only time to tell you, that of all the places which I saw on my return from you, Hardwicke pleased me the most. One would think that Mary, queen of Scots, was but just walked down into the park with her guard for half an hour; her gallery, her room of audience, her antichamber, with the very canopies, chair of state, footstool, lit de repos, oratory, carpets, and hangings, just as she left them: a little tattered indeed, but the more venerable; and all preserved with religious care, and papered up in winter. When I arrived in London I found Professor Turnert had been dead above a fortnight; and being cockered and spirited up by some friends (though it was rather the latest) I got my name suggested to Lord Bute. You may easily imagine who undertook it, and indeed he did it with zeal. I received my answer very soon, which was what you may easily imagine, but joined with great professions of his desire to serve me on future occasions, and many more fine words that I pass over, not out of modesty, but for another reason; so you see I have made my fortune like Sir Francis Wronghead. This nothing is a profound secret, and no one here suspects it even now. To-day I hear Mr. E. Delaval§ has got it, but we are not yet certain; next to myself I wished for him. You see we have made a peace. I shall be silent about it, because if I say any thing anti-ministerial, you will tell me you know the reason; and if I approve it, you will think I have my expectations still. All I know is, that the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke both say it is an excellent peace, and only Mr. Pitt calls it inglorious and insidious. * A seat of the Duke of Devonshire, in Derbyshire. t Professor of modern languages in the University of Cambridge. This person was the late Sir Henry Erskine. As this was the only application Mr. Gray ever made to ministry, I thought it necessary to insert his own account of it. The place in question was given to the tutor of Sir James Lowther. § Fellow of Pembroke-hall and of the Royal Society. XLIV. MR. GRAY TO MR. MASON. February 8, 1763. Doctissime Domine, anne tibi arrident complimenta?* If so, I hope your vanity is tickled with the verghe d'oro of Count Algarotti, and the intended translation of Sig. Agostino Paradisi: for my part, I am ravished (for I too have my share). Are you upon the road to see all these wonders, and snuff up the incense of Pisa; or has Mr. Brown abated your ardour by sending you the originals? I am waiting with impatience for your coming. I am obliged to you for your drawing and very learned dissertation annexed.† You have made out your point with a great degree of probability (for though the nimis adhæsit might startle one, yet the sale of the tithes and chapel to Webster seems to set all right again), and I do believe the building in question was the chapel of St. Sepulchre. But then, that the ruin now standing, was the individual chapel as erected by Archbishop Roger, I can by no means think: I found myself merely on the style and taste of architecture. The vaults under the choir are still in being, and were undoubtedly built William Taylor Howe, Esq. of Stondon-place, near Chipping-ongar, in Essex, an honorary fellow of Pembroke-hall, was now on his travels in Italy, where he had made an acquaintance with the celebrated Count Algarotti, and had recommended to him Mr. Gray's Poems and my Dramas. After the perusal he received a letter from the Count, written in that style of superlative panegyric peculiar to Italians. A copy of this letter Mr. Howe had just now sent to our common friend Mr. Brown, then president of the College; and also another of the Count's, addressed to Sigr. Paradisi, a Tuscan poet; in which, after explaining the arguments of my two dramatic poems, he advises him to translate them; but principally Caractacus. This anecdote not only explains the above paragraph, but the subsequent letter. The Latin, at the beginning of the letter, alludes to a similar expression which a fellow of a college had made use of to a foreigner who dined in the College-hall. Having occasion to ask him if he would eat any cabbage to his boiled beef, he said, "Anne tibi arrident herbæ ?" + This relates to the ruin of a small Gothic chapel near the north-west end of the cathedral at York, not noticed by Drake in his Eboracum. When Mr. Gray made me a visit at that place the summer before, he was much struck with the beautiful proportion of the windows in it, which induced me to get Mr. Paul Sandby to make a drawing of it; and also to endeavour, in a letter to Mr. Gray, to explain to what foundation it belonged. As his answer contains some excellent general remarks on Gothic building, I thought proper to publish it, though the particular matter which occasioned them was not of any great consequence. R by this very Archbishop: they are truly Saxon; only that the arches are pointed, though very obtusely. It is the south transept (not the north) that is the oldest part of the minster now above ground: it is said to have been begun by Geffrey Plantagenet, who died about thirty years after Roger, and left it unfinished. His successor, Walter Grey, completed it; so we do not exactly know to which of these two prelates we are to ascribe any certain part of it. Grey lived a long time, and was archbishop from 1216 to 1255 (thirty-nine Henry III.); and in this reign it was, that the beauty of the Gothic architecture began to appear. The chapter-house is in all probability his work, and (I should suppose) built in his latter days; whereas what he did of the south transept might be performed soon after his accession. It is in the second order of this building, that the round arches appear including a row of pointed ones (which you mention, and which I also observed), similar to those in St. Sepulchre's chapel, though far inferior in the proportions and neatness of workmanship. The same thing is repeated in the north transept; but this is only an imitation of the other, done for the sake of regularity; for this part of the building is no older than Archbishop Romaine, who came to the see in 1285, and died 1295. All the buildings of Henry the Second's time (under whom Roger lived and died, 1185) are of a clumsy and heavy proportion, with a few rude and awkward ornaments; and this style continues to the beginning of Henry the Third's reign, though with a little improvement, as in the nave of Fountain's abbey, &c. then all at once come in the tall peaked arches, the light clustered columns, the capitals of curling foliage, the fretted tabernacles and vaultings, and a profusion of statues, &c. that constitute the good Gothic style; together with decreasing and flying buttresses, and pinnacles, on the outside. Nor must you conclude any thing from Ro ger's own tomb, which has (I remember) a wide surbased arch scalloped ornaments, &c. for this can be no older than the nave itself, which was built by Archbishop Melton after the year 1315, one hundred and thirty years after Roger's death.. I have compared Helvetius and Elfrida, as you desired me,* and find thirteen parallel passages; five of As the plagiarism to which Mr. Gray here alludes, is but little known, and, I think, for its singularity, is somewhat curious, I shall beg the reader's patience while I dilate upon it; though I am aware it will stretch this note to an unconscionable length. M. Helvetius, in the third chapter of his third Essay de l'Esprit, which treats of the Extent of Memory, means to prove that this faculty, in the extreme, is not necessary to constitute a great genius. For this purpose he examines whether the greatness of the very different talents of Locke and of Milton ought to be considered as the effect of their possessing this talent in an extraordinary degree. He then proceeds as follows: "As the last example of the small extent of memory necessary to a fine imagination, I shall give in a note the translation of a piece of English poetry; which, with the preceding, will, I believe, prove to those who would decompose the works of illustrious men, that a great genius does not necessarily suppose a great memory." I now set down that note with references to Elfrida underneath it, and I choose to give it in the English translation printed in 1759, that the parallel passages may be the more obvious at first sight. A young virgin, awaked and guided by Love, goes before the appearance of Aurora to a valley, where she waits for the coming of her lover, who, at the rising of the sun, is to offer a sacrifice to the gods. Her soul, in the soft situation in which she is placed by the hopes of approaching happiness, indulges, while waiting for him, the pleasure of contemplating the beauties of nature, and the rising of that luminary that was to bring the object of her tenderness. She expresses herself thus: Already the sun gilds the tops of those antique oaks, and the waves of those falling torrents that roar among the rocks shine with his beams; already I perceive the summit of those shaggy mountains whence arise the vaults which, half-concealed in the air, offer a formidable retreat to the solitary who there retires.a Night folds up her veil. Ye wanton fires, that mislead the wandering traveller, retireb to the quagmires and marshy fens; and thou sun, lord of the heavens, who fillest the air with reviving heat, who sowest with dewy pearls the flowers of these meadows, and givest colours to the varied beauties of nature, receive my first homage, and hasten thy course. Thy appearance proclaims that of my lover. Freed from the pious cares that detain him still at the a How nobly does this venerable wood, Gilt with the glories of the orient sun, -On the shaggy mound, Where tumbling torrents roar around; Where lull'd in pious peace the hermit lies. b Away, ye goblins all, Wont the bewilder'd traveller to daunt c Hail to thy living light Ambrosial morn— That bids each dewy-spangled flow'ret rise And dart around its vermel dies Unfolds the scene of glory to our eye, Where thron'd in artless majesty, The cherub Beauty sits on Nature's rustic shrine.-- which, at least, are so direct and close as to leave no shadow of a doubt, and therefore confirm all the rest. It is a phænomenon that you will be in the right to inform foot of the altars, love will soon bring him to mine. Let all around me partake of my joy. Let all bless the rising luminary by which we are enlightened. Ye flowers that inclose in your bosoms the odours that cool night condenses there, open your buds, and exhale in the air your balmy vapours. I know not whether the delightful intoxication that possesses my soul, does not embellish whatever I behold; but the rivulet, that in pleasing meanders winds along this valley, enchants me with his murmurs. Zephyrus caresses me with his breath; the fragrant plants, pressed under my feet, waft to my senses their perfume. Oh! if Felicity sometimes condescends to visit the abode of mortals, to these places, doubtless, she retires. But with what secret trouble am I agitated? Already impatience mingles its poison with the sweetness of my expectation. This valley has already lost all its beauties. Is joy then so fleeting? It is as easy to snatch it from us, as for the light down of these plants to be blown away by the breath of the zephyrs. In vain have I recourse to flattering Hope. Each moment increases my disturbance. He will come no more. Who keeps him at a distance from me? What duty more sacred than that of calming the inquietudes of love! But what do I say? Fly jealous suspicions, injurious to his fidelity, and formed to extinguish my tenderness. If jealousy grows by the side of love, it will stifle it, if not pulled up by the roots; it is the ivy which, by a verdant chain, embraces, but dries up the trunk which serves for its support.h I know my lover too well to doubt of his tenderness. He, like me, has, far from the pomp of courts, sought the tranquil asylum of the fields. Touched by the simplicity of my heart, and by my beauty, my sensual rivals call him in vain to their arms. Shall he be seduced by the advances of coquetry, which, on the cheek of the young maid, tarnishes the snow of innocence and the carnation of modesty, and daubs it with a whiteness of art and the paint of effrontery? What do I say? his contempt for her is perhaps only a snare for me. Can I be ignorant of the partiality of men, and the arts they employ to seduce us? Nourished in a contempt for our sex, it is not us, it is their pleasures that they love. Cruel as they are, they have placed in the rank of the virtues the barbarous fury of revenge, and the mad love of their country; but never have they reckoned fidelity among the virtues. Without remorse they abuse innocence, and often their vanity contemplates our griefs with delight. But no; fly far from me, ye odious thoughts, my lover will come! A thousand times have I experienced d "Twill not be long, ere his unbending mind Among th' embowering shades that veil Elfrida. Salutes me with most cool and temperate breath, 8 Avaunt! ye vain delusive fears. h See, Elfrida; Ah see! how round yon branching elm the ivy Is sickly jealousy. i-To guard Your beauties from the blast of courtly gales. The crimson blush of virgin Modesty, The delicate soft tints of Innocence, There all fly off, and leave no boast behind But well-rang'd, faded features. |