quite contrary effect from what I intended. You well know how rapidly and carelessly I always write my letters: the note you mention was written in a still greater hurry than ordinary, and merely to put you out of pain. I had not seen Dodsley, consequently could only tell you that I did not doubt but he would have no objection to satisfy you, as you was willing to prevent his being a loser by the plate. Now, from this declaration, how is it possible for you to have for one moment put such a construction upon my words, as would have been a downright stupid brutality, unprovoked? It is impossible for me to recollect my very expression, but I am confident that I have repeated the whole substance.

How the bookseller would be less a loser by being at more expense, I can easily explain to you. He feared the price of half-a-guinea would seem too high to most purchasers. If by the expense of ten guineas more he could make the book appear so much more rich and showy as to induce people to think it cheap, the profits from selling many more copies would amply recompense him for his additional disbursement.

The thought of having the head engraved was entirely Dodsley's own, and against my opinion, as I concluded it would be against yours; which made me determine to acquaint you with it before its appearance.

When you reflect on what I have said now, you will see very clearly, that I had and could have no other possible meaning in what I wrote last. You might justly have accused me of neglect, if I had deferred giving you all the satisfaction in my power, as soon as ever I knew your uneasiness.

The head I give up. The title I think will be wrong, and

This was a print of Mr. Gray, after the portrait of him by Eckardt. It was intended to have been prefixed to Dodsley's quarto edition of his Odes with Mr. Bentley's designs; but Mr. Gray's extreme repugnance to the proposal obliged his friends to drop it.

2 In a letter to Walpole, written from Stoke, in January, on receiving a proof of the head, Gray had said, "Sure you are not out of your wits! This I know, if you suffer my head to be printed, you will put me out of mine. I conjure you immediately to put a stop to any such design. Who is at the expense of engraving it, I know not; but if it be Dodsley, I will make up the loss to him. The thing as it was, I know, will make me ridiculous enough; but to appear in proper person, at the head of my works, consisting of half a dozen ballads in thirty pages, would be worse

not answer your purpose; for, as the drawings are evidently calculated for the poems, why will the improper disposition of the word designs before poems make the edition less yours? I am as little convinced that there is any affectation in leaving out the Mr. before your names: it is a barbarous addition: the other is simple and classic; a rank I cannot help thinking due to both the poet and painter. Without ranging myself among classics, I assure you, were I to print any thing with my name, it should be plain Horace Walpole: Mr. is one of the Gothicisms I abominate. The explanation1 was certainly added for people who have not eyes:—such are almost all who have seen Mr. Bentley's drawings, and think to compliment him by mistaking them for prints. Alas! the generality want as much to have the words "a man," "a cock," written under his drawings, as under the most execrable hieroglyphics of Egypt, or of sign-post painters.

I will say no more now, but that you must not wonder if I am partial to you and yours, when you can write as you do and yet feel so little vanity. I have used freedom enough with your writings to convince you I speak truth: I praise and scold Mr. Bentley immoderately, as I think he draws well or ill: I never think it worth my while to do either, especially to blame, where there are not generally vast excellencies. Good night! Don't suspect me when I have no fault but impatience to make you easy.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, March 4, 1753.

HAVE you got any wind of our new histories? Is there any account at Rome that Mr. Stone and the Soliciter-general are still thought to be more attached to Egypt than Hanover? For above this fortnight there have been strange mysteries and reports! the cabinet council sat night after

than the pillory. I do assure you, if I had received such a book, with such a frontispiece, without any warning, I do believe it would have given me the palsy." Works, vol. iii. p. 106.-E.

1 Of Mr. Bentley's designs.

night till two o'clock in the morning: we began to think that they were empannelled to sit upon a new rebellion, or invasion at least: or that the King of Prussia had sent his mandate, that we must receive the young Pretender in part of payment of the Silesian loan. At last it is come out that Lord Ravensworth, on the information of one Fawcett, a lawyer, has accused Stone, Murray, and Dr. Johnson, the new Bishop of Gloucester, of having had an odd custom of toasting the Chevalier and my Lord Dunbar at one Vernon's, a merchant, about twenty years ago. The Pretender's counterpart ordered the council to examine into it: Lord Ravensworth stuck to his story; Fawcett was terrified with the solemnity of the divan, and told his very different ways, and at last would not sign his deposition. On the other hand, Stone and Murray took their Bible on their innocence, and the latter made a fine speech into the bargain. Bishop Johnson scrambled out of the scrape at the very beginning; and the council have reported to the King, that the accusation was false and malicious. This is an exact abridgement of the story; the commentary would be too voluminous. The heats upon it are great; the violent Whigs are not at all convinced of the Whiggism of the culprits, by the defect of evidence: the opposite clan affect as much conviction as if they wished them Whigs.

Mr. Chute and I are come hither for a day or two to inspect the progress of a Gothic staircase, which is so pretty and so small, that I am inclined to wrap it up and send it you in my letter. As my castle is so diminutive, I give myself a Burlington air, and say, that as Chiswick is a model of Grecian architecture, Strawberry Hill is to be so of Gothic. I went the other morning with Mr. Conway to buy some of the new furniture-paper for you: if there was any money at Florence,

2

1 Sir Henry Liddel, Baron of Ravensworth.

Upon the whole matter," says the Hon. Philip Yorke, in his MS. Parliamentary Journal, "the Lords came unanimously to an opinion of reporting to the King, that there appeared to them no foundation for any part of the charge; that Mr. Fawcett, the only evidence, had grossly prevaricated in it; that it was malicious and scandalous, and ought not to affect the character of the Bishop, or either of the gentlemen who were aspersed by it."-E.

VOL. II.

2 H

I should expect this manufacture would make its fortune there.

Liotard, the painter, is arrived, and has brought me Marivaux's picture, which gives one a very different idea from what one conceives of the author of Marianne, though it is reckoned extremely like: the countenance is a mixture of buffoon and villain. I told you what mishap I had with Crébillon's portrait: he has had the foolish dirtiness to keep it. Liotard is a Génévois; but from having lived at Constantinople, he wears a Turkish habit, and a beard down to his girdle: this, and his extravagant prices, which he has raised even beyond what he asked at Paris, will probably get him as much money as he covets, for he is avaricious beyond imagination. His crayons and his water-colours are very fine; his enamel, hard: in general, he is too Dutch, and admires nothing but excess of finishing.

We have nothing new but two or three new plays, and those not worth sending to you. The answer to the Prussian memorial, drawn chiefly by Murray, is short, full, very fine, and has more spirit than I thought we had by us. The whole is rather too good, as I believe our best policy would have been, to be in the wrong, and make satisfaction for having been illused: the Author with whom we have to deal, is not a sort of man to stop at being confuted. Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 27, 1753.

SUCH an event as I mentioned to you in my last, has, you may well believe, had some consequences; but only enough to show what it would have had in less quiet times. Last week the Duke of Bedford moved in the House of Lords to have all the papers relating to Lord Ravensworth and Fawcett laid before them. As he had given notice of his intention, the ministry, in a great fright, had taken all kind of precautions to defeat the motion; and succeeded-if it can be called success to have quashed the demand, and thereby con

firmed the suspicions. After several councils, it was determined, that all the cabinet councillors should severally declare the insufficience and prevarication of Fawcett's evidence: they did, and the motion was rejected by 122 to 5.1 If one was prejudiced by classic notions of the wisdom and integrity of a senate, that debate would have cured them. The flattery to Stone was beyond belief: I will give you but one instance. The Duke of Argyll said, "He had happened to be at the secretary's office during the rebellion, when two Scotchmen came to ask for a place, which one obtained, the other lost, but went away best pleased, from Mr. Stone's gracious manner of refusal!" It appeared in the most glaring manner, that the Bishop of Gloucester had dictated to Fawcett a letter of acquittal to himself; and not content with that, had endeavoured to persuade him to make additions to it some days after. It was as plain, that Fawcett had never prevaricated till these private interviews with the prelate—yet there were 122 to 5!

I take for granted our politics adjourn here till next winter, unless there should be any Prussian episode. It is difficult to believe that that King has gone so far, without intending to go farther: if he is satisfied with the answer to his memorial, though it is the fullest that ever was made, yet it will be the first time that ever a monarch was convinced! For a King of the Romans, it seems as likely that we should see a King of the Jews.

Your brother has got the paper for your room. He shall send you with it a fine book which I have had printed of

"The debate was long and heavy; the Duke of Bedford's performance moderate enough: he divided the House, but it was not told, for there went below the bar with him the Earl of Harcourt, Lord Townshend, the Bishop of Worcester, and Lord Talbot only. Upon the whole, it was the worst judged, the worst executed, and the worst supported point, that I ever saw of so much expectation." Dodington, p. 202.-E.

2 This insignificant, and indeed ridiculous accusation, against Murray and Stone, is magnified by Walpole, both here and in his Memoires, into an important transaction, in consequence of the hatred he bore to the persons accused.-D. ["The accusation was justly ridiculed by the wits of the day, as a counterpart to the mountain in labour; and the Pelhams had the satisfaction of seeing it terminate in the full exculpation of their friends, the Solicitor-general and Mr. Stone." Coxe's Pelham, vol. ii. p. 263.]