VEESES ON THE CEOCUS 91 



I thank you much for procuring Mr. Hampton's pamphlet, 

 which you will please to leave at my brother's. You will, 

 I hope, make yourself known to him; I have mentioned 

 you to him. You will see a roomy shop, well furnished, 

 with old gent[lemen] in leathern doublets. Timothy the 

 tortoise would make but a poor king: he would be so 

 slow in his motions as to be but a king Log at best; and 

 an alert enemy would deprive him of half his dominions, 

 before he could awake from his profound slumbers. 



I will take care of your Beoc Platonicus, and hope I shall 

 bring it you at Easter. My brother Thomas opened several 

 of the barrows on our down in the summer, but found 

 nothing. Now you talk of last summer, it was a strange 

 summer indeed! Nothing like it, I believe, has befallen 

 since the year 1725, when it rained every day, except about 

 ten in July, from March 29th to September 29th ; but then 

 the first part of said year was very dry. In 1782 the rain 

 that fell at Selborne was 60 in. 26 hund. ! and of this 

 the greatest part came in the first 9 months; for Octr., 

 Novr., and Deer, were comparatively dry; Deer, afforded 

 only in. 91 h. I would have you dine with my brother 

 Ben in Fleet street: he dines always about three o'clock. 

 If you would call some morning at my brother Tho. White's 

 at South Lambeth, just beyond Vauxhall turnpike, he would 

 be glad to see you. It is a pretty walk from town to 

 S. Lambeth! If you will go there and dine* . . . . 

 . . . Sunday, you will meet both families; for they both 

 live* .... 



Say what impels amidst surrounding snow, 

 Or biting frost the crocus-bloom to glow : 

 Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze, 

 Th' autumnal bulb, till pale declining days ? 



* Letter imperfect. 



