throw a sort of voluntary gloom not only over your present, but future days, as if even your situation now were not preferable to that of thousands round you, and as if your prospect hereafter might not open as much of happiness to you as to any person you know. The condition of our life perpetually instructs us to be rather slow to hope, as well as to despair, and (I know you will forgive me, if I tell you) you are often a little too hasty in both, perhaps from constitution. It is sure, we have great power over our own minds, when we chuse to exert it; and though it be difficult to resist the mechanic impulse and bias of our own temper, it is yet possible; and still more so, to delay those resolutions it inclines us to take, while we almost always have cause to repent.

You tell me nothing of Mrs. Wharton's or your own state of health. I will not talk to you more on this subject, till I hear you are both well, for that is the grand point, and without it we may as well not think at all. You flatter me in thinking that any thing I can do* could at all alleviate the just concern your late loss has given you; but I cannot flatter myself so far, and know how little qualified I am at present to give any satisfaction to myself on this head, and in this way, much less to you. I by no means pretend to inspiration, but yet I affirm that the faculty in question is by no means voluntary. It is the result (I suppose) of a certain disposition of mind, which does not depend on one's-self, and which I have not felt this long time. You that are a witness how seldom this spirit has moved me in my life, may easily give credit to what I say.

I am in hopes of seeing you very soon again in my way to Stoke. Mrs. Rogers has been very ill this Spring, and my

* Dr. Wharton had requested him to write an Epitaph on the Child.-Mason.

other aunt writes me word, that she herself has had something (which she takes for a paralytic stroke) which came as she walked in the garden, and is afraid she shall lose the use of one leg; so that it looks to me, as if I should have perhaps some years to pass in a house with two poor bed-ridden women, a melancholy object, and one that in common humanity 1 cannot avoid. I shall be glad to know whether I can be in Gloucester Street for a week, ten or twelve days hence.

I had wrote to you sooner, but that I have been on a little expedition lately to see Ely, Peterborough, Crowland-Abbey, Thorney, Fotheringay, and many other old places, which has amused me a little.

Poor Mason is all alone at Aston (for his Curate is gone to be Tutor to somebody) with an inflammation in his eyes, and he could scarce see to write me a few lines. Adieu, dear Sir, I am ever yours,

June 18, 1758.

T. G..

LETTER LXXIV.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Stoke, Aug. 9, 1758.

DEAR DOCTOR,

I HAVE been, since I saw you in town, pretty much on the wing, at Hampton, Twickenham, and elsewhere. I staid at the first of these places with the Cobhams two days, and should (I own) gladly have done so longer, but for the reason we talked about. The place, spite of the weather, is delightful: every little gleam of sunshine, every accident of light, opens some new beauty in the view, and I never saw in so small a spot so much variety and so many natural advantages, nor ever hardly wished more for your company to partake of them. We were also at Hampton-Court, Sion, and several places in the neighbourhood again, particularly at Lord Lincoln's, who (I think) is hurting his view, by two plantations in front of his terrace, that regularly answer one another, and are of an oval form, with rustic buildings in the middle of them, a farm, dairies, &c. They stand on the opposite side of the water, and (as they prosper) will join their shade to that of the hills in the horizon, exclude all the intermediate scene of enclosures, meadows, and cattle feeding, and reduce that great distance to nothing. This seems to be the advice of some new gardener, or director of my Lord's taste; his successor perhaps may cut all down again.

I shall beg the favour of you (as you were so kind to offer it) to buy us a Lottery-Ticket, if you find the market will not be much lower than at present, and (if you think it has no great hazard in it) enclose it to me here. I will take care to repay you as soon as I come to town, or (if you chuse it). directly. My best respects to Mrs. Wharton. Pray let me hear soon, how you both are. Believe me,

Ever yours,

LETTER LXXV.

T. G.

MR. GRAY TO MR. STONEHEWER.

Cambridge, Aug. 18, 1758.

I AM as sorry as you seem to be, that our acquaint-ance harped so much on the subject of materialism, when I saw him with you in town, because it was plain to which side of the long-debated question he inclined. That we are indeed mechanical and dependent beings, I need no other proof than my own feelings; and from the same feelings I learn, with equal conviction that we are not merely such: that there is a power within that struggles against the force and bias of that mechanism, commands its motion, and, by frequent practice, reduces it to that ready obedience which we call Habit; and all this in conformity to a preconceived opinion (no matter whether right or wrong) to that least material of all agents, a Thought.

I have known many in his case who, while they thought they were conquering an old prejudice, did not perceive they were under the influence of one far more dangerous; one that furnishes us with a ready apology for all our worst actions, and opens to us a full licence for doing whatever we please; and yet these very people were not at all the more indulgent to other men (as they naturally should have been); their indignation to such as offended them, their desire of revenge on any body that hurt them was nothing mitigated: in short, the truth is, they wished to be persuaded of that opinion for the sake of its convenience, but were not so in their heart; and they would have been glad (as they ought in common prudence) that nobody else should think the same, for fear of the mischief that might ensue to themselves. His French Author I never saw, but have read fifty in the same strain, and shall read no more. I can be wretched enough without them. They put me in mind of the Greek Sophist that got immortal honour by discoursing so feelingly on the miseries of our condition, that fifty of his audience went home and hanged themselves; yet he lived himself (I suppose) many years after in very good plight.

You say you cannot conceive how Lord Shaftesbury came to be a Philosopher in vogue; I will tell you: First, he was a Lord; 2dly, he was as vain as any of his readers; 3dly, men are very prone to believe what they do not understand; 4thly, they will believe any thing at all, provided they are under no obligation to believe it; 5thly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads no where; 6thly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and seemed always to mean more than he said. Would you have any more reasons? An interval of above forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A dead Lord ranks but with Commoners: Vanity is no longer interested in