Thomas Gray to Mr. Nicholls-Nettlely Abbey. Sunrise. arm of the sea, which, having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view, till it joins the British Channel; it is skirted on either side with gentle rising grounds, clothed with thick wood, and directly across its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight at a distance, but distinctly seen. In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Nettely Abbey; there may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man!) and telling his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable pile that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadows still descending) nods a thicket of oaks that mask the building, and have excluded a view too garish and luxuriant for a holy eye; only on either hand they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did you not observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself to drive the tempter from him that had thrown that distraction in his way? I should tell you that the ferryman who rowed me, a lusty young fellow, told me that he would not for all the world pass a night at the Abbey (there were such things seen near it) though there was a power of money hid there. From thence I went to Salisbury, Wilton, and Stonehenge; but of these things I say no more, they will be published at the University press. P. S. I must not close my letter without giving you one principal event of my history, which was, that (in the course of my late tour) I set out one morning before five o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got Horace Walpole to Richard West-Paris. Burial of the Duke de Tresmes. to the seacoast time enough to be at the sun's levee. I saw the clouds and dark vapors open gradually to right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreaths, and the tide (as it flowed gently in upon the sands) first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue; and all at once a little line of insufferable brightness that (before I can write these five words) was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen.* It is very odd it makes no figure on paper, yet I shall remember it as long as the sun, or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether anybody ever saw it before? I hardly believe it. IV.-PARIS-BURIAL OF THE DUKE DE TRESMES. Horace Walpole † to Richard West. PARIS, April 21, N. S., 1739. DEAR WEST: You figure us in a set of pleasures, which, believe me, we do not find: cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb all variation of pleasures. The operas indeed are much frequented three times a week; but to me they would. be a greater penance than eating maigre: their music resembles a gooseberry tart as much as it does harmony. We have not yet been at the Italian playhouse; scarce any one goes there. * This puts me in mind of a similar description written by Dr. Jeremy Taylor, which I shall here beg leave to present to the reader, who will find by it that the old divine had occasionally as much power of description as even our modern poet. "As when the sun approaches toward the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness; gives light to the cock, and calls up the lark to mattins; and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns ** *; and still (while a man tells the story) the sun gets up higher till he shows a fair face and a full light.”—J. TAYLOR's Holy Dying, p. 17.--M. Walpole's letters are full of society, but have little of nature or art. Horace Walpole to Richard West-Paris. Burial of the Duke de Tresmes. Their best amusement, and which in some parts beats ours, is the comedy; three or four of the actors excel any we have: but then to this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights, and then they go, be the play good or bad-except on Molière's nights, whose pieces they are quite weary of. Gray and I have been at the Avare to-night: I cannot at all commend their performance of it. Last night I was in the Place de Louis le Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and the houses handsome, though not so large as Golden Square), to see what they reckoned one of the finest burials that ever was in France. It was the Duke de Tresmes, Governor of Paris and Marshal of France. It began on foot from his palace to his parish church, and from thence in coaches to the opposite end of Paris, to be interred in the church of the Celestins, where is his family vault. About a week ago we happened to see the grave digging, as we went to see the church, which is old and small, but fuller of fine ancient monuments than any except St. Denis, which we saw on the the road, and excels Westminster; for the windows are all painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says that it is one assurance of his being immortalized, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots; nothing but Friars, White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery. This goodly ceremony began at nine at night, and did not finish 'till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they Horace Walpole to Richard West-Paris. Burial of the Duke de Tresmes. stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the by, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle, lined with ermine, and powdered with gold flower-deluces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it wakened them. The French love show; but there is a meanness reigns through it all. At the house where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the dishes is patched up with salads, butter, puffpaste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None but Germans wear fine clothes; but their coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would laugh extremely at their signs; some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and some at the sucking cat. You would not easily guess their notions of honor; I'H tell you one; it is very dishonorable for any gentleman not to be in the army, or in the King's service, as they call it, and it is no dishonor to keep public gaming houses; there are at least a hundred and fifty people, of the first quality in Paris, who live by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, and find hazzard, pharaoh, etc. The men who keep the hazzard-table at the Duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the privilege. Even the princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them; but they are not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper die than other women, though all use it extravagantly. The weather is still so bad that we have not made any excursions to see Versailles and the environs, not even walked Thomas Campbell to Dr. Beattie-Visit to the Louvre in 1814 with Mrs. Siddons. in the Tuileries; but we have seen almost every thing else that is worth seeing in Paris, though that is very considerable. They beat us vastly in buildings, both in number and magnificence. The tombs of Richelieu and Mazarine at the Sorbonne and the College de Quatre Nations are wonderfully fine, especially the former. We have seen very little of the people themselves, who are not inclined to be propitious to strangers, especially if they do not play, and speak the language readily. If we did not remember there was such a place as England, we should know nothing of it; the French never mention it, unless it happens to be in one of their proverbs. Adieu! Yours ever. V.-VISIT TO THE LOUVRE IN 1814 WITH MRS. SIDDONS. I was one of the many English who availed themselves of the first short peace to get a sight of the continent. The Louvre was at that time in possession of its fullest wealth. In the statuary-hall of that place I had the honor of giving Mrs. Siddons my arm the first time she walked through it, and the first in both our lives that we saw the Apollo Belvidere. From the farthest end of that spacious room, the god seemed to look down like a president on that chosen assembly of sculptured forms; and his glowing marble, unstained by time, appeared to iny imagination as if he had stepped freshly from the sun. I had seen casts of the glorious statue with scarcely any admiration; and I must undoubtedly impute that circumstance in part to my inexperience in art, and to my taste having till then laid torpid. But still I prize the recollected impressions of that day |