Letter 270 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sept. 22, 1765. (page 425)
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 have no scars. It is true, amusements do not always amuse when we bid them. I find it so here; nothing strikes me; every thing 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 every where. 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(870) I admire him extremely. He is very ugly and ill made,(871) 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,(872) 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 every thing loses charms when one's own youth does not lend. its 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 freethinking: the first never did, and never will possess me; of the two others I have long been tired. Freethinking 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 humoursome, 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, etc.
870) Le Kain was born at Paris in 1725, and died there in 1778. He was originally brought up a surgical instrument maker; but his dramatic talents having been made known to Voltaire, he took him under his instructions, and secured him an engagement at the Fran`cais, where he performed for the first time in 1750.-E.
(871) "Cet acteur," says Baron de Grimm, "n'est presque jamais faux, mais malheureusement il a voix, figure, tout, contre lui. Une sensibilit`e forte et profonde, qui faisait disparaitre la laideur de ses traits sous le charme de l'expression dont elle les rendait susceptible, et ne laissait aper`cevoir que lea caract`ere et la passion dont son `ame `etait remplie, et lui donnait @ chaque instant de nouvelles formes et nouvel `etre."-E.
(872) See ant`e, p. 383, letter 245. Mademoiselle Clairon was born in 1723, and made her first appearance at Paris in 1743, in the character of Ph`edre. She died at Paris in 1803. Several of her letters to the British Roscius will be found in the Garrick Correspondence. On her acting, when in the Zenith of her reputation, Dr. Grimm passes the following judgment:—"Belle Clairon, vous avez beaucoup d'esprit: votre jeu est profond`ement raisonn`e; mais la passion a-t-elle le temps de raisoner? Vous n'avez ni naturel ni entrailles; vous ne d`echirez jamais les miennes; vous ne faites jamais couler mes pleurs; vous mettez des silences `a tout; vous voulez faire sentir chaque hemistiche; et lorsque tout fait effet dans votre jeu, je vois que la totalit`e de la sc`ene n'en fait plus aucun."-E.