e then owner, Robert Price,
Esq. and his mild and amiable lady, both kindly pressed him to become an
inmate of their domestic retreat, that his health might be restored, and
his mind calmed; and though he modestly refused being a constant
intruder, yet he took up his residence in a cottage near them, and
delighted to pass his leisure hours in their happy domestic circle,
"blending his studious pursuits, with rural occupations," and
particularly with gardening. No doubt, to this protecting kindness, may,
on this spot, have been imbibed his great veneration for Theophrastus;
and here he must have laid the foundation of those attainments, which,
during the future periods of his life, obtained for him the high
approbation of the justly celebrated Mrs. Montagu, who, in her letters,
speaks of "this invaluable friend," in the highest possible terms of
praise. In this peaceful and consoling retreat, was written his original
and masterly tribute to the talents of Xenophon; and here was first
kindled his deep enthusiastic zeal for the classic authors of antiquity;
and the materials for his then intended edition of Milton (who he says
equalled all the ancients whom he imitated; the sublimity of Homer, the
majesty of Sophocles, the softness of Theocritus, and the gaiety of
Anacreon,) enriched with parallel passages from holy writ, the classics,
and the early Italian poets; and here he composed his matchless treatise
on the power and principles of Tartini's music (for it seems Mr. Price
himself "was a master of the art.") Here too, most probably, he
sketched, or first gathered, his early memoranda towards his future
general history of husbandry, from the earliest ages of the world to his
own time; and fostered a devoted zeal for Linnaeus, which produced that
spirited eulogium on him, which pervades the preface to his translation
of "Miscellaneous Tracts on Natural History."

[102] Sir Uvedale, about fifty years ago, translated _Pausanias_ from
the Greek. One may judge of the feeling with which he dwelt on the pages
of this book, by what he says of that nation in vol. i. p. 65 of his
Essays, where he speaks of being struck with the extreme richness of
some of the windows of our cathedrals and ruined abbeys: "I hope it will
not be supposed, that by admiring the picturesque circumstances of the
Gothic, I mean to undervalue the symmetry and beauty of Grecian
buildings: whatever comes to us from the Greeks, has an irresistible
claim to o