Autograph letter signed : Montigny, France, to Samuel Richardson, 1753 Oct. 7.

Clairaut writes enthusiastically of his response to reading Richardson's latest novel, "Sir Charles Grandison," reporting that "I already told you, when in London, the pleasure I received from your first sheets, and the impatience I had to read the remainder. My impatience has not been disappointed I'll assure you, since I quitted any sort of occupation, diversion and company till I had got quite thro' the two volumes . . . The grandeur and genius of Sr Ch. are by far a better lesson of moral than any book I ever knew." Clairaut wishes "there was in France a sufficient number of persons accustomed to the English tongue to taste your work in the original" and expresses concern that the Abbé Prévost may "undertake some contraction" of the text in his translation. Prévost's translation was published in Amsterdam in 1755 and 1756.