L'Esprit des Loix, 2 vols. 4to. printed at Geneva. He lays down the principles on which are founded the three sorts of government, Despotism, the limited Monarchic, and the Republican, and shews how from thence are deducted the laws and customs, by which they are guided and maintained: the education proper to each form, the influences of climate, situation, religion, etc.: on the minds of particular nations, and on their policy. The subject (you see) is as extensive as mankind; the thoughts perfectly new, generally admirable, as they are just, sometimes a little too refined: in short there are faults, but such as an ordinary man could never have committed: the style very lively and concise (consequently sometimes obscure) it is the gravity of Tacitus (whom he admires) tempered with the gayety and fire of a Frenchman.

The time of night will not suffer me to go on, but I will write again in a week. My best compliments to Mrs. Wharton, and your family.—I am ever, most sincerely yours, T. GRAY.

March 9 [1748-9], Thursday, Cambridge.

LXXI. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

April 25, Cambridge [endorsed 1749.]

MY DEAR WHARTON-I perceive, that second parts are as bad to write, as they can be to read; for this, which you ought to have had a week after the first, has been a full month in coming forth. The spirit of

Lasiness (the spirit of the place), begins to possess even me, that have so long declaimed against it: yet has it not so prevailed, but that I feel that discontent with myself, that Ennuy, that ever accompanies it in its beginnings. Time will settle my conscience, time will reconcile me to this languid companion we shall smoke, we shall tipple, we shall doze together. We shall have our little jokes, like other people, and our long stories; Brandy will finish what Port begun; and a month after the time you will see in some corner of a London Evening Post, yesterday, died the Revd. Mr. John Grey, SeniorFellow of Clare-hall, a facetious companion, and well-respected by all that knew him. His death is supposed to have been occasioned by a fit of an apoplexy, being found fallen out of bed with his head in the chamber-pot.

I am half ashamed to write university news to you, but as perhaps you retain some little leven of Pembroke Hall, your nursing mother, I am in hopes you will not be more than half ashamed to read it. Pembroke then is all harmonious and delightful since the pacification: but I wish you would send them up some boys, for they are grown extremely thin from their late long indisposition. Keene's Implications have ended queerly, for, contrary to all common sense Peter Nourse and two others have joined Rogers, and brought in a shameful low creature by a majority. The master appeals to the Visitor against their choice, as of a person not qualified. He has

received the appeal, and (I suppose) will put in Brocket (Dr. Keene's man) by main force. Chapman is at present in town in waiting; he has just married a Miss Barnwell, niece to one Dr. Barnwell, who was minister of Trompington, with £2000, a plain woman, and about his own age. I hear, that when he went to Leicester-house to know when the Prince would be waited upon with the book of verses on the peace the Prince appointed no day at all; but ordered the verses to be sent, and left there. The design of receiving the University at Newcastle-house is said to be altered; the Duke intending to come hither (I imagine) after the Parliament is risen. Rosse's1 Epistles of Tully ad Familiares will come out in about a week. It is in two handsome 8vo volumes, with an Introduction and Notes in English, but no translation, dedicated to Lord Gower. Now I am come to books, there is a new edition of Montesquieu's Work (which I mentioned to you before) publishing in 2 vols. 8vo. Have you seen old Crebillon's Catilina, a Tragedy, which has had a prodigious run at Paris historical truth is too much perverted in it, which is ridiculous in a story so generally known : but if you can get over this, the sentiments and versification are fine, and most of the characters

2

1 John Ross, afterwards Bishop of Exeter (died 1792), issued in 1749 an edition of the Ad Familiares of Cicero which roused an angry controversy among scholars.-[Ed.]

2 The Catalina of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762), the tragic poet, was brought out in 1748 by the court-party as a form of annoyance to Voltaire.—[Ed.]

(particularly the principal one) painted with great spirit. Observe, if you chuse to send for it, not to have Brindley's edition, which is all false prints, but Vaillant's. There is a Work publishing in Denmark by subscription1 (4 guineas) Travels in Egypt by Captain Norden. He was once in England (as tutor to a young Count Daniskiold, hereditary Admiral of Denmark) and known to many persons for a man of sense, and that understood drawing extremely well; accordingly it is the plates, that raise it to such a price, and are said to be excellent. The author himself is dead, and his papers are published by the Academy at Copenhagen. Mr. Birch,2 the indefatigable, has just put out a thick 8vo. of original papers of Queen Elizabeth's time. There are many curious things in it, particularly Letters from Sir Robert Cecil (Salisbury) about his Negotiations with Henry IVth of France; the Earl of Monmouth's odd account of Queen Elizabeth's death, several peculiarities of James Ist, and Prince Henry, etc.; and above all an excellent account of the State of France with characters of the King, his Court and Ministry, by Sir G. Carew, ambassador there. This, I think, is all

1 This was a Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie, translated from the Danish MS. of Frederik Ludvig Norden (1708-1742), by Des Roches de Parthenay, and edited in 1755, at Copenhagen, as a folio with plates, by the Kongelike Danske Videnskabers Selskab. In 1757 an English version of these famous travels appeared in London, translated from the French by Dr. Templemann of the British Museum.-[Ed.]

2 Thomas Birch, D.D. (1705-1766), the antiquary.—[Ed.]

new worth mentioning, that I have seen or heard of, except a Natural History of Peru in Spanish, printed at London by Don something, a man of learning, sent thither by that court on purpose.

I shall venture to accept of a part of that kind offer you once made me (for my finances are much disordered this year) by desiring you to lend me twenty guineas. The sooner you can do this, the more convenient it will be to me, and if you can find a method to pay it here; still more so. But if anything should happen, that may defer it, or make this method troublesome: then I will desire you to make it payable in town after the first week in June, when I shall be obliged to go thither.

I want to hear from you, to know of your health and that of your family. My best compliments to Mrs. Wharton, Mr. Brown comes and throws in his little compliments too, and we are both very truly T. G., i.b.

yours,

LXXII. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

MY DEAR WHARTON-I promised Dr. Keene long since to give you an account of our magnificences here,1 but the newspapers and he himself in person have got the start of my indolence, so that by this time you are well acquainted with all the events, that adorned that week of wonders. Thus much I may

1 The Duke of Newcastle's installation as Chancellor of the University. [Mason.]