UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 826.08 W24° r Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library ore 2 i i nr L161 — H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/originallettersf00warn_0 t; ' ‘ • • 'Sf'? *i 4 ■ ■ ' S' i.V-„ ? , <-*. T(S*,J >%.>*.♦!* ' A ©rigttml betters. RICHARD BAXTER, MATTHEW PRIOR, LORD BOLINGBROKE, ALEXANDER POPE, J)r. CHEYNE, FROM Dr. HARTLEY, Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, Mrs. MONTAGUE, Rev. WILLIAM GILPIN, Rev. JOHN NEWTON, GEORGE LORD LYTTLETON, Rev. Dr. CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, &c. &c. WITH BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, EDITED BY REBECCA WARNER, Of Beech Cottage , near Bath . Blest be the gracious Powers, who taught mankind! To stamp a lasting image of the mind ! Beasts may convey, and tuneful birds may sing, Their mutual feelings in the op’ning spring; But Man alone has skill and pow’r to send The heart’s warm dictates to the distant friend : ’Tis his alone to please, instruct, advise, Ages remote, and nations yet to rise. Crabbe's Library, PRINTED BY RICHARD CRUTTWELL, ST. JAMES’s-STREET, BATH ; AND SOLD BY L0N6MAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATER* NOSTER-ROW, LONDON. 1817. » ♦ ♦ , . ' ■ UjlfiT ^ . *. * * h 1 , l J ; ( •. • v i .. TO THE READER , ^jpHE only merit to which the Editor of a work, like the following series of Let- ters, can possibly pretend, must arise, from industry in collecting materials, and some little exercise of judgment in selecting such from among them as deserved to be presented to the public^ As the Editor of the present publication has been aided, in both these respects, by the kindness of friends equally obliging and judicious, she flatters herself that this humble claim will be readily con- ceded to her. Nor can she doubt, that the Letters themselves will afford much gratifL cation to those into whose hands they may happen to fall ; since they were written, for the most part, by characters, who, in their time, stood high in the roll of literary fame ; t iv I or have been remarkable for talent, piety, or usefulness in their generation. Of there being all genuine, there is every moral cer- tainty : and that, with a very few excep- tions, they have never before been published, the Editor has every reason to believe- To the greater part of them are prefixed the names of those by whom they were written, as well as of the persons to whom they were addressed. In some, however, the names of the writer or correspondent are omitted ; either because they could not be given with absolute confidence, or because motives of delicacy in the friends who communicated such letters, made them hesitate to allow the publication of the signatures of those, who, when alive, might, possibly, have shrunk from the idea of appearing before the world under the character of authors. CONTENTS. iETTER PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL Illustration of Richard Baxter I I. From Richard Baxter to Dr. Allestree - - 4* Biographical Illustration of Matthew Prior - 11 JI. From M. Prior to Lord Townshend - - - 13 Biographical Illustration of Lord Bclingbroke • 14 III. From Lord Bolingbroke to Sir Wm. Wyndham - 18 IV. From ditto to ditto - - - - * ^4 V. From ditto to Sir Charles Wyndham - - 2 7 VI. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 32 Biographical Illustration of Alexander Pope * 35 VII. From Mr. Pope to Wm. Fortescue, efqj - 37 VIII. From Mr. Gay and Pope to ditto - - -39 IX. From Mr. Pope to ditto - - - * 41 X. From ditto to ditto - * - - - 43 XI. From ditto to ditto ----- 44 XII. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 45 XIII. From ditto to ditto - - - - -4 7 XIV; From ditto to ditto - - - - - 49 XV. From ditto to ditto ----- 50 XVI. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 51 XVII. From ditto to ditto * - - - - 53 XVIII. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 55 XIX.. From ditto to ditto 53 Vi CONTENDS*- LETTER Biographical Illustration of Dr G. Cheyne XX. Freni Dr. Clieyne to Mr. Richardson XXL From ditto to ditto ... XXII. From ditto to ditto - XXIII. From ditto to ditto - - XXIV. From ditto to ditto - XXV. From ditto to ditto - - XXVI. From *** to ditto, containing an Account of Dr. Cheyne’s Death - Biographical Illustration of Dr. Hartley, David Hartley, and Mrs. M. Hartley 'XXVII. From Mrs. M. Hartley to the Rev. Wm. Gilpin, enclosing two Letters of her Father’s ------- xxvrrr. From Dr. Hartley to his Sister Mrs. Booth XXIX. From ditto to ditto' - XXX. From Mrs. H. to the Rev. Wm. Gilpin, containing some Account of her Father’s t A G S 6a 63 65 70 75 7S 83 86 £9 91 97 99 Life .... - 102 XXXI. From Dr. Hartley to his Son David Hart- ley, when setting out on his Travels - 111 Biographical Illustration of H. A. Pistorius 121 XXXII. From to H. A. Pistorius, containing a brief Analysis of Dr. Hartley’s Work - 122 XXXIII. hhrorii Dr. Franklin to David Hartley, efqj 137 Biographical Illustration of the Rev. Wm. Gilpin ------ 141 XXXIV. From the Rev. Wm. Gilpin to Mrs. M. Hartley - 143 XXXV. From ditto to ditto - 147 XXXVX. Fiom ditto to ditto - - - - 148 XXXVII. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 150 XXXVIII. From Mrs. M. H. to the Rev. Wm. Gilpin 153 CONTENTS. yii BETTER PAGB XXXVIII. From Mrs. M. H. to the Rev. Wm, Gilpin 158 -4&XXIX. From ditto to ditto - 103 XL. From the Rev Wm. Gilpin to *** - - 167 XLI. From ditto to ditto ----- 169 XLII. From ditto to ditto ----- 171 XLIII. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 372 XLIV. From ditto to ditto - - - - - 173 Biographical Illustration of Joseph Ameen - 175 XLV. From Joseph Ameen to the Earl of Nor- thumberland - - - - 1 80 XLVI. From ditto to Prince Heraclius - ^ - 185 XLV II. From ditto to his Father - 193 Biographical Illustration of Dr. Sam. Johnson and Joseph Fowke, esq; - 202 XLVIII. From Dr Sam. Johnson to Francis Fowke, esq; 205 LII. From ditto to Joseph Fowke, esq; - - 207 L. From ditto to Samuel Richardson - - 209 LI. From Joseph Fowke, esq; to * * r - 210 LII. From ditto to ditto - 226 LIII. From Joseph Fowke, esq; > . - 2J7 LIV. From ditto - _ _ . _ 219 LV. From ditto - 224 Biographical Illustration of Mrs. Montague - 228 LVI. From Mrs. Montague to Mrs. Hartley - 231 LVII. From Mrs. Hartley to ***, on the Death of Mrs. Montague ----- 233 Biographical Illustration of the Rev. Dr Jeans 236 LVIII. From the Rev. Joshua Jeans to a Young Man on entering into Orders - 240 LIX. From the Rev. Dr. Jeans to ***, giving an Account of the Catastrophe at Leyden - 243 Biographical Illustration of the Rev. J. Newton 4 ^ 2 4Q VUl CONTENTS LETTER LX. From the Rev. J. Newton to Capt. and Mrs. Hansard - Reference to the Rev. Dr. Buchannan’s Life LXI. From Dr. C. Buchannan to *** ■» ▼ LX 1 1. From the same to the same - LX III. From ditto to T— E— , esq; sen. - LXIV. From ditto to Miss E. - LXV. From ditto to T— E— , esq; sen. - : LXVI. From ditto to Mrs. E. - - - . % Charafter of Voltaire, by Frederick 2d, King of Prussia - ' - Biographical Illustration of George Lord Lyttleton ------ LXVII. From Voltaire to George Lord Lyttleton LX VIII. From Lord Lyttleton to Voltaire - Houghton Pi&ures - - LXIX. *** to *** LXX. From Dr. Glass to *** LXXI. From the Rev. W. Jones, of Nayland, to * ** PAGE 250 255 256 258 262 266 270 272 270 274 280 282 284 287 297 299 ORIGINAL LETTERS, &c. RICHARD BAXTER. Richard Baxter, the author of the following letter, was one of the most remarkable characters of the seventeenth century. Had he fallen on happier days, he would have been an ornament to literature, and a permanent benefit to mankind; but, perpetually in- volved in religious polemics, and wasting his attain- ments in the discussion of “ unprofitable questions,” his voluminous works are for the most part buried in" oblivion, and his memorial exists chiefly in the name of a connexion of religionists, who, from adopting his theological principles, are known by the denomination of Baxierians , and hold a sort of middle path between Calvinism and Arminianism. He was born November 12, 1615, at Rowton in Shropshire; and, after a life of seventy-six years, nearly fifty of which were passed amid vicissitudes, controversy, and persecutions, ex- pired on the 8th of December 1691. Vacillating in his doctrinal notions, he was, notwithstanding, steady in his nonconformity; which subje&ed him, more than B [ 2 ] once, to apprehension and imprisonment. The last occasion on which he incurred the notice of the law, was in 16S5, when he was seized by a warrant granted by Judge Jefferies, and tried by that execrable per- verier of justice. The brutish vulgarity of Jefferies never appeared more conspicuously than on this trial. a Mr. Baxter being ill," says his biographer, “ moved, (i by his counsel, for lime; but Jefferies said, he would u not give him aminute’s time to save his life. Yonder (< stands Oates in the pillory, says he; and if Mr. Baxter 4t stood on the other side, I would say, two of the greatest “ rogues in England stood there. He was brought to u his trial May 30th, but the Chief Justice would not M admit his counsel to plead for their client. When a Mr. Baxter offered to speak for himself, Jefferies i( called him a snivelling, canting Presbyterian; and “ said, Richard, Richard, don’t thou think we will hear a thee poison the court. Richard, thou art an old fel- 44 low, and an old knave ; thou hast written books (t enough to load a cart ; every one as full of sedition, * c I might say of treason, as an egg is full of meat : “ hadst thou been whipped out of thy writing trade 44 forty years ago, it had been happy. Thou pretendest 44 to be a preacher of the gospel of peace ; as thou hast 44 one foot in the grave, ’tis time for thee to begin to u think what account thou intendest to give ; but leave 44 thee to thyself, and I see thou wilt go on as thou hast 44 begun; but, by the grace of God, I will look after 44 thee. I know thou hast a mighty party, and I see 44 a great many of the brotherhood in corners, waiting 44 to see what will become of their mighty Don ; and a 44 Doctor of the party (Dr. Bates) at your elbow ; but, 64 by the grace of Almighty God, I will crush you all.” Neale's History of the Puritans , v. v. p. 6. The jury, under the direction of the Judge, found Baxter guilty ; [ 3 ] and he was fined 500 marks, or to go to prison till he paid it. He continued in prison for two years, when the court changed its measures, and he was released. Dr. Calamy observes, that Baxter's works would “ form “ a library of themselves.” His “ Call to the Un- “ converted,” and his “ Saints’ everlasting Rest,” are still had in deserved esteem. He drew up a “ Reformed “Liturgy,” which Dr. Johnson pronounced to be “ one u of the finest compositions of the ritual kind he had “ ever seen:” but if it be compared with the admirable services of our own excellent Book of Common- Prayer, it will be found to be sadly deficient in pathos, sublimity, and variety. The popularity of Baxter’s works in the seventeenth century was surprisingly great. “ I remember,” says Addison, in the 445th number of the Spectator, “ upon “Mr. Baxter’s death, there was published a sheet of “ good sayings, inscribed, The Last Words of Mr . “ Baxter . The title sold so great a number of these u papers, that about a week after, there came out a “ second sheet, inscribed, More Last Words of Mr . “ Baxter ” The curious original letter, from which the following is printed, was found in a second-hand copy of Lynde - wode’s Provinciate, purchased, about 28 years ago, of Mr. Cuthel), bookseller, Middle-row, Holborn. [ 4 ] LETTER I From RtcHARD Baxter to “ the Rev. Dr . “ Richard Allestree, the King's Profes - ** sour of Theologie, at his Lodgings in Christ 1 s- u Church , Oxford." S your ingenuity giveth me full satisfaction, I am very desirous to give you such just Satisfaction concerning myself, that you may think neither better nor worse of me than I am : we old men are prone to have kinder thoughts of our childish old acquaintance than of later, and to value most their esteem, whom we most esteem ; and the current report of your honesty, as well as knowledge, commandeth a great esti- mation of you from us all. I was before the warre offended much at the multitude of ignorant drunken readers, who had the care of souls, and the great number of worthy ministers who were cast out and ruined, and of serious Christians that were persecuted for praying together, and SIR, Dec. 20, 1679, C 5 ] for little thing’s. 1 was one of those that were glad that the Parliament, 1640, attempted a reformation of these things, which 1 expressed, perhaps, too openly. I lived in a town (Keder- minster) then famous for wickedness and drunk- enness. They twice rose against me, and sought to kill me. Once for saying the infants had original sin, &c.; and next time for persuading the churchwardens to execute the Parliament’s order (the King’s being yet with them) for defacing the images of the Trinity on the cross; when they knockt down two strangers for my sake, who carried it to their graves. Then the old Curate indited me at the assizes, I never heard for what, but I was forced to be gone. If any did but sing a psalm, or repeat a sermon in their houses, the rabble cried, Down with the Round- Heads, and were ready to destroy them ; so that the religious part of the town were forced to fly after me to Coventree, where we lived quietly ; but having nothing of their own, they were con- strained to become garrison soldiers, and I took my bare dyet, to preach once a week, refusing the offered plaqe of chaplain to the garrison. The newes of 200,000 murdered by the Irish and Papist strength in the King’s armies, and the great danger of the kingdom, was published by the Parliament; my judgment then was, that neither King nor Parliament might lawfully C 6 1 fight against each other; that dividing was dissolving and destroying; and only necessary defence of the constitution was lawful: but that the bonum publicum was the essentiall end of government ; and though I thought both sides faulty, I thought that both the defensive party and the salus populi , lay on the Parliament’s side, and I very openly published and preached accordingly. The Parliament still professing, that they took not arms against the King, but against subjects, that not only fled from justice, but sought by arms to destroy the Parliament, &c. In a word, my principles were the same with Bishop Bil- son’s (of subjection) and Jewet’s, but never so popular as R. Hooker’s. When I had stayed in Coventree a year, my father in Shropshire was plundered by the King’s soldiers, (who never was against the King or conformity.) I went into Shropshire, and he was for my sake taken prisoner to Linshull. I stayed at Longford garrison for two months, and got him exchanged for Mr. R. Fowler. In that time, the garrison being a little more than a mile distance, the sol- diers on each side used frequently to have small attempts against each other; in which Judge Fiennes’ eldest son was killed of our side, and one soldier of their side, and no more that I know of. I was present when the soldier was killed, the rest ran away and left him ; and other sol- [ 7 ] diers hurt him not, but offered him quarter, but he would not take it, nor lay down his armes : and I was one that bid him lay them down, and threatened to shoot him, but hurt him not, he striking* at me with his musket, and narrowly missing* me. I rode from him ; and Captain Holidaye, the governor, being behind me, shot him dead ; and it grieved me the more, because we afterwards heard that he was a Welshman, and knew not what we said to him. I never saw man killed but this; nor this indeed, for I rode away from him. Above twenty prisoners we there took, and all, save two or three, got away through a sinke-hole, and the rest were exchanged. I returned to Coventree, and fol- lowed my studies another year ; all that garrison abhorred sectarian, and popular rebellious prin- ciples. The Parliament then put out the Earl of Essex, and new-modelled their armies; and g'ave Fairfax a new commission, leaving out the King; when before, all the commissions were, to fight for King and Parliament. Naseby fight suddenly followed : being near, I went, some daies after, to see the field and army ; when I came to them, (before Leicester,) divers orthodox captains told me, that we were all like to be undone, and all along of the ministers, who had all (save Mr. Bowles) forsaken the army : and the sectaries had thereby turned their preachers, and possessed [ 8 ] them with destructive principles against King, Parliament, and Church. And now they said, “ God’s providence had put the trust of the u people’s safety in our hands, and they would, “ when the conquest was finished, change the [ 34 3 lather would have thought so ; for your father looked upon that man as the principal cause of all our national misfortunes. I hear Percy is gone to Oxford, and I am glad of it. Do not forget to throw him into that course ©f study I mentioned to your father, and which he approved ; for else, though applied to his studies, he may lose his time at Oxford, as well as at Winchester. Have still in view to make him acquire a competent knowledge of the Roman law, and for that purpose send him into Holland, after he has been long enough at Oxford; upon which particular, if you talk with * Marchmont, you will be well advised I .ave made all the compliments you desired me to make, and am charged with the care of returning them. Make mine, I beseech you, to my Lady, and to Mrs.Wyndham* Adieu, dear Sir Charles. B, [ 35 } ALEXANDER POPE. The celebrity of Alexander Pope, precludes the necessity of giving any particulars respecting a cha- racter, whose life has been the subject of so many able specimens of English biography. The late admirable edition of his works, by “ that sweetest son of modem u song,” the accomplished W. L. Bowles, has given to the public all that they can now expect to know of Pope and his works. The taste and discrimination of Dr. Joseph Warton had before well appreciated the merit of Pope as a poet, and allotted him his proper station among British bards : “ Where then," says he, u according to the question proposed at the beginning " of this Essay, shall we with justice be authorized to “ place our admired poet? Not, assuredly, in the same “ rank with Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton ; how- “ ever justly we may applaud the Eloisa, and Rape of iC the Lock ; but, considering the correctness, elegance, “ and utility of his works, the weight of sentiment* t( and the knowledge of men they contain, we may “ venture to assign him a place next to Milton, and “just above Dryden. Yet to bring our minds steadily “ to make this decision, we must forget, for a moment, u the divine Music Ode of Dryden; and may then, ° perhaps, be compelled to confess, that though Dryden u be the greater genius , yet Pope is the better artist.” Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope , p. 404. Of D 2 C 36 ] the prose compositions of Pope, the public estimation has been neither so general nor unqualified as of his poetry. <( His Letters” Johnson says, a if considered “ merely as compositions, seem to be premeditated and u artificial. It is one thing to write, because there is something which the mind wishes to discharge; and u another, to solicit the imagination, because ceremony <{ or vanity require something to be written. Pope * c confesses his early letters to be vitiated with affec* “ tation and ambition ; to know whether he disentangled ** himself from the perversion of epistolary integrity, u his book and his life must be set in comparison.” Works , vol. ii. p. 157. Whatever praises, however, may be considered as due to Pope’s epistolary compo- sitions, the following letters will have much value in the eye of the public, as completing a correspondence, a part of which only has hitherto been published. Many of our poet’s letters to Judge Fortescue appear in the later editions of his works ; but those now printed have escaped all his editors. They were reserved among the papers of the venerable, great, and good Richard Rey- nolds, esq; of Bristol; a name of such well-known and exalted worth, and universal estimation, as render any further description unnecessary, and all eulogy super- fluous. The Editor has to return her grateful acknow- ledgments to one of the most perfect of human beings, his near relative, for their communication. [ 37 ] LETTER VII. To Wm. Fortescue, Esq; at Fallapit, near Kingsbridge , Devonshire . dear SIR, Sept. 10 , 1724 . T Heartily thank you for yours ; and the rather, -®- because you are so kind as to employ me, though but in little matters ; I take it as an earnest you would do so in greater. As to the house of preparation for the small- pox, why should it not be my own? It is en- tirely at your service, and I fancy two beds, or three upon necessity, (besides, your servants may be disposed of in the next house to me,) will amply furnish your family. It is true, the small-pox has been in Twitnam, but is pretty well gone off. I can’t find any village more free from it so near London, ex- cept that of Petersham, where I hear it has not been ; but I’ll further inform myself, upon your next notice. As to the receipt of Sir Stephen Fox’s eye- water, which I have found benefit from, it is very simple, and only this : Take a pint of cam- phorated spirit of wine, and infuse thereinto two scruples of elder flowers. Let them remain in it, and wash your temples, and the nape of your [ 38 ] neck, but do not put it into your eyes, for it will smart abominably. When you have taken breath for a week or two, and had the full possession of that blessed indolence which you so justly value, after your long labours and peregrinations, I hope to see you here again ; first exercising the paternal care, and exemplary in the tender offices of a pater familias , and then conspicuous in the active scenes of business, eloquent at the bar, and wise in the chamber of council, the future honour of your native Devon ; and to fill as great a part in the history of that county for your sagacity and gravity in the laws, as Esquire Bickford is likely to do for his many experiments in natural philosophy. I am forced to dispatch this by the post, which is going, or else I could not have forborne to expatiate upon what I last mentioned. I must now only give Mr. Bickford my services, and join ’em to those I shall ever offer to your own family. Believe me, dear Sir, Your faithfullest, affectionate servant, A. POPE. Gay was well five days ago, at Chiswick. [ 39 ] LETTER VIII. To Wm, Fortescue, esq; at Fallapit , near Totnes , Devon . [FROM GAY AND POPE.] dear sir, Sept . 23, 1725. X Am again returned to Twickenham, upon the news of the person’s death you wrote to me about. I cannot say I have any great prospect of success ; but the affair remains yet undetermined, and I cannot tell who will be his successor. I know I have sincerely your good wishes upon all occasions. One would think that my friends use me to disappointments, to try how many I could bear ; if they do so, they are mistaken ; for as I don’t expect much, I can never be much disappointed. I am in hopes of seeing you in town the beginning of October, by what you writ to Mr. Pope ; and sure your father will think it reasonable that Miss Fortescue should not forget her French and dancing. Dr. Arbuthnot has been at the point of death by a severe fit of illness, an imposthumation in the bowels; it hath broke, and he is now pretty well recovered. I have not seen him since my return from Wiltshire, but intend to go to town the latter end of the week. [ 40 J I have made your compliments to Mrs. How- ard this morning : she indeed put me in mind of it, by enquiring after you. Pray make my compliments to your sisters and Mrs. Fortescue; Mr. Pope desires the same. Your’s, most affectionately, J. G. “ Blessed is the man who expects nothing, “ for he shall never be disappointed,’ ’ was the ninth beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth ; I have long ago preached this to our friend ; I have preached it, but the world and his other friends held it forth , and exempli- fied it. They say, Mr. Walpole has friendship, and keeps his word ; I wish he were our friend’s friend, or had ever promised him any thing. You seem inquisitive of what passed when Lord Feterborow spirited him hither, without any suspicion of mine. Nothing extraordinary, for the most extraordinary men are nothing before their masters; and nothing, but thatMr. Walpole swore by G — d, Mrs. Howard should have the grounds she wanted from Y — n. Nothing would be more extraordinary, except a statesman made good his promise or oath, (as very probably he will.) If I have any other very extraordinary thing to tell t 41 ] you, it is this, that I have never since returned Sir R. W.’s visit. The truth is, I have nothing to ask of him; and I believe he knows that nobody follows him for nothing . Besides, I have been very sick, and sickness (let me tell you) makes one above a minister, who cannot cure a fit of a fever or ague. Let me also tell you, that no man who is lame, and cannot stir, will wait upon the greatest man upon earth ; and lame I was, and still am, by an accident which it will be time enough to tell you when we meet, for I hope it will be suddenly. Adieu, dear Sir, and believe me a true well-wisher to all your’s, and ever your faithful, affectionate servant, A. POPE. Twitenham, Sept . 23, 1725. LETTER IX. To Wm. Fortescue, esq; at his house in Bell- Yard, near Lincoln's Inn, London . dear sir, Twitnam, May 10. I Thank you for your constant memory of me, which upon every occasion you shew; when (God knows) my daily infirmities make me hardly capable of shewing, though very much so of feeling, the concerns ot a friend. I am glad your family are well arrived; and your taking [ 42 ] care first to tell me so, before I enquired, is a proof you know how glad I am of yours, and their welfare. I intended to tell you first how kind Sir R. Walpole has been to me; for you must know, he did the thing with more despatch than I could use in acknowledging or telling the the news of it. Pray thank him for obliging you (that is, me) so readily, and do it in strong terms, for I was aukward in it, when I just mentioned it to him. He may think me a worse man than I am, though he thinks me a better poet perhaps ; and he may not know I am much more his servant, than those who would flatter him in their verses. I have more esteem for him, and will stay till he is out of power, (accord- ing to my custom,) before I say what I think of him. It puts me in mind of what was said to him once before by a poet : “ In power, your u servant; out of power, your friend;” which a critic (who knew that poet’s mind) said, should be altered thus : “ In power, your friend ; “ but out of power, your servant; such most “ poets are!” But if Sir R. ever finds me the first low character, let him expect me to become the second. In the mean time I hope he will believe me his, in the same sincere disinterested manner that I am. Dear Sir, your’s, A. POPE. [ 43 ] Next Sunday I expect some company here, but that need not hinder you from a night’s lodging in the country, if you like it. LETTER X. To Mr. Fortescue, dear sir, Twickenham , Friday . I Am in the condition of an old fellow of threescore, with a complication of diseases upon me, a constant head-ache, ruined tone of the stomach, &c. Some of these succeed, the moment I get quit of others ; and upon the whole, indeed, I am in a very uncomfortable way. I could have wished to see you, but cannot. I wish you all health, wherever you go. Pray, if you can, do not forget to try to procure the annuity for life for £1000, which I recommended to you in behalf of a Lady of our acquaintance. Make my sincere services to all yours as ac- ceptable as they are sincere. I am, dear Sir, your’s affectionately, A. POPE. If you have an opportunity, pray give my services to Sir R. W. whom I will wait upon the first Sunday I am able. [ 44 [ LETTER XL To William Fortescite, Esq . dear sir, Twitenharn , 17, 1726. I Was sorry I missed of you the other day when you called ; I was gone to Mrs. How- ard’s, as I told you. I send you part of what wholly belongs to you, and, as the world’s justice goes, that is a fair composition ; I mean some of the Devonshire pease. If the ring be done, pray give it the bearer. I intend to wear it for life, as a melancholy memorandum of a most honest, worthy man. I told you I dined t’other day at Sir Robert Walpole’s. A thing has happened since which gives me uneasiness, from the indiscretion of one who dined there at the same time ; one of the most innocent words that ever I dropped in my life, has been reported out of that conversation, which might reasonably seem odd, if ever it comes to Sir R.’s ears. I will tell it you the next time we meet ; as I would him, if I had seen him since; and ’twas not (otherwise) of weight enough to trouble him about. We live in unlucky times, when half one’s friends are enemies to the other, and con- sequently care not that any equal moderate man C 45 ] should have more friends than they themselves have. Believe me, dear Sir, Most affectionately your’s, A. POPE. LETTER XII. To William Fortescue, Esq ; at Fallapit in Devonshire . dear sir, September 13, I Take your letter the more kindly, as I had not written to you myself ; at least it must have been so, for all you could know; for though indeed I did write once, yet I know it never reached you. I am sorry for poor White, who died just then. 1 could wish, if you are not fixed on a successor, you had a relation of mine in your eye; but this, I fear, is a hundred to one against my hopes. I am truly glad you have safely performed your revolution, and are now turning round your own axle in Devonshire ; from whence may we soon behold you roll towards our world again ! I can give you no account of Gay, since he was raffled for, and won back by his Dutchess, but that he has been in her vortex ever since, immoveable to appearance, yet 1 be- [ 46 ] lieve with his head turning’ round upon some work or other. But I think I should not in friend- ship conceal from you a fear, or a kind-hearted jealousy, he seems to have entertained, from your never having called upon him in town, or cor- responded with him since. This he commu- nicated to me in a late letter, not without the appearance of extreme concern on his part, and all the tenderness imaginable on yours. This whole summer I have passed at home ; my mo- ther eternally relapsing', yet not quite down ; her memory so greatly decayed, that I am forced to attend to every thing, even the least cares of the family, which, you’ll guess, to me is an inex- pressible trouble, added to the melancholy of observing her condition. 1 have seen Sir R. W. but once since you left. I made him then my confidant in a complaint against a lady, of his, and one of my, acquaintance, who is libelling me, as she certainly one day will him, if she has not already. You’ll easily guess I am speaking of Lady Mary. I should be sorry if she had any credit or influence with him, for she would infallibly use it to bely me ; though my only fault towards her was, leaving off her conversation when I found it dangerous. I think you vastly too ceremonious to Mrs. Patty, but I shewed her what you wrote. I beg your family’s acceptance of my heartiest services, and [ 47 ] their belief that no man wishes them and you more warmly all prosperity, than, dear Sir, Your ever affection ate friend and servant, A. POPE. I’ve only seen Mrs. Howard twice since I saw you, but hear she is very well, since she took to water drinking’. If you have any correspon- dence at Lincoln or Peterborough, a friend of mine desires to procure a copy of Mr. — ’s last will. LETTER XIII. ToWm, Fortescue, Esq; to be left at his house in Bell Yard , Lincoln s Inn , London . dear sir, March 18, 1732. I Am sorry you partook of the trouble of the Excise Bill ; and as sorry I did not know of your coming, though but for two days, for I would have come up just to see you. It had been very kind, if you could have layn here in your way; but this is past, and may all the fu< ire be prosperous with you as I wish it ! As to that poem, which I do not, and must not, own, I beg your absolute and inviolable silence. You [ 48 1 will see more of it in another week, and that too I shall keep private. It is so far from a morti- fication to do any yood thing , (if this be so, and indeed I mean it so,) and enjoy only one’s own consciousness of it, that I think it the highest gratification. On the contrary, the worst things I do, are such as I would constantly ow n, and stand the censure of. It is an honest proceeding, and worthy a guiltless man. You may be certain I shall never reply to such a libel as Lady Mary’s. ’Tis a pleasure and a comfort at once to find, that with so much mind as so much malice must have, to accuse or blacken my character, it can fix upon no one ill or immoral thing in my life, and must content itself to say, my poetry is dull, and my person ugly. I wish you would take an opportunity to represent to the person who spoke to you about that lady, that her conduct no w'ays deserves encouragement from him, or any other great persons ; and that the good name of a private subject ought to be as sacred, even to the highest, as his behaviour towards them is irreproachable, legal, and respectful. What you writ of his intimation on that head, shall never pass my lips. Mr. B1 — is your faithful servant, and much obliged to your care. My mother, I thank God, is free and easy. I never had better health than of late, and hope I shall have long life, because [ 49 ] I am much threatened. Adieu! and know me ever for, dear Sir, Your most sincerely affectionate servant, A. POPE. LETTER XIV. To Wm, Fortescue, Esq ; in Bell-Yard , near Lincoln s Inn , London . bear sir, Sunday , Feb. 1732-3. I Had written to you before, as well as sent ; had I not hoped this day, or last night, to have seen you here. 1 am sorry for your complaints of ill health, and particularly of your eyes; pray be very careful not to increase your cold. I will infallibly, if I can’t see you sooner, be with you in the middle of the week. I am at all times desirous to meet you, and have this winter been often dissatisfied to do it so seldom. I wish you a judge, that you may sleep and be quiet; ut in otia tula recedas , but olium cum dig - nilate: have you seen my imitation of Horace? 1 fancy it will make you smile; but though, when first I began it, I thought of you ; before I came to end it, I considered it might be too ludicrous, E [ 50 ] to a man of your situation and grave acquaint- ance, to make you Trebatius, who was yet one of the most considerable lawyers of his time, and a particular friend of a poet. In both which cir- cumstances I rejoice that you resemble him, but am chiefly pleased that you do it in the latter. Dear Sir, adieu ! and love me as I do you. Your faithful and affectionate servant, A. POPE. LETTER XV. To William Fortescue, Esq . dear sir, June 7 ,* 1733 . IT is indeed a grief to me, which I cannot express, and which I should hate my own heart, if I did not feel, and yet wish no friend I have ever should feel. All our passions are inconsistencies, and our very reason is no better. But we are what we were made to be. Adieu! it will be a comfort to me to see you on Saturday night. Believe me, dear Sir, your’s, A. POPE. # The day on which Mr. Pope’s mother died. C 51 ] LETTER XVI. To William Fortescue, Esq . dear sir, August 2, 1735. I Had sooner written to you, but that I wished to send you some account, of my own and of your affairs in my letter. This day determines both ; for we cannot find out who is the pi rater of my works, therefore cannot move for an injunction, (though they are sold over all the town;) that injury I must sit down with, though the impression cost me above £200, as the case yet stands, there being above half the impression unsold. Curl is certainly in it, but we can get no proof. He has done me another injury, in propagating lies in Fog’s Journal of Saturday last, which I desire you to see, and consider if not matter for an information. One Mr. Gandy, an attorney, writes me word, Mr. Cruwys is too busy to attend my little affairs, and that you approve of his being employed for him. Now, as to your business, I write this from your house ; the windows will be done, and a stone chimney-piece up, by the end of next week. I will see all effected, and order the painting after. I have paid the fisherman. E 2 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF t 52 ] I have exercised hospitality plentifully these twenty days, having entertained many of mine, and some of Lady S. T s, friends. There is a greater court now at Marble hill than at Ken- sington, and God knows when it will end. Mrs. Blount is your hearty humble servant, and Lady S. returns you all compliments. Make mine to your whole family, when you write. I dine to-day with some of your friends, and shall give your services in the evening to Lord Hay. The town has nothing worth your hearing or care ; it is a wretched place to me, for there is not a friend in it. The news is supposed to be very authentic, that the Persians have killed sixty thousand Turks. I am sorry that the sixty thousand Turks are killed, and should be just as sorry if the sixty thousand Persians had been killed ; almost as sorry as if they had been so many Christians, Dear Sir, adieu ! As soon as you get home, pray contrive (if you can) to send what letters you have been so partial to me as to keep, espe- cially of an early date, before the year 1720. I may derive great service from seeing them in the chronological order; and I find my collection, such as it is, must be hastened, or will not be so effectual. May all health and happiness follow you in your circuit, and, at the end of it, with repose to join them ; and then, I think, you’ll [ 53 ] have all that is worth living for in this world ; for as for fame, it is neither worth living for, or dying for. I am truly, dear Sir, Your faithful friend, and affectionate servant, A. POPE. From the Vineyards, Aug . 2. Pray, when you write to Mr. Curwys, enquire if he has not forgot Mrs, Blount’s arrear from her brother of £25, due last Lady-Day. LETTER XVTI. To William Fortescue, Esq . dear sir, March 26, 1736. YOUR very kind letter was not more kind than entertaining, in the agreeable descrip- tion of Monmouth and its situation. And what you tell me of your own temper of mind, in the present discharge of your office, I feel very livelily with and for you. It is a dreadful duty, yet a noble one; and the hero you thought so much of at Monmouth, had, or ought to have had, his glory overcast and saddened, with the same reflection : how many of his own species he sentenced to death, in every battle he gave. I am not so clear in his character, as in that of r 54 3 Edward the Third. There seems a little too much of a turn to vanity, and knight (king er- rantry, I would say,) in his motives of quarrel with the Dauphine of France. And it appears by some of the Monkish historians, that he was much a bigot, and persecuted hotly for religion. After all, your office of a judge is more con- scientious, and tends much more directly to public welfare. You may certainly, with a better title than any conqueror, sleep heartily, provided it be not upon the bench. You guessed rightly, (I should now say rather, you judged rightly,) when you supposed this weather was too fine to be sacrificed in London, where the sun shines on little else than vanity ; but I have paid for taking my pleasure in it too exorbitantly. The sun at this season, and in this climate, is not to be too much d pen ded on Miseri quibus inteniata nites ! may be applied to the favours and smiles of the English planet, as properly as to those of an Italian lady. The matter of my complaint is, that it has given me a rheumatism in one arm to a violent degree, which lie useless and painful on one side of this paper, while the other is endeavouring to converse w itb you at this distance. God knows, if your family be across the water just now, I shall n t be able once to see them there. But it is not five days ago, that they were in London, [ 55 ] at that filthy old place Bell-yard, which you know I want them and you to quit. I was to see them one of the only two days I have been in town this fortnight. Your too partial mention of the book of Letters, with all its faults and follies, which Curl printed and spared not, (nor yet will spare, for he has published a fourth sham volume yesterday,) makes one think it may not be amiss to send you, what I know you will be much more pleased with than I can be, a pro- posal for a correct edition of them ; which at last I find must be offered , since people have misun- derstood an advertisement I printed some time ago, merely to put some stop to that rascal’s books, as a promise that I would publish such a book. It is therefore offered in this manner ; but I shall be just as w 7 ell satisfied , (if the public will,) without performing the offer. I have no- thing to add, but that Mrs. Blount, whose health you shew a kind regard to, is better, and Lady S. well. May health attend you and quiet ; and a good conscience will give you every other joy of life, how many rogues soever you sentence to death. *T is a hard task ! but a harder to man- kind, were they unpunished, and left in society. I pity you, and wish it may happen as seldom as possible. Your’s, sincerely, A POPE. [ 56 ] LETTER XVIII. To the Hon . William Fortescue. dear sir, July 31, 1738. IT was my intention sooner to have told you, of what, I know, is the news a friend chiefly desires, my own state of health. But I waited these three weeks almost, to give you a better account than I can yet do ; for I have suffered a good deal from many little ailments, that don’t altogether amount to a great disease, and yet render life itself a sort of one. I have never been in London but one day since I parted from you, when I saw Mr. Spooner and the rest of yours ; and this day I took it into my head they might be at the Vineyard. I went thither, but Mrs. Shepherd told me, in a voice truly lugubrious, that nobody had seen her walls since you were last there. I comforted her over a dish of tea, and recommended her to read Milton on all such occasions of worldly disappointments. I went home, and drank Sir Robert’s health with T. Gordon; for that day I was left alone, my Lord Bolingbroke being sent for to London, who has stayed with me otherwise constantly since his arrival in England, and proposes (to [ 57 ] my great satisfaction) to do so, while lie remains on this side the water. It is great pleasure to me that I never saw him better, and that quiet and hunting, together, have repaired his health so well. Your friend Sir Robert has but one of these helps; but I remember when I saw him last, which was the last time he sent to desire me, he told me he owed his strength to it. You see I have made him a second compliment in print in my second Dialogue, and hje ought to take it for no small one, since in it I couple him with Lord Bol — . As he shews a right sense of this, I may make him a third, in my third Dialogue. I should be glad to hear of any place, or thing, that pleases you in your progress. Lord Bur- lington was very active in issuing orders to his gardener, to attend you with pine-apples: he goes into Yorkshire next week. Pray remember me to Mr. Murray. You need not tell him I admire and esteem him, but pray assure him that I love him. I am, sincerely, dear Sir, your’s, A. POPE. r 58 ] LETTER XIX, To the Hon . Mr. Justice Wm. Fortescur, in Bell-Yard, near Lincolns Inn , London. BEAR SIR, Aug. 17, 1739. I Was truly concerned, at my return from my rambles, (which was a whole week longer than I intended, or could prevent,) to hear from Mrs. Blount, how ill you had been ; worse than really you had told me in your kind letter. I called at your house a day or two, but mist the ladies ; but the servants told me they had heard twice from you, and that you was much better. I hope it proved so ; and that as your journey advanced, your strength did the same. I wished to hear more of you ; and now desire it, that I may no longer want the know- ledge how' you find yourself. I dined yesterday with Jervas upon a venison pasty, where we drank your health warmly, but as temperately, as to the liquor, as you could yourself : for neither he nor I are well enough to drink wine; he for his asthmatic, and I for another complaint, that persecutes me much of late. Mrs. Blount is not yet at Richmond, which she is sorry for, as well as I ; but 1 think she goes [ 59 ] to-morrow: and she told me she would give you some account of herself, the moment she was under your roof. She expected I could have informed her of your state of health, and almost quarrelled with me that I had not writ sooner. Indeed I forget no old friend a day together; and I bear you, in particular, ail the goodwill and good wishes I can harbour for any one; though as to writing, I grow more and more remiss. The whole purpose of it is only to tell, now and then, one is alive ; and to encourage one's friends to tell us the same, in the consciousness of loving and being loved by each other. All news, if important, spreads of itself ; and, if un- important, wastes time and paper; few things can be related as certain truths, and to hunt for pretty things belongs to fops and Frenchmen. Party stories are the business of such as serve their own interests by them, or their own pas- sions. Neither of all these is my case, so that I confine myself to meer howd’yes, and repeated assurances that I am concerned to know what I ask of my friends. Let me, then, sometimes be certified of your ways and welfare ; mine are pretty uniform, neither much mended nor worse. But such a„ I ever was, I am ; and I ever was, and shall be, dear Sir, Faithfully your’s, A. POPE, [ -GO ] GEORGE CHEYNE, M.D. The writer of the following letters, Dr. George Cheyne, was a physician of considerable eminence, and singular character ; descended from a good family in Scotland, where he was born in 167 1. Being at first intended by his parents for the church, he received a regular and liberal education ; and passed his youth in close study, and in almost continual application to the abstracted sciences ; in which pursuits his chief pleasure consisted. From some cause, which does not appear, the plan of entering into the Church was relinquished; and young Cheyne was placed at Edinburgh, where he studied physic under the celebrated Dr. Pitcairne, whom he stiles his great master, and generous friend ; and having taken the degree of Doctor of Physic, he re- paired to London, when he was about thirty years of age, to practise as a physician. Possessed of a lively imagination, a cheerful temper, and much acquired knowledge, he was greatly caressed, and almost insen- sibly led from those habits of temperance and absti- nence, which he had imposed upon himself in early life, from the opinion he had formed of his own delicacy of constitution. In a few years, however, he found that this mode of free living was very injurious to bis health; he grew excessively fat, short-breathed, listless, and lethargic. In the course of a short time, he was sud- denly seized with a vertiginous paroxysm, so alarming in its nature, as to approach nearly to a fit of apoplexy. His spirits became affected : he left off suppers; con- fined himself at dinner to a very small quantity of ani- V [ 61 ] mal food ; and drank very sparingly of any fermented liquors. This change in his health and habits rendered him a less acceptable companion to the jovial bon vivans with whom lie had lately associated ; and he soon after retired into the country, where he exchanged light and dissipated pursuits, for the more solid satisfaction of studying some of our most able and valuable theolo- gical writers. He had never, even in his freer moments, deserted the great principles of natural religion ; but in his present retirement, he made divine revelation the more immediate object of his attention. Although Dr. Cheyne’s health improved greatly, from the change of situation and low living, his com- plaints were not entirely eradicated; and he was per- suaded by his medical and other friends to try the effect of Bath; whither he removed, and for some time felt himself considerably relieved by drinking the Water, and adopting a milk diet. He now practised as a physician in the summer at Bath, and during the winter in London, applying himself more particularly to chro- nical, and especially to low, nervous cases: at this period of his life, he generally rode on horseback ten or fifteen miles every day. Dr. Cheyne published a great number of treatises, essays, tracts, &c. &c. ; and a spirit of piety and benevolence, and an ardent zeal for the interests of virtue, are predominant throughout his writings. An amiable candour and ingenuousness, also, are discernible; and which led him to retract whatever appeared to him to be censurable in what he had formerly advanced. He had great reputation, in ills own time, both as a phy- sician and a writer. Some of the metaphysical notions which are to be found in his works, may, perhaps, be thought fanciful, and ill grounded ; but there is an agree- able vivacity in his productions, together with much openness and frankness, and in general great perspicuity. [ 62 ] One of Dr. Chevne’s resolutions, to which he endea- voured constantly to adhere, ought never to be forgotten, “ — to neglect nothing to secure his eternal peace, any “ more than if he had been certified he should die within “ the day 3 nor to mind any thing that his secular obli- “ gations and duties demanded of him, less than if he “ had been insured to live fifty years.” That he had some enemies, and knew how to treat them, will appear in the following lines : Dr . Wynter to Dr. Cheyne, on his Books in favour of Vegetable Diet. Tell me from whom, fat-headed Scot, Thou didst thy system learn 3 From Hippocrate thou hast it not. Nor Celsus, nor Pitcairne. Suppose we own that milk is good. And say the same of grass ; The one for babes is only food. The other for an ass. Do6tor ! one new prescription try, (A friend's advice forgive ;) Eat grass , reduce thyself, and die 3 Thy patients, then, may live. Dr. Cheyne to Dr. Wynter, in answer to the Joregoing. My system, Do&or, is my own. No tutor I pretend : My b under s hurt myself alone, But yours your dearest friend. Were you to milk and straw confin’d. Thrice happy might you be 3 Perhaps you might regain your mind, And from your wit get free. t 63 ] V I cannot your prescription try } But heartily “forgive 5 ” ’Tis nat’ral you should bid me die. That you yourself may live / The following account of his decease, and sketch of Dr. Cheyne’s character, appeared in one of the papers of the day : “ Wednesday April 13, 1743, died at Bath, * in the 71 st year of his age, that learned physician, “ sound Christian, deep scholar, and warm friend, “ Dr. George Cheyne ; so well known by his mathe- “ matical, as well as physical works, that nothing need c * be said as to his public character ; and as to his prU u vateonly this, that those who best knew him, most “ loved him, which must be the felicity of every man “ who values himself more upon the goodness of his €C heart, than the clearness of his head ; and yet Dr. 4 ‘ Cheyne’s works shew how much he excelled in both.” Dr. Cheyne had a brother, who was reft or of Weston, near Bath, and both are buried in that church. LETTER XX. From Dr. Cheynje to S. Richardson. dear sir, Bath, Dec . 18, 1740. IF Had answered your last very obliging* letter sooner, but was willing to finish that paper I promised, to enlarge your new edition of Travels through England. I think the natural histories of some of the counties published, such as Camden’s, t 64 ] Ilaylen’s Cosmography, Rap in, and the lives of the new edition of Bayle, might furnish out materials, under any industrious hand, to make it a very saleable and entertaining book to the middling class of gentry, who want it most, and buy most. But I wonder you make your modem books in so small a type, and on so bad a paper ; it must certainly disgust many, particularly the ten- der-eyed and old, who chiefly read books ; and it gives an ill impression of a book, before its cha- racter is established. It is the only filing, indeed, I have to complain of in Pamela, which entertained me and all mine (for which I thank you) extreme- ely. It will certainly sell vastly well, and I hope do a great deal of good. All my acquaintace, to whom I have recommended it, are much pleased and entertained with it. It is really finely wrought up, and delicately imagined in many incidents; and I never thought you master of so much wit and gallantry as are couched in it. It will do no dishonour either to your head or your heart. Mr. Bertram, when he went hence, told me, he had been commissioned by Mr. Rivington- to ask me when I would make up his loss in the last book l printed, which he said I promised him. I will certainly make good all my pro- mises to a tittle; but when I did promise, I had then no fear that he w ould be a loser, as he [ 65 1 now says he will. The favour I now beg’ of you is, to settle the matter with him ; and let all he has in hand, unbound, with the remainder of the sheets, be packed up, and a fair account be stated ; and I promise him to pay his de- mands on sight, and for ever bid adieu to book- writing, and book-selling. If you’ll be so good to adjust this matter, and let the sheets lie by you, packed up, until I can dispose of them, which shall be soon, it will be extremely obliging. It is the first of this kind, and shall be the last, though I have several things finished by me; but I am much of Sir Walter Raleigh’s opinion ; and booksellers shall not have my lucubrations to fringe the rails of Bedlam with; though I still swear, that is the best book I ever wrote, how- ever unpopular. I am sincerely yours, GEORGE CHEYNE. Let me hear when this is settled. LETTER XXL Z)r. Cheyne to S. Richardson, Esq . dear sir, Bath , August 14, 1741. I Have seen your letter to Mr* Leake, and read your two first sheets ; and have in a F [ 66 ] few places, scratched with my pencil, where I think you may reconsider ; but I am not a proper judge of expression, and it will only serve to make you reflect on properly. I think you are right to begin with the least interesting parts, and rise gradually on the reader. I know not the plan you have laid down to yourself, and consequently cannot judge of the work, nor its success ; but, without a plan, or drawing the outlines, no regular or finished picture can be wrought. I will honestly and plainly sketch out a few things in general, of which you will be the best judge whether they will suit your de- sign, If I were capable of executing such a work, I would first contrive for it as many inte- resting incidents, either distresses naturally over- come, or good fortune unexpectedly happening, as I possibly could, and make them the subject, or at least the means, of the instruction, I intended to communicate. For example: a broken leg, a disjointed limb, a dangerous fever, happening to a husband; and then the tender care, vigi- lance, and active nursing, of a loving wife, when she would have an opportunity of insinuating all the noble, religious, and beautiful sentiments to a rakish or unconverted infidel; for such a season is the mollia tcmpora fandi. Your own fruitful imagination can work up more episodes of this nature, than I can here describe. C 67 ] Secondly; I would pick out nil the great events of conjunct lives, and insinuate proper behaviour under them. The death of a favour- ite child ; a sudden conflagration, of one’s own, or one’s neighbour’s, favourite seat ; an epidemical distemper; a severe winter; a famine, &c.; quar- rels amongst neighbours and friends, and the like great and unexpected events, probably de- veloped; always beget attention in the reader, and naturally convey instruction. Thirdly ; I would make my heroine convert my hero: for religion and seriousness are more the character of the woman than the man : the first is more gentle, docile, and meek, in the main ; and the latter more sturdy, rough, and esprils forts ; and therefore the heroine should be acquainted with the best, purest, and strongest writers in morality and Christianity, and recom- mend them to her husband ; especially those who write with fine taste and sentiment. Fourthly ; In particular, I think the heroine may be thrown into all the situations of the mistress of a great and opulent family; of a pru- dent wife; a tender and affectionate mother; a civil neighbour; a kind friend ; a charitable steward to the poor ; and her duty and behaviour described and pointed out in all those relations, which might contain infinite lessons for the F 2 sex. [ es ] Fifthly; Yon ought to avoid fondling and gallantry ; tender expressions, not becoming the character of wisdom, and piety, and conjugal chastity, especially in the sex. St. Paul speaks like a polite man, as well as a deep Christian. You mind, that the Tatler lashed the shoemaker in Pall-Mall, for setting out such a variety of laced shoes in his windows. You must raise your heroine into dignity and high life by just degrees ; and sink your hero from a rake, a bully, and a fine pagan, into a senator first, then a philosopher, and, lastly, into t a true spiritual Christian. I do not mean by all this tedious detail, that you can possibly have room or patience to work up all these characters, for that would make a system of all science; but perhaps you may pick out from hence some mementos ; and you may, perhaps, have an eye to them in your going on ; but avoid drawling as much as you can, and let not a long pennyful tempt you to any low or vulgar thing. Readers love rapidity in narration; and quick returns keep them from dozing. Hitherto you have succeeded with all sober, serious readers, though but in low life. Now you are to try, and rise up into dignity and higher life. I know no difference in the sexes, but in their configura- tion. They are both of the same species, and t 69 } differ only in order, as, in numbers, two is after one. Your heroine you have made a gentle- woman originally, and distinguished only by some ounces of shining metal. I think it im- proper, therefore, that she and her parents should ever creep and hold down their heads in the dirt ; but as man and wife, father and chil- dren, approach with humble decency to a par; at least, for my own sake, I should not permit it in my wife, had she been a milk-maid. But enough of this rhapsody. Now as to your- self : I never wrote a book in my life, but I had a fit of illness after. Hanging down your head, and want of exercise, must increase your giddiness ; the body, if jaded, will get the better of the spirits. If you look into my sheets now print- ing, you will find that Sir Isaac Newton, when he studied or composed, had only a loaf, a bottle of sack, and water ; and took no suste- , nance then, but a slice of bread and a weak draught, as he found failure of spirits, from too close attention. Even in my very lowest diet of three pints of milk and six ounces of bread, in twenty-four hours, I abate one half when I study, or find my head clouded. Your friend and mine, Mr. Bertrand, tells me, you look full, puffed, short-necked, and head and face bursting with blood ; as if, by your application and se- dentary life, the whole system was spouted into [ 70 J the head. Under such circumstances I should fear an apoplexy for yon, if your moderate diet did not provide sufficiently against that; but I think seven or eight ounces of blood taken every two or three months, and the gum, assafcetida, &c. would be Bank security against it. Your constitution is not like Dr. Hale’s. You are short, round, and plump; he is taller, and very thin, but uses a great deal of exercise. fSend me down the sheets lately printed. I am ever, dear Sir, Most sincerely your friend, And humble servant, GEORGE CHEYNE. A good library of sacred history, natural philosophy, spiritual divinity, and innocent triflers, would be very proper for your heroine ; which, if you want, and cannot otherwise pro- cure, 1 will help you to. LETTER XXII. From Dr . Cheyne to Samuel Richard- son, Esq . DEAR sir, Bath, Jan. 10, 1741 —2. I Have been engaged these several posts, in writing letters which lay on my hands t ’I J these holidays ; and con Id not answer your’s sooner. It is not material to your new regimen, these trimming intermissions you make in it ; the only inconveniency in it is, that they con- tinue your regret for the flesh-pots of Egypt a little longer alive ; and you must absolutely die to them, that you may live . I tried all those tricks long and much, and only found they pro- longed my dying pains. On experience, I found it best to do as Sir Robert said of the Bishop of Sarum, he bravely plunged to the bottom at the first jump. He who is in the fire should get out as soon as he can ; either the method is necessary and safe, or it is not ; if it is, the sooner the better; if it is not, time only can shew it* He that has plenty of wholesome vegetables cannot starve; and it is very odd, that what is the only antidote for distempers when one has them, should cause them when one has them not, or, at least, has them not to any dangerous degree. The coming into the regimen slowly can only postpone the distemper it may produce a few days or weeks longer ; indeed, all that the voluptuous say about that, is mere farce and ridicule. As to Chandler, he was ever a volup- tuary and epicure, and at venison time every year makes himself sick, dispirited, and va- pourishing; and yet he was younger than you, when he entered upon it ; and I am of opinion if [ 72 ] he had not, he had been in Bedlam long e’er now ; for he has naturally a warm imagination, and an inflamed fancy. Dr. Hulse knows nothing of the matter. He is, indeed, a very good practitioner in drugs, and on canibalsin their inflammatory distempers ; but he knows no more of nervous and cephalic dis- eases, than he does of the mathematics and phi- losophy, to which he is a great enemy, and without them little is to be made of such dis- orders. There may be times and seasons when a little indulgence in chicken, and a glass or two of wine, may not only be convenient, but ne- cessary, as a person stops to take his breath in ascending a steep hill ; for example, on cold catching, a nausea, or inappetency, &c. I can honestly assure you, all the plunges I have ever felt these twenty years, since I en- tered upon a low regimen, have been from my errors in quantity, and endeavouring to extend it ; and I never get quite free of them, but by pumping the excesses up by evacuation, and re- turning rigidly to the lightest and least I could be easy under from the anxiety of hunger; and you w ill find this the surest rule to go by; for abstinence, even under a low diet, is some- times as necessary as under a high diet. 1 find by your’s, you go on timorously, grudg- ingly’, and repiningly. It is true you are not [ 73 ] a physician, but you are, I hope, a Christian. St. Paul kept his body under. Our Saviour bids us fast and pray, and deny ourselves without ex- ception ; but for this there is no need of reve- lation advice. If you read but what I have written on this last, in the Essay on Regimen, as the means of long life and health ; or Cor- naro’s and Lessius’s little treatise, your own good sense would readily do the rest; but you puzzle yourself with friends, relations, doctors, and apo- thecaries, who either know nothing of the matter; are well under a common diet ; or, whose interest it is, or at least that of the craft, to keep you al- ways ailing, or taking poisonous stuff ; and so you are perplexed and disheartened. I have gone the whole road, had one of the most cadave- rous and putrified constitutions that ever was known 5 and, I thank God, am returned safe and sound at seventy, every way well, but the in- curable infirmities of age. And surely he knows the road better, who has gone to, and come from, the Cape of Good Hope, and tried all the soundings, rocks, shelves, and winds, than those who have only seen them in the map. In a word, dear Sir, I can give you, in your present state, no better advice than I have, were you my father or brother, or that my life and fortune depended on your being well. So God guide you well. [ 74 ] I have got two dozen of my last book, and fcm very well pleased with the print, paper, and binding. I have considered it again and again, and cannot mend it for my life, in any thing ma- terial. Perhaps the doctrine will not go quite so clearly down, so long as I myself am alive; but if men grow wiser or better, they will swallow it ; and 1 believe, even as the world is, it will enter- tain as well as instruct them, havihg so many interesting incidents in i^: so as I hope I shall have no reason to fear being used by my new booksellers as I was by my last ; and if you see any of them, tell them so, if you think fit. As to the last part of Pamela, all the fault the world has to find with it, is what I told you in my last ; they say 7 there is too much preaching in it. It is too long, too drawling, and the passions not sufficiently agitated. The booksellers here say it sells very well, but not so quick as the first. When you write me next, let me know how many of the last book was printed ; perhaps I may add to another edition, or, at least, by some additions and alterations, make them dif- ferent volumes of one work ; but you know, at my time of life, I can promise nothing for futu- rity. I am, dear Sir, Your most faithful humble servant, GEORGE CHEYNE. r 75 ] LETTER XXIII. Dr. Cheynje to Sam. Richardson, Esq. dear sir, Bath , Jan. 14, 1742. YOU are a little naughty : because but once, (by having my fingers, ink, and brain frozen up by the most excessive cold weather I ever felt,) I neglected a few posts answering yours; you have been three weeks without writ- ing to me, to let me know how it fared with you, though you knew it was one of my greatest pleasures to hear of your welfare. You was resolved only to give me tit for tat ; however, I am pleased to hear from you even at your own, or any, rate ; and answer yours the very post after, only to procure me a more speedy return. I think you are quite in the right to give over all bleeding for the future. Your blood is certainly as good as it can be; which absolutely, under God, secures your life, (for in the blood is the life thereof.”) So your diet wall always keep it sweet and balsamic, and your whole care is to brace your solids and nerves ; but that is a very hard work, and only to be performed to a certain point or degree, at t 76 ] your time of life. I wish in summer, in the long vacation, you would come and try our Lyn- combe waters ; they have done great service in such a case. Your great admirer, Miss Peggy, finds that benefit by them, which only Spa water supplies in this cold weather. She is just of the same standing with you in the diet. I never promised her a total cure under three years ; and I fear you will want one more to carry your cure as high as it will go. Take all the exercise you conveniently can; time must do the rest, and I hope much from warm weather and next summer. One comfort you must have, that things will never be worse than they have been, and that there is no danger of life or limbs, further than a little tottering, which too will lessen. The ten days of so excessive cold weather almost deprived me of the use of all my limbs, took away my appetite, especially from milk, my only support; but, I thank God, since the wea- ther has been more temperate, I have, in a great measure, recovered all again; though I fear I shall never recover my walking again to the same degree; and am forced to perform my poor limbering, tottering exercise within my house, which is neither so pleasant nor so effectual ; but now I hope the worst of the winter is over, and that I shall rise again a little with the in^ [ '7 ] sects. All my family, wife, daughters, Nanny, &c. (they are honest people) admire you; and if you had not very good women of your own, you might have your choice. Peggy says, you are the perfect original of your own Pamela ; and that generosity and giving, which in others are only acquired virtues, are in you a natural pas- sion; and as others, even the best, only like to give as much as to receive, you only like to give. I thank you for your oysters, which we shall receive to-morrow, and your book of pluralities when it comes. I have been much distressed this low time for choice of kill-time books. The public library has afforded none of any value ; and though I bribe our booksellers more than any others, they can give me nothing. I am ashamed to be always begging ; but this now I think you will not grudge, since it will cost you but little. As soon as you can, send me a romance, called the Dean of Colraine. There is one part of it in English, which I have seen ; I know not if the rest be translated. I would rather have it in English; but since, I believe, that can’t be, if you would send me the French, you will oblige me. The first part is inte- resting, and much on the side of virtue. I hear Pope is to beat Cibber , in an addition to his Dunciad. When it appears, I should be glad to see it with the first. f 78 ] You see I am not sby with you . I can oblige you in nothing but my warm wishes, and those you have many titles to from, Dear Sir, your’s, GEORGE CHEYNE. LETTER XXIV, From Ur . CheYne to S. Richardson, Esq, dear sir, Bath , Sept. 23, 1742. YOUR last gave a great deal of joy to me, as well as to your friends and relations. I hope truly that your case is not so bad as I at first feared, as your friends represented, and as your nervous eloquence often painted it. 1 am sure your constitution is sound as yet, both from your complexion, (which will always shew when it is very bad, but not always when it is perfectly good, a nervous flush often imitating a healthy blush not to be distinguished,) and from the state of your blood. You have quite a wrong notion about the hyp , as in truth all but sensible physicians have. We call the hyp every distemper attended with lowness of spirits, whether it be from indiges- tion, head pains, or an universal relaxed state [ 79 ] of the nerves, with numbness, weakness, start- ings, tremblings, &c.! So that the hyp is only a short expression for any kind of nervous dis- order, with whatever symptoms, (which are various, nay infinite,) or from whatever cause. I should really think your nervous disorder was chiefly from want of due exercise, too much head work, and great plenty : the beginning of an uni- versal palsy, and not what your w ise apothecary terms it, a hemiplege, w hich is indeed a half body one, and is of the very w r orst kind. But I will, under God, insure you against it now ; for, as I have often told you, when the fire is broken and scattered, the conflagration cannot rise to so great nor dangerous a height as it did before. I think you have gained a mighty point, if you can walk from Hammersmith to London down to Salisbury Square ; and that, in time, will free you from the expense of coaching and chaising ; for, though I think exercise absolutely necessary for you, it is no matter how ; and next to riding, I prefer w alking to all kinds of exercise ; and though you may not be able to w alk from Ham- mersmith to London all weather, yet with a cloak you may walk the same length in your garden, after sweeping off the snow 7 , as I have^ often done, and may do still. As to your old apothecary’s soot drops , I have often mentioned them to you; and if his be very good, keep theu]L r so' j by you to take as a dram, on occasion, or in any sudden plunge or lowness ; but as an alterative, to be taken by a continuance, they are of no use, but on the contrary : and are just a dram or an opiat to gain time and quiet ; and univer- sally, 1 conjure you, to take nothing from an apothecary, as long as you can do tolerably without. I beseech you, by neither doctor, apothecary, patient, or friend, be put out of this method ; and (under God) I will answer for the success. I am glad you have got some kind of hobby-horse in the bowls ; they are an excellent diversion. I wish you would per- suade yourself to learn and delight in billiards* It is worth your while to buy a table, and good sticks, and balls. It is a charming and manly diversion ; and, (which indeed is most valuable,) is best in worst weather. Your wife, your daughter, your acquaintance, or any one, might be brought to be company, in billiards. I wish I could have gone into it. It has done Mr. Allen more service than any one thing ex- cept his diet, and is fit for all ages, condi tions, and tempers ; but I have so confined myself, that I could never bear any active diversion. It might, in a short time, supply the place of a chaise to you. Think on it *. if not for health, yet for frugality. I would have you, by all means, so long as the w eather continues good, [ 81 ] get down with your friend to Salisbury. De-i cline no opportunity of jaunting’ with any secure person, that will let you take your own way ; for I well know a nervous person must have his own way, both in diet, conversation, exer- cise, hours of rest and amusement, else he must suffer to extremity at the time, and be worse after ; and had I not had this granted me by indulgent Heaven, in my situation, and with my load of distempers, I must have been extremely miserable ; and all nervous persons must be in- dulged in these, and in short give up complying with, and conforming to, the forms and ceremo- nies established by custom, or other people’s errors. And it is a wise contrivance in Pro- vidence to make the young, the healthy, the indigent, servants, both to break the rebellious- ness of corrupt nature, and to be able to assist the old and tender, especially the nervous. I wish you would think of employing a fit person to collect, and write a character and contents of, all the books in the English or French, that are fit to amuse and instruct the serious and virtuous valetudinarian, of whatever kind ; such a catalogue, if judiciously collected by a man of virtue and taste, would be a great charity ; would be well received by the virtuous and serious of all parties ; would be of great service to the fair sex ; and w 7 ould keep many G [ 82 | persons from the playhouse and the tavern, and perhaps from worse places. This would come in very aptly with the design of Pamela ; and might, perhaps, be called a cata- logue of her library. The character of such books should be, that they were on the side of pure virtue, without much love affairs ; that they were interesting, and gently soothing the ami- able passions of friendship, benevolence, and charity ; and thirdly, that they had a sufficient mixture of the probable and the marvellous to keep the soul awake, and prevent its too intense thinking on its own misfortunes. Such a cata- logue for England would be as useful as Bedlam is, and perhaps more so. If this were begun, great improvements might be made in it in a short time ; and all the ingenious booksellers should be requested to club in it, for it would be much for their interest. I have set James Leake on it, but he can do but little in it, having neither sufficient materials, time, nor knowledge. It must come through many hands, to be what I would have it. London is the only place for it. You see how much pains I am at to amuse you, but I hope it will not lessen the compliment, when I tell you that it equally amuses myself. With the best wishes, I am ever, dear Sir, your’s, GEORGE CHEYNE. f 83 1 LETTER XXV. From Dr. Cheyne to S. Richardson, Esq. dear sir, Bath , Sept. 17, 1742. I Have yours, and am glad you go oil in the same tenor in the main, though not equally high and bright ; that is impossible in the nature of this Proteus distemper ; but you will be al- ways getting ground, though not always sensibly} but you must have faith, patience, and perse- verance } which, you know, are sublime, Christian, as well as nervous, virtues. I really expected a plunge about the equinoxial season, as I have mostly observed in myself, and all nervous pa- tients. The luminaries have an effect on animal juices, especially the tender and valetudinary, analogous to that they have on the ocean and atmosphere ; but I hope the season is pretty well over with you. Mr. Chandler is here. His health is high, his spirits rather fermenting than placid, his complexion fresh, and his activity infinite. He is a sensible man, and one of the fittest you can converse with. He is in perpetual motion, when he does not study ; and says, walking and ex- ercise, even delving and working, did him as G 2 t 84 ] much service, or more, than the medicine, and is the next best remedy, except the diet; but I blame him, for he eats meat a little again, once or twice a week; but cannot bear a single glass of wine, without being the worse for it. Go on, and prosper. As to the catalogue of books, for the devout, the tender valetudinarian, and ner- vous, I, and all that I have mentioned it to, be- lieve that it would be of greater use in England, than any book or mean, that has been proposed, to promote virtue, and relieve the distrest. I say more than any that has been projected these many years, if judiciously and experimentally executed by proper persons ; but time, experi- ence, and different persons, though all lovers of evangelical virtue, must be employed, for others can have neither taste nor judgment in such a work. It ought to contain a catalogue of all the best, easiest, and most genuine books in all the arts or sciences ; as, first, spiritual and religious works, of the most approved and practical books of Christianity ; 2dly, the most entertaining books of history, natural and politital ; 3dly, travels, and the accounts of all countries and nations ; 4thly, allegorical adventures and no- vels, that are religious, interesting, and probable; 5thly ; poetry, divine and moral; 6thly, choice plays, (if any such,) as recommend virtue and good manners ; with a short character, and a [ 85 ] hint of the design, and a just criticism, in a few words, of such books, their editions, and where most likely to be found, in English or French, to which two languages I would have them confined. As to the last part, it must be exe- cuted by a person of temperance, virtue, and learning; who, with a good taste, has true lite- rature. Where to find such a person, you know best; but I think the parts of it ought to be collected by different persons, of different talents, and finished and put together by one properly qualified person. The best model I can propose, would be like the catalogue of the mystic writers, published by Mr. Poiret; wherein their character and contents are finely and elegantly painted, in a small octavo, in Latin, which probably may be found at Mr. Vailanteks shop in the Strand. At least I had it there, being* printed in Holland. But, indeed, a proper person could do it his own way ; and there are variety of models for such a Work in French, but none in English I know of. The schoolmasters who have attempted such a thing for their school, being too low. If this were finely executed, I know of no book that would run better, or be of more service. Every serious person, both male and female, especially' this last, would have it. Perhaps I can make a preface, with some philosophical and medical observations to recommend it ; and suggest [ 86 ] many proper books, particularly books of physic, which will be absolutely necessary in such a catalogue, but which I forgot to enumerate in the titles of the sciences l have suggested above, but which I could promise to collect for such a work. In short, think of it : talk of it among the brethren ; look out proper persons, and let me see the collections, and I will contribute all in my power and leisure to its perfection. It may amuse you agreeably, and that will con- tribute to your cure; which is most ardently fished by, dear (Sir, your’s, most sincerely, GEORGE CHEYNE. LETTER XXVI. To Samuel, Richardson, Esq , j Bath, April 21, 1743. DEAR AND HONOURED SIR, I Should have given you a letter sooner, pn a subject you must naturally want to be in- formed of, if the ill health of our family had not prevented. Indeed I should have wrote long before, if it had been thought necessary to ac- quaint the friends of the late good Doctor, of his indisposition j but his friends at this place were L 87 ] not less surprised than his absent ones at the news of his death. It was about ten days before his decease that he was confined to the house by illness, together with symptoms of the disorder that has lately spread itself so universally. On Thursday, about five days after the seizure, my father visited the Doctor; Mr. Bertrand did the same the day following; but my father’s illness coming on the day following prevented me paying the duty I owed to a great and good friend. We continued daily our inquiries, but never received an answer that alarmed us with an apprehension of his danger. But, alas ! the whole time he wasted prodigiously. Though the Doctor’s friends were not appre- hensive of his imminent danger, he himself was. He talked to his family of his death as of a natural consequence, though he did not imagine it so near; and it was not till the day before it happened, that he consulted a physician. Dr. Hartley was sent for, but he was at Mr. Allen’s;* and when he came down in the evening, Dr. Middleton, Mrs. Cheyne’s brother, was come over from Bristol, and had been with the Doctor. He w 7 ent into the bedchamber, but the Doctor was dozing. The next morning he visited him about eight : he was then very easy, but his pulse * Prior- Park, C 88 ] was gone. He did not know Dr. Hartley, as he Lad not seen him in his illness, but he was still sensible. It was not above ten minutes after he left him, that the Doctor left this world. His death was easy, and his senses remained to the last. To consider the circumstances of your health, and that there is taken from yon, by the Divine wisdom, one in whose mind the direction of it was a good deal lodged ; it is impossible but we must look to the Almighty Disposer, and then see the same power capable of making up that loss to you a thousand different ways. Reflec- tions of this sort are natural ; and we must know, that these, and much greater, are as natural to you. Even the wisest sentiments on this head would be but a repetition of your thoughts. The world has lost an able physician ; you, my dear Sir, a valuable friend ; and I, one greater than my merit. As long as health shall be reckoned a blessing, and the preservation of life a duty, both rich and poor must condole the death of their common benefactor ; and those honourable families, w hich have so frequently and success sively resorted hither for his advice, must now be daily more sensible of the power of diseases, and apprehensive of their approaching fate. Tour’s, &c# [ S9 ] Dr. HARTLEY, DAVID HARTLEY, Esq; Mrs. MARY HARTLEY. Doctor Hartley, the celebrated author of “ Ob- “ servations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his “ Expectations,” was born at Illingworth in Yorkshire, the 30th of August, 1705, and died at Bath the 28th of the same month, 1757, at the age of 52 years. It is a rare occurrence in the history of the human mind, to find such deep powers of reasoning so early developed, as was the case in Dr. Hartley. But he was a philo- sopher almost from boyhood, and manifested a turn for reflection, religious and moral enquiry, and metaphysical speculation, at that youthful season, which is usually devoted to thoughtlesness and dissipation, or at best to the pursuits of fancy and imagination. His piety was ardent, but devoid of enthusiasm, as appears from his letters ; and also from a series of beautiful and affeCting prayers, which he composed for his own private use between the 2 1st and 30th years of his age. Dr. Hartley was held in the highest estimation by the greatest, wisest, and best men of the last age ; who were attracted to his friendship, not more by dn admiration of his intellect, than -an affection for the excellence of his heart. His system, as faras regards the association of ideas, still con- tinues to be popular; and although the physiological part of it has been, in a great measure exploded; yet it must be recollected, that the arguments against it are still pnly i}egative } and that its opponents have not offered [ 90 ] to the world any thing more satisfactory than it on the subject, or which better harmonizes with the known phenomena of mind. The letters from his daughter, Mrs. Mary Hartley, which follow, contain so many interesting particulars of the Doctor’s life, character, and opinions, that it is unnecessary to add more re- specting them at present. We pass on, therefore, to David Hartley, the son of Dr. H. by his first wife, who was born in the year 1735, and who inherted much of his father’s acuteness, with all his moral virtues. With the advantage of an excellent education, which had been polished by travel, Mr. David Hartley early entered on political life, represented the town of Hull in many successive Parliaments, and was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Versailles, to settle with Dr. Franklin preliminaries of peace after the American war, w hich he signed, on the behalf of the British Court, in 1783. Plain in his mode of life, retired in his habits, and with great simplicity of character and manner, Mr. Hartley seemed better qualified for philosophical lei- sure, than the bustle of a political career; and the hours which he borrowed from public business, were devoted to scientific pursuits, and useful as well as ingenious inventions. Amongst the latter may be mentioned the iron plates, for under-casing the floors of apartments, in order to prevent accidents from fire; for which contrivance a reward was voted to him, by Par- liament, of ,£2500. He died the 23d day of December, 1314, aged 84. Mrs. Mary Hartley was the daughter of Dr. Hartley, by his second wife. Equally remarkable for superior understanding, and elegant acquirement, she possessed every qualification for attracting a large share of public admiration, had not an amiable diffidence, and an un^ [ 91 ] common share of humility, prevented any display of the rich stores of her mind, beyond the circle of her immediate friends. That circle, indeed, was of wide extent, as all who once became acquainted with her, and were capable of appreciating her merit, were desirous of being received within its limits. To the scholar, Mrs* M. Hartley was a companion on his own ground. Her knowledge of the dead lan- guages was considerable; and her acquaintance with Italian, French, &c. familiar. The productions of her pen were marked by good sense, and elegance of com- position; and she exercised her pencil with taste and skill. But the chief excellencies of this admirable woman were, her exalted piety, and active benevolence; her uniform exercise of all the charities of private, domestic life; and the meek resignation, and truly Christian fortitude, with which she cheerfully sustained, during many years, pain, sickness, and permanent decrepitude. She died July 7th, 1803, aged 66 years. LETTER XXVII. From Mrs . M. Hartley to the Rev, William Gilpin. DEAR STR, July 18, 1795. rrmE papers that I wish to send you, are two letters of my father’s. You have sent me some most excellent letters, and most interesting. It was a confidence which I knew well how to [ 92 ] value; and I think 1 cannot better repay it, than by communi eating to you the letters of a worthy man, whom, if you had known, you would have loved. Those letters have been lately put into my hands by a relation. One of them vVas written when he was at school, only sixteen years of age. I was pleased to see in it the proof of that vir- tuous and ingenious mind, which I know he possessed in his later years ; and which I have always heard was remarkable in him from the earliest period. You will see in that letter an observation, that “ whatever a young man at “ first applies himself to, is commonly his delight “ afterwards.” This certainly is not a new or singular thought ; but when I consider the ob- ject of his future book, to infer from his system of vibrations and associations, that the mind receives ideas and impressions, from associations with former ideas and impressions, and that virtue may be thus generated by custom and habit ; I am inclined to think that this was in his head, when he wrote that letter ; particularly as 1 have heard from himself, that the intention of writing a book upon the nature of man was conceived in his mind, w hen he was a very little hoy. He was not a boasting man, nor ever spoke an untruth ; but in many conversations that I have had with him about his book, he has told me, that when he w^as so little as to be swinging [ 93 } backwards and forwards upon a gate, (and, I should suppose, not above nine or ten years old,) he w 7 as meditating upon the nature of his own mind; wishing to find out how man was made ; to what purpose, and for what future end; in short, (as he afterwards entitled his book,) 6 the 6 Frame, the Duty, and the Expectation of Man.’ When he wrote the second letter, I conclude that all these ideas were farther matured, though I know not whether he had then begun to arrange them in the form of a book. He was then 29, a widower, and had been so four years. The little boy he speaks of was my brother, David Hartley, whose mother died when he was born. You will be pleased, as I am, to see the temperate system which he had adopted, and which, indeed, was the system of his life from the beginning to the end. The benevolence which lie expresses was his natural temper, but it was improved by the principles of virtue; and it seems to me to be farther confirmed by that supposition which he touches upon in this letter, and afterwards expresses more fully in his book, that future pu- nishment cannot be vindictive and eternal; but however long, or severe, must be intended for purification and reformation. How far this- supposition may, or ought to, be adopted, I know not. Learned men have been of various opinions; C 94 ] much has been said on both sides, and it is not for me to determine which preponderates; but it seems to me, that the feelings which my father expresses are the natural effects of this opinion. It certainly must exdte, and improve, the love of trod, and love to man. Those who believe that future punishment is vindictive and eternal, without any purpose of repentance and amend- ment, must fear God, much more than they can love him. And if they believe that this eternal punishment arises from eternal incorrigible wick- edness ; and that those who have left this world, without accepting the terms of salvation offered here, will be excluded hereafter from all hopes of future repentance, becoming more and more, through all eternity, the enemies of God, and the accomplices of devils ; they must find such a creed a great impediment in the way of universal love. We know not the hearts of men, neither can we discern who will be incorrigible, or who repentant ; but while w r e believe that some will be incorrigible, how can we give love with any confidence to those who may be, for any thing we know, the enemies of God, and the eternal objects of his hatred and vengeance ! God forgive me for speaking so profanely of his infinite mercy and goodness! I cannot too soon unsay it. “ God is love;” “ his mercy is 4t over all his works ;” and he “ cannot hate any S I i * • c &&C / ( m V [ 95 1 “ tiling' that he has made.” Though it must be in his nature to hate vice ; yet since he is infi- nitely wise and powerful, as well as good, surely he must have means to eradicate vice from the heart of man. It may be by dreadful punish- ments, such as merely to think of must excite the strongest compassion for others, and terror for ourselves, lest we, or they, should be destined “ To fast in fires, c< Till the foul crimes done in our days of nature “ Are burnt, and purg’d away.” Yet will the hope that they will at last be “ burnt, and purged away that the time will come, when Got) shall be all in all ; when all shall be brought to him ; when 44 no man shall 44 need to say to another, 4 Know the Lord,’ 44 for all shall know him from the least to the •' greatest.” These hopes console the dejected mind; they disperse (as my father says) all gloomy and superstitious thoughts ; they teach a man to be indifferent to this world, yet to enjoy it more from a confidence in that Being, 44 whose 44 mercy is over all his works;” they teach a man to love every other man; and to believe, that, however injurious or criminal he may now be, God loves, though he cannot approve him ; that though he punish him, it shall be in mercy, to make him perfect; and that, though a man may be our enemy now, the time will come, when [ 96 ] he shall be our friend, and our brother. This was my father's doctrine, when I knew him, as you see it was before I was born ; and to this opinion, as well as to the kindness of his temper » and the virtues of his mind, I attribute that disposition, which made him never converse with a fellow-creature, without feeling a wish to do him good. I have conversed a good deal, since I lived here, with a very clever old lady, who was formerly a great friend of my father and mother. Her parents were French refugees, who escaped from the persecution of Louis XIV. She was brought up in the severity of the Calvinistical tenets; but by some accident, when she was a girl, she met with u Petit Pierre sur la Ponte “ de Dieu ;" and she ran to her governess, skip- ping’ and jumping, and crying out with transport, “ Ah! Madam, how I love God!" The go- verness answered, with formal gravity, “ Why, “ child, did you not always love him ?” “ No, “ indeed, Madam," answered the child, “ I never rac$fCflZwriters, of inestimable value; and it is the greatest happiness of the present times, sua si bona norint , to have in every library, and in every shop, numberless books, which can “ make us wise unto salvation.’ ’ Spend one, two, three hours, every day , in this kind of read - ing, joined with meditation and prayer ; and depend upon it, you will never repent it, in life or death, here or hereafter. If you be 6C wise u unto salvation,” you will be wise in your pro- fession, and in all temporal affairs; you will be diligent, upright, obliging, and polite ; you will gain the love and esteem of all with whom you have intercourse, and receive the hundred-fold in this life, which Christ has promised to his true followers. all his creatures will be grateful to Him, and kind to each other. The manner I am well content to leave to his providence. Ft re we!!, dear Sir; t wish to you, and Mrs, Gilpin, a pleasant, and happy summer; and I v am your obliged and affectionate friend. M. H. [ 167 ] br LETTER XL, From the Rev . Mr. Gilpin to ****. DEAR SIR, Ficor’* JEZV//, 1794. ACCORDING to your desire, I have looked over your work with a critic’s eye ; and I have taken great liberties with your stile, which I do, upon the principle of performing a trust. You may adopt, or not, as you please. A good stile, * in my opinion, consists in the fewest and easiest words, arranged in the simplest and most natural order, and running as smoothly as the ear will admit. On these principles I have used my correcting pen; all quaint phrases, and em- barrassed sentences, should be avoided. You * There are a sort of writers, who presume, like the Pharisees of old, that they shall be heard for their much speaking. They puzzle and dim that argument, with many words, which might be made clear and convincing in a few. These are tiresome, and do the mind little service. Ever when you write, or speak, (unless you intend to mislead,) give your argument simply, with clearness and shortness. Use no more words than are necessary to give it, and to enforce it - 3 thus your single sheet shall be remembered, and made use of, when volumes of similies and metaphors are forgot. f 168 ] will find an example of what I mean by an embarrassed sentence, in the middle of the 46th page; where you must read two or three lines, before you can guess what is to come. With regard to the work itself, I think it a very entertaining one ; but still I think many things might be added. You say little of drink. The history of bread might be useful and enter- taining. You might tell us how the poor lived ; and, with regard to the conclusion, I think you are much too short : you might introduce a little more morality ; you might draw equal instruc- tion from the necessities of mankind, and from their luxuries ; you might shew, that the stomach of a man is able to convert into aliment a greater variety of things, than the stomach of any other animal ; which shews, (what the naturalist proves, from his being better able to bear the extremes of heat and cold,) that he is fitted by nature to bear every climate. Indeed his reason assists him, by the art of cookery, to alter and adapt his food. It is a melancholy consideration, that while half mankind are pining in want, the other half are consuming the blessings of heaven in intemperance. These and other similar obser- vations occur. You make much use of the word viands ; I have always erased it. People take dislikes to words. I conceive viands to be rather [ ^9 J a poetical word ; at least it is not so plain and good a word, I think, as food. I am, my dear Sir, Your faithful obedient servant, WILLIAM GILPIN, LETTER XLI, From the Rev . William Gilpin to ****. dear sir, Vicar s Hill , April 1795. I Received, yesterday, the book you were so obliging to order for me; and I return you my best thanks, both for it, and the honour I see you have done me. When I see a beautiful prospect, I commonly take a general view of the whole together, before I examine particulars. Such a view I have already taken of your book; and I find, though I am no antiquary, a great variety of amusing matter for me to speculate upon, at more leisure. I used to tell you, formerly, I did not think your stile quite simple enough. As far as I have yet read, I think your w ork is written with more ease; and yet I met with a few sentimeuts, which, perhaps, might have been otherwise expressed. In the first paragraph, for instance, instead of [ 170 ] the imagery you employ, the sentence would, I think, have run more easily, if you had barely said ************ When you write, keep always in your mind what a great critic says of him, qui nil molitur inepte. I hope you will consider this freedom as a compliment: I mean it as such, I assure you, to your candour. I suppose you have seen Wyndham’s Account of the Isle of Wight, but I dare say you keep clear of him. I have by me some strictures on the Isle of Wight ; but I keep clear of you all, for mine are chiefly picturesque. Sir John D'Oyley shewed me some old coins, which, I think, he said you gave him. You know I admire these things only as an artist, and I thought those coins among the most beau- tiful of any I had ever seen. We make no such dies now, as some of the first Caesars. My wife and sister beg their best compliments to your family; with those of, dear Sir, your sincere and most obedient servant, WILLIAM GILPIN* [ 171 ] LETTER XLII. From the Rev . Wm. Gilpin to ****. dear sir, Vicar's Hill, March 22, 1797. I Received your parcel yesterday ; and have an opportunity to-day, by Miss — , of returning* you my best thanks for it. I have already read the greatest part of your book, and have been much more entertained with it, than a picturesque man commonly is with a piece of antiquity. He seeks after what is curious and beautiful, the antiquary after what is curious and antique. I was particularly pleased with your Army-Smiths. The idea was quite new to me. The church I was ordained to, was within a few yards of the Roman wall, which I have crossed over and over, without ever think- ing of Severus, or taking up a single fragment. I dare say, you would have thought a living of a hundred a year there, better than a living of double] the value in any other place. But fl think you may be contented. I had no concep- tion that you were in such a field of antiquity as you are at Bath. A young man at Lymington, of the name of ****, has lately set up a printing-press. He C 172 ] seems to me a very deserving* young fellow. I have set his press a going, by giving him a ser- mon to print. If I meet with an opportunity, I will send you a specimen of our workmanship. We beg to be remembered kindly to all your family, as well as to Mr. * ## * ; and believe me, dear Sir, your sincere aud obedient servant, WILLIAM GILPIN. LETTER XLIII. From the Rev . William Gilpin to ****. dear sir, Vicar s Hill, Oct . 19, 1801. I Heard only yesterday morning of your marriage, by Mr. — , who called upon me. I should otherwise have done earlier what 1 now do, congratulate you on the occasion. From his account of your lady, I hope you have a prospect of great happiness before you ; and I know little of you, if you do not make her a very kind, attentive husband; so I hope there is every reason to expect a happy marriage. You are beginning life; Mrs . G . and I are ending it; but, through the blessing of God! with much more comfort than we could expect at our years. Since my late illness, I have never been perfectly well. It has [ 173 ] left a cough, and shortness of breath. I am obliged to see more company than I wish: but I have a kind friend, who manages things dexterously for me. I commonly sit in my bow-windowed parlour below stairs, and all company is carried into the drawing-room above ; and such company as I wish to see, or want to see me, she sends down to me. Once more, my dear Sir, I join with my family in congratulating you, and paying our kind respects to all under your roof. Your very sincere And faithful humble servant, WILLIAM GILPIN. LETTER XLIV. From the Rev . William Gilpin to ***■*. Vicar s Hill , July 7, 1802. I Received yesterday, my dear Sir, your agreeable communication. But as I see, from your letter, that you have communicated an event to me, in which, like a young father, you think half Europe is concerned, I know not [ 1’4 ] how to address you. If, however, you will be content with a plain congratulation, you shall have it cordially from me, at the head of my family; in which, also, my son and daughter unite. We desire you will carry our congra- tulations a step farther, to Mrs. ***** to whom we desire to be kindly remembered. Believe me, dear Sir, Your sincere and most obedient servant, WILLIAM GILPIN. C ™ ] JOSEPH AMEEN, THE ARMENIAN PRINCE. Joseph Ameen was first noticed in England during the war which terminated in 1763. It has been said, that the first Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, ob- served him carrying a heavy burthen into his mansion in the Strand ; and being struck with his appearance, made some enquiries, which led to the discovery of his rank, and present situation; that, interested by this history of the Prince’s sufferings, his Lordship imme- diately afforded him his countenance and support. It will be found, however, that this account is not strictly accurate. The late B. Wilson, esq; the artist, was intimately acquainted with Ameen, and had painted three pictures of him; one for Lord Lyttleton, one for the Duke of Northumberland, and a third for Ameen himself: and the following are the particulars which Mr. Wilson used to relate of this extraordinary chara&er. All the circumstances of the hardships he underwent, which Ameen mentions in his letters, were, literally, facts; and to these he might have added many others, equally severe, which Mr. W. knew he had endured. So very low was he at one time reduced, as to be compelled to black shoes, for a scanty subsistence, at St. James’s Gate, where he was treated by the populace with con- tempt and abuse. During this state of degradation, he was accustomed to frequent the Royal Exchange, in the hope of seing some one from his own country who knew him, or to whom he might be able to make himself [ 176 ] known. As he was one day wandering through the Piaz* zas, bitterly lamenting his repeated disappointments, he observed aTurk, of whom he had some knowledge, bar- gainingwith a person (who proved to be steward to the Earl of Northumberland) for the sale of a set of Arabian horses ; and soon understood, from what passed between this Mussulman, and another of his countrymen, to whom he spoke in the Turkish language, that a gross imposi- tion was intended to be practised upon the Englishman. Ameen’s principle of integrity revolted at this vil- lainy; and, determined to expose it, he accosted the steward, and, without hesitation, informed him of the discovery he had made. The steward being much struck, both with the man, his information, and the man- ner in which it was given, enquired into the particulars of the history of a person, to whom he felt under consi- derable obligation. Ameen related his cc unvarnished tale,” and succeeded so well in interesting his auditor in his favour, that the steward took an early opportunity of communicating what had happened, and what he had heard, to the Earl ; who immediately sent for Ameen, held a long conference with him, became convinced of the truth of his story, relieved his embarrassments, and finally honoured him with his patronage, and an intro- duction to the Duke of Cumberland, and other cha- racters of dignity and influence. Mr. Wilson used to describe Ameen as a man of strong enthusiasm of character, high spirits, and invincible bravery. En- gaging, as a volunteer, in some of our descents upon the coast of France, in the war of 1763 , he was the first man who fired the enemy’s shipping at St. Maloes, where he fought with the fury of a bull-dog. His mind seemed to be absorbed by the military passion, and the idea of emancipating his country from the tyranny of the Turks, to be hi$ principal objedt. This [ I?? 3 darling hope lie cherished through all his sufferings; and to this end all his exertions* all his wishes, pointed, as is strongly marked in the following Letters to the Earl of Northumberland, Prince Heraclius, and his father. From Prince Heraclius he never received any answer; but having obtained the means of getting into Armenia, he joined Heraclius, who gave him a com- mand in his army, where he evinced abundant proofs of military skill and courage. Mr. Wilson related, that Ameen’s countenance was strongly characterized by the violent and ferocious pas- sions; which were evidenced, also, in his manner. He was one day sent for to Northumberland House, when the Duke of Cumberland, Archbishop Seeker, and se- veral other distinguished personages, were at dinner there. After having detailed all the circumstances of his eventful life to the companjr, and answered a variety of questions that were put to him, he suddenly exclaimed, to the Duke of Northumberland, in such an impassioned manner as electrified all present, “ My Lord ! J know “ you will protect me ; I know you will take care of answered the other, with emphasis. 64 And if I go again, will you once more follow me?” * With my heart and soul,’ said the stranger. “ And 44 will your countrymen follow me?” ‘ Can you doubt 4 it f was the Arab’s only, but emphatic, reply. Ameen was in England more than once; for on being enabled to return to his native country with some credit, he attempted to reach Hamadan by the way of Arabia; but after encountering a variety of dangers and adven- tures, suffering many distresses, and penerating a consi- derable way into the mountains, he was at length stopped by an impassable snow, and returned to England. He did not, however, then meet with the same credit which he had before obtained ; his story was not believed ; and many of his former friends began to suspect that he was an impostor. This stung him to the heart; he burned with rage and vexation ; and determined not to rest, till he had vindicated his honour and veracity. It was during this painful interval, that he brought the Arab to Mr. Wilson, as above-mentioned. Having at length recovered the confidence of his patrons, he ob- tained an audience of Lord Chatham, (then Mr. Pitt,) and made proposals to him, from Prince Heraclius, in behalf of Armenia : but the difficulty of the enterprize, and the uncertainty of any result beneficial to this C 179 ] country, prevented Government from espousing bis cause. At another time, Ameen served in the British army in Germany; was known to, and continually near, the commander in chief, who called him “ his lion's i{ heart." At the battle of Minden, he afforded ample proofs that this appellation had not been undeservedly bestowed. He served also, for a short time, under the King of Prussia, but left his army in disgust; highly incensed both with the Monarch, and Sir Joseph York; with the latter, because he had not given him a letter to the King of Prussia; and with the King, because he would not suffer him to be near his person. He after^ wards went to Russia, where he experienced much kindness, both from the Empress, and the English ambassador there; and from thence found means to reach his native country, and join, once more, Prince Heraclius in Georgia. Pie corresponded, for some time after his return to Armenia, with the late Lord Lyttleton ; and in his last letter informed his Lordship, that he had at length re- luctantly relinquished the idea of exciting a military spirit among his countrymen ; that they were devoted to a mercantile life, and must continue to live and die — slaves. Ameen possessed little of “ the milk of human u kindness;” but he had all the virtues of a partizan; and, had his energies been aided by the zeal of his own countrymen, and the assistance of other govern- ments, he would, probably, have transmitted a name to posterity, as deservedly celebrated for patriotism and military successes any of the heroes, either in ancient or modern times. [ 180 ] LETTER XLV. Prom Joseph Ameen to the Earl of Northumberland. my lord, 17 — . IF Present you with the specimen of my writing’, that I promised : it is too bold, I am afraid, to make myself the subject, when I write for your Lordship ; but forgive, my good Lord, the language of a stranger. I have been in too low condition, to know liow to write proper to your Lordship; but you speak to me more kind and humble than mean people, so I am encouraged. I have very good designs, and I have suffered much hardships for them. I think your Lord- ship will not despise a person in mean condition, for thinking of something more than livelihood. 1 have, with a very good will, thrown behind me a very easy livelihood for this condition, mean as it is ; and I am not troubled, if I can carry my point at last. As long as I can remember my own family, (and I remember my grandfather,) they have always been soldiers, and always did remember Christ. Though they were torn out of their country by Shah Abbas, and planted in Hama- [ 181 1 dan, they were soldiers still. Two of my uncles did spill their blood in the service of Kouli Khan ; my father was his slave for many years, hut he was at last forced to fly into India, be- cause this tyrant had sharpened his battle-axe more upon his own army, than upon his ene- mies. Soon after, my father sent for me to Calcutta, where he is a merchant. There I saw the fort of the Europeans ; and the soldiers exercise, and the shipping, and that they were dexterous and perfect in all things. Then I grieved with myself for my religion, and my country, that we were in slavery and ignorance; like Jews, vagabonds upon earth; and I spoke to my father upon all this, because our fathers did not fight for their country : but I understood that the black Armenians, in the mountains, were free, and handled arms from their childhood; and that those under the patriarchs, who are subject to the Turks and Persians, did not want couraage ; but they are all ignorant, and fight only with wild natural fierceness, and so they have no order, and do nothing but like robbers. And I resolved I would goto Europe, to learn the art military, and other sciences to assist that art : and I was sure, that if I could go into Armenia like an European officer, I might be useful, at least, in some degree, to my country. But my father did not listen to me ; [ 182 ] for God did not give him understanding in these things. I could not bear to live like a beast, eating and drinking without liberty or knowledge. I went to Capt. Fox, of the ship Walpole, and kissed his feet a hundred times, to let me work for my passage to Europe, before he would bend to me ; but he did at last admit me, and I came to England with much labour; but it did not grieve me, when I thought of my country. I entered, with my little money, into Mr, Middleton’s academy. I had the honour to tell your Lordship so before. I was first a scholar, and when my money was gone, I was then a servant there for my bread ; for I could not bear to go like a dog, wagging a tail at people’s doors for a bit of bread. I will not grieve your Lord- ship with the miseries I went through ; I do not want to be pitied . I got service at last with Mr. Robarts, a grocer, in the city. For this time I carried burdens of near 20 Qlbs. upon my back, and paid out of my wages to learn geo- metry, and to complete my writing, and just to begin a little French : but because, my Lord, I almost starved myself to pay for this, and carried burdens more than my strength, I hurt myself, and could not work any longer; so that I was in despair, and did not care what did become of me. A friend put me to write with an at- [ 183 ] torney in Cheapside, which for a little tune got me bread : but 1 was resolved, in despair, to go again to India, because nobody would put out his hand to help me to learn ; and my uncle sent £60 to Governor Davis, to carry me back. 1 am afraid l am too troublesome in my ac- count to your Lordship ; but we people of Asia cannot say little, and a great deal, like scholars. Now I met, by chance, some gentleman who encouraged me, and gave me books to read, and advised me to kiss Capt. Dingly’s hands, and shew my business to him. He was a brave soldier ; took me by the hand ; spoke to his Ser- jeant, an honest man, to teach me the manual exercise ; and gave me Toland’s Military Dis- cipline, and promised to help me to learn gun- nery and fortification. But I was again unfor- tunate; for when light just began to come to my eyes, he died, and I was like as before, except that I knew a little of manual exercise, and had read some of the Roman history. I could learn no more, nor live ; I was broke to pieces, and bowed my neck to Governor Davis, to go over to my friends, without doing any of those things I suffered for. I am in this net at present, but am happier than all mankind, if I can meet any great man that can prevail on Governor Davis to allow me something out of the money he has (only on [ 184 ] condition I return, that I return io blindness agdin j) that I may go through evolutions with recruits, and learn gunnery and fortification ; and if there is war, to go one year as a volunteer. If Governor Davis writes that I have a great man here my protector, my father, who looks upon me as a person run away, and forsaken, will make me an allowance to learn. If I could clear my own eyes, and serve my country and my religion, that is trod under foot of Mussulmans, I would go through all slavery and danger with a glad heart ; but if I must return, after four years slavery and misery, to the same ignorance, with- out doing any good, it would break my heart. My Lord, in the end, I beg pardon. I have experienced of your Lordship’s goodness, else 1 would not say so much. I would not receive, but return. And I want nothing, but a little speaking from the authority of India Governor to my friends. I have always been honest. Those I have been a slave to will say I am honest. Mr. Gray trusted me. Here is a sort of story, nothing but your Lord- ship’s goodness can make tolerable to you. I am much obliged to your Lordship’s patience ; and shall be very proud of giving your Lordship all the proof in my power, that I am your Lord- ship’s very much obedient and humble servant, JOSEPH AMEEN. [ 185 ] LETTER XLVL From Joseph Ameen to Prince Heraclius. To the most shining , most Christian King, Hera - clius, of Georgia and Armenia, these . MY KING, 1755 . ALL thing's that have been from the beginning* of the world to this day, are by the will of God. According to the scriptures, et all things were made by Him, and without Him 44 was not any thing made that was made.” God created the heavens and the earth, the sea and the land; and it is he that made you king over two nations, Armenia and Georgia. Glory be to God, the Fatherof our Lord Jesus Christ, that made you defender and protector of these Christian nations, and of their faith ; which have been for many hundred years under the hands of your Majesty’s family. The same God will, I hope, deliver those Christians who are under the hands of Ottomans. For there is no difficulty in the mighty hands of God ; and whoever trusts in Him, shall not be alarmed. It was He that delivered Israel by the hand of the prophet Moses, out of the hands of Pharaoh, and fed them with manna, according to the holy Psalms, which [ 186 3 saitli, “ man did eat the bread of Angels.” May the same God preserve and strengthen the wrist of your Majesty, to defend us from the encroach- ments of barbarians. Amen. Having heard the fame of your Majesty’s brave conquest, by which you have possessed the two kingdoms of Georgia and Armenia, and that at present they are under your Majesty’s pro- tection; being desirous, from the readiness of my soul, to offer your Majesty my services, which I beg you will make no difficulty to accept ; as money is far from the desire of your Majesty’s servant, who wishes nothing but to serve him who has the rule over his nation ; for while I am here, I want nothing. I have a great friend here ; and that friend is my protector ; and that protector is the son of the King of England. If it please your Majesty to instruct me in your will and pleasure, that I may petition to this great Prince, in order to obtain leave to come and serve you as an European officer, according' to my low abilities; and that I may teach your soldiers to fight like Europeans, who are well known to your Majesty, that with a few men they overcome many. Your Majesty has heard of the German nation, who, with no more than 20,000, are able to give battle to hundred thou- sands Mahomedans or Turks, and enemies to the Christian nations. I w r ould also acquaint your [ 187 ] Majesty how it is, and by what means the Eu- ropean nations are such conquerors, and so brave warriors. First, a man is obliged to enter himself in the house of exercise, which they call here an aca- demy, to learn, or to study, four or five years, the art of war ; that is to say, the art of building strong castles, the like of which are not to be found in all Asia; and also the art of managing great guns in such manner, as none of our for- tifications could stand before them for three days. Likewise, the manner of encamping, with judg- ment ; and the way of ranging the soldiers, so that they are like a wall of iron, not to be broken: and after having thoroughly completed his study in that art, he leaves the place, goes and offers himself and his service to his prince or king ; thereby becomes an officer, or fighter for his King and country, and by long experience per- fects himself in that peat art. For the art of war here is not to be undertaken easily. It contains many things difficult to be known by Turks or Persians, and very much preferable to the mere strength of arm. See, 0 King, it is not by the strength of arm that these nations are called conquerors, but by wisdom and art. Here every thing is by art, and by wisdom ; for with- out wisdom the land is not land, and the nations that dwell therein are blind and unhappy. Ac- [ '88 ] cording’ to the Old Testament, which saith, u God made the heavens, and the earth,” by his infinite wisdom, therefore God loveth wisdom* For this reason, I say, whoever followeth wisdom, he is dear to, and beloved of God ! For, from wisdom proceeds all manner of goodness : also, a man is not righteous without wisdom, nor wise without righteousness. The ancient Romans, who were so great, gave laws, and subdued all nations of the world: this was by art and wisdom, before our Saviour, al- though they were idolaters. But they were virtuous, and lived in good morals. Another example. Peter the Great, of Russia, who used not to be so great a warrior, and his country, could never have been so blessed, and flourished, had he not come over here to learn wisdom ; who, when he was in Holland, served in a place of ship-building like one of the labourers, and humbled himself therein. “ Whosoever hum- bleth himself, shall be exalted,” &c. : and when he returned into his own country, he was full of all manner of wisdom, by which he made himself father, as well as lord and king, over his country. These are things which made the people of Europe to be conquerors, and to be esteemed more wise than all the nations upon the face of the earth. For among them are learned mem who study the way in which God has made [ 189 ] all things according to their nature; by which they are able to do things of great wonder and usefulness. They send, likewise, into every part of the world, at a great expense, for to learn all things that are produced upon or under the earth, by which they are increased in wisdom and riches; their riches are very great; their people are very happy, not being afraid of fame or danger ; and they are under excellent laws, by which no man is suffered to do wrong to another, though he be weak and poor* But this nation, this great and mighty na- tion, O my King, where I live, are not only a great and wise nation, but also destroyers of the devourers of mankind; I am surprised to see, that even the sheep in this country rest in quiet- ness, without fear of the wolves. May the great God grant your Majesty’s subjects to follow their example, and to grow wdse and conquerors, under the wisdom and cou* rage of your Majesty; to whom God grant long life to tread your enemies, like dust, under your feet. May it please your Majesty to know who your servant is, that raises his head to speak to you, and takes pains to know these things, with much labour, for your Majesty’s service, to whom God give victory. [ 190 ] I'he name of jour servant is Ameen, the son of Joseph, the son of Michael, the son of George, who is descended from Ameen, who, in the day that Armenia was broke under the battle-axe of Shah Abbas, was Minbascby in his country; but he was made captive, with others, and was car- ried into Persia, and planted at Hamadan. From him your Majesty’s servant is come, and he is called of his name, being born at Ha- madan. But our captivity was grievous ; and the Persians, who, since their Mahomedanism, (which is so well known to your Majesty,) are grown quite barbarous, not being so civilized as they were in ancient times, according to the histories I have read in this blessed island ; so that my father fled from Hamadan, in the time cf Shah Thcemas, and Kouli Khan, into India, to a place called Calcutta, where the English have fort and soldiers, and a great trade, though their country is seven months voyage from Ben- gal. There my father made himself merchant to this day ; and would have made me such as himself, but I did not submit to him. For I enquired of my fathers, from my infancy, the reason why we were persecuted by infidels, and why we did reside so contemptibly among law- less nations. But they made me no answer, and my heart was grieved, and I had none to comfort me in my grief ; for I said, “ the ants that creep [ 191 ] # * upon the earth have a king’, and we have not and the nations of all countries make their song: upon us, also persecuting* us, and saying to us, that “ you are masterJess ; you have no king of “your own; you resemble the Jews scattered “ upon the face of the earth ; you have no love 16 for one another, you are without honour, and, “ by the disunity of your nation, all the nations “ insult you. You are contemptible, and without “ zeal; and you are as great lovers of money, as “ the heathens were of their gods.” I could not bear all these reflections, so I grieved, and found none to heal me. I observed watchfully the Europeans, their wise customs, and their shipping, far better, both for sailing and for war, than the ships of the Indians ; and above all, the practice of their soldiers, who, if there were thousands of men, by one word of command from their officers, instantly altogether move and act, as if they were one man. Then I thought in my mind, that it was God that had put in my heart to think on all these things ; therefore I spoke not to my father, but had hopes in my heart, that if I went to England, I should learn the art of war ; and I was encouraged; for then I heard a little (and not much) of your Majesty’s name, until I came here ; where 1 learned that your Majesty was established in your kingdom, and had routed a great army of Persians. See, 0 my King, what [ 192 ] a gfeat thing the wisdom is, by which this nation know our country better than we do ; and that this nation is awakened, and we are asleep. Oir board the ship I worked like a sailor ; and after- wards, when I came here,. I w as so reduced, that I was forced, by hunger, to offer myself to sale upon the Bazaar, to be sent into the New World. O, my King ! do not pity me! Not even at the time that you hear of, or see, me sacrificed in your service ; but pity those servants of Christ who deserve pity . But the omnipotent hand of God saved me by an Englishman ; and the same God, who heard the crying of my heart, did put it into the heart of a generous Nobleman, who is one of the pillars of the throne of England, to assist me. He made me explain the counsel of Iny heart; he made me known to the son of the King of England ; he sent me to the place of education, where I learned the art of war ac- cording to wisdom. My ambition is, to lay my knowledge at the feet of your Majesty, and to serve you to the best of my abilities. For know, 0 my King, that what is not built upon knowledge, though it was so very strong and lofty, is, as it were y built upon sand. Therefore, my purpose is to go well instructed into your Majesty’s service, and to carry wdth me men skilful in all things, (if you give me encouragement,) to strengthen [ 193 ] and polish your kingdom, like the kingdoms of Europe ; for you have a good country, and com- mand over many brave men : and if you could gather the Armenians, a rich and trading people? who are scattered to* the east, and to the west, and the north, and the south, under the protec- tion of your Majesty’s mighty arms, in your own country, no kingdom in the east would be like your kingdom, for riches and glory. May the eternal God, the Father of our Loud Jesus Christ, sharpen your scymetar upon all your enemies, and strengthen the wrist of your Majesty’s right-hand, to protect our distressed nation, according to the wishes and labours of your servant j JOSEPH AMEEN* ' 4 • • *4 9 < ? *: LETTER XLVII. From J oseph Ameen to his Father < my father, London, 17 — * THE son of virtue is bravery, and bravery cannot be without virtue: for as the Son proceedeth from the Father, so bravery does from virtue. More plainly to speak to thee, O my father ; thou art a virtuous man ; and if I am thy true son, I am bound to be Q [ 194 ] brave ; by which I may be worthy to be called thy son, and also worthy of the name of that of our great forefather, Ameen. O my father Joseph, the reason of my departure from thee is to obtain bravery. What are thy thoughts ? Dost thou think, that I am come here only to learn the English language ? No : I am come to learn the art of war, which is preferable to all the arts upon the world ; this art is so precious, that if. is always spoken of in the presence of Caesars and kings. By this very art we are to give battle against the persecutors and enemies of our Christian nation, which stands captive under their hands. It is inexpressible, the pre- ciousness of this great art ; for without it, it is impossible that our religion should ever shine. We shall always be persecuted under our ene- mies, if we do not strive to learn it. My father, these were the reasons of the departure of thine only son ; and when I used to mention them to thee, instead of commending me for it, thou didst always insult me, and turn thy countenance from me, as if I was speaking of treason. And now I would not tell thee so plainly and openly my mind, if I had not accidentally met a Noble- man, who, when he was made acquainted with the counsel of my heart, and the hardship which I underwent for the sake of my nation, was sur- prized; loved me like a father; gave me money : [ 195 ] Spoke of me to the son of the King 1 of England* and also to several Noblemen. Again, he asked me what was my design, that made me come away from my father? And when I made answer, and said, that I am come to learn the art of war, still he loved me, and comforted me, and said to me, “ Be contented, I will make interest for (i thee to the son of our King, to give thee order * c that thou mayest go to the place of education, u and learn what thou desirest; where are all the sons of noblemen learning the art of war, and thou shalt learn the same with them.” O my father, be glad ; for God is with me. I am not come here to learn luxury and extravagancy; I am come to obtain worthiness, to learn wisdom, to know the world, and to be called a perfect servant to my sheeplike, shepherdless, Armenian nation. Again, know ye, that if you had made a present, or had spent 5000 rupees, you could not be able to get me such great and noble friends. Therefore, it is Almighty God that has showered down upon me his infinite mercy; for it is He that knows the counsel of my heart, and my heart is unto Him. He is Father of all that trust in Him ; without Him is nothing, and nothing can he done. Michia, my uncle, you seem to be very angry with me, my beloved. What were my sins ? Why have you forgot me in that manner ? Why o 2 f 196 ] don’t you comfort me with a philosophical letter of yours? I have driven myself even to death, for your sakes; and instead of encouraging me, you think me a prodigal. I believe, that you have heard of the wrath of my sweet father, who had rejected me from being his son. After his arrival on board of the ship, he sent a letter to the hand of my shepherd David, and it was Written in this manner : “ Brother David, knowest thou so far, that u theYe is no absolution for Ameen, my son ; u unless he is crucified, his head downward, for “ the sake of his nation, as Apostle Peter was “ crucified.” Thou seest he was comparing such a sinner as me to that great saint ; but he should have patience to stay, that I might obtain worthiness first, and then be crucified. He thought that he could pronounce that word crucified with ease ; but he did not imagine the difficulty of the loss of his only son : and after all those great torments and hardships which I have been under, I am beginning to make his name and yours to shine. You all desire me to return ; ignorant I came, and ignorant you would have me to go. Y^ou are indebted to hearten me. I am con- tented to obtain an empty letter, e'ither from thee, or from my father; even that you will not do* O my compassionate uncle, if I have sinned t 19’ 1 before my father, tell me what evil have I been culpable of towards you ? why you forsake me so? I know, within myself, that it is only my Huler David, who bears and weighs the torments and smarts from my father. My father cannot blame you ; for, at the time of my desertion, you w as at Soidapad ; and my Huler David at Calcutta, from whence I took my flight ; there- fore, let me die for him ; let my blood be under his feet. It is true, that you are my shepherd ; but he is only my Huler and my manager, my comptroller and my comforter, my supporter and my teacher. I cry, I roar for David to see; but in vain. I cannot and thou, Mirzabeck, the soul of my soul, ******** My Ruler David, thy favour of the 3d of February, from Hugley, arrived here the 14th December, 1755, by the hand of John Mills, to the hand of Stephanus Coggian ; but I did not see the person who brought thy letter. I received it from Stephanus. It was a great joy to me to obtain such a fatherly letter from thee; and I was very thankful to God for having such a Huler as thee in this world. My sweet father is a little angry with me, that I did not submit to his will ; but I know within myself, that a fruit- ful tree is dear and humble, its branches bend to the ground. Therefore, while I am fruitless, it is impossible for me to obtain humbleness ; t J98 ] but when I am fruitful, it is natural then I should be humble. A second example. A valiant warrior, while he is in the battle, is obliged to appear proud ; first, among his soldiers ; secondly, against his enemy ; and, if he should obtain a conquest over them, it is then natural to appear humble, if he is a true warrior. These are my less understanding thoughts ; may your great wisdom approve them. I last year sent two letters, by the hand of Mr. Davis, to the hand of Mr. Manningham. to be given to you. I am in great hopes that you will perform what I have already desired in them ; to write to Mr. Davis, to pay me the money deposited in his hands; but if not, let it then be your pleasure. Let me tell you, that I have no need of money here : but you will all repent, for not believing your son. So much is sufficient to your understanding, if you read this letter with care and wisdom. But if you please to be friends with me, it is a debt upon you to do thus.— First, to write to Mr. Davis, to pay me the 500 rupees; secondly, a letter, with great thanks, and presents to this my protector Nobleman, of whose name I shall mention in this letter. The presents that you shall send me are as follow: * * * * * They may be worthy of this great Nobleman’s Jady, whose great spirit and generosity is higher [ 199 ] than language, and who herself stooped down to take notice of me. My father, you will think that I don’t want to come home to you. Don’t you think so. I long for it. My longing is measureless ; and it is so great, that I cannot explain it. Your love is as hot in my heart as fire; and for the sake of that love, 1 have first made myself a mariner, and laboured hard for six months ; secondly, when I arrived here, I did serve to Stephen, like a captive ; thirdly, after turning me out of his house, three weeks I lived upon threehalfpence a day. ‘Fourthly, I went to sell myself, but Pro- vidence sent to me the son of my schoolmaster, who delivered me from being recaptive. Fifthly, I have lost one year’s service. Sixthly, I was a load carrier, a porter, for two years, and paid £17 out of that laborious and slaving* employ- ment to Stephen, who spent for me while I was with him. And at last, from portership, did arise myself to clerkship. There I have writ about three months ; and absented from thence, I was again driven into my old distresses. O father ! without money, without friend, but the Lord in heaven ; until, one day, this great man, whom I have mentioned above, who had heard of my character, sent me his servant, and I was admitted to him ; and when I was come into his presence, after knowing my counsel, and the law^ which is r 200 ] for you, and for my nation, he was surprized, and said to me, “ 0 Ameen, it is very hard to live “ in this country without friend, and without “ money, almost four years; therefore the Lord u is with you. Be contented ; I will from this “ time provide and furnish you with all neces- “ saries and, said he, u 1 will mediate to the €i son of our King ; and, after you have learned “ the art of war, 1 will send you to your father “ and uncles.” The noble lady comforted me likewise, and said, • ‘ Don’t despair ; be glad ; Ci O zealous for thy country, Ameen.” Be not afraid, then, my father. Almighty and Sabath God it is, that has put in my heart to depart from you, and come here, that I might be able to serve my masterless country. Therefore, pray to G od for me, with a strong mind, with trust and patience. The name of the nobleman is the Earl of Northumberland ; he is a lord of a great worth with the King of this land. Great men, and nobles, all that know him, love him; and it is three weeks since he knew me. I dine at his palace ; and he has given me a good deal of money and books; his goodness and friendship is measureless. Many times I dined with great men here, through his friendship. It is to him that I am indebted for great strength and com- fort I receive from a nobleman, cal ed Sir Charles Stanhope, who is father to me, He has [ 201 ] made me known to another nobleman, called my Lord Cathcart, who is a soldier, and gave me much encouragement. Once more be glad. As to what I have writ to you, perform it. The loss of seven years I shall repair in one month ! God Almighty will deliver us from all diffi- culties. Be ye all in health! J > A. e [ 202 ] DOCTOR SAMUEL JOHNSON, AND JOSEPH FOWKE, Esq. Of the colossal intellect, varied learning, exemplary morality, and warm piety, of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, it is unnecessary to say any thing; since the general opinion, with respect to this extraordinary man, seems to be, that “ take him all in all, we ne’er “ shall look upon his like again.” A few particulars, however, of one of his correspondents, Joseph Fowke, Esq; who had the honour to be considered as a “ dear “ friend” by the Doctor, may not be uninteresting to the reader. This gentleman, who died three or four and twenty years ago, at a very advanced age, was born about the year 1715, and entered into the service of the East-India Company at the age of 17. He remained at Fort St. George till 1748, and was so high in the opinion and esteem of his employers, that when he returned to England he was pressed by the Secret Committee of the East-India Directors, (in whom the regulation of the affairs of the Company was then entirely placed,) to accept the government either of Bengal or Madras. This offer being made previously to the conquests of Lord Clive, and the cession to the English of the great provinces of Bahar and Orissa, was by no means so advantageous as it might at present be considered. Mr. Fowke, therefore, declined it ; and remained in England until 1771. At this period he returned to India ; where some differences of opinion unfortunately occurred between him and the Provisional Government, which ended in his being tried in June [ 203 3 1775, in the Supreme Court of Bengal, under two indictments. In the first of these trials the verdict was, not guilty. In the second, which came on imme- diately afterwards, and in which Mr. Fowke was im- plicated with Maha Rajah Nundocomar and Roy Rada Churn, the verdict was, “Joseph Fowke and Nundo- ** comar, guilty ; Rada Churn, not guilty/’ In the year 1788, Mr. Fowke finally quitted Bengal with a recommendation from Lord Cornwallis to the Court of Directors, as a person entitled to receive the pension which was promised to their servants, return- ing from Bengal out of employment, under their ge- neral letter, dated Sep-t. 21, 1785; which directed, that f ( such senior merchant, whose fortune was not equal “ to 10,0001. should receive as much annually as, with “ the interest of his own money, should make up an ^ income of 4001. per year.” This recommendation, together with a petition, was presented to the Directors on Mr. Fowke’s return. They were, however, rejected, and an answer returned, “ that the Court did notcon- “ sider him as coming under the description of persons r. Jeans to **** my bear sir, Rotterdam , Jan . 30, 1807* HAYING been obliged to absent myself from your hospitable board on Thursday, I will endeavour to make some amends for my breach of good manners, by giving you a few particulars of the late catastrophe at Leyden.* If I may judge from what I myself have heard, many inaccurate accounts are in circulation. I shall now tell you the result of my own obser- vations, and relate some things which 1 received * Supposed to have been occasioned by the carelessness of placing a lighted candle on one of the barrels of gunpowder, R 2 [ 244 ] from authentic, sources. From what I saw yesterday, I imagine that full five hundred houses are already destroyed, or must come down, and that double this number are ma- terially injured. But this is my own conjecture; and all that has been hitherto reported on this head is only conjecture, for the full extent of the mischief cannot be ascertained, even yet. Mr. Van N., who must be as competent a judge as any man, told me he could form no guess at the loss of either property or houses. Nor is the number of the dead exactly ascertained. A hundred and thirty is, perhaps, the utmost. If my calculation be tolerably correct, nearly one tenth part of the city may be said to be de- stroyed, for the number of houses in Leyden must be estimated at about ten thousand. It was natural for people to exaggerate on such an occasion. Popular description always heightens calamity. The lives that are lost do not exceed one-fifth part of what was originally reported. W e were told, again and again, that every house in Leyden had suffered. If a few broken windows be excepted, I will venture to say that more than a fourth part of the town is totally uninjured. Still, however, the calamity is prodigious, and the loss i3 irreparable. But real truth will always, in the end, succeed better than extravagant exaggerations. For [ 245 ] when the public knows that the misfortune is much less than was represented, it will lose a great deal of its sympathy ; whereas, a contra- ry proceeding would produce exactly a contrary effect. Dead bodies are still dug out. Four have been found this week. We (I mean myself, conducted by Mr. Van N.) visited the vault in St. Peter’s church, where the corpses of unknown persons are deposited. The coffins Were not numerous. The superstructure of this fine pile, which you may remember we con- templated with so much pleasure three summers back, is sadly mutilated, but the foundation 8 are secure. The walls are cracked in several places; the windows destroyed; the vaulted roof rent from east to west ; and some of the larger grave-stones are moved from their places. Boerhaave’s bust, and the other modern monu- ments, are safe, and are now covered over with wooden frames. The inside of this church exhibits a striking spectacle, and gives a tole- rable specimen of the general confusion of the ,city. The whole pavement strewed with massy fragments of stone, wood, iron, and lead; the -yawning vault in the nave left open for the recep- tion of dead bodies ; large masses of shattered ornaments in every quarter; the spacious Gothic windows, most of them without glass or stone- work; all the ramifications either gone or broken ; [ 246 ] the ceiling rent from one end to the other; the massy walls cracked; and the whole edifice filled with the ladders and scaffolds of masons, glaziers, and carpenters, all employed in repair-? ing the mischief ! St. Pancrass, the Hooglandike kirk, which stands near the Burgt, is in the same mutilated state. Indeed, I was so much puzzled with the quick succession pf objects, that I am not clear whether I have not con- founded this church with St. Peter’s. But they both tell the same tale of destruction, and display nearly the same picture of desolation. Contem- plating the prodigious havoc which had been made in one moment, and seeing the eagerness and bustle of a multitude of workmen, collected from all quarters of the province ; some hang- ing in the air repairing the windows, or the vaulted roofs ; others making mortar, plaining boards, &c. &c.& c., I could not help comparing the industry of these bustling mortals to the toil of emmets, patiently repairing the ruins of their colony, when the gigantic foot of either man or beast has suddenly destroyed their little city, and crushed half their community. When the explosion happened, Mr. Van N. (as a ma- gistrate) was called on to superintend the search after the bodies of the poor creatures who were buried in the ruins, as well as to guard their pro- perty from plunder. The description he gave [ 247 3 of this memorable night was awfully interesting. About twelve o’clock it was a dead calm. The sky was overcast with dark thunder clouds, and wore a sullen aspect. The gleams of the nume- rous torches gliding here and there, gilding the broken ruins ; the flames which burst out in different directions from the unextinguished fires in the houses; faint flashes of lightning, accompanied by the deep mutter of distant thunder ; the hoarse voices of the guards inter* rogating passengers ; and, above all, the hollow groans, and feeble calls, of the unhappy sufferers, immured in the ruins, with the shriller notes of grief from distracted relations, who were listen- ing in agony to their cries, mingled with the still more distant sounds of sorrow from the crowds which thronged the adjacent streets and houses, impatient to hear tidings of their friends ; all together — the hour — the darkness — the tra- gical event — the solemn accompaniments — the various tones of lamentation, interrupted every moment, by the clattering of tiles,thefallof chim- nies, and the thundering crash of the roofs of the houses — formed such a combination of affecting and terrifying circumstances, as could not but convey a complete idea of sublime horror! My poor hostess, the Widow Cramer, who kept the Golden Lion, is amongst those unfor- tunate sufferers, who have lost their all ! [ 248 ] When Mynheer B # * # , the well-known na- turalist, returned home from the Hague after the catastrophe ; upon the first intelligence of it, he flew to his own dwelling, full of dread and apprehension; where, horrible to relate, the first object that met his sight was the severed, mu- tilated arm of his wife, which he recognized bv the rings on her fingers ! For a moment he gazed on it in silent agony ; then snatching tip the mangled limb, the only remains of the lovely being he had so lately left, and so ten- derly loved, he pressed it to his throbbing bosom, and, wild with grief, hurried from the fatal spot ! ! ! It has been said, that the bottom of the Gragt, immediately under the powder vessel, is of un- fathomable depth. This may be exaggerated, amongst other silly tales. Perhaps it may be somewhat deeper than before. The bank of the canal, where the vessel lay, is forced in nearly three feet, and of course the Gragt is widened. * I am, dear Sir, Yery sincerely yours, J. JEANS. [ 249 ] THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Mr. Newton, who died a few years ago, has left us a recorded account of the early years of his life, writ- ten by himself, in a little work with the following title : “ An authentic narrative of some remarkable and inte- u resting particulars in the Life of comrau- “ cated, in a series of letters, to the Rev. Mr. Haweis* “ rector of Aldwincle, Northamptonshire ; and by “ him (at the request of friends) now made public. “ London, printed by John Baynes, 54 , Pater-noster- “ row.” The narrative commences with his birth, and is carried on till his conversion ; and, it must be con- fessed, that (as we learn from his own account) his early years exhibited such a tissue of worthlessness and profligacy, as rendered his change to religion and virtue a remarkable instance of the goodness and mercy of God. It may well be doubted, however, whether such public representations of depravity of heart, and per- sonal vice, can, in general, further the interests of piety and morality. It was the practice of the barbarous Lacaedemonians, alone , to exhibit their slaves in a state of drunkenness, in order to deter their children from the degrading sin of intoxication. Mr. Newton jived to a very advanced age, in the zealous exercise of his professional duties, and in the exemplary fulfilment of every personal virtue; and died, & few years since, much respected and esteemed. [ 250 J LETTER LX. From the Rev . John Newton to Captain and Mrs . Hansard. London , May 17 — . MY DEAR FRIENDS, "H” Know not when I wrote, nor have I jour letter before me ; 1 am persuaded that I could not omit my congratulations on the birth of your son, (who I hope is living and thriving ;) I am therefore willing to think that you are in my debt. However, as I wish to send you the enclosed, and want to hear of you, I write again; and if I have written to you before, you may be revenged by sending me two letters for one : they will always be welcome. You are proper persons to receive my Ebe- nezer, You were acquainted with my dear one, and are better qualified, for that reason, to form some due estimate of my loss ; and further, the time will come, though I hope it is yet far distant, when one or the other of you will pro- bably be in my situation ; for it seldom happens that both are called home on the same day. But blessed be the Lord, who enables me to confirm to you, from my own experience, all [ 151 3 that you have ever heard or read of his all- sufficiency. Though I had often grieved his Holy Spirit by my idolatry and folly, yet when I was brought low, He helped me. He rebuked me for my sins ; but He upheld me with his gracious arm, enabled me to bow to his will, and to kiss his|rod. I was indeed sharply tried, and in a point where my feelings were most sensible and exquisite. I have a lively remem^ brance of what she was, when He first gave her to me, and of what she was before He took her quite away. Ah ! what a change ! But He spared her to me more than forty years, though I had deserved to forfeit her every day. I had a painful part of observation, darker every day for more than six months; but I was upheld. I would not go over the same ground again for the treasure of both the Indies. But I can say, He has done all well. I love my friends. I loved Mr. and Mrs. B., Miss P., and my own Eliza ; I felt keenly when they were removed : but I still had one left, that seemed to make amends for all ! The will of the Lord was declared by the event, and I acquiesced ; but how often have I thought, if she should be taken from me, though his grace might enable my spirit to submit, the flesh must sink under the blow, and I should never wear a cheerful look again. Yet He has been better [ 252 ] to me than my deserts or fears ; He helps me to do very tolerably without her. I stilL live in the same house, where every room, and every chair, seems to say, “ she is not here P* I sleep in the bed where she long languished, and where I saw bar draw her last breath ; and I have never felt a wish to change the scene. Though no object appears quite the same to me, and a sort of sombre cast hangs over them all, yet I can relish my many mercies, and smile and chat ■with my friends as formerly. I know not that I am more or less affected than 1 was the first day after she left me. I write this for your encouragement. Ima- gination is a busy painter, and disposed at times to draw frightful pictures of what may happen: but we may depend upon it, that nothing shall happen, to which His promises of strength, according to the day, and “ grace sufficient for “ us,” shall not render those who trust in Him fully equal. He chastens and tries us, not for his own pleasure, but for our profit, to make us partalers of his holiness; otherwise he takes no delight in our groans and tears, but rather in our prosperity, so far as he sees it safe for us ; and even when it is necessary to put us into the furnace of affliction, he sits by, like a refiner of silver, to w^atch the process, and to take us % out when his merciful design in our favour is fully answered. [ 253 ] The distance between my house and ****y and the limits of my time, would not permit me to visit you in person ; but I am often with you in spirit, and by Mr. *** # ’s description, I aui helped to form some idea of your situation. How different from mine! You can walk a mile from your home, without being’ stunned with noise, or shocked with wickedness ! You can view the sea, or the mountains, whenever you please. You are surrounded by the works- of God, which speak powerfully, though with- out an audible voice, to the attentive mind. I am encompassed by men, the most of whom are serious about trifles , and trifling in the concerns of most importance . Some bustling-, and some dancing*, into death. “ Oh ! that I had wings “ like a dove,” for then would I likewise some- times retire to the mountain, or stand on the sea shore ! But you are in your post, and I am in mine. In some things our situations agree : the same sun that shines in Wales, shines also upon us ; and the same “ Sun of Righteousness” is equally near in all places. Local distance may separate bodies, but it cannot affect minds; and they who can meet at the same throne of grace, cannot be far asunder. Though I love the country, I may be thankful I live in London; for God makes me acceptable, and 1 hope use- ful, in my ministry. And your prospect from f 254 ] the highest hill in your neighbourhood is not to be compared with mine from St. Mary’s pulpit on a Sunday. God has also blessed me with many friends, many endeared connexions ; and therefore I need not envy you your mountains; for though I meet with riot and disorder in the streets, through mercy, we have love and peace at home. What a mountain is the heavenly Zion! Though we cannot see it with our bodily eyes r faith can realize the invisible hill, and tells us, that every day brings us nearer to it. Here we are but strangers and pilgrims. There we shall be at home. No care or sorrow can reach us at that height. Then , surely, we shall say with St. Peter, “ it is good for us to be here.” But we shall not, like him, be constrained to come down again from that summit. We shall have a delightful review of all the way by which the Lord our God led us through this wilderness, and shall see, that mercy and goodness followed us through every step. May we now believe it! let us not credit the report of sense to the contrary ; faith , in- structed by the scripture, says it is so, it must be so, it shall be so. My dear Bessy is well, and joins me in love. Heaven bless you and your children. I am your affectionate friend and servant, JOHN NEWTON. f 155 ] THE REV. CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN. For the particulars of Dr. Buchanan’s life, cha- racter, and writings, we beg leave to refer our readers to a work recently published, entitled, “ Memoirs of u the Life and Writings of the Rev . Claudius Buchanan , iC late Vice-Provost of the College of Fort William , in “Bengal.” By the Rev. Hugh Pearson, M.A. St. John’s College, Oxford; a work which is evidently the production of a scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian ; displaying a mind deeply embued with piety; a culti- vated taste; liberality of sentiment; and very consi- derable skill in elegant composition. Mr. Pearson was also the successful candidate for a Prize Essay, instituted by Dr. B. which is published under the following title, “ A Dissertation on the Pro - “ motion of Christianity in India ;” to Mhich is pre- fixed, ‘ c A brief Historic View of the Progress in 41 different Nations t since its first Promulgation ; ill us- “ trated by a Chronological Chart . 4 to. 13s. in boards? [ 256 ] LETTER LXI. From Dr. Claud. Buchanan to ***, Esq. Queen s College, Jan . 29th, 1799. ~jO> is in College. He and some of his ° friends have been contributing to the relief of a sick distrest musician. I took the liberty of subscribing half a guinea for you. As the public subscriptions for the poor are liberally filled, I shall not trespass farther on your bounty*. I sometimes take my gun out to the country, not to kill game, but to procure health. In my excursions I have an opportunity of seeing bow the poor struggle against cold and hunger. How you would Value my opportunities! I entered a cottage yesterday morning. cc Pray, “ my good woman, why do your children lie u in bed ? are they sick ?” “ No, Sir, but they “ have no fire to sit by, so I am obliged to make “ them lie a-bed most part of the day.” “ Pray, “ good woman, have you got any thing for me “ to eat ? I have walked a good way, and am (i very hungry.” She looked embarrassed for a moment, and then burst into tears! f 25? ] O, ye fellow commoners, who are in the habit, not of administering to each other’s wants, but of contributing to each other’s diseases and death, by five guinea suppers, how * * * * P. desires his compliments to you. Our subject next Tuesday evening is emigration . P. is greatly improved. Our Monday evening is prorogued till the division, for want of mem- bers. It is rumoured, that your abilities for Oratory are above mediocrity. I wish that yon would convince us that this is true, when next we see you. Is it true, that you have resolution to write a little every day? I could believe any thing of you, would you but return to those daily exercises of piety, which your conscience dictates. But till that hour comes, all your resolutions must prove temporary, and, there- fore, nugatory. My dear fellow, look around you. Is not your country falling ? Perhaps a new order of things is at hand. In any event, you may be called forth, to defend the old, or modify the new, system. Seek, therefore, piety as a man, eloquence as a citizen. Be not a man of pleasure, rolling down the stream of fashion, unheeded and unknown. Be magnanimous. Have the fortitude to speak what you think, in all places, and upon all occasions, when con- science suggests it. He who thinks that rnag- nimity consists in any thing less than despising s [ 258 ] fashion, when it interferes with duty, has no pre- tensions to this virtue. He may have many other virtues, or rather semblance of virtue; but if he have not this, he is nothing . Most men who fight duels have not a spark of magnanimity, but are actuated by abase, cowardly fear. This is no paradox to those who recollect how many false principles, pseudo virtues, and counterfeit feel- ings, ever encrust the slave of fashion. I court St. Cecilia a little, when my study of the modern languages permits. But that lan- guage, which, it is said, was taught by God himself, occupies my attention most. * * * W. of is senior wrangler. W. lectures on chemistry next term. Your plan of circum- scribing your system of study is promising. I hope that temperance, country air, and exercise, have by this time given you health sufficient for College use. C. B. LETTER LXII. From the same to the same. dear **** Wednesday evening , $d Jan . I hope I shall have time, before the post sets off, to write you one page at least, I rejoice to find that you are seriously engaged in seeking peace. Only persevere, only be uni- [ 259 ] form for a few weeks, a few days* and you shall, you must have it t He who loved you so much as to die for you, has no pleasure in afflicting you without cause: he taketh no pleasure in behold- ing his children, who are contented to come out from the world, and bear his reproach, pass their hours in heaviness, disconsolate and ir- resolute. He himself set an example to you, and to me, how vve ought to live. He had always one grand object in view, — doing his Father’s will. He went about doing' good continually : his one grand object was doing' good to the bodies or souls of men. Perhaps you and I have not to this hour, thought seriously of being useful, either to the bodies or the souls of men ! Our Saviour’s life was a continued scene of activity. This is for oitr learning. Let no indolent habit ensnare our souls. Action is a great blessing to man. The miser has his enjoyment, — the trader, the ploughman, the man of business: the man of parts alone, like you, the man of improved understanding, he who can teach others, he is unhappy, because he is unemployed. 1, therefore, will promise, from this day for- ward, to have one, and only one, great object in view; and that will be, giving glory to God, and “ doing good to the souls and bodies of S 2 [ 260 ] men.” Every thing must henceforth give way to this grand purpose. Every book I read, every conversation I hear, every walk I take, must assist in giving me new ideas, or new helps in this work. Only let me for ten days vie with the world- ling in industry, and then you shall see the fruit. My dear ***** whether you be heavy in heart, or merry, be active . Be active in prayer, or reading, or conversing, or walking, or riding. Sink not into fits of lethargy, which are death to the body, and death to the soul. You seem to expect too rapid a revolution in yourself. But be content “ with the day of small “ things.” God could, as you wish, work a mira- cle, and restore you to health of body, and to health of mind. “ But He will be sought “ after.” His invariable method of dealing with his children, through every age of the Christian church, is, “ his spirit co-operating “ with their prayers,” and leading their minds from one degree of knowledge to another, from one degree of confidence to another, from one degree of peace to another. He has given you, m your past experience, every thing you have a title to expect. He gave you at Cambridge to taste a few days of that peace which the world knows not of; and which you attained at an easy price; and which [ 261 ] you might have kept to this day, (a seed then, but now a tree,) shedding its kindly influence onvnany a hapless soul, you may have since seen. This peace you have once more attained, or are about to attain; c< for he that seeks shall vork, he will be an eminent Christian. When you write to me, I dare say you will tell me all the interesting news you [ 266 ] can collect. But if you should not write to me, I shall not only think it my duty, but I shall find a pleasure, in writing to yon. * * * * LETTER LXIV. To Miss E****. # # * * MOST of the young ladies here attempt the harpsichord ; but there are, I understand, but one or two of any eminence in the country. There is one accomplishment which many of them labour to possess, namely, the art of conversation. They read a great deal, in order to acquaint themselves with general knowledge, that they may be able to bear a part in social converse. This is worthy the attention of some of their sisters at home# But then, too frequently, they have no Christian ad- vice or example given them ; so that when the}' are on a sick bed, they have no comfort, and often die without hope ! This is a sorrowful picture. No attention is paid to the Sabbath in any part of India, but in Calcutta. The French honour their tenth day, more than we do our seventh. Whether I shall be useful in setting a good example, I know not. I may plant, and [ 267 ] another may water, but God alone givetli the increase. How is Mrs. Does your mutual affection still subsist ? If you are both good, it will. And now what more shall I say P Shall I give you a picture of the scene around me? I am situated on the banks of the Ganges. The country is champaign, but covered with trees ; the most numerous are cocoa nut, plantain, mango, and banian trees. (Pray learn all about them.) The river is covered with boats, passing andrepassing. Thereare two Elephants amusing themselves at the water side. One of them is eating plantain leaves, which are his ordinary food ; he takes hold of the leaves with his trunk, and puts them into his mouth. The other is washing himself: he fills his trunk with water, and then throws it around him, so that he is covered with the spray. A little boy is now going to mount one of them, in order to lead them home; as he is not very heavy, he sits upon the point of the trunk, and thus the Elephant lifts him on his back. An elephant has no bridle. H ow, then, is he directed? The boy has a rod of iron, sharp at one end, and with this he pricks his head when he goes wrong. When the Elephant wishes to set down the ladies, who frequently ride upon him, he falls [ 268 ] upon his knees ; and when they have dismounted, he rises. He is altogether a wonderful animal. Next come a few Asses. I need not give you a description of them, but I must of the Camel that accompanies them : he carries an immense weight : he is nearly as high as the Elephant, and has a long neck, by means of which he can bring his head to most parts of his body. On the other side of the river I see a flock of Vultures; they are hovering over a dead body, which is floating down the stream. Many of the Hindoos cast their dead into the Ganges, that they may be conveyed to Paradise ! About a mile up the river, a funeral pile is just lighted. It is now near evening, when this rite is usually performed. The relatives accompany the corpse to the water side, where a pile of dry wood is raised about the body, and the nearest relative applies the torch. The jackals, allured by the smell, will presently come down from’the woods, and prowl about. They live on carrion of all kinds, and are generally inoffensive. I write this in the viranda of my house; that is to say, under the shade of a projecting roof. A Farria dog craves an alms of me. These dogs are like your dogs, but they have no masters. They are perfectly at large, and lie commonly in the woods, or near some house where they are encouraged. They are perfectly [ 269 ] harmless, and are very useful in eating offal and carrion, which, in a hot country, would soon produce infection. The air is frequently thronged with kites, hawks, and crows, who are looking for snakes, and other noxious creatures; and they are so successful in their search, that we are seldom annoyed by these animals. So attentive is Providence to the comfort of man ! A woman burnt herself with her dead husband, about three days ago, a few miles up the river. This happens very frequently : and yet you European ladies think it great matter to make a voyage for a husband ! My servants bring me a glass of wine and water. Two are concerned in this operation : one of them will not touch the glass, though he w r ill pour the wine into it ! So strange are the superstitions of these people. Another will wipe my shoes, but he will not wash my feet. A third will bathe me, but he will not fan me. You see. Miss E., what strange things we travellers behold. Have I told you all ? or shall I mention a North-Wester? This is a violent tornado from north-west, which makes a regular and magni- ficent progress through the heavens. Violent wind, thunder, and lightning, roll on in a kind of collected body. This short-lived tempest is very awful and very grand. It is always a C 270 3 welcome visitor ; for it cools the heated air, and refreshes all nature around. I am now so familiarized to violent thunder,, that I scarcely ever notice it, except when I go out purposely to contemplate the grandeur of a North-Wester. LETTER LXV. To T. E. sen. Esq.~ a * * * I Began the enclosed at Calcutta, but 1 finished it at Barrackpore. I have not been a day ill, since I left your fire- side; so kind is that Almighty companion, who takes care of me wherever I go. When I am tired, He gives me repose 3 when I am thirsty, He gives me drink ; when his sun is too hot for me, He gives me shade. Great happiness awaits me on earth, as well as in heaven, if I keep my heart right before Him. Be that your study too, my dear Sir ; there is no comfort without it.* * * LETTER LXVI. To Mrs. E. MY DEAR MADAM, * * * In every place I have met with some of the “ excellent in the earth.” Men t 271 ] and women, rich and poor, young and old. And they all have had the same truths to tell me, the same Christ to love, the same Bible to read. And they alone have been the happy , among all that I have seen. I thought it would be so, when I was in England ; but now I know it. Farewell, therefore, my dear Madam; and may you, and all your family, both know and possess the things that contribute to happiness here, and to bliss hereafter. To all my Friends . MY dear friends, there are twenty pages for you from a foreign land. I may yet see some of you ; I shall certainly hear of you ; and I hope to hear of your happiness, health, and peace. If I could confer a blessing, I would gladly bestow it on you all ; but since I cannot, I shall pray that God will ; and I remain your very faithful and affectionate, CLAUDE BUCHANAN. Barrackpore , July 5 9 1797, i 3/2 3 Mons. VOLTAIRE, And GEORGE LORD LYTTLETON. Character of Voltaire , hy Frederick 2d< King of Prussia - M. Voltaire is below the stature of tall menj or in other words, a little above those of a middling size; be is extremely thin, arid of an adust temperament, hot and atrabilious ; his visage is meagre, his aspect ardent and penetrating, and there is a malignant quick- ness in his eye. The same fire that animates his works, appears in his actions, which are lively, even to absurdity. He is a kind of meteor, perpetually coming and going, with a quick motion, arid sparkling light that dazzles our eyes. A Man thus constituted cannot fail of being a valetudinarian. “ The blade cuts away the scabbard.” Gay by complexion; grave by regimen; open, without frankness; polite, without refinement; sociable, without friends. He knows the world, arid he forgets it. In the morning he is Aristippus, and Diogenes at night. He loves grandeur, and despises the great ; with his supe- riors his carriage is easy, but with his equals, constrained; he is first polite, then cold, then disgusting. He loves the Court, yet makes himself weary of it; he has sensibility, without connections ; and is voluptuous, without passion. He is attached to nothing by choice, [ 273 3 but to every thing by inconstancy. As he reasons without principle, his reason has its fits, like the folly of others. He has a clear head, and a corrupt heart ; he thinks of every thing, and treats every thing, with derision. He is a libertine, without a constitution for pleasure; and he knows how to moralize, without mo- rality. His vanity is excessive; but his avarice is still greater than his vanity : he therefore writes less for reputation than money, for which he may be said both to hunger and thirst. He is in haste to work, that he may be in haste to live : he was made to enjoy, and he determines only to hoard. Such is the man, and such is the author. “ There is no other poet ill the world, whose versed cost him so little labour ; but this facility of compo- sition hurts him, because he abuses it : as there is but little for labour to supply, he is content that little should be wanted ; and, therefore, almost all his pieces are unfinished. But although he is an easy, an in- genious, and an elegant writer of poetry ; yet his prin- cipal excellence w’ould be history, if he made fewer reflections, and drew no parallels ; in both of which, however, he has sometimes been very happy. In his last work he has imitated the manner of Bayle; of whom, even in his censures of him, he has exhibited a copy. It has been long said, that for a writer to be without passion and without prejudice, he must hav& neither religion nor country ; and, in this respect, M. Voltaire has made great advances towards perfection. He cannot be accused of being a partizan to his nation ; he appears, on the contrary, to be affe&ed with a species of madness, somewhat like that of old men, who are always extolling the time past* and bitterly complaining of the present. Voltaire is always dis- satisfied with his own country, and lavish in his praise T [ 274 ] of those that are a thousand leagues off. As to religion , he is in that respect evidently undetermined; and he would certainly be the neutral and partial being, so much desired for an author, but for a little leaven of Anti-Jansenism, which appears somewhat too plainly distinguished in his works. Voltaire has much foreign, and much French, literature ; nor is he deficient in that mixed erudition, which is now so much in fashion. He is a politician, a naturalist, a geometrician, or whatever else he pleases ; but he is always superficial, because he is not able to be deep. He could not, how- ever, flourish, as he does upon those subjects, without great ingenuity. His taste is rather delicate than just; he is an ingenious satyrist, a bad critic, and a dabbler in the abstracted sciences. Imagination is his ele- ment; yet, strange as it is, he has no invention. He is reproached with continually passing from one ex- treme to another ; now a philanthropist, then a cynic ; now an excessive encomiast, then an outrageous satyrist. In one word, Voltaire would fain be an extraordinary man, and an extraordinary man he most certainly is.” GEORGE LORD LYTTLETON. A singular contrast to Voltaire, in mind, intellect, sen- timent, and general character, is presented in George Lord Lyttleton, u the noble author” to whom the irri- able Frenchman addressed the letter immediately follow- ing. Of solid understanding, discriminating judgment, and well-digested erudition, his Lordship possessed qua- lities of the head } which the greatest admirers of his correspondent (if their admiration do not absorb their impartiality) must admit, that their favourite did not possess: and in every estimable quality of the heart , pure benevolence, disinterested affection, steady principles, L 275 ] and an inflexible devotion to truth, no approach to a parallel with his Lordship can be found in the cha- racter of Voltaire. The literary works, also, of the two authors, are of entirely opposite complexions : in Voltaire, all is splendid tinsel, and false glitter, covering vain sophistry, false reasoning, and perverted sentiment. In the prose compositions of his Lordship, we find elegant, but manly, diction ; sterling sense ; powerful argument; sound logic; and admirable precepts. These excellencies more especially shine forth in his “ Ob- t( servations on the Conversion of St. Paul “ a “ treatise, to which” (as Johnson observes) whimsical, and perhaps you will laugh at me. J should like, however, to know [ 294 ] what remarks you made upon these two pieces. That of the Magdalene is valued at £1600; and so is its companion, the Virgin with the child in her lap, and a number of boy angels, like little cupids, dancing before them. This, if you remem- ber, is very much in Reubens’ manner, though it is done by Vandyke. The boys are lovely, perfect nature, and more delicate nature than Reubens generally chooses. The principal angel, who addresses himself to the infant Christ, is a charming little animated figure ; his little arms are extended, and you could imagine him singing, “ Glory be to God on high,” &c. The Virgin is the worst part of the picture; her countenance is heavy and disagreeable : the printed catalogue says, by way of apology, that it seems to have been a portrait. Before I leave the pictures in the saloon, I must take notice of St. Francis, with the Infant Jesus in his arms. There is grace, delicacy, taste, and expression ; every thing that can make a picture perfect. The head of the Saint is much like the head of one of the doctors of the church, in the great picture; and the child, I think, is like that in the Holy Family (octagon shape) that I mentioned before. I am told the design is taken from a statue of a Silenus, with a young Bacchus in his arms, that is at Rome. [ 295 ] Wherever the idea comes from, it is charmingly executed. I don’t know who the pictures were valued by. Monsieur Poushkin told me he did not know himself; but that he took them according to the valuation given by Lord Orford. He told me the prices of most of them, and the rest I got from some other gentlemen in that country ; but I apprehend they were many of them very ignorantly valued, and I fancy you will think this St. Francis one instance of it. This picture went for £150 ; while a picture, in a circular shape, by Cantasini, which hung next to it, and which certainly is a much inferior picture, though it may be a few inches larger in size, went for £300. And there was a Holy Family in the same room, by Andrea de Obarte, which was valued at £250. It may be a very good picture, for any thing I know ; but the manner is hard, and the composition crowded; so that I have no idea how it can be of superior , or even of equal value to such a work of Guido’s. There was likewise another work of Guido’s, that hung in the Carlo Marat room, — a sweet profile of a St. Catherine, — that was valued at no more than £20. How I longed to have bought that fo r myself! The Carlo Marat room gave me but little pleasure, in comparison of the rest of the col- [ 296 ] lection ; and I think I remember to have heard you say the same. Among the works of the first and greatest masters, Carlo Marat holds but an inferior place ; and though many of his compos sitions are exceedingly pretty , you can seldom call any of them very fine. But when I say this, I must except the portrait of Clement IX. which hangs over the chimney in that room, and which seems to me to be the finest portrait that ever was painted by the hand of any master whatever, I looked at it, till I thought I grew acquainted with the man. It is vastly unlike any other picture that I ever saw by Carlo Marat. There are but two performances by Raphael in this collection. One is a small picture of the Ijast Supper, but it is not in Raphael’s best manner ; the figures seem rather too short, and with large heads; and there is something formal in the manner of disposing of them ; particularly in the Christ, who looks straight forward with a full face, and, I think, no great degree of expression; however, there is a very fine ex- pression and character in some of the other heads. The other work of Raphael’s is only a head, cut out of sonje cartoon. I am told, that it is supposed to be cqt put of some cartoon (that is now lost) of the Resurrection ; but of which there is some print, or drawing, or description extant ; and that this head is one of the guards, who looks up [ 297 ] jn terror, upon seeing Christ rise out of the tomb. The expression of the features answers well to this account; and it is an exceeding!) fine, spirited sketch. I will not add to the length of this, already long, letter, otherwise than to assure you of the sincere and affectionate regard of your’s faith- fully, *# *■ LETTER LXX. From Dr, Geass to **** DEAR ****, THIS, perhaps, is the last opportunity which I shall ever have of addressing myself to you. You are going into a far country; it can- not be long w before I go hence, and be seen no r< more.” Remember always,” my young friend, that the sort of life in which you are now en- gaging is your own choice ; and if it should prove less commodious and agreeable than you expected when that choice was made, you will have no one to blame. You never could suppose that a seaman’s hammock was a bed of down, or that a conflict with winds and waves was a game at play. But, thanks be to God, you have been taught how to conduct yourself in [ 298 1 every situation of life : the great matter now will be, to practise what you know to be your duty ; you know whither to direct your prayers, your trust and confidence, ii> the midst of dangers. It is true that you will be often out of the reach of spiritual ordinances; you must make up for the want of them by private acts of piety and religious meditation. This letter will be accom- panied by a Bible and Prayer-book ; and by another book, not yet published, which I hope will be found to contain the whole duty of man. Never let a sabbath-day pass unregarded, where- ever you are; nor ever suffer yourself to be laughed out of it. Keep stedfast in your duty to God, and that will keep you faithful and trust-worthy in your duty to your employers,. Do every thing required of you with cheerful- ness, with diligence, and good-nature. In a moment of danger exert yourself with spirit, looking up to God, wdio knoweth us all to be set in the midst of dangers, and is able to help and deliver us, as seemeth best to his infinite wisdom. Remember, G — , that the only re- medy that you c^n apply to the almost broken heart of your poor mother will be, the intelli- gence that you are going on well in your new situation, keeping innocence, and always taking heed to the thing that is right; securing the friendship of those, who, if you conduct yourself [ 299 ] well, will always be ready to serve yon, and Join o- credit to the recommendation of your faithful friend and well-wisher, LETTER LXXI. From the Rev. Wm. Jones, of Nayland, to ***. MY DEAR FRIEND, THOUGH I am in a very low a,nd sorrowful state, from the pressure ot a trouble- some memory upon a broken heart, I am not insensible to the expressions of your kind con- solatory letter, for which I heartily thank you, and pray that the effect of it may continue with me. The prospect which has been before me for several weeks past, has kept my mind (too weak and soft on all tender occasions) under continual, and, as I feared, insupportable agita- tion, till, after a painful struggle, no relief could be found, but by bowing my head with silent submission to the will of God; which came to pass, but a few days before the fatal stroke. I have found it pleasant, in times past, to do the work of God, to demonstrate his wisdom, and to defend his truth, to the hazard of my quiet and reputation. But oh! my dear friend, I never knew till now what it was to suffer the [ 300 ] will of Gob ; although my life has not been very free from great trials and troubles. Neither was I sensible of Adam’s transgression, till it took effect upon the life of my blessed compa- nion , of whom neither I nor the world was worthy. If I could judge of this case as an indifferent person, I should see great reason to give thanks and glory to Gob for his mercies. We had every preparatory comfort, and death at last came in such a form as to seem disarmed of his sting. A Christian Clergyman, of this neighbourhood, administered the Communion to her, in her bedchamber, while she was well enough to kneel beside him ; and he declared to me afterwards, that he was charmed and edified by the sight : for that the peace of heaven was visible in her countenance ; I saw the same, and 1 would have given my life, if that look could have been taken and preserved ; it would have been a sermon to the rest of the world. On the last evening she sat with me in the par- lour, where I am now writing, and I read the lessons of the day to her, as usual, in which was this remarkable passage, “ And the time drew 46 nio'h that Israel must die.” Of this I felt © the effect, but made po remarks. On her las$ morning, we expected her below stairs ; but at eleven o’clock, as I was going out to church, to join with the congregation in prayer for her, an [ SOI J alarming drowsiness had seized upon her, and she seemed as a person literally falling asleep; till, at the point of noon, it appeared that she was gone ; but the article of her dying could not be distinguished, it was more like a translation. I have reason to remember, with great thank- fulness, that her life was preserved a year longer than I expected; in consequence of which, I had the blessing of her attendance to help and com- fort me, under a tedious illness of the last summer, under which I should probably have sunk, if she had been taken from me sooner. It so pleased God, that when she grew worse, I became better, and able to attend her with all the zeal the ten- derest affection could inspire. But how different were our services ! She, though with the weak- ness of a woman, and in her seventy -fifth year, had the fortitude of a man, l mean a Christian ; and all her conversation tended to lessen the evils of life, while it inspired hope and patience under them. The support which she adminis- tered was of such a sort, as might have been expected from an angel ; while I, when my time came, was too much overwhelmed with the affliction of a weak mortal. My loss compre- hends every thing that was most valuable to me upon earth. I hav6 lost the manager, whose vigilant attention to my worldly affairs, and exact method in ordering my family, preserved r 302 ] my mind at liberty to pursue my studies, without loss of time, or distraction of thought. I have lost my almoner, who knew and understood the wants of the poor better than I did, and was al- ways ready to supply them to the best of our ability. I have lost my counsellor, who generally knew what was best to be done in difficult cases, and to whom I always found it of some advan- tage to submit my compositions ; and whose mind, being little disturbed with passions, was always inclined to peaceable and Christian mea- sures. I have lost my example, who always ob- served a strict method of daily devotion, from which nothing could divert her; whose patience, under every kind of trial, seemed invincible. She was blest with the rare gift of an equal, cheerful temper, and preserved it nder a long course of ill health, I may say, for forty years. To have reached her age, would have been to her impossible, without that quiet humble spirit, which never admitted of murmuring or complain- ing, either in herself or others ; and patient, quiet sufferers, were the favourite objects of her private charities. It might be of use to some good Christian to know, that she had formed her mind after the rules of the excellent Bishop Taylor, in his ‘ Holy Living and Dying,’ an author, of whom she was a great admirer, in common with her [ 303 j dear friend Bishop Horne. I have lost my companion, whose conversation was sufficient of itself, if the world was absent; to the surprise of some of my neighbours, who remarked how much of our time we spent in solitude, and wondered what we could find to converse about. But her mind was so well furnished, and her objects so well selected, that there were few great subjects in which we had not a common interest. I have lost my best friend, who, regardless of herself, studied my ease and advantage in every thing. These things may be small to others, but they are great to me ; and though they are gone as a vision of the night, the memory of them will always be upon my mind, during the remainder of my journey, which I must now travel alone* " Nevertheless, if the word of God be my com- panion, and his Holy Spirit my guide, I need hot be solitary, till I shall once more meet my departed saint, never more to be separated; which God grant in his g*ood time, according to his word and promise in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. From your faithful and affectionate friend, WM. JONES. Printed by Richard Crutt we 11, St. James ’s-Strect, Bath. FINIS. Sptedilij will be published , by the same Edit of ^ In Two Vols. Duodecimo, Price 143 . in Board*, Ctterarp Crtfles; CJS SISTI^G OF ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM OLIVER CROMWELL, GENERAL FAIRFAX; GENERAL MONK, COUNT ALGAROTTI, FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ; REV. SAMUEL PEGGE, See. &c . 5 Biographical Sketches, Original Anecdotes , i&- flections on Authors , Poetical Effusions , fyc* * ' • .* - * hi * t*. * ' ■ * . V *V - ' '• - . ■ *■* , I * m t ' , . ;■ : V/ Made in Italy 06-08 MIN vww.coNbnsystem.com