mas: but if I am, I will be sure to give you notice in due time. I am glad you have had any pleasure in Gresset : he seems to me a truly elegant and charming writer. The Méchant is the best comedy I ever read. Edward I1 I could scarce get through, it is puerile; though there are good lines; such as this for example: "Le jour d'un nouveau règne est le jour des ingrats." But good lines will make anything rather than a good Play. However you are to consider, this is a collection made by the Dutch booksellers. Many things unfinished or wrote in his youth, or designed not for the world, but to make a few friends laugh, as the Lutrin Vivant, etc., there are two noble verses, which as they are in the middle of an ode to the King, may perhaps have escaped you: "Le cri d'un peuple heureux, est la seule éloquence which is very true, and should have been a hint to himself not to write odes to the king at all. My squabble with the Professor I did not think worth mentioning to you. My letter was by no 1 Gray makes a slip of the pen here. Gresset wrote no Edward I. His Edouard III. was brought out at the Comédie Française on the 22d of January 1740. It was notable for an innovation up to that time unprecedented on the French stage. In emulation of Shakespeare, one of the characters was killed on the stage itself.-[Ed.] 2 Gresset's Le Lutrin Vivant, a tale in verse, was published in the Poésies of 1734.-[Ed.] means intended as a composition, and only designed to be shewed to some, who were witnesses to the impertinence, that gave occasion for it: but he was fool enough by way of revenge to make it mighty public. I don't wonder your Mr. Bolby disapproves Mr. [erased] conduct at Rome: it was indeed very unlike his own. But when everybody there of our nation. was base enough either to enter into an actual correspondence with a certain most serene person, or at least to talk carelessly and doubtfully on what was then transacting at home, sure it was the part of a man of spirit to declare his sentiments publicly and warmly. He was so far from making a party, that he and Mr. [erased] were the only persons, that were of that party. As to his ends in it; from his first return to England he has always frequented the Prince's court, and been the open friend of Mr. H. W[alpole]: which could certainly be no way to recommend himself to the ministry: unless you suppose his views were very distant indeed. I should wish to know (when you can find time for a letter) what you think of my young friend, St[onhewe]r, and what company he is fallen into in the North. I fill up with the beginning of a sort of Essay. What name to give it I know not, but the subject is, the Alliance of Education and Government; I mean to shew that they must necessarily concur to produce great and useful men. I desire your judgment upon so far, before I proceed any farther.-Adieu. I am ever yours, T. G. Pray shew it to no one (as it is a fragment) except it be St[onhewe]r, who has seen most of it already I think. LXX. TO THOMAS WHARTON. MY DEAR WHARTON-Shall I be expeditious enough to bring you the news of the peace, before you meet with it in the Papers? not the Peace of Aix la Chapelle, mother of proclamations and of fireworks, that lowers the price of oranges and Malaga-sack, and enhances that of Poor Jack and Barrell'd Cod: no, nor the Peace between Adil-Shah and the Great Mogol; but the Peace of Pembroke signed between the high and mighty Prince Roger, surnamed the Long, Lord of the great Zodiac, the Glass Uranium, and the Chariot that goes without horses, on the one part; and the most noble James Brown, the most serene Theophilus Peele, and the most profound Nehemiah May, etc.: on the other. In short without farther preliminaries Knowles, Mason, and Tuthill are elected, and the last of them is actually here on the spot, as you will shortly hear from himself. The negotiations, that preceded this wonderful event are inexplicable. The success of the affair was extremely uncertain but the very night before it, and had come to nothing, if Brown fixed and obstinate as a little rock had not resisted the solicitations of Smith, and Smart, almost quarrelled with Peele and May, and given up, as in a huff, the living of Tilney, to which he had that morning been presented. I say, this seemed to them to be done in a huff, but was in reality a thing he had determined. to do, be the event of the Election what it would. They were desirous of electing two, as the master proposed, Knowles and Mason, or Mason and Gaskarth, for they were sure he would never admit Tuthill, as he had so often declared it. However, I say, Brown continued stedfast, that all three should come in, or none at all; and when they met next day, he begun by resigning Tilney, and then desired the master would either put an end to their long disputes himself, as they intreated him; or else they would refer the whole to a visitor, and did conjure him to call one in, as soon as possible. The rest did not contradict him, though the proposal was much against their real inclinations. So Roger believing them unanimous (after some few Pribbles and Prabbles), said, well then, if it be for the good of the College-but you intend Knowles shall be senior?— To be sure, master-well then-and so they proceeded to Election, and all was over in a few minutes. I do believe, that Roger despairing now of a visitor to his mind, and advised by all his acquaintance (among whom I reckon Keene, whose acquaintance I have cultivated with the same views you mentioned in your letter to Brown) to finish the matter, had been for some months determined to do so, but not till he made a last effort. He made it indeed, but not having sagacity enough to find out, how near carrying his point he was; being ignorant of the weakness of a part of his College, and they not cunning, or perhaps not dishonest enough, to discover it to him, he thought he had missed his aim, and so gave it up without farther struggling. I hope you will be glad to see so good an end of an affair you gave birth to Brown is quite happy, and we vastly glad to be obliged to the only man left among them, that one would care to be obliged to. There are two more Fellowships remain to be filled up at the Commencement. By the way Tuthill has been just holding a candle-not to the devil, but to the master, as he was reading some papers in Hall and the boys peep'd in at the screens to see it, and to laugh. Keene is most sadly implicated in the beginning of his reign about an Election, and I am of his Cabinetcouncil, hitherto for the reasons you wot of, and now because I can't help it. But I am rather tired of College details (as I doubt not, you are) and so I leave this story to be recorded by the Annalists of Peter-house; and let historians of equal dignity tell of the triumphs of Chappy, the installations, the visitations, and other memorable events, that distinguish and adorn his glorious reign. : You ask for some account of books. The principal I can tell you of is a work of the president Montesquieu's, the labour of twenty years. It is called, |