ne at any third court in Europe. The
French have something more 'liant', more insinuating and engaging in
their manner, than we have. An English minister shall have resided seven
years at a court, without having made any one personal connection there,
or without being intimate and domestic in any one house. He is always the
English minister, and never naturalized. He receives his orders, demands
an audience, writes an account of it to his Court, and his business is
done. A French minister, on the contrary, has not been six weeks at a
court without having, by a thousand little attentions, insinuated himself
into some degree of favor with the Prince, his wife, his mistress, his
favorite, and his minister. He has established himself upon a familiar
and domestic footing in a dozen of the best houses of the place, where he
has accustomed the people to be not only easy, but unguarded, before him;
he makes himself at home there, and they think him so. By these means he
knows the interior of those courts, and can almost write prophecies to
his own, from the knowledge he has of the characters, the humors, the
abilities, or the weaknesses of the actors. The Cardinal d'Ossat was
looked upon at Rome as an Italian, and not as a French cardinal; and
Monsieur d'Avaux, wherever he went, was never considered as a foreign
minister, but as a native, and a personal friend. Mere plain truth,
sense, and knowledge, will by no means do alone in courts; art and
ornaments must come to their assistance. Humors must be flattered; the
'mollia tempora' must be studied and known: confidence acquired by
seeming frankness, and profited of by silent skill. And, above all; you
must gain and engage the heart, to betray the understanding to you. 'Ha
tibi erunt artes'.

The death of the Prince of Wales, who was more beloved for his affability
and good-nature than esteemed for his steadiness and conduct, has given
concern to many, and apprehensions to all. The great difference of the
ages of the King and Prince George presents the prospect of a minority; a
disagreeable prospect for any nation! But it is to be hoped, and is most
probable, that the King, who is now perfectly recovered of his late
indisposition, may live to see his grandson of age. He is, seriously, a
most hopeful boy: gentle and good-natured, with good sound sense. This
event has made all sorts of people here historians, as well as
politicians. Our histories are rummaged for all the particular