December 9.

Lord Ossory put off his journey; which stopped this letter, and it will now go by Mr. Andrew Stuart.'

The face of things is changed here; which I am impatient to tell you, that you may see it is truth, not system, which I pique myself on sending you. The vigour of the Court has frightened the Parliaments. That of Pau has submitted. The procureurs, &c. of Rennes, who, it was said, would not plead before the new commission, were told, that if they did not plead the next day they should be hanged without a trial. No bribe ever operated faster!

I heard t'other day, that some Spanish minister, I forget his name, being dead, Squillace would take his department, and Grimaldi have that of the West Indies. He is the worst that could have it, as we have no greater enemy.

The Dauphin is certainly alive, but in the most shocking way possible; his bones worn through his skin, a great swelling behind, and so relaxed, that his intestines appear from that part; and yesterday the mortification was suspected.

I have received a long letter from Lady Ailesbury, for which I give her a thousand thanks; and would answer it directly, if I had not told you everything I know. The Duke and Duchess of Richmond are, I hear, at Fontainbleau: the moment they return, I will give the Duchess Lady Ailesbury's commission.

MADAM:

1030. TO THE COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.

Paris, Dec. 5, 1765; but does not set out till the 11th. Miss HOTHAM need not be in pain for what to say when she gives me an account of your ladyship; which is all the trouble I thought of giving her. If she could make those accounts more favourable, I should be better pleased; but I know what an untractable brute the gout is, and the joy it takes in plaguing everybody that is connected with it. We have the sharpest frost here that ever lived; it has done me great good; and, if it has the same effect on your ladyship, I hope you are starved to death. Since Paris has begun to fill in spite of Fontainbleau, I am much reconciled to it, and have seen several people I like. I am established in two or three societies, where I sup every night; though I have still resisted whist, and am more constant to my old flame

Lord Mansfield's antagonist in the Douglas cause.-CUNNINGHAM.

loo during its absence than I doubt I have been to my other passions. There is a young Comtesse d'Egmont, daughter of Marshal Richelieu, so pretty and pleasing, that, if I thought it would break anybody's heart in England, I would be in love with her. Nay, Madam, I might be so within all rules here. I am twenty years on the right side of red-heels, which her father wears still, and he has still a wrinkle to come before he leaves them off.

The Dauphin is still alive, but kept so only by cordials. Yet the Queen and Dauphiness have no doubt of his recovery, having the Bishop of Glandeve's word for it, who got a promise from a vision under his own hand and seal. The Dauphin has certainly behaved with great courage and tranquillity, but he is so touched with the tenderness and attention of his family, that he now expresses a wish to live.

If there is no talk in England of politics and parliaments, I can send your ladyship as much as you please from hence; or if you want English themselves, I can send you about fifty head; and I assure you we shall still be well stocked. There were three cardtables full of lords, ladies, gentlemen, and gentlewomen, the other night at Lady Berkeley's.

1031. TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.

Paris, Jan. 2, 1766.

WHEN I came to Paris, Madam, I did not know that by Newyear's-day I should find myself in Siberia; at least as cold. There have not been two good days together since the middle of October ; however, I do not complain, as I am both well and well pleased, though I wish for a little of your sultry English weather, all French as I am. I have entirely left off dinners, and lead the life I always liked, of lying late in bed, and sitting up late. I am told of nothing but how contradictory this is to your ladyship's orders; but as I shall have dull dinners and triste evenings enough when I return to England, all your kindness cannot persuade me to sacrifice my pleasures here, too. Many of my opinions are fantastic; perhaps this is one, that nothing produces gout like doing anything one dislikes. I believe the gout, like a near relation, always visits one when one has some other plague. Your ladyship's dependence on the waters of Sunning-hill is, I hope, better founded; but in the mean time my system is full as pleasant.

Madame d'Aiguillon's goodness to me does not abate, nor Madame Geoffrin's. I have seen but little of Madame d'Egmont, who seems very good, and is universally in esteem. She is now in great affliction, having lost suddenly Monsieur Pignatelli, the minister at Parma, whom she bred up, and whom she and her family had generously destined for her grand-daughter, an immense heiress. It was very delicate and touching what Madame d'Egmont said to her daughter-in-law on this occasion :-" Vous voyez, ma chère, combien j'aime mes enfans d'adoption!" This daughter-in-law is delightfully pretty, and civil, and gay, and conversable, though not a regular beauty like Madame de Monaco.

The bitterness of the frost deters me, Madam, from all sights; I console myself with good company, and still more, with being absent from bad. Negative as this satisfaction is, it is incredibly great, to live in a town like this, and to be sure every day of not meeting one face one hates! I scarce know a positive pleasure equal to it.

Your ladyship and Lord Holland shall laugh at me as much as you please for my dread of being thought charming; yet I shall not deny my panic, as surely nothing is so formidable as to have one's limbs on crutches and one's understanding in leading-strings. The Prince of Conti laughed at me t'other day on the same account. I was complaining to the old blind charming Madame du Deffand, that she preferred Mr. Crawford to me: "What," said the Prince, "does not she love you?" "No, Sir," I replied, "she likes me no better than if she had seen me.'

Mr. Hume carries this letter and Rousseau to England. I wish the former may not repent having engaged with the latter, who contradicts and quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain their admiration. I think both his means and his end below such a genius. If I had talents like his, I should despise any suffrage below my own standard, and should blush to owe any part of my fame to singularities and affectations. But great parts seem like high towers erected on high mountains, the more exposed to every wind, and readier to tumble. Charles Townshend is blown round the compass; Rousseau insists that the north and south blow at the same time; and Voltaire demolishes the Bible to erect fatalism in its stead-so compatible are the greatest abilities and greatest absurdities!

Madame d'Aiguillon gave me the enclosed letter for your ladyship. I wish I had anything else to send you; but there are no

new books, and the Theatres are shut up for the Dauphin's death; who, I believe, is the greatest loss they have had since Harry IV.

1032. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Paris, Jan. 5, 1766.

THE post, my dear Sir, is as vexatious as possible, and denies me favours that even a Ministry grants. I had set my heart on being the first to announce your Envoyship to you. Lord Cowper's servant, I find, used me as ill as if he were a post-master too, slipping through Paris with Mr. Conway's letter, without calling on me, and giving me the chance of your opening mine first. Well! all this is very selfish, and I ought to be content with your having it, and knowing it any how.

For the riband I know not what to say, as I have not heard a syllable about it. Favours generally beget favours, for courts and fortune love faces they are used to. I will not answer in your case. It would be cheapest to me to persuade you not to care; but I see you make a sad pupil for a philosopher. I am at least so much of a philosopher, that I could never solicit a plaything for you with the same earnestness that I begged a reality. Partly you know my reasons for not caring to ask at all. Out of friendship to you, my dear Sir, I broke through all my resolutions; but without entering into them farther, ask yourself if it can be easy for me, in any light, to sue for favours, when I have even left my country, my friends, and a triumphant party, to break abruptly from all political connections? As you seemed to value the Red Riband, I did press for it for you with more warmth than I thought such nonsense deserved. Consider, I was behind the scenes when my father revived that pageant; I knew it was a succedaneum to Bank bills, and I was astonished when my brother' accepted it, even after it had fallen much below par. If I have any credit remaining in the Bank, it will operate in your favour; that is, if any friend you have made abroad, would renew the application, the memory of my request perhaps would second it. What think you of Tommy Pelham !* He used to profess much to you.

1 Sir Edward, second son of Sir Robert Walpole, was made knight of the Bath after his father's death. Robert, the eldest, received the red riband along with his father at the restitution of the order in 1725.-WALPOLE. See vol. i. p. cxiv.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Thomas, afterwards created Lord Pelham.-WALPOLE. Afterwards (1801) Earl of Chichester, died 1805.-CUNNINGHAM.

I called the Ministry triumphant: they are so beyond their warmest expectation. In the House of Lords, which the Opposition had chosen as the field of certain victory, the Ministers were fourscore to twenty-four. In the Commons the defeat was still more disgraceful. George Grenville, who on the first day opposed the Address, was forced to retract, and it passed without a negative. On the fourth and last of that brief session, though he had managed a surprise, and though there was not a minister in the House, their re-elections not being over, he was beaten by 70 to 35; a victory without generals! In short, no disgraced Ministers ever fell so low and so totally as the present.

concur.

Venal and false as Parliaments are, and no Parliament ever exceeded the present in both respects, it would not account for this total abandonment of the late Ministers, if universal odium did not Much good may it do the Parliament, which supported them so roundly but last year! The whole party is shrunk to the Bedford faction, for Lord Temple, who has joined his brother George, seems to have carried nothing with him but the contempt of the nation. Mr. Pitt, as Milton says of the moon, remains in clouded majesty aloof; is said to favour the Ministry, and is certainly hostile to the Opposition. This is the summary of English politics. When the House meets on the 14th, I do not imagine the Ministers will be less strong than before the holidays; for the thinness of both Houses indicates how many were waiting the event; and they, good folks, will hardly resort into a beaten camp. Teased no doubt the Ministers will be, for Lord Temple cannot refrain from mischief, or Sandwich from tricks; and Grenville, rather than not talk, would harangue, if there were not one man in the house on his side. То silence him would require an Algerine ministry, who would begin with cutting out his tongue.

The King's youngest brother, Prince Frederick, is dead, of a dropsy and consumption: he was a pretty and promising boy. The vacant garters are given to the Prince of Wales, the Hereditary Prince, and Lord Albemarle. The numbers of the Royal Family and of foreign princes connected with them who have the garter, will make it an extraordinary curiosity on an English breast. If you obtain the Red, pray don't think of exchanging it for the Blue. To be serious, let your new credentials arrive and be fixed Envoy. Mitchell, I see, has got one Red Riband; and Draper I suppose will have the other. On a new vacancy you may get the Duke of York to renew his application for you. As he will not probably obtain