Dear Sir,

"After so long silence, the hopes of pardon, and "prospect of forgiveness might seem entirely extinct, "or at least very remote, was I not truly sensible of "your goodness and candour, which is the only asylum "that my negligence can fly to, since every apology "would prove insufficient to counterbalance it, or alle"viate my fault: How then shall my deficiency presume to make so bold an attempt, or be able to suffer "the hardships of so rough a campaign?" &c. &c. &c.

LETTER III.

MR. GRAY TO MR. BEATTIE.

Cambridge, July 16, 1769.

THE late ceremony of the Duke of Grafton's installation has hindered me from acknowledging sooner the satisfaction your friendly compliment gave me: I thought myself bound in gratitude to his Grace, unasked, to take upon me the task of writing those verses which are usually set to music on this occasion *. I

* In a short note which he wrote to Mr. Stonhewer, June 12, when, at his request, he sent him the Ode in manuscript for his Grace's perusal, he expresses this motive more fully. "I did not

2. Quodcunque ego non vidi, id tu vide.

S. Quodcunque videris, scribe & describe; memoriæ

ne fide.

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

5. Tritam viatorum compitam calca, & 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 Apennine, 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,

ing up from his tribunal; the people amazed, but few of them seeing the action itself."

* William Weddell, Esq; of Newby in Yorkshire.

large paper; but you must inform me where and when the money.

I may pay

You have taught me to long for a second letter, and particularly for what you say will make the contents of it*. I have nothing to requite it with but plain and friendly truth, and that you shall have, joined to a zeal for your fame, and a pleasure in your success.

I am now setting forward on a journey towards the North of England; but it will not reach so far as I could wish. I must return hither before Michaelmas, and shall barely have time to visit a few places, and a few friends.

* His correspondent had intimated to him his intention of sending him his first book of the Minstrel. See the seventh letter of this series.

LETTER IV.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Aston, Oct. 18, 1769.

I

Hope you got safe and well home after that troublesome night. I long to hear you say so. For me I have continued well, been so favoured by the weather, that my walks have never once been hindered till yesterday (that is a fortnight and three or four days, and

* Dr. Wharton, who had intended to accompany Mr. Gray to Keswick, was seized at Brough with a violent fit of his asthma, which obliged him to return home. This was the reason that Mr. Gray undertook to write the following journal of his tour for his friend's amusement. He sent it under different covers. I give it here in continuation. It may not be amiss, however, to hint to the reader, that if he expects to find elaborate and nicely-turned periods in this narration, he will be greatly disappointed. When Mr. Gray described places, he aimed only to be exact, clear, and intelligible; to convey peculiar, not general ideas, and to paint by the eye, not the fancy. There have been many accounts of the Westmoreland and Cumberland lakes, both before and since this was written, and all of them better calculated to please readers, who are fond of what they call fine writing: Yet those, who can content themselves with an elegant simplicity of narrative, will, I flatter myself, find this to their taste; they will perceive it was written with a view, rather to inform than surprise; and, if they make it their companion when they take the same tour, it will inhance their opinion of its intrinsic excellence; in this way I tried it myself before I resolved to print it.

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 inclose. The wings are about 50 feet high; the body (which is the old castle, with walls 10 feet thick) is near 100. 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 of a longer form adjacent to it, both covered with woods of tall fir. Beyond them, peep over the black hills of Sid-law, over which winds the road to Dundee. To the north, within about seven miles of me, begin to rise the Grampians, hill above hill, on whose tops three weeks ago I could plainly see some traces of the snow that fell in May last. To the cast, winds a way to the Strath, such as I have before described it, among the hills, which sink lower and lower as they approach the sea. To the west, the same valley (not plain, but broken, unequal ground) runs on for above 20 miles in view; there I sce the crags above Dunkeld; there Beni-Gloe and Beni