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can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a "flice of pudding-Mr. Lintot, I do not fay but "Mr. Pope, if he would condefcend to advise with "men of learning-Sir, the pudding is upon the "table, if you pleafe to go in-My critic complies, " he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me "in the fame breath, that the book is commend"able, and the pudding excellent, clucil mun

"Now, Sir, (concluded Mr. Lintot) in return to "the franknefs I have fhewn, pray tell me, Is it "the opinion of your friends at court that my Lord "Landfdown will be brought to the bar or not?" I told him, I heard he would not, and I hop'd it, my Lord being one I had particular obligations to. "That may be (reply'd Mr. Lintot) but by G--d "if he is not, I fhall lofe the printing of La very good Trial."

Thefe, my Lord, are a few traits by which you may difcern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chofen for the fubject of a letter. I dropt him as foon as I got to Oxford, and paid a vifit to my Lord Carleton at Middleton. www

The converfations I enjoy here are not to be prejudiced by my pen, and the Pleafures from them only to be equall'd when I meet your Lordship. I hope in a few days to caft myself from your horfe at your feet.

Novelled t I am, &c.

LET.

LETTER IX.

To the Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

(In answer to a Letter in which he inclosed the Description Buckingham-houfe, written by him to the D. of

of

Sh.)

PLINY

f

LINY was one of those few authors who had a warm house over his head, nay two houses, as appears by two of his epiftles. I believe, if any of his contemporary authors durft have inform'd the public where they lodged, we should have found the garrets of Rome as well inhabited, as thofe of Fleet-ftreet; but 'tis dangerous to let creditors into fuch a fecret, therefore we may prefume that then, as well as now-a-days, no body knew where they lived but their Bookfellers.

It feems, that when Virgil came to Rome, he had no lodging at all: he firft introduc'd himself to Auguftus by an epigram, beginning Notte pluit totaan observation which probably he had not made, unless he had lain all night in the street.

Where Juvenal lived we cannot affirm; but in one of his fatyrs he complains of the exceffive price of lodgings; neither do I believe he would have talk'd fo feelingly of Codrus's bed, if there had been room for a bedfellow in it.

I believe, with all the oftentation of Pliny, he would have been glad to have changed both his houses for your Grace's one; which is a countryhoufe in the fummer, and a town-house in the win

ter,

ter, and must be owned to be the propereft habitation for a wife man, who fees all the world change every feafon without ever changing himself.

I have been reading the defcription of Pliny's house with an eye to yours, but finding they will bear no comparison, will try if it can be matched by the large country feat I inhabit at prefent, and fee what figure it may make by the help of a florid defcription.

You must expect nothing regular in my deferip tion, any more than in the house; the whole vaft edifice is fo disjointed, and the feveral parts of it fo detach'd one from the other, and yet fo joining again, one cannot tell how, that, in one of my poetical fits, I imagined it had been a village in Amphion's time, where the cottages having taken a country dance together, had been all out, and stood ftone-ftill with amazement ever fince.

You must excufe me, if I fay nothing of the Front; indeed I don't know which it is. A ftranger would be grievously disappointed, who endeavour'd to get into this house the right way. One would reasonably expect after the entry through the Porch to be let into the hall: alas nothing lefs! you find yourself in the houfe of office. From the parlour you think to ftep into the drawing-room, but upon opening the iron-nail'd door, you are convinc'd by a flight of birds about your ears, and a cloud of duft in your eyes, that it is the Pigeon-house. If you come into the chapel, you find its altars, like those of the Ancients,

2

Ancients, continually fmoaking, but it is with the fteams of the adjoining kitchin.

The great hall within is high and fpacious, flank'd on one fide with a very long table, a true image of ancient hospitality : the walls are are all over ornamented with monftrous horns of animals, about twenty broken pikes, ten or a dozen blunderbuffes, and a rusty matchlock mufquet or two, which we were inform'd had ferv'd in the civil wars. Here is one vaft arch'd window beautifully darken'd with divers fcutcheons of painted glafs one fhining pane in particular bears date 1286, which alone preferves the memory of a Knight whofe iron armour is long fince perifh'd with ruft, and whofe alabafter nofe is moulder'd from his monument. The face of dame Eleanor in

:

another piece owes more that fingle e pane than to all the glaffes fhe ever confulted in her life. After this, who can fay that glafs is frail, when it is not half fo frail as human beauty, or glory! and yet I can't but figh to think th that the most authentic record of fo ancient a family thould lie at the mercy every infant who flings a ftone. In former days there have dined in this hall garter'd Knights, and courtly Dames, attended by ufhers, fewers, and fenefchals; and yet it was but laft night, that an owl. flew hither and mistook it for a barn.

of

This hall lets you (up and down) over a very high threshold into the great parlour. Its contents are a broken-belly'd virginal, a couple of cripled velvet chairs, with two or three mill-dew'd pictures of

VOL. VIII.

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mouldy

mouldy ancestors, who look as difmally as if they came fresh from hell with all their brimftone about

them; thefe ese are carefully fet at the farther corner, for the windows being every where broken make it fo convenient a place to dry poppies and mustard feed, that the room is appropriated to that use.

Next this parlour, as I faid before, lies the pigeon-house, by the fide of which runs an entry, which lets you on one hand and t'other into a bedchamber, a buttery, and a fmall hole call'd the chaplain's ftudy: then follow a brew-houfe, a little green and gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under which is the dairy; a little farther on the right the fervant's hall, and by the fide of it up fix fteps, the old lady's clofet for her private devotions; which has a lettice into the hall, intended (as we imagine) that at the fame time as the pray'd, the might have an eye on the men and maids. There are upon the ground floor in all twenty fix apartments, among which I must not forget a chamber which has has in i a large Antiquity of timber, that feems to have been either a bedstead, or a cyder-prefs.

it

The kitchen is built in form of the Rotunda, being one vaft vault to the top of the Houfe; where one aperture serves to let e lerves to let out the the smoke, and let in the light. By the blacknefs of the walls, the cir cular fires, vaft cauldrons, yawning mouths of and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polypheme, or the temple of Moloch. The horror of this place has made fuch

ovens