both know, and don’t know what it should be.  I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture.  But, good night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet on one’s own dunghill!—­Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know!  Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower.

ILLNESS OF THE KING—­FRENCH AND ENGLISH ACTORS AND ACTRESSES:  CLAIRON, GARRICK, QUIN, MRS. CLIVE.

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,[1] 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