ous mendacities and enchanted
spider-webs,--CAN these go any road but one in this Universe?

That the Congress of Cambrai was not a myth, we convinced ourselves by a
letter of Voltaire's, who actually saw it dining there in the Year
1722, as he passed that way. Here, for Soissons, in like manner, are two
Letters, by a less celebrated but a still known English hand; which,
as utterances in presence of the fact itself, leave no doubt on the
subject. These the afflicted reader will perhaps consent to take a
glance of. If the Congress of Soissons, for the sake of memorable
objects concerned there, is still to be remembered, and believed in, for
a little while,--the question arises, How to do it, then?

The writer of these Letters is a serious, rather long-nosed young
English gentleman, not without intelligence, and of a wholesome and
honest nature; who became Lord Lyttelton, FIRST of those Lords, called
also "the Good Lord," father of "the Bad:" a lineal descendant of that
Lyttelton UPON whom Coke sits, or seems to sit, till the end of things:
author by and by of a _History of Henry the Second_ and other well-meant
books: a man of real worth, who attained to some note in the world. He
is now upon the Grand Tour,--which ran, at that time, by Luneville and
Lorraine, as would appear; at which point we shall first take him up. He
writes to his Father, Sir Thomas, at Hagley among the pleasant Hills of
Worcestershire,--date shortly after the assembling of that Congress to
rear of him;--and we strive to add a minimum of commentary. The "piece
of negligence," the "Mr. D.,"--none of mortals now knows who or what
they were:--

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART., AT HAGLEY.

"LUNEVILLE 21st July" 1728.

"DEAR SIR,--I thank you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligence
I acquainted you of in my last. Young fellows are often guilty of
voluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine was
quite accidental:"--Never mind it, my Son!

"Mr. D. tells you true that I am weary of losing money at cards; but it
is no less certain that without them I shall soon be weary of Lorraine.
The spirit of quadrille [obsolete game at cards] has possessed the land
from morning till midnight; there is nothing else in every house in
Town.

"This Court is fond of strangers, but with a proviso that strangers love
quadrille. Would you win the hearts of the Maids of Honor, you must lose
your money at quadrille; would you be thought a well-b