by Pope, may have been, as Dr. Johnson asserts, one of the causes of his introduction to the notice of the great and powerful, but I know not whether he owed his introduction to the Dorset family to him or no.

He describes a short visit he received from Pope, at Oxford. In a letter to his mother from that place, dated September 4, 1735, in which he says, "I have not seen honest Mr. Duck yet, but have had the pleasure of another visit that was wholly unexpected to me. Monday last, after dinner, according to the good sauntering custom that I use here every day, I was lolling at a coffee-house half asleep, and half reading something about Prince Eugene and the armies on the Rhine, when a ragged boy of an ostler came in to me with a little scrap of paper not half an inch broad, which contained the following words, 'Mr. Pope would be very glad to see Mr. Spence at the Cross Inn just now.'-You may imagine how pleased I was; and that I hobbled thither as fast as my spindleshanks would carry me. There I found him, quite fatigued to death, with a thin face lengthened, at least, two inches beyond its usual appearance. He had been to take his last leave of Lord Peterborough; and came away in a chariot of his lordship's, that holds but one person, for quick travelling. When he was got within about three miles of Oxford, coming down a hill in Bagly wood, he saw two gentlemen and a lady sitting in distress by the way side. Near them lay a chaise overturned, and half broken to pieces; in the fall of which the poor lady had her arm broke. Mr. Pope had the goodness to stop and offer her his chariot to carry her to Oxford for help; and so walked the three miles in the very midst of a close sultry day, and came in dreadfully fatigued. An inn, though designed for a place of rest, is but ill suited to a man that's really tired; so I prevailed on him to go to my room, where I got him a little dinner, and where he enjoyed himself for two or three hours; and set out in the

evening, as he was obliged to do, for Colonel Dormer's, in his way to Lord Cobham's, which was to be the end of his journey."

In 1736 he republished, at Pope's desire, Gorboduc, the celebrated tragedy of Sackville, Earl of Dorset, with a prefatory account of the author. This may probably have been intended as a compliment to his noble pupil. To his habits of intimacy, and almost daily intercourse, with Pope, we owe the idea of the present collection of anecdotes, which was begun very soon after the commencement of their acquaintance, and terminated with Pope's death, its chief object was undoubtedly to record his conversation, and the principal incidents of his life.

Benevolence was one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Spence's mind, and it had found a deserving object in Stephen Duck, the thresher and poet, to serve whom he wrote a kind of memoir, which, when he went abroad, he left in the hands of his friend Mr. Lowth for publication, with a sort of Grub-street title as a ruse de guerre; calling himself Joseph Spence, Esquire, Poetry Professor; he afterwards procured for Duck, from the Duke of Dorset, the living of Byfleet, in Surry; introduced him to the notice of Pope, and continued his countenance and friendship to him through life. Early in the year 1737 he was offered the deanery of Clogher in Ireland, by the Duke of Dorset, who assured him, at the same time, that he might depend upon him for any future preferment which should offer; if he did not think it eligible to accept it; in consequence of this option he declined it. In May of the same year, he accompanied Mr. Trevor in a tour through Holland, Flanders, and France. It was their intention to have proceeded for Italy, but Mr. Trevor was called home to offer himself as a candidate for a borough; and after passing the autumn at Blois, and the winter at Tours, they returned to England in February, 1738. He

writes thus to his mother from Tours in the preceding December-" Tours is a very agreeable place. All the towns on the banks of the Loire are said to be so; but the country about Tours in particular, is called the garden of France. We came here with the design of staying only a month; but if we find it as agreeable as it promises to be, we may stay much longer. In the spring we are to pass through Rochelle, Bourdeaux, Montpellier, Marseilles, Avignon, and Lyons, to Geneva, where we shall probably pass the summer, and go, about the end of October, for Italy. Italy is my great favourite; and though I am pleased here, I shall not be perfectly happy till I get into that delightful country of the old Romans; or rather, I shall not be contented till I have finished all, and can come and see you and my sister at Winchester. I own we are delighted when we are abroad; but the greatest and truest satisfaction is when we come home again. I recollect what the Prince of Yallocomia said to me and my dear friend Bob Downes, several years ago at Oxford, where he was shown about as a sight. He said that he wanted for nothing; that he eat and drank well, that he was continually amused with seeing new places; still, said he, there is something wanting, " for de fader and de moder be alvais in de mind." He spoke it with much emotion, and put his finger up and patted his forehead all the while he was saying the last sentence, which is a very true one, and very worthy of his highness of Yallocomia." In another letter, he says: "Two or three days since, I had a letter from Mr. Holdsworth, the father of all us travellers; I mean for knowledge, more than for age; with your's I had a letter from good Mr. Duck, who has obliged me very much by the trouble he has taken to disperse my books about, and to pelt poor people, that were easy in their great chairs, with a thing that they would not give a farthing whether they ever read or not. By the time that I shall see you, my little garden

at Birchanger will begin to make some shew; and my thoughts now are to come and see you at Winchester every other summer, for three or four months; and the other alternate summers to invite you to Birchanger to eat some of my nonpareils; if you and my sister care to take such a journey for a pippin. Though the place is not very magnificent, I can promise you it has quite another air than it had; for, instead of walking into an orchard adorned with nothing but hog-styes, you will go into a garden that will be a little fop, strutting and pretending to be bigger than he is, where, at least, we shall be private and at our ease; unseen ourselves when we have a mind to it, though from the little green plat at one end of it, we may stand like three statues on one pedestal, and look out on a prospect that is no inconsiderable one for Hertfordshire. By that word you may see the pride of my heart, for to say the truth, I don't care to be thought in Essex there, and take all the advantage I can of my neighbourhood to a better county."

In the autumn of 1739 he set out on his last tour to the continent with Henry, Earl of Lincoln*. They went by way of Paris and Lyons to Turin, where they arrived the beginning of October; this city was then a place of great fashionable resort, and the court there accounted one of the politest in Europe. Here they remained a whole year, being detained a month or two longer than was intended, by an accidental sprain Lord Lincoln got in dancing. From hence Mr. Spence writes, to appease the anxiety of his mother, the following affectionate and consolatory letter, which, as it will make the reader better

* Afterwards Duke of Newcastle.-Mr. Nichols says: "The mortification which Dr. Goddard, afterwards' master of Clare Hall, his Grace's Cambridge tutor, felt by this appointment, probably occasioned the extraordinary dedication to the duke, prefixed to his sermons published in 1781."

acquainted with this part of his character, I have the less

scruple in transcribing.

"You may be wholly out of any concern about my ever coming abroad again. At least the scheme of life I have in my head is quite opposite to any such thought. The large work I have on my hands will take up near four years after I come home before it is all published; and after that I have some other little things which I think at present of publishing; and which, in the leisurely way I shall go about it, merely for my amusement, will take up six years more. I leave you to judge whether I, who was not at all eager to travel at forty, shall be much inclined to it after fifty; when I shall have been used too to a retired and settled life for ten years together; and shall have all my plantations growing up about me, which I have already laid out in idea. I mention this particular, because I have found, by the little experience I have had, that nothing is so apt to attract one and tie one down to a spot of ground, as a plantation. You may remember how Paul Penton used to go to his nursery every day near Kingsclere; and when I was abroad with Mr. Trevor, I believe there was scarce a day that I did not visit Birchanger in imagination. At present I am more busy and more diverted; and yet I often think of it. But I shall have, I hope, a much greater tie to England than any I have mentioned :- I mean your ladyship! When we are once settled, and in a way of living together, I shall look upon it as my duty, as well as my inclination, to stay with you, and shall not think of stirring a step out of our island, unless you should turn traveller; and then perhaps I might take a little trip into Asia, or to the pyramids of Egypt, purely to attend you thither. The scheme I mentioned to you is the sincere design I have some time had; and, as it has long been growing gradually upon me, is of itself very likely to last;