PARIS, _Sept._ 22, 1765.
The concern I felt at not seeing you before I left England, might make
me express myself warmly, but I assure you it was nothing but concern,
nor was mixed with a grain of pouting. I knew some of your reasons, and
guessed others. The latter grieve me heartily; but I advise you to do as
I do: when I meet with ingratitude, I take a short leave both of it and
its host. Formerly I used to look out for indemnification somewhere
else; but having lived long enough to learn that the reparation
generally proved a second evil of the same sort, I am content now to
skin over such wounds with amusements, which at least leave no scars. It
is true, amusements do not always amuse when we bid them. I find it so
here; nothing strikes me; everything I do is indifferent to me. I like
the people very well, and their way of life very well; but as neither
were my object, I should not much care if they were any other people, or
it was any other way of life. I am out of England, and my purpose is
answered.
Nothing can be more obliging than the reception I meet with everywhere.
It may not be more sincere (and why should it?) than our cold and bare
civility; but it is better dressed, and looks natural; one asks no
more. I have begun to sup in French houses, and as Lady Hertford has
left Paris to-day, shall increase my intimacies. There are swarms of
English here, but most of them are going, to my great satisfaction. As
the greatest part are very young, they can no more be entertaining to me
than I to them, and it certainly was not my countrymen that I came to
live with. Suppers please me extremely; I love to rise and breakfast
late, and to trifle away the day as I like. There are sights enough to
answer that end, and shops you know are an endless field for me. The
city appears much worse to me than I thought I remembered it. The French
music as shocking as I knew it was. The French stage is fallen off,
though in the only part I have seen Le Kain I admire him extremely. He
is very ugly and ill made, and yet has an heroic dignity which Garrick
wants, and great fire. The Dumenil I have not seen yet, but shall in a
day or two. It is a mortification that I cannot compare her with the
Clairon, who has left the stage. Grandval I saw through a whole play
without suspecting it was he. Alas! four-and-twenty years make strange
havoc with us mortals! You cannot imagine how this struck me! The
Italian comedy, now united with their _opera comique_, is their most
perfect diversion; but alas! harlequin, my dear favourite harlequin, my
passion, makes me more melancholy than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I
sit silently reflecting how everything loses charms when one's own youth
does not lend it gilding! When we are divested of that eagerness and
illusion with which our youth presents objects to us, we are but the
_caput mortuum_ of pleasure.
Grave as these ideas are, they do not unfit me for French company. The
present tone is serious enough in conscience. Unluckily, the subjects of
their conversation are duller to me than my own thoughts, which may be
tinged with melancholy reflections, but I doubt from my constitution
will never be insipid.
The French affect philosophy, literature, and free-thinking: the first
never did, and never will possess me; of the two others I have long been
tired. Free-thinking is for one's self, surely not for society; besides
one has settled one's way of thinking, or knows it cannot be settled,
and for others I do not see why there is not as much bigotry in
attempting conversions from any religion as to it. I dined to-day with a
dozen _savans_, and though all the servants were waiting, the
conversation was much more unrestrained, even on the Old Testament, than
I would suffer at my own table in England, if a single footman was
present. For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else to
do. I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed
professedly; and, besides, in this country one is sure it is only the
fashion of the day. Their taste in it is worst of all: could one believe
that when they read our authors, Richardson and Mr. Hume should be their
favourites? The latter is treated here with perfect veneration. His
History, so falsified in many points, so partial in as many, so very
unequal in its parts, is thought the standard of writing.
In their dress and equipages they are grown very simple. We English are
living upon their old gods and goddesses; I roll about in a chariot
decorated with cupids, and look like the grandfather of Adonis.
Of their parliaments and clergy I hear a good deal, and attend very
little: I cannot take up any history in the middle, and was too sick of
politics at home to enter into them here. In short, I have done with the
world, and live in it rather than in a desert, like you. Few men can
bear absolute retirement, and we English worst of all. We grow so
humorsome, so obstinate and capricious, and so prejudiced, that it
requires a fund of good-nature like yours not to grow morose. Company
keeps our rind from growing too coarse and rough; and though at my
return I design not to mix in public, I do not intend to be quite a
recluse. My absence will put it in my power to take up or drop as much
as I please. Adieu! I shall inquire about your commission of books, but
having been arrived but ten days, have not yet had time. Need I say?--no
I need not--that nobody can be more affectionately yours than, &c.
_HIS PRESENTATION AT COURT--ILLNESS OF THE DAUPHIN--DESCRIPTION OF HIS
THREE SONS._