from you will be entirely English. You will tell me whom you like best, Ben Jonson, or Vanbrugh, or Wycherly. You will set up for a judge between Dryden, Pope, Addison and Prior. In the mean time, if you remember something of French poetry, I will tell you I have made three acts entirely new, which will be acted in a very few days. I hope Ériphyle by these means will rear up her head even above the sacred laurels of Jephté. But I have a more gallant work to perform. Yesterday M. Ballot came to see me, and carried me to M. Lancret’s, where I saw a very pretty picture, which represents the most charming priestess of Diana that ever trod the stage. Mme Sallé’s picture is, as it should be, better than that of Camargo ; yet I require something again in the likeness, which is not perfect. The verses, which are to be engraved under the print, should be better too than those M. La Faye made for Camargo : but I will not fight it against young Bernard’s amiable muse. He is a very assiduous courtier to Mme Sallé : he must sing the nymph whom he sees every day. For my part I had not the luck to find her at home all these days. I went thither three or four times ; she was always out. I design to go to day, and to talk much of you with your divinity.
Now a word about some other affairs. First I entreat you not to show Julius Cæsar before I have sent you many alterations I have made in that poem. If you please I will send you, by the surest way, the new Ériphyle, with a compliment in rhyme, which Dufresne will recite at the ouverture of the French théâtre. There is another business, which I have exceedingly at heart : the plates of the Henriade, great and small, are in the hands of the bookseller Woodman, who lives in Russel-street, Covent-Garden : if you could buy them at a reasonable rate it would be a notable service to me. I know they want to be retouched again by some able hand, and that I will take care of at Paris. Woodman could not make any use of those plates, and they are necessary to me for the great edition of the Henriade, which I design to print at Paris. You must not let him suspect you have any great desire to have those plates, nor that you set a great value upon them. It will be an easy matter to you to buy them very cheap. I will send you the money by the banker you shall appoint. Forgive me if I have not seen Mme Sallé oftener : Ériphyle engrossed all my time and my thoughts. But now I am free from tragic fopperies, I intend to pay my court often to true and modest virtue. Farewell my friend, I will drink your health today with Mmes Tilly
