Ragout, Poulets en Hâchis, Poulets en Fricasées." Reading here, Reading there; nothing but books with different sauces. Do not let me lose my desert then; for though that be Reading too, yet it has a very different flavour. The May seems to be come since your invitation; and I propose to bask in her beams and dress me in her roses.

Et Caput in vernâ semper habere rosâ.*

I shall see Mr. ** and his Wife, nay, and his Child too, for he has got a Boy. Is it not odd to consider one's Cotemporaries in the grave light of Husband and Father? There is my Lords* * and * * *, they are Statesmen: Do not you remember them dirty boys playing at cricket? As for me, I am never a bit the older, nor the bigger, nor the wiser than I was then: No, not for having been beyond sea. are you?

Pray how

I send you an inscription for a wood joining to a park of mine; (it is on the confines of Mount Citharon, on the left hand as you go to Thebes) you know I am no friend to hunters, and hate to be disturbed by their noise.+

Here follows also the beginning of an Heroic Epistle; but you must give me leave to tell my own story first, because Historians differ. Massinissa was the son of Gala King of the Mas

* Propert. iii. 3. 44.

In the 12th Letter of the first Section, Mr. Gray says of his friend's translation of an Epigram of Posidippus, "Græcam illam άa mirificè sapit." The learned reader, I imagine, will readily give this tetrastic the same character.Mason.

Here followed the Greek Epigram, printed at the conclusion of the first volume.

syli; and, when very young at the head of his father's army, gave a most signal overthrow to Syphax, King of the Masasylians, then an ally of the Romans. Soon after Asdrubal, son of Gisgo the Carthaginian General, gave the beautiful Sophonisba, his daughter, in marriage to the young prince. But this marriage was not consummated on account of Massinissa's being obliged to hasten into Spain, there to command his father's troops, who were auxiliaries of the Carthaginians. Their affairs at this time began to be in a bad condition; and they thought it might be greatly for their interest, if they could bring over Syphax to themselves. This in time they actually effected; and to strengthen their new alliance, commanded Asdrubal to give his daughter to Syphax. (It is probable their ingratitude to Massinissa arose from the great change of affairs, which had happened among the Massylians during his absence; for his father and uncle were dead, and a distant relation of the royal family had usurped the throne.) Sophonisba was accordingly married to Syphax; and Massinissa, enraged at the affront, became a friend to the Romans. They drove the Carthaginians before them out of Spain, and carried the war into Africa, defeated Syphax, and took him prisoner; upon which Cirtha (his capital) opened her gates to Lælius and Massinissa. The rest of the affair, the marriage, and the sending of poison, every body knows, This is partly taken from Livy, and partly from Appian.

THE END OF THE THIRD SECTION.

SECTION THE FOURTH.

LETTER I.

B.

MR. GRAY TO MR. WHARTON.

MY DEAR WHARTON,

IT is a long time since I ought to have returned you my thanks for the pleasure of your letter, I should say, the prodigy of your letter, for such a thing has not happened above twice within the last age to mortal man, and no one here can conceive what it may portend. Mr. Trollope, I suppose, has told you how I was employed a part of the time; how, by my own indefatigable application for these ten years past, and by the care and vigilance of that worthy Magistrate the Man-in-Blew,* (who, I'll assure you, has not spared his labour, nor could have done more for his own son.) I am got half way to the Top+ of Jurisprudence, and bid as fair as

* Servant of the Vice-Chancellor's for the time being, usually known by the name of Blue-coat, whose business it is to attend Acts for Degrees.-Mason. It may perhaps hardly be necessary to say, that the word Blew is generally so spelt in in Mr. Gray's manuscript Letters.-Ed.

+ i. e. Batchelor of Civil Law.-Mason.

another body to open a case of impotency with all decency and circumspection; you see my ambition: I do not doubt, but some thirty years hence I shall convince the world, and you, that I am a very pretty young fellow, and may come to shine in a profession, perhaps the noblest in the world, next to man-midwifery. As for yours; if your distemper and you can but agree about going to London, I may reasonably expect, in a much shorter time, to see you in your three-cornered villa, doing the honours of a well-furnished table with as much dignity, as rich a mien, and as capacious a belly as Dr. Mead. Methinks I see Dr. Askew at the lower end of it, lost in admiration of your goodly person and parts, cramming down his envy (for it will rise) with the wing of a pheasant, and drowning it in neat Burgundy. But not to tempt your asthma too much with such a prospect, I should think you might be almost as happy as this, even in the country: but you know best; and I should be sorry to say any thing that might stop you in the career of glory. Far be it from me to hamper the wheels of your gilded chariot. Go on Sir Thomas; and when you die (for even physicians must die) may the faculty in Warwick Lane erect your statue in Sir John Cutler's own niche.

As to Cambridge it is, as it was, for all the world; and the people are, as they were, and Mr. Trollope, is as he was, that is, half-ill, half-well; I wish with all my heart they were all better, but what can one do? There is no news, only I think I heard a whisper, as if the Vice-Chancellor should be with child; (but I beg beg you not to mention this, for I may come into trouble about it;) there is some suspicion that the Professor of Mathematicks had a hand in the thing. Dr. Dickens says the University will be obliged to keep it, as it was got in Magistratu.

I was going to

tell you how sorry I am am for your illness. but, I hope, it is too late to be sorry now; I can only say. that I really was very sorry: may you live a hundred Christmases, and eat as many collars of brawn stuck with rosemary. Adieu.

I am sincerely yours,

T. GRAY.

Dec. 27, 1742, Cambridge.

Won't you come to the jubilee ? Dr. Long is to dance a saraband and hornpipe, of his own invention, without lifting either foot once from the ground.*

LETTER II.

MR. GRAY TO MR. WHARTON.

MY DEAR WHARTON,

THIS is only to entreat you would order mes gens to clean out the apartments, spread the carpets, air the beds, put up the tapestry, unpaper the frames, &c.; fit to receive a great potentate, who comes down in the flying coach, drawn by green dragons, on Friday, the 10th instant. As the ways

are bad, and the dragons a little out of repair, (for they don't actually fly, but only go, like a lame ostrich, something between a hop and a trot), it will probably be late when he lands, so he would not chuse to be known,and desires there may be

*If the Reader will be at the trouble to collate this Letter with Letter I. Sect. IV. of Mason's Edition, he will easily perceive the numerous verbal alterations, and transpositions introduced by the Editor of that volume. They are far too numerous and too important, to be only the effect of a negligent transcription.-Ed.