nightingales in Richmond gardens. While abroad, he had been greatly delighted with the regular Italian drama, such as Metastatio writes; as it is there heightened by the charms of the best voices and instruments; and looked upon our theatrical entertainments as, in one respect, naked and imperfect, when compared with the ancient, or with those of Italy; wishing sometimes that a chorus, at least, and a better recitative, could be introduced.
Nor was his taste less exquisite in the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture. In his travels, he had seen all the most celebrated monuments of antiquity, and the best productions of modern art; and studied them so minutely, and with so true a judgment, that in some of his descriptions, in the poem of Liberty, we have the master-pieces, there mentioned, placed in a stronger light perhaps than if we saw them with our eyes; at least more justly delineated than in any other account extant: so superior is a natural taste of the grand and beautiful, to the traditional lessons of a common virtuoso. His collection of prints, and some drawings from the antique, are now in the possession of his friend Mr. Gray of Richmond-Hill.
As for his more distinguishing qualities of mind and heart, they are better represented in his writings, than can be by the pen of any biographer. There, his love of mankind, of his country and friends; his devotion to the Supreme Being, founded on the most elevated and just conceptions of his operations and providence, shine out in every page. So unbounded was his tenderness of heart, that it took in even the brute creation: judge what it must have been towards his
