“My dear Count * * (if you will permit me to address you so familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language, like Grammont, and succeeding in London as nobody has succeeded since the days of Charles the second and the records of Antonio Hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous language,—which you understand and write, however, much better than it deserves.
“My ‘approbation,’ as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen—at least, such as they now are. And besides the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there was the attraction of vengeance. I have seen and felt much of what you have described so well. I have known the persons, and the re-unions so described,—(many of them, that is to say,)—and the portraits are so like that I cannot but admire the painter no less than his performance.
“But I am sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life at your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still more dissipated? But never mind—en avant!—live while you can; and that you may have the full enjoyment of the many advantages of youth, talent, and figure, which you possess, is the wish of an—Englishman.—I suppose,—but it is no treason; for my mother was Scotch, and my name and my family are both Norman; and as for myself, I am of no country. As for my ‘Works.’ which you are pleased to mention, let them go to the Devil, from whence (if you believe many persons) they came.
