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must tell me, though, about Melross, Roslin Chapel, and Arbroath. In short, your portfeuille must be so full, that I only desire a loose chapter or two, and will wait for the rest till it comes out.

CV.

TO MR. MASON.

Stoke, Nov. 9, 1758.

SHOULD have told you that Caradoc came safe to hand;* but my critical faculties have been so taken up in dividing nothing with an old woman, that they are not yet composed enough for a better and more tranquil employment: shortly, however, I will make them obey me. But am I to send this copy to Mr. Hurd, or return it to you? Methinks I do not love this travelling to and again of manuscripts by the post. While I am writing, your second packet is just arrived. I can only tell you in gross, that there seem to me certain passages altered which might

* A second manuscript of Caractacus with the odes inserted. Mrs. Rogers, his aunt, died about this time, and left Mr. Gray and Mrs. Olife, another of his aunts, her joint executors.

as well have been let alone; and that I shall not be easily reconciled to Mador's own song.* I must not have my fancy raised to that agreeable pitch of heathenism and wild magical enthusiasm, and then have you let me drop into moral philosophy and cold good sense. I remember you insulted me when I saw you last, and affected to call that which delighted my imagination, nonsense: now I insist that sense is nothing in poetry, but according to the dress she wears, and the scene she appears in. If you should lead me into a superb Gothic building with a thousand clustered pillars, each of them half a mile high, the walls all covered with fretwork, and the windows full of red and blue saints, that had neither head nor tail; and I should find the Venus of Medici in person perked up in a long niche over the high altar, do you think it would raise or damp my devotions? I say that Mador must be entirely a Briton; and that his pre-eminence among his companions must be shown by superior wildness, more barbaric fancy, and a more striking and deeper harmony both of words and numbers: if British antiquity be

* He means here the second ode, which was afterwards altered.

too narrow, this is the place for invention; and if it be pure invention, so much the clearer must the expression be, and so much the stronger and richer the imagery. There's for you now!

CVI.

TO MR. PALGRAVE.

London, July 24, 1759.

I AM now settled in my new territories, commanding Bedford gardens, and all the fields as far as Highgate and Hampstead, with such a concourse of moving pictures as would astonish you; so rus-in-urbe-ish, that I believe I shall stay here, except little excursions and vagaries, for a year to come. What though I am separated from the fashionable world by broad St. Giles's, and many a dirty court and alley, yet here is air, and sunshine, and quiet. However, to comfort you: I shall confess that I am basking with heat all the summer, and I suppose shall be blown down all the winter, besides being robbed every night; I trust, however, that the Museum, with all its manuscripts and rarities by the cart-load, will make am

ple amends for all the aforesaid inconvenien

ces.

I this day passed through the jaws of a great leviathan into the den of Dr. Templeman, superintendant of the reading-room, who congratulated himself on the sight of so much good company. We were, first, a man that writes for Lord Royston; 2dly, a man that writes for Dr. Burton, of York; 3dly, a man that writes for the emperor of Germany, or Dr. Pocock, for he speaks the worst English I ever heard; 4thly, Dr. Stukely, who writes for himself, the very worst person he could write for; and, lastly, I, who only read to know if there be any thing worth writing, and that not without some difficulty. I find that they printed 1000 copies of the Harleian catalogue, and have sold only fourscore; that they have 900l. a year income, and spend 13001. and are building apartments for the under keepers; so I expect in winter to see the collection advertised and set to auction.

Have you read lord Clarendon's continuation of his history? Do you remember Mr. ***'s account of it before it came out? How well he recollected all the faults, and how utterly he forgot all the beauties! Surely the grossest taste is better than such a sort of delicacy.

CVII.

TO DR. WHARTON.

London, June 22, 1760.

I AM not sorry to hear you are exceeding busy, except as it has deprived me of the pleasure I should have in hearing often from you; and as it has been occasioned by a little vexation and disappointment. To find one's self business, I am persuaded, is the - great art of life; I am never so angry, as when I hear my acquaintance wishing they had been bred to some poking profession, or employed in some office of drudgery, as if it were pleasanter to be at the command of other people than at one's own; and as if they could not go unless they were wound up: yet I know and feel what they mean by this complaint; it proves that some spirit, something of genius (more than common) is required to teach a man how to employ himself: I say a man; for women, commonly speaking, never feel this distemper; they have always something to do; time hangs not on their hands (unless they be fine ladies); a variety of small inventions and occupations fill up the void, and their eyes are never open in vain.

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