I AM at present at Stoke, to which place I came at half an hour's warning upon the news I received of my mother's illness, and did not expect to have found her alive; but when I arrived she was much better, and continues so. I shall therefore be very glad to make you a visit at Strawberry-hill, whenever you give me notice of a convenient time. I am surprised at the print,+ which far surpasses my

* Mr. Mason has finished this letter with the following Paragraph.-" You do not say whether you have read the Crito; I only recommend the dramatic part of the Phædo o you, not the argumentative. The subject of the Erastre s good, it treats of that peculiar character and turn of mind which belongs to a true Philosopher, but it is shorter than ne would wish. The Euthyphro I would not read at all." -This Paragraph did not stand in the situation in which e placed it, as the letter concludes exactly as I have rinted it.-Ed.

+ A proof print of the Cul de Lampe, which Mr. Bentley esigned for the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, and hich represents a village-funeral; this occasioned the

idea of London graving: The drawing itself was so finished, that I suppose it did not require all the art I had imagined to copy it tolerably. My aunts seeing me open your letter, took it to be a buryingticket, and asked whether any body had left me a ring; and so they still conceive it to be, even with all their spectacles on. Heaven forbid they should suspect it to belong to any verses of mine, they would burn me for a poet. On my own part I am satisfied, if this design of yours succeed so well as you intend it; and yet I know it will be accompanied with something not at all agreeable to me.-While I write this, I receive your second letter. you are not out of your wits! This I know, if you suffer my head to be printed, you will infallibly put me out of mine. I conjure you immediately to put a stop to any such design. Who is at the expence of engraving it, I know not; but if it be Dodsley, I will make up the loss to him. The thing as it was, I know, will make me ridiculous enough;