Hecuba is gone), I utterly despair, for (say what you will) it was not retirement, it was not leisure, or the summer, or the country, that used to make you so voluminous; it was emulation, it was rivalry, it was the collision of tragedy against tragedy, that kindled your fires, and set old Mona in a blaze. You do not say who succeeds her Trojan Majesty; it ought to be well considered. Let me have none of your prosaic curates. I shall have you write sermons and private forms, and "heaven's open to all men."

That old fizzling Duke 2 is coming here again (but I hope to be gone first) to hear speeches in his new library, with the Bishop of Bristol, to air his closestool; they have fitted it up-not the close-stool, nor the Bishop, but the library, with classes, that will hold anything but books, yet books they must hold, and all the bulky old Commentators, the Synopses and Tractatus Tractatuums,3 are washed with white-of-eggs, gilt and lettered, and drawn up in review before his Grace. Your uncle Balguy takes his doctor's degree, sermon at Dr.

and preaches the commencement Green's request.

1 Dr. Delap, the author of Hecuba, who had left Mason's curacy.

2 Duke of Newcastle. "The old Hubble-bubble Duke" is Dr. Warner's expression for the same peculiarity of manner which Gray describes by fizzling.—[Mit.]

3 A collection of legal dissertations, Tractatus universi juris, published by Zilettus, the bookseller at Venice, in 1564, in 18 folio volumes, usually bound in 25, to which there are additional volumes of Index, making in all 28 folios.-[Mit.]

Mr. Brown sends his love, and bids me tell you that Dr. Warburton has sent you his New Legation, with its dedication to Lord Mansfield; would you have it sent you? Lord Strathmore goes to-morrow into the North to come of age.1 I keep an owl in the garden as like me as it can stare; only I do not eat raw meat, nor bite people by the fingers. This is all the news of the place. Adieu, dear Mason! and write to me directly if it will not hurt you, or I shall think you worse than you are.-I am ever yours,

T. G.

CXLIX.- -TO THOMAS WHARTON.

Stoke, August 9, 1758.

DEAR DOCTOR-I have been, since I saw you in town, pretty much on the wing, at Hampton, Twickenham, and elsewhere. I staid at the first of these places with the Cobhams two days and should (I own) gladly have done so longer, but for the reason we talked about. The place spite of the weather is delightful : every little gleam of sunshine, every accident of light, opens some new beauty in the view, and I never saw in so small a spot so much variety, and so many natural advantages, nor ever hardly wished more for your company to partake of them. We were also at Hampton Court, Sion, and several places in the neigh

1 John, ninth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, succeeded to the title 1755, and died in April 1776; in 1767 he married the great heiress, daughter of G. Bowes, Esq., of Streatlam Castle, in the western part of the county of Durham.—[Mit.]

VOL. II.

2 B

bourhood again, particularly at Lord Lincoln's, who (I think) is hurting his view by two plantations in front of his terrace, that regularly answer one another, and are of an oval form with rustic buildings in the middle of them, a farm, dairies, etc. They stand on the opposite side of the water, and (as they prosper) will join their shade to that of the hills in the horizon, exclude all the intermediate scene of enclosures, meadows, and cattle feeding, and reduce that great distance to nothing. This seems to be the advice of some new gardener, or director of my Lord's taste; his successor perhaps may cut all down again.

I shall beg the favour of you (as you were so kind to offer it) to buy us a Lottery Ticket, if you find the market will not be much lower than at present; and (if you think it has no great hazard in it) enclose it to me here: I will take care to repay you as soon as I come to town, or (if you choose it) directly. My best respects to Mrs. Wharton. Pray let me hear soon, how you both are.-Believe me, ever yours,

T. G.

CL. TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.

Stoke, August 11, 1758.

DEAR MASON-I was just leaving Cambridge at the time when I received your last letter, and have been unfixed and flitting about almost ever since, or you had heard of me sooner. You do not think I could stay to receive Fobus ; no more did Mr. Hurd, he was

1

gone into Leicestershire long before. As to uncle Balguy, pray do him justice; he stayed, indeed, to preach the commencement sermon, but he assured me (in secret) it was an old one, and had not one word in it to the purpose. The very next morning he set out for Winchester, and I do really think him much. improved since he had his residence there; freer and more open, and his heart less set upon the mammon of unrighteousness. A propos,-would you think it? -Fobus has wit. He told Young, who was invited to supper at Doctor L.'s, and made all the company wait for him, "Why, Young, you make but an awkward figure now you are a bishop; this time last year you would have been the first man here." I cannot brag of my spirits, my situation, my employments, or my fertility; the days and the nights pass, and I am never the nearer to anything but that one to which we are all tending. Yet I love people that leave some traces of their journey behind them, and have strength enough to advise you to do so while you can. I expect to see Caractacus completed, not so much from the opinion I entertain of your industry as from the consideration that another winter approaches, which is the season of harvest to an author; but I will conceal the secret of your motives, and join in the common applause. The books you enquire after are not

1 Doctor Thomas Balguy, prebendary of Winchester, and archdeacon; the friend of Warburton and Hurd.

2 Philip Yonge, Residentiary of St. Paul's, consecrated Bishop of Bristol 1758; translated to Norwich 1761; died 1783. He resigned the Public Oratorship in 1752.-[Mit.]

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worth your knowledge. Parnell1 is the dunghill of Irish Grub Street. I did hear who Lancelot Temple 2 was, but have really forgot. I know I thought it was Mr. Greville. Avon is nothing but a type. The Duchess of Queensberry's advertisement has moved my impatience; yet, after all, perhaps she may curl her gray hair with her grandfather's golden periods. Another object of my wishes is, the King of Prussia's account of the Campaign, which Niphausen talked of

1 The posthumous and dubious collection of Parnell's Remains, published in Dublin in 1758.-[Ed.]

2 A name assumed by Dr. Armstrong, the poet and physician. 3 Avon,” a poem in three parts, 4to. Birmingham, printed in the new types of Mr. Baskerville.

-" Whereas a spuri

4 The Public Advertiser, July 10, 1758.ous, incorrect edition of a work represented to contain the history of the reign of his Majesty King Charles the Second, from the Restoration to the end of the year 1667, by the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, has been attempted to be imposed on the public; to prevent which, their Graces the Duke and Dutchess of Queensberry have preferred a bill in the High Court of Chancery, and obtained an injunction to restrain the printing and publishing the same; and, in order to prevent the abuse which will arise to the public from such a publication, they think it incumbent on them to signify that a correct edition from the original manuscript in the hand of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, of his Lordship's life, from his birth to his banishment (and which includes the history of the Last Seven Years attempted to be imposed on the public), is now preparing for the press, and will soon be published, the profits of which have been appropriated by the family for a public benefaction to the University of Oxford." The Duchess was the wife of Douglas, third Duke of Queensberry. She was the friend of Pope, and patroness and protector of Gay, for whom she quarrelled with the Court. She retained in age the dress of her youth, which was one of her many eccentricities. She died in 1772.-[Mit.]