Brussels August the 10th 1767

Dear Sir,

The life of Man is half made up of contradiction! When I am in England I write to you in french, and being now where the french Tongue is spoke, I write in English.

I have been some weeks from home travelling with a Friend round part of the sea coast of England; at Dover we left our Equipage, and crossed over to France, and I have visited several parts of french Flanders, and intend seeing all the Austrian Netherlands.

At this Season of the year Flanders affords a thousand beautiful scenes to a Traveller, but nothing has more prompted me to this Expedition than the Desire of renewing my Acquaintance with the paintings of Rubens and Vandyke, which I saw when I was extremely young, but could not revisit in my Return from Geneva, on account of the french Army.

I am not without hopes of getting next Summer farther into France. It would give me the highest satisfaction to have an Opportunity of seeing once more my kind Friend at Ferney, and of renewing some of those agreeable Hours I have formerly enjoyed in your society.

While I stayed at S^t Omar I had the pleasure of seeing your last new Tragedy Les Scythes, well represented. I admire it much; you have laid your scene in a new world unknown to the Daughters of Parnassus. — I was much pleased also with your Preface. — But

And long absent may this period be in you! — While this is the Ardent Wish of Friendship, it must also be the wish of every Individual to whom the Cause of Litterature is clear, A Cause you have for so long a series of years so gloriously protected, by rooting up all the weeds of false Taste, and embellishing with the fairest Flowers the Garden of the Arts.

I hope you will give me news of your welfare before it is long, and believe me to remain my dear sir

Y^r affectionate and obliged Friend

G. Keate