I send your ladyship Lady Albemarle's box, which Madame Geoffrin brought to me herself yesterday. I think it very neat and charming, and it exceeds the commission but by a guinea and a half. It is lined with wood between the two golds, as the price and necessary size would not admit metal enough without, to leave it of any solidity.
The other point I am indeed ashamed to mention so late. I am more guilty than even about the scissors. Lord Hertford sent me word a fortnight ago, that an ensigncy was vacant, to which he should recommend Mr. Fitzgerald. I forgot both to thank him and to acquaint your ladyship, who probably know it without my communication. I have certainly lost my memory! This is so idle and young, that I begin to fear I have acquired something of the Fashionable man, which I so much dreaded. It is to England then that I must return to recover friendship and attention? I literally wrote to Lord Hertford, and forgot to thank him. Sure I did not use to be so abominable! I cannot account for it; I am as black as ink, and must turn Methodist, to fancy that repentance can wash me white again. No, I will not; for then I may sin again, and trust to the same nostrum.
I had the honour of sending your ladyship the funeral sermon on the Dauphin, and a tract to laugh at sermons: "Your bane and antidote are both before you." The first is by the Archbishop of Toulouse,(946) who is thought the first man of the clergy. It has some sense, no pathetic, no eloquence, and, I think, clearly no belief in his own doctrine. The latter is by the Abb`e Coyer,(947) written livelily, upon a single idea; and, though I agree upon the inutility of the remedy he rejects, I have no better opinion of that he would substitute. Preaching has not failed from the beginning of the world till to-day, not because inadequate to the disease, but because the disease is incurable. If one preached to lions and tigers, would it cure them of thirsting for blood, and sucking it when they have an opportunity No; but when they are whelped in the Tower, and both caressed and beaten, do they turn out a jot more tame when they are grown up? So far from it, all the kindness in the world, all the attention, cannot make even a monkey (that is no beast of prey) remember a pair of scissors or an ensigncy.
Adieu, Madam! and pray don't forgive me, till I have forgiven myself. I dare not close my letter with any professions; for could you believe them in one that had so much reason to think himself Your most obedient humble servant?
(946) Brionne de Lomenie, Archbishop of Toulouse, and afterwards Cardinal de Lomenie or as he was nicknamed by the populace of Paris, "Cardinal de l'Ignominie," was great-nephew to Madame du Deffand. The spirit of political intrigue raised him to the administration of affairs during the last struggles of the old r`egime, and exposed him to the contempt he deserved for aspiring to such a situation at such a moment. He was arrested at the commencement of the Revolution, and escaped the guillotine by dying in one of the prisons at Paris in 1794.-E.
(947) This pamphlet of the Abb`e Coyer, which was entitled "On Preaching," produced a great sensation in Paris at the time of its publication. Its object is to prove, that those who have occupied themselves in preaching to others, ever since the world began, whether poets, priests, or philosophers, have been but a parcel of prattlers, listened to if eloquent, laughed at if dull; but who have never corrected any body: the true preacher being the government, which joins to the moral maxims which it inculcates the force of example and the power of execution. Baron de Grimm characterizes the Abb`e as being "l'homme du monde le plus lourd, l'ennui personnifi`e," and relates the following anecdote of him during his visit to Voltaire at the Chateau de Ferney:-" "The first day, the philosopher bore his company with tolerable politeness; but the next morning he interrupted him in a long prosing narrative of his travels, by this question: 'Savez-vous bien, M. l'Abb`e, la difference qu'il y a entre Don Quichotte et vous? c'est que Don Quichotte prenait toutes les auberges pour des chateaux; et vous, vous prenez tous les ch`ateaux pour des auberges.'" The Abb`e died in 1782.-E.
Letter 299 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, March 12, 1766. (page 474)
I can write but two lines, for I have been confined these four or five days with a violent inflammation in my eyes, and which has prevented my returning to Madame Roland. I did not find her at home, but left your letter. My right eye is well again, and I have been to take air.
How can you ask leave to carry any body to Strawberry? May not you do what you please with me and mine? Does not Arlington-street comprehend Strawberry? why don't you go and lie there if you like it'? It will be, I think, the middle of April, before I return; I have lost a week by this confinement, and would fain satisfy my curiosity entirely, now I am here. I have seen enough, and too much, of the people. I am glad you are upon civil terms with Habiculeo. The less I esteem folks, the less I would quarrel with them.
I don't wonder that Colman and Garrick write ill In concert,(948) when they write ill separately; however, I am heartily glad the Clive shines. Adieu! Commend me to Charles-street. Kiss Fanny, and Mufti, and Ponto for me, when you go to Strawberry: dear souls, I long to kiss them myself.