LETTER CIX. Rica to * **.

THE university of Paris is the eldest daughter of the Kings of France: and the eldest by much; for she is above nine hundred years old, so that she now and then doats; I have been told, that she had sometimes a great quarrel with some doctors about the letter Q He means the quarrel of Ramus. ^†340 , which she would have pronounced like a K. The dispute grew so warm, that some were stript of their estates: the parliament was obliged to determine the difference; and it granted permission, by a solemn arret, to all the subjects of the King of France, to pronounce this letter according to their own fancy. It was certainly very diverting to see the two most respectable bodies in Europe, employed in deciding in so vehement a manner about a letter in the alphabet! It looks, my dear * * *, as if the heads of the greatest men idiotized when they meet together; and that where there are most people, there is so much the less wisdom. Great bodies always attach themselves so strongly to

little things, and foolish customs, that essentials never come to be considered till afterwards. I have heard say, that a king of Arragon having assembled A. D. 1610. ^†341 the states of Arragon and Catalonia, the first meetings were employed in deciding what language the deliberations should be held in: the dispute was warm, and the states would have broke up a thousand times, if they had not thought of an expedient, which was, that the questions should be put in the Catalonian tongue, and the answers in that of Arragon.

Paris, the 25th of the moon Zilhage,
1718.