ones; and throw away no time (for it is thrown away) with the latter, which you can employ well with the former; for books must now be your only amusement, but, by no means your business.  I had much rather that you were passionately in love with some determined coquette of condition (who would lead you a dance, fashion, supple, and polish you), than that you knew all Plato and Aristotle by heart:  an hour at Versailles, Compiegne, or St. Cloud, is now worth more to you than three hours in your closet, with the best books that ever were written.

I hear the dispute between the court and the clergy is made up amicably, both parties have yielded something; the king being afraid of losing more of his soul, and the clergy more of their revenue.  Those gentlemen are very skillful in making the most of the vices and the weaknesses of the laity.  I hope you have read and informed yourself fully of everything relative to that affair; it is a very important question, in which the priesthood of every country in Europe is highly concerned.  If you would be thoroughly convinced that their tithes are of divine institution, and their property the property of God himself, not to be touched by any power on earth, read Fra Paolo De Beneficiis, an excellent and short book; for which, and some other treaties against the court of Rome, he was stilettoed; which made him say afterward, upon seeing an anonymous book written against him by order of the Pope, ’Conosco bene to stile Romano’.

The parliament of Paris, and the states of Languedoc, will, I believe, hardly scramble off; having only reason and justice, but no terrors on their side.  Those are political and constitutional questions that well deserve your attention and inquiries.  I hope you are thoroughly master of them.  It is also worth your while to collect and keep all the pieces written upon those subjects.

I hope you have been thanked by your ladies, at least, if not paid in money, for the mohairs, which I sent by a courier to Paris, some time ago, instead of sending them to Madame Morel, at Calais, as I told you I should.  Do they like them; and do they like you the better for getting them?  ‘Le petite Blot devroit au moins payer de sa personne’.  As for Madame de Polignac, I believe you will very willingly hold her excused from personal payment.

Before you return to England, pray go again to Orli, for two or three days, and also to St. Cloud, in order to secure a good reception there at your return.  Ask the Marquis de Matignon too, if he has any orders for you in England, or any letters or packets for Lord Bolingbroke.  Adieu!  Go on and prosper.

LETTER CLI

Greenwich, July 8, O. S. 1751.