There is going to be represented a translation of Hamlet; who when his hair is cut, and he is curled and powdered, I suppose will be exactly Monsieur le Prince Oreste.  T’other night I was at “Merope.”  The Dumenil was as divine as Mrs. Porter[1]; they said her familiar tones were those of a poissonniere.  In the last act, when one expected the catastrophe, Narbas, more interested than anybody to see the event, remained coolly on the stage to hear the story.  The Queen’s maid of honour entered without her handkerchief, and her hair most artfully undressed, and reeling as if she was maudlin, sobbed out a long narrative, that did not prove true; while Narbas, with all the good breeding in the world, was more attentive to her fright than to what had happened.  So much for propriety.  Now for probability.  Voltaire has published a tragedy, called “Les Guebres.”  Two Roman colonels open the piece:  they are brothers, and relate to one another, how they lately in company destroyed, by the Emperor’s mandate, a city of the Guebres, in which were their own wives and children; and they recollect that they want prodigiously to know whether both their families did perish in the flames.  The son of the one and the daughter of the other are taken up for heretics, and, thinking themselves brother and sister, insist upon being married, and upon being executed for their religion.  The son stabs his father, who is half a Guebre, too.  The high-priest rants and roars.  The Emperor arrives, blames the pontiff for being a persecutor, and forgives the son for assassinating his father (who does not die) because—­I don’t know why, but that he may marry his cousin.  The grave-diggers in Hamlet have no chance, when such a piece as the Guebres is written agreeably to all rules and unities.  Adieu, my dear Sir!  I hope to find you quite well at my return.  Yours ever.

[Footnote 1:  Mme. Dumenil, as has been mentioned in a former note, was the most popular of the French tragic actresses at this time, as Mrs. Porter was of the English actresses.]

THE FRENCH COURT—­THE YOUNG PRINCES—­ST. CYR—­MADAME DE MAILLY.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

PARIS, Sunday night, Sept. 17, 1769.

I am heartily tired; but, as it is too early to go to bed, I must tell you how agreeably I have passed the day.  I wished for you; the same scenes strike us both, and the same kind of visions has amused us both ever since we were born.

Well then; I went this morning to Versailles with my niece Mrs. Cholmondeley, Mrs. Hart, Lady Denbigh’s sister, and the Count de Grave, one of the most amiable, humane, and obliging men alive.  Our first object was to see Madame du Barri.  Being too early for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner.  The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton, except that he is more fair, and will be taller.  He has a sickly air, and no grace.  The Count de Provence has a very pleasing countenance, with