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them: the better for it; and indeed, what can I do elle? Muft I plunge into metaphyfics? Alas, I cannot see in the dark; nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Muft. I pore upon mathematics? Alas, I cannot see in too much light; I am no eagle. It is very poffible that two and two make four, but I would not give four farthings to demonstrate this ever fo clearly and if these be the profits of live, give me the amusements of it. The people I behold all around me, it feems, know all this and more, and yet I do not know one of them who inspires me with any ambition of being like him. Surely it was of this place, now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of Babylon, that the prophet spoke when he said;,, the wild beasts of the defart fhall dwell there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls fhall build there, and fatyrs fhall dance there; their forts and towers shall be a den for ever, a joy of wild asses; there fhall the great owl make her neft, and lay and hatch and gather under her fhadow; it fhall be a court of dragons; the fcreech owl also fhall reft there; and find for herself a place of reft. “ You see here is a pretty collection of defolate animals, which is verified in this town to a little, and perhaps it may also allude to your habitation, for you know all types may be taken by abundance of handles; however, I defy your owls to match mine.

We

If the default of your spirits and nerves be nothing but the effect of the hyp, I have no more to say. all must submit to that wayward Queen, and I do in no fmall degree own her sway.

I feel her influence while I speak her power.

But if it be a real diftemper, pray take more care of your health, if not for your own, at least for our fakes,

and do not be so foon weary of this little world: I do not know what refined friendships you may have contracted in the other, but pray do not be in a hurry, to fee your acquaintance above; among your terrestrial familiars, however, though I say it that should not fay it, there pofitively is not one that has a greater esteem for you than

I

Yours moft fincerily, etc...

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II.

TO MR. WEST.

T

SIR!

Tivoli, May 20. 1740.

This day being in the palace of his highness the Duke of Modena, he laid his moft ferene commands upon me to write to Mr. Weft, and faid he thought it for his glory, that I fhould draw up an inventary of all his moft ferene poffeffions for the faid Weft's perufal. Imprimis, a house, being in circumference a quarter of a mile, two feet and an inch; the said house con taining the following particulars, to wit, a great room. Iten, another great room, item, a bigger room; item, another room; item, a vast room; item, a fixth of the same; a seventh ditto; an eigth as before; a ninth as above faid; a tenth (see No. I.); item, ten more such, besides twenty befides, which, not to be too particular, we shall pass over. The faid rooms contain nine chairs, two tables, five stools and a cricket. From whence we shall proceed to the garden, containing two millions of superfine laurel hedges, a clump of cypress trees, and half the river Teverone, that pilles into two thousand several chamber - pots. Finis. Dame Nature desired ine to put in a list of her little goods and chattels, and, as they were small, to be very minute about them. She has built here three or four little mountains, and laid them out in an irregular semi- circle; from certain others behind, at a greater distance, she has drawn a canal, into which fhe has put a little river of her's, called Anio; fhe has cut a huge cleft between the two innermost of her four hills, and there

fhe

fhe has left it to his own difpofal; which fhe has no fooner done, but, like a heedlefs chit, it tumbles headlong down a declivity fifty feet perpendicular, breaks itself all to fhatters, and is converted into a shower of rain, where the fun forms many a bow, red, green, blue and yellow. To get out of our metaphors without any further trouble, it is the most poble fight in the world. The weight of that quantity of waters, and the force they fall with, have worn the rocks they throw themselves among into a thousand irregular craggs, and to a vast depth. In this channel it goes boiling along with a mighty noife till it comes to another steep, where you see it a fecond time come roar. ing down (but first you must walk two miles farther) a greater height than before, but not with that quan tity of waters; for by this time it has divided itself, being croffed and oppofed by the rocks, into four seve ral streams, each of which, in emulation of the great one, will tumble down too, and it does tumble down, but not from an equally elevated place; fo that you have all one view at these cascades intermixed with groves of olive and little woods, the mountains rising behind them, and on the top of one (that which form the extremity of one of the half- circle's horns) is feated the town itself. At the very extremity of that extremity, on the brink of the precipice, stands the Sybils temple, the remains of a little rotunda, furrounded with its portico, above half of whofe beautiful Corinthian pillars are still standing and entire; all this on one hand. On the other the open Campagna of Rome, here and there a little castle on a hillock, and the city itself on the very brink of the horizon, indis tinctly seen (being 18 miles off.) except the dome of St. Peter's; which, if you look out of your window, wherever you are, I fuppofe, you can fee. I did not

tell

tell you that a little below the firft fall, on the fide of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, are little ruins which they show you for Horace's house, a curious fituation to obferve the

,, Praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda.

Maecenas did not care for fuch a noise, it seems, and built him a house (which they also carry one to see) so fituated that it fees nothing at all of the matter, and for any thing he knew there might be no fuch river in the world. Horace had another house on the other fide of the Teverone, oppofite to Maecenas's; and they told us there was a bridge of communication, by which,,andava il detto Signor per traftullarfi coll ifteffo Orazio. " In coming hither we crolled the Aquae Albulae, a vile little brook that stinks like a fury, and they say it has stunk so these thousand years. I forgot the Piscina of Quintilius Varus, where he used to keep certain little fifhes. This is very entire, and there is a piece of the aqueduct that fupplied it too; in the below is old Rome, built in little, just as it was they fay. There are feven temples in it, and no houfes at all; they say there were none.