KING'S COLLEGE, _March_ 20, 1737.
Dear George,--The first paragraph in my letter must be in answer to the
last in yours; though I should be glad to make you the return you ask,
by waiting on you myself. 'Tis not in my power, from more circumstances
than one, which are needless to tell you, to accompany you and Lord
Conway to Italy: you add to the pleasure it would give me, by asking it
so kindly. You I am infinitely obliged to, as I was capable, my dear
George, of making you forget for a minute that you don't propose
stirring from the dear place you are now in. Poppies indeed are the
chief flowers in love nosegays, but they seldom bend towards the lady;
at least not till the other flowers have been gathered. Prince
Volscius's boots were made of love-leather, and honour leather; instead
of honour, some people's are made of friendship: but since you have been
so good to me as to draw on this, I can almost believe you are equipped
for travelling farther than Rheims. 'Tis no little inducement to make me
wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that
you may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the
pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference
than they do their coach-horses, and have not half the regard for them
that they have for themselves. The little freedoms you tell me you use
take off from formality, by avoiding which ridiculous extreme we are
dwindled into the other barbarous one, rusticity. If you had been at
Paris, I should have inquired about the new Spanish ambassadress, who,
by the accounts we have thence, at her first audience of the queen, sat
down with her at a distance that suited respect and conversation.
Adieu, dear George,
Yours most heartily.
_THEATRES AT PARIS--ST. DENIS--FONDNESS OF THE FRENCH FOR SHOW, AND FOR
GAMBLING--SINGULAR SIGNS--THE ARMY THE ONLY PROFESSION FOR MEN OF GENTLE
BIRTH--SPLENDOUR OF THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS._