old Williamson. Who is that Lawyer that talks to me? My Lord, it is Mr. Murray. Ha! Mr. Murray, my good Friend, (says he, and shook him by the hand) and how does your good mother? oh! she was of admirable service to us; we should have done nothing without her in Perthshire. He recommends (he says) his Peggy ('tis uncertain * **** the favour of the Government, for she has ***.

I have been diverted with an account of Lord Lovat* in his confinement at Edinburgh, There was a Captain Maggett, that is obliged to lie in the room every night with him. When first he was introduced to him, he made him come to his bed-side, where he lay in a hundred flannel waistcoats, and a furred night-gown, took him in his arms, and gave him a long embrace, that absolutely suffocated him. He will speak nothing but French; insists upon it that Maggett is a Frenchman, and calls him mon cher Capitaine Magot (you know Magot is a monkey.) At his head lie two Highland women, at his feet two Highland men. By his bed-side is a close-stool, to which he rises two or three times in a night, and always says,-Ah, mon cher Capitaine Magot! vous m'excuserez, mais la Nature demande que je chie! He is to be impeached by the House of Commons, because not being actually in arms, it would

9th of April, 1747. You have heard that

* Simon Frazer, Lord Lovat, beheaded on Tower-hill, the Thus mentioned in one of Walpole's letters, Ap. 16th, 1747. old Lovat's Tragedy is over. **** I must tell you an excessive good thing of George Selwyn. Some women were scolding him for going to see the execution, and asked him how he could be such a barbarian, to see the head cut off?' "Nay, (says he) if that was such a crime, I am sure I have made amends, for I went to see it sewed on again." When he was at the undertaker's, as soon as they had stitched him together, and were going to put the body into the coffin, George, in my Lord Chancellor's voice, said,-" My Lord Lovat, your lordship may rise."-Ed.

otherwise be necessary that the jury of Inverness should find a Bill of Indictment against him, which it is very sure they would not do. When the Duke returned to Edinburgh they refused to admit Kingston's Light Horse, and talked of their privileges, but they came in sword in hand, and replied, that when the Pretender was at their gates, they had said nothing of their privileges. The Duke rested some hours there, but refused to see the magistracy. I believe you may think it full time, that I close my budget of stories: Mr. Walpole I have seen a good deal, and shall do a good deal more, I suppose, for he is looking for a house somewhere about Windsor during the Summer. All is mighty free, and even friendly more than one could expect. You remember a paper in the Museum on * MessageCards, which he told me was Fielding's, and asked my opinion about it was his own, and so was the + Advertisement on Good Breeding, that made us laugh so. Mr. Ashton I have had several conversations with, and do really believe he shews himself to me, such as he really is: I don't tell you, I like him ever the better for it; but that may be my fault, not his. The Pelhams lie very hard at his stomach; he is not 40 yet, but he is 31, he says, and thinks it his duty to be married. One thing of that kind is just broke off; she had £12,000 in her own hands. This is a profound secret, but I not conceiving that he told it me as such, happened to tell it to Stonhewer, who told it to Lyne, who told it to Ashton again, all in the space of three hours, whereby I incurred a scolding; so pray don't let me fall under a second, and lose all my hopes of rising in the church. He is still as I said, resolute to marry out of hand; only

* Published in Walpole's Works, Vol. I. p. 132, and No. II. of the Museum, April, 1746.-Ed.

+ See Walpole's Works, Vol. I. p. 141. and No. V. of the Museum, May, 1746.-Ed.

two things he is terrified at, lest she should not breed, and lest she should love him: I comforted him, by saying there was no danger of either.

The Muse I doubt, is gone; and has left me in far worse company if she returns you will hear of her. You see I have left no room for a catalogue, which is a sort of policy, for its hardly possible my memory should supply one: I will try by next time, which will be soon, if I hear from you. If your curiosity require any more circumstances of these tryals ** find some. My best compliments to the

will see
little man of the world. Adieu, my dear Wharton,

Believe me very truly yours,

Stoke, Sunday, 13th August, 1746..

LETTER VII.

T. GRAY.

MR. GRAY TO MR. WHARTON.

MY DEAR WHARTON,

WHAT can one say to these things? if it had been in the power of lawyers to interpret into common sense, statutes made by old monks, or monk-directed old women, we might have hoped for a more favourable answer to our queries; as it is I fear they may have done more hurt than good: all I

know is this, that I should rejoice poor T. had some place to rest the sole of his foot in; and I flatter myself you will never omit any thing in your power to support his little interest, among a people, with whom you first raised it. I would gladly know the time of your audit, for I would be at Cambridge by that time, if I could. Mr. Walpole has taken a house in Windsor, and I see him usually once a week; but I think that will hardly detain me beyond the time I proposed to myself. He is at present gone to town, to perform the disagreeable task of presenting and introducing about a young Florentine, the Marquis Rinuccini, who comes recommended to him. The Duke* is here at his lodge with three women, and three Aid-de-Camps; and the country swarms with people. He goes to races and they make a ring about him, as at a bearbaiting; and no wonder, for they do the same at Vauxhall and Ranelagh. At this last, somebody was telling me, they heard a man lamenting to some women of his acquaintance, and saying, how he had been up close to him, and he never repented of any thing so much in his life, as that he did not touch him.

I am not altogether of your opinion, as to your Historical consolation in time of trouble. A calm melancholy it may produce, a stiller sort of despair, (and that only in some circumstances and on some constitutions) but I doubt no real content or comfort can ever arise in the human mind, but from Hope.†

*The Duke of Cumberland.

+ I have not read all the aphorisms, or maxims of Johnson, but several of them, I read, that were trivial enough; for the sake of one however, I forgive him the rest; he advises never to banish Hope entirely, because it is the cordial of life, although it be the greatest flatterer in the world. Such a measure of Hope as may not endanger my peace, by a disappointment, I would wish to, cherish upon every subject, in which I am interested. But there lies the difficulty. A

Old Balmerino, when he had read his paper to the people, pulled off his spectacles, spit upon his handkerchief, and wiped them clean for the use of his posterity; and that is the last page of his history. Have you seen Hogarth's + print of Lord Lovat? it is admirable.

I can not help thinking if I had been with you, I should have represented the horror of the thing in such a light, as that you should never have become a prey to Mr. Davie. I know that he'll get you up in a corner some day and pick your bones, and John will find nothing of you, but such a little heap, as a cat that is a good mouser leaves; the head and the tail piled together. My concern for you produced a vision, not such a one as you read in the Spectators, but actually in a dream. I thought I was in t'other world and confined in a little apartment much like a cellar, enlightened by one rush candle that burned blue, on each side of me sate (for my sins) Mr. Davie, and my friend Mr. Ashton, they bowed continually and smiled in my face, and while one filled me out very bitter tea, the other sweetened it with brown sugar: all together it much resembled Syrup of Buckthorn; in the corner sat Tuthill very melancholy, in expectation of the tea-leaves.

I take it very ill you should have been in the twentieth

cure however, and the only one, for all the irregularities both of Hope and Fear, is found in submission to the will of God. Happy they that have it!See Cowper's Letters by Hayley. Vol. III. p. 340.-Ed.

+ Mr. Walpole once invited Gray the Poet, and Hogarth to dine with him, but what with the reserve of the one, and a want of colloquial talents in the other, he never passed a duller time than between those representations of Tragedy and Comedy; being obliged to rely entirely on his own efforts to support conversation." Nicholl's Life of Hogarth, p. 97-Ed.