I rejoice in your amendment, and reckon it among my obligations to the fine weather, and hope it will be the most lasting of them. Yours ever.
(316) "No more the Grecian Muse unrivall'd reigns;
To Britain let the nations homage pay:
She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains,
A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray."-E.
Letter 143 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1778. (page 194)
Your observation of Rowley not being mentioned by William of Wyrcestre, is very strong, indeed, dear Sir, and I shall certainly take notice of it. It has suggested to me that he is not named by Bale or Pitts(317)—is he? Will you trouble yourself to look? I conclude he is not, or we should have heard of it. Rowley is the reverse of King Arthur, and all those heroes that have been expected a second time; he is to come again for the first time-I mean, as a great poet. My defence amounts to thirty pages of the size of this paper: yet I believe I shall not publish it. I abhor a controversy; and what is it to me whether people believe in an impostor or not? Nay, shall I convince every body of my innocence, though there is not the shadow of reason for thinking I was to blame? If I met a beggar in the street, and refused him sixpence, thinking him strong enough to work, and two years afterwards he should die of drinking, might not I be told I had deprived the world of a capital rope-dancer? In short, to show one's self sensible to such accusations, would only invite more; and since they accuse me of contempt, I will have it for my accusers.
My brass plate for Bishop Walpole was copied exactly from the print in Dart's Westminster, of the tomb of Robert Dalby, Bishop of Durham, with the sole alteration Of the name. I shall return, as soon as I have time, to Mr. Baker's Life; but I shall want to Consult you, or, at least, the account of him in the new Biographia, as your notes want some dates. I am not satisfied yet with what I have sketched; but I shall correct it. My small talent was grown very dull. This attack about Chatterton has a little revived it; but it warns me to have done , for, if*one comes to want provocatives,-the produce will soon be feeble. Adieu! Yours most sincerely.
(317) John Bale, Bishop of Ossory. The work to which Walpole alludes is his "Catalog's Scriptorum illustrium Majoris Brytannie." Basle, 1557-E.—John Pitts wrote, in opposition to Bale, "De illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus." Paris, 1619.-E.
Letter 144 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 21, 1778. (page 195)
I think it so very uncertain whether this letter will find you, that I write merely to tell you I received yours to-day. I recollect nothing particularly worth seeing in Sussex that you have not seen (for I think you have seen Coudray and Stansted, and I know you have Petworth), but Hurst Monceaux, near Battle; and I don't know whether it is not pulled down. The site of Arundel Castle is fine, and there are some good tombs of the Fitzalans at the church, but little remains of the castle; in the room of which is a modern brick house; and in the late Duke's time the ghost of a giant walked there, his grace said—but I suppose the present Duke has laid it in the Red Sea of claret.
Besides Knowle and Penshurst, I should think there were several seats of old families in Kent worth seeing; but I do not know them. I poked out Summer-hill(318) for the sake of the Babylonienne in Grammont; but it is now a mere farmhouse. Don't let them Persuade you to visit Leeds Castle, which is not worth seeing.
You have been near losing me and half a dozen fair cousins today. The Goldsmiths, Company dined in Mr. Shirley's field, next to Pope's. I went to Ham with my three Waldegrave nieces and Miss Keppel, and saw them land, and dine in tents erected for them, from the opposite shore. You may imagine how beautiful the sight was in such a spot and in such a day! I stayed and dined at Ham, and after dinner Lady Dysart, with Lady Bridget Tollemache took our four nieces on the water to see the return of the barges but were to set me down at Lady Browne's. We were, with a footman and the two watermen, ten in a little boat. As we were in the middle of the river, a larger boat full of people drove directly upon us on purpose. I believe they were drunk. We called to them, to no purpose; they beat directly against the middle of our little skiff—but, thank you, did not do us the least harm—no thanks to them. Lady Malpas was in Lord Strafford's garden, and gave us for gone. In short, Neptune never would have had so beautiful a prize as the four girls.