TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

ARLINGTON STREET, March 26, 1765.

Three weeks are a great while, my dear lord, for me to have been without writing to you; but besides that I have passed many days at Strawberry, to cure my cold (which it has done), there has nothing happened worth sending across the sea.  Politics have dozed, and common events been fast asleep.  Of Guerchy’s affair, you probably know more than I do; it is now forgotten.  I told him I had absolute proof of his innocence, for I was sure, that if he had offered money for assassination, the men who swear against him would have taken it.

The King has been very seriously ill, and in great danger.  I would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the worst.  I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him.  They talk of his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public, and the bills are passed by commission; but he rides out.  The Royal Family have suffered like us mortals; the Duke of Gloucester has had a fever, but I believe his chief complaint is of a youthful kind.  Prince Frederick is thought to be in a deep consumption; and for the Duke of Cumberland, next post will probably certify you of his death, as he is relapsed, and there are no hopes of him.  He fell into his lethargy again, and when they waked him, he said he did not know whether he could call himself obliged to them.

I dined two days ago at Monsieur de Guerchy’s, with the Count de Caraman, who brought me your letter.  He seems a very agreeable man, and you may be sure, for your sake, and Madame de Mirepoix’s, no civilities in my power shall be wanting.  I have not yet seen Schouvaloff, about whom one has more curiosity ­it is an opportunity of gratifying that passion which one can so seldom do in personages of his historic nature, especially remote foreigners.  I wish M. de Caraman had brought the “Siege of Calais,” which he tells me is printed, though your account has a little abated my impatience.  They tell us the French comedians are to act at Calais this summer ­is it possible they can be so absurd, or think us so absurd as to go thither, if we would not go further?  I remember, at Rheims, they believed that English ladies went to Calais to drink champagne ­is this the suite of that belief?  I was mightily pleased with the Duc de Choiseul’s answer to the Clairon; but when I hear of the French admiration of Garrick, it takes off something of my wonder at the prodigious adoration of him at home.  I never could conceive the marvellous merit of repeating the works of others in one’s own language with propriety, however well delivered.  Shakespeare is not more admired for writing his plays, than Garrick for acting them.  I think him a very good and very various player ­but several have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts.  Quin in Falstaff, was as excellent as Garrick in Lear.  Old Johnson far more natural in everything he attempted.  Mrs. Porter and your Dumesnil surpassed him in passionate tragedy; Cibber and O’Brien were what Garrick could never reach, coxcombs, and men of fashion.  Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in low comedy ­and yet to me, Ranger was the part that suited Garrick the best of all he ever performed.  He was a poor Lothario, a ridiculous Othello, inferior to Quin in Sir John Brute and Macbeth, and to Cibber in Bayes, and a woful Lord Hastings and Lord Townley.  Indeed, his Bayes was original, but not the true part:  Cibber was the burlesque of a great poet, as the part was designed, but Garrick made it a Garretteer.  The town did not like him in Hotspur, and yet I don’t know whether he did not succeed in it beyond all the rest.  Sir Charles Williams and Lord Holland thought so too, and they were no bad judges.  I am impatient to see the Clairon, and certainly will, as I have promised, though I have not fixed my day.  But do you know you alarm me!  There was a time when I was a match for Madame de Mirepoix at pharaoh, to any hour of the night, and I believe did play with her five nights in a week till three and four in the morning ­but till eleven o’clock to-morrow morning ­Oh! that is a little too much, even at loo.  Besides, I shall not go to Paris for pharaoh ­if I play all night, how shall I see everything all day?

Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Bäume de vie, for which she gives you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.

We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena in the Gevaudan; but our fox-hunters despise you:  it is exactly the enchanted monster of old romances.  If I had known its history a few months ago, I believe it would have appeared in the “Castle of Otranto,” ­the success of which has, at last, brought me to own it, though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid; but it was comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the author:  indeed, it met with too much honour far, for at first it was universally believed to be Mr. Gray’s.  As all the first impression is sold, I am hurrying out another, with a new preface, which I will send you.