cellent engraver when he took pains. Had he met with the encouragement which some of the famous French engravers of his time did, I believe he might have distinguished himself as highly in his profession. I have some heads engraved by him with great strength and boldness, and others with amazing delicacy and neatness. But he, as well as Hollar, worked for booksellers."

MR. LORT to the HON. HORACE WALPOLE.

"SIR, Trin. Col. Camb., Feb. 7, 1760. "The few remarks which occurred to me upon the perusal of your book, and which I took the liberty of desiring Mr. Cumberland to communicate to you, were but a small return for the pleasure and information which I had received therefrom; and, as I doubt not but that most of them may have long before this time been made by yourself or friends, I must therefore attribute the genteel manner with which you have been pleased to acknowledge the receipt of them more to your politeness and candid interpretation of the intentions of the writer than to any merit or novelty of theirs. This, indeed, I ought to have done much sooner, but I had mislaid a paper that contained some further intelligence which I had met with since I sent the former to Mr. Cumberland; and I was willing, sir, to find something more to put in my letter than bare acknowledgments of your politeness. "Lady Masham, I find, was no peeress. I did not know before she was among the long list of supposed writers, both male and female, of The Whole Duty of Man;' yet, if I could be brought to think that manly performance could have flowed from a female pen, I would as soon give the credit of it to Lady Masham as any other of her sex; not so much because she was Dr. Cudworth's daughter, as because she was Mr. Locke's acquaintance and friend: but chronology is against this. However, as this lady has no pretensions from her rank to be introduced to you, I must therefore endeavour to supply her place with another, whose existence you have indeed disputed, but to which I will beg leave to restore her; and she is no other than Lord Berkeley's Lady Harmonia, who was one of the numerous and justly-celebrated offspring of Richard the first Earl of Cork, being his favourite daughter, married to the Earl of Warwick. She 2 M

VOL. VII,

died in 1678, when her funeral sermon was preached by Dr. A. Walker, who has annexed to it the very letter of Lord Berkeley printed at the end of his Lordship's 'Historical Applications; so that there remains no doubt of this book being his, and this letter being hers. The preacher, I think, has also furnished us with a hint to explain the propriety of Lord Berkeley's styling her the Lady Harmonia; for, after a laboured panegyric on her virtues, he owns she had two faults,-'excess of charity,' and defect of anger.' Yet, still this letter perhaps may not be thought sufficient to rank her among the authoresses. Let me therefore found her claim on Occasional Meditations upon several Subjects, with pious Reflections upon several Scriptures, by the Right Honourable Mary Countess Dowager of Warwick. Lond. 1678.'

"These Meditations are much in the strain and style of her brother's, Mr. Robert Boyle. I should have been much better pleased if she had finished what Dr. Walker gives the following account of :

I cannot say that she had resolved to write her father's life; but I can and do affirm she had it in deliberation, and had considerable materials and collections, many of which she had discoursed and read to me, and given me the favour to read myself."

"I imagine, Sir, you have not seen Lord Capel's book. It was first published in 4to. 1654, under the title of 'Daily Observations, or Meditations Divine and Moral, written by a Person of Honour.' This edition I have; and a second in 1689, in 12mo. entitled 'Excellent Contemplations, Divine and Moral, written by the magnanimous and truly-loyal Lord Capel; with several letters to different persons, and his pious advice to his son the late Earl of Essex.' This copy of mine was a gift of the Duchess Dowager of Beaufort (Lord Capel's daughter) to Francis Loutthorpe, 1710, and has the names of the persons written to whom the letters are addressed. Among others is a long one to Oliver Cromwell, dated from the Tower, Jan. 15, 1648, being a very spirited remonstrance (not perhaps, in his circumstances, a very prudent one) against the very extraordinary measures which were then going to be taken against the King. In this letter to Cromwell he subscribes himself 'your most affectionate friend; yet, perhaps, this friend, or rather this letter hastened him to the block the March following.

"I take the liberty of sending you the pamphlet which, you will find, somebody has ascribed to Mr. Robert Walpole. Whether justly or not, you, sir, will be best able to determine. "I am, Sir, with great respect, your most obedient and most faithful servant, MICHAEL LORT."

"SIR,

Trin. Coll. Camb., Feb. 25, 1760.

"In answer to your favour of the 18th, there is a short relation of the estate of Virginia drawn up by Lord Delaware, published in Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. iv. p. 1762; and the same I think, but curtailed, in Smith's History of Virginia,' fol. 1626, p. 105. I I suppose it may originally have been printed by itself.

6

"I know nothing of the other book ascribed to Lord Chandos; but that, I see, is in the Bodleian Catalogue, which very often ascribes the author's name to an anonymous piece, but I find it has not to this.

"The celebrated ballad of Christ's Kirk of the Green,' written by King James the Fifth, was published at Oxford in 4to. 1695, by E. G. viz. Edmund Gibson, afterwards Bishop of London, with a glossary and a preface, which is a defence of the Macaronick and this kind of writing, or rather of the Dulce est desipere in loco.

"There is a posthumous piece of Lord Grey's, being an account of the plot in which he was concerned, published I think not many years ago.

"As I live here, sir, in the midst of books and catalogues, and you may have perceived, sir, love to tumble them over, any queries that you shall at any time be pleased to favour me with I will do my best endeavour to return as satisfactory an answer as I can; being, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, M. LORT."

"SIR,

Windsor, July 27, 1760.

66 Having left college on a summer's excursion, your favour of the 25th inst. was forwarded to me at this place. You did me great honour, and gave me much pleasure, in your kind acceptance and approbation of the Sermon † which I took the liberty of sending you. It contains the real sentiments of my heart, without disguise or flattery; and

* "Horæ Subseciva: Observations and Discourses. Lond. 1620." "Before the University, June 22, 1760, being the Anniversary of his Majesty's Accession to the Throne." Monthly Review, xxiii. 336.

I trust to the good meaning of the design to cover a multitude of errors in the execution of it, in the eyes of those who shall give themselves the trouble, as you have done, of perusing it.

"I am, Sir, your much obliged and most obedient M. LORT."

servant,

"SIR,

Trin. Coll. Camb. March 14, 1762.

"As soon as I was able to get the perusal of the 'Anecdotes of Painting in England,' I sat down to read them with great impatience; I cannot resist the impulse of returning you thanks for the pleasure and satisfaction you have afforded me. I have now at last seen what I have often wished to see, and looked upon as one of the desiderata in literature,-materials collected with zeal, industry, and fidelity by one man, disposed, digested, and embellished by the parts and genius of another. This I am sure of, that many books, with very excellent stuff in them, have fallen into neglect and oblivion on account of their being awkwardly and inartificially put together. Whoever has read Vertue's Opuscula, which he himself compiled and published, will I am persuaded think it a lucky circumstance that the collection which he had made on so curious and unhacknied a subject as the history of the polite arts in England should have fallen into the hands of one so well qualified to do justice to the subject.

"As a proof, Sir, that I mean something more than bare compliment in this letter, I have taken the liberty of enclosing such observations as occurred to me in the course of my reading, such as it is my fashion to scribble on the perusal of every book that pleases me.

"Your favourable acceptance of a former medley of this kind has encouraged the sending of the present* from, Sir, your most obedient and faithful servant,

"SIR,

"M. LORT."

London, May 10, 1765.

"I have lately met in the public library of our university a parcel of original letters from the Earl of Northampton to Car, Earl of Somerset, during that memorable period of Lady Essex's divorce and Sir T. Overbury's

These remarks of Dr. Lort are not preserved with the collection of his letters to Walpole.

imprisonment, which, as appears from the Trial, were the very letters Lord Coke got into his possession, and read part of at the trial. These I have transcribed, and, if you should have any curiosity to peruse them, they are much at your service, by sending for them to Messrs. Whiston and White, booksellers, in Fleet-street. I have done myself the honour of calling at your house; but not having the pleasure of finding you at home, and returning to Cambridge to-morrow, I take the liberty of troubling you with this. Since I have been in town, I have found another set of letters from Overbury to Somerset-copies only-in the British Museum, which I was also induced to transcribe, and have put together with the others.

"I have, in common with the rest of the world, been so much obliged to Mr. Walpole for much entertainment and information received from his writings, that I should be glad in this or any other way to show how much I am his most obedient servant, M. LORT.

"To the Hon. Horatio Walpole, Esq."

"SIR,

Cambridge, June 3, 1765. "I am favoured with your letter, and much obliged by the concern you express from my having missed seeing of you when I did myself the honour of calling at your house. The loss was mine, which I shall be very glad to repair when I come next to town.

"The papers I left with Whiston and White you may please to return thither at your own leisure. When I first found Northampton's letters I did expect to have unravelled all those mysterious transactions which Sir E. Coke's insinuations at Somerset's trial led me to suppose had passed between him and Somerset, and to have found circumstantial proof of Northampton's guilt, not only with regard to the murder of Overbury, but of Prince Henry also. But concerning the latter I found nothing; and with regard to the former, circumstances rather led me to acquit Northampton: but whether they may lead any one else is another matter. I have likewise, since I read them, entertained a better opinion of Sir A. Weldon's account of King James's reign, and a worse of Lord Brooke's, than I had before.

"In your account of Sir John Holles you mention, on the authority of his biographer, Mr. Gervase Holles, Sir John's private conference with Garnet and another Jesuit,