no bells nor bonfires; but as persons incog. love to be seen, he will slip into the coffee house. Is Mr. Trollope among you? good lack! he will pull off my head for never writing to him, oh Conscience, Conscience!

London, October 8, [44 or 45.]

LETTER III.

MR. GRAY TO ME WHARTON.

I AM not lost; here am I at Stoke, whither I came on Tuesday, and shall be again in town on Saturday, and at Cambridge on Wednesday or Thursday, you may be anxious to know what has past. I wrote a note the night I came, and immediately received a very civil answer. I went the following evening to see the party, (as Mrs. Foible says) was something abashed at his confidence: he came to meet me, kissed me on both sides with all the ease of one, who receives an acquaintance just come out of the country, squatted me into a Fauteuil, begun to talk of the town, and this and that and t'other, and continued with little interruption for three hours, when I took my leave very indifferently pleased, but treated with monstrous good-breeding, I supped with him next night, (as he desired); Ashton was there, whose formalities tickled me inwardly, for he, (I found) was to be angry about the letter I had wrote him. However in going home together our hackneycoach jumbled us into a sort of reconciliation: he hammered out somewhat like an excuse, and I received it very readily,

because I cared not twopence, whether it were true or not, so we grew the best acquaintance imaginable, and I sate with him on Sunday some hours alone, when he informed me of abundance of anecdotes much to my satisfaction, and in short opened (I really believe) his heart to me, with that sincerity that I found I had still less reason to have a good opinion of him than (if possible) I ever had before. Next morning I breakfasted alone with Mr. Walpole; when we had all the eclaircissement* I ever expected, and I left him far better satisfied than I have been hitherto. When I return I shall see him again.

Such is the epitome of my four days. Mr. and Mrs. Simms and Madle. Nanny have done the honours of Leaden Hall to a miracle, and all join in a compliment to the Doctor. Your brother is well, the books are in good condition. Madme. Chenevix has frighted me with Ecritoires she asks three guineas for, that are not worth three half-pence: I have been in several shops and found nothing pretty. I fear it must be bespoke

at last.

It appears by this Letter, that the reconciliation which is mentioned as having taken place between Gray and Walpole, was, (as far at least as the former was concerned,) rather an act of civility and good-manners, than the reestablishment of a cordial and sincere attachment. I am now, by the kindness of a gentleman, to whom I have been more than once obliged, enabled to lay before the public, the real cause of their separation, on the anthority of the late Mr. Isaac Reed; in whose hand writing, in Wakefield's Life of Gray, is the following note. "Mr. Roberts, of the Pell-office, who was likely to be well informed, told me at Mr. Deacon's, 19th April, 1799. That the quarrel between Gray and Walpole was occasioned by a suspicion Mr. Walpole entertained, that Mr. Gray had spoken ill of him, to some friends in England. To ascertain this, he clandestinely opened a letter, and resealed it, which Mr. Gray, with great propriety resented; there seems to have been but little cordiality afterwards between them."-Ed. VOL. II.

U

The day after I went you received a little letter directed to me, that seems wrote with a skewer, please to open it, and you will find a receipt of Dan. Adcock for ten pound, which I will beg you to receive of Gillham for me. If the letter miscarried, pray take care the money is paid to no one else. I expect to have a letter from you when I come to town, at your lodgings.

Adieu, Sir, I am sincerely yours,

Stoke, Thursday, 16th Nov. [1744 or 1745.]

LETTER IV.

MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.

T. G.

Cambridge, February 3, 1746.

DEAR SIR,

YOU are so good to enquire after my usual time of coming to town: it is a season when even you, the perpetual friend of London, will, I fear, hardly be in it-the middle of June: and I commonly return hither in September; a month when I may more probably find you at home.

Our defeat to be sure is a rueful affair for the honour of the troops; but the Duke is gone it seems with the rapidity of a cannon-bullet to undefeat us again. The common people in

town at least know how to be afraid: but we are such uncommon people here as to have no more sense of danger than if the battle had been fought when and where the battle of Cannæ was.

The perception of these calamities, and of their consequences, that we are supposed to get from books, is so faintly impressed, that we talk of war, famine, and pestilence, with no more apprehension than of a broken head, or of a coach overturned between York and Edinburgh.

were at

I heard three people, sensible middle aged men (when the Scotch were said to be at Stamford, and actually were Derby,) talking of hiring a chaise to go to Caxton (a place in the high road) to see the Pretender and the Highlanders as they passed.

I can say no more for Mr. Pope (for what you keep in reserve may be worse than all the rest.) It is natural to wish the finest writer, one of them, we ever had, should be an honest man. It is for the interest even of that virtue, whose friend he professed himself, and whose beauties he sung, that he should not be found a dirty animal. But however, this is Mr. Warburton's business, not mine, who may scribble his pen to the stumps and all in vain, if these facts are so. It is not from what he told me about himself that I thought well of him, but from a humanity, and goodness of heart, aye, and greatness of mind, that runs through his private correspondence, not less apparent than are a thousand little vanities and weaknesses mixed with those good qualities, for nobody ever took him for a philosopher. If you know any thing of Mr. Mann's state of health and happiness, or the motions of Mr. Chute

homewards, it will be a particular favour to inform me of them, as I have not heard this half-year from them.

I am sincerely yours,

LETTER V.

T. GRAY.

MR. GRAY TO MR WHARTON.

YOU write so feelingly to little Mr. Brown, and represent your abandoned condition in terms so touching, that what gratitude could not effect in several months, compassion has brought about in a few days, and broke that strong attachment, or rather allegiance which I and all here owe to our sovereign lady and mistress, the president of presidents, and head of heads (if I may be permitted to pronounce her name, that ineffable Octogrammaton) the power of Laziness.· You must know she had been pleased to appoint me (in preference to so many old servants of hers, who had spent their whole lives in qualifying themselves for the office) grand picker of straws, and push-pin player in ordinary to her Supinity, (for that is her title) the first is much in the nature of lord president of the council, and the other, like the groom-porter, only without the profit; but as they are both things of very great honour in this country, I considered with myself the load of envy attending such great charges, and besides (between you and I) I found myself unable to support the fatigue of

*