LETTER LXXIX.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Nov. 1758, Stoke.

DEAR DOCTOR,

MY judgement is, that if your picture possess but any one of the beauties you see and describe in it, it must be certainly worth eight or ten times as much as you gave for it. I only wonder you should forget to say, by what lucky chance you came by it. Old Frank was a Dutch master of some note; the history of that school I am very little acquainted with, but if I am not mistaken there was lately published a French account of their lives in two or more volumes 4to. which I have seen at Nourse's, in which you may meet with better information. I am agreeably employed here in dividing nothing with an old Harridan, who is the Spawn of Cerberus and the Dragon of Wantley. When I shall get to town, I cannot divine, but doubtless it will be between this and Christmas. You were so good to offer me house-room for some of my lumber : I am therefore packing up certain boxes and baskets which I believe you will be troubled with. But I beg Mrs. Wharton to consider well first, whether it will be inconvenient to her. If she assures me it will not, I shall inform you shortly of their shapes and numbers. At present it seems to me, that there will be three or four large boxes, and five baskets of china; the last, Madame Foster shall accommodate.

Ah! poor King of Prussia!* what will become of him? I am told here, that matters are much worse than is yet avowed. I also hear that seven Generals have refused the command, which Hopson + is now gone with, who has been before censured for ill-conduct, and is besides so infirm that he will not live the voyage. Adieu, dear Sir,

I am ever yours,

T. G.

LETTER LXXX.

MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON.

Stoke, Nov. 9, 1758.

I SHOULD have told you that Caradoc came safe to hand; but my critical faculties have been so taken up in

*Gray's lamentation was excited, I conclude, by the defeat of the King of Prussia at Hochkirchen, by the Austrians under Marshal Daun. In this battle he lost 7000 men, his tents, and baggage; and the day was rendered memorable by the death of Marshal Keith, who was shot through the heart.-Ed.

† Major General Hopson was appointed to the command of an expedition against Martinique, which sailed on the 12th of November, 1758. The attack on this Island failed, and the armament directed its course to Guadaloupe, where General Hopson died.-Ed.

A second manuscript of Caractacus with the Odes inserted.-Mason.

dividing nothing with an old woman*, that they are not yet composed enough for a better and more tranquil employment: shortly, however, I will make them obey me. But am I to send this copy to Mr. Hurd, or return it to you? Methinks I do not love this travelling to and again of manuscripts by the post. While I am writing, your second packet is just arrived. I can only tell you in gross, that there seem to me certain passages altered which might as well have been let alone; and that I shall not be easily reconciled to Mador's own song. I must not have my fancy raised to that agreeable pitch of heathenism and wild magical enthusiasm, and then have you let me drop into moral philosophy and cold good sense. I remember you insulted me when I saw you last, and affected to call that which delighted my imagination, nonsense: Now I insist that sense is nothing in poetry, but according to the dress she wears, and the scene she appears in. If you should lead me into a superb Gothic building with a thousand clustered pillars, each of them half a mile high, the walls all covered with fretwork, and the windows full of red and blue saints that had neither head nor tail; and I should find the Venus of Medici in person, perked up in a long niche over the high altar, do you think it would raise or damp my devotions? I say that Mador must be entirely a Briton; and that his pre-eminence among his companions must be shewn by superior wildness, more barbaric fancy, and a more striking and deeper harmony both of words and numbers: if British antiquity be too narrow, this is the place for invention; and if it be pure invention, so much the clearer must the expression be, and so much the stronger and richer the imagery. There's for you now!

* Mrs. Rogers died about this time, and left Mr. Gray and Mrs. Olliffe, another of his aunts, her joint executors.-Mason,

↑ He means here the second Ode, which was afterwards greatly altered.-Mason.

LETTER LXXXI.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

DEAR DOCTOR,

I AM glad you are master of a "Pieta." I could have said Pieta myself, if I had not left off being a coxcomb or a connoisseur. Palma (that is the old one) was a good colorist, like most of the Venetians, but remarkable for bad drawing, particularly of hands and arms. What you say of Dr. Ak. I fully agree with you in, and have mentioned it to Mason. As soon as I can write to Mr. H., I shall repeat to him a part of your own words, which I think will prevail, besides I know he thinks himself obliged to you in Dr. H"'s affairs. I have seen no Rousseau, or any body else: all I can tell you is, that I am to dine with my lady Carlisle to-morrow, who is a melancholy Dowager, reduced from Castle-Howard and ten thousand pounds a year to £1500, her jewels, plate, and a fine house in town excellently well furnished. She has just discovered too (I am told in confidence) that she has been long the object of calumny and scandal. What am I to say to comfort her?

I do not dislike the Laureat at all, to me it is his best Ode*,

* Ode for his Majesty's Birthday, November 10, 1758. See Whitehead's Poems, Vol. II. p. 263.-Ed.

but I don't expect any one should find it out, for Othert and Ateste are surely less known than Edward the Ist and Mount Snowdon; it is no imitation of me; but a good one of

Pastor, cum traheret, &c.

which was falsely laid to my charge. Adieu, dear Sir,
I am ever yours,

December 2, 1758.

LETTER LXXXII.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Saturday, July 21, 1759.

DEAR DOCTOR,

foot in

I HAVE at last found rest for the sole of my gouty

your old * dining-room, and hope, in spite of the damnation denounced by the bishop's two chaplains, that you may find at least equal satisfaction, and repose at Old-Park; if your bog prove as comfortable as my oven, I shall see no occasion to pity you; and only wish that you may brew no worse than I bake.

* The house in Southampton-Row, where Mr. Gray lodged, had been tenanted by Dr. Wharton; who, on account of his ill health, left London the year before; and was removed to his paternal estate at Old Park, near Durham.-Mason.