I fancy you have by this time had enough of mountains and vallies, so if you please we shall skip over Montmelian to Chamberry, where we arrived the same day on which we left Aiguebelle. To-morrow we shall sleep at Geneva. I did not expect much sleep this night from the thoughts of it, and therefore have sat up almost till day-break writing this letter. LETTER LXXX. Besançon. The D—— of H—— went some weeks ago to visit an acquaintance in one of the provinces of France. As I inclined rather to pass that time at Geneva, we agreed to meet at Paris, whither Jack and I are thus far on our way. I must now fairly confess that I found myself so happy with my kind friends the Genevois, that I could not spare an hour from their company to write to you or any correspondent, unless on indispensable business. I might also plead, that you yourself have been in some measure the cause of my being seduced from my pen. In your last letter; which I found waiting for me at the post-house at Geneva, you mention a late publication in terms that gave me a curiosity to see it; and an English gentleman, who had the only copy which has as yet reached that city, was so obliging as to lend it me. The hours which I usually allot to sleep, were all I had in my power to pass alone; and they were very considerably abridged by this admirable performance. The extensive reading there displayed, the perspicuity with which historical facts are related, the new light in which many of them are placed, the depth of the reflections, and the dignity and nervous force of the language, all announce the hand of a master. If the author lives to complete his arduous undertaking, he will do more to dissipate the historical darkness which overshadows the middle ages, give a clearer _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, and fill up, in a more satisfactory manner, the long interval between ancient and modern history, than all the writers who have preceded him. This accounts for my long silence. You see I resume my pen the very first opportunity, after the causes I have assigned for it are removed, which ought to give the more weight to my apology.