that you are a prey to every fool, who, not knowing what to do with himself, brings his ennui to you, and calls it charity. Tell me a little the intended dates of your motions, that I may know where to write at you. Commend me kindly to Mr. John, and wish me a good night, of which I have had but one these ten days.

TO THE COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.1

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

THOUGH I begin my letter to-day, Madam, it may not be finished and set out these four days; but serving a tyrant who does not allow me many holiday-minutes, I am forced to seize the first that offer. Even now when I am writing upon the table, he is giving me malicious pinches under it. I was exceedingly obliged to Miss Hotham for her letter, though it did not give me so good an account of your ladyship as I wished. I will not advise you to come to Paris, where, I assure you, one has not a nip less of the gout than at London, and where it is rather more difficult to keep one's chamber pure; water not being reckoned here one of the elements of cleanliness. If ever my Lady Blandford and I make a match, I shall insist on her coming hither for a month first, to learn patience. I need have a great stock, who have only travelled from one sick bed to another; who have seen nothing; and who hear of nothing but the braveries of Fontainbleau, where the Duc de Richelieu, whose year it is, has ordered seven new operas besides other shows. However, if I cannot be diverted, my ruin at least is protracted, as I cannot go to a single shop.

Lady Mary Chabot has been so good as to make me a visit. She is again gone into the country till November, but charged me over and over to say a great deal for her to your ladyship, for whom she expresses the highest regard. Lady Brown is still in the country too; but as she loves laughing more than is fashionable here, I expect her return with great

Now first collected.

impatience. As I neither desire to change their religion or government, I am tired of their perpetual dissertations on those subjects. As when I was here last, which, alas! is four-and-twenty years ago, I was much at Mrs. Hayes's, I thought it but civil to wait on her now that her situation is a little less brilliant. She was not at home, but invited me to supper next night. The moment she saw me I thought I had done very right not to neglect her; for she overwhelmed me with professions of her fondness for me and all my family. When the first torrent was over, she asked me if I was son of the Horace Walpole who had been ambassador here. I said no, he was my uncle. Oh! then you are he I used to call my Neddy! No, Madam, I believe that is my brother. Your brother! what is my Lord Walpole? My cousin, Madam. Your cousin! why, then, who are you? I found that if I had omitted my visit, her memory of me would not have reproached me much.

Lord and Lady Fife are expected here every day from Spa; but we hear nothing certain yet of their graces of Richmond, for whom I am a little impatient; and for pam too, who I hope comes with them. In French houses it is impossible to meet with anything but whist, which I am determined never to learn again. I sit by and yawn; which, however, is better than sitting at it to yawn. I hope to be able to take the air in a few days; for though I have had sharp pain and terrible nights, this codicil to my gout promises to be of much shorter duration than what I had in England, and has kept entirely to my feet. My diet sounds like an English farmer's, being nothing but beef and pudding; in truth the beef is bouilli, and the pudding bread. This last night has been the first in which I have got a 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 horse-races. It is charming to be so young;1 but I do not

See antè, p. 52.—E.

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.

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 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

1 Of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire. See vol. iii. p. 61.—E.

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 diBesides, 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.

vert me.

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 **** or Charles Townshend.

Mrs. Pitt's friend, Madame de Rochefort, is one of my principal attachments, and very agreeable indeed. Madame

'Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset: he died on the 10th of October. Lord George Sackville was his third son.-E.

naco

de Mirepoix another. For my admiration, Madame de Mobut 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.

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 dispatches 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