agreeable rock, whose cliffs covered with large trees hung beetling over the Avon, which twists twenty ways in sight of it; there was the cell of Guy, Earl of Warwick, cut in the living stone, where he died a hermit (as you may see in a penny history, that hangs upon the rails in Moorfields) there were his fountains bubbling out of the cliff;-there was a chantry founded to his memory in Henry the VIth's time. But behold the trees are cut down to make room for flowering shrubs, the rock is cut up, till it is as smooth and as sleek as satin; the river has a gravel-walk by its side; the cell is a grotto with cockle-shells and looking-glass; the fountains have an iron gate before them, and the chantry is a barn, or a little house. Even the poorest bits of nature, that remain, are daily threatened, for he says (and I am sure, when the Greatheads are once set upon a thing, they will do it) he is determined, it shall be all new. These were his words, and they are fate. I have also been at Stow, at Woburn (the Duke of Bedford's), and at Wroxton (Duke of Guilford's) but I defer these chapters till we meet. I shall only tell you for your comfort, that the part of Northamptonshire, where I have been, is in fruits, in flowers, and in corn very near a fortnight behind this part of Buckinghamshire, that they have no nightingales, and that the other birds are almost as silent, as at Durham. It is rich land, but upon a clay, and in a very bleak, high, exposed situation. I hope you have had some warm weather, since you last complained of the south. I have thoughts of seeing you about Michaelmas, though I shall not stay long in town; I should have been at Cambridge before now, if the Duke of Newcastle and his foundation-stone would have let me, but I want them to have done before I go. I am sorry Mr. Brown should be the only one, that has stood upon punctilios with me, and would not write first; pray tell him so. Mason is (I believe) in town, or at Chiswick. No news of Tuthill. I wrote a long letter to him in answer to one he wrote me, but no reply. Adieu, I am ever yours, T. G. Brown called here this morning before I was up, and breakfasted with me. CIII. TO THOMAS WHARTON. Cambridge, October 10, 1754. DEAR DOCTOR-I am clear, that you are in the right way and that you ought to make your excuses at the Queen's Arms with all possible civility to Fothergill ; and perhaps the civilest excuse is to tell the truth, to him at least, that it would be neither grateful, nor prudent, to hazard disobliging the gentlemen at the Mitre, among whom you have several Friends, and besides it will be always more in your power to recommend moderate measures, while you continue connected with one Party, than if you should lose yourself with both by seeming to divide yourself between them, but how far this is to be said, and to whom, you are best able to determine.1 CIV. TO THOMAS WHARTON. ODE IN THE GREEK MANNER. [The "Ode on the Progress of Poesy."] If this be as tedious to you, as it is grown to me, I 1 Remainder of MS. lost, about sixteen lines. -[Ed.] opera. Your politics I don't understand, but I think matters can never continue long in the situation they now are. Barbarossa1 I have read, but I did not cry; at a modern tragedy it is sufficient not to laugh. I had rather the King's Arms looked askew upon me, than the Mitre; it is enough to be well bred to both of them. You do not mention Lord Strathmore, so that I doubt, if you received my little letter about him. Mason is still here: we are all mighty glad he is in orders, and no better than any of us. Pray inform me, if Dr. Clark is come to town, and where he is fixed, that I may write to him, angry as he is. My compliments to my friend Mrs. Wharton, to your mother, and all the little gentry. I am ever, dear Doctor, most sincerely yours. Cambridge, December 26, 1754. CV. TO THOMAS WHARTON. Cambridge, March 9, 1755. MY DEAR DOCTOR-According to my reckoning Mrs. Wharton should have been brought to bed before this time; yet you say not a syllable of it. If you are so loth to publish your productions, you cannot wonder at the repugnance I feel to spreading abroad 1 This play was written by Dr. Brown, the admirer and friend of Warburton; and author of Athalstan. Garrick wrote the Epilogue, the following line of which gave the greatest offence to the Author : "Let the poor devil eat, allow him that," etc.-[Mit.] mine. But in truth I am not so much against publishing, as against publishing this1 alone. I have two or three ideas more in my head. What is to come of them? must they too come out in the shape of little sixpenny flams, dropping one after another, till Mr. Dodsley thinks fit to collect them with Mr. this's song, and Mr. t'other's epigram, into a pretty volume? I am sure Mason must be sensible of this, and therefore can never mean what he says. To be sure, Doctor, it must be owned, that physic, and indeed all professions, have a bad effect upon the mind. This it is my duty, and interest to maintain; but I shall still be very ready to write a satire upon the clergy, and an epode against historiographers, whenever you are hard pressed; and (if you flatter me) may throw in a few lines with somewhat handsome upon Magnesia alba, and Alicant soap. As to humanity you know my aversion to it; which is barbarous and inhuman, but I cannot help it, God forgive me. I am not quite of your opinion with regard to Strophe2 and Antistrophe. Setting aside the diffi 1 His "Ode on the Progress of Poetry."-[Mason.] 2 He often made the same remark to me in conversation, which led me to form the last Ode of Caractacus in shorter stanzas: But we must not imagine that he thought the regular Pindaric method without its use; though, as he justly says, when formed in long stanzas, it does not fully succeed in point of effect on the ear: for there was nothing which he more disliked than that chain of irregular stanzas which Cowley introduced, and falsely called Pindaric; and which from the ex |