the place, before he actually enters the college. I have waited to know your intentions before I could answer Dr. Ashton's letter, and wish you would now write to me what you finally determine. There is a month's breaking up immediately after the election, which lasts a week, so it is probable Mr. Wharton will hardly send his son till those holidays are over.

I do not mention the subject you hint at for the same reason you give me; it should be offered and clear of all taxes before I would go into it, in spite of the Mines in America, on which I congratulate you.

I shall hope to see Old Park next summer, if I am not bed-rid, but who can tell? Mr. Brown presents his best services to the family, with mine; he is older than I. Adieu! the Post waits. I am ever truly yours,

T. G.

July 19 [1761], Pemb. Coll.

CVII. MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON.

August, 1761.

Be assured your York Canon never will die; so the better the thing is in value, the worse for you.*

*

* This was written at a time, when, by the favour of Dr. Fountayne, Dean of York, I expected to be made a Residentiary in his cathedral.-Mason.

The true way to immortality is to get you nominated one's successor. Age and Diseases vanish at your name; Fevers turn to radical heat, and Fistulas to issues it is a judgment that waits on your insatiable avarice. You could not let the poor old man die at his ease, when he was about it; and all his family (I suppose) are cursing you for it.

I wrote to Lord * * * * on his recovery; and he answers me very cheerfully, as if his illness had been but slight, and the pleurisy were no more than a hole in one's stocking. He got it (he says) not by scampering, racketing, and riding post, as I had supposed; but by going with Ladies to Vauxhall. He is the picture (and pray so tell him, if you see him) of an old Alderman that I knew, who, after living forty years on the fat of the land (not milk and honey, but arrack punch and venison), and losing his great toe with a mortification, said to the last, that he owed it to two grapes, which he ate one day after dinner. He felt them lie cold at his stomach the minute they were down.

Mr. Montagu (as I guess, at your instigation) has earnestly desired me to write some lines to be put on a monument, which he means to erect at Bellisle.* It is a task I do not love, knowing Sir William Williams so slightly as I did: but he is so friendly a person, and his afflictions seemed to me so real, that I could not refuse him. I have

* See Walpole's Lett. to G. Montagu, p. 244..

sent him the following verses, which I neither like myself, nor will he, I doubt however, I have shewed him that I wished to oblige him. me your real opinion.

Tell

CVIII. MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

DEAR DOCTOR,

I AM just come to town, where I shall stay six weeks, or more, and (if you will send your dimensions) will look out for papers at the shops. I own I never yet saw any Gothic papers to my fancy. There is one fault that is in the nature of the thing, and cannot be avoided. The great beauty of all Gothic designs is the variety of perspectives they occasion. This a painter may represent on the walls of a room in some measure, but not a designer of papers, where what is represented on one breadth must be exactly repeated on another, both in the light and shade, and in the dimensions. This we cannot help, but they do not even do what they might. They neglect Hollar, to copy Mr. Halfpenny's architecture, so that all they do is more like a goose-pie than a cathedral. You seem to suppose that they do Gothic papers in colours, but I never saw any but such as were to look like Stucco; nor indeed do I conceive that they could have any effect or meaning. Lastly, I never saw

any thing of gilding, such as you mention, on paper; but we shall see. Only pray leave as little to my judgment as possible.

I thanked Dr. Ashton before you told me to do so. He writes me word that (except the first Sunday of a month) he believes he shall be at Eton, till the middle of November; and (as he now knows the person in question as your nephew) adds, I remember Dr. Wharton with great pleasure, and beg you will signify as much to him, when you write.

The king is just married ;* it is the hottest night in the year. Adieu! it is late. I am ever yours,

T. G.

Tuesday, [Sept. 8, 1761.]

CIX. MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

DEAR DOCTOR,

Oct. 22, 1761. Southampton Row.

Do not think me very dilatory, for I have been sending away all my things from this house (where nevertheless I shall continue while I stay in town), and have besides been confined with a severe cold to my room. On rummaging Mr. Bromwick's and several other shops, I am forced to tell you that there are absolutely no papers at all that deserve

* See Walpole's Letters to G. Montagu, p. 258.

the name of Gothic, or that you would bear the sight of. They are all what they call fancy, and indeed resemble nothing that ever was in use in any age or country. I am going to advise what perhaps you may be deterred from by the addition of expense, but what, in your case, I should certainly do. Anybody that can draw the least in the world is capable of sketching in India ink a compartment or two of diaper-work, or a niche, or tabernacle with its fret-work. Take such a man with you to Durham Cathedral, and let him copy one division of any ornament you think will have any effect, from the high-altar suppose, or the nine altars, or what you please. If nothing there suits you, chuse in Dart's Canterbury or Dugdale's Warwickshire, &c., and send the design hither. They will execute it here, and make a new stamp on purpose; provided you will take twenty pieces of it, and it will come to a halfpenny or a penny a yard, the more, (according to the work that is in it.) This I really think worth your while. I mention your doing it there, because it will be then under your own eye, and at your own choice, and you can proportion the whole better to the dimensions of your room: for if the design be of Arcade-work or any thing on a pretty large scale, and the arches, or niches, are to rise one above another, there must be some contrivance that they may fill the entire space, and not be cut in sunder and incomplete. This, indeed, where the work is