it, the most numerous, are marked V. I. Z. Accordingly, my dear, I am happy to find that I am engaged in a correspondence with Mr. Viz, a gentleman for whom I have always entertained the profoundest veneration. But the serious fact is, that the papers distinguised by those signatures, have ever pleased me most, and struck me as the work of a sensible man, who knows the world well, and has more of Addison's delicate humour than any body. A poor man begged food at the Hall lately. The cook gave him some vermicelli soup. He laded it about some time with the spoon, and then returned it to her saying, "I am a poor man it is true, and I "am very hungry, but yet I cannot eat broth with maggots in it." Once more, my dear, a thousand thanks for your box full of good things, useful things, and beautiful things. Yours ever, W. C. LETTER XXXIV. To Lady HESKETH. The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1787. I am glad, my dearest Coz. that my last letter proved so diverting. You may assure yourself of the literal truth of the whole narration, and that however droll, it was not in the least indebted to any embellishments of mine. ` You say well, my dear, that in Mr. Throckmorton we have a peerless neighbour; we have SO. In point of information upon all important subjects, in respect too of expression and address, and in short, every thing that enters into the idea of a gentleman, I have not found his equal, not often, any where. Were I asked who in my judgment approaches nearest to him, in all his amiable qualities, and qualifications, I should certainly answer his brother George, who if he be not his exact counterpart, endued with precisely the same measure of the same accomplishments, is nevertheless deficient in none of them, and is of a character singularly agreeable, in respect of a certain manly, I had almost said, heroic frankness, with which his. air strikes one almost immediately. So far as his opportunities have gone, he has ever been as friendly and obliging to us, as we could wish him, and were he lord of the Hall to-morrow, would I dare say, conduct himself toward us in such a manner, as to leave us as little sensible as possible, of the removal of its present owners. But all this I say, my dear, merely. for the sake of stating the matter as it is; not in order to obviate, or, to prove the inexpedience of any future plans of yours, concerning the place of our residence. Providence and time, shape every thing; I should rather say Providence alone, for time has often no hand in the wonderful changes that we experience; they take place in a moment. It is not therefore worth while perhaps to consider much what we will, or will not do in years to come, concerning which all that I can say with certainty at present, is, that those years will be the most welcome, in which I can see the most of you. W. C. LETTER XXxv. To the Rev. WALTER BAGOT. Weston, Dec. 6, 1787. MY DEAR FRIEND, A short time since by the help of Mrs. Throckmorton's chaise, Mrs. Unwin and I reached Chichely, "Now" said I to Mrs. Chester "I shall write boldly to your BrotherWalter, and will "do it immediately. I have passed the gulph that "parted us, and he will be glad to hear it." But let not the man who translates Homer be so presumptuous as to have a will of his own, or to promise any thing. A fortnight has, I suppose, elapsed since I paid this visit, and I am only now beginning to fulfil what I then undertook to accomplish without delay. The old Grecian must answer for it. I spent my morning there so agreeably, that I have ever since regretted more sensibly that there are five miles of a dirty country interposed between us. For the increase of my pleasure, I had the good fortune to find your Brother the Bishop there. We had much talk about many things,but most, I believe, about Homer; and great satisfaction it gave me to find that on the most important points of that subject his Lordship and I were exactly of one mind. In the course of our conversation he produced from his pocket-book a translation of the first ten or twelve lines of the Iliad, and in order to leave my judgment free, informed me kindly at the same time that they were not his own. I read them, and according to the best of my recollection of the original, found them well executed. The Bishop indeed acknowledged that they were not faultless, neither did I find them so. Had they been such, I should have felt their perfection as a discouragement hardly to be surmounted; for at that passage I have laboured more abundantly than at any other, and hitherto with the least success. I am convinced that Homer placed it at the threshold of his work as a scare-crow to all translators. Now, Walter, if thou knowest the author of this version, and it be not treason against thy Brother's confidence in thy secrecy, declare him to me. Had I been so happy as to have seen the Bishop again before he left this country, I should certainly have asked him the question, having a curiosity upon the matter that is extremely troublesome. The awkward situation in which you found yourself on receiving a visit from an authoress, whose |