been. It will be charming indeed if Madame de Cambis is the ruling tint.
Adieu!

Yours ever.

[Footnote 1: Mme. de Mailly was the first of the mistresses of Louis XV.
She was the elder sister of the Duchesse de Chateauroux and Mme. de
Lauragais. She has the credit, such as it is, of having been really in
love with the King before she became acquainted with him; but she soon
retired, feeling repentance and shame at her position, and being
superseded in his fancy by the more showy attractions of her younger
sisters.]


_A MASQUERADE--STATE OF RUSSIA._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Feb._ 27, 1770.

It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human
composition, that there should be a good dose of the monkey too. If
Aesop had not lived so many centuries before the introduction of
masquerades and operas, he would certainly have anticipated my
observation, and worked it up into a capital fable. As we still trade
upon the stock of the ancients, we seldom deal in any other manufacture;
and, though nature, after new combinations, lets forth new
characteristics, it is very rarely that they are added to the old fund;
else how could so striking a remark have escaped being made, as mine, on
the joint ingredients of tiger and monkey? In France the latter