"What you tell me of John Adams gives me great consolation. I had heard of the alarming news of his connexions with Fairholm, and things were put in the worst light. I was just ready to write to Ferguson to get from him a just state of the case; but if he has £15,000, or £18,000 remaining, his industry will recover him, and he may go on in his usual way of beneficence and generosity. That family is one of the few to whose civilities I have been much beholden, and I retain a lively sense of them.
"Our friend, I mean your friend, Lord Kames, had much provoked Voltaire, who never forgives, and never thinks any enemy below his notice. He has accordingly sent to the _Gazette Literaire_, an article with regard to the 'Elements of Criticism,' which turns that book extremely into ridicule, with a good deal of wit.[195:1] I tried to have it suppressed before it was printed; but the authors of that Gazette told me, that they durst neither suppress nor alter any thing that came from Voltaire. I suppose his lordship holds that satiric wit as cheap, as he does all the rest of the human race; and will not be in the least mortified by his censure.
"The taste for literature is neither decayed nor depraved here, as with the barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames. Some people, who had read your dissertation, affirmed to me, that it was the finest piece of criticism, incomparably, to be found in the English tongue. I know not if you have read the 'Poetique de Marmontel:' it is worth your perusal. Voltaire has published an edition of Corneille, and his notes and dissertations contain many fine things. There is a book published in Holland, in two volumes octavo, called 'De la Nature.' It is prolix, and in many parts whimsical; but contains some of the boldest reasonings to be found in print. There is a miscellany in three volumes duodecimo published here, where there are many good pieces. It is perhaps more amusing to me, than it will be to you; as there is scarce a poem in it whose author I do not know, or the person to whom it is addressed.
"It is very silly to form distant schemes: but I am fixed at Paris for some time, and, to judge by probabilities, for life. My income would suffice me to live at ease, and a younger brother of the best family would not think himself ill provided for, if he had such a revenue. Lodgings, a coach, and clothes, are all I need; and though I have entered late into this scene of life, I am almost as much at my ease, as if I had been educated in it from my infancy. However, sickness, or the infirmities of age, which I may soon expect, may probably make me think of a retreat: But whether that will be better found in Paris or elsewhere, time must determine. I forbid myself all resolution on that head.