LETTER X *.

MR. GRAY TO MR. NICHOLLS.

IT is long since that I heard you were gone in haste

into Yorkshire on account of your mother's illness, and the same letter informed me that she was recovered, otherwise I had then wrote to you only to beg you would take care of her, and to inform you that I had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's whole life one can never have any more than a single mother. You may think this is obvious, and You are a green

(what you call) a trite observation.

gosling! I was at the same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet I never discovered this (with full evidence and conviction I mean) till it was too late. It is thirteen years ago, and seems but as yesterday, and every day I live it sinks deeper into my heart. Many a

* This letter was written some years before, and would have been inserted after Letter LIII. of the fourth Section, if received in time.

+ He seldom mentioned his Mother without a sigh. After his death her gowns and wearing apparel were found in a trunk in his apartments just as she had left them; it seemed as if he could never take the resolution to open it, in order to distribute them to his female relations, to whom, by his will, he bequeathed them.

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corollary could I draw from this axiom for your use, (not for my own) but I will leave you the merit of doing it for yourself. Pray tell me how your health is: I conclude it perfect, as I hear you offered yourself as a guide to Mr. Palgrave into the Sierra-Morena of Yorkshire. For me, I passed the end of May and all June in Kent, not disagreeably. In the west part of it, from every eminence, the eye catches some long reach of the Thames or Medway, with all their shipping: in the east the sea breaks in upon you, and mixes its white transient sails and glittering blue expanse with the deeper and brighter greens of the woods and corn. This sentence is so fine I am quite ashamed; but no matter! You must translate it into prose. Palgrave, if he heard it, would cover his face with his pudding sleeve. I do not tell you of the great and small beasts, and creeping things innumerable, that I met with, because you do not suspect that this world is inhabited by any thing but men, and women, and clergy, and such two-legged cattle. Now I am here again very disconsolate, and all alone, for Mr. Brown is gone, and the cares of this world are coming thick upon me: you, I hope, are better off, riding and walking in the woods of Studley, &c. &c. I must not wish for you here; besides I am going to Town at Michaelmas, by no means for amusement.

LETTER XI.

MR. GRAY TO MR. NICHOLLS.

Pembroke-Hall, Jan. 26, 1771.

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Rejoice you have met with Froissart, he is the Herodotus of a barbarous age; had he but had the luck of writing in as good a language, he might have been immortal! His locomotive disposition, (for then there was no other way of learning things) his simple curiosity, his religious credulity were much like those of the old Grecian *. When you have tant chevauché, as to get to the end of him, there is Monstrelet waits to take you up, and will set you down at Philip de Comines; but previous to all these, you should have read Villehardouin and Joinville. I do not think myself bound to defend the character of even the best of Kings +: pray slash them all and spare not.

It would be strange too if I should blame your Greek studies, or find fault with you for reading Isocrates; I

* See more of his opinion of this author, Section iv. Let. xxxvi. I suppose his correspondent had made some strictures on the character of Henry IV. of France. See Section iv. Letter xxii.

did so myself twenty years ago, and in an edition at least as bad as yours. The Panegyric, the de Pace, Areopagitic, and Advice to Philip, are by far the noblest remains we have of this writer, and equal to most things extant in the Greek tongue; but it depends on your judgment to distinguish between his real and occasional opinion of things, as he directly contradicts in one place what he has advanced in another: for example, in the Panathenaic, and the de Pace, &c. on the naval power of Athens; the latter of the two is undoubtedly his own undisguised sentiment.

I would by all means wish you to comply with your friend's request, and write the letter he desires. I trust to the cause and to the warmth of your own kindness for inspiration. Write eloquently, that is from your heart, in such expressions as that will furnish*. Men sometimes catch that feeling from a stranger which should have originally sprung from their own heart.

* This short sentence contains a complete definition of natural eloquence; when it becomes an art it requires one more prolix, and our Author seems to have begun to sketch it on a detached paper. "Its province (says he) is to reign over minds of slow per"ception and little imagination, to set things in lights they never

saw them in; to engage their attention by details and circum"stances gradually unfolded, to adorn and heighten them with "images and colours unknown to them, and to raise and engage "their rude passions to the point to which the speaker wishes to "bring them."***

LETTER XII.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

May 24, 1771.

My last summer's tour was through Worcestershire,

Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire, five of the most beautiful counties in the kingdom. The very principal light and capital feature

of

my journey was the river Wye, which I descended in a boat for near forty miles from Ross to Chepstow. Its banks are a succession of nameless beauties; one out of many you may see not ill described by Mr. Whately, in his Observations on Gardening, under the name of the New-Weir: he has also touched upon two others, Tinterne Abbey and Persfield, both of them famous scenes, and both on the Wye. Monmouth, a town I never heard mentioned, lies on the same river, in a vale that is the delight of my eyes, and the very seat of pleasure. The vale of Abergavenny, Ragland, and Chepstow castles; Ludlow, Malvern-hills, Hamptoncourt, near Lemster; the Leasows, Hagley, the three cities and their cathedrals; and lastly Oxford (where I passed two days on my return with great satisfaction) were the rest of my acquisitions, and no bad harvest in