W21 1210841 V PREFACE THE Letters which compose these Volumes are certainly what, in the truest sense, may be called familiar; but the Editor does not, on that account, consider any apology necessary for offering them to the Public. The familiar letters of distinguished persons have always been sought for with eagerness, and received with avidity by all those who are not contented with reading history in compilations, or viewing characters through the refracting medium of the prejudices of others. By familiar letters are meant, letters written without premeditation, not extorted upon any particular occasion, but flowing from a habit of communicating whatever may have af fected the feelings, struck the fancy, or awakened the curiosity of the writer. It is this that gives a peculiar charm, which cannot exist in any studied compositions, to familiar letters: they are warm from the heart and head of the writer, who often betrays his own weaknesses without being aware of them, and as often those of his correspondent, at the moment he is employed in extolling his virtues. It is in such letters alone, that both the writer and the person addressed are seen (if the expression be allowable) unmade-up for the public eye, and that the characters and events mentioned in them are represented, not always as they really are, but always as they really appeared to their cotemporaries; affording often a curious and useful lesson to posterity, from the very different aspect such characters and events assume, when removed from the temporary circumstances which exalted or abased them. It is to be regretted that public events and public characters are less dwelt upon in the following letters than might have been expected; and that they are, therefore, sometimes rendered less generally interesting than such a long-continued correspondence would naturally have been between two persons, so justly distinguished, in their several countries, for wit, liveliness, quickness of observation, good taste, and knowledge of the world. Both too, living in intimacy with the most celebrated characters of that world, at Paris and London. Without wishing to be the panegyrist either of the writer or the person addressed, a few words are due to both their characters in explanation of what has just been mentioned.-Mr. Walpole was writing in a language not his own; his style, though (as Mad. du Deffand repeatedly allows) full of energy and life, was likewise full of inaccuracies as to French phraseology and arrangement, and he felt that he was not always aware of the force of his words, or the construction which might be put upon his phrases: he was convinced too (and indeed it was a well-known fact) that, in the latter part of the reign of Louis XV, all English letters from and to persons whose names were known in the world, were opened at the Post-office at Paris, and before they were allowed to reach the place of their destination, were often (though containing only private anecdote) sent to Versailles, to amuse the idleness, or feed the malice of the worthless profligates of both sexes, who, during the latter years of his life, composed the intimate society of Louis XV. Of this circumstance Mr. Walpole was repeatedly reminding his correspondent, and on this account repressing, not only his own pen, but hers, whenever it was happily deviating into character, anecdote, or opinion. To this must be added, that one of the principal features, and it must be called (when carried to such excess) one of the principal weaknesses of Mr. Walpole's character, was a fear of ridicule-a fear which, like most others, often leads to greater danger than that which it seeks to avoid. At the commencement of Mr. Walpole's acquaintance with Mad. du Deffand he was near fifty, and she above seventy years of age, and entirely blind. She had already long passed the first epoch in the life of a Frenchwoman, that of gallantry, and had as long been established as a bel-esprit; and it is to be remembered that in the anti-revolutionary world of Paris these epochas in life were as determined, and as strictly observed, as the changes of dress on a particular day of the different seasons; and that a woman endeavouring to attract lovers after she had ceased to be galante, would have been not less ridiculous than her wearing velvet when all the rest of the world were in demi-saisons. Mad. du Deffand, therefore, old and blind, had no more idea of |