MY DEAREST, London, July 4, 1678. I RECEIVED yours of the 1st. and am glad to heare of all your welfares, which I pray God continue. The chief news that I can with any contentment write you is, that the bishops and inferior clergy highly approve of my darling project of the corporation of clergymen's sons which there is possibility will arrive to as greate charity as any thing that now is; and, I thank God, that I have this satisfaction, that as I was the first starter of it, so my own diligence has chiefly brought it where it is; and hereyn you see that I have no great contentment that I make not you a sharer with me. Yesterday our governors met at my summons, and we had two great men that promised 100l. a piece, and Wensday next is appointed for the next meeting, which, I hope, will not impede my setting out to you the day following, for I very much now long for Blandford, and, above all things, for your sake. 1782, Aug. My dear, yours, E. WAKE XXX. Sir Isaac Newton to Dr. Maddock. MR. URBAN, Gloucester Street, Aug. 4. FINDING this letter of Sir Isaac Newton's tacked as an appendix to an obscure funeral sermon*, I supposed it would be agreeable to some of your philosophical readers to see it rescued from oblivion in your fund of literary curiosities. S. A. "For his honoured friend Joshua Maddock, Doctor of Physic, at his house in Whitchurch, in Shropshire. Vir Dignissime, Specimina illa optica, quæ pro humanitate tua ad me nuper misisti, tantam in his rebus peritiam ostendunt, ut non possum quin doleam incertitudinem principiorum quibus omnia innituntur. Etenim quæri potest, an sint in rerum By E. Latham, M. D. on the death of the Rev. Mr. Dan. Maddock, 8re. Lond. 1754. natura radii tenebrosi, et, si sint, an radii illi, secundum aliam legem refringi debeant, quam radii lucis. Defectu experientiæ, nescio prorsus quid de his principiis sentiendum sit. Neque huic difficultati tollendæ, quam et tute ipse indigitasti facile adfuerit Tyberius. At positis ejusmodi radiis, una cum lege refractionis quam tu assumis, cætera recte se habent; neque propositiones tantum utiles sunt ac demonstrationes artificiosa, sed, et quod majus est, omnia nova proponis, quæ opticam, altera sui parte, auctura sunt, si modo defectus experientia in stabiliendis principiis tuis aliquo demum modo suppleri possit. Interim, quod me meditationum tuarum perquam subtilium participem fieri dignatus sis, gratias ago. Vale! Tui studiosissimus, Trin. Coll. Cunt. Feb. 7. 1678-9. 1782, Aug. IS. NEWTON." XXXI. Mr. Gray to Mr. T. Warton, on the History of English Poetry. SIR, OUR friend Dr. Hurd having long ago desired me in your name to communicate any fragments, or sketches, of a design I once had, to give a history of English Poetry, you may well think me rude or negligent, when you see me hesitating for so many months, before I comply with your request. And yet, believe me, few of your friends have been better pleased than I, to find this subject, surely neither unentertaining nor unuseful, had fallen into hands so likely to do it justice; few have felt a higher esteem for your talents, your taste, and industry. In truth, the only cause of my delay has been a sort of diffidence, that would not let me send you any thing so short, so slight, and so imperfect as the few materials I had begun to collect, or the observations I had made on them. A sketch of the division or arrangement of the subject, however, I venture to transcribe; and would wish to know, whether it corresponds in any thing with your own plan. For I am told your first volume is in the press. INTRODUCTION, On the poetry of the Gaelic, or Celtic, nations, as far back as can be traced.-On that of the Goths, its introduction into these islands by the Saxons and Danes, and its duration. On the origin of rhyme among the Franks, the Saxons, and Provençaux. Some account of the Latin rhyming poetry, from its early origin, down to the fifteenth century. PART I. On the school of Provence, which rose about the year 1100, and was soon followed by the French and Italians. Their heroic poesy, or romances in verse, allegories, fabliaux, syrvientes, comedies, farces, canzoni, sonnets, balades, madrigals, sestines, &c. Of their imitators, the French and of the first Italian school, commonly called the Sicilian, about the year 1200, brought to perfection by Dante, Petrarch, Boccace, and others.-State of poetry in England from the Conquest, 1066, or rather, from Henry the Second's time, 1154, to the reign of Edward the Third, 1327. PART II. On Chaucer, who first introduced the manner of the Provençaux, improved by the Italians, into our country: his character and merits at large, the different kinds in which he excelled-Gower, Occleve, Lydgate, Hawes, Gawen Douglas, Lyndesay, Bellenden, Dunbar, &c. PART III. Second Italian school, of Ariosto, Tasso, &c. an improvement on the first, occasioned by the revival of letters, the end of the fifteenth century. The lyric poetry of this and the former age introduced from Italy by Lord Surry, Sir T. Wyat, Bryan, Lord Vaux, &c. in the beginning of the sixteenth century. PART IV. Spenser, his character: subject of his poem, allegoric, and romantic, of Provençal invention; but his manner of tracing it, borrowed from the second Italian school.-Drayton, Fairfax, Phineas Fletcher, Golding, Phaer, &c. this school ends in Milton.-A third Italian school, full of conceit, begun in Queen Elizabeth's reign, continued under James and Charles the First, by Donne, Crashaw, Cleiveland, carried to its height by Cowley, and ending per.aps in Sprat. PART V. School of France, introduced after the Restoration Waller, Dryden, Addison, Prior, and Pope-Which has continued to our own times. You will observe, that my idea was in some measure taken from a scribbled paper of Pope, of which I believe you have a copy. You will also see, that I had excluded dramatic poetry entirely, which if you have taken in, it will at least double the bulk and labour of your book. I am, Sir, with great esteem, Your most humble and obedient servant, Pembroke-Hall, April 15, 1770. 1783, Feb. T. GRAY. XXXII. Mr. Williams to Mrs. West. MR. URBAN, IN your account of a valuable publication by Mr. Gutch, in your last volume, is the following paragraph: "Among the MSS. communicated to the editor is a sensible (anonymous) letter to Mrs. West, &c. on the education of her son. Qu. whether this was Gilbert West?" Having it in my power to satisfy this inquiry, I am now to inform you, that the writer of this truly sensible letter was John Williams, Esq. who had been secretary to Lord Chancellor West, of Ireland, and who was at this time upon his travels. It was addressed to the Chancellor's widow, then at Epsom with her daughter, whom he afterwards married. Mrs. West was a daughter of Bishop Burnet, and mother also of Richard West, then a student in the Temple, the celebrated friend of Gray, and represented in Dr. Johnson's preface to Gray as a "friend who deserved his esteem by the powers which he shews in his letters, and in the Ode to May, which Mr. Mason has preserved." In the second volume of Dodsley's collection of Poems is "A Monody on the Death of Queen Caroline, by Richard West, Esq. son to the Chancellor of Ireland, and grandson to Bishop *Collectanea Curiosa. Burnet." He is the subject of the following admirable letter, which deserves to be published entire, especially as the mutilated copy, communicated to Mr. Gutch, is rendered unintelligible by the several strange mistakes that appear upon consulting the original, with which it has been collated, and from which a correct transcript is now conveyed to you by Grande Bretagne. INDAGATOR. To Mrs. West, to the care of the Post-House at Epsom, THIS will come to your hands sooner than the last I wrote; that went by a private hand, inclosed to Dick; probably the bearer may stay by the way: it contained an old story, to divert you and Molly; which, when read, pray burn. I received yesterday your long one, with two blank pages: I agree your paper is better than ours, but yet not so much as to make it worth the postage you see how insatiable I am; I wish you had filled up those blank pages. I often think about my friend Dick, and last night dreamed of him. This letter is written on purpose for him, to whom therefore pray communicate it. You have said not one word of him to me a great while, from whence I conclude two things, that he is pretty well, but does not study the law: if he did, your satisfaction, and his too, would make me hear it soon enough. Young people do not see far; and, what is worse, they care not to be advised by those who do. They will not be the better for our experience. I say to myself frequently, what would I give to be twenty again, with the knowledge of the world which I have now? He is at that age, and my knowledge is at his service: why cannot we together produce what I figure to myself possible, if I was at that age? I have often considered his aversion to the law, and grieve at it, because it is a natural, almost sure, way of advancing himself: his father's name so much esteemed, his friends and mine, and his own parts, altogether could not have failed. He has no fortune; I mean, scarce sufficient to keep him clean, unless in retirement, which, I know, (though perhaps he does not) he will never chuse; for his own sake and his family's I hope he will not. What then can he do? my case and his were much the same. I had but small expectations of fortune, and perhaps pretty good parts these soon recommended me to the best company, |