''Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where china's gayest art had dy'd
The azure flow'rs that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclin'd,
Gaz'd on the lake below,'—
a stanza which, with trifling verbal alterations, long served as a label for the 'lofty vase' in the Strawberry Hill collection. To Walpole's officious circulation in manuscript of the famous Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard must indirectly be attributed its publication by Dodsley in February, 1751; to Walpole also is due that typical piece of vers de société, the Long Story, which originated in the interest in the recluse poet of Stoke Poges with which Walpole's well-meaning (if unwelcome) advocacy had inspired Lady Cobham and some other lion-hunters of the neighbourhood. But his chief enterprise in connection with his friend's productions was the edition of them put forth in March, 1753, with illustrations by Richard Bentley, the youngest child of the famous Master of Trinity. Bentley possessed considerable attainments as an amateur artist, and as a scholar and connoisseur had just that virtuoso finesse of manner which was most attractive to Walpole, whose guest and counsellor he frequently became during the progress of the Strawberry improvements. Out of this connection, which, in its hot fits, was of the most confidential character, grew the suggestion that Bentley should make, at Walpole's expense, a series of designs for Gray's poems. These, which are still in existence,[84] were engraved with great delicacy by two of the best engravers of that time, Müller and Charles Grignion; and the Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana, as Walpole christened them, became and remains one of the most remarkable of the illustrated books of the last century. Gray, as may be imagined, could scarcely oppose the compliment; and he seems to have grown minutely interested in the enterprise, rewarding the artist by some commendatory verses, in which he certainly does not deny himself—to use a phrase of Mr. Swinburne—'the noble pleasure of praising.'[85] But even over this book the sensitive ligament that linked him to Walpole was perilously strained. Without consulting him, Walpole had his likeness engraved as a frontispiece,—a step which instantly drew from Gray a wail of nervous expostulation so unmistakably heartfelt that it was impossible to proceed with the plate. Thus it came about that Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray made its appearance without the portrait of the poet.
Bentley's ingenious son was not the only person whom the decoration of Strawberry pressed into the service of its owner. Selwyn, the wit, George James (or 'Gilly') Williams, a connoisseur of considerable ability, and Richard, second Lord Edgecumbe, occasionally sat as a committee of taste,—a function commemorated by Reynolds in a conversation-piece which afterwards formed one of the chief ornaments of the Refectory;[86] and upon Bentley's recommendation Walpole invited from Jersey a humbler guest in the person of a German artist named Müntz,—'an inoffensive, good creature,' who would 'rather ponder over a foreign gazette than a palette,' but whose services kept him domiciled for some time at the Gothic castle. Müntz executed many views of the neighbourhood, which are still, like that of Twickenham already referred to,[87] preserved in contemporary engravings. And besides the persons whom Walpole drew into his immediate circle, the 'village,' as he called it, was growing steadily in public favour. 'Mr. Müntz'—writes Walpole in July, 1755—'says we have more coaches than there are in half France. Mrs. Pritchard has bought Ragman's Castle, for which my Lord Litchfield could not agree. We shall be as celebrated as Baiæ or Tivoli; and if we have not as sonorous names as they boast, we have very famous people: Clive and Pritchard, actresses; Scott and Hudson, painters; my Lady Suffolk, famous in her time; Mr. H[ickey], the impudent Lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against; Whitehead, the poet; and Cambridge, the everything.' Cambridge has already been referred to as a contributor to The World, and the Whitehead was the one mentioned in Churchill's stinging couplet:—
'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?)
Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul,'