*I am angry, that you should impede my noble designs of visiting foreign parts, more especially as I have an advantage which Sir Wilful had not, that of understanding your foreign lingos. With regard to Mrs. Gibbon, her intended visit, to which I was not totally a stranger, will do me honour, and though it should delay my emigration till the end of July, there will still remain the months of August, September and October. Above all abstain from giving the least hint to any Bath Correspondent, and perhaps, if I am not provoked by opposition, the thing may not be absolutely certain. At all events you may depend on a previous visit. At present I am very busy with the Neckers. I live with her just as I used to do twenty years ago, laugh at her Paris varnish, and oblige her to become a simple reasonable Suissesse. The man, who might read English husbands lessons of proper and dutiful behaviour, is a sensible good-natured creature. In about a fortnight I again launch into the World in the shape of a quarto Volume. The dear Cadell assures me that he never remembered so eager and impatient a demand for a second Edition.
The town is beginning to break up; the day after to-morrow we have our last day in the house of Commons to inquire into the instructions of the Commissioners;[327] I like the man, and the motion appears plain. Adieu. I dined with Lord Palmerston[328] to-day; a great dinner of Catches; Sir Farby and spouse part of the company or rather of the family: I embrace My lady and the Maria.*
281.
To his Stepmother.
Almack's,[329] May 24th, 1776.
Dear Madam,
A PROBABLE VISIT TO PARIS.
Shame, shame, always shame——Yet two lines will I write in the midst of a crowd. My mornings have been very much taken up with preparing and correcting (though in a minute and almost imperceptible way) my new Edition, which will be out the 1st of June. My afternoons (barring the House of Commons) have been a good deal devoted to Madame Necker. Her husband and the rest of her servants leave this country next Tuesday, entertained with the Island, and owning that the barbarous people have been very kind to them. Do you know that they have almost extorted a promise to make them a short visit at Paris in the Autumn. But pray, Madam, when do you set out, the month of June draws near, and both myself, the Portens and the inhabitants of Sheffield Place are impatient to be informed of the time and circumstances of your intended journey.
Poor Mallet![330] I pity his misfortune and feel for him probably more than he does for himself at present. His "William and Margaret," his only good piece of poetry, is torn from him, and by the evidence of old Manuscripts turns out to be the work of the celebrated Andrew Marvel composed in the year 1670. Adieu, dear Madam.