may not forget it; for when you return, I intend to sing a song of thanksgiving, and praise the Lord with a cheerful noise of many-stringed instruments. Adieu! dear Sir, I am sincerely yours, T. G. b. S. London. Not forgetting my kiss-hands to Mr. Whithed.

M.. 1. [torn.]

VII.

MR. GRAY TO THE SAME.

MY DEAR SIR,

WHAT do you choose I should think of a whole year's silence; have you absolutely forgot me, or do you not reflect, that it is from yourself alone I can have any information concerning you. I do not find myself inclined to forget you, the same regard for your Person, the same desire of seeing you again I felt when we parted, still continues with me as fresh as ever; don't wonder then if in spite of appearances, I try to flatter myself with the hopes of finding sentiments something of the same kind, however, buried in some dark corner of your heart; and perhaps more than half extinguished by long absence and various cares of a different nature. I will not alarm your indolence with a long letter, my demands are only three, and may be answer'd in as many words,-how you do? where you are? and when you return? if

you choose to add any thing farther, it will be a work of supererI will not write so long a

word entire, least I fatigue your delicacy, and you may think it incumbent on you to answer it by another of equal dimensions. You believe me, I hope, with great sincerity, yours,

T. G.

P. S. For ought I know you may be in England. My very true compliments (not such as People make to one another) wait upon Mr. Whithed. He will be the most travelled Gentleman in Hampshire.

Oct. 25, Cambridge.

VIII. 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 groomporter, 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 keeping up the appearance, that persons of such dignity must do, so I thought proper to decline it, and excused myself as well as I could; however, as you see such an affair must take up a good deal of time, and it has always been the policy of this court to proceed slowly, like the Imperial, and that of Spain, in the dispatch of business; so that you will the easier forgive me, if I have not answered your letter before.

You desire to know, it seems, what character the Poem of your young friend* bears here. I wonder to hear you ask the opinion of a nation, where those who pretend to judge, don't judge at

* Pleasures of the Imagination: from the posthumous publication of Dr. Akenside's Poems, it should seem that the Author had very much the same opinion afterwards of his own Work, which Mr. Gray here expresses: since he undertook a reform of it which must have given him, had he concluded it, as much trouble as if he had written it entirely new.-) .-Mason. See Bucke's Life of Akenside, p. 29.-Ed.

all; and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them, that is, Dick's coffee-house, and the Rainbow; so that the readier way would be to ask Mrs. This and Mrs. T'other, that keeps the bar there. However to shew you I'm a judge, as well as my countrymen, though I have rather turned it over than read it, (but no matter: no more have they) it seems to me above the middleing, and now and then (but for a little while) rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure, and even unintelligible, and too much infected with the Hutcheson jargon; in short its great fault is that it was published at least nine years too early; and so methinks in a few words, à la mode du temple, I have very nearly dispatched what may perhaps for several years have employed a very ingenious man, worth fifty of myself. Here is a poem called the * Enthusiast, which is all pure description, and as they tell me by the same hand. Is it so or not? Item a more bulky one upon + Health, wrote by a physician: do you know him? Master Tommy Lucretius (since you are so good

* The Enthusiast, or the Lover of Nature, written in 1740, by Joseph Warton.--Ed.

The Art of preserving Health, a Didactic Poem, 8vo. by John Armstrong, 1744.-Ed.

Master Tommy Lucretius seems to be the Author's more familiar name for the Poem, 'De Principiis Cogitandi.' The Reader is requested to compare all the latter part of this Letter, with that, which is intended to repre

to enquire after the child) is but a puleing chitt yet, not a bit grown to speak of; I believe, poor thing! it has got the worms, that will carry it off at last. Oh Lord! I forgot to tell you, that Mr. Trollope and I are under a course of tar water, he for his present, and I for my future distempers; if you think it will kill me, send away a man and horse directly, for I drink like a fish. I should be glad to know how your goes on, and give you joy of it.

have a taste for I must tell you,

You are much in the right to Socrates, he was a divine man. by way of the news of the place, that the other day, Mr. Traigneau (entering upon his Professorship) made an apology for him an hour long in the schools, and all the world, except Trinity College, brought in Socrates guilty. Adieu, dear Sir, and believe me your Friend and Servant,

Cambridge, Thursday, April 26, 1746.

T. G.

sent it in Mason's Edition. The passage about Socrates is so altered by Mason, as to be but little short of perfect nonsense.-Ed.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT.