of that house, ample materials might be found in the collection of the modest and indefatigable Muratori.

MAJOR OUSELEY TO MR. PINKERTON.

March 26th, 1797.

I am sorry I was not at home when you did me the favor of calling. A friend of mine, collecting heads and portraits of eminent living writers, has written to me to know where he could get a copy of yours* (without taking it from the book). Has Harding any proofs to spare?

I have just had a letter from my brother in India: he had lately met with Captain Wilford, the first Sanscrit scholar living; to whom the East India Company allows 1500 rupees per month for his researches. He is clearing up the route of Alexander, and constructing a map from the sacred Puranas. He communicated to my brother a most curious account, from those Sanscrit books, of Great Britain and Ireland; so minute, that the cave called St. Patrick's Purgatory is described, and the name in Sanscrit Pitricsthan (the seat of the manes or ancestors), and the passage to a kind of Tartarus, or purgatorial hell.

* I have seen four published portraits of Mr. Pinkerton: the one here alluded to, prefixed to his History of Scotland; a profile in the European Magazine; a similar portrait, in biscuit, by Wedgwood; and a fourth, engraved for this work, a medallion by Tassie.

This my brother has sent to General Vallancey; and Walker tells me the general will communicate it for the Oriental Collections. Wilford confirms much of Vallancey's Irish Phænician Sanscrit conjectures. I am looking again over your Scythians, to see how this may all correspond.

MR. J. C. WALKER TO MR. PINKERTON.

June 27th, 1797.

I have, I fear, too long omitted to thank you for Manso's Life of Tasso. But I begged of Major Ouseley to make my acknowledgements acceptable to you; and I trust he did so. It is a charming little production, and so extremely rare, that I do not recollect to have seen three copies of it in the whole course of my literary researches ; nor have I ever seen one copy of Manso's Life of Marino.

I wish we had some satisfactory notices of Manso himself.* We know too little of that

* Shortly after, Mr. Walker published some particulars concerning Manso in his Historical Memoir. (Appendix No. 5.) Manso was a friend of Milton, who has addressed to him a Latin poem of one hundred lines (Poetical Works, vII. p. 355.) entitled Mansus. His Life of Tasso, according to Dr. Black, "is the fountain to which the biographers of Tasso in every nation have had recourse; so that, till of late, the numerous eulogies and notices of this great poet are only extracts from and abridgements of that work." Milton speaks of Manso's Lives both of Tasso and Marino:

"Te pridem magno felix concordia Tasso

Junxit, et æternis inscripsit nomina chartis :

accomplished nobleman. I believe I have made the first attempt at ascertaining the site of the villa near Naples, in which he received Tasso and Milton. What I have collected on this subject will appear in in my Memoir on Italian Tragedy, if the work itself should ever appear.

Having finished Machiavelli, I engaged in Guicciardini, and found him an historian of the first order. I am now deep in Tiraboschi, a writer of great research and good taste. His life of Testi I have not yet been able to procure; but I have begged of Major Ouseley to have a sharp look-out for a copy. Tiraboschi is very severe on a great favorite of mine, l'Abbé de Sade.*

You say that the first place amongst the lyric poets of Italy is due to Petrarch; the second to Testi. I cheerfully subscribe to your opinion; and I am surprised that a writer of so much merit should be neglected. You, however, have made him known in England; and to know him is to admire him. Indeed Italian literature has many obligations to the author of Heron's Letters. They abound too in what I admire, but rarely findoriginal thinking. Amongst their warmest admirers in this country is Lord Charlemont, a no

Mox tibi dulciloquum non inscia Musa Marinum
Tradidit; ille tuum dici se gaudet alumnum,
Dum canit Assyrios Divûm prolixus amores,
Mollis et Ausonias stupefecit carmine Nymphas.
Ille itidem moriens tibi soli debita vates
Ossa, tibi soli, supremaque vota reliquit."

* Author of the Life of Petrarch.

bleman of extensive learning and refined taste. He is the Manso of Ireland.

On the subject of Irish literature, I have nothing to communicate. For some time past our attention has been diverted from every thing pleasurable. No new publications have of late reached me. I have ordered Noble's House of Medici, and shall endeavor to get Mr. Lumsden's work.*

I am told Mr. Roscoe is employed on the age of Leo X.; and I hope the report is well founded, The work on that subject promised long since by Dr. Warton in his Essay on Pope, has, I believe, never appeared.† A curious book now lies before me, a copy of Plautus which belonged to Menage, with marginal notes in his own hand-writing.

I hope you are again returned to your literary labors. You were entitled to a holiday; but we cannot allow you to be long idle. The Irish ro mance promised in my last, and which I intended should have accompanied it, shall be forwarded the first opportunity.

• Remarks on the Antiquity of Rome and its Environs ; being a Classical and Topographical Survey of the Ruins of that ancient and celebrated City, by Andrew Lumsden, Esq. London, 1797, 4to.

+ Unfortunately such was the case; nor did I ever hear that any portion of the work was left in manuscript. But that Mr. T. Warton seriously contemplated it, and even had it in hand, may justly be presumed from the following passage referred to by Mr. Walker. "Concerning the particular encouragement given by Leo X. to polite literature and the fine arts, I forbear to enlarge; because a friend of mine is at present engaged in writing the History of the Age of Leo X.-Essay on Pope, I. p. 182.

MR. ROBERT VANS AGNEW TO MR.
PINKERTON.

Monmouth, Oct. 30th, 1797.

Having lately read with much pleasure and instruction your History of Scotland, and joining in the wish, which I believe to be very general, that you may be induced, not only to write the more early part, but to continue it on to the period when a union blended the two kingdoms into one, I use the liberty to trouble you with this letter, to inform you that I am possessed of a good many original letters from Queen Mary and her two husbands, Francis of France and Darnley, from the Regent, and from King James the Sixth ; as also from some of the principal men of Scotland at that time, to the lairds of Barnbarroch, my ancestors. These letters begin in 1559 and continue on till 1618, being ninety-three in number. I do not think that any thing very essential will be found in the letters; but they may serve to ascertain some dates, and give a curious picture of the manners of the times. From particular circumstances, the old papers of my family have lain for a great number of years in a neglected state. In the course of the examination which I have now caused to be made of them, some other curious papers have already been found; and it

* Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch, in the county of Wigton, knight, married the daughter of Gilbert, third earl of Cassillis, about the middle of the 16th century.