Give me leave, Sir, to tell you freely, that I am embarrassed upon your account, as I cannot determine what it is that I wish from you.  When I read your last history, I am desirous that you should always write history; but when I read your ‘Rome Sauvee’ (although ill-printed and disfigured), yet I then wish you never to deviate from poetry; however, I confess that there still remains one history worthy of your pen, and of which your pen alone is worthy.  You have long ago given us the history of the greatest and most outrageous madman (I ask your pardon if I cannot say the greatest hero) of Europe; you have given us latterly the history of the greatest king; give us now the history of the greatest and most virtuous man in Europe; I should think it degrading to call him king.  To you this cannot be difficult, he is always before your eyes:  your poetical invention is not necessary to his glory, as that may safely rely upon your historical candor.  The first duty of an historian is the only one he need require from his, ’Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat’.  Adieu, Sir!  I find that I must admire you every day more and more; but I also know that nothing ever can add to the esteem and attachment with which I am actually, your most humble and most obedient servant, Chesterfield.

LETTER CLXXVI

London, September 19, 1752,

My dear friend:  Since you have been at Hanover, your correspondence has been both unfrequent and laconic.  You made indeed one great effort in folio on the 18th, with a postscript of the 22d August, N. S., and since that, ‘vous avez rate in quarto’.  On the 31st August, N. S., you give me no informations of what I want chiefly to know; which is, what Dr. Hugo (whom I charged you to consult) said of your asthmatic complaint, and what he prescribed you to prevent the returns of it; and also what is the company that, you keep there, who has been kind and civil to you, and who not.

You say that you go constantly to the parade; and you do very well; for though you are not of that trade, yet military matters make so great a part both of conversation and negotiation, that it is very proper not to be ignorant of them.  I hope you mind more than the mere exercise of the troops you see; and that you inform yourself at the same time, of the more material details; such as their pay, and the difference of it when in and out of quarters; what is furnished them by the country when in quarters, and what is allowed them of ammunition, bread, etc., when in the field; the number of men and officers in the several troops and companies, together with the non-commissioned officers, as ’caporals, frey-caporals, anspessades’, sergeants, quarter-masters, etc.; the clothing how frequent, how good, and how furnished; whether by the colonel, as here in England, from what we call the off-reckonings, that is, deductions