have not afked you one of those many things I want to know. The actions, the words, the defigns of our acquaintances must be agreeable to hear of, if you relate them; for even the duke of Marlborough's purchase, in lady Hertford's letter, is worth the money. Write me word then, dear madam, what is doing where we do no more, but, fafe in harbour, fee the main covered with floating veffels, fome failing with aufpicious gales, fome struggling with adverfe winds, fome cruifing, fome finking. I am not out of humour with the world, though retired from it, and therefore should take as much pleafure in hearing how it goes, as in feeing a new play; where, though I am no actor, I am as attentive to the opening, progrefs, and catastrophe of the plot. I believe, you will more than once wish, (if you have the patience to read this out) that I had thought of concluding fooner; but fince I have gone fo far, I muft detain you fo much longer as to fay, I am, dear madam, Your ladyship's most faithful,

and most obedient humble fervant,

HENRIETTA LOUISA POMFRET.

LETTER

LETTER CXXV.

Bishop HERRING * to Mr. DUNCOMBE.

DEAR SIR,

Rochefter †, Nov. 3, 1738.

I THA

THANK you most affectionately for your obliging enquiry after me, and I blefs GOD, have the fatisfaction to inform you that I am very well, after the most agreeable journey I ever had in my life. We travelled flowly and commodiously, and found Wales a country altogether as enter taining as it was new. The face of it is grand, and befpeaks the magnificence of nature; and fo enlarged my mind, in the same manner as the ftupendoufness of the

"Thefe letters," fay the Monthly Reviewers, "are in themselves very entertaining, and are more "over a curiofity, as coming from the pen of a pre"late, who was not only one of the worthieft, but "one of the politeft men of the age in which he "lived." Vol. xlviii. p. 32.

His lordship held this deanry in commendam with his bishopric.

VOL. II.

S

ocean

ocean does, that it was fome time before I could be reconciled again to the level countries their beauties were all in the little tafte; and, I am afraid, if I had seen Stow in my way home, I fhould have thrown out fome very unmannerly reflections upon it. I should have smiled at the little niceties of art, and beheld with contempt an artificial ruin, after I had been agreeably terrified with fomething like the rubbish of a creation. Not but that Wales has its little beauties too, in delightful ftreams and fine valleys; but the things which entertained me were the vaft ocean, and ranges of rocks, whofe foundations. are hid, and whofe tops reach the clouds. I know fomething of your caft of mind, I believe, and I will therefore take the liberty to give you an account of an airing one fine evening, which I fhall never forget. I went out in the cool of the day, and rode near four miles upon the smooth fhore, with an extended view of the ocean, whose waves broke at our feet in gentle murmurs: from thence we turned into a

little village, with a neat church and houses, which stood juft at the entrance of a deep valley the rocks rofe high, and near, at each hand of us, but were, on one side, covered with a fine turf full of sheep and goats and grazing herds, and, on the other, varied with patches of yellow corn and spots of wood, and here and there a great piece of a bare rock projecting. At our feet ran a stream clear as chrystal, but large and foaming, over vaft ftones rudely thrown together, of unequal magnitudes, and over it a wooden bridge, which could fcarce be faid to be made by the hands of art; and as it was evening, the hinds appeared, in many parts of the scene, returning home, with pails upon their heads. I proceeded in this agreeable place till our profpect was closed, though much illuminated, by a prodigious cataract from a mountain, that did, as it were, fhut the valley. All these images together put me much in mind of Pouffin's drawings, and made me fancy myself in Savoy at least, if not nearer Rome. Indeed both the

journey, and the country, and the refidence were most pleasing to me.....

I MET your letter here on my

return from Wales. I blefs God for it, I am come home quite well, after a very romantic, and, upon looking back, I think it a moft perilous journey. It was the year of my primary vifitation, and I determined to fee every part of my diocefe; to which purpose, I mounted my horfe, and rode intrepidly, but flowly, through North

Wales