any papers he may have relating to Mr. Baker.1 It is a trumpery fellow, from whom one would rather receive a refusal than an obligation.

gout, and still more Such patience and As the bootikins

I am sorry to hear Mr. Lort has the concerned that you still suffer from it. temper as yours are the only palliatives. have so much abridged and softened my fits, I do not expect their return with the alarm and horror I used to do, and that is being cured of one half the complaints. I had scarce any pain last time, and did not keep my bed a day, and had no gout at all in either foot. May not I ask you if this is not some merit in the bootikins? prehensions is to connect the fits.

To have cured me of my apme a vast deal, for now the intervals do not You will understand, that I mean to speak a word to you in favour of the bootikins, for can one feel benefit, and not wish to impart it to a suffering friend? Indeed I am yours most sincerely.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Arlington Street, March 31, 1778.

I DID think it long, indeed, dear Sir, since I heard from you, and am very sorry the gout was the cause. I hope after such long persecution you will have less now than you apprehend. I should not have been silent myself, had I had anything to tell you that you would have cared to hear.

Politics have been the only language, and abuse the only expression of the winter, neither of which are, or deserve to be, inmates of your peaceable hermitage. I wish, however, they may not have grown so serious as to threaten every retreat with intrusion! I will let you know when I am settled at Strawberry-hill, and can look over your kind collections relating to Mr. Baker. He certainly deserves his place in the

1 The papers which Masters possessed he himself eventually published, in 1784, under the title of "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Baker, from the Papers of Dr. Zachary Grey: with a Catalogue of his Manuscript Collections. By R. Masters."-E.

Biographia, but I am not surprised that you would not submit to his being instituted and inducted by a Presbyterian. In truth, I, who have not the same zeal against dissenters, do not at all desire to peruse the History of their Apostles, which are generally very uninteresting.

You must excuse the shortness of this, in which, too, I have been interrupted: my nephew is as suddenly recovered as he did last time; and, though I am far from thinking him perfectly in his senses, a great deal of his disorder is removed, which, though it will save me a great deal of trouble, hurries me at present, and forces me to conclude.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry Hill, April 23, 1778.

I THANK you, dear Sir, for the notice of William Le Worcestre's1 appearance, and will send for my book as soon as I go to town, which will not be till next week. I have been here since Friday as much a hermit as yourself. I wanted air and quiet, having been much fatigued on my nephew's amendment, trying to dissuade him from making the campaign with his militia; but in vain! I now dread hearing of some eccentric freak. I am sorry Mr. Tyson has quite dropped me, though he sometimes comes to town. I am still more concerned at your frequent disorders-I hope their chief seat is unwillingness to move.

Your Bakeriana will be very welcome about June: I shall not be completely resident here till then, at least not have leisure, as May is the month I have most visits from town. As few spare hours as I have, I have contrived to go through Mr. Pennant's Welsh Tour, and Warton's second volume;2 both which come within the circle of your pursuits. I have far advanced, too, in Lord Hardwicke's first volume of State

"Itineraria Symonis, Simeonis, et Willelmi de Worcestre." Cantab. 1778, 8vo.; edited by Dr. James Nasmith, who published the excellent Catalogue of MSS. which Archbishop Parker left to Corpus Christi College, at Cambridge.-E.

2 Thomas Warton's " History of English Poetry."-E.

Papers. I have yet found nothing that appears a new scene, or sets the old in a new light; yet they are rather amusing, though not in proportion to the bulk of the volumes. One likes to hear actors speak for themselves; but, on the other hand, they use a great many more words than are necessary: and when one knows the events from history, it is a little tiresome to go back to the details and the delays.

I should be glad to employ Mr. Essex on my offices, but the impending war with France deters me. It is not a season for expense! I could like to leave my little castle complete ; but, though I am only a spectator, I cannot be indifferent to the aspect of the times, as the country gentleman was, who was going out with his hounds as the two armies at Edge-hill were going to engage. I wish for peace and tranquillity, and should be glad to pass my remaining hours in the idle and retired amusements I love, and without any solicitude for my country. Adieu !

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Arlington Street, May 21, 1778.

I WILL not flatter you: I was not in the least amused with either Simon, Simeon, or William of Wyrcestre. If there was anything tolerable in either, it was the part omitted, or the part I did not read, which was the Journey to Jerusalem, about which I have not the smallest curiosity. I thank you for mentioning the Gentleman's Magazine, which I sent for.

Mr. Essex has called upon me, and left me the drawing of a bridge, with which I am perfectly pleased - but I was unluckily out of town; he left no direction, and I know not where to seek him in this overgrown bottle of hay. I still hope he will call again before his return.

May not I, should not I, wish you joy on the restoration of popery ?2 I expect soon to see Capuchins tramping about,

1 Miscellaneous State Papers, from 1501 to 1726, published by the Earl of Hardwicke, in two volumes 4to.-E.

? Walpole alludes to the bill for the Relief of the Roman Catholics,

and Jesuits in high places. We are relapsing fast to our pristine state, and have nothing but our island, and our old religion.

Mr. Nasmith's publication directed me to the MSS. in Bene't Library, which I did not know was printed. I found two or three from which I should be glad to have transcripts, and would willingly pay for; but I left the book at Strawberry, and must trouble you another time with that commission.

The city wants to bury Lord Chatham' in St. Paul's; which, as a person said to me this morning, would literally be " robbing Peter to pay Paul." I wish it could be so, that there might be some decoration in that nudity, en attendant the re-establishment of various altars.

It is not my design to purchase the new edition of the Biographia; I trust they will give the old purchasers the additions as a supplement. I had corrected the errata of the press throughout my copy, but I could not take the trouble of transcribing them, nor could lend them the originals, as I am apt to scribble notes in the margins of all my books that interest me at all. Pray let me know if Baker's Life is among the additions, and whether you are satisfied with it, as there could not be events enough in his retired life to justify two accounts of it.

There are no new old news, and you care for nothing within the memory of man. I am always intending to draw up an account of my intercourse with Chatterton, which I take very kindly you remind me of, but some avocation or other has still prevented it. My perfect innocence of having indirectly been an ingredient in his dismal fate, which happened two years after our correspondence, and after he had exhausted both his resources and his constitution, have

which released their priests from prosecution, and allowed members of that religion to purchase lands and take them by descent. It passed both Houses without opposition.-E.

The Earl of Chatham died on the 10th of May 1778. His remains were honoured with a public funeral in Westminster Abbey, his debts were paid by the nation, and an annuity of four thousand pounds settled upon the earldom of Chatham.-E.

made it more easy to prove that I never saw him, knew nothing of his ever being in London, and was the first person, instead of the last, on whom he had practised his impositions, and founded his chimeric hopes of promotion. My very first, or at least second letter, undeceived him in those views, and our correspondence was broken off before he quitted his master's business at Bristol-so that his disappointment with me was but his first ill success; and he resented my incredulity so much, that he never condescended to let me see him. Indeed, what I have said now to you, and which cannot be controverted by a shadow of a doubt, would be sufficient vindication. I could only add to the proofs, a vain regret of never having known his distresses, which his amazing genius would have tempted me to relieve, though I fear he had no other claim to compassion. Mr. Warton has said enough to open the eyes of every one who is not greatly prejudiced to his forgeries. Dr. Milles is one who will not make a bow to Dr. Percy for not being as wilfully blind as himself - but when he gets a beam in his eye that he takes for an antique truth, there is no persuading him to submit to be couched. Adieu!

TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.

[1778.2]

THE purport of Dr. Robertson's visit was to inquire where he could find materials for the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, which he means to write as a supplement to David Hume. I had heard of his purpose, but did not own I knew it, that my discouragement might seem the more natural. I do not care a straw what he writes about the

Walpole's correspondence with Chatterton took place in March and April 1769. The death of the young poet happened in August 1770, in consequence of a dose of arsenic, at his lodgings in Brook-street, Holborn.-E.

2 This letter, which is without date, was most probably written in April or May 1778; at which time Dr. Robertson was in London.-E.