mutilated statue of a Saxon king,* of which Carter has taken a drawing. His zeal has carried him lately to Fairford, to make drawings of some of the painted glass.† "I hope you have succeeded in your commissions at Weston. “I am, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful servant, "M. LORT." Lambeth House, Nov. 8, 1781. "DEAR SIR, "I was truly sorry to hear that you were so roughly handled by the gout; but I hope that the severity of the fit is over, and that you will be left at ease and liberty to pursue your design of doing justice to the memory of your old friend, and afford an opportunity to others of partaking with you in the pleasure which her literary treasures must have afforded you. "I could wish also to see justice done to Voltaire-I mean not by such flattering portraits of him as his two partial friends have been and are exhibiting of him, but by a just and genuine likeness. "The pamphlet which attends this has some letters in it by the Chevalier Boufflers, that I was much pleased with, and I send it in hopes it may afford you half an hour's amusement. “I am, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful servant. "M. LORT." "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, March 7, [1782 ?]. "The picture which accompanies this seeming to me a curiosity worthy your attention, I have taken the liberty to send it to you. It belongs to Mr. Turner, in whose family it has some time been, and for one of whom, from the * Engraved by Carter in his "Antient Sculpture and Painting," pl. L, p. 64, edit. 1838. † See Bigland's "History of Fairford," 8vo. 1791. Madame Du Deffand, who died in 1780, aged 84. Walpole thus mentions her in a letter to Mr. Gray, written from Paris in 1760: "She is now very old, and stone-blind, but retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passions, and agreeableness. She goes to operas, plays, suppers, and Versailles; gives suppers twice a-week; has everything new read to her; makes new songs and epigrams, aye, admirably, and remembers every one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at the clergy and the philosophers." Her Letters to Mr. Walpole from 1766 to 1780, to which were added her letters to Voltaire from 1759 to 1775, were published from the originals at Strawberry Hill, in 4 vols. in 1810. sketch of the characters given me with it, it seems to have been painted. I sent it to Sir John Hawkins, who returned it with his sentiments, which seem to me to suit the picture better than Mr. Turner's traditional account; but of this you will be the better judge. I have been confined at home almost since I had the pleasure of meeting you at Sir Joseph Banks', or I would with pleasure have attended the picture to Berkeley Square. "Believe me, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful ser"M. LORT." vant, "DEAR SIR, No. 16, Saville Row, Dec. 20, 1782. "I did intend, before this time, to have announced to you in person my having quitted Lambeth House, and taken up my residence as above mentioned; but a very severe cold, which I brought with me from Bath, whither I went first from Lambeth, has confined me here at home for some time past, so that I only ventured out this morning for half an hour. On my return I found the inclosed letter from Dr. Ewin to Sir Walter Rawlinson, giving an account of the death of an old friend of ours,* which I very sincerely regret; for, with all his oddities, he was a worthy and valuable man. I thought you would like to read this letter, as well as myself; when you have done with it, be pleased to return it to your faithful servant, "M. LORT." "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, Jan. 6, 1786. "I have been confined at home with a severe cold, or I should have called to ask you how you did since I had the pleasure of hearing that the paroxysm of your gout was subsided, and that you could make your friends happy in conversing with you. "It is but lately that I have found the pamphlet, which I now return as your property, and am afraid it has been in my possession much longer than it ought to have been. "I also send a book of my own, containing a Life of Father Archangell, a noble Scotchman, very different from Sir David Dalrymple's, and, indeed, it appears they were different persons. How is this difference to be accounted for? "I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, "M. LORT." The Rev. William Cole, who died Dec. 16, 1782. See memoirs and numerous notices of him in Lit. Anecdotes, vol. I. pp. 657-701, and Index, VII. 87, 538. "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, July 16, 1788. "My friend, the Rev. G. Ashby, of Barrow, in Suffolk, is very desirous that you would do him the honour of perusing at your leisure the inclosed MS. and giving him your opinion whether the Book of Prayers should be ascribed to Katharine of Arragon rather than Katharine Parr. He can get no satisfactory information from Mr. Herbert, who mentions the book, p. 1076.* "You probably have heard of the plunder made in Devonshire House from most of the cabinets. The whole suite of gold medals, Greek and Roman, were swept away, and I concluded were all gone into the melting pot; but I have had the pleasure of recovering the greatest part of them, also of the other property, which were taken at his leisure by a young confectioner that had lived some time in the family, and with great adroitness contrived to open most of the cabinets. He is now in custody. † "I have the honour to be, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful servant, M. LORT. ".P.S. The duke himself had the keys of the drawings and gems in his keeping for some years; I only kept the keys of the medals till some proper person should receive them, to whom I might shew they were all safe. "Very little indeed of the account published yesterday in 'The World,' and from thence in this day's 'Public Advertiser,' is true." "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, July 25, 1788. "In turning over the 'Mélanges de Vigneuil Marveille,' vol. i. p. 217, there is a curious passage relative to Sir K. Digby and his lady and her pictures, which, if it should have hitherto escaped your notice, you will, I doubt not, be glad to have had it pointed out to you. If you should not have the book, mine is at your service. "I am, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful servant, "M. LORT." "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, July 28, 1788. "I am much obliged by your remarks on Mr. Ashby's MS., as I think he ought also to be when [he] shall see them. I say ought, as we do not always give a ready * See before, in this volume, p. 413. + See before, p. 497. assent to arguments that make against a private notion. This of the first Katharine being the author of the prayers I endeavoured to combat, but without success, and was therefore glad that he appealed to you, whose authority he is more likely to submit to. 66 Before informed me, you I did not know that the Devonshire gold medals had been once lord Pembroke's. Are these, then, the medals engraved in lord Pembroke's fine book, and which, not having been visible for many years at Wilton, have been supposed to have been locked up in the bank? "The most rare and curious of the Devonshire gold coins have been recovered; of those missing the greatest part are of the Lower Empire, and these all in a suite, as if the drawers which contained them had been emptied into a bag by themselves, and so carried and sold to the refiner's, who says he has melted them all. "Several dealers in this way have brought me coins, which they suppose may have been taken from the Devonshire cabinet: amongst others, one Norborne, No. 153, High Holborn, brought a chased oval medal of N. Wadham and his wife, figured and described in the 3rd plate of Parry's Supplement, which Norborne wishes to sell. "I have not seen lord Buchan's Life of Napier,* nor have much curiosity to see it after what you have said of it. "There is a pamphlet lately published at York relative to the Lunatic Hospital there, which perhaps you would care as little about if I was not to add that it was written by Mr. Mason, and is sold at Robson's. "I believe I shall in a week's time pass over to the Continent, and stay a fortnight at Boulogne for sea-bathing, and to reconnoitre the places figured in the Cowdray paintings, and just published by the Antiquarian Society. The noted pharos formerly there, of which there was a counterpart at Dover, was built by Caligula; and yet he is supposed to have done nothing whilst he stayed at Boulogne but gather cockle-shells. Montfaucon, in his description of this pharos in the Mem. de l'Acad. tom. vi. mistakes an old church-tower in Dover Castle for the pharos, reasons upon it, and then afterwards slightly mentions that he had mistaken the object. I am, Sir, your obliged and faithful servant, M. LORT." * See a memoir of Lord Buchan, with a series of his correspondence, in Literary Illustrations, VI, 489-521. "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, Nov. 10, 1788. "A MS. life of Chatterton, drawn up for the Biographia Britannica, but not by Dr. Kippis, has been lately put into my hands, in which I made some alterations and corrections of facts better known to me than to the writer.* In the account given of the transaction between you and Chatterton, it seemed to me that the writer had leaned too much to the side of the question unfavourable to you, as given by ignorant or prejudiced persons; and I think I convinced him that he had done so. I told him I would draw up a fairer and truer state of the matter, and this I have attempted to do in the four first pages of the inclosed papers; the others are only transcripts from your pamphlet on the subject (whether properly made, or too much or too little, you will best judge), to be inserted, I should suppose, in the notes, if the general plan of the biography is followed; which it does not seem to have been by the writer of this life. Whether all or any, or what part of the inclosed,† should be offered to the biographer, is submitted to your judgment. I have not mentioned to any person that I had or should apply to you on this occasion; and I shall with great pleasure receive and obey your directions. I am, dear Sir, with great truth, your faithful servant, "M. LORT." "DEAR SIR, Saville Row, July 6, 1789. "I shall with great pleasure obey your commands, and give Mr. Porter a recommendatory letter to Dr. Postlethwaite, the new Master of Trinity College, from whom I am sure the young man will receive all proper encouragement and countenance, if it be not his own fault. But I think I could write this with a better grace, if I was to see and converse with the father and the son for a few minutes. You say the young man has got some Latin; I hope he has got some Greek also, for without some acquaintance with that language he will scarce be admitted. "I am, dear Sir, in much haste, your obliged and faithful servant, "DEAR SIR, "M. LORT." Saville Row, Aug. 4, 1789. "Having lent Barrett's book to a friend, and not re * Rev. Dr. Gregory. + See hereafter, p. 555. |