again, will improve upon you. Do you know, you may have it for £20,000, but I am afraid, the lands are not very improveable. You do not say enough of Esher. It is my other favourite place. It was a Villa of Cardinal Wolsey's, of which nothing but a part of the gateway remained. Mr. Kent1 supplied the rest, but I think with you, that he had not read the Gothic Classics with taste or attention. He introduced a mixed style, which now goes by the name of the Battey - Langley manner.2 He is an architect, that has published a book of bad designs. If you have seen Mr. Walpole's, pray let me hear your opinion, which I will not anticipate by saying anything about it. To be sure its extreme littleness will be the first thing that strikes you. By all means see Lord Radnor's again. He is a simple old Phobus, but nothing can spoil so glorious a situation, which surpasses everything round it. I take it ill, you should say anything against the Mole. It is a reflection, I see, cast at the Thames. Do you think, that rivers, which have lived in London and its neighbourhood all their days, will run roaring and tumbling about, like your Tramontane torrents in the North. No, they only glide and whisper. In your next expedition you will see Claremont, and

1 William Kent (1685-1748) the celebrated architect.-[Ed.] 2 Battey Langley (died 1751), a popular architect who endeavoured to reconcile Greek with Gothic architecture, and who introduced five new orders into his art. He was a great corruptor of public taste. The book Gray speaks of was by his brother, Thomas Langley, who survived him.-[Ed.]

Lord Portmore's, which joins my Lord Lincoln's, and above all Mr. Hamilton's, at Cobham1 in Surrey, which all the world talks of, and I have seen seven years ago. The year indeed does not behave itself well, but think, what it must be in the North. I suppose the roads are impassable with the deep snow still.

I could write abundance more, but am afraid of losing this post. Pray let me hear from you as soon as you can, and make my compliments to Mrs. Wharton. Mason is by this time in town again. Tuthill, Brown, I believe, at Cambridge. Adieu! I am ever yours,

T. G.

I am obliged to you for sending the tea, which is excellent.

CII. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

Stoke, September 18, 1754.

DEAR SIR-I rejoice to find you at last settled to your heart's content, and delight to hear you talk of giving your house some Gothic ornaments already. If you project anything, I hope it will be entirely within doors; and don't let me (when I come gaping into Coleman Street) be directed to the gentleman's at

1 Mr. Hamilton formed many of the beautiful scenes in the grounds at Paineshill from the Pictures of Poussin and the Italian Masters: the Waterfall at Bow-wood, the seat of the Marquis of Lansdowne, made by Mr. Hamilton, is from a Picture of G. Poussin.-[Mit.]

the ten Pinnacles, or with the church porch at his door. I am glad you enter into the spirit of Strawberry-castle. It has a purity and propriety of Gothicism in it (with very few exceptions) that I have not seen elsewhere. The eating-room and library were not completed, when I was there, and I want to know what effect they have. My Lord Radnor's Vagaries (I see) did not keep you from doing justice to his situation, which far surpasses everything near it, and I do not know a more laughing scene, than that about Twickenham and Richmond. Dr. Akenside (I perceive) is no conjurer in Architecture, especially when he talks of the ruins of Persepolis, which are no more Gothic than they are Chinese. The Egyptian style (see Dr. Pococke, not his discourses, but his prints) was apparently the mother of the Greek, and there is such a similitude between the Egyptian, and those Persian ruins, as gave room to Diodorus to affirm, that the old buildings of Persia were certainly performed by Egyptian Artists. As to the other part of his opinion, that the Gothic manner is the Saracen or Moorish, he has a great authority to support him, that of Sir Christopher Wren, and yet (I cannot help thinking) is undoubtedly wrong. The Palaces in Spain, I never saw, but in description, which gives us little or no idea of things; but the Doge's palace at Venice I have seen (which is in the Arabesque manner) and the houses of Barbary you may see in Dr. Shaw's book, not to mention abundance of other eastern buildings in Turkey, Persia, etc., that we have

views of, and they seem plainly to be corruptions of the Greek architecture, broke into little parts indeed, and covered with little ornaments, but in a taste very distinguishable from that we call Gothic. There is one thing that runs through the Moorish buildings, that an imitator would certainly have been first struck with, and would have tried to copy, and that is the Cupola's, which cover everything, baths, apartments, and even kitchens-yet who ever saw a Gothic cupola? it is a thing plainly of Greek original. I do not see anything but the slender spires, that serve for steeples, which may perhaps be borrowed from the Saracen minarets on their mosques.

I was in Northamptonshire, when I received your letter, but am now returned hither. I have been at Warwick, which is a place worth seeing. The town is on an eminence surrounded every way with a fine cultivated valley, through which the Avon winds, and at the distance of five or six miles, a circle of hills well wooded, and with various objects crowning them, that close the prospect. Out of the town on one side of it, rises a rock, that might remind one of your rocks at Durham, but that it is not so savage, or so lofty, and that the river, which washes its foot, is perfectly clear, and so gentle, that its current is hardly visible. Upon it stands the castle, the noble old residence of the Beauchamps and Nevilles, and now of Earl Brooke. He has sashed the great apartment that's to be sure (I can't help these things), and being since told, that square sash-windows were not

Gothic, he has put certain whim-wams within side the glass, which appearing through are to look like fretwork. Then he has scooped out a little burrough in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square, or Argyle Buildings. What in short can a Lord do now a days, that is lost in a great old solitary Castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would do in like case. A pretty long old stone-bridge leads you into the town with a mill at the end of it, over which the rock rises with the Castle upon it with all its battlements and queer-ruined towers, and on your left hand the Avon strays through the park, whose ancient elms seem to remember Sir Philip Sidney (who often walked under them), and talk of him to this day. The Beauchamp Earls of Warwick lie under stately monuments in the choir of the great church, and in our lady's chapel adjoining to it. There also lie Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick; and his brother, the famous Lord Leicester, with Lettice, his Countess. This chapel is preserved entire, though the body of the church was burnt down sixty years ago, and rebuilt by Sir C. Wren. I had heard often of Guy Cliff two miles from the town, so I walked to see it; and of all improvers commend me to Mr. Greathead, its present He shewed it me himself, and is literally a fat young man with a head and face much bigger than they are usually worn. It was naturally a very

owner.

VOL. II.

S