Paris, _August_ 5, 1771.
It is a great satisfaction to me to find by your letter of the 30th,
that you have had no return of your gout. I have been assured here, that
the best remedy is to cut one's nails in hot water. It is, I fear, as
certain as any other remedy! It would at least be so here, if their
bodies were of a piece with their understandings; or if both were as
curable as they are the contrary. Your prophecy, I doubt, is not better
founded than the prescription. I may be lame; but I shall never be a
duck, nor deal in the garbage of the Alley.
I envy your _Strawberry tide_, and need not say how much I wish I was
there to receive you. Methinks, I should be as glad of a little grass,
as a seaman after a long voyage. Yet English gardening gains ground here
prodigiously--not much at a time, indeed--I have literally seen one,
that is exactly like a tailor's paper of patterns. There is a Monsieur
Boutin, who has tacked a piece of what he calls an English garden to a
set of stone terraces, with steps of turf. There are three or four very
high hills, almost as high as, and exactly in the shape of, a tansy
pudding. You squeeze between these and a river, that is conducted at
obtuse angles in a stone channel, and supplied by a pump; and when
walnuts come in I suppose it will be navigable. In a corner enclosed by
a chalk wall are the samples I mentioned; there is a strip of grass,
another of corn, and a third _en friche_, exactly in the order of beds
in a nursery. They have translated Mr. Whately's book,[1] and the Lord
knows what barbarism is going to be laid at our door. This new
_Anglomanie_ will literally be _mad English_.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Whately, the Secretary to the Treasury, had published
an essay on Gardening.]
New _arrêts_, new retrenchments, new misery, stalk forth every day. The
Parliament of Besançon is dissolved; so are the _grenadiers de France_.
The King's tradesmen are all bankrupt; no pensions are paid, and
everybody is reforming their suppers and equipages. Despotism makes
converts faster than ever Christianity did. Louis _Quinze_ is the true
_rex Christianissimus_, and has ten times more success than his
dragooning great-grandfather. Adieu, my dear Sir! Yours most faithfully.
_Friday 9th._
... It is very singular that I have not half the satisfaction in going
into churches and convents that I used to have. The consciousness that
the vision is dispelled, the want of fervour so obvious in the
religious, the solitude that one knows proceeds from contempt, not from
contemplation, make those places appear like abandoned theatres destined
to destruction. The monks trot about as if they had not long to stay
there; and what used to be holy gloom is now but dirt and darkness.
There is no more deception than in a tragedy acted by candle-snuffers.
One is sorry to think that an empire of common sense would not be very
picturesque; for, as there is nothing but taste that can compensate for
the imagination of madness, I doubt there will never be twenty men of
taste for twenty thousand madmen. The world will no more see Athens,
Rome, and the Medici again, than a succession of five good emperors,
like Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines.
_August_ 13.
Mr. Edmonson has called on me; and, as he sets out to-morrow, I can
safely trust my letter to him. I have, I own, been much shocked at
reading Gray's[1] death in the papers. 'Tis an hour that makes one
forget any subject of complaint, especially towards one with whom I
lived in friendship from thirteen years old. As self lies so rooted in
self, no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke recoil to my own
breast; and having so little expected his death, it is plain how little
I expect my own. Yet to you, who of all men living are the most
forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel. I fear most men ought
to apologise for their want of feeling, instead of palliating that
sensation when they have it. I thought that what I had seen of the world
had hardened my heart; but I find that it had formed my language, not
extinguished my tenderness. In short, I am really shocked--nay, I am
hurt at my own weakness, as I perceive that when I love anybody, it is
for my life; and I have had too much reason not to wish that such a
disposition may very seldom be put to the trial. You, at least, are the
only person to whom I would venture to make such a confession.
[Footnote 1: Gray died of gout in the stomach on July 30th. He was only
fifty-five.]
Adieu! my dear Sir! Let me know when I arrive, which will be about the
last day of the month, when I am likely to see you. I have much to say
to you. Of being here I am most heartily tired, and nothing but this
dear old woman should keep me here an hour--I am weary of them to
death--but that is not new! Yours ever.
_SCANTINESS OF THE RELICS OF GRAY--GARRICK'S PROLOGUES, ETC.--WILKES'S
SQUINT._