(237) Edward Burnaby Greene, formerly of Bennet College, but at that time a brewer in Westminster, He likewise published translations of Pindar, Persius, Apollonius Rhodius, Anacreon, etc.-E.

(238) Philip Yorke, second Earl of Hardwicke, when Lord Royston, published the "Letters to and from Sir Dudley Carleton, Knight, during his Embassy in Holland, from January 1615-16 to December 1620," 4to. 1727; and, in 1775, a second edition, "with large additions to the Historical Preface."-E.

Letter 99 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1775. (page 145)

Did you hear that scream?—Don't be frightened, Madam; it was only the Duchess of Kingston last Sunday was sevennight at chapel: but it is better to be prepared; for she has sent word to the House of Lords, that her nerves are so bad she intends to scream for these two months, and therefore they must put off her trial. They are to take her throes into consideration to-day; and that there may be sufficient room for the length of her veil and train, and attendants, have a mind to treat her with Westminster-hall. I hope so, for I should like to see this com`edie larmoyante; and, besides, I conclude, it would bring your ladyship to town. You shall have timely notice.

There is another comedy infinitely worth seeing—Monsieur Le Texier. He is Pr`eville, and Caillaud, and Garrick, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, all together; and as perfect in the most insignificant part, as in the most difficult.(239) To be sure, it is hard to give up loo in such fine weather, when one can play from morning till night. In London, Pam can scarce get a house till ten o'clock. If you happen to see the General your husband, make my compliments to him, Madam; his friend the King of Prussia is going to the devil and Alexander the Great.

(239) M. Le Texier was a native of Lyons, where he was directeur des fermes. The following account of the readings of this celebrated Frenchman, is from a critique on Boaden's Life of Kemble, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 241:—"On one of the author's incidental topics we must pause for a moment with delightful recollection. We mean the readings of Le Texier, who, seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, reads French plays with such modulation of voice, and such exquisite point of dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but almost as great as we experience in listening to a first-rate actor. When it commenced, M. Le Texier read over the dramatis persome, with the little analysis of character usually attached to each name, Using the voice and manner with which he afterwards read the part: and so accurately was the key-note given, that he had no need to name afterwards the person who spoke; the stupidest of the audience could not miss to recognise him." Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole, says of him— "Soyez s`ur, que lui tout seul est la meilleure troupe que nous avons:" and again in one to Voltaire—"Assis dans un fauteuil, avec un livre `a la main, il jouc les comedies o`u1 il y a sept, huit, dix, douze personnages, si parfaitement bien, qu'on ne saurait croire, m`eme en le regardant, que ce soit le m`eme homme qui Parle. Pour moi, l'illusion est parfaitc."-E.

Letter 100 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1775. (page 146)

Our letters probably passed by each other on the road, for I wrote to you on Tuesday, and have this instant received one from you, which I answer directly, to beg pardon for my incivility, nay, ingratitude, in not thanking you for your present of a whole branch of most respectable ancestors, the Derehaughs—why, the Derehaughs alone would make gentlemen of half the modern peers, English or Irish. I doubt my journey to France was got into my head, and left no room for an additional quarter-but I have given it to Edmondson, and ordered him to take care that I am born again from the Derehaughs. This Edmondson has got a ridiculous notion into his head that another, and much ancienter of my progenitors, Sir Henry Walpole, married his wife Isabella Fitz-Osbert, when she was widow to Sir Walter Jernegan; whereas, all the Old Testament says Sir Walter married Sir Henry's widow. Pray send me your authority to confound this gainsayer, if you know any thing particular of the matter.

I had not heard of the painting you tell me of. As those boobies, the Society of Antiquaries, have gotten hold of it, I wonder their piety did not make them bury it again, as they did the clothes of Edward I.(240) I have some notion that in Vertue's MSS. or somewhere else, I don't know where, I have read of some ancient painting at the Rose Tavern. This I will tell you-but Mr. Gough is such" a bear, that I shall not satisfy him about it. That Society, when they are puzzled, have recourse to me; and that would be so often, that I shall not encourage them. They may blunder as they please, from their heavy president down to the pert Governor Pownall, who accounts for every thing immediately, before the Creation or since. Say only to Mr. Gough, that I said I had not leisure now to examine Vertue's MSS. If I find any thing there, you shall know-but I have no longer any eagerness to communicate what I discover. When there was so little taste for MSS. which Mr. Gray thought worth transcribing, and which were so valuable, would one offer more pearls?

Boydel brought me this morning another number of the Prints from the pictures at Houghton. Two or three in particular are most admirably executed—but alas! it will be twenty years before the set is completed. That is too long to look forward to at any age!—and at mine!—Nay, people will be tired in a quarter of the time. Boydel, who knows this country, and still more this town, thinks so too. Perhaps there will be newer, or at least more fashionable ways of engraving, and the old will be despised—or, which is still more likely, nobody will be able to afford the expense. Who would lay a plan for any thing in an overgrown metropolis hurrying to its fall!

I will return you Mr. Gough's letter when I get a frank. Adieu!

(240) The Society of Antiquaries, having obtained permission to do so, had, on the 2d of May 1774, opened the tomb of Edward the First in Westminster. The body was found in perfect preservation, and most superbly attired. The garments were, of course, carefully replaced in the tomb.-E.

Letter 101 To Thomas Astle, Esq.
December 19, 1775. (page 147)

Sir, I am much obliged, and return you my thanks for the paper you have sent me. You have added a question to it, which, if I understand it, you yourself, Sir, are more capable than any body of answering. You say, "Is it probable that this instrument was framed by Richard Duke of Gloucester?" If by framed you mean drawn up, I should think princes of the blood, in that barbarous age, were not very expert in drawing acts of attainder, though a branch of the law more in use then than since. But as I suppose you mean forged, you, Sir, so conversant in writings of that age, can judge better than any man. You may only mean forged by his order. Your reading, much deeper than mine, may furnish you with precedents of forged acts of attainder: I never heard of one; nor does my simple understanding suggest the use of such a forgery, on cases immediately pressing; because an act of attainder being a matter of public notoriety, it would be revolting to the common sense of all mankind to plead such an one', if it had not really existed. If it could be carried into execution by force, the force would avail without the forgery, and would be at once exaggerated and weakened by it. I cannot, therefore, conceive why Richard should make use of so absurd a trick, unless that having so little to do in so short and turbulent a reign, he amused himself with treasuring up in the tower a forged act for the satisfaction of those who, three hundred years afterwards, should be glad of discovering new flaws in his character. As there are men so bigoted to old legends, I am persuaded, Sir, that you would please them, by communicating your question to them. They would rejoice to suppose that Richard was more criminal than even the Lancastrian historians represent him; and just at this moment I don't know whether they would not believe that Mrs. Rudd assisted him. I, who am, probably, as absurd a bigot on the other side, see nothing in the paper you have sent me, but a confirmation of Richard's innocence of the death of Clarence. As the Duke of Buckingham was appointed to superintend the execution, it is incredible that he should have been drowned in a butt of malmsey, and that Richard should have been the executioner. When a seneschal of England, or as we call it, a lord high steward, is appointed for a trial, at least for execution, with all his officers, it looks very much as if, even in that age, proceedings were carried on with a little more formality than the careless writers of that time let us think. The appointment, too, of the Duke of Buckingham for that office, seems to add another improbability [and a work of supererogation] to Richard's forging the instrument. Did Richard really do nothing but what tended to increase his unpopularity by glutting mankind with lies, forgeries, absurdities, which every man living could detect? I take this opportunity, Sir, of telling you how sorry I am not to have seen you long, and how glad I shall be to renew our acquaintance, especially if you like to talk over this old story with me, though I own it is of little importance, and pretty well exhausted.(241) I am, Sir, with great regard, your obliged humble servant.

(241) To the above letter it was intended to subjoin the following queries:—

"If there was no such Parliament held, would Richard have dared to forge an act for it?

"Would Henry VII. never have reproached him with so absurd a forgery?

"Did neither Sir T. More nor Lord Bacon ever hear of that forgery?

"As Richard declared his nephew the Earl of Warwick his successor, would he have done so, if he had forged an act of attainder of Warwick's father?

"if it is supposed he forged the act, when he set aside Warwick, could he pretend that act was not known when he declared him his heir? Would not so recent an act's being unknown have proved it a forgery; and if there had been no such Parliament as that which forged it, would not that have proved it a double forgery? The act, therefore, and the parliament that passed it, must have been genuine, and existed, though no other record appears. The distractions of the times, the evident insufficiency or partiality of the historians of that age, and the interest of Henry VII to destroy all records that gave authority to the House Of York and their title, account for our wanting evidence of that Parliament."

Letter 102 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
January 26, 1776. (page 148)

I have deferred answering your last letter, dear Sir, till I cannot answer with my own hand. I made a pilgrimage at Christmas to Queen's Cross, at Ampthill, was caught there by the snow, Imprisoned there for a fortnight, and sent home bound hand and foot by the gout. The pain, I suppose, is quite frozen, for I have had none; nothing but inflammation and swelling, and they abate. In reality, this is owing to the bootikins, which -though they do not cure the gout, take out its sting. You, who are still more apt to be an invalid, feel, I fear, this Hyperborean season; I should be glad to hear you did not.

I thought I had at once jumped upon a discovery of the subject of the painted room at the Rose Tavern, but shall not plume myself upon my luck till I have seen the chamber, because Mr. Gough's account seems to date the style of the painting earlier than -will serve my hypothesis. I had no data to go upon but the site having belonged to the family of Tufton (for I do not think the description at all answers to the taking of Francis I., nor is it at all credible that there should be arms in the painting, and yet neither those of France or Austria). I turned immediately to Lord Thanet's pedigree, in Collins's Peerage, and found at once an heroic adventure performed by one of the family, that accords remarkably with the principal circumstance. It is the rescue of the Elector Palatine, son of our Queen of Bohemia, from an ambuscade laid for him by the Duke of Lorrain. The arms, Or, and Gules, I thought were those of Lorrain, which I since find are Argent and Gules. The Argent indeed may be turned yellow by age, as Mr. Gough says he does not know whether the crescent is red or black. But the great impediment is, that this achievement of a Tufton was performed in the reign of Charles II. Now in that reign, when we were become singularly ignorant of chivalry, anachronisms and blunders might easily be committed by a modern painter, yet I shall not adhere to my discovery, unless I find the painting correspond with the style of the modern time to which I would assign it; nor will I see through the eyes of my hypothesis, but fairly.

I shall now turn to another subject. Mr. Astle, who has left me off ever Since the fatal era of Richard III. for no reason that I can conceive but my having adopted his discovery, which for aught I know may be a reason with an antiquary, lately sent me the attainder of George Duke of Clarence, which he has found in the Tower and printed; and on it, as rather glad to confute me and himself, than to have found a curiosity, he had written two or three questions which tended to accuse Richard of having forged the instrument, though to the instrument itself is added another, which confirms my acquittal of Richard of the murder of Clarence-but, alas! passion is a spying glass that does but make the eyes of folly more blind.

I sent him an answer, a copy of which I enclose. Since that, I have heard no more of him, nor shall, I suppose, till I see this new proof of Richard's guilt adopted into the annals of the Society, against which I have reserved some other stigmas for it. Mr. Edmondson has found a confirmation of Isabella Fitz-Osbert having married Jernegan after Walpole. I forget where I found my arms of the Fitz-Osberts. Though they differ from yours of Sir Roger, the colours are the same, and they agree with yours of William Fitz-Osborne. There was no accuracy in spelling names even till much later ages; and you know that different branches of the same family made little variation in their coats.

I am very sorry for the death of poor Henshaw, of which I had not heard. I am yours most sincerely.

P. S. The queries added to the letter to Mr. Astle were not sent with it; and, as I reserve them for a future answer, I beg you will show them to nobody.

Letter 103To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(242)
(February 1776.] (page 149)

Mr. Walpole cannot express how much he is obliged to Mr. Gibbon for the valuable present he has received;(243) nor how great a comfort it is to him, in his present situation, in which he little expected to receive singular pleasure. Mr. Walpole does not say this at random, nor from mere confidence in the author's abilities, for he has already (all his weakness would permit) read the first chapter, and it is in the greatest admiration of the style, manner, method, clearness, and intelligence. Mr. Walpole's impatience to proceed will struggle with his disorder, and give him such spirits, that he flatters himself he shall owe part of his recovery to Mr. Gibbon; whom, as soon as that is a little effected, he shall beg the honour of seeing.

(242) Now first collected.

(243) The first quarto volume of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.-E.

Letter 104 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(244)
February 14, 1776. (page 150)

After the singular pleasure of reading you, Sir, the next satisfaction is to declare my admiration. I have read great part of your volume, and cannot decide to which of its various merits I give the preference, though I have no doubt of assigning any partiality to one virtue of the author, which, seldom as I meet with it, always strikes me superiorly. Its quality will naturally prevent your guessing which I mean. It is your amiable modesty. How can you know so much, judge so well, possess your subject, and your knowledge, and your power of judicious reflection so thoroughly, and yet command yourself and betray no dictatorial arrogance of decision? How unlike very ancient and very modern authors! You have, unexpectedly, given the world a classic history. The fame it must acquire will tend every day to acquit this panegyric of flattery.(245) The impressions it has made on me are very numerous. The strongest is the thirst of being better acquainted with you—but I reflect that I have been a trifling author, and am in no light profound enough to deserve your intimacy, except by confessing your superiority so frankly, that I assure you honestly, I already feel no envy, though I did for a moment. The best proof I can give you of my sincerity, is to exhort you, warmly and earnestly, to go on with your noble work—the strongest, though a presumptuous mark of my friendship, is to warn you never to let your charming modesty be corrupted by the acclamations your talents will receive. The native qualities of the man should never be sacrificed to those of the author, however shining. I take this liberty as an older man, which reminds me how little I dare promise myself that I shall see your work completed! But I love posterity enough to contribute, if I can, to give them pleasure through you.

I am too weak to say more, though I could talk for hours on your history. But one feeling I cannot suppress, though it is a sensation of vanity. I think, nay, I am sure I perceive, that your sentiments on government agree with my own. It is the only point on which I suspect myself of any partiality in my admiration. It is a reflection of a far inferior vanity that pleases me in your speaking with so much distinction of that, alas! wonderful period, in which the world saw five good monarchs succeed each other.(246) I have often thought of treating that Elysian era. Happily it has fallen into better hands!

I have been able to rise to-day, for the first time, and flatter myself that if I have no relapse, you will in two or three days more give' me leave, Sir, to ask the honour of seeing you. In the mean time,,be just; and do not suspect me of flattering you. You will always hear that I say the same of you to every body. I am, with the greatest regard, Sir, etc.

(244) now first collected.

(245) "I am at a loss," says Gibbon, in his Memoirs, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin. My book was on every table, and almost on every toilette; the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of the day; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic."-E.

(246) Walpole, in August 1771, had said, "The world will no more see Athens, Rome, and the Medici again, than a succession of five good Emperors, like Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines." See ante, p. 56-E.

Letter 105 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, March 1, 1776. (page 151)

I am sorry to tell you that the curious old painting at the Tavern in Fleet Street is addled, by the subject turning out a little too old. Alas! it is not the story of Francis I., but of St. Paul. All the coats of arms that should have been French and Austrian, and that I had a mind to convert into Palatine and Lorrain, are the bearings of Pharisaic nobility. In short, Dr. Percy was here yesterday, and tells me that over Mr. Gough's imaginary Pavia is written Damascus in capital letters. Oh! our antiquaries!

Mr. Astle has at last called on me, but I was not well enough to see him. I shall return his visit when I can go out. I hope this will be in a week: I have no pain left, but have a codicil of nervous fevers, for which I am taking the bark. I have nothing new for you in our old way, and therefore will not unnecessarily lengthen my letter, which was only intended to cashier the old painting, though I hear the antiquaries still go on with having a drawing taken from it. Oh! our antiquaries!

Letter 106 To Dr. Gem.(247)
Arlington Street, April 4, 1776 (page 151)

It is but fair, when one quits one's party, to give notice to those one abandons—at least, modern patriots, who often imbibe their principles of honour at Newmarket, use that civility. You and I, dear Sir, have often agreed in our political notions; and you, I fear, will die without changing your opinion. For my part, I must confess I am totally altered; and, instead of being a warm partisan of liberty, now admire nothing but despotism. You will naturally ask what place I have gotten, or what bribe I have taken? Those are the criterions of political changes in England-but, as my conversion is of foreign extraction, I shall not be the richer for it. In One word, it is the relation du lit de justice(248) that has operated the miracle. When two ministers(249) are found so humane, so virtuous, so excellent as to study nothing but the welfare and deliverance of the people; when a king listens to such excellent men; and when a parliament, from the basest, most interested motives, interposes to intercept the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and admire arbitrary power? or can I retain my sentiments, without varying the object?

Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament— one would think it was an English one! I am scandalized at the speeches of the Ivocat-g`en`eral,(250) who sets up the odious interests of the nobility and clergy against the cries and groans of the poor; and who employs his wicked eloquence to tempt the good young monarch, by personal views, to sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the privileges of the few. But why do I call it eloquence? The fumes of interest had so clouded his rhetoric, that he falls into a downright Iricism. He tells the King, that the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the property not only of the rich, but of the poor. I should be glad to know what is the Property of the poor? Have the poor landed estates? Are those who have landed estates the poor? Are the poor that will suffer by the tax, the wretched labourers who are dragged from their famishing families to work on the roads? But it is wicked eloquence when it finds a reason, or gives a reason for continuing the abuse. The Advocate tells the King, those abuses are presque consacr`es par l'anciennet`e. Indeed, he says all that can be said for nobility, it is consacr`ee par l'anciennet`e—and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses renders them respectable!

His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the King by the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully, of Louis XIV. and Colbert, two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would have classed together. Nor, were all four equally venerable, would it prove any thing. Even good kings and good ministers, if such have been, may have erred; nay, may have done the best they could. They would not have been good, if they wished their errors should be preserved, the longer they had lasted.

In short, Sir, I think this resistance of the Parliament to the adorable reformation planned by Messrs. de Turgot and Malesherbes, is more phlegmatically scandalous than the wildest tyranny of despotism. I forget what the nation was that refused liberty when it was offered. This opposition to so noble a work is worse. A whole people may refuse its own happiness; but these profligate magistrates resist happiness for others, for millions, for posterity! Nay, do they not half vindicate Maupeou, who crushed them? And you, dear Sir, will you now chide my apostacy? Have-I not cleared myself to your eyes? I do not see a shadow of sound logic in all Monsieur Seguier's but in his proposing that the soldiers should work on the roads, and that passengers should contribute to their fabric; though, as France is not so luxuriously mad as England, I do not believe passengers could support the expense of the roads. That argument, therefore, is like another that the Avocat proposes to the King, and which, he modestly owns, he believes would be impracticable.

I beg your pardon, Sir, for giving you this long trouble; but I could not help venting myself, when shocked to find such renegade conduct in a Parliament that I was rejoiced had been restored. Poor human kind! is it always to breed serpents from its own bowels? In one country, it chooses its representatives, and they sell it and themselves—in others, it exalts despots—in another, it resists the despot when he consults the good of his people! Can we -wonder mankind is wretched, when men are such beings? Parliaments run wild with loyalty, when America is to be enslaved or butchered. They rebel, when their country is to be set free! I am not surprised at the idea of the devil being always at our elbows. They who invented him, no doubt could not conceive how men could be so atrocious to one another, without the intervention of a fiend. Don't you think, if he had never been heard of before, that he would have been invented on the late partition of Poland! Adieu, dear Sir. Yours most sincerely.

(247) An English physician long settled at Paris, no less esteemed for his professional knowledge, than for his kind attention to the poor who applied to him for medical assistance.

(248) The first lit de justice held by Louis XVI.

(249) Messieurs de Malesherbes and Turgot. When the intrigues which had been set on foot to overthrow the administration of Turgot had accomplished that object, an event which took place shortly after the date of this letter Louis XVI requested Malesherbes to remain in office; but when he refused to do so, seeing that his friend Turgot had been dismissed, Louis conscious of the increased anxieties in which he should be involved, exclaimed, with a sigh, "Que vous `etes heureux! que ne Puis-je aussi quitter ma place."-E.

(250) Monsieur de Seguier.

Letter 107 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
April 16, 1776. (page 153)

You will be concerned, my good Sir, for what I have this minute heard from his nephew, that poor Mr. Granger was seized at the communion table on Sunday With an apoplexy, and died yesterday morning at five. I have answered the letter with a word of advice about his manuscripts, that they may not fall into the hands of booksellers. He had been told by idle people so many gossiping stories, that it would hurt him and living persons, to be printed; for as he Was incapable of 1, if all his collections were telling an untruth himself, he suspected nobody else—too great goodness in a biographer.

P. S. The whole world is occupied with the Duchess of Kingston's trial.(251) I don't tell you a word of it; for you will not care about it these two hundred years.

(251) in Westminster Hall, before the House of Peers, for intermarrying with the Duke of Kingston during the lifetime of her first husband. She was found guilty, but, pleading her privilege, was discharged without any punishment. Hannah More gives the following description of the scene:—"Garrick would have me take his ticket to go to the trial f the Duchess of Kingston; a sight which, for beauty and magnificence, exceeded any thing which those who were never present at a coronation or a trial by peers can have the least notion of. Mrs. Garrick and I were in full dress by seven. You will imagine the bustle of five thousand people getting into one hall! yet, in all this hurry, we walked in tranquilly. When they were all seated, and the King-at-arms had commanded silence, on pain of imprisonment, (which, however, was very ill observed,) the gentleman of the black rod was commanded to bring in his prisoner. Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess dowager of Kingston, walked in, led by Black Rod and Mr. La Roche, courtesying profoundly to her judges. The peers made her a slight bow. The prisoner was dressed in deep mourning; a black hood on her head; her hair modestly dressed and powdered; a black silk sacque, with crape trimmings; black gauze, deep ruffles, and black gloves. The counsel spoke about an hour and a quarter each. Dunning's manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every three words, but his sense and his expression pointed to the last degree: he made her grace shed bitter tears. The fair victim had four virgins in white behind the bar. She imitated her great predecessor, Mrs. Rudd, and affected to write very often, though I plainly perceived she only wrote, as they do their love epistles on the stage, without forming a letter. The Duchess has but small remains of that beauty of which kings and princes were once so enamoured. She looked much like Mrs. Pritchard. She is large and ill-shaped; there was nothing white but her face and, had it not been for that, she would have looked like a bale of bombazeen. There was a great deal of ceremony, a great deal of splendour, and a great deal of nonsense: they adjourned upon the most foolish pretences imaginable, and did nothing with such an air of business as was truly ridiculous. I forgot to tell you the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly." In a subsequent letter, she says—"I have the great satisfaction of telling you that Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, was, this very afternoon, Undignified and unduchessed, and very narrowly escaped being burned in the hand. If you have been half as much interested against this unprincipled, artful, licentious woman as I have, you will be rejoiced at it as I am. Lord Camden breakfasted with us. He is very angry that she was not burned in the hand. He says, as he was once a professed lover of hers, he thought it would have looked ill-natured and ungallant for him to propose it; but that he should have acceded to it most heartily, though he believes he should have recommended a cold iron." Memoirs, vol. i. Pp. 82, 85.-E.

Letter 108 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1776. (page 154)

Mr. Granger's papers have been purchased by Lord Mount Stewart,(252) who has the frenzy of portraits as well as I; and, though I am at the head of the sect, I have no longer the rage of propagating it, nor would I on any account take the trouble of revising and publishing the manuscripts. Mr. Granger had drowned his taste for portraits in the ocean of biography; and, though he began with elucidating prints, he at last only sought prints that he might write the lives of those they represented. His work was grown and growing so voluminous, that an abridgment only could have made it useful to collectors. I am not surprised that you wilt not assist Kippis;(253) Bishop Laud and William Prynne could never agree. You are very justly more averse to Mr. Masters who is a pragmatic fellow, and at best troublesome.

If the agate knives you are so good as to recommend to me can be tolerably authenticated, have any royal marks, or, at least, old setting of the time, and will be sold for two guineas, I should not dislike having them - though I have scarce room to stick a knife and fork. But if I trouble you to pay for them, you must let me know all I owe you already, for I know I am in your debt for prints and pamphlets, and this new debt will make the whole considerable enough to be remitted. I have lately purchased three apostle-spoons to add to the one you was so kind as to give me. What is become of Mr. Essex? does he never visit London? I wish I could tempt him thither or hither. I am not only thinking of building my offices in a collegiate style, for which I have a good design and wish to consult him, but am actually wanting assistance at this very moment, about a smaller gallery that I wish to add' this summer; and which, if Mr. Essex was here, he should build directly.

It is scarce worth asking him to take the journey on purpose, though I would pay for his journey hither and back, and would lodge him here for the necessary time. I can only beg you to mention it to him as an idle jaunt, the object is so trifling. I wish more that YOU Could come with him: do you leave your poor parishioners and their souls to themselves? if you do, I hope Dr. Kippis will seduce them. Yours ever.

(252) John Lord Mountstuart; in March 1796, created Marquis of Bute. He died in Geneva in November 1814, when the marquisate descended to his grandson.-E.

(253) Dr. Andrew Kippis, well-known for the active part he took in producing the second edition of the" Biographia Britannnica, of which he was the editor, and in a great measure the writer. He had applied to 'Mr. Cole for assistance; and Walpole's satisfaction at Cole's refusal is to be accounted for by the fact of Kippis having threatened to expose Sir Robert Walpole in the course of that work. Walpole had called the " Biographia Britannica" an apology for every body. This Kippis happened to hear of; upon which he is said to have retorted, "that the Life of Sir Robert Walpole should prove that the Biographia was not an apology for every body.'-E.

Letter 109 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1776. (page 155)

I am grieved, and feel for your gout; I know the vexations and disappointments it occasions, and how often it will return when one thinks it going or gone: it represents life and its vicissitudes. At last I know it makes me content when one does not feel actual pain,—and what contents may be called a blessing; but it is a sort of blessing that extinguishes hopes and views, and is not so luxurious but one can bear to relinquish it. I seek amusements now to amuse me; I used to rush into them, because I had an impulse and wished for what I sought. My want of Mr. Essex has a little of both kinds, as it is for an addition to this place, for which my fondness is not worn out. I shall be very glad to see him here either on the 20th or 21st of this month, and shall have no engagement till the 23d, and will gladly pay his journey. I am sorry I must not hope that you will accompany him.

Letter 110 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1776. (page 156)

I was very glad to receive your letter, not only because always most glad to hear of you, but because I wished to write to you, and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something to answer. I have lain but two nights in town since I saw you; have been, else, Constantly here, very much employed, though doing, hearing. knowing exactly nothing. I have had a Gothic architect from Cambridge to design me a gallery, Which will end in a mouse, that is, in an hexagon closet, of seven feet diameter. I have been making a beauty-room, which was effected by buying two dozen of small copies of Sir Peter Lely, and hanging them up; and I have been making hay, which is not made, because I put it off for three days, as I chose it should adorn the landscape when I was to have company; and so the rain is come, and has drowned it. However, as I can even turn calculator when it is to comfort me for not minding my interest, I have discovered that it is five to one better for me that my hay should be spoiled than not-, for, as the cows will eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not, and as I have five cows and but one horse, is not it plain that the worse my hay is the better? Do not you with your refining head go, and, out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a rich man; and yet have so little philosophy, that I had much rather be content than be in the right.

Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Di.(254) have been here four or five days -so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy. I wish Lady Ailesbury was as fortunate! The Pembrokes, Churchills, Le Texier, as you will have heard, and the Garricks have been with us. Perhaps, if alone, I might have come to you—but you are all too healthy and harmonious. I can neither walk nor sing -nor, indeed, am fit for any thing but to amuse myself in a sedentary trifling way. What I have most certainly not been doing, is writing any thing: a truth I say to you, but do not desire you to repeat. I deign to satisfy scarce any body else. Whoever reported that I was writing any thing, must have been so totally unfounded, that they either blundered by guessing without reason, or knew they lied-and that could not be with any kind intention; though saying I am going to do what I am not going to do, is wretched enough. Whatever is said of me without truth, any body is welcome to believe that pleases. In fact, though I have scarce a settled purpose about any thing, I think I shall never write any more. I have written a great deal too much, unless I had written better, and I know I should now only write still worse. One's talent, whatever it is, does not improve at sixty-yet, if I liked it, I dare say a good reason would not stop my inclination;—but I am grown most indolent in that respect, and most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet without vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous. I have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise their approbation. The applause of slaves and of the foolish mad is below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient Briton, that cannot write what would please this age, and would not, if he could. Whatever happens in America this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating myself by choice, but dreading folly at an unseemly age, I contrive to pass my time agreeably enough, yet see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true picture of my mind; and it must be true, because drawn for you, whom I would not deceive, and could not, if I would. Your question on my being writing drew it forth, though with more seriousness than the report deserved—yet talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always been more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about one's own-yet, I repeat it, you are my apology -though I never was so unreasonable as to make you answerable for my faults in return; I take them wholly to myself. But enough of this. When I know my own mind, for hitherto I have settled no plan ,for my summer, I will come to you. Adieu!

(254) Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles, Duke of Marlborough; born in 1734; married, in 1757, to Viscount Bolingbroke; from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married immediately after to Mr. Topham Beauclerk.-E.

Letter 111 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
July 23, 1776. (page 157)

You are so good to me, my dear Sir, that I am quite ashamed. I must not send back your charming present, but wish you would give me leave to pay for it, and I shall have the same obligation to you, and still more. It is beautiful in form and colours, and pleases me excessively. In the mean time, I have in a great hurry (for I came home but at noon to meet Mr. Essex) chosen out a few prints for you, Such as I think you will like, and beg you to accept them: they enter Into no one of my sets. I am heartily grieved at your account of yourself, and know no comfort but submission. I was absent to 'General Conway, who is far from well. We must take our lot as it falls! joy and 'sorrow is mixed till the scene closes. I am out of spirits, and shall not mend yours. Mr. Essex is just setting out, and I write in great haste, but am, as I have so long been, most truly yours.

Letter 112To The Rev. Mr. Cole
Strawberry Hill, July 24, 1776. (page 158)

I wrote to you yesterday, dear Sir, not only in great haste, but in great confusion, and did not say half I ought to have done for the pretty vase you sent me, and for your constant obliging attention to me. All I can say is, that gratitude attempted even in my haste and concern to put in its word: and I did not mean to pay you, (which I hope you will really allow me to do) but to express my sensibility of your kindness. The fact was, that to avoid disappointing Mr. Essex, when I had dragged him hither from Cambridge, I had returned hither precipitately, and yet late, from Park-place whither I went the day before to see General Conway, who has had a little attack of the paralytic kind. You, who can remember how very long and dearly I have loved so near a relation and particular friend, and who are full of nothing but friendly sensations, can judge how shocked I was to find him more changed than I expected. I suffered so much in constraining and commanding myself, that I was not sorry, as the house was full of relations, to have the plea of Mr. Essex, to get away, and came to sigh here by myself. It is, perhaps, to prevent my concern that I write now. Mr. Conway is in no manner of danger, is better, his head nor speech are affected, and the physicians, who barely allow the attack to be of the paralytic nature, are clear it is local, in the muscles of the face. Still has it operated such a revolution in my mind, as no time, at my age, can efface. It has at once damped every pursuit which my spirits had even now prevented me from being weaned from, I mean a Virt`u. It is like a mortal distemper in myself; for can amusements amuse, if there is but a glimpse, a vision, of outliving one's friends? I have had dreams in which I thought I wished for fame—it was not certainly posthumous fame at any distance: I feel, I feel, it was confined to the memory of those I love. It seems to me impossible for a man who has no friends to do any Thing for fame—and to me the first position in friendship is, to intend one's friends should survive one-but it is not reasonable to oppress you, who are suffering gout, with my melancholy ideas. Let me know as you mend. What I have said, will tell you, what I hope so many years have told you, that I am very constant and sincere to friends of above forty years. I doubt Mr. Essex perceived that my mind was greatly bewildered- He gave me a direction to Mr. Penticross, who I recollect, Mr. Gray, not you, told me was turned a Methodist teacher. He was a blue-coat boy, and came hither then to some of my servants, having at that age a poetic turn. As he has reverted to it, I hope the enthusiasm will take a more agreeable plea. I have not heard of him for many Years, and thought he was settled somewhere near Cambridge: I find it is at Wallingford. I wonder those madmen and knaves do not begin to wear out, as their folly is no longer new, and as knavery can turn its hand to any trade according to the humour of the age, which in countries like this is seldom constant. Yours most faithfully.

Letter 113 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1776. (page 159)

I have time but to write you a line, and it is as usual to beg your help in a sort of literary difficulty. I have received a letter dated , "Catherine Hall" from "Ken. Prescot," whom I doubt I have forgotten; for he begins "Dear Sir," and I protest I cannot recollect him, though I ought. He says he wants to send me a few classical discourses, and e speaks with respect of my father, and, by his trembling hand, seems an old man. All these are reasons for my treating him with great regard; and, being afraid of hurting him, I have written a short and very civil answer, directed to the "Rev. Dr. Prescot." God knows whether he is a clergyman or a doctor, and perhaps I may have betrayed my forgetfulness; but I -thought it was best to err on the over civil side. Tell me something about him; I dread his Discourses. Is he the strange man that a few years ago sent me a volume of an uncommon form, and of more uncommon matter? I suspect so.(255)

You shall certainly have two or three of my prints by Mr. Essex when he returns hither and hence, and any thing else you will command. I am just now in great concern for the terrible death of General Conway's son-in-law, Mr. Damer,(256) of which, perhaps, you in your solitude have not heard.-You are happy who take no part but in the past world, for the mortui non mordent, nor do any of the extravagant and distressing things that perhaps they did in their lives. I hope the gout, that persecutes even in a hermitage, has left you. Yours most sincerely.

(255) Dr. Kenrick Prescot, master of Catherine Hall, and author of a quarto volume, published at Cambridge in 1773, entitled, "Letters concerning Homer the Sleeper, in Horace; with additional classic Amusements."-E.

(256) John, eldest son of Joseph Damer, Esq, Lord Milton; afterwards Earl of Dorchester.-E.

Letter 114 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1776. (page 160)

May I trouble you, dear Sir, when you see our friend Mr. Essex, to tell him that the tower is covered in, and that whenever he has nothing to do, after this week, I shall be very glad to see him here, if he will only send me a line two or three days beforehand. I have carried this little tower higher than the round one, and it has an exceedingly pretty effect, breaking the long line of the house picturesquely, and looking very ancient. I must correct a little error in the spelling of a name in the pedigree you was so kind as to make out for me last year. The Derehaughs were not of Colton, but of Coulston-hall. This I discovered only this morning. On opening a patch-box that belonged to my mother, and which I have not opened for many years, I found an extremely small silver collaring, about this size—O—but broad and flat. I remember it was in an old satin bag of coins that my mother found in old Houghton when she first married. I call it a collar from the breadth; for it would not be large enough for a fairy's lap-dog. It was probably made for an infant's little finger, and must have been for a ring, not a collar; for I believe, though she was an heiress, young ladies did not elope so very early in those days. I never knew how it came into the family, but now it is plain, for the inscription on the outside is, "of Coulstonhall, Suff." and it is a confirmation of your pedigree. I have tied it to a piece of paper, with a long inscription, and it is so small, it will not be melted down for the weight; and if not lost from its diminutive person, may remain in the family a long while, and be preserved when some gamester may Spend every other bit of silver he has in the world; at least, if one would make heir-looms now, one must take care that they have no value in them.

P. S. I was turning over Edmonson this evening, and observed an odd occurrence of circumstances in the present Lord Carmarthen.(257) By his mother he is the representative of the great Duke of Marlborough, and of old Treasurer Godolphin;(258) by his father, of the Lord treasurer Duke of Leeds;(259) and by his grandmother, is descended from the Lord-treasurer Oxford.(260) Few men are so well ancestored in so short a compass of time.

(257) Francis Godolphin, Marquis of Carmarthen, only surviving son of Thomas Duke of Leeds; and who, upon the death of his father, in 17 9 succeeded to the dukedom.-E

(258) Mary Duchess of Leeds, wife of Thomas, fourth duke, was second daughter, and eventually sole heiress, of Francis Earl Of Godolphin, by Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough, eldest daughter and coheir of the great Duke of Marlborough.-E.

(259) Sir Thomas Osborne, lord high treasurer of England, the first Duke of Leeds; who, having been successively honoured with the Barony of Osborne, the Viscounty of Latimer, the Earldom of Danby, and the Marquisate Of Carmarthen, was, on the 4th of May 1694, created Duke of Leeds.-E.

(260) Elizabeth, the first wife of Peregrine Hyde, third Duke of Leeds, was the youngest daughter of Robert Harley, the great Earl of Oxford.-E.

Letter 115 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Oct. 31, 1776. (page 161)

Thank you for your letter. I send this by the coach. You will have found a new scene,(261) not an unexpected one by you and me, though I do not pretend I thought it so near. I rather imagined France would have instigated or winked at Spain's beginning with us. Here is a solution of the Americans declaring themselves independent. Oh! the folly, the madness, the guilt of having plunged us into this abyss! Were we and a few more endued with any uncommon penetration? No: they who did not see as far, would not. I am impatient to hear the complexion of to-day. I suppose it will, on the part of administration, have been a wretched farce of fear, daubed over with airs of bullying. You, I do not doubt, have acted like yourself, feeling for our situation, above insulting, and unprovoked but at the criminality that has brought us to this pass. Pursue your own path, nor lean to the court that may be paid to you on either side, as I am sure you will not regard their being displeased that you do not go as far as their interested views may wish. If the court should receive any more of what they call good news, I think the war with France will be unavoidable. It was the victory at Long Island(262) and the frantic presumption it occasioned, that has ripened France's measures—And now we are to awe them by pressing—an act that speaks our impotence!—which France did not want to learn!

I would have come to town, but I had declared so much I would not, that I thought it would look as if I came to enjoy the distress of the ministers-but I do not enjoy the distress of my country. I think we are undone; I have always thought so— whether we enslaved America, or lost it totally—so we that were against the war could expect no good issue. If you do return to Park-place to-morrow, you will oblige me much by breakfasting here - you know it wastes you very little time.

'I am glad I did not know of Mrs. Damer's sore throat till it is almost well. Pray take care and do not catch it.

Thank you for your care of me: I will not stay a great deal here, but at present I never was better in my life-and here I have no vexatious moments. I hate to dispute; I scorn to triumph myself, and it is very difficult to keep my temper when others do. I own I have another reason for my retirement, which is prudence. I have thought of it late, but, at least, I will not run into any new expense. it would cost me more than I care to afford to buy a house in town, Unless I do it to take some of my money out of the stocks, for which I tremble a little. My brother is seventy; and if I live myself, I Must not build too much on his life; and you know, if he fails, I lose the most secure part of my income. I refused from Holland, and last year from Lord North, to accept the place for my own life; and having never done a dirty thing, I will not disgrace myself at fifty-nine. I should like to live as well as I have done; but what I wish more, is to secure what I have already saved for those I would take care of after me. These are the true reasons of my dropping all thought of a better house in town, and of living so privately here. I -will not sacrifice my health to my prudence; but my temper is so violent, that I know the tranquillity I enjoy here in solitude is of much more benefit to my health, than the air of the country is detrimental to it. You see I can be reasonable when I have time to reflect; but philosophy has a poor chance with me when my warmth is stirred—and yet I know, that an angry old man out of parliament, and that can do nothing but be angry, is a ridiculous animal.

(261) On the opening of the session.

(262) On the 17th of August 1776, when the English army, under the command of General Howe, defeated the Americans at Flat Bush, in Long Island.-E.

Letter 116 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 2, 1776. (page 162)

Though inclination, and consciousness that a man of my age, who is neither in parliament nor in business, has little to do in the world, keep me a good deal out of it, yet I will not, my dear lord, encourage you in retirement; to which, for the interest of your friends, you have but too much propensity. The manners of the age cannot be agreeable to those who have lived in something soberer times; nor do I think, except in France, where old people are never out of fashion, that it is reasonable to tire those whose youth and spirits may excuse some dissipation. Above all things, it is my resolution never to profess retirement, lest, when I have lost all my real teeth, the imaginary one, called a colt's, should hurry me back and make me ridiculous. But one never outlives all one's contemporaries; one may assort with them. Few Englishmen, too, I have observed, can bear solitude without being hurt by it. Our climate makes us capricious, and we must rub off our roughness and humours against one another. We have, too, an always increasing resource, which is, that though we go not to the young, they must come to us: younger usurpers tread on their heels, as they did on ours, and revenge us that have been deposed. They may retain their titles, like Queen Christina, Sir M * * * N * * *, and Lord Rivers; but they find they have no subjects. If we could but live long enough, we should hear Lord Carlisle, Mr. Storer, etc. complain of the airs and abominable hours of the youth of the age. YOU see, my dear lord, my easy philosophy can divert itself with any thing, even with visions; which perhaps is the best way of treating the great vision itself, life. For half one's time one should laugh with the world, the other half at it—and then it is hard if we want amusement.

I am heartily glad, for your lordship's and Lady Anne Conolly's sakes, that General Howe(263) is safe. I sincerely interest myself for every body you are concerned for. I will say no more on a subject on which I fear I am so unlucky as to differ very much with your lordship, having always fundamentally disapproved our conduct with America. indeed, the present prospect of war with France, when we have so much disabled ourselves, and are exposed in so many quarters, is a topic for general lamentation, rather than for canvassing Of Opinions, which every man must form for himself: and I doubt the moment is advancing when we shall be forced to think alike, at least on the present.

I have not yet above a night at a time in town—but shall be glad to give your lordship and Lady Strafford a meeting there whenever you please. Your faithful humble servant.

(263) General Sir William Howe, brother of the Admiral, was then commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. He was married to a daughter of Lady Anne Conolly, and consequently to a niece of Lord Strafford.-E.

Letter 117 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 9, 1776. (page 163)

I know you love an episcopal print, and, therefore, I send you one of two, that have just been given to me. As you have time and patience, too, I recommend you to peruse Sir John Hawkins's History Of Music.(264) It is true, there are five huge volumes in quarto, and perhaps you may not care for the expense; but surely you can borrow them in the University, and, though you may no more than I, delight in the scientific, there is so much about cathedral service, and choirs, and other old matters, that I am sure you will be amused with a great deal, particularly the two last volumes, and the facsimiles of old music in the first. I doubt it is a work that will not sell rapidly, but it must have a place in all great libraries.

(264) A work full of amusement, and deserving of Walpole's good word, notwithstanding the witty criticism which Dr. Calcott passed upon it in his well known catch, "Have You Sir John Hawkins's History?" in which he makes the name of the rival work, "Burney's (Burn-HIS) History," express the fate which Hawkins's volumes deserved.-E.

Letter 118 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Feb. 20, 1777. (page 163)

Dear Sir, You are always my oracle in any antique difficulties. I have bought at Mr. Ives's(265) sale (immensely dear) the shutters of the altar at Edmondsbury: Mr. Ives had them from Tom Martin,(266) who married Peter Leneve's widow; so you see no shutters can be better descended on the mother's side. Next to high birth, personal merit is something: in that respect, my shutters are far from defective: on the contrary, the figures in the inside are so very good, as to amaze me who could paint them here in the reign of Henry VI.; they are worthy of the Bolognese school—but they have suffered in several places, though not considerably. Bowes is to repair them, under oath of only filling up the cracks, and restoring the peelings off, but without repainting or varnishing.

The possession of these boards, invaluable to me, was essential. They authenticate the sagacity of my guesses, a talent in an antiquary coequal with prophecy in a saint. On the outside is an archbishop, unchristened by the late possessors, but evidently Archbishop Kempe, or the same person with the prelate in my Marriage of Henry VI.,_ and you will allow from the collateral evidence that it must be Kempe, as I have so certainly discovered another person in my picture. The other outside is a cardinal, called by Mr. Ives, Babington; but I believe Cardinal Beaufort, for the lion of England stands by him, which a bastardly prince of the blood was more likely to assume than a true one. His face is not very like, nor very unlike, the face in my picture; but this is -shaven.-But now comes the great point. On the inside is Humphrey Duke of Gloucester kneeling—not only exactly resembling mine as possible, but with the same almost bald head, and the precisely same furred robe. An apostle-like personage stands behind him, holding a golden chalice, as his royal highness's offering, and, which is remarkable, the duke's velvet cap of state, with his coronet of strawberry-leaves.

I used to say, to corroborate my hypothesis, that the skull of Duke Humphrey at St. Alban's was very like the form of head in my picture, which argument diverted the late Lord Holland extremely—but I trust now that nobody will dispute any longer my perfect acquaintance with all Dukes of Gloucester.—By the way, did I ever tell You that when I published my Historic Doubts on Richard III., my niece's marriage not being then acknowledged, George Selwyn said, he did not think I should have doubted about the Duke of Gloucester? On the inside of another shutter is a man unknown: he is in a stable, as Joseph might be, but over him hangs a shield of arms, that are neither Joseph's nor Mary's. The colours are either black and white, or so changed as not to be distinguishable. * * " * I conclude the person who is in red and white was the donor of the altar-piece, or benefactor; and what I want of you is to discover him and his arms; and to tell me whether Duke Humphrey, Beaufort, Kempe, and Babington were connected with St. Edmondsbury, or whether this unknown person was not a retainer of Duke Humphrey, at least of the royal family.

At the same sale I bought a curious pair, that I conclude came from Blickling, with Hobart impaling Boleyn from which latter family the former enjoyed that seat. How does this third winter of the season agree with you? The wind to-day is sharper than a razor, and blows icicles into one's eyes. I was confined for seven weeks with the gout " yet am so well recovered as to have been abroad to-day, though it is as mild under the pole.

Pray can you tell me the title of the book that Mr. Ives dedicated to me? I never saw it, for he was so odd (I cannot call it modest, lest I should seem not so myself) as never to send it me, and I never could get it. Yours truly.

(265) John Ives the antiquary, author of "Remarks upon the Garianonum of the Romans the Site and Remains fixed and described."-E.

(266) Tom Martin of Palgrave, the well known antiquary, whose "History of Thetford"was published in 1779, by Gough, who has prefixed to it a Biographical Sketch of the Author.-E.

Letter 119 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
February 27, 1777. (page 165)

You see, dear Sir, that we thought on each other just at the same moment; but, as usual, you was thinking of obliging me, and I, of giving YOU trouble. You have fully satisfied me of the Connexion between the Lancastrian Princes and St. Edmondsbury. Edmondson, I conclude, will be able to find out the proprietor of the arms, impaling Walrond.

I am well acquainted with Sir A. Weldon(267) and the Aulicus Coquinanae,(268) and will return them with Mr. Ives's tracts, which I intend to buy at the sale of his books. Tell me how I may convey them to you most safely. You say, "Till I show an inclination to borrow more of your MSS." I hope you do not think my appetite for that loan is in the least diminished. I should at all minutes, and ever, be glad to peruse them all—but I was not sure you wished to send them to me, though you deny me nothing—and my own fear of their coming to any mischance made me very modest about asking for them—but now, whenever you can send me any of them with perfect security, I eagerly and impudently ask to see them: you cannot oblige me more, I assure you.

I am sorry Dr. E * * n is got into such a dirty scrape. There is scarce any decent medium observed at present between wasting fortunes and fabricating them—and both by any disreputable manner; for, as to saving money by prudent economy, the method is too slow in proportion to consumptions: even forgery, alas!(269 seems to be the counterpart or restorative of the ruin by gaming. I hope at least that robbery on the highway will go out of fashion as too piddling a profession for gentlemen.

I enclose a card for your friends, but must advertise them that March is in every respect a wrong month for seeing Strawberry. It not only wants its leaves and beauty then, but most of the small pictures and curiosities, which are taken down and packed up in winter, are not restored to their places till the weather is fine and I am more there. Unless they are confined in time, your friends had much better wait till May-but, however, they will be very welcome to go when they please. I am more personally interested in hoping to See you there this summer—you must visit my new tower. Diminutive as it is, it adds much to the antique air of the whole in both fronts. You know I shall sympathize with your gout, and you are always master of your own hours.

(267) Sir Anthony Weldon was the author of "The Court and Character of King James; written and taken by Sir A. W., being an eye and ear witness." London, 1650. A work which has been pronounced, by competent authority, " a despicable tissue of filth and obscenity, of falsehood and malignity."-E.

(268) "Aulicus Coquinanae; or, an Answer to the Court and Character of King James." London, 1650. This work has been ascribed to William Sanderson, and to Dr. Heylin; and is, as well as Weldon's, reprinted in the "Secret History of the Court of King James." Edinburgh, 1811-E.

(269) Alluding to Dr. Dodd; whose trial for forgery had taken place on the 22d, at the Old Bailey.-E.

Letter 120 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, May 22, 1777. (page 166)

It is not Owing to forgetfulness, negligence, or idleness—to none of which I am subject, that you have not heard from me since I saw you, dear Sir, but to my miserable occupation with my poor nephew, who engrosses my whole attention, and will, I doubt, destroy my health, if he does not recover his. I have got him within fourteen miles of town with difficulty. He is rather worse than better, may recover in an instant, as he did last time, or remain in his present sullenness. I am far from expecting he should ever be perfectly in his senses; which, in my opinion, he scarce ever was. His intervals expose him to the worst people ; his relapses overwhelm me.

I have-put together some trifles I promised you, and will beg Mr. Lort to be the bearer when he goes to Cambridge, if I know of it. At present I have time for nothing I like. My age and inclination call for retirement: I envied your happy hermitage, and leisure to follow your inclination. I have always lived post, and shall not die before I can bait-yet it is not my wish to be unemployed, could I but choose my occupations. I wish I could think of the pictures you mention, or had time to see Dr. Glynn and the master of Emmanuel. I doat on Cambridge, and could like to be often there. The beauty of King's College Chapel, now it is restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it; though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasures-or rather pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, still books, antiquity, and virt`u kept hold of a corner of my heart, and since necessity has forced me of late years to be a man of business, my disposition tends to be a recluse for what remains-but it will not be my lot: and though there is some excuse for the young doing what they like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he ought, and I hope doing one's duty is the best preparation for death. Sitting with one's arms folded to think about it, is a very lazy way of preparing for it. If Charles V. had resolved to make some amends for his abominable ambition by doing good, his duty as a King, there would have been infinitely more merit than going to doze in a convent.(270) One may avoid active guilt in a sequestered life; but the virtue of it is merely negative, though innocence is beautiful.

I approve much of 'Your corrections on Sir J. Hawkins, and send them to the Magazine. I want the exact blazon of William of Hatsfield his arms,—I mean the Prince buried at York. Mr. Mason and I are going to restore his monument, and I have not time to look for them-: I know you will be so good as to assist. Yours most sincerely.

(270) "The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell!

"A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine nor despot's throne." Byron.-E.

Letter 121 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 19, 1777. (page 167)

I thank YOU for your notices, dear Sir, and shall remember that on Prince William. I did see the Monthly Review, but hope one is not guilty of the death of every man who does not make one the dupe of a forgery. I believe M'Pherson's success with Ossian was more The ruin of Chatterton than I. Two years passed between my doubting the authenticity of Rowley's(271) poems and his death. I never knew he had been in London till some time after he had undone and poisoned himself there. The poems he sent me were transcripts in his own hand, and even in that circumstance he told a lie: he said he had them from the very person at Bristol to whom he had given them. If any man was to tell you that monkish rhymes had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it? Just the reverse is the case of Rowley's pretended poems. They have all the elegance of Waller and Prior, and more than Lord Surrey—but I have no objection to any body believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an astonishing genius-but I cannot think that Rowley foresaw metres that were invented long after he was dead, or that our language was more refined at Bristol in the reign of Henry V. than it was at court under Henry VIII. One of the chaplains of the Bishop of Exeter has found a line of Rowley in Hudibras-the monk might foresee that too! The prematurity of Chatterton's genius is, however, full as wonderful, as that such a prodigy as Rowley should never have been heard of till the eighteenth century. The youth and industry of the former are miracles, too, yet still more' credible. There is not a symptom in the poems, but the old words, that savours of Rowley's age—change the old words for modern, and the whole construction is of yesterday.

(271) See in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. the Papers relative to Chatterton; see also vol- i. P. 61 of this collection.-E.

Letter 122 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, July 10, 1777. (page 168)

Don't be alarmed at this thousandth letter in a week. This is more to Lady Hamilton(272) than to you. Pray tell her I have seen Monsieur la Bataille d'.Agincourt.(273) He brought me her letter yesterday: and I kept him to sup, sleep in the modern phrase, and breakfast here this morning; and flatter myself he was, and she will be, content with the regard I paid to her letter.

The weather is a thought warmer to-day, and I am as busy as bees are about their hay. My hayssians(274) have cost me as much as if I had hired them of the Landgrave.(275)

I am glad your invasion(276) is blown over. I fear I must invite those flat-bottomed vessels hither, as the Swissess Necker has directed them to the port of Twickenham. Madame de Blot is too fine, and Monsieur Schomberg one of the most disagreeable, cross, contemptuous savages I ever saw. I have often supped with him at the Duchess de Choiseul's, and could not bear him; and now I must be charm`e, and p`en`etr`e, and combl`e, to see him: and I shall act it very ill, as I always do when I don't do what I like. Madame Necker's letter is as affected and pr`ecieuse, as if Marmontel had written it for a Peruvian milk-maid. She says I am a philosopher, and as like Madame de S`evign`e as two peas—who was as unlike a philosopher as a gridiron. As I have none of Madame de S`evign`e's natural easy wit, I am rejoiced that I am no more like a philosopher neither, and still less like a philosophe; which is a being compounded of D'Urfey and Diogenes, a pastoral coxcomb, and a supercilious brute.

(272) The first wife of Sir William Hamilton, envoy extraordinary at the court of Naples. She was a Miss Barlow-E.

(273) M. le Chevalier d'Agincourt, a French antiquary, long settled in Italy. 1. B. L. Seroux d'Agincourt, born at Beauvais in 1730, died at Rome in 1814, having, during thirty-six years, laboured assiduously in the composition of his grand work, "Histoire de l'Art par les Monumens depuis sa D`ecadence au Quatri`eme Si`ecle jusqu'`a son Renouvellement au Seizi`eme". Of this splendid book, in six vols. folio, which was not published until 1823, nine years after the death of the author, an interesting review will be found in the seventh volume of the Foreign Quarterly Review.-E.

(274) Hessians.

(275) An allusion to the seventeen thousand which had been hired for the American service, by treaties entered into the preceding year with the Landgravine of Hesse Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Hereditary Prince of Hesse Cassel.-E.

(276) A party of French nobility then in England, who were to have made a visit at Parkplace.

Letter 123 To Robert Jephson, Esq.(277)
Strawberry Hill, July 13, 1777. (page 169)

You have perhaps, Sir, paid too much regard to the observations I took the liberty to make, by your order, to a few passages in "Vitellia," and I must hope they were in consequence of your own judgment too. I do not doubt of its success on the stage, if well acted but I confess I would answer for nothing with the present set of actors, who are not capable in tragedy of doing any justice to it. Mrs. Barry seems to me very unequal to the principal part, to which Mrs. Yates alone is suited. Were I the author, I should be very sorry to have my tragedy murdered, perhaps miscarry. Your reputation is established; you will never forfeit it yourself-and to give your works to unworthy performers is like sacrificing a daughter to a husband of bad character. As to my offering it to Mr. Colman, I could merely be the messenger. I am scarce known to him, have no right to ask a favour of him, and I hope you know me enough to think that I am too conscious of my own insignificance and private situation to give myself an air of protection, and more particularly to a work of yours, Sir. What could I say, that would carry greater weight, than "This piece is by the author of Braganza?"(278)

A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary. I urge this, not to dissuade your presenting Vitellia to the stage, but to console you if both theatres should be engaged next winter. My own interests, from my time of life, would make me with reason more impatient than you to see it represented, but I am jealous of the honour Of your poetry, and I should grieve to see Vitellia, at Covent-garden not that, except Mrs. Yates, I have any partiality to the tragic actors at Drury-lane, though Smith did not miscarry in Braganza-but I speak from experience. I attended "Caractacus" last winter, and was greatly interested, both from my friendship for Mr. Mason and from the excellence of the poetry. I was out of all patience; for though a young Lewis played a subordinate part very well, and Mrs. Hartley looked her part charmingly, the Druids were so massacred and Caractacus so much worse, that I never saw a more barbarous exhibition. Instead of hurrying "The Law of Lombardy,"(279) which, however, I shall delight to see finished, I again wish you to try comedy. To my great astonishment there were more parts performed admirably in "The School for Scandal,"(280) than I almost ever saw in any play. Mrs. Abington was equal to the first of her profession, Yates, the husband, Parsons, Miss Pope, and Palmer, all shone. It seemed a marvellous resurrection of the stage. Indeed, the play had as much merit as the actors. I have seen no comedy that comes near it since the "Provoked Husband."