vating the acquaintance of that extraordinary woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He says " I always desired to be acquainted with Lady Mary, and could never bring it about, though we were so often together in London; soon after we came to this place her ladyship came here, and in five days I was well acquainted with her. She is one of the most shining characters in the world, but shines like a comet; she is all irregularity, and always wandering; the most wise, the most imprudent; loveliest, most disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in the world, all things by turns and nothing long.'-She was married young, and she told me, with that freedom much travelling gives, that she was never in so great a hurry of thought, as the month before she was married: she scarce slept any one night that month. You know she was one of the most celebrated beauties of her day, and had a vast number of offers, and the thing that kept her awake was who to fix upon. She was determined as to two points from the first, that is to be married to somebody, and not to be married to the man her father advised her to have. The last night of the month she determined, and in the morning left the husband of her father's choice, buying the wedding ring, and scuttled away to be married to Mr. Wortley." It was here that Mr. Spence learned those particulars from her which are recorded in the Anecdotes. From Rome they went to Reggio, 'opera hunting,' as Mr. Spence expresses it, and here they found Mr. Horace Walpole very ill with a quinsey.-" About three or four in the morning I was surprised with a message, saying, that Mr. Walpole was very much worse, and desired to see me; I went and found him scarce able to speak. I soon learned from his servants that he had been all the while without a physician, and had doctored himself; so I immediately sent for the best aid the place would afford, and despatched a messenger to the minister at Florence, desiring him to send my friend Dr. Cocchi. In about twenty-four hours I had the satisfaction to find Mr. Walpole better; we left him in a fair way of recovery, and we hope to see him next week at Venice. I had obtained leave of Lord Lincoln to stay behind some days if he had been worse. You see what luck one has sometimes in going out of one's way. If Lord L. had not wandered to Reggio, Mr. Walpole (who is one of the best natured and most sensible young gentlemen England affords) would have, in all probability, fallen a sacrifice to his disorder. From Reggio they went to Venice. After staying there about two months they passed by sea from Genoa to the south of France. They spent a month at Montpellier and Vigan, where Lord Lincoln's excellent mother had lived two or three years with her children "in one of the finest airs in the world (says Mr. Spence); in spite of which she lost her eldest son there, but brought off my lord stronger and in better health, though I doubt not his friends will be surprised to see how much stronger and better he is grown now. 'Tis said that the name of Lady Lincoln is blest by all the good people in the Cevennes, among whom she did a world of good." From thence they went to Paris, and, after a few weeks stay there, returned to England in November, 1742. In this year he was presented by his college to the rectory of Great Horwood, Bucks, and succeeded Dr. Holmes as Regius Professor of Modern History. From this time he resided chiefly in London for some few years; but his health, since his return from abroad, having been precarious, he was advised by his friends to abandon his studies; and, however disagreeable the remedy, he would, probably, have listened to their entreaties. The Polymetis which had now occupied his attention for several years, for which he had made very large collections, and had obtained very large and numerous subscriptions, was about to have been abandoned; had not Dr. Mead interposed and prescribed to him a middle course, advising him to apply moderately, and at short intervals, to his literary pursuits rather than entirely and at once to abandon them: he followed this friendly advice, and it had the desired effect.* * Soon after the rebellion in 1745, Mr. Spence wrote and published an occasional paper under the title of " Plain Matter of His taste and inclinations led him very early to a love for the country and rural improvement. Ornamental gardening was then taking a direction quite opposite to the old and formal methods of the French, Dutch, and Italians. Walpole, who had paid much attention to its progress, has proved that Kent was the first artist who diffused the prevailing taste of landscape gardening, and says, that Pope undoubtedly contributed to form Kent's taste.* It is most probable that Spence's enthusiasm for this elegant art was strengthened, if not derived from his intimacy with the poet. After the publication of his Polymetis, in 1747, by which he had realized upwards of fifteen hundred pounds, he entertained thoughts of indulging his propensity, by the purchase of a small house and a few acres of ground in the country. Having casually mentioned this intention to his friend Lord Lincoln, he very generously offered him, as a gift for his life, a house of this kind at Byfleet in Surrey, in the immediate vicinity of his seat at Oatlands. Thither Spence removed in the year 1749, and immediately proceeded to turn his fields into pleasure grounds, and to plant and adorn the face of the country round his abode. From this time to the end of his life, rural improvement became his favourite amusement; he expended a great part of the profits arising from his Polymetis in embellishing his little seat, and acquired much reputation by the judgment he displayed. He was from time to time consulted by his friends and others when anything of the kind was meditated; his suggestions were listened to with respect, and generally followed without deviation. Walpole, whose opinion will be allowed to have much weight Fact, or a short Review of the Reigns of our Popish Princes since the Reformation; in order to show what we are to expect if another should happen to reign over us." I am not sure that more than one number was published. "Mr. Kent was the sole beginner of the present National Taste in Gardening. Witness his works at Kensington Gardens below Bayswater.—And at Lord Burlington's at Chiswick; the latter in October, 1733. Mr. Scot has a drawing of the first thing done that way there, of Kent's. He had shown his skill before at Lord Cobham's, and by a design for Mr. Pope's Mount."-From Mr. Spence's Papers. on this subject, compliments him upon his taste and zeal for the reformed style of picturesque gardening. It is most probable that his health was improved and his life prolonged by this happy alternation of activity in his favourite pursuit, and repose in his literary trifling. He seems to have intended the publication of an Essay on the subject of Gardening in all ages, to have been entitled " Tempe :" the collections he left in manuscript on the subject, evince that it was his darling, though not his exclusive pursuit to the day of his death. Upon the translation of Dr. Trevor, Bishop of St. David's, to the See of Durham, he intimated to Mr. Spence that he should have the first prebend in that see which fell to his gift, and his promise was realized in 1754. From this period Mr. Spence divided his time chiefly between Durham and Byfleet, contenting himself with very moderate enjoyments and gratifications; and seems to have used his fortune, which was now ample compared with his desires, as if he stood possessed of it as steward only for the service of mankind, and constantly applied a considerable portion of it to purposes of charity. As he never resided upon his living of Great Horwood, he thought it part of his duty to make an annual visit to his parishioners, and gave away considerable sums of money to the distressed poor, placing out many of their children as apprentices, and doing other acts of beneficence. Finkalo, or West Finchale Priory near Durham, was part of Mr. Spence's prebendal estate; this spot, which had been the scene of the miracles of St. Godric, who from an itinerant merchant turned hermit, and wore out three suits of iron, was a favourite retreat with him; and he here again exercised his taste and skill in his much loved art. In his selection of objects for the exercise of his benevolent propensities it was natural for him to place indigent men of letters in the first rank. In the year 1754* he published " An Account of the Life, *In the preceding year, he had caused to be printed for the diversion of a few friends, and his own solace,' Moralities,' under Character, and Poems of Mr. Blacklock," and obtained a large subscription to an edition of the poems of that amiable and interesting character; which materially assisted the views of his friends in procuring him an education suitable to his genius and views in life. Blacklock testified his obligations to Mr. Spence, to whom he was personally unknown, in a poetical epistle written from Dumfries, in 1759, concluding thus: "If to your very name, by bounteous Heav'n, Spence's benevolence was most liberal and unconfined; distress of every sort, and in every rank of life, never preferred its claim to his attention in vain: and he is described by one who knew him well, to have had a heart and a hand ever open to the poor and the needy. It was this feeling that urged him to befriend the worthy Stephen Duck, and at a subsequent period he found another meritorious object in Robert Hill, the learned tailor, to serve whom he drew up that ingenious memoir and parallel, which his friend Horace Walpole, to assist his generous purpose, caused to be printed at his private press at Strawberry Hill in 1757. It was afterwards reprinted with other pieces of Mr. Spence in Dodsley's collection of Fugitive Pieces. Besides these, at an earlier period he had taken by the hand the ingenious Robert Dodsley, and was one of the earliest patrons of that deserving and worthy man. In one of Curll's scurrilous attacks upon Pope he is thus introduced: the feigned appellation of Sir Harry Beaumont, a name which he had likewise adopted in his " Crito, a Dialogue on Beauty," and his translation of the Jesuit Attiret's "Letter on the Royal Gardens at Pekin;" the two latter were re-published in Dodsley's Collection of Fugitive Pieces, in 1765.-Some Account of the Antiquities at Herculaneum were communicated by him to the Royal Society, in 1757, and published in their Transactions, Vol. 48. |