and leave five hundred pounds apiece to their friendship-. nay, riches made him so happy, that, in the overflowing of his satisfaction, he has bequeathed a hundred pounds apiece to eighteen fellows, whom he calls his good friends, that favoured him with their company on Fridays.  He took it mighty kind that Captain James de Normandie, and twenty such names, that came out of the Minories, would constrain themselves to live upon him once a week.

I should like to visit the castles and groves of your old Welsh ancestors with you:  by the draughts I have seen, I have always imagined that Wales preserved the greatest remains of ancient days, and have often wished to visit Picton Castle, the seat of my Philipps-progenitors.

Make my best compliments to your sisters, and with their leave make haste to this side of the world; you will be extremely welcome hither as soon and for as long as you like; I can promise you nothing very agreeable, but that I will try to get our favourite Mr. Bentley to meet you.  Adieu!

(182) The widow of Brigadier-General Handasyde.-E.

(183) The legacies bequeathed by Gerard Vanneck amounted altogether to more than a hundred thousand pounds.  The residue of his property he left to his brother, Joshua Vanneck, ancestor of Lord Huntingfield.-E.

81 Letter 30 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, September 20, 1750.

I only write you a line to answer some of your questions, and to tell you that I can’t answer others.

I have inquired much about Dr. Mead, but can’t tell you any thing determinately:  his family positively deny the foundation of the reports, but every body does ’not believe their evidence.  Your brother is positive that there is much of truth in his being undone, and even that there will be a sale of his collection(184) when the town comes to town.  I wish for Dr. Cocchi’s sake it be false.  I have given your brother Middleton’s last piece to send you.  Another fellow of Eton(185) has popped out a sermon against the Doctor since his death, with a note to one of the pages, that is the true sublime of ecclesiastic absurdity.  He is speaking against the custom of dividing the Bible into chapters and verses, and says it often encumbers the sense.  This note, though long, I must transcribe, for it would wrong the author to paraphrase his nonsense:—­“It is to be wished, therefore, I think, that a fair edition were set forth of the original Scriptures, for the use of learned men in their closets, in which there should be no notice, either in text or margin, of chapter, or verse, or paragraph, or any such arbitrary distinctions, (now mind,) and I might go so far as to say even any pointing or stops.  It could not but be matter of much satisfaction, and much use, to have it in our power to recur occasionally to such an edition, where the understanding might have full range, free from any external influence from the eye, and the continual danger of being either confined