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letter from thence, and it is well known, that they must pay obedience to it, or forfeit their bread. By these means, little dirty tools of power have often been dragged into parliament, and preferred to gentlemen of the beft families, characters, and interests in the neighbourhood.-For my own part, Sir, I know not how to call fuch perfons reprefentatives of the people. I cannot help looking upon fuch members in the fame light with my lords the Bs who are elected by a conge d'elire from the crown; and, like them, I think they ought to be placed on separate benches, apart from those honeft county gentlemen, who are chosen by the free and uninfluenced voice of their fellow fubjects.

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Curious defcription of Weft Wycombe church, &c.

AM juft returned from a tour into Buckinghamfhire, which has afforded me much pleasure. The noble profpect from CLIEFDEN HOUSE enchanted me, and I was in raptures with the many elegant beauties of Stowe. As an Englishman, I was pleased that all the great patriots and heroes of my country, Alfred, king William the third, Hampden, Sir Walter Raleigh, &c. receive there that juft tribute of praife, which this nation, while it remains free, will continue to pay to fuperior virtue. At Stowe both antient and modern virtue are enfhrined with grateful magnificence. Not only good tafte, but patriotifm, are confpicuous in that delightful Paradise, the favourite abode of the virtues, graces, and mufes. STOWE, however, has fo often been described by abler pens, that I fhall dwell no longer there, though I never leave it without the moft fenfible regret.

I returned by Weft-Wycombe, and paffed a day in viewing the villa of lord Le Despencer, and the church he has just built on the TOP of a hill, for

the

the convenience and devotion of the town at the BOTTOM of it. I must own, the noble, lord's gardens gave me no ftronger idea of his virtue or patriotifm, than the fituation of the new built church did of his piety. Some churches have been built from devotion, others from parade or vanity. I believe this is the first church, which has ever been built for a profpect. The word memento in immenfe letters on the steeple furprised and perplexed me. I could not find the mori, or perhaps the other word was meri, from the practice as well as the precept of the noble lord. As to the elegance of the Latin, his lordship has embarraffed himfelf as little about that, as he has about the elegance of his English. Memento meri is besides more monkish, and therefore more becoming St. Francis. This conjecture, that the other word on the outside must be meri, is farther strengthened by the magnificent gilt ball at the top of the fteeple, which is hollowed and made fo very convenient on the infide for the celebration, not of devotional, but of convivial rites, that it is the best globe tavern I was ever in; but I must own that I was afraid my defcent from it would have been as precipitate, as his lordship's was from a high ftation, which TURNED HIS HEAD TOO. I admire likewife the filence and fecrecy which reign in that great globe, undisturbed but by his jolly fongs, very unfit for the profane ears of the world below. As to fecrecy, it is the most convenient place imaginable; and it is whispered, that a negotiation was here entamée by the noble lord himself, with meffrs. Wilkes and Churchill The event will fhew the amazing power of his lordfhip's oratory; but if from perverfenefs neither of those gentlemen then yielded to his wife reafons, nor to his dazzling offers, they were both delighted with his divine milk punch.

There is one remarkable temple in the gardens at Weft-Wycombe, dedicated to-the Egyptian Hierogliphic for ****. To this object his lordship's de

votion is undoubtedly fincere, though I believe now not fervent, nor do I take him to be often proftrate, or indeed in any way very regular in his ejaculations. He is however here confiftent, for he keeps up the fame public worship in the county, which he has been accustomed to in town. There was

for many years in the great room at the king's arms tavern, in Old Palace-yard, an original picture of Sir Francis Dafbwood prefented by himself to the Dilettanti club. He is in the habit of a Francifcan, kneeling before the Venus of Medicis, his gloating eyes fixed, as in a trance, on what the modefty of nature seems moft defirous to conceal, and a bumper in his hand, with the words MATRI SANCTORUM in capitals, The glory too, which till then had only encircled the facred heads of our Saviour and the Apostles, is made to beam on that favourite spot, and feems to pearce the hollowed gloom of Maidenhead Thicket. The public faw, and were for many years offended with fo infamous a picture, yet it remained there, till that club left the house. As to the temple I have mentioned, you find at firft what is called an error in limine; for the entrance to it is the fame entrance by which we all come into the world, and the door is what fome idle wits have called the door of life. It is reported that, on a late vifit to his chancellor, lord Bute particularly admired this building, and advised the noble owner to lay out the 500l. bequeathed to him by lord Melcombe's will for an erection, in a Paphian column to ftand at the entrance, and it is faid he advised it to be made of Scottish pebbles. There are in these gardens no bufts of Socrates, Epaminondas, or Hampden, but there is a moft indecent ftatue of the unnatural fatyr; and, at the entrance to the temple I have mentioned, are two urns facred to the Ephefian matron, and to Potiphar's wife, with the infcriptions Matrona Ephefiæ Cineres, Domine Potiphar Cineres. Between thefe urns, containing

taining the facred afbes of the great and virtuous dead, which are, with a happy propriety, DOUBLY GILT (though not quite fo ftrongly as that at HammerSmith for the afhes of lord Melcombe's wife) you afcend to the top of the building, which is crowned with a particular column, defigned, I fuppofe, to reprefent our former very upright state, when we could fay fuimus tories, fuit ingens gloria, and is fkirted with very pretty underwood, the Cyprian myrtle, &c. the meaning of which I could not find

out.

The house contains nothing remarkable, excepting only that there is on the grand stair-cafe a very moral painting of a maid ftealing to her master's bed, laying at the fame time her fingers on her lips, as if the were the Dea Angerona of West Wycombe.

On my return I had the pleasure of seeing the noble lord's elegant japanned coach; but while I was reading his new motto in Gothic letters, Pro Magna Charta, the mob were hollowing, LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO EXCISE; and I was forced to make the best of my way to the park, where I found a very odd thing, which I mean to prefent to the fociety of antiquaries. It is a gold button, with IHS and the fign of the cross, enamelled on it, which I gueffed to belong to fome concealed brother of the fociety of Jefus, though a fervant in green claimed it as the property of St. Francis, and faid that it was a part of the pontificalibus worn by his mafter when he officiated on certain festivals of high laugh at the myfteries of

I made afterwards a little tour to the celebrated abbey of Medmenham, the defcription of which I am fure would entertain you; but I am too fair a man to disclose to the public the English Eleufinian myfteries of that renowned convent.

A PARODY

A PARODY upon the famous Battle of

CHEVY-CHACE.

NOD profper long our noble king,
Our lives and fafeties all;

G

What woeful difcord once there did

In Britain's ifle befali!

To drive three kingdoms, hound and horn,
Earl Stt took his way,
The child may rue that was not born,
A Scotfman on that day.
The ftout earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,

A daughter of this Scottish peer's,
His fon to wife fhould take;
The choiceft honours of the land
To win and bear away;
The tidings to e- T― came,
At Cotes's where he lay;
Who fent lord Percy prefent word
He would prevent his fport,
The stately earl not fearing this,
Did daily go to court,

With five and forty Bowmans* bold,
All chofen men of might,

Who knew full well in time of need,
To cringe and bow aright.

These gallant heroes foon began
To gain the R— ear,

At Chriftmas they great places got,

As plainly doth appear;

And, e'er the fpring was o'er, they did
A thoufand boons obtain,

Which once poffefs'd, they fhrewdly went
To crave for more again.

The Bowmans mufter'd at Whitehall †,
Their votes were all fecure;

And fixteen of the U-r He
Each day were guarded fure.

See Bowman, in the farce of Lethe. + The Cockpit.

A a

Wild

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