common-places, which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusions, and sometimes writes finely:  there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man.  After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation.  Then why print this work?  If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments could support it?

[Footnote 1:  Helvetius was the son of the French king’s physician.  His book was condemned by the Parliament of Paris as derogatory to the nature of man.]

[Footnote 2:  Montesquieu was President of the Parliament of Bordeaux.  He was a voluminous writer, his most celebrated work being his “L’Esprit des Lois.”  Burke described him as “A genius not born in every country, or every time:  with a Herculean robustness of mind; and nerves not to be broken by labour.”]

We are promised Lord Clarendon in February from Oxford, but I hear shall have the surreptitious edition from Holland much sooner.

You see, Sir, I am a sceptic as well as Helvetius, but of a more moderate complexion.  There is no harm in telling mankind that there is not so much divinity in the Aeneid as they imagine; but, even if I thought so, I would not preach that virtue and friendship are mere names, and resolvable into self-interest; because there are numbers that would remember the grounds of the principle, and forget what was to be engrafted on it.  Adieu!

STATE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

TO THE HON.  H.S.  CONWAY.

ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 19, 1759.

I hope the treaty of Sluys[1] advances rapidly.  Considering that your own court is as new to you as Monsieur de Bareil and his, you cannot be very well entertained:  the joys of a Dutch fishing town and the incidents of a cartel will not compose a very agreeable history.  In the mean time you do not lose much; though the Parliament is met, no politics are come to town; one may describe the House of Commons like the price of stocks—­Debates, nothing done.  Votes, under par.  Patriots, no price.  Oratory, books shut.  Love and war are as much at a stand; neither the Duchess of Hamilton, nor the expeditions are gone off yet.  Prince Edward has asked to go to Quebec, and has been refused.  If I was sure they would refuse me, I would ask to go thither too.  I should not dislike about as much laurel as I could stick in my window at Christmas.

[Footnote 1:  Treaty of Sluys.  Conway was engaged at Sluys negotiating with the French envoy, M. de Bareil, for an exchange of prisoners.]

We are next week to have a serenata at the Opera-house for the King of Prussia’s birthday; it is to begin, “Viva Georgio, e Frederigo viva!” It will, I own, divert me to see my Lord Temple whispering for this alliance, on the same bench on which I have so often seen him whisper against all Germany.  The new opera pleases universally, and I hope will yet hold up its head.  Since Vanneschi is cunning enough to make us sing the roast beef of old Germany, I am persuaded it will revive; politics are the only hot-bed for keeping such a tender plant as Italian music alive in England.