does a dictionary) no ill effect upon your eye? Are you sure, if Coke had been printed by Elzevir, and bound in twenty neat pocket volumes, instead of one folio, you should never have taken him for an hour, as you would a Tully, or drank your tea over him? I know how great an obstacle ill spirits are to resolution. Do you really think, if you rid ten miles every morning, in a week's time you should not entertain much stronger hopes of the Chancellorship, and think it a much more probable thing than you do at present? The advantages you mention are not nothing; our inclinations are more than we imagine in our own power; reason and resolution determine them, and support under many difficulties. To me there hardly appears to be any medium between a public life and a private one; he who prefers the first, must put himself in a way of being serviceable to the rest of mankind, if he has a mind to be of any consequence among them: Nay, he must not refuse being in a certain degree even dependent upon some men who are so already. If he has the good fortune to light on such as will make no ill use of his humility, there is no shame in this: If not, his ambition ought to give place to a reasonable pride, and he should apply to the cultivation of his own mind those abilities which he has not been permitted to use for others' service. Such a private happiness (supposing a small competence of fortune) is almost always in every one's power, and the proper enjoyment of age, as the other is the employment of youth. You are yet young, have some advantages and opportunities, and an undoubted capacity, which you have never yet put to the trial. Set apart a few hours, see how the first year will agree with you, at the end of it you are still the master; if you change your mind, you will only have got the knowledge of a little somewhat that can do no hurt, or give you cause of repentance. If your inclination be not fixed upon any thing else, it is a symptom that you are not absolutely determined

against this, and warns you not to mistake mere indolence for inability. I am sensible there is nothing stronger against what I would persuade you to, than my own practice; which may make you imagine I think not as I speak. Alas! it is not so; but I do not act what I think, and I had rather be the object of your pity, than you should be that of mine; and, be assured, the advantage that I may receive from it, does not diminish my concern in hearing you want somebody to converse with freely, whose advice might be of more weight, and always at hand. We have some time since come to the southern period of our voyages; we spent about nine days at Naples. It is the largest and most populous city, as its environs are the most deliciously fertile country, of all Italy. We sailed in the bay of Baix, sweated in the Solfatara, and died in the grotto del Cane, as all strangers do; saw the Corpus Christi procession, and the King and the Queen, and the city underground, (which is a wonder I reserve to tell you of another time) and so returned to Rome for another fortnight; left it (left Rome!) and came hither for the summer. You have seen * an Epistle to Mr. Ashton that seems to me full of spirit and thought, and a good deal of poetic fire. I would know your opinion. Now I talk of of verses, Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spenser, published last year by a + namesake of yours, with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed.

* The reader will find this in Dodsley's Miscellany, and also amongst Mr. Walpole's Fugitive Pieces.-Mason.

+ Gilbert West, Esq. This poem "On the Abuse of Travelling" is also in Dodsley's Miscellany.-Mason.

LETTER XXVIII.

MR. WALPOLE AND MR. GRAY TO MR. WEST.

Florence, July 31, 1740. N. S.

DEAR WEST,

Į HAVE advised with the most notable antiquarians of this city, on the meaning of Thur gut Luetis; I can get no satisfactory interpretation. In my own opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love offering conjectures on a language in which I have hitherto made little proficiency, but I will trust you with my explication. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of Cadwalladhor, was renowned for her conjugal virtues, and grief on the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her Lord, and that the inscription, Thur gut Luetis, means no more than her dear Llewis, or Llewellin.

In return for your coins I send you two or three of different kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples; the device a horse; the motto, Equitas regni.' This curious pun is on a coin in the Great Duke's collection, and by great chance I have met with a second. Another is a satirical medal struck on Lewis XIV.; 'tis a bomb, covered with flower-de-luces, bursting; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last, and almost the only one I ever saw with a text well applied, is a German medal, with a rebellious town besieged and blocked up; the inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting.

Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on the taking Porto Bello? Admiral Vernon will shine in our medallic history. We have just received the news of the bombarding Carthagena, and the taking Chagre. We are in great expectation of some important victory obtained by the squadron under Sir John Norris: we are told the Duke is to be of the expedition; is it true? All the letters too talk of France's suddenly declaring war; I hope they will defer it for a season, or one shall be obliged to come through Germany. The Conclave still subsists, and the divisions still increase; it was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two Popes; they were on the dawn of a schism. Aldovrandi had thirtythree voices for three days, but could not procure the requisite two more; the Camerlingo having engaged his faction to sign a protestation against him, and each party were inclined to elect.

I don't know whether one should wish for a schism or not; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church in the powers of Europe, which has been so far decaying. On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the ladies P- and W- are to be joined by the lady MWM-—. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple alliance; we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear West.

Yours ever,

HOR. WALPOLE.

THOUGH far unworthy to enter into so learned and political a correspondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page de sept pouces et demie en hauteur, et cinq en largeur; and to inform you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of Tuscany; the latitude I cannot justly tell, but it is governed by a Prince called Great Duke; an excellent place to employ all one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself; the device is thus, O, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most concise manner to contain a full account of my person, sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here you shall get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast till three, dine till five, sleep till six, drink cooling liquors till eight, go to the bridge till ten, sup till two, and so sleep till twelve again.

Labore fessi venimus ad larem nostrum

Desideratoque acquiescimus leeto:

Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laboribus tantis.

O quid solutis est beatius curis ? *

We shall never come home again; a universal war is just upon the point of breaking out; all outlets will be shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, while you that will be so absurd as to exist, will envy me. You don't tell me what proficiency you make in the noble science of defence. Don't you start still at the sound of a gun? Have you learned to say Ha ha! and is your neck clothed with thunder? Are your whiskers of a tolerable length ? And have you got drunk yet with brandy and gunpowder? Adieu, noble Captain !

*See Catulli Carm. XXXI. v. 7. The order of the lines is somewhat transposed in the quotation in Gray's Letter.-Ed.

T. GRAY.