[306:2] Madame de Boufflers seems to have early apprehended mischief from Walpole's letter. In the letter referred to, she says, "Je voudrois savoir si une lettre du Roy de Prusse qui court Paris est vraie ou fausse. On dit qu'elle est pleine d'ironie." She then proceeds to describe the letter. Hume in answer says, "I suppose, that by this time you have learned it was Horace Walpole who wrote the Prussian letter you mentioned to me. It is a strange inclination we have to be wits, preferably to every thing else. He is a very worthy man; he esteems and even admires Rousseau; yet he could not forbear, for the sake of a very indifferent joke, the turning him into ridicule, and saying harsh things against him. I am a little angry with him; and I hear you are a great deal: but the matter ought to be treated only as a piece of levity."--_Private Correspondence_, p. 130. [307:1] Private Correspondence, p. 125-128. [308:1] Private Correspondence, p. 131-132. [309:1] The mark of interrogation is in the MS. [309:2] Writing to the Marquise de Barbantane, he makes the following addition to this anecdote:-- "When the hour came, he told me, that he had changed his resolution, and would not go: 'for--what shall I do with Sultan?' That is the name of his dog. 'You must leave him behind,' said I. 'But the first person,' replied he, 'who opens the door, Sultan will run into the streets in search of me, and will be lost.' 'You must then,' said I, 'lock him up in your room, and put the key in your pocket.' This was accordingly done: but as we went down stairs, the dog howled and made a noise; his master turned back, and said he had not resolution to leave him in that condition; but I caught him in my arms and told him, that Mrs. Garrick had dismissed another company in order to make room for him; that the King and Queen were expecting to see him; and without a better reason than Sultan's impatience, it would be ridiculous to disappoint them. Partly by these reasons, and partly by force, I engaged him to proceed."--_Private Correspondence_, p. 144. [310:1] MS. R.S.E. [310:2] The word appears not to be used in its modern popular sense, but as meaning a person full of caprice. [310:3] MS. R.S.E. [311:1] In his narrative of the controversy, Hume says, "I wrote immediately to my friend Mr. John Stewart of Buckingham Street, that I had an affair to communicate to him, of so secret and delicate a nature, that I should not venture even to commit it to paper, but that he might learn the particulars of Mr. Elliot. . . . . Mr. Stewart was to look out for some honest and discreet farmer in his neighbourhood, who might be willing to lodge and board M. Rousseau and his gouvernante. . . . . It was not long before Mr. Stewart wrote me word he had found a situation, which he conceived might be agreeable," &c.