1G6 
can give a better account of that harmless pleasing bird than i have 
seen. We used to have more of them formerly than of late years. 
I have never heard one sing on the wing. I love the Swallows 
& Id. Martins so well, that i lament the want of their company in 
Autumn as heartily & as much as i do the warm weather. I 
should have concluded from your Tortoise’s late hiding that the 
winter would be mild. 
I conclude that you have read Boswell’s life of D r Johnson. 
A friend of D r Horne’s 5 (late Bp of Norwich) told me, that his 
Ldp had read it twice, & was going the 3 d time thro’ it; & 
said it was the most entertaining Book he ever read. It made me 
laugh several times; but the banter upon it, in the new Lady’s 
Magazine for Sep r - last, made me laugh more heartily. If you love 
a laugh (which you must do, as you are a wise man) you cannot 
fail of it by that sketch. ’Tis supposed to be by the Author of the 
Bath guide. 6 I took the trouble of transcribing it, in order to bind 
it with Boswell, as a Supplement. I presume you have seen Gilpin’s 
Book of the views in the new Forest, 7 & noticed his false quota- 
tion of Bryden’s letter : 8 where he says the Chesnut on M. TEtna 
is 204 f. in circumf. which he unluckily writes Diameter: as if 
the Tree was not large enough ! Townsend says in his travels in 
Spain, at Valez, 9 Nightingales sing all the year. I wish you would 
ask your Friend in Spain, if that is true 1 
I know that you do not love Chesnut-trees, but as a good man 
you are not averse to hearing of some merit in them. The great 
Land-stuard Mr. Kent, 10 told me ’tother day, that at Mr. Wind- 
5 See note 10, page 17S. 
li This piece, however, is not included among the poetical works of Anstey, 
who wrote ‘ The New Bath Guide,’ as collected and published by his son in 
1808.— A.N. 
7 ‘ Remarks on Forest Scenery, &c., by William Gilpin.,’ 2 vols. London : 
1791. (vol. i. p. 130.) — A.N. 
8 ‘ A Tour through Sicily and Malta. In a series of letters to W. Beckford, 
Esq. from P. Brydone, F.R.S. New Edition.’ 2 vols. London : 1790. 
(vol. i. p. 119.) — A.N. 
0 Townsend (loc. cit.) wrote “ Velez,” i.e. Velez Malaga, an older city than 
the present Malaga, on the old main road to Granada, — J.E.II. 
10 Nathaniel Kent, “A well-known and highly respectable land and timber 
surveyor” (Loudon, op. cit. p. 1993). The details given in the text are included 
by him in a paper (Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. x. p. 31). — A.N. 
