writing it, as that I have of taking an occasion to subscribe my

self, sir,

Yours, &c.

XVIII.

[V. Guardian, &c.]

Blois, May 20, N. S.

SIR-I am extremely obliged to you for your last kind letter, which was the only English that had been spoken to me for some months together, for I am at present forced to think the absence of my countrymen my good fortune:

Votum in amante novum! vellem quod amatur abesset.

Strange wish to harbor in a lover's breast!

I wish that absent which I love the best.

OVID. Met. iii. 468.

This is an advantage that I could not have hoped for, had I stayed near the French court, though I must confess I would not but have seen it, because I believe it showed me some of the finest places and of the greatest persons in the world. One cannot hear a name mentioned in it that does not bring to mind a piece of a gazette, nor see a man that has not signalized himself in a battle. One would fancy one's self to be in the enchanted palaces of a romance; one meets with so many heroes, and finds something so like scenes of magic in the gardens, statues, and waterworks. I am ashamed that I am not able to make a quicker progress through the French tongue, because I believe it is impossible for a learner of a language to find in any nation such advantages as in this, where every body is so very courteous, and so very talkative. They always take care to make a noise as long as they are in company, and are as loud any hour in the morning, as our own countrymen at midnight. By what I have seen, there is more mirth in the French conversation, and more wit in the English. You abound more in jests, but they in laughter. Their language is indeed extremely proper to tattle in, it is made up of

so much repetition and compliment. One may know a foreigner by his answering only No or Yes to a question, which a Frenchman generally makes a sentence of. They have a set of ceremo nious phrases that runs through all ranks and degrees among them. Nothing is more common than to hear a shopkeeper desiring his neighbor to have the goodness to tell him what it is o'clock, or a couple of cobblers, that are extremely glad of the honor of seeing one another.

The face of the whole country where I now am is at this season pleasant beyond imagination. I cannot but fancy the birds. of this place, as well as the men, a great deal merrier than those of our own nation. I am sure the French year has got the start of ours more in the works of nature than in the New Style. I have passed one March in my life without being ruffled with the winds, and one April without being washed with rains.

I am, sir, yours, &c.

XIX. TO MR. WORTLEY

MONTAGU.

[Husband of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Addison's fellow-traveller from Châteaudun to Paris and thence to Genoa-perhaps also still further, though it is not known.-G.]

July 23.

DEAR SIR-I am now at Châteauaun, where I shall expect your company, or a letter from you, with some impatience. Here is one of the prettiest views in the world, if that can tempt you, and a ruin of about fourscore houses, which I know you would think a pleasanter prospect than the other, if it was not so modern. The inhabitants tell you the fire that has been the occasion of it was put out by a miracle: and that in its full rage it immediately ceased at the sight of him that in his lifetime rebuked the winds and the waves with a look. He was brought hither in the disguise of a wafer, and was assisted, I don't question, with

several tons of water. It would have been a very fair occasion to have signalized your Holy Tear at Vendome, if the very sight of a single drop could have quenched such a terrible fire. This is all the news I can write you from this place, where I have been hitherto taken up with the company of strangers that lodge in the same inn. I shall hope to see you within about a week hence; though I desire you not to hasten against your own inclinations; for, as much as I esteem your company, I can't desire it unless it be for your own convenience. I am, dear sir, your very faithful humble servant, J ADDISON.

Aux Trois Rois a Châteaudun.

XX. TO BISHOP HOUGH.

[From Blois Addison returned to Paris, and availed himself of his new acquisition to seek out the eminent men of the country. He is supposed to have been indebted to his contributions to the Musae Anglicanae for the favorable reception he met with from Boileau.-G.]

MY LORD-I received the honor of your Lordship's letter at Paris, and am since got as far as Lyons in my way for Italy. I am at present very well content to quit the French conversation, which, since the promotion of their young prince, begins to grow insupportable. That which was before the vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever. There is scarce a man in it that does not give himself greater airs upon it, and look as well pleased as if he had received some considerable advancement in his own fortunes. The best company I have met with since my being in this country has been among the men of Letters, who are generally easy of access, especially the religious, who have a great deal of time on their hands, and are glad to pass some of it off in the society of strangers. Their learning for the most part

1 Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. Proclaimed King of Spain, Nov. 1700.

lies among the old schoolmen. Their public disputes run upor the controversies between the Thomists and Scotists, which they manage with abundance of heat and false Latin.

When I was at Paris I visited the Père Malbranche, who has a particular esteem for the English nation, where I believe he has more admirers than in his own. The French don't care for following him through his deep researches, and generally look upon all the new philosophy as visionary or irreligious. Malbranche himself told me that he was five and twenty years old before he had so much as heard of the name of Des Cartes. His book is now reprinted with many additions, among which he showed me a very pretty hypothesis of colors which is different from that of Cartesius or Mr. Newton, though they may all three be true. He very much praised Mr. Newton's Mathematics, shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit. He was very solicitous about the English translation of his work, and was afraid it had been taken from an ill edition of it. Among other learned men I had the honor to be introduced to Mr. Boileau, who is now retouching his works and putting them out in a new impression. He is old and a little deaf, but talks incomparably well in his own calling. He heartily hates an ill poet, and throws himself into a passion when he talks of any one that has not a high respect for Homer and Virgil. I don't know whether there is more of old age or truth in his censures on the French writers, but he wonderfully decries the present, and extols very much his former cotemporaries, especially his two intimate friends Arnaud and Racine. I asked him whether he thought Télémaque was not a good modern piece he spoke of it with a great deal of esteem, and said that it gave us a better notion of Homer's way of writing than any translation of his works could do, but that it falls however infinitely short of the

1964.

Odyssey, for Mentor, says he, is eternally preaching, but Ulysses shows us every thing in his character and behavior that the other is still pressing on us by his precepts and instructions. He said the punishment of bad kings was very well invented, and might compare with any thing of that nature in the 6th Eneid, and that the deceit put on Télémaque's pilot to make him misguide his master is more artful and poetical than the death of Palinurus. I mention his discourse on this author because it is at present the book that is every where talked of, and has a great many partisans for and against it in this country. I found him as warm in crying up this man and the good poets in general, as he has been in censuring the bad ones of his time, as we commonly observe the man that makes the best friend is the worst enemy. He talked very much of Corneille, allowing him to be an excellent poet, but at the same time none of the best tragic writers, for that he declaimed too frequently, and made very fine descriptions often when there was no occasion for them. Aristotle, says he, proposes two passions that are proper to be raised by tragedy, terror and pity, but Corneille endeavors at a new one, which is admiration. He instanced in his Pompey (which he told us the late Duke of Condé thought the best tragedy that was ever written), where in the first scene the king of Egypt runs into a very pompous and long description of the battle of Pharsalia, though he was then in a great hurry of affairs and had not himself been present at it. I hope your Lordship will excuse me for this kind of intelligence, for in so beaten a road as that of France it is impossible to talk of any thing new unless we may be allowed to speak of particular persons, that are always changing, and may therefore furnish different matter for as many travellers as pass through the country.

I am, my Lord, your Lordship's, &c.

To the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry.