V. You jest on sacred things: revere, "The Steward of the Lord of Hosts"WV. So your imprinted Sermon boasts; And oft this doctrine I have heard From your own lying mouth preferr'd. W. A bite! unpew'd I take my stand, Modest, and meek, my whip in hand; With Yorke's, or Hardinge's social fare: V. Drums, I suppose, at night, and misses, V. Still more profane! Farewell!---I see, His neighbour Mr. Cambridge wrote upon him, as he told me himself, and made no secret of it, an excellent, and very harmless Epigram, which he gave to me when I was intimate with him. It was upon a waistcoat, first velvet, then embroidered: a parody upon Dryden's "Three Poets in three distant ages born." But the Reverend son of this Epigrammatist having assured me that, whoever told me it was intended intended by his father as a laugh at the expence of his friend, told me that which had no truth in it, I forbear to insert it here, though he has published it himself in the Memoirs of his father's life, but without pointing at the object of this playful satire by name. I must, however, take the liberty of entering my dissent, and protest against that gentleman's opinion-that, if his father had written it as a joke upon his friend, (who could laugh at him in return), his character, as a moralist and friend, would have then received, or would now receive, any disrepute. But what makes this amiable delicacy of the Son a little too refined is, that Mr. WRAY himself alludes to this identical waistcoat as a theme of the wits, in a tone of the most philosophical goodnature, and of humour too, as well as forbearance. "Your doctrines de re vestiarid are no less "orthodox than de re medicá. The warm waist"coats are accordingly laid in ; and the Shag, toties "decantatus, has long since been delivered over to "the secular arm of Anthony*. But I have provided "an equal successor;-non deficit alter-I may add "that it is aureus, for the silver lace almost is ripened "into gold. Indeed I intend my wardrobe shall be "ever equipped with such venerable antiquities. "They are a kind of breast-plate, in which the sati"rical wit of my bantering friends will remain sus-. "pended when I am safe behind it. If I did not "abandon to their archness a waistcoat, they would "pick a hole in my coat.' If Mr. WRAY had known or believed the Epigram on this topic written by his friend, as I am convinced that he did, he would not have admired, or loved him the less. Witness the affection that he bore to my father, one of his dearest friends, who ban His only Servant. + It happens whimsically too, that Mr. Cambridge the father gave me under his hand another Epigram upon the same foible of tered this foible with incessant humour, was read, was admired by his hero, lived in uniform habits of perfect harmony with him, and revived him in his affection when they could laugh together no more. The same waistcoat produced a bon-mot which has many fathers to it, and amongst them Dr. Salter, to whom I think it is fairly due-It was the arch whim of this remark: "Surely, WRAY, that waistcoat is old enough to go into breeches." Perhaps, like the ant, he made provision for the winter of life, and calculated the parsimony of the old bachelor as a nest-egg for the liberality of the married man. Mr. WRAY was often at Queen's College, till he married; and kept, I believe, his name upon the boards to the day of his death. In 1748 he made a figure at Cambridge upon a singular, and ludicrous occasion. Mr. Burrell, the father of Lord Gwydir, then at young man, presented to the University a Statue, which he called, as I have been told (and as, I dare say, he thought) a figure of Queen Anne. The University was then, as it has too often been, a scene of party, which had no business there. The Whigs, and the Tories were in a poli tical flame; and a civil war took up any feather as the demand upon it, or cri de guerre: The Tories were pleased with a High-church Queen, and placed her, by an irregular act of power, in the Senatehouse. Mr. WRAY had the repute of discovering that it was no Queen Anne, but a figure of Glory. of Mr. WRAY, which is also published by the Son, but without a name, though with two circumstances, which, in the vulgar phrase, let the cat out of the bug. One is, that his anonymous hero is, like WRAY, a monosyllabist, or the measure of the verse at an end; and the other is, that his old and favourite servant, who was known by the name of Tony, is by that name brought upon the scene. Apropos, in four lines purporting to be copies of the original Epigram, in Greek, there are two glaring Errata. The It had stood at Canons, near the Duke of Marlborough's figure, in honour to his military victories. Being, I suppose, of the Whig faction, Mr. WRAY exerted himself to put a disgrace upon this personage; detected the inaccuracy of the title; and was confederate in a party for the expulsion of the figure. His opposition failed. The figure was honoured by a final decree, and she was called Academic Glory, with a label annexed: "Cuncti adsint, meritæque expectent præmia palmæ." My Father, who was occasionally at Cambridge, made this a theme of banter upon the Tories, and wrote the following Dialogue, which was many years ago inserted in the "Poetical Calendar."-It alludes to Mr. WRAY, and has drawn his portrait with a peculiar delicacy of humour; for it is a ridicule upon his manner, accompanied by a compliment upon his patriotism, and philanthropy. It happens that, in two of his letters to his friend Mr. Yorke, Mr. WRAY alludes to this whimsical incident. They leave it rather as a point of doubt, whether he was, or was not, (under-hand at least), the leading advocate of the expulsion; and they give a key, though imperfect, and general, to the mention of Bishop Keene, in the Poem, as likely to supersede the gift, and remove the solecism. "This moment I am come from the Senate, "where a Grace for removing Glory has been "thrown out. Our friend Dr. M.* was amongst its “principal asserters-but he has presented his book "to me, and shewn me his wife, who is an agreeable 66 woman. I know not by what fate I am supposed by many to be the mover of this Iconoclasis; but you see by the event of this afternoon how strangely things are judged of here. My old crony "the Vice-master was on the side of the Statue." 66 66 * I believe Dr. Middleton. + The passage here is obscure. I rather infer that he was on the side of " Glory." This This Letter has no year for its date; but must have been in 1748, when Glory was confirmed in its original position. A DIALOGUE IN THE SENATE - HOUSE AT CAMBRIDGE. Stranger. WHOSE is this image?-Beadle. ACADEMIC GLORY. S. Is she a maid, or matron? Whig, or Tory? What quarry could produce so huge a block? Who bought her, who transform'd, who plac'd her B. Who plac'd her there? A mason.-S. Whose design Contriv'd her statue's architecture?-B. Mine. S. Who thus her pedestal with Latin grac'd? Who taught her thus to speak in words unchaste? But to my Johnian friends I give due credit, * Cuncti adsint, meritæque expectent præmia palmæ. Though |