Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30th.

We are this minute come in here, and here’s an awkward abb`e this minute come in to us.  I asked him if he would sit down.  Oui, oui, oui.  He has ordered us a radish soup for supper, and has brought a chess-board to play with Mr. Conway.  I have left ’em in the act, and am set down to write to you.  Did you ever see any thing like the prospect we saw yesterday?  I never did.  We rode three leagues to see the Grande Chartreuse; (168) expected bad roads and the finest convent in the kingdom.  We were disappointed pro and con.  The building is large and plain, and has nothing remarkable but its primitive simplicity; they entertained us in the neatest manner, with eggs, pickled salmon, dried fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, and figs, and pressed us mightily to lie there.  We tumbled into the hands of a lay-brother, who, unluckily having the charge of the meal and bran, showed us little besides.  They desired us to set down our names in the list of strangers, where, among others, we found two mottos of our countrymen, for whose stupidity and brutality we blushed.  The first was of Sir j * * * D * * *, who had wrote down the first stanza of justum et tenacem, altering the last line to Mente quatit Carthusiana.  The second was of one D * *, Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia; et hic ventri indico bellum.  The Goth!-But the road, West, the road! winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds!  Below, a torrent breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks!  Sheets of @cascades forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom!  Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage!  This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold for one that has.  If I could send you my letter post between two lovely tempests that echoed each other’s wrath you might have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were reading it.  Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but without any prospect, stands the Chartreuse.  We staid there two hours, rode back through this charming picture, wished for a painter, wished to be poets!  Need I tell you we wished for you?  Good night!

Geneva, Oct. 2.

By beginning a new date, I should begin a new letter; but I have seen nothing yet, and the Post is going Out:  ’tis a strange tumbled dab, and dirty too, I am sending you; but what can I do?  There is no possibility of writing such a long history over again.  I find there are many English in the town; Lord Brook, (169) Lord Mansel, (170) Lord Hervey’s eldest son,(171) and a son of-of Mars and Venus, or of Antony and Cleopatra, or, in short, of-.  This is the boy, in the bow of whose hat Mr. Hedges pinned a pretty epigram.  I don’t know if you ever heard it; I’ll suppose you never did, because it will fill up my letter: