Walpole thanks Berry for her last letter and expresses his sorrow at her falling ill just as he has recovered from his gout and fall. He goes on to discuss the French Revolution and notes that he has been reading Voltaire’s correspondence. He ends with some minor news, mentionin Tonton their dog and the terrible rains that they have had lade, concluding by saying that he looks forward to her return in September.

Dunlop apologises for how long it has been since she last wrote to Burns, and notes that the books he sent her have not arrived and that she does not know where to enquire about them. She discusses her recent deafness, notes that she has a copy of the new editions of his poems, and expresses her worry over her daughter Susan’s son because of the French Revolution. She informs Burns that she has been reading the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick II of Prussia, as well as books by Dugald Stewart, noting that John Moore’s journal should arrive tomorrow.

This collection consists of 386 letters and documents of royalty, nobility, statesmen, and other celebrities of France, from the reign of Louis XII to the commencement of the French Revolution. It is comprised of examples of the most famous names of three centuries of French history, including Louis XII, Francis I, Henri II, Catherine de Medicis, Francis II, Charles IX, Henri III, Duc de Guise, Henri IV and his wives, Clement VIII, Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV and his wife Marie Thérèse, Marquise de Maintenon, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Marquise de Sévigné, Cardinal Mazarin, Duc d’Orleans, Louis XV, his wife and daughters, Marquise de Pompadour, Comtesse du Barry, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Cardinal Fleury, Chevalier D’Éon, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Princesse de Lamballe, Charles X, Louis XVI, Jacques Necker, Mirabeau, and Lafayette.

Despite the date of 1770 on the title page, the volume must have been written after 1793, as it mentions the execution of Louis XVI. It includes anecdotes and quotations on history, philosophy, and the range of human emotion and experience, as well as insights concerning the King and the political climate leading up to the Revolution. Also included are anecdotes which illustrate a quality or emotion, such as courage, honor, or charity, or which exemplify an act, such as adultery or forgiveness. Two sections titled “Sentences” contain short Latin quotations from classical authors.
The pieces (arranged in loose alphabetical order by subject) cover the period from antiquity to the late 18th century, and deal with a wide range of historical, mythological, Biblical, and literary figures. These include Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Homer, Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Juvenal, Pliny, Horace, Seneca, William the Conqueror, Henri IV, Pierre de Bayard, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Catherine de Medici, Torquato Tasso, and Sir Walter Raleigh
Major 17th- and 18th-century figures mentioned include Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Elizabeth I of England, Philip IV of Spain, Charles Le Brun, Ottoman sultan Suleyman II, René Descartes, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Jacques Necker, Maurepas, the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington, Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, Malesherbes, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Camille Desmoulins, the Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, François Quesnay, and Louis XVI, who is much discussed in admiring terms. Many passages include detailed information on the actions of the French government under Louis XVI.

Rev. T. Pitts of Great Brickhill (co. Beds.) advises C.T. Tower on on his reading and describes the French Revolution as divine judgement on France for the iniquities of Voltaire, Rousseau, etc., 1793.

Including: Southwood Smith’s ‘Philosophy of Health’, Lewes’ ‘Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences’, De Tocqueville’s ‘Ancien Regime et la Revolution’, Combe on prison discipline, Hill on crime, Hancock on income tax, Newman’s lectures on political economy, Voltaire’s Philosophie, statistical papers on various matters (banking, cotton, wages in Glasgow, French finance, income tax etc).

Pyat suggests parallels between art and politics, and he references several of his own works (Une révolution d’autrefois, Ango, Le brigand et le philosophe, Les deux serruriers, Mathilde, Diogène, Le chiffonnier de Paris). Mentions the 1848 revolution and the Paris Commune. Includes references to Goethe, Shakespeare, Molière, Voltaire, and others. Harshly criticizes the vicomte de Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo.