very short and strong light, the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever contrived by knaves, and executed by madmen and fools, against humanity.  There is a strange but never-failing relation between honest madmen and skillful knaves; and whenever one meets with collected numbers of the former, one may be very sure that they are secretly directed by the latter.  The popes, who have generally been both the ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted all the power and money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe already.  The times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark and uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking.  I wish we had good histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written upon the plan of Voltaire’s ‘de l’Esprit Humain’; for, I own, I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general:  one would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and ministers.

I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs of the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some time ago; and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing of either.  Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to stifle them?  I hope that they are both true, because I am very willing that the cares of the French government should be employed and confined to themselves.

Your friend, the Electress Palatine, has sent me six wild boars’ heads, and other ‘pieces de sa chasse’, in return for the fans, which she approved of extremely.  This present was signified to me by one Mr. Harold, who wrote me a letter in very indifferent English; I suppose he is a Dane who has been in England.

Mr. Harte came to town yesterday, and dined with me to-day.  We talked you over; and I can assure you, that though a parson, and no member ’du beau monde’, he thinks all the most shining accomplishments of it full as necessary for you as I do.  His expression was, that is all that he wants; but if he wants that, considering his situation and destination, he might as well want everything else.

This is the day when people reciprocally offer and receive the kindest and the warmest wishes, though, in general, without meaning them on one side, or believing them on the other.  They are formed by the head, in compliance with custom, though disavowed by the heart, in consequence of nature.  His wishes upon this occasion are the best that are the best turned; you do not, I am sure, doubt the truth of mine, and therefore I will express them with a Quaker-like simplicity.  May this new year be a very new one indeed to you; may you put off the old, and put on the new man! but I mean the outward, not the, inward man.  With this alteration, I might justly sum up all my wishes for you in these words: