all events, I insist upon your never missing Marcel, who is at present of more consequence to you than all the bureaux in Europe; for this is the time for you to acquire ‘tous ces petits riens’, which, though in an arithmetical account, added to one another ‘ad infinitum’, they would amount to nothing, in the account of the world amount to a great and important sum.  ‘Les agremens et les graces’, without which you will never be anything, are absolutely made up of all those ‘riens’, which are more easily felt than described.  By the way, you may take your lodgings for one whole year certain, by which means you may get them much cheaper; for though I intend to see you here in less than a year, it will be but for a little time, and you will return to Paris again, where I intend you shall stay till the end of April twelvemonth, 1752, at which time, provided you have got all ’la politesse, les manieres, les attentions, et les graces du beau monde’, I shall place you in some business suitable to your destination.

I have received, at last, your present of the cartoon, from Dominichino, by Planchet.  It is very finely done, it is pity that he did not take in all the figures of the original.  I will hang it up, where it shall be your own again some time or other.

Mr. Harte is returned in perfect health from Cornwall, and has taken possession of his prebendal house at Windsor, which is a very pretty one.  As I dare say you will always feel, I hope you will always express, the strongest sentiments of gratitude and friendship for him.  Write to him frequently, and attend to the letters you receive from him.  He shall be with us at Blackheath, alias BABIOLE, all the time that I propose you shall be there, which I believe will be the month of August next.

Having thus mentioned to you the probable time of our meeting, I will prepare you a little for it.  Hatred; jealousy, or envy, make, most people attentive to discover the least defects of those they do not love; they rejoice at every new discovery they make of that kind, and take care to publish it.  I thank God, I do not know what those three ungenerous passions are, having never felt them in my own breast; but love has just the same effect upon me, except that I conceal, instead of publishing, the defeats which my attention makes me discover in those I love.  I curiously pry into them; I analyze them; and, wishing either to find them perfect, or to make them so, nothing escapes me, and I soon discover every the least gradation toward or from that perfection.  You must therefore expect the most critical ‘examen’ that ever anybody underwent.  I shall discover your least, as well as your greatest defects, and I shall very freely tell you of them, ‘Non quod odio habeam sed quod amem’.  But I shall tell them you ‘tete-a-tete’, and as MICIO not as DEMEA; and I will tell them to nobody else.  I think it but fair to inform you beforehand, where I suspect that my criticisms are likely to fall; and