ill chance hindered their meeting, or have you not paid them a visit this vacation? It is an infinite while since I heard from Mason; I know no more of him than you do; but I hope Caractacus will profit of our losses; if pleasure or application take up his thoughts I am half content.

My health I cannot complain of, but as to my spirits they are always many degrees below changeable, and I seem to myself to inspire everything around me with ennui and dejection; but some time or other all these things must come to a conclusion, till which day I shall remain very sincerely yours,

T. G.

Commend me to any that enquire after me, particu larly Mr. Talbot.

CLIV. TO WILLIAM PALGRAVE.1

[Stoke,] September 6, 1758. I Do not know how to make you amends, having neither rock, ruin, or precipice near me to send you; they do not grow in the South: but only say the word, if you would have a compact neat box of red brick with sash windows, or a grotto made of flints family of ten sons and four daughters; he resided at Abbot's Ripton, in the county of Huntingdon. Gray said that Mrs. Bonfoy taught him to pray.—[Ed.]

1 Known as "Old Pa" (1735-1799). He was a fellow of Pembroke College, and Rector of Palgrave and Thrandeston in Suffolk. Mason says that he was making a tour in Scotland when this letter was written to him.-[Ed.]

and shell-work, or a walnut-tree with three mole-hills under it, stuck with honey-suckles round a basin of gold-fishes, and you shall be satisfied; they shall come by the Edinburgh coach.

In the meantime I congratulate you on your new acquaintance with the savage, the rude, and the tremendous. Pray, tell me, is it anything like what you had read in your book, or seen in two-shilling prints? Do not you think a man may be the wiser (I had almost said the better) for going a hundred or two of miles; and that the mind has more room in it than most people seem to think, if you will but furnish the apartments? I almost envy your last month, being in a very insipid situation myself; and desire you would not fail to send me some furniture for my Gothic apartment, which is very cold at present. It will be the easier task, as you have nothing to do but transcribe your little red books, if they are not rubbed out; for I conclude you have not trusted everything to memory, which is ten times worse than a lead pencil half a word fixed upon or near the spot, is worth a cartload of recollection. When we trust to the picture that objects draw of themselves on our mind, we deceive ourselves; without accurate and particular observation, it is but ill-drawn at first, the outlines are soon blurred, the colours every day grow fainter; and at last, when we would produce it to anybody, we are forced to supply its defects with a few strokes of our own imagination. God forgive me, I suppose I have done so myself before now, and

misled many a good body that put their trust in me. Pray, tell me (but with permission, and without any breach of hospitality), is it so much warmer on the other side of the Swale (as some people of honour say) than it is here? Has the singing of birds, the bleating of sheep, the lowing of herds, deafened you at Rainton! Did the vast old oaks and thick groves of Northumberland keep off the sun too much from you? I am too civil to extend my enquiries beyond Berwick. Everything, doubtless, must improve upon you as you advanced northward. You must tell me, though, about Melross, Rosslin Chapel, and Arbroath. In short, your Port-feuille must be so full, that I only desire a loose chapter or two, and will wait for the rest till it comes out.

CLV. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

[Stoke,] September 16, 1758.

DEAR DOCTOR-Having been for a considerable time without any news of you, I have taken it into my head, that you are ill, or that Mrs. Wharton is so. You will not wonder, if I grow a little superstitious, when you know, that I have not been a step out of the house for this fortnight or more past, for Mrs. Rogers has been at the point of death with a disorder in her stomach accompanied with continual and laborious retchings, and a total loss of appetite, that has reduced her to the weakness of an infant, I mean, her body, though her senses are still perfect, and

(what I think remarkable) she has recovered the use of her speech (which for several years had been hardly intelligible), and pronounces almost as plain, as ever she did. She is now, for three days past, such is the strength of her constitution, in a way of recovery: medicine has had nothing to do in it, for she will take nothing prescribed her. When I say recovery, I do not mean, that she will ever recover her strength again, but, I think, she may live a good while in this helpless state; however it is very precarious, and Dr. Hayes believes her quite worn out. I certainly do not put on (to you) more tenderness, than I really feel on this occasion, but the approaches of death are always a melancholy object, and common humanity must suffer something from such a spectacle.

It is an age since I heard anything from Mason. If I do not mistake, this should be his month of waiting, unless he has exchanged his turn with somebody. If he be in town, you must probably have heard of him, and can give me some intelligence. My old new acquaintance Lady Denbigh is here at Stokehouse; but I do not believe, I shall be able to get out, or have any opportunity of seeing her, while she stays.

If my fancies (which I hope in God are mere fancies) should prove true, I hope you will let somebody tell me, how you do. If not, I shall beg you to tell me yourself, as soon as possible, and set my understanding to rights. Adieu, dear Sir, I am ever most sincerely yours,

T. G.

CLVI. TO THE REV. JAMES BROWN.

October 28, 1758.

DEAR SIR-You will not imagine me the less grateful for the long letter you were so good to write me some time since, because I have omitted to answer it, especially if you know what has since happened. Mrs. Rogers died in the end of September; and what with going to town to prove her will and other necessary things, what with returning back hither to pay debts, make inventories, and other such delightful amusements, I have really been almost wholly taken up. I might perhaps make a merit even of writing now, if you could form a just idea of my situation, being joint executor with another aunt, who is of a mixed breed between and the Dragon of Wantley. So much for her. I next proceed to tell you that I saw Mason in town, who stayed there a day on my account, and then set out (not in a huff) with a laudable resolution to pass his winter at Aston, and save a curate.1 My Lord2 has said something to him, which I am glad of, that looked like an excuse for his own dilatoriness in preferring him; but this is a secret. He told me he had seen you, and that you were well. Dr. Wharton continues dispirited, but a little better than he was.

1 I presume that he did so; for there appears a vacancy in the curacy between Mr. Delap's leaving Aston and Mr. Wood coming in 1759, by the Aston Register.—[Mit.]

2 Lord Holdernesse.