or government, I am tired of their perpetual dissertations on those subjects. As when I was here last, which, alas! is four-and-twenty years ago, I was much at Mrs. Hayes's, I thought it but civil to wait on her now that her situation is a little less brilliant. She was not at home, but invited me to supper next night. The moment she saw me I thought I had done very right not to neglect her; for she overwhelmed me with professions of her fondness for me and all my family. When the first torrent was over, she asked me if I was son of the Horace Walpole who had been ambassador here. I said no, he was my uncle. Oh! then you are he I used to call my Neddy! No, Madam, I believe that is my brother. Your brother! what is my Lord Walpole? My cousin, Madam. Your cousin! why, then, who are you? I found that if I had omitted my visit, her memory of me would not have reproached me much.

Lord and Lady Fife are expected here every day from Spa; but we hear nothing certain yet of their graces of Richmond, for whom I am a little impatient; and for Pam too, who I hope comes with them. In French houses it is impossible to meet with anything but whist, which I am determined never to learn again. I sit by and yawn; which, however, is better than sitting at it to yawn. I hope to be able to take the air in a few days; for though I have had sharp pain and terrible nights, this codicil to my gout promises to be of much shorter duration than what I had in England, and has kept entirely to my feet. My diet sounds like an English farmer's, being nothing but beef and pudding; in truth the beef is bouilli, and the pudding bread. This last night has been the first in which I have got a

wink of sleep before six in the morning: but skeletons can live very well without eating or sleeping; nay, they can laugh too, when they meet with a jolly mortal of this world.

Mr. Chetwynd, I conclude, is dancing at country balls and horseraces. It is charming to be so young; but I do not envy one whose youth is so good-humoured and good-natured. When he gallops post to town, or swims his horse through a mill-pond in November, pray make my compliments to him, and to Lady Blandford and Lady Denbigh. The joys of the gout do not put one's old friends out of one's head, even at this distance. I am, &c.

1016. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

I AM stocked with your letters, my dear Sir, and have nothing to say in answer. Two pacquets have been sent back to me from England, dated before a third, that I received here and answered. I am impatient to know that you have got it, for the Chevalier de Lorenzi has put it into my head, though in truth his own is none of the clearest, that it should have been franked to Genoa, there being a rupture somewhere between postmasters of different territories. I shall take care to be better informed before this departs.

If you have received mine, as I hope, you will have seen that I had left England before I knew of your schemes, and consequently when it was too late to assist them. If the deposit of solicitation for you that I left before I set out has no weight, my word from hence will certainly have none, where they do not like I should be; nor truly can I with much grace ask favours when I will grant You have been an exception, because I neither know how to refuse you, or to resist attempting to serve you; but having burst from all political connexions, my wish is, not to be drawn back by any ties. If there is any regard left for me, you will be served, because nothing could be more strongly pressed on my side. I shall be sorry, but shall not wonder, if I am forgotten.

none.

Your new Court will, I hope, amuse you, and not ruin you. A friend, as it is called, but, as I think, the worst of foes, has stepped in to save me from ruin here. In short, I caught cold ten days after my arrival, have had a relapse, and am laid up with the gout in both feet. It is vexatious enough, besides the pain, which is no

1 Brother of Comte Lorenzi, the French Minister at Florence.--WALPOLE.

flea-bite. It prevents my seeing both things and people, except in my own room, which is seldom the place where I wish to see them. Basta! This world was made for Cæsar! that is, the healthy and the bustling. Unpleasant as it is to be ill anywhere but at home, the rooted aversion I have taken to politics and the House of Commons, will brave even the gout, which shall not carry me back. When I do return, which at soonest I think will be in February, I shall still wear the gout's livery, and live retired from all other connexions. What little I learn here, when the scene opens, shall be transmitted to you, but I have made few arrangements of curiosity. Adieu! my dear Sir. The life of a bed-chamber in a hótel garni, and in a foreign country, and when the Court is at Fontainbleau, can furnish little matter for a letter. The Dauphin is said to mend with the change of air and ass's milk, and the journey which was to have been shortened, is again protracted to the 18th of next month.

1017. TO THOMAS BRAND, ESQ.1

Paris, Oct. 19, 1765.

DON'T think I have forgot your commissions: I mentioned them to old Mariette this evening, who says he has got one of them, but never could meet with the other, and that it will be impossible for me to find either at Paris. You know, I suppose, that he would as soon part with an eye as with anything in his own collection.

You may, if you please, suppose me extremely diverted here. Oh! exceedingly. In the first place, I have seen nothing; in the second, I have been confined this fortnight with a return of the gout in both feet; and in the third, I have not laughed since my Lady Hertford went away. I assure you, you may come hither very safely, and be in no danger from mirth. Laughing is as much out of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks, they have no time to laugh. There is God and the King to be pulled down first;' and men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in the demolition. They think me quite profane, for having any belief left. But this is not my only crime: I have told them, and am undone by it, that they have taken from us to admire the two dullest things we had, Whisk and Richardson-It is very true, and they want nothing but George Grenville to make their conversations, or rather dissertations, the

Of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire. See vol. i. p. 17, and vol. ii. p. 337.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 And both were pulled down in France in less than thirty years.-CUNNINGHAM.