Page:The Pleasures of Memory (Rogers).djvu/54



This emperor, according to Suetonius, constantly passed the summer in a small villa near Reate, where he was born, and to which he would never add any embellishment; ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret. , in Vit. Vesp. cap. ii

A similar instance occurs in the life of the venerable Pertinax, as related by J. Capitolinus. Posteaquam in Liguriam venit, multis agris coemptis, tabernam paternam, manente forma priore, infinitis ædificiis circundedit. Hist. August. 54.

And it is said of Cardinal Richelieu, that when he built his magnificent palace on the site of the old family chateau at Richelieu, he sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born.

A ém. de Mlle, de Montpensier, i. 27.

An attachment of this nature is generally the characteristic of a benevolent mind; and a long acquaintance with the world cannot always extinguish it.

"To a friend," says John Duke of Buckingham, "I will expose my weakness: I am oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down, than pleased with a saloon which I built in its stead, though a thousand times better in all respects." See his Letter to the D. of Sh.

This is the language of the heart; and will remind the reader of that good-humoured remark in one of Pope's letters—"I should hardly care to have an old post pulled up that I remembered ever since I was a child." author:Alexander Pope Works, viii. 151.

Nor did the Poet feel the charm more forcibly than his Editor. See author:Richard Hurd Life of Warburton, 51, 99.

The elegant author of Telemachus has illustrated this subject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée, Persan.

That amiable and accomplished monarch, Henry the Fourth of France, made an excursion from his camp, during the long siege of Laon, to dine at a house in the forest of Folambray; where he had often been regaled, when a boy, with fruit, milk, and new cheese; and in revisiting which he promised himself great pleasure.Mém. de Sully, ii. 381.