one *** 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 still life to the realities of a noisy 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 assure you, has been propagated in these countries by a convert of yours, ; he has brought over his whole family to you: they were before pretty good Whigs, but now they are absolute Walpolians. We have hardly any body in the parish but knows exactly the dimensions of the hall and saloon at Houghton, and begin to believe that the *lantern is not so great a consumer of the fat of the land as disaffected persons have said: For your reputation, we keep to ourselves your not hunting nor drinking hogan, either of which here would be sufficient to lay your honour in the dust. To-morrow se'nnight I hope to be in town, and not long after at Cambridge. Burnham, Sept. 1737. I am, &c. A favourite object of Tory satire at the time. XI. FROM MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY. RECEIVING no answer to my last letter, which I writ above a month ago, I must own I am a little uneasy. The slight shadow of you which I had in town, has only served to endear you to me the more. The moments I passed with you made a strong impression upon me. I singled 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 passes away. My health and nerves and spirits are, thank my stars, 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 so over-civil as to visit me regularly once a month-jam certus conviva. This is a painful nervous headache, which perhaps you have sometimes heard me speak of before. Give me leave to say, I find no physic comparable to your letters. If, as it is said in Ecclesiasticus, "Friendship be the physic of the mind," prescribe to me, dear Gray, as often and as much as you think proper, I shall be a most obedient patient. Non ego Fidis irascar medicis, offendar amicis. * I venture here to write you down a Greek epigram, which I lately turned into Latin, and hope you will excuse it. Perspicui puerum ludentem in margine rivi Languidus, æternum lumina composuit. Adieu! I am going to my tutor's lectures on one Puffendorff, a very jurisprudent author as you shall read on a summer's day. Believe me yours, &c. Christ Church, Dec. 2, 1738. * Of Posidippus. Vide Anthologia, II. Stephan. p. 220. XII. TO MR. WEST. LITERAS mî Favonî !* abs te demum, nudiustertius credo, accepi plane mellitas, nisi forte quâ de ægritudine quâdam tuâ dictum: atque hoc sane mihi habitum est non paulo acerbius, quod te capitis morbo implicitum esse intellexi; oh morbum mihi quam odiosum! qui de industriâ id agit, ut ego in singulos menses, Dii boni, quantis jucunditatibus orbarer! quam ex animo mihi dolendum est, quod Medio de fonte leporum Salutem, mehercule, nolo, tam parvipendas, atque amicis tam improbe consulas: quanquam tute fortassis æstuas angusto limite mundi, viamque (ut dicitur) affectas Olympo, nos tamen non esse tam sublimes, utpote qui hisce in sordibus et fæce diutius paululum versari volumus, reminiscendum est: illæ tuæ Musæ, si te ament modo, derelinqui * Mr. Gray, in all his Latin compositions, addressed to this gentleman, calls him Favonius, in allusion to the name of West. paulisper non nimis ægre patientur: indulge, amabo te, plusquam soles, corporis exercitationibus: magis te campus habeat, aprico magis te dedas otio, ut ne id ingenium quod tam cultum curas, diligenter nimis dum foves, officioşarum matrum ritu, interimas. Vide quæso, quam lareixas tecum agimus, ηδ επίθησε Φαρμαχ' α κεν παυσησι μελαίνων οδυναων. Si de his pharmacis non satis liquet, sunt festivitates meræ, sunt facetiæ et risus; quos ego equidem si adhibere nequeo, tamen ad præcipiendum (ut medicorum fere mos est) certe satis sin; id, quod poetice sub finem epistolæ lusisti, mihi gratissimum quidem accidit; admodum Latine coctum et conditum tetrasticon, Græcam tamen illam apesar mirifice sapit: tu quod restat, vide, sodes, hujusce hominis ignorantiam; cum, unde hoc tibi sit depromptum, (ut fatear) prorsus nescio: sane ego equidem nihil in capsis reperio quo tibi minimæ partis solutio fiat. Vale, et me ut soles, ama. A. D. 11 Kalend. Februar. |