when I could see through my own vanity, there is less wonder at my discovering that such talents as I might have had, are impaired at seventy-two. Being just to myself, I am not such a coxcomb as to be unjust to you. No, nor did I cover any irony towards you, in the opinion I gave you of the way of making deep writings palatable to the mass of readers. Examine my words; and I am sure you will find that, if there was anything ironic in my meaning, it was levelled at your readers, not at you. It is my opinion that whoever wishes to be read by many, if his subject is weighty and solid, must treat the majority with more than is to his purpose. Do not you believe that twenty name Lucretius because of the poetic commencement of his books, for five that wade through his philosophy?

I promised to say but little; and, if I have explained myself clearly, I have said enough. It is not, I hope, my character to be a flatterer: I do most sincerely think you capable of great things; and I should be a pitiful knave if I told you so, unless it was my opinion; and what end could it serve to me? Your course is but beginning; mine is almost terminated. I do not want you to throw a few daisies on my grave; and if you make the figure I augur you will, I shall not be a witness to it. Adieu, dear Sir!

TO RICHARD GOUGH, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1789.

I SHALL heartily lament with you, Sir, the demolition of those beautiful chapels at Salisbury. I was scandalized long ago at the ruinous state in which they were indecently suffered to remain. It appears as strange, that, when a spirit of restoration and decoration has taken place, it should be mixed with barbarous innovation. As much as taste has improved, I do not believe that modern execution will equal our models. I am sorry that I can only regret, not prevent. I do not know the Bishop of Salisbury' even by sight, and

'Dr. Shute Barrington; in 1791, translated to the see of Durham.-E.

certainly have no credit to obstruct any of his plans. Should I get sight of Mr. Wyatt, which it is not easy to do, I will remonstrate against the intended alteration; but probably without success, as I do not suppose he has authority enough to interpose effectually: still I will try. It is an old complaint with me, Sir, that when families are extinct, chapters take the freedom of removing ancient monuments, and even of selling over again the sites of such tombs. A scandalous, nay, dishonest abuse, and very unbecoming clergymen! Is it creditable for divines to traffic for consecrated ground, and which the church had already sold? I do not wonder that magnificent monuments are out of fashion, when they are treated so disrespectfully. You, Sir, alone have placed several out of the reach of such a kind of simoniacal abuse; for to buy into the church, or to sell the church's land twice over, breathes a similar kind of spirit. Perhaps, as the 'subscription indicates taste, if some of the subscribers could be persuaded to object to the removal of the two beautiful chapels, as contrary to their view of beautifying, it might have good effect; or, if some letter were published in the papers against the destruction, as barbarous and the result of bad taste, it might divert the design. I zealously wish it were stopped, but I know none of the chapter or subscribers.1

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

Strawberry Hill, Thursday evening, Aug. 27, 1789.

I JUMPED for joy,—that is, my heart did, which is all the remain of me that is in statu jumpante,-at the receipt of your

Much discussion on the subject of the injury done to Salisbury cathedral, here complained of by Walpole, took place in the Gentleman's Magazine for this and the following year. "This good," says the writer of a learned article on Cathedral Antiquities, in the Quarterly Review for 1825, "has arisen from the injury which was done at Salisbury, that in subsequent undertakings of the same kind, the architect has come to his work with greater respect for the structures upon which he was employed, and a mind more embued with the principles of Gothic architecture."-E.

letter this morning, which tells me you approve of the house at Teddington. How kind you was to answer so incontinently! I believe you borrowed the best steed from the races. I have sent to the landlord to come to me to-morrow: but I could not resist beginning my letter to-night, as I am at home alone, with a little pain in my left wrist; but the right one has no brotherly feeling for it, and would not be put off so. You ask how you have deserved such attentions? Why, by deserving them; by every kind of merit, and by that superlative one to me, your submitting to throw away so much time on a forlorn antique-you two, who, without specifying particulars, (and you must, at least, be conscious that you are not two frights,) might expect any fortune and distinctions, and do delight all companies. On which side lies the wonder? Ask me no more such questions, or I will cram you with reasons.

My poor dear niece1 grows worse and worse: the medical people do not pretend to give us any hopes; they only say she may last some weeks, which I do not expect, nor do absent myself. I had promised Mr. Barrett to make a visit to my Gothic child, his house, on Sunday; but I have written to-day to excuse myself: so I have to the Duchess of Richmond, who wanted me to meet her mother, sister, and General Conway, at Goodwood next week.

I wish Lady Fitzwilliam may not hear the same bad news as I expect, in the midst of her royal visitors: her sister, the Duchess of St. Albans, is dying, in the same way as Lady Dysart; and for some days has not been in her senses. How charming you are to leave those festivities for your good parents; who I do not wonder are impatient for you. I, who am old enough to be your great-grandmother, know one needs not be your near relation to long for your return. Of all

2

! The Countess of Dysart.-M. B.

your

Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Ailesbury, by Caroline Campbell, daughter of General John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle.-M. B.

3

Mrs. Damer, only child of the Dowager Countess of Ailesbury, by Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, her second husband. She was thus half-sister to the Duchess of Richmond.-M. B.

four, next to your duteous visits, I most approve the jaunt to the sea: I believe in its salutary air more than in the whole college and all its works.

You must not expect any news from me, French or homebred. I am not in the way of hearing any: your morning gazetteer rarely calls on me, as I am not likely to pay him in kind. About royal progresses, paternal or filial, I never inquire; nor do you, I believe, care more than I do. The small wares in which the societies at Richmond and Hampton-court deal, are still less to our taste. My poor niece and her sisters take up most of my time and thoughts: but I will not attrist you to indulge myself, but will break off here, and finish my letter when I have seen your new landlord. night!

Good

Friday.

Well! I have seen him, and nobody was ever so accommodating! He is as courteous as a candidate for a county. You may stay in his house till Christmas if you please, and shall pay but twenty pounds; and if more furniture is wanting, it shall be supplied.

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1789.

You ask whether I will call you wise or stupid for leaving York races in the middle-neither; had you chosen to stay, you would have done rightly. The more young persons see, where there is nothing blameable, the better; as increasing the stock of ideas early will be a resource for age. To resign pleasure to please tender relations is amiable, and superior to wisdom; for wisdom, however laudable, is but a selfish virtue. But I do decide peremptorily, that it was very prudent to decline the invitation to Wentworth House,1 which was obligingly given; but, as I am very proud for you, I should have disliked your being included in a mobbish kind

The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were going to receive a great entertainment at Wentworth House.-M. B.

2

of cohue. You two are not to go where any other two misses would have been equally priées, and where people would have been thinking of the princes more than of the Berrys. Besides, princes are so rife now, that, besides my sweet nephew1 in the Park, we have another at Richmond: the Duke of Clarence has taken Mr. Henry Hobart's house, point-blank over against Mr. Cambridge's, which will make the good woman of that mansion cross herself piteously, and stretch the throat of the blatant beast at Sudbrook, and of all the other pious matrons à la ronde; for his Royal Highness, to divert lonesomeness, has brought with him who, being still more averse to solitude, declares that any tempter would make even Paradise more agreeable than a constant tête-à-tête. I agree with you in not thinking Beatrice one of Miss Farren's capital parts. Mrs. Pritchard played it with more spirit, and was superior to Garrick's Benedict; so is Kemble, too, as he is to Quin in Maskwell. Kemble and Lysons the clergyman passed all Wednesday here with me. The former is melting the three parts of Henry the Sixth into one piece: I doubt it will be difficult to make a tolerable play out of them.

I have talked scandal from Richmond, like its gossips; and now, by your queries after Lady Luxborough, you are drawing me into more, which I do not love: but she is dead and forgotten, except on the shelves of an old library, or on those of my old memory; which you will be routing into. The lady you wot of, then, was the first wife of Lord Catherlogh, before he was an earl; and who was son of Knight, the South Sea cashier, and whose second wife lives here at Twickenham. Lady Luxborough, a high-coloured lusty black woman, was parted from her husband, upon a gallantry she had with Dalton, the reviver of Comus and a divine. She retired into the country; corresponded, as you see by her letters, with the

'The Duke of Gloucester.-E.

2 Lady Greenwich.

The "little Daniel" of the Pursuits of Literature, brother of Samuel Lysons, the learned antiquary, and author of "The Environs, twelve miles round London," in four volumes quarto

"Nay once, for purer air o'er rural ground,

With little Daniel went his twelve miles round."-E.