me much more pleasure to obferve, that my coz. though not standing on the pinnacle of renown quite fo elevated, as that which lifts Mrs. Montague to the clouds, falls in no degree short of her in this particular; fo that should she make you a member of her academy, fhe will do it honour. Sufpect me not of flattering you, for I abhor the thought; neither will you fufpect it. Recollect, that it is an invariable rule with me never to pay compliments to thofe I love!

Two days, en fuite, I have walked to Gayhurst; a longer journey than I have walked on foot these seventeen years. The first day I went alone, defigning merely to make the experiment, and choofing to be at liberty to return at whatsoever point of my pilgrimage I fhould find myself fatigued. For I was not without fufpicion that years, and fome other things no lefs injurious than years, viz. melancholy and diftrefs of mind, might by this time have unfitted me for fuch achievements. But I found it otherwise. I reached the church, which stands, as you know, in the garden, in fifty-five minutes, and returned in ditto time to Weston. The next day I took the fame walk with Mr. Powley, having a defire to fhew him the prettiest place in the country. I not only performed these two excurfions without injury to my health, but have by means of them gained indisputable proof that my ambulatory faculty is not yet impaired ; a discovery which, confidering that to my feet alone I am likely, as I have ever been, to be indebted always for my transportation from place to place, I find very delectable.

You will find in the laft Gentleman's Magazine, a fonnet addressed to Henry Cowper, figned T. H. I am the writer of it. No creature knows this but yourself; you will make what ufe of the intelligence you fhall fee" good. W. C.

LETTER XCV.

To JOSEPH HILL, Efq.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

May 24, 1788.

FOR two excellent prints I return you my fincere acknowledgements. I cannot fay that poor Kate refembles much the original, who was neither fo young nor fo handsome as the pencil has reprefented her; but fhe was a figure well fuited to the account given of her in the Task, and has a face exceedingly expreffive of defpairing melancholy. The Lace-maker is accidentally a good likeness of a young woman, once our neighbour, who was hardly less handsome than the picture twenty years ago; but the lofs of one husband, and the acquifition of another, have, fince that time, impaired her much; yet fhe might still be supposed to have fat to the artift.

We dined yesterday with your friend and mine, the moft companionable and domeftic Mr. C The whole kingdom can hardly furnish a spectacle more pleafing to a man who has a tafte for true happiness, than himself, Mrs. C, and their multitudinous family. Seven long miles are interposed between us, or perhaps I fhould oftener have an opportunity of declaiming on this fubject.

I am now in the nineteenth book of the Iliad, and on the point of displaying such feats of heroism performed by Achilles, as make all other achievements trivial. I may well exclaim, Oh! for a Muse of fire! especially having not only a great hoft to cope with, but a great river alfo; much, however, may be done when Homer leads the way. I fhould not have chofen to have been the original author of fuch a bufinefs, even though all the Nine had stood at my elbow. Time has wonderful

effects. We admire that in an ancient, for which we fhould fend a modern bard to Bedlam.

I faw at Mr. C's a great curiofity; an antique buft of Paris in Parian marble. You will conclude that it interested me exceedingly. I pleafed myself with fuppofing that it once ftood in Helen's chamber. It was in fact brought from the Levant, and though not well mended, (for it had fuffered much by time) is an admirable performance. W. C.

LETTER XCVI.

To Lady HESKETH.

THE LODGE, May 27, 1788.

THE General, in a letter which came yefterday, fent me enclosed a copy of my fonnet; thus introducing it.

"I fend a copy of verfes fomebody has written in the Gentleman's Magazine for April laft. Independent of my partiality towards the fubject, I think the lines themfelves are good."

Thus it appears that my poetical adventure has fucceeded to my wish; and I write to him by this post, on purpose to inform him that the fomebody in question is myfelf.

I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montague ftands at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his bonnet to her fuperior judgment; I am now reading, and have reached the middle of her Effay on the Genius of Shakespeare; a book of which, ftrange as it may feem, though I must have read it formerly, I had abfolutely forgot the existence.

The learning, the good fenfe, the found judgment, and the wit difplayed in it, fully justify, not only my compliment, but all compliments that either have been already paid to her talents, or fhall be paid hereafter. Voltaire,

I doubt not, rejoiced that his antagonist wrote in English, and that his countrymen could not poffibly be judges of the difpute. Could they have known how much she was in the right, and by how many thousand miles the Bard of Avon is fuperior to all their dramatifts, the French critic would have loft half his fame among them.

I faw at Mr. C's a head of Paris; an antique of Parian marble. His uncle, who left him the estate, brought it, as I understand, Mr. C, from the Levant: you may suppose I viewed it with all the enthusiafm that belongs to a Tranflator of Homer. It is in reality a great curiofity, and highly valuable.

Our friend Sephus has fent me two prints; the Lacemaker and Crazy Kate. These also I have contemplated with pleasure; having, as you know, a particular intereft in them. The former of them is not more beautiful than a Lace-maker, once our neighbour at Olney: though the artist has affembled as many charms in her countenance as I ever faw in any countenance, one excepted. Kate is both younger and handfomer than the original from which I drew; but she is in a good stile, and as mad as need be.

How does this hot weather fuit thee, my dear, in London? as for me, with all my colonnades and bowers, I am quite oppreffed by it. W. C.

LETTER XCVII.

To Lady HESKETH.

MY DEAREST COZ.

THE LODGE, June 3, 1788.

THE exceffive heat of these last few days was indeed oppreffive; but excepting the languor that it occafioned both in my mind and body, it was far from being prejudicial to me. It opened ten thousand pores, by which as many mischiefs, the effects of long obftruc

tion, began to breathe themselves forth abundantly. Then came an east wind, baneful to me at all times, but following fo closely fuch a fultry feafon, uncommonly noxious. To fpeak in the feaman's phrafe, not entirely ftrange to you, I was taken all aback; and the humours which would have escaped, if old Eurus would have given them leave, finding every door fhut, have fallen into my eyes. But in a country like this, poor miferable mortals must be content to fuffer all that fudden and violent changes can inflict; and if they are quit for about half the plagues that Caliban calls down on Prof-pero, they may say we are well off, and dance for joy, if the rheumatism or cramp will let them.

Did you ever see an advertisement by one Fowle, a dancing mafter of Newport-Pagnell? If not, I will contrive to fend it you for your amusement. It is the most extravagantly ludicrous affair of the kind I ever faw. The author of it had the good hap to be crazed, or he had never produced any thing half fo clever; for you will ever obferve, that they who are faid to have loft their wits, have more than other people. It is, therefore, only a flander with which envy prompts the: malignity of persons in their senses to asperse wittier than themselves. But there are countries in the world where the mad have justice done them, where they are revered as the fubjects of infpiration, and confulted as oracles... Poor Fowle would have made a figure there.

W. C..

LETTER XCVIII.

To JOSEPH HILL, Efq.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

WESTON, June 8, 1788.

YOUR letter brought me the very first in

telligence of the event it mentions. My laft letter from