The following letter was written on his first arrival at Dresden, and before any quarrel with Count Bruhl. Though addressed to a private friend, it seems nearly a duplicate of his public dispatch. It is no unfavourable specimen of his correspondence, but is perhaps less enlivened by anecdote, as well as less disfigured by indecencies, than many of his epistolary compositions from Germany. Dear Sir, The short time that I have been abroad, would, in any other Court, have hardly been sufficient to have formed a judgment, or given a description of it; but this, where I am, is so easy to be understood, that an understanding as mean as mine may see into it as clearly in a month’s time as in ten years. The King’s absolute and avowed hatred to all business, and his known love for idleness and low pleasures, such as operas, plays, masquerades, tilts and tournaments, balls, hunting, and shooting, prevent both him and his country from making that figure in Europe which this noble Electorate ought to do, and often has done. As to the King himself, he is very polite and well-bred, and his natural abilities far from bad ones. I have very often (much oftener than any Minister here) the honour of conversing with him, and I must say, that he talks better, and makes juster judgments on affairs than any other person I have met with in this Court: but he wont dwell long upon politics. ’Tis visible that he soon grows uneasy, and then you must change the discourse to the last stag that he hunted, the last opera that was acted, or the last picture that he has bought. Immediately, you perceive that his countenance clears up, and he talks on with pleasure. From these subjects ’tis easy to lead him back to any other you please, always taking care to observe his countenance, which is a very speaking one. He is seldom seen, when at Dresden, but at dinner. He always dines with company, and his buffoons make a great noise, and fight with one another during the whole repast, which is quite over by two o’clock; and then his Majesty retires to his own apartments, undresses totally, and then puts on his night-gown, in which he sits the rest of the day. Nobody must come to him at that time but Count Bruhl, Father Guerini, and the buffoon. He has had a great loss in the Electress of Bavaria being married, for she often came to him in the afternoon, and they have been surprised together in very indecent postures. The Queen knew this, and was furious about it. She complained of it to her Confessor; but the good Jesuit told her, that since things were so, it was much better that the King’s affections should remain in his own family, than be fixed upon a stranger, who might be a Lutheran, and do prejudice to their holy religion; and by this these holy casuists appeased her angry Majesty.