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 none. 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.

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 hôtel 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.

most tiresome upon earth. For Lord Lyttelton, if he would come hither, and turn freethinker once more, he would be reckoned the most agreeable man in France-next to Mr. Hume, who is the only thing in the world that they believe implicitly; which they must do, for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks.

If I could divest myself of my wicked and unphilosophic bent to laughing, I should do very well. They are very civil and obliging to me, and several of the women are very agreeable, and some of the men. The Duc de Nivernois has been beyond measure kind to me, and scarce missed a day without coming to see me during my confinement. The Guerchys are, as usual, all friendship. I had given entirely into supping, as I do not love rising early, and still less meat breakfasts. The misfortune is, that in several houses they dine, and in others sup.

You will think it odd that I should want to laugh, when Wilkes, Sterne, and Foote are here; but the first does not make me laugh, the second never could, and for the third, I choose to pay five shillings when I have a mind he should divert me. Besides, I certainly did not come in search of English: and yet the man I have liked the best in Paris is an Englishman, Lord Ossory,' who is one of the most sensible young men I ever saw, with a great deal of Lord Tavistock in his manner.

The joys of Fontainbleau I miss by my illness-Patienza! If the gout deprived me of nothing better than a court.

The papers say the Duke of Dorset' is dead: what has he done for Lord George? You cannot be so unconscionable as not to answer me. I don't ask who is to have his riband; nor how many bushels of fruit the Duke of Newcastle's dessert for the Hereditary Prince contained, nor how often he kissed' him for the sake of "the dear house of Brunswick."-No, keep your politics to yourselves; I want to know none of them :-when I do, and authentically, I will write to my Lady **** [Greenwich ?] or Charles Townshend.

Mrs. Pitt's friend, Madame de Rochefort, is one of my principal

1 The future husband of the divorced Duchess of Grafton-the Lady Ossory of Walpole's Letters.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset (son and successor of the witty Earl), to whom Prior dedicated his Poems. He died October 10, 1765. The Earl of Middlesex, of whom we have read so much, was his eldest son; Lord George Sackville (Germain) his third son.-CUNNINGHAM.

See vol iii. p. 72. "As to my kissing my Lord Bute at the ceremony, it is a necessary part of it; and determined as I am to have nothing to do with his Lordship as minister, I am the more disposed to show all civilities as a gentleman."-Duke of Newcastle to Lord Hardwicke, Sept. 28, 1762.-CUNNINGHAM.

Madame de Mirepoix

attachments, and very agreeable indeed. another. For my admiration, Madame de Monaco-but I believe you don't doubt my Lord Hertford's taste in sensualities. March's passion, the Marechalle d'Estrées, is affected, cross, and not at all handsome. The Princes of the blood are pretty much retired, do not go to Portsmouth and Salisbury once a week, nor furnish every other paragraph to the newspapers. Their campaigns are confined to killing boars and stags, two or three hundred in a year. Adieu! Mr. Foley is my banker; or it is still more sure if you send your letter to Mr. Conway's office.

1018. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Paris, Oct. 28, 1765.

MR. HUME' sends me word from Fontainbleau, that your brother, some time in the spring of 1764, transmitted to the English ministry "a pretty exact and very authentic account of the French finances ;" these are his words: and "that it will be easily found among his lordship's despatches of that period." To the other question I have received no answer: I suppose he has not yet been able to inform himself.

This goes by an English coachman of Count Lauragais, sent over to buy more horses; therefore I shall write a little ministerially, and, perhaps, surprise you, if you are not already apprised of things in the light I see them.

The Dauphin will probably hold out very few days. His death, that is, the near prospect of it, fills the philosophers with the greatest joy, as it was feared he would endeavour the restoration of the Jesuits. You will think the sentiments of the philosophers very odd state news but do you know who the philosophers are, or what the term means here? In the first place, it comprehends almost everybody; and in the next, means men, who, avowing war against popery, aim, many of them, at a subversion of all religion, and still many more, at the destruction of regal power. How do you know this? you will say; you, who have been but six weeks in France, three of which you have been confined to your chamber? True: but in the first period I went everywhere, and heard nothing else; in the latter, I have been extremely visited, and have had long and

The celebrated David Hume was Secretary of Embassy to the Earl of Hertford during his residence in Paris.-WALPOLE.

explicit conversations with many, who think as I tell you, and with a few of the other side, who are no less persuaded that there are such intentions. In particular, I had two officers here t'other night, neither of them young, whom I had difficulty to keep from a serious quarrel, and who, in the heat of the dispute, informed me of much more than I could have learnt with great pains.

As a proof that my ideas are not quite visions, I send you a most curious paper;' such as I believe no magistrate would have pronounced in the time of Charles I. I should not like to have it known to come from me, nor any part of the intelligence I send you with regard to which, if you think it necessary to communicate it to particular persons, I desire my name may be suppressed. I tell it for your satisfaction and information, but would not have anybody else think that I do anything here but amuse myself: my amusements indeed are triste enough, and consist wholly in trying to get well; but my recovery moves very slowly. I have not yet had anything but cloth shoes on, live sometimes a whole day on warm water, and am never tolerably well till twelve or one o'clock.

I have had another letter from Sir Horace Mann, who has much at heart his Riband and increase of character. Consequently you know, as I love him so much, I must have them at heart too. Count Lorenzi is recalled, because here they think it necessary to send a Frenchman of higher rank to the new grand ducal court. I wish Sir Horace could be raised on this occasion. For his Riband, his promise is so old and so positive that it is quite a hardship.

Pray put the colonies in good-humour: I see they are violently disposed to the new Administration. I have not time to say more, nor more to say if I had time; so good night! Let me know if you receive this, and how soon: it goes the day after to-morrow. Various reports say the Duke of Richmond comes this week. I sent you a letter by Monsieur de Guerchy. Dusson, I hear, goes ambassador to Poland. Tell Lady Ailesbury that I have five or six little parcels, though not above one for her, of laces and ribands, which Lady Cecilie left with me; but how to convey them the Lord knows. Yours ever.

This paper does not appear.-WALPOLE.