But, although the history altogether was written by Hamilton, it may not perhaps be known to every reader that Grammont himself sold the manuscript for fifteen hundred livres; and when it was brought to Fontenelle, then censor of the press, he refused to license it, from respect to the character of the Count, which, he thought, was represented as that of a gambler, and an unprincipled one too.  In fact, Grammont, like many an old gentleman, seems to have recollected the gaieties of his youth with more complaisance than was necessary, and has drawn them in pretty strong colours in that part of the work which is more particularly his own.  He laughed at poor Fontenelle’s scruples, and complained to the chancellor, who forced the censor to acquiesce:  the license was granted, and the Count put the whole of the money, or the best part of it, in his pocket, though he acknowledged the work to be Hamilton’s.  This is exactly correspondent to his general character:  when money was his object, he had little, or rather no delicacy.

The History of Grammont may be considered as unique there is nothing like it in any language.  For drollery, knowledge of the world, various satire, general utility, united with great vivacity of composition, Gil Blas is unrivalled:  but, as a merely agreeable book, the Memoirs of Grammont perhaps deserve that character more than any which was ever written:  it is pleasantry throughout, pleasantry of the best sort, unforced, graceful, and engaging.  Some French critic has justly observed, that, if any book were to be selected as affording the truest specimen of perfect French gaiety, the Memoirs of Grammont would be selected in preference to all others.  This has a Frenchman said of the work of a foreigner:  but that foreigner possessed much genius, had lived from his youth, not only in the best society of France, but with the most singular and agreeable man that France could produce.  Still, however, though Grammont and Hamilton were of dispositions very different, the latter must have possessed talents peculiarly brilliant, and admirably adapted to coincide with, and display those of his brother-in-law to the utmost advantage.  Gibbon extols the “ease and purity of Hamilton’s inimitable style;” and in this he is supported by Voltaire, although he adds the censure, that the Grammont Memoirs are, in point of materials, the most trifling; he might also in truth have said, the most improper.  The manners of the court of Charles II. were, to the utmost, profligate and abandoned:  yet in what colours have they been drawn by Hamilton?  The elegance of his pencil has rendered them more seductive and dangerous, than if it had more faithfully copied the originals.  From such a mingled mass of grossness of language, and of conduct, one would have turned away with disgust and abhorrence; but Hamilton was, to use the words of his admirer, Lord Orford, “superior to the indelicacy of the court,” whose vices he has so agreeably depicted; and that superiority has sheltered such vices from more than half the oblivion which would now have for ever concealed them.