tickled with the verghe d'oro of count Algarotti, and the intended translation of Sigr. Agostino Paradisi: for my part, I am ravished (for I too have my share). Are you upon the road to see all these wonders, and snuff up the incense of Pisa; or has Mr. Brown abated your ardour by sending you the ori. ginals? I am waiting with impatience for your coming. I am obliged to you for your drawing and very learned dissertation annexed.* You sent to our common friend Mr. Brown, then president of the college; and also another of the count's, addressed to Sigr. Paradisi, a Tuscan poet; in which, after explaining the arguments of my two dramatic poems, he advises him to translate them; but principally Caractacus.-This anecdote not only explains the above paragraph, but the subsequent letter. The Latin, at the beginning of the letter, alludes to a similar expression which a fellow of a college had made use of to a foreigner who dined in the college hall. Having occasion to ask him if he would eat any cabbage to his boiled beef, he said "anne tibi arrident herbæ ?" This relates to the ruin of a small Gothic chapel near the north-west end of the cathedral at York, not noticed by Drake in his Eboracum. When Mr. Gray made me a visit at that place the summer before, he was much struck with the beautiful proportion of the windows in it, which induced me to get Mr. Paul Sandby to make a drawing of it; and also to endeavour, in a letter to Mr. Gray, to explain to what foundation it belonged. As his answer contains some excellent general remarks on Gothic building, I thought proper to publish it, though the particular matter which occasioned them was not of any great consequence. have made out your point with a great degree of probability, (for though the nimis adhesit might startle one, yet the sale of the tithes and chapel to Webster seems to set all right again) and I do believe the building in question was the chapel of St. Sepulchre. But then, that the ruin now standing was the individual chapel, as erected by archbishop Roger, I can by no means think. I found myself merely on the style and taste of architecture. The vaults under the choir are still in being, and were undoubtedly built by this very archbishop: they are truly Saxon; only that the arches are pointed, though very obtusely. It is the south transept (not the north) that is the oldest part of the minster now above ground: it is said to have been begun by Geffery Plantagenet, who died about thirty years after Roger, and left it unfinished. His successor, Walter Grey, completed it; so we do not exactly know to which of these two prelates we are. to ascribe any certain part of it. Grey lived a long time, and was archbishop from 1216 to 1255 (39 Henry III.); and in this reign it was, that the beauty of the Gothic archi- . tecture began to appear. The chapterhouse is in all probability his work, and (I should suppose) built in his latter days; whereas, what he did of the south transept might be performed soon after his ac cession. It is in the second order of this building, that the round arches appear, including a row of pointed ones, (which you mention, and which I also observed) similar to those in St. Sepulchre's chapel, though far inferior in the proportions and neatness of workmanship. The same thing is repeated in the north transept; but this is only an imitation of the other, done for the sake of regularity; for this part of the building is no older than archbishop Romaine, who came to the see in 1285, and died 1295. All the buildings of Henry the Second's time (under whom Roger lived and died, 1185) are of a clumsy and heavy proportion, with a few rude and awkward ornaments: and this style continues to the beginning of Henry the Third's reign, though with a little improvement, as in the nave of Fountain's abbey, &c. then all at once come in the tall picked arches, the light clustered columns, the capitals of curling foliage, the fretted tabernacles and vaultings, and a profusion of statues, &c. that constitute the good Gothic style; together with decreasing and flying buttresses, and pinnacles, on the outside. Nor must you conclude any thing from Ro ger's own tomb, which has (I remember) a wide surbased arch with scalloped ornaments, &c. for this can be no older than the nave itself, which was built by archbishop Melton, after the year 1315, one hundred and thirty years after Roger's death. I have compared Helvetius and Elfrida, as you desired me,* and find thirteen parallel * As the plagiarism, to which Mr. Gray here alludes, is but little known, and, 1 think, for its singularity, is somewhat curious, I shall beg the reader's patience while I dilate upon it; though I am aware it will stretch this note to an unconscionable length. M. Helvetius, in the third chapter of his third essay de l'Esprit, which treats of the extent of memory, means to prove that this faculty, in the extreme, is not necessary to constitute a great genius. For this purpose he examines whether the greatness of the very different talents of Locke and of Milton ought to be considered as the effect of their possessing this talent in an extraordinary degree. He then proceeds as follows: "As the last example of the small extent of memory necessary to a fine imagination, I shall give in a note the translation of a piece of English poetry; which, with the preceding, will, I believe, prove to those who would decompose the works of illustrious men, that a great genius does not necessarily suppose a great memory." I now set down that note with references to Elfrida underneath it, and I choose to give it in the English translation printed in 1759, that the parallel passages may be the more obvious at first sight. "A young virgin, awaked and guided by love, goes before the appearance of Aurora to a valley, where she waits for the coming of her lover, who, at the rising of the sun, is to offer a sacrifice to the gods. Her soul, in the soft situation in which she is placed by the hopes of approaching happiness, indulges, while waiting passages; five of which, at least, are so direct and close as to leave no shadow of a for him, the pleasure of contemplating the beauties of nature, and the rising of that luminary that was to bring the object of her tenderness." She expresses herself thus : "Already the sun gilds the top of those antique oaks, and the waves of those falling torrents that roar among the rocks shine with his beams; already I perceive the summit of those shaggy mountains whence arises the vaults which, half concealed in the air, offer a formidable retreat to the solitary who there retires (1). Night folds up ber veil Ye wanton fires, that mislead the wandering traveller, retire (2) to the quagmires and marshy fens ; and thou sun, lord of the heavens, who fillest the air with reviving heat, who sowest with dewy pearls the flowers of these meadows, and givest colours to the varied beauties of nature, receive my first homage (3), and hasten thy course. Thy appearance proclaims (1) How nobly does this venerable wood, On the shaggy mound, Where tumbling torrents roar around; Stretch a formidable shade Where lull'd in pious peace the hermit lies. (2) Away, ye goblins all, Wont the bewilder'd traveller to daunt (3) Hail to thy living light Ambrosial Morn That bids each dewy-spangled floweret rise, And dart around its vermeil dies Unfolds the scene of glory to our eye, Where, throned in artless majesty, The cherub Beauty sits on Nature's rustic shrine. |