Next Tuesday that Parliament is to meet—­and a deep game it has to play! few Parliaments a greater.  The world is in amaze here that no account is arrived from America of the result of their General Congress—­if any is come it is very secret; and that has no favourable aspect.  The combination and spirit there seem to be universal, and is very alarming.  I am the humble servant of events, and you know never meddle with prophecy.  It would be difficult to descry good omens, be the issue what it will.

The old French Parliament is restored with great eclat.[1] Monsieur de Maurepas, author of the revolution, was received one night at the Opera with boundless shouts of applause.  It is even said that the mob intended, when the King should go to hold the lit de justice,[2] to draw his coach.  How singular it would be if Wilkes’s case should be copied for a King of France!  Do you think Rousseau was in the right, when he said that he could tell what would be the manners of any capital city from certain given lights?  I don’t know what he may do on Constantinople and Pekin—­but Paris and London!  I don’t believe Voltaire likes these changes.  I have seen nothing of his writing for many months; not even on the poisoning Jesuits.  For our part, I repeat it, we shall contribute nothing to the Histoire des Moeurs, not for want of materials, but for want of writers.  We have comedies without novelty, gross satires without stings, metaphysical eloquence, and antiquarians that discover nothing.

     Boeotum in crasso jurares aere natos!

[Footnote 1:  In 1770 the Chancellor, Maupeou, had abolished the Parliament, as has been mentioned in a former note.  Their conduct ever since the death of Richelieu had been factious and corrupt.  But, though the Sovereign Courts, which Maupeou had established in their stead, had worked well, their extinction had been unpopular in Paris; and, on the accession of Louis XVI., the new Prime Minister, Maurepas, proposed their re-establishment, and the Queen, most unfortunately, was persuaded by the Duc de Choiseul to exert her influence in support of the measure.  Turgot, the great Finance Minister—­indeed, the greatest statesman that France ever produced—­resisted it with powerful arguments, but Louis yielded to the influence of his consort.  The Parliaments were re-established, and soon verified all the predictions of Turgot by conduct more factious and violent than ever. (See the Editor’s “France under the Bourbons,” iii. 413.)]

[Footnote 2:  A Lit de Justice was an extraordinary meeting of the Parliament, presided over by the sovereign in person, and one in which no opposition, or even discussion, was permitted; but any edict which had been issued was at once registered.]