spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; mountains, it is true, that do not afcend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as well as I do may venture to climb, and crags that give the eye as much pleasure if they were more dangerous: Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the winds, And as they bow their hoary tops relate, In murm'ring founds, the dark decrees of fate; Cling to each leaf, and fwarm on every bough. At the foot of one of these squats ME I (il penserofo), and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had an Eve; but I think he did not ufe to read Virgil, as I commonly do there. In this fituation I often converse with my Horace, aloud too, that is talk to you, but I do not remember that I ever heard you answer me. I beg pardon for taking all the converfation to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. We have old Mr. Southern at a Gentleman's house a little way off, who often comes to fee us; he is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly loft his memory; but is as agreeable as an old man can be, at least I persuade myself so when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko. I fhall be in Town in about three weeks. Adieu. September, 1737. F F LETTER VI. MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.2 SYMPATHIZE with you in the fufferings which you foresee are coming upon you. We are both at prefent, I imagine, in no very agreeable fituation; for my part I am under the misfortune of having nothing to do, but it is a miffortune which, thank my stars, I can pretty well bear. You are in a confufion of wine, and roaring, and hunting, and tobacco, and, heaven be praised, you too can pretty well bear it; while our evils are no more I believe we shall not much repine. I imagine, however, you will rather choose to converse with the living dead, that adorn the walls of your apartments, than with the dead living that deck the middles of them; and prefer a picture of ftill life to the realities of a noify one, and as I guess, will imitate what you prefer, and for an hour or two at noon will stick yourself up as formal as if you had been fixed in your frame for these hundred years, with a pink or rose in one hand, and a great seal ring on the other. Your name, I affure you, has been propagated in these countries by a convert of yours, one * yours, one * *, he has brought over his whole family to you; they were before pretty good Whigs, but now they are abfolute Walpolians. We have hardly any body in the parish but knows exactly the dimenfions of the hall and faloon at Houghton, and begin to believe that the lanthorn3 is not fo great a confumer of the fat of the land as difaffected perfons have faid: For your reputation, we keep to ourselves your not hunting nor drinking hogan, either of which here would be fufficient to lay your honour in the duft. To-morrow fe'nnight I hope to be in Town, and not long after at Cambridge. I am, &c. Burnham, Sept. 1737. LETTER VII. MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY. ECEIVING no answer to my last letter, which I writ above a month ago, I muft own I am a little uneafy. The flight shadow of you which I had in Town, has only served to endear you to me the more. The moments I past with you made a strong impreffion upon me. I fingled you out for a friend, and I would have you know me to be yours, if you deem me worthy.-Alas, Gray, you cannot imagine how miserably my time paffes away. My health, and nerves, and spirits are, thank my ftars, the very worst, I think in Oxford. Four and twenty hours of pure unalloyed health together, are as unknown to me as the 400,000 characters in the Chinese vocabulary. One of my complaints has of late been fo over-civil as to vifit me regularly once a month-jam certus conviva. This is |