at fourscore thousand; and so would anybody who loves hippopotamuses, sharks with one ear, and spiders as big as geese! It is a rent-charge, to keep the foetuses in spirits! You may believe that those who think money the most valuable of all curiosities, will not be purchasers. The King has excused himself, saying he did not believe that there are twenty thousand pounds in the treasury. We are a charming wise set, all philosophers, botanists, antiquarians, and mathematicians; and adjourned our first meeting, because Lord Macclesfield, our chairman, was engaged to a party for finding out the longitude. One of our number is a Moravian, who signs himself Henry XXVIII, Count de Reus. The Moravians have settled a colony at Chelsea, in Sir Hans's neighbourhood, and I believe he intended to beg Count Henry XXVIIIth's skeleton for his museum. I am almost ashamed to be thanking you but now for a most entertaining letter of two sheets, dated December 22, but I seriously had nothing to form an answer. It is but three mornings ago that your brother was at breakfast with me, and scolded me, "Why, you tell me nothing!"—"No," says I;" if I had anything to say, I should write to your brother." I give you my word, the first new book that takes, the first murder, the first revolution, you shall have, with all the circumstances. In the mean time, do be assured that there never was so dull a place as London, or so insipid an inhabitant of it. as, Yours, &c. TO MR. GRAY. Arlington Street, Feb. 20, 1753. I AM very sorry that the haste I made to deliver you from your uneasiness the first moment after I received your letter, should have made me express myself in a manner to have the their reception," &c. An act was shortly after passed, empowering the Crown to raise a sufficient sum by lottery to purchase the Sloane collection and Harleian manuscripts, together with Montagu House, Such was the commencement of the British Museum,-E, at fourscore thousand; and so would anybody who loves hippopotamuses, sharks with one ear, and spiders as big as geese! It is a rent-charge, to keep the foetuses in spirits! You may believe that those who think money the most valuable of all curiosities, will not be purchasers. The King has excused himself, saying he did not believe that there are twenty thousand pounds in the treasury. We are a charming wise set, all philosophers, botanists, antiquarians, and mathematicians; and adjourned our first meeting, because Lord Macclesfield, our chairman, was engaged to a party for finding out the longitude. One of our number is a Moravian, who signs himself Henry XXVIII, Count de Reus. The Moravians have settled a colony at Chelsea, in Sir Hans's neighbourhood, and I believe he intended to beg Count Henry XXVIIIth's skeleton for his museum. 66 I am almost ashamed to be thanking you but now for a most entertaining letter of two sheets, dated December 22, but I seriously had nothing to form an answer. It is but three mornings ago that your brother was at breakfast with me, and scolded me, "Why, you tell me nothing !"—" No," says I;" if I had anything to say, I should write to your brother." I give you my word, the first new book that takes, the first murder, the first revolution, you shall have, with all the circumstances. In the mean time, do be assured that there never was so dull a place as London, or so insipid an inhabitant of it as, Yours, &c. TO MR. GRAY. Arlington Street, Feb. 20, 1753. I AM very sorry that the haste I made to deliver you from your uneasiness the first moment after I received your letter, should have made me express myself in a manner to have the their reception," &c. An act was shortly after passed, empowering the Crown to raise a sufficient sum by lottery to purchase the Sloane collection and Harleian manuscripts, together with Montagu House. Such was the commencement of the British Museum,-E, |