178 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xni 



it was yesterday the great national fast, a day set apart 

 for an examination of the blessings of heaven on this 

 land, and the faults of the people. It follows the Great 

 Communion, and is a day more sacredly and universally 

 kept than any Sunday, in commemorating the blessings, 

 prosperity, and general happiness of Switzerland. He con- 

 trasted it with the misery and sufferings of the Greeks, 

 with very great eloquence but very shortly, and asked our 

 prayers as fellow Christians of a Christian people engaged in 

 a defensive war against extermination, whose sufferings were 

 beyond description. It was impossible to say a few words 

 with greater beauty and feeling and piety. How I wished 

 for you ! but when and where do I not wish for you ? Yester- 

 day evening above all. I never wanted the girls so much, 

 having a set of young Englishmen to entertain, and only 

 the little Princess and my triste self to amuse them. There 

 were Dr Holland, and Capt. Elton, Mr Allen, the two Pre- 

 vosts, and Bonstetten. 1 They all sat round the dining-table 

 to tea, but I am afraid it looked a triste shop. Feeling out 

 of spirits I had invited no one, but on Wednesday poured 

 in the above English recommandes, and made me feel sorry 

 I had not endeavoured to amuse them better. Captain 

 Elton is the brother of Mrs Hallam, a jolly naval Captain 

 full of gaiety and high spirits, finding his own amusement 

 like a jolly tar. I am not sure even he had not taken too 

 much champagne he was easily pleased, only ' hoped to 

 God I would not make him talk French aloud, he did not 



1 Karl von Bonstetten (1745 1832), a constant figure in the 

 Sismondi circle, was a Swiss publicist of European repute, and had 

 been in middle life a politician. He was an author of some note, 

 writing on (inter alia) the Laws of the Imagination and on Climate 

 as affecting human character. He had studied in his youth at Cam- 

 bridge, Leyden, and Paris. At Cambridge he became extremely 

 intimate with the poet Gray. For three months he spent every 

 evening with Gray, arriving at five o'clock and lingering till mid- 

 night. Gray could not get over the wonder of Bonstetten's ardour 

 and vitality: " Our breed is not made on this model. . . . He gives 

 me too much pleasure and at least an equal share of inquietude. . . . 

 God bless him ! I am unable to talk to you about anything else I 

 think," Gray wrote to Ins friend Nicholls. Rossel describes Bon- 

 Btetten's old age as " une longue rajeunissement." See Gray, by 

 Gosse, English Men of Letters. 



