You see this letter is all in verse, and I can assure you, there is as much fancy shewn in the choice of them, as in the most studied expressions of our letters; there being, I believe, a million of verses designed for this use.  There is no colour, no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather, that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even Of news, without ever inking your fingers.

I FANCY you are now wondering at my profound learning; but, alas! dear madam, I am almost fallen into the misfortune so common to the ambitious; while they are employed on distant insignificant conquests abroad, a rebellion starts up at home;—­I am in great danger of losing my English.  I find ’tis not half so easy to me to write in it, as it was a twelvemonth ago.  I am forced to study for expressions, and must leave off all other languages, and try to learn my mother tongue.—­Human understanding is as much limited as human power, or human strength.  The memory can retain but a certain number of images; and ’tis as impossible for one human creature to be perfect master of ten different languages, as to have, in perfect subjection, ten different kingdoms, or to fight against ten men at a time; I am afraid I shall at last know none as I should do.  I live in a place, that very well represents the tower of Babel:  in Pera they speak Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Sclavonian, Walachian, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian, Hungarian; and, what is worse, there are ten of these languages spoken in my own family.  My grooms are Arabs; my footmen French, English, and Germans; my nurse an Armenian; my house-maids Russians; half a dozen other servants, Greeks; my steward an Italian; my janizaries Turks; so that I live in the perpetual hearing of this medley of sounds, which produces a very extraordinary effect upon the people that are born here; for they learn all these languages at the same time, and without knowing any of them well enough to write or read in it.  There are very few men, women, or even children here, that have not the same compass of words in five or six of them.  I know, myself, several infants of three or four years old, that speak Italian, French, Greek, Turkish, and Russian, which last they learn of their nurses, who are generally of that country.  This seems almost incredible to you, and is, in my mind, one of the most curious things in this country, and takes off very much from the merit of our ladies, who set up for such extraordinary geniuses, upon the credit of some superficial knowledge of French and Italian.

AS I prefer English to all the rest, I am extremely mortified at the daily decay of it in my head, where I’ll assure you (with grief of heart) it is reduced to such a small number of words, I cannot recollect any tolerable phrase to conclude my letter with, and am forced to tell your ladyship very bluntly, that I am,
                                                      Your’s, &C. &c.