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1803. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

Strawberry Hill, March 28, 1779.

YOUR last called for no answer; and I have so little to tell you, that I only write to-day to avoid the air of remissness. I came hither on Friday, for this last week has been too hot to stay in London; but March is arrived this morning with his north-easterly malice, and I suppose will assert his old style claim to the third of April. The poor infant apricots will be the victim to that Herod of the almanack. I have been much amused with new travels through Spain by a Mr. Swinburne '-at least with the Alhambra, of the inner parts of which there are two beautiful prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had most taste of any people in the Gothic ages; and I hate the knave Ferdinand and his bigoted Queen for destroying them. These new travels are simple, and do tell you a little more than late voyagers, by whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but muleteers and fandangos. In truth there does not seem to be much worth seeing but prospects; and those, unless I were a bird, I would never visit, when the accommodations are so wretched.

Mr. Cumberland has given the town a Masque, called Calypso, which is a prodigy of dulness. Would you believe, that such a sentimental writer would be so gross as to make cantharides one of the ingredients of a love-potion for enamouring Telemachus? If you think I exaggerate, here are the lines:

To these, the hot Hispanian fly
Shall bid his languid pulse beat high.

Proteus and Antiope are Minerva's missioners for securing the

1 "Travels through Spain, in the years 1775 and 1776; in which several Monuments of Roman and Moorish Architecture are illustrated by accurate Drawings taken on the spot. By Henry Swinburne." London, 1779, 4to. Mr. Swinburne also published, in 1783-5, his "Travels in the Two Sicilies, during the Years 1777-8-9, and 1780." This celebrated traveller was the youngest son of Sir John Swinburne, of Capheaton, Northumberland, the long-established seat of that ancient Roman Catholic family. Pecuniary embarrassments, arising from the marriage of his daughter to Paul Benfield, Esq., and consequent involvement in the misfortunes of that adventurer, induced him to obtain a place in the newly-ceded settlement of Trinidad, where he died in 1803.-WRIGHT.

2 44

Calypso" was brought out at Covent Garden theatre, but was performed only a few nights. It was imprudently ushered in by a prelude, in which the author treated the newspaper editors as a set of unprincipled fellows.-WRIGHT.

prince's virtue, and in recompense they are married and crowned king and queen!

I have bought at Hudson's sale a fine design of a chimney-piece, by Holbein, for Henry VIII.' If I had a room left, I would erect. It is certainly not so Gothic as that in my Holbein room; but there is a great deal of taste for that bastard style; perhaps it was executed at Nonsuch.

I do intend, under Mr. Essex's inspection, to begin my Offices next spring. It is late in my day, I confess, to return to brick and mortar; but I shall be glad to perfect my plan, or the next possessor will marry my castle to a Doric stable. There is a perspective through two or three rooms in the Alhambra, that might easily be improved into Gothic, though there seems but small affinity between them; and they might be finished within with Dutch tiles, and painting, or bits of ordinary marble, as there must be gilding. Mosaic seems to be their chief ornaments, for walls, ceilings, and floors. Fancy must sport in the furniture, and mottos might be gallant, and would be very Arabesque. I would have a mixture of colours, but with a strict attention to harmony and taste; and some one should predominate, as supposing it the favourite colour of the lady who was sovereign of the knight's affections who built the house. Carpets are classically Mahometans, and fountains-but, alas! our climate till last summer was never romantic! Were I not so old, I would at least build a Moorish novel-for you see my head runs on Granada-and by taking the most picturesque parts of the Mahometan and Catholic religions, and with the mixture of African and Spanish names, one might make something very agreeable at least I will not give the hint to Mr. Cumberland. Adieu! Yours ever.

1804. TO EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ.

[1779.]

THE penetration, solidity, and taste, that made you the first of historians, dear Sir, prevent my being surprised at your being the best writer of controversial pamphlets too. I have read you with

This very fine drawing, which Walpole bought at the sale of Hudson the painter (who had it from his father-in-law, Richardson) was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale for 33. 128., and is now in the British Museum.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Gibbon's celebrated "Vindication" of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of his History appeared early in the year 1779.-Wright.

more precipitation than such a work deserved, but I could not disobey you and detain it. Yet even in that hurry I could discern, besides a thousand beauties and strokes of wit, the inimitable eightythird page, and the conscious dignity that you maintain throughout, over your monkish antagonists. When you are so superior in argument, it would look like insensibility to the power of your reasoning, to select transient passages for commendation; and yet I must mention one that pleased me particularly, from the delicacy of the severity, and from its novelty too; it is, bold is not the word. This is the feathered arrow of Cupid, that is more formidable than the club of Hercules. I need not specify thanks, when I prove how much I have been pleased. Your most obliged.

1805. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Bedfordshire, April 8, 1779.

I DID not answer your Ladyship's letter, as I generally do, the moment I received it, because I had nothing to tell you about the remnant of myself, which is the worst subject in the world. I have been six days at Strawberry Hill, and I think the soft south-west did me good; but I have a constant feverish heat that seems to be undermining my ruins; however its progress is very slow; and so if you please we will say no more of it; but your goodness in inquiring is written on my heart's last tablet. Mr. Mason was with me for two days: he is printing the third book of his Garden.'

Lord Harrington is gathered to his fathers, or rather, is taken from his mothers. Lord Beauchamp's son is well again. Lord Harrington has left my Lady 25007. besides her jointure of 15007. a year; to Lady Anna Maria 60007.; 50007. to Mr. Stanhope, and an estate of 1507. a year; but there are so many debts that the legacies are more magnificent than generous. The charming house at St. James's is to be sold; but it is supposed the present earl will purchase it.

This is all I have heard, Madam, since I came to town yesterday, which is perfectly empty; the grass grows in the streets, though nowhere else, for the climate is turned as Asiatic as the government; and it is to be hoped that in time there will be elephants and tigers of our own growth in the Sultan's gardens, to the great satisfaction of Sir William Chambers. I was pleased yesterday to see that, though everything old-fashioned is going out of date, we have still

resources. If our trade decays we have new handycrafts: at Turnham Green I read on a large board-manufacture of temples. I suppose the Archbishop of York will set up looms in his diocese for Popish chapels, and Manchester weave dungeons for the Inquisition. The pope's bull against the dissenters' bill is actually issued from the Clarendon printing-house. I was interrupted by the strangest story I ever heard, and which I cannot yet believe, though it is certainly true. Last night as Miss Ray was getting into her coach in Covent Garden from the play, a clergyman shot her through the head, and then himself. She is dead; but he is alive to be hanged-in the room of Sir Hugh Palliser. Now, Madam, can one believe such a tale? How could poor Miss Ray have offended a divine? She was no enemy to the church militant or naval, to the Church of England or the church of Paphos. I do not doubt but it will be found that the assassin was a dissenter, and instigated by the Americans to give such a blow to the state. My servants have heard that the murderer was the victim's husband: methinks his jealousy was very long suffering! "Tantæne animis cælestibus iræ!" and that he should not have compounded for a deanery! What trials Lord Sandwich goes through! he had better have one for all.

Friday, 9th.

I gave David this letter yesterday, and had forgotten to seal it, which he did not perceive till I was gone out for the evening. Instead of sealing it he kept it for me till this morning after I had written my second. I send both to show I had been punctual, though all the novelty is evaporated, and my intelligence is not worth a farthing more than the newspaper.

April 9, 1779.

Ladies, said a certain philosopher, always tell their minds in the postscript. As that is the habitation of truth, I send you, Madam, a little more truth than there was in my narrative of yesterday, which was warm from the first breath of rumour: yet though this is only a postscript I will not answer for its perfect veracity. It is the most authentic account I have yet been able to collect of so strange a story, of which no doubt you are curious to know more.

The assassin's name is Hackman; he is brother to a reputable tradesman in Cheapside, and is of a very pleasing figure himself, and most engaging behaviour. About five years ago he was an officer in the 66th regiment, and being quartered at Huntingdon, pleased so much as to be invited to the oratorios at Hinchinbrook,

and was much caressed there. Struck with Miss Ray's charms he proposed marriage; but she told him she did not choose to carry a knapsack. He went to Ireland, and there changed the colour of his cloth, and at his return, I think not long ago, renewed his suit, hoping a cassock would be more tempting than a gorget; but in vain. Miss Ray, it seems, has been out of order, and abroad but twice all the winter. She went to the play on Wednesday night for the second time with Galli the singer. During the play the desperate lover was at the Bedford Coffee House, and behaved with great calmness, and drank a glass of capillaire. Towards the conclusion, he sallied into the piazza, waiting till he saw his victim handed by Mr. Macnamara. He came behind her, pulled her by the gown, and on her turning round, clapped the pistol to her forehead, and shot her through the head. With another pistol he then attempted to shoot himself, but the ball only grazing his brow, he tried to dash out his own brains with the pistol, and is more wounded by those blows than by the ball.

Lord Sandwich was at home expecting her to supper at half-anhour after ten. On her not returning an hour later, he said something must have happened: however, being tired he went to bed at half-an-hour after eleven, and was scarce in bed before one of his servants came in, and said Miss Ray was shot. He stared, and could not comprehend what the fellow meant; nay, lay still, which is full as odd a part of the story as any. At twelve came a letter from the surgeon to confirm the account; and then he was extremely afflicted.

Now, upon the whole, Madam, is not the story full as strange as ever it was? Miss Ray has six children, the eldest son is fifteen, and she was at least three times as much. To bear a hopeless passion, for five years, and then murder one's mistress--I don't understand it! If the story clears up at all, your Ladyship shall have a sequel. These circumstances I received from Lord Hertford, who heard them at Court yesterday from the Lords of the Admiralty. I forgot that the Galli swooned away on the spot.

I do not love tragic events en pure perte. If they do happen, I would have them historic. This is only of kin to history, and tends to nothing. It is very impertinent in one Hackman, to rival Herod, and shoot Mariamne-and that Mariamne, a kept mistress! and yet it just sets curiosity agog, because she belongs to Lord Sandwich, at a critical moment-and yet he might as well have killed any other inhabitant of Covent Garden.

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