in terms. It is true, but I will go on. It is Latin too, to increase the absurdity. It will, I suppose, put you in mind of the man who wrote a treatise of canon law in hexameters. Pray help me to the description of a mixed mode, and a little episode about space. side you may add a sensibility for what others | Here comes a letter from you. I must defer feel, and indulgence for their faults or weaknesses, giving my opinion of Pausanias* till I can see the a love of truth, and detestation of every thing else. whole, and only have said what I did in obedience Then you are to deduct a little impertinence, a to your commands. I have spoken with such little laughter, a great deal of pride, and some spi- freedom on this head, that it seems but just you rits. These are all the alterations I know of, you should have your revenge; and therefore I send perhaps may find more. Think not that I have you the beginning, not of an epic poem, but of a been obliged for this reformation of manners to metaphysic one.† Poems and metaphysics (say reason or reflection, but to a severer school-mis-you, with your spectacles on) are inconsistent tress, experience. One has little merit in learning things. A metaphysical poem is a contradiction her lessons, for one can not well help it; but they are more useful than others, and imprint themselves in the very heart. 1 find I have been haranguing in the style of the son of Sirach, so shall finish here, and tell you that our route is settled as follows: first to Bologna for a few days, to hear the Viscontina sing; next to Reggio, where is a fair. Now, you must know, a fair here, is not a place where one eats gingerbread or rides upon hobby-horses; here are no musical clocks, nor tall Leicestershire women; one has nothing but masquing, gaming, and singing. If you love operas, there will be the most splendid in Italy, four tiptop voices, a new theatre, the duke and dutchess in all their pomps and vanities. Does not this sound magnificent? Yet is the city of Reggio but one step above old Brentford. Well; next, to Venice by the 11th of May, there to see the old Doge wed the Adriatic whore. Then to Verona, so to Milan, so to Marseilles, so to Lyons, so to Paris, so to West, &c. in sæcula sæculorum. Amen. Spesso Amor suto la forma Lust amicitiæ interdum velatus amictu, que alium versus, versus et in lacrymas. tudentem fuge, nec lacrymanti, aut crede furenti; Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Gray set out from Florence at the time specified in the foregoing letter. When Mr. Gray left Venice, which he did the middle of July following, he returned home through Padua, Verona, Milan, Turin, and Lyons; from all which places he writ either to his father or mother with great punctuality: but merely to inform them of his health and safety; about which (as might be expected) they were now very anxious, as he travelled with only a “ Laquais de Voyage." These letters do not even mention that he went out of his way to make a second visit to the Grande Chartreuse, and there wrote in the Album of the Fathers the Alcaic Ode; Oh Tu, severi Religio loci, &c.—See Poems. He was at Turin the 15th of August, and began FROM MR. WEST. I WRITE to make you write, for I have not much to tell you. I have recovered no spirits as yet,‡ but, as I am not displeased with my company, I sit purring by the fireside in my arm-chair with no small satisfaction. I read too sometimes, and have begun Tacitus, but have not yet read enough to judge of him; only his Pannonian sedition in the first book of his annals, which is just as far * Some part of a tragedy under that title, which Mr. West had begun. The beginning of the first book of a didactic poem, "De Principiis Cogitandi."-See Poems. The distresses of Mr. West's mind had already too far affected a body, from the first weak and delicate. His health declined daily, and, therefore, he left town in March, 1742, and, for the benefit of the air, went to David Mitchell's, Esq. at Popes, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire; at whose house he died the 1st of June following. as I have got, seemed to me a little tedious. I have you would retrench it. Aceronia, you may re no more to say, but to desire you will write letters member, had been giving quiet counsels. I fancy, of a handsome length, and always answer me if it ever be finished, it will be in the nature o. within a reasonable space of time, which I leave Nat. Lee's bedlam tragedy, which had twenty-five to your discretion. acts, and some odd scenes. I TRUST to the country, and that easy indolence I have something else to say, and that is in relation you say you enjoy there, to restore you your to the style, which appears to me too antiquated. health and spirits; and doubt not but, when the Racine was of another opinion: he no where gives sun grows warm enough to tempt you from your you the phrases of Ronsard: his language is the fireside, you will (like all other things) be the bet-language of the times, and that of the purest sort; ter for his influence. He is my old friend, and an so that his French is reckoned a standard. I will excellent nurse, I assure you. Had it not been not decide what style is fit for our English stage: for him, life had been often to me intolerable. but I should rather choose one that bordered upon Pray do not imagine that Tacitus, of all authors in Cato, than upon Shakspeare. One may imitate the world, can be tedious. An annalist, you (if one can) Shakspeare's manner, his surprising know, is by no means master of his subject; and strokes of true nature, his expressive force in I think one may venture to say, that if those Pan- painting characters, and all his other beauties; prenonian affairs are tedious in his hands, in another's serving, at the same time, our own language. Were they would have been insupportable. However, Shakspeare alive now, he would write in a differ fear not. they will soon be over, and he will make ent style from what he did. These are my sentianiple amends. A man, who could join the bril-ments upon these matters: perhaps I am wrong, liunt of wit and concise sententiousness peculiar for I am neither a Tarpa, nor am I quite an Aristo that age, with the truth and gravity of better tarchus. You see I write freely both of you and times, and the deep reflection and good sense of Shakspeare; but it is as good as writing not freely, the best moderns, can not choose but have some-where you know it is acceptable. thing to strike you. Yet what I admire in him I have been tormented within this week with a above ail this, is his detestation of tyranny, and the most violent cough; for when once it sets up its high spirit of liberty that every now and then note, it will go on, cough after cough, shaking and breaks out as it were, whether he would or no. I tearing me for half an hour together; and then it remember a sentence in his Agricola that (concise leaves me in a great sweat, as much fatigued as if as it is) I always admired for saying much in a I had been labouring at the plough. All this delittle compass. He speaks of Domitian, who upon scription of my cough in prose, is only to introduce seeing the last will of that general, where he had another description of it in verse, perhaps not worth made him coheir with his wife and daughter, your perusal; but it is very short, and besides has "Satis constabat lætatum eum, velut honore, ju- this remarkable in it, that it was the production of dicioque: tam cæca et corrupta mens assiduis adu-four o'clock in the morning, while I lay in my bed lationibus erat, ut nesciret a bono patre non scribi tossing and coughing, and all unable to sleep. hæredem, nisi malum principem." As to the Dunciad, it is greatly admired: the genii of Operas and Schools, with their attendants, the pleas of the Virtuosos and Florists, and the yawn of Dulness in the end, are as fine as any thing he has written. The Metaphysician's part is to me the worst; and here and there a few ill expressed lines, and some hardly intelligible. I take the liberty of sending you a long speech of Agrippina;t much too long, but I would be glad • Mr. Gray came to town about the 1st of September, 1741.I His father died the 6th of November following, at the age of sixty-five. The latter end of the subsequent year he went to Cambridge to take his bachelor's degree in civil law. 1 See Poems Ante omnes morbos importunissima tussis, Do not mistake me, I do not condemn Tacitus ; was then inclined to find him tedious: the German sedition sufficiently made up for it; and the speech of Germanicus, by which he reclaims his soldiers, is quite masterly. Your new Dunciad TO DR. WHARTON.* Cambridge, December 27, 1742 TO DR. WHARTON. Peterhouse, April 26, 1744. You write so feelingly to Mr. Brown, and represent your abandoned condition in terms so touching, that what gratitude could not effect in several I OUGHT to have returned you my thanks a long months, compassion has brought about in a few time ago, for the pleasure, I should say prodigy, of days; and broke that strong attachment, or rather your letter; for such a thing has not happened allegiance, which I and all here owe to our soveabove twice within this last age to mortal man, reign lady and mistress, the president of presidents and no one here can conceive what it may portend. and head of heads, (if I may be permitted to proYou have heard, I suppose, how I have been em- nource her name, that ineffable Octogrammaton) ployed a part of the time; how, by my own inde- the power of Laziness. You must know she had fatigable application for these ten years past, and been pleased to appoint me (in preference to so by the care and vigilance of that worthy magis- many old servants of hers who had spent their trate, the man in blue,† (who, I assure you, has whole lives in qualifying themselves for the office) not spared his labour, nor could have done more grand picker of straws and push-pin player to her for his own son) I am got half way to the top of supinity, (for that is her title.) The first is much jurisprudence, and bid as fair as another body to in the nature of lord president of the council; and open a case of impotency with all decency and cir- the other like the groom-porter, only without the cumspection. You see my ambition. I do not profit; but as they are both things of very great doubt but some thirty years hence I shall convince honour in this country, I consider with myself the the world and you that I am a very pretty young load of envy attending such great charges; and fellow; and may come to shine in a profession, besides (between you and me) I found myself unaperhaps the noblest of all, except man-midwifery. ble to support the fatigue of keeping up the apAs for you, if your distemper and you can but pearance that persons of such dignity must do; so agree about going to London, I may reasonably ex- I thought proper to decline it, and excused myself pect, in a much shorter time, to see you in your as well as I could. However, as you see such an three-cornered villa, doing the honours of a well affair must take up a good deal of time, and it has furnished table with as much dignity, as rich a always been the policy of this court to proceed mien, and as capacious a belly, as Dr. Mead. Me- slowly, like the Imperial and that of Spain, in the thinks I see Dr. * *, at the lower end of it, lost in dispatch of business you will on this account the admiration of your goodly person and parts, cram- easier forgive me, if I have not answered your letming down his envy (for it will rise) with the wing ter before. of a pheasant, and drowning it in neat Burgundy. But not to tempt your asthma too much with such a prospect, I should think you might be almost as happy and as great as this even in the country. But you know best, and I should be sorry to say any thing that might stop you in the career of glory; far be it from me to hamper the wheels of your gilded chariot. Go on, Sir Thomas; and when you die, (for even physicians must die) may the faculty in Warwick-lane erect your statue in the very niche of Sir John Cutler's. I was going to tell you how sorry I am for your illness, but I hope it is too late now: I can only say that I really was very sorry. May you live a hundred Christmases, and eat as many collars of brawn stuck with rosemary. Adieu, &c. Of Old-Park, near Durham. With this gentleman Mr. Gray contracted an acquaintance very early; and though they were not educated at Eton, yet afterwards at Cambridge, when he doctor was fellow of Pembroke-Hall, they became intimate friends, and continued so to the time of Mr. Gray's death. A servant of the vice-chancellor's for the time being, usuaily known by the name of Blue Coat, whose business it is to attend acts for degrees, &c. tie Bachelor of civil law. You desire to know, it seems, what character the poem of your young friend bears here.* 1 wonder that you ask the opinion of a nation, where those, who pretend to judge, do not judge at all; and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them; that is, Dick's and the Rainbow Coffee-houses.— Your readier way would be to ask the ladies that keep the bars in those two theatres of criticism. However, to show you that I am a judge, as well as my countrymen, I will tell you, though I have rather turned it over than read it (but no matter; no more have they,) that it seems to me above the middling; and now and then, for a little while, rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure, and even unintelligible; and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon. In short, its great fault is, that it was published at • Pleasures of the Imagination:-From the posthumous publication of Dr. Akenside's Poems, it should seem that the author had very much the same opinion afterwards of his own works which Mr. Gray here expresses; since he undertook a reform of it, which must have given him, had le corcived j, as much trouble as if he had written it entire y new least nine years to early. And so methinks in a professed himself, and whose beauties be sung, that few words, "à la mode du Temple," I have very pertly dispatched what may perhaps for several years have employed a very ingenious man worth fifty of myself. You are much in the right to have a taste for Socrates; he was a divine man. I must tell you by way of news of the place, that the other day a certain new professor made an apology for him an hour long in the schools; and all the world brought in Socrates guilty, except the people of his own college. he should not be found a dirty animal. But, however, this is Mr. Warburton's business, not mine, who may scribble his pen to the stumps and all in vain, if these facts are so. It is not from what he told me about himself that I thought well of him, but from a humanity and goodness of heart, ay, and greatness of mind, that runs through his private correspondence, not less apparent than are a thousand little vanities and weaknesses mixed with those good qualities; for nobody ever took him for a philosopher. The muse is gone, and left me in far worse com- If you know any thing of Mr. Mann's state of pany; if she returns, you will hear of her. As health and happiness, or the motions of Mr. Chute to her child* (since you are so good as to inquire homewards, it will be a particular favour to inform after it) it is but a puling chit yet, not a bit grown me of them, as I have not heard this half-year to speak of; I believe, poor thing, it has got the from them. worms, that will carry it off at last. Mr. Trollope and I are in a course of tar-water; he for his present, and I for my future distempers. If you think it will kill me, send away a man and horse directly; for I drink like a fish. TO MR. WALPOLE. Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1746. You are so good to inquire after my usual time of coming to town: it is at a season when even you, the perpetual friend of London, will, I fear, hardly be in it-the middle of June: and I commonly return hither in September; a month when I may more probably find you at home. Our defeat to be sure is a rueful affair for the honour of the troops; but the duke is gone it seems with the rapidity of a cannon-bullet to undefeat us again. The common people in town at least know how to be afraid; but we are such uncommon people here as to have no more sense of danger, than if the battle had been fought when and where the battle of Canna was. The perception of these calamities and of their consequences, that we are supposed to get from books, is so faintly impressed, that we talk of war, famine, and pestilence, with no more apprehension than of a broken head, or of a coach overturned between York and Edinburgh. I heard three people, sensible middle aged men (when the Scotch were said to be at Stanford, and actually were at Derby,) talking of hiring a chaise to go to Caxton (a place in the high road) to see the Pretender and the highlanders as they passed. I can say no more for Mr. Pope (for what you keep in reserve may be worse than all the rest.) It is natural to wish the finest writer, one of them, we ever had, should be an honest man. It is for the interest even of that virtue, whose friend he His poem "De Principiis Cogitandi." TO DR. WHARTON. Cambridge, December 11, 1746. I WOULD make you an excuse (as indeed I ought,) if they were a sort of thing I ever gave any credit to myself in these cases; but I know they are never true. Nothing so silly as indolence when it hopes to disguise itself; every one knows it by its saunter, as they do his majesty (God bless him) at a masquerade, by the firmness of his tread and the elevation of his chin. However, somewhat I had to say that has a little shadow of reason in it. I have been in town (I suppose you know) flaunting about at all kind of public places with two friends lately returned from abroad. The world itself has some attractions in it to a solitary of six years' standing: and agreeable well-meaning people of sense (thank heaven there are so few of them) are my peculiar magnet. It is no wonder then if I felt some reluctance at parting with them so soon; or if my spirits, when I returned back to my cell, should sink for a time, not indeed to storm and tempest, but a good deal below changeable. Besides, Seneca says (and my pitch of philosophy does not pretend to be much above Seneca,) " Nunquam mores, quos extuli, refero. Aliquid ex co quod composui, turbatur: aliquid ex his, quæ fu gavi, redit." And it will happen to such as us, mere imps of science. Well it may, when wisdom herself is forced often In sweet retired solitude Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired It is a foolish thing that without money one can not either live as one pleases, or where and with whom one pleases. Swift somewhere says, that money is liberty; and I fear money is friendship too and society, and almost every external blessing It is a great, though an ill-natured, comfort, to sen most of those who have it in plenty, without plea- rageous long speech: it was begun about four years sure, without liberty, and without friends. ago (it is a misfortune you know my age, else { I am not altogether of your opinion as to your might have added, when I was very young.) Pool historical consolation in time of trouble: a calm West put a stop to that tragic torrent he saw melancholy it may produce, a stiller sort of despair breaking in upon him:-have a care, I warn you (and that only in some circumstances, and on some not to set open the flood gate again, lest it drown constitutions;) but I doubt no real comfort or con- you and me and the bishop and all. tent can ever arise in the human mind, but from hope. I I am very sorry to hear you treat philosophy and her followers like a parcel of monks and hermits, I take it very ill you should have been in the and think myself obliged to vindicate a profession twentieth year of the war, and yet say nothing of honour, bien que je n'en tienne pas boutique (as the retreat before Syracuse: is it, or is it not, the Madame Sevigné says.) The first man that ever finest thing you ever read in your life? And how bore the name, if you remember, used to say, that does Xenophon or Plutarch agree with you? For life was like the Olympic games (the greatest pubmy part I read Aristotle, his poetics, politics, and lic assembly of his age and country,) where some morals; though I do not well know which is which. came to show their strength and agility of body, as In the first place, he is the hardest author by far I the champions; others, as the musicians, orators, ever meddled with. Then he has a dry concise- poets, and historians, to show their excellence in ness that makes one imagine one is perusing a those arts; the traders to get money; and the bet table of contents rather than a book: it tastes for ter sort, to enjoy the spectacle, and judge of all all the world like chopped hay, or rather like these. They did not then run away from society chopped logic; for he has a violent affection to that for fear of its temptations: they passed their days art, being in some sort his own invention; so that in the midst of it: conversation was their business: he often loses himself in little trifling distinctions they cultivated the arts of persuasion, on purpose and verbal niceties; and, what is worse, leaves to show men it was their interest, as well as their you to extricate him as well as you can. Thirdly, duty, not to be foolish, and false, and unjust; and he has suffered vastly from the transcribblers, that too in many instances with success: which is as all authors of great brevity necessarily must. not very strange; for they showed by their life that Fourthly and lastly, he has abundance of fine their lessons were not impracticable; and that pleauncommon things, which makes him well worth sures were no temptations, but to such as wanted the pains he gives one. You see what you are to a clear perception of the pains annexed to them. expect from him. But I have done speaking à la Grecque. Mr. Ratcliffet made a shift to behave very rationally without their instructions, at a season which they took a great deal of pains to fortify themselves and others against: one would not desire to lose one's January, 1747. head with a better grace. I am particularly satisIt is doubtless an encouragement to continue fied with the humanity of that last embrace to all writing to you, when you tell me you answer me the people about him. Sure it must be somewhat with pleasure: I have another reason which would embarrassing to die before so much good company! make me very copious, had I any thing to say: it You need not fear but posterity will be ever glad is, that I write to you with equal pleasure, though to know the absurdity of their ancestors; the foolnot with equal spirits, nor with like plenty of ma- ish will be glad to know they were as foolish as terials: please to subtract then so much for spirit, they, and the wise will be glad to find themselves and so much for matter; and you will find me, I wiser. You will please all the world then; and hope, neither so slow, nor so short, as I might if you recount miracles you will be believed so otherwise seem. Besides, I had a mind to send much the sooner. We are pleased when we wonyou the remainder of Agrippina, that was lost in der; and we believe because we are pleased. Folly a wilderness of papers. Certainly you do her too and wisdom, and wonder and pleasure, join with much honour: she seemed to me to talk like an Oldboy, all in figures and mere poetry, instead of nature and the language of real passion. Do you remember Approchez-vous,† Neron.-Who would not rather have thought of that half line than all Mr. Rowe's flowers of eloquence? However, you will find the remainder here at the end in an out TO MR. WALPOLE. Thucydides, 1, vit. Agrippina, in Racine's tragedy of Britannicus. B. Never, perhaps, was a more admirable picture drawn of true philosophy and its real and important services; services not confined to the speculative opinions of the studious, but adapted to the common purposes of life, and promoting the ge of a system, but on the immutable foundations of truth and neral happiness of mankind; not upon the chimerical basis virtue. B. Brother to the earl of Derwentwater. He was executed at Tyburn, December, 1746, for having been concerned in the rebellion in Scotland. B. |