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through this dull matter-of-fact statement, but I could not have attempted to embellish it with rhetorical ornament, to round it into periods, and enliven it with antitheses, without running considerable risk of having my meaning misinterpreted. Hæ tibi erunt artes. It is thy peculiar privilege to excuse thyself from an engagement, and to answer an invitation by returning thy correspondent a rapid sketch of his own character, accompanied with a minute and spirited portrait of a common friend.

It is thy unrivalled talent to execute a commission for purchasing half a pound of paint for colouring walls, by a pompous effusion on the subject of Grecian learning; for such I am obliged to confess to be the homely use and property of that Olympian green which I did request thee to bring me half a pound of, obliged even to disclaim any the most remote allusion to the celebrated plains of Elis, either literally as productive of good greens, cabbages, colewort, or spinach, for which I never heard them famed; or metaphorically, as applicable to the correspondent excellence between the Olympian contest,

μηδ' Ολυμπίας ἀγῶνα

φέρτερον αὐδάσομεν *,

and the productions of the Grecian Muse.

* Pindar, Olymp. i. 11.

Nor deem the world supplies

A nobler than th' Olympic prize.

(Cary's Translation.)

However, that I may not utterly disappoint your opinion of my studious propensities, and that I may be more worthy of witnessing your future flights of eloquence, "I request you to send, as well as the half pound of Olympian green, which may be had at a druggist's or oilman's," the following Olympian Greek :-" Demetrius Phalereus," and "Hermogenes de Arte Rhetoricâ," both of which I suppose to be in the Birmingham School Library, the latter in a collection of the Rhetores Græci.

Yours as you visit me,

H. F. CARY.

P. S. "It may be necessary to observe that those parts of my letter which are inclosed in brackets are very seriously meant.”

The long-promised visit from Mr. Price was at length paid, and the friends amused themselves by an excursion, of which the following letter gives some account :

TO HIS SISTER GEORGINA.

DEAR GEORGINA,

Abbots-Bromley, March 28, 1800.

Your letter, with its companions, though all without date, give me great pleasure, as they inform me you arrived in Cheltenham some day this week, after a pleasant journey, and are very well. I am glad

you are so comfortably settled in point of lodgings, and find Gloucestershire so charming. Staffordshire is much improved by this last week's fine weather, and though the hawthorns are not yet in full blow (as I suppose is the case in Gloucestershire), yet we have discovered some primroses under them, which is as much as can be expected in this more northern

climate.

Price and I spent the three first days in this week very agreeably, in riding short excursions on the borders of Derbyshire and Leicestershire. We first

went to Burton, and from thence looked at Stapenhull, separated from that town only by the river, where we found a very pretty little parsonage-house, which I wish the present inhabitant could exchange for a still better in Wales. Hence we proceeded along the banks of the Trent through some of the prettiest villages I ever saw, and certainly the finest oaks, in Lord Moira's park, as far as Castle Donnington, which living Price had thought of purchasing, if the place answered his expectations, but here we were disappointed. The situation is exposed, and the town itself full of manufacturers and dissenters. We returned by way of Tutbury, and admired the noblest site for a castle I ever beheld, at the latter place.

This was the business of Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we again sallied forth and explored the beauties of Croxton Abbey, and Wooton Lodge,

all in Staffordshire, and beyond my powers of description. Now match all this with your fine places in Gloucestershire.

I hope to hear, at the least once in ten days, how you all are.

Believe me, your affectionate brother,

H. F. CARY.

CHAPTER V.

1800-1804.

Mr. Cary is presented to the Vicarage of Kingsbury.-Letter to his Sister-and to his Wife.-Removes to Kingsbury.-Letter to his Sister. Literary Journal for 1800.-Account of the most Eminent Restorers of Greek Literature.-Letters to his Sister and Mr. Price.-Birth of a Daughter.-Domestic Troubles.-Letters to his Wife.-To Mr. Price.- Literary Journal for 1801.— Studies interrupted by Illness.-Letters to his Sister.-To his Wife. Increase of his Family.

IN the spring of the year 1800, Mr. Cary was presented by the Lord Chancellor, on the recommendation of the Earl of Uxbridge, to the vicarage of Kingsbury, in Warwickshire, and was instituted on the 27th of June. The emoluments of the living added but little to his income, as they fell short of 1007. a year, not much more than he would have to pay to a substitute at Abbots-Bromley. It had, however, the advantages of a better house, a delightful and healthy country, and less arduous duties than he before had to attend to; but these last he increased by taking the curacy of the adjoining parish of Lower Whitacre.

The trouble and distraction that a change of residence necessarily brought with it, for a time interrupted his usual literary pursuits, which, as his

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