618.
Lord Sheffield to Edward Gibbon.
D. S., 15th March, '93.
We had intelligence of poor de Severy's death two or three weeks before the receipt of your letter. I had always thought of him as you describe him, "honourable, benevolent, and sensible." His family must lament him for ever, and I know none more likely to feel the loss.
As to the Pais de Vaud, the thorough diversion caused by the War with England will leave it in a sort of humiliated security, but I have little doubt, if that event had not taken place, that the revolutionary principle would have been insinuated thro' Geneva to the Pais de Vaud. The dereliction of character, to which the Swiss have thought it expedient to submit, subjects them to the whims of fortune and of nations. Perhaps, if the World should recover its senses, it may find itself nearly as it was, except what its dignity may have suffered; but you do not deserve to be a nation, wretches so compleatly in awe of the sans cullotes, that they did not dare even to wear mourning. As for you, you are a damned, unworthy, temporizing son of a bitch, and shall only be deemed a renegado Englishman in future. Never was a mourning so general in England.[306] I did not (who seldom wore it in the morning before) quit it for a quarter of a moment. I was glad to see the lower ranks indignant, although to be sure Louis XVI.'s fort was being a martyr. It may be also added that a more innocent man was never more undeservedly put to death. I should have been indeed astonished that the Neckers did not wear mourning, if the panic meanness had not been so general in your parts. Although I may not flatter myself that sans culotterie will be suppressed in one campaign, yet I have few doubts in respect to the success of the Armies which attack France, especially after the experience of last campaign. It will not be necessary to take the beast by the horns and attack artillery in front, &c. In such a country as where war now flourishes, it will be easy to turn an enemy, and when an Army like that of France in such a case is obliged to make a movement, it is undone. As to the equipment of fleets, we seem to make a poor business of it.[307] Lord Sandwich in a fortnight did much more than we have done in three months and an halfe; a timid style in respect to pressing produces the evil.
I manœuvred your business in respect to Nichols in my best possible manner. In return to my wishing he could tempt you and that I would second, he talked most feelingly that he and Boydell had £40,000—everything—involved in the Shakespear. He seemed to wish to talk over such a subject when you come to England. He thought such a work would be more than you could undertake, suggested the idea of your being the Chief—shewed me the Life of Milton by Hailey, prefixed to Mr. Cowper's edition, and said that kind of writing was his fort. Persevere; as you may be in England in a few months it is unnecessary to say more at present.
I have sent by Seigneux, Lally's defence of Louis XVI., and Le Songe d'un Anglois;[308] you will be pleased with both. I sent 'Modern Gardening,'[309] and the 'Standing Orders of my Regiment,' to Meluner, the Captain of Highlanders, with whom we were so much pleased. I sent in the same parcel a number of odd things relative to Establishments, Insurance, &c., which Commissioner Fischer might like, but I was obliged to reduce the parcel on account of its size, and I know not whether the remainder is worth sending to him—but you will judge.
MADAME DE STAEL IN ENGLAND.
Madame de Stael[310] has lived in the neighbourhood of Dorking with Miss Burney, not forgetting M. de Narbonne. She is lately come to town; we endeavour to be civil. I am to conduct her to the Tower, &c., and she and some of her friends are to dine here. Small assistance will be sufficient for my correspondent, of whom I know nothing but his letter, and you say he has nothing to distinguish him. I have applied to those who were likely to be useful on the subject of what you mentioned for Wilhelm de S., but as yet without a glimpse of success. The market is over-stocked. The travelleable country is greatly circumscribed, and the measure of sending a leader is greatly exploded. I spoke to Lord Porchester,[311] and he with great satisfaction asserted the excellence of the line he had pursued of sending his son with his schoolfellow. As speaking to people on these matters does not make so much impression as writing, I have applied to some by letter.