At Burford I saw the house of Mr. Lenthal the descendant of the Speaker.  The front is good and a chapel connected by two or three arches, which let the garden appear through, has a pretty effect; but the inside of the mansion is bad and ill-furnished.  Except a famous picture of Sir Thomas More’s family, the portraits are rubbish, though celebrated.  I am told that the Speaker, who really had a fine collection, made his peace by presenting them to Cornbury, where they were well known, till the Duke of Marlborough bought that seat.

I can’t go and describe so known a place as Oxford, which I saw pretty well on my return.  The whole air of the town charms me; and what remains of the true Gothic un-Gibbs’d, and the profusion of painted glass, were entertainment enough to me.  In the picture-gallery are quantities of portraits; but in general they are not only not so much as copies, but proxies-so totally unlike they arc to the persons they pretend to represent.  All I will tell you more of Oxford is, that Fashion has so far prevailed over her collegiate sister, Custom, that they have altered the hour of dinner from twelve to one.  Does not it put one in mind of reformations in religion?  One don’t abolish Mahommedism; one only brings it back to where the impostor himself left it.  I think it is at the South-Sea-house, where they have been forced to alter the hour of payment, instead of from ten to twelve, to from twelve to two; so much do even moneyed citizens sail with the current of idleness!

Was not I talking of religious sects?  Methodism is quite decayed in Oxford, its cradle.  In its stead, there prevails a delightful fantastic system, called the sect of the Hutchinsonians,(429) of whom one seldom hears any thing in town.  After much inquiry, all I can discover is, that their religion consists in driving Hebrew to its fountain-head, till they find some word or other in every text of the Old Testament, which may seem figurative of something in the New, or at least of something, that may happen God knows when, in consequence of the New.  As their doctrine is novel, and requires much study, or at least much invention, one should think that they could not have settled half the canon of what they are to believe-and yet they go on zealously, trying to make and succeeding in making converts.(429) I could not help smiling at the thoughts of etymological salvation; and I am sure you will smile when I tell you, that according to their gravest doctors, “Soap Is an excellent type of Jesus Christ, and the York-buildings waterworks of the Trinity.”—­I don’t know whether this is not as entertaining as the passion of the Moravians for the “little side-hole!” Adieu, my dear sir!

(422) The seat of Sir George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton.-E.

(423) Sir Charles Lyttelton, distinguished in the M`emoires de Grammont as “le s`erieux Lyttelton.”  He died in 1716, at the age of eighty-six.-E.

(424) The beautiful Frances Stuart, who married Esme, Duke of Richmond; which greatly displeased Charles the Second, who was in love with her.