care for the expense; but surely you can borrow them in the University, and, though you may no more than I, delight in the scientific, there is so much about cathedral service, and choirs, and other old matters, that I am sure you will be amused with a great deal, particularly the two last volumes, and the fac-similes of old music in the first. I doubt it is a work that will not sell rapidly, but it must have a place in all great libraries. TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Arlington Street, Feb. 20, 1777. DEAR SIR, 2 You are always my oracle in any antique difficulties. I have bought at Mr. Ives's1 sale (immensely dear) the shutters of the altar at Edmondsbury: Mr. Ives had them from Tom Martin, who married Peter Leneve's widow; so you see no shutters can be better descended on the mother's side. Next to high birth, personal merit is something: in that respect, my shutters are far from defective: on the contrary, the figures in the inside are so very good, as to amaze me who could paint them here in the reign of Henry VI; they are worthy of the Bolognese school-but they have suffered in several places, though not considerably. Bowes is to repair them, under oath of only filling up the cracks, and restoring the peelings off, but without repainting or varnishing. The possession of these boards, invaluable to me, was essential. They authenticate the sagacity of my guesses, a talent in an antiquary coequal with prophecy in a saint. On the outside is an archbishop, unchristened by the late possessors, but evidently Archbishop Kempe, or the same person with the prelate in my Marriage of Henry VI,—and you will allow from the collateral evidence that it must be Kempe, John Ives the antiquary, author of " Remarks upon the Garianonum of the Romans; the Site and Remains fixed and described."-E. 2 Tom Martin, of Palgrave, the well-known antiquary, whose "History of Thetford was published in 1779, by Gough, who has prefixed to it a Biographical Sketch of the Author.-E. as I have so certainly discovered another person in my picture. The other outside is a cardinal, called by Mr. Ives, Babington; but I believe Cardinal Beaufort, for the lion of England stands by him, which a bastardly prince of the blood was more likely to assume than a true one. His face is not very like, nor very unlike, the face in my picture; but this is shaven.-But now comes the great point. On the inside is Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, kneeling — not only as exactly resembling mine as possible, but with the same almost bald head, and the precisely same furred robe. An apostle-like personage stands behind him, holding a golden chalice, as his royal highness's offering, and, which is remarkable, the duke's velvet cap of state, with his coronet of strawberry-leaves. I used to say, to corroborate my hypothesis, that the skull of Duke Humphrey at St. Alban's was very like the form of head in my picture, which argument diverted the late Lord Holland extremely — but I trust now that nobody will dispute any longer my perfect acquaintance with all Dukes of Gloucester. By the way, did I ever tell you that when I published my Historic Doubts on Richard III, my niece's marriage not being then acknowledged, George Selwyn said, he did not think I should have doubted about the Duke of Gloucester? On the inside of the other shutter is a man unknown: he is in a stable, as Joseph might be, but over him hangs a shield of arms, that are neither Joseph's nor Mary's. The colours are either black and white, or so changed as not to be distinguishable. **** I conclude the person who is in red and white was the donor of the altar-piece, or benefactor; and what I want of you is to discover him and his arms; and to tell me whether Duke Humphrey, Beaufort, Kempe, and Babington, were connected with St. Edmondsbury, or whether this unknown person was not a retainer of Duke Humphrey, at least of the royal family. At the same sale I bought a curious pair, that I conclude came from Blickling, with Hobart impaling Boleyn, from which latter family the former enjoyed that seat. How does this third winter of the season agree with you? The wind to-day is sharper than a razor, and blows icicles into one's eyes. I was confined for seven weeks with the gout, yet am so well recovered as to have been abroad to-day, though it is as mild under the pole. Pray can you tell me the title of the book that Mr. Ives dedicated to me? I never saw it, for he was so odd (I cannot call it modest, lest I should seem not so myself) as never to send it to me, and I never could get it. Yours truly. TO THE REV. MR. COLE. February 27, 1777. You see, dear Sir, that we thought on each other just at the same moment; but, as usual, you was thinking of obliging me, and I, of giving you trouble. You have fully satisfied me of the connexion between the Lancastrian Princes and St. Edmondsbury. Edmondson, I conclude, will be able to find out the proprietor of the arms, impaling Walrond. I am well acquainted with Sir A. Weldon and the Aulicus Coquinanæ, and will return them with Mr. Ives's tracts, which I intend to buy at the sale of his books. Tell me how I may convey them to you most safely. You say, "Till I show an inclination to borrow more of your MSS." I hope you do not think my appetite for that loan is in the least diminished. I should at all minutes, and ever, be glad to peruse them all but I was not sure you wished to lend them to me, though you deny me nothing—and my own fear of their coming to any mischance made me very modest about asking for them- but now, whenever you can send 'Sir Anthony Weldon was the author of "The Court and Character of King James; written and taken by Sir A. W., being an eye and ear witness." London, 1650. A work which has been pronounced, by competent authority, a despicable tissue of filth and obscenity, of falsehood and malignity."-E. 66 2 "Aulicus Coquinanæ ; or, an Answer to the Court and Character of King James." London, 1650. This work has been ascribed to William Sanderson, and to Dr. Heylin; and is, as well as Weldon's, reprinted in the "Secret History of the Court of King James." Edinburgh, 1811. -E. me any of them with perfect security, I eagerly and impudently ask to see them: you cannot oblige me more, I assure you. I am sorry Dr. E** n is got into such a dirty scrape. There is scarce any decent medium observed at present between wasting fortunes and fabricating them—and both by any disreputable manner: for, as to saving money by prudent economy, the method is too slow in proportion to consumptions even forgery, alas !1 seems to be the counterpart or restorative of the ruin by gaming. I hope at least that robbery on the highway will go out of fashion as too piddling a profession for gentlemen. : I enclose a card for your friends, but must advertise them that March is in every respect a wrong month for seeing Strawberry. It not only wants its leaves and beauty then, but most of the small pictures and curiosities, which are taken down and packed up in winter, are not restored to their places till the weather is fine and I am more there. Unless they are confined in time, your friends had much better wait till May-but, however, they will be very welcome to go when they please. I am more personally interested in hoping to see you there this summer you must visit my new tower. Diminutive as it is, it adds much to the antique air of the whole in both fronts. You know I shall sympathize with your gout, and you are always master your own hours. of TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Arlington Street, May 22, 1777. It is not owing to forgetfulness, negligence, or idleness -to none of which I am subject, that you have not heard from me since I saw you, dear Sir, but to my miserable occupation with my poor nephew, who engrosses my whole attention, and will, I doubt, destroy my health, if he does 1 Alluding to Dr. Dodd; whose trial for forgery had taken place on the 22nd, at the Old Bailey.-E. not recover his. I have got him within fourteen miles of town with difficulty. He is rather worse than better, may recover in an instant, as he did last time, or remain in his present sullenness. I am far from expecting he should ever be perfectly in his senses; which, in my opinion, he scarce ever was. His intervals expose him to the worst people; his relapses overwhelm me. I I have put together some trifles I promised you, and will beg Mr. Lort to be the bearer when he goes to Cambridge, if I know of it. At present I have time for nothing I like. My age and inclination call for retirement: I envied your happy hermitage, and leisure to follow your inclination. have always lived post, and shall not die before I can bait -yet it is not my wish to be unemployed, could I but choose my occupations. I wish I could think of the pictures you mention, or had time to see Dr. Glynn and the master of Emmanuel. I doat on Cambridge, and could like to be often there. The beauty of King's College Chapel, now it is restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it; though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasures or rather pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, still books, antiquity, and virtù kept hold of a corner of my heart, and since necessity has forced me of late years to be a man of business, my disposition tends to be a recluse for what remains - but it will not be my lot and though there is some excuse for the young doing what they like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he ought, and I hope doing one's duty is the best preparation for death. Sitting with one's arms folded to think about it, is a very lazy way of preparing for it. If Charles V. had resolved to make some amends for his abominable ambition by doing good, his duty as a King, there would have been infinitely more merit than going to doze in a convent.1 One may avoid active guilt in a sequestered "The Spaniard, when the lust of sway Had lost its quickening spell, Cast crowns for rosaries away, |