sweet, correct and flowing; his memory vast and exact; his judgment strong and acute.”  On visiting Slate, in 1773, Dr. Johnson observed to Boswell, that this inscription “should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent should be.”  Upon this mr.  Croker remarks,—­“What a strange Perversion of language!—­universal!  Why, if it had been in Latin, so far from being universally understood, it would have been an utter blank to one (the better) half of the creation, and even of the men who might visit it, ninety-nine will understand it in English for one who could in Latin.  Something may be said for epitaphs and inscriptions addressed, as it were, to the world at large—­a triumphal arch —­ the pillar at Blenheim—­the monument on the field of Waterloo:  but a Latin epitaph in an English church, appears, in principle, as absurd as the dinner, which the doctor gives in Peregrine Pickle, ‘after the manner of the ancients.’  A mortal may surely be well satisfied if his fame lasts as long as the language in which he spoke or wrote."-E.

(888) La Duchesse de la Vali`ere, daughter of the Duc d’Usez.  She was one of the handsomest women in France, and preserved her beauty even to old age.  She died about the year 1792, at the age of eighty.-E.

(889) The Comtesse de Forcalquier, n`ee Canizy.  She had ben first married to the Comte d’Antin, son to the Comtesse de Toulouse, by a marriage previous to that with the Comte de Toulouse, one of the natural children of Louis Quatorze, whom he legitimated.-E.

(890) Sir Gilbert Elliot Of Minto.  He was appointed a lord of the admiralty in 1756, treasurer of the chamber in 1762, keeper of the signets for Scotland in 1767, and treasurer of the navy in 1770.  He died in 1777.-E.

(891) Le Duc de Duras, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber at the court of France.-E.

(892) M. D’Usson, who had formerly been in England in a diplomatic capacity; see ant`e p. 219, letter 157.  He was brother to the Marquis de Bonnac, the French ambassador at the Hague.-E.

(893) Wilkes’s application for the embassy to Constantinople was an unsuccessful one.  It will be seen in the Chatham Correspondence, that in February 1761, he had solicited of Mr. Pitt a seat at the board of trade.  “I wish,” he says, “the board of trade might be thought a place in which I could be of any service:  whatever the scene is, I shall endeavour to have the reputation of acting in a manner worthy of the connexion I have the honour to be in; and, among all the chances and changes of a political world, I will never have an obligation in a parliamentary way but to Mr. Pitt and his friends.”  Vol. ii. p. 94.-E.

(894) After his outlawry.

Letter 274 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.  Paris, Oct. 13, 1765. (page 434)