to increase its treasures, by felling me whatever they had brought from other countries.

I had always a contempt of that narrowness of Conception which contents itself with cultivating fome fingle corner of the field of fcience; I took the whole region into my view, and wished it of yet greater extent. But no man's power can be equal to his will. I was forced to proceed by flow degrees, and to purchase what chance or kindness happened to prefent. I did not, however, proceed without fome defign, or imitate the indifcretion of thofe, who begin a thoufand collections, and finish none. Having been always a lover of geography, I determined to collect the maps made in the rude and barbarous times, before any regular furveys or just observations; and have, at a great expence, brought together a volume, in which perhaps not a fingle country is laid down according to its true fituation, and from which he that defires to know the errors of the ancient geographers, may find ample information.

I did not fuffer myfelf, however, to neglect the products of our own country; but as Alfred received the tribute of the Welch in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed them to the purfuit of other animals; and obtained, by this eafy method, most of the grubs and infects, which land, air, or water, can Tupply. I have three fpecies of earth-worms not known to the naturalifts, have difcovered a new ephemera, and can fhew four wafps that were taken torpid in their winter-quarters. I have, from my own ground, the longeft blade of grass upon re

cord;

cord; and once accepted, as a half-year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear containing more grains than have been seen before upon a tingle ftem.

One of my tenants fo much neglected his own intereft, as to fupply me, in a whole fummer, with only two horfe-flies, and thofe of little more than the common fize; and I was upon the brink of feizing for arrears, when his good fortune threw a white mole in his way; for which he was not only forgiven, but rewarded.

Thefe however were petty acquifitions, and made at small expence; nor fhould I have ventured to rank myself among the virtuosi without better claims. I have fuffered nothing worthy the regard of a wife man to escape my notice. I have ranfacked the old and the new world, and been equally attentive to past ages and the prefent. For the illustration of ancient hiftory, I can fhew a marble, of which the infcription, though it is not now legible, appears, from fome broken remains of the letters, to have been Tufcan, and therefore probably engraved before the foundation of Rome. I have two pieces of porphyry found among the ruins of Ephesus, and three letters broken off by a learned traveller, from the infcriptions at Perfepolis; a piece of flone brought from the Areopagus of Athens, and a plate without figures or infcription, which was found at Corinth, and which I therefore believe to be that metal which the ancients valued before gold. I have fand gathered out of the Granicus, a fragment of Trajan's bridge over the Danube, fome of the mortar which cemented the water-course of Tarquin, a horfe-fhoe broke

broke on the Flaminian way, and a turf with five daifies dug from the field of Pharfalia.

;

I will not raise the envy of unfuccefsful collectors, by too pompous a difplay of my scientific wealth; but cannot forbear to obferve, that there are few regions of the globe which are not honoured with fome memorial in my cabinets. The Perfian monarchs are faid to have boafted the greatness of their empire, by being ferved at their tables with water from the Ganges and the Danube: I can fhew one vial, of which the water was formerly an icicle on the crags of Caucafus; and another that contains what once was fnow on the top of Teneriffe in a third is a folution of the ice of Greenland; and in another, water that once rolled in the Pacific ocean. I flatter myself, that I am writing to a man who will rejoice at the honour which my labours have procured to my country; and therefore I fhall tell you, that Britain can, by my care, boast of a fail that has crawled upon the wall of China, a humming-bird which an American princess wore in her ear, the tooth of an elephant who carried the Queen of Siam, the skin of an ape that was kept in the palace of the Great Mogul, a ribbon that adorned one of the maids of a Turkish Sultana, and a fcymitar that belonged to a foldier of Abas the Great.

In collecting antiquities of every country, I have been careful to chufe only by intrinfic worth, without regard to party or opinions. I have therefore a lock of Cromwel's hair in a box turned from a piece of the royal oak; and keep, in the fame. drawers, fand fcraped from the coffin of King Richard, and a commiffion figned by Henry VII.

I have equal veneration for the ruff of Elizabeth, and the fhoe of Mary of Scotland; and should lofe, with like regret, a tobacco-pipe of Raleigh, and a ftirrup of King James. I have paid the fame price for a glove of Lewis, and a thimble of Queen Mary; for a fur-cap of the Czar, and a boot of Charles of Sweden.

You will eafily imagine, that these accumulations were not made without fome diminution of my fortune for I was fo well known to fpare no cost, that at every fale some bid against me for hire, fome for sport, and fome for malice; and if I afked the price of any thing, it was fufficient to double the demand. For Curiofity trafficking thus with Avarice, the wealth of India had not been enough ; and I, by little and little, transferred all my money from the funds to my clofet. Here I was inclined to ftop, and live upon my eftate in literary leifure; but the fale of the Harleian collection fhook my refolution. I mortgaged my land, and purchased thirty medals, which I could never find before. I have at length bought till I can buy no longer, and the cruelty of my creditors has feized my repofitory. I am therefore condemned to difperfe what the labour of an age will not re-affemble. I fubmit to that which cannot be oppofed, and fhall, in a fhort time, declare a fale. I have, while it is yet in my power, fent you a pebble, picked up by Tavernier on the banks of the Ganges; for which I defire no other recompence than that you will recommend my catalogue to the public.

QUISQUILIUS.