to two constitutions so delicate as yours. Adieu! my dearest friends: it would be tautology to subscribe a name to a letter, every line of which would suit no other man in the world but the writer.

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

Sunday, Oct. 31, 1790.

PERHAPS I am unreasonably impatient, and expect letters before they can come. I expected a letter from Lyons three days ago, though Mrs. Damer told me I should not have one till to-morrow. I have got one to-day; but alas! from Pougues only, eleven and a half posts short of Lyons! Oh! may Mrs. Damer prove in the right to-morrow! Well! I must be happy for the past; and that you had such delightful weather, and but one little accident to your carriage. We have had equal summer till Wednesday last, when it blew a hurricane. I said to it, "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, I don't mind you now!" but I have not forgotten Tuesday the 12th; and now I hope it will be as calm as it is to-day on Wednesday next, when Mrs. Damer is to sail. I was in town on Thursday and Friday, and so were her parents, to take our leaves; as we did on Friday night, supping all at Richmond-house. She set out yesterday morning, and I returned hither. I am glad you had the amusement of seeing the National Assembly. Did Mr. Berry find it quite so august as he intended it should be? Burke's pamphlet is to appear to-morrow, and Calonne has published a thumping one of four hundred and forty pages. I have but begun it, for there is such a quantity of calculations, and one is forced to bait so often to boil milliards of livres down to a rob of pounds sterling, that my head is only filled with figures instead of arguments, and I understand arithmetic less than logic.

Our war still hangs by a hair, they say; and that this approaching week must terminate its fluctuations. Brabant, I am told, is to be pacified by negotiations at the Hague. Though I talk like a newspaper, I do not assume their airs; nor give my intelligence of any sort for authentic, unless when the Gazette endorses the articles. Thus, Lord Louvain is made Earl of Beverley, and Lord, Earl of Digby; but in no Gazette, though still in the Songs of Sion, do I find that Miss Gunning is a marchioness. It is not that I suppose you care who gains a step in the aristocracy; but I tell you these trifles to keep you au courant, and that at your return you may not make only a baronial curtsey, when it should be lower by two rows of ermine to some new-hatched countess. This is all the news-market furnishes.

a Mrs. Damer was going to pass the winter at Lisbon, on account of her health.

b This was his "Lettre sur l'Etat de la France, présent et à venir;" of which a translation appeared in the following year.—E.

. Your description of the National Assembly and of the Champ de Mars were both admirable; but the altar of boards and canvass seems a type of their perishable constitution, as their air-balloons were before. French visions are generally full of vapour, and terminate accordingly. I have been at Mrs. Grenville's this evening, who had a small party for the Duchess of Gloucester: there were many inquiries after my wives.

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

Park-place, Nov. 8, 1790.

No letter since Pougues! I think you can guess how uneasy I am! It is not the fault of the wind; which has blown from every quarter. To-day I cannot hear, for no post comes in on Mondays. What can have occasioned my receiving no letters from Lyons, when, on the 18th of last month, you were within twelve posts of it? I am now sorry I came hither, lest by change of place a letter may have shuttlecocked about, and not have known where to find me; and yet I left orders with Kirgate to send it after me, if one came to Strawberry on Saturday. I return thither to-morrow, but not till after the post is come in here. I am writing to you now, while the company are walked out, to divert my impatience; which, however, is but a bad recipe, and not exactly the way to put you out of my

head.

The first and great piece of news is the pacification with Spain. The courier arrived on Thursday morning with a most acquiescent answer to our ultimatum: what that was I do not know, nor much care. Peace contents me, and for my part I shall not haggle about the terms. I have a good general digestion, and it is not a small matter that will lie at my stomach when I have no hand in dressing the ingredients.

The pacification of Brabant is likely to be volume the second. The Emperor, and their majesties of Great Britain and Prussia, and his Serene Highness the Republic of Holland have sent a card to his turbulent Lowness of Brabant, and they allow him but three weeks to submit to his old sovereign: on promise of a general pardon -or the choice of threescore thousand men ready to march without a pardon.

The third volume, expected, but not yet in the press, is a counterrevolution in France. Of that I know nothing but rumour; yet it certainly is not the most incredible event that rumour ever foretold. In this country the stock of the National Assembly is fallen down to bankruptcy. Their only renegade, aristocrat Earl Stanhope, has, with D. W. Russel, scratched his name out of the Revolution Club;

* Margaret Banks, widow of the Hon. Henry Grenville, who died in 1784. Their only daughter was married, in 1781, to Viscount Mahon, afterwards Earl Stanhope.

but the fatal blow has been at last given by Mr. Burke. His pamphlet came out this day se'nnight, and is far superior to what was expected, even by his warmest admirers. I have read it twice; and though of three hundred and fifty pages, I wish I could repeat every page by heart. It is sublime, profound, and gay. The wit and satire are equally brilliant; and the whole is wise, though in some points he goes too far: yet in general there is far less want of judgment than could be expected from him. If it could be translated,which, from the wit and metaphors and allusions, is almost impossible,-I should think it would be a classic book in all countries, except in present France. To their tribunes it speaks daggers; though, unlike them, it uses none. Seven thousand copies have been taken off by the booksellers already, and a new edition is preparing. I hope you will see it soon. There ends my gazette.

There is nobody here at present but Mrs. Hervey, Mrs. E. Hervey, and Mrs. Cotton: but what did I find on Saturday? Why, the Prince of Furstemberg, his son, and son's governor! I was ready to turn about and go back: but they really proved not at all unpleasant. The ambassador has not the least German stiffness or hauteur; is extremely civil, and so domestic a man, that he talked comfortably of his wife and eight children, and of his fondness for them. He understands English, though he does not speak it. The son, a goodhumoured lad of fifteen, seems well-informed: the governor, a middleaged officer, speaks English so perfectly, that even by his accent [ should not have discovered him for a foreigner. They stayed all night, and went to Oxford next morning before I rose.

November 9th, at night.

This morning, before I left Park-place, I had the relief and joy of receiving your letter of October 24, from Lyons. It would have been still more welcome, if dated from Turin; but, as you have met with no impediments so far, I trust you got out of France as well as through it. I do hope, too, that Miss Agnes is better, as you say; but when one is very anxious about a person, credulity does not take long strides in proportion. I am not surprised at your finding voiturins, or any body, or any thing, dearer: where all credit and all control are swept away, every man will be a tyrant in proportion to his necessities and his strength. Societies were invented to temperate force: but it seems force was liberty, and much good may it do the French with being delivered from every thing but violence!-which

The far-famed "Reflections on the Revolution in France;" of which about thirty thousand copies were sold in a comparatively short space of time.—E.

b A French translation, by M. Dupont, shortly after made its appearance, and spread the reputation of the work over all Europe. The Emperor of Germany, Catherine of Russia, and the French Princes transmitted to Mr. Burke their warm approbation of it, and the unfortunate Stanislaus of Poland sent him his likeness on a gold medal.-E.

The Landgrave of Furstemberg had been sent from the Emperor Leopold to notify his being elected King of the Romans, and his subsequent coronation as Emperor of Germany.—E.

I believe they will soon taste pro and con.! You may make me smile by desiring me to continue my affection. Have I so much time left for inconstancy? For threescore years and ten I have not been very fickle in my friendship: in all those years I never found such a pair as you and your sister. Should I meet with a superior pair, but they must not be deficient in any one of the qualities which I find in you two,-why, perhaps, I may change; but, with that double mortgage on my affections, I do not think you are in much danger of losing them. You shall have timely notice if a second couple drops out of the clouds and falls in my way.

TO MISS BERRY.

November 11, 1790.

She suffered much

I HAD a letter from Mrs. Damer at Falmouth. by cold and fatigue, and probably sailed on Saturday evening last, and may be at Lisbon by this time, as you, I trust, are in Italy.

Mr. Burke's pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price's head. He got upon a table at their club, toasted to our Parliament becoming a National Assembly, and to admitting no more peers of their assembly, having lost the only one they had. They themselves are very like the French Etats: two more members got on the table (their pulpit), and broke it down: so be it!

The Marquisate is just where it was-to be and not to be. The Duchess of Argyll is said to be worse. Della Crusca has published a poem, called "The Laurel of Liberty," which, like the Enragés, has confounded and overturned all ideas. There are gossamery tears and silky oceans—the first time, to be sure, that any body ever cried cobwebs, or that the sea was made of paduasoy. There is, besides, a violent tirade against a considerable personage, who, it is supposed, the author was jealous of, as too much favoured a few years ago by a certain Countess. You may guess why I am not more explicit: for the same reason I beg you not to mention it at all; it would be exceedingly improper. As the Parliament will meet in a fortnight,

a Meaning the reported marriage of Miss Gunning to the Marquis of Blandford.-B. b Robert Merry, Esq. who, at this time, wrote in the newspapers under this signature, and thereby became the object of the caustic satire of the author of the Baviad and Mæviad

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"Lo, Della Crusca! in his closet pent,

He toils to give the crude conception vent:

Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound,

Truth sacrific'd to letters, sense to sound;

False glare, incongruous images combine,

And noise and nonsense chatter through the line."-E.

Besides the above, Mr. Gifford instances, from the same poem, "moody monarchs, radiant rivers, cooling cataracts, lazy Loires, gay Garonnes, glossy glass, mingling mur. der, dauntless day, lettered lightnings, delicious dilatings, sinking sorrows, real reasoning, meliorating mercies, dewy vapours damp that sweep the silent swamps, &c. &c."- E.

and the town be plumper, my letters may grow more amusing; though, unless the weather grows worse, I shall not contribute my leanness to its embonpoint. Adieu!

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Nov. 18, 1790. On Tuesday morning, after my letter was gone to the post, I received yours of the 2d (as I have all the rest) from Turin, and it gave me very little of the joy I had so much meditated to receive from a letter thence. And why did not it?—because I had got one on Saturday, which anticipated and augmented all the satisfaction I had allotted for Turin. You will find my Tuesday's letter, if ever you receive it, intoxicated with Chamberry; for which, and all your kind punctuality, I give you a million of thanks. But how cruel to find that you found none of my letters at Turin! There ought to have been two at least, of October the 16th and 19th. I have since directed one thither of the 25th; but alas! from ignorance, there was par Paris on none of them; and the Lord knows at how many little German courts they may have been baiting! I shall put par Paris on this; but beg you will tell me, as soon as you can, which route is the shortest and the safest; that is, by which you are most likely to receive them. You do me justice in concluding there has been no negligence of mine in the case; indeed, I have been ashamed of the multiplicity of my letters, when I had scarce any thing to tell you but my own anxiety to hear of your being quietly settled at Florence, out of the reach of all commotions. And how could I but dread your being molested by some accident, in the present state of France? and how could your healths mend in bad inns, and till you can repose somewhere? Repose you will have at Florence, but I shall fear the winter for you there: I suffered more by cold there, than by any place in my life; and never came home at night without a pain in my breast, which I never felt elsewhere, yet then I was very young and in perfect health. If either of you suffer there in any shape, I hope you will retire to Pisa.

My inquietude, that presented so many alarms to me before you set out, has, I find, and am grieved for it, not been quite in the wrong. Some inconveniences I am persuaded you have sunk: yet the difficulty of landing at Dieppe, and the ransack of your poor harmless trunks at Bourgoin, and the wretched lodgings with which you were forced to take up at Turin, count deeply with me: and I had much rather have lost all credit as a prophet, since I could not prevent your journey. May it answer for your healths! I doubt it will not in any other respect, as you have already found by the voiturins. In point of pleasure, is it possible to divest myself so radically of all self-love as to wish you may find Italy as agreeable as you did formerly? In all other lights, I do most fervently hope there will be no drawbacks