Private Correspondence Author:Horace Walpole General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1837 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: I shall be still more glad to hear you are settled in your living. Burnham is almost in my neighbourhood ; and its being in that of Eton and Windsor, will more than console you, I hope, for leaving Ely and Cambridge. Pray let me know the moment you are certain. It would now be a disappointment to me as well as you. You shall be inaugurated in my chapel, which is much more venerable than your parish church, and has the genuine air of antiquity. I bought very little of poor Mr. Bateman's. His nephew disposed of little that was worth house-room, and yet pulled the whole to pieces. Mr. Pennant has published a new Tour to Scotland and the Hebrides : and, though he has endeavoured to paint their dismal isles and rocks in glowing colours, they will not be satisfied ; for he seems no bigot about Ossian, at least in some passages, and is free in others, which their intolerating spirit will resent. I cannot say the book is very entertaining to me, as it is more a book of rates than of antiquities. The most amusing part was communicated to him by Mr. Banks, who found whole islands that bear nothing but columns, as other places do grass and barley. There is a beautiful cave called Fingal's; which proves that nature loves Gothic architecture. Mr. Pennant has given a new edition of his former Tour with more cuts. Among others, is the vulgar head, called the countess of Desmond. I told him I had discovered, and proved past contradiction, that it is Rembrandt's mother. He owned it, and said, he would correct it by a note -- but he has not. This is a brave way of being an antiquary ! as if there could be any merit in...« less