neither so literary nor so combustible.* The Monthly Review, I see, just now has much stuff about us on this occasion. It says one of us at least has always borne his faculties meekly. I leave you to guess which of us that is; I think I know. You simpleton you! you must be meek, must you? and see what you get by it.

I do not like your improvements at Aston, it looks so like settling; if I come I will set fire to it. I will never believe the B** S and the Cs are dead, though I smelt them; that sort of people always live to a good old age. I dare swear they are only gone to Ireland, and we shall soon hear they are bishops.

The Erse fragments have been published five weeks ago in Scotland, though I had them not (by a mistake) till the other day. As you tell me new things do not reach you soon at Aston, I enclose what I can; the rest shall follow, when you tell me whether

*Had Mr. Pope disregarded the sarcasms of the many writers that endeavoured to eclipse his poetical fame, as much as Mr. Gray here appears to have done, the world would not have been possessed of a Dunciad; but it would have been impressed with a more amiable idea of its author's temper. It is for the sake of showing how Mr. Gray felt on such occasions, that I publish this letter.

you have not got the pamphlet already. I send the two to Mr. Wood which I had before, because he has not the affectation of not admiring.* I have another from Mr. Macpherson, which he has not printed; it is mere description, but excellent too in its kind. If you are good and will learn to admire, I will transcribe and send it.

As to their authenticity, I have made many inquiries, and have lately procured a letter from Mr. David Hume, (the historian) which is more, satisfactory than any thing I have yet met with on that subject. He says,

"Certain it is that these poems are in every body's mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition. Adam Smith, the celebrated professor in Glasgow, told me, that the piper of the Argyleshire militia repeated to him all those which Mr. Macpherson had translated, and many more of equal beauty. Major Mackay (lord Rae's brother) told me that he remembers them perfectly well; as likewise did the laird of Macfarline, (the greatest anti

*It was rather a want of credulity than admiration that Mr. Gray should have laid to my charge. I suspected that, whether the fragments were genuine or not, they were by no means literally translated.

quarian we have in this country) and who insists strongly on the historical truth, as well as the poetical beauty of these productions. I could add the laird and lady Macleod, with many more, that live in different parts of the Highlands, very remote from each other, and could only be acquainted with what had become (in a manner) national works. There is a country surgeon in Lochaber, who has by heart the entire epic poem mentioned by Mr. Macpherson in his preface; and, as he is old, is perhaps the only person living that knows it all, and has never committed it to writing, we are in the more haste to recover a monument, which will certainly be regarded as a curiosity in the republic of letters: we have therefore set about a subscription of a guinea or two guineas apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to undertake a mission into the Highlands to recover this poem, and other fragments of antiquity." He adds too, that the names of Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, &c. are still given in the Highlands to large mastiffs, as we give to ours the names of Cæsar, Pompey, Hector, &c.

CXI.

TO DR. WHARTON.

London, 1761.

I REJOICE to find that you not only grow reconciled to your northern scene, but discover beauties round you that once were deformities: I am persuaded the whole matter is to have always something going forward. Happy they that can create a rosetree, or erect a honey-suckle; that can watch the brood of a hen, or see a fleet of their own ducklings launch into the water: It is with a sentiment of envy I speak it, who never shall have even a thatched roof of my own, nor gather a strawberry but in CoventGarden. I will not, however, believe in the vocality of Old-Park till next summer, when perhaps I may trust to my own ears.

The Nouvelle Heloise cruelly disappointed me, but it has its partisans, amongst which are Mason and Mr. Hurd; for me, I admire nothing but Fingal* (I conclude you have

In a letter to another friend, informing him that he had sent Fingal down to him, he says, "For my part, I will stick to my credulity, and if I am cheated, think it is worse for him [the translator] than for me. The epic poem is foolishly so called, yet there

seen it, if not, Stonhewer can lend it you); yet I remain still in doubt about the authenticity of these poems, though inclining rather to believe them genuine in spite of the world; whether they are the inventions of antiquity, or of a modern Scotchman, either case is to me alike unaccountable; je m'y perd.

I send you a Swedish and English calendar;* the first column is by Berger, a disciple of Linnæus; the second by Mr. Stillingfleet; the third (very imperfect indeed) by me. You are to observe, as you tend your plantations and take your walks, how the spring advances in the north, and whether Old-Park most resembles Upsal or Stratton. The latter has on one side a barren black heath, on the other a light sandy loam, all the country about it is a dead flat; you see it is necessary you should know the situation (I do not mean any reflection upon any body's place); and this is the description

is a sort of plan and unity in it very strange for a barbarous age; yet what I more admire are some of the detached pieces the rest I leave to the discussion of antiquarians and historians; yet my curiosity is much interested in their decision." No man surely ever took more pains with himself to believe any thing than Mr. Gray seems to have dene on this occasion.

* See Stillingfleet's Tracts, p. 261.