in upon the sands) first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue; and all at once a little line of insufferable brightness that (before I can write these five words) was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen.* It is very odd it makes no figure on paper; yet I shall remember it as long as the sun, or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether any body ever saw it before? I hardly believe it.

This puts me in mind of a similar description written by Dr. Jeremy Taylor, which I shall here beg leave to present to the reader, who will find by it that the old Divine had occasionally as much power of description as even our modern Poet. "As when the sun approaches towards the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness; gives light to the cock, and calls up the lark to mattins; and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns *** ; and still (while a man tells the story) the sun gets up higher till he shews a fair face and a full light."-J. Taylor's Holy Dying, p. 17.

Mason.

Απειρων όντων τῳ πληθει των κατ' οὐρανον ἀτερων τοπαρ ̓ ἀντων συνερανιζομενον φως οὐκ ἐξαρκεί της νυκτος την κατηφειαν διαλῦσαι· μονος δε ούτος ὑπερφανεις του ὁρίζοντος, μαλλον δε ἐτι προσδοκώμενος, πριν και ὑπερσχειν όλως της γης, ήφανισε μεν το Σκοτος, ύπερηαυγασε δε τους αςερας, και πεπηγότα τεως και συμπεπιλωμενον τον περι γην αερα κατετηξε και διεχεεν.

St. Basil Hexaem. Hom. VI.-Whitaker, MS. note.

'CXXVII. MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.

Sunday, Dec. 30, 1764.

I HAVE received the Castle of Otranto,* and return you my thanks for it. It engages our attention here,† makes some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights. We take it for a translation, and should believe it to be a true story, if it were not for St. Nicholas.

When your pen was in your hand you might have been a little more communicative, for though disposed enough to believe the opposition rather consumptive, I am entirely ignorant of all the symptoms. Your canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction. He speaketh as one having authority. If Englishmen have any feeling left, methinks they must feel now; and if the Ministry have any feeling (whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must cut off the author's ears, for it is in all the forms a most wicked libel. Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it real? or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the materials, and another person employed them? This I guess; for there is an uncouthness of diction in the beginning which is not supported throughout, though it now and then occurs again,

* It was universally believed to be Mr. Gray's. See Walpole's Letters to Lord Hertford, p. 198.-Ed. + At Cambridge.

as if the writer* was weary of supporting the character he had assumed, when the subject had warmed him, beyond dissimulation.

Rousseau's Letters+ I am reading heavily, heavily! He justifies himself, till he convinces me that he deserved to be burnt, at least that his book did. I am not got through him, and you never will. Voltaire I detest, and have not seen his book: I shall in good time. You surprise me, when you talk of going in February. Pray, does all the minority go too? I hope you have a reason. perare de republica is a deadly sin in politics.

Des

Adieu! I will not take my leave of you; for (you perceive) this letter means to beg another, when you can spare a little.

CXXVIII. MR. GRAY TO MR. PALGRAVE.§

March, 1765.

My instructions, of which you are so desirous, are twofold: the first part relates to what is past,

* Mr. Gray may probably allude to a Pamphlet called "A Letter concerning Libels, Warrants, Seizure of Papers, and Security for the Peace or Behaviour, with a View to some late Proceedings, and the Defence of them by the Majority:"-supposed to have been written by William Greaves, esq. a Master in Chancery, under the inspection of the late Lord Camden.-Ed. of Walpole's Works.

+ The Lettres de la Montagne.

To Paris.

§ Mr. Gray's correspondent was now making the tour of France and Italy.—Mason.

and that will be rather diffuse: the second, to what is to come; and that we shall treat more succinctly, and with all due brevity.

First, when you come to Paris you will not fail to visit the cloister of the Chartreuse, where Le Sueur (in the history of St. Bruno) has almost equalled Raphael. Then your Gothic inclinations will naturally lead you to the Sainte Chapelle built by St. Louis: in the treasury is preserved one of the noblest gems of the Augustan age. When you take a trip into the country, there is a fine old chapel at Vincennes with admirable painted windows; and at Fontainbleau, the remains of Francis the First's magnificence might give you some pleasure. In your way to Lyons you will take notice of the view over the Saone, from about Tournus and Macon. Fail not to walk a few miles along the banks of the Rhone, down the river. I would certainly make a little journey to the Grande Chartreuse, up the mountains: at your return out of Italy this will have little effect. At Turin you will visit the Capuchins' convent just without the city, and the Superga at no great distance, for the sake of the views. At Genoa observe the Terreno of the Palace Brignoli, as a model of an apartment elegantly disposed in a hot climate. At Parma you will adore the great Madonna and St. Jerom, once at St. Antonio Abbate, but now (I am told) in the Ducal Palace. In the Madonna della Steccata observe the Moses break

ing the tables, a chiaroscuro figure of the Parmeggiano at too great a height, and ill-lighted, but immense. At the Capuchins, the great Pietá of Annib. Carracci; in the Villa Ducale, the room painted by Carlo Cignani; and the last works of Agostino Caracci at Modena.* I know not what

remains now, the flower of the collection is gone to Dresden. Bologna is too vast a subject for me

When our Author was himself in Italy, he studied with much attention the different manners of the old masters. I find a paper written at the time in which he has set down several subjects proper for painting, which he had never seen executed, and has affixed the names of different masters to each piece, to show which of their pencils he thought would have been most proper to treat it. As I doubt not that this paper will be an acceptable present to the Reynoldses and Wests of the age, I shall here insert it.

An Altar Piece.-Guido.

The top, a Heaven; in the middle, at a distance, the Padre-Eterno indistinctly seen, and lost, as it were, in glory. On either hand, Angels of all degrees in attitudes of adoration and wonder. A little lower, and next the eye, supported on the wings of Seraphs, Christ (the principal figure) with an air of calm and serene majesty, his hand extended, as commanding the elements to their several places near him an Angel of superior rank bearing the golden compasses (that Milton describes); beneath the Chaos, like a dark and turbulent ocean, only illumined by the Spirit, who is brooding over it.

A small Picture.-Correggio.

Eve newly created, admiring her own shadow in the lake. The famous Venus of this master, now in the possession of