STRAWBERRY HILL, _Wednesday night, July_ 1, 1790.
It is certainly not from having anything to tell you, that I reply so
soon, but as the most agreeable thing I can do in my confinement. The
gout came into my heel the night before last, perhaps from the deluge
and damp. I increased it yesterday by limping about the house with a
party I had to breakfast. To-day I am lying on the settee, unable to
walk alone, or even to put on a slipper. However, as I am much easier
this evening, I trust it will go off.
I do not love disputes, and shall not argue with you about Bruce; but,
if you like him, you shall not choose an author for me. It is the most
absurd, obscure, and tiresome book I know. I shall admire if you have a
clear conception about most of the persons and matters in his work; but,
in fact, I do not believe you have. Pray, can you distinguish between
his _cock_ and _hen_ Heghes, and between all Yasouses and Ozoros? and do
you firmly believe that an old man and his son were sent for and put to
death, because the King had run into a thorn-bush, and was forced to
leave his clothes behind him! Is it your faith, that one of their
Abyssinian Majesties pleaded not being able to contribute towards
sending for a new Abuna, because he had spent all his money at Venice in
looking-glasses? And do you really think that Peter Paez was a
Jack-of-all-trades, and built palaces and convents without assistance,
and furnished them with his own hands? You, who are a little apt to
contest most assertions, must have strangely let out your credulity! I
could put forty questions to you as wonderful; and, for my part, could
as soon credit ----.
I am tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are more
puerile now serious, than when in the long paroxysm of gay levity.
Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to annihilate coats of
arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and set up an Emperor! They are
hastening to establish the tribunal of the praetorian guards; for the
sovereignty, it seems, is not to be hereditary. One view of their Fête
of the 14th,[1] I suppose, is to draw money to Paris; and the
consequence will be, that the deputies will return to the provinces
drunk with independence and self-importance, and will commit fifty times
more excesses, massacres, and devastations, than last year. George
Selwyn says, that _Monsieur_, the King's brother, is the only man of
rank from whom they cannot take a title.
[Footnote 1: The grand federation in the Champ de Mars, on the
anniversary of the taking of the Bastile.]
How franticly have the French acted, and how rationally the Americans!
But Franklin and Washington were great men. None have appeared yet in
France; and Necker has only returned to make a wretched figure! He is
become as insignificant as his King; his name is never mentioned, but
now and then as disapproving something that is done. Why then does he
stay? Does he wait to strike some great stroke, when everything is
demolished? His glory, which consisted in being Minister though a
Protestant, is vanished by the destruction of Popery; the honour of
which, I suppose, he will scarce assume to himself. I have vented my
budget, and now good night! I feel almost as if I could walk up to bed.
_THE PRINCE OF WALES--GROWTH OF LONDON AND OTHER TOWNS._