them. Mrs. Mawhood has a friend, one Mrs. V***, a mighty plausible good sort of body, who feels for everybody, and a good deal for herself, is of a certain age, wears well, has some pretensions that she thinks very reasonable still, and a gouty husband. Well! she was talking to Mr. Raftor about Captain Mawhood a little before he died. "Pray, Sir, does the Captain ever communicate his writings to Mrs. Mawhood?"-"Oh, dear no, Madam; he has a sovereign contempt for her understanding."-" Poor woman!"-" And pray, Sir, -give me leave to ask you: I think I have heard that they very seldom sleep together?"-"Oh, never, Madam! Don't you know all that?"-"Poor woman!"-I don't know whether you will laugh; but Mr. Raftor,' who tells a story better than anybody, made me laugh for two hours. Good night!

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.2

Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1775.

WELL! I am going tout de bon, and heartily wish I was returned. It is a horrid exchange, the cleanness and verdure and tranquillity of Strawberry, for a beastly ship, worse inns, the pavé of the roads bordered with eternal rows of maimed trees, and the racket of an hôtel garni! I never doat on the months of August and September, enlivened by nothing but Lady Greenwich's speaking-trumpet - but I do not want to be amused at least never at the expense of being put in motion. Madame du Deffand, I am sure, may be satisfied with the sacrifice I make to her !3

2 Now first printed.

1 Mr. Raftor, brother to Mrs. Clive.-E. 3 In her letter of the 5th of August, Madame du Deffand, by way of inducement to Walpole to take the journey, says " Je vous jure que je ne me soucierai de rien pour vous; c'est à dire, de vous faire faire une chose plutôt qu'une autre: vous serez totalement libre de toutes vos pensées, paroles, et actions; vous ne me verrez pas un souhait, un désir qui puisse contredire vos pensées et vos volontés: je saurai que M. Walpole est à Paris, il saura que je demeure à St. Joseph; il sera maître d'y arriver, d'y rester, de s'en aller, tout comme il lui plaira.”—E.

You have heard, to be sure, of the war between your brother and Foote; but probably not how far the latter has carried his impudence. Being asked, why Lord Hertford had refused to license his piece, he replied, "Why, he asked me to make his youngest son a box-keeper, and because I would not, he stopped my play." The Duchess of Kingston offered to buy it off, but Foote would not take her money, and swears he will act her in Lady Brumpton; which to be sure is very applicable.

I am sorry to hear Lord Villiers is going to drag my lady through all the vile inns in Germany. I think he might go alone.

George Onslow told me yesterday, that the American Congress had sent terms of accommodation, and that your brother told him so; but a strange fatality attends George's news, which is rarely canonical; and I doubt this intelligence is far from being so. I shall know more to-morrow, when I town to prepare for my journey on Tuesday. Pray let me hear from you, enclosed to M. Panchaud.

go to

I accept with great joy Lady Ailesbury's offer of coming hither in October, which will increase my joy in being at home again. I intend to set out on my return the 25th of next month. Sir Gregory Page has left Lord Howe eight thousand pounds at present, and twelve more after his aunt Mrs. Page's death.

Thursday, 10th.

I cannot find any grounds for believing that any proposals are come from the Congress. On the contrary, everything looks as melancholy as possible. Adieu!

The piece was entitled "The Trip to Calais;" in which the author having ridiculed, under the name of Kitty Crocodile, the eccentric Duchess of Kingston, she offered him a sum of money to strike out the part. A correspondence took place between the parties, which ended in the Duchess making an application to Lord Hertford, at that time Lord Chamberlain, who interdicted the performance. Foote, however, brought it out, with some alterations, in the following year, under the title of "The Capuchin."-E.

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

From t'other side of the water, August 17, 1775.'

INTERPRETING your ladyship's orders in the most personal sense, as respecting the dangers of the sea, I write the instant I am landed. I did not, in truth, set out till yesterday morning at eight o'clock; but finding the roads, horses, postillions, tides, winds, moons, and Captain Fectors in the pleasantest humour in the world, I embarked almost as soon as I arrived at Dover, and reached Calais before the sun was awake; and here I am for the sixth time in my life, with only the trifling distance of seven-and-thirty years between my first voyage and the present. Well! I can only say in excuse, that I am got into the land of Struldburgs, where one is never too old to be young, and where la béquille du père Barnabas blossoms like Aaron's rod, or the Glastonbury thorn.

Now, to be sure, I shall be a little mortified, if your ladyship wanted a letter of news, and did not at all trouble your head about my navigation. However, you will not tell one so; and therefore I will persist in believing that this good news will be received with transport at Park-place, and that the bells of Henley will be set a ringing. The rest of my adventures must be deferred till they have happened, which is not always the case of travels. I send you no compliments from Paris, because I have not got thither, nor delivered the bundle which Mr. Conway sent me. I did, as your ladyship commanded; buy three pretty little medallions in frames of filigraine, for our dear old friend. They will not ruin you, having cost not a guinea and a half; but it was all I could find that was genteel and portable; and as she does not measure by guineas, but attentions, she will be as much pleased as if you had sent her a dozen acres of Park-place. As they are in bas-relief, too, they are feelable, and that is a material circumstance to her. I wish the Diomede had even so much as a pair of Nankin!

1 Mr. Walpole reached Paris on the 19th of August, and left it on the 12th of October.-E.

Adieu, toute la chère famille! I think of October with much satisfaction; it will double the pleasure of my return.

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

Paris, August 20, 1775.

I HAVE been sea-sick to death: I have been poisoned by dirt and vermin; I have been stifled by heat, choked by dust, and starved for want of anything I could touch: and yet, Madam, here I am perfectly well, not in the least fatigued; and, thanks to the rivelled parchments, formerly faces, which I have seen by hundreds, I find myself almost as young as when I came hither first in the last century. In spite of my whims, and delicacy, and laziness, none of my grievances have been mortal: I have borne them as well as if I had set up for a philosopher, like the sages of this town. Indeed, I have found my dear old woman so well, and looking so much better than she did four years ago, that I am transported with pleasure, and thank your ladyship and Mr. Conway for driving me hither. Madame du Deffand came to me the instant I arrived, and sat by me whilst I stripped and dressed myself; for, as she said, since she cannot see, there was no harm in my being stark.1 She was charmed with your present; but was so kind as to be so much more charmed with my arrival, that she did not think of it a moment. I sat with her till half an hour after two in the morning, and had a letter from her before my eyes were open again. In short, her soul is immortal, and forces her body to bear it company.

2

This is the very eve of Madame Clotilde's wedding; but Monsieur Turgot, to the great grief of Lady Mary Coke, will suffer no cost, but one banquet, one ball, and a play at Versailles. Count Viry gives a banquet, a bal masqué, and a firework. I think I shall see little but the last, from which I will

1 Madame du Deffand had just completed her seventy-eighth year.-E. 2 Madame Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI. Turgot was the new minister of finance, who, with his colleagues, were endeavouring, by every practicable means, to reduce the enormous expenditure of the country. -E.

send your ladyship a rocket in my next letter. Lady Mary, I believe, has had a private audience of the ambassador's leg,1 but en tout bien et honneur, and only to satisfy her ceremonious curiosity about any part of royal nudity. I am just going to her, as she is to Versailles; and I have not time to add a word more to the vows of your ladyship's most faithful.

TO MRS. ABINGTON.o

Paris, September [1775].

IF I had known, Madam, of your being at Paris, before I heard it from Colonel Blaquiere, I should certainly have prevented your flattering invitation, and have offered you any services that could depend on my acquaintance here. It is plain I am old, and live with very old folks, when I did not hear of your arrival. However, Madam, I have not that fault at least of a veteran, the thinking nothing equal to what they admired in their youth. I do impartial justice to your merit, and fairly allow it not only equal to that of any actress I have seen, but believe the present age will not be in the wrong, if they hereafter prefer it to those they may live to see.

Your allowing me to wait on you in London, Madam, will make me some amends for the loss I have had here; and I shall take an early opportunity of assuring you how much I am, Madam, your most obliged humble servant.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Paris, Sept. 8, 1775.

THE delays of the post, and its departure before its arrival, saved me some days of anxiety for Lady Ailesbury, and prevented my telling you how concerned I am for her accident; though I trust, by this time, she has not even

1 Mr. Walpole alludes to the ceremony of the marriages of princesses by proxy.-E.

2 Now first printed. This elegant and fashionable actress was born in 1735, quitted the stage in 1799, and died in 1815.-E.