STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 5, 1764.

My dear Lord,—­Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with another line now.  Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his profession noticed.  He is very desirous of paying his respects to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris.  It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently me, if you will favour him with your attention.  Everybody experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to attribute it a little to my request.

I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers.  If they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the Dutch.  As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will hurry it into the first history he publishes.  I, therefore, enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver’s character, but to save the world from one more fable.  I know Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some satisfaction when the man knows how to ride).  I remember one night at the Duke of Grafton’s, a bust of Cromwell was produced:  Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the most speaking look imaginable, as much as to say, “Is it possible you can admire this man!” Apropos:  I am sorry to say the reports do not cease about the separation, and yet I have heard nothing that confirms it.

I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called “Essais sur les Moeurs;” forgive me if I put you in mind of it, and request you to send me that, or any other new book.  I am wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our political stuff, which, as the Parliament is happily at the distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help hearing of it.  I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the evenings are so long, I cannot get through one of his periods between dinner and supper.  They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight of King James’s journal;[1] I wish I could see all the trifling passages that he will not deign to admit into History.  I do not love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they would be thought, but for what they are.

[Footnote 1:  This journal is understood to have been destroyed in the course of the French Revolution, but it had not only been previously seen by Hume, as Walpole mentions here, but Mr. Fox had also had access to it, and had made some notes or extracts from it, which were subsequently communicated to Lord Macaulay when he carried out the design of writing a “History of the Revolution of 1688,” which Mr. Fox had contemplated.]