1803. | 
fhield appendant to a collar. We will 
have fome infcription to mark the caufe 
of ereétion. Adieu, 
Arlington St. Your moft obliged, 
Tune u2, 177% Hor. WaLPoLe, 
Strawberry-bill, 
*DEAR SIR, Of.12,1577%6 
AS our wedding wili not be fo 
foon as I expected, and as I fhould 
be unwilling you thould take a jour- 
ney in bad weather, I wifh'it may be 
convenient to you and Mr. Effex to come 
hither on the 25th of this prefent month, 
If one can depend on any feafon, it is 
upon the chill funs of October, which 
Jike an elderly beauty, are lefs capricious 
than {pring or fummer. 
Oétober, you know, reached eleven days 
into modern November, and [ ftill depend 
upon that recknoning when [ havea mind 
to protract the year. 
Lord Offory is charmed with Mr. 
Effex’s cro!s, and withes much to contult 
him on the proportions. Lord Offory-has 
taken a {mall boule very near mine, ts 
now, and will be here again after New- 
market. He is determined to ereét ‘it 
at Ampthill, and I have written the fol- 
lowing lines to record the reafon : 
In days of oldhere Ampthill’s towers 
were feen, 
The mournful refuge of an injux’d queen. 
Here flow’d her puré, but unavailing 
tears 5 
Here blinded zeal futtained her finking 
years. 
Yet freedom hence her radiant banners 
wav'd, 
And love aveng’d a realm by priefts en- 
flav’d. = 
From Cath’rine’s wrongs a nation’s blifs was 
fpread, 
And Luther’s light, from Henry’s lawlefs 
bed.* 
T hope the fatire upon Henry VIII. will 
make you excufethe compliment to Luther, 
which, like moft poetic compliments, 
does not come from my heart. I only 
jike him better than Henry, Calvin and 
the church of Rome, who were bloody 
perfecutors. Calvin was an execrable 
viljain, and the wortt of all; for he copied 
thofe whom he pretended to correct. 
Luther was as jovialas Wilkes, and ferved 
the caufe of liberty without canting. 
Your’s moft fincerely, 
Hor. WaLPO.Le. 
* The crofs itfelf colt above an rool. 
below the verfes was placed, this infcription. 
© Johannes Fitz Patrick comes de Offory, 
pofuit, 1773.” 
Our old-fathioned | 
Extraés from Mr. Coles Manujcripts. 13 
* 
‘ f : 
[ The following letter from Mr George Shxl- 
vocke tothe Earl of Leicefter contains the 
firt Zngli/b account of the ruins of Hercu- 
laneum. Mr. Shelvocke travelled with 
Lord Coke, Lord Leicefter’s eldeft fon, and 
_ was at Naples in 1741. ] ° 
An account of the suBTERRANEOUS 
Town in the Neighbourhood of NAPLES; 
lately difcovered, 
BY the only book I have had to con- 
fult about what place it may formerly 
have been, which is Ortelius’s Thefaurus, 
I find it was formerly called Herculine- 
um, which is {aid to have ttood juft where 
this fubterraneous town as they call it, is 
now, that is either on the very {pot where 
the town called Torre di Greco now is, 
or very near it, at the foot of Mount Ve- 
fuvius. What is now feen of it, is not 
above half an Englith mile from thence 
as I take it: and as it was, in all like= 
lihood, a large piace, it: may upon farther 
difcovery be found to extend ifelf quite 
to Torre di Greco, and’even beyond it. 
Before I give fuch a defeription of thefe 
remains as 1 am abie, it may firft be ne= 
ceflary to acquaint you, that for fear of 
accidents, the paffiges they have dug ont, 
which have been quite at a venture, are 
fellom higher or broader than is neceflary 
for a man of my fize to pafs along conve- 
niently. ‘This isthe caufe that you have 
but an imperfect view of things in gene 
ral ; and as thefe narrow paflages are quite 
a labyrinth, there is no gueffing at where- 
about you are after two or three turnings. 
At the further end of Portici, towards 
Torre di Greco, you defcend by fifty ftone 
fteps, which convey you over the wall of 
a theatre, lined with white marble, which, 
if the hearth and rubbilh were cleared out 
of it, would, I believe, be found to be 
very entire. By what ts feen of it, I don’t 
imagine it to have been much bigzer than 
one of our ordinary theatres in Loydon. 
And that it was a theatre and not an 
amphitheatre, appears by a part of the 
fcene, which is to be plainly diftinguifhed. 
It is, 1 think of ftucco, and adorned with 
com»artmen's of grotefque work, of which 
and grotefque paintings, there is a great 
deal, fcattered up and down in the feveral 
parts of the town. 
When you have left the theatre, you en- 
ter into the narrow paflages, where on one 
hand of you, (for you feldom or never fee 
any particular objeét to be diftinguifhed 
on each hand at once, becaufe of the nar- 
rownefs of the paffages) you have walls 
lined and crufted over, fometimes with | 
marble, {ometimes with flucgo, and fome- 
a times. 
