Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

I

LETTER IX.

Will not defcribe Bl--- in particular, not to foreftall your expectations before you fee it; only take a fhort account, which I will hazard my little credit is no unjust one. I never faw fo great a thing with fo much littleness in it. I think the Architect built it intirely in compliance to the taste of its Owners; for it is the most inhofpitable thing imaginable, and the most selfish. It has, like their own hearts, no room for ftrangers, and no reception for any person of fuperior quality to themselves. There are but two Apartments for the Master and Mistress below, and but two Apartments above (very much inferior to them) in the whole Houfe. When you look upon the outfide, you wou'd think it large enough for a Prince; when you fee the infide it is too little for a Subject, and has not conviniency to lodge a common family. It is a houfe of Entries and paffages, among which there are three Vifta's through the whole, very uselessly handfome. There is what might have been a fine Gallery, but fpoiled by two Arches towards the End of it, which take away the fight of feveral of the windows. There are two ordinary ftair-cafes instead of one great one. The best things within the house are the Hall, which is indeed noble and well proportioned; and the cellars and offices under ground, which are the most comodious, and the best contrived of the whole. At the top of the Building are several Cupola's and little Turrets that have but an ill effect, and make the Building look at once finical and heavy. What feems of the beft tafte, is that Front towards the gardens, which is not yet loaded wit thefe turrets. The two Sides of the building are intirely fpoil'd by two monftrous bow-windows, which stand just in

D 5

the

the middle, instead of doors; and as if it were fatal that fome trifling littleness fhould every where deftroy the grandeur, there are in the chief front two femicircles of a lower ftructure than the reft, that cut of the angles, and look as if they were purposely defigned to hide a loftier and nobler piece of building, the top of which appears above them. In a word, the whole is a most expensive absurdity; and the duke of Shrewsbury gave a true character of it, when he said, it was a great Quarry of Stones above ground.

We paid a vifit to the spring where Rofamond bathed her felf, on a hill where remains only a piece of a wall of the old Palace of Henry the Second. We toasted her fhade in the cold water, not without a thought or two, fcarce fo cold as the liquor we drank it in. I dare not tell you what they were, and fo haften to conclude,

Four, &c.

LETTER X.

YOU cannot be furprized to find him a dull correfpondent, whom you have known fo long for a dull companion. And tho' I am pretty fenfible, that if I have any wit, I may as well write to fhow it, as not; (because any Lady that has once feen me, will naturally afk, what I can fhow that is better?) yet I'll content my felf with giving you as plain a hiftory of my pilgramage, as Purchas himself, or as John Bunyon could do of his walking through the wilderness of this world, &c.

Firft then I went by water to Hampton-Court, unattended by all but my own virtues, which were not of fo modeft a nature as to keep themfelves, or

me

me conceal'd; for I met the Prince with all his Ladies on horseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. B-and Mrs. L--- took me into protection (contrary to the laws against harbouring Papifts) and gave me a dinner, with fomething I liked better, an opportunity of converfation with Mrs. H-----. We all agreed, that the life of a Maid of Honour was of all things the most miferable; and wish'd that every woman who envy'd it, had a specimen of it. To eat Weftphalia-Ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrow'd Hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worfe a hundred times) with a red mark in the forehead from an uneafy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for Fox hunters, and bear abundance

----

of ruddy complexion'd children.. As foon as they can wipe off the fweat of the day, they muft fimper an hour and catch cold, in the Princefs's apartment; from thence (as Shakespear has it) To dinner with what appetite they may and after that till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they pleafe. I can eafily believe, no lone-houfe in Wales, with a Mountain and a Rookery, is more contemplative than this. Court; and as a proof of it I need only tell you, Mrs. L---- walked all alone with me three or four hours: by moonlight, and we met no creature of any Quality but the King, who gave audience to the Vice-chamberlain, all alone, under the garden wall.

In short, I Heard of no Ball, Affembly, BafletTable, or any place where two or three were gathered together, except Madam Kilmanfegg's, to which I had the honour to be invited, and the grace to stay away.

I was heartily tired, and pofted to B---- Park; there we had an excellent Difcourfe of Quackery. Dr. Shadwell was mentioned with honour.. Lady A walked a whole hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the time I ftay'd; tho' fhe feemed

Ꭰ 6

[ocr errors]

to be fainting, and had convulfive motions feveral times in her head.

This day I received a Letter with certain advices where women were to be met with at Oxford. I defy them and all their works. I love no meat but Ortolans, and no women but you: tho' indeed that is no proper comparison, but for fat Duchefs's; for to love you, is as if one fhould wish to eat Angels, or to drink Cherubim-broth.

I arrived in the foreft by Tuesday noon, having fled from the face (I wish I could fay the horned face) Mofes B---, who dined in the mid-way thither. I past the rest of the day in thofe Woods where I have fo often enjoy'd a Book and a Friend, I made a Hymn as I paffled thro', which ended with a figh that I will not tell you the meaning of.

Your Doctor is gone the way of all his patients, and was hard put to it how to difpofe of an estate miferably, unwildly, and fplendidly useful to him. Sir Samuel Garth fays, that for Ratcliffe to leave a Library, was as if a Eunuch fhould found a Seraglio. Dr. Sh--- lately told a Lady: He wondered The could be alive after him; fhe made answer: She wondered at it for two reafons; because Dr. Ratcliffe was dead, and because Dr. Sh---- was living. I am,

Your, &c.

LETTER XI.
To the fame.

Nothing could have more of that melancholy which once used to please me, than my last days journey For after having paffed through my favourite Woods in the foreft, with a thousand Reveries of past pleasures, I rid over hanging hills,

whofe

whofe tops were edged with groves, and whofe feet water'd with winding rivers, liftning to the falls of cataracts below, and the murmuring of the winds above. The gloomy verdure of Stonor fucceeded to these, and then the shades of the evening overtook me. The moon rofe in the clearest sky I ever faw, by whofe folemn light I paced on flowly without company, or any interruption to the range of my thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells told in different notes; the clocks of every college anfwered one another, and founded forth (fome in a deeper, fome in a fofter tone) that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led fince among thofe old walls, venerable galleries, ftone partico's, ftudious walks, and folitary fcenes of the Univerfity. I wanted nothing but a black gown and a falary, to be as meer a bookworm as any there. I conformed my felf to the College hours, was rolled up in books, lay in one of the moft antient, dufky parts of the University, and was as dead to the world as any Hermit of the defart. If any thing was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity; fuch as even thofe good men ufed to entertain, when the Monks of their own Order extolled their piety and abftraction. For I found my felf received with a fort of respect, which this idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own species; who are as confiderable here, as the bufy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your

world.

Indeed I was treated in fuch a manner, that I could not but fometimes ask my self in my mind, What College I was founder? of or what Library I had built? Methinks I do very ill to return to the world again, to leave the only place where I make a figure; and from feeing my felf feated with dignity in the most confpicious fhelves of a Library, put my felf into the abject pofture of lying at a Lady's feet in St. James's fquare.

I will

« ПредишнаНапред »