LETTER XXVIII.

MR. GRAY TO DR. CLARKE*.

Pembroke-Hall, Aug. 12, 1760.

NoT knowing whether you are yet returned from your sea-water, I write at random to you. For me, I am come to my resting-place, and find it very necessary, after living for a month in a house with three women that laughed from morning to night, and would allow nothing to the sulkiness of my disposition. Company and cards at home, parties by land and water abroad, and (what they call) doing something, that is, racketing about from morning to night, are occupations, I find, that wear out my spirits, especially in a situation where one might sit still, and be alone with pleasure; for the place was a hillt like Clifden, opening to a very extensive and diversified landscape, with the Thames, which is navigable, running at its foot.

I would wish to continue here (in a very differ ent scene, it must be confessed) till Michaelmas; but I fear I must come to town much sooner. Cambridge is a delight of a place, now there is nobody in it. I do believe you would like it, if you knew what it was without inhabitants. It is they, I assure you, that get it an ill name and spoil all. Our friend Dr.- (one of its nuisances) is not expected here again in an hurry. He is gone

*Physician at Epsom. With this gentlemau Mr. Gray com menced an early acquaintance at College.

+ Near Henley.

to his grave with five fine mackarel (large and full of roe) in his belly. He ate them all at one dinner; but his fare was a turbot on Trinity Sunday, of which he left little for the company besides bones. He had not been hearty all the week! but after this sixth fish he never held up his head more, and a violent looseness carried him off. They say he made a very good end.

Have you seen the Erse fragments since they were printed? I am more puzzled than ever about their antiquity, though I still incline (against every body's opinion) to believe them old. Those you have already seen are the best; though there are some others that are excellent too.

LETTER XXIX.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Pembroke-Hall, Aug. 26, 1766.

WHATEVER my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate no where oftener, or with more pleasure, than to Old-Park. I hope you have made my peace with the angry little lady. It is certain, whether her name were in my letter or not, she was as present to my memory as the rest of the whole family; and I desire you would present her with two kisses in my name, and one apiece to all the others; for I shall take the liberty to kiss them all (great and small), as you are to be my proxy.

In spite of the rain, which I think continued, with very short intervals, till the beginning of this

month, and quite effaced the summer from the year, I made a shift to pass May and June not disagreeably in Kent. I was surprised at the beauty of the road to Canterbury, which (I know not why) had not struck me before. The whole country is a rich and well-cultivated garden; orchards, cherrygrounds, hop-gardens, intermixed with corn and frequent villages; gentle risings covered with wood, and every where the Thames and Medway breaking in upon the landscape with all their navigation. It was indeed owing to the bad weather that the whole scene was dressed in that tender emerald green, which one usually sees only for a fortnight in the opening of the spring; and this continued till I left the country. My residence was eight miles east of Canterbury, in a little quiet valley on the skirts of Barham-Down*. In these parts the whole soil is chalk; and whenever it holds up, in half an hour it is dry enough to walk out. I took the opportunity of three or four days fine weather to go into the Isle of Thanet ; saw Margate (which is Bartholomew-fair by the sea-side), Ramsgate, and other places there; and so came by Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Folkstone, and Hithe, back again. The coast is not like Hartlepool; there are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height till you come to Dover; there indeed they are noble and picturesque, and the opposite coasts of France begin to bound your view, which was left before to range unlimited by any thing but the horizon; yet it is by no means a

* At Denton, where his friend the rev. William Robinson, brother to Matthew Robinson, esq. late member for Canterbury, then resided.

shipless sea, but every where peopled with white sails, and vessels of all sizes in motion: and take notice (except in the Isle, which is all corn-fields, and has very little inclosure) there are in all places hedge-rows, and tall trees even within a few yards of the beach. Particularly, Hithe stands on an eminence covered with wood. I shall confess we had fires at night (ay and at day too) several times in June; but do not go and take advantage in the north at this, for it was the most untoward year that ever I remember.

My compliments to Mrs. Wharton and all your family: I will not name them, lest I should affront any body.

LETTER XXX.

MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON.

March 28, 1767.

I BREAK in upon you at a moment, when we least of all are permitted to disturb our friends, only to say, that you are daily and hourly present to my thoughts. If the worst be not yet past, you will neglect and pardon me: but if the last struggle be over; if the poor object of your long anxieties be no longer sensible to your kindness, or to her own sufferings, allow me (at least in idea, for what could I do, were I present, more than this?) to sit by you in silence, and pity from my heart not her, who is at rest, but you, who lose her. May He, who made us, the Master of our pleasures

and of our pains, preserve and support you! Adieu.

I have long understood how little you had to

hope.

LETTER XXXI.

MR. GRAY TO MR. NICHOLLS

Jermyn-street, Aug. 3, 1768. THAT Mr. Brockett has broken his neck, by a fall from his horse, you will have seen in the newspapers and also, that I, your humble servant, have kissed the king's hand for his succession: they are both true, but the manner how you know not; only I can assure you that I had no hand at all in his fall, and almost as little in the second event. He died on the Sunday; on Wednesday following, his grace the duke of Grafton wrote me a very polite letter to say, that his majesty had commanded him to offer me the vacant professorshipt, not only as a reward of, &c. but as a credit to, &c. with much more, too high for me to transcribe: so on Thursday the king signed the warrant, and next day, at his levee, I kissed his hand; he made me several gracious speeches, which I shall not repeat, because every body that goes to court, does so; besides, the day was so hot, and

* Rector of Lounde and Bradwell, in Suffolk. His acquaintance with Mr. Gray commenced a few years before the date of this, when he was a student of Trinity-Hall, Cambridge.

+ Regius professor of modern history.