which I beg the favour of you to send me you can conveniently. My best complimen Mrs. Wharton. I am ever yours,

Pemb. Hall, March 25, 17

THOUGH I had no reasonable excuse for myself fore I received your last letter, yet since that t I have had a pretty good one; having been tal up in quarrelling with Peter-House, and in rem ing myself from thence to Pembroke. This m be looked upon as a sort of æra in a life so bar of events as mine, yet I shall treat it in Voltair manner, and only tell you that I left my lodgin because the rooms were noisy, and the people

not expect that the world, which is just goin be invaded, will bestow much attention on ther you hear any thing, you will tell us.

The similitude between the Italian Republ and ancient Greece, has often struck me, as it you. I do not wonder that Sully's Memoirs h highly entertained you; but cannot agree with y in thinking him or his master two of the best m in the world. The king was, indeed, one of best natured men that ever lived; but it was o ing only to chance that his intended marriage w Mad. d'Estrées, or with the Marqse. de Verneu did not involve him and the kingdom in the mo inextricable confusion. And his design upon th Princess of Condé (in his old age) was worse stil As to the minister, his base application to Con cini, after the murther of Henry, has quite ruine him in my esteem, and destroyed all the merit o that honest surly pride for which I honoured hin before. Yet I own that as kings and ministers go they were both extraordinary men. Pray look at the end of Birch's State Papers of Sir T. Edmondes, for the character of the French Court, at that time, written by Sir George Carew.

door, like a Mercer's Wife, that imitates p who go a visiting. I would forgive you th you could possibly suspect I were doing any t that I liked better; for then your formality m look like being piqued at my negligence, which somewhat in it like kindness: But you know at Stoke, hearing, seeing, doing absolutely noth Not such a nothing as you do at Tunbridge, quered and diversified with a succession of fleet colours; but heavy, lifeless, without form and vo sometimes almost as black as the moral of Voltai Lisbon, which angers you so. I have had no m muscular inflations, and am only troubled with t depression of mind. You will not expect theref I should give you any account of my Verve, whi is at best (you know) of so delicate a constitutio and has such weak nerves, as not to stir out of chamber above three days in a year. But I sha enquire after yours, and why it is off again? It ha certainly worse nerves than mine, if your Review ers have frighted it. Sure I (not to mention a sco of your other Critics) am something a better judg than all the Man-Midwives and Presbyterian Par sons that ever were born. Pray give me leave t ask you, do you find yourself mendations of such people? (for you have your share of these too) I dare say not; your vanity has

tickled with the com

His Poem "Sur la Destruction de Lisbon," published about that time.-Mason.

+ The Reviewers, at the time, were supposed to be of these professions.-Mason.