It is an anxious moment with the poor French here:  a strong notion is spread, that the Prince of Cond`e will soon make some attempt; and the National Assembly, by their pompous blustering seem to dread it.  Perhaps the moment is yet too early, till anarchy is got to a greater head; but as to the duration of the present revolution, I no more expect it, than I do the millennium before Christmas.  Had the revolutionists had the sense and moderation of our ancestors, or of the present Poles, they might have delivered and blessed their country:  but violence, injustice, and savage cruelty, tutored by inexperienced pedantry, produce offspring exactly resembling their parents, or turn their enemies into similar demons.  Barbarity will be copied by revenge.

Lord Fitzwilliam has flown to Dublin and back.  He returned to Richmond on the fourteenth day from his departure, and the next morning set out for France:  no courier can do more.  In my last, the description of June for orange-flowers, pray read roses:  the east winds have starved all the former; but the latter, having been settled here before the wars of York and Lancaster, are naturalized to the climate, and reek not whether June arrives in summer or winter.  They blow by their own old-style almanacks.  Madame d’Albany might have found plenty of white ones on her own tenth of June; but, on that very day, she chose to go to see the King in the House of Lords, with the crown on his head, proroguing the Parliament.(810) What an odd rencontre!  Was it philosophy or insensibility?  I believe it is certain that her husband was in Westminster-hall at the coronation.

The patriarchess of the Methodists, Lady Huntingdon, is dead.  Now she and Whitfield are gone, the sect will probably decline:  a second crop of apostles seldom acquire the influence of the founders.  To-day’s paper declares upon its say-so, that Mr. Fawkener is at hand, with Catherine Slay-Czar’s(811) acquiescence to our terms; but I have not entire faith in a precursor on such an occasion, and from Holland too.  It looks more like a courier to the stocks; and yet I am in little expectation of a war, as I believe we are boldly determined to remain at peace.  And now my pen is quite dry-you are quite sure not from laziness, but from the season of the year, which is very anti-correspondent.  Adieu!

(807) See letter to George Montagu, Esq., Sept. 17, 1769, vol.3, letter 371.

(808) This work, which was the last labour of the historian, was suggested by the perusal of Major Rennell’s “Memoir of a Map of Hindostan.”  In sending a copy of it to Gibbon, he says “No man had formed a more decided resolution of retreating early from public view’ and of spending the eve of life in the tranquillity of professional and domestic occupations; but, directly in the face of that purpose, I step forth with a new work, when just on the brink of threescore and ten.  My book has met with a reception beyond what the spe lentus, pavidusque futuri, dared to expect.  I find, however, like other parents, that I have a partial fondness for this child of my old age, and cannot set my heart quite at rest, until I know your opinion of it."-E.