TO HORACE WALPOLE

1760.  I am so charmed with the two specimens of Erse poetry (Macpherson’s) that I cannot help giving you the trouble to inquire a little farther about them.

Is there anything known of the author or authors, and of what antiquity they are supposed to be?  Is there any more to be had of equal beauty, or at all approaching to it?  I have often been told that the poem called “Hardycanute,” which I always admired, and still admire, was the work of somebody that lived a few years ago.  This I do not at all believe, though it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand; but, however, I am authorised by this report to ask whether the two poems in question are certainly antique and genuine.  I make this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am not otherwise concerned about it; for, if I were sure that anyone now living in Scotland had written them to divert himself, and laugh at the credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the Highlands only for the pleasure of seeing him.

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ANTONY HAMILTON

Memoirs of the Count de Grammont

Count Antony Hamilton, soldier, courtier, and author, was born at Roscrea, Tipperary, in 1646.  His father was George Hamilton, grandson of the Duke of Hamilton.  At the death of Charles I., the Hamilton family took refuge abroad until the Restoration, and Antony’s boyhood, until his fourteenth year, was spent in France.  Shortly after their return with the Stuart dynasty, the illustrious Count de Grammont, exiled from France in 1662, won the affections of Elizabeth, Antony’s sister, and then with characteristic inconstancy, chose to forget her; but he was caught up at Dover by the brothers Antony and George, and brought back to fulfil his engagement.  After James II. had retired from England, Antony Hamilton frequented the court of the fallen monarch at Saint-Germain, where he died on April 21, 1720.  In the “Memoirs of the Count de Grammont,” first published anonymously in 1713, Hamilton, though of British birth, wrote one of the great classics of the French language.  The spirited wit, the malicious and graceful gaiety of these adventures, are perfectly French in quality.

I.—­Soldier and Gamester

Those who read only for their amusement seem to me more reasonable than those who read only in order to discover errors; and I may say at once that I write for the former, without troubling myself about the erudition of the critics.  What does chronological order matter, or an exact narrative, if only this sketch succeeds in giving a perfect impression of its original?

I write, with something of Plutarch’s freedom, a life more amazing than any which that author has left us; an inimitable character whose radiance covers faults which it would be vain to dissemble; an illustrious personality whose vices and virtues are inextricably interwoven, and seem as rare in their perfect harmony as they are brilliant in their contrast.  In war, in love, at the gaming-table, and in all the varied circumstances of a long career, Count de Grammont has been the wonder of his age.