Dear West,--I should think myself to blame not to try to divert you,
when you tell me I can. From the air of your letter you seem to want
amusement, that is, you want spirits. I would recommend to you certain
little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that I
imagine bodily exercise is more suitable to your complaint. If you would
promise me to read them in the Temple garden, I would send you a little
packet of plays and pamphlets that we have made up, and intend to
dispatch to "Dick's"[1] the first opportunity.--Stand by, clear the way,
make room for the pompous appearance of Versailles le Grand!----But no:
it fell so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray
the office of writing its panegyric. He likes it. They say I am to like
it better next Sunday; when the sun is to shine, the king is to be fine,
the water-works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are
to be installed! Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have
done nothing but dispute about it. They say, we did not see it to
advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden _en
passant_, and slubbered over Trianon. I say, we saw nothing. However, we
had time to see that the great front is a lumber of littleness, composed
of black brick, stuck full of bad old busts, and fringed with gold
rails. The rooms are all small, except the great gallery, which is
noble, but totally wainscoted with looking-glass. The garden is littered
with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In
particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In
another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many
waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in
squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child.
Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where
he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and generals, and left
to the pursuit of his own puerile ideas of glory.
[Footnote 1: A celebrated coffee-house, near the Temple Gate in Fleet
Street, where quarto poems and pamphlets were taken in.]
We saw last week a place of another kind, and which has more the air of
what it would be, than anything I have yet met with: it was the convent
of the Chartreux. All the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a
word) all the _adaptments_ are assembled here, that melancholy,
meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis
pleasing. Soften the terms, and mellow the uncouth horror that reigns
here, but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. It stands on a large
space of ground, is old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy: behind it,
through some dark passages, you pass into a large obscure hall, which
looks like a combination-chamber for some hellish council. The large
cloister surrounds their burying-ground. The cloisters are very narrow
and very long, and let into the cells, which are built like little huts
detached from each other. We were carried into one, where lived a
middle-aged man not long initiated into the order. He was extremely
civil, and called himself Dom Victor. We have promised to visit him
often. Their habit is all white: but besides this he was infinitely
clean in his person; and his apartment and garden, which he keeps and
cultivates without any assistance, was neat to a degree. He has four
little rooms, furnished in the prettiest manner, and hung with good
prints. One of them is a library, and another a gallery. He has several
canary-birds disposed in a pretty manner in breeding-cages. In his
garden was a bed of good tulips in bloom, flowers and fruit-trees, and
all neatly kept. They are permitted at certain hours to talk to
strangers, but never to one another, or to go out of their convent. But
what we chiefly went to see was the small cloister, with the history of
St. Bruno, their founder, painted by Le Soeur. It consists of twenty-two
pictures, the figures a good deal less than life. But sure they are
amazing! I don't know what Raphael may be in Rome, but these pictures
excel all I have seen in Paris and England. The figure of the dead man
who spoke at his burial, contains all the strongest and horridest ideas,
of ghastliness, hypocrisy discovered, and the height of damnation, pain
and cursing. A Benedictine monk, who was there at the same time, said to
me of this picture: _C'est une fable, mais on la croyoit autrefois._
Another, who showed me relics in one of their churches, expressed as
much ridicule for them. The pictures I have been speaking of are ill
preserved, and some of the finest heads defaced, which was done at first
by a rival of Le Soeur's. Adieu! dear West, take care of your health;
and some time or other we will talk over all these things with more
pleasure than I have had in seeing them.
Yours ever.
_THE CARNIVAL--THE FLORENTINES CIVIL, GOOD-NATURED, AND FOND OF THE
ENGLISH--A CURIOUS CHALLENGE._