not what remains now, the flower of the collection is gone to Dresden. Bologna is too vast a subject for me to treat: the palaces and churches are open; you have nothing to do but to see them all. In coming down the Appennine you will see (if the sun shines) all Tuscany before you. And so I have brought you to Florence, where to be sure there is nothing worth seeing. Secondly,

tudes of adoration and wonder. A little lower, and next the eye, supported on the wings of seraphs, Christ (the principal figure) with an air of calm and serene majesty, his hand extended, as commanding the elements to their several places; near him an angel of superior rank bearing the golden compasses (that Milton describes); beneath the Chaos, like a dark and turbulent ocean, only illumined by the Spirit, who is brooding over it.

A small picture.-Correggio.

Eve newly created, admiring her own shadow in the lake.

The famous Venus of this master, now in the possession of Sir William Hamilton, proves how judiciously Mr. Gray fixed upon his pencil for the execution of this charming subject. M.

Another.-Domenichino.

Medea in a pensive posture, with revenge and maternal affection striving in her visage; her two children at play, sporting with one another before her. On one side a bust of Jason, to which they bear some resemblance.

A statue.-Michael Angelo.

Agave in the moment she returns to her senses; the head of her son, fallen on the ground from her hand.

Vide Ovid. Met. lib. iii. 1. 701, &c. M.

A picture.-Salvator Rosa.

Æneas and the sybil sacrificing to Pluto by torch-light in the wood, the assistants in a fright. The day beginning to break, so as dimly to shew the mouth of the

cavern.

Sigismonda with the heart of Guiscardo before her. I have seen a small print on this subject, where the expression is admirable, said to be graved from a picture of Correggio.

Afterward, when he had seen the original in the possession of the late Sir Luke Schaub, he always expressed the highest admiration of it; though we see, by his here giving it to Salvator Rosa, he thought the subject too horrid to be treated by Correggio; and indeed I believe it is agreed that the capital picture in question not of his hand. M.

Another.-Albano, or the Parmeggiano.

Iphigenia asleep by the fountain-side, her maids about her; Cymon gazing and laughing.

This subject has been often treated; once indeed very curiously by Sir Peter Lely, in the way of portrait, when his sacred majesty Charles the Second represented Cymon, and the Duchess of Cleveland and Mrs. Eleanor Gwin (in as indecent attitudes as his royal taste could prescribe) were Iphigenia and her attendants. M.

Another.-Domenichino, or the Caracci.

Electra with the urn, in which she imagined were her brother's ashes, lamenting over them; Orestes smothering his concern.

Another. Correggio.

Ithuriel and Zephon entering the bower of Adam and Eve; they sleeping. The light to proceed from the angels.

1. Vide, quodcunque videndum est.

2. Quodcunque ego non vidi, id tu vide.

3. Quodcunque videris, scribe et describe; memoriæ ne fide.

4. Scribendo nil admirare; et cum pictor non sis, verbis omnia depinge.

5. Tritam viatorum compitam calca, et cum poteris, desere.

6. Eme, quodcunque emendum est; I do not mean pictures, medals, gems, drawings, &c. only: but clothes, stockings, shoes, handkerchiefs, little moveables; every thing you may want all your life long but have a care of the custom-house.

Pray present my most respectful compliments to Mr. Weddell. I conclude when the winter is over, and you have seen Rome and Naples, you will strike out of the beaten path of English travellers, and see a little of the country, throw yourselves into the bosom of the Appennine, survey the horrid lake of Amsanctus (look in Cluver's Italy), catch the breezes on the coast of Taranto and Salerno, expatiate to the very toe of the continent, perhaps strike over the Faro of Messina, and having measured the gigantic columns of Girgenti, and the tremendous caverns of Syracusa, refresh yourselves amidst the fragrant vale of Enna. Oh! che bel riposo ! Addio.

Another.-Nicholas Poussin.

Alcestis dying; her children weeping, and hanging upon her robe; the youngest of them, a little boy, crying too; but appearing rather to do so, because the others are afflicted, than from any sense of the reason of their sorrow: her right arm should be round this, her left extended towards the rest, as recommending them to her lord's care; he fainting, and supported by the attendants.

Salvator Rosa.

Hannibal passing the Alps; the mountaineers rolling down rocks upon his army; elephants tumbling down the precipices.

Another. Domenichino.

Aria giving Claudius's order to Pætus, and stabbing herself at the same time. N. Poussin, or Le Sueur.

Virginius murdering his daughter; Appius at a distance, starting up from his tribunal; the people amazed, but few of them seeing the action itself.”

* William Weddell, Esq. of Newby in Yorkshire.

XLIX. MR. GRAY TO MR. BEATTIE.

*

Glames Castle, Sept. 8, 1765.

A LITTLE journey I have been making to Arbroath, has been the cause that I did not answer your very obliging letter so soon as I ought to have done. A man of merit, that honours me with his esteem, and has the frankness to tell me so, doubtless can need no excuses: his ароlogy is made, and we are already acquainted, however distant from each other.

I fear I cannot (as I would wish) do myself the pleasure of waiting on you at Aberdeen, being under an engagement to go to-morrow to Taymouth, and, if the weather will allow it, to the Blair of Athol: this will take up four or five days, and at my return the approach of winter will scarce permit me to think of any farther expeditions northwards. My stay here will, however, be a fortnight or three weeks longer, and if in that time any business or invitation should call you this way, Lord Strathmore gives me commission to say, he shall be extremely glad to see you at Glames; and doubt not it will be a particular satisfaction to me to receive and thank you in person for the favourable sentiments you have entertained of me, and the civilities with which you have honoured me.

L. MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Glames Castle, Sept. 14, 1765. I DEFERRED writing to you till I had seen a little more of this country than you yourself had seen; and now being just returned from an excursion, which I and Major Lyon have been making, into the Highlands, I sit down to give you an account of it. But first I must re

* Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Marischal College, Aberdeen.

turn to my journey hither, on which I shall be very short; partly because you know the way as far as Edinburgh, and partly that there was not a great deal worth remarking. The first night we passed at Tweedmouth (seventyseven miles); the next at Edinburgh (fifty-three miles); where Lord Strathmore left the Major and me, to go to Lenox-Love (Lord Blantyre's), where his aunt lives: so that afternoon and all next day I had leisure to visit the Castle, Holyrood-house, Heriot's Hospital, Arthur's seat, &c. and am not sorry to have seen that most picturesque (at a distance) and nastiest (when near) of all capital cities. I supped with Dr. Robertson and other literati, and the next morning Lord Strathmore came for us. We crossed at the Queen's Ferry in a four-oared yawl without a sail, and were tossed about rather more than I should wish to hazard again; lay at Perth, a large Scotch town with much wood about it, on the banks of the Tay, a very noble river. Next morning ferried over it, and came by dinner-time to Glames; being (from Edinburgh) sixty-seven miles, which makes in all (from Hetton) one hundred and ninety-seven miles. The Castle* stands in Strathmore (i. e. the Great Valley), which winds about from Stonehaven on the east coast of Kincardineshire, obliquely, as far as Stirling, near one hundred miles in length, and from seven to ten miles in breadth, cultivated every where to the foot of the hills, on either hand, with oats or bere, a species of barley, except where the soil is mere peat-earth (black as a coal), or barren sand covered only with broom and heath, or a short grass fit for sheep. Here and there appear, just above ground, the huts of the inhabitants, which they call towns, built of, and covered with turf; and among them, at great distances, the gentlemen's houses, with enclosures and a few trees round them..

Amidst these the Castle of Glames distinguishes

* This is said to be the very Castle in which Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.

itself, the middle part of it rising proudly out of what seems a great and thick wood of tall trees, with a cluster of hanging towers on the top. You descend to it gradually from the south, through a double and triple avenue of Scotch firs sixty or seventy feet high, under three gateways. This approach is a full mile long; and when you have passed the second gate, the firs change to limes, and another oblique avenue goes off on either hand towards the offices. These, as well as all the enclosures that surround the house, are bordered with three or four ranks of sycamores, ashes, and white poplars of the noblest height, and from seventy to one hundred years old. old. Other alleys there are, that go off at right angles with the long one; small groves, and walled gardens, of Earl Patrick's planting, full of broad-leaved elms, oaks, birch, black cherry-trees, laburnums, &c. all of great stature and size, which have not till this week begun to shew the least sense of morning frosts. The third gate delivers you into a court with a broad pavement, and grass-plats adorned with statues of the four Stuart kings, bordered with old silver firs and yew-trees, alternately, and opening with an iron palisade on either side to two square old-fashioned parterres surrounded by stone fruit-walls. The house from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw. You will comprehend something of its shape from the plan of the second floor, which I enclose. The wings are about fifty feet high; the body (which is the old castle, with walls ten feet thick) is near one hundred. From the leads I see to the south of me (just at the end of the avenue) the little town of Glames, the houses built of stone, and slated, with a neat kirk and small square tower (a rarity in this region). Just beyond it rises a beautiful round hill, and another ridge