couch for the rest of the day. This duration of weakness makes me very impatient, as I wish much to be at Paris before the fine season is quite gone. This will probably be the last time I shall travel to finish my education, and I should be glad to look once more at their gardens and villas: nay, churches and palaces are but uncomfortable sights in cold weather, and I have much more curiosity for their habitations than their company. They have scarce a man, or a woman of note, that one wants to see; and, for their authors, their style is grown so dull in imitation of us, they are si philosophes, si géometres, si moraux, that I certainly should not cross the sea in search of ennui, that I can have in such perfection at home. However, the change of scene is my chief inducement, and to get out of politics. There is no going through another course of patriotism in your cousin Sandwich and George Grenville. I think of setting out by the middle of September; have I any chance of seeing you here before that? Won't you come and commission me to offer up your devotions to Notre Dame de Livry? or chez nos filles de Sainte Marie. If I don't make haste, the reformation in France will demolish half that I want to see. I tremble for the Val de Grace and St. Cyr. The devil take Luther for putting it into the heads of his methodists to pull down the churches! I believe in twenty years there will not be a convent left in Europe but this at Strawberry. I wished for you to-day; Mr. Chute and Cowslade dined here; the day was divine; the sun gleamed down into the chapel in all the glory of popery; the gallery was all radiance ; we drank our coffee on the bench under the great ash tree; the verdure was delicious ; our tea in the Holbein room, by which a thousand chaises and barges passed; and I showed them my new cottage and garden over the way, which they had never seen, and with which they were enchanted. It is so retired, so modest, and yet so cheerful and trim, that I expect you to fall in love with it. I intend to bring it a handful of treillage and agrémens from Paris; for being cross the road, and quite detached, it is to have nothing Gothic about it, nor pretend to call cousins with the mansion-house.

I know no more of the big world at London, than if I had not a relation in the ministry. To be free from pain and politics is

3 Madame de Sevigné, whom Walpole frequently alludes to under this title. [Ed.]

such a relief to me, that I enjoy my little comforts and amusements here beyond expression. No mortal ever entered the gate of ambition with such transport as I took leave of them all at the threshold. Oh! if my lord Temple knew what pleasures he could create for himself at Stowe, he would not harass a shattered carcass, and sigh to be insolent at St. James's! For my part, I say with the bastard in King John, though with a little more reverence, and only as touching his ambition,

Oh! old sir Robert, father, on my knee
I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee.

Adieu !

Yours most cordially.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Saturday, Aug. 31, 1765, Strawberry-hill.

I THOUGHT it would happen so; that I should not see you before I left England! Indeed, I may as well give you quite up, for every year reduces our intercourse. I am prepared, because it must happen, if I live, to see my friends drop off; but my mind was not turned to see them entirely separated from me while they live. This is very uncomfortable, but so are many things!-well! I will go and try to forget you all-all! God knows the all that I have left to forget is small enough; but the warm heart, that gave me affections, is not so easily laid aside. If I could divest myself of that, I should not I think find much for friendship remaining; you, against whom I have no complaint, but that you satisfy yourself with loving me without any desire of seeing me, are one of the very last that I wish to preserve; but I will say no more on a subject that my heart is too full of.

I shall set out on Monday se'nnight, and force myself to believe that I am glad to go, and yet this will be my chief joy, for I promise myself little pleasure in arriving. Can you think me boy enough to be fond of a new world at my time of life? If I did not hate the world I know I should not seek another. My greatest amusement will be in reviving old ideas. The memory of what made impressions on one's youth is ten times dearer than any new pleasure can be. I shall probably write to

you often, for I am not disposed to communicate myself to any thing that I have not known these thirty years. My mind is such a compound from the vast variety that I have seen, acted, pursued, that it would cost me too much pains to be intelligible to young persons, if I had a mind to open myself to them. They certainly do not desire I should. You like my gossipping to you, though you seldom gossip with me. The trifles that amuse my mind are the only points I value now. I have seen the vanity of every thing serious, and the falsehood of every thing that pretended to be serious. I go to see French plays and buy French china, not to know their ministers, to look into their government, or think of the interests of nations-in short, unlike most people that are growing old, I am convinced that nothing is charming but what appeared important in one's youth, which afterwards passes for follies. Oh, but those follies were sincere ; if the pursuits of age are so, they are sincere alone to self interest. Thus I think, and have no other care but not to think aloud. I would not have respectable youth think me an old fool. For the old knaves, they may suppose me one of their number if they please; I shall not be so-but neither the one nor the other shall know what I am. I have done with them all, shall amuse myself as well as I can, and think as little as I can; a pretty hard task for an active mind !

Direct your letters to Arlington-street, whence Favre will take care to convey them to me. I leave him to manage all my affairs, and take no soul but Louis. I am glad I don't know your Mrs. Anne; her partiality would make me love her; and it is entirely incompatible with my present system to leave even a postern door open to any feeling, which would steal in if I did not double bolt every avenue.

If you send me any parcel to Arlington-street before Monday se'nnight I will take care of it. Many English books I conclude are to be bought at Paris. I am sure Richardson's works are, for they have stupified the whole French nation:1 I will not auswer for our best authors. You may send me your list, and, if I do not find them, I can send you word, and you may convey

How much the works of the author of Sir Charles Grandison and Clarissa Harlowe were admired by the French, is perceptible from the frequent mention of them in the celebrated "Correspondence of the Baron de Grimm." [Ed.]

them to me by Favre's means, who will know of messengers, &c. coming to Paris.

I have fixed no precise time for my absence. My wish is to like it enough to stay till February, which may happen, if I can support the first launching into new society. I know four or five very agreeable and sensible people there, as the Guerchys, madame de Mirepoix, madame de Boufflers, and lady Mary Chabot. These intimately, besides the duc de Nivernois, and several others that have been here. Then the Richmonds will follow me in a fortnight or three weeks, and their house will be a sort of home. I actually go into it at first, till I can suit myself with an apartment, but I shall take care to quit it before they come, for, though they are in a manner my children, I do not intend to adopt the rest of my countrymen; nor, when I quit the best company here, to live in the worst there; such are young travelling boys, and, what is still worse, old travelling boys, governors.

Adieu! remember you have defrauded me of this summer; I will be amply repaid the next, so make your arrangements accordingly.

Yours ever.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

MY DEAR LORD,

Arlington-street, September 3, 1765.

I cannot quit a country where I leave any thing that I honour so much as your lordship and lady Strafford, without taking a sort of leave of you. I shall set out for Paris on Monday next the 9th, and shall be happy if I can execute any commission for you there.

A journey to Paris sounds youthful and healthy. I have certainly mended much this last week, though with no pretensions to a recovery of youth. Half the view of my journey is to reestablish my health-the other half, to wash my hands of politics, which I have long determined to do whenever a change should happen. I would not abandon my friends while they were martyrs; but, now they have gained their crown of glory, they are well able to shift for themselves; and it was no part of my com

pact to go to that heaven, St. James's, with them. Unless I dislike Paris very much, I shall stay some time; but I make no declarations, lest I should be soon tired of it, and come back again. At first, I must like it, for lady Mary Coke will be there, as if by assignation. The countess of Carlisle and Berkeley, too, I hear, will set up their staves there for some time; but as my heart is faithful to Lady M ***, they would not charm me if they were forty times more disposed to it.

The emperor' is dead-but so are all the Maximilians and Leopolds his predecessors, and with no more influence on the present state of things. The empress dowager queen will still be master-unless she marries an Irishman, as I wish with all my soul she may.

The duke and duchess of Richmond will follow me in about a fortnight: lord and lady George Lennox go with them; and sir Charles Banbury and lady Sarah are to be at Paris, too, for some time: so the English court there will be very juvenile and blooming. This set is rather younger than the dowagers with whom I pass so much of my summers and autumns; but this is to be my last sally into the world; and when I return, I intend to be as sober as my cat, and purr quietly in my own chimney corner.

Adieu, my dear lord! May every happiness attend you both, and may I pass some agreeable days next summer with you at Wentworth-castle!

Your most devoted and faithful servant.

His imperial majesty Francis I. emperor of Germany, died at Inspruck, on Sunday the 18th August, 1765. He was in good health the greater part of the day, and assisted at divine service; but, between nine and ten in the evening, he was attacked by a fit of apoplexy, and expired in a few minutes afterwards in the arms of his son, the king of the Romans.

He was born December 8th 1708; succeeded to the duchy of Lovain, March 27th 1729; yielded that duchy to king Stanislaus, 24th September 1736; was made grand duke of Tuscany, 9th July, 1738; married, 12th February, 1739, Maria Theresa queen of Hungary and Bohemia; and was elected emperor of Germany, 13th September, 1745, and crowned the 4th October, following. [Ed.]

2 Appointed ambassador to Paris. [Or.]