this present from Madame du Deffand, and must own have great pleasure that nobody but she could write that most charming of all letters. Did not Lord Chesterfield think it so, Madam? I doubt our friend Mr. Hume must allow that not only Madame de Boufflers, but Voltaire himself, could not have written so well. When I give up Madame de Sévigné herself, I think his sacrifices will be trifling. Pray, Madam, continue your waters; and, if possible, wash away that original sin, the gout. What would one give for a little rainbow to tell one one should never have it again! Well, but then one should have a burning fever - for I think the greatest comfort that good-natured divines give us is, that we are not to be drowned any more, in order that we may be burned. It will not at least be this summer; here is nothing but haycocks swimming round me. If it should cease raining by Monday se'nnight, I think of dining with your ladyship at Old Windsor; and if Mr. Bateman presses me mightily, I may take a bed there. As I have a waste of paper before me, and nothing more to say, I have a mind to fill it with a translation of a tale that I found lately in the Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes, taken from a German author. The novelty of it struck me, and I put it into verse-ill enough; but, as the old Duchess of Rutland used to say of a lie, it will do for news into the country. "From Time's usurping power, I see, Not Acheron itself is free. His wasting hand my subjects feel, Grow old, and wrinkle though in Hell. Decrepit is Alecto grown, Megæra worn to skin and bone; And t'other beldam is so old, She has not spirits left to scold. Go, Hermes, bid my brother Jove Send three new Furies from above." It was about the self-same season Iris, d'ye hear? Mind what I say; I want three maids - inquire—No, stay! Go find me three, whose manners pure "'Tis true, O Queen! three maids I found- So chaste, severe, immaculate, The very name of man they hate: These but, alas! I came too late; For Hermes had been there before In triumph off to Pluto bore Three sisters, whom yourself would own Poor man! he doats, or mad he sure is! What can he want them for?"-" Three Furies." You will say I am an infernal poet; but everybody cannot write as they do aux Champs Elysées. Adieu, Madam! TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, July 10, 1766. DON'T you think a complete year enough for any administration to last? One, who at least can remove them, though he cannot make them, thinks so; and, accordingly, yesterday notified that he had sent for Mr. Pitt.1 Not a jot 1 On the 7th, the King addressed a letter to Mr. Pitt, expressing a desire to have his thoughts how an able and dignified ministry might be formed, and requesting him to come to town for that salutary purpose. more is known; but as this set is sacrificed to their resolution of having nothing to do with Lord Bute, the new list will probably not be composed of such hostile ingredients. The arrangement I believe settled in the outlines; if it is not, it may still never take place: it will not be the first time this egg has been addled. One is very sure that many people on all sides will be displeased, and I think no side quite contented. Your cousins, the house of Yorke, Lord George Sackville, Newcastle, and Lord Rockingham, will certainly not be of the elect. What Lord Temple will do, or if anything will be done for George Grenville, are great points of curiosity. The plan will probably be, to pick and cull from all quarters, and break all parties, as much as possible. From this moment I date the wane of Mr. Pitt's glory; he will want the thorough-bass of drums and trumpets, and is not made for peace. The dismission of a most popular administration, a leaven of Bute, whom, too, he can never trust, and the numbers he will discontent, will be considerable objects against him. For my own part, I am much pleased, and much diverted. I have nothing to do but to sit by and laugh; a humour you know I am apt to indulge. You shall hear from me again soon. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, July 21, 1766. You may strike up your sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer; for Mr. Pitt comes in, and Lord Temple does not. Can I The letter will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 436.-E. "Here are great bustles at court," writes Lord Chesterfield, on the 11th, "and a great change of persons is certainly very near. My conjecture is, that, be the new settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be at the head of it. If he is, I presume, qu'il aura mis de l'eau dans son vin par rapport à Mylord Bute: when that shall come to be known, as known it certainly will soon be, he may bid adieu to his popularity."— E. 2 Mr. Pitt was gazetted, on the 30th of July, Viscount Pitt, of Burton Pynsent, and Earl of Chatham. The same gazette contained the notification of his appointment as lord privy seal, in the room of the Duke of Newcastle. "What shall I say to you about the ministry?" writes send you a more welcome affirmative or negative? My sackbut is not very sweet, and here is the ode I have made for it:— If that snake had wriggled in, he would have drawn after him the whole herd of vipers; his brother Demogorgon and all. "Tis a blessed deliverance. The changes I should think now would be few. They are not yet known; but I am content already, and shall go to Strawberry to-morrow, where I shall be happy to receive you and Mr. John any day after Sunday next, the twenty-seventh, and for as many days as ever you will afford me. Let me know your mind by the return of the post. Strawberry is in perfection: the verdure has all the bloom of spring: the orange-trees are loaded with blossoms, the gallery all sun and gold, Mrs. Clive all sun and vermilion-in short, come away Yours ever. to P. S. I forgot to tell you, and I hate to steal and not tell, that my ode is imitated from Fontaine. Gray to Dr. Wharton: "I am as angry as a common-councilman of London about my Lord Chatham, but a little more patient, and will hold my tongue till the end of the year. In the mean time, I do mutter in secret, and to you, that to quit the House of Commons, his natural strength, to sap his own popularity and grandeur, (which no man but himself could have done,) by assuming a foolish title; and to hope that he could win by it, and attach him to a court that hate him, and will dismiss him as soon as ever they dare, was the weakest thing that ever was done by so great a man. Had it not been for this, I should have rejoiced at the breach between him and Lord Temple, and at the union between him and the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Conway: but patience! we shall see!" Works, vol. iv. p. 83.-E. DEAR SIR, TO DAVID HUME, ESQ.1 Arlington Street, July 26, 1766. YOUR set of literary friends are what a set of literary men are apt to be, exceedingly absurd. They hold a consistory to consult how to argue with a madman; and they think it very necessary for your character to give them the pleasure of seeing Rousseau exposed, not because he has provoked you, but them. If Rousseau prints, you must; but I certainly would not till he does.2 I cannot be precise as to the time of my writing the King of Prussia's letter; but I do assure you with the utmost truth that it was several days before you left Paris, and before Rousseau's arrival there, of which I can give you a strong proof; for I not only suppressed the letter while you stayed there, out of delicacy to you, but it was the reason why, out of delicacy to myself, I did not go to see him, as you often proposed to me, thinking it wrong to go and make a cordial visit to a man, with a letter in my pocket to laugh at him. You are at full liberty, dear Sir, to make use of what I say in your justification, either to Rousseau or anybody else. I should be very sorry to have you blamed on my account; I have a hearty contempt of Rousseau, and am perfectly indifferent what the literati of Paris think of the matter. If there is any fault, which I am On the celebrated quarrel between Hume and Rousseau, D'Alembert, and the other literary friends of the former, met at Paris, and were unanimous in advising him to publish the particulars. This Hume at first refused, but determined to collect them, and for that purpose had written to Mr. Walpole respecting the pretended letter from the King of Prussia. "Your friend Rousseau, I doubt, grows tired of Mr. Davenport and Derbyshire: he has picked up a quarrel with David Hume, and writes him letters of fourteen pages folio, upbraiding him with all his noirceurs; take one only as a specimen. He says, that at Calais they chanced to sleep in the same room together, and that he overheard David talking in his sleep, and saying, Ah! je le tiens, ce Jean Jacques là.' In short, I fear, for want of persecution and admiration (for these are his real complaints), he will go back to the Continent." Gray to Wharton; Works, vol. iv. p. 82.-E. |