see a few leaves out at Versailles, &c. If I stayed till August I could not see many, for there is not a tree for twenty miles, that is not hacked and hewed, till it looks like the stumps that beggars thrust into coaches to excite charity and miscarriages.

I am going this evening in search of madame Roland; I doubt we shall both miss each other's lilies and roses: she may have got some pionies in their room, but mine are replaced with

crocuses.

I love lord Harcourt for his civility to you; and I would fain see you situated under the greenwood-tree, even by a compromise.

You may imagine I am pleased with the defeat, hisses, and mortification of George Grenville, and the more by the disappointment it has occasioned here. If you have a mind to vex them thoroughly, you must make Mr. Pitt minister. They have not forgot him, whatever we have done.

The king has suddenly been here this morning to hold a lit de justice: I don't yet know the particulars, except that it was occasioned by some bold remonstrances of the parliament on the subject of that of Bretagne. Louis told me when I waked, that the duke de Chevreuil, the governor of Paris, was just gone by in great state. I long to chat with Mr. Chute and you in the blue room at Strawberry: though I have little to write, I have a great deal to say. How do you like his new house? has he no gout? Are your cousins Cortes and Pizarro heartily mortified that they are not to roast and plunder the Americans? Is goody Carlisle disappointed at not being appointed grand inquisitor? Adieu! I will not seal this till I have seen or missed madame Roland. Yours ever.

P.S. I have been prevented going to madame Roland, and must defer giving an account of her by this letter.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.

Paris, March 10, 1766.

THERE are two points, madam, on which I must write to your ladyship, though I have been confined these three or four

days with an inflammation in my eyes. My watchings and revellings had, I doubt, heated my blood, and prepared it to receive a stroke of cold, which in truth was amply administered We were two-and-twenty at the maréchale du Luxembourg's, and supped in a temple rather than in a hall. It is vaulted at top with gods and goddesses, and paved with marble; but the god of fire was not of the number.-However, as this is neither of my points, I shall say no more of it.

I send your ladyship lady Albermarle's box, which madame Geoffrin brought to me herself yesterday. I think it very neat and charming, and it exceeds the commission but by a guinea and half. It is lined with wood between the two golds, as the price and necessary size would not admit metal enough without, to leave it of any solidity.

The other point I am indeed ashamed to mention so late. I am more guilty than even about the scissors. Lord Hertford sent me word a fortnight ago, that an ensigncy was vacant, to which he should recommend Mr. Fitzgerald. I forgot both to thank him and to acquaint your ladyship, who probably know it without my communication. I have certainly lost my memory! This is so idle and young, that I begin to fear I have acquired something of the fashionable man, which I so much dreaded. It is to England then that I must return to recover friendship and attention? I literally wrote to lord Hertford, and forgot to thank him. Sure I did not use to be so abominanable! I cannot account for it; I am as black as ink, and must turn-methodist, to fancy that repentance can wash me white again. No, I will not; for then I may sin again, and trust to the same nostrum.

I had the honour of sending your ladyship the funeral sermon on the dauphin, and a tract to laugh at sermons :

Your bane and antidote are both before you.

The first is by the archbishop of Toulouse, who is thought the

1 Brionne de Lomenie, archbishop of Toulouse, and afterwards cardinal de Lomenie, or as he was nicknamed by the populace of Paris, Cardinal de, l'Ignominie, was great nephew to madame du Deffand. The spirit of political intrigue raised him to the administration of affairs during the last struggles of the old régime, and exposed him to the contempt he deserved for aspiring to such a situation at such a moment. [Ed.]

first man of the clergy. It has some sense, no pathetic, no eloquence, and, I think, clearly no belief in his own doctrine. The latter is by the abbé Coyer, written livelily, upon a single idea ; and, though I agree upon the inutility of the remedy he rejects, I have no better opinion of that he would substitute. Preaching has not failed, from the beginning of the world till to-day, not because inadequate to the disease, but because the disease is incurable. If one preached to lions and tigers, would it cure them of thirsting for blood, and sucking it when they have an opportunity? No; but when they are whelped in the Tower, and both caressed and beaten, do they turn out a jot more tame when they are grown up? So far from it, all the kindness in the world, all the attention, cannot make even a monkey (that is no beast of prey) remember a pair of scissors or an ensigncy.

Adieu, madam! and pray don't forgive me, till I have forgiven myself. I dare not close my letter with any professions; for could you believe them in one that had so much reason to think himself Your most obedient humble servant?

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Paris, March 12, 1766.

I CAN write but two lines, for I have been confined these four or five days with a violent inflammation in my eyes, and which has prevented my returning to madame Roland. I did not find her at home, but left your letter. My right eye is well again, and I have been to take air.

How can you ask leave to carry any body to Strawberry? May not you do what you please with me and mine? Does not Arlington-street comprehend Strawberry? why don't you go and

- 2 This pamphlet of the Abbé Coyer, which was entitled “On Preaching,” produced a great sensation in Paris at the time of its publication. Its object is to prove that those who have occupied themselves in preaching to others, ever since the world began, whether poets, priests, or philosophers, have been but a parcel of prattlers, listened to if eloquent, laughed at if dull; but who have never corrected any body: the true preacher being the government, which joins to the moral maxims which it inculcates the force of example and the power of execution. [Ed.]

lie there if you like it? It will be, I think, the middle of April before I return; I have lost a week by this confinement, and would fain satisfy my curiosity entirely, now I am here. I have seen enough, and too much, of the people. I am glad you are upon civil terms with Habiculeo. The less I esteem folks, the less I would quarrel with them.

I don't wonder that Colman and Garrick write ill in concert, when they write ill separately; however, I am heartily glad the Clive shines. Adieu! Commend me to Charles-street. Kiss Fanny, and Mufti, and Ponto for me, when you go to Straw berry dear souls, I long to kiss them myself.

You make me very happy, in telling me you have been so comfortable in my house. If you would set up a bed there, you need never go out of it.. I want to invite you, not to expel you. April the tenth my pilgrimage will end, and the fifteenth, or sixteenth, you may expect to see me, not much fattened with the flesh-pots of Egypt, but almost as glad to come amongst you again as I was to leave you.

Your madame Roland is not half so fond of me as she tells me; I have been twice at her door, left your letter and my own direction, but have not received so much as a message to tell me she is sorry she was not at home. Perhaps this is her first

vision of Paris, and it is natural for a Frenchwoman to have her head turned with it; though what she takes for rivers of emerald, and hotels of ruby and topaz, are to my eyes, that have been purged with euphrasy and rue, a filthy stream, in which every thing is washed without being cleaned, and dirty houses, ugly streets, worse shops, and churches loaded with bad pictures. Such is the material part of this paradise; for the i corporeal, if madame Roland admires it, I have nothing to say however, I shall not be sorry to make one at lady Frances Elliot's. Thank you for admiring my deaf old woman; if I could bring my old blind one with me, I should resign this

paradise as willingly as if it was built of opal, and designed by a fisherman, who thought that what makes a fine necklace would make a finer habitation.

We did not want your sun; it has shone here for a fortnight with all its lustre; but yesterday a north wind, blown by the czarina herself I believe, arrived, and declared a month of March of full age. This morning it snowed; and now, clouds of dust are whisking about the streets and quays, edged with an east wind, that gets under one's very shirt. I should not be quite sorry if a little of it tapped my lilacs on their green noses, and bade them wait for their master.

The princess of Talmond sent me this morning a picture of two pug-dogs, and a black and white greyhound, wretchedly painted. I could not conceive what I was to do with this daub, but in her note she warned me not to hope to keep it. It was only to imprint on my memory the size, and features, and spots of Diana, her departed greyhound, in order that I might get her exactly such another. Don't you think my memory will return well stored, if it is littered with defunct lap-dogs. She is so devout, that I did not dare send her word, that I am not possessed of a twig of Jacob's broom, with which he streaked cattle as he pleased.

T'other day, in the street, I saw a child in a leading-string, whose nurse gave it a farthing for a beggar; the babe delivered its mite with a grace, and a twirl of the hand. I don't think your cousin T***'s first grandson will be so well bred. Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Paris, April 3, 1766.

ONE must be just to all the world; madame Roland, I find, has been in the country, and at Versailles, and was so obliging as to call on me this morning, but I was so disobliging as not to be awake. I was dreaming dreams; in short, I had dined at Livry; yes, yes, at Livry, with a Langlade and De la Rochefoucaulds. The abbey is now possessed by an abbé de