I am very sorry for the death of Lord Ophaly, and for his family. I knew the poor young man himself but little, but he seemed extremely good-natured. What the Duke of Richmond will do for a hotel, I cannot conceive. Adieu!
(883) See M`emoires de Madame de Staal (the first authoress of that name) published with the rest of her works, in three small volumes.-E.
(884) Mr. Conway was now secretary of state for the foreign department.-E.
(885) Louis XV.-E.
(886) Le Pr`esident Hainault, surintendant de la maison de Mademoiselle la Dauphine, membre de l'Acad`emie Fran`caise et de l'Acad`emie des Inscriptions, known by his celebrated work, the Abr`eg`e Chronologique de l'Histoire, de France, and from the excellent table which he kept, and which was the resort of all the wits and savans of the day. His cook was considered the best in Paris, and the master was worthy of his cook; a fact which Voltaire celebrates in the opening lines of the epitaph which he wrote for him—
"Hainault, fameux par vos soupers,
Et votre Chronologic," etc.-E.
(887) Sir James Macdonald of Macdonald, the eighth baronet, who died at Rome on the 26th of July 1766, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, regretted by all who knew him. In the inscription on his monument, executed at Rome and erected in the church of Slate, his character is thus drawn by his friend Lord Lyttelton:—"He had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge in mathematics, philosophy, languages, and in every branch of useful and polite learning, as few have acquired in a long life wholly devoted to study; yet to this erudition he joined, what can rarely be found with it, great talents for business, great propriety of behaviour, great politeness of manners: his eloquence was sweet, correct and flowing; his memory vast and exact; his judgment strong and acute." On visiting Slate, in 1773, Dr. Johnson observed to Boswell, that this inscription "should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent should be." Upon this mr. Croker remarks,—"What a strange Perversion of language!—universal! Why, if it had been in Latin, so far from being universally understood, it would have been an utter blank to one (the better) half of the creation, and even of the men who might visit it, ninety-nine will understand it in English for one who could in Latin. Something may be said for epitaphs and inscriptions addressed, as it were, to the world at large—a triumphal arch — the pillar at Blenheim—the monument on the field of Waterloo: but a Latin epitaph in an English church, appears, in principle, as absurd as the dinner, which the doctor gives in Peregrine Pickle, 'after the manner of the ancients.' A mortal may surely be well satisfied if his fame lasts as long as the language in which he spoke or wrote."-E.
(888) La Duchesse de la Vali`ere, daughter of the Duc d'Usez. She was one of the handsomest women in France, and preserved her beauty even to old age. She died about the year 1792, at the age of eighty.-E.
(889) The Comtesse de Forcalquier, n`ee Canizy. She had ben first married to the Comte d'Antin, son to the Comtesse de Toulouse, by a marriage previous to that with the Comte de Toulouse, one of the natural children of Louis Quatorze, whom he legitimated.-E.
(890) Sir Gilbert Elliot Of Minto. He was appointed a lord of the admiralty in 1756, treasurer of the chamber in 1762, keeper of the signets for Scotland in 1767, and treasurer of the navy in 1770. He died in 1777.-E.