the Author of it, that Restitutor d'Inghilterra, is doing God knows what! If he should design to follow the track of vulgar Ministers, and regain his power by ways injurious to his fame, whom can we trust hereafter! M. de Nivernois on his return to France says (I hear) of England, "Quel Roy, quel Peuple, quelle Societé! And so say I. Adieu, Sir, I am

Your most humble servant,

T. G.

LETTER CXIII.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

February 21, 1764.

DEAR DOCTOR,

IF the ill-news be true, which your last letter to Mr. Brown makes very probable, I am heartily sorry for the loss you have had of poor Mr. R. Wharton, as I am sure you cannot but feel it very sensibly in many respects.

I have indeed been very remiss in writing to you, nor can allege any other excuse for it but the lowness of spirits, which takes from me the power of doing every thing I ought; this is not altogether without cause, for ever since I went last to town, in the beginning of November, I have suffered a good

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deal from a complaint, which I often mentioned to you, and which is now almost constant. I have left off wine, eat less than common, have made use of the common applications in such cases, and am now taking soap; yet find no essential amendment in myself, so that I have but an uncomfortable prospect before me, even if things remain as they are, but I own what I apprehend is still worse.

Mason has passed three weeks here with me in his way to town. The general report was; that he was going to be inarried out of hand; but I find it was only a faint sort of tendency that way, that may, or may not come to something of maturity, just as the season of the year shall incline him. The best I can tell you of her is, that she is no fine lady, and the worst, that her fortune is not large. Now you know it might have been a fine lady with no money at all. He still talks of visiting Old-Park before he is tied down to his summer residence.

This silly dirty place has had all its thoughts taken up with choosing a new high steward, and had not Lord Hardwicke surprisingly and to the shame of the faculty, recovered by a quack medicine, I believe in my conscience the noble, Earl of Sandwich had been chosen, though (let me do them the justice to say) not without a considerable opposition. His principal Agents are Dr. Brook of St. John's, Mr. Brocket, and Dr. Long, whose old tory notions, that had long lain by neglected and forgotten, are brought out again and furbished for present use, though rusty and out of joint, like his own spheres and orreries. Their crests are much fallen, and countenances lengthened by the transactions of last week, for the ministry on Tuesday last (after sitting till near eight in the morning) carried a small. point by a majority of only 40, and on another previous

division by one of 10 only, and on Friday last (at five in the morning) there were 220 to 234, and by this the court only obtained to adjourn the debate for four months, and not to get any declaration in favour of their measures. If they hold their ground many weeks after this, I shall wonder; but the new reign has already produced many wonders. The other house, I hear, will soon take in hand a book lately published by some scoundrel lawyer on the Prerogative; in which is scraped together all the flattery and blasphemy of our old law books in honour of kings. I presume it is understood that the court will support the cause of this impudent scribbler. There is another impudent fellow of the same profession, but somewhat more conspicuous by his place (a friend of yours, with whom I supped at your house ten or eleven years ago) that has gained to himself the most general and universal detestation of any man perhaps in this age. I congratulate you on your acquaintance with him.

Mr. Brown is preparing your grafts, which are to be sent about a week hence, for that is the proper time; but as your parcels used to be carried to your brother's, we are afraid they may be neglected there in the present confusion. If you think so, you will direct him forthwith to whom he may address them. Pray tell me, when you are at leisure, all the transactions and improvements of Old-Park, that I may rectify and model my ideas accordingly. What has become of you in these inundations, that have drowned us all, and in this hot and unseasonable winter? present my respects to Mrs. Wharton, and my compliments to Miss. How do the little family do?

I am ever sincerely yours..

LETTER CXIV.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Cambridge, July 10, 1764.

DEAR DOCTOR,

I DO remember, and shall ever remember, as I ought, your extreme kindness in offering to be present, and to assist me in the perilous hour. When I received your letter I was pleased to find, I had done every thing almost that you advised. The fault lay in deferring matters too long.

Nine or ten strokes of the lancet, and the application of a caustic, with fomentations innumerable, I suffered manfully: indeed the pain in idea is much greater than in reality, and now I am glad I know it. It is certain, I am better at present, than I had been in at least a year before the operation. I should tell you, that for some days before I submitted to it, I had taken soap in large quantities, and for aught I know, the inflammation might be rather increased by it. Dr. Whytt (I remember) speaking of the use of lime-water and soap, says, that if the patient be subject to the piles, he must omit the latter. Towards the end of my confinement, during which (you may believe) I lived on nothing, came the gout in one foot, but so tame you might have stroked it*; such a minikin, you

1

* George Montagu said of our last earthquake," that it was so tame you' might have stroked it." Walpole's Letters, V. 491. I have mentioned several

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might have played with it; in three or four days it disappeared.

It was true, as Stonehewer told you, that I had a great tendency towards Old-Park and Hart-le-pool; but on prudent consideration I find I cannot well afford it, and must defer

that pleasure to another summer. The minikin and I act upon the same principles: she cannot be a river, nor I a traveller, without money. If we had but a head, we should, both of us, make a figure in the world.

Mason does not seem very impatient, for he writes word, that he is busy in modelling antiqué vases in clay; and in reading a course of ecclesiastical history, when I expected consummation, and was praying heaven to give him a good and gentle governess; no man wants such a thing more, in all senses; but his greatest wants do not make him move a foot the faster, nor has he, properly speaking, any thing one can call a passion about him, except a little malice and revenge.

Our election is in Westminster Hall; but it is not likely that any great matter can be done in it till Michaelmas Term next. In the mean time Lord Sandwich and his friends do what they can to keep up an interest and a bustle. Here is a poor scribbler that he hires to write a weekly paper called the Scrutator, who by abuse of characters does all in his power to provoke people; but cannot so much as get himself answered.

coincidences of thought and expression of this kind in the letters of Gray, and Walpole, which I conceived to be a kind of common property; the reader indeed will recognize much of that species of humour which distinguishes Gray's correspondence in the letters of Walpole, inferior, I think, in its comic force; sometimes deviating too far from propriety in search of subjects for the display of its talent, and not altogether free from affectation.-Ed.