From ASHTON, ca Wednesday 4 April 1739, OS To WEST, Tuesday

162
F R O M A S H T O N C A 4 APRIL 1739,
From
ASHTON,
O.S.
ca Wednesday 4 April 1739, O.S.
Missing. Probably written in Hanover Square, L o n d o n (see post July 1739). Gray
wrote to Ashton 21 April 1739, N.S.: 'You and W e s t have m a d e us happy tonight in
a heap of letters, and w e are resolved to repay you tenfold' (Gray's Corr. i. 104; see
also above note o n W e s t to H W ) .
To
WEST,
Tuesday 21 April 1739, N.S.
Reprinted from Works iv. 419-21.
Paris,1 April 21, N.S., 1739.
Dear West,
Y O U figure us in a set of pleasures,2 which, believe m e , w e do not
find: cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb all variation of pleasures. T h e operas indeed are m u c h frequented three times
a week;3 but to m e they would be a greater penance than eating maigre:
their music resembles a gooseberry tart as m u c h as it does harmony.
W e have not yet been at the Italian playhouse;4 scarce any one goes
there. Their best amusement, and which in some parts beats ours, is
the comedy;s three or four of the actors6 excel any w e have: but then to
this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights, and then they
go, be the play good or bad—except on Moliere's nights, whose pieces
they are quite weary of.7 Gray and I have been at the Avare tonight: I
cannot at all c o m m e n d their performance of it. Last night I was in the
1. 'Mr Walpole left Cambridge towards
the end of the year 1738, and in March i73g
began his travels by going to Paris, accompanied by M r Gray' (Berry). H W and Gray
left Dover Sunday 29 March, N.S., at noon;
they reached Calais by five o'clock, and
proceeded to Boulogne on the following
afternoon. They arrived at Abbeville Tuesday 31 March, N.S., at Amiens Wednesday,
and at Paris Saturday evening (Gray to Mrs
Gray 1 April 1739, N.S.; Gray to West 12
April 1739, N.S., Gray's Corr. i. 99-102). In
Paris they lodged at the Hotel de Luxembourg, R u e des Petits Augustins (now part
of R u e Bonaparte), Quartier Saint-Germain (Gray to Ashton 21 April 1739, N.S.,
Gray's Corr. i. 106).
2. A n allusion to West to Gray and H W
ca 4 April 1739, O.S., missing.
3. T h e Opera (Academie Royale de
Musique) was at this time in R u e SaintHonore, near the Palais Royal (Le Sage, Le
Geographe Parisien, 1769, ii. 83-4).
4. T h e Comedie-italienne at the Hdtel
de Bourgogne, R u e Mauconseil. 'Les spectacles sont toujours tres brillants, si vous en
exceptez la Comedie-italienne, aussi vide
de sens que des spectateurs' (from an
anonymous letter of Feb. 1736 in Nouvelles
de la cour et de la ville . . . 1734-1738, ed.
£douard-Marie Barthelemy, 1879, p. 60).
5. T h e Comedie-Francaise, from i68g to
1770 in the R u e des FosseVSaint-Germaindes-Prds (now R u e de l'Ancienne Comedie)
(see Larousse Mensuel, N o . 291, M a y 1931,
pp. 691-3).
6. For Gray's account of them see Gray
to West 12 April 1739, N.S., Gray's Corr. i.
103-4.
7. Garrick wrote, 25 M a y 1751: 'Moliere's
comedies scarcely bring a house and are
generally acted by the inferior actors; novelty is the greatest incitement to fill the
house' (Diary of David Garrick, ed. R. C.
Alexander, N e w York, 1928, p. 7).