MY DEAR FRIEND: I received but the day before yesterday your letter of
the 3d, from the headquarters at Selsingen; and, by the way, it is but
the second that I have received from you since your arrival at Hamburg.
Whatever was the cause of your going to the army, I approve of the
effect; for I would have you, as much as possible, see everything that is
to be seen. That is the true useful knowledge, which informs and improves
us when we are young, and amuses us and others when we are old; ‘Olim
haec meminisse juvabit’. I could wish that you would (but I know you will
not) enter in a book, a short note only, of whatever you see or hear,
that is very remarkable: I do not mean a German ALBUM stuffed with
people’s names, and Latin sentences; but I mean such a book, as, if you
do not keep now, thirty years hence you would give a great deal of money
to have kept. ‘A propos de bottes’, for I am told he always wears his;
was his Royal Highness very gracious to you, or not? I have my doubts
about it. The neutrality which he has concluded with Marechal de
Richelieu, will prevent that bloody battle which you expected; but what
the King of Prussia will say to it is another point. He was our only
ally; at present, probably we have not one in the world. If the King of
Prussia can get at Monsieur de Soubize’s, and the Imperial army, before
other troops have joined them, I think he will beat them but what then?
He has three hundred thousand men to encounter afterward. He must submit;
but he may say with truth, ‘Si Pergama dextra defendi potuissent’. The
late action between the Prussians and Russians has only thinned the human
species, without giving either party a victory; which is plain by each
party’s claiming it. Upon my word, our species will pay very dear for the
quarrels and ambition of a few, and those by no means the most valuable
part of it. If the many were wiser than they are, the few must be
quieter, and would perhaps be juster and better than they are.
Hamburg, I find, swarms with Grafs, Graffins, Fursts, and Furstins,
Hocheits, and Durchlaugticheits. I am glad of it, for you must
necessarily be in the midst of them; and I am still more glad, that,
being in the midst of them, you must necessarily be under some constraint
of ceremony; a thing which you do not love, but which is, however, very
useful.
I desired you in my last, and I repeat it again in this, to give me an
account of your private and domestic life.
How do you pass your evenings? Have they, at Hamburg, what are called at
Paris ‘des Maisons’, where one goes without ceremony, sups or not, as one
pleases? Are you adopted in any society? Have you any rational brother
ministers, and which? What sort of things are your operas? In the tender,
I doubt they do not excel; for ‘mein lieber schatz’, and the other
tendernesses of the Teutonic language, would, in my mind, sound but
indifferently, set to soft music; for the bravura parts, I have a great
opinion of them; and ‘das, der donner dich erschlage’, must no doubt,
make a tremendously fine piece of ‘recitativo’, when uttered by an angry
hero, to the rumble of a whole orchestra, including drums, trumpets, and
French horns. Tell me your whole allotment of the day, in which I hope
four hours, at least, are sacred to writing; the others cannot be better
employed than in LIBERAL pleasures. In short, give me a full account of
yourself, in your un-ministerial character, your incognito, without your
‘fiocchi’. I love to see those, in whom I interest myself, in their
undress, rather than in gala; I know them better so. I recommend to you,
‘etiam atque etiam’, method and order in everything you undertake. Do you
observe it in your accounts? If you do not, you will be a beggar, though
you were to receive the appointments of a Spanish Ambassador
extraordinary, which are a thousand pistoles a month; and in your
ministerial business, if you have no regular and stated hours for such
and such parts of it, you will be in the hurry and confusion of the Duke
of N-----, doing everything by halves, and nothing well, nor soon. I
suppose you ‘have been feasted through the Corps diplomatique at Hamburg,
excepting Monsieur Champeaux; with whom, however, I hope you live
‘poliment et galamment’, at all third places.
Lord Loudon is much blamed here for his ‘retraite des dix milles’, for it
is said that he had above that number, and might consequently have acted
offensively, instead of retreating; especially as his retreat was
contrary to the unanimous opinion (as it is now said) of the council of
war. In our Ministry, I suppose, things go pretty quietly, for the D. of
N. has not plagued me these two months. When his Royal Highness comes
over, which I take it for granted he will do very soon, the great push
will, I presume, be made at his Grace and Mr. Pitt; but without effect if
they agree, as it is visibly their interest to do; and, in that case,
their parliamentary strength will support them against all attacks. You
may remember, I said at first, that the popularity would soon be on the
side of those who opposed the popular Militia Bill; and now it appears so
with a vengeance, in almost every county in England, by the tumults and
insurrections of the people, who swear that they will not be enlisted.
That silly scheme must therefore be dropped, as quietly as may be. Now
that I have told you all that I know, and almost all that I think, I wish
you a good supper and a good-night.