only a human creature, but that I am I, that is, one of the weakest of human creatures, and so sensible of my fickleness that I am sometimes inclined to keep a diary of my mind, as people do of the weather.  To-day you see it temperate, to-morrow it may again blow politics and be stormy; for while I have so much quicksilver left, I fear my passionometer will be susceptible of sudden changes.  What do years give one?  Experience; experience, what?  Reflections; reflections, what? nothing that I ever could find—­nor can I well agree with Waller, that

“The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.”

Chinks I am afraid there are, but instead of new light, I find nothing but darkness visible, that serves only to discover sights of Wo.  I look back through my chinks—­I find errors, follies, faults; forward, old age and death, pleasures fleeting from me, no virtues succeeding to their place—­il faut avouer, I want all my quicksilver to make such a background receive any other objects!

I am glad Mr. Frederick Montagu thinks so well of me as to be sure I shall be glad to see him without an invitation.  For you, I had already perceived that you would not come to Strawberry this year.  Adieu!

463 Letter 292 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1758.

It is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir; yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps the most agreeable I could send you.  You will not think it the bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him!  This little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family at Linton, and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much sincere friendship in the living.  The thought was my own, adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic.  The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley’s, who alone, of all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic.  Kent and many of our builders sought this, but have never found it.  Mr. Chute, who has as much taste @s Mr. Bentley, thinks this little sketch a perfect model.  The soffite is more beautiful than any thing of either style separate.  There is a little error in the inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit.  The urn is of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone.  On the whole, I think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of ornament that destroys neither.