YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
LARNED FUND

THE CORRESPONDENCE

HOEACE WALPOLE,

AND THE

REV. W. MASON.

VOL. I.

THE COREESPONDENCE

HORACE WALPOLE,
EARL OF ORFORD,
AND THE
EEY. WILLIAM MASON.
NOW FIEST PUBLISHED FKOM THE OEIGINAL MSS.

EDITED, WITH NOTES,
BY THE REV. J. MITFORD.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY,
^Puftlfafjet in ©rUinatg to f^et iWajeatg.
1851.

LONDON :
Printed bv Schulze aud Co., 13, Poland Street.

TO

THE REV. WILLIAM ALDERSON, M.A.

RECTOR OP ASTON.

THESE VOLUMES

IN GRATITUDE AND RESPECT

INSCRIBED

BY THE EDITOR.

PREFACE.

The Letters , of Mason, now first, printed, formed
part of the Collection of Manuscripts purchased of
the Duke of Grafton, as executor of the late Earl
of Waldegrave, and were entrusted to me for pub
lication ; and while I was lamenting the imperfect
manner in which they would appear, from want of
the answers of the correspondent, my friend, Arch
deacon Burney informed me that the correspond
ing Letters of Walpole were carefully, and in their
entire form, preserved at the Rectory House at Aston.
The Introduction which I obtained from him was most
kindly received by Mr. Alderson,* the present pos
sessor of the place, and with a liberality for which my
thanks are now to be paid, he allowed me the use of
the volumes, that for more than half a century had
* The Rev. Ch. Alderson was Mason's intimate friend and
sole executor, and succeeded him in the rectory of Aston, which
was subsequently possessed by his son, the present rector.

viu PREFACE.

been under the safe protection of his father and himself.
I do not think that any other in the long series of
Walpole's Epistolary Works exceeds them in general
interest ; and in the information which relates to lite
rature, they perhaps excel them all. Numerous as may
be the letters of a writer, yet as they vary according to
the character of the correspondent, taking much of their
tone and subject from him, a repetition of the same
topics or sentiments may without difficulty be avoided,
and in the present case such an objection cannot reason
ably be made.
I wiQ now briefly offer some remarks on those sub
jects, which appear most prominently, and of most
permanent interest in these Letters ; on others, I have,
where it seemed requisite, made a few observations in
the Notes, but from circumstances connected with my
professional engagements, over which I had no con
trol, that portion of the book is less perfect than I
could have wished ; in some cases, however, the readers
will be able to supply themselves with original infor
mation ; in others, they may derive assistance from the
learned Editors of Works by Walpole previously pub
lished, and perhaps what they will find in these volumes,
may not be altogether without its use.
One subject discussed in the earlier part of the Cor
respondence will not fail to attract attention, as it appears
to afford a clearer and more authentic statement of the
cause of the well known differences which arose between
Gray and Walpole, when on their youthfril travels, and

PREFACET. ix
of their consequent separation in Italy. This was a
matter of some delicacy to lay open to the public view,
and yet it could not be silently passed over. The
confession of Walpole in these letters is frank and un
disguised, — and his representation of their unconge
nial habits, and peculiarities of temper on either side, is
quite sufficient to account for the unfortunate result;
but this was so softened in Mason's Narrative, and
passed over with so light a touch, and in such general
terms, as to tempt those who were interested in the
subject to suppose that the more important causes still
remained unexplained. The warmth and affection of their
early friendship was unfortunately never renewed, and
their paths of life were for the future removed from each
other. It would not, however, be just to Walpole's
reputation, or a fair return to the candour of his con
fessions, to leave an impression on the reader's mind,
that while Gray was studiously acquiring, as he did, the
richest stores of knowledge during his residence abroad,
and adding to his great and various accomplishments in
literature and art ; Walpole was wasting either in in
dolence* or dissipation, or frivolous amusements, the
invaluable opportunities of improvement which he then
* Of much affectation of manner and language, even from his
early years, Walpole cannot be acquitted. Many interesting
anecdotes on this point are to be seen in the "Harcourt Corres
pondence," and are sometimes placed in so strong a light, that
we should be inclined to adopt the words of a writer who was not
himself supposed to be free from it : " Monsieur, vous dit qu'il
est trop poll pour etre naturel." — See " Les Sermons Indiscrets
de Marivaux."
VOL. I. i

PREFACE.

possessed : a more careful consideration of his Corre
spondence with his friends, will present us with a much
fairer view, and it may be justly concluded, that the fol
lowing testimonial, given by no common or undisceming
hand, will entirely remove so unfavourable an impression.
Conyers Middleton, whose biographical work is still,
perhaps, without a rival for the taste and elegance with
which it is composed, and whose literature was of no
ordinary rank, even among scholars,* had resided at
Rome, where he had collected and described a consider
able number of antiquities, chiefly in bronzes, valuable
both for the beauty of the art displayed in them, and
the light which they threw on various doubtful passages
relating to the customs or mythology of the Roman
people. This collection Middleton subsequently sold
to Horace Walpole, and in the Preface to his descrip
tion of it, he mentions him in terms of no common
praise, such indeed as only could be deserved by a
person of superior attainments, and of elegant and
rational pursuits.
" Ex his autem agri Romani divitiis, neminem pro-
fecto de peregrinatoribus nostris, thesaurum inde depor-
tasse credo, et rerum delectu et pretio magis
sestimabilem ac quem amicus mens nohilis Horatius
*Dr. S. Parr, in his Preface to " Bellendenus," bestows &
liigh eulogy on the acquirements and talents of Middleton.
" Literse fuerunt Middletono non hse vulgares et quotidianse, sed
uberrimee et maxime exquisitse. Stylus ejus ita purus ac suavis
ita salebris sine ullis profluens, quiddam et canorum habet nume-
ros ut videatur complecti quales in alio quopiam prseter Addi-
sonum, frustra qusesiveris," &c.

PREFACE. XI
Walpole in Angliam nuper advexit. Juvenis, non tam
generis nobilitate, ac paterni hominis gloria, quam in-
genii, doctrina, et virtute propria iUustris, Ille vero
baud citius fere in patriam reversus est, quam de
studiis meis, ut consuerat, famUiariter per literas
quserens, mihi ultro de copia sua, quicquid ad argu
menti mei rationem, aut HbeUi ornamentum pertineret,
pro arbitrio meo utendum obtulit.
" Quam quidem ejus liberalitatem libenter admodum
amplexus essem, ni operis hujus jam prope absoluti,
fastidio quodam correptus, atque ad alia festinans, intra
terminos ei ab initio destinatos Ulud continere sta-
tuissem. Attamen prseclaram istam Musei Walpoliani
suppeUectilem, ab interprete aliquo peritiore propediem
explicandam, edendamque esse confido."*
The reader of these Letters will be interested in seeing
the entire secret history of the "Heroic Epistle" unveiled
for the first time before them, and the many cautious
artifices with which it was attempted to conceal the
author. It was not from the remote and tranquil soli
tudes of a Yorkshire rectory that a satire, which showed
an intimate acquaintance with all the news and scandal
of the town, and which could fix its mark on each
prevailing weakness from the City to the Court, might be
expected to come forth ; but the public eye was very
soon suspiciously directed to Mason,t after a few
vague inquiries about others; and anxious for the
* See V, C. Middletoni, Pref. ad Germana qusedam Antiq.
Monumenta, &c., p. 6.
t In the " St. James's Chronicle," of Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1798,
y 2

xii PREFACE.
safety of his reputation, and for his professional cha
racter, he deemed it necessary to direct a strong letter of
disapprobation to a brother poet, who had too un
guardedly expressed his conviction of the author's name.
Warton, many years before, had been called on to repel
a somewhat ambitious attack from the same arm, which
now displayed a more perfect command of its weapons,
and with the discriminating delicacy of a poet's taste, he
believed that he had discovered evidence in the work itself
of the only person by whom it could have been formed :
— " I have been told," Mason writes, " that you have
pronounced me very frequently in company to be the
author of the ' Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers ;'
and I am told that the Premier himself suspects that I
am so upon your authority. Surely, Sir, mere internal
evidence (and you can possibly have no other) can never
be sufficient to ground such a determination upon, when
you consider how many papers in this rhyming age of
ours, are possessed of that knack of Pope's versification,
which constitutes one part of the merit of that poem ;
and as to the wit, humour, and satire which it contains,
no part of my writings can ever lead you, by their
analogy, to form so peremptory a judgment. I acquit
you, however, in this procedure of envy, even of the
the following paragraph appeared. "Mr. Mason, it is now
known, was the author of the " Heroic Epistle," as we have
always suspected. He, in great measure, betrayed himself once
at Sir Joshua Reynolds' by saying to his next neighbour, ' Don't
you think it very odd Sir Joshua should invite me to meet
Sir William Chambers?' Sir W. Chambers sat opposite to him."

PREFACE. XUI
slightest degree of ill-nature ; and believe that what you
said, was only to show your critical acumen. I only
mention it, that you may be more cautious of speaking
of other persons in like manner, who may throw such
anonymous bantlings of their brain into the wide world.
To some of these, it might prove an essential injui'y ;
for though they might deserve the frown of power (as
the author in question certainly does), yet I am per
suaded that your good nature would be hurt, if that
frown was either increased, or fixed by your dixit."
Notwithstanding this disclaim, and the other strata
gems used to mislead, which are described in this Cor
respondence, the belief gradually grew and strengthened,
and then pointed sagaciously to what appears the truth,
that Walpole furnished the notes and illustrations of the
text, and conducted the poem through the press. The
satires that followed, of far inferior merit, were brought
into the world in the same manner ; and several epigrams
which I possess, and short little pieces of the day, were
sent up from time to time to Walpole, and published by
him in the " Public Advertiser," or other papers. One
long poem, however, stiH remains in manuscript, en
titled, " The Duchess and the Squire : a PoHtical
Eclogue on the Subject of Reform in Parliament ;" but
I do not think that it would be of advantage to the
poet, or to the public, to remove it from the slumber of
the closet which it has so long enjoyed.
It wDl be observed that the present Correspondence is
broken off in the year 1 784, and does not recommence till

xiv PREFACE.
just before the close of Walpole's life in 1 79 6. The cause
of the rupture of this long and apparently sincere friend
ship chiefly arose in political differences of opinion. Both
Mason and Walpole were Whigs : both possessed strong
attachments to party, as well as political feelings ; they
considered the support of the Whigs, and the cause of
freedom to be consistently united. " We must thank
the Whigs," Walpole said, " for all the prosperity of
our country. Had the Tories succeeded at the Revolu
tion or succession, this country would have been ano
ther Spain — the desolate abode of nobles and priests."
Mason's opinions were congenial, and appeared promi
nently, and in the very front of the Yorkshire Petition
in 1782. Before the French Revolution, Mr. Pinkerton
informs us,* Walpole was so warm a friend of freedom,
that he was almost a republican; but he then be
came afraid lest the repubHcan principles he admired
might not be too perfect for human nature; while the
experience of advancing years insensibly diminished
his confidence in the favourite opinions he had so long
maintained. Mason's principles shall be related in the
authentic language of his friend, Dr. Burgh,f who was
thoroughly acquainted with them.
* See " The Walpoliana ;" but this book, like others by
the same editor, is not always to be relied upon, aud must be
read with extreme caution. A coarser hand than Walpole's is
often to be discerned.
t Dr. Burgh edited "The Enghsh Garden," with notes, and
was preparing an Edition of Mason's Works, but died before he

P&EFACE, XV
" As long," he says, " as the political distinctions of
this country consisted of Whig and Tory, Mr. Mason
was a Whig in the genuine sense of the word, the
degrees of Monarchy were the points in dispute, and
he ever contended for its limitation, as settled at the
glorious Revolution of 1688. He wished to see the
principles of the People preserved, and accordingly com
prised in his Whiggism, a dislike of that party mono
poly with which a few great men engrossed the two
first Princes of the Hanover Line, and as keepers of
the royal person, held out in a manner their own names
as the subject of attachment. To the invasion of the
prerogative, and to the more increasing covert influence
of the Crown, he was a constitutional adversary ; but
he was equaUy hostile to its illegal contraction by the
encroachments of an unprincipled oligarchy: in 1783
he accordingly stood conspicuously forward in opposi
tion to both, and so long as the question related only
to the balance of our three estates, he uniformly exerted
himself to preserve its adjustment; but when the
existence of Whig and Tory, and their proper objects,
vanished before the tempestuous principles of France,
and new distinctions took their place, when the ques
tion lay between our tempered Monarchy, and pure
Democracy, it cannot surely be said that the principles
of a genuine Whig are deserted by resisting the latter.
He trembled, then, for the effects of popular move-
completed it. The edition in four volumes was published by the
Rev. Mr. DiXon, of Boughton, Northamptonshire.

xvi PREFACE.
ments, and foresaw the danger of either the success
or failure of their efforts : the former resulting in
obvious and immediate anarchy, the latter in restraints
incompatible with freedom, and yet Ukely to obtain ac
quiescence and estabUshment from the necessity of
imposing them, and preventing renewed attempts.
He never considered anarchy as emancipation, nor
a dissolution of society as that liberty which is desir
able by men who had once been toll'd to church ;
and even prognosticated an easier return to ancient
freedom from the preservation of ancient forms, than
from the sway of those boisterous demagogues, who
would reduce the people to the necessity of wearing
strait-waistcoats and chains. He wished, accordingly,
for the suspension of aU such questions as led to
jealousy in the present tumultuous moment, and
pressed an adjournment of ParUamentary Reforma
tion to any immediate attempt for its estabUshment,
which he conceived would not only faU now, but might
perhaps incur a popular condemnation of the measure,
that would for ever sink it: he even grew to dread
the effort at repair, which was Ukely to break down the
pUlars of the constitution !" But amidst this apparent
agreement in the change of their mutual opinions,
former confidence seems to have been deeply impaired,
and jealousies and suspicions, not altogether explained
in the following narrative, arose.
"I shall teU you," says Walpole, "a great secret:
the cause of my difference with Mason. 1785. Lord

PREFACE, XVll
H(arcourt), Mason and I used often to meet together, as
we cordially agreed in our sentiments of the pubUc mea
sures pursued during this reign. But when the India
BiU of Fox came to be agitated, Mason took a decided
part against it, nay, wrote to me, that upon this
occasion every one ought to assist the King, and
warmly recommended it to me to use my influence
in that cause. You may imagine I was a little sur
prised at this new style of my old fi'iend, and the
impertinence of giving his advice unasked. I returned
a light ironical answer. As Mason had, in a Sermon
preached before the Archbishop of York, publicly
declared that he would not accept of a bishopric, if
offered to him, I jeeringly told him that, I supposed his
antipathy to a bishopric had subsided. He being also the
first promoter of the York Association, (which I never
approved), I added that I supposed he intended to
use that fool W(yvil) as a tool of popularity. For
W(yvil) is so stupid that he cannot even write
English, and the first York Association Paper, which
is written by W(yvil), is neither sense nor grammar.
The consequence of these differences has been, that
we call on each other, but are on the coldest terms.
Mason too has turned a kind of courtier, though
he was formerly courted ; he being one of the
King's chaplains, and it being his turn to preach
before the royal family, the Queen ordered another to
perform the office. But when this substitute began
to read prayers, Mason also began the same service.

xvm PREFACE,
He did not say whether he proceeded, but this I had
from his own mouth. Mason consequently resigned
the chaplainship. * * * * I do think that Mason
changed his sentiments for the sake of seeing his
favourite scheme of Parliamentary Reform prosper in
Mr. Pitt's hands. I nevertheless must regard the
change as flat apostacy, for Pitt was then acting in
formal opposition to the constitution of his country,
being the only minister, who ever vdthstood the House
of Commons, &c."
Walpole's enmity to Doctor Johnson seems to have
grown out of the difference of their poUtical opinions,
and their Uterary tastes. They were as opposite in most
points of character as two persons could well be ; and if
Walpole disapproved the learned and elaborate diction
of the author of the " Rambler," or if he disaUowed the
rules by which his critical decisions and his opinions of the
merits of the writers who came before him for judgment
were formed, it must be allowed that such differences in
matters of taste might reasonably exist, without their
being attributed to an undue severity of censure, or,
which is worse, to a capricious and personal dislike
of the writer. I have read, and, indeed, printed,
some objections which Cowper made in his copy of
Johnson's "Life of Milton," as severe as any of
those which came from Walpole's pen ; and Sir
Egerton Brydges informs us,* "that he remembers
* In his " Life of Milton," page 235.

PREFACE. XIX
how Dr. Johnson shocked the taste and the creed of the
higher and more imaginative classes of his poetical
readers, when his ' Lives' came out ; but he was the
fashion of the day. The sensitive were stunned by his
coarseness, and the wordUngs and the talkers became
insolent in their triumph. Johnson's work did great
injury to the national taste." Nor was this judgment the
effect of any splenetic feeling on the part of the writer,
and certainly is not to be attributed to any incapacity to
estimate the various and great merits of the work, which
he appears in this place to disparage; for Sir Egerton
Brydges had often mentioned to me his wish to give a
new edition of these ' Lives,' with such notes as would
supply any additional information that was important, or
correct any injudicious comments and erroneous decisions.
Certainly, in this celebrated work, there is ample room
both for admiration and for censure ; and it is no easy
task to estimate correctly the comparative merits of dif
ferent schools of poetry, or of particular writers ; but if
the critic permits the passions and prejudices of the wdU
to break in upon the deliberate steadiness and rectitude
of the judgment, he cannot be surprised if his decisions
are but partially received, or perhaps altogether rejected ;
and we may not be disinclined to agree with one who,
when speaking of the work before us, has the merit of
having brought to his own inquiries the calm and candid
frame of mind which is alone fitted for the discovery of
truth, and which with him was accompanied with the
most indulgent spirit of criticism. "To myself," he

XX PREFACE.
says, "much as I admire his (Johnson's) great and
various merits, both as a critic and writer, human nature
never appeared in a more humiliating form than when I
read his ' Lives of the Poets,' a performance which
exhibits a more faithful, expressive, and curious picture
of the author, than aU the portraits attempted by his
biographers, and which in this point of view compensates
fully, by the moral lessons it may suggest, for the critical
errors which it sanctions. The errors, alas ! are not
such as any one, who has perused his imitations of
Juvenal, can place to the account of a bad taste, but
such as had their root in weaknesses which a noble mind
would be StiU more unwUUng to acknowledge."*
There is one other point, which I would mention with
out dweUing at any length upon it, regarding a very
ingenious hypothesis that appeared in the sixth volume
of " Walpole's MisceUaneous Correspondence," in the
form of a letter to the editor, by Sir Charles Grey, in
which Walpole is presumed to be the author of the
Letters of Junius. I am quite ignorant of the effect
which this supposition has produced upon the public
mind ; and it is not my wish to aUude to it, without at
the same time expressing my great respect and regard
for the writer; but I wUl briefly bring before him
some reasons, independent of the internal e^'idence,
which do not permit me to agree in the conclusions
which he has drawn. He has mentioned as one re-
* See Dugald Stewart's Philosophical Essays, 4to. p. 491.

PREFACE. XXl
markable circumstance, that in the Letters of Walpole
to his various correspondents, seldom omitting, beyond
news of any other kind, aU the circumstances that
arose, day by day, in the circles of poUtical life, and
everything in character, action or writing that related to
them, that he is uniformly sUent on the subject of Junius.
Could he therefore be himself the author, jealously guard
ing his own secret ? That there was something worthy
of attention in this remark, and something singular in
his uniformly, and therefore, it would appear, designedly,
passing over the most remarkable production of the
time, whUe very inferior ones were duly and diUgently
registered, cannot be doubted: but if this difficulty
was felt at the time, it has, in a great degree, been
removed by the numerous Works of Walpole* which
have subsequently been pubUshed in which the name of
this celebrated writer often appears, and where he
is mentioned, as in his celebrated attack on the Duke
of Bedford, in such terms as are utterly inconsistent with
the supposition that the censurer and the writer are
the same person. My second argument would be
drawn from the Correspondence now before us ; it
is clear that Mason and Walpole were united in their
party feeUngs and poUtical opinions ; that they joined
their forces in poetry and prose, in numerous attacks

* I have mentioned the passages in Walpole's Works in a note
in which I recollect Junius to have been mentioned, but probably
others may have escaped me.

XXU PREFACE.
on the pubUc characters of the day, and that they
appear quite unreserved in their communications on aU
such subjects; that their correspondence was going
on during the time Junius was in full blow, and yet that
there is not the most faint aUusion, that suspicion could
rest upon, to the subject. It is quite clear to me that
if Walpole wrote Junius, Mason must have known
the secret.
To these remarks, which may not, I think, be
quite without their due weight, I have now to
add that I possess Walpole's own copy of Junius,
with his MS. annotations in the margin ; and that
in some places he asserts the falsehood, using that
plain and forcible language, of the statements or
accusations there made: and I have also read a
paper, still in manuscript, written by Walpole, in which
he expresses his object to be the discovery of that cele
brated writer; while in this paper, he plainly shows that he
possesses no superior knowledge regarding the subject,
and points his suspicions, supported by evidence which I
thought, when I read it, very general and inconclusive,
on a person whose name had never before or since been
introduced into the icontroversy, and indeed which
I beUeve to be quite unknown to the world, either
of poUtics or letters.*
* This Paper was only casually found by me among other
loose fragments of unfinished memoranda, and was neither written
nor placed so as to show any artful and designing purpose to
mislead.

PREFACE. XXUI
I think there is a growing conviction, arising from an
acknowledged variety of style, that the Letters of Junius
were not the production of a single person ; but
as my purpose is only to mention them, as connected
with the name of Walpole, I gladly withdraw from the
mention of a subject which I am quite unequal to dis
cuss, and which, from information I have just received,
is supposed at last to be on the verge of discovery.
It was my wish, had time been aUowed me, to
turn from the heat and dust of these controversies,
in which our two correspondents have been so long
engaged, and to have represented one of them,
at least, as he would best have appeared, in another
and higher character, of the benevolent pastor of his
affectionate flock, the faithful guardian of their tem
poral interests, and the teacher commissioned to supply
their spiritual wants. In this character Mason would
have more advantageously appeared than we have
yet seen him. The church, which he improved and
adorned, stUl attests the pious munificence which aUke
increased its utiUty and beauty : the chUdren of the
present generation are the successors, of those, for whose
temporal and spiritual advantages he made that careful
provision, which now passing into the hands of his suc
cessors, has become a permanent blessing; for he
thought that within the waUs of the humble vUlage school
must the early virtues be formed and take root, which are
hereafter to preserve their bloom and fragrance amid
scenes and cUmates the most ungenial and unfavorable

xxiv PREFACE.
to them. Nor would the dweUing of the author of the
" EngUsh Garden" be seen without respect and pleasure
by all whose approbation is of value, from the discrimi
nate taste with which it would be given. To those
who may not have had the privilege which we have
enjoyed, of being admitted within those kind and
hospitable waUs, it may be interesting to know
that the house which Mason buUt stiU remains
unaltered, or only in the alterations which time
requires, improved* : — that his Ubrary stUl remains
on the same shelves ; his pictures stUl look down from
the same spots where his hand had placed them ; his
closets stiU retain the curious and ample stores of
literature that he deposited in them, and which have
been ever since guarded with the most affectionate
respect and attention to his wishes : and if the foot
steps of the poet have long deserted the groves and
gardens which he loved, the guiding Hand that formed
them may stUl be traced, as it commanded its new and
improved creations to arise. Among those trees which
he planted, and which now, matured by time, spread
their ampler shadows on the lawn, that same taste wUl
be recognised, however confined the spot, in every
* " Hanc vides villam ut nunc quidem est, lautius sedificatam
pastoris nostri studio, qui cum esset infirma valetudine, hic
fere setatem egit !' These words of the Roman orator, with the
alteration of one, may be applied to Mason's rectory at Aston,
which he built at a considerable expense, adorned with taste,
and which in his later days he seldom left.

PREFACE. xxv
winding walk, in each connected shade, and in every
opening view, which hereafter expanding over a wider
field, was to give, even to Nature herself, a more
pleasing and attractive dress ; to refine and multiply the
tastes of a whole people, and to caU forth an art
which could aUke bestow its minuter beauties on
the peasant's cottage, or spread its rich mantle of
decoration over the most extended domain : and while
we acknowledge with gratitude the genius of more than
one who successfuUy cultivated this art, either in
precept or in practice ; whUe we feel its beauties in the
happy creations of Browne, or in the eloquent pages
of GUpin and Price ; on Mason, above aU others, we
must bestow the superior praise, of introducing the
sister-arts to us hand-in-hand, and of permitting us to
see the inventive genius of one appear with double
lustre when reflected in the clear and bright mirror of
the other's language, and adorned with the appropriate
beauties of chaste and elegant poetry.
I have now only to add, that Mason's monument,
in marble, is to be seen on the waUs of the chancel
of Aston church ; his Uving monument is in the hearts
of some who, though many years have passed away,
stUl remember, with affectionate regret, the poet, the
pastor, and the friend.
J. M.
BENHALL, MAY 1, 1851.
VOL. I. C

CORRESPONDENCE

THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE

THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
SIR, Arlington Street, Dec. 29, 1763.
Your bookseller has brought me the volume of
your works, for which I give you a thousand thanks,
I have read them again in this form wdth great satis
faction. I wish in return that I had any thing literary
to tell you or send you, that would please you, half as
much. I should be glad to know how to convey to
you another volume of my Anecdotes and a volume of
Engravings ; which wUl be published in a fortnight or
three weeks — but they will be far from amusing you.
If the other volumes were trifling, these, are ten times
more so, nothing but my justice to the public, to
whom I owed them, could have prevaUed over my
dissatisfaction with them, and have made me produce
them. The painters in the third volume are more
obscure, most of them, than those in the former;
and the facts relating to them have not even the
VOL. I. B

2 CORRESPONDENCE OF
patina of ambiguity to hide and consecrate their in
significance. The tome of Engravers is a mere list of
very bad prints. You wUl find this account strictly true
and no affectation. To make you some amends, it wUl
not be long before I have the pleasure of sending you
by far the most curious and entertaining book that my
press has produced, if it diverts you as much as it
does Mr. Gray and me, you will think it the most
delightful book you ever read and yet out of 150
pages you had better skip the fifty first. Are not you
impatient to know what this curiosity is and to see it ?
it is the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury
and written by himself — of the contents I will not an
ticipate one word. I address this letter to Aston upon
the authority of your book. I should be sorry if it
miscarried only as it is a mark of my gratitude.
I am. Sir,
your much obliged
humble servant
HOR. WALPOLE.
P.S. Have you read Mrs. Macauley ? I am glad again
to have Mr. Gray's opinion to corroborate mine that it
is the most sensible, unaffected and best history of
England that we have had yet.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
SIR, Aston. Jan, 6, 1764.
The bad weather which has confined me a fortnight

WALPOLE AND MASON, 3
longer in this place than I intended has given me an
opportunity of receiving your most obUging letter in
due time. I cannot help however animadverting on
your reason for directing it to Aston which you say
was on the authority of my Book, that is to say
"because I had written a sonnet here the 12th of last
May, you concluded I should be here also in the very
depth of one of the worst winters in the memory of
Man." A conclusion this, which would only become
a Bishop to make and he too ought to be one's dio
cesan. I know nobody else that should expect a poor
rector, to keep such strict parochial residence. The
fact however is on your side, but I must own I am
here much against my wUl and shall therefore move
southward whenever, I can muster up courage suffi
cient — to wade seven mile to a turnpike.
I am very highly obliged to you for your intention
of sending me the concluding volumes of your Anec
dotes on Painting, but hope to be in town soon enough
to receive them there. Should they prove to be merely
what you say they are I shall read them with great
pleasure, for though I am no antiquarian I have as
gross an appetite as any of them, in matters where
painting is concerned. Lord Herbert's Life wUl be a
feast indeed.
I should as soon have thought of purchasing Aulay
Macaulay's short hand, as Mrs, Macaulay's History
on seeing them both advertised. I shall now however
lead the lady into my library very speedily, where
she wiU find no competition for I never met with a

4 CORRESPONDENCE OP
History of England yet that I thought worth buying,
nor indeed could I ever read one fairly through, except
David Hume's. I wish you had told me whether she
was a maid, wife or widow, not that I have any in
tentions of making my addresses to her ; but that I
might have known whether she be bom of English
parents, a fact which I am national enough to be veiy
anxious about. I shaU learn this I hope when I see
Mr. Gray at Cambridge, where I mean to stay a week
or two before 1 come to town.
Believe me to be with very great esteem
your most obUged and faithful
humble servant, W. MASON.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
SIR, Aston, April 14, 1765,
Though I neglected returning you my thanks for
the present you made me of Lord Herbert's Life, and
of which, as you favoured me with a view of the
proof sheets, I before gave you my sentiments. Yet I
will not omit thanking you for a more extraordinary
thing in its kind, which though it comes not from your
press, yet I have episcopal evidence is written by
your hand. And indeed less than such evidence would
scarce have contented me, for when a friend of mine
to whom I had recommended the Castle of Otranto
returned it me with some doubts of its originality ; I
laught him to scorn, " and wondered he could be so
absurd as to think that any body now a days had ima-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 5
gination enough to invent such a story," He replied that
his suspicion arose merely from some parts of familiar
dialogue in it, which he thought of too modern a cast.
Still sure of my point, I affirmed this objection, if there
was any thing in it, was merely owing to its not being
translated a century ago. All this I make it a point of
conscience to tell you, for though it proves me your
dupe, I should be glad to be so duped again every
year of my life. I have the honour to be.
Sir,
your much obliged and obedient servant
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
gjjj Arlington Street, April, 17, 1765.
The unexpected and obliging favour of your letter I
own gave me great satisfaction ; I published the Cas
tle of Otranto with the utmost diffidence and doubt of
its success. Yet though it has been received much
more favourably than I could fiatter myself it would
be, I must say your approbation is of another sort
than general opinion. The first run for or against a
new work is what I am sorry to say ought not much
to fiatter or discourage an author. Accordingly, self-
love hitherto had not blinded me : I wUl not answer
now but it may get a little hold on me, your praise is
so lUcely to make me vain, that I oblige myself to recol
lect all the circumstances that can abate it, such as,

6 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the fear I had of producing it at all (for it is not every
body that may in this country play the fool with im
punity). The hurry in which it was composed, and
its being begun without any plan at all ; for though in
the short course of its progress, I did conceive some
views, it was so far from being sketched out with
any design at all, that it was actually commenced
one evening, from the very imperfect recollection of a
dream with which I had waked in the morning. It
was begun and finished in less than two months, and
then I showed it to Mr. Gray, who encouraged me to
print it, this is the true history of it ; and I cannot but
be happy. Sir, that he and you have been pleased with
it, yet it is as true, if you wUl give me leave to say so,
that I think your friend judged rightly in pronouncing
part of the dialogue too modem. I had the same idea
of it, and I could, but such a trifie does not deserve it,
point out other defects, besides some to which most
probably I am not insensible. You must forgive
me, if your commendation has already drawn me
in to talk too much of a thing of my owti ; but I am
vain of its pleasing you Sir, and what would have fuUy
comforted me if I had miscarried with most readers, is
not likely to make me think worse of their judgment
when confirmed by your taste.
I am. Sir,
your most obedient
and obliged humble servant
HOR. WALPOLE.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 7
P. S. It is not my interest to recommend it but in
justice to what I owe to your amusement I must
advise you to read the lettres du Marquis de RoseUe, if
you have not yet seen them. They are written by the
wife of Mons'. Beaumont who has got so much credit
by defending the family of Galas. I do not recom
mend the boasted Siege of Calais to you, though it
contains some good lines, but the conduct is wofuU.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Arlington Street, April, 5, 1769.
I have read carefuUy and with great pleasure your
two comedies, and will tell you sincerely my opinion
of them. The grave one pleases me the most, and
made me shed tears. I think it wants very little im
provement : none in the conduct, if any rather more
comic, which you have confined too much to Flora and
the footman, one point I think wants correction, which
is Lucinda's neglect of enquiring after her father till
the moment she is ready to depart. The greatest
objection I believe could be made, is, that the story,
at least the situations, have too much resemblance to
the Conscious Lovers. When I have spoken so frankly,
I trust you wUl beUeve me too, when I assure you I
think it an excellent comedy, and can see no reason
you could have to letting it be acted, conceaUng the
author, which I could not advise, after what I have
said on that subject. So far from agreeing with Mr.
Gray, I Uke the bastardy, and would have the governor,
consistently with the good sense of his character, say

8 CORRESPONDENCE OF
more against the cruel prejudice that falls on the Inno
cent instead of the guilty. I wUl not flatter you more
about the other piece, the indelicacy of Lady Fitz-
harold's character I think too strong ; and do not ap
prove Lady Betty's being so easUy drawn, contrary to
the pride of her ideas, which you makeher characterstic,
into love for the supposed Valet de Chambre. His part
pleases me extremely, is new and would have great
effect upon the stage ; there are many scenes very
well worked up ; but the play would want softening in
the respects I have mentioned. StUl I own the other
is my favourite : it requires very little alteration, might
easily be improved, and I am sure would please
universally. If you concealed your name, I can con
ceive no objection to your letting it be acted, which I
should very much wish to see. — I give you a thousand
thanks for trusting them to me, and for the sight of
the drawing, which lost nothing by my being pre
pared for it, besides the humour which is admirable,
it is excellent as a drawing. I enclose a short adver
tisement for Mr. Hoyland's poems, I mean by it to
tempt people to a little more charity, and to soften to
him, as much I can, the humihation of its being asked
for him ; if you approve it, itshaU be prefixed to the
edition. Forgive the freedoms I have taken with you, Sir,
I should not, but from esteem, and from believing you
above being offended with them. I shall see you, I
flatter myself, before you go out of town.
Your most obedient HOR. WALPOLE.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 9
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Arlington Street, May 11, 1769.
I am more pleased than surprised at your kindness,
and the hurry with which I answer your letter wUl I
hope in some measure express my gratitude. I thank
you for myself, not for my play. I care little about the
latter, in comparison of the satisfaction I receive from
your friendship. I cannot think the play deserved the
pains you have bestowed on it, but I am very willing to
flatter myself that you felt some kindness for the author :
and I doubt I am one of those selfish parents that love
themselves better than their offspring.
I cannot think of the stage — I believe from pride —
and I am weary of printing and publishing — I suppose
from vanity, at least I am sure I have no better reasons
for not making all possible use of your alterations, with
which I am so much pleased that I shall correct my
own copy by them. I am astonished to see with how
few lines you have been able totaUy to change the
canvas of a whole play, a play totally defective in the
plan, and I believe not much better in the conduct,
which you would not exert your judgment, or rather
your chymistry to prove ; for I must repeat how sur
prised I am at the solution you have made with so
Uttle trouble, I own too my own want of judgment : I
believe I was so pleased with what ought to have pre
vented my attempting the subject, which was the
singularity of it. Unfrequent crimes are as little the
business of tragedy, as singular characters are of

10 CORRESPONDENCE OF
comedy ; it is inviting the town to correct a single
person. You see Sir, I am far from being incorrigible,
on the contrary, I am willing to be corrected ; but as
Mr. Gray could tell you, I cannot correct myself. I
write I neither know how nor why, and always make
worse what I try to amend, I have begged him a
thousand times to no purpose to correct trifles I have
written, and which I really could not improve myself.
I am not so unreasonable or so imprudent as to ask the
same favour of you. Sir ; but I accept with great thank
fulness what you have voluntarily been so good as to
do for me ; and should the Mysterious Mother ever
be performed when I am dead, it will owe to you its
presentation. When I see Mr. Stonhewer, I wUl know if he would
chuse another edition of poor Mr. Hoyland's Poems.
I doubt not, as when he sent for the last twenty, he
said he believed he could get off them. I gladly adopt
your corrections, but I cannot father your own good
ness. It is to you. Sir, Mr. Hoyland owes every thing.
Dodsley has published a dozen letters of Pope to
Mrs. Blount, they are evidently real love-letters — and
yet they are stiff and unnatural, though he affects neg
ligence in them.
I forgot to reprove you for calling me a Poet. I
wish I had any pretensions to that title. It is true I
early wished to be one, but soon found I was not ; my
prose was like speeches of the Members of the House
of Commons, who try to talk themselves into titles to
which they were not born ; you Sir, who found your

WALPOLE AND MASON. 11
patent in your cradle, call me My Lord, as EngUsh
Peers condescend to give their own appellation to the
peers of Ireland, though conscious that the latter are
only Commoners : for my part I give up all pretensions
but to your esteem, with which you have flattered me,
and which I beg you to continue by marks of friend
ship to, dear Sir,
your much obliged
humble servant
HOR. WALPOLE.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, August 28, 1771.
I deferred writing to you on the late melancholy
occasion till I heard you was upon your return from
Paris. I hope this will find you in perfect health after
your journey, and I have sent it under Mr. Stonhewer's
cover that he may deliver it to you when he hears you
are arrived in town.
You wUl be informed I presume before this that I
am entrusted with all Mr. Gray's Papers " to preserve
or destroy at my ovra discretion" an important charge
which I shall find myself unable to execute without the
advice and assistance of his other friends and therefore
I do not doubt that if, amongst these, I apply to you
you will think it no trouble to give me your opinion and
counsel. Hitherto I have been able to do little more
than to sort in parcels the letters of his living friends.

12 CORRESPONDENCE OF
that I may return them, or bum them as the parties
shall direct me to do, I do not find many of yours but
those which I have found I have taken due care of ; and
shall wait your directions conceming them.
I do not believe that Mr. Gray has left one finished
Poem ; but there are some considerable and beautiful
fragments amongst which his Essay on Education is the
principal, but at present, I cannot speak with any cer
tainty, as I have only examined his papers very transi
ently, when I am better informed, I shall do myself the
honour of writing to you more fully ; in the mean time
I thought it my duty to acquaint you with the above
particulars, and to assure you that I am with the
truest respect, dear Sir,
your most obliged and faithful servant
W. MASON.
I have in my possession your printed letter to Dr.
Milles.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry HUl, Sept. 9,1771.
I judge of your shock and concern at Mr. Gray's by
my own. I saw him the day before I left England;
he complained of the gout flying about him, and said
he had been a month at Kensington for the air. I saw
him changed and very low — yet I had not the least

WALPOLE AND MASON. 13
idea of any sudden misfortune. Three weeks after I
read in the Chronicle at Paris, that He was dead ! I
would not believe it — not alas ! from reason ; but I
could not bear to believe it — I wrote to Mr. Cole to
inquire — He has confirmed it, and I find it at my
return but too true. I feel for you, Sir, and as I most
heartUy regret him, I would do any thing to show my
regard to his memory. If he has left any thing for the
press, I flatter myself mine wUl be allowed to contribute
to that office. I shall be very happy to bear aU the
expense — you, I am sure. Sir, will let his genius want
no due honour — and it is not to interfere with any
thing that you design to say of him, and which you will
say better than any body ; that I send you the foUowing
lines, they are not worthy of him, nor do I repeat them
to you but as a proof of my sorrow, and a tribute to
your friend, which is the only Ught in which they can
please you, you wUl see that the Unes suppose him
buried among his real predecessors.
Great shades of Shakspear, Milton, Dryden, hear ;
A genuine Bard from Genius claims a tear.
He, who in numbers, worthy of the Lyre,
Enshrin'd your names, now joins the mighty choir.
Amidst your radiant Urns his Urn inclose,
A spot more hallow'd than where Kings repose.
Aloft let Pomp her Edwards, Henrys, keep ;
Near Homer's dust should Pindar's ashes sleep.
If I could have greater contempt for the age than I
have, it would be on observing that one single para-

14 CORRESPONDENCE OF
graph is aU tbat has been said on our friend; but
when there are columns in every paper on Sir Francis
Delaval, ought we not to be glad ? who would be the
hero of these times ?
Is there any chance. Sir, of your coming southwards ?
I long to pass a melancholy hour with you. Who has
possession of the plate from my picture of Mr. Gray ?
I have many scraps and letters of his that show how
very early his genius was ripe, and which wUl please
you exceedingly. To collect the reliques of our friends
is perhaps the sweetest employment of those moments
that remain when we have lost them ! It is a decent
preparation too for our own fate.
I am, dear Sir,
your most obedient
humble servant
HOR. WALPOLE.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, Sept. 21, 1771.
Your favour of the 9th, by being directed — only to
Aston and not near Sheffield strayed I believe through
all our three Ridings before it found me here. I had
enclosed a Letter to Mr. Stonhewer to deliver to you
when you returned to England which I hope you also
have received ere this : and therefore will not think
me deficient in point of respect to you on the melan
choly occasion, which led me to begin the correspon
dence. The lines which you have done me the honour

WALPOLE AND MASON. 15
to send me are excellently weU turned and justly expres
sive of his poetical abilities, and I think with a Uttle
alteration might be inscribed on a monument in the
Poets comer Westminster Abbey, the alteration I mean
is bust, for urn ; in consequence of which the three
latter lines would require a small change which might
easily be made without altering the turn of thought.
I know you wUl make me the same answer to this
which you did when I talked of a certain alteration
before in a greater work, yet I know you wUl excuse
me for giving you my free sentiments — even when I
add that the epitaph wiU still want something more, as it
yet does not praise him for what I think he deserves
more to be praised than for his poetical talents, — I
mean the qualities of his heart.
After thanking you for the very obliging offer you
make of publishing his poems, &c. I wUl with the
same freedom tell you my opinion upon that subject.
I always thought Mr. Gray blameable for letting the
booksellers have his MSS. gratis. — I never saw any
thing myself beneath the dignity of a gentleman in
making a profit of the productions of ones own brain.
I frequently had disputes with him on this matter which
generally ended in a laugh, he called me covetous
and I called him proud ; what you think upon this head
I know not, yet I trust you do not carry your ideas of
this kind so far as Monsr. de Nivernois, because I re
member what you said ; when you gave me an anec
dote about him and the French punctiUo with regard
to authorship.

16 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Dodsley however has (I doubt not) got some
hundred pounds by Mr. Gray's suffering him to print
his poems as he has hitherto done, and in my
opinion Dodsley nor any of the great booksellers ought
to have been an object of his beneficence. I should
not wonder at present if Dodsley claims a right in the
copies of such things as he has aheady printed, yet I
fancy he can shew no title to such a claim, or at least
his title cannot preclude mine, and therefore, it is not
to be doubted that if I prepared an edition of the
poems in question — with ever so little new in it, such an
edition would stop the sale of his, and continue to
bring in a considerable profit, whether I kept the right
or sold it to any other bookseller. My first business
therefore wiU be to ascertain this right, and afterwards
to make as much profit of the book as I possibly can.
I hope you wiU do me the justice to believe that I
shall dispose of the money that may accrue in a way
that will do honour to the memory of Mr. Gray, and in
so doing I flatter myself you wiU think that I shall do
much better in this point than he did, who had cer
tainly much better have taken the profits, and bestowed
them on such benevolent purposes, for which his purse
was never, till of late, sufficient to answer the demands
of his heart, and which might have been in some sort
assisted by this means had he not thrown it away on
the most undeserving of all objects, printers and book
sellers, and those rich ones into the bargain.
What I have said does not in the least counteract
your thought of an edition from your own press — and

WALPOLE AND MASON. 17
I shall be happy to consult you about it w^hen we
next meet. I only mean that the edition for public
sale shall be contrived to be a lucrative one.
My ecclesiastical imprisonment in this dullest of all
provincial towns continues tUl the llth of Nov. ; after
a short stay at Aston I mean to go to Cambridge, to
assist Mr. Brown in settling affairs there, and think of
being in town about Xmas, when I shall make it my
first business to pay my respects to you in Arlington
Street. Most faithfully yours
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 25, 1771.
I have received both your letters. Sir, by Mr.
Stonehewer and by the post from York. I direct this
to Aston rather than to York, for fear of any miscar
riage, and wUl remember to insert near Sheffield.
I not only agree with your sentiments, but am fiat-
tered that they countenance my own practice. In
some cases I have sold my works, and sometimes have
made the impressions at my own press pay themselves,
as I am not rich enough to treat the public with all I
print there ; nor do I know why I should, some edi
tions have been given to charities, to the poor of
Twickenham, &c. Mr. Spence's life of Magliabecchi
was bestowed on the reading taylor. I am neither
ashamed of being an author, or a bookseller. My
VOL. I. c

18 CORRESPONDENCE OF
mother's father was a timber-merchant, I have many
reasons for thinking myself a worse man, and none for
thinking myself better : consequently I shall never blush
at doing any thing he did. I print much better than
I write, and love my trade, and hope I am not one of
those most undeserving of all objects printers and
booksellers, whom I confess you lash with justice. In
short. Sir, I have no notion of poor Mr. Gray's deli
cacy ; I would not sell my talents as orators and
senators do, but I would keep a shop, and sell any of
my own works that would gain me a livelihood,
whether books or shoes, rather than be tempted to sell
myself. 'Tis an honest vocation to be a scavenger —
but I would not be Solicitor General. Whatever method
you fix upon for the publication of Mr, Gray's works,
I dare answer I shall approve, and will, therefore, say
no more on it tUl we meet, I will beg you, Sir, when
you come to town to bring me what papers or letters
he had preserved of mine — for the answer to Dr,
Milles it is not worth asking you to accept or to take
the trouble of bringing me, and, therefore, you may
fling it aside where you please.
The epitaph is very unworthy of the subject, I had
rather any body should correct my works than take
the pains myself, I thank you very sincerely for
criticizing it, but indeed I believe you would with
much less trouble wTite a new one than mend that. I
abandon it cheerfully to the fire, for surely bad verses
on a great poet are the worst of panegyrics. The sensa
tion of the moment dictated the epitaph, but though

WALPOLE AND MASON. 19
I was concerned, I was not inspired ; your corrections
of my play I remember with the greatest gratitude, be
cause I confess I liked it enough to wash it cor
rected, and for that friendly act. Sir, I am obliged to
you. For writing, T am quitting all thoughts of it —
and for several reasons — the best is because it is time
to remember that I must quit the world, Mr. Gray
was but a year older and he had much more the ap
pearance of a man to whom several years were promi
sed, A contemporary's death is the Ucalegon of all
sermons : in the next place his death has taught me
another truth. Authors are said to labour for pos
terity ; for my part I find I did not write even for the
rising generation. Experience tells me it was all for
those of my own, or near my own, time. The friends
I have lost were 1 find more than half the public to
me. It is as difficult to write for young people, as to
talk to them ; I never, I perceive, meant any thing
about them in what I have written, and cannot com
mence an acquaintance with them in print, Mr, Gray
was far from an agreeable confident to self-love, yet
I had always more satisfaction in communicating any
thing to him, though sure to be mortified, than in
being flattered by people whose judgment I do not
respect. We had besides known each others ideas
from almost infancy, and I was certain he would under
stand precisely what ever I said, whether it was well
or iU expressed. This is a kind of feeUng that every
hour of age increases, Mr, Gray's death, I am persua
ded, Sir, has already given you this sensation, and I

20 CORRESPONDENCE OP
make no excuse for talking seemingly so much of my
self, but though I am the instance of these refiections,
they are only part of the conversation, which that sad
event occasions, and which I trust we shall renew.
I shall sincerely be a little consoled if our common regret
draws us nearer together ; you will find all possible
esteem on my side ; as there has been much similarity
in some of our pursuits, it may make some amends for
other defects. I have done with the business, the
politics, the pleasures of the world ; without turning
hermit or morose. My object is to pass the remainder
of my life tranquilly and agreeably, with all the amuse
ments that wUl gild the evening, and are not subject
to disappointment ; with cheerfulness, for I have very
good spirits, and with as much of the company, as I
can obtain, of the few persons I value and like [value
and like is one word] , If you have charity enough or
inclination to contribute to such a system you will
add much to the happiness of it, and if you have not,
you wUl still allow me to say I shall be ever, with great
regard. Sir, your obedient humble servant,
HOR, WALPOLE,
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR Curzon Street, The Eve of the Martyrdom, 1772.
I really see nothing to object to in your epUogue,
but many things to approve, only in general I think it
more in the style of a prologue, but perhaps the

WALPOLE AND MASON. 21
author would not have liked one more comic and yet
(comic being out of the case) it seems introductory to
the Diitchesses character, and therefore rather of the
prologue cast : Two lines occur to me which perhaps
would mark who you mean by a wit more strongly, yet
perhaps too comic'ly. —
No says a wit, made up of French grimaces
Yet, self- ordained, the high priest of the Graces.
This is really all that occurs to me on the perusal of
it. Believe me, dear Sir, most sincerely yours
W. MASON.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Curzon Street, Tuesday Morning, 1772.
Mr. Mason presents his respects to Mr. Walpole and
desires his acceptance of the Etchings, which accom
pany this. He also desires, that in the course of the
summer, he would let Mr. Stonhewer have the perusal
of those extracts of Mr. Gray's out of the Cotton
Library, &c. which JVIr. Mason left at Strawberry hill,
as Mr. Stonhewer had not time to review them before.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, May 9, 1772.
I have given up to Mr. Stonhewer, as you desired,
dear Sir, Mr. Gray's volume of MSS, but shall be
glad hereafter, if you do not dislike it, to print some of

22 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the most curious. He himself was to lend me the
speech and letters of Sir Thomas Wyat. At a leisure
hour, would not it be amusing to you to draw up a
Uttle account of that Poet ?
Dr. Brown has sent me a very civil letter of thanks
for Gray's portrait ; he speaks too of the book I intended
for their college, and that he was to receive from you.
I forget whether I troubled you with it or not.
I have selected for your use such of Gray's letters, as
will be intelligible without many notes : but though
all his early letters have both wit and humour, they
are so local, or so confined to private persons and
stories, that it would be difficult even by the help of
a comment to make them interesting to the public;
some of the incidents alluded to have slipped out of
my own memory ; still there are about twenty of his
juvenile letters that I think wiU please. I wdll bring
them with me when I make you a visit in August. I
have a great many more to the very end of his life ;
but they are grave, and chiefiy relative to questions in
antiquity on which I consulted him, or begged him to
consult the libraries at Cambridge ; there are some criti
cisms on modern books and authors, either his own
opinions or in answer to mine. These are certainly not
proper for present publication : but I shaU leave these
and the rest behind me, and none of them wiU disgrace
him ; which ought to be our care, since it was so very
much his own.
Mr. Palgrave is in town, and has promised to pass
a day with me here, where I am continuing my immor-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 23
tal labours with those durable materials, painted glass,
and carved wood and stone. The foundations of the
chapel in the garden are to be dug on Monday. The
state-bedchamber advances rapidly, and will, I hope,
be finished before my journey to Yorkshire. In short,
this old, old, very oid castle, as his prints caUed old
Parr, is so near being perfect, that it will certainly be
ready by the time I die, to be improved with Indian
paper ; or to have the windows cut down to the
ground by some travelled lady.
The newspapers tell me that Mr. Chambers, the
Architect, who has Sir-WUliamized himself, by the
desire as he says of the knights of the Polar Star his
brethren, who were angry at his not assuming his
proper title, is going to publish a treatise on ornamen
tal gardening ; that is, I suppose considering a garden
as a subject to be built upon. In that light it wiU not
interfere with your verses or my prose ; and we may
both use the happiest expression in the world and
coldly declare him free.
In truth our climate is so bad, that instead of filling
our gardens wdth buildings, we ought rather to fill
our buUdings with gardens, as the only way of enjoy
ing the latter ;
The dreaded East is all the wind that blows ;
And yet I am afraid to rail at it, lest the rain should
make advantage of my plaints, and come and drown
us tUl the end of July. I was lamenting the weather
to M, de Guines ; the French embassador. He said.

24 CORRESPONDENCE OF
" in England you talk of nothing but the bad weather ;
I wonder you are not used to it." Yet one must have
seen such a thing, as spring, or one could not have
invented the idea. I can swear to have formerly heard
nightingales as I have been sitting in this very bow-
wdndow. If I was thirty years younger, I might fancy
they are gone because Phoebe is gone ; but I have
certainly heard them long since my ballad-making
days. I hope your garden, which is not exposed to
wa3rward seasons, but
will always flourish in immortal youth,
advances a great pace ; consider, you are to record what
it was, when fashion and great lords shaU have
brought back square inclosures, walls, terraces and
labyrinths and shall be told by the le Nautre of the
day, that their lordships have invented a new taste ; and
will never know to the contrary ; for though beautiful
poems preserve themselves, it is not by being read and
known. Works of genius are Uke the Hermetic phi
losophers ; none but adepts are acquainted with their
existence, yet certainly nothing is ever lost — as you
may find in Mr. Wharton's new life of Sir Thomas
Pope, which has resuscitated more nothings, and more
nobodies, than Birch's life of TUlotson or Louth's
William of Wickham.
There has been a masquerade at the Pantheon,
which was so glorious a vision that I thought I was
in the old Pantheon, or in the Temples of Delphi
or Ephesus, amidst a croud of various nations, and
that formerly Panthoides Euphorbus eram.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 25
and did but recollect what I had seen. All the friezes
and niches were edged with alternate lamps of green
and purple glass, that shed a most heathen light, and
the dome was" illuminated by a heaven of oiled paper,
well painted with gods and goddesses. Mr. Wyat, the
Architect, has so much taste, that I think he must be
descended from Sir Thomas. Even Henry VIII had so
much taste, that were he alive he would visit the
Pantheon. Adieu ! dear Sir,
yours most sincerely HOR. WALPOLE.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, May 17, 1772.
Mr. Stonhewer only desired to look over the papers
in question, he will undoubtedly return you them very
soon, and then I hope you will print whatever you
think proper ; for I am perfectly conscious that you are
the fittest person to make such a selection, and it was
from the hope that you would do so, that I gave them
to you. Yet I think those that you reject should be
preserved, and I fancy you think so too.
I hear (for I have not seen the paper) that it has.,
been printed as a piece of news, that I have resigned
my chaplainship, and a cause assigned for it, which I
fear wUl offend Lord Hertford. I could wish, there
fore, if it came easily into conversation, that you would
assure his Lordship, that my intention of resigning (for
it is at present only intention) arises merely from my

26 CORRESPONDENCE OF
resolution of not aiming at any further ecclesiastical
preferment, but to sit down uti conviva satur in a
parsonage, which I have built for that purpose. That
as this parsonage is in Yorkshire, and my temporal
concerns also in Yorkshire, a London journey at a
stated time is often inconvenient, and will be (when I
advance more in years) constantly disagreeable. On
this account, and on this only, I mean to reUnquish the
chaplainship, and would wish to do it at any time when
his Lordship thinks it most eligible, and I should
imagine, that if you would please to intimate this to
him, it would appear to him (as it is meant to be) a
more civil way of proceeding, than by an abrupt letter of
resignation. Remember you have, once at least, asked
for a chaplainship, be assured if you ask for leave to
resign one, you will find full as much gratitude from
the person you do this latter favour for, as you did
from the former. After all, if you do not like to con
cern yourself in state matters of such weighty moment,
you have only to tell me so, and I wiU write a letter
to my Lord Chamberlain in form and urge my own
request. I could wash, however, that you would con
vince him that it is beneath me to be impertinent in a
newspaper. I mean to employ all the time that my frittered days
will here allow in preparing Mr. Gray's papers and my
account of them, for the press. As for gardens, &c. I
leave them to the knight of the Polish star, and his
modern Henry. When I return to Aston, and get into
my own quiet garden, I perhaps there may plan ideal

WALPOLE AND MASON. 27
ones, in the meanwhUe I please myself with the
thoughts that you wiU take your first glimpse of the
beauties of the west riding from my study, before you
advance to the centre of its beauties at Wentworth
Castle. Be assured of the most cordial welcome, and
believe me to be (with the truest sense of all your
favours) dear Sir, most faithfuUy yours
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, May 25, 1772.
I have told Lord Hertford of the injurious manner
in which your thoughts of resigning the chaplainship
have been represented in the newspapers, and of the
obliging expressions you have used towards him in offer
ing to give it up. He is extremely sensible of your
civility, and desired I would thank you from him in the
handsomest manner, and, as you permit him, will fill
up your place, when you are wiUing to resign it. For
myself, I assure you, dear Sir, that next to the pleasure
I should have, if it was in my power to do you service,
the greatest satisfaction I can enjoy, is to assist in delive
ring you from attendance on a court : a station below
your sentiments and merit. I have read Chambers's
book. It is more extravagant than the worst Chinese
paper ; and is written in wUd revenge against Brown,

28 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the only surprising consequence is, that it is laughed
at, and it is not likely to be adopted, as I expected ;
for nothing is so tempting to fools, as advice to de
prave taste.
Lord Carlisle has written and printed some copies of
an ode on Gray's death. There is a real spirit of poetry
in it, but no invention ; for it is only a description of
Gray's descriptions. There are also two epitaphs on
Lady Carlisle's Dog, not bad, and a translation from
Dante of the story of Count Ugolino, which I like the
least of the four pieces. Mrs. Scott, sister of Mrs.
Montague, has written a life of Agrippa d' Aubigne, —
no — she has not written it she has extracted it from
his own account, and no dentist at a fair could draw
a tooth with less grace. It is only in a reUgious sense
that she has made it a good book, for it seems she is
very pious. There is a Mr. Jones too, who has pub
lished imitations of Asiatic poets : but as Chambers's
book was advertised by the title of ornamental gar
dening, instead of Oriental, I think Mr, Jones's is a
blunder of Oriental for ornamental, for it is very flowery,
and not at all Eastern,
Somebody, I fancy Dr. Percy, has produced a dismal
duU baUad, called " the Execution of Sr. Charles Baw-
din," and given it for one of the Bristol Poems, caUed
Rowley's — but it is a stUl worse counterfeit, than those
that were first sent to me ; it grows a hard case on our
ancestors, who have every day bastards laid to them,
five hundred or a thousand years after they are dead.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 29
Indeed Mr. Macpherson, &c., are so fair as to beget
the fathers as well as the chUdren. Adieu ! Dear
Sir, yours most sincerely
HOR. WALPOLE.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, July 6, 1772.
It is with great pleasure, dear Sir, I see the time
approach of making you my visit. The first of August
I shall begin my progress, or very near that day : but,
as I do not travel on maccaronic-wings, it is uncertain
how long I shall be before I reach Aston ; but you
shall know before, that I may not keep you waiting.
You must be so good as to tell me my road, and if
there is any thing in my way worth stopping to see —
I mean literally to see — for I do not love guessing
whether a bump in the ground is Danish, British, or
Saxon. Give me leave to consult you too on the rest of
my journey. From you I shall go to Lord Strafford,
and thence wish to make excursions to York, Beverly,
Castle-Howard, and Mr. Aislabie's. WiU you draw me
a map, and mark the distances ? Consider I am lazy
and not young ; and do not weigh what can be done,
but what I can do.
Mr. Stonhewer has not returned me the book, and
unwUling to hurry him, I have forbom to send for it ;
if you write to him, wUl you mention it ? I have printed
King Edward's letters, and wUl bring you a copy. I

30 CORRESPONDENCE OF
have since begun a kind of Desiderata curiosa, and
intend to publish it in numbers, as I get materials ; it
is to be an Hospital of Foundlings ; and though I shall
not take in aU that offer, there will be no inquiry into
the nobUity of the parents ; nor shall I care how hetero
geneous the brats are.
Mr. Cole tells me Dr. Brown has given him a print
of Mr. Gray, and that it is very like, which rejoices me,
and makes me more impatient for one.
I have a visitor just come in ; you will lose nothing
by it, for I do not know a syllable worth telling you,
and am,
dear Sir,
yours most sincerely
HOR. WALPOLE.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, July 21, 1772.
I answer your letter, as you bid me, the moment I
receive it, though I can scarce write for laughing at
Alma Mater and her nurslings. I thank you a thousand
times for so inestimable a present : I do not know where
Lord R. could get another bell that would purchase it.
It makes me very impatient to see the new poem that
is cast in the same mint.
You have chalked me out a noble route, but I have
not courage to undertake so mighty a compass at once.
I must besides be at Lord Strafford's earlier than such a
tour would allow. I shall, therefore, set out on the third,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 31
go directly to him, and wait on you afterwards, which
will be soon after your return from York. A bad inn
terrifies me more than any antiquity of art or nature
can invite me, and I have no taste for crossing washes
and rivers : one should look so silly to be drowned at
my age, and to be asked by Charon, quavois tu a f aire
dans cette gaUre ! I can pick up a few sights in a de
tached manner from Lord Strafford's, and the remainder
I will consult with you at Aston.
Thank you for the account of the picture painted by
Lambert. The print of Mr. Gray is the print of Mr.
Mason, that is, either Mr, Cole named one for the other,
or I misunderstood him ; one of those you was so good
as to give me is framed, and installed in the chamber
where I am writing ; it is the blue room where hang
Mad, du Deffand, Grammont, and Hamilton, company
that wUl tell you the value I set on your portrait.
I shall bring you a copy of King Edward's letters
and I hope my edition of Grammont ; if I can get
HamUton's print from the engraver, by that time too I
shall have the first number of my miscellaneous anti
quities ready. The first essay is only a republication
of some tilts and tournaments. I have been at work on
Sr. Thomas Wyat's life, to prefix to his speech and
letters, but it is not yet finished, so if you know any
thing more about him than is in Gray's papers, and in
Leland and our old biographers, I shaU have ample room
for it. Would it not be a pity to have so industrious a
Caxton drowned ? Mr. Cole has told me of somebody
else, I forgot who it is that is going to republish olJ

32 CORRESPONDENCE OF
historians k la Heame. This taste of digging up
antiquated relicks flourishes abundantly, unless Foote's
last new piece blows us up. He has introduced the
learned Society in Chancery lane, sitting as they really
did, on Whittington and his cat ; and as I do not love
to be answerable for any fooleries, but my own, I think
I shall scratch my name out of their books. Oxford
has lately contributed to the mass the lives of Leland,
Hearne, and Wood. In the latter's journal one of the
most important entries is, TTiis day old Joan began to
make my bed. What a figure will this our Augustan age
make ; Garrick's prologues, epilogues and verses. Sir W.
Chambers's gardening. Dr. Nowel's sermon, Whitting
ton and his Cat, Sir John Dalrymple's history and the
life of Henry II. What a library of poetry, taste, good
sense, veracity and vivacity ! ungrateful Shebbear !
indolent SmoUet ! trifling Johnson ! piddling Goldsmith !
how little have they contributed to the glory of a period
in which all arts, all sciences are encouraged and re
warded. Guthrie buried his mighty genius in a
Review, and Mallet died of the first effusions of his
loyalty. The retrospect makes one melancholy, but
Ossian has appeared, and were Paradise once more lost,
we should not want an Epic Poem. Adieu! dear
Sir, yours ever
H. w.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 33
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. August 24, 1772.
I should be very ungrateful, dear Sir, after all your
goodness to me, particularly for your kind request in
asking an account of my journey, if I did not immedi
ately thank you for all your favours. My journey was
as agreeable as it could be after leaving so pleasant a
place and such good company, and was attended by no
accident, except an escape from being drowned in a
torrent of whores and apprentices at Barnet races. 1
passed through Clumber and Thoresby parks, and saw
no one temptation to stop in either. Strawberry I
found parched to the bone ; it has rained for three
days since, which has only brought down bushels of
dead leaves, and advanced autumn without its change
of hues. To make me amends, I found my new bed
chamber finished, and it is so charming that I have
lost all envy of Castle Howard. The bed would become
Cleopatra on the Cydnus, or Venus if she was not
past Cupid-bearing. In truth I fear, I must call it
Sardanapalus's, who, Margaret may, vrithout breach of
veracity, assure strangers lived still longer ago than the
Goths. Pray remember what I am going to tell you against
you find yourself en chapitre. Your church of York
enjoys an estate given by dueen PhUippa on the burial
of her son WiUiam of Hatfield, and yet you have the
conscience to let the poor prince's tomb be tossed
about without a yard of earth it can call its own ! My
compliments to Mr. Alderson, to ArgentUe and Curan,
VOL. I. D

34 CORRESPONDENCE OF
&c. ; nay to the old woman's picture if you insist upon it,
yours ever
H. WALPOLE.
Arlington Street.
I happened to come hither to day on business, and
find Dr. Brown has caUed twice, and left me in his own
and your names a Goa stone and a blood stone seal,
which both belonged to Mr. Gray. You know how
really I shall value them, and I thank you very much,
but I am greatly distressed how to thank Dr. Brovm ;
he has not left a direction where he lodges, and I
am impatient to express how much I am obliged, of
which I will beg you, dear Sir, to bear witness; I
certainly would not neglect waiting on him directly, if I
knew where to find him. If I do not, I wdU write to
Cambridge.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Middleton Park, Sept 9, 1772.
Your letter of August 24 after travelling to and fro
all over Yorkshire (as your letters to me usually do)
found me in Oxfordshire only yesterday ; let me, there
fore, before I begin to answer it, beg and pray that you
would write these three words, on the tablet of your
memory, Aston near Sheffield, and that you would never
think either the village or the parson of it of conse
quence enough to be found out without the neighbouring
market town.
If you wUl take the pains to transcribe the anecdote
you hint at about Queen PhiUppa, I verily beUeve it will

WALPOLE AND MASON. 35
induce the Dean to pay her son WUliam the honours
which he ought ; if not, I wiU fit up a tomb myself, if
you will write the inscription. Mr. Stonhewer tells me
that Dr. Brown was at his house, whUe in town, but
that he is now at Cambridge, where I suppose you
know he is now vice-chancellor. I shaU mention the
obliging manner in which you received the little memo
rials, which we picked out for you.
Pacquets that come from the Secretary's office (though
above weight) are never charged at the Post Office.
If, therefore, you would be pleased to make up those
letters of Mr. Gray's, which you mentioned, either in one
or two pacquets, and send them to Mr. Fraser at Lord
Suffolk's office, to be forwarded to me, you may be
assured of their coming safe, for Fraser is punctuality
and care itself.
I return to Aston to-morrow. The weather has not
been so favourable to my tour as might have been
wished ; I have however seen Blenheim, Nuneham and
Rougham, and, if to-morrow is a tolerable day, shall see
Stowe in my way homewards.
I have not time to add more at present than that I
am, with the truest esteem, dear Sir,
very sincerely yours
W. MASON.
Addendum to the scenes of dalUance and delight. —
In some fair island will we turn to grass
(With the Queen's leave) her elephant and ass ;
Giants from Africa &c.

36 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 19, 1772.
I am ashamed of having been so awkward about the
direction, but in good truth I did not think it was
necessary to specify what market town of Parnassus you
lived near. For the future, I will remember that a let
ter to Governor Macdregs at Muxaduvad would in this
age find its way better than to Virgil, if he was living
at Hampstead. I shall go to town next week, and will
consign Gray's letters as you order, to Mr. Fraser. I
need not say that there are several things you wUl find
it necessary to omit, and indeed, though to any one
that knew him and me, they would be charming, I
question whether you vrill find more than a very few
proper for the public taste. That same public taste is
the taste of the public, and it is a prodigious quantity of
no tastes, generally governed by some very bad taste,
that goes to the composition of a Public : and it is much
better to give them nothing, than what they do not
comprehend and which they consequently misunder
stand, because they will think they comprehend, and
which, therefore, must mistake. I do not know whether
it is not best that good writings should appear very late,
for they who by being nearest in time are nearest to
understanding them, are also nearest to misapprehend
ing. At a distant period such writings are totaUy
dark to most, but are clear to the only few that one
should wish to enjoy them. It must be a comfort to

WALPOLE AND MASON. 37
great authors to reflect that in time they wiU be little
read but by good judges.
Thank you for the new couplet ; I have repeated it
to myself forty times, and laughed as often ; it is at
least as good as any of the rest. The papers, alas ! wiU
teU you that I am doomed to sojourn in Egypt, and
must call cousins with Colonel Lutterel who thinks it
 The sweetest of all earthly things.

To live with princes and to talk of kings !
Not that I am removing to the palace neither. No I
hear the five mUe act is drawing up against us too, but
I have a strange sang-froid, and bear my honours and
disgraces with equal temper : yet the former are
showered upon me : but this very day, Mr, Garrick, who
has dropped me these three years, has been here by his
own request, and told Mr, Raftor how happy he was at
the reconcUiation, I did not know we had quarrelled,
and so omitted being happy too. He would not have
been so much diverted, as I was the other day, I believe :
Mr. Granger lent me a book, called Sketches and Cha
racters of the most eminent and singular Persons now
living, printed a year or two ago. My brother is men
tioned and said to be the only surviving son of a late
great minister. I was charmed with finding that
though I have so often played the fool, I am stiU so for
tunate as to be thought dead and gone. I wUl take care
not to undeceive the kind person, who scorns to disturb
my ashes. Apropos to Mr. Granger, he is dying to
have your print, and swears as much as he loves a print

38 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of any body only because it is a print of somebody, that
he shall value yours for your own sake, and because he
admires you infinitely. He has promised me an unique
print, in return, of King Charles the first's chimney
sweeper, and I am sure you will not prevent my coUec
tion from being enriched with such a curiosity.
You are perfectly indifferent I hope about the revo
lution in Sweden, and do not care whether the poor
people are to be slaves to the King or House of Lords.
I intend to make a list of aU that are going to shun
me in public and squeeze my hand in private, assuring
me how excessively glad they are of my niece's good
fortune, and of all that will not squeeze my hand tUl
thej' see me at St. James's again, and then pinch half
my fingers off with protestations of their joy. I have
gone through all this farce in the former part of my Ufe,
therefore the repetition will divert me the more ; when
my father fell, the good Bishop of Carlisle, my old friend,
came to condole with me, and to express his fears that
we should all go to the Tower, though he could scarce
contain his button- mouth from smiling. Even then I
had the happy carelessness to be indifferent to what was
passing, and it grievously offended Sir John Barnard. I
was sitting under him in the House of Commons ;
somebody asked me if I would go to Vauxhall one day in
the next week — " VauxhaU" said I, " bless me — we are
all going to Siberia." Well ! one cannot help it if one's
niece Dolgoruchi marries the Czar, but at least one is
not liable to have the knut, if there is a change of
decoration. I am not at aU desirous that Kirgate my

WALPOLE AND MASON. 39
printer should, as no doubt he would, say Uke Caxton
of Earl Tiptoft, ( I had rather it had been Earl Rivers
for the royal marriage sake) " O good blessed Lord God !
what grete losse was it of that noble vertuous and weU
disposd Lord ! The Axe then did at one blow cut off
more leaming, than was left in the heads of aU the sur
viving nobiUty." — I hope he would except my Lord
ChanceUor, my Lord Rochford, and the Bishop of
London.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
I hope to have an opportunity soon of sending you
safely Mr. Gray's print, and also his Catalogue of
Antiquities, Scenes, &c., which is now printed off, and
also the Anglo-Indian clergyman I formerly mentioned.
I am much interested that you should be at loo
tables, &c., in three weeks time to hear what people say,
and to keep your countenance at the same time; so
pray get upon your legs, or I'U send Dr. Caverhill to
you, to make you whether you will or no. Fine jesting,
say you. But I hope you excuse it in a man that never
had the gout. But who nevertheless can sympathize on
occasion, and at present is sincerely sorrj-^ at your long
iUness, and heartily wishes your speedy recovery, being
at all times, dear Sir,
very sincerely yours
W. MASON.

40 CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Oct. 6. 1772.
Since I had the honour of answering your last, I have
had an application from a young gentleman, now on his
travels, for a recommendatory letter or two to some
person of fashion at Paris, that he may by that means
be introduced into good company. When he went
abroad about this time twelvemonth. Lord Holdernesse,
at my request, gave him an introduction of this kind to
some other places, but I cannot now with propriety
repeat my application to him on this account. There
fore I have written by this post to Lord Nuneham, and
I take also the liberty of writing to you to request the
favour of a letter, but at the same time desire you not
to comply with my request, if it be in any sort disagree
able to you.
The gentleman's name is Mr. Foljambe, of an ancient
family and good fortune in this neighbourhood. He is
in company with a Mr. Townshend, and is now on his
way from Vienna, and I suppose will reach Paris in
about a week or ten days from the date of this. He is
not above three and twenty, consequently no philo-
sophe, and who I suppose would, therefore, choose to be
recommended to some person of the world, rather than
a St. Lambert or a Marmontel. AU that I can say for
him is that he is a genteel well-behaved young man,
with sense and accomplishments sufficient not to make
your recommendation improper to any person you may
choose to write ; but (I repeat it again) if you dislUte

WALPOLE AND MASON. 41
writing these kind of letters, I beg you wiU consider
this letter as not written, and to assure yourself that I
shall only be sorry for having made an improper request.
It is necessary, however, for me to add that his address
is a Monr. Foljambe, chez Messrs Tourton et Bauer,
Banquiers, Place des Victoires, and I suppose a letter
under cover to him sent thither would certainly reach
him in time to be of the service desired.
Believe me to be, dear Sir,
your much obliged and most sincere servant
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1772.
I doubt you wiU have thought me very inattentive to
your orders, but, alas ! it is far from being my fault. I
have been in my bed this fortnight -with, the gout in
every limb, and have not the use of either hand or foot.
Were I at liberty, I fear I could be but of little use
to your friend. The acquaintance I had in the Par
liament have left Paris, and are retired into the pro
vinces : I have left off and had not seen in my three
last journeys the philosophers and litterati ; the house
of Choiseul is dispersed : the President Henaut, where
I used to sup frequently, is dead and the house broke
up. In short I have no connection left at Paris, but with
my old blind friend and her society, which would not
at all suit a young man of three and twenty. The best

42 CORRESPONDENCE OF
person to whom I could have have recommended him,
the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, mother of the duke, is lately
dead, and I have no more friends at court. If the
young gentleman goes into Italy I can be useful to him
at Florence and Naples, and wUl give him letters thither
very wUlingly. I dont know whether any body had
had a curiosity about your last letter but one, but I did
not receive it till six days after it was dated.
I wUl not say any more, because I have no more to
say, but about my own sufferings, with which I do not
wish to grieve anybody. I am, dear Sir,
yours most sincerely
HORACE WALPOLE.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Nov. 5, 1772.
Lord and Lady Strafford called here about ten days
ago, and told me that that they heard you was much
better, but since that I have had a letter from his
Lordship in which he teUs me your gout stiU con
tinues. I, therefore, cannot help troubling you with
this, to beg you would order your servant to give me
a line of information.
I found lately among Mr. Gray's prints, a proof of
the unfinished head from your picture of Eckarts. If
you choose to have it, I wUl send it you by the first
opportunity. I will give you no more trouble at pre-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 43
sent than to assure you that I most sincerely wish you
a speedy recovery and that I am
most faithfully yours
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, Nov. 10, 1772,
Having from the shipwreck of all my limbs re
covered the use of three fingers, I cannot employ
them better than in thanking you for your kind letter
and enquiry. Six weeks finish to-morrow, and I have
not been yet out of my bedchamber, and little out
of my bed, till lately, and in the middle of the day ; the
amendment is so slow, and so dispiriting, that I find it
almost as difficult to recover of the recovery as of the
gout ; but I will not talk of it, though I pay it off with
thinking. You will oblige me much with that print of Mr,
Gray — you may guess how much I have thought of
him lately, and how I have been weighing a shorter life
against pain !
I see nobody ; I know nothing ; I cannot amuse
you and will not tire you ; the most pleasing thing
that you could teU me, would be, that you had some
thoughts of London. Adieu !
dear Sir,
yours very sincerely
HOR. WALPOLE,

44 CORRESPONDENCE OP

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 26, 1772.
The papers, my only company at present, tell me
that Elfrida is brought upon the stage, and pleases
exceedingly. I am rejoiced, and want to go and see
it — but as I am not near being in a situation of going
to plays, I trust I shall only wait to see it more agree
ably, for you cannot be so unnatural a parent, as not
to come and see Miss Mason in her glory, and then I
fiatter myself you will let me accompany you. No
thing could make me in cold blood expose myself to that
fiery trial — yours was not so, for Elfrida's character
was established long ago, and you have had none of the
plague and anxiety — but I own I scarce conceive a
greater pleasure than to see a dramatic work of ones
own crowned with success, and be witness to it, pro
vided it were well acted. Come, come, you must come
and see it ; — do not deny yourself so lawful a pleasure
and that you deserve to enjoy — I mend so slowly, that
it seems to me that it wUl be supreme enjoyment
to walk cross my own room. Yours ever
HOR. WALPOLE.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Dec. 1, 1772.
I was just going to give you some prudent cautions

WALPOLE AND MASON. 45
about locking up your Mother (who in conformity of
character is your daughter too) when I received your
congratulations on the rape committed on my Ulegiti-
mate girl at Covent Garden. Can you seriouly think
that any thing that old fumbler. Dr. Ame, can do to
her is likely to come to good, no surely ; though little
Mr. Coleman puts his finger into the pye too. Depend
upon it if the Play (or Poem, call it which you vrill)
has any success, it is owing to no intrinsic merit of its
own, but only from its producing to the eye of the
audience, such a strange sight as twenty British vir
gins. In England (says Shakspeare) " any strange
beast makes a man" what then must twenty strange
beasts do. But do not you think it somewhat cava
lier in Mr. Coleman, to do what he has done without
any previous intimation of it to me. I should have
known nothing of the matter had not my bookseller
heard of it, and demanded the property of the Chorus
books then printing off. One of these he has sent
me, in which the odes are so lopt and mangled, that
they are worse now than the productions of Handel's
poet, Dr. Morell. One instance I must give you
because it is curious. In my fourth ode I called the first
man a godlike youth, authorised so to do by the first
chapter of Genesis. Dr. Ame calls him a royal youth.
An epithet which I fancy wiU be approved no where
but at St. James's, for it carries the jus divinum
higher than Sir Robert FUmer carried it. We have
heard of a King Abraham and a King Noah, but a
King Adam is quite new. However as the said King

46 CORRESPONDENCE OF
was no author, it will make no addition to your royal
Ust. As I cannot think you serious in your congratula^^
tions, so I think you still in jest, when you say you can
hardly conceive a greater pleasure than to see a dra
matic work of ones own crowned with success &c. I
conclude from this that your late fit of the gout has
brought you back to the age of five and twenty. But if
you be really serious, pray make Mr. Coleman a pre
sent of your Mysterious Mother ; I vrill be answerable
she procures you that pleasure, provided you admit my
alterations, for {absit superbia) I am confident they will
do her more good than any thing Mr. Coleman has
done to Elfrida ; and if so, from the superior interest and
novelty of the fable, there is not the least doubt of
her being crowned vrith success. Yet I think you
should stipulate for Mrs. Yates, instead of Mrs. Hart
ley : though I know neither of them, I am informed
that Garrick is in a fidget about Elfrida, which indeed is
the only thing that pleases me in the whole business ;
he says, had he thought it would have been agreeable
to Mr, Mason, he would have brought it on himself,
and adds, " surely Mr, Coleman acquainted him with
the design," &c., This would almost lead me to forgive
Coleman, was such a man worth ones forgiveness. I
conjecture that in a fortnight, or three weeks, you may
find occasion to vmte to me on a subject we talked
about when we were at the Black Swan at York.
Whatever news you send me on that head I must
desire you to write as of a third unknown person, as I

WALPOLE AND MASON. 47
suspect at that time I shaU find the seals of my cor
respondents not very firm. This paragragh wiU con
vince you that I ought not hastily to come to town,
even if Elfrida had more charms than Lady Pent-
weazle to bring me there, which indeed she has not.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Jan. 9, 1773.
I want to send you my Grammont and two num
bers of miscellaneous Antiquities, how shall I con
vey them ? the latter are pubUshed, of the other there
are only a hundred copies printed, and as a quarter of
the number is gone to France, you must take it as a
great present. I do not say it was printed for my
friends ; who would have an hundred ? all I meant was
not to make my favourite book common. For the
Antiquities, I care not whether the Critical Review, or
Dr. Milles, dislikes them. There is, I heard yesterday,
another man who wrote about some college in Cam
bridge, that has printed a new pamphlet against my
Richard III, it is to appear in the second volume of the
Society's discoveries. I shall wait with patience to see
it then or never.
I have been here about three weeks, but have not
yet arrived at more than taking the air, when there is
a morsel of sun — As I have been fifty-five years in
tovra, I find it extremely tolerable to see nothing but
Piccadilly as I go to Hyde Park — you may comfort

48 CORRESPONDENCE OF
yourself, dear Sir, in your way too. If Mr. Colman
has violated Elfrida, Mr. Garrick has cut out the scene
of the grave-diggers in Hamlet. I hope he will be
rewarded with a place in the Freneh Academy. I was
indeed surprised at that play being revived by so good a
courtier. — The adulterous Queen of Denmark was cer
tainly revived vrith great propriety just now. I sup
pose grave-diggers shock Kings and Queens more than
the gallantries of their relations. Obrien's duel, tran
slated from the Philosophe sans le scavoir, was damned
the first night. I saw the original at Paris when it
was first acted, and though excessively touched with it,
wondered how the audience came to have sense
enough to taste it. I thought then it would not have
succeeded here, the touches are so simple and delicate
and natural. Accordingly it did not. I have been
reading the translation, and cried over it heartily.
From Cambridge I am told there is a very good
print of Gray, done by one Henshaw, as a companion to
yours. Is it for your account of him ? how does that
work advance ? you have forgot, but pray remember
to send me one of your own prints for my friend
Mr. Granger.
Lord Newnham is come to town, and has been so
good to visit my invalidity twice, what a meritorious
pilgrimage it would be if you would too ! I am per
fectly reliques, I have nothing but dry bones left. You
shall be rewarded with a shin-bone, which is of as
much use to any body as to the owner.
H. W.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 49
P. S. You know to be sure why I am exceedingly
disappointed.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Jan. 14, 1773.
I was meditating a how-do-ye letter to you, when
yours came to give me the pleasure of knowing that
your gout has not returned upon you ; a friend of mine
at York almost eight years older than you are, who was
an absolute cripple five years, so as not to be able to
move, and who took Le Febure's medicine two years
ago has just now taken unto him a wife. I send you
this anecdote to comfort you, though perhaps you wiU
think there is as little comfort in it as in Mrs. Quickly 's
to Sir John Falstaff, who bad him not think of God ;
and will say in return. Heaven be thanked I am not
yet so bad as to think of a vrife. I must be cold up
wards and upwards before I think of such a remedy.
I trust when you do me the honour to send me
your Grammont, I shall value it as I ought to do,
being proud to be ranked even amongst your hundred
friends, though, at the same time I have the vanity to
believe I do not stand in the number of the last fifty,
even if your French friends are in the first set. The
carrier here is so very uncertain that I wiU not trust
him with it, I, therefore, must desire you to keep it tUl I
can get it by some private hand, but the second number
of your Antiquities (for I have the first) if you would
only send it to Mr. Fraser at Lord Suffolk's office, he
VOL. I. E

50 CORRESPONDENCE OF
would inclose it in a couple of pacquets and send it me
by the post. Colman and I have passed two pert letters
to one another, in which I think, I out-templard the
templar. I agree with you perfectly in the honors
you think Garrick entitled to, and I trust he will have
them, I am sure he would be pleased by them. Do
not be disappointed ; what is delayed is not laid aside.
Wilful will do it, coiite qui codte, but at present non
satis magnum theatrum mihi estis.
Yours is the first account I have heard of either
Henshaw or his print. I shall be happy if it turns out
so well as your account. I have this day sent off, by
a person going from hence to town, a parcel, which
contains the print of Mr. Gray, done from your picture,
and a Doctor and a Minerva a la Indienne, — three
uniques ; what would Dr. Grainger give for such a pre
sent ? as to my own, I believe Stonhewer has a few left.
I wUl write to him for one, when he returns from Euston.
I am very glad Lord Nuneham sees you often, he is
one of those very few that talk and think just as one
likes ; for myself I am absolutely tied dovra here for
the winter or else assure yourself, dear Sir, I would
come to visit you without the reward you offer, nay, if
it would do you any good, I would wUlingly part with
half of my too fat calves to dress up your shin bonesc
Believe me to be very sincerely yours
W. MASON.
The life goes on very slowly, there is so much tran
scription.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 51

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1773.
I have received and thank you much, dear Sir, for
the print of Gray and the two Indian paintings — pray,
tell me more about the latter : the Minerva is very
curious, and both are prettUy painted : I am sorry they
are inseparable, like Indamora and Lindamira. You
would have been thanked sooner, but I have had a
relapse and kept my bed five days, nor can yet put on
a shoe again. Mr. Garrick, who has had both stone and
gout, is still Ranger, and dances a country dance !
I do not envy his performances, but his capabilities.
I agree vrith you heartily about Lord Nuneham ;
nor know any thing so comfortable as one that talks
and thinks, just as one likes, which I find a greater
rarity than any print or picture in my collection, and
to my sorrow I observe that the rareness increases
every day : though unlike other curiosities, they are
not to be bought. Your Elfrida, Mrs. Hartley, I am
told, is the most perfect beauty that was ever seen. I
can neither go to see Mrs. Hartley, nor Elfrida ; but as
I can read, I long for any of Elfrida's relations.
Have you heard of Mr. Andrew Stuart's letters
to Lord Mansfield ? they wUl inform you how abomi
nable abuse is, and how you may tear a man limb from
limb with the greatest good-breeding. Alas ! we are
barbarians and know nothing of these refinements.
Yours ever
H. w.

52 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, -^ston, Feb. 23, 1773.
I should not have been so remiss in my enquiries after
you, had not Lord Nuneham told me that you were a
convalescent, I beg his pardon, he would not have
used so pedantic a word for the world. However, he
told me that notwithstanding so long and painful an
illness, he never saw you in better spirits or look more
healthy, which account I assure you gave me very
sincere satisfaction. That awkward business, which
being a deed without a name, one can hardly write
intelligibly about, was another cause of my silence. I
waited and waited, but in short I have now made up
my mind about it, expectation is over, and I verUy
believe hush money has been taken. It would be
wrong to enter into particulars, yet after a full month's
time this suspicion surely is not without good grounds.
O that I had Sir Andrew Steward's letters before me,
they would I think produce something, which in future
might console one for the innocent sheep that is lost.
I am just this moment in an excellent humour for the
undertaking, because I am very much out of humour.
Is it not possible to send it with the Count de Gram
mont ? (I heartily beg his pardon for putting him in such
bad company, but his politesse I trust wUl excuse it.)
If it be, and you would be pleased to send them to Mr.
Varelst's in St. James's Square, with a message " to
desire them to send them to me vrith the first things

WALPOLE AND MASON. 53
they send by the waggon to Aston," I should be sure
of receiving them safe ; though perhaps it would not
be within a fortnight.
I can only say with respect to the Indian paintings,
that I found them in a book of Mr. Varelst's among
many others really Indian. He found me much stmck
with the red band, &c., of the clergyman, and Minerva,
happening to be on the other side of the leaf, she also
came to my share ; he told me that he had in town
several other English prints coloured by the Indians
in the same fantastic manner.
I believe I have not yet thanked you for the second
number of the Antiquities. You have made the most
(as you always do) of the little you had to do withal,
and Sir Thomas's life wUl be read with pleasure, by
people that cannot wade through his speech, amongst
whom (pardon my Antiquarian infirmity) is your hum
ble servant ; though, I had the hippocricy to scold my
curate for owning the same defect of taste.
Pray do not intrust any of your bon mots to Lord
Nuneham to send to me, he forgot every syllable you
said about my negotiations with administration con
cerning Wolfe's Epitaph, for which I cannot forgive
him. I have altered my plan of Mr. Gray's life very much
from the manner I first intended, and the sketch which
you saw. I divide it into five or six sections, each of
which introduces a distinct series of letters, poems,
fragments, &c. The three first contain his correspon
dence with Mr. West. I have written almost all that I

64 CORRESPONDENCE OF
shaU have occasion to write as his biographer ; but as his
editor, I shall have many occasional notes to insert,
which perhaps will be done best as the work goes
through the press. I believe I shall be able to send
you soon by a private hand what I have written, but
in the meantime I send you three or four paragraphs
where your name must necessarily be mentioned, which
I would choose to alter entirely to your satisfaction, if
you choose to have them altered. I could wish if you
have any letters on literary matters, which he writ
latterly, i. e. from the year 1745 or 46 to his death,
for I fancy I shall not make much use of the more juve
nile ones which you sent me. But, as the latter col
lections vrill be misceUaneous, any letters of this sort
would come in with a good grace. I have already
some to Dr. Wharton, Stonhewer, Beattie and myself
that are excellent.
Pray (in the name of critical astonishment) what
can be Macpherson's translations of Homer ? has he
Fingalised ? has he Temoraisd him ? I'U lay my life
he has. Homer a la Erse, must be a curiosity with
a vengeance. I hope it is printed in usum Delphini
and dedicated to my Lord of Chester. But to release
you from my epistolary long-vrindedness I wiU only
add, that I am, dear Sir, most truly yours
W. MASON.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 55

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. March 2, 1773.
I am not surprised, my dear Sir, that satire should
be bought off, when infamous scandals on the most
virtuous characters are printed at the Louvre in usum
Delphini. But shall the muse of retribution be silent ?
shall a censeur roial clip her eagle wings ? shall she not
dip her penfeather in the blood of patriot martyrs,
and write their vindicias in crimson hues ? you to
whom the noble quill is descended, must wield the
weapon, and revenge Sidney and Russel — probably,
deplore the sinking cause for which they fell in
vain ! your writings will outlive the laws of Eng
land — I scorn to say of Britain since it implies
Scotland. Her laws will replace ours, though their
most remarkable one is suspended in favour of him,
whom you call Sir Andrew Stuart ; I mean, that
against leasing-making. You shall have the odious book,
which is indeed as silly as it is detestable : nor does
one know whether the man is more malignant or
absurd. He has given such proofs of the villany, foUy
and infamous treachery of Charles II, James II and
Louis XIV, as would make any nature but a royal one
shudder, nay laugh, if indignation did not harrow up
the muscles. Come, I wUl make you laugh even in your
scornful mood. He justifies James II against Bur
net's charge of thinking only of saving his dogs, when
he was in danger of being shipwTecked. How does he

56 CORRESPONDENCE OF
defend him from the prelate's lye — it is Sir John's own
word — why by a Scot's letter which says the Duke of
York insisted on preserving a trunk of papers of such
consequence to himself and his brother, that he would
as soon part with his life. The tenderness of a trunk's
Ufe is indeed superlative proof of humanity. The
dear trunk filled at least, I suppose, the place of one
or two drowned men ! and what damning papers must
that trunk have contained ! Need I tell you at whose
expense these treasures were transcribed ? read the
fond letters between their most religious and christian
Majesties Charles II and Louis XIV, and very few
mutatis mutandis will suffice to open your ideas ; need
I tell you that Sir John Dalrymple, the accuser of
bribery, was turned out of his place of Solicitor of
the customs for taking bribes from brewers ? — sed
Jove nondum barbato. — I will only wash my hands
and change the subject : what shall I say ? how shall
I thank you for the kind manner in which you submit
your papers to my correction ? but if you are friendly
I must be just, I am so far from being dissatisfied,!
that I must beg leave to sharpen your pen, and in
that light only, with regard to myself, would make
any alterations in your text. I am conscious that in
the beginning of the differences between Gray and me,
the fault was mine. I was too young, too fond of my
own diversions, nay, I do not doubt, too much in
toxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of
my situation, as a Prime Minister's son, not to have
been inattentive and insensible to the feelings of one

Missing Page

Missing Page

WALPOLE AND MASON. 59
I thought below me; of one, I blush to say it,Taj]j
3ed to me ; of one whom presumption
_J made me deem not my superior then
I have since felt my infinite inferi-
treated him insolently : he loved me
uk he did, I reproached him vrith the
n us, when he acted from conviction of
> my superior ; I often disregarded
eing places, which I would not quit
,s to visit, though I offered to send
out me. Forgive me, if I say that his
Conciliating, At the same time that I
)u that he acted a more friendly part,
sense to take advantage of it ; he
my faults, I declared I did not desire
or would correct them. You will not
1 the dignity of his spirit, and the ob-
less of mine, the breach must have
1 we became incompatible. After this
r you wUl think I fall far short of the
sed him, in the words which I should
substituted to some of yours. If you
^idequate to the state of the case, as I
.,, i^reserve this letter, and let some future
rmple produce it to load my memory —
3 not desire that any ambiguity should
aiQ liia ill V i...Mn to forge an account for me. If you have
no objection, I would propose your narrative should run
thus, and contain no more, tUl a more proper time shaU
come for stating the truth, as I have related it to you.

60 CORRESPONDENCE OF
loved him the best. You see I am making a pretty
general confession, but can claim absolution on no
foundation but that of repentance ; you wUl, at least I
am sure, not wound an innocent, meritorious brother
from partiality to me. Do just as you think fit about
his letters to me ; I never thought above a very few
proper for publication, but gave them up to you to prove
my deference and unreserve. As I still think them
charming, I beg to have them again ; I have scarce
any of his letters that I can call literary, for they only
relate to informations he gave me for my own trifling
books ; and I should be ashamed to show how iU I
employed such time as his. Indeed they contain Uttle
more than the notices I have mentioned to have
received from him ; whatever I have of that sort are
at Strawberry, and as I am but just able yet, after two
and twenty weeks, to take the air in Hyde Park, God
knows when I shall be able to go to Twickenham ;
life itself is grown far less dear to me, since I seem to
see a prospect of surviving all that is worth living for.
Mr. Martin, my reversionary heir is ready in every
sense to encourage me in these sentiments. Three
months ago when the newspapers proclaimed me
dying, he sent a treasury-creature to my clerk to know
the worth of my place. The young man was shocked
and asked why Mr, Martin did not apply to me ? No,
said the agent, Mr. Martin would think that too inde
licate. However, not to be too deUcate himself when his
principal's interest was concerned, he threatened my
clerk vrith Mr. Martia's turning him out as soon as I

WALPOLE AND MASON, 61
should be dead, I recoUect Martin's practicing at the
target for six months before he fought Wilkes, and
say if I am to blame in a resolution of never dining
with my heir apparent.
I have written such a volume here, and so much
on Dalrymples and Martins and Kings, that my hand
pretends to feel a little gout, and pleads that it is too
hard to be forced to talk of Macpherson too. You may
be sure, however, that I have not read nor shall read
his Homer travesti ; all I vrill add is, that the Scotch
seem to be proving they are really descended from
the Irish. Dalrymple has discovered humanity to a
trunk ; Macpherson, I suppose, has been proving by
his version, how easy it was to make a Fingal out
of Homer, after having tried to prove that Fingal
was an original poem. But we live in an age of contra
dictions, Mr, Mac Jenkinson, the other day on the
thirty-nine articles, called Laud a very very great man,
and in the same breath, stigmatized those apostles of
the Stuarts, David Hume and Lord Bolinbroke. Can
a house divided against itself stand ? did not Bolinbroke
beget Lord Mansfield and Andrew Stone ? Did not
Mansfield and Stone beget the Bishop of Chester ?
Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins ? was not
Charles II an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr.
Hume pluck a stone from a church but to raise an
altar to tyranny? Thank God, if we have as great
rogues, as Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale, at
least they are as great fools as Father Petre — for
King James I find no paraUel — he was sincere

62 CORRESPONDENCE OF
in his religion. Adieu : I leave my name out to be
supplied by Sir John Dalrymple.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arhngton Street, March 2, 1773.
I received your letter so late yesterday, and had
company all the evening, as I have had to day, that
there was no possibility for me to answer the particu
lars of it. Nay, I do not know whether you will re
ceive my answer this week or fortnight, for I am at the
mercy of every body that pleases to visit me, and can
not be denied till I am able to visit too. You wUl re
ceive the books as you directed. How you or your
curate could want taste so much as not to go through
Sir Thomas Wyat's oration, is inconceivable. It is the
finest piece that has been composed, as some pedant
said, since the Romans died. To punish you, I vriU
certainly send you Mr. Home's new tragedy, as soon
as it is published — or one of his former ; I dare to
say it will be all the same ; though he says this is his
best. I do not wonder Lord Nuneham forgot my bon
mots, for I am sure if I committed any, I have for
gotten them myself.
Garrick has written a cantata for Millico's benefit : a
l3rre tumbled out of heaven to play to it ; but it was so
bad, the audience wished themselves at the devil. The
only good thing I have seen this winter is an excellent

WALPOLE AND MASON. 63
Papal BuU — I forgot to say above, that the town is
so much of your and your curate's opinion about Sir
T. Wyat's oration, that the misceUaneous antiquities
have not sold above a fifth of them, so there vriU be no
more. If Sir Thomas had abused Cranmer and Lati
mer instead of Bonner, he would have been more
fashionable. Adieu ! dear Sir, yours faithfully H. w.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, March 20, 1773.
I did not receive your parcel till two or three days
ago, for which a thousand thanks. I was not so much
a stranger to Sir John Dalrymple, as you do me the
honour to suspect ; five or six and twenty years ago, I
was acquainted with him at college, travelled vrith him
down into Yorkshire, lodged him and his Cambridge
hack two or three days at my father's at Hull, and in
return for my civilities, a year or two after he sent his
brother-in-law to visit me at Pembroke Hall ; which
said brother was a declared rebel, bight Wully Hamil
ton, who writ the tears of Scotland, 1745, and it was
next to miracle that Bishop Keene (with whom I was
then very ill on account of his regulations) did not
take us both into custody. It was Andrew Steward's
letters which I wanted, so I have only to be sorry
that I knighted him. However as I had the first
part of Sir John amongst Mr. Gray's books, I am not

64 CORRESPONDENCE OF
displeased to have his second, though the little I have
read in it has almost made me spew, — I beg your
pardon, and now as you wash your hands I'll take
a clean pen.
This comes by my unantiquarian curate, who brings
you also all the papers I have hitherto arranged rela
tive to the memoirs. I must beg you to revise them
and to make your remarks on the blank pages with a
pencil, and if you favour me with any additional notes
so much the better ; I flatter myself you will like the
plan better than the execution, yet as to the style I
hope to mend that as it goes through the press. I
have already corrected the passages you objected to,
pretty exactly (except in a word or two) according to
your letter. I have only to say further on this head,
that the letter does your own heart infinite honour, and
tenderly touches mine, insomuch that nothing but your
express order would prevail on me to print the note in
question. You will find amongst these papers an
Italian letter of West's and an answer to it in the same
language, these relate to Mr. Gray's being about to
settle in the Temple and to your going abroad ; some
thing ought to be extracted from them to make the first
series of letters complete, and some account given of
your invitation to him to travel with you ; of this I have
no materials to go upon, and, therefore, wish you would
fill the chasm. I also return you all the letters you
favoured me with except two or three, which I shaU
use in the following sections. I must hint that (if you
preserve these) it would be better to have them trans-

WALPOLE ANl) MASON. 65
cribed on account of the boyish beginnings and end
ings. I send you also some of Mr. Trollop's letters,
the author of the poem on the Alphabet, from which
and from Gray's, a more perfect copy might be taken
of that whimsical yet clever production.
Lord N. sent me above a week ago an Heroic Epis
tle, &c. I have heard nothing since about it except
that Mr. Montagu tells me he is assured by C. Fox
that Ansty is the author of it, which is a probable
conjecture. I was sorry to see a chasm in the 95th line,
'tis a reflection upon the age we live in that it was not
fill'd up. No name could be more proper than Mar
tin's now that Calcraft is dead, and I adopt that read
ing in my own study. I am curious to hear more of the
reception of the Poem, because I think it such a one as
would make some little noise in the world, at least for
a day or two, and therefore I shall hope for some
anecdotes concerning it when Mr. Alderson returns,
who will have my directions to call upon you for these
papers in four or five days after he leaves them with
you. My new pen is now dirty enough to resume Sir
John Dalrymple's subject. I think there are evident
internal marks of forgery in Barillon's memoir relating
to A. Sidney. He first gives the French King his
character, and then says, I have given him the sum you
ordered and he wants more, could Louis have sent a
specify'd sum to a man whose weight in parliament he
was unacquainted with ; for my own part I will never
believe it, even if Sir John's employer should with his
own royal mouth read to me the original papers. Adieu,
VOL. I. F

66 CORRESPONDENCE OF
my dear Sir, and that you may live to see a thousand
Martyns and Dalrymples kick the air not in straw stuff
effigy, but infamous reality, is the sincere wish of
your affectionate servant
W. MASON.
I take the more pleasure in our present uncommonly
fine weather, because I hope it wUl tend to perfect
your recovery. My amanuensis, Charles, desires you
to excuse his Greek and Latin.
On looking out Mr. Trollop's verses I find on one of
the papers a fragment of Mr. Gray's, of a history of
HeU, pray take notice of the conclusion conceming
king-craft and tell me whether he was not a prophet as
well as poet. '^

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, May 7, 1773.
The very obliging, I had almost said flattering letter,
which you sent me by Mr. Alderson, cannot on one of
its subjects be answered by me at present, which I am
sorry for, because I have an excellent story to tell you
relative to it. It is an account of a stratagem, by
which ten good golden guineas were obtained from a
certain person, by another, to which such a sum was
of great service ; this is all I can say, but the detail of
the matter is highly comic, and you shaU have it the
first safe opportunity. In the meantime you vrill per-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 67
ceive that this was not the primary end of the scheme,
but that it served another excellent purpose.
Lord Holdemess has been here in his way to Horn
by, he did me the honour to dine with me and was
wonderfully gracious, which astonished me much, as I
thought my late resignation of the chaplainship would
have made him quite out of temper with me, and that
he could hardly have concealed it, but he is a better
courtier than I even ever thought him before, accord
ingly I strove to be as courtly as possible in return.
Our talk was entirely on general subjects and literary
matters, such as Sir John D, and A, Steward's book,
and the Heroic Epistle, I contraverted none of his
opinions, only as he seemed to think that the Epistle
had merit, I ventured to say that I thought it worthy
of Soame Jennyns, had it suited his polite sentiments,
he replied " so it was, but S.J. would never have used
that harsh kind of satire." From his Lordship's ac
count I find that it is generally supposed to be Temple
Lutterell's, although Almon declares it to be the work
of a young man, and his first work. After all we live
in an age of miracles, that two such writers as he and
Junius should keep themselves concealed. Next Mon
day I go to live at York for three whole calendar
months. Hard as my fate is to quit the country for
such a town, and though I now feel myself fastened for
life to a piece of preferment attended with this annual
inconvenience, yet I feel myself much more content,
than I should be with any exchange, which would put
me under obligations to these persons who only could

68 CORRESPONDENCE OF
procure such exchange, and I trust you will give me
full credit for what I now say. I mean to put my
memoirs of Mr. Gray to the press there, and to print
the work leisurely, so that it may come out after next
Christmas, Accept my best thanks for the few strictures
you have made, I wish they had been more numerous,
all of them shall be attended to.
Pray have you any letter relative to the Long Story,
I mean to introduce it in the fourth section, and think
that a letter and a note, would be its best introduction.
I beg my compliments to Mr. NicoUs and congratula
tions on his return home ; if he has any letters which
he thinks proper to publish, you will inform him of my
plan and he will send them or not as he chuses : those
which contain his sentiments of books, &c., wiU be
most eligible.
Many thanks to you for Mr. A. Steward's book, it is
valuable on many accounts, as containing the character
of a Scotsman drawn by a Scotsman, and as being able
to rouse the indignation of an Englishman like me,
which I confess it did when I read it, though as I
never dipt into the Douglas cause before, I am not
sure how far I ought to have been indignant. I am
told (by a friend of Lord M.'s indeed) that it proves
nothing against his Lordship. If so, I am sure nothing
can be proved about any thing.
I have seen none of the plays you mention, I always
reserve these for my light lutestring reading in my
summer residence at York.
I fear you have no thoughts of a tour again this

WALPOLE AND MASON. 69
summer to Wentworth castle, if so, I know not when
I shall have the pleasure of seeing you : however, ab
sent or present, I hope you will always beUeve me to
have the highest sense of your partiality to me and
that you wUl believe me to be, dear Sir,
very sincerely yours
W. MASON.
I hope this late cold weather brings not with it any
return of your complaint.
Since I writ the foregoing, I have heard that the
cathedral will be shut up till Whitsunday on account
of repairing the roof, so that I have a reprieve of three
weeks. Pray are these letters of Lady Rachel Russel
of consequence ? Lord H. could tell me nothing about
them, but he spoke high things of a certain poem of
the Duke de Nivernois. As you favour my obscurity
sometimes with a literary journal, and unlike other
journalists make the account more entertaining than
the thing itself, pray in your next mention these two
publications.

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, May 15, 1773.
You may imagine I am impatient to hear the history
of the ten golden guineas. Though any body will take
such a sum, I thought few would fish for so little. We
are in a higher style of cheating and plundering.

70 CORRESPONDENCE OF
What can I tell you of literary matters ? nothing of
the poem you enquire after by Mons^ de Nivernois.
He has written an hundred or two of fables, and read
some of them to the Academy, but told me it was
thought wrong for a nobleman in France to publish.
How could he write, when he could be so far prejudiced ?
The fables are good, as far as anything can be so, that
gives one no pleasure. There is I am told, a dialogue
of Boileau and Horace wTitten by the same nobleman
and even published, not very lately. I have seen it
formerly and thought I liked it.
Lady Russel's letters too I have seen formerly, they
are to and from her director, a jacobite clergyman,
who triumphs on her husband's martyrdom, and whom
with her sense and spirit I should have thought she
would have kicked out of her house. I am much sur
prised in this our day that the duchess gives leave for
the publication. I should have expected that her con
jugal piety, blended with jjerdigious loyalty, would
have concurred with her lord's shade in calling lord
Russel a very silly fellow, as his grace did in Ireland,
though he was pleased with the compliment of the
mayor of Calais, who told him he hoped he was come
with more pacific intentions than his great ancestor and
namesake John Duke of Bedford, who had been their
regent. There are two other answers to Sir J. Dal
rymple, but not very good. The best answer is what
he made himself to George Onslow, whom he told on
warning him for traducing the immortal Sidney, that he
had other papers which would have washed him as

WALPOLE AND MASON. 71
white as snow. With this Sir John has been pubUckly
reproached in print and has not gainsaid it. The
upright soul !
Lord Holdemess and you, who ought to be better
judges than I am of the capabUities of court-bards,
must excuse me if I think Soame Jenyns could no more
have written the Heroic Epistle than I could the best
scene in Shakspeare. Please to point out any poetry in
Jenyns's works : his best are humour rhymed ; and
sneers checked by the court of Chancery from laughing
out. Pope is more likely to have written the Heroic
Epistle since his death, than Soame Jenyns during his
life. So much for what we have been reading, at present
our ears listen and our eyes are expecting East Indian
affairs, and Mr. Banks's voyage for which Dr. Hawks-
worth has received d'avance one thousand pounds from
the voyager, and six thousand from the booksellers,
Strahan and Co., who wiU take due care that we shall
read nothing else till they meet wdth such another
pennyworth. Sir J. Dalrymple, over and above all his
glory has gained toward four thousand. Our Scotch
Aldus's and Elzevirs keep down every publication they
do not partake ; and there is a society who contribute
to every purchase they make of books, to keep the
price at high- water mark. Another club of printsellers
do the same. Woe be to those who do not deal with,
and indeed enrich themselves by the monopolists I
The House of Commons has embarked itself in a
vrilderness of perplexities. Though Lord Clive was so

72 CORRESPONDENCE OF
frank and high spirited as to confess a whole folio of
his Machiavelism. They are so ungenerous as to have
a mind to punish him for assassination, forgery,
treachery and plunder, and it makes him very indig
nant. 'Tother night, because the House was very hot,
and the young members thought it would melt their
rouge and shrivel their nosegays, they aU on a sudden,
and the old folks too, voted violent resolutions, and
determined the great question of the right of Sovereign
ty, though, till within half an hour of the decision, the
whole house had agreed to weigh and modify the
questions a little more ; being so fickle. Lord Clive has
reason to hope that after they have voted his head off,
they will vote it on again the day after he has lost it.
I have been looking over all Mr. Gray's letters as
you desired, but cannot find one relating to the Long
Story : he therefore probably gave it me at some time
that he was with me. I do not know where Mr.
NicoUs resides in the country, or w^ould ask your
question ; he is gone out of town.
Though it will certainly be more convenient to you
to have the life printed under your eye at York, I
cannot but lament my press is not to be honoured with
it, though in sooth two capital reasons are strong
against it. The first, that the pace of my single printer,
who has not even an aid-de-camp or devil, is so won
drous slow that your work would not be finished in
this century ; the other, is that I have not the patience
necessary for correcting the press. Gray was for ever
reproaching me with it, and in one of the letters I have

WALPOLE AND MASON. 73
just turned over, he says, "pray send me the proof sheets
to correct, for you know you are not capable of it." It
is very true, and I hope future edition-mongers vrill say
of those of Strawberry-hill, they have all the beautiful
negligence of a gentleman. Mr. Jerningham has just
desired my consent to his dedicating a new poem to
me, I remonstrated, and advised him to Augustus, the
patron supreme ; he would not be said,nay, and modesty,
as it always does when folks are pressing, submitted,
but it was to be a homage to my literary merit, oh !
that was too much, I downright was rude. Sir, says I,
literary merit I have none, literary merit will be inter
preted, learning, science, and the Lord knows what,
that I have not a grain of, I have forgot half my Latin
and all my Greek. I never could leam mathematics ;
never had patience for natural philosophy or chess ; I
have read divinity, which taught me that no two per
sons agree, and metaphysics which nobody understands :
and consequently I am little the vriser for either. I
know a little modem history of France and England,
which those who wrote did not know ; and a good deal
of genealogy, which could not be true unless it were
written by every mother in every family. If I have
written any thing tolerable, it was to show I had com
mon sense, not learning, I value my vsTitings very Uttle
and many others value them stUl less, which it would
be very unreasonable in me to resent, since nobody
forgets them so soon as myself, and, therefore, dear Sir,
&c. Well he has consented, and I hope from his ex
ample, I never shall be called the learned author again.

74 CORRESPONDENCE OF
as I have been by magazines, when magazines were so
cruel as to vrish me well,
I should not have said, my pen is my witness, half so
much of myself, if I had had any thing else to say — oh
yes, I have, Mr, Duncombe has published a volume of
my good Lord of Corke's letters to him from Italy, I
fear Pliny would not give him his library for vmting
them, no more than his father did for thinking he
could not write, I am glad your Cathedral shuts its
doors on you; you did not want that omen of your
never wearing a mitre, the cap of liberty becomes such
head much better ; though I believe you would be as
singular as good Hoadley and wear them together, 'tis,
therefore, I am so much and ever yours
H. w.

JO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, Ma/27, 1773.
I received your letter, dear Sir, your MS. and
Gray's letters to me, by Mr. Alderson. Twenty things
crowd about my pen and justle and press to be said :
as I came hither to day (my first flight since my
illness) for a little air and to read you undisturbed,
they shall all have their place in good time ; but
having so safe a conveyance for my thoughts, I must
begin with the uppermost of them, the Heroic Epistle.
I have read it so very often that I have got it by

WALPOLE AND MASON, 75
heart, and as I am now master of all its beauties, I
profess I like it infinitely better than I did, and yet
I thought I liked it infinitely before ; there is more vrit,
ten times more delicacy of irony, as much poetry and
greater facility than, and as, in the Dunciad, But
what signifies what I think ? all the world thinks the
same, except a dark comer, where its being so much
disliked is still better praise. No soul, as I have
heard, has guessed within an hundred miles, I
catched at Anstey's name and I believe contributed to
spread that notion. It has since been called Temple
Lutterel' s, and to my infinite honour mine. Lord
Nuneham swears he should think so, if I did not com
mend it so excessively ! oh how very vain I am ! Sir
WiUiam Chambers consoles himself with its having sold
him three hundred copies of his book — I do not hear
that the patron of arts consoles himself vrith any thing,
but is heartily sore — He would read it insultingly to
Chambers, but soon fiung it down in a passion. It is
already of the fourth edition. Thank you for giving
my impatient heir, Sam. Martin, a niche. There is
published a defence of negro slavery by his father.
But now, my dear Sir, as you have tapped this mine
of talent, and it runs so richly and easily, for Heaven's
and England's sake do not let it rust. You have a
vein of irony and satire that the best of causes bleeds
for having wanted. Point all your lightnings at that
wretch Dalrymple, and yet make him but the footstool
to the throne as you made poor simple Chambers.
We are acting the very same scene Dalrymple has

76 CORRESPONDENCE OF
brought to fuller light, sacrificing friends to stab
heroes and martyrs. There are repeated informations
from France that preUminaries of strict union are
signed between that court and ours ; Lord Stormont
is the negotiator, and Lord Mansfield, who has not
courage enough even to be Chancellor, hopes the
Chancellor of France has courage and villany enough
to assist him in enslaving us, as the French Chancellor
has enslaved his own country ! if you mind not me,
depend upon it you will meet the indignant shade of
Sidney in your moonlight walk by your cold bath,
who will frown inspiration. You see what you can do,
what MUton trusted to prose, Avhat Pope had not prin
ciples elevated enough to do, and for doing what
Gray's bards will bless you. In short you have seated
yourself close to all three, and you must now remain in
full display of your dignity. When Gray's life is
finished, you are not permitted to write anything
inferior to the Dispensary. Thank you for your ad
mirable remark on BarUlon's letter; I wUl communi
cate it to Mrs. Macaulay (vrithout naming you) she wiU
defend Sidney in her next volume — but he demands
a higher pen.
I am extremely pleased with the easy unaffected
simplicity of your MS,, nor have found any thing
scarce I would wish added, much less retrenched —
unless the paragraph on Lord Bute, which I do not
think quite clearly expressed, and yet perhaps too
clearly, while you chuse to remain unknovra. for author
of the Epistle. The paragraph I mean might lead to a

WALPOLE AND MASON. 77
suspicion : might it not look a little too, as if Gray,
at least his friends for him, had been disappointed ?
especially as he asked for the place, and accepted it
afterwards from the Duke of Grafton ? Smce Gray
(and I am sorry he did not) has left no marks of
indignation against the present times, I do not know
whether it were so well to mix politics with a life so
unpolitical : but I only suggest this — you are sure I do
not speak from disinclination to the censure, but from
infinite regard both for him and you. The page and
reflections on poor West's death are new, most touch
ing, most exquisitely worded.
I send you Mr. Andrew Stuart's book ; and as I
had two given to me, I beg you will accept that I
send. It will be a great curiosity, for after all his
heroism, fear or nationaUty have preponderated, and
it vrill not be published.
I can add nothing to your account of Gray's going
abroad vrith me. It was my own thought and offer,
and was chearfuUy accepted ; thank you for inserting
my alteration, as I survive, any softening would be
unjust to the dead ; and nobody can justify him so
well as my confession and attestation. It must be
believed that I was in the wrong, not he, when I allow
it ; in things of that nature, the survivor has the better
chance of being justified : and for your sake, dear
Sir, as well as his. I chuse you should do justice to
your friend. I am sorry I had a fault towards him ; it
does not wound me to own it.
I return you Mr, TroUop's verses, of which many are

78 CORRESPONDENCE OF
excellent, and yet I cannot help thinking the best were
Gray's, not only as they appear in his writing, but as
they are more nervous and less diffuse than the others ;
when we meet, why should not we select the best, and
make a compleat poem ?
Dr, Goldsmith has written a comedy — no, it is the
lowest of all farces, it is not the subject I condemn,
though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift
tends to no moral, no edification of any kind — the
situations however are well imagined, and make one
laugh in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the
forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole
plan and conduct. But what disgusts me most, is that
though the characters are very low, and aim at low
humour, not one of them says a sentence that is
natural or marks any character at all. It is set up in
opposition to sentimental comedy, and is as bad as the
worst of them. Garrick would not act it, but bought
himself off by a poor prologue, I say nothing of the
Home's Alonzo and Murphy's Alzuma, because as the
latter is sense and poetry compared to the former, you
cannot want an account of either,
Mr, NicoU is returned, transported with Italy: I
hope he will come hither with me next week, gothic
ground may sober him a little from pictures and statues,
which he will not meet with in his viUage, and which,
I doubt, wiU at first be a little irksome. His friend Mr.
Barrett stands for Dover, I suppose on the court-
interest, for Wilkes has sent down a remonstrating
candidate. I like the Parliamentary right in his City

WALPOLE AND MASON. 79
remonstrance. I forgot to teU you too, that I believe
the Scotch are heartily sick of their Dalrymplyan
publication. It has reopened all the mouths of clamour;
and the Heroic Epistle arrived in the critical minute to
furnish clamour with quotations. You cannot imagine
how I used it as fumigation. Whenever I was asked,
have you read Sir J. Dalrymple ? I replied, have you read
the Heroic Epistle ? Betty is in raptures on being immor
talized ; the Elephant and Ass are become constella
tions, and he has stolen the Earl of Denbigh's handker
chief is the proverb in fashion — good night.
Pope — Garth — BoUeau — you may guess whether
I am or not your sincere admirer
HOR. WALPOLE.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1773.
Not that I have any thing to say, but if I do not
v^rrite to say, when shall I have a minute's time ? I
have given myself two or three holidays, and must
enjoy them by conversing with my friends. I am not
going to India, nor have been at Portsmouth. It is not
sure that I am not going to as unlikely a place, New
market. AU Lord Orford's affairs are devolved upon
me because nobody else will undertake the office. I
am selling his horses, and buying off his matches. I
live in town to hear of mortgages and annuities, and

80 CORRESPONDENCE OF
do not wonder that Titus was called the delight of
mankind, for he put the Jews to the sword. Mr.
Manners, who was the son of Lord William, who was
the son of Beelzebub, deserves to be crucified. He
was so obliging the other day to make me a visit, and
tell me he should seize the pictures at Houghton, I
sent for a lawyer to exorcise him. My dear Sir, what
vicissitudes have I seen in my family ! I seem to live
upon a chess-board ; every other step is black or white.
A nephew mad and ruined, a niece, a princess ; Hough
ton, the envy of England — last week Mr. Vernon, the
jockey, offered to vouchsafe to Uve in it, if he might
have the care of the game : you do not think I believe
that I need hear sermons. I have moralities enough at
my elbow — The only shaft that pierces deep, is the
apprehension of losing the tranquilUty I had so sedu-
ously planned for the close of my life. To be con
nected with Courts or Inns of Courts is equaUy poison.
To trifle here was my whole wish^ my little castle was
finished, I was out of Parliament, and Temperance had
given me her honour, that being as Unsubstantial as a
sylph, I should be as immortal, I would as soon put
my trust in Lady St, Huntingdon ; I have been six
months in purgatory with the gout, another's ambition
has engrafted me upon Sandford's genealogical tree, and
I must converse with stewards and money-changers in
the Temple every term. Here is a Hieroglyphic tale
with a witness.
You are fretting at being shut up in York, instead
of sauntering and piping to your sheep in your own

WALPOLE AND MASON, 81
grounds, I grieve for that as much as you, yet you
have whole evenings to loll in your chair as you do in
your print here, lay down that paper in your hand, and
write me a letter upon it, I shall be transported to
receive a line that is not upon business. Does the
life increase ? does it take up all your time ? we have
nothing new but what is as old as Paul's, the Voyages
to the South Sea. The Admiralty have dragged the
whole ocean, and caught nothing but the fry of un-
grown islands, which had slipped through the meshes
of the Spaniard's net. They fetched blood of a great
whale called Terra Austrialis incognita, but saw nothing
but its tail. However Lord Sandwich has given great
ocean's King a taste for salt water, and we are to
conquer the Atlantic, or let the sea into Richmond-
garden, I forget which. Adieu ; pray do not drop me,
though I am got upon the Turf.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. York, June 28, 1773.
The strenuous idleness, which always possesses me
when I am here (the phrase is classical though perhaps
nonsensical) has prevented me, dear Sir, from answer
ing your last most obliging letter sooner. In the
meantime you are become a great royal unkle, or
rather the great unkle of royalty, and all this while
I have been deficient in point of congratulation. —
However, as I sincerely believe the only part of the
matter which pleases you is the Dutchess's safe reco-
VOL. I. G

82 CORRESPONDENCE OF
very, I shall confine my congratulation to that point
alone, which as her month is now about finished, I sup
pose will come at present with propriety, and I am not
without hopes that you vrill in return send me a curious
anecdote or two, relating to the part, which the
supreme pattern of fraternal affection has acted on this
trying occasion, I wish also to know the real state of
his Royal Highnesses health,
I have printed the first section of the memoirs and
now am preparing the second, which you may remember,
is to conclude Mr, Gray's correspondence during his
travels, I inclose two letters to Mr, West, wTitten in
French, which I think, in point of manner are so very
French, that they deserve to be printed, but whether
they are so, in point of language is a question which
you must determine, I fancy if they are not accurate,
a few corrections of your pen would make them so, or
perhaps if one letter was made out of them both, that
would be a sufficient specimen of his exceUence with
respect to writing in a foreign language, which when
he ever attempted, was it either in Latin, French or
Italian ; he became as it were a native, and thought
exactly in the national manner. 'Tis on this account
that I Avish to publish a specimen in each tongue, and
have already given one in Latin in the first section.
If you think as I do on this subject, I must beg you
to revise the letters I now send, and to mark also in
red ink what other passages, besides those which I
have marked already, it would be right to omit. I shaU
stop the press tUl I am favoured with your answer.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 83
This dull place affords me no news except that her
Majesty's Zebra who according to the advertisement
in our York Courant of this day, it seems was lately
the property of Mr, Pinchy and purchased by him of
one of her domestics (though as I rather suspect
given to him for the valuable consideration of his
friendship) died the 3rd day of April last at Long
BilUngton near Newark,
This advertisement further adds that the " Pro-
" prietor has caused her skin to be stuffed, and that
" upon the whole the outward structure being so well
" executed, she is as well if not better now than
" when alive, as she was so vicious as not to suffer
" any stranger to come near her, and the curious may
" now have a close inspection — which could not
" be obtained before. She is at present exhibited at
" the Blue Boar in this city, with an Oriental tiger, a
" magnanimous lyon, a miraculous porcupine, a beau-
" tiful leopard, and a voracious panther, &c. &c,," Pray
do not you think the fate of this animal truly pitiable,
who after having as the same advertisement says,
" belonged to her Majesty full ten years," should not
only be exposed to the close inspection of every stable
boy in the kingdom, but her immoralities while alive
thus severely stigmatised in a country newspaper. I
should think this anecdote might furnish the author of
the Heroic Epistle with a series of moral refiections
which might end with the following pathetic couplet ;
Ah beauteous beast ! thy cruel fate evinces
How vain the ass that puts its trust in princes !

84 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I am informed that Mr. Cambridge instigated by the
great fame of the forementioned author, has awakened
his muse (who you may remember fell asleep in the
Dutchess of Norfolk's assembly-room fifteen years ago,
and never wakened since) and has added forty lines to
the Heroic Epistle. I am promised a sight of them,
but have not yet had that happiness. For my own
part I ought to employ myself in an Epithalamium, on
the approaching nuptials in Hertford-Street, or rather
in an elegy on the fate of Aston, whose sale is deter
mined upon : because it is too near the ducal seat at
Kiverton. I suspect that in the next reign the Irish
vrill take place of the Scots in point of favoritism.
I saw a Scotchman lately who averred to me that
there was great truth in the affair of Sir J. D's bribery,
and that the matter was hushed up at the time, by
Wheatly, now dead, who I know was Sir J's friend at
college. I wonder that this thing, as weU as his
curious speech to Mr. Onslow is not fully sifted and
authenticated, they would afford the best of all answers
to his scandal. I hope to have the great pleasure of
hearing from you very soon, and beg you vriU believe
me to be, dear Sir, most sincerely yours
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1773.
Though it was inconvenient, it looks like sympathy,
that we wrote to each other at the same time. I resume

WALPOLE AND MASON. 85
my pen as yours requires an answer : mine contained
nothing material.
The Duke of Gloucester has frequent returns of his
asthma, but they are short. Dr. Jebbe is confident
that there are no dangerous symptoms, still as there is
a latent cause, for which he is not likely to be soon
touched by either pretender, one must not be too san
guine. I hope you like the Princess Sophia. The
history attending her birth is indeed curious, but
fitter for a book than a letter. You must wait for it,
dear Sir, till we meet, for as I told you in my last, I am
too much occupied by another nephew, to have time for
being the historian of the royal one. I am not the Ass
that puts its trust in Princes, nor that believes that Mr.
Cambridge can come within a thousand leagues of the
Epistle. Indeed I should have thought him as little
likely to attempt adopting that vein, as my Lord Bristol,
who vows he would as soon read blasphemy.
I firmly believe the story of Sir J. D's bribery, it was
palliated by the intercession of Charles Yorke, but
Lord Rockingham would not let it be totally suppressed.
Onslow certainly told the other anecdote ; but when I
questioned him about it lately, he owned he had told
it, but that Sir John had spoken to him since and ex
plained away a good deal of the strength, — you will
judge whether satisfactorily or not. I now come to
Gray's letters. The first I well remember : the second
you may be sure I never saw before, I cannot say
that either of them satisfy me, nor do I know whether
they would do him honour ; though very well consider-

86 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ing how young he was in French ; but readers are more
apt to criticize than excuse. The language is not correct,
nor elegant ; many of the idioms are downright EngUsh,
and what gives them a French air chiefly, is a fault ; I
mean the phrases, which betray the tone of the pro
vinces, not of the capital. Take them away, and you
will not I think, find the spirit French, If you print
them, I have no objection to your inserting the passage
you have marked for reprobation, and which aUudes
to me. You see how easily I had disgusted him ;
but my faults were very trifling, and I can bear their
being known, and forgive his displeasure, I stiU
think I was as much to blame as he was ; and as the
passage proves what I have told you, let it stand, if you
publish the whole letter. I send it vrith some correc
tions most of which I am sure are necessary ; but as I
am a very imperfect Frenchman myself, a native of
France I doubt would find several more, and deem the
style very baroque. Des ombres dLdeks may be Spanish,
but I doubt the expression will be uninteUigible to
French ears. Cela is never ca, I believe. The begin-
ing of the second letter is full of Anglicisms : I have
endeavoured to make them a little more Academie,
but you should not rely on my judgment : Madam du
Deffand has told me, that I speak French worse than
any Englishman she knows.
I have almost waded through Dr. Hawksworth's
three volumes of the voyages to the South Sea. The
entertaining matter would not fill half a volume ; and
at best is but an account of the fishermen on the
coasts of forty islands.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 87
I must conclude, that my letter may go by a private
hand to town, and be delivered to Mr, Fraser time
enough for to-morrow's post, I use this method for
the safety of Gray's letters, not for any secrets con
tained in this. Had I more leisure, I could tell you
nothing but melancholy stories of my nephew, who is
again grown furious, and has made several attempts
lately to destroy himself, which keeps me in unceasing
anxiety. Adieu, dear Sir ; you do not send me a line,
or a couple of lines, with which I am not charmed,
TO THE HON, HORACE WALPOLE,
York, July 16, 1773.
I have followed your advice with respect to the two
French letters and instead of printing either of them,
have inserted one to his mother, which wUl preserve
the chain of correspondence. I ought to apologise
for giving you fresh trouble at present, by desiring
your opinion of two others which I enclose, and I
would do so did you not tell me, that in your present
situation (which I sincerely lament) an employment
of this kind may serve for relaxation, and therefore I
will take the liberty to chat with you, as if there was
not a nephew or a Houghton in existence. If I chat
at an improper season, you may throw down my Letter
here, and take it up again when you shall be at better
leisure and spirits. The first of these letters from Mr,
West, though I think myself that there is good humour
in it, will perhaps appear too bizarre for the PubUc, but

88 CORRESPONDENCE OP
it is Mr. Gray's Italian answer that, I wish chiefly to
be considered, because I suspect that the verses in it,
Te Dea, &c, are his own, and as far as I understand
them, very beautiful ; what he says too at the beginning
about the Venus of Medicis, occasioned a very pretty
Latin elegy of West's, which he sent him in return, and
which I cannot print, unless either an extract or a
translation of this letter precedes it. Now I am far
too unskilled in the language, either to extract or
translate it, or judge of its purity, and this illiterate
place affords me no person to consult, I hear you say
" I have forgot my Italian if I ever had any," be it so,
yet you can surely find out some proper person to
review it, nay perhaps can find interest to lay it before
the Cruscan or Tuscan eyes of Sig'. Baretti, or some
greater adept even than he ; at all adventures I wish
for a translation of it, if not an emendation of the origi
nal, and (in hopes that I shall obtain them either from
you or by means of you soon) I shall leave a gap in
the press till I receive you answer.
I have another favour also to beg of you. You
must know that Mrs. Dealtry, the vridow of our excel
lent physician lately dead, has requested me to direct
the two Fishers here (who are very good statuaries) in
designing a monument to be put in our cathedral.
My idea is, a figure of Health, with her old insignia
of the serpent and staff in one hand, and a vsTcath
falUng out of the other, leaning in a pensive posture
over an urn on which is inscribed his name and age,
and upon the pedestal, which supports the whole, I

WALPOLE AND MASON, 89
think of writing the six foUowing lines, if they meet
with your approbation.
Here, leaning o'er the tomb, where Dealtry sleeps.
Ambrosial Healch in sculptur'd anguish weeps ;
Here drops her faded wreath " No more " she cries,
" Let sickening mortals, with beseeching eyes,
" Invoke my feeble power ; it fail'd to save
" My own and nature's guardian from the grave."
I suspect they will be thought rather heathenish, I
beg however you will give me your most impartial
sentiments about them.
In like manner, and for the same purpose, I send
you a proof of an etching, which my boy Charles has
just done, from a drawing which I and a painter made
together from remembrance and a shade of Mr. Gray.
If you think the medallion air of the head does not hurt
the likeness too much, I would adopt it for a frontis
piece. N.B. When the plate is worked off in a
London press, the etching wUl appear much finer.
I shall be happy to hear that you are more happy
than you was in the situation when you favoured me
with your two last letters, and beg you to believe that
I sincerely sympathize with you, being with the truest
esteem, dear Sir, your faithful servant
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1773.
Your letter, dear Sir, arrived here whUe I was at

90 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Ampthill, which prevented my answering it as soon as
I ought to have done. I do not know a soul in town
at present that is acquainted with Baretti : but I expect
to see Mr. Chute in a week, who lived seven years in
Italy and is master of Italian. As far as I recollect
that language, I cannot say I am at all pleased with
the letter : it is made up of phrases and patches, and
does not go off glibly at all — in short it seems to me
totally unlike an Italian, and so very unlike Gray's
sense, that I think it would discredit him as much as a
boyish exercise could ; surely you might mention his
having spoken of the Venus of Medici in West, without
producing the letter itself; and only as an introduction
to the latter's verses. Indeed as Gray's fragments
will not add to the perfection of his reputation. I should
be averse to inserting any thing that might lower him
to the level with others. He was not only great, but
original. Forty young men that I have known, wrote
French better than he did, and though few catch Italian
so well, yet I would not publish the letter, as it has
neither an Italian, nor an English understanding, You
and I mean the same thing in different ways. You are
for showing the universality of his talents ; I, only the
excellence of them, and there I think and feel, as he
felt himself. Mr. Chute vrill tell me whether the
verses are Gray's or not — at least he knows where to
find Martinelli, who will do as well as Baretti.
I like the idea of West's letter, but not all the execu
tion, which I think falls very short of what it might
have been. As I loved and esteemed poor West very
much too, I am glad you have condemned it.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 91
Your design for the tomb, dear Sir, is as classic as I
like those things should be, and the epitaph as Greek.
You order me to object, and therefore I do, but only to
the epithet ambrosial, which however proper to health,
seems to clash with the sorrow in the end of the line.
I do not believe I should have refined so much, if you
had not invited me to be nice ; so if you vrill retract
the one, I wiU the other, as you may be sure I am
pleased, when I have but a criticism so slight to make.
I shall go to Nuneham on Monday next for two or
three days, and to Houghton not tUl the 20th of
August : before which you vrill receive back the two
letters. As the Fishers are at York ; I wish they were inclined
to take casts of the kings in the screen before the
choir, which struck me so much. I am persuaded they
might sell them well. At least I should be glad to
have exact dravrings of Henry IV and Richard III,
if they would do them reasonably. Henry's is one of
the most remarkable and characteristic countenances I
ever saw, and totally unlike the common pictures of him,
which have all but one dubious original. Pray remem
ber I do not desire James I, which ought to be changed,
in the spirit it was put up, for every reigning King,
The etching of Gray has great resemblance, and
I should approve it for the frontispiece, though with
some corrections. The eye is too open and cheerful
for his ; and the eyebrow, towards the ear, rises too
much from the end of the eyelid. The top of the head
behind is too flat, and the dark shade from the ear to

92 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the chin is hard, too black and should be softened off.
In general there is more vivacity than was in his coun
tenance ; and yet I think it will be difficult now, to
produce a more faithful likeness.
My poor nephew is now worse or better, according
to the moon, all I mean is, periodically, for I have little
faith in moons or physicians. These returns however
renew my anxiety for his safety; and though every
precaution is taken that can be, it is impossible not to
be alarmed, as he has all the suUenness and cunnmg
of people in that condition.
Have you got the Annual Register ? you vriU like
the article of Sweden, which is remarkably well done ;
and so is that of Poland.
Are not you escaping to your sensible house and
agreeable garden? I have a pedestal making for the
tub in which my cat was drowned : the first stanza of
the ode is to be written on it, beginning thus : —
'Twas on this lofty vase's side, &c.
However as this and much of my coUection is fraU, I
am printing the Catalogue — that is like so many other
men, I am pretending to step an inch beyond the grave
into endless futurity, and record porcelain on paper.
Apropos to such trifles, has not a Dr. Berkenhout
sent to you for lists of your works and anecdotes of
your life ? I am sure he ought, for he thought even of
me. I sent him word that the only merit I was con
scious of, was having saved and published some valuable
works of others ; and that whenever he should write
the lives of Printers, I should have no repugnance
to appear in the catalogue.

WALPOLE ANP MASON. 93
Mr. Adam has published the first number of his
Architecture. In it is a magnificent gateway and
screen for the duke of Northumberland at Sion, which
I see erecting every time I pass. It is all lace and
embroidery, and as croquant as his frames for
tables ; consequently most improper to be exposed in
the high road to Brentford. From Kent's mahogany
we are dwindled to Adam's filigree. Grandeur and
simplicity are not yet in fashion. In his preface he
seems to tax Wyat with stealing from him ; but Wyat
has employed the antique with more judgment, and the
Pantheon is stiU the most beautiful edifice in England,
What are the Adelphi buildings ? warehouses laced
down the seams, like a soldier's trull in a regimental
old coat,
I will enliven the conclusion of a heavy letter vrith a
riddle by George Selwyn, the only verses I believe he
ever made, and marked with all his vrit : —
The first thing is that thing without which we hold
No very good bargain can ever be sold.
The next is a soft white prim delicate thing.
Which a parson has got 'twixt his knees and his chin.
Then what at the playhouse we all strive to get,
Or else are content to go in the pit.
Then aU this together will make an odd mess
Of something in something, — and that you must guess.
so you wiU, and therefore I need not tell you the sub
ject, nay nor who writes this letter.

94 CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 3, 1773.
Does one break a promise, dear Sir, when one cannot
perform it ? I have not seen Mr, Chute yet, conse
quently could not show him the two Italian letters :
he is still at the Vine, and I have been leaming to
moralize in the land of mortification. In one word I
am just returned from Houghton, where I had an
ample lecture on the vanity of sublunary grandeur. If
I had not suspected myself of being too like Ananias
and Sapphira, and of purloining a favourite miniature,
I think I should have sold Strawberry the moment I
came back, and laid the purchase money at the feet of
the first methodist apostle I met. This is telling you
the havoc and spoil that my poor wretched nephew
and a gang of banditti have made on the palace and
estates of my father. The pictures alone have escaped
the devastation. Methinks I could write another ser
mon on them ; it would be crowded vrith texts from
the lamentations of Jeremiah. What can I say to you
but woe, woe, woe ? I know nothing ; I see nobody
but lawyers, stewards and jockeys. I have given up
every occupation and amusement of my life, and think
of nothing but saving my family, not that I have any
prospect of doing so, but merely because it is less un
comfortable than totaUy to despair of re-establishing it.
I know this is folly and visionary pride : I am sensible
that I sacrifice the remains of an agreeable life to dis
quiet and melancholy and trouble, but I cannot help it :

WALPOLE AND MASON. 95
the arrow is shot ; it sticks in my breast, and I should
not feel the pain of it the less for not trying to pluck it
out : go and write a moral satire on me ; I deserve it
for I act with my eyes open.
You know Lord Lyttelton is dead ; the papers say
Mr. Garrick is to be the editor of his papers. I shall
not be impatient to see the text or the comment, but
truly I believe he left none. He was timid to write
any thing that he would have been afraid to pubUsh,
and was equally in dread of present and future critics,
which made his works so insipid that he had better not
have written them at all. His son does not seem
to have equal apprehensions of the world's censure.
Though he was such a
Foe to the Dryads of his father's groves,
the shades of Hagley are safe from his axe ; they are
not Uable to the fate of Houghton. When the forests
of our old barons were nothing but dens of thieves,
the law in its wisdom made them unalienable. Its
wisdom now thinks it very fitting that they should be
cut down to pay debts at Almack's and Newmarket.
I was saying this to the lavpyer I carried down with
me. He answered : the law hates a perpetuity — not
aU perpetuities, said I ; not those of lawsuits — well,
I wUl have done for I find every paragraph vrill close
in the same way.
By the way have I told you that I have been at
Nuneham ? no I did not, I was strangely disappointed
at my arrival and thought it very ugly. The next mom-
ing totally changed my ideas ; it is capable of being

96 CORRESPONDENCE OF
made uncommonly beautiful. Lord Nuneham's garden
is the quintessence of nosegays ; I wonder some mac-
caroni does not offer ten thousand pounds for it — but
indeed the fiowers come in their natural season, and
take care to bring their perfumes along with them. Do
you know that the Muses have a little cabinet there ?
and a female votary who writes with great facility and
genteelly, I was trusted vrith the secret, and mind I
don't betray it. Adieu,

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Sep. 12, 1773.
Pray give yourself no concern about the two Italian
letters. I have printed the section without them, and
your judgment about them in your former letter was
sufficient to determine me that I did right in rejecting
them ; I should be glad however to have them returned
at any convenient opportunity. I am really sorry at
the thoughts of your being so disagreeably employed ;
but I hope that self satisfaction wliich always does and
must result from a consciousness of doing what is right,
will support your spirits and alleviate your present
uneasiness ; to say more about the matter would make
my letter as unwelcome as the visit of an attorney or a
jockey, and therefore I'll change the subject.
I am very lately returned from a ramble of ten days
with Mr. Stonhewer round the Westmoreland Lakes.
We carried a journal of Mr. Gray's with us, and

WALPOLE AND MASON. 97
therefore seemed to see them vrith his eyes, yet when
I saw them with my owti I was sometimes a little
disappointed. The great devastations which have been
made about Keswick with regard to wood, and the
dry season which had taken the principal feature from
its cascades, or at least reduced it to a scanty riU,
took away more than half the beauties of the scene.
And I am not yet so confirmed a pupil of Sir William
Chambers, as to be pleased with the frightful and sur
prising only.
I wonder that you should ever, even for the first
moment, be displeased with Nuneham. I am glad
you were so soon reconcUed to it, for I think it one of
the most pleasing scenes I know. Your poetical news
was indeed news to me, I hope the same muse that
throws the oblation of its poesy before the shrine of
your friendship does not inspire the verses you speak
of. If it does, be assured I never shaU have candour
enough to call them either facile or genteel. This I
know that if my Yorkshire curate was half so insipid,
as your Swedish one, I would turn him off, and do all
the duty of my parish myself.
I wish your former letter to York had come a month
sooner, I would then have employed a person under my
own eye, to have copied the features of Henry IV and
Richard III as exact as possible. I will take care to
have the drawings made during my next residence, tUl
then that matter must sleep. As to casts they would
certainly never answer in point of sale. And the love
of antiquity must certainly have obfuscated your reason
VOL. I. H

98 CORRESPONDENCE OF
when you thought so. The Fishers are of my opinion,
but they do not express themselves either so pertly or
pedantically upon your subject. To shew you that
I have guest the riddle you sent me, I give you
what I think a great emendation of the fifth and sixth
Unes, —
What the hand of a lady (how prudish soe'er)
Will give to a man if he presses her near.
But pray for sake of all clerical decency dont say
I suggested this various reading. I have just seen the
Adams's first number of Architecture and read then-
preface, was there ever such a brace of self puffing
Scotch coxcombs, they almost deserve an Heroic Epistle,
but I have scribbled out my paper and, therefore, must
conclude myself, dear Sir, most truly yours
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, Sept. 17, 1773.
I have been absent from home five days and found
twelve letters : after reading them and answering five
on business, it is relaxation, dear Sir, to write to you.
I will say no more on my occupation : I wish there
were such mere merit in it, as to deserve what you say
to me.
I inclose the two letters : I kept them to show to
Mr. Chute, and am just come from him ; he who is a
much better Cruscan than I am, disUkes the Italian

WALPOLE AND MASON. 99
letter still more ; says it is not tolerably pure and
composed of scraps of poetry ; that the lines beginning
Te Dea, are certainly Gray's, they are so incorrect ;
and yet more poetic than Salvini's lines — I do not
wonder — but what would he have been if a Tuscan ?
you have found by your journey into Westmoreland
that his inspired eyes even,
Made those bleak rocks and barren mountains smile.
The Swedish curate certainly has not the same
talent. With regard to the friendship of the dedication,
I compounded for it in lieu of more pompous com
pliments — I might, had I so pleased, have been a
patron of leaming.
The drawings of the Kings at York vriU be time
enough next year for any leisure I shaU have to
bestow on them. I give up my idea of casts, and any
thought that implies an opinion of real curiosity or taste
in the present age. The nymphs holding necklaces
on the outside of a bridge for Sion in Adams's first
number, is a specimen of our productions in Architec
ture, as the preface is of modesty and diffidence. The
lottery for the Adelphi-buildings wiU I suppect, be an
example of rather more address. What patronage of
arts in the parUament, to vote the city's land to those
brothers, and then sanctify the sale of the houses by a
bubble !
I have so totally forgotten what the riddle was I
sent you, that I do not know whether your solution
with aU its humour is right, you may judge vrith what
rubbish my head is filled. — I have learned so many

100 CORRESPONDENCE OF
new things of late, that I have lost my memory, I
believe poor Lord Nuneham wiU return in the same
situation, you who have all your faculties in perfection
may remember when I see you, which I long for, that
I tell you of the success I have had in a contest, nay,
in a money-contest with a mitre — it wUl divert you,
but is not proper for a letter, I know nothing of
higher import, and must therefore bid you good night !

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON,
Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1773.
I know nothing of you ; you have left me off. I
know you are alive, for Lord Strafford has seen you
twice. Yet it is plain I am not out of charity with you,
for I have been to see Elfrida, don't think it was out
of revenge, though it is wretchedly acted, and worse set
to music. The virgins were so inarticulate, that I
should have understood them as well if they had sung
chorus's of Sophocles. Orgar had a broad Irish ac
cent ; I thought the first virgin, who is a lusty virago,
called Miss Miller, would have knocked him down and
I hoped she would. Edgar stared at his own crown,
and seemed to fear it would tumble off. For Miss
Catley, she looked so impudent and was so big with
child, you would have imagined she had been singing
the black joke, only that she would then have been
more intelligible. Smith did not play Athelwold ill ;
Mrs. Hartley is made for the part, if beauty and figure
could suffice for what you write, but she has no one

WALPOLE AND MASON. 101
symptom of genius. StiU it was very affecting and
does admirably for the stage under all these disadvan
tages. The tears came into my eyes, and streamed
down the Duchess of Richmond's lovely cheeks, Mr.
Garrick has been wondrously jealous of the King's
going tvrice together to Covent Garden, and to lure
him back, has crammed the town's maw with shows of
the Portsmouth review and interlarded every play with
the most fulsome loyalties. He has new-written the
Fair Quaker of Deal, and made it ten times worse than
it was originally, and all to the tune of Portsmouth and
George for ever ; not to mention a preface in which the
Earl of Sandwich by name, is preferred to Drake, Blake
and all the admirals that ever existed.
Dr. Hawksworth is dead, out of luck not to have
died a twelvemonth ago.
Lady Holdemess has narrowly escaped vrith her
life ; she fell on the top of the stairs at Sion, against
the edge of a door, which cut such a gash on her
temple, that they were forced to sew it up ; it was
within half an inch of her eye, which is black all round,
but not hurt, and her knee was much bruised.
This good town affords no other news, and is deso
late ; not that I make you any apologies for being so
brief. I have ten times more business than you, and
mUlions of letters of business, and sure you might
always find as much to say as I had now.

102 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston. Nov. 23, 1773.
I was just going to make apologies to you for my
late silence, when I received your last, and to tell
you that I had sent up a copy by Mr. Stonhewer of
the three first sections of the memoirs for your perusal
as to the matter, and for that of another friend as to
the exact metre and latinity of the Latin poems, that
any page may be cancelled if necessary. I fiatter my
self that if you like what is sent, you wiU like the two
following sections much better. I have only two
letters to you yet uninserted, if you find more you vrill
favour me with them. I think in one of your letters
which I returned, there were some marginal notes on a
part of his poem on Education and Government, I
should wish to have these if you can find them, as
soon as possible, and before you give me your opinion
of these sections.
You are very good to give Elfrida so much counte
nance, yet I think I should hardly go to see her, even
if old Macklin was to play Athelwold! if I did, it
would be for the sake of a riot, which I always loved
as the only remaining vestige of English Uberty, except
that of the press, about which they say there is to be
a message to parUament. Pray is there any grounds
for this report, I ask for a very particular reason.
There are other folks besides Garrick that hope
shortly to give the Portsmouth review due honour.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 103
and pretend that they were the occasion of it. I
long to see Garrick's preface. Mem : any pacquet
how large soever, will be sent me from Fraser at Lord
Suffolk's office. Mem : also, I do not want to see the
play. — I remember in one of your letters that you
told me the Earl of Bristol sayd he would sooner read
blasphemy than a certain poem. Did this come to
your hands in such a manner, that it might be ridi
culed safely ?
I had heard before I received yours, that Lady
Holdemess had broken her head, but I am yet to learn
when Lord Carmarthen is to break her daughter's head,
I wish it was fairly broken, though my poor living and
this goodly estate are to pay for it. I know not how
to fill up my letter, and therefore I will transcribe
part of an Heroic postscript addressed to the publick on
their favorable reception of, &c., * * * hut you
must promise to burn it instantly.
For now my Muse thy fame is fixt as fate.
Tremble ye fools I scorn, ye knaves I hate,
I know the fuU-fledg'd vigor of thy wings,
I know thy voice can pierce the ear of Kings.
Did China's monarch here in Brittain doze,*
And was like western Kings, a King of Prose,
Thy song could cure his Asiatic spleen.
And make him wish to see, and to be seen.
That solemn vein of irony f so fine.
Which, e'en Reviewers own, adorn each line,
* The present Emperor of China is a Poet ; see Voltaire, and Sir
W. Chambers. M.
t A fine vein of solemn irony through this piece. — Monthly
Review. M.

104 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Would make him soon against his greatness, sin.
Desert his sofa, mount his palanquin.
And post whene'er the Goddess led the way,
Perchance to proud Spithead's imperial bay ; *
There should he see, as others may have seen.
That ships have anchors, and that seas are green.
Should own the tackling trim, the streamers fine.
With S — d — h prattle and with B — d — w dine.
And then sail back, amid the cannons roar.
As safe, as sage as when he left the shore.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
DEAR SIR, Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1773.
Mr. Stonhewer has sent me, and I have read, your
first part of Gray's life, which I was very sorry to part
with so soon. Like every thing of yours, I like it ten
times better upon reading it again : you have with
most singular art displayed the talents of my two
departed friends to the fuUest advantage ; and yet
there is a simplicity in your manner, which, like the
frame of a fine picture, seems a frame only, and yet is
gold. I should say much more in praise, if, as I have
told Mr. Stonhewer, I was not aware that I myself must
be far more interested in the whole of the narrative,
than any other living mortal, and therefore may sup
pose it will please the world still more than it vrill  ;
And yet if wit, parts, leaming, taste, sense, friendship,
information can strike or amuse mankind, must not
* The P. Review was two months after the publication of, &c.,
Facts are stubborn things. M,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 105
this work have that effect ? — and yet, though me it may
affect far more strongly, self-love certainly has no share
in my affection to many parts. Of my two friends and
me, I only make a most indifferent figure. I do not
mean with regard to parts or talents. I never one in
stant of my life had the superlative vanity of ranking
myself with them. They not only possessed genius,
which I have not, great learning which is to be acquired,
and which I never acquired ; but both Gray and West
had abilities marvellously premature ; what wretched
boyish stuff would my contemporary letters to them
appear, if they existed ; and which they both were so
good-natured as to destroy ! — what unpoetic things
were mine at that age, some of which unfortunately do
exist, and which I yet could never surpass ; but it is not
in that light I consider my own position. We had not
got to Calais before Gray was dissatisfied, for I was a
boy, and he, though infinitely more a man, was not
enough so to make allowances. Hence am I never
mentioned once with kindness in his letters to West.
This hurts me for him, as well as myself. For the
oblique censures on my want of curiosity, I have no
thing to say. The fact was true ; my eyes were not
purely classic ; and though I am now a dull antiquary,
my age then made me taste pleasures and diversions
merely modem : I say this to you, and to you only, in
confidence. I do not object to a syUable. I know
how triffing, how useless, how blameable I have been,
and submit to hear my faults, both because I have had
faults, and because I hope I have corrected some of

106 CORRESPONDENCE OF
them ; and though Gray hints at my unvrilhngness to
be told them, I can say truly that to the end of his life,
he neither spared the reprimand nor mollified the terms,
as you and others know, and I believe have felt.
These reflections naturally arose on reading his let
ters again, and arose in spite of the pleasure they gave
me, for self vrill intrude, even where self is not so much
concerned. I am sorry to find I disobliged Gray so
very early. I am sorry for him that it so totaUy oblite
rated all my friendship for him ; a remark the world
probably, and I hope, will not make, but which it is
natural for me, dear Sir, to say to you. I am so sin
cerely zealous that all possible honour should be done
to my two friends, that I care not a straw for serving
as a foil to them. And as confession of faults is the
only amendment I can now make to the one disobliged,
I am pleased vrith myself for having consented and for
consenting as I do, to that public reparation. I thank
you for having revived West and his alas ! stifled
genius, and for having extended Gray's reputation. If
the world admires them both as much as they deserved,
I shall enjoy their fame — if it does not, I shall com
fort myself for standing so prodigiously below them, as
I do even without comparison.
There are a few false printings I could have cor
rected, but of no consequence, as Grotto del Cane, for
Grotta, and a few notes I could have added, but also
of little consequence. Dodsley, who is printing Lord
Chesterfield's letters, wUl hate you for this publication.
I was asked to write a preface — Sic notus Ulysses ?

WALPOLE AND MASON. 107
I knew Ulysses too well. Besides, I have enough to
burn vrithout adding to the mass. Forgive me, if I
differ vrith you, but I cannot think Gray's Latin poems
inferior even to his English, at least as I am not a
Roman. I wish too that in a note you had referred to
West's ode on the Queen in Dodsley's miscellanies.
Adieu ! go on and prosper ; my poor friends have an
historian worthy of them, and who satisfies their and
your friend HOR. WALPOLE.
p. S. Since I wrote my letter which is not to go till
to-morrow, I have received your letter, and most
delightful lines — you are sure I think them so, and
should if they were not yours. The subject prejudices
me enough, without my affection for your writings. I
cannot recollect now (for I lose my memory by having
it over stuffed with business) who told me the story of
the blasphemy, and I will never affirm to you any thing
where I cannot quote my evidence. Perhaps I shall
remember ; the story however ought not to be lost, and
may be reserved for even a twentieth edition ; no I
don't know whether there vrill be a twentieth. If what
you tell me of a message be true, there vriU not be
one. I had not heard it, but can easUy believe it,
and I could tell you exactly what it would cost, and
will by word of mouth, if I ever see you again : for
though I shall get some courtier to direct this, that it
may pass safe, I cannot name my authority in writing.
The fact is a secret yet, but will not be so long.

108 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I vrill send for the life again to Mr. Stonhewer,
since the impression is not perfect, and vrill add two or
three corrections and perhaps a note or two, which you
may reject if you please. I do not recollect the notes
on Education, but will look for them, if I can get to
Strawberry Hill next week, but I am demolished both
in health and spirits by my poor nephew's affairs. I
have neither strength nor understanding to go through
them. I sometimes think of throwing them up and
going to lay my bones in some free land, whUe there is
such a country. This does not deserve to be so, but.
Qui vult tyrannizari tyrannizetur !
I did not know the preface to the new Shakespeare
was Garrick's, which I suppose is what you mean. He
is as fit to write it, as a country curate to compose an
excellent sermon from having preached one of Tillotson's.
I will send you the volume, and you wUl return it when
you have done with it,
I don't know when the young lady's head wUl be
broken, they say next week. If her heart is not
tough and Dutch, that may be broken too.
Saturday. I cannot possibly recollect who told me
the story above, but I am certain it was related as an
undoubted fact, nor does it sound at all like inven
tion.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 109
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Dec. 1, 1773.
I have again perused your sections very carefully,
dear Sir, and have made some slight but necessary
corrections, and have added a few still more incon
siderable notes. But there are two errors in point of
dates of more consequence. They relate to Crebil-
lon's works and the Churchyard, and I think you wUl
alter them. Crebillon's Ecumoire was his first, and is
perhaps his most known work, and is also the most
indecent. The Churchyard was, I am persuaded, posterior
to West's death at least three or four years, as you will
see by my note. At least I am sure that I had the
twelve or more first lines from himself above three
years after that period, and it was long before he
finished it. As your work is to be a classic, I wish,
therefore, that you would give me leave to see the rest
before it is published. A duU but accurate commenta
tor may be useful before publication, however con
temptible afterwards ; and I am so anxious for the
fame of your book, that I wish you not to hurry it.
It may have faults from precipitation, which it could
have no other way.
I think you determined not to reprint the lines on
Lord H[olland]. I hope it is now a resolution. He is
in so deplorable a state, that they would aggravate the
misery of his last hours, and you yourself would be
censured. I do not of all things suspect you of want

110 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of feeling, and know it is sufficient to give your heart a
hint. As Gray too seems to have condemned aU his own
satirical works, that single one would not a high idea
of his powers, though they were great in that walk, you
and I know they were not inferior to his other styles ;
and I know, though perhaps you do not, that there
never was but one pen as acute as his with more deli
cacy and superior irony.
I have read to day a pretty little Drama called Pal-
ladius and Irene, written by I know not whom. The
beginning imitates Gray's runic fragments, the rest
Shakespeare. P. S. Lady Emily was married last Monday.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Dec. 3, 1773.
This is not an answer to your last, it only comes to
tell you (in order to stop sending the book) that what
I want is the thing, whatever it is, in which Garrick
compares Lord S. to Blake, Drake, &c., which you said
in your former letter he had done. When I am helping
your memory, let me also correct my own, which ought
long ago to have told you that my friend Mr. Palgrave
would think himself highly obliged by a copy of
Grammont. I think he said you once gave him hopes
of having one, however this be, you cannot bestow this
favour better than on Palgrave, whose peculiar taste
for writings of that kind, would make him infinitely

WALPOLE AND MASON. Ill
obUged to you for such a present. I mean to write a
longer letter very soon, in the mean time, believe me
dear Sir, most sincerely yours
W. MASON.
The story shall not be lost, I assure you. I was
only afraid it had been said to yourself, but I find to
my comfort, 'tis publici juris.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Dec. 8, 1773.
I have been to Strawberry HUl, but cannot find the
notes you mention on Education, and which I do not
remember ever to have seen. By Mr. Eraser's assis
tance I send you four more of Gray's letters ; — all
I can select that are printable yet. I mean that would
not be too obscure without many notes, or that contain
criticisms on living authors, very just, but, therefore,
offenp' , Your book vriU have future editions enough,
an(^ jn they may appear. I have added an epitaph
on West, that he well merited, and nine of his letters
to me, that you may use if you have room, reject if you
please, or if you please, reserve.
The passage you desire to see, is in the preface to
the new Fair Quaker of Deal, or, as for the puppet-
show's sake, it is now caUed, the Fair Quaker of Ports
mouth ; take notice that you are not to suppose the
corrections Garrick's, for they are dedicated to him, and

112 CORRESPONDENCE OF
he, you know, never flatters himself. You will not
find Drake and Blake and Raleigh totidem verbis, but
what you will find is a new mode of reasoning, viz. that
a man, not bred to the sea, may draw a marine character
in perfection, because Lord S[andwich], who was not
bred there neither, is an excellent First Lord of the
Admiralty. Ergo, any body that is dead, might have
written the ghost in Hamlet as well as Shakespeare-
But here is the passage itself: "perhaps some may
say that none but a saUor could have made these alte
rations ; the answer to that is simple and apposite ;
that many dramatic writers have drawn strong cha
racters of professional men, vrithout serving an appren
ticeship to the trade. At present we have a strong in
stance to the contrary in the E. of S. who, not bred a
sailor, yet he governs the department in every minute
sense of it, as weU as any sailor that ever presided at
the board ! "
There is another little misfortune in this passage,
which is, that nobody could have made these alterations
but a man who had picked up some sea-phrases, and
had not the least idea of character at aU. There is a
rough sailor and a delicate one, which, bating the terms,
are Garrick's own Flash and Fribble over again : I
leave you to judge who was the author.
Mr. Palgrave shall certainly have a Grammont, but
I told you that I forgot everything, — my mind is a
chaos, and my life a scene of drudgery. I must now
quit you to write letters on farming and game. I have
quarrels with country gentlemen about manors. Mr.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 113
Granger teazes me to correct catalogues of prints,
Dodsley for titles of Lord Chesterfield's works, and for
a new edition of the Noble Authors ; at least I may
take the liberty to refuse myself. My printer is turned
into a secretary, and I myself into a packhorse. I
have elections of all sorts to manage, and might as well
be an acting justice of the peace ; I could not know
less of the matter. AU my own business stands still ;
all my own amusements are at an end. Yet I have made
one discovery that gives me great consolation, for the
sake of the species. I see one may be a man of
business and yet an honest man. I have cheated
nobody yet ; indeed, by the help of a lawyer, I was on
the point of doing an unjust thing. I spend my own
money, and there is no probabUity of my ever being
the better for all my trouble. My family will, but
they shall have no reason to be ashamed of their bene
factor ; that is, my vanity hopes that when the sexton
shows my grave in the parish church at Houghton, he
wUl say, " here lies old Mr. Walpole, who was steward
to my lord's great uncle." Well ; that is better than
having played the fool all the rest of one's life, as I
have done.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1773.
If your aphorism and the inference you draw from
it did not seem to include a compUment, I would thank
you, dear Sir, for your letter as the kindest possible,
VOL. I. I

114 CORRESPONDENCE OF
for you reprove me like a friend, and nothing comes
so welcome to me as to be told of my faults. The
great business of my life being to mend as many, at
least as much of them as I can. It is for this reason
that though I have lived many useless years, yet I
shall never think I have lived too long, since, if I do
not flatter myself, I have fewer faults than I had.
The consciousness of the number still humbles me, and
causes the self dissatisfaction you have perceived ;
and which I hope you vrill no longer caU self-love, but
a great desire of meriting my own esteem. When I
have acquired that, I will eagerly claim the friend
ship you are so good as to offer me. At present I am
in the predicament of devout persons, who sincerely
reject all praise, and sigh if they are commended.
With the same spirit of verity I aUow the force of
all your arguments, nay I go farther. Whatever I
feel on my own account, I had rather be mortified than
subtract a little from the honour your pen is con
ferring on my two dead friends. It would be base
to rob their graves, to save my own vanity ; and give
me leave to say, that were I capable of asking it, you
would be scarce less culpable in granting it, I com
municated to you the reflections that naturally arose
to my mind on reading your work — but I prefer truth
and justice to myself, and for a selfish reason too ; I
mean, I had rather exercise those virtues, than have
my vanity gratified ; for I doubt whether even you
and la Rochefoucault will not find that the love of
virtue itself is founded on self-love — at least I can say

WALPOLE AND MASON, 115
vrith the strictest veracity, that I never envied Gray or
West their talents : I admired Gray's poetry as much
as man ever did or will — I do wish that I had no
more faults than they had ! I must say too, that though
I allow he loved me sincerely in the beginning of our
friendship, I wish he had felt a little more patience
for errors that were not meant to hurt him, and for
that want of refiection in me which I regret as much
as he condemned, — I have now done with that
subject and vrill say no more on it. As I mean to be
docile to your advice, whenever I have the pleasure
of seeing you, we wiU read over the remainder of the
letters together, and bum such as you disapprove of
my keeping. Several of them I own I think worth
preserving. They have infinite humour and wit, are
the best proofs of his early and genuine parts before
he arrived at that perfection at which he aimed, and
which thence appear to me the more natural, I have
kept them long with pleasure, may have little time to
enjoy them longer, but hereafter they may appear
with less impropriety than they would in your work,
which is to establish the rank of his reputation. At
least I admire them so very much, that I should trust
to the good taste of some few (were they mine) and
despise any criticisms.
The note on Crebillon is certainly of no importance,
if you, like me in what I have just said, repose on
taste and laugh at tasteless criticisms. Your account
of the Elegy puts an end to my other criticism,
I have sent you in the manner, and by the hand you

116 CORRESPONDENCE OF
pointed out, a few more of Gray's and West's letters,
and the extract from the dedication you wot of, I hope
all is arrived in safety — and you may swear, I pray
as fervently for what you tell me. Adieu ! I must an
swer three more letters, and in fact have nothing to
tell you that deserves another paragraph.
Your much obliged
HOR. WALPOLE.
P. S. I have reason to think all letters to and from
me, are opened since my relation to royalty. I know
not what they will find that will answer but the blun
ders I make in letting farms.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Jan. 4, 1774.
I have at last found out an opportunity of sending
you safely, what I have for some time wished you to
see. I shall now wish for your opinion of it, which you
may send me too safely enough, if franked by some
courtier, and directed to me at the Rev. Mr. Palgrave's,
at Palgrave near Diss, Norfolk, for I am going to
Cambridge to morrow, and shall from thence make him
a visit. I have led so sedentary a life of late, that I
think it necessary to jumble myself a little in a post-
chaise before I go to York, where I shall be more se
dentary still ; if you know a dirtier and less consider
able man than J * * * n whose name consists of three
syllables, you will do me a favour to mention him, nay
I will not stand with you for a syUable. I have laid

WALPOLE AND MASON. 117
my scheme so that the thing vriU come out soon after
the meeting of parUament, nisi tu Docte dissentis.
And now to answer your two last obliging letters.
Your pacquet came to me just in good time to insert
the letter on the Cat, and that on Polimetis ; had I had
Mr. West's letters sooner, they would have enriched
my former sections, but at present they must rest.
The epitaph on West I had before in Mr. Gray's hand.
But I did not think proper to publish it on account of
the author, and because, as you will find I have inten
tionally avoided mention of that person, except on one
occasion, viz. your verses to him, about which verses
I should have said more had they not been addressed
to him. As I know you think very much the same
concerning him that Mr. Gray did, I think you will
believe my silence on his subject to be right.
As to your preserving Mr. Gray's letters I have only
to say that I wish when you look them over again, you
would only erase some passages, as for instance the
infantine beginnings and conclusions of some of them,
which are hardly fit for schoolboys, and yet will not be
considered as written by a schoolboy, this was a liberty
I once thought of taking myself, before I returned them.
I must now return to the thing you receive with this.
You must know I have expunged a full third of it,
about the liberty of the press. I mean to make that a
separate piece for hereafter, if there be occasion. It
destroyed the unity of this, and it was in that rejected
part that I meant to take notice of Garrick's admirals.
I mention this because you wiU perhaps wonder at the

118 CORRESPONDENCE OF
omission, after what you writ concerning it ; I think as
it stands at present there is a proper mixture of the
comic and serious ; I do not expect it wUl please so
much as the former, but I believe it vriU frighten some
folks much more, and you'll own there is merit in doing
that. However, as I said before, I shall depend en
tirely on your opinion as to publication, only give me
your assent or dissent soon. I have many more letters
to write, so must excuse myself, not only from writing
longer but for the haste in which this is written, believe
me to be, dear Sir, yours most sincerely
W. MASON.
Pray remember Grammont for Mr. Palgrave.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Jan. 14, 1774.
DEAR SIR — whom I respect and admire more and more
Do not be surprised at my sending an express ; the
subject of your letter is of too much consequence to
venture the answer by the post, and I do not mind the
expense, when it is to show my zeal for you and the
cause, and enables me to speak more plainly.
Never was a man less fit to give advice than I, who
want it myself to the highest degree. I am in all
Ughts in the most difficult and deUcate situation upon
earth, and have half lost my senses myself with
fatigue, plagues, anxiety and dread, for my nephew,
my family, and my character. In short. Lord Orford

WALPOLE AND MASON. 119
is at once amazingly come to his senses, that is, to
those he had or had not, before this time twelvemonth.
The physicians, who must act by rules, declare they shall
leave him this day month, because they dare not do other
vrise by law. He will relapse, and perhaps kill himself,
and I dare not stop them or him. My character is at
stake and will suffer, whether I release or restrain
him, — indeed I cannot restrain him. Judge of my
situation without my tiring you vrith it ! Judge too of
my perplexity about what you have sent me. It is
glorious, it is truth, has the noblest dignity of autho
ritative poetry, — must do good, — is wanted, — your
country wants an avenger ; you can do what a whole
dirty nation will not do. Then what am I that would
check your career a moment ; yet hear me, Dr. 
delivered it to me with great marks of apprehension,
and protested he knew not what it contained ; that he
was ordered to deliver it to a person who was to call
for it : this struck me extremely ; the person I con
clude is Almon, whom I know and have found to be a
rogue. He has already bragged, such a poem was
coming out, and remember if he guesses the author,
that you must manage him. Money will be offered
him to tell, and he will take it and tell. Hence arises
my first difficulty, and on your account, who I am sure
would not for the world hurt Dr.  whom Almon
will name. My next difficulty is relating to myself.
If Dr,  , whom I cannot know, should name me, it
would fall on one whom I am as tender of as myself,
the Dutchess of Gloucester, Do not imagine my paltry

120 CORRESPONDENCE OF
connection vrith royalty has changed me, — I despise it,
lament it, — did my utmost to prevent it, and am hated
both by those who are angry at it, and by Him whom I
would not humour in it, I have braved the King's resent
ment, and am ill-used by the Duke, whom I would not
encourage. It is not for him I fear, but for my poor
niece ; if her uncle could be proved to be privy to
your piece, she would be still more undone than she is ;
nay, what could I say, if the Dr, should name me ? I
never could tell a lie without colouring, and I trust you
know that my heart is set on acting uprightly ; that I
lament my faults, and study to correct myself ; in short
I would give the world the poem had gone to the press
without coming to me in the manner it did. Do not
imagine that a man who thinks and teUs you he should
colour if he lied, would betray you to save his life, I
give you my honour that I have not to the dearest
friend I have, named you for author of the other, nor
would for this, I can answer for myself; I cannot for
the Dr,, and I dare not hazard the Dutchess, The result,
therefore, of aU is that I wish you could contrive to con
vey the poem to Almon without the intervention of Dr,
 , whom I may mistake, but who seemed uneasy ;
and as he did not venture to trust me with his know
ledge of the contents, I am not in the wrong to be un
willing to trust. I will keep it tiU I get your answer ;
and shall enjoy reading it over and over. If it is more
serious than the former, though it has infinite humour
too, the majesty of the bard, equal to that of the Welsh
b^rds, more than compensates. If it appears, as I

WALPOLE AND MASON. 121
hope, I will write to you upon it, as a new poem, in
which I am much disappointed, and think it very unequal
to the first. (This is the common style of little critics, who
I remember said just so of the three last parts of the
Essay on Man). It wiU be hard if my letter is not
opened at the post, when we vrish it should. I am
alone disappointed in not finding a hecatomb offered to
Algernon Sidney, — that worst deed of the worst plan ;
for what is so criminal as a settled plot to depreciate
virtue ? I hope it is in the part on the press. I can
give fifty additional motives and proofs to whet your
anger. How I wish I could see you but for a day : I
am chained here by the foot to a madman ; but can I
avoid wishing you could steal to town for a day. It
might be a secret ; I would come to you wherever you
would appoint. At least acquit me of royalty or court-
serving. I am not a tailor ; I am not corrupted : I am
hated at court and detest it. Keep my letter and
print it in the Gazette either before or after my death,
if I deceive you. Tell, show here, under my hand, that
I exhorted you to publish both the Heroic Epistle and
the postscript.
I glory in having done so, but I own I would not
have you risk hurting Dr.  , nor would I have my
niece, who is ignorant and innocent, suffer for the par
ticipation of her uncle and your friend, HOR. WALPOLE.

122 CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Palgrave, Jan. 15, 1774.
You are under much greater apprehensions than
you need to be on this subject. Hear a plain narrative.
I sent up the pacquet to the Dr. by Mr. Varelst's
servant, desired him, the Dr., to send it to you by some
safe hand, and when he had received it back, to keep
it till called for. The person who was to call for it
was not by any means him whom you suspect, but the
young man who received the ten golden guineas for
the last. He cannot come to town these ten days, and
when he does, I meant that he should negotiate this
matter as he did the former. On his prudence and
good management I can fuUy rely. As to the Dr, you
may be quite as easy on his subject, and have nothing
to do but to seal the pacquet up, and send it to him
by your servant with charge to deliver it into his own
hand. If after all you have any fears as being made
privy to it, I give you full liberty to burn it instantly ;
and as there is no other copy extant, you may be assured
it will perish compleatly, A[lmon] knows nothing about
the matter yet, and was it now in his hands would
make no use of it, till the beginning of a new month,
for his own pecuniary reasons. And the apparent Mar-
cellus will vanish as soon as the interview, is over,
that is if I permit the interview, but this I shall
not do till I hear from you again, which I vrish to
do at my return to Cambridge, whither I mean to
go from hence on Monday the 24th, but for God's
sake no more expresses. I have been at my wits end

WALPOLE AND MASON, 123
to account for this to my present host, but have made
a tolerable excuse : in your letter you need only say
whether or no you permit me to pubUsh those letters
of Mr, Gray's, which you lately sent me, and I shall
understand you. Was I to come to town in the
present crisis, and be seen by any person, it would
cause more suspicion than any thing else ; indeed in my
ovm opinion it would be the only dangerous step that
could be taken in the whole transaction, I cannot
write more at present except, that I am
extremely yours W, MASON.
TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON,
DEAR SIR, Jan. 21, 1774.
I have returned those letters of Gray to your friend,
and earnestly beg as well as consent myself, that they
should be printed. I should never forgive myself their
being suppressed, as they will do him so much honour,
and you have perfectly satisfied me that the lady in ques
tion cannot be affected by them, which was my whole
concern. I beg you will excuse all the trouble I have
given you, but my mind was in such violent agitation
about my nephew, that every object came magnified to
my eyes ; and my dread of doing wrong, when it is so
difficult to do right in the variety of relations in which
I stand, made me fearful that even so innocent a thing
as Gray's letters might hurt a person of whom I have
no cause to complain, but I wiU say no more, than that
I approve your reasons for omitting the epitaph on

124 CORRESPONDENCE OF
West, and the Author of it, and that I vrish it may not
be too late to desire your sUence on my epistle to the
same person. Neither he nor my lines deserve notice
in such a book. I no longer care about fame ; I have
done being an author, and above all, I should blush to
have you stamp memory on any thing that is not
worthy of it. It is a sad place to offer you, especially
considering that it has been self-filled, but you rise in
my opinion as fast as I sink in my own. The spot
however will be dignified by gratitude, of which I never
can feel enough, considering the sacrifice you so
generously offered to make, and which nobody could
make, but one that can do what he pleases. What a
beast should I be, had I been capable of accepting it.
What can I tell you, I who for fifteen months have
felt nothing but anguish in body and mind ? before I
was delivered from the gout in every limb, my nephew's
madness fell on me ; since that, the burthen of his
affairs ; and for these last three weeks an anxious sus
pense between his recovery and fears of his relapse, aU
now heightened by the probability that the physicians
will quit him in three weeks more, when he must be at
full liberty — to destroy himself if he pleases ! I neither
dare restrain him, nor can approve his release, and
shall probably be to answer for consequences that I
foresee, without having power to prevent ! In short my
mind is broken, and where I am free enough to own it,
sunk. I have spirits enough left to conceal my serious
thoughts from the world, but I ovra them to you my
confessor. I have found I have sense enough to learn

WALPOLE AND MASON. 125
many common things that I never believed myself
capable of comprehending. I have found that better
sense of acting as I ought, when it was necessary ; for
tiU this year I never really had any thing to do. I
shall be rejoiced to resume that happy idleness. I
know not whether it will be my lot ; I think I should
taste my old amusements again of books and virtii,
yet with much less eagerness, for I feel that even abso
lute idleness would be an enjoyment, though till eight
months ago I never knew what it was to be unem
ployed for a quarter of an hour. My ghostly father,
tell me if you can from this confession, what I really
think, for I protest I do not know ; or if you will, laugh
at me, and tell me any thing of yourself, a much more
interesting subject. 1 know nothing, but that politics
are dead, litterature obsolete, the stage lower than in
the days of Mysteries, the actors as bad as the plays,
the maccaronis as poor as the nabobs are rich, and
nothing new upon earth, but coats and waistcoats ; as
for the women, they think almost as little of their pet
ticoats as the men do. We are to have my Lord
Chesterfield's works, and my Lord Lyttleton's works,
which will not much reanimate the age, the Saturnia
regna. Adieu, when Gray can spare you, pray let me
have a line. Yours most entirely H. W.
P. S. Gen. Graeme has resigned, and old Hermes of
SaUsbury is made Secretary to the Queen ; which I tell
you, not as politics, which you do not care about, but
as an event in a title page.

126 CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE HON, HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Feb. 3, 1774:
I received, while at Cambridge, your permission to
print those letters of Mr. Gray, and have taken my
measures accordingly. I have nothing, therefore, to
say at present on that subject, only to repeat my firm
belief that they cannot do any harm to the person you
mentioned. I should, if I had found time for it, have expressed
my true concern for your present critical and affecting
situation, in my last letter : but I was much hurried
and writ in company. Permit me now to teU you
that I sincerely sympathize with you in all your
chagrins. I know by experience how impossible it is to do any
effectual service in cases similar to that in which you
have been of late so meritoriously employed. The
poor man whom some years ago you so much befriend
ed by printing his little Poems at your press, has been
on my hands ever since, and by the contributions I then
raised, added to a small living which Mr. Stonhewer
procured for him, he and his wife and four chUdren
have been kept from starving ; and this vrithout much
diminishing the little principal which I have kept in
my hands ; during all his time, he has been in such a
state between madness and reason, that he is only
capable at times of doing the common duties of his
church, but never of taking care of his own affairs, and
now he has taken it into his head to send his children

WALPOLE AND MASON. 127
to York for education, which vrill of necessity run
away presently with that money, which I intended to
have employed in setting up his wife and eldest
daughter in some decent trade, in case of his death,
which, from his apparently bad constitution, was long
ago to be expected. I mention this merely to shew
how fruitless it is to hope to do real good in cases so
deplorable as these. Yet I think at the same time
it is our duty to act even without, and against hope
in such cases ; but for our own ease we should always
avoid laying any preconcerted scheme for our conduct,
and only act as circumstances arise, otherways we are
sure ofbeing disappointed.
You kindly prest me to come to London in your former
letter, and you may assure yourself I would readily have
done so, could I have done it either with convenience or
propriety. But I am obUged to begin my residence
at York next week, and to stay there till the middle of
May. My only hope of seeing you, therefore, is at my
Lord Strafford's in the summer, and to wait on you
at Aston both going and coming. But if you are
resolved not to set your face northwards, I will con
trive if possible to come southwards. Provided
always, that I can do this without being necessitated
to pay my compliments to a certain person in your
Strawberry neighbourhood, whose face (to teU you the
truth) I wish never to see again ; for he has of late
behaved more shabbUy than ever,
Soom after I am settled at York, I mean to send
you that fine lyrical fragment of Mr, Gray's, which I
have had the hardiesse to compleat by the addition

128 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of two or three stanzas, I mean to print it among
some additional notes at the end of his poems ; if it
serves (as I think it wUl) to elucidate his design, I
shall not care how much it proves my IjTical infe
riority ; but more of this, when I send you the Ode,
of which I mean to print a few copies, for the sake of
obtaining your judgment and that of a few other friends,
before I determine whether to insert it in the book or
not. I shall hope to hear from you soon, and let me
beg vou to remember to direct to me at York,
for you was always forgetful in points of this sort
even when you had not so good or rather so bad a
cause to be forgetful. I hope I need not say how
cordially I wish your mind to be more at ease, nor
with what sincerity I am, dear Sir,
your most obliged and faithful servant,
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Feb. 14, 1734.
I am most impatient for your lyric section and the
completion of the Ode, Nay, I am glad to have lost so
much of school-boy and school-master, as to be charmed
with the fragment, though Dr, Barnard frowns on it —
pray remember, however, that when you have so much
piety for Mr, Gray's remains, you are unpardonable in
leaving your own works imperfect. I trust, as ypu
wiU now enjoy your ovra garden in summer, and vrill
have finished the Ufe by your return from York, that
you win perfect your Essay on Modem Gardening : you

WALPOLE AND MASON. 129
have given a whole year to your friend and are in
debt to the public.
My troubles are at an end, my nephew is as weU as
ever He was, and is gone into the country either to
compleat his own ruin and his family's, or to relapse,
I shaU feel the former, I dread the latter — but I
must decline the charge a second time. It half killed
me, and would entirely have ruined my health. In
deed it has hurt me so much, that though my mind
has recovered its tranquillity I cannot yet shake off the
impressions and recall my spirits. Six months of gout
and nine of stewardship and fears were too much for
my time of life and want of strength. The villainy too
that I have seen has shocked me ; and memory predo
minates over cheerfulness. My incUnation wUl certain
ly carry me this summer into Yorkshire, if dread of my
biennial gout does not restrain me. Sometimes, I have
a mind to go to a warmer climate ; but either at Aston
or at Strawberry wiU insist on our meeting before win
ter ; what signifies a neighbour you do not wish to see ?
Are our enemies to deprive us of our best satisfaction,
seeing our fiiends ? I wUl presume to say you cannot
have a warmer or more sincere one than myself, who
never call myself so when I do not feel myself so, and
who have few pleasures left but that of saying what I
think. You are too wise and too good not to despise
the dirtiness of fools, or to regret a man, who came to
years of discretion, before he was past his chUdhood,
and is superannuated before he is come to his under
standing. He is decaying fast, and wUl soon exist but
VOL. I. K

130 CORRESPONDENCE OV
in his epitaph, like those poor Knights of Windsor who
are recorded on their gravestones for their loyalty to
Charles the first.
The house of Lords is busy on the question of Ute
rary property, a question that lies between the integrity
of Scotch authors and English booksellers. T'other house
has got into a new scrape with the city and printers,
which I suppose vrill end to the detriment of the press.
The ministers have a much tougher business on their
hands in which even their factotum the parliament may
not be able to ensure success — I mean the rupture
with America. If all the black slaves were in rebeUion,
I should have no doubt in chusing my side, but I
scarce wish perfect freedom to merchants who are the
bloodiest of all tyrants. I should think the souls of
the Africans would sit heavy on the swords of the
Americans. We are stUl expecting the works of Lord Chester
field and Lord Lyttelton — on my part with no manner
of impatience ; one was an ape of the French, the other
of the Greeks, and I like neither secondhand pertness
or solemnity. There is published a postscript to the
Heroic Epistle certainly by the same author, as is evi
dent by some charming lines, but inferior to the
former as second parts are apt to be. The history of
Charles Fox and Mrs. Grieve is come out too in rhyme,
wretchedly done but minutely true. I think I have
told you all I know and more than you wUl care whe
ther you know or not. It is an insipid age. Even
the Maccaronis degenerate; they have lost aU their

WALPOLE AND MASON. 131
money and credit, and ruin nobody but their taylors.
Adieu, yours most sincerely H. w.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, March 3, 1774.
I could not with convenience get the Ode I mentioned
to you printed before as I was not come to the place
in the Memoirs where the fragment is inserted. When
that sheet was worked off I gave the printer my
additions to print a dozen copies before the roman types
were broken up. One of these copies I send you, and
if you and a few other friends think that what I have
added may serve to elucidate his general idea, I shaU
reprint it and publish it not among his odes, no not
even in the Memoirs ; but only among some addi
tional notes which I mean to put at the end of his
poems, thrown in such a place, perhaps, I may escape
censure for having had the vanity to make such an
attempt. We see nothing here but newspapers. If I send for
a new pamphlet it is above a fortnight before it arrives.
This was the case with the Heroic Postcript which you
mentioned in your last. But you did not tell me that I
had the honour of being placed in the same line vrith
Dr. Goldsmith, if you had I should hardly have sent for it.
However I am more contented vrith my company, than
Garrick wUl be with his. I think much the same about

132 CORRESPONDipNCE OF
the piece itself as you do, and as there is certainly less
comic humour in it than in the former, I should think
neither its reputation nor its sale would be so great, but
here I find from the last paper, ministry steps in as
usual, and by the voice of Col, Onslow stamps the
reputation it might want upon it, and hereby enhances
Almon's profit. Were it not for this I'll be bound to
say not three persons in York would have read it ;
now it will spread through the county.
You gave me in your last (expressed in a line and a
half) all the sense that has or can be spoken on the
subject of literary property. But much more may be
said, and I hope you will say it on the result of the de
bate. I think Lord Mansfield has finessed the matter
far beyond all his former finesses. His sUence — the
palinodia of my Lord Chancellor — all, all are equally
admirable. I must insist on another paragraph from
you on this interesting subject,
I heartily rejoice that your family concerns are at
least actively at an end, passively your heart vrill never
suffer them to be, and perhaps it ought not. But I
beg and entreat that same heart not to be too solicitous
in future, for the sake of itself and for the sake of its
friends, amongst which number (as it lately permitted
me to do) I have both the pleasure and the honour to
rank, dear Sir, your faithful servant
W. MASON.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 133

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
DEAR SIR, Arhngton Street, March 19, 1774.
I arrived here but four hours ago from Houghton,
where I have been this fortnight with my nephew : I
find your letter, your printed ode, and messages from
Mr. Stonhewer, to whom I have not yet had an instant's
time to send, nor have, but to say one syllable to you,
as I approve your additions exceedingly, and would
not delay saying so ; that if my taste or judgment can
have any weight, you may be determined to print what
Gray might envy — I am fond of modesty even in the
flower of authors, but not carried too far, as you do
now, by degrading Gray to an Appendix, because you,
though unworthy, wUl not sit by him in his Works,
You have finished him as well as he himself, with all
his love of polishing, could have done, and I think truly
that yours have more harmony than some of his lines.
I wonder at it, for I dislike the metre, which in the
fourth line has a sudden sink, like a man with one leg
shorter than the other — but I have not time for a word
more, you shall have a longer letter in a post or two.
Adieu, yours most devotedly
HOR. WALPOLE.

134 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Strawberry Hill, March 23, 1774.
I vwote my last in a great hurry, and not much
knowing what I said, being just lighted from my chaise
after being a fortnight at Houghton vrith my nephew,
where my head was filled with business, and my heart
with anxiety and grief and twenty other passions, for (not
to return to the subject) if he is recovered I doubt it
will not be for a long season. He is neither tempe
rate in his regimen nor conduct, and if I have chaced
away seven evil spirits, as many are ready to enter.
In short, the rest of my life, I find, and they wUl
shorten it, is to be spent in contests with lawyers, the
worst sort of lawyers, attornies, stewards, farmers
mortgagees and toad-eaters, I do not advance and
cannot retreat, I wished to live only for my friends and
myself, I must now I find, live for my relations — or
die for them ; you are very kind in pitying, and advising
me to consult my ease and health, but if you knew my
whole story and it was not too long, even for a series of
letters like Clarissa's, you would encourage me to pro
ceed, for I flatter myself that my duty is the incentive
to my conduct, and you, whose life is blameless, would
I am sure advise your friend to sacrifice his happiness
at last to his family, and to the memory of a father to
whom he owes every thing, — but no more on this,
though it has and does occupy my mind so much ; that
I am absolutely ignorant of the affairs of the world

WALPOLE AND MASON. 135
and of all political and Uterary news, though the latter
are the only comforts of the few moments I have to
myself. I began Mr. Bryant's — what shall I caU it —
prge-existant History of the World, but had not time
to finish the first volume. It put me in mind of Prior's
Madam, who To cut things came dovm to Adam.
There are two pages under the Radical Macar, that
will divert you ; an absolute account of MaKapiovsg,
though I dare to swear the good man never dreamt
that he was writing the history of Almack's. I have
just got Mr. Wharton's Life of Poetry, and it seems
delightfully fuU of things I love, but not a minute to
begin it ; nor Campbell's long expected work on Com
merce, which he told me twenty years ago should be
the basis on which he meant to build his reputation.
L d. Lyttleton and Ld. Chesterfield are coming forth,
and one must run them over in self-defence, still I say
to you, 0 quando ego te aspiciam — yes, Te, both you and
your Gray ! I am impatient for the remainder, though
I would not have it hurried. Mr. Stonhewer will have
told you what I said on the print ; but if he could make
sense of it I shall wonder, for I was on both sides ; for
your print, as the more agreeable ; for WUson's picture
as extremely like, though a likeness that shocks one ;
there are marks, evident marks of its being painted
after Gray's death — I would not hang it up in my
house for the world ; I think I am now come to know
my own mind, it is to have prints of both ; from yours
at the beginning to front his JuvenUia ; from Wilson's,

136 CORRESPONDENCE OF
at or towards the end, as the exact representation of
him in his last years of life. The delay wiU not signify,
as your look is a lasting one, no matter if it comes out
in the middle of summer ; it does not depend for its sale
on a fuU London, it vrill be sent for into the country,
and will always continue to be sold. Were I to write
any thing that I could hope to have minded, I would
pubUsh in Summer. The first ball, duel, divorce, new
prologue of Garrick, or debate in the House of Commons
makes every thing forgotten in a minute in vrinter.
Wedderburn's philippic on Franklyn, that was cried
up to the skies. Chief Justice de Grey's on Uterary pro
perty, Ld. Sandwich's honorable behaviour to MUler
the printer are already at the bottom of Lethe. Made-
moiseUe Heinel dances to morrow, and Wedderburn
and Ld. Sandwich vrill catch their deaths if they wait
in either of the temples of fame or infamy in expecta
tion of admirers.
I know not a word more than I told you, or you have
heard, of the affair of literary property. Ld. Mansfield's
finesse as you caU it, was christened by its true names,
pitiful and paltry. Poor Mrs. Macaulay has written a
very bad pamphlet on the subject. It marks dejec
tion and sickness. In truth, any body that has
principles must feel. Half of the King's opposition
at least are hurrying to court. Sir WUliam Meredith
has ridden thither on a white stick ; Colonel Barr^
on the necks of the Bostonians, his old friends ;
Mr. Burke, who has a tolerable stake in St. Vincents,
seems to think it worth aU the rest of America. Still,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 137
I do not know how, an amazing bill of an amazing
parent, has slipped through the ten thousand fingers of
venality, and gives the Constitution some chance of
rousing itself — I mean Grenville's biU for trying
Elections, It passed as rapidly as if it had been for a
repeal of Magna Charta, brought in by Mr, Cofferer
Dyson. Well ! it is one o' clock in the morning, and I
must go to bed. I have passed one calm evening here
alone, and have concluded it most agreeably by chat
ting vrith you. To morrow I must return into the
bustle — but I carry every where vrith me the melan
choly impression of my life's tranquUlity being at an
end, I see no prospect of peace for me, whether my ne
phew lives, dies, relapses, or remains as he is at present.
I love to be occupied, but in my own way, unobserved
and unconnected ; my joy is to read or write what I
please : not letters of business, accounts or applications ;
but good night ; I have tired you and myself ; my sole
excuse is, if you wiU take it for one, that I had other
things to do that I should have liked doing — but writing
to you was the greatest pleasure, and according to my
former habits I preferred what amused me best.
Yours ever
H. w.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, April 7, 1774.
Well, I have read Mr. Warton's book ; and shall I tell

138 CORRESPONDENCE OP
you what I think of it ? I never saw so many enter
taining particulars crowded together with so little en
tertainment and vivacity. The facts are overwhelmed
by one another, as Johnstone's sense is by words;
they are all equally strong. Mr. Warton has amassed
all the parts and leaming of four centuries, and all the
impression that remains is, that those four ages had no
parts or learning at all. There is not a gleam of poetry
in their compositions between the Scalds and Chaucer :
nay I question whether they took their metres for any
thing more than rules for writing prose. In short, it
may be the genealogy of versification vrith all its inter
marriages and anecdotes of the family — but Gray's
and your plan might still be executed. I am sorry
Mr. Warton has contracted such an affection for his
materials, that he seems almost to think that not only
Pope, but Dryden himself have added few beauties to
Chaucer. The republic of Parnassus has lost a mem
ber ; Dr. Goldsmith is dead of a purple fever, and I
think might have been saved if he had continued
James's powder, which had had much effect, but his
physician interposed. His numerous friends neglected
him shamefully at last, as if they had no business vrith
him when it was too serious to laugh. He had lately
written epitaphs for them all, some of which hurt, and
perhaps made them not sorry that his own was the
first necessary. The poor soul had some times parts
though never common sense.
I shall go to town to morrow and send for my Lord
Chesterfield's letters, though I know all I wished to

WALPOLE AND MASON. 139
see is suppressed. The Stanhopes appUed to the
chanceUor for an injunction, and it was granted. At
last his lordship permitted the publication on two con
ditions, that I own were reasonable, though I am sorry
for them. The first, that the famUy might expunge
what passages they pleased : the second, that Mrs.
Stanhope should give up to them, without reserving a
copy. Lord Chesterfield's portraits of his contempora
ries, which he had lent to his son, and re-demanded of
the widow, who gave them up, but had copied them.
He burnt the originals himself, just before he died, on
disgust with Sir John Dalrymple's book, a new crime
in that sycophant's libel.
Campbell's book I have not looked into, and am told
is very heavy — thus I have given you an account of
my reading as my confessor in litterature. I know
nothing else, and am happy to have time for thinking
of my amusement.
Your old friend passes by here very often airing, and
I am told looks ghastly and going. It has been so
much expected, that his post'of govemor was destined, I
hear, to Lord Bristol, and his Cinque ports I know were
offered to Lord Germaine, for there seems to be a
general comprehension, and nobody is to remain dis
contented, but those who see their reversions promised.
I dont ask about your own books, for I vrish you to
have a whole Summer of readers to yourself, as I told
you in my last. I do inquire when I shall see you,
and hope it wiU be in the Summer too, for in Autumn
I expect the gout, my biennial tyrant. If he is as

140 CORRESPONDENCE OP
severe as last time, he will be soon like the woman who
kiUed her hen that laid golden eggs.
I forgot in my confession, to say that I have gone
through half of Mr. Bryant's first volume. Lord John
has read both, and likes them, and thinks there is a
great deal made out. I got far enough to see that
the Tower of Babel might have been finished, if
you would allow the workmen to begin at the top
and bottom at once — but this was not my reason for
mentioning the book. If you have it or it is in your
neighbourhood, pray in the radicals read the article of
Macar. You wiU find that there was a happy people, a
favourite name, who lived in an island and were called
MaKapojvEg. Mr. Bryant is no joker, and I dare to swear
never thought on our Maccaronies, when he was
talking of Cushites and Ammonians. But I forgot that
you are not as idle as I am, nor are bound to hear of
every book I read. I can only say in excuse that when
one is alone, one is apt to think of those one loves, and
vrishes to converse with them on common pursuits ; is
not it natural too, to wish to engage them in a little con
versation ? One tells them news, and wants them to care
for it, in hopes of an answer. In short, you have won
my affection, and must sometimes be troubled with it ;
but you are at liberty to treat it coolly or kindly, as you
please. The mass will remain, though you should not en
courage me to send you papers full of it at a time, Adieu.
9th. I was too late for the post on Thursday and
have since got Lord Chesterfield's letters, which, with^

WALPOLE AND MASON. 141
out being weU entertained, I sat up reading last night till
between one and two, and devoured above 140. To
my great surprise they seem really written from the
heart, not for the honour of his head, and in truth do
no great honour to the last, nor show much feeling in
the first, except in wishing for his son's fine gentleman-
hood. He was sensible what a cub he had to work
on, and whom two quartos of licking could not mould,
for cub he remained to his death. The repetitions are
endless and tiresome. The next volume, I see, promises
more amusement, for in turning it over, I spied many
political names. The more curious part of all is that
one perceives by what infinite assiduity and attention
his lordship's ovra great character was raised and sup
ported, — and yet in all that great character what was
there worth remembering but his bon mots ; his few
fugitive pieces that remain show his genteel turn for
songs and his wit ; — from politics he rather escaped
well, than succeeded by them. In short, the diamond
owed more to being brUlianted and polished, and well
set, than to any intrinsic worth or solidity.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. April 17, 1774.
You may say what you please, my dear Sir, but, yes
you vrill be tired with the sight of my letters ; and this
perhaps wUl be stUl less welcome than any of its pre
decessors. They, poor souls, had no excuse for their
gossiping. This is written more seriously, and from

142 CORRESPONDENCE OF
good will prepense. In one word, my admiration has
been ripened into warm friendship ; and I do not see
why friendship should be debarred of the privilege of
telling one's friends his merits, when ill-nature may so
cheaply borrow its mask to reprove him for his faults.
Mr. Stonhewer brought me your section yesterday,
before I received your letter — and do you know, I am
exceedingly discontent vrith it ? nor for its faults, for
there is not a single blemish — but for your honesty
and rashness — what can provoke you to be so impru
dent ? or do you think I love you so little, as to enjoy
your free spirit and not tell you what a nest of hornets
— nay of hysenas you are incensing ! I do beseech
you to repress your indignation and cancel the papers
in question. They will enrage, and you vrill have a
life of warfare to lead to your d)dng day. Martyrdom
itself might be delightful, if good could spring from
the drops of blood. In the present case what benefit
could arise ? to yourself endless disquiet must be the
consequence — well, but if I cannot touch your own in
trepidity, I know I can stagger it, when your friend's
memory is at stake. In Gray's own letters there is
enough to offend, your notes added, wUl involve him in
the quarrel, every silly story wUl be revived and his
ashes will be disturbed to vex you. You know my idea
was that your work should consecrate his name. To
ensure that end, nothing should be blended with it that
might make your work a book of party and contro
versy. By raising enemies to it, you wUl defeat in part
your own benevolent purpose of a charitable fund.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 143
when so numerous a host are banded against it, the
sale wiU be clogged ; reflect how many buyers you will
exclude. At least as there is no loving kindness in my
mercy, reserve the objectionable letters and your ovra.
notes to a future edition — nay it will be policy ; if the
book appears without its sting, Gray's character wUl
be established, and unimpeached. Hereafter let them
decry him if they can. I will dwell no longer on the
subject ; your letter tells me you are not in haste.
One Mr, Stonhewer will write, vrill tell you that the
neighbouring inconvenience wdU soon be removed one
way, and my last that it is hkely to be removed every
way. I hope to see you at Strawberry Hill on the first
dislodgment, and then we shall have time to squabble
on the several articles I object to,
I have a few other difficulties, not of much con
sequence. I would omit every passage that hints at
the cause of his removal from Peterhouse. Dont you
or do you know that that and other idle stories were
printed in an absurd book called Lexiphanes ! I would
be as wary as the church of Rome is before they
canonize a saint. They wait till he has been dead an
hundred years, that no old woman may exist to tell
a tale of the frailtie of his youth, as a beldame did when
Charles Borrom^e was to be sainted. " * * *
*******" Now I
descend to verbal criticism. In p. 234, line 1 7 of the
note, there is an He that is obscure. It means Gray,
but by the cojistruction refers to Akenside. " He
would tire of it as soon as he did." The second he

144 CORRESPONDENCE OF
should be Mr. Gray. I have slight faults to find when
this is a big one, here is one still more diminutive : p.
239, for d'ont read dont. In p. 241, note 1. Gray was
not mistaken. Before the Due de Choiseul was dis
graced, I was privy to many abject solicitations made
by Voltaire to both the duke and duchess for leave to
go to Paris, — but the duke did not think it worth his
while to quarrel vrith the clergy and parliament upon
his account. The moment the duke was out, Voltaire
renewed the battery of flattery to the breast of the Due
d'Aiguillon, but as the first part of the transaction was
communicated to me in confidence, I would not have it
made public while the parties are living. His letters
on that occasion are extant, and some time or other I
suppose vrill appear.
In Algarotti's letter are two false printings, for
quan io porso it should be quanta io porro, or rather I
believe potro and for sottescri vam read sottoscrivermi.
In defiance of my Lord Chesterfield, who holds it
vulgar to laugh, and who says wit never makes one
laugh, I declare I laughed aloud, though alone, when I
read of the professor who died of turbot and made a
good end. If this is not wit, I do not know what is.
I am much more in doubt of his lordship's wit, since I
have finished his letters. Half of the last volume has
many pretty or prettyish ones, but sure no professor of
wit ever sowed so little in two such ample fields ! He
seems to have been determined to indemnify himself
for the falsehood and constraint of his whole life by
owning what an impostor he had been. The work is

WALPOLE AND MASON. 145
a most proper book of laws for the generation in which
it is pubUshed, and has reduced the folly and worth
lessness of the age to a regular system, in which nothing
but the outside of the body and the superficies of the
mind are considered. If a semblance of morality is
recommended, it is to be painted and curled, and
Hippolytus himself may keep a w  , provided she is
married and a woman of quality. In short if the idea
were not an old one, I would write on the back of this
code. The whole duty of man, adapted to the meanest
capacities. If you like my telling you literary news, I will
whenever I have any, I now have time to read and
enjoy myself. Your observation on Mr. Warton's
civility to Macpherson is very just. It is Uke protestants
who in catholic countries bow to the sacrament, but
do not kneel, and I do not doubt but both the priests
and the Scot would bum the heretics if they could. I
wish I could satisfy you about the parliament's intention
on literary property, but as a bill is ordered in, you
will know more of the event before you think of pub
lishing. I scarce know more of the parliament's trans
actions than what I read in the papers. When I was
at Rome, I never pryed into the actions of the Senatore
di Roma. All I know of our senate is, that it is held in
the Temple of Concord.
I enquire so Uttle after their transactions, that I did
not hear your name had been mentioned on that bUl. I
was told that a name of much less consequence, my own,
was quoted by Mr. Wedderburne, I protest I did not ask
VOL. I. L

146 CORRESPONDENCE OF
whether in approbation or dislike, or to what end.
Apropos, I did hear that the other day Lord North
declaiming against the opposition (I don't guess where
he found them,) and saying they meant nothing but
pensions and places, turned to his right, and there sat
Cornwall blushing up to the eyes, turning short from a
crimson conscience, on the right sat Wedderburne, pale
as death ; come, there is some merit in crimson.
You ask about answers to books : in good sooth I
never read such matters, nor can tell who does but
their authors. At least I never heard of the one you
mention, nor disturb the departed. I must now say a
word about that insignificant personage myself. I vriU
not quarrel with you about what you say of my wit.
Whether I have it, or have had it, I neither know nor
care. It was none of my doing ; and even if I had it,
I am guilty of never having improved it, and of putting
it to very trifling uses. Whatever it was, it is gone
with my spirits, or passed off with my youth — which I
bear the loss of too with patience, though a better pos
session. But I am seriouly hurt vrith those two words
at the conclusion of your letter, perfect respect. Jesus !
my dear Sir, to me, and from you, perfect respect ! on
what grounds, on what title? — what is there in me
respectable ? To have flung away so many advantages in
so foolish a manner as I have done, is that respectable ?
to have done nothing in my Ufe that is praiseworthy, not
to have done as much good as I might; does this deserve
respect from so good a man as you are ? have I tumed
even my ruling passion, that preservative I call it, pride

WALPOLE AND MASON. 147
to account ? no — yet hear my sincere confession ; I
had rather be unknown, and have the pride of virtue,
than be Shakespeare, which is all I can say of mortal
wit. Nay I would rather accept that pride of virtue pre
ferably to all earthly blessings, for its own comfortable
insolence, though I were sure to be annihilated the
moment I die ; so far am I from thinking with the
saint, that suffering virtue vrithout a future reward,
would of all conditions be the most miserable. There
are none, or few real evils, but pain and guUt. The
dignity of virtue makes every thing else a trifle,
or very tolerable. Penury itself may flatter one,
for it may be inflicted on a man for his virtue, by
that paltry thing ermine and velvet a king. Pray,
therefore, never respect me any more, tUl my virtues
have made me a beggar. I am not melancholy, nor
going to write divine poems. I have a more manly
resolution, which is to mend myself as much as I can,
and not let my age be as absurd as my youth. I want
to respect myself, the person in the world whose
approbation I desire most. The next title I aspire to,
but not till that person is content with me, is that of
being your sincere friend H. w.
P. S. You will be diverted to hear that a man who
thought of nothing so much as the purity of his
language, I mean Lord Chesterfield, says, " you and me
shaU not be well together," and this not once, but on

148 CORRESPONDENCE OP
every such occasion. A friend of mine says, it was cerr
tainly to avoid that female inaccuracy of they dont mind
you and I, and yet the latter is the least bad of the two.
He says too, Ld. Chesterfield does, that for forty years
of his life he never used a word without stopping a
moment to think if he could not find a better. How
agreeably he passed his time !

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York. April 23, 1774.
I have cried peccavi in so many and long periphrases
to Stonhewer and Dr. Hurd, that I have no more words
left to express my contrition. I vrill, therefore, only say
to you, that only have patience vrith me and I will
cancel every syllable that can offend either Mr. Mac
pherson, or the most itchy highlander that ever came to
a register office in search of perfarment. I now know
and feel my own old English nothingness, and I never
speak to my Scotch printer's Scotch devil without rising
from my writing-desk and desiring him to be seated.
But as I have said before, you must have patience with
me, and having stopped the press you must suffer me to
let it remain quiet for some months, before I open it
again with my fifth section. In the meanwhile be
assured I will not be idle, but wUl try to improve myself
under the tuition of that great master of urbanity, my
Lord Chesterfield, who being dead yet speaketh. I

WALPOLE AND MASON. 149
wiU prove by my ovra example that his work which Mrs.
Eugenia says will improve the youth, shall also improve
the grown gentleman of these kingdoms. I have already
under his tuition begun to treat my conscience as Jack
and Martin, in the Tale of the Tub, did their old coats.
The first pluck I gave was at the tag of my sincerity.
I pulled hard and found the operation painful, nay it
still hangs by two or three strong threads, but I hope
in time to get fairly quit of it. I will next have a bout
vrith my simplicity. This tag I know vrill occasion a
great rent, but I vrill piece it up with any French frippery
that comes to hand. When this is over, there will
remain only a little religion and morality, which vrill
drop of themselves ; indeed they are so sowed to the
first tag that if one comes fairly off, the two others wUl
come with it, and so when all of them are detached I
vrill devoutly consume them in one great sacrifice to
the Graces. If I succeed in this operation, what have
you not to expect from me, when I come in my regene
rated state to visit you in your gothic castle of Straw
berry. I on my part expect you wiU think of no per
sonages of less monde fit to invite to our partie quarrd
than Lord Carlisle and Mr. James. The former we
would hope cannot offend me by laughing, even if the
latter should be guUty of a bon mot. Take care how
ever that I never see anjrthing like mauvais honte for I
die at the sight of it. Apropos to mauvais honte, pray
does not the last page of your last letter smell terribly
of its assafoetida ? You seem ashamed that I should
respect you and give this fine reason for it, that you do

150 CORRESPONDENCE OF
not deserve respect. Homme sauvage et vulgaire ! who
ever had respect that deserved it, who ever was without
it that did not deserve it ? Was I writing in my old
character I should say that a penitent of all other
persons deserved the most respect, but penitence is
not now in my catechism. Besides this I have another
quarrel with you. You call me somewhere or other " so
good a man." Mon Dieu ! Bon ! the phrase is barbarous,
it is now never applied except in the feminine to a
governante. In your next I suppose you vrill call me
ma bonne, and make a Mademoiselle Kromm of me.
These strictures my dear Sir, I hope will have a good
effect upon you and make the style of your next a little
more decrott^ ; in the meanwhile you must own that
the friend of Madam du Deffand has lived to a fine time,
when he sees himself the pupU (in point of politesse)
of a Yorkshire parson. One word of serious and I have
done. I am much more sorry to find you object to the
manner I have treated Gray's removal to Pembroke,
than for other matters which you think of more
consequence. I had read Lexiphanes in its life time, it
has been dead long, and I hardly think what I say will
revive it. In a life so void of events, how is it possible
to omit this, would not the omission make the world
believe him more wrong than he really was. I think
they would supply the omission from Lexiphanes, which
would be the means of his resuscitation. But this and
every thing else shaU be altered to aU your minds if
you give me time for it, but indeed and indeed I am at
present heartily tired of the work itself, and if you

WALPOLE AND MASON. 151
knew the pains and the thought it has taken me to
arrange the letters, in order to form that variety which
I aimed at to make it read pleasantly, you would not
wonder I was tired. I believe I have seldom written
a sprightly, not but with a view of enlivening a less
sprightly letter. All these, therefore, I can easily give
up, for I would much sooner be guilty of publishing
even a dull book, than by a hvely one hurt any
deserving friend, or create him an enemy. I have
filled my paper so full that I have now no room for
respect even if I durst use it.
w. M.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, June 12, 1774.
I recommend this with your two tracts on garden
ing to Mr. Fraser ; you see I hasten to send you straw,
that your brick-kiln may blaze. I shall send you
soon Fitzpatrick's Town Eclogue, from my own furnace.
The verses are charmingly smooth and easy, but I am
much mistaken if you like them so well as Charles Fox's,
as the former have certainly no novelty to reccommend
them, though there is one line about squeazing that is
delightful. The manie des jar dins Anglois is very silly, and un
poetic even for French verse. T'other author has stolen
all his ideas from us, and is ungrateful, is very French
too, absurd and superficial, meaning to be philosophic ;

152 CORRESPONDENCE OF
has no idea of situation, but thinks it can be made ;
and in reality does not conceive helping or improving
nature, but would make puppet-shows, for different
ranks. He puts me in mind of one of his countrymen,
who seeing some of ours hang up their hats on a row
of pegs at a tavern, said, on voit bien que cest une nation
qui pense. I think they are ten times more foolish
since they took to thinking.
By the waters of Babylon we sit down and weep,
when we think of thee 0 America ! Tribulation on Tri
bulation! since Gage's defeat. Eighteen, some say twenty
eight thousand men have invested Boston ; ten thou
sand more are on their march from Rhode Island. Two
ships laden vrith provisions for him have been destroyed
at New York, and all His Majesty's friends turned out
thence. Nous ne scavons plus a quel Saint nous vouer.
The city says there must be a pacification and a change
of actors. Much good may it do those who wiU read
their parts ! Old Garrick perhaps vrill return to the
stage, because he has no time to lose — however the
manager's company talks of a troop of Hessians, &c.
I have got another noble author. Lord Mahon ; he
writes on the gold coin ; if he can make gold as well as
coin, he vrill be of great use to his father-in-law
Garrick, and a very good prop to his administration.
Your old PoUio is returned very lean and very deaf.
Considering all things, methinks you might now hold
a lodge, Mr. Mason, adieu.
p. S. Here is the Eclogue,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 153

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill. July 19, 1774.
I send you by the Fraser Mercury the Itinerary of
Mr. Gray vrith my manuscript additions. I don't know
whether I have made them too long or too short, but
as you are entirely at Uberty to curtaU or lengthen, or
omit such as you disapprove, it does not signify what
they are. They have indeed a fault I cannot mend,
unless by time, and which yet I probably shall not
mend. I mean they are not compleat, for there are
some considerable places that I never saw, and I am
grown too lazy since I can walk but little, to think of
visiting them now.
I shaU take care how I vrish earnestly again for
your coming southward, you gave me so little of your
time and was so much in request, that I was only tan
talized. I like your fixed stars that one can pore at
when one pleases ; but there is such a fuss vrith you
comets, that even women and chUdren must know aU
about them.
I know nothing but that we have deplorable weather ;
the sun like you has called but once at Strawberry. To
make amends the cold has brought on the winter
fruits so fast, that I had a codlin tart to day, and expect
pears and apples ripe before peaches and nectarines.
I vrish we had never imported those southern delicacies,
unless we had brought their climate over too. We
should have been very happy vrith our hips and haws

154 CORRESPONDENCE OF
and rainy days, and called it luxury. I cannot afford
to have hot-houses, and glass-houses, and acres of
tanners bark, as every trademan has at his vUla, or at
his mistress's villa. I kill my own strawberries and
cream, and can aim no higher.
Do you know that it would be charity to send me
something to print, or to tell me what I shaU print.
My press is at a dead stand, and I would fain employ
it while I may, without permission of a Licencer for
though it has always been as harmless as if it was under
the canon of Sion Hill, it would be vocal no more, if
it might only utter Dutch bibles or editions in usum
Delphini. I know you have twenty things in your porte-
feuille. I wUl print as few copies as you please, I
have no ambition of serving or amusing the public,
and think of nothing but diverting myself and the few
I love. What signifies taking the trouble to be put
I dont know how soon, into an index Expurgatorius ! to
day is ours, let us enjoy it yours ever
H, w,
TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON.
Excuse me, but I cannot take your advice nor intend
to print any more for the public ; when I offer you my
press it is most selfishly, and to possess your writings,
for I. would only print a few copies for your friends and
mine. My last volume of the Anecdotes of Painting
has long been finished, and as a debt shaU some time

WALPOLE AND MASON. 155
or other be pubUshed, but there I take my leave of
Messieurs the readers. Let Dr, Johnson please this
age with the fustian of his style and the meanness of
his spirit ! both are good and great enough for the
taste and practice predominant. I think this country
sinking fast into min; and when it is become an
absolute monarchy and thence insignificant, I do not
desire to be remembered by slaves and in a French
province. I would not be VirgU or BoUeau on such
conditions ; present amusement is all my object in
reading, writing or printing. To gratify the first
especially, I wish to see your poem finished.
You, who e'er while the happy garden sung.
Continue to  sing
Recovered Paradise ! —^—
I am less impatient for Gray's life, being sure of seeing
it, whether pubUshed or not : and as I conclude neither
his letters nor Latin poems will be admired to the
height they deserve, I am jealous of his fame, and do
not like its being cast before svrine. In short I wish
his and your writings to meet with a fate that not many
years ago was reckoned an ignominy, that they may be
sent to the Colonies ! for
Arts and sciences will travel west
and The sad nine in Britains evil hour
will embark for America,
I have been in Gloucestershire and can add a little to
the catalogue, having seen Berkeley Castle, Thombury
Castle, and a charming smaU old house of the Abbots

156 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of Gloucester. Indeed I could not enjoy the first, for
the Earl was in it with all his MUitia, and dispelled
visions. To Wentworth Castle I shall certainly make
no visit this year. If I went any journey it would be
to Paris ; but indolence persisting in her apprehensions
of the gout, though I have had no symptoms of it for
some time, vrill fix me here and hereabouts. I discover
charms in idleness that I never had a notion of before,
and perceive that age brings pleasures as well as takes
away. There is serenity in having nothing to do, that
is delicious : I am persuaded that little princes assumed
the title of serene highness from that sensation.
Your assured friend
HORACE LE FAINEANT.
Given at our Castle of Nonsuch, Aug. 23, 1774.
Salute our trusty and well beloved The Palsgrave on
our part.

Proposals for printing his own travels.
Duke of Newcastle's Journal going to Hanover.
History of the Devil, a Fragment.
Jemmy Twitcher's Courtship.
Inscription on the villa of a decayed Statesman.
Shakespeare to Mr. M's. Housekeeper.
Fragments of an act of parliament relating to monu
ments erected in Westminster Abbey.
The Mob Grammar.
Character of the Scotch.
N. B, This Catalogue of Gray's MS. Poetry is in Mason's writing
at the end of Walpole's Letter. Ed,

WALPOLE AND MASON, 157

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, Aug. 9, 1774,
I ought to have thanked you much sooner for your
notes on Mr. Gray's Itinerary, and your obliging letter.
These additions vrill be extremely useful to the pubUc,
if ever the public deserves well enough of any person
to reprint the catalogue in question, whether I shall
take that pains is at present very doubtful, if I do, it
vrill not be for the sake of that public, but only to get
its money, to make a better use of it than it usually
makes of it itself.
I have employed myself since I came down in en
deavouring to supply the chasms in the sheets, where
the objectionable notes &c. occurred, and I purpose to
caU at York the latter end of this week in my way to
Scarborough, and shall leave the altered copy with Mr.
Bedingfield that my printer and he may settle the text ;
when this is done, I mean on my return hither to pro
ceed as speedily as I can to a conclusion, for I begin
now to be very desirous of having it finished.
I paid a visit the other day at Wentworth Castle,
where I found the noble owners very solitary, but to
all appearance perfectly happy. They had been that
morning at Wortley on a visit to Lady Bute, who is
now there settling accounts with her stewards from
moming to night. Lady Mary Coke is expected at
Wentworth Castle next week, and they wish much for
you per trastullarsi coll istesta Principessa, neither do

158 CORRESPONDENCE OF
they think the excuse you make of waiting at Straw
berry for a much less entertaining biennial companion,
a very good or even a rational one, I must own I have
the honour to think precisely as they do on this occasion,
and I heartily hope you vrill be disappointed of your
company even if you expect him or her, (for I know
not of which sex the creature is of,) ever so impatiently,
Lucian I know makes her female, and a goddess, but
Lucian was a heathen, and wrote heathen Greek. You
flatter me much by offering to open your Strawberry
press for me, but I have nothing by me that in any sort
merits such an honour. Scraps I have, and fragments
dramatic and lyric in plenty, but nothing in any sort
finished, or capable of being finished at present ; why
not return again to your MisceUaneous Antiquities ?
why should the neglect of the public prevent you from
proceeding? there may come a public hereafter who
vrill not neglect them, and if such a public never comes,
your private amusement is still secured. Try them if
you please with the more modern parts of Mr, Gray's
transcripts, my Lord Rochester's letters for instance ;
I'll lay my life they vrill devour them greedily. You
know that neither I nor my curate perfectly relished
Sir Thomas Wyat's eloquence, and yet my curate and
I are neither of us the dupes of fashion, but speak what
we think in all simplicity; treat us, therefore, with
something more to our goiit, and the world, even the
great world will not disdain to follow our plain York
shire taste,
I believe Mr, Palgrave and I shaU stay about a fort-

WALPOLE AND MASON, 159
night or three weeks at Scarbro, in the meanwhUe a
letter directed to me here near Rotherham (I write it in
capitals to impress it on your memory) wUl be for
warded to me. Mr Palgrave begs his best compliments,
as to myself I need not say how truly and sincerely I
am yours W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
Strawberry Hill, Sept, 16, 1774.
What is the commonest thing in the world ? — Lord !
how can you be so dull as not to guess ? why to be
sure, to hunt for a thing forty times, and give it over,
and then find it when you did not look for it, exactly
where you had hunted forty times. This happened to
me this very moming, and overjoyed I am ; I suppose
you don't guess what I have found ; really Mr, Mason
you great poets are so absent, and so unlike the rest of
the world ! Why what should I have found, but the
thing in the world that was most worth finding ? a
hidden treasure — a hidden fig — no. Sir, nor the cer
tificate of the Dss. of Kingston's first marriage, nor the
lost books of Livy, nor the longitude, nor the philoso
pher's stone, nor aU Charles Fox has lost. I tell you
it is, what I have searched for a thousand times,
and had rather have found than the longitude, if it was
a thousand times longer — oh ! you do guess, do you !
I thought I never lost any thing in my life ; I was sure

160 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I had them, and so I had, and now am I not a good
soul, to sit down and send you a copy incontinently ?
Don't be too much obliged to me neither. I am in a
panic till there are more copies than mine, and as the
post does not go till to-morrow, I am in terror lest the
house should be burnt to night. I have a mind to go
and bury a transcript in the field — but then if I should
be burnt too ! nobody would know where to look for
it ; well here it is ! I think your decorum vriU not hold it
proper to be printed in the life, nor would I have it.
We will preserve copies, and the devil is in it, if some
time or other it don't find its way to the press. My
copy is in his own handwriting, but who could doubt
it ; I know but one man upon earth who could have
written it but Gray.*

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
I have not imitated your silence from irony, but con
venience, — not from want of forgiveness, but of matter.
In a time of general elections I have no more ideas
than in Newmarket season, when everybody is talking
of matches and bets. I do not know who has been
distanced, or thrown or won a cup. I have only ob
served in the papers, that Lord John has been hard
run, though he has got the plate ; and as the race was
* Note. — Here follow the lines on Jemmy Twitcher (Lord
Sandwich) printed under the title of the Candidate or the Cambridge
Courtship. See Gray's Poems, Ed. Aid. p. 163.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 161
at York, I suppose you was on the course. The new
senate, they teU me, will be a curious assemblage of
patricians and plebeians and knights — of the post.
An old cloaths man, who, George Selwyn says, cer
tainly stood for Monmouth, was a candidate, but un
successful. Bob, formerly a waiter at White's, was
set up by my nephew for two boroughs and actually
is returned for Castle Rising with Mr. Wedderbume ;
Servus curru portatur eodem ;
which I suppose wiU offend the Scottish Consul, as
much as his countrymen resent an Irishman standing
for Westminster, which the former reckon a borough of
their own. For my part, waiter for waiter, I see little
difference ; they are all equally ready to cry, " coming,
coming. Sir."
I have heard nothing but what you tell me of John
son's detection, nor shall believe it till I see it ; I have
been likevrise told that Macpherson is to pubUsh the
papers of James II, and detect Sir John Dalrymple.
Credat Judceus ! Is that house so divided against itself ?
I should have as soon believe Lord Mansfield had been
to Paris for materials to prove the assassination plot.
Really, Mr. Mason, you people who live in the country
are strangely credulous ! We are ignorant enough at
Twickenham, mais pointjusqua ce point la.
Your Life may as well have patience a little longer stiU.
If it comes out in the midst of contested elections,
flatter yourself as much as you vrill, no soul wUl read it.
Alas, Sir ! the history of a dead poet wiU make no
VOL. I. M

162 CORRESPONDENCE OF
more impression now than the battle of Agincourt. If
you can tell us any news of the assembly of the Colo
nies, we shall listen to you with avidity. — If you have
any private intelligence that Boston is levelled to the
ground, and sown with salt, better and better ; but,
dear Sir, Mr. Gray never set his foot in the Massachu-
sets. He and Pindar might sing very pretty catches
for ought we know, but nobody cares about such things
now-a-days. You lose your time, indeed you do. The
Belles Lettres were in fashion once, and so were far-
dingales. But this is a grave nation, and soon grows
weary of trifies ; for one while we were mad about
commerce, but that bubble is over too ; we have at
last found out that fleets do more good by destroying
trade than by protecting it ; for if we have no trade,
we are not vulnerable by an enemy. Spain enjoys
Peru and Mexico by extirpating the inhabitants. She
found that her natives migrated thither. What did she
do ? Laid waste the New World ; and the Spaniards
staid at home — to be sure, and we are going to be as
wise. I wish you would turn your mind to these
things as I do. There is some good in fathoming the
arcana of government, but poetry and writing lives is
an occupation only fit for a school-boy, —
Non sic fortis Etruria crevit.
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma.
No, she conquered the world and plundered her pro
vinces, and then was blest vrith those demigods,
Caligula, Domitian and Heliogabalus, who were always
sent to heaven as soon as they were ripe for it.
Adieu !

WALPOLE AND MASON. 163

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, Oct. 2, 1774.
I may be ashained of myself, and in sober sadness am
horribly ashamed of myself, for having neglected to
answer your two last letters. But I know not how it
is, I grow as lazy, as lolloping as  a king, and
as little inclined to keep on good terms with my cor
respondents, as he with his subjects. After making a
simile so humUiating to myself, and feeling, as Mr.
Ansty has it, the conscious blush of self-condemning ~
not praise, but truth, I hope you vrill acquit me without
further apology.
A million of thanks to you for finding and sending
what you have found and sent. The couplet which
you vrish me to alter, is one of those that can only be
altered, not improved ; the utmost one can hope is a
passable alteration ; however, I think with you (and
always did) that the lines ought to be altered. I read
somewhat nearer his idea than yours

The rhymes here are not quite perfect, yet, in this
sort of verse, I believe they are permissible. I re
member when he repeated them to me (for I never
before saw them in writing) that the epithet in the
fourth line was awkward society, which I think better
than harmless. I have been occupied of late in filling

164 CORRESPONDENCE OF
up those chasms in the Memoirs which the cancelled
pages required. I hope I have made them more inno
cent, but you shall see the whole when it is printed, and
have as many more cancels as you please, whatever pains
it costs me ; for as to obstinacy and self-wUl, I fiatter
myself I am not similar to any great personage in the
universe : 'tis the passive, not the active vices of majesty
that I emulate. A relation of mine now abroad, has sent
me an Italian translation of Elfrida, lately published at
Florence by the Abb6 Pillori. I am not sufficiently
master of the language to know whether it be well or
ill done, but it flatters me much to find it dedicated to
Lord Mansfield's nephew, my Lord Stormont ; it seems
the Abbe is now about Caractacus ; I hope he vrill
dedicate it to Lord Mansfield himself. At last the fate
of Aston is decided and my Nabob cousin is in the
possession of the house, manor, &c., and last night the
boys of the village having dragged a cart of coals from
the pits, made a bonfire on the occasion. This goodly
estate, which came into the D'Arcy family by marriage
with a heiress of the Meltons, Temp. Prin. Eliz., now
goes from it, because a broken Scot's quarter-master
(Steward to the Duke of Leeds) would not suffer him
to redeem it. Take physic Pomp ! As I see nothing
new in the book way for ages after publication, I beg
you will give me some account of Dr. Johnson's Tour
to Scotland, when it is published. You will perhaps
wonder at my curiosity, bnt I have heard he has gone
far in detecting Murphie's plagiaries with respect to
Ossian and 'tis on this account only that I want to be

WALPOLE AND MASON. 165
informed about it. Pray tell me how this horrid rainy
season agrees with you, and whether you do not repent
your not having gone into France with Lord Mansfield,
merely for better weather. Believe me to be, dear Sir,
both in rain and sunshine, most faithfully yours W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 1775.
Braganza was acted last night with prodigious suc
cess. The audience, the most impartial I ever saw,
sat mute for two acts, and seemed determined to judge
for themselves, and not be the dupes of the encomiums
that had been so lavishly trumpeted. At the third act,
they grew pleased, and interested : at the fourth they
were cooled and deadened by two unnecessary scenes,
but at the catastrophe in the fifth, they were trans
ported ; they clapped, shouted, huzzaed, cried bravo,
and thundered out applause both at the end, and when
given out again ; yet the action was not worthy of the
poet. Mrs. Yates shone in the dignified scenes, but
had not variety enough ; Smith, recalling Garrick in
Richard III play'd the Vice-Roy with great spirit ; but
Reddish was pitiful and whining in the Duke ; Aikin
ridiculous in the first old conspirator, and the Friar
totally insignificant, though engaged in the principal
scene in the play ^^•here indeed he has too little to say.

166 CORRESPONDENCE OF
The charming beauties of the poetry were not yet dis
covered, and the faults in the conduct may be easily
mended. In short, I trust if this tragedy does not
inspire better writers, tha,t it will at least preserve the
town from hearing with patience the stuff we have had
Joy these fifty years. There was an exceUent prologue
written by Murphy, for my poor epilogue, though weU
delivered by Mrs. Yates, it appeared to me the flattest
thing I ever heard, and the audience were very good in
not groaning at it. I wish it could be spoken no more.
The boxes are all taken for five and twenty nights,
which are more than it can be acted this season. I
went to the rehearsal with all the eagerness of eighteen,
and was delighted to feel myself so young again. The
actors diverted me with their dissatisfactions and com
plaints, and though I said all I could, committed some
of what they called proprieties, that were very improper,
as seating the duke and duchess on a high throne, in
the second act, which made the spectators conclude
that the revolution, as I knew they would, had hap
pened. The scenes and dresses were well imagined,
and the stage handsomely crowded. AU this was
wanted, for, from the defect in the subject, which calls
for but two acts, several scenes languished. A little
more knowledge of the stage in the author may
prevent this in his future plays ; for his poetry, it is
beautiful to the highest degree. He has another fault,
which is a want of quick dialogue ; there is scarce ever
a short speech, so that it will please more on reading,
than in representation. I will send it to you the
moment it is published.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 167
There is nothing else new, nor do I hear of any thing
coming. The war with America goes on briskly, that
is as far as voting goes. A great majority in both
houses is as brave as a mob ducking a pick-pocket.
They flatter themselves they shall terrify the Colonies
into submission in three months, and are amazed to hear
that there is no such probability. They might as well
have excommunicated them, and left it to the devil to
put the sentence in execution.
Good night, and write to me ; you are an idle
creature, and I am very jealous of your harpisco-violin
— it is your interleaved Linnaeus.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1775.
Thou recreant clerk — I do not mean for not replying
tb my last missive, but for changing thy mind, thou
unhallowed Relapse, which I did not know when I
wrote to thee last, or I would not have cockered thee up
with a promise of Braganza, yet to show thee that I
keep faith even with heretics, thou shalt have it when
thou sayest how it may be sent. Thy sin is too foul
to name, but thy conscience tells thee what I mean.
'Tis an Omission worse than any of the tribe of Com ;
and though posterity will be so selfish as to forgive it,
there is not a Christian in being that ever can — oh
yes, there are some that could, though I trust they
cannot. I suppose you will be glad to hear that I have

168 CORRESPONDENCE OF
got a codicU to my last gout. I had an inflammation in
my face, and yesterday was blooded for it. It sunk in
two hours, but baited and gave me a sore throat ; this
morning I waked lame, and cannot walk without a
stick ; so the whole is gouty, for that devil can act
any distemper, like a fine Lady. It has hindered my
going to Strawberry, whither the fine weather invited
me. I wish we ever had such in summer.
The gates of Janus's temple are open'd and shut
every other day ; the porter has a sad time of it, and
deserves a reversion for three lives We are sending
the Americans a sprig of olive, lapped up in an Act for
a famine next year, for we are as merciful as we are
stout. However, as the two houses do not much
reckon upon bonfires to come ; each is treating itself
with one at present, and have ordered a weekly paper
and a pamphlet, each called the Crisis, to be burnt by
the common hangman ; and as contradictions now go
hand in hand, each party has its victim. I have seen
neither of the sacrifices, both they say are very stupid ;
the first is too free with his Majesty : the second com
pliments him with the sole right of Taxation ; methinks
all parliaments have a mortal aversion to the word
crisis. Since you left town, I have made another considerable
purchase, for which I have been long hagling, the rest
of the Digby miniatures. They had been divided into
two shares. There is one superb piece of Sir Kenelm,
his wife, and two sons, by Peter Oliver, after Vandyck,
in the highest preservation, and certainly the capital

WALPOLE AND MASON. 169
miniature of the world. I am not quite sure whether
you did not see them two years ago ; but why do I
tell you any thing ? you are tvriddling your instrument
of the composite order, and care no more than Orpheus
whether any body but beasts listens to you. You now
owe mc two letters, and paid I vrill be, or I am
Your most obedient
humble servant
H. w.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
York. March 3, 1775.
Thirty years ago when I was turned twenty, I used
to leave Cambridge for London whenever I had five
guineas to spare, on what they caUed a scheme. My
scheme was to dine every day at a chop-house behind
St. Clement's at two, in order to be in the middle of
the pit at four, there to remain with aU the impatience
of expectation till the curtain drew up ; and this I con
tinued to do daily while my money lasted, and vrith as
much regularity as I at present go morning and after
noon to see the ancient maiden gentlewomen and de
cayed tradesmen of this famous city of York mumble
their matins and their vespers. Now, Sir, if your for
mer letter had been written thirty years before its
present date, there is no question but I should have had
both talents and spirit to answer it. The reading it is
true put me, like Hezekiah's sundial, several degrees
backward, and I felt myself adolescent. But the effect

170 CORRESPONDENCE OF
was as I say, but momentary. The Minster beU
tinkled me to prayers, and the effect vanished. How
ever when you send me the tragedy itself, perhaps I
shall be able to fiU a page with closet criticism, for that
power has not quite left me, and I distinguish it from
theatrical criticism widely. Expect then to hear whether
your favourite poet has observed his unities so well as
a certain person who wrote the Mysterious Mother,
and despised himself for having observed them;
whether the Duchess of the one has as much of the
sibi constet as the Countess of the other, and (vhich
has the best hand at preserving the costume when he
delineates a friar. In the meantime I quit your former
letter like the first head of one of my sermons, and
proceed secondly to that which I received this morning.
It begins thou recreant clerk ! thou unhallowed re
lapse 1 thou heretic ; and it begins weU. I take away
every one of the titles to myself, and bow beneath the
scourge. There may come a time however, when I
may wash my Ethiopianism white, but that time I never
wish to live to see, because if I do, I must survive the
majority of my friends. In the meanwhUe here I sit,
with my pen in my hand muzzled like a mastiff, wishing
to bite, and yet unable even to bark. Convinced of
this melancholy truth that no situation however inde
pendent, no desires or ambition however moderated,
nay even (as I can truly say) annihUated, will authorize
a man in these days to do what he thinks right. Unless
he is as caUous as a prime minister, and as unfeeling as
his master. You, though you are the son of a prime

WALPOLE AND MASON, 171
minister have not this callousness about you, and
therefore from you I not only expect, but demand
forgiveness. As to the two Crisis's you mention I can only say I
envy their fate, to be burnt by the common hangman
is a thing devoutly to be wished. No fate except that
of the pUlory exceeds it. I would be content vrith even
an unpensioned piUory, and yet this, stern fate denies
me. However, that you may run no risk of either
from receiving this letter, I shall prudently put it under
a Secretary of State's cover.
I congratulate you on your new miniatures, though
I know one day they vrill become court property, and
dangle under the crimson-coloured shop glasses of our
gracious Queen Charlotte. I never saw the piece you
mentioned, though I burn to see it.
I condole with you on your gout, though I would
almost bear its pain for you, if I could also possess your
spirits. I hope it wiU be but a short fit, yet might not
a little care of cold afterwards — I say no more, for I
know it is in vain, and yet an under waistcoat — don't
throw my letter in the fire till it has told you how much
and how sincerely I am yours
W. MASON.
Pray don't ffirt at my musical instrument, it and fidget
are my only comforts at present. Tell Lord Nuneham
that I have finished the translation of Rousseau's Pig-
malion, which he set me about three years ago, purely to

172 correspond:ence of
keep myself innocently employed, and out of harm's
way. He shall have it for writing for ; you I know
will despise it. No matter, could an actor be found to
act it, (but for this the soul of Pritchard, the voice of
Mrs, Cibber, and the eye of Garrick must all unite in
the form of a male figure, as young and beautiful as
Mrs, Hartley) I say it would " pit, box and gallery "
with Braganza. TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. March 7, 1775,
If your contempt for your contemporaries extended
to total sUence, perhaps I should not disagree vrith you.
There is dignity in indignation that refuses wholesome
food to a stupid age, that is content with carrion. But
why then publish Gray's life ? Keep it back till you
like to publish it with the original notes. Leave the
Johnsons and Macphersons to worry one another for
the diversion of a rabble, that desires and deserves no
better sport.
Here is Braganza ; I do not say that either the sub
ject or conduct are interesting. The language is good,
the poetry charming. Read any tragedy written within
these thirty years, and then wonder that I was de
lighted to see even a cousin of Melpomene.
If you have translated Pygmalion, I shall be very
glad to see him too ; if you have only translated the
music, I shall not be much the wiser, yet do not think
my ignorance makes me supercilious. I admire all

WALPOLE AND MASON. 173
your talents, though not a judge of all. Your writings ;
— your composite instrument, your drawings are dear
to me according to my degrees of capacity ; and when
I seize every opportunity of drawing you into a corres
pondence, does not it say that I love your letters, and
do my utmost to cultivate your friendship ? Yes, I
do ; let all the prime ministers since my father, whom
you name, say as much if they can ! To my great
sorrow we live at a distance, and when I vrish to see
you most, I have seen you least ; yet Strawberry, where
you scarce ever was in summer, is pleasant then. If
you would at any time give me a week I should think
it no trouble to fetch you. Time grows precious to me,
and, therefore, I would employ it in the way most
agreeable to me. Don't think me importunate, but it
shaU not be my own fault, if I do not please myself.
Yours most sincerely
H, w.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, April 3, 1775.
Well! your book is walking the town in mid day.
How it is liked, I do not yet know. Were I to judge
from my own feelings, I should say there never was so
entertaining or interesting a work : that it is the most
perfect model of biography ; and must make Tacitus,
and Agricola too, detest you. But as the world and
simple I are not often of the same opinion, it vriU per
haps be thought very duU. If it is, all we can do, is to

174 correspondence of
appeal to that undutiful urchin, posterity, who com
monly treats the judgment of its parents vrith contempt,
though it has so profound a veneration for its most
distant ancestors. As you have neither imitated the
teeth-breaking diction of Johnson, nor coined slanders
against the most virtuous names in story, like modern
historians, you cannot expect to please the reigning
taste. Few persons have had time, from their politics,
diversions and gaming, to have read much of so large a
volume, which they will keep for the summer, when
they have full as much of nothing to do. Such as love
poetry, or think themselves poets, vrill have hurried to
the verses and been disappointed at not finding half a
dozen more Elegies in a Churchyard. A few fine
gentlemen will have read one or two of the shortest
letters, which not being exactly such as they write
themselves, they will dislike or copy next post ; they
who wish or intend to find fault with Gray, you, or even
me, have, to be sure, skimmed over the whole, except
the Latin for even spite, non est tanti — . The reviewers
no doubt are already writing against you ; not because
they have read the whole, but because one's own name
is always the first thing that strikes one in a book. The
Scotch will be more deliberate, but not less angry ; and
if not less angry, not more merciful. Every Hume,
however spelt, vrill I don't know what do ; I should
be sorry to be able to guess what. I have already been
asked, why I did not prevent publication of the cen
sure on David ? The truth is (as you know) I never
saw the whole together tUl now, and not that part ;

WALPOLE AND MASON. 175
and if I had, why ought I to have prevented it : Vol
taire will cast an imbelle javelin sine ictu at Gray, for
he loves to depreciate a dead great author, even when
uprovoked, — even when he has commended him alive,
or before he was so vain and so envious as he is now.
The Rousseaurians will imagine that I interpolated the
condemnation of his Eloise, In short, we shall have
many sins laid to our charge, of which we are innocent ;
but what can the malicious say against the innocent, but
what is not true ? I am here in brunt to the storm ;
you sit serenely aloof and smile at its sputtering. So
should I too, were I out of sight, but I hate to be stared
at, and the object of whispers before my face. The
Maccaronis wiU laugh out, for you say I am still in the
fashionable world, — What ! they will cry, as they read
while their hair is curling, — that old soul ; — for old
and old-fashioned are synonimous in the vocabulary of
mode, alas ! Nobody is so sorry as I to be in the world's
fashionable purlieus ; still, in truth, all this is a joke
and touches me little. I seem to myself a Stralbrug,
who have lived past my time, and see almost my owm
life written before my face while I am yet upon earth,
and as it were the only one of my contemporaries with
whom I began the world, WeU ; in a month's time
there wUl be little question of Gray, and less of me,
America and feathers and masquerades vriU drive us
into libraries, and there I am well content to Uve as an
humble companion to Gray and you ; and, thank my
stars, not on the same shelf with the Macphersons and
Dalrymples,

176 correspondence of
One omission I have found, at which I wonder;
you do not mention Gray's study of physic, of which
he had read much, and I doubt to his hurt. I had
not seen till now that delightful encomium on Cam
bridge, when empty of its inhabitants. It is as good
as anything in the book, and has that true humour,
which I think equal to any of his excellencies. So has
the apostrophe to Nicols " why, you monster, I shall
never be dirty and amused as long as I live," but I
will not quote any more, though I shall be reading it
and reading it for the rest of my life.
But come, here is a task you must perform, and
forthwith, and if you will not write to me, you shaU
transcribble to me, or I will combustle you. Send me
incontinently all the proper names that are omitted.
You know how I love v\Titing marginal notes in my
books, and there is not a word in or out of the book of
which I will be ignorant. To save you trouble, here
is a list of who is's. Page 152, fill up the asterisks;
do. p, 174, do. 206, do, 232, 249, Peer who is it,
250, do.; the Lady of Quality? 251; the leader,
275 ; who the asterisk, 282 ; the Dr, who, 283 ; do.
284 ; the B's and E's, 288, where, whose is Stratton ?
290 Lord ?
You see my queries are not very numerous. If you do
not answer them I will not teU you a syllable of what
the fashionable say of your book, and I do not believe
you have another correspondent amongst them. At
present they are labouring through a very short work,
more peculiarly addressed to them, at least to a res-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 177
spectable part of them, the Jockey-Club, who to
the latter's extreme surprise have been consulted on
a point of honour by Mr. Fitzgerald, which however
he has already decided himself with as little conscience
as they could do in their most punctilious moments.
If you satisfy me, I will tell you the following bon
mot of Foote, but be sure you don't read what follows
till you have obeyed my commands, Foote was at
Paris in October, when Dr. Murray was, who admiring or
dreading his wit (for commentators dispute on the true
reading) often invited him to dinner with his nephew.
The embassador produced a very small bottle of Tokay,
and dispensed it in very small glasses. The uncle to
prove how precious every drop, said it was of the most
exquisite growth, and very old, Foote taking up the
diminutive glass, and examining it, replied, " it is very
little of its age," Return me my story if you don't
perform the conditions, I wish I could send you any
body's else life to write !

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON,
Arlington Street, April 14, 1775.
What is the perfection of ingratitude ? silence, what
is the perfection of gratitude ? silence. Obedience is
better than sacrifice but obedience may be sacrifice
too : judge.
We are both a little disappointed, are not we ? how
could we imagine that a quarto, that contained no
thing but wit, humour, sentiment, truth, moraUty, re-
VOL. I. N

178 CORRESPONDENCE OF
flection, genuine and original poetry, and the memoirs
of two poets, bf which one was a youth without guUe
or gall, and the other a good man through life,
should interest the present age ? especially when such
ingredients were arranged with exquisite taste and
judgment, and compose the most pleasing work, the
standard of biography ? no, my good friend, unless
folks spare their praises because it would charm me to
hear them, I have been forced to ask what is thought
of Gray's Ufe. Indeed nobody, without my avidity,
could read it at once, and as it has been published a
fortnight, it was impossible it could keep its station
amidst the torrent of unlively follies that overflow each
day. Well the best books were certainly never calcu
lated for the plurality of readers ; or, which is won
drous rare, some very good judge must be the dictator
of the age. StUl it is a comfort that works of genius
are indestructible. They can neither be overlaid by the
dullness of cotemporaries, nor escape the penetration
of subsequent taste in all centuries, who, like the
adepts in chymistry, transmit the secret to the brother
hood, and preserve the nostrum of the elixir for those
who are worthy of it.
For me, though I recur once or twice a day to
the volume, I have had time to read other things too, as
a journey to Spain and Portugal, by a Mr. Twiss, who
tells one nothing in vulgar aims at wit, but what Baretti
and others have told, that those kingdoms contain
nothing but muleteers and bad inns, and are as dull
and depopulated as countries must be, where the inqui-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 179
sition has reigned so long, and despotism reigns still.
I have waded through Mr. Tyrrwhit's most tedious
notes to the Canterbury Tales, for a true antiquary can
stUl be zealous to settle the genuine shape of a lump of
mineral from which Dryden extracted all the gold, and
converted into beautiful medals. I was paid for my
trouble by Ughting on this couplet so applicable to her
grace of Kingston, —
I graunt it well. I have of non envie.
Who maidenhed preferre to bigamie.
I have dipped into the second volume of Nugse Antiquae,
and was lucky there too, finding a madrigal, not at all
despicable, by the Viscount Rochford, Anne Boleyn's
brother, of whom I had never been able to discover a
single distich. For Macpherson, I stopped dead short
in the first volume ; never was such a heap of insignifi
cant trash and Ues — one instance shall suffice; in a
letter from a spy to James II there is a blank for a
name : a note without the smallest ground to build
the conjecture on, says " probably the Earl of Devon
shire," pretty well ! yet not content, the honest gentle
man says in the index, "The Earl of Devonshire is
suspected of favouring the excluded family," can you
suspect such a worthy person of forgeiy ? could he
forge Ossian ? — I forgot in excuse for the town, to
tell you that it is very busy about a history of two
Perriau's and a Mrs. Rudd, who are likely to be hanged
for misapplying their ingenuity. They drew bills,
instead of rising from the pUlory to pensions, by coining
anecdotes against the author and friends of the revolu-

180 CORRESPONDENCE OF
tion. As Mrs. Rudd has turned evidence ; I suppose
as soon as her husband is executed, she will have eight
hundred a year to educate her children.
To return to Ossian ; is not it evident that the Scots
are of Irish parentage ; hurt at the charge of having
never produced a poet, they forge an Epic in prose.
Thank you for answering my queries, I have one
more ; who was the person Gray suspected of writing
Colman's and Loyd's satire ? I imagine the person men
tioned in the next page, Mr, Chute says, posterity
will not believe that such a book as yours could be
written in this age, which has so totally lost sight of
taste and common sense ; pray, did you write it now,
or when some how or other (as woman and the French
say) you lived in the Augustan age.
Since I wrote this, I have gone farther into the
Nugae Antiquae, and have found three invaluable letters
with admirable pictures of the courts of that time.
They show clearly what a sad dog Queen Bess was,
and K, James what a silly bitch. There is a bon mot
to the latter of Sir John Harringtons, translator of
Ariosto, who had a great deal of wit. The son of
David did much presse for my opinion touchinge the power
Satane in matter of witchcraft, and askede me with much
gravitie if I did truelie understande why the devil did
worke more with ancient e women than others. I did not
refraine from a scurvey jeste and even saide fnotwith-
standinge to whom it was saidej that we luere taughte
hereof in scripture, where it is tolde that the devil
walketh in dry places. Was it possible to make a better

WALPOLE AND MASON. 181
answer to such a foolish question ? Is not this worthy
of being hung up as a companion to Foote's ? bad as
the ages we wot of, they furnish bon-mots at least.
Lord Nuneham has just been here, and says every
body he has heard speak of it likes your book ; that
does not content me ; they must say as Mr. Chute and
I do, that we wiU read it for the rest of our lives.
Adieu. — your constant reader H. w.
P. S. I forgot to put my letter into the post on
Saturday. TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, May 7. 1775.
Of all the birds in the air, I like a Freemason best,
and next a Physician that gives one pills to purge
melancholy. I am content to be sick, when my me
dicines are palatable. I remember the first words of
a letter I wrote to you into Suffolk, and if you do too
repeat them if possible with exaggeration.
You are the idlest of beings, and never set pen to
paper, or I am an indefatigable correspondent, and
plague you with my letters. I cannot help it. Not
that I have any thing to say, or any reason for not
waiting to hear from you. The reviews do not know
yet what to say to your book, and so have not men
tioned it ; probably they are afraid of stumbUng over

182 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the CEolian harp again, and are weighing every word
they write in a pair of Lexicon-scales. Lord Nuneham,
who maintained to me at first that every body was
charmed with your work, does own now that some
folks begin to carp at it, had cause to disUke it, have
had time to whisper their prejudices, no matter. Its
merit does not depend on the competence of the pre
sent Age, you have fixed the method of biography,
and whoever will write a life well must imitate you.
You have done another service that you are not
aware of, I, who simpleton as I was, loved to be an
Author, am so ashamed of my own stuff, and so con
vinced that nobody but you and Gray could write, have
taken shame to myself, and forsworn the press ; yet as
as I cannot be idle, it is impossible, I have invented a
new and very harmless way of making books, which
diverts me as well, and brings me to no disgrace. I
have just made a new book, which costs me only money,
which I dont value, and time which I love to employ.
It is a volume of etchings by noble authors. They are
bound in robes of crimson and gold ; the titles are
printed at my ovrai press, and the pasting is by my own
hand. What I shall compose next I do not know. As
you too seem to have given over writing, I wish you
would draw for me, or etch, but with your variety of
talents, perhaps you are making another match between
two musical instruments. Is Mjmheer Drum contracted
with Signora Flageolet ? or are you contriving how to
make one mouth blow a trumpet, and sing at the same
time ? Mr. Bentley was always inventing new dishes by

WALPOLE AND MASON.

183

compounding heterogeneous ingredients and called it
cultivating the materia Edica, for you genius's hate the
beaten road. He never would draw with common
colours, or Indian ink, but being purely indolent too,
always dipped his brush in the first thing he met, no
matter whether the ashes, or the oU and vinegar, or all
together, and ten to one but he tasted too, whether they
would not make a good sauce, for cleanliness was not
one of his delicacies.
I have been at all the exhibitions, and do not find
that we are got an inch nearer Raphael than we were.
Sir Joshua has indeed produced the best portrait he
ever painted, that of the primate of Ireland, whom age
has softened into a beauty : all the painters are begging
to draw him, as they did from Reynolds's beggar-man.
My brother has given me the view of Gray's tomb and
churchyard, very prettily done, and inspired by Gray's
own melancholy. I have hung it here in my favourite
blue room, as a companion to Madame de Sevigny's
hotel de Carnavalet, and call them my Penseroso and
Allegro, Sir Edward was disappointed at your not
revisiting his pentachord, for you inventors are jealous
gods ; but I assured him you had left town in a very
few days after you were vrith him,
I am to dine on Monday at the hotel d' Harcourt.
The town says the father's kingdom is soon to be invaded
by the Spaniards; but the ministers, who certainly
ought to know best, swear it is not true, so to be sure
it is not.
I forgot to tell you that our friend Mrs, D, is one of

184 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the warmest admirers of Gray's life ; but then she is
equally charmed with Mrs, Chapone's writings, and
thinks they will go a great way towards making the
Bible fashionable. She lent them to me, but alas ! they
could not have so much effect on me, had I wanted it,
for I could not read the Madam's works themselves.
Have you had your summer, as w^e have ? the fine
ladies did not dare to ride on the causeway from Wed
nesday was sen'night till last Friday, for fear of being
tanned. We are now relapsed to fires. Adieu,
yours most devotedly H, w,
P, S. I Uke the hotel d'Harcourt it has grand air
and a kind of Louis XIV old fashionhood that pleases me.
There is a large garden and new parterre, and we want
some treillage if the Irish Exchequer would afford it.
Lord N. says, Oxford pouts at you as well as Cambridge.
Lord Lyttelton does not admire. Mr. Palgrave, who
was here this morning, says all the world admires,
which is more than I demand. Pray, because you
have written the book, do you never design to write any
thing else ? Is the English garden to be a fragment,
and do you expect that any body should finish it and
write your life, as well as you have done both for Gray ?
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, -A^ston, May 18, 1775.
I am at last released from my York residence and

WALPOLE AND MASON, 185
am returned from a disagreeable journey to Hull, on
landed business of which I made nothing, I sit down
quietly now for the first moment at Aston near Rother
ham (pray remember that) and apply myself to the
answering two of your letters, which before I could
not possibly do, so pray forgive me, for I assure you I
have behav'd worse to the delegates of the press of the
University of Oxford, and a Mr, Falconer, (the, is to
be, editor of Strabo) who want me to transcribe all Mr.
Gray's Geographical Lucubrations, which as near as I
can compute would make a book half as large as the
Memoirs. The person you inquire after as the person Gray
suspected of vmting Coleman's satire, is neither more
nor less than the lively and spirituel Mr, Potenger,
and as such pray book him.
What you say about my Memoirs does not flatter me
half so much as what you say about my pills, I think
in time I shall rival Dr, Hill with his tincture of Splen-
wort, 'tis pity however that my medicine is not vendi
ble, do you think his Majesty would grant me a patent
for it ?
You say the University of Oxford pouts at me, I
know not for why, but in revenge I'll tell you a story
about them, which I think you cannot have heard. Last
year a young Irish gentleman, Mr, Burgh, who has for
some time Uved at York, writ a book, called a scrip
tural confutation of Mr, Lindsey's apology, defending the
doctrine of the Trinity in a new and (as we orthodox
divines say) masterly manner. To the second edition

186 CORRESPONDENCE OF
he set his name, and the University of Oxford met to
consider of the propriety of giving him an honorary
degree of Master of Arts ; after much debate the in
tention was put off, sine die, at the very meeting when
they gave Dr, Johnson a degree of Doctor of Laws.
They said he had not laid sufficient stress on natural
religion, but the true reason was that he had in a note
abused David Hume, and in a dedication to Edmund
Burke, doubted a little whether the royal fountain of
honor was much purer than ditch-water. I wish you
would look into this dedication, and also page 197 of his
second edition, I think you would be pleased — au reste
— I can only say that had he writ on any other sub
ject, you would also have been more pleased ; for he is
a young man of the quickest parts and most general
knowledge I ever met with. He is of the Irish house
of Commons, brother-in-law to Mr, Hussey, and one of
us au merveil. But is it not curious that, on a doc
trinal point in which the Oxonians in particular so much
interest themselves, they vrill not suffer a man to defend
their cause, who has the misfortune to be a Whig,
I take shame to myself for not having waited on Sir
Edward Walpole before I left town, and am much
obliged to you for having told a civil lye upon the
occasion. But don't go to flirt at our Pentachords
and our Ccelestinettes, mind your noble etchings and
your print shearings, and suffer us as well as yourself
to ride our own hobby horses quietly and discreetly,
I am now in the very act of making an electrical ma
chine by the help of our village wheelwright. Go to !

WALPOLE AND MASON, 187
If I chuse to amuse myself with electrifying mice,
instead of writing second books of English gardens,
who shall control me ? I mean to write to Lord Nune
ham soon to get me from France, Watelet's Essay on
gardening, and M. Chabanon sur la manie des jardins
Anglois. Perhaps you vrill deign to assist me in pro
curing me these two brochures, the sillier they are I
shall like them the better. Believe me, dear Sir,
most sincerely yours
W, MASON,
TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON.
May 27, 1775.
To Mrs. Crewe,
By the Honble. Charles Fox.
Where the loveliest expression to feature is join'd.
By Nature's most deUcate pencU design'd.
Where blushes unbidden and smiles vnthout art.
Speak the sweetness and feeling that dweU in the heart ;
Where in manners enchanting no blemish we trace.
But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face.
Sure phUosophy, reason and coldness must prove
Defences unequal to shield us from love.
Then tell me, mysterious enchanter, O tell
By what wonderful art or by what magic speU,
My heart is so fenced, that for once I am wise
And gaze without madness on Amoret's eyes :
That my wishes which never were bounded before.
Are here bounded by friendship and ask for no more.
Is it reason } No, that my whole life wiU belye.
For who so at vEiriance as reason and I,
Is't ambition that fills up each chink of my heart.
Nor aUows to one softer sensation a part .'

188 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Ah ! no, for in this all the world must agree
That one folly was never sufficient for me.
Is my mind on distress so intensely employed ?
Or by pleasure relaxed or variety cloy'd ?
For alike in this only enjoyment and pain
Both slacken the springs of the nerves which they strain.
That I've felt each reverse that from fortune can flow.
That I've tasted each bliss which the happiest know.
Has still been the whimsical fate of my life.
Where anguish and joy have been ever at strife.
But tho' versed in th' extremes both of pleasure and pain
I am still but too ready to feel them again.
If then for this once in my life I am free.
And escape from a snare might catch wiser than me ;
'Tis that beauty alone but imperfectly charms.
For tho' brightness may dazzle, 'tis kindness that warms.
As on suns in the winter with pleasure we gaze.
But feel not their force, tho' their splendour we praise ;
So beauty our just admiration may claim.
But love and love only our hearts can enflame.
As I design to be very temperate in wTiting to you,
you would not receive so sudden a return to yours,
were it not to send you the foregoing verses, which
though current, are not yet got into the papers or
magazines, I think you vrill like the ease and frankness
of the lines, though they are not poetic ; in that light
and as characteristic, they are pretty original, so they
are for being love-verses without love, the author's
reason for not having which, is the worst part, and if
poetry was peremptory logic, the inference would be that
you must be in love with a woman before you can
desire her : at least she must be in love with you, which
I take to be seldom the case.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 189
I am to have a longer copy of verses by Fitzpatrick,
which I expect to like much, since he writes as easily
as his friend, and is a more genuine poet. Lord Car
lisle has written some too, to his wife's sister. Lady
Louisa Leveson : I shall have them too, as a noble
author's — but I have seen them and they are not
worth sending ; no more than some by Lord Palmers-
ton, occasioned by others written some time ago by
the Duchess of Devonshire when a girl to her father.
These are a greater rarity, and I am laying out for
them. Thank my stars I have done both with author
ship and noble authors, for my Lord Lyttelton has
printed a speech, though I thought we should not have
had his till his execution. It is a poor affair, void of
argument and grossly abusive on Lord Camden, It
will be as difficult for the Court to uphold his oratory
as his character, if he has recourse to the press,
Burke has printed a second speech, which I prefer
much to his first. It is grave, solid, temperate and
chaster from exuberant imagination. If his fancy
breaks out, it does not soar above the third heaven and
come tumbling down flat. Apropos to authors, the
husband of Mrs, Montagu of Shakespeareshire is dead,
and has left her an estate of seven thousand pounds a
year in her own power. Will you come and be a can
didate for her hand ; I conclude it wUl be given to a
champion at some Olympic games, and were I she, I
would sooner marry you than Pindar,
The history of the Heroine Kingstone, as registered
in our daUy chronicles, is Uterally authentic, and so is

190 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the respect paid to her in the King's bench, though I
suppose, penned by herself.
For little Brimstones oft submit to fate
That great ones may enjoy the world in state.
The intrepidity of her countenance, while her indict
ment was reading, was worthy of Joan of Arc. I'm
persuaded she will avoid any further trial.
Thank you for your Oxonian anecdotes, but alas !
they may be paralleled all over the kingdom. In return
I wiU write next week to France for the two tracts you
wot of; you shall not be idle for want of any thing
I can pimp for,
I am happily embarked on two vast folios of the
History of Devonshire, which I prefer to every author
of the age but one. I have picked up some excellent
narratives of Mr, Bruce, but have not room for them ;
but here is what is better. He was asked before G.
Selwyn if the Abyssinians have any music ? he replied
they have one Lyre. Selwyn whispered his neighbour,
"They have one less since he left their country,"
Adieu ! I remove to Strawberry to-morrow. Yours ever
H. w.

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON,
Strawberry HUl, July 10, 1775,
I have been so constantly here and know so little,
that if I told you what I do know, it would be but a
transcript of the newspapers. The general opinion is

WALPOLE AND MASON. 191
that the war is to be pursued : and so far we and the
Americans agree that the news in the meadows (our
Mall) last night was, that the congress has taken the
same resolution, and as they have not quite so far to
send troops, wUl probably be a little more alert in
putting their resolutions in execution. The admiral, I
was told too thinks he shall be desired to convey the
garrison of Boston, not into the heart of the Colonies,
but home. I am amazed the parliament does not meet
and vote that this vrill be a breach of the Act of Navi
gation. The Colonies are really so cowardly, that they
go on like the old song, beating those who never beat
them in their lives, and have driven away all the cattle
from General Gage's Smithfield, and burnt a schooner
that he sent to defend them. As the stocks have
shown no sensibUity till now, I suppose some rich
butcher has sold out. This is all I can teU you of
politics. To your other question, I doubt, I doubt I shall not
see Yorkshire this summer. I am actually thinking of a
tour to Paris ; and if I do go, it vrill be before the end
of August. Shall I bring you a slice of their English
gardens ! or a whole one second-hand ; they may be
out of fashion by this time, and the moment any thing is,
they sell it.
Has a little book called the Correspondents strolled
so far north ? It is a singular publication, and an
abominable one ; at least I suspect the motive to be so,
they are letters between a late grave noble author and
his daughter-in-law, before she married his son, they

192 CORRESPONDENCE OP
are perfectly innocent, and very good and very wise —
but the spirit was not always entirely uppermost.
They seem to be genuine, but if they are, one must
guess and abhor the publisher.
Mrs. Wood publishes an Essay ; which her husband
showed me and I liked, on Homer's country. My late
brethren, the Antiquaries, have given a third volume,
with some pretty plates of horns, and some trifling
trinkets, dissertations on cockfighting and shoeing horses,
and half a volume on their print of the interview in the
Vale of Cloth of gold, and the room at Cowdry, in
which I am censured for liking it only as a curiosity and
not as a picture, though there is no more perspective
or drawing than in an Indian screen. To stamp my
doom, in the index is said, the Cowdry picture defended
against Mr. W. — see what it is to try to teach owls to
be singing birds ! I was the first soul that ever en
deavoured to introduce a little taste into English An
tiquities, and had persuaded the world not to laugh
at our Hearnes and HolUngsheds, and the graceless
loggerheads fiy in my face ! but I have left them to
themselves and could not have left them in worse
hands. This letter is only chaperon to a parcel that I must
beg you to convey to Peckitt at York, and which I
send open to save troubling you vrith the purport
(is not this an Iricism ? ) when you have read it or
not, as you please, you wUl be so good as to seal it.
July 12th. Since I began my letter two days ago, I
have taken my resolution ; and shall set out on the 14th

WALPOLE AND MASON. 193
of next month, to be back in the beginning of October,
by which time I suppose you wiU have frightened the
Americans out of their senses, or the Americans the
ministers into theirs.
I have not yet seen the reviews for this month ; those
of the last were exceedingly civil to you. One piece of
service you have rendered me. The proprietor of the
asterisk on Lord Clarendon's history has certainly re
connoitred himself, for he has not caUed on me since
the publication, though very civil when we meet, yet
never opening his mouth on that subject. I bear this
misfortune vrith great philosophy, as I always do every
thing I do not care about.
My Lord of Rochester has consulted me for an altar-
piece for the choir of Westminster. I have suggested
an octagon canopy of open arches, like Chichester
Cross, to be elevated on a fiight of steps, with the altar
in the middle, and semicircular arcades to join the
stalls, so that the Confessor's Chapel and tombs may be
seen through in perspective. His lordship, indeed,
wanted to remove that whole chapel, but his chapter
luckily opposed. Here is the ground plot of my idea ;
if you approve it you may draw the elevation as beauti
fuUy as you please.

•

• • • •
• • • •

VOL. I.

194 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, June 17, 1775.
You are goodness itself for sending me what you have
sent me ; I thank you for the French before I read it.
Let the books be as bad as you say, they may perhaps
lead one to think of something better ; if they don't
you know, there is no harm done. With respect to the
English, I think much the same about them as you do ;
the young cub's is certainly the best ; it has some
thing of character and originality about it. The
other is the most old-fashioned thing to be written
by a young man of fashion, that I ever read. He
might have writ it in a full-bottomed wig, a cravat and
roU-ups. And Sir Conyers Darcy, had he been alive,
might have admired it, and carried it to Lady Betty Ger
maine, as a jeu d'esprit of my Lord Landsdown's. If
my friend Mr. Kirgate had not dated it, I should have
thought it printed somewhere about the four last years
of Queen Anne. Explicit my criticism.
You are always telling me of your additional noble
authors, and do not mention one worth all the rest
of the bunch : — I mean my neighbour here. Lord
Effingham. Was there ever any thing, ancient or
modem, better, either in sentiment or language, than
his late speech ! I have one miserable defect in my
constitution, which is that I never could bear above
one pint of port at a sitting ; a bottle was always too
much for me, else I would incontinently introduce

WALPOLE AND MASON. 195
myself to his lordship by an ode, and he should be my
Pollio. I would hope to be one of his club at Boston
Castle,* and try to leap a five-barred gate vrith his lady.
Seriously though, is it not a pity that a man of such
integrity and ability should be what he is.
A man who styles himself PhUo Gray of Salisbury,
has twitted me in the newspaper for not publishing
a complete edition of Gray, because I have omitted the
stanzas on a Decayed Statesman ; you must take this
sin of mine upon your own back ; I suspect it is Al
mon, in order to sell his own Foundling Hospital of
Wit, where those verses are printed.
Mr. James BosweU, the friend of Paoli and Dr.
Johnson, has writ me a very Scotch letter about Gray's
character, to tell me it was written by a friend of his,
Mr. Temple, and that he put it into the London Maga
zine without his leave. I writ him a very plain English
answer, which I hope will quit me of this correspon
dent. My Oxonian correspondence about Strabo is
also at an end, which I rejoice at, for I have had so
many letters to answer, which these memoirs have
occasioned, that I have hardly had time to write to
those whom I love to write to.
Though I am a freemason, I am not a grand-master,
and therefore cannot myself call the lodge you vrish me
to call.
* A room which he buUt about two years ago on a fine brow of a
hill, between this place and Rotherham, which commands much the
best prospect in this county. He christened it Boston Castle, be
cause no tea was ever to be drank in it. The statute is religiously
observed.

196 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Pray send me all the news you can about America ;
I take for granted that by this time Gage must be on
shipboard. Is there no chance of your coming dovra
to Wentworth Castle this summer ? I hear Lord Straf
ford is now there. I hope the present warm weather
contents you, and that you begin to think our good
planet has not been pushed so far out of its former
orbit, as some philosophers have suspected. Every
thing here give us the prospect of plenty, and we are
not in the least burnt up. Believe me, dear Sir,
most truly yours W. MASON.
Is Lord Nuneham still in tovm ? I have not yet
written to him. Shame ! shame !

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, July 31, 1775.
I am glad that you are going to France ; not because
you are going to France, but because the intention
indicates that you are in good health and spirits, and
since you will not come into Yorkshire, you may as
well be in France as at Strawberry, as to my particular
interest in the matter. Besides I look upon myself as
having a kind of hereditary right in your correspon
dence while abroad, which may make amends for
certain excellent letters I returned you heretofore, and
which had I retained I should have read at least once

WALPOLE AND MASON. 197
a year vrith fresh delight, and not have envied people
who relish Madame Sevigne, who you know is beyond
my taste, to my shame be it spoken,
I have no commission to give you, except, peradven
ture, you could smuggle me over Monsieur Watelet's
twelve little boats that support his bridge, with aU the
caisses garnies de fleurs, and his treillages en lozange
peintes en blanc. I have lately dug a horsepond, to
which I think such a bridge would make a good ac
companiment. I wish you would go see his Laurentin,
and describe it to me in your English, for I do not well
comprehend his French. He says it is but une heure
de distance de la ville ; if by ville he means Paris as
we say town, surely you might easily take the expedi
tion. But before you go, I wish you would enquire
amongst my brethren of the church, whether the Arch
bishop of Canterbury has prepared a form of prayer
with thanksgiving for our late victory, I want to
know this that I may sit down and write my Fast
sermon, and be in readiness for that solemnity, I take
it for granted his Majesty will go to Paul's, and I
am sorry I resigned my chaplainship, else I might have
got my Lord Holdemesse's interest to preach before
him on the occasion. If the Bishops sit down in good
earnest to write a proper form, I think they should mix
thanksgiving and fasting together ; there would be
something new in the idea ; it would be like a supper
of hot and cold, which I believe the French cooks caU
an ambigu.
You did not see the London Review by Dr, Kenrick,

198 CORRESPONDENCE OF
else you would have been convinced what a very me
diocre poet Gray was, and what a bold panegyrist I am
to dare to commend his poetry. The world, I believe
are of the doctor's opinion, for the second edition is not
half sold : no matter, if they will but continue to buy
my Lord Chesterfield's Letters, Dodsley and I shall be
satisfied. I like your idea for the high altar of Westminster so
prodigiously that I am sure it will never be executed,
at least not in our day. When our popish sons of
Canada shall have helped us to conquer our puritan
sons of Boston, they will perhaps choose to conquer
their heretical mother of England, and then Chichester
cross will walk to Westminster Abbey. When I began
to write this sentence, I never thought it would con
clude so like a prophecy ; therefore I do beUeve it vriU
be a true prophecy, for it certainly flowed from an un
premeditated pen.
I will not wish you a good voyage, because I hope to
hear from you again before you embark. I mean to
visit my Lord Strafford to morrow, when I fancy we
shall be unfashionable enough to drink your health. I
forwarded your armorial parcel to Peckitt immediately,
and am, dear Sir, very sincerely yours
W. MASON.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 199

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 7, 1775.
Let me tell you you have no more taste than Dr,
Kenrick, if you do not like Madame de Sevigne's letters.
Read them again ; they are one of the very few books,
that like Gray's life, improve upon one every time
one reads them. You have stiU less taste if you like
my letters, which have nothing original, and if they
have any thing good, so much the worse, for it can
only be from having read her letters, and his. He
came perfect out of the egg-shell, and wrote as well at
eighteen as ever he did — nay, letters better, for his
natural humour was in its bloom, and not wrinkled by
low spirits, dissatisfaction, or the character he had
assumed, I do not care a straw whether Dr, Kenrick
and Scotland can persuade England, that he was no
poet. There is no common sense left in this country ;
With Arts and Sciences it has traveUed West,
The Americans wiU admire him and you, and they
are the only people by whom one would wish to
be admired. The world is divided into two nations,
men of sense that will he free, and fools that like to be
slaves. What a figure do two great empires make at
this moment! Spain, mistress of Peru and Mexico,
amazes Europe with an invincible armada; at last it
sails to Algiers, and disbarks its whole contents, even
to the provisions of the fleet. It is beaten shamefuUy,

200 CORRESPONDENCE OP
loses all its stores, and has scarce bread left to last tiU
it gets back into its own ports !
Mrs. Britannia orders her senate to proclaim America
a continent of cowards, and vote it should be starved
unless it will drink tea vrith her. She sends her only
army to be besieged in one of their towns, and half her
fleet to besiege the terra firma, but orders her army to
do nothing, in hopes that the American senate at
Philadelphia will be so frightened at the British army
being beseiged in Boston, that it will sue for peace.
At last she gives her army leave to sally out, but being
twice defeated, she determines to carry on the war so
vigourously till she has not a man left, that all England
will be satisfied with the total loss of America ; and if
every body is satisfied, who can be blamed ? Besides is
not our dignity maintained ? have not we carried our
majesty beyond all example ? when did you ever read be
fore of a besieged army threatening military execution on
the country of the besiegers ! car tel est notre plaisir !
but alack ! we are like the mock Doctor ; we have made
the heart and the liver change sides ; cela 4toit autre
fois ainsi, mais nous avons changi tout cela !
I will certainly visit Monsr, Watelet's garden that
he has curled and powdered a VAngloise. I shall like
to be amused with less serious follies than our own,
though I doubt I shall find they laugh a little more at
us than we can at them. WeU ! I will wrap myself up
in my Robinhood ! They cannot say the good old man
my father did it. Have you heard the history of
Foote and her Grace of Kingston ? She applied to the

WALPOLE AND MASON. 201
Lord Chamberlain, and prevented the piece being
Ucensed, though Foote had an audience, and vrith his
usual modesty assured her he had not had her grace
in view. The dame, as if he had been a member
of parliament, offered to buy him off, Aristophanes's
Grecian virtue was not to be corrupted ; but he offered
to read the piece, and blot out whatever passages she
would mark, that she thought applicable to her case.
She was too cunning to bite at this ; and they parted.
He swears he will not only print his comedy, but act
her in Lady Brumpton. He has already printed his
letter to Lord Hertford, and not content with that,
being asked why it was not licensed, replied, why my
Lord Hertford desired me to make his youngest son a
box-keeper, and because I would not, he stopp'd my
play. Upon my word, if the stage and the press are
not checked, we shall have the army, on its return
from Boston, besieged in the Haymarket itself : what
are we come to, if maids of honour cannot marry two
husbands in quiet ! Well General Gage is recalled, and
is to be hanged ; we had conquered America by this
time, they say, if he had not betrayed us, and desired
the provincials to block him up — so en attendant —
Hancock and Adams, and Putnam and Washington, you
may divert yourselves with executing your own General.
Voltaire wUl abuse you, as he did about poor Byng ;
but really a govemment must condemn somebody, or
the mob, — but I am going to Paris, and leave you to
your own devices. Don't finish your Essay on Garde
ning tUl I bring you the newest improvements from the

202 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Opera, where to be sure the Elysian fields vrill be laid
out naturally. If any thing strikes me particularly,
you shall hear from me, but as my stay wUl be short, I
don't promise, for I have been so often at Paris, that
my staring is extremely emoussd, and one must travel
to Abyssinia, to find any thing very new. Adieu.
Yours entirely
H. w.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Paris, Sept. 6, 1775.
I have made very little progress yet towards the
account I am to give you of the propagation of the
faith in this kingdom, but stay, this is a little too me-
taphoric ; and lest I should be taken for an ex-jesuit
or a spy, I declare, like the writer of an Opera, that I
neither believe in the gods of old Rome or new, ex
cepting Vertumnus, Flora and Pomona, and that I am
going to write to you my Provincial, on the conversion
of the French to English gardening. I have begun
my observation as methodically as if I was to draw up
an article for the Encyclopedia ; I have laid the axe to
the root of the tree, for I have begun by visiting
M. Watelet's Isle, called le Moulin Joli. If he has
laid the axe to the root and even to the branches, he
has used it no where else. Instead of finding as I ex
pected, a windmill made of ivory and inlaid with false
stones ; instead of Dryads and Hamadryads gathering

WALPOLE AND MASON. 203
acorns in baskets of gauze, M. Watelet has jumped back
into nature, when she was not above five hundred years
old — in one word his Island differs in nothing from
a French garden into which no mortal has set his foot
for the last century, it is an ate (I don't know whether
I speU well) joined to his terra firma, by two bridges,
one of which he caUs Dutch and the other Chinese, and
which are as unlike either as two peas, and which is
pierced and divided into strait narrow walks en berceau
and surrounded by a rude path quite round. To give
this dtoile an air champdtre, a plenary indulgence has
been granted to every nettle, thistle and bramble that
grew in the garden, and they seem good in his sight.
The receipt is as foUows, take an ate full of wiUows,
cram it full of small elms and poplar pines, strip them
into cradles, and cut them into paths, and leave all the
rest as rough as you found it, and you vrill have a
Moulin Joli. You must know this effort of genius is the
more provoking, as the situation is charming, besides
that the isle is in the middle of the Seine, every peep
hole (though so smaU that you seem to look through
the diminishing end of a spying glass) besides termi
nating on one real windmUl, is bounded by a chateau,
a clocher, a vUlage, a convent, a villa where Henrietta
Maria was educated, or hermitage to which Bossuet
retired, not to mortify himself but Fenelon. It is true,
you catch these points of view over wide fields of chalk,
which would produce frankincense as soon as grass,
and which if they had symptoms of verdure, were

204 CORRESPONDENCE OF
waving ranks of fennel, I always perceive here, when
I am out of Paris ; but I never can think myself in the
country, I shall next week see some more English
Essays. But they are imitating us in better things, their King
is of an excellent disposition, he has driven away the
Chancellor, the Due d'Anguillon, and those wretches
who had given perfection to despotism in the last reign.
Monsr. de Maurepas restored the old Parliament, and
Monsr. Turgot, the comptroller General, has destroyed
corvees, that most execrable oppression, and is every
day planning and attempting acts for public happiness.
The Eloges of the academy roll on maxims of virtue
and patriotism, and the king publickly applauds them,
you may judge whether they do not stare at all we are
doing ! they will not believe me when I tell them that
the American war is fashionable, for one is forced to
use that word to convey to them an idea of the ma
jority. A great lady asked me tother day, if I was not a
Bostonian ? and I have not met with a single French
man who does not express indignation or sneer con
tempt at all our late acts of parliament. Monsr. de
Castries being told that Lord North has the garter,
was surprised and said for what ? for having lost
America ! — Upon these subjects, as I have not a vast
deal to say on behalf of my dear country, I chuse to
shift the conversation to her Grace of Kingston, whose
history seems as strange to them as our politics. What
a chef-de-oeuvre is Foote's answer.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 205
Sept. 10, Chap. II.
On Anglo-Franco gardens,
which by the bye they call Anglo-Chinois gardens, as
they say, that by the help of Sir WUliam Chambers's
lunettes they have detected us for having stolen our
gardens from the Chinese. I shall tell them another
tale when I publish my last volume. Yesterday I went
to see the Countess de Bouffier's English garden at
AuteuU, and it is strictly English, and begotten by her
on an English gardener. There are fifty-two acres,
which ascend from the house up a hUl that is laid out in
fields with a sunk fence and loose trees and shrubs, and
has tolerable turf, except that it is coarse and of a
green seldom worn by a gentleman's garden in Eng
land. All along the summit reigns a noble terrass
surrounded by the Bois de Boulogne into which a
grUle opens upon a lofty avenue bounded by a sugar-
loaf hUl. The terrass looks over the lawn upon a
glorious prospect, which begins from the left with one
of the king's houses, is joined by a wood out of which
juts Passy, the Due de Penthi^vre's, that forms the
side-scene and flings a rich view of hiUs and towns to a
great distance. The middle of the landscape advances
again ; on the foreground are villages and villas, over
which is extended all Paris with the horizon broken
by the towers and domes of Notre Dame, St. Sulpice,
the Invalides, the Val de Grace, &c. ; the whole height
of the semicircle goes off in hiUs decked with viUages
and country houses that are closed by Meudon, and

206 CORRESPONDENCE OF
and forests on higher hills. In this sumptuous pros
pect nothing is wanting but verdure and water of which
you do not see a drop. In short, they can never have
as beautiful landscapes as ours, tiU they have as bad a
cUmate. I think I shall stay here a month longer. If you
send me a line, direct it to Arlington ; it wUl be con
veyed or kept for me, yours ever,
H. w.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE,
DEAR SIR, Aston, Oct. 22, 1775.
My newspaper has this day announced your arrival,
I will not therefore defer a moment to answer your
most agreeable letter from Paris, of the 6th of last
month, which I should have answered immediately
after I received it, had there been a chance of its
reaching you while in France, but I got it late, being
absent on a visit in Staffordshire ; all this however is
idle apology, let me hasten to enquire how you do after
your tour, and that before the meeting of parliament,
when nobody will be well, either those in parliament,
or out, (if I have the gift of prophecy) except perad
venture the new made lords, who will choose to be in
good spirits till the novelty of their nobiUty ceases.
But as for me, il faut cultiver mon jardin, and there
fore I'll only talk to you at present on the theme of

WALPOLE AND MASON. 207
your last letter, and tell you that I am as well acquainted
now withM. Watelet's moulinjoli, as if I had seen it with
my ovra e^es ; such are your descriptive powers, when
you please to make use of them : not that I vrish you
often to make use of them on such a subject, and yet to
describe bad taste well, requires as much the powers of
a master as to describe good, and the description is
perhaps full as useful, always more entertaining ; once
more, therefore, I thank you for the treat you have given
me. I have nothing to send you in return, except a
story which I picked up the other day from a country
squire, who had the honour to dine with her Grace of
Kingston, at Grantham, in her way from Thoresby to
town. She was attended by three elderly personages
dressed in black, one of which he found was her law
yer, the second her chaplain, and the third a German
physician, by name Dr, Falke, After dinner her grace
retired, and the lawyer began a very high encomium
on her understanding, of which he gave many speci
mens in his own way relative to her late manoeuvres in
the courts of law. The squire heard him with attention,
and when he had finished his panegyric reply'd very
bluntly, Mr. Lawyer, this may be all very true, I
believe the Dutchess is a very clever sort of a woman,
but by G — she never was so much out in her Ufe as
when she ventured to write a letter to Foote. The
lawyer owned she had better have let that alone, upon
which Dr. Falke got up, ran to the squire, and taking
him by the button, said in very broken English, " O
sire me give you letel piece of advice ; pray no mention

208 CORRESPONDENCE OF
such matter to her Grace, her Grace no bear to hear
of it."
This story I think carries its own marks of authen
ticity about it. I will not answer, for another he told,
which was, that when she was in deep mourning, she
eat black puddings, and drank black cherry brandy,
not being able to bear to eat or drink any thing of a
gayer colour. This latter I only give you as bentro-
vato. I agree with you in thinking Foote's answer
one of the very best things in the English language,
and prefer it in its kind ; Mr. Pope's letter to Lord
Hervey is nothing to it.
This letter being only to ask you how you do after
your voyage, and having nothing to say about myself
worth your hearing, ought to conclude soon, and per
haps the sooner the better ; it shall not however con
clude without expressing how very much, and how
sincerely I am, dear Sir, your faithful servant
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 25. 1775.
I am returned to my own Lares and Penates, — to
my dogs and cats ; and was not a little edified by my
journey, I saw a king who accords every thing that is
asked for the good of his people, and I saw two
ministers. Messieurs de Malherbes and Turgot, who do
not let their master's benevolent disposition rust. Thq

WALPOLE AND MASON. 209
latter is attempting to take off corvdes, that quintesse
of cruel and ostentatious despotism, but the country
gentlemen, that race of interested stupidity, will baffle
him. Monsieur de Malesherbes, in the most simple
and unaffected manner, gave me an account of his
visitation of the Bastile, whence he released the
prisoners, half of whom were mad with their misfor
tunes, and of many of whom he could not find even the
causes of their commitment. One man refused his
liberty ; he said he had been prisoner fifteen years, and
had nothing in the world left ; that the king lodged
and fed him, and he would not quit the Bastile unless
they would give him half his pension . M. de Males
herbes reported it to the king, who replied, c'est juste,
and the man has fifteen hundred livres a year and his
freedom. This excellent magistrate, who made my
tears run down my cheeks, added that what the
prisoners complained of most was the want of pen and
ink. He ordered it. The daemons remonstrated and
said the prisoners would only make use of the pen to
write memorials against the ministers ; he replied,
tant mieux. He is going to erect a court of six masters
of Request to examine the petitions of those who de
mand lettres de cachet for their relations. Under the
late Due de la Vrilliere, his mistress, Madame Sabatin,
had a bureau of printed lettres de cachet with blanks,
which she sold for twenty-five louis a piece. When a
great Scotch judge was last in France, at the restoration
of the old parliament, he said, " If the ministers mean
the good of the people, they are doing right, but if they
VOL. I. P

210 CORRESPONDENCE OF
regard the prerogative of the crown, very wrong ;" what
a diabolical But ! Do not imagine these ministers will
hold their places long ; they will soon be epigram-
matized out of them. The first event since my return,
after hearing of this gaol-delivery, is Mr. Sayer being
sent to the Bastile, but it is not the prisoners in this
country that are mad, but the ministers. They have
committed him for designing to steal the Tower and
the King, he and one more, and I suppose send them
to New York ; not to Halifax, for that is gone, and
Quebec too, and Boston by this time, so now we know
what we have to do ; only, retake all America, which
is very easy from three hundred thousand cowards.
26th, Arlington Street.
I had written thus far last night as you perceive, and
find your letter on my return, for which I would thank
you more if you did not say such fine things to me ;
pray never do any more, I have no talent, nor any
thing else but taste for those who have : and that
taste is almost a sinecure. If I had time I could
increase your Kingstoniana with still better stories, but
she is not worth one's while. I have but just a moment
to ask if there is any chance of seeing you this vrinter,
which would be a great comfort, and I am not young
enough to put off my pleasures. Adieu.
Pray did you pay Mr. Peckitt ; tell me that I may
pay you or him.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 211

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
Arlington Street, Oct. 27, 1775.
I was at Strawberry Hill when your letter arrived,
and could not thank you for it so early as I should have
done if I had received it sooner. If my description of
the Moulinjoli pleased you, it was from the circum
stances of the place, for I neither describe well nor re
count well, nor have any original talent, I pretend to
nothing, but taste for talents, and that taste is almost
a sinecure, I am returned because I wanted to be at
home J not that I was particularly charmed with France,
or impatient to be in England, but when one is old and
has no particular business anywhere, methinks one is
deplacd any where but chez soi. The Amor patrice
burns in me no fiercer than love for my wife would, if
I had one and she proved a shrew, I love the free
constitution of England more than the acres, and should
wish better to California if it had the better form of
government ; not but I can feel the pride of patriotism
when my country is worth being proud of; when it
sinks by its own folly, I content myself with my
citizenship of the world, and pray for that part that is
most reasonable,
I could improve your Kingstoniana if I had leisure ;
the subject in truth is little worth it, but as superlative
in its kind. My chief business vrith you is to know if
I am likely to see you this winter. My pleasures
grow dear to me because I have no long time to enjoy

212 CORRESPONDENCE OF
them, and cannot live on hopes. Though I stUl live
in the world, most of my hours are passed alone, because
they are not passed with the few I love, and aU the rest
are perfectly indifferent to me ; old people are thought
to have little affection, — how is that possible, for they
seem to like company to the last? I should as soon
think of taking leave of every body if I was dying.
Of my cotemporaries for whom I do not care. I have
seen or known enough, or too much, and to converse
vrith young people, is like asking for the beginning of a
story of which one is never to hear the end. With you
I can never pass time enough, and alas pass very little ;
you are not, ought not to be so indifferent to the world
as I am, and as you live more out it, why should not you
keep up a little acquaintance with it ? Your chief reason
against coming is worn out by length of time, and
other circumstances are such as to dispense vrith the
reiteration of the grievance. It would not be expected,
and probably not desired ; I dare to say the coolness is
sufficiently estabUshed.
As I am in town you may expect to talk of what you
will see so much in the newspapers, the commitment of
Mr. Sayer; but it appears to me so nonsensical a
business, that I charitably conclude the ministers have
some deeper scheme in view ; they can never have
sent a man to the Tower that they should have sent to
Bedlam, if they do not want a pretence for greater
strokes ; or chuse to be laughed at for this, rather
than have the people find fault with something else.
However they have brought themselves into such diffi-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 213
culties that I shall not wonder if they are puzzled
which to prefer, and as it certainly is not genius that
has led them into the scrape, it is not likely to help
them out.
Tell me what is more to my purpose, what you have
been doing, I am going to read Sterne's letters. From
Paris I have absolutely brought nothing at all : my
good friend, Europe is worn out, perhaps genius may
rekindle in America, but what is that to me. Adieu.
P. S. I have run through a volume of Sterne's
letters, and have read more unentertaining stuff. The
D. of Grafton, Lord Lyttelton and the Bp. of Peter
borough divided yesterday with the opposition. Don't
you think the ship is sinking ? come and see.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR Wentworth Castle, Nov. 20, 1775.
I have had your fashionable London influenza for
above a fortnight (fresh imported to Aston by Mr.
Verelst and kindly communicated to me in a post-
chaise). Upon my getting a little better I came hither
to pay my respects to Lord and Lady Strafford, to
whom I had long owed a visit, and who have long
been particularly civil to me, much of which civUity I
have always imputed to the partiality of your friendship
for me ; be this as it may, here I am, and much better
for my journey, and a long walk which I took yester-

214 CORRESPONDENCE OF
day in a clear frosty moming with his Lordship, aU
this if you can make an apology out of it, for I hardly
can, is meant for one to you for my silence ; certain it
is my cold and the having nothing to say, prevented
my writing at home ; and as I meditated then a visit
here, I thought I should perhaps find something more
to say from hence ; in this however I am mistaken, for
except condoling with you for that you have lately lost
£40. at loo, to Mrs. Howe, (which latter circumstance
only is our topic of condolence, for if you had flung it
into the Thames we should not have cared a whit
about the matter) I find little more to put into my
letter. One thing however may be necessary to hint
that you are not quite in the odour of sanctity here for
your long silence, but this I only gather from half
dropt expressions, and these always accompanied with
sentiments of great kindness, so that if you w^as to
write a line or two soon, and before you see them in
town I think it would be well taken. You are very
kind to me in your last by expressing so great a desire
of seeing me soon in town, and I feel, I assure you, as I
ought on the subject and wish as much to be vrith you
as you can wish it. But my reasons for staying in
Yorkshire at present are very urgent. The manner in
which Lord Holdernesse has disposed of his Aston
estate of which Mr. Verelst has bought only a fourth
part, and the rest sold in small parcels, wHl occasion
so much difficulty in regulating my tythes with the new
proprietors, that it is absolutely necessary I should be
on the spot till after New year's day, and then this

WALPOLE AND MASON. 215
matter wUl in fact be all settled, not by me, but my
curate, Mr. Alderson, whose judgement and honesty
I can fully depend upon, yet I must appear to do
it myself to prevent any odium that might fall upon
him from the parish, and indeed without my personal
assent to every new contract they would not be valid.
Early in February I must repair to my York residence,
therefore till the beginning of May, I cannot possibly
think of setting my face southward, but then I fully
intend it. The Hertford street reason against my coming
which you call, and which was once my chief reason,
is now none at all.
Political matters seem now to be in such a state as
to resemble the reign of chaos and old night, nay, to
be the identical thing, but as that state was not with
out its deity, therefore in order to keep myself out of
an uncomfortable atheistical way of thinking, I intend to
worship Old Night in the form of that brazen image,
commonly called the Dutchess of Bedford. I hope you
will join with me in my devotions.
You ask me what I am doing, I am very innocently
and very leisurely printing in the York press a few
copies of my English garden, ilfaut cultiver le jardin,
but this, God be thanked, I do not say in the spirit or
meaning of Voltaire. . In this way of printing I copy
my betters and have the thoughts of pubUshing as far
from me, as that very ingenious writer had who printed
five years ago a History of the same art. I question
whether either production wUl be publici juris tUl they
are reprinted at PhUadelphia with the imprimatur of

216 CORRESPONDENCE OF
John Handcock, America Septentrionalis, R. P. Protec
tor, and that I suppose can hardly happen this current
year. The Lord and Lady of this place send aU sorts
of good wishes to you, believe me to be, dear Sir,
with perfect sincerity yours W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. Nov. 27, 1775.
I thought it long since I heard from you ; it is plain
you did not forget me, for the first moment of an op
portunity to show me kindness, made you show it ;
fortunately I had written to Ld. Strafford the very day
you wrote to me, and our letters passed each other,
though without bowing. I think it stiU more fortunate
that I had not written sooner, because I like to be
obliged to you ; I had delayed because in truth I had
nothing to say but what I thought ; and w^hen my
friends and I do not think alike, I prefer silence to
contradiction or disputes, for I cannot say what I do
not think, especially to my friends ; to other people one
can talk a good deal of nonsense which serves instead
of thinking.Your delay of coming displeases me, because what I
wish, I wish for immediately ; when spring comes, I
shall be glad my joy was postponed, and I like better
to see you at Strawberry than in Town, especially when

WALPOLE AND MASON. 217
Strawberry is in its beauty : and as you and it are two
chiefs of the few pleasures I have left, or to come, I
am luxurious and love a compleat banquet.
What shall I say more ? talk politics ? no ; we think
too much alike. England was, Scotland is — indeed
• by the blunders the latter has made one sees its Irish
origin, — but I had rather talk of any thing else. I see
nothing but ruin whatever shall happen, and what idle
solUcitude is that of childless old people, who are
anxious about the first fifty years after their death,
and do not reflect that in the eternity to follow, fifty or
five hundred years are a moment, and that all countries
fall sooner or later.
Naturally I fly to books, there is a finis too, for I
cannot read Dean Tucker, nor newspapers. We have
had nothing at all this winter but Steme's letters, and
what are almost as nothingly, — Lady Luxborough's.
She does not write ill, or, as I expected affectedly,
like a woman, but talks of scrawls, and of her let
ters being stupid. She had no spirit, no vrit, knew
no events ; she idolizes poor Shenstone, who was scarce
above her, and flatters him, to be flattered. A stronger
proof of her having no taste is, that she says coldly,
she likes Gray's Churchyard well ; in good truth the
productions of this country and age are suited to its
natives. Mr. Cumberland, the maker of plays, told me
lately, it was pity Gray's letters were printed ; they
had disappointed him much ; no doubt he Ukes Steme's,
and SUenstone's, and Lady Luxborough's. Oh !
Dodsley, print away : you wiU never want authors or

218 CORRESPONDENCE OF
readers, unless a classic work like Gray's life should, as
Richardson said of MUton, be born two thousand
years after its time !
I approve your printing in manuscript, that is, not
for the pubUc, for who knows how long the public will
be able, or be permitted to read ? Bury a few copies
against this Island is rediscovered, some American
versed in the old English language will translate it, and
revive the true taste in gardening ; though he wiU smUe
at the diminutive scenes on the little Thames when he is
planting a forest on the banks of the Oroonoko. I love
to skip into futurity and imagine what wUl be done
on the giant scale of a new hemisphere ; but I am in
Uttle London, and must go and dress for a dinner vrith
some of the inhabitants of that ancient metropolis, now
in ruins, which was really for a moment the capital of
a large empire, but the poor man who made it so, out
lived himself and the duration of the empire.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. Aston, Dec. 16, 1775.
I am much entertained with the newspaper account
of the evidence of the three physicians before the
House of Lords, I want to know whether it strack you
in the same way. One talks of her grace being in a
kind of stupor, and at intervals much affected in her un
derstanding, a second of her being seemingly deprived
of her recollection, and a third (her body physician),

WALPOLE AND MASON. 219
says that if she continue to mend as she had done the
last twenty-four hours, she would soon be well enough,
&c. Now this seems to me to be a description of a
person in her cups, rather than in the palsy. If I am
uncharitable in my censure pray check me, although
the subject be the person who caUs herself Dutchess
of Kingston, for even in this case I will kiss the rod.
I admire Mr. Cumberland's rudeness to you exceed
ingly, for to condemn Gray's letters to you who had
contributed so much to the collection was worse than
if he had condemned them to the editor. The editor
might be excused in printing bad letters out of defer
ence and respect to those who furnished him with
them. The contributors to such a collection could
have no such plea, but more than enough of this poor
man, let him go on with his sentimental comedies, this
anecdote shews he is qualified for the task, because it
shews he can have no feeling. Taste in all cases is out
of the question.
Pray is it certain that a great personage in his treaty
for foreign troops styled himself Sovereign of the grand
American empire ? if it be, what an exceUent moment
he took for assuming such a title.
I have lately learned a very different doctrine about
personal identity than Mr. Locke taught me at the
university. He said I think that it consisted in con
sciousness of a man's knowing himself to be the same
man to day that he was yesterday, &c. Now I say it
depends merely upon the alphabet, every man has from
his father and his godfather a certain quota of letters

220 CORRESPONDENCE OF
given him at his birth and his baptism, by which he
is, what he is, let him but contrive to change these
and the coward of Minden becomes the secretary mili
tant against America, and everybody instantly loses
their recollection about him, as if they were in the same
deplorable way with her grace of Kingston, nay, I
would wager that his own recollection is lost too. If
this be not a complete change of identity I know not
what is ; and yet it is all done by the power of the
alphabet. Q. E. D.
I wish in your next favour which I hope to have
soon, you would be pleased to seal with a very clear
impression of your antique sacrifice, for I have been
painting from a very bad one a figure in chiaro oscuro
for one of my book presses, and I have succeeded so
tolerably that I think it will do when finished from a
better original.
Lord Strafford left Yorkshire I believe yesterday,
but I have heard that he had received, and was much
pleased with your remembrance of him. We talked
little about politics when I was with him, yet what I
said of that sort (which was by no means of the neu
tral kind) did not seem to displease him. Believe me,
dear Sir, most truly yours
W. MASON.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 221

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Dec. 21, 1775.
I shall make the impression of the seal to this letter
as perfect as I can ; yet probably it will ill answer
your purpose for it is only one of Wedgwood's an
tiques, and they are not very sharp ; you exercise I find,
all your various talents, but the one I love the best in
you. I should not say so much to every body : a
thousand pictures give me pleasure for one poem.
Foote and you agree in convicting the Dutchess
of ebriety, and you both prove it equally well in dif
ferent ways. Nay, she seems to allow it herself, for
she abandons insanity ; intends, I hear, to rest her
safety on pleading guilty, lest standing on her spotless
innocence should drag to light too many crimes. Lord
Mansfield has added one more to his own list ; his
shameless protection of her.
I never heard of the imperial title you mention, nor
believe it, indeed I know of no treaty. That foreign
troops have been treated for, is certain, if any are ob
tained, I am not in the secret. In the meantime, the
empire is shrunk to as narrow limits as that of the
Holy Roman empire ; which when it had nothing left
but one eagle made it into two, by splitting it, as cooks
serve a pidgeon. By this time Canada probably is no
part of the imperial dominions unless Lord Dunmore
has transported it on board his own government and
ship, where he pretends to have imprisoned one of the

222 CORRESPONDENCE OF
provincial deputies, who to-day's papers say never ex
isted — unless by your hypothesis of alphabetic iden
tity, one man may become another. That many men do
become other men, I see every day, and so entirely
other men, that they retain none of the blushing shame
of their original nymphood, when they become butter
flies. I felt Mr. Cumberland's folly so much, that his im
pertinence was lost on me. He has written an ode,
as he modestly calls it in praise of Gray's odes — cha
ritably no doubt to make the latter taken notice of.
Garrick read it tother night at Mr. Beauclerc's, who
comprehended so little what it was about, that he
desired Garrick to read it backwards, and try if it
would not be equally good ; he did and it was. I came
in just afterwards ; and the conversation continuing,
Garrick said, with all the candour he could affect, " I
wonder at it, but people cry down Mr. Mason's life of
Gray extremely ; I really think it very ingenious," I
made him no more answer than he deserved, I broke
through this rule two days ago on a new impertinence
to myself. In the paper-office there is a wight, called
Thomas Astle, who lives like moths on old parch
ments. It was he who lent me the coronation roll,
and to whom I communicated my book on Richard III,
to every tittle of which he agreed. Some of the
moths his commensales remonstrated to him I suppose,
that he had fouled his own chrysalis by helping to
unravel an intricate web. From that time I never
saw him ; on Monday he sent me a printed copy of

WALPOLE AND MASON. 223
the act of attainder of George, Duke of Clarence,
(which corroborates remarkably one of my arguments)
but which he not perceiving, very impertinently added
a quaere, which implied I had been in the wrong.
The quaere itself was so absurd that I could not
deny myself the pleasure of laughing at him and
his council. I send you a copy of my letter as the
shortest way of explaining what I have told you, and
because I conclude the foolish Society of Antiquaries
vrill be convinced he has guessed happily, and that we
shall have a new dissertation against me in the next
volume of the old women's logic, as I call the Archaeo-
logia. I have reserved two or three more arguments,
with which they shall be treated if they do attack me
again, but with which I would not trust Astle, lest any
one of the body should have sense enough to see their
folly and stop them. You must excuse me, but some
time or other I am determined to publish all my answers.
I am offended for the honour of Richard's under
standing, that all they charge him with tends to
represent him as a driveling fool, though indeed such
are their understandings that they mean to prove he
was an able knave.
Fools ! yes, I think all the world is tumed fool, or
was bom so, cette tete a perruque, that vrig-block the
chancellor, what do you think he has done ? Burnt all
his father's correspondence vrith Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot,
&c. — why do you think ? because several of the letters
were indiscreet. To be sure he thought they would go
and publish themselves, if not burnt, but indeed I

224 CORRESPONDENCE OF
suspect the indiscretion was that there were some
truths which it was not proper to preserve, consider
ing considerandis. That is just what I should like
to have seen. There was othervrise so much discretion,
and so little of any thing else except hypocricy in aU
the letters of those men that have appeared, that I should
not so much regret what discreet folly has now burnt.
Apropos, did I ever tell you a most admirable bon mot
of Mr. Bentley ? he was talking to me of an old devout
Lady St. John, who burnt a whole trunk of letters of
the famous Lord Rochester, "for which," said Mr.
Bentley, " her soul is now burning in Heaven." The
oddness, confusion, and wit of the idea struck me of aU
things. I vrish you, good night.
[^Enclosure.^ TO THOMAS ASTLE ESQ.
SIR Deer. 19, 1775.
I am much obliged to you and return you my thanks for
the paper you have sent me, you have added a question
to it, which, if I understand it, you yourself. Sir, are
more capable than any body of answering ; you say
"Is it probable that this instrument was framed by
Richard Duke of Gloucester ? " If by framed you mean
drawn up, I should think princes of the blood in that
barbarous age were not very expert in dravring acts of
attainder, though a branch of the law, more in use then
than since. But as I suppose you mean forged, you.
Sir, so conversant in writings of that age can judge

WALPOLE AND MASON. s 225
better than any man, you may only mean forged by his
order. Your reading much deeper than mine may
furnish you with precedents of forged acts of attain
der ; I never heard of one, nor does my simple under
standing suggest the use of such a forgery, on cases
immediately pressing ; because an act of attainder
being a matter of public notoriety, it would be revolt
ing the common sense of all mankind to plead such an
one if it had not really existed. If it could be carried
into execution by force, the force would avail without
the forgery, and would be at once exaggerated and
weakened by it. I cannot, therefore, conceive why
Richard should make use of so absurd a trick, unless
that having so little to do in so short and turbulent a
reign, he amused himself with treasuring up in the
Tower a forged act for the satisfaction of those who
three hundred years afterwards should be glad of dis
covering new flaws in his character. As there are
men so bigotted to old legends, I am persuaded. Sir,
that you would please them hj communicating your
question to them. They would rejoice to suppose that
Richard was more criminal than even the Lancastrian
Historians represent him, and just at this moment I
don't know whether they would not believe that Mrs.
Rudd assisted him. I who am probably as absurd a
bigot on the other side, see nothing in the paper you
have sent me but a confirmation of Richard's innocence
of the death of Clarence. As the Duke of Bucking
ham was appointed to superintend the execution, it is
incredible that he should have been drowned in a
VOL, I, Q

226 CORRESPONDENCE OF
butt of Malmsey, and that Richard should have been
the executioner. When a Seneschal of England, or as
we call it a Lord High Steward, is appointed for a
trial, at least for execution with all his officers, it looks
very much as if even in that age proceedings were
carried on with a little more formality than the careless
writers of that time let us think. The appointment
too of the Duke of Buckingham for that office, seems to
add another improbability (and a work of supereroga
tion) to Richard's forging the instrument. Did Richard
really do nothing but what tended to increase his
unpopularity, by glutting mankind vrith lies, forgeries,
and absurdities which every man living could detect ?
I take this opportunity. Sir, of telling you how sorry
I am not to have seen you so long, and how glad I
shall be to renew our acquaintance, especially if you
like to talk over this old story with me, though I own
it is of little importance, and pretty weU exhausted,
I am. Sir, with great regard,
your obliged
humble servant
HOR, WALPOLE,

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
DEAR SIR, Arlington Street, Feb. 6.
I send you word as soon as I can that I received
your charming letter very safe, but that is all I can
do or say, and God knows when I shall be able to send

WALPOLE AND MASON. 227
you any other answer for I am, and have been this
week confined to my bed vrith the gout in six or seven
different places. As I never had it before in my leap
year, I would suppose that it is owing now to the late
bitter weather, for you see that even in my condition
one can be fool enough to flatter oneself with some
straw to the last. Adieu. I heartUy wish you all I want,
without envying you what I want. Yours ever H. W.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, Feb. 15, 1776.
I was extremely sorry to receive an answer to my
last written by your amanuensis, yet I beg you would
employ him immediately again just to tell me how you
do, if you are not by this time able to use your own
hand, which I heartily hope may be the case. As to
this very troublesome and unwelcome guest visiting
you a year sooner than you expected him, I can easily
account for that from the late severe weather, especiaUy
when I consider that had it been twice as severe it
would never have prompted you to button a single
button the closer. I most cordially vrish for a good
account of you soon, and am, dear Sir,
most truly yours
W. MASON.

228 CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Feb. 18, 1776.
As my illness prevented my answering your deUght-
ful letter I do not see why the leisure and solitude of
convalescence should not be employed in replying to it,
not poetically ; for the current of the blood, frozen by
age and chalkstoned by the gout, does not, though
loosened from disease flow over the smooth pebbles of
Helicon, mine at best, were factitious rUls that like the
artificial cascatelle of Hagley, played for moments to
entertain visitors, and were not the natural bounty of
the soU, you are forced to restrain your torrent and the
dykes of prudence must be borne down before it over
flows the country. Not so Mr. Anstey, because his
muddy mUl-pool had in one point of view, the roar and
lustre of a cascade when it fell over a proper wheel, he
thinks every pail full of its water, though soused down
by a ploughman, has the same effect. His Somerset
shire dialogue is stupidity itself, you described it pro
phetically before you saw it.
Somebody or other has given us an epistle of another
kind by the late Lord Melcombe ; not different from
having more meaning, for Phoebus knows it has none
at all, but so civil, so harmless, and so harmonious, that
it is the ghost of one of Pope's tunes. How the puffy
Peer must have sweated when Icarnmg to sing of Pope,
whom he could have strangled ! The whole and sole
drift of this cantata is to call Lord Bute PoUio, and to
beg to be his vicegerent upon earth. I should hke

WALPOLE AND MASON. 229 c
to have heard Lord Bute asking Sir Harry Erskine who
Pollio was.
Mr. Whitehed has just published a pretty poem
called Variety, in which there is humour and ingenuity,
but not more poetry than is necessary for a laureate ;
however the plan is one, and is well wound up. I now
pass to prose.
Lo, there is just appeared a truly classic work : a
history, not majestic like Livy, nor compressed like
Tacitus ; not stamped with character like Clarendon ;
perhaps not so deep as Robertson's Scotland, but a
thousand degrees above his Charles ; not pointed like
Voltaire, but as accurate as he is inexact ; modest as
he is tranchant and sly as Montesquieu without being
so recherchd ; The style is as smooth as a Flemish
picture, and the muscles are concealed and only for
natural uses, not exaggerated like Michaeh Angelo's
to show the painter's skill in anatomy ; nor composed
of the limbs of clowns of different nations, like Dr.
Johnson's heterogeneous monsters. This book is Mr.
Gibbon's History of the Decline and FaU of the Roman
Empire. He is son of a late fooUsh Alderman, is a
Member of Parliament, and called a whimsical one
because he votes variously as his opinion leads him ;
and his first production was in French, in which lan
guage he shines too. I know him a little, never sus
pected the extent of his talents, for he is perfectly
modest, or I want penetration, which I know too, but
I intend to know him a great deal more — there ! there
is food for your residence at York.

230 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Do I know nothing superior to Mr. Gibbon ? yes,
but not what will entertain you at York, Mr. Gibbon's
are good sense and polished art. I talk of great original
genius. Lady Di Beauclerc has made seven large draw
ings in Sut water (her first attempt of the kind) for
scenes of my Mysterious Mother, Oh ! such dravrings,
Guide's grace, Albano's children, Poussin's expression,
Salvator's boldness in landscape and Andrea Sacchi's
simplicity of composition might perhaps have equalled
them had they wrought all together very fine ; how an
author's vanity can bestow bombast panegyric on his
flatterers ! Pray, Sir, when did I take myself for an
original genius ! Did not Shakespeare draw Hamlet
from Olaus Ostrogothus, or some such name ; did Le
Soeur conceive the Chartreuse from any merit in the
Legend of St. Bruno ; seeing is believing, miracles are
not ceased ; I know how prejudiced I am apt to be ;
some time or other you will see whether I am so in this
instance. Now for specific answers to your queries —
many of which answers will not be specific, for I know
little more than if I were at York. I know nothing
of Garrick's sale of patent, but I know forty stories of
his envy and jealousy, that are too long to tell you by
mouth of pen — of a Monsr. le Texier, another real pro
digy, who acts whole plays, in which every character
is perfect — and pray observe he has not read my play.
In sum, Garrick says when he quits the stage, he wUl
read plays too, but they wUl be better than Monsr.
Texier's (who only reads those of other authors) for
he shall write them himself. This I know he has said

WALPOLE AND MASON. 231
twice. Ex pede Herculem. The Duchess of Kingston
only knows whether she will be tried. The Earl's zeal
against her was as marvellous to me as to you ; I know
reasons why he should have done the reverse, and
cannot reconcile contradictions. Why should not
Sa)Te's affair sleep? what, who is awake. For your
hundred other queries which you have not put to me, I
shall not attempt to guess them, not from idleness, but
from the probable incapacity of my being able to
answer them. The womb of time is big ; we shall see,
whether she is delivered of mice or mountains.
One word about myself and I have done. I know you
disliked my answer to Dr. Milles, and I know I was an
gry both at him and Mr. Hume. The latter had acted
very treacherously by the story I have hinted at of the
Swiss Reviewer. Dr. Milles is a fool, who had been
set on by Lord Hardwicke and that set, and at whom,
I have glanced. I have received many indirect little
mischiefs from the Earl, who has of late courted me as
much, and I have been civU to him. But my answers
shall some time or other appear when I only shall be
blamed and my antagonists will be dead, and not hurt
by them. For Mr. Masters, he is a dirty simpleton,
who began by flattering me and because I neglected
him, joined the pack. The arguments in the answers
are very essential to the question, and I shall not give
myself the trouble of extracting the ridicule on the an
swerers, as they deserved it.
My hands you see are well, but I could not have
written so long an epistle with my feet, which are stUl

232 CORRESPONDENCE OP
in their flannels. As my spirits always revive in pro
portion as pain subsides, I shall take the liberty. Sir
Residentiary, to trespass on your decorum by sending
you an impromptu I wrote yesterday, to pretty Lady
Craven, who sent me an Eclogue of her own, every
stanza of which ended vrith January, and which she
desired me not to criticise, as some of the rhimes were
incorrect, a hcense I adopted in my second line :
Tho' lame and old, I do not burn
With fretfulness to scare ye ;
And charms and wit like yours wonld turn
To May my January.
The God who can inspire and heal
Sure breathed your lines, sweet Fairy
For as I read, I feel, I feel,
I am not quite January.
Probably you would have liked better to have the
Eclogue, but I had not leave to send it.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. Feb. 29, 1776.
My confinement has made me a great devourer of
quartos, I am impatient to tell you what I have found
in one as large as Mr. Gibbon's, not quite so excellent
a work, nor so compressed, but which is not barren of
entertainment, though the first sections to be sure are
to me absolute Hebrew. This is Dr. Bumey's History
of Music, a volume that I fear wUl a little interfere
with my friend Sir John Hawkins's on the same subject.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 233
I must begin with telling you that in page 168 the
Doctor says, he holds it impossible to be a great poet
and a great musician too. Now not to mention Gray,
who (I believe, though I know nothing of music,) was
a great musician ; how could he forget you whom he
has not forgotten, for he has celebrated your harmonic
knowledge in his notes, though I perceive he did not
know that you are an inventor in the science, and have
begotten a new instrument by the marriage of two
others : — but to the point.
Would you believe that the great Abyssinian, Mr.
Bruce, whom Dr. B. made me laugh by seriously calling
the intrepid traveller, has had the intrepidity to write
a letter to the Dr., which the latter has printed in his
book, and in which he intrepidly tells lies of almost as
large a magnitude as his story of the bramble, into
which his Majesty of Abyssinia and his whole army were
led by the fault of his general, and which bramble was
so tenacious, that his Majesty could not disentangle him
self without stripping to the skin and leaving his robes
in it, and it being death in that country to procure or
compass, the Sovereign's nudity, the general lost his
head for the error of his march.
In short Mr, Bruce has not only described six
Abyssinian musical instruments, and given their names
in the ancient Ethiopic and in the court language, but
contributed a Theban harp, as beautifully and gracefully
designed as if Mr, Adam had dravra it for Lady Mans
field's dressing-room, with a sphinx, masks, a patera,
and a running foliage of leaves. This harp, Mr. Bruce

234 CORRESPONDENCE OP
says, he copied from a painting in fresco on the inside
of a cavern near the ancient Thebes, and that it
was painted there by the order of Sesostris, and he
is not at all astonished at the mirical of its preservation,
though he treats poor accurate Dr, Pococke with great
contempt for having been in the cave without seeing this
prodigy, which however, graceful as its form is, Mr.
Bruce thinks was not executed by any artist superior to
a sign painter, yet so high was the perfection of the arts
in the time of Sesac, that a common mechanic could
not help rendering faithfully a common instrument. I
am sorry oar Apelles, Sir Joshua, has not the sign
painters secret of making his colours last in an open
cave for thousands of years.
It is unlucky that Mr, Bruce does not possess
another secret reckoned very essential to intrepid
travellers, a good memory. Last Spring he dined at
Mr. Crauford's, George Selwyn was one of the com
pany; after relating the story of the bramble and
several other curious particulars, somebody asked Mr.
Bruce, if the Abyssinians had any musical instruments ?
Musical instruments, said he, and paused — yes I think
I remember one lyre ; Geo. Selwyn, whispered his
neighbour, " I am sure there is one less since he came
out of the country," There are now six instruments
there. Remember this letter is only for your own private
eye, I do not desire to be engaged in a controversy or
a duel. My gout is waning, and my ambition looks down to

WALPOLE AND MASON. 235
getting on a shoe in a few days. Mr. Stonhewer caUed
on me yesterday, and I diverted him vrith what had just
happened. Mr, Cambridge had been vrith me, and
asked me if I knew the famous Beaumarchais, who is
in England, I said, " no. Sir, nor ever intend it." " Well
now said he, that is exactly my way ; I made a resolu
tion early never to be acquainted with authors, they
are so vain and so troublesome." I am persuaded he
has got acquainted with Beaumarchais by this time.
Adieu. P, S, When you read Dr, Burney, pray observe in
p, 256 in the notes, a quotation from Huet that exactly
describes Bryant's Ancient Mythology,

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON,
Arhngton Street, March 11, 1776.
Venisti, vidi, vicisti, your letter arrived on Saturday,
General Conway came yesterday ; Sir John Legard will
have ample credentials to Brunswic for Mr, Conway is in
friendship and correspondence with Prince Ferdinand,
and Sir John will certainly have leave to go after the
review if officers are allowed to go abroad at this time.
Thank you heartily for giving me this opportunity.
Mr. Cumberland has published two odes in which he
has been so bountiful as to secure immortality for Gray,
for Dr. James's powder, and indeed for his own odes, for
Father Time would faU asleep before he could read them

236 CORRESPONDENCE OF
through. There is a dedication to Romney the painter,
that hisses with the pertness of a dull man.
Bishop Keene wrote to me tother day to know if I
knew any thing of a whole length of my father,
that was to be sold by auction, and if I had any objec
tion to his buying it ; was this folly ! or is it repentance,
and he wants a memento to remind him that he cheated
my father's daughter of a living and of marriage.
I mentioned this to my nephew the Bishop of Exeter
just now, who told me that when Mr. Grenville was
turned out, who had offered my Lord of Ely the pri
macy of Ireland, he sent for the person who had
brought him the offer, and desired him to tell Mr.
Grenville, that he should always acknowledge the obli
gation, but that as Mr, Grenville was now out, he
thought it right (perhaps he said honest) to tell him
that his Lordship must look up to the King, and to
whomever his Majesty should make his minister.
The Duke of Wirtemburg is arrived with a mistress,
whom he got made Countess of the Empire, The Queen
of France would not receive her ; she has been received
at court here ; the man who keeps the Hotel Garni
in Covent Garden would not lodge her for the reputation
of his house.
Here is a new Epigram from France.
Quelqu'un, dit on, a peint Voltaire
Entre la Beaumelle, et Freron ;
Cela feroit un vrai Calvaire
S'il n'y manquoit le bon larron.
Voltaire himself has written a little poem called

WALPOLE AND MASON. 237
Sesostris, which I do not send you, for it is only the
worn out choice of Hercules.
P. S. I have often thought of a thing, and which, as
you are now at York I will mention, and beg you to
suggest to Peckitt. You know he and all the modem
glass-painters cannot recover the fine ancient reds and
greens ; how is that possible, when every necklace shop
sells false rubies and emeralds, which jewellers must,
take out of the setting, to be sure they are not true !
and what are those counterfeits but coloured glass ;
pray too, could not Peckitt sketch the exact faces of
Henry IV and Richard III from their statues on the
screen of your cathedral. I would pay him for them.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE, March 25, 1776.
What I here send you was written yesterday
currente calamo, as you vrill see, and might be much
improved if you would please to retouch it. The idea I
think is a good one and I could vrish it might appear
in the papers for some personal reasons" of my own ;
if any use is made of it, it must be transcribed by
some person who does not know my hand, and the ori
ginal burnt. I fear after all the usual fate that attends
my squibs wiU fall on this, and it will be stUl bom. I
question much whether every news printer be not in
her pay at present, and yet you see aU mention of her

238 CORRESPONDENCE OF
tryal is for that account avoided in the letter ; I will
sav no more, but burn it or otherwise as you think best.
I send it through the Secretary's office to you for
safety. \_Enclosure.^ TO HER GRACE THE DUTCHESS OF KINGSTON.
MADAM Isle of Ely, March 22, 1776.
I have just now seen in the public papers that your
Grace, vrith a spirit of christian benevolence which
exceeds that of our two Metropolitans in the propor
tions of somewhat more than three to two, has contri
buted the sum of fifty pounds towards alleviating the
distresses of the clergy in North America. This em
boldens me to ask you a few questions conceming
that charity, and to state an objection or two relative
to it, not doubting but that your Grace before you
thought it prudent to honor the list of subscribers with
a name, that would undoubtedly make both the clergy
and laity proud of foUowing so Ulustrious an example
demanded to see those authentic accounts of the dis
tresses in question, which have hitherto been vrithheld
from the world, though the press daUy afforded so
ready a method of communication.
I beg, therefore, to leam from your Grace whether
these misfortunes affect the parochial clergy only, in
North America, or extend also to the missionarys sent
out for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts
by the society intended for that purpose.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 239
If the parochial clergy be the only sufferers it must
be by deprivation, or loss of their tythes and oblations.
Now I should conceive that the best way to relieve
them in this point would be to take them home (for
the Congress I presume would readily part with them)
and to place them immediately under the patronage of
those diocesans from whom they received their letters
of orders, for it cannot be doubted but that many of
their Lordships, who have shewn so much alacrity to
provide for their nephews, daughters' husbands, &c.
&c., might in a very short space of time put these their
distrest brethren more at their ease than they were
even before the American troubles broke out. Of
this fact we are very sure, that the annual income of
the dignities and pluralities held by two relatives of
one opulent prelate more than trebles the sum that
the whole bench have subscribed on this occasion,
with your Grace's fifty pounds into the bargain.
If these distresses extend to the Missionarys, the
same mode of recalling them is more peculiarly ne
cessary, indeed it would be now necessary even if they
were not distrest, at least they should have orders from
Administration to look upon their missions as sinecures ;
for whUe the Indians remain in their heathen state they
wiU wUl surely be better allies to us, and answer our
present political purposes vrith greater energy, than if
they were previously converted to Christianity, except
indeed these Missionaries were gifted enough to rege
nerate them in a moment into such good Christians as
your Grace, Lord Sandwich, and Lord G, Germaine, a

240 CORRESPONDENCE OF
species of conversion, which as miracles have ceased,
is rather to be wished than to be expected.
But perhaps your Grace will say, " who are you that
ask these impertinent questions ?" "Madam, I am a coun
try clergyman." " Go then to your diocesan to satisfy
your scruples of conscience." "No madam, I choose to
apply myself to you and for these three cogent reasons."
First, I believe from my soul that you write letters
with more ease than my diocesan, and that your episto
lary style is much more spiritual and poignant, especiaUy
after dinner. Secondly, because you have much more
Christian humility and obliging condescension than my
diocesan ; he I know would fiout my tattered crape and
disdain to give me an answer, but when I tell your Grace
that I can bring my coUege certificate that I had an uni
versity education, and my parochial register that I was
bom of honest parents, I am morally certain that you wUl
not be too haughty to become my correspondent. No, you
will never deny that honour to a clergyman of the church
of England, which you so lately bestowed on a reptile,
whom you believed to be the son of a merry andrew.
Thirdly, and lastly, your Grace has by this, your late su
perb donation taken this charity into your immediate and
personal protection. You are by this act and deedof yours,
become the head of the clergy, and therefore though I am
the lowest member of that body, I have the ambition
on this occasion to treat with principals only. Behold
ing your Grace in this most respectable light, I subscribe
myself with the truest devotion. Madam, your Grace's
most dutiful son and servant
a Country Clergyman.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 241

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
April 8, 1776.
You find Circe and Alma Mater are too powerfuU,
perhaps they are in alliance, ilfaut cultiver son jardin :
you must stick to your garden.
There is Dr. Chandler who was sent by the Dillet-
tanti to, and has just published his travels in, Greece.
They are rather travels in Pausanias, for he does little
but tell us what Pausanias found worth seeing there.
Except that, which is no merit, the book is Ul written
and unsatisfactory ; and yet he revived my visions
towards Athens, and made me wish I was a great king
and could purchase to restore it, a great king probably,
would hold it cheaper to conquer it. This Dr. Chandler,
as if to avenge his namesake, flirts at Gray for having
cloathed Delphi's barren steep vrith woods, and con
verted Meander's muddy waves into amber, as if am
ber did not poetically imply the same. I don't wonder
with so little taste he has written no better.
I bought yesterday a poem in blank* verse called
AmweU, by a John Scott, Esq. ; it is a pious design to
immortalize a viUage in which John Scott Esq. lives.
I only mention it for one grand and beautiful image
which struck me extremely 
 oft Fancy's ear

Deep in the gloom of evening woods, has heard
The last sad sigh of Autumn, when his throne
To winter he resigned. 
VOL. I. R

242 CORRESPONDENCE OF
It puts me in mind of that sublime passage in Dyer's
Ruins of Rome,
hears the voice of time
Disparting towers. 
I don't know whether you are much acquainted with
my Svriss footman, David, well ! he does not think there
is so great a prince in the world as I. Yesterday as I
came to breakfast, he told me coolly the Duke of Wir
temburg had called at eight o'clock and wanted a ticket
for Strawberry HiU. Bless me, said I, and what did
you say ? I told his grace you was not awake, and bad
him come again at ten ; good God, said I, tell him to call
again ! don't you know he is a Sovereign Prince ! No
I did think he was only a common duke — I could
not help laughing, though I was so shocked. In short
he had called again, and had again been sent away,
nor can David yet conceive that I was to be waked.
I was forced to write a thousand lies and excuses, and
swear I was bedrid with the gout, and could not pay
my duty to his Serene Highness, and upon the whole
was very glad for being reduced to plead the gout.
I sent Philip to show my house, and persist in my
crippletude, which in truth is still so fresh, that it
would all have revived, if I must have walked or stood
two hours to show his Serenity the tombs.
They are translating Shakespeare in France, and
Othello is so well done, that it has incredible success.
The Abb6 Barthelemi, a very good judge and no
partialist to England, desired Mad. du Deffand to tell
me, he finds Shakespeare superieur a tout et qu'il me

WALPOLE AND MASON. 243
prioit de ne regarder que le Dieu et de ne pas faire
attention a VHomme. This is a strong proof that both
the Abbe and the translators understand Shakespeare,
but what will they do vrith Falstaffe ? — impossible —
unless they are as able as Townley, who translated
Hudibras so admirably, which before seemed the most
impracticable of all atchievments.
Is not your residence nearly exhausted, and don't you
intend coming southward ? Am not I to harbour you ?
you shall be troubled with no Serene Highneses, nor
have I wasted all my budget in my letters ; Lady Di's
dravrings alone are worth a pUgrimage, — ask Mr.
Palgrave who has seen them.
P. S. I have made a blunder, which will have
puzzled you, I recollect it was a Dr. Chapman, not Dr.
Chandler, who made so good an end by choaking him
self with mackarel.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. York, AprU 10, 1776.
I had formed a scheme by means of an artist here to
get you the exact masks in plaster of the two heads
which you wanted out of our screen, which, I thought
would be infinitely more satisfactory to you than any
drawing, but upon examination I find no King Richard
the 3rd amongst them, the sequence ends with Henry
5th, then comes Jammy, who tumed out Henry the 6th

244 CORRESPONDENCE OF
to make room for his own sweet person, and whom
Time in revenge has more mutUated and pitted than
any of his more antient predecessors ; but I am
sorry for your sake that the said Time has made very
free with the mouth and chin of your friend Harry the
4th, insomuch that I hardly think any mask or drawing
can be depended upon if taken from it, for there is
plainly a circle about the size of a crown piece fallen
off round the mouth of the Monarch. You may now
see indeed where his lips were, but the shape of those
lips are quite obliterated. I am sorry that I am obUged
to give you so sad an account of his Majesty, but the
truth is too glaring to be concealed ; if after all you will
have either a masque or drawing of it, I wUl do my
best to serve you, it may perhaps serve future antiqua
ries to demonstrate from it that the King's evU was
inherent in English Royalty from temp. Hen. Quart.
The event you talked of in the PubUc Advertiser
has not reached York ; indeed the Public Advertiser
never comes to York ; mercy on me, cry you, York is in
the Orcades, but I can say no more only that if I have
not an account of the Dutchess of Kingston's tryal
every day from you, I shall die of the pip. The post
is just going, yours, &c. &c.,
W. MASON.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl.
Eve of St. Elizabeth of Kingston.
I wiU not trouble you for a cast of King Richard's

WALPOLE AND MASON. 245
face, since there is no such thing ; nor of King
Henry's, since it has lost its mouth. I am grovra such
an antiquity myself, and have so little time left to
satisfy my fancies, that I wiUingly contract them within
as narrow a compass as I can ; yet you commission
me to send you journals of the Dutchess's trial, as
if I was to be there I My curiosity would certainly carry
me thither sooner almost than to any show upon earth.
I have known her from five years old, and seen her in
all her stages, but I am not well enough to attend this
last act of her drama — possibly may never go to a
public place again, having a strong notion of the pro
priety of seceding, and not trailing one!s weaknesses
into the world, when age and illness have told one to
retire. Thus you must expect no ocular accounts
from me, perhaps nothing better than the newspapers
would tell you, except with a little more authenticity.
Tuesday, AprU 16.
The Duchess-Countess has raised my opinion of
her understanding, which was always but at low ebb,
for she has behaved so sensibly and with so little
affectation, that her auditory are loud in applause of
her. She did not once squall, scream or faint, was not
impudent, nor gorgeous, looked weU though pale and
trembUng ; was drest all in black, yet in silk, not
crape ; with no pennon hoisted but a widows' peak.
She spoke of her innocence and of her awe of so
venerable an assembly ; yesterday passed in the plead
ing of her council against a second trial, urging the

246 CORRESPONDENCE OF
finality of the ecclesiastic sentence. I should think no
more would be done to day than hearing the reply of
the prosecutor's council.
A previous incident was more entertaining than any
part of the piece, the Grand Seneschal invited the Duke
of Wirtemburg to dinner by a card, and translated it
neither into law Latin nor Norman French. By the
help of Boyer's dictionary it began " Le haut Intendant
envoie ses compliments, ^c." He ordered every body
to be uncovered while the King's commission was
reading, and then sat down himself and put on his
hat. Lord Nuneham has just been here, not attending his
friend through all her course. She lay at home (or
according to the chaste modern phrase, slept there),
and the usher of black rod slept in the next room.
My Journals are short, but you shall have the sequel.
Adieu. P. S. I this minute receive a letter from poor Mr.
Granger's nephew to tell me his uncle was seized, at
the communion table, on Sunday with an apoplectic fit,
and died yesterday morning at five o'clock. He was
a good man as ever lived.
2nd P. S. Thurloe, Wedderburn and Dunning have
answered the Dss's. council, and then the Lords ad
journed till Friday, so at soonest you wUl hear again by
Saturday's post.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 247

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. AprU 20, 1776.
Your obedient Journalist proceeds. He might plead
a headach ; but as that is generally pleaded when not
felt, a real one must not be disgraced by being tumed
into an excuse, especially by so sacred a minister of
truth — as a news writer.
The plot thickens, or rather opens ; yesterday the
judges were called on for their opinions, and una voce
dismantled the ecclesiastic court, which has not been
treated with much respect by the common law. The
Attorney General then detailed the life and adventures
of Elizabeth Chudleigh, alias Hervey, alias the most
high and puissant Princess the Duchess of Kingston.
Her Grace bore the narration with a front worthy of
her exalted rank. Then was produced the capital wit
ness, the ancient damsel who was present at her first
marriage ******* To
this witness the Duchess was benign, but had a transi
tory swoon at the mention of her dear Duke's name ;
and at intervals has been blooded enough to have
supplied her execution if necessary. Two babes were
likewise proved to have blessed her first nuptials, one
of which for aught that appears may exist and become
Eari of Bristol. The gaUant and faithful Eari of HUs-
borough used all his prowess to cross-question and brow
beat the deponent, but her grace's other champion Lord
Mansfield did not enter the lists. The court is now

248 CORRESPONDENCE OF
hearing the other witnesses. I have forsworn prophecy
and therefore tell you no particulars of what is to come.
If I hear any thing in time this evening of the events
of the day, you shall know, if not, good night.
P.S. It is near seven and the trial is not over, I
must go out and leam anecdotes, and cannot come
home before the post goes out; so you must have
patience till next week.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Sunday, AprU 21, 1776.
I have an half hour to spare and employ it to con
tinue the trial which wUl not be finished before Tues
day evening, when I shall certainly neither have col
lected the sequel, nor have time to write it, as I am to
dine at the Royal Academy.
Friday and Saturday have produced so much
against the Duchess Countess, that she must have
been distracted to have sought the trial, or not poi
soned the witnesses. The judges quashed the
ecclesiatic court, as summarily as Luther could have
done ; and Thurloe has given an Atalantis of her
Grace's adventures, confirmed by evidence. A maid
has appeared who was present at her first marriage
and almost at its consummation. Serjeant Hawkins has
authenticated the birth of at least one chUd ; and the
widow of the parson who married her, and on whom

WALPOLE AND MASON. 249
she forced a fictitious register, when she expected the
late Lord Bristol's death, and had a mind to be a
Countess, has deposed, that though privy to all these
circumstances, visiting the new Duchess, the latter
said to her " Mrs. PhiUips, was not the Duke very
good to marry an old maid." Both these women, her
avarice had tumed against her. Lord Barrington sub
poenaed against her, after taking the oath, declared he
would betray no confidential secrets. The Lords were
going to hang him for peijury, but thought better on
it, lest a quarrel between the two houses should prove
favourable to America. His Lordship faltered as well
as they did ; told more than he had declared he would
not tell, and yet prevaricated ; but for this interlude
you must wait for the printed trial, as I cannot relate
it accurately. To-morrow the Duchess makes her defence ; and
on Tuesday the Lords give sentence. She has not
preserved the philosophy of the first day, but abused
the first female evidence while giving testimony. Lord
Mansfield left the ecclesiastical court in the lurch ; his
cowardice always supplanting his knavery. Adieu, you
shall know the sequel by Wednesday or Thursday's
post. P. S. When does your residence conclude ? and
when do you come to Strawberry HUl ?

250 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. AprU 23, 1776.
If you expect a long letter, you will be disappointed,
if you are tired of my letters you will be released.
The wisdom of the land has been exerted five days in
turning a Duchess into a Countess, and does not think
it a punishable crime for a Countess to convert herself
into a Duchess. After a paltry defence and an oration
of fifty pages, which she herself had written and pro
nounced well, the sages in spite of the Attorney Gene
ral, who brandished a hot iron, dismissed her with the
simple injunction of paying her fees ; All voting her
guilty, the Duke of Newcastle softening his vote with
erroneously, not intentionally. So ends that solemn farce !
which may be indifferently bound up with the State
Trials and the History of Moll Flanders. If you write
to her you must direct to the Countess of Bristol.
The Earl they say does not intend to leave her that
title, nor the House of Meadows a shUling, but there
will be quaeres to both designs. The ecclesiastic court
full as guilty as the culprit, I dare to say, will
escape as well. Adieu ! allow that I have obeyed
you implicitly. I am glad to have done with her.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, May 1, 1776.
I fear you wUl think me less susceptible of gratitude

WALPOLE AND MASON. 251
than his Grace of Newcastle, and less punctilious in
point of honor than Lord Viscount Barrington for not
having thanked you sooner for your four exquisite
Journals. I have, however, prepared something for
you which I have the vanity to think will amply
recompense you for your trouble, but whether you
will receive it in two posts after this or not receive it
at all I am not able say. I would not, however, hang
you on the tenter of expectation longer than for the
space of two posts, and, therefore, if you do not receive
it in that time, rest in the philosophical reflection that
all is for the best, and that your loss will be the
public gain, which is a patriotic as well as phUosophi-
cal sentiment.
In an age whose motto ought to be squibimus docti in-
doctique it is very hard you should forbid me to squib,
and turn me to work in my garden. But I have obeyed
you and I hope you vrill soon see my second book in
print, if you do not see its author with it ; the last sheet
is now in the press. I leave York for Aston on Monday
the 13th, but hope to hear from you here before I leave
it. Our spiritual courtiers here say, that the sentence
of their court binds the partys themselves though it
does not bind other persons. Ergo B is not married
to C because they were proved not to be married
there, and though C has been proved to be married to
B in another court, B is not married to C notwith
standing, therefore B cannot sue for a divorce, because
he has not been proved in their court to be married
to C. I hope you understand me right, si quid novisti
rectius, candidus imperii.

252 CORRESPONDENCE OF
If I come to town I shall certainly for my own
happiness spend as much of my time at Strawberry as
possible, but I can say nothing about my journey till
I get to Aston. I am, dear Sir,
very sincerely yours W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, May 4, 1776.
Do you think I have a Duchess to deplume every
day that you bid me write to you again already ? un
conscionable divine, voracious appetite ! think of my
poor swelled fingers that sigh after repose, think of my
quivering ankles, that will carry me to no mart of
news. I am here these two days smelling my lilacs,
and listening to my nightingales, and leaving the vricked
town to the young and healthy. I did not utinam that
sedes senectee should be my fate, that I should be able to
do nothing but sit in my garden ; but I am content
hitherto, though I doubt the rest of my days vriU be
still less comfortable ; you might gild them if you would
but your letter hesitates whether you shall come south
ward or not this summer ; remember, I must not cal
culate vrithout my host the gout. Well, let me see
the dravring you talk of, and which yet I must wait
two posts before I know whether I am to see or not.
You must have a mighty opinion of my patience or

WALPOLE AND MASON. 253
indifference, when you put it to so tantaUzing a trial ;
be assured I have neither ; neither the virtue of com
manding my desires, nor the apathy that looks like
commanding them. Those same desires of mine it is
true, are exceedingly contracted of late years, but then
I vald^ volo what I do volo. My curiosity about any
thing you draw or write, is augmented in proportion as
it is decayed in general : my eyes are grown stronger,
as my other utensils are enfeebled. They twinkle with
eagerness when you tell me of your drawing, or your
garden being finished.
The Countess of Bristol retired to Calais inconti
nently. A ne exeat regno came forth the night she
was gone ? a strange neglect in her adversaries ! Don't
let us talk of her any more, yes I will tell you what the
droll caustic Lord Abercorn said. Somebody hoped his
Lordship had not suffered by the trial ; he replied,
" nobody suffered by it."
They write to me from London that the provincial
army, having been reinforced, had prepared to storm
Boston, and had begun to canonade it, and that General
Howe unable to maintain his post had withdrawn with
aU his forces to Halifax. I had heard this on Thursday
before I came out of town, but did not believe it, for
the Americans have done nothing yet that has given
me a high opinion of their generalship. And that Hali
fax was left for Howe to retreat to is hitherto incom
prehensible, not to me, for I am ignorance itself ; but
everybody says so, and you know every body is always
in the right.

254 CORRESPONDENCE OP
Soame Jenyns has pubUshed a confirmation of the
Christian religion from internal evidence. Pray was
not his Origin of evil a little heterodox ? I have dipped
a little into this new piece, and thought I saw some
thing like irony, but to be sure I am wrong, for the
ecclesiastical court are quite satisfied. I must seal my
letter, and leave my blue room to be seen by Prince
Yuzupoff, who sentfor a card of admission. We have
a torrent of foreigners in England, and unfortunately
they are all sent hither, but then they comprehend
nothing, and are gone in half an hour. I have read an
account of Strawberry in a book called Londres, in
which my name is Robert, my house lives at Putney,
the book-cases in the Ubrary are of inlaid woods, and I
have not a window but is entirely of painted glass ; this
is called seeing and describing. Adieu, Yours ever
H. W.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
May 14, 1776.
You are not apt to express yourself unintelligibly nor
I, I hope, to misunderstand you ; I did not expect a
drawing in colour, but vrith the pen, in Chiaroscuro,
which I like better on some subjects than in oil. I am
still sorry it is not to be in the Exhibition.
I am but this minute come to tov^nti, and know
nothing but from the papers, which say every thing
prospers vrith the Americans. As they are driving out

WALPOLE AND MASON. 255
all the Scotch, I conclude the Duchess of Kingston will
contribute another bank-note.
Do you, or do you not, ever come to town again ? do
not be enigmatic in a reply to this question. Yours ever H. W.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, May 20, 1776.
By my being here for some days I did not receive
your drawing so soon as I ought to have done, nor
even knew it was arrived. I thank you for it and
like it excessively ; you have done full justice to Gray ;
I am sorry he cannot see it, for it is as fine as
Mr. Bentley's drawings for the rest of his odes. I
admire particularly the figure of
Mista black terrific maid,
who has a masculine gait that put me in mind of old
Leveridge, when he used to act Hecate in Macbeth.
I hope you will draw the descent of Odin, too, which
I love as much as any of Gray's works. I never was
fond of the Triumphs of Owen. —
To night I have received (here in town) from Mr.
Stonhewer your second Garden ; it has my fullest
imprimatur, I thought the beginning a little cold,
but it soon rises into charming poetry, and from the
210th Une is more beautiful than the first book. I
like the sheep devouring the lawn into verdure, and
from thence all is quite to my taste. The dusty Sab
bath is admirable, but above all I am touched with the

256 CORRESPONDENCE OF
scene of cottage children, which, is equal to any thing
you ever wrote ; so are the lines on their sorrow and
smiles. The story of Abdolonimus finishes the whole
nobly. Write away, write away and if you wiU not
come to town — write away ; yet I do wish now and
then to see such a priest of Apollo. Adieu.
P. S. This was not sent so soon as it ought to have
been by an accident.
TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, May, 28, 1776.
You are wondrous partial both to my drawing and
my didactile poem, but want to hear what worse, yet,
more impartial judges say to them ; at present I know
nothing, but dont tell me by letter, for I mean to see
you speedily. I have agreed with Mr. Montague to
accompany him to town next week, be assured after
my arrival I shall make you a speedy visit at Straw
berry, where I fancy this will find you, I mean to fly
about from place to place a good deal, to make amends
to my constitution for the last half year of my life,
which has been very sedentary and pick-toothish.
More of my schemes when we meet, at present excuse
this hasty scribble, which is merely to tell you that I
am coming and that I am most truly yours W. MASON.
I shall be to be heard of after Wednesday or Thurs
day at mine hosts of Curzon Street.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 257

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Curzon Street, Friday Evening. 1776.
I was ready here either to drink coffee with you to
day or to dine on apple pye and cheese with you, two
things that I think make a better union than many
governors and preceptors do, however unfashionable it
may be to think so. I am sorry you could not come,
but whenever you let me know you are in town, I wiU
take the first moment to wait on you, and to attend
you to Strawberry Hill, if I can get all my necessary
visits of punctilio paid before, but I find infinitely
more good company left in town, than either I ex
pected or wished.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry Hill. Sept. 17, 1776,
I was exceedingly rejoiced the other day to hear by a
letter from Lord Strafford that you are alive, which I
doubted, I had some thoughts of looking into the An
nual Register to see if your preferments were given
away ; but as I find you have only been in a lethargy,
and that now I shall not disturb your nap, I venture to
put you in mind ofa person of whom you have not dreamt
these four or five months. This has not been my case,
though I have given you no more signs of life. I have
been going to write to you fifty times, and only
waited for that small peculiar of a letter, something to
VOL. I. s

258 CORRESPONDENCE OF
say, I hope you have had no other reason for silence.
My want is not yet removed, but though a good excuse
for a letter's being short is not above half a reason for
not writing at all, Swinny used to tell a story of two
old companions, who sitting together one evening till
it was quite dark without speaking, one called to t'other
" Tom, Tom," " WeU," said his friend, "what do you
say ; " " Oh, " said t'other, " are you there ; " " Aye,"
said the friend ; " Why then don't you say humph"
said the first ; if I had been in parliament, and could
have franked ' humph,' I really should have written it
before now, though General Howe, who like his fami ly
never wastes a monosyUable, does not think such little
amities necessary. Perhaps he reflects that even that
symptom of life would not be communicated to the
public, who it seems, have no business to know any
thing that happens out of their own island. Master
Froissart says, " By the famous wrytyng of auncient
auctours all thynges ben knowen in one place or other,"
which is a great comfort, and the present age seems to
be satisfied with what their posterity will know,
I have lately met with a famous auncient auctour,
who did not think that every body ought to know every
thing. He is a classic. Sir, with whom you ought to be
acquainted ; his very name is expressive of his vocation
and science ; he was called Sir Hugh Plat, and has writ
ten a tractate on gardening, called the Garden of Eden,
a very proper title, for though he has planted a tree of
knowledge, he forbids it to be tasted, having concealed
his principal secret in a figurative description in imitation

WALPOLE AND MASON, 259
of Baptista Porta in his natural magic, so that you might
as soon understand a book of Alchemy, as Sir Hugh's
treatise, at least his secret. This deep volume is not
quite to your purpose, not being an essay on landscape-
gardens, but rules to improve fruit and flowers, which
being stUl more the fashionable rage at present than
laying out ground, I think you would do well, Mr,
Mason, to add a book on that subject. One very great
secret Sir Hugh has deigned to disclose ; it is a receipt
for making a Peach tree bring forth Pomegranates ; the
process is very simple, and consists in nothing but
watering (or strictly speaking milking) the Peach-tree
vrith goat's milk for three days together.
To be sure you want to know a great deal about me
myself, though you forgot you did. My whole history
consists in having built a new tower, which is a vast deal
higher, but very little larger in diameter than an extin
guisher ; however it fully answers the founder's intention,
which is to hold Lady Di's drawings. Have you done
as much in your way, or any way ? I could send you a
paltry scurrilous letter against Shakespeare, by Vol
taire, but it is not worth sending ; if it did, you don't
deserve it at my hands, so Adieu.
[Enclosure.^ LETTRE DE VOLTAIRE A M. d'ARGENTAL.
MON CHER AMI, Fernet, 19 JuUlet, 1776.
J'apprends que Monsieur de St. Julien arrive dans

260 CORRESPONDENCE OF
mon desert avec le Kain. Si la chose est vraie, j'en
suis tout ^tonne et tout joyeux ; mais U faut que je vous
disc combien je suis fache pour I'honneur du Tripot
contre un nomme Tourneur, qu'on dit Secretaire de la
Librarie, et qui ne me paroit pas le Secretaire du bon
gout. Auriez vous lii deux volumes miserables dans
lesquels il veut faire regarder Shakespear comme le seul
module de la veritable Tragedie. II I'appelle le Dieu
du Theatre ; il sacrifie tons les Francois sans excep
tion k son idole, comme on sacrifoit des Cochons h
Ceres : il ne daigne pas nommer Corneille ou Racine :
ces deux grands hommes sont seulement enveloppes
dans la proscription generale sans que leurs noms
soient prononces : il y a dejk deux tomes d'imprimes de
ce Shakespeare, qu'on prendrait pour des pieces de la
Foire, faites il y a deux cents ans ; ce Maraud a trouve
le secret de faire engager le roi et la reine et toute la
famUle royale a souscrire a son ouvrage, Avez vous lii
son abominable grimoire dont il y aura encore cinq
volumes ? Avez vous une haine assez vigoureuse contre
cet impudent imbecile ? Souffrirez vous I'affront qu'U
fait k la France ? Vous et Monsieur de ThibouviUe
vous ^tes trop doux. II n'y a pas en France assez de
camouflets, assez de bonnets d'anes, assez de pillorie
contre un pareU facquin ? Le sang petille dans mes
vieilles veines en parlant de lui. S'il ne vous a pas mis
en colere, je vous tiens pour un homme impassable.
Ce qu'il y a d'affreux c'est que le monstre a un parti en
France, et pour comble de calamites, et d'horreur, c'est
moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakespeare ;

WALPOLE AND MASON. 261
c'est moi qui le premier montrai aux Francois quelques
perles que j'avois trouves dans son enorme fumier. Je
ne m' attendais pas que je servirois a fouler aux pieds
les couronnes de Racine et de Corneille, pour en orner
le front d'un histrion barbare.
Tachez je vous prie d'etre aussi en colere que moi,
sans quoi je me sens capable de faire un mauvais coup.
Quand a mon ami M. le cocher Gilbert, je souhaite qu'
U aUle au carcan a bride abattue, etc, etc,
I have a mind to provoke you, and so I send you this
silly torrent of ribaldry, may the spirit of Pope that
dictated your Musaeus — animate you to punish this
worst of dunces, a genius turned fool with envy, I
have a mind to be a dunce too and alter one line of
your epitaph, the last. I think She heard should not
be repeated twice ; heard is an inharmonious word
and the elision between she and heard, adds to the
cacophony, I would read, —
She heard thy Homer in her Milton's strains.
And Pindar's music from the lyre of Gray. —
Or — " thy."
It is very impertinent in me who have no ear and
am no poet to correct you, who are a musician, and a
poet if ever there was one, but then, I will submit if
you do not approve my emendation.
Having nothing new to read, I have been tumbling
over my old books, and there I found what I had never
read nor heard mentioned, and which I think has a

262 CORRESPONDENCE OP
vast deal more of wit than the ancients used in their
writings. Mind, I say used, for no doubt all times
and all countries have produced men of vrit, and I
know Julius Caesar had a collection of Cicero's bon
mots. Diogenes Laertius too has recorded those of
the philosophers, very few of which I allow to have
any wit in them. The piece I mean is Seneca's De
morte Claudii CcBsaris. There is a good deal of Greek
in it, and I have forgotten my Greek, and some of my
Latin too, and do not understand many passages in this
satire — but let me give you an instance of great vrit,
speaking of his death and the astrologers, who had not
foretold it rightly, he says, horam ejus nemo novit, nemo
enim ilium unquam natum putavit.
Last night, I took up Pope's letters to Mr. Digby,
and finding Lady Suffolk's name, I regretted having
never questioned her about the latter. This is a sort
of pleasure I lose every day. I came into the world
long enough ago to have informed myself from elder
persons of many things I should now like to know ;
and there is much more satisfaction in inquiring into
old stories than in telling them. Formerly I was so
foolish, like most young people, as to despise them.
I don't mean by this to invite the young to apply to
me ; I am not over fond of their company. Recollec
tion is more agreeable than observation at the end of
life. WiU Dr. Johnson, and I know not most of the rest
by name, interest the next age Uke Addison, Prior,
Pope and Congreve ; wUl General Gage or Sir Peter
Parker succeed to the renown of the Duke of Marl-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 263
borough, even had the last had no more merit than
Macpherson will allow him ? Oh ! there is another of our
authors, Macpherson ! when one's pen can sink to him,
it is time to seal one's letter.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1776.
I answer your letter incontinently, because I am
charmed with your idea of the cenotaph for Gray, and
would not have it wait a moment for my approbation.
I do not know what my lines were, for I gave them to
you, or have burnt or lost them, but I am sure yours
are ten times better, as any thing must naturally be
when you and I write on the same subject. I prefer
Westminster Abbey to Stoke, or Pembroke chapel ; not
because due to Gray, whose genius does not want any
such distinction, but as due to Westminster Abbey,
which would miss him, and to humble the French, who
have never had a Homer or a Pindar, nor probably
wUl have, since Voltaire could make nothing more like
an epic poem than the Henriade, and Boileau and
Rousseau have succeeded so little in odes, that the
French stiU think that ballad-wright Quinault their
best lyric poet — which shows how much they under
stand lyric poetry ! Voltaire has lately wo-itten a letter
against Shakespeare (occasioned by the new paltry trans
lation, which stUl has discovered his miraculous powers),
and it is as downright BUlingsgate as an apple-woman

264 CORRESPONDENCE OF
would utter if you overturned her wheelbarrow, poor old
wretch ! how envy disgraces the brightest talents !
how Gray adored Shakespeare ! Partridge the Almanack
maker, perhaps, was jealous of Sir Isaac Newton. Dr.
Goldsmith told me he himself envied Shakespeare, but
Goldsmith was an idiot, with once or tvrice a fit of
parts. It hurts one when a real genius like Voltaire
can feel more spite than admiration, though I am per
suaded that his rancour is grounded on his conscious
inferiority. I wish you would lash this old scorpion a
little, and teach him awe of EngUsh poets.
I can tell you nothing more than you see in the
common newspapers ; impatience is open-mouthed and
open-eared for accounts from New York, on which the
attack was to be made on the 26th of August, success
there is more necessary to keep up credit than likely
to do more. Should it fail, there is an end of America
for England ; and if it succeeds, it is at most ground
for another campaign — but we chuse not to see tiU
we feel, though they who have done the mischief, do
not disguise their apprehensions. The colonies have an
agent openly at Versailles, and their ships are as
openly received into their ports — but I had rather
talk of Caractacus, I agree that he will not suffer by
not being sputtered by Barry, who has lost all his teeth.
Covent Garden is rather above Drury Lane in actors,
though both sets are exceedingly bad, so bad that I al
most wish Caractacus was not to appear. Very seldom
do I go to the play for there is no bearing such strollers.
I saw Lear the last time Garrick played it, and as I told

WALPOLE AND MASON. 265
him I was more shocked at the rest of the company
than pleased with him, which I believe was not just
what he desired ; but to give a greater brUliancy to his
own setting, he had selected the very worst performers of
his troop ; just as Voltaire would wish there were no
better poets than Thompson and Akenside. However,
as Caractacus has already been read, I do not doubt
but it will succeed. It would be a horrible injury to
let him be first announced by such unhallowed mouths.
In truth the present taste is in general so vile, that I
don't know whether it is not necessary to blunt real
merit before it can be applauded.
I have not time to say more — I can say nothing
about law, but that I always avoid it if I can, that and
every thing else wants reformation, and I believe we
shall have it from that only reformer. Adversity.
I wish I were with you and the good Palsgrave and I
always wish you was with me. Adieu, yours ever
H. w.

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON.
Feb. 17, 1777.
I do not know whether you will value the execution
of a promise, when the letter is observed and not the
spirit. I write only because you desired it, and that
I said I would; neither the litterary nor political
world furnish much matter. I have read the Goat's

266 CORRESPONDENCE OF
beard — the lines on Charles II are very good, and
there is true humour here and there : but the humour
is often missed, and I think the whole much too long —
it is far inferior to Variety. Mr. Tyrrwhit has at last
published the Bristol poems. He does not give up the
antiquity, yet fairly leaves everybody to ascribe them to
Chatterton if they please, which I think the internal
evidence must force every one to do, unless the amaz
ing prodigy of Chatterton's producing them should not
seem a larger miracle than Rowley's and Canning's
anticipation of the style of very modern poetry.
Psalmanazaar alone seems to have surpassed the genius
of Chatterton, and when that lad could perform such
feats, as he certainly did, what difficulty is there in
believing that Macpherson forged the cold skeleton of
an epic poem, that is more insipid than Leonidas. Mr.
T3Trwhit seems to have dreaded dravring himself into
a controversy, which joys me, who dreaded being
drawn into one too.
The news from America are as usual, difUcult to be
fathomed ; the court denies being certain of the dis
comfit of the Hessians, yet their runners pretend that
the Hessian prisoners have been retaken. It is fact
that the royaUsts have neither yet taken Providence
nor the Americans ships ; the other side believe that
Lord ComwalUs has received a check at the Jersey's.
Lee is certainly taken by the poltroonery of his own
men, of whom he had eighteen to Col. Harcourt's four
teen. He has written a short letter in which he
himself says so, and adds, that he submits to his fate.

WALPOLE AND MASON.

267

only regretting that liberty wiU no longer enjoy a foot
of earth.
The Habeas Corpus bUl you see has appeared, though
nobody would believe it. Lord Rockingham and his
ingenious band have contrived to make a more ridicu
lous figure by doing nothing, than they ever did by
any thing they attempted. They are sure of not being
taken up during the suspension on the suspicion of a
plot. You have seen in the papers, I suppose, that
John the painter is a Scot, and that he dated the con
flagration at Bristol from an American merchant's
house, and committed a burglary, which it is not even
pretended to have been directed by the orders of the
congress. The Landgrave of Hesse on the strength of our sub
sidy is gone to Rome, to make a solemn renunciation of
the protestant religion at the feet of the Pope, — who
ought to declare him vice defender of the Faith against
the heretics and quakers of PhUadelphia.
Mr. Palgrave is in town, and so is a third inundation
of snow, yet I have gone about these three weeks and
had no return of my disorder. Give me as good an
account of yourself.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. Feb. 27, 1777.
I was very wise in never advertizing retirement. I
knew well how difficult it is to quit the world, and yet

268 CORRESPONDENCE OP
have done with it. The love of fame has its colts-
tooth as well as old ladies. Alas ! my good friend,
heroes, philosophers, statesmen, have their itchings left,
though their all needs have been fully satisfied. Poor
Mr. Garrick labours under this infirmity of age ; he
has complained of Monsr. Le Texier for thinking of
bringing over Caillaud the French actor in the opera
comique, as a mortal prejudice to his reputation ; and
no doubt would be glad of an act of parliament that
should prohibit there ever being a good actor again in
any country or century ; but this is not all, he has
solicited King George to soUcit him to read a play.
The piece was quite new, Lethe, which their Majesties
have not seen above ten times every year for the last
ten years. He added three new characters equally
novel, as a Lady Featherby, because the queen dislikes
feathers. The piece was introduced by a prologue en
Fable ; a blackbird grown grey-haired, as blackbirds
are wont to do, had retired from the world, but was
called out again by the Eagle. Mr. Hare asked Gar
rick, if his Majesty looked very like an Eagle ? The au
dience was composed of King, Queen, Princess Royal,
DuchessofArgyll,LadyEgremont, Lady Charlotte Finch;
the Prince of Wales was not present ; and all went
off perfectly iU, with no exclamations of applause and
two or three formal compliments at the end. Bayes is
dying of chagrin, and swears he will read no more.
My second moral example is in higher life. That old
ruinous fragment of Faction, Lord Temple, has had an
aching gum too ; become by his separation from Lord

WALPOLE AND MASON. 269
Chatham, and by the death of his brother George, too
insignificant and too impotent to overturn, awe or even
alarm the administration, he has been attempting to
wriggle into a little favour by a mongrel mixture of
treachery, spying and informing, below a gentleman,
and even below any Lord, but one. Affecting to be
shocked at the attempt on Bristol, he employed one of
his own old incendaries to resort to the prison where
John the painter lies, and his worthy agent by worming
himself into that man's confidence, pretends to have
leamt from him that the said John had received £300
from Silas Deane for the purpose of burning, not only
Bristol, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, but the Bank of
England, for stone and gold are wonderfully combustible.
The natural philosophers in power beUeve that Dr.
FrankUn has invented a machine of the size of a tooth
pick case, and materials, that would reduce St. Pauls
to a handful of ashes. I know a very pious Seigneur
that firmly believes in this revival of the nostrum of the
old man of the mountain — though I do not think he
would like this destructibility of gold, if he did believe
in it.
The capture of the Hessians is confirmed with cir
cumstances somewhat untoward, for they were not
surprised, and yet all laid down their arms as if they
liked lands in America, better than the wretched pit
tance they are to receive out of the Landgrave's dole.
It is now the fashion to cry up the manoeuvre of
General Washington in this action, who has beaten
two English regiments too, and obliged General Howe

270 CORRESPONDENCE OP
to contract his quarters — in short the campaign has
by no means been wound up to content.
There is a great breach in the house of Holdemess.
DajToUe's daughter has eloped to Leonidas Glover's
youngest son, who is friend of Lord Carmarthen : Lady
Carmarthen has harboured, and the Countess her
mother has forbidden the daughter her court. This is
my second letter ; Mem. I have not had a line from
you.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON, March 13, 1777.
So you think I have always something to say because
I live in London ? If I have, I am sure novelty does
not constitute my cargo ; the present world seems
composed of forgery and informers, and the peers dig
nify the latter list, and may perhaps the former ; I am
not ambitious of being their historian. One Dignam,
a candidate for the borough of Hindon, and parliament,
had given information of a plot against the King's life,
which he had invented, and it neither producing a place
for him nor Lord Temple, he took to seUing places to
others, which all his merit could not obtain for himself,
and so he is. only in Newgate, This is a specimen of
tovra-news; it is better to be at York, than write
memoirs of Mrs, Grieve, Mrs, Rudd, Dr. Dodd, Mr.
Dignam, and Lord Temple.
Hume's life written by himself is just pubUshed. It

WALPOLE AND MASON. 271
is a nothing, a brief account of his disappointments on
his irreligious works making no noise at first, and his
historic making some. He boasts that in the latter he
dared to revive the cause of despotism — a great honour
truly to a phUosopher, and he speaks of your friend
Bishop Hurd with a freedom, that I dare to say the
whole court will profess to his lordship they think
monstrous rudeness. My Lord H. whose piety could
swaUow Hume's infidelity, wiH be shocked now that
he should have employed such a brute.
The memoirs and miscellaneous works of Lord Ches
terfield are come out too ; they are in two huge quartos,
dravsm up by Dr. Maty and his son, and compiled
chiefly from pamphlets. I am got but a little way into
them with small edification, yet I have found a new
anecdote or two, that are curious, and there are some
of his bon mots that will be new to others. In the
second volume are several of his French letters to a
Madame de Monconseil, whom I know ; she was married
to a French officer, and when I was first recommended
to her above thirty years ago, her mother kept a gaming
house, and the daughter has ever since dealt in intrigues
of all sorts, which latterly, you may be sure, have been
chiefly poUtical ; and of both sorts I believe interest
was generally the motive. Towards the end of the
Duke of Choiseul's power, her house was the rendezvous
of all his enemies ; I have seen Madame de Mire-
poix there with Marshal Richelieu, whom, till faction
reunited them, she would never be in a room with (but
at court) as he killed her first husband. She married

272 CORRESPONDENCE OF
her nephew to Madame de Monconseil's daughter,
and that made a quarrel between Mad, de Mirepoix
and the prime minister, and was the true cause of his
fall ; for the Princess de Beauvau, her sister in law and
enemy, to hurt Mad. de Mirepoix, drove the Dutchess
de Grammont into all the violence against Madame du
Barry, and the Duke was so weak as to let those two
women embroil him with the mistress, I was an eye
witness of those scenes, and at the Duke's three or four
nights in a week, and heard all their indiscretions.
There are I see besides, a letter or two to Madame
de Tenfin, a most horrid woman, sister of the Cardinal.
She had great parts and so little principle that she was
supposed to have murdered and robbed one of her
lovers, a scrape out of which Ld. Harrington, another
of them, saved her ; she had levees from eight in the
morning till night, from the lowest Tools to the highest.
Dalembert was her natural son, Madame Geoffrin her
pupil, and Pontdevesle her nephew, who was supposed
to have only adopted her novels, the Comte de Cominges,
and the memoires de Philippe Auguste. This acquain
tance with the personages, English and French, makes
me eager about these memoirs, and as I love nothing
so much now as writing notes in my books, this vrill
furnish me vrith employment.
I am extremely of your opinion about the new old
poems ; indeed you talk en connoissance de cause, who
can dispute with the author of the monody ? As I
already have your garden I am less interested about its
publication ; I almost grudge the swine your pearls ; yet

WALPOLE AND MASON. 273
write the third and the fourth, and sometimes to me,
for I must be encouraged, or I cannot vvrite even news
papers. There is nothing pleases me so much as
humbling myself to the level of my talents. Writing
notes in my books, as it requires only truth a,nd
-memory, and no parts, suits me exactly ; and had I
always known myself as well as I do now, I should
never have soared out of my sphere, and my works
would have been highly valued, as I should have never
had above one reader to each, the person who buys my
books at my auction. Don't tell me you have nothing
to say; you see how easy it is to make a long let
ter ; one might have vo-itten this in the Isle of Sky,
but you are a poet and a tragic author, and wUl not
condescend to write any thing lest your letters should
rise in judgment against you. It is a mercy to have
no character to maintain. Your predecessor Mr. Pope
laboured his letters as much as the Essay on Man, and
as they were written to every body, they do not look
as if they had been written to any body ; however as
I expect to be indemnified for your silence, I will con
sent to send you three letters for one, provided you
give me a satisfactory account hereafter of your
having been better employed than in answering mine.
I certainly shall do nothing better than writing to you,
and therefore whenever I have anything worth teUing
you, you shall hear it, and I shall not consider whether
it is worth posterity's knowing or not, — posterity must
deserve my favour a little better than their ances-
VOL. I. T

274 CORRESPONDENCE OF
tors now living, or I shall care a straw for their suf
frage.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, March 28, 1777.
I have been here these six days alone, enjoying the
bounty of March, which has laid aside its old dry winds
and behaved with a warmth, a heat that June seldom
condescends to bestow. I have had every door and
window all day open for these three days, and in the
garden the sun was even too hot. I wonder that in
this pious age there is no fear of an earthquake, and
that my Lord of London has not threatened us with
one in his pastoral letter on Good Friday ! I left the
town in a buzz about Lord Pigot's arrest, in which the
Scots are said to have acted an ungentle part, nay one
of guile, if they could be suspected of any unfair
dealings. We have fancied that this Uttle isle could
hold both the east and the west in commendam, and
supply the places of Montezuma and Aurenzebe. I
doubt France will soon present to both those cures of
souls. Caius Manlius Washingtonius Americanus, the
dictator, has got together a large army, larger than
that our ally the Duke of Wirtemburg was to have sold
us, and General Howe who has nothing but salt pro
visions in our metropolis. New York, has not twenty
thousand pounds worth of pickles as he had at Boston ;
but I do not understand military matters, and therefore

WALPOLE AND MASON. 275
wiU say no more of them. Have you read Hume's life,
and did you observe that he thought of retiring to
France and changing his name, because his works had
not got him a name. Lord Bute called himself Sir
John Stewart in Italy to shroud the beams of a title
too gorgeous ; but it is new to conceal a name that
nobody had heard of. Have .you got Lord Chester
field ? I have read his letters and like them, but Dr,
Maty is no Mason at biography ; you will be charmed
with his Common senses and Fogs, if you never read
them, and with his Worlds, which you have read.
They are the best of his works, Mr. Jephson has sent
me his ViteUia, which Garrick rejected last year with as
much judgment as he acted all the wretched pieces
that appeared at Drury lane for so many years ; it
has beautiful poetry as Braganza had, and more action
and more opportunities for good actors, if there were
any. This is my second since my promise of three, of
which I repent already as I have no satisfaction in
writing but to hear from you ; but I can make all
three as short as I please, for the spirit and the letter
of a promise are two very different things, vide Sanchez,
Escobar, Mansfield, and other casuists on coronation
oaths.

276 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, April 5, 1777.
Young folks may fancy what they wUl of such an
tiques as I am, having no original pleasures, or only
scraps and ends. Lord Holland was always whining
on the miseries of old age, now I can tell both the one
and the other, that there are very cordial enjo3rments,
which only the old can have, I have just tasted two
great raptures of the sort I mean, — but indeed they do
not happen very often. The transports I allude to, are
living to see the private works, sentiments and anec
dotes of one's own time come to light. The two last
folios of Lord Chesterfield delighted me upon that
score, but there is still a fresher work of the same kind,
and by far one of the most curious and authentic that
ever was pubUshed, It is a history of many interesting
parts of the latter end of Louis quatorze, of the Regent,
and of the late King of France, taken from an immense
collection of state papers amassed by the two last
Marechaux de Noailles, furnished by the family, and
though of dates so recent, and though published at
Paris, written vrith a freedom and impartiality that are
stupendous. I vrill give you an instance that is
striking ; one of the Marechals congratulates Louis
on the taking of Namur, and says it is a conquest that
he alone could atchieve. King William, says the
author, took it with much more deserved applause two
years afterwards. There are six duodecimos, pretty

WALPOLE AND MASON. 277
thick ; the first relates chiefly to the persecution of the
protestants on the revocation of the edict of Nantes : is
severe on the King, but unsatisfactory, because the
Marshal being recalled, the author follows him and not
the war, and this is almost the only kind of fault I find
in the work, which ought to have been called memoirs of
the two marshals, instead of memoirs of two reigns.
But the invaluable part, and that pretty perfect, is the
genuine and secret history of Spain on the establish
ment of Philip V, Nothing ever was more curious —
you will even see the pains Louis XIV took to persuade
his grandson to give up Spain and content himself with
Sardinia, and you cannot doubt it. The two last
volumes are not less interesting to me, who have the
very minute of time before my eyes. I remember how
I trembled, as Lord Chesterfield did (for these me
moirs are the counterpart of his) just before the peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle, and yet you will see that the court
of France was in as great a panic as we had reason to
be. I remember saying often, that a Uttle thing saved
us as ruined us, and that if France had not as inca
pable ministers as we had, we must be undone. Per
haps, when more memoirs of the FamUy of NoaUles
appear, somebody or other will make this reflection
again. The second Marshal had (luckily for posterity,
though probably a little wearisome at the time) a rage
of drawing up memorials ; but he was a good and a
prudent man ; and the latter quality made his courage
a little doubted, as the author fairly owns. I remem-

278 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ber a bon mot of his son, the present Marshal, on that
topic. The old gentleman had like to have been
drowned by going in a boat on the water ; his son, the
Due d'Ayen, a great bonmotist, scolded the servants
for not hindering his father, and said, " ne scavez-vous
pas que mon pdre craint I'eau comme le feu''
You cannot conceive the avidity vrith which I de
voured these volumes ; one cannot be more vigourous
at eighteen, but alas ! one cannot go to Drury Lane
and pick up two Noailles's every night ! It is vexa
tious too, that as these papers wUl spread the taste of
hoarding state papers, (which the old marshal had
retained from the taste of memoir writing that was rife
in his youth) I shall not live to see those collections.
We are indeed likely to have an immense collection
ere long, but not quite so important. It seems by a
note of Dr. Maty, that Lord Chesterfield, who I thought
had used him only as a butt to shoot wit at, had kept
up a correspondence with long Sir Thomas Robinson
for fifty years. Well ; Sir Thomas is dead too ; and
lest the public should sigh for his answers, as they did
for Madame de Grignan's, he was so industrious as to
keep copies of his, nay, he had preserved every letter
he ever received, nay, and he had kept copies of all his
answers to all them too ; and he has left all, letters
and answers, to the Roman people ; that is, to an
apothecary who married his natural daughter, with
injunctions to pubUsh all, which wUl last me my Ufe.
Oh, but stay, the Primate of Ireland, Sir Thomas's
brother, is not quite so indulgent as the House of

WALPOLE AND MASON. 279
Noailles, who have suffered a letter of a bishop, their
uncle, who teazes the Marshal for promotion, to be
published. My Lord of Armagh is consulting law
yers whether he cannot stop the publication, and in
truth it is an abominable thing that private letters of
living persons should be printed.
I do not know a tittle of what has happened in
Europe (or America) since Lord Chesterfield and
Monsieur de Noailles died, but I shall go to town on
Monday, recollect the Uving, and tell you what they
have been doing ; but then you must take care to
answer this, which is the third, or if Lord Temple
should find a plot in a meal tub or a flower-pot, I shaU
not be able to teU you till I am empowered to write a
first letter. 8th, Lond.
The Bishop of London is dead, and MUe Khrome.
I thought your friend Dr. Hurd would have succeeded
them both. The message for the debts and civil list is
to be delivered to morrow. Somebody knocks, and I
must finish.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
York. April 14, 1777.
Shame upon me, I have indeed now three unanswered
letters of yours, and such letters too as every one of
them deserved three answers a piece for the entertain-

280 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ment which they severally afforded, but if these nine
letters were all of them written from this place and in
my present monotonous situation they would I am
convinced not make one equal sufficient answer or be
deemed fair and full payment by any person conversant
in the course of epistolary exchange, so I must content
myself with resting in a state of insolvency and con
tinuing your poor debtor to the end of my resi-
dentiarial days, if not to the end of my natural life.
But pray (say you) Mr. Residentiary what is a mono
tonous situation ? is it not a phrase similar to a spon
taneous coat which puzzled a wit at Whites so much
that in order to get rid of it he laid a bett that there
was no such word as spontaneous in Johnson's Dicti
onary ! No Sir, I assure you there is the strictest pro
priety in the epithet, for my hours are all regulated by
a certain tinkling monotonous machine called the
Minster prayer bell which even now (while I am
writing) begins to move its clapper and will hardly
let me finish my sentence, with an adieu to you tUl
I have obeyed its summons and have gone to my
matins. * * *
And now Sir my matins are finished and I resume
my pen, but the singing boys have bauld so horridly
out of tune that I have lost aU the good temper I was
possessed of after my breakfast when I first sat down
to write to you. And this is every day the case, and as
the Post goes off every day at noon, every letter I
attempt to write is liable to the same mischance, so that
nothing suivie nothing that your critics would call a

WALPOLE AND MASON. 281
composition can possibly fall from my pen. Well,
reply you, but are my letters compositions ? No ! but
they are better than compositions, and therefore when a
man cannot write such better things than compositions,
he must either compose or not write at all, Q. E. D.
I saw lately in a review, the only species of literary
beings (and you will allow them to be of the true
Drury Lane stamp) on which one can here be vigorous,
an account of a work of Marmontel's called I think Les
lncas which seemed to be a sort of historical novel on
the conquest of Peru, — perhaps it might give one some
hint for a drama similar to that which you once recom
mended to me. Marmontel is no favourite writer of
mine, but he has invention, and sometimes traits of
character. Have you seen the work and is it worth
sending for to town ? I could get it perhaps in a fort
night if the waggoner pleases,
O ! for the muse of Lord Lyttleton or of Mr, Mon
tague that I might finish the imperfect dialogue which
David Hume has left us between himself and Charon,
and 0 ! for the dedicatorial powers of Sir John Haw
kins that I might dedicate it either to the King or my
Lord Hertford,
A friend of mine here who is an excellent scholar
has examined PUny with the greatest accuracy con
cerning all he has left relative to encaustic painting, and
gone much further than Count Caylus or any French
scholar, I believe could possibly do, on such a sub
ject ; ill short he has found out the precise colours and
mode of operation which Protogenes used, and from

282 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the single specimen he has produced has made it very
clear to me that the art is capable of being carried to
absolute perfection, and is equally excellent for its sim
plicity, and promise of durability, and I have reason to
think that as the tints employed are fixt and perma
nent, pictures might be copied in this way, by persons
no better skilled in drawing than the workmen in
mosaic at Rome, or the tapistry weavers at the Gobe
lins, And now. Sir, by the time this reaches you,
the Budget will be opened, the increase of the civU
list moved for, and every thing that can make the
felicity of this nation as permanent as the most genuine
encaustic painting secured to us and our posterity.
Let me not I beseech you owe all my intelligence of
these blessed events to a newspaper. But indulge me
{pro more) with a speedy account from your own pen,
to which I will give no other epithet than that it is to
me a most charitable pen, and shall have my prayers for
its preservation both at matins and vespers, good
creature as it is
Amen.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
AprU 18, 1777.
I have seen but not read one syllable of Marmontel's
"Yncas, nor ever wiU. History is romance enough,
without purposely perverting it. I could not wade
through a quarter of his Belisarius. I hope the Peru-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 283
vians will have better masters to teach them liberty
than French philosophes, and not be obliged to go to
Paris on their way to Thermopylae. However, as you
can strike fire from a flint, I am disposed to send you
the book, and shall be delighted if you beget a Pandora
on a cloud.
It is easy to me to beUeve your friend's discoveries in
encaustic. Muntz went far enough to prove the facUity,
use and durability, but not far enough to get the
method adopted ; not from any defect or difficulty in
the practice, but from the stupidity and obstinacy and
John-trot-plodding-in-tbe-same-wayness of the Profes
sors. If you think, because it talks more of the arts,
that the age is grown more sensible and docile, I shall
not agree with you. In truth, I have made up my
mind in a superb contempt of every thing present, not
because I am old and prefer the days of my youth ; I
go much further back. Except yours, which can pro
duce adamants that will resist time and live to be dug
up in a brighter century, I am for totally discouraging
genius. The soil in which it could shoot and flourish
vigourously is worn out, at least in this island. It is a
reprobated land in every sense, and if I were twenty
years younger, I would seek a wiser country ; for there
is a joy in looking up to great men and admiring them ;
there is none to a generous mind in looking down on
any body, much less on all and without any of the pride
of virtue. I trust one may, without vanity, despise a
world that respects nothing but gold, whether to hoard
or squander. The contempt of money is no more a

284 CORRESPONDENCE OP
virtue than to wash one's hands is one ; but one does
not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes
his. Lord Chesterfield's Characters are published, and are
not even prettily written, as might have been expected.
They are not so much as terse and quaint, which would
not indeed have made them better, but they are even
vulgar and ill expressed ; one would think he did not
know the personages well with whom he had been so
conversant. This is not from prejudice that I speak,
for my father's is tolerably impartial, and in some parts
just, yet as it was preserved by his Lordship, so many
years after the confutation was notorious, it shows
old prejudice to tax him vrith having sacrificed every
thing to the purpose of making a great fortune. He
was born to £2500 a year, left a nominal estate of
£8000, and died fifty thousand in debt. Tom Wind
ham was more ingenuous, even though in opposition,
and in the height of the clamour ; going to see Long-
leat, built by Sir John Thynne, steward to the protector
Somerset, and the man who showed the house (which by
the way is a town in comparison) sajdng, " it is a large
house, but we don't pretend that it rivals Houghton,"
Windham replied, " No — yet I believe Mr. Jenkins
(my father's steward) has not buUt such an one." The
character of the Queen is equally unjust : avarice was
by no means her failing. Lord Hardwicke is as ridi-
culouslv exalted. More, Bacon, Clarendon were nothing
to that mirrour of magistrates ; you would think that
Lord Chatham could have out- reasoned Lord Mansfield,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 285
as easUy as his thunder shook that aspin leaf. I do not
recommend to your friend to copy these portraits in
encaustic. There is another scurrilous poem by the author of
the Diaboliad, it is particularly hurled at the heads of
the Hertfords. The writer is supposed to be a Captain
Coombes, whose title to the office of Censor general, is
having been guilty of forgery ; and to be executioner,
to having married a common woman, who was kept
by Lord Beauchamp. Are not we an exemplary peo
ple ?
The payment of the King's debts was gratefully
accorded yesterday by those who had contributed to
cause his necessities. Charles Fox made a great figure
in behalf of Ld. John's motion for a committee. The
latter apologized for the secession of his friends, on
their finding they could do no good. Wilkes made a
panegyric on the real King of France for his tenderness
to his brothers, unlike the gloomy tjTant — and then
he paused — Louis the eleventh. In the Lords, Lord
Rockingham and the Duke of Grafton differed on one
motion, and agreed on another. I know nothing of
the budget, but I am charmed with a new mode of
government, which every body else laughs at ; I mean
the decision of the directors of the East India Company,
by tossing up heads and tails, whether Lord Pigot
should be a prisoner or a nabob. If every nation was
to be mled by this compendious and impartial method,
the people would on every occasion have an equal
chance for happiness from every measure ; and I beg

286 CORRESPONDENCE OF
to know where"^ it is not three to one against them
by every other mode. I would be content to live
under the most despotic monarchy that could be
devized, provided King Heads and TaUs were the so
vereign. You wonder I say nothing on your second garden.
No you don't. It is not upon any of the topics of
the week, and the silent few that read from taste, come
seldom in my way, who live half the week stark alone
at Strawberry, and the rest of it with folks whose read
ing is the last thing I desire to hear them talk of; yet
they do talk of it, for it is the Morning Post. Lord
Nuneham indeed told me to night that a Lord of his
acquaintance had taken your garden for Gray's and
did not like it. We were both very glad of both, and
I am sure you agree with us. Adieu,

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. York, 1777.
Though I have had the pleasure of receiving three
letters from you, I have not been so long in your debt
as you may imagine, for two of them travelled about
the county as your letters usually do, and by being
misdirected saw Wakefield, Rotherham, Aston, &c.,
before they reached me at York ; where I have now
been two months, and must stay another before I am
released from presiding over the diurnal devotions of

WALPOLE AND MASON.

287

decayed tradesmen and card plapng old gentlewomen.
I beg their pardon for not giving these latter the prece
dence in my period, they would pull my surplice over
my head, and uncover my shame if they knew it.
So much for apology (if it can be caUed by that name)
let me now thank you, which I do most cordiaUy for
the great entertainment those letters have given me,
because they treat precisely of those veiy topics which
I cannot learn here, and which of aU others I love to
have news about, continue them I beseech you for
sweet Saint Charity. I assure you my situation here
in point of literary matters is just as awkward as if I
had lived in the 12th century when all the books in
Oxford, as Mr. Warton says, were contained in a few
chests in St. Mary's Church, 'tis true however if I
subscribe my half-crown a quarter to the bookseller,
I can read aU the Jemmy Jessamies that come out, and
at the middle of a month can have the high treat of
that Review which was published on the first day of it.
But this is the utmost York affords me. Yet by writ
ing to Stonhewer, I did get Tom Warton dovra by the
coach in due time, but have yet only had time to get
through his two preliminary dissertations, and to own
the truth, thought it more Uke wading than reading,
but I intend to wade on whenever opportunity offers.
If I had really that Papistical supremacy over letters
that I once pretended to have to Mr. Jerningham, I
would prohibit every body from studying antiquities
except those very few that had from nature more vrit
than they knew what to do with. I think when you

288 CORRESPONDENCE OF
was young, you were one of this class, and therefore
you would have escaped my prohibition.
I know not whether this be a compliment to you or
not, however, I mean to say that your Antiquarian
studies have done you (and you only of all I know),
more good than harm ; they have left you with as much
of your wits about you as any man ought to be trusted
with, and I dare say (if you would own it) you find
those wits more tractable and manageable now, than
before you was an antiquarian. I doubt when I have
gone through the huge quarto now before me, I shall
not judge thus favourably of what antiquities have done
to its author. I am already much displeased at what he
says about the works of Ossian. He does not seem by
any means to believe them genuine, and yet either his
rage for antiquity or his fear of Macpherson makes him
pretend to think them so, and yet in so weakly a way
does he say the Uttle he does in their defence, that he
wUl rather heighten the suspicion against them. By
the way I have been very petulant and pert in some of
my notes on this subject to a few of Mr. Gray's letters,
and expect not only to have Macpherson himself, but
all the Macs in Scotland upon my back. I had an op
portunity of sending by a private hand (only the other
day) the greatest part of my fourth section to Mr.
Stonhewer, from whom you may have a sight of it when
ever jrou please. You will there read 40 letters and
the 20 more which complete the section are now in the
press, and I shall send them to him as they come from
it, two sheets more wUl go by this post. I am in no

WALPOLE AND MASON. 289
haste about publication, and for the same reason that
you withhold your last volume of Anecdotes from the
world, I am certain my notes &c. wUl create me
many enemies ; and yet for my life I cannot help writ
ing what I think the truth. Pray is the study of anti
quities as useful towards checking a redundancy of
tmth as of vrit ? if so, I think that I too must com
mence antiquarian.
They tell me that my name has been mentioned in
the House of Commons about literary property, and that
it was said, " I did not think it worth my while now to
print the work I had in hand." I certainly never said
this ; I beUeve I might say that it would be weU for me
to wait and see whether any thing would be done to
secure one's property. The truth is, as you know, that
I wish to make the publication lucrative, and for what
I think a good purpose. Now, as it was difficult to do
this before the Lords' decision, it is ten times more
difficult to do it now ; for what way have the book
sellers now left to make themselves atonement for
their loss of copyright, but the easy and effectual way of
pirating saleable books ? I verily beUeve they did this
before the decision, and therefore I am sure they will
do it now. One way that I thought of preventing this
was by means of the head you saw, which I thought
they could not so easily pirate, and whether I use this
or no, I mean to write my name in every copy, for
which I have the respectable authorities of ChurchiU
and Tristram Shandy. It does not appear to me that
the case of authors, i. e. of those few writers who like
VOL, I, U

290 CORRESPONDENCE OP
me have published by means of a bookseller, and have
yet reserved their right of copy in themselves has ever
yet been considered in either of the debates, at present,
I have lost all right and title in all my own things,
merely because my bookseller neglected to enter thera
in Stationer's Hall. But enough, more than enough on
so dull a subject. >
I saw, near three weeks ago, the advertisement of a
Familiar Epistle to the Author of the Heroic Epistle and
Postscript ; if it had been good for any thing I imagine
you would have mentioned it, as you know I liked those
publications. Is not their author yet found out ?
I will say nothing of my meditated visit to you and
a very few other friends in town and its environs till I
hear from my curate, Mr, Alderson, who is now at
Syon Hill, and who wUl soon give an account not only
of his lordship's present state of health, but his intended
motions. If either a journey to Bath or Yorkshire,
leaves me the Middlesex coast clear, I shall seize on
that moment to visit you ; for vrith this view I keep
myself quite disengaged after I am free from my
present confinement, which ends the llth of next
month, till which time I beg you to remember that I
am at York and nowhere but at York, BeUeve me to
be, with the most perfect respect, dear Sir,
yours very sincerely W. MASON,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 291

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, May 2, 1777.
I ask Mr. Fraser to send you the lncas : I wish they
may produce a thousand fold.
You must not expect news nor any thing from me.
I have been again involved in a sea of troubles ; my
nephew Lord Orford is relapsed and I have passed the
last ten days between the inn at Barton MiUs, and the
hovel where he is five mUes thence. He is so far come
to himself, that when he vrill speak, which is only in a
whisper, his answers are rational. I will not tire you
with the variety of my distresses which are manifold ;
doctors, lawyers, stewards, rogues and relations, take
up my whole time. I stole one day to walk through
and dine with old Cole ; I sighed to take the vows at
the former. I think I could pass my last days there
with great comfort. King's chapel is more beautiful
than Strawberry HUl. A bookish monk is a happy
being, he is neither disposed to laugh, nor to feel, and
scarce knows that the other two divisions are fools and
villains. Adieu.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. York, May 12, 1777.
I had heard of the melancholy account of your
nephew's relapse only a day or two before I received

292 CORRESPONDENCE OP
your last favour, dated on the second, with the lncas,
which I am obliged to you for and will take care to re
turn safely at some convenient opportunity. But as I
received them only yesterday, cannot look into them
till I get to Aston, where I hope to be next Saturday,
after taking a tour eastward to look after some im
proved farms of mine which grow no corn, and on which
my tenants break, and which keep exact pace with aU
other improvements in this improving age of ours.
Your journey to Barton Mills, melancholy as it must
have been, and which I sincerely condole with you, for
the cause of, could hardly be more comfortless than
mine which I am about to take, but parlous d'autres
choses. I have found out an empty gothic shrine in a
conspicuous part of the Minster, which, on measure
ment, will exactly fit WUliam de Hatfield, in which I
mean to place him (the Dean wUling) at my next
residence. But I must do it at my own expence, I
suspect ; for though we have received five marks a
year ever since the Reformation for not praying for the
said William's soul, I do not think we shall be grateful
enough to his alabaster body to place him in the said
shrine, by expence of Chapter. However I think I can
achieve this work for three or four guineas, and if you
wUl go halves with me, and write an inscription in
right good classical-gotho Latin, you shall be heartily
welcome. I think we cannot get or secure fame for our
joint love of dead princes at a cheaper rate than by this
restoration of the said Prince WiUiam. You must
send me also an exact blazon of his arms, which my

WALPOLE AND MASON. 293
encaustic friend, who goes on very prosperously, has
promised to encausticate gratis.
I am so over head and ears in epistolary debts that
I must apply to my correspondents to pay them, and
as I can safely say they brought me into this debt they
cannot in conscience refuse the grant. You stand
highest creditor in this letter -list, and therefore
my first application is to you. We expect and de
mand therefore that you take this short and dull
scrawl for full payment of all the long and most en
tertaining letters we have received from you during
our precentorial residence, and we promise to be more
economical when we are found at Aston near Rother
ham, where please to remember we are forthwith going
and so we heartily bid you farewell.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. Aston, May 26, 1777.
I found your obliging letter of the 16th when I
returned hither out of the east-riding, inclosed in the
supplement to David Hume's Life which came safe
and speedily by the Leeds coach, but how you came
to find out that mode of conveyance puzzles me, 'tis
however a very good one and drops any parcel at
my door most conveniently and therefore occa
sionally it may be a safer conveyance than the post.
This same supplement I suspect is written by Murray,

294 CORRESPONDENCE OP
a Scotch Bookseller vrith whom I have a chancery suit
at present on account of his pirating Gray's poems.
About a fortnight ago he sent me a printed letter
which he said, in a M.S. letter which accompanied it
that he should publish on the 21st instant, but sent
me it before, "that he might not treat me with iU
manners." I suppose therefore the letter is now pub
lished, and I hope you have either read it, or will read
it immediately. I have nothing to say to it, but that I
have got by it what Job wished for, when he said
" Oh that my adversary had v^ritten a book, surely I
would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a
crown to me," for the abuse is so gross and illiberal
that I think it will tend greatly to give a right issue
to the cause, and lead to the end for which I first
instituted it, which you know was to procure an act
in favour of authors, and prevent the piracy of
booksellers. You will say I know that in times Uke
these when there is no author fit to be read that
cares whether his works be pirated or no, it is little
worth while to aim at such a thing but perhaps it
may benefit posterity — and on that perhaps I mean
to proceed.
I have waded though almost a volume of the lncas
but it was pain and grief to me. Your French phi
losophes think it incumbent upon them to turn
preachers themselves after they think they have
demolished preaching. But they tum out the duUest
proneurs in the world, insomuch that I should not
wonder if a fine French Belle Esprit laid down her Dide-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 295
rot or her Marmontel and took up old P^re Bourdaloue
merely pour sa desennuier. I am sure I can read my
friend Jeremy Taylor with great contentation after the
most eloquent of them.
You must not expect the great honor of re-enshrin
ing (not the bones) but the Alabaster figure of WiUiam
of Hatfield unless you wiU share it with me and join
your name to mine on the occasion. But as nothing can
be done in this matter tiU my next residence, I hope to
talk the thing over with you in London before that
time, I hear our archbishop has preached a fine
tory rory sermon about propagating the gospel and
seems inclined rather to propagate popery than presby-
terianism but I can not get a sight of it though I writ a
month ago to Montagu to send it to me. This is
unlucky, because as I am catechizing my parish in
order to prepare them for his Grace's confirmation, I
ought to leam the proper way of expounding to them
what is meant by that Spiritual Grace which his Ar-
chiepiscopal palm is to convey to them — I suppose
Burke's Pamphlet is made out of the paper which he
drew up in the beginning of last winter for the use of
his friends in the minority, and which they had not the
courage to make use of, I had a sight of it, and thought
it in many parts exceUently written. I have no chance
of seeing it tiU the Parliament breaks up and Mr.
Montagu returns into my neighbourhood.
I am anxious to have better accounts of Lord Orford
for your sake, but would not wish you tiU then to pain
yourself on so melancholy a subject. Believe that I in-

296 CORRESPONDENCE OP
terest myself most cordially in your concerns, and that
I am, dear Sir, most truly yours W. MASON,

TO THE HON, HORACE WALPOLE,
Aston, June 21, 1777.
I found your favour of the 1 0th with the Gazettes
Litteraires (for both which many thanks) at Sheffield
on the 18th inst., after I had taken my leave of my
diocesan at his visitation, who was then setting out for
Wentworth Castle on the invitation of its noble owner.
Except from him and the Duke of Newcastle, I do not
find he has received any civility hitherto on his pro
gress ; I indeed, the day before, treated him with a
stinking turbot at Aston ; but I and my stinking turbot
are nothing. The papers will tell you how he pufft his
predecessor, Robin Goodfellow, in his charge, and ex
cept this which gave great offence to everybody who
knew Robin's real character, that is to say, the whole
body of the clergy who heard him, save one unpro-
vided-for chaplain, who wept bitterly ; except this, I
say, all other matters went off quietly and dully enough
in conscience. Though naturaUy very ungracious in
his manner, dry, reserved and absent, he put on his
most benign aspect to your humble servant, and invited
both me and my portmanteau to Bishopthorpe, which I
returned with two bows, one for my portmanteau and
another for myself, I feel no little comfort in finding

WALPOLE AND MASON.

297

His Grace now northward of me, for almost all my
time the fortnight before was taken up in parochial
preparations, such as making out terriers, catechising
children, writing them out confirmation tickets, &c. &c,
preaching on the subject, &c. &c., aU which you have
no conception of, and would think it if you had, my
curate's business. Yet I had my reasons for taking it
upon myself as much as possible on the present oc
casion; nevertheless, I have done something else;
" are you avised of that?" as Mrs, Quickly says ; no ;
but I trust you vrill ere long. But the conveyance,
though safe, is so uncertain in point of time, witness,
your Gazettes Litteraires (which ought to have been
dropt at my door five days before I found them ten
mUes off at Sheffield) that I shaU find another method
of giving you a sight of the drawings to which I
allude, therefore you must wait with patience tUl they
arrive, I must tell you one speech which I made to
His Grace, as I have no speeches of other folks to send
you. He praised my house and said it must have cost
me a good deal of money. I said it did, and perhaps
I was impmdent to lay out so much, but it gave me
consolation to think I had by doing so, made a pretty
adequate return to Lord H. for his patronage, especiaUy
as tiie Uving was retained in the famUy, and as to the
situation I thought it so pleasant that a man might
very weU preserve his independency in it, the only
thing which I thought worth preserving. His Grace
was sUent, but whether his sUence gave consent to the
opinion I pretend not to determme.

298 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I will add no more till you receive my drawings,
which as they are done in a pretty free way wiU I hope
please you well enough to excuse my writing you a
longer letter, I do not expect you to put them up in
the Beauclerk Tower, which by the way I long much to
see, but I fiud no possibUity of coming southward this
year. Believe me, dear Sir,
very sincerely yours W, MASON,

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON,
Strawberry HiU, July 6, 1777.
I don't know any body so much in the wrong as you
are for not coming to me this summer ; you would see
such a marvellous closet, so smaU, so perfect, so res
pectable ; you would swear it came out of Havering in
the bower, and that Catherine de Valois used to retire
into it to write to Owen Tudor. Lady Di's drawings —
no offence to yours, are hung on Indian blue damask,
the ceiling, door and surbase are gilt, and in the win
dow are two brave fleur de lis and a lion of England,
all royally crovraed in painted glass, which as Queen
Catherine never did happen to write a billet doux in
this closet, signify Beauclerc, the denomination of the
tower. This cabinet is to be sacred and not shown to
the profane, as the drawings are not for the eyes of the
vulgar. Yours shall have a place, which is the greatest
honour I can do them. Miss Pope the actress, who is

WALPOLE AND MASON. 299
at Mrs. CUve's, dined here yesterday, and htterally
shed tears, though she did not know the story. I
think this is more to Lady Di's credit, than a tom-tit
pecking at painted fruit. The ceiling was fortunately
finished some time ago. My plaisterer is tumed raving
methodist, and has sent me a frantic letter without
sense or grammar, but desiring leave to open me a new
plan of the gospel. I am glad he had no new light
about making stucco !
Those gentry the methodists will grow very trouble
some, or worse ; they were exceedingly unwilling to
part with that impudent hypocrite Dr. Dodd, and not
less, to have forgery criminal. I own I felt very much
for the poor wretch's protracted sufferings — but that
was not the motive of their countenance ; I cannot bear
a militant arch inquisitor, or an impostor in a taber
nacle. Thank you for your reply to the former &c.
I have no more gazettes litteraires, or politiques.
Linguet, the outcast of France has pubUshed one here
that makes some noise ; part is satire on us, part pane
gyric, but in general very superficial. I have an
anecdote apropos to him that is very curious. I wiU
teU it you some day or other, but as it is a secret, I
must not communicate it to the post-office.
They have sent me from town a fourth volume of
the Archaeologia, or old women's logic ; the first para
graph is as complete nonsense as my plaisterer's letter.
Don't let this horrid weather put you out of humour
with your garden, though I own it is pity we should
have brought gardening to perfection, and have too

300 CORRESPONDENCE OF
bad a climate to enjoy it. It is strictly true this year
as I have often said, that ours is the most beautiful
country in the world, when framed and glazed ; but
r emember you can make the sun shine when you please,
and as much as you please, and yet the verdure of your
garden will be ever green. You are an exceUent parish
priest, catechize and make terriers I believe in per
fection ; but pray do not forget poor poetry, your
natural vocation, as you have done so long ; but you
must be every thing, an inventor of musical instru
ments, a painter, and a law suitor. —
" Besides a hundred freaks that died in thinking."
Well, I cannot help loving you with aU your faults
and all your perfections.
I am just now in great trouble, though a little
relieved to day by a better account. The Duke of
Gloucester is extremely ill, and my poor niece in dis-
pair ! They are coming if they can to England for a
little time, as the heat of the south is too mighty for
him, how dear has ambition cost her ; Adieu.
As it is right to be impartial, which I am not natu
rally, I must tell you that at the end of the new
Archaeologia there is a very good essay on ancient
castles, with very curious matter, by a Mr. King. I
don't know who he is, — but it rains again, and there
is no bearing it.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 301

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, Aston, July 27, 1777.
For the last fortnight of fine weather I said to my
self, " lounge, sleep and be idle, break not thy repose
even by writing a letter." I did so but a great thunder
storm after drowning me fourteen good acres of hay,
and afterwards leaving them to rot under a cold dun sky
has driven me again to my fire-side, and to my port-
feuille, where I find your favour of the 6th to my shame
unanswered. You who care not a rush about your
own hay, will not call the spoiling of mine any judg
ment upon me for my accidie which Chaucer's parson
will tell you is one of the deadliest of the seven deadly
sins. My quondam patron and patroness are gone to
Hornby Castle and have called my curate Alderson
thither. I conjecture the thunder storm would just give
them the meeting about Ferrybridge, which would
serve to corroborate her Ladyship's good opinion of
the north, especially as it has been succeeded by such
cold and comfortless weather. I suppose my Lord and
Lady Carmarthen are of the party and a pleasant one
I trust it is. Had I not reason when I pronounced
that paw word — Independency — to the Archbishop,
to be proud that I could pronounce it ?
No body sends me any thing but you. It was but
yesterday that the epistle to Dr. Shebbeare reached
Aston, and that not sent to me, but to Mr. Verelst.
There are good lines in it and a happy mixture of the

302 CORRESPONDENCE OF
careless and serious, the burlesque and heroic. The ode
too has its merit, but it seems manqud, all the lines
in Horace are not alluded to, as nomen tulit ab Africd,
and Carthaginis fiammee impiee, &;c., which in these
kind of imitations ought always to be observed. TeU
me whether this criticism be not a just one. You
should have contrived to have let me had a copy of
this, because I ought not to come after an East Indian
Govemor in early intelligence of this sort.
What a glorious figure does Great Britain, as Em
press of the sea, make in the papers of the last
week, I fancy we shall hear in a short time that
Dublin is in the possession of the provincials. I had
rather it were Edinburgh for the sake of my Scotch
bookseller. After Great Britain I think Mason versus
Murray makes no contemptible eclat, 'tis quite a plea
sure to see one's name so pubhc. My lawyers give me
a pleasant account of my Lord Chancellor's decision,
who acquitted the said Murray of a contempt of his
court because he was advised to it by an attorney.
Hence in chancery, as at St. Omers, you may do what
you please provided you have the opinion of a Dr. to
support you, and I suppose our attorneys are full as good
as their casuistical divines, at least his Lordship thinks
so. I should be glad to hear in your next what ac
counts there are of the Duke of Gloucester, and pray
send me all the news you can, and Gazettes Litteraires
when you can spare them. Were you to send pacquets
to Mr. Verelst's house in St. James Square, with a card
to Mr. Manesty, saying only " Mr. Manesty is desired

WALPOLE AND MASON. 303
"to forward this parcel to Aston the first time he
sends any thing down to Mr. Verelst," I should
receive them safe and vrith little trouble to your
servants. Yours very sincerely W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, Aug. 4, 1777.
You know I do not stand upon debtor and creditor
with you, but should have indulged my pleasure of
writing to you if I had been master of a moment's
leisure or peace of mind. The various distresses and
misfortunes of my family have engrossed me entirely.
My nephew continues to fluctuate between violence and
stupidity ; as the last is not alarming, and there are
scarce hopes of any comfitable recovery, I am inclined
to wish it took place totaUy. In the mean time his
affairs are as distracted, and have driven me into a
paper war vrith his agent. The Duke of Gloucester is
still exceedingly ill ; Dr. Jebb fiatters us he shall bring
him to England, but promises nothing more. The
Bishop of Exeter has been dying these nine months
at last seems recovering. All these calamities and
their consequential details have left me no time for
amusement or attention to any thing else, and unless
American privateers attack Hampton Court, I shall
forget almost that there are thirteen colonies. In

304 CORRESPONDENCE OF
good truth they seem fully able to take care of them
selves, nay, at leisure to return our invasions. If they
bum Edinburgh, I shall not cry fire. Lord John
Cavendish is returned from a visit to his sister in
Ireland, and gives a droU description of Viceroy Buck
ingham's entrenchments, which are not quite so strong
as dictator Washington's, except in gin shops. The
rest of the encampment consists in three tents. The
Ossianites rave against Howe, Madame de Noailles the
Embassador's wife arrives to day with a sprig I believe,
of rue in her mouth merely to keep her from laughing,
Cunningham sailed from Dunkirk with orders to be very
civil till in wide ocean, but mistook the channel for it,
and made nine prizes, which if he sent to Dunkirk
will obtain his pardon, I heard this morning that
France has fifteen thousand men in India, who I sup
pose have orders not to take Bengal within sight of the
French coast, A good courtisan told me last night, as
a counterpoise to all these unforeseen accidents, that
Lord Chatham has had a fall from his horse, in a fit. — -
The bells are ringing — perhaps on that account.
I have no more Gazettes Litteraires jet, but I have
a new work that I will lend you, that you wUl read,
though very tiresome and ill written, printed here by
some of the excrement of Paris ; it is called Memoires Se
crets pour servir a THistoire de laRepublique des Lettres
en France depuis 1762 jusqu'h nos jours. It is a jour
nal of all the minor politics, literature, theatric anec
dotes, scandal and fashions of that country, and as
all those heads compose much of their politics, it is the

WALPOLE AND MASON, 305
history of every thing but their foreign politics. There
are eight thick duodecimos, ill written, vrith no judg
ment, and very partial, almost against everybody and
thing, however it shows them, and that they make little
better figure than we do, though we are so low ! I think
a man of sense and taste should blush to be talked of
in either country, I think you are too difficult however
about the Ode and the Epistle to Shebbeare, which will
survive when all our trash is forgotten. What do you
think of the immortal lines on Cox's Museum ? 1 beg
your pardon too if I cannot see the sin of omission in
some Unes of Horace not being paraphrased in so
heinous a light. The author does not profess a trans
lation, and surely was at liberty to take only what parts
he found to his purpose. If I had time, I dare to say
I could prove to you that the ode is a stricter imitation
than those of Pope ; but alas ! I have other guess be-
sogne ; however, to show you I have not totally aban
doned all the occupations I love, I will mention an
instance, I chanced upon t'other day of the barbarity
of the French language in Poetry, I happened to
open a volume of Voltaire at Lord Ossory's, and found
this beginning of a scene in one of his plays : —
Enfin done desormais —
Match me that hemistich if you can in a tragedy of
the Sauromatae.
Garrick is dying of the yellow jaundice on the success
of Henderson a young actor from Bath — Enfin done
desormais there must never be a good player again.
As Voltaire and Garrick are the god and goddess of
VOL. I. X

306 CORRESPONDENCE OP
Envy, the latter would put a stop to procreation, as
the former would annihilate the traces of all antiquity,
if there were no other gods but they.
I do not wonder you have had such bad crops both in
your meadows and in chancery ; consider how long since
any sun shone on either. My Hayssians have cost me
as much as if I had hired them of the Landgrave.
One would think the elements this summer came from
Scotland too ; and I am surprised Sir John Dalrymple
or Macpherson has not told us from the depdt des affaires
dtrangeres, that the sun is an enemy to English consti
tutions. Vivent les Brouillards ! I vrill finish with
anticipating the best trait in the books I promise you.
The witty Piron made a visit to that old bigot, the
Archbishop of — not York, but Paris, soon after his
issuing a thundering mandate against some French
whigs, of which his grace had certainly not written one
word. He asked Piron, " I'avez vous lu ? " — " oui
Monseigneur, et vous ? "
Yours ever H. W.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, Sept. 18, 1777.
You will not suspect my silence of idleness, I am
but too apt to overwrite to any one, I have so perfect
a friendship for, I only suppress my communicative
disposition when I have nothing to say but what would

WALPOLE AND MASON. 307
grieve those that feel for me. The dangerous illness
of the Duke of Gloucester, and the dreadful situation of
my niece (and have not I another nephew besides!) have
kept me in such agitation between hopes and despair,
that I have had no peace or leisure ; the present
moment is very favourable ; the Prince has mended
amazingly ; he has had a most gracious letter from the
King, and so I hope I shall be at liberty to be a mortal
again, and not anxious about Princes.
This is not my immediate motive for writing, but to
tell you an amazing piece of news that I have this
moment received from town. The dinner bell had
rung — where ? at Nuneham. The Earl did not appear.
After much search he was found standing on his head
in a well, a dear little favourite dog upon his legs, his
stick, and one of his gloves lying near ; my letter does
not say whether he had dropped the other — In short, I
know no more. I will behave as well as I can on all
national misfortunes, and so I proceed to tell you vrith
a proper degree of affliction that a victualler is come in
who reports that the loquacious Howes have miscarried
in their attempt on Philadelphia, and are believed to be
gone to Boston : that the provincials have abandoned
Fort Edward, it is said ; and that, I suppose, the sUent
modest humble General Burgoyne has not yet finished
his concise description of the victorious manner in
which he took possession of it, for said description is
not yet arrived. My dinner bell rings, and lest my
servants should suspect an accident, I must finish ; did
you receive the Gazettes litteraires which I left where
you ordered a month ago ?

308 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, Sept. 21, 1777.
This is but a codicil to my last, but I forgot to
mention in it a new discovery that charms me more
than Harlequin did at ten years old, and vrill bring all
paradise before your eyes more perfectly than you can
paint it to the good women of your parish. It will
be the delight of your solitude, and will rival your
own celestinette. It is such a perfecting of the camera
obscura, that it no longer depends on the sun, and
serves for taking portraits with a force and exactness
incredible ; and serves almost as well by candle light
as by day. It is called the delineator, and is invented
within these eighteen months by a Mr. Storer, a Norfolk
man, one of the modestest and humblest of beings.
Sir Joshua Reynolds and West are gone mad with it,
and it will be their own faults if they do not excel
Rubens in light and shade, and all the Flemish masters
in truth. It improves the beauty of trees, — I don't
know what it does not do — every thing for me, for I
can have every inside of every room here drawn
minutely in the size of this page. Mr. Storer fell as
much in love with Strawberry Hill as I did with his
instrument. The perspectives of the house, which I
studied so much, are miraculous in this camera. The
gallery cabinet, round drawing, and great bed chamber,
make such pictures as you never saw. The painted
glass and trees that shade it are Arabian tales. This

WALPOLE AND MASON. 309
instrument wUl enable engravers to copy pictures with
the utmost precision : and with it you may take a vase
or the pattern of a china jar in a moment ; architecture
and trees are its greatest beauty, but I think it will
perform more wonders than electricity, and yet it is so
simple as to be contained in a trunk, that you may carry
in your lap in your chaise, for there is such contrivance
in that trunk that the filberd in the fairy tales which
held such treasures was a fool to it ; in short it is
terrible to be threescore when it is just invented ; I
could play with it for forty years ; when will you come
up and see it ? I am sure you will not go back without
one. I fear I was a little indelicate about Lord Harcourt's
death, but I am so much more glad, when I am glad,
than I can be sorry, when I am not, that I forgot the
horror of the father's exit in my satisfaction at the son's
succession ; like the two universities, my congratula
tions to the reignuig sovereign are much more hearty
than my luctus for the departed one. I leave it to
Lord Holdemess and Lord Suffolk to pretend they are
sorry that they have a competitor less for the garter.
Are not you content with Lord Abingdon's pam
phlet ? are you not more ? are you not glad he has so
well puffed away Burke's sophistries ? who would have
thought of this little David ? I am sure I should not
have been surprised if I had seen him knocking dovra
a blackbird with a sling ; my Lord's Grace of York wiU
not be pleased.
As I am got far enough from the paragraph about

310 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Lord Harcourt, may I ask if you do not feel a little
satisfaction in the idea of our meeting at Nuneham ?
I am sorry I am threescore upon that account too, at
that age one has not a vast many reasons for wishing
to live long, but as loss of friends is the great bitter of
old age, it is equaUy reasonable to like to enjoy their
happiness. I am sure Lord Nuneham vrill have been
exceedingly shocked ; he is all good nature, and was
an excellent son, and deserved a fonder father. I hear
Mrs. Montagu made a high flown panegyric two days
ago, on the late Earl. The poor man had not an idea ;
but Bishop Hurd dined at the same place, and I sup
pose she thought it necessary for a muse to sing the
praises of all royal governors and preceptors. It was
at Cambridge's, I was asked to dine there, but excused
myself, for I have no pleasure in laughing at people,
and am only weary when they are acting affected
parts. P. S. I recollect that they were the Memoires de
Bachaumont and not the Gazettes litteraires that I sent
you last : did you receive them ?

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston. Sept. 23. 1777.
One reason of my late silence was the alarming un
certainty which the papers constantly put me in con
cerning an account which I knew your tenderness for

WALPOLE AND MASON, 311
your relations deeply interested you about. Relations
are not " those cordial drops " which as some body says,
 ' Heaven in our cup has thrown

To make the nauseous draught of life go down,*
at least I don't find them so, no more than you yourself,
for all my summer has been dawdled away in finding out
the best way to be serviceable to a near one of my own,
and I doubt without much effect. I was once asked why
I did not marry again. My answer was that I could
not find a woman that had the qualifications of a certain
female whom the person who asked me knew, " The
qualifications of her ! why she is old, ugly and a ter
magant into the bargain, no matter for that I she was
born in a boat, her mother was drowned, and she has
no relation or country in the world, — those are the
qualifications I require in the wife of my bosom ;" and
here endeth my chapter on the subject of relationship.
I wish, at your leisure you would sully a sheet or two
of paper with giving me the birth, parentage and
education of General Burgoyne ; at present I know little
of him but as an orator, that consciousness of Chris
tianity which he talks of in his proclamation in the
very same breath that he threatens to give a stretch to
his savage allies makes me think that one might com
pose a good liturgy for the use of the King's friends
who like the General I trust have the same conscious
ness of Christianity, and who like him can reconcile the
scalping knife with the Gospel. I am told that Gen
eral Haldimand now made Govenor of Quebec was the
first person who laid a plan before Government for

312 CORRESPONDENCE OP
employing these Indians and that it was rejected. His
promotion shews that government has had the grace
to change its mind even if the gazette had not told us
so before. Pray were not the Spaniards as defensible
in employing dogs against the Americans as we are —
but I scorn the word we, I am not, I cannot submit to
call myself an Englishman, What an inconsistent crea
ture is man ! Poor Lord Harcourt, I fear he was so
good a courtier that he would not have hesitated a
moment about giving his vote for scalping his brethren
in Canada and yet he dies in the humane act of saving
a dog from drovraing. I received about a fortnight ago
six volumes of Memoires Secrettes, &c. for which I return
you many thanks, and will take care to bring them
back to you when I come to London, but as they laid
long at Mr. Verelst's in St, James's Square, this will not
be the way of any speedy conveyance to me, which I
hoped it would. Lord Rockingham and his party are
good Christians and can forgive their enemies, what
ever other folks are. At York races they all dined at
the Archbishop's public dinner and gave for a reason
that his grace made them the first visit at their lodg
ings, so you may call them rogues, rascals or what you
please, only visit them afterwards and they wUl be as
merry as griggs with you. Seriously speaking I hardly
know a more ridiculous proceeding than this, their
secession was hardly more so. Had they avoided this
visit his Grace's mitre would have set awkardly upon
him for life. As it is he must write another Sermon
before he meets with that contempt which every true

WALPOLE AND MASON. 313
Whig ought to give him, but where is such a whig to
be found ? I see an unconverted whig has pubUshed
something, is it worth the reading ? my paper is more
than full so I remain, dear Sir,
yours most cordially
W. MASON.

Aston, Sept. 24, 1777.
But what wUl it cost ? is it in a maker's hands ? and
can one have it down and know how to use it without
being shown, not that I believe above half of what you
tell me, for I have arguments a priori (which I leamt
when I was at the University) to prove that it can't
take likenesses or delineate the human figure, unless
that figure undergo first the chymical process which
Medusa was so much skilled in, and be converted into
immoveable stone ; but this is no disparagement to the
instrument, but to the human figure, which ought not
to have pulsation, and such other matters as will make
it commit the crime of false drawing, whether it will or
no, therefore I still long to see it, and would even give
my Celestinette for it unseen, for my Celestinette is
now above two years old.
I cannot say but I do feel the satisfaction you speak
of about going to Nuneham, &c. &c. &c., and I have
other satisfactions of a more patriotic nature, which
though they signify nothing, as there is no such thing
as patriotism in this our day, yet some how or other

314 CORRESPONDENCE OF
they please one like the filbert in the fairy tales, if they
are not quite so substantial as your delineating trunk.
What would I give to see it for half an hour ? I am
hardly got far enough from my paragraph of mortality
to recur to the trunk, but no matter.
I have never yet seen my Lord Abingdon's pam
phlet, except an extract in the newspaper about the
Archbishop. I am not clear whether said Earl did
not dine with the Archbishop at the reconcUiatory
dinner which I mentioned in my last. It would have
been right to do so as a party man, in order to make
the Archbishop's definition the more true, which I
should think was the reason which weighed with the
rest of them.
This being a codicil like yours requires no formal
signature.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, Oct. 5, 1777.
There is nothing so unfortunate as to be a phUosopher
and a wise man, and a reasoner, and to know what
can and can not be done. If invention had not pre
ceded demonstration, we should by this time have
understood the whole system of the universe, but have
thought it impossible to alter or improve any thing in
our world. This is my opinion, and you may confute
it by argument if you please. I who have a sovereign

WALPOLE AND MASON, 315
contempt for Euclid, and Newton, and Locke, and
admire nothing but original genius, and hold that
every thing will be found out at last, as flying, living
for ever, &c, trust to none of my senses, having seen
Jonas perform what I did not believe, when I saw,
and heard Le Texier be a dozen persons at once. In
short it is a joke to say any thing is impossible. The
delineator does perform wonders ; and though from my
own immachinality I can do little or nothing with it,
which has abated something of my enthusiasm, you
who will be able to work wonders with it, are to blame
to contest its possibilities. As I tell you I don't know
how to manage it, you may swear I cannot describe or
give directions for conducting it. It cost me ten
guineas, and I believe they are thrown away, for in a
twelvemonth it wUl certainly be brought to greater
perfection. In one point you are very right, one must
be as motionless as Lord Abercom, or the least vibra
tion of the features spoils the portrait. In good truth
though I stared like the mob at the vritchery of this
new instrument, yet if it had not been so mysteriously
involved in a box, I am not sure it would have surprized
me more than any reflection painted on a diminishing
mirror. The child has had his plaything broken to
see what it was made of, and is weary of it ; however
I think it will answer admirably for taking the insides
of buildings, and near prospects, and statues, and vases,
and be of great help to engravers, and it does serve
without the sun.
Lord Harcourt has given away at least fifty thousand

316 CORRESPONDENCE OF
pounds to his daughter and younger son. I hold it
very right not to heap aU on heirs apparent, and yet
loving the new Earl, and not caring a straw for the
brother and sister, my concern for the father is not at
all augmented. I had too the same reason that you
hint at for being glad our fiiend is in possession. He
had told me his intentions for you, but not knowing
whether he had mentioned them to you, I was tmsty
you see, and did not divulge them even to you, — but
it was a charming thought, and I hope the well wUl not
be stopped up.
You ask the history of Burgoyne the pompous. He is
a natural son of Lord Bingley, who put him into the en-
taU of the estate, but when young Lane came of age the
entail was cut off. He ran away with the old Lord
Derby's daughter, and has been a fortunate gamester.
Junius was thought unjust, as he was never supposed
to do more than play very well. I have heard him
speak in parliament, just as he writes ; for aU his
speeches were written and laboured, and yet neither in
them nor in his conversation, did he ever impress me
with an idea of his having parts. He is however a
very useful commander, for he feeds the gazette and
the public, whUe the Howes and the war are so
dumb. I have read the Unconnected Whig, and recommend
him to you ; he does not waste words like the unmer
ciful hero of the last paragraph. It is a short, clear
strong picture of our present situation and its causes.
I see no fault in it, but its favour for the Rockinghams

WALPOLE AND MASON. 317
the most timid set of time-serving triflers that ever
existed ; why should not he dine with his Grace ? Do
not all Lord Rockingham's poUtics begin and end with
dinners ? Is not decency their whole wisdom ? when
they shunned Wilkes, could they avoid the Archbishop ?
I would lay a wager that if a parcel of schoolboys were
to play at politicians, the children that should take the
part of the opposition, would discover more spirit and
sense. The cruellest thing that has been said of the
Americans by the Court, is, that they were encouraged
by the opposition. You might as soon Ught a fire
with a wet dish-clout. Adieu.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Nuneham, Oct. 22, 1777.
Here am I with the Isis before me drawing its line
of silver through the greenest meadow in the world,
a glorious wood to my left, and another glorious
wood to my right, Abingdon spire there, Radcliff
library there, &c. &c. &c. &c. Yet here am I without
my deUneator, O that you would lend me yours !
I would pavra my machinality upon it, that I could
put it together without any directions, yet if there be
printed directions in the trunk so much the better,
and then as to the trunk I would take as much care
of it as king James the second of humane memory did
of his, when he was about to be shipwrecked, and I
would bring it safe to you back in less than a fortnight

318 CORRESPONDENCE OP
with the Memoires Secrettes, which your charity blest
my solitariness with at Aston. And I wUl give you
the heel-piece of one of the Royal martyr's boots which
he lost before the gates of Hull (the place of my nati
vity) and which has been lain up in lavender in our
famUy ever since. — And as the Oxford coach goes the
Henley road through Brentford every day, there is no
doubt but the trunk would arrive here with the utmost
safety. But I will say no more on the subject, only
that if what I have said and what I have promised, is
not enough to move your compassion, you must be as
obstinate and mulish as
A King's favourite or as a *
My Lord Harcourt who vriU be my surety for the safety
of the said trunk sends his best compliments and thanks
for your agreeable letter. I am, whether you grant my
petition or not,
your most faithful and obliged servant
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1777.
Your letter's date made it still more welcome than
their predecessors. I wish myself with you without
envy, and think of Nuneham with more pleasure than
I dare tell Lord Harcourt. I am delighted too with the
prospect of seeing you so soon. My letter's date tells
you why I do not instantly obey you. I am here and

WALPOLE AND MASON. 319
must be so some days, and the delineator is locked up
at Strawberry, or I hope you do not think I am so
selfish as to prefer a plaything to your amusement.
I will send it the moment I return merely to satisfy
you, for Mr. Storer has already improved his idea so
much, as to obviate I believe most of your objections.
He is making me another, and honestly offered me to
change it for me — and he has made a stand to it too,
that remedies many inconveniences ; but that I have
not got yet, nor just now can I attend but to the
present occupation.
The Duke and Duchess arrived yesterday. His
R. H. is and looks better than I expected, not pulled
though pale ; his leg is stUl swelled and he is lame,
but it has not opened ; and his voice is strong and spirits
good. The Duchess looks in health, but is much
leaner and looks older. I have not seen them a moment
alone, for they have not been a moment alone ; all I
know is, the Duke has written to ask when. The
answer was not come half an hour ago, it is decent I
should stay two or three days ; and then if I was great
enough to be proud of lowering myself, I should say,
I shall retum to my plough. No, nor am I one of
those, who, though so great, ought to be sent to
plough. I am much obliged to you for your offering, yet
though I like the occasion of its becoming a relick,
I cannot accept it. Lord Harcourt has given me the
glorious and immortal spurs of King WilUam ; can I
receive his uncle's boot-heel into the same sanctuary I

320 CORRESPONDENCE OP
when you want to be a Cardinal, you shall present it
to his Grace of York, or to any of the et ceteras that
you do not see from Nuneham.
Pray tell Lord and Lady Harcourt that I have been
a perfect courtier for them, and said every thing in the
world, and am commanded to retum every thing in
the world. I was impatient lest all England and still
more, all Scotland should be beforehand with me in
addresses, one Englishman offered one this very mom
ing — mais attendez moi sous I'orme. There we shall
talk more at our ease.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Nuneham, the day after his Majesties
happy accession, 1777.
Lord Harcourt has fancied my presence so ne
cessary towards compleating some alterations he has
made on his terrace, that I have not been able to per
suade him to let me leave this place before next Wed
nesday or Thursday, when I am obliged to go to town
before I can visit Strawberry Hill, on business which I
wUl tell you when I have the honour to see you, which
I hope will be very soon ; in the meantime if any thing-
calls you to town, I am to be found at my good host's
in Curzon street, as usual.
I am charmed with the fair bearer of this note. I
wish I was a Petrarch that I might fall in love with
her, and why not without being a Petrarch ? for tis

WALPOLE AND MASON. 321
surely more natural for an old vridower to faU in love
vrith a young maid, than for a young batchelor to be
enamoured with an old married woman who had bome
as many chUdren as our gracious Queen Charlotte,
which I think was that poet's case ; yet putting love
out of the question, I may surely in aU reason admire
a beauty that can only be exceeded by its accompani
ments of good nature, affabiUty and modest simplicity.
I would call it innocence were it not too unfashionable
a thing, and what I believe no young lady so advanced
in years as she is, (for I suspect she is almost seven
teen) can possibly be suspected of, certain it is we have
a brace of very accomplished ladies now in the house,
who seem to have got rid of all that long before they
came to her years of discretion ; but I only say seem
for I would not speak vrith precision on such a delicate
subject for the world.
Breakfast wUl permit me to add no more at present
than that I am, dear Sir, very faithfully yours
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Jan. 17, 1778.
I have not written to you since you went as I had
nothing to tell you ; and I write improperly now, when
one is probably at the eve of having something to say,
VOL. I. Y

322 CORRESPONDENCE OF
but the fish I have to fry is of another kind. Can it
be true that you have an opera coming on the stage,
and that you never mentioned it to me ? Had I torn
Orpheus piecemeal, I could not be more unworthy
of musical communication. Am I so untuneable that I
must not hear airs unless I can sing them ? Yes, you
have written an opera, and it is called Sappho, and I
suppose Mrs. Montagu is to be first woman. Lord
Strafford is my authority : and yet I can scarce
think you would have been so basely unfriendly ; if you
have, I wish your Celestinette may be broken about
your ears, or that Lady Rockingham may desire a
rehearsal at our own house in the moming, and make
the poet and the whole orchestra wait till nine at
night. Knapton is dying, but the promise to Sandby is
superseded, de par le Roy, because it dates from the
Duke of Grafton.
General Howe has been to take another look at
Washington and passed Eldest again. The town of
Froome, concluding Burgoyne was a Frenchman by his
name, made great rejoicings on his being taken
prisoner. I heard last night that Voltaire is dead ; now one
may buy his works safely, as he cannot write them
over and over again.
You shaU not hear a word more from me till you
clear yourself about the opera. Should it prove true
I shaU never beUeve a syUable more about your idle-

WALPOLE AND MASON. 323
ness, nay shall conclude that every thing that appears,
is yours, and I am sure that wUl be full vengeance.
PS. Pray did you write the Roman Sacrifice, the
last new tragedy ? It was detestable.
I retum you the sermon, and would not advise its
being printed unless much clamoured against — when,
as all objections are exaggerated, it wiU appear less
offensive than was expected. I would certainly have
the two passages on Dalrymple's History and the Sons
of the Scottish Rebels softened. They should not be
quite changed, as they will certainly be remembered.
I would entirely omit the glance at the ladies, who are
very innocent in comparison of the men of the age. I
would still be more earnest for his leaving out the pas
sage on himself. I am totally against such declara
tions, and can see no reason why he should not be
a bishop, when some of its worthless occupiers are
gone. I think the time is coming when the sermon
will have more weight, and as it has been preached,
it can be recaUed. The taxes, the treaty with the
Americans, and the probable imminent war with France,
wUl make it little noticed at this moment, but by
his enemies. Let them be a littie sUenced and dashed,
and they wiU not care to clamour. It cannot be
lost, because it has been preached; we should have
a littie patience, and I think it wiU not be necessary
long.

324 CORRESPONDENCE OP

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, Jan. 20, 1778.
Pacify yourself my good Sir. I have not written : I
am only writing an Opera, and what I have written of
it I here send you, desiring if you do not absolutely
condemn both the intention and execution, to seal it up
and send it to Mr. Giardini. He has already seen the
whole plan and he must now see an act to teU me
whether it wiU suit his purpose. As to yourself you
know enough of the Lady's story fully to comprehend
the drift of these pages which contain her catastrophe.
But I know you rather want to know why I have un
dertaken to write an Opera, than how I have written
it. But this is a long story and relates to a little
shoemaker of Aston. Mr. Stonhewer wUl tell you the
particulars, and how my little shoemaker and this
Opera become so intimately united. Now don't talk
to me about the author of Caractacus, and that he
ought to write nothing but what is equal, if not supe
rior to Caractacus. If you prevent me from writing
Operas, I'll write nothing but Ballads. " Agreed, if
they be poUtical ones, as many as you please," and
dont say that a grave divine turned of fifty, debases
his cloth, by telling a love story. Leave that argument
for the Bishops to handle. I have made up my con
science as to that matter. Besides, if the Bishops
condemn me on this head they wUl nevertheless admire
my learning, for all the fragments of Sappho will be

WALPOLE AND MASON. 325
translated and find their place in this drama, for in
stance this third act opens with one of the AiSvKs /utv
a (TsXavo Kai nXrjiaSfc, &C.
Upon the whole then I recommend this poor inno
cent thing to your mercy as a critic, not as if it had
my last hand and its last polish, yet in such a state as
will admit of little improvement except in particular
lines and words, about this latter I mean to be pecu
liarly careful, in order to make the language as soft,
and consequently as fit for music as possible ; for I am
persuaded this matter has never yet been sufficiently
attended to by the few of our poets who have written
professedly for music. Pray put up the letter to Giar
dini &c. in the paquet before you seal it. — I shrewdly
suspect some dark practice in this death of Lord Pigot,
pray tell me what you hear of that matter, and of all
others, for now the poUtical as well as natural frost is
thawed, dear Sir, yours most truly
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Jan. 24, 1778.
I received your Act late last night, and though I have
ran through it but once, I am impatient not only to
pardon you, but thank you. I can forgive you any
thing but idleness ; and music, which your words
always are, has charms to soothe even me. The lan-

326 CORRESPONDENCE OP
guage is so harmonious, that I think as I did of Dryden's
Ode, that it will be more melodious unset than when
adapted. Yet if you can rival Dryden, Giardini cannot
paragon Handel. I am, I know, a most poor judge
of musical composition, yet may not I ask if Giardini
possesses either force or simplicity ; your Act is classic
Athenian — shall it be subdi-di-di-vi-vi-vi-ded into
modern Italian ? — but it is too late to ask that ques
tion. I shall now mention a very few criticisms.
The language is so sweet, that my soul that loves
chiaro scuro as a contrast at least wants a little more
sombre, and the place I would allot for it is Sappho's
speech after the vision. The parts of Metastasio, (I do
not compare you down to him) that please me most are
his long soliloquies of accompanied recitative in last
acts ; they give scope to the poet, the passions, the
actress, and the composer. I would not have Sappho
determine at once, but struggle with love, fear, hope,
despair, and when she doubts obeying the god, thunder
may mark his anger, and decide her, for she obeys a
dream too suddenly, though classic times may justify
her more than a modern would be justified.
As you are sublime in choruses, why have you only
one in an opera, — in a Greek opera ? They are simple
and yet give variety ; sure a hymeneal chorus is neces
sary. I have an objection, which is odd, even to the parts I
have not seen, but you hint (by Sappho in her female
dress) at her being disguised as a man in a former

WALPOLE AND MASON. 327
Act. WUl not that be a little too characteristic, and
give a handle to buffoonery in the learned part of the
mob. I have few verbal criticisms to make, though I could
commend a thousand passages, particularly the two
Unes on Alpheus, and the exquisite first air. I am not
quite pleased with down, down, down, as a little too
artificial, and then down should not come in the very
next line, and in a sense that is the very opposite to
the former sense, and shows we express a precipitate
fall and the softness of repose by the same sound.
I do not quite approve so forced an expression as
downcast tenderness, and I cavil at
Ifeel that full, that heartfelt tenderness
That blesses those who never felt distress,
and would rather change heartfelt, which has a German
sound. In the second line felt is most sonorous.
I have literally but one more qualm : when Sappho
dedicates her lyre, she says it is far sweeter than the
harp. This methinks is too nice a distinction for a
person in her situation to make, and fitter for a commen
tator's note than a woman on the point of destrojdng
herself. Yes, I see another, that I have just cast my eyes
on ; Sappho must not utter the word requiem ; in short,
Metastasio may use such an anachronism, but Musaeus
must not, shall not.
I shall send the Act and the letter to Giardini, as
you order, though with regret I ovra : for I doubt his
music will not have that majestic greatness and distinc
tiveness that are necessary to let the words be under-

328 CORRESPONDENCE OP
stood. Add that our singers want more to be taught
to articulate than to sing. AU the women jabber, and
bad as his taste was. Beard did more justice to sense
than any of our performers, for though he laid a stress
on every syUable, yet at least the audience, such as were
capable, could suppose the right accents. In short,
I wish your opera could be accompanied only by the
lyre and the tibia.
There is no new event. The parliament has done
little or nothing, as they wait for Lord George to lead
up the blues. I have no time for details, and, in truth, I
am thinking more of Sappho than of the nation, and am
happy when I can amuse myself with reading any thing
but politics, which I am sure nobody will ever read
after the day they are published ; but indeed who does
write what is readable. I have got two more volumes
of Shenstone's Correspondence, and they are like all
the rest, insipidity itself. Home's Alfred died three
days old ; the Battle of Hastings is to appear this
evening ; the child of as feeble a parent. Garrick
has been reading plays at Althorpe a la Texier, and
been adored as usual ; yet I do not believe he suc
ceeded half so well in the women. He goes on writ
ing his wretched epilogues too, for he cannot sit
down with the strulbruggism that he had the sense to
take up.
There is a Mr. Potter too, I don't know who, that
has published a translation of ^Eschylus, and as far as
I have looked is a good poet. I am sure he has taste,
for in his preface he speaks like an initiate of Elfrida

WALPOLE AND MASON. 329
and Caractacus. I am delighted with Prometheus,
though I do not approve of a mad cow for first wo
man.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Feb. 4, 1778.
I shall be sorry if you depend on me for your winter
provision of news, I know so little, and the papers so
much, that I could only repeat their information with not
half their eloquence. All last week I was confined with
a great cold which I thought it impossible for me to
catch, not having had a genuine one these five or six
years ; I mean, not more than what I caU a cold when
I want an excuse for not doing what I have not a mind
to do ; I was blooded in spite of the gout's teeth, and
yet am well again.
I hear you have finished a third book of the garden,
thank the muses you seldom do any thing when you
have nothing to do. It seems I am to learn your
deeds from second and third hands.
As I suppose you care more about authors than
politicians, I shaU begin with the former. The Battle
of Hastings — or ratiier one side it, for not a Norman
appears, has been acted. I have not seen it, the
accounts are a little like a charade, for they say, the
first part makes one cry, the latter laugh, and the whole
sleep. It wUl soon be gathered in due chronologic
order to its predecessor Alfred.

330 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I forgot tiU I had filled my sheet to answer your
question about Lord Pigot, and then it was not worth
while to tap a new page, as the account was con
tradicted. It is now confirmed. I know no more
than you see in the newspapers, and thence you vriU
collect that there has been more than meets the
ear. The enigma of the day, as he has oft been, is Lord
Chatham. He has quarrelled with General Rocking
ham on the question of independence, and in a manner
declared off, yet he is expected to day in the house of
Lords to anathematize the new levies. There is much
talk too of his coming into place, which I doubt;
every body must have discovered that his crutch is no
magic wand, and if the lame leads the blind it is not
the way of shunning a ditch. Charles Fox has tumbled
old Saturn from the throne of oratory, and if he has not
all the dazzling lustre, has much more of the solid
materials. They say nothing ever excelled his oration
against the unfortunate minister, who was truly unfor
tunate that day, for had lord George been present, the
thunder had fallen on him. Charles's speech on Monday
was as marvellous for method and memory, and was
really unanswerable, for not one of the ministers knew
what to say, and so said nothing, and that sUence cost
them many votes. In short the minority amounted to
above an hundred and sixty, in which were several
tories. It is supposed the inquiries wUl be put to a
violent death, which will be very weak, for the people
are contented with whatever is discussed and voted,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 331
but grow impatient when their ears are stopped by
force. The new levies are like Glendower's — he can stamp
and call spirits from the vasty deep ; but they don't
come, consequently they will not go. I fancy the
American war is pretty near an end, I mean as to
attempting more than keeping what remains. I don't
think there will be a French war yet, unless we chance
to go together by the ears at sea. However it hangs by
a thread. Having now given you the quintessence of my intel
ligence you see it would not have made one more letter
than it does. I shall reserve a vacuum for what may
pass to day in the Lords ; but I have very rarely knoMTi
a much expected debate answer. Chance is as much
mistress of Orators as of Generals ; and the prepared
engagements of both, frequently turn out like Sir W.
Howe's two surveys of Washington's army. 5th.
Lord Chatham did not appear, they say, he has the
gout, but I suppose not so bad but he could hobble to
the end of the park if he was much intreated. I have
heard of nothing particular that passed in either house,
but have seen nobody that was in either ; in good truth
I am little curious about debates. The ruin has gone
a great deal too far to make parliament of any conse
quence ; speakers may amuse themselves with filling
up the interstices of events, but when a house is falling
does one care who painted the staircase ? Yes, Lord

332 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Chatham does. Because he once raised the buUding a
story higher, he thinks he could do as much when the
foundations have given way. Adieu ! I long to see
your garden. I am forced to read the newspapers or
my eyes would starve, yet it is feeding them vrith
offals.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, Feb. 6, 1778.
I know thee, and the wickedness of thy heart ! You
would have my opera turned into a tragedy. I know
the speech of Sappho would be much better if tumed
as you would have it. But if three drops of cold water
which had never been mixed with the unchaste wave
of Alphaeus is not a sufficient cure for the most outra
geous love that ever was, there is no faith in mythology ;
all the rest of your criticism I submit to, and kiss the
rod, I even will expunge the line about the harp,
though it is a yerbatim translation of a fragment of
Sappho. As to Giardini, look you if I did not think better of
him than I do of Handel, my Uttle shoemaker would
not have had the benefit he wUl have (I hope) from
this labour of my brain. Let Handel's music vibrate
on the tough drum of royal ears ; I am for none of
it. However as I am now fully employed in writing a
Fast sermon for York Minster, music and operas must

WALPOLE AND MASON. 333
be lain by for a season. I hope however you have
sent the Act to Giardini, otherwise he vriU think I have
cheated him.
WUl you be at Elfrida on Saturday night, and wUl you
clap like a dragon ? I have taken more pains in fitting
it for the stage, than I did about Caractacus. On
Wednesday I go to York, pray remember to direct to
York, to, yours most faithfuUy
W. MASON.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Aston, Feb. 8, 1778.
I am much obliged to you for your letter received
to day. Your news about the English Garden has been
told you as imperfectly as that of the opera. It is far
from finished and not even fit for any body's inspection
at present ; when it is you shall hear more from me. I
now write to tell you a story which I think I have told
you before, but which the debate which I read in
the papers about Lord Abingdon's motion, makes
me think ought to be more public. In 1745, when
the rebels were at Derby and subscriptions were going
on in London, a certain (then) Barrister * at Lin
coln's Inn was caUed upon by a parish officer for his
name &c., he was treated as a man should be that
solicits an Ulegal unconstitutional subscription. The
* Lord Mansfield. H. W.

334 CORRESPONDENCE OF
rebels retreated from Derby. The barrister fiew imme
diately to the parish officer's house to put down his
name ; the P, O, was from home, had locked up
the book ; a blacksmith was called for to break open
the bureau, and the name was inserted ! This parish
officer lived either in Long Acre, or Great Queen
Street. This I had from good authority two years ago,
and was told the fact might yet be authenticated.
Adieu. I wrote a long letter two posts ago.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, Feb. 12, 1778.
I have received two letters from you, one of the 6th.
and another of the 8th., but not the long one you men
tion ; for the first was but of 25 lines, and the latter
of 23, neither of which I should think a long one from
any body from whom I liked to hear at all, much less
shall you pretend that one page is to pass for length ;
yet I conclude you have written none that I have
not received. However I answer you immediately
that you may ascertain the fact, and I wish for the
future you would keep the dates of the letters you do
write, long or short.
I will not talk now of the story you mention, which
I not only know, but remember happening. Basta !
there will be a time.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 335
I am dismally afraid I shall not be able to go to
Elfrida on Saturday. My cold, that I thought gone is
worse, with the addition of a sore throat. I have not
been out of my doors these two days, and as putrid
sore throats are very rife, of which one of Lord Bute's
daughters is dead, I am afraid of ripening mine to
one. I am a little sorry you bestow your words, not
only on folk that cannot act, but on voices that cannot
articulate. If Sappho is to be sung, I vrish it were by
Italians, for from the pains they take to speak English,
they pronounce more distinctly than our natives.
I sent your Act to Giardini, and wish he may make
it discourse most eloquent music. His violin to be
sure wUl make a long solUoquy — but though I like
Handel, I am not bigotted. I thought Dryden's Ode
more harmonious before he set it than after, yet he had
expression ; and I prefer Charles Fox's native wood
notes to Burke's feigned voice, though it goes to the
highest pitch of the gamut of wit.
Apropos, his last Friday's parody of Burgoyne's talk
with the Indians, was the chef d'wuvre of wit, humour,
and just satire, and almost suffocated Lord North
himself with laughter; as his pathetic description of
the barbarities of the Cis-atlantic army
Drew iron tears down Barry's cheek.
I wish I could give you an idea of that superlative ora
tion. He was pressed to print it, but says he has not
time during the session. How cold, how inadequate
wiU be my fragment of a sketch from second, third
and thousandth hands ; yet I must send you a bit of a

336 CORRESPONDENCE OP
daub with probably even the epithets wrong or mis
placed, though each was picturesque. Well, though I
can neither draw nor colour, invenies etiam disjecti
membra. Hurlothrumbo exhorted seventeen Indian
nations, who so far from understanding the Hurloth-
rumbic dialect, are probably almost as ignorant of
English ; he exhorted them by the dictates of our holy
religion, and by their reverence for our constitution, to
repair to his Majesty's standard. Where was that?
said Burke : on board Lord Dunmore's ship ; — and he
exhorted them (I suppose by the same divine and hu
man laws) not to touch the hair of the head of man,
woman or child, while living, though he was wilUng to
deal with them for scalps of the dead, being a nice and
distinguished judge between the scalp taken from a
dead person and the head of a person that dies of being
scalped. Let us state this christian exhortation and
christian injunction, said Burke, by a more familiar
picture ; suppose there was a riot on Tower Hill, what
would the keeper of his majesty's lions do ? would he
not fiing open the dens of the wild beasts, and then
address them thus ? My gentle lions, my humane bears,
my sentimental wolves, my tender-hearted hyaenas, go
forth ; but I exhort ye, as ye are christians and mem
bers of a civilized society, to take care not to hurt
man, woman or child, &c. &c. Barre's codicil was to
threaten to paste on churches this memorable talk
under the injunctions of the bishops for a fast. Gov.
Johnstone said he rejoiced there were no strangers in
the gallery, as Burke's speech would have excited

WALPOLE AND MASON, 337
them to tear the ministers to pieces as they went out of
the house ; the ministers are much more afraid of
losing their places. Eloquence, like music, is too much
improved in our days to have any of their old effects on
the passions of a large audience,
Voila a truly long letter, I leave the application to
your conscience.

TO THE REV, WILLIAM MASON, Feb. 18, 1778.
I have two small morsels of news to tell you, and do
not know which you wUl choose to hear first. As you
cannot choose without knowing, it would be vain to
wait for your answer, especially as I cannot state them
vrithout preferring one to the other, Iricisms, it is true,
are not out of fashion, Nos seigneurs the peers will
not vote truisms to be true, lest they should betray the
weakness of the nation, though those truisms, and the
reason for not asserting them, are given in every
newspaper, which newspapers are read in every coffee
house in Paris, Ergo their lordships suppose that
France supposes herself to know nothing but what
appears in the votes.
As a loyal subject and freeman of Parnassus, I must
believe that you interest yourself more in HeUconian
affairs than in the politics of the late empire of Great
Britain, I therefore announce to you the arrival of
Voltaire at Paris, Yes ; there he is. Probably re-
VOL, I, Z

338 CORRESPONDENCE OF
called from exile to raise a regiment of infidels for the
defence of holy church.
The other event would not be worth mentioning,
but for its novelty. In that Ught, to be sure, no
parallel instance is to be found in ancient or modem
history, whether Ammonite,. Jewish, Chaldean, Egyp
tian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Constantinopolitan, Frank,
French, British, Saxon, Pict, Ossianite, Mogul, Indian,
or English, (all which I have examined carefully this
morning to no purpose) nay in the tales of the fairies,
in which I am still more deeply versed, I find nothing
simUar, You perhaps, who have all ecclesiastical
history at your fingers' ends, may recollect something
approaching to the transaction of yesterday the 17th of
February, a day of confession and humiliation, that
will be remembered as long as the name of England
exists. Yesterday, Feb, 17, did the whole administra
tion, by the mouth of their spokesman. Lord North,
no, no, not resign ; on the contrary, try to keep their
places by a full and ample confession of aU their faults,
and by a still more extraordinary act, — by doing full
justice both to America and to the opposition, — by
allowing that the former are no cowards, nor conquer
able, — that they are no rebels, for the new commis
sioners are to treat with the Congress or anybody, and,
by asking pardon by effects, i, e. the cancelling all
offensive acts, and by acknowledging the independence
of the thirteen provinces, not verbally yet virtually.
These were Lord North's words. To the opposition
full justice is done ; for if the administration has been

WALPOLE AND MASON. 339
in the wrong from beginning to end, their opponents
must have been a Uttle in the right.
The faults of the administration, according to their
own calculation, are two : one of being misinformed,
the other of persisting in a mere point of honour. Some
will perhaps think they have been guilty of two more ;
' — the destruction of twenty-four thousand lives on
their own side, and Lord knows how many thousands
on t'other, with the burning of towns, desolation of the
country, and the expence of above thirty millions of
money ; the second consists of two parts, — rejection
of all proposals of accommodation offered by the oppo
sition, and the delay of offering terms themselves, till
they knew it was too late ; for Lord North was asked
if he did not know that the treaty between the Ame
ricans and France is signed ? He would not answer
till Sir George Savage hallowed out, " an answer, an an
swer, an answer ! " His lordship then rose, could not
deny the fact, but said he did not know it officially ;
that is, I suppose, it does not stand on the votes of the
parliament at Paris.
What shall I say more ; though this is not half of
that ignominious seventeenth of February. The mea
sure passed nemine contradicente. The tories gulped
their shame, the rest pocketed. Note. The opposition
approved an attempt at peace, though a hopeless one.
Charles Fox congratulated himself on having converted
Lord North. The papers wUl tell you the rest. If
any thing could deepen this recantation of vrilful crimi
nality it is that it was extorted at last by the urgency

340 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of the moment, in short, to prevent this pretended
spirit of pacification from being anticipated by France's
notification of her alliance with the American states to
all Europe ; — what, if by a declaration of war ! Her
troops are in full march to the coast, the Due de
Lauzun recalled hence and ordered to be in France by
the 26th. How one blushes to be an Englishman ! to
be a countryman of the majority ! I have no comfort
but that I am not a Scot.
A night's rest has not dissipated the astonishment of
mankind. Everybody that comes in stares, and cannot
express himself. Who can at once reconcile a suppli
cation of alliance with the high and mighty states of
America, with a total improbability of obtaining it ? and
the faintest hope of peace, with a prospect of a war
with France ? How, an acknowledgment of indepen
dence, with a pretension of supplies, or a suspension of
the war for a year and a half, with any intention of
renewing it, when the Americans shall have had time
to settle their govemment and recruit ? but who can
digest all the contradictions into which the government
plunges every day ?
Who can believe what I have read in the papers to
day? — that one Hutton, a Moravian, has been dis
patched to Paris to fling himself at Dr. Franklin's feet
and sue for forgiveness ? it is said that the man fell on
the doctor's neck with tears and implored peace. What
triumph on one side ! What humiliation on the other !
WUl princes stUl Usten to those vUe flatterers who
fascinate them with visions of empire, that terminate in

WALPOLE AND MASON. 341
such mortifications ? for the phUosopher replied, " it
is too late."
One cannot rein one's pen at such a moment : it
runs away vrith moralities ; but I will stifle common
place reflexions. Shall I not appear a trifler if I can
mix any thing else with such thoughts ; yet having
crossed over into a fourth page, I vrill fill up the re
mainder with two bagatelles ; one was a story related
in the House of Commons. Somebody passing along
the road in Scotland, heard great outcries and lamenta
tion and complaints of violence. He stopped to inquire
the cause ; another person replied, " oh, they are only
making volunteers," i. e. pressing volunteers.
I have waded through Alfred. The author says it
has been objected that he has tamed a legislator into a
lover in a novel, but he pleads that Alfred had probably
been in love. The same excuse would apologize for
representing the Duke of Marlborough, not as a hero
but slabbering in his dotage. In the play itself I found
this line, and have written in the title-page as a motto,
I shall surprize you much; my name is Alfred;
mine is yours most sincerely,
H. w.
P. S. Pray tell me you receive this.

342 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, Feb. 23, 1778.
As many mUlions of thanks are due to you for your
two letters of the 12th and 18th, particularly for the
last, as there have been millions of money spent in
order to persuade the Americans to permit us to ac
knowledge their independency. But I have hardly time
to pay you, and nothing but thanks to pay you withal.
I am deeply engaged in my Fast sermon which is
to be preached on Friday, and not half finished yet.
My text is taken out of the book of the Lamentations
of the Prophet Jeremiah, and is as follows :
Abroad the sword bereaveth
At home there is as death.
which you perceive runs very musically and even
lyrically — 'Twas when the seas were roaring
With hoUow blasts of wind.
If all my periods have as fine a rhythmus, I don't
doubt the sermon wUl have an uncommon effect on
the ears of our Lord Mayor and Aldermen. To be
serious I mean to write it with care, lest I should find
it necessary to print it ; for this is a Tory town, though
there is a Rockingham club in it, and I question not
but they wUl be ready to misrepresent it, however,
made virtute. This is no time to be mealy-mouthed
in.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 343
My very principal virgin is within a few weeks of
her time, and Elfrida herself is obliged to go to Bath,
perhaps to lye in too ; so I fancy the representation of
my tragedy will be postponed till next winter, and will
probably be performed in the Opera house which
Sheridan and Harris have bought. I am rather pleased
at this, as it will be more likely then and there to have
fair play. I write this on a sheet of paper, on which
my friend Mr. Burgh had previously transcribed the
story I mentioned to you. If you are curious to have
it better authenticated we will examine Martin Luther's
works for the purpose. Pray don't count the lines in
this letter to twit me for my brevity, for indeed I
have nothing more to say, and what with twice a day
prayers, chapters and settling of fines, and visits from
the gentry of the place, who always make them at the
most inconvenient times, I am really almost as fully and
as usefully employed as if I was Sir Gray Cooper,
believe me ever yours
W. MASON.
* The foUowing tale is extracted from a book entitled,
" Meditations of a divine Soul, or the Christian's Guide
amidst the various opinions of a vain world," printed
in London for John Kersey, 1703, octavo. The tale
is ascribed to Martin Luther, but without any reference
to the portion of his writings from which it is taken.
" I knew a young man in the city of Erfurdt who
used his utmost efforts to debauch a damsel that
* This extract is in the writing of Mr. Burgh.

*

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344 CORRESPONDENCE OF
waited upon his mother, insomuch that this gentlewo
man being informed by the same damsel of her son's
design, resolved to prevent him, &c. * *
* *
* *
* *
* *

* In pro
cess of time the mother took her daughter home, as if
she were the child of a stranger, who was of so deli
cate a complexion and of so obliging a behaviour that
the son fell in love with her, and married her vrith the
mother's consent, neither of them knowing any thing
at all of the matter ; so that she was his daughter,
sister and wife. But the judgment of God soon over
took the mother's horrid crime, and fell heavy upon
the son for his former vrickedness."

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arhngton Street, March 4, 1778.
It is not from having any thing new to tell you that
I write you a few lines, but to ask how I may send you
half a dozen more gazettes litteraires, for I conclude
your Varelsts are in town. There is no hurry about
them, they will always be equally new to you, and not
be much so neither ; you will find in them the following
pretty riddle, which I had seen before :

WALPOLE AND MASON. 345
Eloign^ de I'objet que j'aime,
Lui seul calme mon ennui ;
II est plus beau que I'amour m&rae
Mais eUe est plus belle que lui.
The word is a portrait and is rather too enigmatic,
for one must know the solution, to find any sense in
elle. I have translated it, but as we have no genders it
is impossible to render lui and elle ; my imitation per
haps makes it too clear :
From the dear object of my dreams
Remov'd, I stiU that object see ;
As fair as love itself it seems ;
Yet she is fairer still than he.
I wish you would try it ; you wUl have better success.
I have made another enigma on the same subject, but
cannot tell whether it is good or bad, for how can one
tell whether a riddle is difficult to guess, when one
knows the subject before hand ; but do not I lay you
under the same difficulty, le void !
I counterfeit aU bodies, yet have none.
Bodies give shadows, shadows give me one
Lov'd for another's sake, that person yet
Is my chief enemy whene'er we meet ;
Thinks me too old, though blest with endless youth.
And like a monarch hates my speaking truth.
The two middle verses are very bad I know.
I agree with you ; there is no harm in Mrs. Elfrida
Hartiey's pregnancy, your drama could not be well
represented by the set at Covent Garden ; not that the
union of the two companies wiU make one good, yet

346 CORRESPONDENCE OP
wiU be a better than the worse half. However I doubt
whether the old saying will prove true in your case,
that ce qui est differ^ n'est pas perdu. My reason I
gave six weeks ago to Le Texier ; he was consulting
me whether I thought it would be advantageous for
him to take the opera-house on the present plan (on
which the other managers have outbidden him) I
replied, " Oui, tant qu'il y ait de T Angleterre." The
two conciliatory biUs are so very pelding, that nothing
but the immediate dread of a French war, or the im
possibility of raising money to maintain the armies and
fleets in America, could have reconciled the court to
such vast concessions, if they are sincere in the desire
of treating, which, notwithstanding vriser men than I
believe them, I doubt. I can see obvious reasons for
seeming to treat. I hear none to persuade me that the
Americans will treat. Lord Carlisle is named one of
the commissioners, and is very fit to make a treaty that
wiU not be made.
Voltaire came to Paris vrithout leave, but they say
has received an indulgent promise from Monsr. de
Maurepas that he shall not be molested. His chief ob
ject was to get a new play acted, which he caUs Irene,
it was Alexis Comnene, but the latter word sounded
too harsh. He has half dispatched himself with reading
this piece to the actors, and thinks of nothing else
except of being received by the King and Queen,
which Madame du Deffand who has made him two
Aasits thinks he will not obtain. I should like to have
been present at this interview of the two only surviving

WALPOLE AND MASON. 347
lillies of the siecle de Louis Quatorze, jet he is more
occupied with the dandelions of the present age.
I am very thankful for the extract Mr. Burgh gave
himself the trouble to send me, and am satisfied. Mrs.
Delane had heard of and insisted on seeing the tragedy.
I knew how it would shock her devoUt delicacy. She
returned it wdth compliments, but was sorry the subject
would condemn it to oblivion — perhaps so ; and it's
more intrinsic demerits, but I do not think being acted
wiU save many of its cotemporaries ! I am impatient to
see your sermon — did you observe a passage in the
Fast-service that has diverted people much, as it came
out just after the nemine contradicente on the pacific
bills. " Then all the people shaU say after the minister,
turn us 0 Lord, and so shall we be tumed."
I am tempted to sign my name in French, for the
pleasure of quoting the foUovring lines from Voltaire's
Indiscret, the ridiculous parts of which suit me exactly ;
Teasimon.
' le vieux Seigneur Horace
M'a prife.  Damis.
VoilJi bien de quoi je m'embarasse
Horace est un vieux fou. plutot qu'un vieux seigneur
Tout chamarr6 d'orgueU, p6tri d'un faux honneur
Assez has h, la cour, important k la viUe
Et non moins ignorant qu'U veut paroitre habUe.
HORACE.

348 CORRESPONDENCE OP

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Monday night late,
March 16, 1778.
I had not seen the Moming Post, when I dissuaded
Pubhcation, you certainly have had provocation, if you
are inclined to take it, I trust at least your testimony
will not be lost — perhaps the present instant is not
the fittest, as the French embassador's declaration has
engaged all attention ; I mean as far as a first moment
can do, for in two days I suppose we shall be as
thoughtless as ever — nay, they who should be most
alarmed, seem besotted — indeed they had little way
to go — but an old regiment is to sail to-morrow for
Halifax. I went out of town on Saturday moming
not knowing of the French declaration ; it followed me
to Strawberry that night, yet as if I were a minister,
I did not return tiU this afternoon ; and as both houses
are sitting could get no further intelligence. I shaU
probably hear something before this sets out, but what
can I learn that I do not know ? the alternative is to
be buffetted by France and turn tother cheek, or to
have England and Ireland invaded — I could almost
wish the storm would burst on Scotland — but who
would go thither ? there is one consolation however
in our wretched state ; it had been ten thousand
times more grievous to have America conquered and
England enslaved; and the guilty will now be the
greatest sufferers. Nay, October was twelvemonth, I

WALPOLE AND MASON. 349
should have jumped at an option of the present mo
ment. In short we are disgraced and ruined, and shall
never be what we have been — but Scotland will not
triumph — I know not whether the ministers will en
deavour to hold their places six months longer by the
favour of France ; or whether Lord Chatham's old
crutch will be sent for to draw a circle round St.
James's. I expect nothing but patching and botching
from any body, which wUl suit the insensibUity of the
times. There are no grounds for confidence any where.
We shall moulder piecemeal into our insignificant
islandhood, for it is an age for vigorous resurrection.
I will go answer the rest of your letter before I go to
bed, that I may not dream of our shameful position
nor have visions of revival that will never be reaUzed.
You accuse me very unjustly of neglecting your
alteration of my tragedy, I always thought it magic,
to be effected by so few words and should have adopted
it, had I ever had thoughts of its being represented ;
but nothing could induce me to venture it on the stage,
not from superabundant modesty, but from the abusi^'e
spirit of the times, I have no notion of presenting one's
self coolly to a savage mob to be torn to pieces — and
you know I am as tender of my friends as of myself.
I think this country at present in every light the sink
of Europe, void of taste and of every thing ingenuous.
Calamity has often resuscitated its powers — but there
are few or no instances I believe of an empire that has
faUen by its own corruptions, replacing itself on its
throne. My vanity is too proud to desire to twinkle

350 CORRESPONDENCE OF
under the auspices of Palaeologi and Porph3rrogemti,
should I be remembered, I should wish it might be
as one of the last reign.
I have entirely forgotten what Sir John Dalrymple
said in his preface, but am most sure that if he quotes
a Walpole as his recommender, it must have been my
cousin Thomas, for I never saw the wretch, nor ever
had the most indirect connection with him. To Mrs.
Macaulay I did give a letter, but am ashamed of it, as
she ought to be of her foolish and absurd summary,
which is a wretched compilation from magazines, full
of gross mistakes, and confounding aU characters,
leveUing aU for no end or purpose, but to support so
siUy an hypothesis, as that no king can be a good king,
because he is a king. She defends James II for the
nonsensical pleasure of abusing King WUUam, and has
no more idea of general merit than Sir John Daliymple.
In short, whom does she approve but herself and her
idolater — that dirty disappointed hunter of a mitre.
Dr. WUson, and Alderman Heathcote, a paltry worth
less Jacobite, whom I remember, and her own grand
father Sawbridge, who, she has been told was a mighty
worthy man though dipped in the infamous job of the
South Sea. In short, I ran through the book, had
forgotten it, and only recoUect it now to answer your
question. I enclose with this a letter I wrote to you last week,
but did not care to send by the post ; you vrill find
some curious particulars in it. I have finished certain
verses of which you saw part, but shall reserve them

WALPOLE AND MASON, 351
till we meet, as I shaU the rest of my paper till to
morrow. By the way, I do not know who the tran
scriber of your sermon is, nor guess what you mean by
"the triumph of the minority," unless you allude to
their carrying one question against Lord North for a
tax on places. It would have been a greater blow to
the crown than they wiU ever give, even if they be
come the majority ; but they lost it the next night, on
the report, and will take care not to carry it, if ever
they are ministers. 17th,
Lord Stormont is recalled, for we are to be angry,
since being tame would not do. Dr. Franklin is to be
received at Versailles to day as Embassador. A message
is to be deUvered to each house to day, and the ma
jority in each is, I suppose, to answer, — We will assist
you to chastize France for having been forced by you
to pick up what you threw away. Lord North had
the modesty yesterday to recommend unanimity and to
affirm he keeps his place from a point of honour.
Burke made a fine application of Lord Bedford's answer
to King James. — ' I had a son who could have advised
your majesty,' — America could have assisted your
majesty. Charles Fox's reply was in a rougher style.
The stocks are not of the heroic majority, yet, I be
Ueve the ministers vrill stay from errant fear at St.
James's till they are torn out of it. That will be a poor
compensation and an useless precedent, for posterity,
with all its reading, is never the better for example.

352 CORRESPONDENCE OF
James II could read, but could not remember even
what he had seen.
Well ! I must finish, though my pen's tongue could
run on for ever, I feel all sort of feelings, none com
fortable, but that we shall be despicable first before we
are slaves ; the contrary would be more mortifying,
France has a right to humble us. The true English
who are in America have behaved like Englishmen,
without any Scot-alloy, The victories of France will
be over Scots, Dr, Franklin's triumph has been over
a Scot Ambassador, Pursue this idea, we shall have
occasion to pay ourselves vrith leathern coui,
P, S. Let me know the moment you receive this
packet. I add a French tract which you must take
care to return, though I understand little of it. The
Gazette Litteraire vrill show you how it relates to their
present musical contests. What I understand is able
and full of address, but surely the irony is above most
readers. I shall be glad to have all my gazettes again
when you come this way wards.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
DEAR SIR, York, March 13, 1778.
I have often try'd, but could never make a riddle in
my life, therefore I wiU not attempt to correct yours,
but I have a better reason still. If I was to do it, 'tis
ten to one but you have forgot that you ever writ

WALPOLE AND MASON. 353
them, and consequently would not understand my cor
rections ; you have served me in a similar sort once or
twice before, nay, when I had the effronterie to make
an alteration in your tragedy, which alteration you
approved, vou yet gave that alteration up merely
because you had forgotten what that alteration was,
which had it been attended to, would have secured
your Mysterious Mother from the devout delicacy of
Mrs. Delany ; nay, would have made it " pit, box and
gallery " vrith any tragedy ancient as Elfrida or modern
as the Battle of Hastings.
Now to shew you how much I hold your critiques in
devout memorial, I give you to know that I have locked
up my sermon in my bureau till that goodly time
shortly comes when we shall all be absolutely ruined,
all but the said sermon which then will shine forth
with redoubled lustre. But I also give you to know
that when it does come forth every iota of it must stand
as it is, for I hear it has been taken down in short hand,
and there is a man here the son of a certain Baronet,
(who did in safer times what Dr. Dodd was afterwards
hanged for, and who is now as he ought to be a privy
counceUor) who is highly incensed at the said sermon.
He wrote against Price, but was not read, and he
aims at a place or pension because his father does not
give him de quoi vivre, and I question not is the person
who has called himself the congregation of York, vide
Morning Post, March 10. Now this being the case
you see, there can be no softnings whatever, which I
am sorry for, more on your account than my own, for
VOL. I. A A

354 CORRESPONDENCE OP
I should certainly have spared Sir John Daliymple had
I then known (which his preface has since taught me)
that you gave him recommendatory letters to France.
However as I said before my unfortunate sermon is safe
under lock and key, and shall remain so as long as
possible, perhaps for ever, unless I be in self defence
forced to produce it.
Pray is this triumph of the minority any triumph at
all ? and what say you to Mrs. Macaulay's late volume,
to whom also you gave recommendatory letters to
France. I beg your pardon, I believe it was Lord Har
court and not you.
If you will please to send the gazettes litteraires to
Mr. Stonhewer with directions to Charles Carter my
painting servant to send them to me by the York Fly,
I shall have them speedily. I left him in town to
perfect himself in drawing at the Academy, and any
thing you chuse to send he will convey speedUy to me.
I am tired to death of my residence, the cold of the
Minster is intolerable ; I wish they would tax deans and
chapters, and make them as unprofitable as pensions,
that I might have an excuse for shrinking myself into
my rectorial shell. By the way I meant nothing in the
way of nolo episcopari in the sentence of my sermon
which you objected to ; I only did not wish to be a
ways and means man, or a Doctor Price. A man may
be a good bishop and be neither of these characters, so
no more at present from yours entirely
W. MASON.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 355
Pray erase with a pen (if you do not immediately
bum this letter) the scandalum magnatum contained
in the sentence about the Baronet.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. York, March 21, 1778.
I have just now received the parcel very safe with
the two delightful letters inclosed ; while I continue
here any thing will be forwarded to me safely and expe
ditiously by sending them to Charles Carter. I am not
so easUy provoked as to change my mind for a fiam in
the Morning Post. I will at least stay to see who
prints on the occasion before me ; those that have
preached before the Lords and Commons, not to men
tion St. James's, ought to take precedency of the press
before him that only discoursed my Lord Mayor of
York. The man I mean is a Mr. Goodrick son of a
baronet, one of Lord Bingley's heirs ; he married a
Dutch woman and wants to go abroad as an envoy.
Pray out of all charity and goodness write frequently
to me at this crisis, though I can send you nothing in
return. The more disinterested and like the tenor of
the times wUl be your correspondence. The Post gives
me not a moment more, and I must conclude yours as
always
W. MASON.

356 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. March 26, 1778.
Though you have desired me to write often at this
crisis, and though I am never penurious of my ink, I
waited tUl I could send you something more than
rumours. The darkness has not hung long without a
thunder clap. France has stopped all our shipping
in their ports, and the omniscient Lord Stormont him
self has learnt that piece of news at Boulogne, being
detained there by the embargo. It is also expected
that the Spanish Charge des Affaires will to day or to
morrow compliment the king with an acknowledgement
of the states of America, as civilly as Monsieur de
Noailles did. It is even said that Portugal allows their
title. Well, say you, and are not people frightened ?
what is to be done ? Frightened ; yes ; some are, —
some that are guilty and more that are innocent, most,
not at all ; for folly, that sees a ghost always tumbles
down a precipice that is before its eyes. But you will
have some answer, and I must tell you what is to be
done ; that is I must foresee, not what can be done, but
what will be. I believe the oracle at Hayes has been
consulted, but not having received carte blanche,
shrouded its dignity in ambiguity. Perhaps to day
more humble embassadors have been sent : I vow I do
not know there have, but the event I guess. The god
himself taking the form of his Pythonisse, and enve
loped in fiannels, that are the symbols of vast vigour of

WALPOLE AND MASON

357

mind beneath, will go to Buckingham-house, and find
ing fuU acquiescence to all his terms (by taking care to
ask none really unpalatable) vrill then present a long
list of names that are to be substituted to the proscribed.
Lord Rockingham shall go to Ireland, the Duke of
Richmond shaU be this, Charies Fox shaU be tother,
Mr. Burke something else, &c. &c. &c. I mean after
Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, Barre, Dunning, and
perhaps the Duke of Grafton have been appointed to
the essential posts. " Certainly," wiU be the answers,
" all are very proper." Madam, the priestess, then no
tifies to all the nominees the graces she has bestowed,
and orders them to take possession of their several
departments. They all laugh in her face and call her
a foolish old beldame, and thus a weak opposition is
more weakened. The most concerned is not very sorry,
the only moment is lost ; France wUl tell you the rest.
I sit resigned to our fate, for when one can do no
good, and is but an individual, it is impertinent to be
anything but passive. I am less alarmed too than I
should be, because I had the same apprehensions above
thirty years ago, and because I had then thirty years
longer to live than I have now. In youth too imagina
tion's wing flies as far as it can. Experience tells one
that all does not happen that may. I think I shall
outUve the storm and talk over the ruins ; but in truth I
believe they will be considerable. France seems to have
waited with vrise phlegm for the fullness of time, and
we may expect that her blows will be stunning. My
idea is that she will invade us here ostensibly, more

358 CORRESPONDENCE OF
effectually in Ireland, in America and in the East ; if
she has success in all, and we none, why then Lord
Mansfield will shake off his mortal coU, and persuade
himself that he always meant the destruction of the
house of Hanover, not its unbounded elevation. These
are my sober cool opinions, I shall be glad to be a lying
Prophet, for Jeremiah himself was a sad fellow if he
comforted himself under captivity with the honour of
having predicted it. Yours ever
H. w.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Arlington Street, April 8, 1778.
Though my daily fellow-labourers of this morning
will give you a minute account of the great event of
yesterday, I should be a very negligent gazetteer if I
took no notice of it. Lord Chatham fell in the Senate —
not by daggers nor by the thunder of Lord Suffolk's
eloquence. He had spoken with every symptom of
debUity, repeated his own phrases, could not recoUect
his own ideas, and which was no new practice, per
sisted in our asserting sovereignty over America, though
he could not tell by what means. It was only new to
confess his ignorance. The Duke of Richmond an
swered him with much decency and temper, though
Lord Chatham had called pursuit without means, timid
and pusillanimous conduct. The Earl was rising to

WALPOLE AND MASON. 359
reply, but fell down in a second fit of apoplexy, vrith
strong convulsions and slabbering at the mouth. I do
not doubt but the Morning Post will allow the Duke
more rhetoric than it ever acknowledged, in order to
ascribe Lord Chatham's fall to his Grace's invectives
— but he who is all tenderness and sensibility, was so
affected, that at night the Duchess desired me not to
name it — yet Lord Chatham is not dead and to day is
better, if existing after two strokes can be called so.
To be sure his biographer would have a fairer field,
had he died in his vocation. In truth, I see no good
he could have done, since he has embraced the idea of
still conquering America — but much harm he must
have occasioned had the court adopted him. Now I
reckon him politically dead ; he will probably neither
recover strength or faculties, his family will if possible
prevent his reappearance, and the court will scarce
inoculate a half dead skeleton on their other infirmities.
Lord Chatham certainly went to the house to express
resentment at their having only dabbled with him in
directly, but his debility or perhaps some gleam of
hope of being yet adopted, moderated his style — his
water-gall Lord Temple was at his elbow.
I can tell you nothing definitive on war or peace.
Pacification with France, and even with America has
been much sounded these last days — probably to prop
the stocks — but the selection of Govemor Johnstone for
one of the Commissioners, who even during all the late
debates anathematized American independence, impUes
not only adherence to sovereignty but no thoughts

360 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of change — of Johnstone it is enough to say that
though a Scot in opposition, he never lost sight of the
promised land.
You may thank me for so much politics when I am
overwhelmed with other business, and have even the
militia on my hands ; my nephew is suddenly come to
himself again — only to his former self, but I must not
tap this chapter — I should be endless. He is gone
to take the command of the Norfolk militia, and I am
commissioned to dissuade him ! De profundis clamavi !
well, fortune has some justice and dispenses antidotes
with poisons. The Duke of Gloucester's chUdren are
to have a parliamentary provision, and considering
every thing, a very decent one. There is one thorn
removed ; I have recourse to my old anodynes, quartos,
whenever I can snatch a moment. I have gone
through Mr. Pennant's Welsh tour which is a patch
work of all sorts of shreds stitched together with
unpronounceable words, of DDwrr'rs and no vowels, so
I do not remember much of what I cannot articiUate.
I have dipped into Mr. Warton's second volume which
seems more unentertaining than the former. I perceive
he excommunicates Rowley totally. Lord Hardwicke
is to present us on Saturday with two volumes of State
Papers — but with due circumspection keeps back his
by far most curious letters. I have a long conversation
with Dr. Robertson to relate to you, but must reserve
for some moment of more leisure. It would not be
time lost to come to me for a week and hear me ex
haust my waUet — you must not reckon upon too distant

WALPOLE AND MASON. 361
moments ! my tattered frame grows weaker and weaker.
I waste as few minutes as possible, but constant ap
plication of the mind to some duties or other will im
pair a memory that is enclosed in so frail an etui.
Have you seen the old Baron, a gothic story, professedly
written in imitation of Otranto, but reduced to reason
and probability ! It is so probable, that any trial for
murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interest
ing story. Mrs. Barbut's fragment was excellent.
This is a caput mortuum. Adieu. I have not a quar
ter of a minute to say more.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, AprU 18, 1778.
I am come hither like a good christian to pass in
retreat the holy week before Easter, and the unholy
week of Newmarket, which has almost beaten Easter
out of the Calendar, and to which yet I would give a
scripture appellation, and call it the passover. In these
ten days I shaU probably fulfil my promise of sending
you the heads of my interview with Dr. Robertson :
but I will tell you first the little else I have to say.
Most people expect a French war — I stiU doubt it, I
do not very weU know why, but it does not seem a
very decisive age ; the Turks and Russians have not
yet drawn blood. I take the emperor to be the most
impatient to be a Caesar, and his mother I suppose
is very ready to employ him at a distance from home.

362 CORRESPONDENCE OF
The Commissioners are gone, and Mr. Adams is
arrived at Paris. As we do not know the amount of
their treaty, all we do is in the dark. I suspect that
Dr. Franklin has duped Governor Johnstone, and yet
many a dishonest man has been made a fool, as weU as
many an honest one.
The opposition are notoriously split into two factions.
Lord Shelburne heads the Chathamites, and puts me in
mind of a French beggar, who asked charity as one of
the quinze vingt aveugles ; why, said the person he
applied to, you are not blind ! helas, non, monsieur,
said the feUow, je ne suis qu'un aspirant.
The Foleys are at last likely to lose their cause by
the indecent impetuosity of their partizans. If you have
not seen it in the papers, you vrill — Oh ! I have begun
my letter on a torn sheet, but I cannot write it over
again, and so shall proceed — yes, you vrill thank me
for an admirable bon mot of George Selwyn, when the
Foleys had more chance of cancelling their father's
will, he said, " the new Testament will now be more
favourable to the Jews than the old."
There is a pretty poem just pubUshed called the
Wreath of Fashion ; it is written by one TickeU, a son
of Addison's friend. He has been an assistant at Eton,
and wrote this winter another poem at least as good
called the Project. The conclusion of the new is very
inferior to the rest, and ends absurdly, like Anstey's on
Lord Tavistock, with a hemistich ; and as absurdly
with a panegyric on that water-gruel bard Shenstone,
who never wrote any thing good but his Schoolmistress.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 363
The Wreath is a satire on sentimental poets, amongst
whom, stUl more absurdly, he classes Charles Fox, but
there is a great deal of wit par cy-par la. He calls sen
timental comedies. Dramatic Homelies; says Lord
Palmerstone fineers (what an admirable word !) rebus's
and charades with chips of poetry ; and when Lord of
the Admiralty, like Ariel wrecked navies with a song,
sure that is an exceUent application.
I have very near finished Warton, but antiquary as
I am, it was a tough atchievement. He has dipped
into an incredible ocean of dry and obsolete authors of
the dark ages, and has brought up more rubbish than
riches, but the latter chapters, especiaUy on the pro
gress and revival of the theatre is more entertaining ;
however it is very fatiguing to wade through the muddy
poetry of three or four centuries that had never a
poet. Have you heard how Voltaire has been at his own
Apotheosis ? he has literally been crowned vrith laurel
in a side box at his Irene, and seen the actors and
actresses decorate his bust with garlands on the stage.
As he is so very old one must excuse his submitting to
this vanity ; nay it must have been moving, — yet one
is more charmed vrith the violette, qui se cache sous
I'herbe. As Lord and Lady Strafford are to drink tea here
this evening I shaU desire my Lord to frank this
modicum, that you may not pay for a scrap that has
nothing in it. My conversation with the Scottish
historian is as little worth, especially after I had pre-

364 CORRESPONDENCE OF
pared you for expecting it. When do you quit your
cathedral for your parish ? I shall not leave my little
hill for the dinner at the Royal Academy on Thursday,
only to figure the next day in the newspapers in the
list of the Mecaenas's of the age. Lady Di Beauclerc
has drawn the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire
and it has been engraved by Bartolozzi. A CastaUan
nymph conceived by Sappho and executed by M3Ton
would not have had more grace and simphcity ; it is
the divinity of Venus piercing the veU of immortahty,
when roseS, cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiseque comae divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere.
The likeness is perfectly preserved, except that the
paintress has lent her own expression to the Duchess,
which you vrill allow is very agreeable flattery ; what
should I go to the Royal Academy for ? I shall see no
such chef d'ceuvres there.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. May 12, 1778.
I now and then write a letter for, rather than to you :
that is when they will bear delay and be equally fresh,
and when they contain anecdotes that I do not care to
send by the post if they are too personal, and I have not
a prospect of sudden conveyance. The foUowing wiU
have all these ingredients, and wUl rather be an epitome

WALPOLE AND MASON. 365
of the manners of the time, than a letter. The charac
teristics of the age are frenzy, folly, extravagance and
insensibility ; no wonder when such stars are predomi
nant, that Ruin both stalks on, and is not felt or appre
hended. About ten days ago I wanted a housemaid and one
presented herself very well recommended ; I said,
" but young woman, why do you leave your present
place ? " she said she could not support the hours she
kept, that her lady never went to bed till three or four
in the morning. " Bless me chUd, said I, why you
tell me you live with a Bishop's wife, I never heard
that Mrs. North gamed or raked so late." " No Sir,"
said she, " but she is .three hours undressing." Upon
my word, the edifice that takes three hours to demolish,
must at least be double the time in fabricating I would
not you for once sit up till morning to see the destruc
tion of the Pyramid and distribution of the materials ?
Do not mention this, for I did not take the girl and she
stiU assists at the daily and nightly revolutions of
Babel. On Tuesday I supped after the opera at Mrs. Mey-
nel's with a set of the most fashionable company, which
take notice I very seldom do now, as I certainly am not
of the age to mix often with young people, Lady Mel
bourne was standing before the fire, and adjusting her
feathers in the glass, says she, " Lord ! they say the
stocks wUl blow up : that wUl be very comical."
These would be features for comedy, if they would
not be thought caricatures, but to day I am possessed •

366 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of a genuine paper that I_^believe I shall leave to the
Museum, and which though its object will I suppose
to-morrow become record, cannot be beUeved authentic
an hundred years hence. It would in such a national
satire as Gulliver be deemed too exaggerated ; in short
Lord Foley and his brother have petitioned the House
of Lords to set aside their father's wUl, as it seems he
intended to have raised an hundred thousand pounds
to pay their debts, but died before he could execute his
intention. All the ladies, Melboumes, and all the
Bishop's wives that kill their servants by vigils are
going about the town lamenting these poor orphans,
and soliciting the peers to redress their grievances ; but
no words no ridicule can attain to the ridiculous
pathetic of the printed case itself, which now lies before
me, and of which the four first lines are these — upon
my honour they are exactly these.
" The present Lord Foley, and his brother Mr.
Edward Foley having contracted large bond debts to
the amount of about — I. and encumbered themselves
by granting annuities for their lives to the amount of
about seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty pounds
a year, explained their situation to their father the late
Lord." 
Poor unfortunate chUdren ; before thirty, the eldest
had spent an estate (to the possession of which he was
not arrived) of twenty thousand a year — at least, for
feited his father's affections, who left him but six
thousand a year and a palace ; and the youngest brother
had been dipped in the same extravagance with him.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 367
and the legislature is desired to set aside so just a
punishment, and if it does vrill deserve that every lad
in England should waste his father's estate before his
face,— teU it not in Gath, where aU the shekels that ever
were in the country would give no idea of the debt,
though Jews are the creditors. Burn your sermon
instead of printing it ; do you think you can preach up
to the enormities of the times ? Hyperbole is baffled,
and if the fine ladies of Jerusalem were so galant that
the prophets were obliged to pass all bounds of decency
in censuring Duchess Aholah and Countess Aholibah,
where would they have found figures even in eastern
rhetoric to paint the enormity of two sons explaining
to their father that they paid seventeen thousand pounds
a year to usurers for money they had borrowed to pay
gaming debts ? and what tropes, what metaphors drawn
from asses would describe a sanhedrim that suffered
such a petition to be laid before it.
These have been my collections in a single fortnight
in the flagrancy of a civil war. History shall not
revert to Athens for decrees against diverting the
revenues of the theatre to the service of the state.
London shall be the storehouse hereafter, whence
declamations shall be drawn on the infatuation of falling
empires ; nay, so potent is the intoxication that in two
companies this evening I have been thought singular
for seeing this petition in the light I do ; at York per
haps I may not be held so antediluvian in my opinions.
With such obsolete prejudices I certainly am not very
proper at modern suppers, yet with such entremets one

368 CORRESPONDENCE OF
would not wholly miss them. Nations at the acme of
their splendour, or at the eve of their destruction, are
worth observing. When they grovel in obscurity
afterwards, they furnish neither events nor reflections ;
strangers visit the vestiges of the Acropolis, or may
come to dig for capitals among the rums of St. Paul's ;
but nobody studies the manners of the pedlars and
banditti, that dwell in mud huts within the precincts of
a demolished temple. Curio and Clodius are memorable
as they paved the way to the throne of Caesar, but
equal scoundrels are not intituled to infamy after a con
stitution is overturned ; what we shall retain, I do not
conjecture. The constitution might recover, the nation
cannot : but though its enemies have miscarried in their
attacks on the former is there sense or virtue enough
left to restore it, though the assailants have betrayed
such wretched despicable incapacity ? unless sudden
inspiration should seize the whole island and make it
with one voice invite Dr. Franklin to come over and
new model the government, it will crumble away in the
hands that still hold it ; they feel, they own their insuf
ficiency. Every body is sensible of it, and every body
seems to think like Lady Melbourne, that if we are
blown up it wUl be very comical.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, May 15, 1778.
I have gulped my anger at your silence, or at least

WALPOLE AND MASON. 369
adjourned it till I have less disposition to speak, that I
may chat with you on all that has happened since I
wrote last Saturday. The first thing I heard on land
ing in Arlington Street was Lord Chatham's death,
which in truth I thought of no great consequence, but
to himself ; for either he would have remained where
he was, or been fetched out to do what he could not do,
— replace us once more on the throne of Neptune. The
House of Commons has chosen to make his death an
epoch, which is to draw the line between our prosperity
and adversity. They bury him, and father his children.
In this fit of gratitude two men chose not to be involved,
but voted against attending his funeral ; one was the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who owed the tiara to him ;
the other. Lord Onslow, who formerly used to wait in
the lobby to help him on with his great coat.
Yesterday teemed with events : a compromise on the
Irish bills was made and broken. Then Sir George
Saville moved for taking off pressures from the Roman
CathoUcs, which charmed every soul on both sides,
and I suppose the papists wUl soon be admitted ad
eundem. Next arrived General Burgoyne. I don't know
whether he was surprized or not, but he received a
prohibition of appearing at court; and a board of
general officers is appointed to sit on his conduct.
Luckily we have enough to spare, though French and
Spaniards should land in twenty places ; for next came
an account of Marshal Broglio being appointed com
mander-in-chief on the coasts of the ocean. The ubi
VOL. I. B B

370 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of the Toulon Squadron is not ascertained. That of
Brest has thirty frigates, and the Spanish ten thou
sand men on board, so you may prophecy at your
pleasure. I say nothing of an interlude which nobody has
leisure to think on, and is a great way off in a certain
little empire we have, or had, called India, where Mr.
Hastings had deposed General Clavering by the pleni
tude of his power before the latter's death.
I thought these accidents were sufficient for one
week, and came out of town this morning as tranquilly
as if I were a minister ; so I hold my own philosophy
full as high as any stoic's in Yorkshire. It does requue
some command of temper to sit still and see a general
wreck approaching, — I mean for one that expects and
thinks on it. I know I might go to Ranelagh, and
Newmarket, and exhibitions, and say, with Pope,
Whatever is, is right.
But I am forced to seek other consolations ; and as I
have not the spirits of youth, I have recourse to age,
and comfort myself that my time cannot be long whether
I survive my country or the constitution, the former of
which is alternately shaken or attempted to be propped
by experiments on the latter ; but it is idle to dream
on old maxims. A great convulsion is at hand, and
new aeras find new levels. Old folks should not trouble
themselves vrith great epochs at the end of their lives,
but set themselves apart till they are swept to the
ancient mass to which they belonged.
I have long taken my doctor's degree in Strulbruggism,

WALPOLE AND MASON. 371
and wonder I concern myself about the affairs of the
Uring. Good night, I wUl go and converse with the
dead.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. May 16, 1778.
As a Goth, as a respecter of princes of the name of
WUliam and as uncle of one of that name, I certainly
shaU not refuse my mite to the re-enshrinement of the
bones of poor WiUiam of Hatfield. I will wiUingly be
at the whole expence if you wUl take care I shaU have
no honour from it, as I hate crouding one's name into
Fame's account book, by bringing her in a bill for stone
and mortar ; you shall have his Royal Highness's arms
too, and anything but the epitaph. I have neither time
nor understanding left for writing any thing. My ne
phew's situation wiU employ and poison all my leisure ;
and were it not my way to occupy every minute, I could
not go through half I have to do, and all I wish to do I
leave undone. If I forget Prince WiUiam's arms, you
must put me in mind.
In aU my trouble I cannot be forgetful of you. Here
is come out a paltry supplement to Hume's life, with
his will, a supplement to his vanity. He modestly
orders only his name to be mentioned on his tomb, but
appoints posterity his executors, and requires them to
write an epitaph setting forth his great abUities accord
ing to the high opinion they wUl have of them. Voila

372 CORRESPONDENCE OF
un Philosophe. The editor grossly abuses you for
what I hope you glory in, the publication of Gray's
letters, in particular that which censures Hume, which
the fool calls Uliberal. By Hume's own account of
himself he attacked all religion in order to be talked
of. It is illiberal in a very moral man to be shocked at
Atheism ! This is Scotch morality ! The condemna
tion of Gray's letters is Scotch taste ! The whole na
tion hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and
even incapable of relishing it. The dull editor says
Gray never thought his letters would see the light. He
does not perceive how much that circumstance enhances
their merit ; I do not wonder he is insensible of their
charming beauties. Nobody yet ever wrote letters so
well and his earliest have more marks of genius than
his latest. Your crime does not lie in what you have
given of Gray but of yourself. The Scots like to wound
with another man's dagger ; you will only smUe at their
impotence. I wish they could only stab vrith their
pens, — The grey-goose quUl that is thereon.
In no man's blood wUl be wet,
I know no news. You have seen the Speaker's re
monstrance, and how ably Charles Fox made the House
adopt it, and consequently the condemnation of their
own act.
I have seen Sheridan's new comedy, and liked it
much better than any I have seen since the Provoked
Husband. There is a great deal of vrit and good
situations ; but it is too long, has two or three bad

WALPOLE AND MASON. 373
scenes that might easily be omitted, and seemed to me
to want nature and tmth of character ; but I have not
read it, and sat too high to hear it well. It is admirably
acted. Burke has published a pamphlet on the Ameri
can War, and an Apology for his own secession and
that of his friends. I have not had time to look at it,
but I do not believe I shall agree vrith him on the
latter part so much as on the first. Do not return me
the lncas ; I shall never read it. I hear your garden
was criticized in the Moming Post. Continue to plant
Flowers worthy of paradise, —
and do not mind their being trampled on in such a soU
as this. Adieu ! I wish I had leisure to chat with you
longer.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. Aston, May 24, 1778.
I have got a quire of much smaUer paper than I for
merly used, though not quite so smaU as that you write
letters upon, and I am in great hopes it wiU make me a
much more punctual correspondent to you and the rest
of my friends ; for when a man has nothing to say
(which is usually my case) there is nothing so for
midable as seeing a huge quarto page, big enough for
the types of a Scotch historian, lie before one in expec
tation of being filled. I know I have frequently taken
one of those out of my parte feuille and put it in again
through pure disgust at its magnitude. Pray, who is

374 CORRESPONDENCE OF
your stationer ? His Majesty has been mine a great
while (through the mediation of Mr. Auditor Stonhewer)
but I'll tum him off and take yours, and yet, when one
considers that it is the only thing by which he has ever
benefitted me, or will be likely to benefit me, this
would be quarrelling with one's bread and butter.
Thus the apologetical first page, the most difficult to
write in a whole letter, is fairly filled, and the second
begun ; shall I fill this with a threnody on the two
Earls which have lately left my stationer in the lurch ?
Their characters are too dissimUar to be hitched into
the same rhymes, and yet they both agreed in one
virtue, — that of a most profound loyalty. The latter
of these, with whom only I was acquainted, lamented
the repubUcan spirit that was abroad, in the last con
ference I had with him. I did not ask him what he
meant by it, because I was sure he could not tell me.
But are you not charmed with the Cavendishes getting
up to praise the dead statesman ? whom I know they
hated as cordially as the King hates them. I always
thought Lord John rather a modest man till this event ;
and are not you charmed too vrith the political wisdom
of Sir George SaviUe, who chooses this very moment
to indispose the whole body of Dissenters towards him
and his party by rising up the champion of the Papists.
Bad as I esteem the reigning ministry, I actually like
them better than the opposition, — I mean the Rock
ingham part of it, and yet aU my friends are included
in that part.
Pray, give me an account of the funeral, and if you

WALPOLE AND MASON. 375
have time, order your gardener to pluck a bouquet of
onions, and send it with my compliments to Lord
John, that he may put them in his handkerchief to
weep with greater facUity. I am sick of my friends,
my country and myself. They say we are to be in
vaded : I am as impatient to be so as the old nun in
the PuceUe was to be violated ; weU ; but if we are
not invaded, wiU you meet me in a httle time at Nune
ham. I mean to go there the middle of next month
and stay tiU August. I had once thought of passing
through town, but the absence of my curate I believe
will prevent me, for he is now setting off with Lord
H.'s corpse to Hornby, and is to return to town to settle
some affairs relative to the lease of Sion Hill vrith the
Duke of Northumberland. You may well believe that
I can contentedly stay here, when I reflect that a great
part of the trouble and attendance that now falls upon
him would have been my lot had things been as they
once were. But my little quarto page happily releases
you from more of my prate and leaves me no room to
say how much I am yours.
You talked in your last of a letter you had written
last Saturday, I hope you was only ironing, for I have
only received one since I came hither from York.

376 CORRESPONDENCE OF

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, May 31, 1778.
I am glad you have deigned to answer me at last,
for there is no conversation when only one talks.
I was almost sorry that I had not begged you to order
your executor to send me word you was dead, and
that I need not write any more. But, my good
friend, you are fuU as great a contradiction as Lord
John, or any catholic whig upon earth. You write
once in a quarter, and yet complain of my small paper ;
I fixed upon this little quarto for substantial reasons,
I am too apt to write too much to those I love, and
prescribed myself this size that I might not weary
them, and it holds all one has to say to those one loves
not, and yet seems to contain a decent quantity.
I should like to accept the assignation you give me,
and wUl if I have the least encouragement, but I have
had no invitation ; and though I do not at all know why, '
am a little suspicious of not being in the most perfect
favour. As this is by no means positive, I take no
notice, because it is not at all on my side, and that it
shall revive when ever it pleases, as my regard is just
the same. If we should not meet I think you cannot
refuse coming to me for a few days. Consider, I have
turned that comer beyond which every hour is lucrum,
and that I and every body else think I have lived long
enough — though I am not so old as Sam : Martin counts
me. The talisman is removed that prohibited your

WALPOLE AND MASON. 377
access to this part of the world, though surely Twick
enham is a kind of country to so near relation of Pope
as you are by the side of your virgin-mothers ; let me
have the satisfaction of seeing you here, whither very
few are pressed to come. We have a thousand things
to talk over, and are almost reduced to be the only two
of the same opinion, for what those you call your
friends mean, indeed I do not guess, it is most chari
table to think they have no meaning. I used to fancy
that calamity would bring us to our senses — it must
bring our senses too. The two alternatives now are
desolation, or a shameful peace : bankmptcy with either,
only a little nearer, or a little farther off ; it is actuaUy
come out on the agitation of the changes in the law
that at £60 per commission, the chancellor reaped
seven thousand pounds last year by bankruptcies. Those
changes were to have taken place last Thursday, but I do
not hear they did. Thurloe is to be Lord ChanceUor or
Lord Keeper, I do not know which. Wedderburne
sits down with the Attomey's place, a disappointment
and I suppose a fuU promise. Norton threatened to
impeach him if Peered, for teUing the chief justice that
Lord North would pay him out of the treasury seven
thousand pounds for the prothonotary's reversion. Thus
justice makes a rope of one rogue, instead of using two
ropes. I shaU certainly not go to the funeral — I go to
no puppet shows, nor want to see Lord Chatham's
water-gaU Lord Temple hobble chief mourner. I scarce
inquire after the House of Commons, which is a scene
of folly and BiUinsgate. Burgoyne has tried to be the

378 CORRESPONDENCE OF
pathetic hero, and was forgotten for three hours, whUe
Temple Lutterel, and Lord G. Germaine scolded like
two oyster women ; the first tried to be sent to Newgate,
and the latter grasped his sword, and then asked
pardon for having been grossly affronted. Lord Bar
rington implored madam his country's tears for declar
ing he was retiring from her service to virtuous privacy.
It is pity she did not order him to be buried at the
public expence ; Lord Sandwich has run the gauntlet
in the Lords for all the lies he has told all the vrinter
about the fleet, and does not retire, but I am sick of
repeating what you must be sick of reading. An inva
sion will have some dignity ; but to see a great country
gambol at the eve of ruin like a puppy on a precipice !
Oh ! one cannot buffoon like Lucian when one wants to
speak daggers like Tacitus, and couch them in a sentence
without descending to details.
I had rather talk on less interesting subjects, and
will tell you a good bon mot. Marie a la Coque has had
an outrageous quarrel with Miss Pelham on politics, or
rather at Miss Pelham, who did not reply. This occa
sioned Lady Mary's notes being mentioned, which she
signs as Duchess of York, Marye, the e passing for a
flourish, if you do not go to law with her. On this,
Burke said to Miss P. " Upon my word you will be a
match for her if you sign Frances P."
There was more humour in a reply of Lady Har
rington's tother day. Mrs. St. John had asked Lady
Anna Maria to a ball vrithout her mother, who would
not let her go. The next time they met Lady H. made

WALPOLE AND MASON. 379
excuses, but said she never allowed her daughter to go
to balls without her. Mrs. St. J. replied, as her lady
ship suffered her to go the opera without her, she had
hoped she would not have been more strict about a
private dancing. Instead of knocking her down, as
might have been expected. Lady Harrington looked her
aU over, and then with a face melted to compassion,
said in a soft voice, and very slowly, " Mrs. St. John,
if you could have a chUd, I am sure you would think as
I do ! " Imagine this addressed to a porpoise covered
with flowers and feathers ! but I would in vain divert
you, I do not feel cheerful, though, as I told you in a
former letter, I had rather see my country humbled
than insolently enslaved. Nay, I think with comfort
on a time which I shall not see, when the absurdity of
the present age will be painted in its true colours.
The mind never rests on the unhappy point ; it prefers
a non-existent scene to disagreeable sensations ; I feel
my own folly ; were I to leave England as happy or
as glorious as I have known it, would it always remain
so ? Is not it enough that the mischief is falUng on the
heads of its authors ? what period equalled the dis
graces of the last six or eight months? shall the
innocent mix sighs with the guilty ? who wUl doubt
where the blame is due ? all the Robertsons and Humes
of the Higlilands cannot whitewash the four last years ;
nor, which is more delightful, can they plunder and
disgrace America, as their chiefs have undone England.
Seven James's were not worse politicians than the
whole nation is ; nor is there a more indelible mark of

380 CORRESPONDENCE OF
reprobation on the Jews. I would fain persuade myself
that the seeds of t5Tanny will not thrive in this country,
though all the inhabitants sow them. Every attempt
choaks the seedsman ; I hope we shall be a proverb,
as Ireland is for not producing venomous animals !
Remember that if I write on small paper I vmte
a very small hand, and that this very letter would make
forty, if I scrawled a large character like Dukes and
old Earls, who aUow as much room to every word as to
their coach and six. I don't want news, but you can
say nothing that I shaU not be glad to read.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, June 10, 1778.
If you wonder you have not heard from me void
pourquoi. I might plead business, but though I have
enough, that was not the impediment. The true rea
son why I have not written was, because I have. I
wrote to you above a week agone intending Mr. Mon
tagu should be the bearer, and gave it to Mr. Ston
hewer, but lo ! his friend was set out, and the former
returned my epistle to me. As the news it contained
would be stiU-born ; instead of being so lazy as to
send it, I begin anew.
You now know all the history of your warlUie Me-
tropoUtan Archbishop Turpin. I hope he made his
entrance into his capital by beat of drum, if he attains
what he deserves, and perhaps ambitions, a red hat.

WALPOLE AND MASON, 381
I shaU beg to present him vrith that of his predeces
sor, Wolsey, out of my ovm museum ; but I hope he
will never be able to say with that son of a butcher,
and with equal foundation from his pulpit. Ego et Rex
meus. My brother, who is no American, is exceedingly
scandaUzed at this champion of high church. This
vulture has been so plumed in both his flights, that I
fancy his successor wiU learn to mix the prudence of
the serpent with the timidity of the dove, and creep on
his belly instead of soaring.
Your adversary Murray is a blackguard, you may
bear to have filth thrown at you, when it is at the
Duchess of Devonshire and at the youngest and hand
somest women in town. It is a polished — sweet tem
pered age.
What care you about all the new promotions ? or
what cares any body but the promoted and the disap
pointed ? one of the latter Lord Howe is the only one
worth naming. He expected to be treasurer of the
navy, because the appointments of Commanders-in-chief
and Embassadors, are not sufficient to content that
family. Their sister declares the quarrel is irrecon-
cUeable. It is a disinterested age.
I send you six Gazettes Litteraires, you needed not
to celebrate the conveyance. Mr. S[tonehewer] and
I do not reckon you the pink of discretion.
I have almost finished the first volume of Dr. Ro
bertson. The materials are weU put together, and it
is a book that must please any body to whom the
matter is new. In short, it is not all so and though

382 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the arrangement is good, I see no genius nor shrewd
ness, none of that penetration that shone in the history
of Scotland and totaUy left him in his Charles 5th.
Two expressions have shocked me, speaking of that
indefatigable good man Las Casas, who laboured to
rescue the poor Americans from the tyranny of their
conquerors, the Doctor calls it a bustling activity, and
says he was ashamed to show his face after the fatal
termination of his splendid schemes ; what epithets for
so humane a design ! Could Archbishop Markham in a
sermon before the Society for propagation of the Gos
pel by fire and sword, paint charity in more con
temptuous terms ? It is a Christian age.
I retract saying I have found nothing new ; I did not
know that great part of the Spanish clergy adopted
the compassion of Las Casas. I did not know that
Las Casas, and there he was culpably bustling indeed I
suggested the idea of supplying the Spanish settlements
with African slaves. This was guilt with a witness,
for any lucrative mischief has fifty times more chance
of being adopted, than a humane plan that combats
interest. What contradictions we are ! Las Casas had
reason not to show face, not because the one scheme
failed, but because the other succeeded. Is not he a
fine historian who insinuates that a virtuous man ought
to blush if the perversity of the age defeats his efforts to
correct it ? The doctrine no doubt wiU be applauded by
all who have rendered Patriots an opprobrious term for
those who laboured to prevent the effusion of English
and American blood. It is a tender-hearted age.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 383
My nephew continues suUen and calm. This saves
me alarms though not business and fatigue, yet I can
get repose here, and now and then a moment to amuse
myself ; my Beauclerc Tower is almost finished. Adieu.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, June 26, 1778.
Mr. NichoU has been here, and tells me he has seen
you, and that you have not been well, for which I am
very sorry indeed. He says York disagreed with you,
and that you vrill go thither no more in winter. The
rest of his account was much more welcome : that you
have made charming progress in your third book,
and inserted divine lines on Gray. Them I do thirst
to see, and trust I shaU ere many moons have put on
their nightcaps ; for Lord Harcourt has asked me to
meet you at Nuneham. When it is to be I don't know,
for they are going or gone into Sussex ; but if you can
cast a figure and guess, I beg you to give me a hint,
though nothing shaU prevent my being faithful to that
assignation, but my lord and master, gout, whose com
mands however I do not expect.
Well ; the signal is fired. Admiral Keppel has had
a smart skirmi.sh with three frigates of the Brest
squadron, and has sent one of them in. They fired first,
and yet seem to have provoked him that they may
plead, we began the war, I trouble myself mighty
Uttle about what their majesties the kings of Europe

384 CORRESPONDENCE OF
vrill say on these punctilios over their coffee. We, the
Achivi, are to be the sufferers, and particularly we the
Achivi of these islands. In truth Agamemnon himself
will be no great gainer, nor be gathered to the Atridae
vrith quite so many crowns on his head as they be
queathed to him, and he wiU wish he had not worn that
of Caledonia !
I know nothing else ; but what a volume in that
else I you bards that can prophecy with the lyre in your
hand have ample scope and verge enough
for pouring out odes full of calamity and of funera Dar-
dancB genti. Distress is already felt ; one hears of no
thing but of the want of money ; one sees it every
hour. I sit in my blue window and miss nine in ten of
the carriages that used to pass before it. Houses seU
for nothing, which, two years ago, nabobs would have
given lacks of diamonds for. Sir Gerard Vannecks's
house and beautiful terrace on the Thames, with forty
acres of ground, and valued by his father at twenty
thousand pounds, was bought in last week at six thou
sand. Richmond is deserted ; an hundred and twenty
coaches used to be counted at the church door, there
are now twenty ; I know nobody that grows rich
but Margaret. This Halcyon season has brought her
more customers than ever, and were any thing to hap
pen to her, I have thoughts, like greater folk, of being
my own minister and showing my house myself. I
don't wonder your garden has grown in such a summer,
and I am glad it has, that our taste in gardening may

WALPOLE AND MASON. 385
be immortal in verse, for I doubt it has seen its best
days! Your poem may transplant it to America,
whither our best works wUl be carried now, as our
worst used to be. Do not you feel satisfied in knovring
you shall be a classic in a free and rising empire ?
Swell all your ideas, give a loose to all your poetry ;
your lines wUl be repeated on the banks of the Oroonoko ;
and which is another comfort, Ossian's Dirges will never
be known there. Poor Strawberry must sink in face
Romuli ; that melancholy thought silences me. Good
night.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.
Wentworth Castle, July 1, 1778.
I have had no occurrence in my progress or pilgri
mage through this valley of life (to speak in the style of
John Bunyan) worth mentioning since I wrote last, ex
cept peradventure the attending at Hornby Castle, and
saying " dust to dust " over Lord Holdemesse's remains
might be thought worth the notifying to you, but when
I consider that you did not seem to interest yourself
much in the funeral of Lord Chatham, I suspect my
poor Earl's would not be thought of much consequence
by you. Indeed nobody of any rank ever seems to have
stolen out of hfe in a more incog manner than he has
done, for all-Frenchman as he was, Voltaire would
hinder his being talked about, even on his darling
continent. So that what vrith Lord Chatham's death
VOL. I. c c

386 CORRESPONDENCE OF
here and Voltaire's death there, his memory seems to
have slipt between two stools, and so rest his soul, if
Doctor Priestly chooses to let him have one, whether
material or not is not in his case much material ; ex
cuse the pun for the sake of the sense if you be candid
enough so to do.
My expedition to Nuneham is put off sine die ; it is
not the fashion to begin one's summer till autumn, and
Lord Harcourt you know always chooses to be in the
fashion. Next year I trust our summers wUl be in the
winter, for as our days are in the night, and conse
quently our noons at midnight, our seasons are but
half the thing during the present ton and I like con
sistency in all matters ; I hope however to pass some
of my dog-days about the beginning of next De
cember at Strawberry, and have made up a light
fustian frock for the purpose. My present noble host
you know is the very reverse of all this : his seasons go
by clockwork, and that clockwork as old as Tompion's.
I came here last Monday, and shall return to my flock
on Saturday. His lordship and her ladyship are much
yours, and bid me say so. The latter I think a most
excellent woman, and somewhat different from the De
la Coque you mention ; but I think I can account for
this difference in a manner not very flattering to the
sex. Sappho is almost finished, and satisfies me better
than my own things usually do, but I fear I grow like
old fathers, who like their children whom they get after
fifty much better than those they got at five-and-twenty.

WALPOLE AND MASON. 387
because they are proofs of their vigour. To be sure in
the eye of episcopacy, I might fuU as venially have
begat a chUd upon the body of my chambermaid as
this upon my brain. A parson writing an amorous
opera is a phenomenon more horrid I tmst in that eye
than the growth of popery. But made virtute ; the
deed is done, and I am ready to abide by the conse
quences. Pray send me all the anecdotes you have concerning
the latter end of Voltaire, and teU me whether opium
or old age killed him, for I do not depend on news
papers when I am able to get Mad. Dudeffand's intelli
gence at such a second hand as yours. I rest in hopes
that we shall meet at Nuneham the beginning of Sep
tember, for I fancy by that time his lordship vrill be
there to pluck his first violets. I am, as always,
yours most truly
W. MASON.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
July 4, 1778.
ChUdren break their playthings to see the inside of
them. Pope thought superior beings looked on New
ton but as a monkey of uncommon parts, would not he
think that we have been like babies smashing an empire
to see what it was made of ? Truly I doubt whether
there wiU be a whole piece left in three months, the
conduct bears due proportion to the incapacity. You

388 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ought to be on the spot to believe it. When Keppel's
messenger Mr. Berkeley arrived, neither the first Lord
of the Admiralty nor the secretary was to be found !
and now Mr. Keppel is returned we learn that the East
and West India fleets, worth four millions, are at stake,
and the French frigates are abroad in pursuit of them.
Yesterday the merchants were with Lord North to
press Keppel might sail again against a superior fleet !
forty thousand men are on the coast, and transports
assembling in every port, and nothing but incapa
city and inability in all this, and not a grain of trea
chery. General Howe is arrived and was graciously received.
The agreeable news he brought is, that Clinton for want
of provisions has abandoned Philadelphia and marched
through the Jerseys to New York vrithout molestation,
on condition of not destroying PhUadelphia. The con
gress has ratified the treaty with France, and intend
to treat the commissioners de haut en bas unless you
chuse to believe the Moming Post, who says five
provinces declare for peace. I told you lately my
curiosity to know what is to be left to us at a general
peace. The wisest thing the ministers could do would
be to ask that question incontinently. I am persuaded
in the present apathy that the nation would be perfectly
•pleased, let the terms be what they would. A series
of disasters may spoil this good humour, and there often
wants but a man to fiing a stone to spread a conflagra
tion. The treasury is not rich enough at present to
indemnify the losers of four mUUons ; the stock holders

WALPOLE AND MASON. 389
are two hundred and forty thousand, and the fraction,
forty thousand would make an ugly mob : in short,
tempests that used to be composed of irascible elements
never had more provocation than they are Ukely to
have ; such is the glimpse of our present horizon.
Now to your letter.
If your Maecenas's fame is overwhelmed in Lord
Chatham's and Voltaire's, it is already revenged on the
latter's. Madame du Deffand's letter of to day says,
he is already forgotten. La belle poule has obliterated
him, but probably will have a contrary effect on Lord
Chatham. All my old friend has told me of Voltaire's
death is that the excessive fatigues he underwent by
his journey to Paris, and by the bustle he made vrith
reading his play to the actors and hearing them repeat
it, and by going to it and by the crowds that flocked
to him : in one word the agitation of so much applause
at eighty-four threw him into a strangury, for which
he took so much laudanum that his frame could not
resist all, and he fell a martyr to his vanity ; nay,
Garrick, who is above twenty years younger, and
as full as vain, would have been choaked with such
doses of flattery ; though he would like to die the
death. You, who are not apt to gape for incense, may be
beUeved when you speak well of Sappho. I am sorry
I must wait for the sight tUl Lord Harcourt proclaims
summer. I enjoy the present, which I remember none
like, but even this is clouded by the vexation of seeing
this lovely island spoUed and sold to shame ! I look at

390 CORRESPONDENCE OF
our beautiful improvements, and sigh to think that they
have seen their best days. Did you feel none of these
melancholy refiections at Wentworth Castle ? I wrote the
Earl a letter two days ago that will not please him, but
can one always contain one's chagrin when one's country
is ruined by infatuation ? No, we never can revive ! We
killed the hen that laid the golden eggs ! The term Great
Britain wUl be a jest. My English pride is wounded,
yet there is one comfortable thought remains — when
liberty was abandoned by her sons here, she animated her
genuine children, and inspired them to chastize the
traitor Scots that attacked her. They have made a
blessed harvest of their machinations. If there is a
drachm of sense under a crown, a Scot hereafter wUl
be reckoned pestilential. Methinks the word Preroga
tive should never sound very delightful in this island ;
attempt to extend it and its fairest branches vrither and
drop off. What has an army of fifty thousand men
fighting for sovereignty atchieved in America ? retreated
from Boston, retreated from Philadelphia, laid down
their arms at Saratoga, and lost thirteen provinces !
nor is the measure yet full ! such are the consequences
of our adopting new legislators, new historians, new
doctors ! Locke and Sidney, for Humes, Johnsones
and Dalrymples ! When the account is made up and a
future historiographer royal casts up debtor and credi
tor, I hope he vrill please to state the balance between
the last war for America and the present against it.
The advantages of that we know, Quebec, the Havannah,
Martinico, Guadeloupe, the East Indies, the French

WALPOLE AND MASON. 391
and Spanish fleets destroyed &c. &c. ; all the biUs per
contra are not yet come in ! Our writers have been
disputing for these hundred and sixty-six years on Whig
and Tory principles. Their successors, who I suppose
will continue the controversy, will please to allow at
least that if the ministers of both parties were equally
complaisant when in power, the splendour of the crown
(I say nothing of the happiness of the people which is
never taken into the account) has constantly been
augmented by Whig administrations, and has faded
(and then and now a little more) when Tories have
governed ! The reason is as plain : whig principles are
founded on sense ; a whig may be a fool, a tory must
be so : the consequence is plain ; a whig when a
minister may abandon his principles, but he will retain
his sense and will therefore not risk the felicity of his
posterity by sacrificing every thing to selfish views.
A tory attaining power hurries to establish despotism :
the honour, the trade, the wealth, the peace of the
nation, all are little to him in comparison of the despotic
will of his master, but are not you glad I write on
small paper !

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HiU, July 16. 1778.
Though it is a most anxious moment I do not write
to tell you or talk of poUtics, most men in these regions
expect news of a battle at sea : I do not. As we have

392 CORRESPONDENCE OF
nothing left to save but ourselves, I wish theirselves
would leave themselves and us that little.
Jean Jacques is certainly dead as well as Voltaire ;
poor Charon! Fanny, blooming fair, died here yes
terday of a stroke of palsy. She had lost her memory
for some years, and remembered nothing but her
beauty and not her methodism. Being confined vrith
only servants, she was continually lamenting, " I to be
abandoned that aU the world used to adore ! " she was
seventy-two. I received a letter this moming from the engraver of
Johnson's Poets to enquire if I knew of any portrait of
Dyer or Mallet. If the latter is one of Johnson's Poets,
I do not wonder Gray was not.
The sun seems to be the only prince that is generous
and sticks by us in our distress. People of aU ages
caU it an old-fashioned summer, such as we used to
have ten or twenty years ago, when you are to suppose
they were young. I that do not haggle about my
three scores, do not remember any such summer these
fifty years. It is Italy in a green gown.
Mr. Nicholl and I went last week to see the new
apartment at Osterley Park. The first chamber, a
drawing-room, not a large one, is the most superb and
beautiful that can be conceived, and hung with gobeUn
tapestry, and enriched by Adam in his best taste,
except that he has stuck diminutive heads in bronze, no
bigger than a half-crown, into the chimney-piece's hair.
The next is a light plain green velvet bed-chamber.
The bed is of green satin richly embroidered with

WALPOLE AND MASON. 393
colours, and vrith eight columns ; too theatric, and too
like a modern head-dress, for round the outside of the
dome are festoons of artificial flowers. What would
Vitruvius think of a dome decorated by a milliner?
The last chamber, after these two proud rooms, chills
you : it is called the Etruscan, and is painted all over
like Wedgwood's ware, with black and yellow small
grotesques. Even the chairs are of painted wood. It
would be a pretty waiting room in a garden. I never
saw such a profound tumble into the Bathos. It is
going out of a palace into a potter's field. Tapestry
carpets, glass, velvet, satin, are all attributes of winter.
There could be no excuse for such a cold termination,
but its containing a cold bath next to the bed-cham
ber : — and it is caUed taste to join these incongruities !
I hope I have put you into a passion.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.
Strawberry HUl, July 18, 1778.
As I was going out this evening I was stopped in
Twickenham, and told that France has declared war.
I knew the Brest squadron was at sea, and that Admiral
Keppel, by letters received from him at the Admiralty
on Thursday, is off the Land's End in hourly expectation
of being joined by three or four men-of-war, which will
make his fleet thirty ships of the Une, with which he
was determined to seek the enemy, who have thirty-

394 CORRESPONDENCE OF
one, two of fifty guns, and eight frigates. Thus the
battle may be fought as soon as war is proclaimed ; and
thus our ministers may have a full prospect of all
their consummately wise measures may produce !
What can be expected from two wars, when one has
been so ignominious ? — With an army of fifty thousand
men against a rabble, and without being beaten, they
have lost a whole continent, and near half that army,
and retreated from place to place. Not one General
has gained any reputation ; our only fieet on this side of
the world is to decide whether the two islands are not
to be fought for on land. Thus have we, the people,
been gamed for ; and some few of us against our wills !
It is very hard, especially on us that remember other
days! I know not what Lord Mansfield's refiections
are when he recollects his sagacious journey to Paris to
convince the French cabinet that it was against their
interest to protect the Americans and his famous
passage of the Rubicon. I should be sorry to feel
what he ought to feel even on the score of folly, —
indeed defend it Numerus ; and all that may be left
to us few, may be to meet him, torva tuentes like the
ghost of Dido.
England wUl one day recollect it had a minister, to
whom it owed twenty years of prosperity and happiness,
and who left it a motto that would have preserved
such halcyon days. Quieta non movere was as vrise a
sapng as any my Lord Bolinbroke bequeathed to my
Lord Bute. I do not know whether it is true, what

WALPOLE AND MASON. 395
has been said, that my father on being advised to tax
America, replied, " It must be a bolder minister than I
am." But that motto of his spoke his opinion.
Well ; war proclaimed ! and I am near sixty-one ;
shall I live to see peace again ; and what a peace ! I
endeavour to compose my mind, and call in every col
lateral aid. — I condemn my countrymen, but cannot,
would not divest myself of my love to my country. I
enjoy the disappointment of the Scots, who had pre
pared the yoke for the Americans, and for our necks
too. I cannot blame the French whom we have
tempted to min us : yet, to be ruined by France ! —
There the Englishman in me feels again. My chief
comfort is in talking to you, though you do not answer
me. I write to vent my thoughts, as it is easier than
brooding over them, but aUow that it is difficult to be
very tranquil when the navy of England is at stake. That
thought annihilates resentment — I vrish for nothing
but victory, and then peace, yet what lives must
victory cost ! nor will one victory purchase it. The
nation is so frantic, that success would intoxicate us
more ; yet calamity, that alone could sober us, is too
near our doors. Resignation to the vrill of Heaven is
the language of reason as well as of religion, when one
knows not what would be best for us. It is a dUemma
to which the honest are reduced ; our gamesters are in
a worse situation. The best they can hope for, is to sit
down with the ddbris of an empire. What a line they
have drawn between them and Lord Chatham ! I

396 CORRESPONDENCE OF
believe it was modesty made them not attend his
funeral. WUl the House of Brunswick listen again to
the flatterers of prerogative ? My time of life, that
ought to give me philosophy, dispirits me. I cannot
expect to live to see England revive. I shall leave it
at best an insignificant island. Its genius is vanished
like its glories, one sees nor hero nor statesman arise
to flatter hope. Dr, Franklin, thanks to Mr, Wedder
burne is at Paris, every way I tum my thoughts, the
returns are irksome. What is the history of a fallen Em
pire ? A transient satire on the vices and foUies that
hurried it to dissolution. The protest of a few that
foretold it, is not registered. The names of Jefferies
and two or three principals satisfy the sage moralist
who hurries to more agreeable times. I wUl go to bed
and sleep if I can, pray write to me ; tell me how you
reconcile your mind to our situation. I cannot. Two
years ago I meditated leaving England if it was en
slaved. I have no such thought now. I vriU steal into
it's bosom when my hour comes, and love it to the
last.

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. Aston, July 19, 1778.
In one of your unanswered letters (I am ashamed to
look at its date to say which, for I have three before
me) you talk of my having finished my third book and

WALPOLE AND MASON. 397
of my having been ill, neither of which are tme, though
I thank heaven only for the falsehood of the last. The
trath is, I shewed Mr. Nicols (when he was at York)
an exordium written I believe above five years ago,
which I believe you have seen, and I turned a slight
cold into a sickness to avoid doing the hospitable honours
of my post in too great a degree, for entre nous that
said Mr. N. (but I beg it may go no farther for
the honour of the cloth) drinks like any fish, though
perhaps you have not discovered it, and it is happy for
him that Mr. Gray cannot. Now both this poetical
communication and this plea of sickness were mere
subterfuges to avoid something worse, i. e. hearing the
etemalities of his foreign tour, and saving myself from
a moming headach. Yet either your having mentioned
my finishing the book, or this wonderful fine weather,
or a new bower (already half covered with woodbine)
which I made only two months ago, and in which I
now write this letter — one, or all of these causes coUec-
tively have actually made me resume the work, and I
do verily believe that I shall get the whole of it into a
readible condition by the time we meet at Nuneham,
which I hope wUl be in September.
Pray ask Madam du Deffand whether Rousseau really
died of eating strawberries, and in the meantime do not
commit any fruit debauches of the same kind. You
are apt to sin in this way, or if you do, take St. Paul's
advice and " use a little vrine for your stomach's sake"
and your often gout infirmities. I do not wish you to

398 CORRESPONDENCE OF
do the honours to Nichols in claret, that I did in port,
yet as far as half a pint may go, or a third of a bottle,
especially after your raspberries, I hold to be salu
tary. Nothing can be so provoking as this fine weather, it
comes on purpose to convince one that one's country is
the finest climate in the world, just when one should be
leaming to forget that it is one's country. Last year
I would have suffered it to be a proArince of France
vrith ten times the complacency. I console myself at
present with thinking it is too good for those that
govem it, and therefore the better it is the greater wUl
be their loss ; but what do I gain by that ? Aye there's
the rub ! a rub that takes the skin off one's very shin
bone. Pray do you think it possible to procure me one of
the prints of Lady Di's drawing of the Dutchess of
Devonshire. I should think you might have interest
enough with the designer to obtain it. I hear the
plate is in the possession of the Dutchess of Marlbo
rough, if you succeed pray bring it vrith you to
Nuneham. We are in the ton here I can assure you. An old
maid in a neighbouring village from which she hardly
ever stirred, is broke for 6000 pounds ; she had no
visible way of spending it but in turning ivory.
I expect Giardini here sometime next month in order
that he may comprehend the fuU meaning of the words
he is to set. I am clear if he vrill but be docUe,

WALPOLE AND MASON, 399
which he promises to be, that he vrill do it more justice
than any of our EngUsh composers.
I have taken again to my old size large paper, and
the consequence is that I cannot fill it ; no matter, say
you, " I have had full enough, and wUl suffer you to
conclude yourself my most faithful servant," W. MASON.

END OF VOLUME I.

LONDON : PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 60, PALL MALL.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

VOL. I.

DD

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

PAGE 2.
Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. See Walpole's Letters
to G. Montague, p. 346 — 349, for an account of this book,
and his opinion of it. See also Eetrosp. Renew, vol vii.
p. 317—331. Reprinted at Edinburgh, 1807, with preface
by Sir Walter Scott ; and again, 1836, with Letters written at
the French Court. See Walpole's Misc. Letters, vol. iv. p. 340,
in the dedication, and p. 431 in the preface, and pp. 478—
460 ; also, vol. vi. p. 13. See MS. Letters of Lord Herbert, in
Kemp's Losely Papers, p. 347 — 359. There is a note in Life
of Isaac Walton, 1797, p. xxxiii., containing an account of
aa interview between Lord Herbert and Jeremy Taylor when
the former was dangerously ill. " It is plain to me," writes
Dr. S. Parr to Mr. C. Butler, " that Lord Herbert more than
doubted the truth of Christianity ; but he was a learned, an
acute, a virtuous, and a pious man ; and besides all this, he
was an enthusiast — a credulous enthusiast." See ' Butler's
Reminiscences,' vol. ii. p. 383. PAGE 5.
Castle of Otranto. There is an opera huffa by Voltaire,
called ' Le Baron d'Otrante,' which he gave to M. Gretry,
D D 2

404 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
the musical composer. The name of this place is wrongly
pronounced in England. The Italians throw the accent on
the first syUable, Otranto, shortening the second. This
Romance, vfe find, was attributed by the public to Gray.
See Walpole's Misc. Letters, vol. v. p. 13.
PAGE 7.
'Siege of Calais,' a tragedy by Charles Denis, transl.
from the French of de Belloy, with historical notes, 1765.
See Biog. Dramatica. PAGE 7.
Your two Comedies. The names of these comedies,
which are still preserved in the manuscript of the authoi-,
are: 1. 'The Surprise,' a comedy, in five acts, written in No
vember, 1761. Scene, Barbadoes.
3. ' The World of To-day,' a comedy, in five acts ;
" * • • • shoot folly as it flies.
And catch the manners living as they rise." — pope.
written in 1761.
Besides these comedies, Mason wrote :
3. ' The Indians,' a tragedy, in five acts. " The scene,"
he writes, "of this play lies in Zaragua, one of the five
kingdoms in the isle of Haiti, afterwards called by the
Spaniards Hispaniola. The destruction of this kingdom (on
which this tragedy is founded) happened in the year 1505,
the year when Isabella, the wife of Ferdinand, of Spain, died,
and about thirteen years after Christopher Columbus, the
discoverer of the New World, first landed on the island."

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

405

4. Mason also privately printed, at York, ' CEdipus,' a
tragedy, in five acts, began by the late WilUam Whitehead,
Esq., Poet Laui-eate, and finished by M. Mason, M.A.,
1705 (a private edition).
Despreaux Art. Poet. Chant 23 :
" II n'est point de sergent ni de monstre odieux
Que par I'art imit^, ne puisse en plaire aux yeux."
Of this play, Lord Harcourt, in his manuscript corre
spondence with Mason, says : " This morning, your ' CEdi
pus ' was sent to me by Mr. Stonehewer, and I gave up my
morning walk that I might enjoy the pleasure of reading it
without interruption. You appear partial yourself to this
piece, and truly I cannot wonder ; as I think it one of the
very best plays I ever read. There are no filUngs-up, nor any
languor ; the principal characters are always in their charac
ter, and admirably discriminated ; and in a word, I think it
the best constructed drama I have seen. The second act is
a master-piece, and fall of interest, which is seldom the case
in English plays, &c." PAGE 10.
Hoyland. The poems of the Reverend Mr. Hoyland were
reprinted by Mr. Parke, 1808. (Collated with the best
editions). The first Edition, I beUeve, was in 1763. The
Strawberry HiU Edition in 1769. The 'Ode on Rural
Happiness' was printed at Edinburgh in 1703.
PAGE 10.
A dozen Letters of Pope to Miss Blount. Letters of the
late Alexander Pope, Esq., to a Lady, never before pub
lished, 1769. The advertisement says: "These letters, besides

406 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
the naivete of the style, the quick sallies of an ingenious
mind, and the graver observations of reflection and judg
ment, discover the writer's heart to have had a more amiable
susceptibility, and to be tinctured more with goodness than
his other writings of this sort do. It may be proper just
to mention, that the originals of these letters are in Mr.
Dodsley's possession." In the 'Poem to a Lady on her
Birthday, 1733,' enclosed in Letter v. p. 31, the third
line has a variation from the printed edition :
" Not with those toys the 'woman-world' admire."
Ed. printed ' the female-world.' And the last four Unes are
also different, ex, gr. :
" And ah ! (since death must that dear frame destroy).
Die by some sudden ecstacy of joy.
In Some soft dream may thy mild soul remove,
And be thy latest gasp, a sigh of love."
PAGE 14.
On Sir F. Delaval, See Gray's Letters (Ed. Aid.) vol. iii.
p. 77.
¦ "7th. The Hon. Su: Francis Blake Delaval, K.B., in the
48th year of his age." — (Obituary of 'Gentleman's Maga
zine' for August, 1771).
"The two natural children of whom Sir Francis Blake
Delaval is said to have left a fortune of £10,000 each, are
a son and daughter, by the celebrated Miss la R — he."
" The late Sir Francis Blake Delaval, though he engaged
in popular measures, was but little confided in by the Bill
bf Rights Society. Mr. Wilkes deemed him a spy of the
Court ; others deemed him such, however a weak one he
inight be; and hence it was, that in all the opportunities

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 407*
which presented, of obtaining Sir Francis a seat in Par
Uament, particularly for Westminster, where he was much
better known than Sir Robert Bernard, he was not once
thought of as a candidate by the party."
"A correspondent observes, that the late Sir F. B. Delaval
(very impartially speaking) was of little credit to any party,
either public or private."
" We hear by the death of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, an
festate devolves to his brother. Sir John Delaval, of ^64000
per annum. He has Ukewise left in specie £36,000."
(The four preceding paragraphs are all from the ' Public
Advertiser,' of Monday, August ISth, 1771.)
PAGE 17.
Spence. A parallel, in the manner of Plutarch, between
a most celebrated man of Florence, and one scarce ever
heard of in England, by the Reverend Mr. Spence. ' Parvis
Componere Magna,' Virg. 1758 (printed at Strawberry Hill).
Warburton in one of his Letters to Hurd, May 20, 1753,
in his usual slashing style, calls Spence ' an extreme poor
creature.' PAGE 23.
Dr. Brown. The Master of Pembroke College, and friend
of Gray, the poet. See Gray's Works (Ed. Aid.) vol. iv.
p. 196, and 'Chatham's Correspondence,' vol. iv. p. 811.
He died 1784. PAGE 24.
Wharton. Walpole means T. Warton's (the Laureate
and Poet) ' Life of Sir Thomas Pope,' Founder of Trinity

408 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
College, Oxford, 1773. This family was collaterally related
to Mr. Pope, the poet, see p. 436. Walpole has spoken of
this work with too much disparagement of its merits. In
his preface, the Author says with justice : " On the whole, I
may venture to affirm, that I have at least attempted to
make my work as interesting as possible. My materials
have not been of the most brilUant kind ; but they are such,
as have often enabled me to enliven and embelUsh my nar
rative, by presenting pictures of ancient manners, which are
ever striking to the imagination." PAGE 26.
Sir W. Jones. Poeseos Asiaticse Commentarium Libri sex
cum Appendice. Subjicitur, Limon sen Miscellaneorum
liber. Auctore Guil. Jones, A.M., 1774. In the Proemium,
p. ii — ^vi. is a very affectionate and elegant tribute of praise
to his learned Master, Robert Sumner, 'fuit enim vir si
quisquam alius,' &c. PAGE 30.
Lord R. The Marquis of Rockingham, from whom
Mr. Walpole obtained his celebrated silver bell, in ex
change for some coins. This bell, which excited so much
curiosity at the sale at Strawberry Hill, I saw in 1849,
at the sale of a solicitor's effects in Strafford Place, it sold
for, I think, £70 or £80. See Strawberry Hill Catalogue,
p. 137 and p. 88, for an account of it, and ' WalpoUana,*
p. 116. PAGE 32.
On Whittington and his Cat. In the play of the ' Na
bob,' a comedy, 1773, Act 3rd, Foote has introduced Sir

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 409
Mathew Mite, on his being elected in the Antiquarian
Society, reading a disquisition on 'the great Whittington
and his no less eminent Cat, in which disquisition four
material points are in question,' &c. See Walpole's
' Short notes of his Life,' vol. iv. p. 356. Correspondence
with Horace Mann. PAGE 33.
Mallet. I suppose that Walpole's allusion to Mallet
dying of the first effusion of his loyalty, refers to his
'Truth in Rhyme,' where the King and Lord Bute are
highly praised. This poem was remarkable for the impri
matur prefixed to it :
" It has no faults, or I no faults can spy.
It has all beauty, or all blindness I."
"Imprimatur," &c. — chkstbrfibld.
It is dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, and was printed
in 1761. PAGE 33.
Argentile and Curan. 'Argentile and Curan,' a legen
dary drama, in five acts, written in the old EngUsh model,
about the year 1709.
"This is nor comedy, nor tragedy,
Nor historie." Vide Beaumont and Fletcher's prologue to the ' Captain.'
The story, Mason says, is taken from an old narrative poem,
called 'Albion's England,' written by W. Warner, and is
to be found in 'Percy's ReUques of Antient English Poetry,'
vol. ii. p. 233^ but is here much more altered than was

4ib

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

customary with our old dramatists. See 'Mason's Works,'
Vol. ii. p. 209, and ' Cradock's Memoirs,' vol. iv. p. 336.
PAGE 35.
Addendum. These Unes were to be inserted in the
' Heroic Epistle,' where they are now to be found.
PAGE 37.
' Sketches and Characters.' The copy of this book in the
British Museum has the name of W. Musgrave stamped
therein, and the extract is filled up in red ink as that below ;
the title is ' Sketches and Characters of the most Eminent
and most Singular Persons now Living,' by Several Hands :
vol. i. 8vo. Bristol, 1770.
Page 37 : " Of Sir Edward Walpole. This gentleman is
the only surviving so'n^ of the greatest statesman this
kingdom ever knew, and he inherits all his father's private
virtues." PAGE 43.
Dr. Wharton was not satisfied with the portrait of Gray,
which Mason prefixed to his volume, as appears from a MS.
letter of his at Aston; and Lord Harcourt thought the
engraving so dark, that it made him look like a Moor.
{do MS,)
' The Duel,' a play, by William O'Brien, acted at Drmy
Lane, 1773. 8vo. 1773. This piece deserved more success
than it met with. It was taken from ' Le Philosophe sans
le Scavoir,' of Sedaine, and was acted only one night. See
,' Biographia Dramatica.' * Mr. H'or. Walpole is still alive.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 411
PAGE 54.
Macpherson's Homer. The 'IHad' of Homer translated
into prose, 2 vols. 4to. 1773, a second edition in 1773.
PAGE 54.
My Lord of Chester, 1773.
Dr. Markham was Bishop of Chester at that time, and
succeeded Dr. Keene in 1771, as preceptor to his Royal
Highness, and was advanced to York 1776. See 'Brown's
Catalogue of Bishops.'
He is introduced into the 'Dean and Squire :'
" Then grave as Pope and gruff as Turk,
Pedantic schoolmaster — like York.
« • * * •
Yet why. Sir, treat mild Markham thus.
His grace, you know, is one of us."
Being opposed in his political opinions to Walpole and
Mason, at a time when party ran high, he was often the sub
ject of their satire. Walpole, in his letters, sometimes altered
the orthography of his name, and wrote Mark -him; but
Bishop Markham, in the well-informed editor of the ' Me
moirs of George the Third,' has found a judicious and able
defender. He was a very elegant and correct scholar. See
the ' Carmina Quadriges-simalia,' for some classical produc
tions that have called forth praise from the master of a rival
school, in Dr. J. Warton's ' Essay on Pope.'
PAGE 63.
Sir Thomas Wyatt. In Walpole's short notes of his
Life (vide ' Letters to Sir Horace Walpole,' vol. iv. p. 356),

.412 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
he says, " In July wrote the ' Life of Sir Thomas Wyatt,'
No. II. of my edition of 'Miscellaneous Antiquities.' "
It would appear that this transcript of Sir Thomas Wyatt
was made by Gray. A folio volume of his (Gray's) tran
scripts was in Mr. Mason's hands, out of which one paper
alone, the speech of Sir Thomas Wyatt before the Privy
Council, was pubUshed in the second number of Lord
Orford's ' Miscellaneous Antiquities ;' but as I understand
from a note in Dr. Nott's edition of 'Lord Surrey,' very
imperfectly. ' Life of Gray,' Aid. edit. p. xliii. See Chal
mer's Life of Sir Thomas Wyatt, in ' British Poets,' vol. ii.
p. 363. Nott's 'Life of Surrey,' vol. ii. p. Ixiv. "When
there was so little taste for MSS. which Mr. Gray thought
worth transcribing, and which was so valuable, need one
offer more pearls ?" — ' Walpole's Miscellaneous Correspon
dence,' vol. V. p. 236. PAGE 65.
Mr. TroUope's Letters. Mr. Mason here gives the poem
on the Alphabet to Mr. TroUope. This poem was, for the
ffrst time, printed in the volume which eontained the cor
respondence of Gray and the Rev. N. NichoUs, from Gray's
Autograph, in the Strawberry Hill Collection ; in which
Horace Walpole asserted, that though Gray never owned it,
he was convinced it was his. A few omissions deemed
necessary were made in printing the poem. — In Walpole's
letter of May 22, 1773, he says: "I return you Mr. Trol-
lope's verses, of which many are excellent ; and yet I cannot
help thinking the best are Gray's, not only as they appear
in his writings, but as they are more nervous and less difB
cult than the other." Gray's MS. copy was destroyed
by the gentleman who bought it at Strawberry Hill ; and

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 413
the transcript which I made, and from which I printed the
poem, is probably the only one existing.
PAGE 65 j^
Barillon's Memoir. In addition to what has been written
on this subject in Mr. Fox's History and elsewhere, see
a note in the Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V.,
published in 1850 by the Rev. Mr. Bradford, from letters
(quoted from the Memoirs of Madame de Pompadour) from
an English Minister and Cardinal Fleury. " I pension half
the Parliament to keep it quiet ; but as the King's money
is not sufficient, they to whom I give none are clamorous
for a war. It would be expedient, therefore, for your
Eminence to remit the three millions to silence these
barkers. Gold is a metal which here corrects all ill quaU
ties in the blood : a pension of £3,000 a-year will make the
most impetuous warrior in Parliament tame as a lamb," &c.
PAGE 66.
A Fragment of Mr.^Gray's of a History of Hell. This
MS. of Mr. Gray's is not now to be found among the MSS.
of Mason at Aston. PAGE 67.
Junius. The mention of Junius occurs in Walpole's
Works, so far as my knowledge extends, in the following
places :
1. Letters to Lady Ossory, vol. i. p. 14, 24, 47.
3. Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. u. p. 63, 115, 173.
3. Letters, Collective Edition, v. p. 330, 269, 270.
4. Memoirs of George III. vol, iii. p. 354, 383, 401 ;
vol. ii. p. 442.

414 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
It vrill be sufficient to quote the passages in the Memoirs,
as bearing more directly on the subject in dispute.
PAGE 354.
The celebrated and unknown writer, Junius, threw his fire
brands about among so many combustibles, but aimed them
chiefly at the head of the Duke of Grafton.
PAGE 363.
The celebrated Junius pubUshed an infamous attack on
the same Duke (Bedford) on the insult he had received in
Devonshire; by justifying which, the writer gave a riot
the air of premeditated assassination. Sir W. Draper, a
brave officer, attached to the Duke and Lord Granby, who
had been abused by the same author, bat not of sound
intellects, pubUshed with his name a challenge to the dark
satirist, which the latter answered without parts, and without
any manly spirit. PAGE 401.
These many essays towards an insurrection were crowned
by the unparalleled remonstrance of Junius to the King,
the most daring insult ever offered to a Prince ; but in times
of open rebellion, and aggravated by the many truths it
contained, nothing could exceed the singularity of this satire,
but the impossibiUty of discovering the author. Three men
are especially suspected : Wilkes, Edmund Burke, and
WilUam Gerald Hamilton. The desperate blindness of the
author in attacking men so great, so powerful, and some
so brave, are reconcileable only to the situation of Wilkes ;
but the masterly talents that appeared in these writings were

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 415
decidedly superior to his abiUties. Yet in many of Junius'
Letters an inequality is observed, and even in this re
monstrance, different hands seem to have been employed..
The laborious flow of style, and fertility of matter, made
Burke* believed the real Junius; yet he has not only
constantly and solemnly denied any hand in these per
formances, but was not a man addicted to bitterness, nor
could any one account for such indiscriminate attacks on
men of such various descriptions aud professions. Hamilton
was most generally suspected. He, too, denied it — ^but hia
truth was not renowned. The quick intelligence of fact8>
and the researches into the arcana of every office, were far
more uncommon than the invectives. And men wondered
how any one possessed of such talents could have the for
bearance to vmte in a manner so desperate as to prevent his
ever receiving personal applause for his writings : the venom
was too black not to disgrace even his ashes. To this the
editor adds in a note : " The evidence of Sir PhOip Francia
being the author of Junius has been assumed by an eminent
lawyer, who took no part in the controversy, to be such as
would be held conclusive before a jury on a question of
PACTS." In the following passage, Lord Campbell permits
us, through the glass of a metaphor, to be acquainted with
his opinion on the subject : "There appeared in the 'Daily
Advertiser,' a very able Paper, signed Zeno, in defence of
Lord Mansfield, against all the charges Junius had brought
against him, which was supposed to have been written l)y
Lord Mansfield himself, which only drew forth a new and
similar diatribe, in the shape of a letter to Zeno from
• See on this point, a long and most interesting letter, from Burke
to Dr. Markham, which is printed in 'Burke's Correspondence,'
i vols. Edited by Lord Fitzwilliam.

416 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
Philo-Junius, and all hope of refuting or punishing him was
abandoned as hopeless. At last 'the great boar of the
forest,' who had gored the King, and almost all his Court,
and said to be more formidable than any 'blatant beast,'
was conquered — not by the spear of a knight errant, but by
a little provender held out to him, and he was sent to whet his
tusks in a distant land ;' vide Lord Campbell's * Lives of the
Chief Justices,' vol. ii. p. 492. " In the beginning of the
year 1772, he (Francis) made a treaty with the Government,
and for ever disappeared," ditto, p. 490. Alluding to Lord
George Sackville's dying interview with Lord Mansfield at
his seat, Stoneland, the same biographer observes : " It has
been supposed that Lord Sackville's object was, by a dying
declaration, to remove from Lord Mansfield's mind all sus
picion of the truth of the story, then very generally cir
culated, that he was the author of the Letters of Junius."
Whether such a suspicion had existed, or how far it was
removed, I am unable to explain, ybr Lord Mansfield always
observed a studied silence respecting the much agitated
question of ihe authorship of these libels. He must have
formed a shrewd conjecture as to the identity of his assailant,
but like his opinion on the Middlesex election, it died with
him."—f. 549. PAGE 70.
Lady Russell's Letters. These Letters, printed in 1748,
from the originals, by Thomas Selwood, who lived in Lady
Russell's family, and dedicated to the Duke of Bedford.
Other editions have followed. " The amiable author of
a Life of Lady Russell," says a writer in the 'Quarterly
Review,' " herself a lady of exquisite literary taste, confesses
the many grammatical errors and other defects in ortho-

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 417
graphy of Lady Russell's Letters."— Vide Quarterly Review,
No. cLxv. III. p. 601. PAGE 73.
Mr. NichoUs, The Rev. Norton Nicholls, Rector of Lound
and BradweU, in Suffolk, the friend and correspondent of
Gray and the Octavius of the ' Pursuits of Literature.'
A Memoir of him was printed by Mr. Mathias, and since
republished in the Aldine Edition of Gray, with his Cor
respondence. Walpole mentions him with respect, in a letter
to Sir Horace Mann, vol. ii. p. 210. Mr. Nichols is still
spoken of with a full remembrance of his accomplishments and
talents, by a few persons belonging to the county in which
he resided; his musical attainments are particularly re
membered, PAGE 74,
Lord Cork's Letters. Letters from Italy, in the years
1754 and 1755, by the late Right Honourable John, Earl of
Cork and Orrery, published by John Duncombe, M.A. &c.
1773. See Dr. Johnson's account of Lord Orrery, in
' Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides,' p. 240, and ' Sheridan's
Life of Swift.' — For Letters from Lord Orrery, in the British
Museum, see 'D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature,' vol. ii.
pp. 208—330, PAGE 78.
Goldsmith has written a comedy — ' She Stoops to Con
quer,' printed in 1773. Home's ' Alonzo,' acted at Drury
Lane, 1773. 'Alzuma,' by A. Murphy, 1773. (1778, in
' Baker's Biog. Dram.') This and the last-mentioned play
had their nine nights' existence, and then were heard of
no more.
VOL. I. E E

418 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES,"

PAGE 94.

Mr. Cambridge. Richard Owen Cambridge, of Twicken
ham, author of the ' Scribleriad,' his chief production. The
fault in the design seems to be, that the object of Scriblerus'
pursuits is represented as actually attainable. It has not been
observed that parts of canto ii. are taken from Sarasin, ' La
Descente des Bouts Rimes ;' see (Euvres, p. 1 1 7. Whitehead,
in a letter to Mason, says : " 0. Cambridge wishes for your
opinion of the 'Scribleriad,'" 1735. Mason answers: "I
thought its merit chiefly consisted in the tout ensemble, and
the first book not the best."— MS. Letters. In Miss
Burney's Memoirs of her Father, 8ec. vol. ii. p. 343, are
some verses of his on Gibbon's falling into the Thames with
a humorous rebuke of his to Capability Browne, who was
exulting about the miraculous improvement of the scenery
of England, which he had effected by his clumps and
artificial rivers, &c., when Cambridge expressed a hope
that he should die before Mr. Brown. " Why, Mf. Cam
bridge ?" said the landscape gardener. " Because I should
wish to see Heaven before you have improved it." — In his
Letters to Lady Ossorj"-, vol. ii. p. 413, Walpole praises
Mr. Cambridge's excellent verses, called 'The Progress of
Liberty.' They were printed by Mr. Nicholls in a newspaper
called 'The Times,' and were addressed to a young lady.
They are as happy a composition in poetry as ' Bonner's
Ghost.' And in his advertisement to Lord Whitworth's
account of Russia, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1759,
Walpole says : " Mr. Cambridge's known benevolence and
his disposition to encourage every useful undertaking has
made him willing to throw open this magazine of learning
to whoever is inclined to compile a history, or elucidate the
transformations of an empire — almost unknown even to its

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 419
contemporaries." — See character of 0. Cambridge, in
G. Hardinge's 'Life of D. Wray,' p. 88.
These verses, praised by Walpole, are printed in Chalmers'
edition of Cambridge's Poems ; they run thus :
" Now in haste over Sweden and Denmark she wanders.
To see how her pupils are acting in Flanders ;
From thence to Great Britain she travels with speed.
And perched on the pillar in famed Runnymede,
She surveys the whole island and finds it in awe
Of no power upon earth, but of justice and law.
With no wrongs to redress and no rights to restore.
She has all she can wish and she asks for no more."
PAGE 96.
Lord Nuneham's garden. This garden was laid out by
Mason. The Countess of Harcourt erected an urn to his
memory, in the flower-garden, with an inscription, cele
brating his simple manners, piety, and steady friendship.
PAGE 107.
West's Ode on the Queen, in Dodsley's Miscellany. In
the second volume of Dodsley, is 'A Monody on the Death
of Queen Caroline,' by Richard West, Esq., son to the
Chancellor of England, and grandson to Bishop Burnet,
p. 276. There is a quatrain in this ode which resembles
almost verbatim, one in Gray's Elegy :
" Ah me ! what boots us all our boasted power,
Our golden treasure and our purple state ;
They cannot ward the inevitable hour.
Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."
It would seem that West possessed the property of these
lines as right owner ; for Walpole says, p. 109 : " The
E E 2

420 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
Churchyard was, I am persuaded, posterior to West's death
at least three or four years, as you will see by my note. At
least I am sure that I had the twelve or more first lines for
him for above three years after that period, and it was long
before he printed it." PAGE 109.
Crebillon's Ecumoire. L'Ecumoire Histoire Japonoise.
' Tanzai et Neardaue,' a romance, with a pretended Chinese ori
ginal, was composed, it is said, to ridicule the disputes between
the Jansenists and Molinists. In the Marquis d'Argen's
- Jewish Spy,' an account of it will be found. The author
was confined in the Bastille on account of it. See Peignot's
' Diet, des Livres Condamues ;' it is to be found in vol. ii.
of CrebUlon's Collected Works, 7 vols., 1779. See also
Chaudon's ' Dictionnaire Historique,' which says : " On ne
sait a quoi tend cet ouvrage, ni quel en est le but."
PAGE 110.
A pretty little drama. ' Palladius and Irene,' a drama, in
three acts. 8vo. 1773. Baker's Biog. Dram. This is all
that is given, without mentioning the author's name.

PAGE 112.
Mr. Palgrave, an intimate friend of Gray, and of Mason.
His name often occurs in ' Gray's Correspondence. He was
a person, as a gentleman informs me who remembers
him visiting at Mason's, of humorous, agreeable, and
lively conversation. He was small in person, and in Lord
Harcourt's MS. correspondence, is generally called 'Le petit
Palgrave.'

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 421

PAGE 116.
" If you know a dirtier and less considerable man than
I * * * n." I presume that Mason alludes to his ' Epistle to
Dr. Shebbeare,' which came out in 1774; and probably to
the second line ;
" Oh ! for a thousand tongues ; and every tongue
Like Johnson's, armed with words of six feet long."
Mason again attacked Johnson in the ' Archceological Epistle
to Dean Milles,' both in the preface and in the tenth stanza :
" Yet giflfe thou sojournd in this earthly vale,
Johnson atte thee had shown no nether stynge,
Hee cravent the ysterven dothe assayle,
Butte atte the quyck ne dares his venome flynge," &c.
and in the ' Ode to Mr. Pinchbeck :'
"Poor Doctor Johnson, I'm afraid.
Can gain but raetaphoric aid ;
His style 's case-harden'd grown."
But the great attack was reserved for the ' Life of White
head.' PAGE 125.
Old Hermes. James Harris, of Salisbury, is here alluded
to : a man of learning and philosophy. I possess a volume
of his correspondence on various subjects of Greek literature,
aud particularly some relating to the page in Warton's
' Theocritus,' which was cancelled when going through the
press by the desire of Bishop Lowther; the cause being a
passage in St. John's Gospel, which Toup had illustrated by
an epigram in the 'Anthologia.' Walpole mentions him

432 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
again in vol. ii. p. 179, in terms of contempt ill-deserved;
and in his ' Memoirs of George the Third,' vol. i. p. 225,
where the only alteration I would suggest in the note of the
Editor, would be " deeply learned," for " accomplished," as we
have had no scholar since him who has studied so profoundly,
or imitated so successfully the cesoteric writings of the Greek
philosophy ; although I cannot but agree with the learned
author of the ' Life of Aristotle,' " that Harris's three treatises
are an attempt to come much nearer to the Platonic
Dialogue than that of Berkeley's ' Hylas, and PhUonous ;'
and in our judgment, a signal failure." ' Life of Aiistotle,'
by J. W. Blakesley,' p. 125.
Gibbon says : " The most elegant commentary on the
categories or predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the
philosophical arguments of Mr. James Harris (London,
1775), who laboured to revive the study of Grecian litera
ture and philosophy." See also just praise of Harris from
a high quarter, viz., Dugald Stewart in his work on the
' Active and Moral Powers,' vol. ii. p. 360 ; Dr. Warton in
his edition of Pope has given several extracts from the un
published MSS. of Harris; and I may add, also, a very
high eulogy on this somewhat neglected scholar by the
greatest polymathist of the present age ; — " Harris," says
Mr. Coleridge, " has written on the means of acquiring a
just taste, with the precision of Aristotle, and the elegance
of Quinctilian." See Biog Liter., ii. p. 37.
It may not be perhaps generally known, that at the end
of the novel of David Simple are some dialogues by Harris ;
and Dr. Johnson mentioned to Madame d'Ai-blay two scarce
and clever works of Harris's, called ' Fashion,' and ' Much-
Ado,' full of sportive humour. There is also a poem by him
called 'Concord,' in ' Woty's Poetical Calendar,' part xii.
p. 53.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 433
PAGE 127.
That fine lyric fragment of Mr. Gray's, The 'Ode on
Vicissitude,' as Mason named it. Langhorne in a Letter to
Mrs. Hannah More writes : " I have read something that
IMason has done in finishing a half-written Ode of Gray. I
find he will never get the better of that glare of colouring :
'that dazzling blaze of song,' an expression of his own
ridiculous enough, which disfigures half his writings." See
Life, vol. i. p. 23. PAGE 130.
The History of Charles Fox and Mrs Grieve. For a
more particular account of this singular adventure, see
Walpole's Letters to Lady Ossory, vol. i. p. 102 — 108.
"You have read in Fielding's Chronicle, the tale of the
Honourable Mrs. Grieve ; but could you have believed that
Charles Fox could have been in the list of her dupes ?
Well, he was ! she promised him a Miss Phipps, a West
Indian fortune of £150,000 ; sometimes she was not landed,
sometimes had the small-pox. In the meantime. Miss
.Phipps did not like a black man. Celadon must powder
his eyebrows; he did, and cleaned himself. A thousand
Jews thought he was gone to Kingsgate to settle the pay
ment of his debts. Oh, no 1 he was to meet Celia at
Margate, To confirm the truth, the Honourable Mrs.
Grieve advanced part of the fortune — some authors say
£160, others £100; but how was this to answer to the
matron ? Why, by Mr. Fox's chariot being seen at her
door. Her other dupes could not doubt of her noblesse
jor interest, when the hopes of Britain frequented her house.
In short, Mrs, Grieve's parts are in universal admiration.

434 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
whatever Charles's were. I went last night to see Mrs.
Hartley. She is beautiful indeed, but has not quite so
much sense in her countenance as Mrs. Grieve, and I think
will never be half so good an actress." See p. 376, and
' Fielding's Chronicle,' 1773, p. 129, and 1774,
PAGE 137.
I have read Mr. Warton's book. After some observa
tions on Warton's History, Walpole adds: "But Gray's
and your plan might still be executed." This plan, instead
of being chronological as Warton's, was to follow a sketch
drawn out by Pope, and divide the English poets into
schools. In a MS, book of Miscellanies at Aston, Mason
has drawn out the plan, and Gray's has been given in the
Aldine Edition of his Works, vol, i. p. cxix. See also
Spencer's Anecdotes of Pope, ed. Malone, p. 81 — 145, and
Mathias's Gray, vol. ii, p, 8. I possess a character of
Samuel Daniel, the poet, by Gray, written with the utmost
delicacy of judgment and critical taste, intended for this
work. Mr. A. Chalmers in his Life of T. Warton, has given
a Letter from Gray to Warton, with a sketch of his own
plan of a Poetical History, before Warton's was pubUshed,
in which he aays it was in some measure taken from a
scribbled paper of Pope. Vide British Poets, vol. xviii.
p. 80. There is a most objectionable classification of the
poets in Dr. J. Warton's Essay on Pope. Vide Ded. vol. i.
p. 12. See also a Letter from T. Warton to Garrick,
June 38, 1769, in which he mentions Gray's intention of
writing a History of EngUsh Poetry. See Garrick's Corre
spondence, vol. i. p. 355.
Warton's work has met with a most able editor, as the
valuable preface and notes will show. On the want of cor'

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 425
redness in Warton's quotations, see Mr. Guest's 'History
of EngUsh Rythm,' vol. i. p. 294, vol. u. p. 135. On the
curious mistake by Warton of ^liaxal Regis Arthuri, for
llarthuri, see 'Quarterly Review,' No. xiv. p. 153,
PAGE 140.
Lord Chesterfield's Letters, See Walpole's ' Noble Au
thors,' p, 535, for the character and works of this noble and
accomplished writer; also his 'Memoirs of George the
Second,' vol. i. p. 51, &c. The 'Letters of Lord Chester
field to his Son,' were sold by the wish of the latter to
Dodsley for £1575, including autographs and copyright.
In the new edition of 'Lord Chesterfield's Letters,' by
Lord Mahon, the following characters are printed for the
first time: 1. That of Dr. Arbuthnot; 2. Lord Bute;
3. Lady Suffolk; and 4. the Mistresses of George the
First; besides many new and original letters to Chester
field's confidential friend, DayroUes. Gibbon writes to
Mr, Holroyd, in 1773 : "I forgot to tell you, I have de
clined the publication of ' Lord Chesterfield's Letters,'
The public will see them, and upon the whole, I think,
with pleasure, but the family was strongly bent against it ;
and especially on Deyverdun's account, I deemed it more
prudent to avoid making them my personal enemies."
The reader, on the subject of this graceful and witty writer,
may be referred with advantage to the Quar. Review, 1825,
September, and Edinb, Review, No, clxiii. Art, v. In a
Latin letter to his son, vol, i, p, 164, one unhappy Anglicism
has escaped him.

426 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

PAGE 143.
Lexiphanes. Lowndes, in his 'Bibliographical Manual,'
attributes this work to Dr. Kenrick, as did Sir John Haw
kins, others gave it to Edwards ; but we learn from Bos
well's 'Johnson,' that its author was one Campbell, the son
of Professor Archibald Campbell, of St. Andrew's, a Purser in
the Navy. Dr. Anderson very truly says : " It is so over
charged as to have neither resemblance nor pleasantry." It
is intended to ridicule the style of Johnson, in prose, and of
Akenside, in verse. Walpole has made a mistake, in assert
ing " that Gray's removal from Peter House, and other idle
stories, were printed in an absurd book called 'Lexi
phanes.' " There is no mention whatever of them there ;
but in another work by the same author, called ' The Sale
of Authors,' they are to be found. This book is written by
the same author, A. Campbell, printed in 1767; and at
pp. 9, 19, and 21, are some satirical anecdotes, then current,
relating to Gray's removal from Peter House. Nor was
Gray's fear of fire so imaginary as to be without any prospect
of being realized, for in one of his MS. Journals I find the
following entry : " Fire in the College at half-past two this
morning : it was subdued in about an hour and a half.

18 Jan., 1768.^

PAGE 146.

Kate Macgraham. Mrs. Macaulay. An interesting ac
count of the habits and manner of life of Kate Macgraham,
may be found in a letter from Thomas Hollis (under the title
of Pierce Delver) to the Rev. T. Lindsay, published in
Mr. Belsham's Life of him, App. p. 390. It appears by
this that she had £1000 a volume for her history. Mr.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 427
HolUs adds, "The other day I paid her a visit at her house
in Berners Street, Oxford Row, on a particular occasion, by
her desire. That house, a new one, she has bought, and
furnished handsomely. She had the air of a princess —
ont-Cornelised the Cornelisians, and had the frank Bath air
on her countenance. It seems she keeps two servants, in
laced liveries, treats cleverly and elegantly, and, in short,
author, or fine lady — surpasses all her sex 1" See p. 391.
PAGE 149.
Mr. James. Haughton James, a West-India proprietor,
and a man of fashion : formed two libraries, sold the first to
Robert Heathcote, Esq., and the second to Mr. Thomas
Payne, the bookseller. PAGE 151.
Fitzpatrick's Town Eclogue. 'Dorinda,' a Town Eclogue,
printed at Strawberry Hill, 1775, small 4to.
Fitzpatrick was also the author of the 'Lyars,' an
Eclogue, in the ' Rolliad,' which is considered to be the
most finished of all the productions in that clever, and
witty, and satirical production of the associated wits. See
p. 197, and ' Chatham Correspondence,' vol. iv. p. 337.
PAGE 153.
Old Garrick, Meaning Lord Chatham.
PAGE 161.
Bob at White's. See vol. ii, p, 132, for the epigram —
" When Macreth served in Arthur's crew," &c.
Sir Robert Mackraith had been Head- Waiter at the Cacao,

428 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
where he was known as 'Bob.' See 'Clubs in London,*
vol. i. p. 145. PAGE 163.
The couplet. This passage alludes to some alterations
which Mason and Walpole made in tlie concluding couplet
of Gray's satirical verses on Lord Sandwich, {inde p. 160),
or rather to some lines which they wished to substitute for
the original. Both the attempts were great failures, and
both the subject and the execution preclude their inser
tion in this work. PAGE 164.
My Nabob cousin. Mr. Verelst pui-chased a large portion
of Lord Holderness's estate at Aston, See p. 214, part of
which is still in possession of his family.
PAGE 165.
' Braganza.' This tragedy is by Robert Jephson, printed
in 1775. The plot resembles parts of ' Venice Preserved.'
For criticisms on his dramas, see Campbell's 'Life of
Mrs. Siddons,' vol. ii, p. 73, 105, 113, 158. Walpole
was very partial to him, and thought highly of his dra
matic powers. See his letter to Lady Ossory on this
play, written a few days before this to Mason, vol. i.
p. 167, and see a letter to Jephson on his tragedies, in
'Walpole's Miscell. Letters,' vol. v. pp. 467 and 479;
consult the Editor's note, p. 467 ; to which I may make
the foUowing addenda: "Jephson had extraordinary bril
liancy of wit. He was for a considerable period the
salaried Poet Laureat of the Vice-regal Court. He lost
both place and pension by an untimely exercise of his

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 429
wit when dining at Lord Cloncurry's. The dinner was
given to the Marquis of Buckingham (Lord Lieutenant), who
happened to observe, in a mirror the reflexion of Jephson
in the act of mimicking him. He immediately discharged
him from the Laureateship !" See 'Lord Cloncurry's Me
moirs,' p. 256. PAGE 167.
LinnsEUs. This is allusive to what Mason had mentioned
in his Memoir of Gray, that in the latter part of his life
Gray always had an interleaved Linnjeus on his table. This
beautiful monument of his knowledge, his industry and his
taste, is now in the possession of Mr. Penn, who purchased
it at the sale of Gray's library. Walpole says : '•' Mr. Gray
often vexed me by finding him making notes on au inter
leaved Linnteus, instead of practising on his lyre." See
'Letters to Lady Ossory,' vol. ii. p. 449.
PAGE 168.
Miniatures. See Catalogue of Sale at StrawbeiTy Hill,
n. 42, p. 115. " The following five exquisite miniatures by
Oliver, from the celebrated Digby collection. Sir K. Digby
was the patron of Oliver, and they are considered the cliefs-
d'oeuvre of this celebrated artist. No. 31 . Lady Lucy Percy,
mother of Lady Venetia Digby, in a black hat and ruff. It
was considered by Horace Walpole to be the most perfect
miniature in the world." They were purchased chiefly by
Miss Burdett Coutts and Mr. Holford. No. 56 fetched
£241 10s. and No. 24, £178 ; No. 31 was sold for £1C5.

430 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

PAGE 179.
Tyrwhitt. As a contrast to Mr. Tyrwhitt's. tedious notes-
to Chaucer, I give the opinion of two persons, themselves
proficients in this branch of learning. " The last edition of
the 'Canterbury Tales' of Chaucer, a work which, in
respect of accuracy and learning, is without a rival, at least
in any commentary on an English poet." (Malone's Life of
Shakespeare, p. 643). "This masterly performance, in
which the author has displayed great taste, judgment
and sagacity, and the most familiar knowledge of those
books which peculiarly belong to a commentator onChaucer."
(Warton's 'Hist, of Engl. Poetry,' vol. i. p. 90). See
Mr. Guest's ' History of English Rythms' for his opinion of
Tyrwhitt's merits and defects, vol. i. p. 34.
PAGE 180.
Colman. These satirical odes were owned by Colman and
Lloyd, and are to be found in their collected works, re
spectively called 'Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion.' See
Colman's Works, vol. ii, p. 272. Dr. J. Warton says, that
one of the authors (Colman) owned to him that he repented
of the attempt, Warton's Pope, vol. i. p. 136; and see
Colman's Works, vol. i. p. xi. "These odes were a piece of
boy's play With Gray's schoolfellow Lloyd, with whom they
were written in concert." PAGE 182.
The (Eolian Harp. The reviewer in the ' Critical Review,'
vol. iv. p. 167, mistook the AwXri juoXttj; (the ffioUan lyre
— the lyre of Pindar) for the (Eolian harp, the instrument

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 431
invented by Kircher, about 1649. See Mason's Memoirs,-
sec. 4, Lett. 26. PAGE 185.
Mr. Falconer subsequently edited the Oxford edition of
' Strabo,' which was attacked by Mr. Payne Knight, in a
celebrated article in the 'Edinburgh Review.' Many of
Gray's ' Geographical Lucubrations ' were printed by Mr.
Mathias, in his edition of Gray's Works, from the MSS. at
Pembroke College. PAGE 185.
Mr. Burgh, afterwards Dr. Burgh, the intimate friend -
and executor of Mason, and editor of the ' English Guar
dian,' a person of much talent, learning, and accomplish
ments. In composing his Answer to Lindsay, a friend of
his mentioned to us, that he passed several successive nights
without sleep, persevering in his task, and being so devoted
to the important subject he had undertaken. See an
account of Mr. Burgh, LL.D., in ' Gentleman's Magazine,'
an. 1809, and high praise of him, in a letter from Mr. G.
Swan, of York, to Mason. He wrote ' Scriptural Copsola-
tions ;' and see the ' Garrick Correspondence,' vol. i. p. 636;
Dr. Burgh has been described to me by a gentleman who
was well acquainted with him, as a person of learning, talents,'
and wit, with very pleasing powers of conversation. In the
misceUaneous writings of his which I have seen in manu
script, he appears to have been a very diUgent reader, and
an able and acute critic. PAGE 186.
Ccelestinettes. A musical instrument, invented by Masoil.
It is not, however, to be found among his other works of art

432 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
still remaining at Aston ; alii hs music having, I believe,
been bequeathed to a friend. However, by the favour
of Miss Alderson, a MS. description of it, in Mason's
writing, dated Aston, March 30, 1761, is now before me.
It consists of ten pages, and enters into all the minute
particulars of its formation. The beginning is as follows :
"For the proper preparation of the horse-hair of the bow
used in performing on the coslestinette ; the clearness of
the tone of the instrument, the faciUty of its touch, and,
in short, everything that makes any degree of execution
practicable upon it, all depends principally on that part of it
which is employed in making it sound; namely, the single
-horse-hair attached to the moveable ruler or bow, which is
drawn backwards and forwards over the strings by the left
hand of the performer, while his right is employed in
pushing down the keys. To perform this properly, four
circumstances must be particularly attended to. 1. The
size of the hair; 2. its length; 3. its texture; 4. and prin
cipal, its due degree of rosin," &c. The instrument is still
remembered at Aston as resembling in shape the old spinette
or harpsichord. Mr. Southey says : " Mason performed de-
C3ntlx on the harpsichord, but in painting he never arrived
even at a degree of mediocrity; and in music it was not
possible to teach him the principles of composition. Miller
and others, at his own request, having in vain attempted to
instruct him."' — See the ' Doctor,' vol, ii. p. 265 ; but Mr.
Miller was a person, whose account of Mason, which ap
peared in his ' History of Doncaster,' is not to be received
without much allowance. A more faithful estimate of
IMason's knowledge of music is to be found in the Reverend
T. Tebb's ' Choral Service of the Church,' p. 387, and he is
a writer of standard authority. Dr. Bm-ney says : I com
municated a few MS. sheets of these Memoirs to my old

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 433
and much honoured friend, Mr. Mason, for whose learning,
judgment, and genius, I have always had the highest re
spect," See 'Life of Metastasio,' vol. i. p. 109.
PAGE 191.
The Correspondents. 'The Correspondents,' an original
Novel, in a series of Letters.
" Shake not thine auburn locks at me.
Thou canst not say I did it."
A new edition, 1776. This work is said to be written by
Lord Lyttleton, Walpole mentions it in his Letters to Lady
Ossory, vol, i, p, 172, and seems to consider it as genuine ;
but at p, 175 he adds : " I did believe the letters genuine,
and that they passed between the old Lord and his daughter-
in-law, before she was so. Now it seems the executors deny
their authenticity, &c." PAGE 193.
Mr. Wood, The original Edition of the Essay on
Homer,' by R. Wood, Esq., was pubUshed in 1775, edited
by Jacob Bryant. For ^.n acute examination of this book,
see ' Critical Observations on Books Ancient and Modern,'
(by Thomas Howes, of Norwich), vol. i. p. 1 — 79. — This veiy
learned person is mentioned by Dr. S. Parr, in his Spital
Sermon, as ToO AqX/ov Ko\vfi^r)Tov, R. Wood was Under-
Secretary of State. Wilkes complained of him in the affaiij
of General Warrants. See Walpole's Letters to Lord Hert
ford, p, 66. He is buried in Putney Church, where is his
monument. He died 1771, aged 51 years. The inscription
was composed by Lord Orford. See ' Chatham Correspon
dence,' vol, ii, p, 206—209, for Letters from Wood to Lord
VOL. I. P F

434 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
Chatham. In vol. i. p. 433, is an account of his writings,
and vol. ii. p. 306, on his 'Essay on Homer.' See also
Walpole's 'Memoirs of George IIL' vol. i. p. 363, vol. iv.
p. 3, p. 105 and p. 345. His opinion of him was unfavour
able, and in one place he says that he " was full of guile,
dark and interested." He was Secretary to Lord Wey
mouth. PAGE 197.
"I resigned my chaplainship. (See p. 36.) As the Parson
age is in Yorkshire, and as my temporal concerns are also in
Yorkshire, a London journey at a stated time is often in
convenient, and will be (when I advance more in years)
constantly disagreeable. On this account, and this only, I
mean to relinquish the chaplainship, and I would wish to
do it at any time, when his Lordship (Lord Hertford) thinks
it most eUgible." Mr. Chalmers, in his 'Life of Mason,'
p. 313, says : " He is said to have given so much offence at
Court, that he found it convenient to resign his chaplain
ship." PAGE 199.
Madame de Sevigne's Letters. " In his (Gray's) Letters
he has shown the descriptive power of a poet, and in new
combinations of generally familiar words, which he seems to
have caught from Madame de Sevigne, (though it must be
owned he was somewTiat quaint), he was eminently
happy." — Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii, p. 178.
PAGE 317.
Lady Luxborough's Letters. The passage on liking the
verses, on a country chu7-chyard well, occurs in Letter lxvh.

illustrative notes. 435
of Lady Luxborough, p. 266. I possess a copy of these
Letters with Walpole's MS. Notes, and opposite to this
passage he has written in the margin — 'Excellent taste to
admire the Scribleriad and Shenstone, and like Mr. Gray
very well.' See more about her in Walpole's Letter to
Sir Horace Mann, vol. ii. p. 353, and Misc. Letters, vol. i.
p. 175, 209, 211, vol. u. p. 195. vol. vi. p. 3i5, and Letter
to Lady Ossory, vol. i. p. 175. — Sterne's Letters, (say
Mrs. Barbauld) are paltry enough; so are Lady Luxbo
rough's, which we ran through in the course of an after
noon. See Barbauld's Works, vol. ii. p. 8. This lady,
half-sister of Lord BoUngbroke, would be worth a note
had we room to give it. PAGE 232.
A wight called Thomas Astle. Thomas Astle, Esq;
Keeper of the Records in the Tower, and Author of the
' Origin and Progress of Writing,' 1784. 4to. See Account
of him in ' Annual Register,' 1803, p. 526. He died, aged
69, at Battersea. He wrote several papers on the Archaeo
logia. His library was purchased by the Royal Institution,
and is now in their rooms in Albemarle Street.
PAGE 223.
That wig-block, the Chancellor. Walpole's assertion, that
the Lord Chancellor burnt all his Correspondence with Pope is
not true, for I have seen and read Pope's Letters, which are
still existing, and preserved at Lord Bathurst's house, near
Cirencester. PAGE 228.
Anstey. Alluding to the great inferiority of Mr. Anstey's
later poems compared to the ' Bath Guide.'
F f2

436 .illustr.\tive notes.
PAGE 228,
Lord Melcombe's Epistle. A Poetical Epistle addressed
to Sir Robert Walpole, 1726. The same epistle addressed
to Lord Bute. It is inserted in Dodsley's Miscellanies,
vol. vi. p. 129. PAGE 228,
Whitehead's ' Variety.' See Whitehead's Poems, vol. iii.
p. 3, Edited by Mason, with a Memoir of the Poet. The
Laureate received once a scratch from Junius, Letter l. to
the Duke of Grafton. "In this respect alone I have the
advantage of Mr. Whitehead. His plan, I think, is too
narrow. He seems to manufacture his verses for the sole
use of the hero, who is supposed to be the subject of them ;
and lest his meaning might be exported in foreign bottoms,
sets all translation at defiance." Mr. Coleridge says :
"Whitehead addressed to youthful poets a Poetic Charge,
which is perhaps the best, and certainly the most interesting
of his Works," -vide Biog. Literaria, tom. i. p. 222. —
Churchill in his 'Ghost' is very severe on Whitehead,
vol. ii. p. 5, and p. 161, and Gibbon did him the honour
of criticising one of his odes. Vide ' Miscellaneous Works,*
vol. ii, p, 660. PAGE 233,
Mr. Masters. He wrote some remarks on Walpole's
* Historic Doubts' in the Life and Reign of Richard the Third ;
see ' Archseologia,' ii. p, 195, 1770, He wrote also on other
antiquarian subjects. He was born 1718, and died 1798.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES^ 437

PAGE 235,
Cumberland's two odes. These odes were printed in
1776, with a dedication to his friend, Romney, the painter.
1, Ode to the Sun.
3. Ode to Dr, Robert James,
In the first, a compliment is introduced to the author of
the 'Bard.' " Ah I where is he that swept the sounding lyre.
And while he touched the master string.
Bad ruin seize the ruthless king.
With all a prophet's fire J" &c.
In the latter, similar praise is bestowed on ' Cortex Peruvi-
anus :' " Meanwhile the magic drug at strife
With the detested foe of life.
Runs to the heart, mounts to the brain,
And visits each corrupted vein," &c.
PAGE 241.
Chandler's ' Travels in Greece.' On the merits and defects
of Chandler's ' Travels in Greece,' see Quarterly Review,
No. cxxvn. p. 79. There is an account of these Travels in
the British Museum, enriched with the MS. notes of
M. ReveU, the architect, and one of the companions of the
learned traveller. These notes correct many small mistakes.
Chandler died in Dec, 1809, leaving a continuation of his
work on the 'Troad,' and a collation of many MSS. of
Pindar made abroad.

438 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES;

PAGE 243.

- Dr. Chapman. See ' Gray's Letters, vol. iii. p. 254 ; ed.
Aid. wher« Dr. Chapman's death is thus described : " Our
friend D * * * (Dr. Chapman, Master of Magdalen College),
one of its nuisances, is not expected again in a hurry. He
is gone to his grave with five fine mackarel, large, and full
of roe, in his belly. He eat them all at one dinner ; but his
fate was a turbot on Trinity Sunday, of which he left little
for the company beside bones. He had not been hearty all
the week ; but after this sixth fish, he never held his head up
any more ; and a violent looseness carried him off. They
say he made a very good end ;" to Dr. Clarke ; also, p. 259,
n a letter to Dr. Warton : " Did I tell you that our friend
Chapman, a week before he died, eat five huge mackarel (fat,
and full of roe) at one dinner, which produced indigestion ;
but on Trinity Sunday he finished himself with the best
part of a large tUrbot, which he carried to his grave. Poor
man ! he never held his head up after," &c.
PAGE 254.
S. Jenyns. Jenyns' book on the ' Proof of the Truth of
Christianity,' from the internal evidence, has received high and
various praise, but not without some exceptions to the argu
ment. See Bishop -Porteus' ' Exhortations to Good Friday,'
p. 15, who mentions — "that high reputation which on
account of its general good tendency it has justly acquired."
Mr. IBenson in his ' Hulsean Lectures,' vol. i. p. 220, caUs it
a "Small, but valuable Treatise," but objects that he casts
the power and credibility of miracles too much into the
shade. Mr. Wilberforce, in the first chapter of his ' Prac
tical Christianity,' praises the work, but mentions some

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 439
marks of the writer's love of paradox. M, le Maistre, in his
' Soirees de St. Petersbourg,' vol. xi. pp. 14 — 181, says : " Je
ne connais pas d'ouvTage, plus original et plus profondement
pense." I may refer the reader who wishes to enter further
on the nature of the argument of this work, to the Quarterly
Review, No. Ixxvi. art. 1.; to Professor Smythe's 'Evidences
of Christianity,' p. 290; and to H. More's ' Character of St.
Paul,' vol. n. p. 30 ; and to her Life, vol. i. p. 309. How
ever, it must not be passed over, that Lord Brougham
designates it as " S. Jenyns' most injudicious defence of
Christianity." See ' Natural Theology,' p. 295.
His other work mentioned here — ' Inquiry into the Origin
of Evil' — is only an additional failure, an attempt in which
no one has succeeded. Gray spoke of it in terms of great
contempt. But what shall we say to the solution attempted
by the great writer, mentioned by Dr. Warton, on Pope's
'Essay on Man ?' Voltaire joined with Hume in saying that
the only solid method of accounting for the origin of evil, con
sistently with the other attributes of God, is not to allow
that his power is infinite. " Sa puissance est tres grande
mais qui nous a dit qu'elle est infinie ?" I almost agree
with Lord Brougham, who has written on this subject, in
thinking of Archbishop King's elaborate work, " that a more
complete failure to overcome a great and admitted difficulty ;
a more unsatisfactory solution of an important question, is
not to be found in the whole history of metaphysical science."
See his ' Dissertations,' vol. ii. p, 17 — 45. It was S, Jenyns'
' Treatise on Government and Civil Liberty' that gave rise
to Mason's poem of the ' Dean and Squire.'
PAGE 255.
Bentley's Drawings. These drawings were rewarded with
the fine lines which Gray addressed to him. See H. Wai-

440 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES,
pole's Works, vol. u. p. 447; and Gray in Aid. edition,
p. 153. " In silent gaze the tuneful choir among," &c,
PAGE 262,
Digby. The Honourable Robert Digby died in 1726, and
is buried in the church of Sherbourne, in Dorsetshire,
with an epitaph written by Pope. We may, in the present
day, join in Walpole's lament, that he did not inform himself
of many things he should so like to know of Pope, — among the
rest. However, I possess in my copy of Pope's works many
blanks filled up with the names of the persons designed, on
Walpole's authority, PAGE 278,
Long Sir Thomas Robinson, There were two Sir Thomas
Robinsons alive at the same time. The one here mentioned
was called Long as a distinguishing characteristic. This
gave occasion to a witticism of Lord Chesterfield, which
I found among the Walpole MSS. Some one told Lord
Chesterfield that Long Sir Thomas Robinson was very ill.
" I am sorry to hear it." — " He is dying by inches."
" Then it will be some time before he dies," was the answer.
In Mason's ' Epistle to Shebbeare,' he is called " The
Petronius of the present age." Sir Thomas Robinson's
Letters were left to an apothecary, who married his natm-al
daughter, with an injunction to publish all, including Lord
Chesterfield's, PAGE 285,
Combe's 'Diaboliad.' Mr. Combe died in Lambeth

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 441
Road, aged eighty-three ; see a Memoir of him in ' Gentler
man's Magazine,' vol. xciii. p. 180, and a Ust of his Works,
in vol. xciv. p. 643; see also H. Smith's 'Comic Miscel
lanies,' vol. i. p. 17; ' Life of Southey,' vol. u. p. 20. He
left the following inscription, for a piece of marble over
his grave : " Vir fuit nee sine doctrinll
Nee sine sermonum ac inorum suavitate
Vixit nee sine pietate erga Deum
Nee sine honesta de Numine ejus opinione
Nee vero sine peccatis multis
Nee tamen sire spe salutis
A Domino cleraentissimo impetrandse."
which we trust no injudicious friend to his fame or his
latinity has erected. The 'Diaboliad' we believe satirized
principally the Luttrell family.
Some of his works are as follows : ' Letters of Valerius on
the State of Parties,' 8vo. 1804. 'The Devil upon Two
Sticks in England,' 1st edition, no date, 6 vols. 12mo. ; 2nd
edition, 1810. ' History of Westminster Abbey,' 2 vols.
4to. 1812. ' The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the
Picturesque,' a Poem, 1812, ' Six Poems, illustrative of
Engravings,' by Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth,
4to. 1813. Papers entitled 'The Modern Spectator,' in
Ackerman's Repository of Arts. All these he printed anony
mously. — Watt, Bib, Britannica. PAGE 294.
I suppose the letter is now pubUshed, A letter to
W. Mason, A,M., Precentor of York, concerning his edition
of Mr. Gray's Poems and the ' Practices of Booksellers,'

443 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
by a BookseUer, 1777, 13mo. Mr. Chalmers, in his ' Life
of Mason,' says, p. 315 : " Nor are his prosecutions of
Murray, for taking about fifty lines from his ' Life of Gray '
into an edition which that bookseller pubUshed, much to
the credit of his liberality, especially as he refused to drop
the prosecution, when required to name his own terms of
composition. An account of this case, cited in Carman
v. Bowles, before the Master of the Rolls, 1786 ; 3 Browne,
Chancery Reports, p. 85. An injunction was given Feb.
13, 1777, and made perpetual as to the four Odes, July 13,
1779. PAGE 300.
See Mr. King. Edward King, F.S.A., died April 16,1807;
see ' Chalmers' Biog. Dictionary.' PAGE 305.
Epistle to Shebbeare. An Epistle to Dr. Shebbeare, by
Malcolm Macgregor, of Knightsbridge, Esq., author of ' The
Heroic Epistle,' to Sir WiUiam Chambers, &c. 1774. Mason,
in his advertisement, says : He does not call this heroic, as
he did ' the Epistle to Sir William Chambers.' " It would
be unpardonable in me not to discriminate between a Comp
troller of His Majesty's Works and the needy scribbler of a
newspaper, between a placeman and a pensioner, a Knight
of the Polar Star and a broken apothecary." It is very
inferior to the ' Heroic Epistle ' in the choice of the subject,
and in the liveliness and 'grace of the satire and in the plea
santry of the allusions.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 443

PAGE 316,

You ask the history of Burgoyne. Bm-goyne's battles
and speeches will be forgotten, but his delightful comedy of
' the Heiress' still continues the delight of the stage, and one
of the most pleasing of dramatic compositions. Home Tooke,
who was a great reader of the drama in all modern languages,
says : " ' The Heiress,' one little morsel of false moral ex
cepted, is the most perfect and meritorious comedy, without
exception, of any on our stage." — See ' Diversions of
Purley,' p. 413, 8vo. The author of the 'Pursuits of
Literature ' says of it : " It is the production of a man
of fashion, delicacy, wit, and judgment," p. 79. See more
of Burgoyne, in Walpole's Letter to Lady Ossory, ii. pp. 356,
301; in his Miscellaneous Correspondence, vol. v, p. 369; in
Jesse's 'Letters of G, Selwyn,' vol. i. p, 310, Mr. Forster,
in his ' Life of Goldsmith,' says, that " three of the cha
racters of the fashionable general are stolen from this very
' Sister' of poor Mrs. Lennox, p. 499. There is a print of
Burgoyne in Wright's ' House of Hanover,' vol. ii. p. 33.
The author of a very clever book, ' the Old Playgoer,' says :
" Our modem stage affords us no fine lady ; Burgoyne's
'Heiress' is the nearest approach to it," p. 148. Burgoyne
was one of the contributors to the ' Rolliad,' in one of the
prefatory odes and in the Westminster Guide. See his Life,
p. 33. PAGE 333.
' The Roman Sacrifice.' A tragedy by WilUam Shii-ley,
acted at Druiy Lane, 1776, not printed. This piece was
performed only four nights, and was very coldly received.
Vide Bakfv's ' Biog. Dramatica.' Mr. Shirley wrote no less

444 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES,
than fifteen plays, of which five are not printed. He wrote
in the ' Daily Gazetteer,' under the name of ' Lusitanicus,'
PAGE 338,
' The Battle of Hastings.' A tragedy, by Richard Cum
berland, 1778. It was said of this play, that the title was
a misnomer, for the only battle was in the title-page. There
is a very severe article on the author in the review of this
play, in Baker's 'Biog. Dramatica,' which might have
proceeded from his /riewrf, George Stevens; at least the con
cluding admonition is in his style : " Poets do not seem to
be aware that a stock of ideas, like a fund of wealth, by
-gradual subtraction, will be at length exhausted."
PAGE 338.
Home's 'Alfred' was acted at Covent Garden, 1778. It
was the last production of its author, and was so coldly
received by the public, that it was performed only three
nights. PAGE 335.
Burke's Parody of Burgoyne's talk. This speech of
Burke's is not given in the publication of his ' Speeches in
the House of Commons,' in 4 vols. 1806. There is no
speech in that year, 1778, between February 6th, and
March 33rd, PAGE 355.
Pennant, Pennant's ' Tour in Wales,' first published in
Chester, Feb, 1st. 1778. The continuation, in 1781,
vvas added to it, and the whole collected and published in

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 445
3 vols. 1810. They are illustrated with numerous plates, and
contain much curious information on antiquarian subjects,
and natural history. Walpole mentions Pennant again in
' Miscell. Correspondence,' vol v. p. 319, and vol. vi. p. 97,
111, 117, Mistakes are certainly to be met with in his
various and discursive publications, for some of which, in
the 'Tour to Scotland,' see 'Edinb. Review,' No. xlxvii.
p. 155. Dr. Johnson used to praise him very highly, and
his brother antiquary. Sir R. C. Hoare, "thought his style
of writing the most desirable for tourists to adopt."
PAGE 360.
Hardwicke. ' Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501 to
1736,' 2 vols. 4to. 1778. "Vetustis novitatem dare, novis
auctoritatem, obsoletis nitorem, obscuris lucem, dubiis fidem."
Plinii N. H. On a singular letter in this work, from Prince
Charles and the Duke of Buckingham to King James, " on
a picture of the Infanta's drawn black and white, and pre
sented by little, pretty Toby Mathews," see Walpole's
' Anecdotes of Painting,' vol. iii. p. 250, note.
Lord Hardwicke, as is well known, was no favourite of
Walpole's, and Mason has once or twice sprinkled a few
drops of satire on him. I give here an Epigram of his from
his MS., occasioned by Lord Hardvricke's and Lord Lyttle
ton's verses on one another.
" While every freeman in the nation.
Burgess and cit of each vocation.
In Pitt's just praises shine ;
Thy meagre virtue, modest peer.
Hangs dangling by a single hair
In Hardwicke's hitching line.
VOL. I. ^0

446 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
Indeed, my Lord, you're much to blame
To risk so rashly your good name,
'Tis true his rhymes are terse.
Yet honest folks, your Lordship knows.
So seldom trust a lawyer's prose.
They'll ne'er believe his verse."
In the ' Dean and Squire' his name also appears.
" Your wit. Lord Hardwicke deigns to own.
Surpasses every wit's in town.
And none e'er doubted Hardwicke's taste
Whoe'er were bid to Hardwicke's feast.''
PAGE 361.
'The Old Baron.' This very dull work, of which the
design and execution are equally defective, was written by
Mrs. Clara Reeve. It is dedicated to the daughter of
Richardson, and went through numerous editions. She calls
it " the offspring of the ' Castle of Otranto,' in which the
defects might be avoided, and the keeping, as in painting,
preserved." PAGE 361.
Mrs. Barbut's Fragment, Walpole probably alludes to
' Don Bertrand : a Fragment,' printed in Aikin's ' Mis
cellanies,' and written by Mrs. Barbauld.

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