Edmund Burke to his cousin, Garret Nagle, Esq.

MY DEAR GARRET,

Beaconfield, October 2, 1777.

I AM heartily obliged to you for your letter, and for your kind remembrance of me when you hap pened to see so many of my most particular friends in so remote and sequestered a spot as the lake of Killarney. Ned Nagle told me that they were at your lodge, but your letter only expresses that you dined with them: I am sure that you passed a pleasant day, and I may venture to say, with no less certainty, that the satisfactions of the lake of Killarney were heightened by meeting you there, and by your obliging attentions to them. You are now become the man of the Lough, and must be admitted to be the true Garroit Jarlu, who is come at last. If you are not that Garret, he will never come, and the honest Kerry men will be disappointed from generation to generation. Don't you like Charles Fox? If you were not pleased on that short acquaintance, you would on a further; for he is one of the pleasantest men in the world, as well as the greatest genius that perhaps this country has ever produced. If he is not extraor dinary, I assure you the British dominions cannot furnish any thing beyond him. I long to talk with him about you and your Lough. As to the thoughts of our visit to Ireland, it may possibly be in times more favourable to us both; but I am far from being able, at present, to engage for any thing.

I shall certainly remember what you say of Lord Kenmare. The moment I get to town, I shall wait upon him.

The captain, to whom you desire to be remembered, is one step nearer to a title to that appella

tion; for he was yesterday made a lieutenant, as the inclosed letter from Mr. Stephens, secretary to the Admiralty, will show you. This gentleman has been always very good to our Edmund, and steady in his protection to him. He had but just served the time necessary for his qualification, and could not have been made sooner, if he had been the first man in the kingdom in point of rank and interest. Indeed, all circumstances considered, he has been very fortunate. I dare say you will drink Mr. Stephens's health, as well as success to our young officer. I hope you will live to see him an admiral: at least, this is the talk of friends, on any promotion of those they love. Poor Wat Nagle has got out of a most disagreeable scrape, into which any man living might have fallen, but for which every man might not have been prepared with equally satisfactory evidence. It was very lucky for him, that my brother was in town at the time. He procured bail for him, and gave him letters for Bristol, and did every thing else which his disagreeable situation required. I also went to town; but my presence happily proved not necessary, as the grand jury threw out the bills. I wrote his brother Garret to put him out of his pain on so very unpleasant an accident. Mrs. Burke and my brother and son desire to be cordially remembered to you, and your son and family, and your worthy neighbours on the Blackwater. I find by Ned, that the old spirit and character of that county is fully kept up, which rejoices me beyond measure. I am ever, my dear Garret, your af fectionate kinsman and humble servant,

EDM. BURKE,

Mr. Curran to his son, Richard Curran.

DEAR RICHARD,

Paris, October 5, 1802.

HERE I am, after having lingered six or seven days very unnecessarily in London. I don't know that even the few days that I can spend here will not be enough-sickness, long and gloomy-convalescence, disturbed by various paroxysms-relapse confirmed the last a spectacle soon seen and painfully dwelt upon. I shall stay here yet a few days. There are some to whom I have introductions that I have not scen. I don't suppose I shall get myself presented to the consul.

Not having been privately baptized at St. James's would be a difficulty; to get over it a favour; and then the trouble of getting one's self costumed for the show; and then the small value of being driven, like the beasts of the field before Adam when he named them;-I think I sha'n't mind it. The character of this place is wonderfully different from that of London. I think I can say, without affectation, that I miss the frivolous elegance of the old times before the revolution, and that in the place of it I see a squalid beard-grown, vulgar vivacity; but still it is vivacity, infinitely preferable to the frozen and awkward sulk that I have left. Here they certainly wish to be happy, and think that by being merry they are so. I dined yesterday with Mr. Fox, and went in the evening to Tivoli, a great, planted, illuminated garden, where all the bourgeoisie of Paris, and some of a better description, went to see a balloon go up. The aeronaut was to have ascended with a smart girl, his bonne amie; for some reason that I know not, some one went up in her place; she was extremely

mortified; the balloon rose, diminished, vanished into night; no one could guess what might be its fate, and the poor dear one danced the whole evening to shake off her melancholy.

I am glad I am come here. I entertained many ideas of it, which I have entirely given up, or very much indeed altered. Never was there a scene that could furnish more to the weeping or the grinning philosopher; they might well agree that human affairs were a sud joke. I see it everywhere, and in every thing. The wheel has run a complete round; only changed some spokes and a few "felloes," very little for the better, but the axle certainly has not rusted-nor do I see any likelihood of its rusting. At present all is quiet except the tongue, thanks to those invaluable protectors of peace the army!! At Tivoli last night we had at least a hundred soldiers, with fixed bayonets. The consul now lives at St. Cloud, in a magnificence, solitary, but still fitting his marvellous fortune. He is very rarely seen-he travels by night -is indefatigable-has no favourite, &c.

As to the little affairs at the Priory, I can scarcely condescend, after a walk in the Louvre, amid the spirit of those arts which were inspired by freedom, and have been transmitted to power, to think of so poor a subject. I hope to get a letter from you in London, at Osborne's, Adelphi. Many of the Irish are here, not of consequence to be in danger: I have mcrely heard of them. Yesterday I met Arthur O'Connor in the street, with Lord and Lady Oxford. Her ladyship very kindly pressed me to dine; but I was engaged. I had bargained for a cabriolet, to go and see my

* Mr. Curran's country-seat, near Dublin.

poor gossip. Set out at two: at the end of five miles found I was totally misdirected-returned to St. Denys-got a miserable dinner, and was fleeced as usual. I had some vengeance of the rascal, however, by deploring the misery of a country where a stranger had nothing for his dinner but a bill. You feel a mistake in chronology in the two "yesterdays;" but, in fact, part of this was written yesterday, and the latter part now. I need not desire you to bid any one remember me; but tell them I remember them.-Say how Eliza does. Tell Amelia and Sarah I do not forget them. God bless you all. J. P. C.

Miss H. More to one of her sisters.

London, 1775. I HAD yesterday the pleasure of dining in Hillstreet, Berkeley-square, at a cértain Mrs. Montagu's, a name not totally obscure. The party consisted of herself, Mrs. Carter, Dr. Johnson, Solander and Matty, Mrs. Boscawen, Miss Reynolds, and Sir Joshua, (the idol of every company,) some other persons of high rank and less wit, and your humble servant a party that would not have disgraced the table of Lelius or of Atticus, I felt myself a worm, the more a worm for the consequence which was given me by mixing me with such a society; but, as I told Mrs. Boscawen, and with great truth, I had an opportunity of making an experiment of my heart, by which I learned that I was not en vious, for I certainly did not repine at being the meanest person in company.

Mrs. Montagu received me with the most en couraging kindness; she is not only the finest ge. nius, but the finest lady I ever saw: she lives in