been a blow to your poor boy, in which his friends would have felt for him exceedingly. I read over your wife's letter, and it melted me into tears; and to say the truth (she is now incapable of being flattered), I was not less edified with the sincerity, and wisdom, and constancy of her mind, than I was affected with the tenderness of her concern for her husband and her child. .,.. I thank you for the favour of the ring, and am, dear sir, yours, &c. LETTER XXXI. DR. HERRING TO WILLIAM DUNCOMBE, ESQ. DEAR SIR, Rochester*, Nov. 3, 1738. I HAVE taken up your kind letter three times to answer, and as often been interrupted. I brought it with me to this place yesterday, and resolved not to miss another post. I thank you most affectionately for your obliging inquiry after me; and I bless God, have the satisfaction to inform you, that I am very well, after the most agreeable journey I ever had in my life. We travelled slowly and commodiously, and found Wales a country altogether as entertaining as it was new. The face of it is grand, and bespeaks the magnificence of nature; and enlarged my mind so much, in the same manner as the stupendousness of the ocean does, that it was some time before I could be reconciled again * Atterbury. His lordship held this deanery in commendam yith his bishopric. to the level countries. Their beauties were all in the little taste; and, I am afraid, if I had seen Stow in my way home, I should have thrown out some very unmannerly reflections upon it; I should have smiled at the little niceties of art, and beheld with contempt an artificial ruin, after I had been agreeably terrified with something like the rubbish of a creation. Not but that Wales has its little beauties too, in delightful streams and fine valleys; but the things which entertained me were the vast ocean, and ranges of rocks, whose foundations are hid, and whose tops reach the clouds. I know something of your cast of mind, I believe; and I will therefore take the liberty to give you an account of an airing one fine evening which I shall never forget. I went out in the cool of the day, and rode near four miles upon the smooth shore, with a vast extended view of the oceap, whose waves broke at our feet in gentle murmurs; from thence we turned into a village, with a neat church and houses, which stood just at the entrance of a deep valley; the rocks rose high and near, at each hand of us; but were, on one side covered with a fine turf, full of sheep and goats, and grazing herds; and, on the other, varied with patches of yellow corn, and spots of wood, and here and there a great piece of a bare rock projecting. At our feet ran a stream, clear as crystal, but large and foaming, over vast stones rudely thrown together, of unequal magnitudes, and over it a wooden bridge, which could scarce be said to be made by the hands of art: and, as it was the evening, the hinds appeared, in many parts of the scene, returning home with pails upon their heads. I proceeded in this agreeable place, till our prospect was closed, though much illuminated, by a prodigious cataract from a mountain, that did, as it were, shut the valley. All these images together put me much in mind of Poussin's drawings, and made me fancy myself in Savoy, at least, if not nearer Rome. Indeed, both the journey, and the country, and the residence, were most pleasing to me. Your letters always entertain me, as your last did by an agreeable poem; and in some sort of return, I cannot help mentioning a French book to you which I brought in the coach with me," Le Paysan parvenue It is a book of gallantry, but very modest; but the things which entertained me, were the justness of some characters in it, and the great penetration into human nature. I am your, &c. " LETTER XXXII. DR. HERRING TO WILLIAM DUNCOMBE, ESQ. DEAR SIR, Rochester, Dec. 16, 1740. I AM sure it is high time for me to make my acknowledgements to you for two most entertaining letters. Your reproofs of my ingratitude are very genteel, but very strong and efficacious; and there is no bearing the reprimand of a second oblig ing letter, when the first had been neglected. The verses you sent me are very sensible and touching, and the sentiments in them, I doubt not, By Marivaux. exhilarated the blood for some time, and suspended the black execution: but his distemper, it may be said, got the better, and carried him off at last. I would willingly put that construction upon these melancholy accidents, and then leave the sufferers to the Father of mercies. I read them to a young gentleman here, a Wrexham man, who knew the author, and lived in that country with an uncle who was intimate with him. I have been amused, in my leisure hours from business, with "Anti-Machiavel;" indeed, much entertained with him. You know the author is a royal one*; and if he puts his speculations into practice, if bad times should come, and honest men be forced to quit Old England, I would endeavour, if I could support that character, to put myself under his government and protection. He has exposed, very justly, the littleness of Machiavel's principles, who formed his maxims among the petty states of Italy, and supported the justness of them upon the example of a Cæsar Borgia. In my opinion, this book of the king of Prussia is much more in the style and character of a great prince, than the celebrated Εἰκὼν Βασιλική; unless we are to suppose every Christian prince to support the two characters of king and priest: for the book last mentioned is more agreeable to the sacred function, as I believe, in real truth, it was the work of one of us. I am, &c. The king of Prussia. LETTER XXXIII. DR. HERRING TO WILLIAM Duncombe, ESQ. DEAR SIR, Bishop Thorpe, September 15, 1743. WHEN I have given you a short account of myself from the middle of May, when I left London, you will easily see the reason of my silence with regard to a friend's correspondence, whom I have now known many years, and truly esteemed as many; I have been extremely entertained by both your letters; but, literally speaking, it has been hardly in my power to thank you for them, my time has been so parcelled out, in spite of any schemes of my own. I was above a fortnight upon the road, hefore I reached Bishop-Thorpe, and immediately entered here upou a new round of compliments and entertainment, from which I retreated, after ten days, by changing the scene, and fulfilling my second plan of visitation. After a short recess, I entered upon a third, and, at a proper distance of time, upon a fourth, which ended a fortnight ago; and completed my visitation. I bless God for it, I have finished the work, not only without hurt, but with great pleasure to myself; and I returned home with great satisfaction of heart, for having done my duty, and acquired a sort of knowledge of the diocese, which can be had by nothing but personal inspection. I have traversed, by this means, * Near York. Dr. Herring had been translated to the archiepiscopal see (on the death of archbishop Blackburn) in the April preceding the date of this letter. |