(1065) M. de Lille was an officer of the French cavalry, an agreeable man in society, and author of several pretty ballads and vers de soci`et`e.

(1066) “They went to the Ridotto-’tis a hall
Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;
Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,
But that’s of no importance to my strain;
’Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,
Excepting that it can’t be spoilt by rain: 
The company is ’mix’d’—­the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they’re below your notice.” 
Beppo, st. 58.-E.

Letter 360 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.  Arlington Street, May 27, 1769. (page 541)

Dear Sir, I have not heard from you this century, nor knew where you had fixed yourself.  Mr. Gray tells me you are still at Waterbeche.  Mr. Granger has published his Catalogue of Prints and Lives down to the Revolution;(1067) and as the work sells well, I believe, nay, do not doubt, we shall have the rest.  There are a few copies printed but on one side of the leaf.  As I know you love scribbling in such books as well as I do, I beg you will give me leave to make you a present of one set.  I shall send it in about a week to Mr. Gray, and have desired him, as soon as he has turned it over, to convey it to you.  I have found a few mistakes, and you will find more.  To my mortification, though I have four thousand heads, I find, upon a rough calculation, that I still want three or four hundred.

Pray, give me some account of yourself, how you do, and whether you are fixed.  I thought you rather inclined to Ely.  Are we never to have the history of that cathedral?  I wish you would tell me that you have any thoughts of coming this way, or that you would make me a Visit this Summer.  I shall be little from home this summer till August, when I think of going to Paris for six weeks.  To be sure you have seen the History of British Topography,(1068) which was published this winter, and it is a delightful book in our way.  Adieu! dear Sir.  Yours ever.

(1067) A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution.  A continuation, bringing the work down from the Revolution to the end of George I.’s reign, was published in 1806, by the Rev. Mark Noble.  In a letter to Boswell, of the 30th of August 1776, Dr. Johnson says—­“I have read every word of Granger’s Biographical History.  It has entertained me exceedingly, and I do not think him the Whig that you supposed.  Horace Walpole being his patron is, indeed, no good sign of his political principles; but he denied to Lord Mansfield that he was a Whig, and said he had been accused by both parties of partiality.  It seems he was like Pope—­

‘While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.’

I wish you would look more into his book; and as Lord Mountstuart wishes much to find a proper person to continue the work upon Granger’s plan, and has desired I would mention it to you, if such a man occurs, please to let me know.  His lordship will give him generous encouragement."-E.