Henault's1 Abrégé Chronologique de l'Hist. de France, I believe I have before mentioned to you, as a very good book of its kind.

You advised me in your last to be acquainted with Keene, and we are accordingly on very good and civil terms: but to make us love one another (I reckon) you hardly proposed. I always placed the service he did me about Tuthill to your account. This latter has done him some service, about his regulations. If you will give me the pleasure of a letter, while I continue here, it will be a great satisfaction to me. I shall stay a month longer. My best wishes to Mrs. Wharton and your family.—I am ever yours, T. GRAY.

Do not imagine I have forgot my debts, I hope to replace them this year.

LXXIV. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

MY DEAR WHARTON—A little kind of reproach, that I saw the other day in a letter of yours to Mr. Brown, has made my guilt fly in my face, and given me spirit to be a beast no longer. I desired him to tell you in the beginning of the summer, that I feared my journey into the north would be prevented by the arrival of my cousin, Mrs. Forster (whom you remember by the name of Pattinson) from India. She

1 Charles Jean François Hénault (1685-1770). The Abrégé appeared in 1744.- [Ed.].

came in August; and I continued in town with her a month in order to do what little services I could to a person as strange, and as much to seek, as though she had been born in the Mud of the Ganges. After this the year was too far advanced to undertake such an expedition; and the thought of seeing you here in the spring in some measure comforts me for the disappointment; for I depend upon your coming then, when it will be far easier to confer together, and determine about a thing, in which (I fear) I am too much interested to deserve having any great share in the determination1

You are aware undoubtedly, that a certain deference, not to say servility, to the heads of colleges is perhaps necessary to a physician, that means to establish himself here: you possibly may find a method to do without it. Another inconvenience your wife, rather than you, will feel, the want of company of her own sex; as the women are few here, squeezy and formal, and little skilled in amusing themselves or other people. All I can say is, she must try to make up for it among the men, who are not over-agreeable neither. I much approve of your settling seriously to your profession; but as your father is old, if you should lose him, what becomes of your interest, and to whom is it then to be transferred? Would you leave London and your practice again to canvass an election for yourself? It seems to me, that, if you execute your

1 About nineteen lines of the MS. are lost here.-[Ed.]

present scheme, you must (in case of Mr. Wharton's death) entirely lay aside all views of that kind. The gradual transition you propose to make through Bath or Cambridge to London is very well judged, and likely enough to succeed. For Bath, I am wholly unacquainted with it, and consequently can say little to the purpose. The way of life there might be more amusing to Mrs. Wharton, than this; but to you, I think, would be less satisfactory. I sincerely congratulate you on the good effects of your new medicine, which is indeed a sufficient recompense for any pains you have taken in that study. But to make a just trial of its efficacy and of your own constitution, you certainly ought to pass a little time at London (a month or so)1.

engaged himself to make it up £1000, in case the brothers will not do it, and they have (after some hesitation), refused it. Our good Mr. Brown goes out of his office to-day, of which he is not a little glad. His college, which had much declined for some time, is picking up again: they have had twelve admissions this year; and are just filling up two fellowships with a Mr. Cardell, whom I do not know, but they say, he is a good scholar; and a Mr. Delaval, a Fellow-Commoner (a younger son to old Delaval of Northumberland), who has taken his degree in an exemplary manner, and is very sensible, and knowing. The appeal, which has been so long contended for, will, I believe, at last be yielded to with a good grace, or rather About sixteen lines of the MS. are lost here.-[Ed.]

bestowed, by the advice of the D. of Newcastle, and my Lord Ch, and will be the best, the most popular thing they can do. But you must not mention it, till it is actually done. I am sorry your friend Chapman will lose all the merit of his pamphlet, which (by the way) has been answered exceedingly well, and with all due contempt. He seems much mortified, and was preparing a reply, but this event, I doubt, will cut him short.

I know of nothing new in the literary way, but the history of Lewis 14th, by Voltaire; not that I have yet seen it, but my expectations are much raised.-Adieu, my dear Wharton, I am ever most truly yours,

T. G.

P.S.-I am ready to pay my debts, if you will tell me to whom. My compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Wharton, and the little gentry.

[Endorsed thus:] October 10, 1750.

LXXV. TO JOHN CHUTE.

My God! Mr. Chute in England? what, and have you seen him, and did he say nothing to you? not a word of me such was my conversation, when I first heard news so surprising, with a person, that (when I reflect) it is indeed no great wonder you did not much interrogate concerning me, as you knew nothing of what has passed of late.

But let me ask you yourself, have a few years

totally erased me from your memory? you are generous enough perhaps to forget all the obligations I have to you. But is it generosity to forget the person you have obliged too? while I remember myself, I cannot but remember you: and consequently cannot but wonder, when I find nowhere one line, one syllable, to tell me you are arrived. I will venture to say, there is nobody in England, however nearly connected with you, that has seen you with more real joy and affection than I shall. You are, it seems, gone into the country, whither (had I reason to think you wished to see me) I should immediately have followed; as it is, I am returning to Cambridge, but with intention to come back to town again, whenever you do, if you will let me know the time and place.

I readily set Mr. Whd.1 free from all imputations. He is a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the Tour of Europe to take possession, and be married: and consequently can't be supposed to think of anything, or remember anybody, but you! however, I don't altogether clear him, he might have said something to one, who remembers him when he was but a Pout. Nevertheless, I desire my hearty gratulations to him, and say I wish him more spangles, and more estates, and more wives.-Adieu! my dear Sir, I am ever yours, T. GRAY.

P.S.-My compliments to Mrs. Chute (who once

1 Francis Whithead, the nephew of John Chute. Gray and Walpole met these gentlemen in Florence in 1740. Whithead