no advice but such as may tend to repair the breaches which the Duke's tenderness for you has occasioned in the Royal Family. The good of his Royal Highness calls on you and on us to consult his welfare in the first instance. You have always told me how desirous you are of sacrificing yourself for him. I know the uprightness of your heart, madam, and I know you spoke truth. Advise him to whatever is most for his benefit and credit. Do your duty by him, and trust to a just God for your reward. In the presence of that God I have given you the best advice in my power. I am sure I have not disobliged you by my freedom: I hope I have not offended his Royal Highness, but I declare on my conscience and honour, that I know not what better advice to give, and sign it with my name, as the firm opinion of, madam, your Royal Highness's Most faithful and devoted humble servant,

Jan. 27, 1774.

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

HORACE WALpole.

Paris, Sept. 16, 1775.MR. BRODERICK brought me your letter yesterday, and I told him, as you may be sure, how glad I shall be to be of any use to him. I shall be of little, I believe, as his object is to see things, not persons. Madame Du Deffand would have been more pleased with your message, which I delivered immediately, if she had had greater faith in it yet, when Crawford and I come so often, how can she doubt her power of attraction? If possible, she is more worth visiting than ever so far am I from being ashamed of coming hither at my age, that I look on myself as wiser than one of the Magi, when I travel to adore this star in the East. The star and I went to the Opera last night, and when we came from Madame de Valière's, at one in the morning, it wanted to drive about the town, because it was too early to set. To be sure, you and I have dedicated our decline to very different occupations. You nurse a little girl of four years old, and I rake with an old woman of fourscore?* N'importe; we know many sages that take great pains to pass their time with less satisfaction.

We have both one capital mortification; have not you? That a great-grand-daughter of Madame de Sevigné pretends, for it is not certain, that she has been debauched by ancient Richelieu,† and half the world thinks that she is more guilty of forgery. The memoirs of the two parties are half as voluminous as those of Monsieur du Guines, and more are to appear.

* At this period Madame du Deffand had entered into her 79th year.-ED. The Marshal Duc de Richelieu, so celebrated for his wit, his gallantries, and military talents, was at this period in his eightieth year. He died in August, 1788, at the age of ninety-two.

You shall have some royal prints. New fashions in dress, furniture, baubles, I have seen none. Feathers are waning, and almost confined to filles and foreigners. I found out an Englishwoman at the Opera last night by her being covered with plumes and no rouge; so well our country women contrive to display their virtue!

I do not tell you about Mons. Turgot's regulations and reformations, because you care no more about their patrie than your own; but you shall hear a bon-mot of Madame du Deffand. Mons. Turgot has begun several reforms and retracted them: she said,―Dans le bon vieux tems on reculoit pour mieux sauter, au lieu que Mons. Turgot saute pour mieux reculer.

Of the house of Harrington I know as much as you do. Lady Barrymore is here † and my Lord and Lady Harriot‡ are coming: the first is excessively admired. Lady Mary Coke, Henry Grenvilleş and his wife, Crawford, Lord Coleraine, and Lord Duncannon, are here: the latter will carry this letter. There are many other English; but I did not come hither to get acquaintance of that sort. Madame du Deffand has filled up her vacancies, and given me enough new French. With one of them you would be delighted, a Madame de Marchais. She is not perfectly young, has a face like a Jew pedlar, her person is about four feet, her head about six, and her coiffure about ten. Her forehead, chin, and neck, are whiter than a miller's; and she wears more festoons of natural flowers than all the figurantes at the Opera. Her eloquence is still more abundant, her attentions exuberant. She talks volumes, writes folios-I mean in billets; presides over the Académie, inspires passions, and has not time enough to heal a quarter of the wounds she gives. She has a house in a nutshell, that is fuller of invention than a fairy tale; her bed stands in the middle of the room, because there is no other space that would hold it; it is surrounded by such a perspective of looking glasses, that you may see all that passes in it from the first ante-chamber. But you will see her if you come in spring, which you will not do, unless you bring Mie Mie and Raton, and one or two of Lord Carlisle's children; and that you will be afraid of doing, for Madame du Deffand has got a favourite dog,¶ that will bite all their noses off, and

*The French Minister of Finance.-ED.

Emilia, third daughter of William, second Earl of Harrington, and wife of Richard, sixth Earl of Barrymore. She died in 1780. Walpole writes to General Conway on the 6th of this month: " Lady Barrymore has taken a house. She will be glutted with conquests: I never saw any body so much admired. I doubt her poor little head will be quite overset."-ED.

Lady Henrietta Stanhope, fourth daughter of Lord Harrington, married, in March, 1776, Thomas, fourth Lord Foley. She died in 1781.-ED.

Henry Grenville, brother to Richard, first Earl Temple, had recently been ambassador at Constantinople. He married, October 11, 1757, Margaret, sister of John Hodgkinson Banks, Esq.-ED.

|| John Hanger, second Lord Coleraine in Ireland. He died 20 November, 1794. ¶ The well-known Tonton bequeathed by Madame du Deffand to Horace Walpole, and so frequently alluded to in his letters. Walpole writes to General Con

was very near tearing out one of Lady Barrymore's eyes the other night. Adieu! I shall see you by the middle of October the 21st,

Yours, &c. P.S. Duncannon is not gone, but I can send my letter to-morrow, and shall.

To George Augustus Selwyn, Esq., in Stanhope Street, Berkeley Square, London.

TO THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.

January 17, 1775.

SIR,

YOUR Royal Highness's commands are so much a law to me that, though deeply conscious of the inequality of my understanding to so arduous a question, and full of fears lest a word should drop from me that should lead your Royal Highness into any step prejudicial to yourself, or to the Princesses, your daughters. I venture to lay my thoughts at your Royal Highness's feet; only entreating, if they appear to have any weight in them, that your Royal Highness would not adopt them till they have been approved by better judgments

than mine.

Before I speak, sir, on the question whether your Royal Highness should take any measure in Parliament for procuring a provision for your family, permit me, sir, to state an apprehension that has struck me, from the conversation I had the honour of having with you, the last time I saw you. Your Royal Highness expressed doubts whether there might not be some idea of calling the legitimacy of your children in question. Alas! sir, if it is possible that any human mind should have such an idea, would not a motion in Parliament be the likeliest method of bringing that horrid intention into execution? The Parliament is so infamous, that it could, I firmly believe, be brought to lend its assistance to any thing. As your Royal Highness's hint of carrying any part of your cause thither, has not alarmed-may one not suppose that, not alarming, it pleases? What will either House not do? what has either refused to do? Consider, sir, how many would be glad to colour over their mean desertion or neglect

way, on the eighth of September, 1775: "Tonton grows the greater favourite the more people he devours. As I am the only person who dare correct him, I have already insisted on his being confined in the Bastile every day after five o'clock. The other night he flew at Lady Barrymore's face, and I thought would have torn her eye out; but it ended in biting her finger. She was terrified; she fell into tears. Madame Du Deffand, who has too much parts not to see every thing in its true light, perceiving that she had not beaten Tonton half enough, immediately told us a story of a lady, whose dog, having bitten a piece out of a gentleman's leg, the tender dame, in a great fright, cried out, "Won't it make my dog sick?" Collective Edition of Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 428.

of you, by calling into question the validity of your marriage, and, consequently, of the birth of your children. Shame is apt to fly to crimes for a veil. I have no difficulty in speaking on this question: your Royal Highness must authenticate the legitimacy of your children, before you think of a provision for them. I rest it there, sir, not to trouble you with unnecessary words.

In regard to the question your Royal Highness was pleased to put to me, on some motion for a provision, I will consider it in two lights; in the first, whether it would be proper for any lords to take it up. This, sir, I am sorry to say, lies in a very small compass, and extends to a very few lords in the opposition; your Royal Highness knows already my opinion, that a few opposing lords would only do your cause signal mischief, and would give the pretended sanction, that I fear is wished for, to doing nothing for you-and therefore if I am not wrong, not to be attempted. The Duke of R-, with whom I have talked, fears nothing, sir, but hurting your cause. He is so personally obnoxious, that he thinks a motion from your Royal Highness and himself would only be considered, certainly represented, as factious-his Grace's tenderness and delicacy would not suffer him to add, that none of his friends would support him, though he knows they would not. But what could be expected, sir, from a measure so generally abandoned? When could it be revived with success, unless not only times, but men, should be totally altered?

I can then, sir, have but one idea left, the same I suggested on Monday, if your Royal Highness should still think the present season a proper one, though it is probable that nothing will be stirred this year in relation to an increase of the revenue of the Crown. I must throw myself on your Royal Highness's great goodness and generosity before I presume to utter what I have farther to say. You have indeed, sir, commanded me, given me leave to speak what I think, and dare not at such a crisis but speak what I think. Be not offended, sir; my heart burns to serve you, but I will not waste your time on my idle apologies. My sincerity must be proved by my

actions.

I have said, sir, how infamous I think Parliaments. I have not so bad an opinion of all mankind in general. Humanity can operate, when interest is silent. It seems essential, in my opinion, to any future service that your Royal Highness may reap from a motion in Parliament, that the cry of mankind should be raised loud in your favour. That can only be excited by stating your sufferings, and by being able to prove that you have done every thing in your power to reconcile his Majesty, and to deprecate his anger. The plan I should humbly offer to your Royal Highness for your conduct will best explain my meaning, laying it before you, sir, with the ut most deference and diffidence; far from presuming to dictate, but obeying from perfect submission.

I should begin, sir, by writing an ostensible letter to the King,

asking pardon for a natural youthful error, regretting his displeasure, intreating a return of his fraternal affections, stating my own ill health, and how much that must be augmented by his resentment, and at least imploring he would give that relief to a sick body and wounded mind of promising he would make a proper provision for persons so dear to me as my wife and children. As heightening the picture a little would not add to your Royal Highness's disoder, I would beg the comfort of taking leave of him in so criticial a situation of my health. If this should have no effect, sir, I would just before leaving England, in my place in the House of Lords, acquaint their Lordships that I was grieved that his Majesty was so much offended at a youthful error, which, as it was neither repugnant to religion nor law at that time, had flattered myself had not been irremissible. That I had done but what the heir of the crown, James II., when Duke of York, had done and been forgiven, and what had very frequently been done by ther Princes of the Royal blood, and by Kings of England themselves. That I had never refused any match that had been proposed, and had only chosen for myself when no wife had been sought for me. had referred legal matrimony to the dissoluteness of youth; that I had That I selected a woman of blameless virtue; and that I had done what their Lordships could not disapprove, I had chosen a lady from their own class, into which Princes of the blood used to marry. I would then acquaint them with the steps I had in vain taken for a reconciliation. I would entreat them to be mediators with the King for remission of my fault in marrying without his approbation. I would acquaint them with the precarious state of my health, which obliged me to leave the kingdom and my family unprovided for; and I would beg them, as Christian Peers and his Majesty's great Council, to endeavour to repair the breaches in the Royal Family; and, if anything should happen to me, to intercede with his Majesty's piety and forgiveness, to make a suitable provision for two innocent young Princesses of his own blood, who had never offended him; and I would add, that, to avoid any suspicion of intending disturbing his Majesty's mind, I declined making any present parliamentary application for my children, but would leave to the wisdom of their Lordships to take the most proper time of being intercessors for me and my family with my Royal Brother. This address, sir, to the Lords I would deliver in writing, and would desire it might be entered on the journals. I would then retire and leave them.

But now, sir, after taking such a latitude of liberty, whom shall I interest to be intercessor for me with your Royal Highness-your own excellent heart, sir? No, you cannot be offended at zeal, even if it has passed its due bounds. On my soul, sir, I think that what I have said, is the best method I can devise for obtaining your Royal Highness's object. No high-flown loyalty nor grovelling selfinterest has dictated my words. If Parliament is against you, the majority of mankind must be gained over by acting as they would advise. If I advise you, sir, to stoop beyond what your Royal heart would sug