Chapter 47

Strawberry Hill, August 28, 1772. (page 72)

Dear Sir, Your repentance is much more agreeable than your sin, and will cancel it whenever you please. Still I have a fellow-feeling for the indolence of age, and have myself been writing an excuse this instant for not accepting an invitation above threescore miles off. One's limbs, when they grow old, will not go any where, when they do not like it. If yours should find themselves in a more pliant humour, you are always sure of being welcome here, let the fit of motion come when it will.

Pray what is become of that figure you mention of Henry VII., which the destroyers, not the builders have rejected? and which the antiquaries, who know a man by his crown better than by his face, have rejected likewise? The latter put me in mind of characters in comedies, in which a woman disguised in man's habit, and whose features her very lover does not know, is immediately acknowledged by pulling off her hat, and letting down her hair, which her lover had never seen before. I should be glad to ask Dr. Milles, if he thinks the crown of England was always made, like a quart pot, by Winchester measure? If Mr. Tyson has made a print from that little statue, I trust he will give me one; and if he, or Mr. Essex, or both, will accompany you hither, I shall be glad to see them.

At Buckden, in the Bishop's palace, I saw a print of Mrs. Newcome: I Suppose the late mistress of St. John's. Can you tell me where I can procure one? Mind, I insist that you do not serve me as you have often done, and send me your own, if you have one. I seriously will not accept it, nor ever trust you again. On the staircase, in the same palace, there is a picture of two young men, in the manner of Vandyck, not at all ill done; do you know who they are, or does any body? There is a worse picture, in a large room, of some lads, which, too, the housemaid did not know. Adieu! dear Sir, yours ever.

Letter 48To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Nov. 7, 1772. (page 73)

Dear Sir, I did receive the print of Mrs. Newcome, for which I am extremely obliged to you, with a thousand other favours, and should certainly have thanked you for it long ago, but I was then, an(I am now, confined to my bed with the gout in every limb, and in almost every joint. I have not been out of my bedchamber these five weeks to-day and last night the pain returned violently into one of my feet; so that I am now writing to you in a most uneasy posture, which will oblige me to be very short.

Your letter, which I suppose was left at my house in Arlington street by Mr. Essex, was brought to me this morning. I am exceedingly sorry for his disappointment, and for his coming without writing first; in which case I might have prevented his journey. I do not know, even, whither to send to him, to tell him how impossible it is for me just now, in my present painful and hopeless situation, to be of any use to him. I am so weak and faint, I do not see even my nearest relations, and God knows how long it will be before I am able to bear company, much less application. I have some thoughts, as soon as I am able, of removing to Bath; so that I cannot guess when it will be in my power to consider duly Mr. Essex's plan with him. I shall undoubtedly, if ever capable of it, be ready to give him my advice, such as it is; or to look over his papers, and even to correct them, if his modesty thinks me more able to polish them than he is himself. At the same time, I must own, I think he will run too great a risk by the expense. The engravers in London are now arrived at such a pitch of exorbitant imposition, that, for my own part, I have laid aside all thoughts of having a single plate more done.

Dear Sir, pray tell Mr. Essex how concerned I am for his mischance, and for the total impossibility I am under of seeing him now. I can write no More, but I shall be glad to hear from you on his return to Cambridge: and when I am recovered, you may be assured how glad I shall be to talk his plan over with him. I am his and Your obliged humble servant.