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This is only a beginning; I reckon next week we shall hear you a free-mason, or gormogon at least. Heigh-ho! I feel (as you to be sure have done long since) that I have very little to say, at least in prose. Somebody will be the better for it; I do not mean you, but your cat, feué Mademoiselle Selime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, as follows * **t. There's a

poem for you, it is rather too long for an epitaph.

LETTER XVIII.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Dec. 19, 1752.

HAVE you read Madame de Maintenon's Letters? They are undoubtedly genuine; they begin very early in her life, before she married Scarron, and continue after the king's death to within a little while of her own; they bear all the marks of a noble spirit (in her adversity particularly), of virtue, and unaffected devotion; insomuch, that I am almost persuaded she was actually married to Lewis the XIVth, and never his mistress; and this not out of any policy or ambition, but conscience: for she was what we should call a bigot, yet with great good sense: in short, she was too good for a court. Misfortunes in the beginning of her life had formed her mind (naturally lively and impatient) to reflection and a habit of piety. She was always miserable while she had the care of

*The reader need hardly be told, that the fourth Ode in the collection of his Poens was inserted in the place of these asterisks.

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Madame de Montespan's children; timid and very cautious of making use of that unlimited power she rose to afterwards, for fear of trespassing on the king's friendship for her; and after his death not at all afraid of meeting her own.

I do not know what to say to you with regard to Racine; it sounds to me as if any body should fall 'upon Shakspeare, who indeed lies infinitely more open to criticism of all kinds; but I should not care to be the person that undertook it. If you do not like Athaliah or Britannicus, there is no more to be said. I have done.

Bishop Hall's satires, called Virgidemiæ, are lately republished. They are full of spirit and poetry; as much of the first as Dr. Donne, and far more of the latter: they were written at the university when he was about twenty-three years old, and in queen Elizabeth's time.

You do not say whether you have read the Crito*. I only recommend the dramatic part of the Phædo to you, not the argumentative. The subject of the Erastæ is good; it treats of that pecu liar character and turn of mind which belongs to a true philosopher, but it is shorter than one would wish. The Euthyphro I would not read at all.

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LETTER XIX.

MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON.

Durham, Dec. 26, 1753.

A LITTLE While before I received your melancholy letter, I had been informed by Mr. Charles Avison of one of the sad events you mention*. I know what it is to lose persons that one's eyes and heart have long been used to; and I never desire to part with the remembrance of that loss, nor would wish you should. It is something that you had a little time to acquaint yourself with the idea beforehand; and that your father suffered but little pain, the only thing that makes death terrible. After I have said this, I cannot help expressing my surprise at the disposition he has made of his affairs. I must (if you will suffer me to say so) call it great weakness; and yet perhaps your affliction for him is heightened by that very weakness; for I know it is impossible to feel an additional sorrow for the faults of those we have loved, even where that fault has been greatly injurious to ourselves.-Let me desire you not to expose yourself to any further danger in the midst of that scene of sickness and death; but withdraw as soon as possible to some place at a little distance in the country; for I do not, in the least, like the situation you are in. I do not attempt to console you on the situation

The death of Mr. Mason's father, and of Dr. Marmaduke Pricket, a young physician of his own age, with whom he was brought up from infancy, who died of the same infectious fever.

your fortune is left in; if it were far worse, the good opinion I have of you tells me, you will never the sooner do any thing mean or unworthy of yourself; and consequently I cannot pity you on this account; but I sincerely do on the new loss you have had of a good and friendly man, whose memory I honour. I have seen the scene you describe, and know how dreadful it is: I know too I am the better for it. We are all idle and thoughtless things, and have no sense, no use in the world any longer than that sad impression lasts; the deeper it is engraved the better.

LETTER XX.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Pembroke-Hall, March 25, 1756. THOUGH I had no reasonable excuse for myself before I received your last letter, yet since that time I have had a pretty good one, having been taken up in quarrelling with Peter-house*, and in

*The reason of Mr. Gray's changing his college, which is here only glanced at, was in few words this: Two or three young men of fortune, who lived in the same stair-case, had for some time intentionally disturbed him with their riots, and carried their ill behaviour so far as frequently to awaken him at midnight. After having borne with their insults longer than might reasonably have been expected even from a man of less warmth of temper, Mr. Gray complained to the governing part of the Society; and not thinking that his remonstrance was sufficiently attended to, quitted the college. The slight manner in which he mentions this affair, when writing to one of his most intimate friends, certainly does honour to the placability of his disposition.

removing myself from thence to Pembroke. This may be looked upon as a sort of æra in a life so barren of events as mine; yet I shall treat in Voltaire's manner, and only tell you that I left my lodgings because the rooms were noisy, and the people of the house uncivil. This is all I would choose to have said about it; but if you in private should be curious enough to enter into a particular detail of facts and minute circumstances, the bearer, who was witness to them, will probably satisfy you. All I shall say more is, that I am for the present extremely well lodged here, and as quiet as in the Grand Chartreuse; and that every body (even Dr. Long himself) are as civil as they could be to Mary of Valens* in person.

With regard to any advice I can give you about your being physician to the Hospital, I frankly own it ought to give way to a much better judge, especially so disinterested a one as Dr. Heberden. I love refusals no more than you do. But as to your fears of effluvia, I maintain that one sick rich patient has more of pestilence and putrefaction about him than a whole ward of sick poor.

The similitude between the Italian republics and those of ancient Greece has often struck me, as it does you. I do not wonder that Sully's Memoirs have highly entertained you; but cannot agree with you in thinking him or his master two of the best men in the world. The king was indeed one of the best-natured men that ever lived; but it is owing only to chance that his intended marriage with madame d'Estrées, or with

* Foundress of the college.

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