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meet there, I trust, on my return, as old friends that know, and therefore value each other. In that confidence I remain, dear Sir,

Your favoured and obedient Friend and Servant, J. WHITAKER.

P. S. Salmasius's derivation of our clerical cassocks from the Gaulish caracallæ, I think is one of those wild vagaries of etymology that have so greatly discredited the science. Cassock is casul in Armorick, a priest's cope, and casul and casog in Welsh and Irish, a cassock. Manchester, July 20, 1773.

N° XXXVIII.

EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. to J. HOLROYD, Esq. at Edinburgh.

DEAR HOLROYD,

Bentinck-street, Aug. 7, 1773. I BEG ten thousand pardons for not being dead, as I certainly ought to be. But such is my abject nature, that I had rather live in Bentinckstreet, attainted and convicted of the sin of laziness, than enjoy your applause either at old Nick's or even in the Elysian Fields. After all, could you expect that I should honour with my correspondence a wild barbarian of the Bogs of Erin? Had the natives intercepted my letter, the terrors occasioned by such unknown magic characters might have been fatal to you. But now you have escaped the fury of their hospitality, and are arrived among a cee-vi-leezed nation, I may venture to renew my intercourse.

You

You tell me of a long list of dukes, lords, and chieftains of renown to whom you are introduced; were I with you, I should prefer one David to them all. When you are at Edinburgh, I hope you will not fail to visit the stye of that fattest of Epicurus's hogs, and inform yourself whether there remains no hope of its recovering the use of its right paw. There is another animal of great, though not perhaps of equal, and certainly not of similar merit, one Robertson; has he almost created the new world? Many other men you have undoubtedly seen, in the country where you are at present, who must have commanded your esteem: but when return, if you are not very honest, you will possess great advantages over me in any dispute concerning Caledonian merit.

you

The

Boodle's and Atwood's are now no more. last stragglers, and Godfrey Clarke in the rear of all, are moved away to their several castles; and I now enjoy, in the midst of London, a delicious solitude. My library, Kensington Gardens, and a few parties with new acquaintance who are chained to London, (among whom I reckon Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds,) fill up my time, and the monster Ennui preserves a very respectful distance. By the bye, your friends Batt, Sir John Russell, and Lascelles, dined with me one day before they set off; for I sometimes give the prettiest little dinner in the world. But all this composure draws near its conclusion. About the sixteenth of this month Mr. Eliot carries me away, and after picking up Mrs. Gibbon at Bath, sets me down at Port Eliot :

Eliot there I shall certainly remain six weeks, or, in other words,. to the end of September. My future motions, whether to London, Derbyshire, or a longer stay in Cornwall, (pray is not "motion to stay" rather in the Hibernian style?) will depend on the life of Port Eliot, the time of the meeting of parliament, and perhaps the impatience of Mr. Lovegrove, Lord of Lenborough. One of my pleasures in town I forgot to mention, the unexpected visit of Deyverdun, who accompanies his young lord (very young indeed!) on a two months' tour to England. He took the opportunity of the Earl's going down to the Duke of Chandos's, to spend a fortnight (nor do I recollect a more pleasant one) in Bentinck-street. They are now gone together into Yorkshire, and I think it doubtful whether I shall see him again before his return to Leipsic. It is a melancholy reflection, that while one is plagued with acquaintance at the corner of every street, real friends should be separated from each other by unsurmountable bars, and obliged to catch at a few transient moments of interview. I desire that you and my Lady (whom I most respectfully greet) would take your share of that very new and acute observation, not so large a share indeed as my Swiss friend, since nature and fortune give us more frequent opportunities of being together. You cannot expect news from a desert, and such is London at present. The papers give you the full harvest of public intelligence; and I imagine that the eloquent nymphs of Twickenham* communi

*Miss Cambridges.

cate

cate all the transactions of the polite, the amorous, and the marrying world. The great pantomime of Portsmouth was universally admired; and I am angry at my own laziness in neglecting an excellent opportunity of seeing it. Foote has given us the Bankrupt, a serious and sentimental piece, with very severe strictures on the license of scandal in attacking private characters. Adieu. Forgive and epistolize me. I shall not believe I shall not believe you sincere in the former, unless you make Bentinck-street your inn. I fear I shall be gone; but Mrs. Ford * and the parrot will be proud to receive you and my Lady after your long peregrination, from which I expect great improvements. Has she got the brogue upon the tip of her tongue?†

N° XXXIX.

EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. to J. HOLROYD, Esq.

DEAR HOLROYD,

Port Eliot, Sept. 10th, 1773.

By this time you have surely finished your tour, touched at Edinburgh, where you found a letter, which you have not answered, and are now contemplating the beauties of the Weald of Sussex. I shall demand a long and particular account of your peregrinations, but will excuse it till we meet; and for the present expect only a short memorandum of your health and situation, together with that of my much-honoured friend Mrs. Holroyd.

* His housekeeper.

+ Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd made a tour to Ireland and Scotland this summer.

A word

Holroyd. A word too, if you please, concerning father and sister; to the latter I enclose a receipt from Mrs. Gibbon who is now with me at Port Eliot..

Blind as you accuse me of being to the beauties of nature, I am wonderfully pleased with this country. Of her three dull notes, ground, plants, and water, Cornwall possesses the first and last in very high perfection. Think of a hundred solitary streams peacefully gliding between amazing cliffs on one side, and rich meadows on the other, gradually swelling by the aid of the tide into noble rivers, successively losing themselves in each other, and all at length terminating in the harbour of Plymouth, whose broad expanse is irregularly dotted with two-and-forty line of battle ships. In plants indeed we are deficient; and though all the gentlemen now attend to posterity, the country will for a long time be very naked. We have spent several days agreeably enough in little parties; but in general our time rolls away in complete uniformity. Our landlord possesses neither a pack of hounds, nor a stable of running horses, nor a large farm, nor a good library. The last only could interest me; but it is singular that a man of fortune, who chooses to pass nine months of the year in the country, should have none of them.

According to our present design, Mrs. Gibbon and myself return to Bath about the beginning of next month. I shall probably make but a short stay with her, and defer my Derbyshire journey till anoSufficient for the summer is the evil thereof, viz. one distant country excursion. Na

ther year.

VOL. II.

I

tural

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