not play and speak the language readily.  There are many English here:  Lord Holderness, Conway(158) and Clinton, (159) and Lord George Bentinck; (160) Mr. Brand,(161) Offley, Frederic, Frampton, Bonfoy, etc.  Sir John Cotton’s son and a Mr. Vernon of Cambridge passed through Paris last week.  We shall stay here about a fortnight longer, and then go to Rheims with Mr. Conway for two or three months.  When you have nothing else to do, we shall be glad to hear from you; and any news.  If we did not remember there was such a place as England, we should know nothing of it:  the French never mention it, unless it happens to be in one of their proverbs!  Adieu!  Yours ever.

To-morrow we go to the Cid.  They have no farces but petites pieces like our “Devil to Pay.”

(157) Mr. Walpole left Cambridge towards the end of the year 1738, and in March, 1739, began his travels by going to Paris, accompanied by Mr. Gray.

(158) Francis, second Lord Conway, in 1750, created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford, and in 1793, Earl of Yarmouth and Marquis of Hertford.  He was the elder brother of General Conway, and grandfather of the present Marquis.

(159) Hugh Fortescue, in whose favour the abeyance into which the barony of Clinton had fallen on the death of Edward, thirteenth Baron Clinton, was terminated by writ of summons, in 1721.  He was created, in 1746, Lord Fortescue and Earl of Clinton; and died unmarried, in 1751.-E.

(160) Son of Henry, second Earl and first Duke of Portland; he died in 1759.-E.

(161) Mr. Brand of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire, who afterwards married Lady Caroline Pierrepoint, daughter of the Duke of Kingston by his second wife, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley.-E.

132 Letter 10 To Richard West, Esq. >From Paris, 1739.

Dear West, I should think myself to blame not to try to divert you, when you tell me I can.  From the air of your letter you seem to want amusement, that is, you want spirits.  I would recommend to you certain little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that I imagine bodily exercise is more suitable to your complaint.  If you would promise me to read them in the Temple garden, I would send you a little packet of plays and pamphlets that we have made up, and intend to dispatch to ‘Dick’s’ the first opportunity.-Stand by, clear the way, make room for the pompous appearance of Versailles le Grand!—­But no:  it fell so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray the office of writing its panegyric.(162) He likes it.  They say I am to like it better next Sunday; when the sun is to shine., the king is to be fine, the water-works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are to be installed!  Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have done nothing but dispute about it.  They say, we did not see it to advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden