d affable to their dependents. When you
visit some of the former, you go through as many ceremonies as though you
were to be invested with an order, and rise up and sit down so many
times, that you return more fatigued than you would from a cricket match;
while with the latter you are just as much at your ease as is consistent
with good breeding and propriety, and a whole circle is never put in
commotion at the entrance and exit of every individual who makes part of
it. Any one not prepared for these formalities, and who, for the first
time, saw an assembly of twenty people all rising from their seats at the
entrance of a single beau, would suppose they were preparing for a dance,
and that the new comer was a musician. For my part I always find it an
oeconomy of strength (when the locality makes it practicable) to take
possession of a window, and continue standing in readiness until the hour
of visiting is over, and calm is established by the arrangement of the
card tables.--The revolution has not annihilated the difference of rank;
though it has effected the abolition of titles; and I counsel all who
have remains of the gout or inflexible joints, not to frequent the houses
of ladies whose husbands have been ennobled only by their offices, of
those whose genealogies are modern, or of the collaterals of ancient
families, whose claims are so far removed as to be doubtful. The society
of all these is very exigent, and to be avoided by the infirm or
indolent.

I send you with this a little collection of airs which I think you will
find very agreeable. The French music has not, perhaps, all the
reputation it is entitled to. Rousseau has declared it to be nothing but
doleful psalmodies; Gray calls a French concert "Une tintamarre de
diable:" and the prejudices inspired by these great names are not easily
obliterated. We submit our judgement to theirs, even when our taste is
refractory.--The French composers seem to excel in marches, in lively
airs that abound in striking passages calculated for the popular taste,
and yet more particularly in those simple melodies they call romances:
they are often in a very charming and singular style, without being
either so delicate or affecting as the Italian. They have an expression
of plaintive tenderness, which makes one tranquil rather than melancholy;
and which, though it be more soothing than interesting, is very
delightful.--Yours, &c.

Amiens, 1793.

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