Part 32

I am afraid it is some thousands of days since I wrote to you; but woe is me! how could I help it? Summer will be summer, and peace peace. It is not the fashion to be married, or die in the former, nor to kill or be killed in the latter; and pray recollect if those are not the sources of correspondence. You may perhaps put in a caveat against my plea of peace, and quote Turks Island upon me; why, to be sure the parenthesis is a little hostile, but we are like a good wife, and can wink at what we don't like to see; besides, the French, like a sensible husband, that has made a slip, have promised us a new topknot, so we have kissed and are very good friends.

The Duke of York returned very abruptly. The town talks of remittances stopped; but as I know nothing of the matter, and you are not only a minister but have the honour of his good graces, I do not pretend to tell you what to be sure you know better than I do.

Old Sir John Barnard is dead, which he had been to the world for some time; and Mr. Legge. The latter, who was heartily in the minority, said cheerfully just before he died, "that he was going to the majority."

Let us talk a little of the north. Count Poniatowski, with whom I was acquainted when he was here, is King of Poland, and calls himself Stanislaus the Second. This is the sole instance, I believe, upon record, of a second of a name being on the throne while the first was living without having contributed to dethrone him. Old Stanislaus lives to see a line of successors, like Macbeth in the cave of the witches. So much for Poland; don't let us go farther north; we shall find there Alecto herself. I have almost wept for poor Ivan! I shall soon begin to believe that Richard III. murdered as many folks as the Lancastrian historians say he did. I expect that this Fury will poison her son next, lest Semiramis should have the bloody honour of having been more unnatural. As Voltaire has unpoisoned so many persons of former ages, methinks he ought to do as much for the present time, and assure posterity that there never was such a lamb as Catherine II., and that, so far from assassinating her own husband and Czar Ivan, she wept over every chicken that she had for dinner. How crimes, like fashions, flit from clime to clime! Murder reigns under the Pole, while you, who are in the very town where Catherine de' Medici was born, and within a stone's throw of Rome, where Borgia and his holy father sent cardinals to the other world by hecatombs, are surprised to hear that there is such an instrument as a stiletto. The papal is now a mere gouty chair, and the good old souls don't even waddle out of it to get a bastard.

Well, good night! I have no more monarchs to chat over; all the rest are the most Catholic or most Christian, or most something or other that is divine; and you know one can never talk long about folks that are only excellent. One can say no more about Stanislaus the first than that he is the best of beings. I mean, unless they do not deserve it, and then their flatterers can hold forth upon their virtues by the hour.

MADAME DE BOUFFLERS' WRITINGS--KING JAMES'S JOURNAL.

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 5, 1764.

My dear Lord,--Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with another line now. Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his profession noticed. He is very desirous of paying his respects to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris. It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently me, if you will favour him with your attention. Everybody experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to attribute it a little to my request.

I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers. If they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the Dutch. As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will hurry it into the first history he publishes. I, therefore, enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver's character, but to save the world from one more fable. I know Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some satisfaction when the man knows how to ride). I remember one night at the Duke of Grafton's, a bust of Cromwell was produced: Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the most speaking look imaginable, as much as to say, "Is it possible you can admire this man!" Apropos: I am sorry to say the reports do not cease about the separation, and yet I have heard nothing that confirms it.

I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called "Essais sur les Moeurs;" forgive me if I put you in mind of it, and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our political stuff, which, as the Parliament is happily at the distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help hearing of it. I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the evenings are so long, I cannot get through one of his periods between dinner and supper. They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight of King James's journal; I wish I could see all the trifling passages that he will not deign to admit into History. I do not love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they would be thought, but for what they are.

Mr. Elliot brings us woful accounts of the French ladies, of the decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their behaviour.

Nobody is dead, married, or gone mad, since my last. Adieu!...

END OF VOL. I.