three or four very high hills, almost as high as, and exactly in the shape of, a tansy pudding. You squeeze between these and a river, that is conducted at obtuse angles in a stone channel, and supplied by a pump; and when walnuts come in I suppose it will be navigable. In a corner enclosed by a chalk wall are the samples I mentioned: there is a stripe of grass, another of corn, and a third en friche, exactly in the order of beds in a nursery. They have translated Mr. Whately's book,' and the Lord knows what barbarism is going to be laid at our door. This new Anglomanie will literally be mad English.

New arrêts, new retrenchments, new misery, stalk forth every day. The Parliament of Besançon is dissolved; so are the grenadiers de France. The King's tradesmen are all bankrupt; no pensions are paid, and everybody is reforming their suppers and equipages. Despotism makes converts faster than ever Christianity did. Louis Quinze is the true rex Christianissimus, and has ten times more success than his dragooning great-grandfather. Adieu, my dear Sir! Yours most faithfully.

Friday, 9th.

This was to have gone by a private hand, but cannot depart till Monday; so I may be continuing my letter till I bring it myself. I have been again at the Chartreuse; and, though it was the sixth time, I am more enchanted with those paintings than ever. If it is not the first work in the world, and must yield to the Vatican, yet in simplicity and harmony it beats Raphael himself. There is a vapour over all the pictures, that makes them more natural than any representation of objects - I cannot conceive how it is effected! You see them through the shine of a south-east wind. These poor folks do not know the inestimable treasure they possess but they are perishing these pictures, and one gazes at them as at

Entitled "An Essay on Design in Gardening." Mr. Whately was at this time under-secretary of state, and member for Castle Rising. In January 1772, he was made keeper of the King's private roads, gates, and bridges, and died in the June following.-E.

The Life of St. Bruno, painted by Le Soeur, in the cloister of the Chartreuse.

a setting sun. There is the purity of Racine in them, but they give me more pleasure- and I should much sooner be tired of the poet than of the painter.

It is very singular that I have not half the satisfaction in going into churches and convents that I used to have. The consciousness that the vision is dispelled, the want of fervour so obvious in the religious, the solitude that one knows proceeds from contempt, not from contemplation, make those places appear like abandoned theatres destined to destruction. The monks trot about as if they had not long to stay there; and what used to be holy gloom is now but dirt and darkness. There is no more deception than in a tragedy acted by candlesnuffers. One is sorry to think that an empire of common sense would not be very picturesque; for, as there is nothing but taste that can compensate for the imagination of madness, I doubt there will never be twenty men of taste for twenty thousand madmen. The world will no more see Athens, Rome, and the Medici again, than a succession of five good emperors, like Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines.

August 13.

Mr. Edmonson has called on me; and, as he sets out tomorrow, I can safely trust my letter to him. I have, I own, been much shocked at reading Gray's' death in the papers. 'Tis an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint, especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from thirteen years old. As self lies so rooted in self, no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke recoil to my own breast; and having so little expected his death, it is plain how little I expect my own. Yet to you, who of all men living are the most forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel. I fear most men ought to apologize for their want of feeling, instead of palliating that sensation when they have it. I thought that

"On the 24th of July," says Mr. Mitford, "Gray, while at dinner in the college hall, was seized with an attack of the gout in his stomach. The violence of the disease resisted all the powers of medicine: on the 29th he was seized with convulsions, which returned more violently on the 30th; and he expired on the evening of that day, in the fifty-fifth year of his age." Works, vol. i. p. lvi.-E.

what I had seen of the world had hardened my heart; but I find that it had formed my language, not extinguished my tenderness. In short, I am really shocked-nay, I am hurt at my own weakness, as I perceive that when I love anybody, it is for my life; and I have had too much reason not to wish that such a disposition may very seldom be put to the trial.1 You, at least, are the only person to whom I would venture to make such a confession.

Adieu! my dear Sir! Let me know when I arrive, which will be about the last day of the month, when I am likely to see you. I have much to say to you. Of being here I am most heartily tired, and nothing but this dear old woman should keep me here an hour-I am weary of them to death but that is not new! Yours ever.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Paris, August 11, 1771.

You will have seen, I hope, before now, that I have not neglected writing to you. I sent you a letter by my sister, but doubt she has been a great while upon the road, as they travel with a large family. I was not sure where you was, and would not write at random by the post.

I was just going out when I received yours and the newspapers. I was struck in a most sensible manner, when, after reading your letter, I saw in the newspapers that Gray is dead! So very ancient an intimacy, and, I suppose, the natural reflection to self on losing a person but a year older, made me absolutely start in my chair. It seemed more a corporal than a mental blow; and yet I am exceedingly concerned for him, and everybody must be so for the loss of such a

"It will appear from this and the two following letters," observes Mr. Mitford, "that Walpole's affection and friendship for Gray was warm and sincere after the reconcilement took place; and indeed, before that, and immediately after the quarrel, I believe his regard for Gray was undiminished." Works, vol. iv. p. 212.-E.

It will be recollected, that General Conway travelled with Gray and Walpole in 1739, and separated from them at Geneva.-E.

genius. He called on me but two or three days before I came hither; he complained of being ill, and talked of the gout in his stomach - but I expected his death no more than my own and yet the same death will probably be mine.1 I am full of all these reflections but shall not attrist you with them: only do not wonder that my letter will be short, when my mind is full of what I do not give vent to. It was but last night that I was thinking how few persons last, if one lives to be old, to whom one can talk without reserve. It is impossible to be intimate with the young, because they and the old cannot converse on the same common topics; and of the old that survive, there are few one can commence a friendship with, because one has probably all one's life despised their heart or their understandings. These are the steps through which one passes to the unenviable lees of life!

I am very sorry for the state of poor Lady Beauchamp. It presages ill. She had a prospect of long happiness. Opium is a very false friend. I will get you Bougainville's book. I think it is on the Falkland Isles, for it cannot be on those just discovered; but as I set out to-morrow se'nnight, and probably may have no opportunity sooner of sending it, I will bring it myself. Adieu! Yours ever.

'Gray's last letter to Walpole was dated March 17, 1771; it contained the following striking passage :-" He must have a very strong stomach that can digest the crambe recocta of Voltaire. Atheism is a vile dish, though all the cooks of France combine to make new sauces to it. As to the soul, perhaps they may have none on the Continent; but I do think we have such things in England; Shakspeare, for example, I believe, had several to his own share. As to the Jews (though they do not eat pork), I like them, because they are better Christians than Voltaire." Works, vol. iv. p. 190.-E.

An English translation of the book appeared in 1773, under the title of "History of a Voyage to the Malouine, or Falkland Islands, made in 1763 and 1764, under the command of M. de Bougainville; and of two Voyages to the Straits of Magellan, with an account of the Patagonians; translated from Don Pernety's Historical Journal, written in French." In the same year was published a translation of Bougainville's "Voyage autour du Monde.' This celebrated circumnavigator retired from the service in 1790. He afterwards was made Count and Senator by Napoleon Buonaparte, became member of the National Institute and of the Royal Society of London, and died at Paris in 1811, at the age of eighty-two.-E.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Paris, August 12, 1771.

DEAR SIR,

I AM excessively shocked at reading in the papers that Mr. Gray is dead! I wish to God you may be able to tell me it is not true! Yet in this painful uncertainty I must rest some days! None of my acquaintance are in London I do not know to whom to apply but to you-alas! I fear in vain! Too many circumstances speak it true! the detail is exact; a second paper arrived by the same post, and does not contradict it - and, what is worse, I saw him but four or five days before I came hither; he had been to Kensington for the air, complained of the gout flying about him, of sensations of it in his stomach: I, indeed, thought him changed, and that he looked ill — still I had not the least idea of his being in danger I started up from my chair when I read the paragraph — a cannon-ball would not have surprised me more! The shock but ceased, to give way to my concern; and my hopes are too ill-founded to mitigate it. If nobody has the charity to write to me, my anxiety must continue till the end of the month, for I shall set out on my return on the 26th; and unless you receive this time enough for your answer to leave London on the 20th, in the evening, I cannot meet it till I find it in Arlington-street, whither I beg you to direct it.

If the event is but too true, pray add to this melancholy service, that of telling me any circumstance you know of his death. Our long, very long friendship, and his genius, must endear to me everything that relates to him. What writings has he left? Who are his executors? I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything to the public, to print it at

1 His executors were, Mason the poet and the Rev. Dr. Brown, master of Pembroke Hall. "He hath desired," wrote Dr. Brown to Dr. Wharton, "to be buried near his mother at Stoke, near Windsor, and that one of his executors would see him laid in the grave; a melancholy task, which must come to my share, for Mr. Mason is not here." Works, vol. iv. p. 206.-E.