X.

He goes to Geneva. His mortal antipathy to a presbyterian, and the cure for it. Returns to Lyons; gets a surfeit with eating ortolans and lampreys; is advised to go into Italy for the benefit of the air.

XI.

Sets out the latter end of November to cross the Alps. He is devoured by a wolf; and how it is to be devoured by a wolf: the seventh day he comes to the foot of Mount Cenis. How he is wrap'd up in * bear-skins and beaver-skins; boots on his legs; caps on his head; muffs on his hands, and taffety over his eyes. He is placed on a bier, and is carried to heaven by the savages blindfold. How he lights among a certain fat nation called Clouds; how they are always in a sweat, and never speak, but they grunt; how they

In a Letter from Walpole to West, dated Turin, Nov. 11, 1737.—' So,' as the song says, we are in fair Italy!' I wonder we are, for on the highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the devil of Discord, in the similitude of sour wine, had got amongst our Alpine savages and set them a-fighting, with Gray and me in the chairs: they rushed him by me on a crag where there was scarce room for a cloven foot; the least slip had tumbled us into such a fog, and such an eternity, as we should never have found our way out of again. We were eight days in coming hither from Lyons, the four last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inlrabitants, my dear West, I hope I shall never see them again. At the foot of Mount Cenis we were obliged to quit our chaise, which was taken all to pieces and loaded on mules; and we were carried in low arm-chairs, on poles, swathed in beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and bear-skins. When we came to the top beheld the snows fallen; and such quantities, and conducted by such heavy clouds that hung glouting, that I thought we never could have waded through them. The descent is two leagues, but steep, and rough as O- father's face, over which, you know, the devil walked, with hob-nails in his shoes.'-Walpole's Works, Vol. IV. p. 431.

The simile in the last sentence of this note, belongs to the "Marcellus of our tongue," as he has been somewhat singularly called by Dryden." I believe the Devil travels over it in his sleep with hob-nails in his shoes." See Oldham's Character. Vol. II. p. 327.-Ed.

flock about him, and think him very odd for not doing so too. He falls plump into Italy..

XII.

Arrives at Turin: goes to Genoa, and from thence to Placentia; crosses the river Tribia. The ghost of Hannibal appears to him, and what it and he say upon the occasion. Locked out of Parma on a cold winter's night; the Author, by an ingenious stratagem, gains admittance. Despises that city, and proceeds through Reggio to Modena. How the Duke and Dutchess lie over their own stables, and go every night to a vile Italian comedy; despises them and it, and proceeds to Bologna.

XIII.

Meets the

Enters into the dominions of the Pope o'Rome. devil, and what he says on the occasion. Very publick and scandalous doings between the vine and the elm trees, and how the olive trees are shocked thereupon. Author longs for Bologna sausages and hams, and how he grows as fat as an hog.

XIV.

Observations on antiquities. The Author proves that Bologna was the ancient Tarentum; that the battle of Salamis, contrary to the vulgar opinion, was fought by land, and that not far from Ravenna; that the Romans were a colony of the Jews; and that Eneas was the same with Ehud.

XV.

Arrival at Florence. Is of opinion that the Venus of Medicis is a modern performance, and that a very indifferent one, and much

inferior to the K. Charles at Charing-cross. Account of the city and manners of the inhabitants. A learned Dissertation on the

true situation of Gomorrah.

And here will end the first part of these instructive and entertaining voyages. The Subscribers are to pay twenty guineas, nineteen down, and the remainder upon delivery of the book. N. B. A few are printed on the softest royal brown paper, for the use of the curious.

is

MY DEAR, DEAR WHARTON,*

(WHICH is a dear more than I give any body else. It very odd to begin with a parenthesis, but) You may think me a beast not haveing sooner wrote to you, and to be sure a beast I am. Now, when one owns it, I don't see what you have left to say. I take this opportunity to inform you (an opportunity I have had every week this twelvemonth) that I am arrived safe at Calais, and am at present at-Florence, a city in Italy, in I don't know how many degrees of N. latitude. Under the line I am sure it is not, for I am at this instant expiring with cold. You must know, that not being certain what circumstances of my history would particularly suit your curiosity, and knowing that all I had to say to you would overflow the narrow limits of many a good quire of paper, I have taken

* Of Old-Park, near Durham. With this gentleman Mr. Gray contracted an acquaintance very early; and though they were not educated together at Eton, yet afterwards at Cambridge, when the Doctor was Fellow of Pembroke Hall, they became intimate friends, and continued so to the time of Mr. Gray's death.Mason.

this method of laying before you the contents, that you may pitch upon what you please, and give me your orders accordingly to expatiate thereupon: for I conclude you will write to me: won't you? oh! yes, when you know that in a week I set out for Rome, and that the Pope is dead, and that I shall be (I should say, God willing; and if nothing extraordinary intervene; and if I am alive and well; and in all human probability) at the coronation of a new one. Now, as you have no other correspondent there, and as if you do not, I certainly shall not write again. (Observe my impudence.) I take it to be your interest to send me a vast letter, full of all sorts of news and politics, and such other ingredients, as to you shall seem convenient with all decent expedition, only do not be too severe upon the Pretender; and if you like my style, pray say So. This is à la Françoise; and if you think it a little too foolish, and impertinent, you shall be treated alla Toscana with a thousand Signoria Illustrissimas, in the mean time I have the honour to remain

Your lofing frind, tell deth,

T. GRAY.

Florence, March 12, N. S. 1740.

P.S. This is à l'Angloise. I don't know where you are; if at Cambridge pray let me know all, how, and about it and if my old friends, Thomson or Clarke, fall in your way, say I am extremely theirs. But if you are in town, I entreat you to make my best compliments to Mrs. Wharton. Adieu.

Yours, sincerely, a second time,

LETTER XVIII.

MR. GRAY TO HIS MOTHER.

Florence, March 19, 1740.

*

THE Pope is at last dead, and we are to set out for Rome on Monday next. The conclave is still sitting there, and likely to continue so some time longer, as the two French Cardinals are but just arrived, and the German ones are still expected. It agrees mighty ill with those that remain inclosed: Ottoboni is already dead of an apoplexy; Altieri and several others are said to be dying, or very bad: Yet it is not expected to break up till after Easter. till after Easter. We shall lie at Sienna the first night, spend a day there, and in two more get to Rome. One begins to see in this country the first promises of an Italian spring, clear unclouded skies, and warm suns, such as are not often felt in England; yet, for your sake, I hope at present you have your proportion of them, and that all your frosts, and snows, and short breaths are, by this time, utterly vanished. I have nothing new or particular to inform you of; and, if you see things at home go on much in their old course, you must not imagine them more various abroad. The diversions of a Florentine Lent are composed of a sermon in the morning, full of hell and the devil; a dinner at noon, full of fish and meagre diet; and, in the evening, what is called a Conversazione, a sort of assembly at the principal people's houses, full of I cannot tell what: Besides this, there is twice a week a very grand

concert.

* Clement the Twelfth.