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plundered. You see, if you go, I shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me-Seriously, you must leave them in safe custody behind you.

Lord Essex's trial is printed with the state trials. In return for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful publication of this winter, A Collection of Old Ballads and Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge. There were three such published between thirty and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in this set: indeed there were others, of a looser sort, which the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to omit.

When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to go a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings a-piece, from different farm-houses in Hertfordshire. I have long envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see-but don't take further trouble than that.

I long to know what your bundle of MSS. from Cheshire contains.

My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback. I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which, however, I shall not commence till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth: but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good night! you see how one gossips when one is alone and at quiet on one's own dunghill ! Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as ambition never is happy enough to know! ambition orders palaces, but it is content that chats for a page or two over a bower.

2 "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," the most delightful collection of national ballads which has appeared in this or any other country, not even excepting the celebrated Herder's beautiful selection of "Volkslieder," is the work alluded to. The editor was the reverend Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards bishop of Dromore. [Ed.]

Yours ever.

SIR:

TO MONSIEUR ELIE DE BEAUMONT.
[With the Castle of Otranto.]

Strawberry-hill, March 18, 1765.

When I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a passage in the charming letters of the marquis de Roselle. I have since that time published my little story, but was so diffident of its merit that I gave it as a translation from the Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so great a mistress of the passions as madame de Beaumont, if the approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and you, sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the natural effusions of the heart, how will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle, or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's. You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I quote, and that in defence, not of myself, but of my countrymen, who have had good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and actors in the Castle of Otranto.

3 The Bower of Rosamond, is said, or rather fabled, to have been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II., for the safe residence of his lovely mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of which were so intricate that it could not be entered without the guidance of a thread, which the king always kept in his own possession. His queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily destroyed, her fair and amiable, although not spotless, rival. [Ed.]

1 A French novel written by madame de Beaumont, wife of Monsieur Elie de Beaumont. [Or.]

To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recal the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and, if the marquis de Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say, that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must forgive me if I add that Richardson had, to me at least, made that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with putting you in mind of, sir,

Your most devoted humble servant.

P. S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita. - I mention it as I fear so unequal a similitude would not strike madame de Beau

mont.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, April 5, 1765.

I SENT you two letters t'other day from your kin, and might as well have written then as now, for I have nothing to tell you. Mr. Chute has quitted his bed to-day the first time for above five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. He was near relapsing; for old Mildmay, whose lungs, and memory, and tongue, will never wear out, talked to him t'other night from eight till half-an-hour after ten, on the Poor-bill; but he has been more comfortable with lord Dacre and me this evening.

I have read the Siege of Calais,' and dislike it extremely, though there are fine lines, but the conduct is woful. The outrageous applause it has received at Paris was certainly political, and intended to stir up their spirit and animosity against us, their good, merciful, and forgiving allies. They will have no occasion for this ardour; they may smite one cheek, and we shall turn

t'other.

Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to tell you two bon-mots of Quin, to that turn-coat hypocrite infidel, bishop Warburton. That saucy priest was haranguing at Bath in behalf of prerogative: Quin said, "Pray, my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican; and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the first might be justified." -" Aye!" said Warburton, "by what law?" Quin replied, "By all the laws he had left them." The bishop would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. “I would not advise your lordship," said Quin, "to make use of that inference, for if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles." There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy

1 A tragedy called the Siege of Calais,' translated from the French, and published with historical notes. [Ed.]

* William Warburton bishop of Gloucester, eminent as a theological writer, critic, and controversialist; born at Newark-upon-Trent, 1691; died 1779. His most celebrated work is " The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated," &c. [Ed.]

couched in eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once the king's guilt and the justice of punishing it. The more one examines it, the finer it proves. One can say nothing after it, so good night.

Yours ever.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Strawberry-hill, May 26, 1765.

If one of the one hundred events, and one hundredth part of the one hundred thousand reports that have passed, and been spread in this last month, have reached your solitary hill, you must be surprised at not a single word from me during that period. The number of events is my excuse. Though mine is the pen of a pretty ready writer, I could not keep pace with the revolutions of each day, each hour. I had not time to begin the narrative, much less to finish it: no, I must keep the whole to tell you at once, or to read it to you, for I think I shall write the history, which, let me tell you, Buckinger himself could not have crowded into a nut shell.

For your part, you will be content though the house of Montagu has not made an advantageous figure in this political warfare; yet it is crowned with victory, and laurels you know compensate for every scar. You went out of town frightened out of your senses at the giant prerogative: alack! he is grown so tame, that, as you said of our earthquake, you may stroke him. The regency bill, not quite calculated with that intent, has produced four regents, king Bedford, king Grenville, king Halifax, and king Twitcher. Lord Holland is turned out, and Stuart Mackenzie. Charles Townshend is paymaster, and lord Bute annihilated; and all done without the help of the Whigs. You love to guess what one is going to say; now you may guess what I am not going to say. Your newspapers perhaps have given you a long role of opposition names, who were coming into place, and so all the world thought; but the wind turned quite round, and left them on the strand, and just where they were, except in

1 Calcraft the Army agent, christened by Wilkes, in the North Briton, “Jemmy Twitcher." [Ed.]

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