Chapter 83

Arlington Street, Dec. 26, 1774. (page 119)

I begin my letter to-day, to prevent the fatigue of dictating two to-morrow. In the first and best place, I am very near recovered; that is, though still a mummy, I have no pain left, nor scarce any sensation of gout except in my right hand, which is still in complexion and shape a lobster's claw. Now, unless any body can prove to me that three weeks are longer than five months and a half, they will hardly convince me that the bootikins are not a cure for fits of the gout and a Very short cure, though they cannot prevent it: nor perhaps is it to be wished they should; for, if the gout prevents every thing else, would not one have something that does? I have but one single doubt left about the bootikins, which is, whether they do not weaken my breast: but as I am sensible that my own spirits do half the mischief, and that, if I could have held my tongue, and kept from talking and dictating letters, I should not have been half so bad as I have been, there remains but half due to bootikins on the balance: and surely the ravages of the last long fit, and two years more in age, ought to make another deduction. Indeed, my forcing myself to dictate my last letter to you almost killed me; and since the gout is not dangerous to me, if I am kept perfectly quiet, my good old friend must have patience, and not insist upon letters from me but when it is quite easy to me to send them. So much for me and my gout. I will now endeavour to answer such parts of your last letters as I can in this manner, and considering how difficult it is to read your writing in a dark room.

I have not yet been able to look into the French harangues you sent me. Voltaire's verses to Robert Covelle are not only very bad, but very contemptible.

I am delighted with all the honours you receive, and with all the amusements they procure you, which is the best part of honours. For the glorious part, I am always like the man in Pope's Donne,

"Then happy he who shows the tombs, said I."

That is, they are least troublesome there. The serenissime(173) you met at Montmorency is one of the least to my taste; we quarrelled about Rousseau, and I never went near him after my first journey. Madame du Deffand will tell you the story, if she has not forgotten it.

It is supposed here, that the new proceedings of the French Parliament will produce great effects: I don't suppose any such thing. What America will produce I know still less; but certainly something very serious. The merchants have summoned a meeting for the second of next month, and the petition from the Congress to the King is arrived. The heads have been shown to Lord Dartmouth; but I hear one of the agents is again presenting it; yet it is thought it will be delivered, and then be ordered to be laid before Parliament. The whole affair has already been talked of there on the army and navy-days; and Burke, they say, has shone with amazing Wit and ridicule on the late inactivity of Gage, and his losing his cannon and straw; on his being entrenched in a town with an army of observation; with that army being, as Sir William Meredith had said, an asylum for magistrates, and to secure the port. Burke said, he had heard of an asylum for debtors and whores, never for magistrates; and of ships never of armies securing a port. This is all there has been in Parliament, but elections. Charles Fox's place did not come into question. Mr. * * *, who is one of the new elect, has opened, but with no success. There is a seaman, Luttrell,(174) that promises much better.

I am glad you like the Duchess de Lauzun:(175) she is one of my favourites. The H`otel du Chatelet promised to be very fine, but was not finished when I was last at Paris. I was much pleased with the person that slept against St. Lambert's poem: I wish I had thought of the nostrum, when Mr. Seward, a thousand years ago, at Lyons, would read an epic poem to me just as I had received a dozen letters from England. St. Lambert is a great Jackanapes, and a very tiny genius: I suppose the poem was The Seasons, which is four fans spun out into a Georgic. If I had not been too ill, I should have thought of bidding you hear midnight mass on Christmas-eve in Madame du Deffand's tribune, as I used to do. To be sure, you know that her apartment was part of Madame du Montespan's, whose arms are on the back of the grate in Madame du Deffand's own bedchamber. Apropos, ask her to show you Madame de Prie's pinture, M. le Duc's mistress--I am very fond of it--and make her tell you her history.(176)

I have but two or three words more. Remember my parcel of letters from Madame du Deffand,(177) and pray remember this injunction not to ruin yourselves in bringing presents. A very slight fairing of a guinea or two obliges as much, is much more fashionable, and not a moment sooner forgotten than a magnificent one; and then you may very cheaply oblige the more persons; but as the sick fox, in Gay's Fables, says (for one always excepts oneself),

"A chicken too might do me good."

i allow you to go as far as three or even five guineas for a snuff-box for me; and then, as ***** told the King, when he asked for the reversion of the lighthouse for two lives, and the King reproached him, with having always advised him against granting reversions; he replied, "Oh! Sir, but if your Majesty will give me this, I will take care you shall never give away another." Adieu, with my own left hand.

(173) The Prince de Conti.

(174) The Hon. James Luttrell, fourth son of Lord Irnham, a lieutenant in the navy.-E.

(175) She became Duchesse de Biron upon the death of her husband's uncle, the Marechal Duke de Biron. See vol. iii., Letter to John Montagu, Feb. 4, 1766, letter 294. Her person is thus described by Rousseau:--"Am`elie de Boufflers a une figure, une douceur, une timidit`e devierge: rien de plus aimable et de plus int`eressant que sa figure; rien de plus tendre et de plus chaste que les sentiments qu'elle inspire."-E.

(176) Madame de Prie was the mistress of the Regent Duke of Orleans. A full account of her family, character, etc. will be found in Duclos's Memoirs.-E.

(177) At Walpole's earnest solicitation, Madame du Deffand returned by General Conway all the letters she had received from him. In so doing, she thus wrote to him:--"Vous aurez longtemps de quoi allumer votre feu, surtout si vous joignez `a ce que j'avais de vous avez de moi, et rien ne serait plus juste: mais je m'en rapporte `a votre prudence; je ne suivrai pas l'exemple de m`efiance que vous me donnez."-E.