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THE LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS 
 
EDINBURGH, 
 m R MMM@,HAY, it MITSMELL. 
 
THE 
 
 BRITISH LETTER WRITERS: 
 
 A COMPEEHENSIVE COLLECTION OF THE 
 BEST ENGLISH LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 COJIPRISING 
 
 LETTERS, FAMILIAE AND DOMESTIC, HISTOEICAL, POLITICAL, 
 LITERARY, AND DESCRIPTIVE. 
 
 COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY 
 
 THE EDITOR OF THE * ENGLISH ESSAYISTS, ' ' TllEASUllY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, ' 
 'treasury of BRITISH ELOQUEN'CE,' 'TREASURY" OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,' 
 'ENGLISH CIRCUMNAVIGATORS,' ETC. ETC. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM P. NIMMO 
 1 8 8 2. 
 
 & CO. 
 
MORRISON AN'D GIEB, EDIXBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 In adding a few prefatory sentences to the fifth volume which has passed from 
 the hand of the present compiler into the series in which this volume appears, it 
 may be sufficient to say, in the first place, that the idea of making a collection of the 
 best English letters is not a new one with him. Some years before the issue of Mr. 
 Scoone's admu^able Four Centuries of English Letters, to which we have been indebted, 
 the idea had taken shape which has only now been executed. The matter in this 
 volume will be found much greater in quantity, however, than in the work we have 
 mentioned. 
 
 The compiler has endeavoured to do his best with the materials under command. 
 Tor any modern names which do not appear, the fact that their works are copyright 
 must be held as a sufficient reason. All that the compiler claims to have done is 
 to have made a collection of English letters from the best sources at command. No 
 attempt has been made at the annotation of the letters beyond a brief explanatory 
 note at the beginning of those letters which seemed to require it. In some 
 cases an author's own words have been used as an explanatory note. The book is 
 arranged in two sections— (1) Familiar and Domestic ; (2) Historical, Literary, and 
 Descriptive Letters. Although this distinction has been preserved as closely as 
 possible, in many cases a letter may naturally fail as readily into one division as 
 another, and may have characteristics common to both. 
 
 Such a collection does not need an apology. As materials for biogi\aphy and history, 
 letters have always occupied a high and indispensable place. When good and 
 characteristic, as in the lives of Arnold, Dickens, Carlyle, Macaulay, or Kingsley, 
 they constitute the best key to the character of the subject of the memoir, and in all 
 probability lend the chief charm to the work for many a reader. For instance, we 
 see the real Charles Dickens shining less or more through every letter that he wrote. 
 The same is the case in Froude's Carhjle. Looked at as materials for history, letters 
 have always held an important place ; we liave a part of the Sacred Writings cast in 
 the form of letters ; many gems of literature thus exist in which pathos, humour, 
 fine feeling, and good criticism are freely displayed. The heart of a subject is some- 
 times laid bare in a familiar letter in a way in which we do not find it in the page 
 of sober history; we come, too, into close contact with the mind of the now 
 historical persons who penned them, and catch, as in a mirror, some of their faded 
 lineaments. Of course, just as we have tedious and tiresome people, we have 
 tedious, flippant, and tiresome letters, with small reason for historical existence ; but 
 these can be easily avoided. 
 
 It would take up too much space to mention all the works drawn upon. We have 
 already mentioned our indebtedness to Mr. Scoone's book ; in addition we might 
 mention : A Select Collection of Original Letters written by the most Eminent Persons, 
 2 vols. (Rivington, and E. & J. Dodsley, 1755), up till that time the best selection 
 published; also The Letters of Eminent Persons, selected and illustrated by R. A. 
 Willmott (1839), many of whose valuable and discriminating notes have been 
 adopted for this book. Acknowledgments are due to the following firms and 
 private individuals who have kindly granted the use of valuable letters .-—Messrs. 
 Longman & Co.; Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. ; Isbister & Co. ; Mr. Maclehose ; Bickers 
 & Son; T. C. Jack; the Proprietors of Dr. Livingstone's Life; Misses Dickens 
 and Hogarth ; the late Dr. Hanna ; Dr. Peter Bayne ; and Mrs. Bishop 
 (Isabella L. Bird). ^ 
 
 iii 
 
'Letters, such as are written from wise men, are of all tlie words of men in my judgment the hest. 
 
 —Lord Bacon. 
 
 TO THE KNOWING READER, TOUCHING FAMILIAR 
 LETTERS. 
 
 Love is the life of friendship. Letters are 
 The life of love, the loadstones that by rare 
 Attraction make souls meet, and melt, and mix, 
 As when by fire exalted gold we fix. 
 They are those winged postillions that can fly 
 From the Antarctic to the Arctic sky ; 
 The heralds and swift harbingers that move 
 From east to west on embassies of love. 
 They can the Tropics cut, and cross the Line, 
 And s^\'im from Ganges to tlie Rhone or Rhine ; 
 From Thames to Tagus, and hence to Tiber run, 
 And terminate their journey with the sun. 
 They can the cabinets of kings unscrue. 
 And hardest intricacies of state undue ; 
 They can the Tartar tell wliat the :Mogor 
 Or the great Tui-k doth on the Asian shore. 
 The Knez of them may know what Prester John 
 Doth with his camels in the Torrid Zone : 
 Which made the Indian Incas think they were 
 Spirits who in white sheets the air did tear. 
 The lucky goose saved Jove's beleaguered hill, 
 Once by her noise, but oftener by her quill ; 
 It twice prevented Rome, was not o'er-run, 
 By the tough Vandal and the rough-hewn Hun, 
 Letters can plot though moulded underground, 
 Disclose, and their fell 'complices confound. 
 Witness that fiery pile which would have blown 
 Up to the clouds iirince, people, peers, and town. 
 Tribunals, church and chapel, and had dried 
 Tlie Thames, though swelling in her highest pride. 
 And parboil'd the poor fish, which from her sands 
 Had been tossed up to the adjoining lands. 
 Lawyers as vultures had soared up and down. 
 Prelates like magpies in the air had flown. 
 Had not the eagle's letter brought to light 
 That subterranean, horrid work of night. 
 Credential letters states and kingdoms tie. 
 And monarchs knit in leagues of amity ; 
 They are those golden links that do enchain 
 Whole nations, those descended by the main ; 
 They are the soul of trade, they make commerce 
 Expand itself throughout the universe. 
 Letters may more than history enclose — 
 
 The choicest learning both in verse and prose ; 
 They knowledge can and to our souls display 
 By a more gentle and familiar way. 
 The highest points of state and policy. 
 The most severe parts of philosophy, 
 May be their subject, and their themes enrich 
 As well as private businesses in which 
 Friends use to correspond and kindred greet, 
 ]\Iercliants negotiate, the whole world meet. 
 In Seneca's rich letters arc enshrined 
 Whate'er the ancient sages left behind. 
 Tully makes his the secret symptoms tell 
 Of those distempers which proud Rome befell, 
 When in her highest flourish she would make 
 Her tribes from the ocean homage take. 
 Great Antonius the emperor did gain 
 More glory by his letters than his reign ; 
 His pen outlasts his pike, each golden line 
 In his epistles doth his name enshrine. 
 Aurelius by his letters did the same, 
 And they in chief immortalize his fame. 
 Words vanish soon and vapour into air. 
 While letters and records stand fresh and fair, 
 And tell our nephews who to us were dear. 
 Who our choice friends, who our familiars were. 
 The bashful lover, when his stammering lips 
 Falter, and fear some unadvised slips. 
 May boldly court his mistress with the quill, 
 And his hot passions to her breast instil. 
 The pen can furrow a fond female heart. 
 And pierce it more than Cupid's feigned dart. 
 Letters a kind of magic \irtue have. 
 And like strong philtres human souls enslave. 
 Speech is the index, letters ideas are 
 Of the informing soul they can declare. 
 And show the inward man as we behold 
 A face reflecting in a crystal mould. 
 They serve the dead and living, they become 
 Attorneys and administers. In sum. 
 Letters, like Gordian knot, do nations tie. 
 Else all commerce and love 'twixt men would die. 
 [James Howell, prefatory to his Epistolce Ilo-eliance, 
 Familiar Letters, Domestic and Forren. 1645.] 
 
 iv 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ■0 
 
 FAMILIAR AND DOMESTIC LETTERS. 
 
 Agnes Paston to her son, . 
 Edmund Clere to John Paston, . 
 Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, 
 Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII., 
 Sir Thomas More to liis wife, 
 Lady More to Mr. Secretary Cromwell, 
 Sir Thomas "Wyatt to his son, 
 Roger Aschani to his wife, . 
 Sii- Henry Sydney to his son. 
 Sir Philip Sydney to Queen Elizabeth, 
 Queen Elizabeth to James VI. of Scotland 
 Robert Devcreux to Queen Elizabeth, 
 Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers, 
 ,, ,, Sir Edward Coke, 
 
 „ ,, ,, Sir Thomas Bodley, 
 Sir Walter Raleigh to his wife, . 
 
 Dr. Donne to Sir Henry Goodere, 
 
 Sir John Suckling to a nobleman, 
 James Howell to Mr. J. Wilson, . 
 „ „ „ Lord Clifford, . 
 
 „ „ Mr. E. P , . 
 
 „ „ Sir J. S , . 
 
 Robert Herrick to his uncle, 
 Bishop Hall to Lord Denny, 
 John Milton to a friend, 
 
 James I. to Prince Charles and the Duke of 
 
 Buckingham, .... 
 Sir John Eliot to John Hampden, 
 Hon. Algernon Sidney to his friends, 
 Charles I. to Earl of Strafford, . 
 Earl of Strafford to his son, 
 Oliver Cromwell to his son, 
 
 ,, „ ,, Colonel Hacker, . 
 Lady Mary Cromwell to Henry Cromwell 
 Mr. Waller to Lady Lucy, . 
 Sir Matthew Hale to his children, 
 Earl of Rochester to the Hon. Henry Saville, 
 George Villiers to the Duke of Shrewsbury, 
 
 Cowley to Mr. S. L 
 
 Richard Baxter to the Rev. Ricliard Allestree, 
 Mrs. Penruddock to her husband, 
 Mr. Penruddock to his wife, 
 ^Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, to her husband 
 Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn, . 
 Mr. Evelyn to ^Mr. Pepys, .... 
 Mr. Pepys to Mr. Evelyn, .... 
 
 „ Lady Carteret, 
 Dr. Tillotson to the Earl of Shrewsbury, . 
 Edward Hyde to the Duke of York, . 
 Earl of Clarendon to the Duchess of York, 
 Duchess of York to the Earl of Clarendon, 
 Sir William Temple to Dame Augustine Gary, 
 
 „ ,, ,, Sir John Temple, . 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne to a friend, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 2, 3 
 3 
 4 
 
 5, 6 
 8 
 S 
 9 
 14 
 14 
 15 
 15, 16 
 19 
 19 
 20, 21 
 21 
 22 
 22 
 23 
 23 
 24 
 24 
 26 
 
 27 
 
 28 
 28 
 30 
 30 
 31 
 31 
 32 
 32 
 33 
 
 35, 36 
 36^ 
 39. 
 40 
 42 
 42 
 
 , 43 
 44 
 
 45, 46 
 46 
 47 
 48 
 49 
 49 
 51 
 53 
 53 
 56 
 
 Lady Russell to the Bishop of Salisbury, 
 ,, „ ,, Lord Russell, . 
 „ ,, King Charles II., 
 Bishop Burnet to Lady Russell, . 
 John Dryden to J ohn Dennis, . 
 Queen Mary to Princess Anne, . 
 Princess Anne to Queen Mary, . 
 Queen Mary to Princess Anne, . 
 Mr. Locke to the Rev. Mr. King, 
 
 Mr. in London to his friend at Exet^ 
 
 Tom Browne to a lady, 
 •J Daniel Defoe to his son-in-law, . 
 
 „ „ the Earl of Halifax, . 
 
 J Swift to Gay, 
 
 ,, ,, Lord Bolinguroke, 
 Lord Bolingbroke to Swift, 
 \Richard Steele to Mary Scurlock, 
 ,, „ his wife, . 
 ,, „ „ Pope, 
 
 Dr. William King to Mr. , . 
 
 Joseph Addison to Mr. Congreve, 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Chamberlain Dashwood 
 Dean Berkeley to Pope, 
 \^ Pope to Wycherley, .... 
 
 „ ,, Steele, 
 
 ,, ,, a friend, .... 
 
 „ „ Swift, 
 
 „ ,, Steele, 
 
 ,, ,, Mrs. Arabella Fermor, . 
 ,, ,, the poet Gay, .... 
 Samuel Richardson to Miss Mulso, . 
 
 )> ), Aaron Hill, 
 
 ^ Lady Mary Wortley Montague to E, 
 Montague, 
 
 jj >, ,, ,, the Countess of Mar 
 
 >> )) >) Mr. Pope, . 
 
 >) ), ,, the Princess of Wale 
 
 J) >) !j ,, the Abbot - 
 
 Earl of Chesterfield to his son, 
 
 105, 106, 107, 108, 11 
 The poet Thomson to Mr. Paterson, 
 Henry Fielding to the True, Patriot, . 
 
 >> 5, ,, Hon. George Lyttleton 
 Earl of Chatham to Thomas Pitt, 
 William Pitt to his wife, .... 
 
 Johnson to Boswell, 
 
 „ „ Mrs. Thrale, .... 
 ,, ^Ivs. Lucy Porter, 
 ,, ,, Captain Langton, 
 
 Sterne to Garrick, 
 
 Ignatius Sanclio to Mr. Sterne, , 
 Sterne to Ignatius Sancho, .... 
 William Slienstone to Richard Jago, . 
 .JMr. Gray to Mr. Walpole, .... 
 
 V 
 
 W 
 
 PAGE 
 62 
 
 62 
 63 
 63 
 64 
 
 65 
 66 
 66 
 
 67, 68 
 69 
 71 
 72 
 73 
 73 
 74 
 
 76, 77 
 78 
 
 79, 80 
 SO 
 81 
 
 87 
 88 
 
 89 
 90 
 98 
 94 
 94 
 94 
 95 
 96 
 
 97 
 
 98, 99 
 100 
 
 , 102 
 103 
 
 111 
 
 112 
 113 
 115 
 116 
 117 
 118 
 119 
 120 
 120 
 121 
 121 
 122 
 122 
 123 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason, 124 
 
 „ „ „ Dr. Wharton, 125 
 
 „ ,, „ Mr. Nicholls, 127 
 
 Hon. Horace Walpole to Mr. Gray, . . 129, 130 
 
 ,, the Earl of Strallord, . 131 
 ,, Sir Horace Mann, 
 
 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 140 
 ,, George Montagu, 
 
 142, 143, 144 
 
 Gilbert White to Hester Chaponc, . . .144 
 Mrs. Montagu to the Duchess of Portland, . 146 
 „ „ ,, Gilbert West, . . . 146,147 
 
 Sir J oshua Reynolds to Mr. Bart-y, . . . 148 
 Oliver Goldsmith to Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, . 149 
 ,, ,, ,, Robert Bryanton, Esq., . 150 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Rev. Thomas Contarine, . 151 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Rev. Henry Goldsmith, . 153 
 
 „ ,, ,, Sir Joshua Reynolds, . 154 
 
 ,, ,, ,, David Garrick, Esq., . 155 
 
 ,, Mr. Griffith, . . .156 
 ,, ,, ,, Maurice Goldsmith, . . 156 
 
 Edmund Burke to the painter Barry, . . 157 
 William Cowper to Lady Hesketli, . . 158,159 
 „ ,, ,, Rev. William TJnv.in, 
 
 100, 161, 102 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Rev. John Newton, . . 162 
 
 Gibbon to Mrs. Porter, 164 
 
 ,, ,, Mrs. Gibbon, 165 
 
 ,, Jjady Sheffield, 166 
 
 ,, Lord Sheffield, 169 
 
 Dr. William Robertson to Mr. Gibbon, . . 170 
 James Boswell to David Garrick, . . .171 
 Hannah More to Mrs. Gwatkin, .... 171 
 Miss Sally More to the family at home, . . 173 
 
 Hannah More to her sister, 174 
 
 ,, )) Zachary Macaulay, . . , 175 
 
 Miss F. Burney to Mr. Crisp, . . . .175 
 
 Crabbe to Burke, 178 
 
 ,, ,, Lord Shelburne, 179 
 
 Sir Walter Scott to Crabbe ISO 
 
 Crabbe to Scott, 181 
 
 Thomas Moore to John Murray, . . . .182 
 John Gibson Lockliart to the Rev. George 
 
 Crabbe, 184 
 
 Nessy Hey wood to her brother, . . . .186 
 Sir William Jones to the Countess of Spencer, . ISS 
 Lord Collingwood to his daughter, . . . 189 
 ,, ,, ,, Lady Collingwood, . . 190 
 
 Charles James Fox to Gilbert Wakefield, . . 101 
 ,, ,, Mr. Gray, . . .192 
 Countess of Hertford to Lady Lnxliorough, . 193 
 
 Mrs. Inchbald to Mrs. Phillips 194 
 
 Lord Exmouth to his brotlier, .... 194 
 William GodAvin to Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin, 195 
 The poet Burns to his father, . . . .197 
 „ ,, ,, Mrs. Dunlop,. . . .198 
 ,, ,, ,, Fi-ancis Grose, . . . 198 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. John Murdoch, . . 200 
 
 „ „ Mr. James Smith, . . .201 
 
 ,, ,, „ Mr. Peter Hill, . . .201 
 ,, ,, „ Mr. Graham, .... 202 
 ,, ,, G. Thomson, .... 202 
 
 G. Thomson to Burns, 202 
 
 Mrs. M'Lehose to Burns, 203 
 
 Robert Burns to Clarinda 204 
 
 AVilliam Wilberforce to his sister, . . . 205 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald to his mother, , . 206 
 Sir James Mackintosh to Robert Hall, . . 208 
 
 PAGE 
 
 J. P. Curran, Esq., letter written on his arrival 
 
 in Scotland, 209 
 
 Sir John Dalrymple to Admiral Dalrymple, , 211 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple to Sir Laurence Dundas, . 212 
 Mr. Dishington to Sir John Sinclair, . . .213 
 The Hon. Andrew Erskine to James Boswell, 
 
 Esq., 213, 215 
 
 William Cobbett to his son, .... 217 
 Mrs. Cockbixrn to Dr. Douglas, .... 218 
 Miss Carpenter to Walter Scott, . . 219, 220, 221 
 Mr. Scott to Miss Joanna Baillie, . . .221 
 
 ,, „ Mr. Terry, 223 
 
 ,, his son Walter, .... 225 
 
 ,, „ Joanna Baillie, . . . .226 
 „ ,, Miss Edge worth, .... 227 
 
 „ Mr. Morritt, 223 
 
 ,, ,, Lockhart, 230 
 
 James Hogg to his brother, .... 231 
 ,, ,, Professor John Wilson, . . 231 
 
 Lord Jeffrey to Miss Crockett, .... 232 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. R. Morehead, . . .232 
 ,, ,, ,, a grandchild, .... 233 
 Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, . . . 234 
 
 Lamb to Coleridge, 234, 235 
 
 ,, ,, Mr. Soiithey, 237 
 
 ,, ,, Mr. Wordsworth, 238 
 
 ,, Mr. Manning, .... 238, 239 
 
 ,, ,, Mr. Wordsworth, 240 
 
 ,, ,, Mr. Manning, 240 
 
 ,, ,, Coleridge, 241 
 
 ,, ,, Bernard Barton, 242 
 
 ,, ,, Wordsworth, 243 
 
 John Leyden's arrival at Jladras, . . . 245 
 John Leyden to Mr. Constable, .... 240 
 ,, „ „ Mr. Ballantyno, . . .247 
 „ ,, „ his father, . . . ., 250 
 John Wilson to James Hogg, .... 251 
 „ ,, „ his wife, .... 252, 253 
 Henry Kirke White to his brother, . . . 254 
 
 „ „ Mr. R A , . . 255 
 
 „ „ Mr. B. Maddock, . . 256 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Mr. JohnCharlesworth,. 257 
 Lord Byron to Sir Walter Scott, . . . .258 
 ,, ,, ,, Thomas Moore, .... 259 
 George Peabody to the Queen, .... 260 
 Thomas Carlyle to Thomas Erskine, . . 261, 262 
 „ „ ,, James Dodds, . . .262 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. John Aitken, . . . 263 
 
 Jane Welsh Carlyle to Sir George Sinclair, . 264 
 Thomas Erskine to Miss Wedgwood, . . . 264 
 ,, ,, ,, Bishop Ewing, . , . 265 
 
 ,, „ „ Mrs. Batten, . . .266 
 
 Sara Coleridge to Miss E. Trevenen, . . . 268 
 
 Macaulay to Ellis, 270 
 
 ,, ,, Hannah More Macaulay, . . 271 
 Hugh Miller to Miss Fraser, .... 273 
 ,, ,, ,, Mrs. Fraser, .... 274 
 „ ,, ,, ]\Ir. Smith, Forres, . . .275 
 W, M. Thackeray to the Hon. W. B. Reed, . 277 
 
 „ to , 278 
 
 Charles Dickens to Cattermole, .... 279 
 „ „ ,, Clarkson Stanfield, . . 279 
 ,, ,, ,, Mark Lemon, . . . 279 
 Norman Maclcod to Sir J. Campbell, . . . 280 
 „ „ „ A. Strahan, . . . .281 
 Dr. Livingstone to his daughter, . . 282, 283 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. James Gordon Bennett, 284 
 Thomas Davidson to , .... 285, 286 
 
CONTENTS. V!i 
 
 HISTORICAL, LITERAEY, AND DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS. 
 
 Sir Francis Drake to Lord "Walsingham, , 
 Dr. Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham, 
 Lord Chancellor Egerton to the Earl of Ess 
 Earl of Essex to Lord Chancellor Egerton, 
 Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, 
 Sir Walter Raleigh to James I., . 
 
 ,, ,, Sir Robert Car, 
 
 „ ,, „ Prince Henrj-, . 
 
 Lord Bacon to James I., . 
 
 isir Henry Wotton to Sir Edmund Bacon, 297, 298, 299 
 
 „ „ „ ,, Lord Bacon, 
 
 Ben Jonson to the two Universities, . 
 
 Lord Wentworth to Ai'chbishop Laud, 
 
 „ the Earl of Portland, . 
 
 Ai-chbishop Laud to Lord "Wentworth, 
 
 King Charles I. to Lord Wentworth, . 
 
 Lord Wentworth to Archbishop Laud, 
 ,, ,, ,, King Charles I., . 
 
 Charles I, to Lord Wentwortli, . 
 
 Lord Wentworth to Charles I., . 
 
 Sir Thomas Roe to Secretary Calvert, 
 
 James Howell to Sir S. C , . 
 
 ,, Lady M. Gary, 
 
 „ „ Right Hon. Lady Scroop, 
 
 Fleet, 
 
 General Mountagu to Secretary Thurloo, 
 Oliver Cromwell to Lockhart, . 
 Henry Cromwell to Oliver Cromwell, 
 ,, ,, Lord Fauconberg, 
 ,, ,, ,, Secretary Thurloe, 
 Secretary Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, 
 Heiuy Cromwell to Richard Cromwell, 
 John BarA\ick to Charles II., 
 Henry CromweU to Fleetwood, . 
 James Earl of Derby to General Ireton, 
 Charles II. to the Duke of York, 
 Sir William Temple to Sir John Temple, 
 Lord Lisle to Sir William Temple, 
 The Earl of Rochester to the Honourable Henry 
 
 Saville, 
 
 Sir George Etheredge to the Duke of Buckin 
 
 liam, 
 
 From a gentleman who attended the Duke 
 
 Wharton abroad, 
 
 3Ir. Pilkington to Dr. Delany, , 
 
 Evelyn to Wotton, 
 
 Earl of Bristol to Cliarles II., . 
 Sir Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley, 
 Admiral Herbert to the Commanders of the 
 
 Fleet, 
 
 Wycherley to Dennis, 
 
 Dennis to Wycherley, 
 
 Wycherley to Dennis, 
 
 Queen Anne to the Duke of Marlborough, 
 Duke of Marlborough to Queen Anne, 
 Lord Treasurer Godolphin to Queen Anne, 
 Duke of Marlborough to Queen Anne, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OQC! 
 
 
 289 
 
 X, . 
 
 2S9 
 
 
 290 
 
 
 292 
 
 
 293 
 
 
 294 
 
 
 294 
 
 295, 
 
 297 
 
 7, 298, 
 
 299 
 
 
 301 
 
 
 302 
 
 
 304 
 
 
 306 
 307 
 
 
 309 
 
 
 309 
 
 
 309 
 
 
 310 
 
 
 310 
 
 311, 
 
 312 
 
 
 314 
 
 
 315 
 
 
 315 
 
 the 
 
 
 
 317 
 
 
 317 
 
 
 318 
 
 
 319 
 
 
 320 
 
 
 321 
 
 322 
 
 323 
 
 
 323 
 
 
 324 
 
 
 324 
 
 
 325 
 
 
 326 
 
 326 
 
 330 
 
 332 
 
 337 
 340 
 342 
 343 
 
 344 
 
 345 
 345 
 346 
 347 
 347 
 348 
 348 
 
 PAGK 
 
 ]\Iatthew Prior to Swift, 349 
 
 William Congreve to Dennis, .... 349 
 
 Mr. to Congreve, 353 
 
 Congreve's answer, 353 
 
 John Dennis to Congreve, 354 
 
 Gay to , . . 355 
 
 Warburton to Hurd, 356 
 
 Mrs. Delany to the Hon. Mrs. Hamilton, 
 
 358, 359, 361, 362, 363 
 Captain Edward Burt to a friend, 364, 367, 371, 373, 378 
 
 Melmoth to a friend, 383 
 
 David Hume to Dr. Blair, 384 
 
 Gray to Wharton, 385,387 
 
 Gilbert White to Thomas Pennant, 395, 396, 397, 398 
 ,, ,, the Hon. Daines Barrington, 
 
 399, 400, 401, 404, 405 
 John Wilkes to Lords Egremont and Halifax, . 406 
 Junius to the Duke of Bedford, .... 407 
 Edmund Burke to Robertson, .... 410 
 ,, ,, ,, a member of the National 
 
 Assembly, 411 
 
 Beattie to the Hon. Charles Boyd, . . .428 
 Captain Walton to Sir George Byng, . . . 429 
 William Creech to Sir John Sinclair, . . 430, 438 
 Robert Burns to William Creech, Edinburgh, . 442 
 
 Miss Seward to Scott, 443, 445 
 
 „ Wm. Hayley, .... 447 
 
 Dr. Parr to Moore, 450 
 
 William Strahan to David Hume, .' . . 452 
 Mr. W. Bowyer to Dr. Warburton, . . . 453 
 William Cowper to Lady Hesketh, . . . 454 
 ,, ,, John Johnston, . . . 455 
 
 „ ,, „ the Rev. William Unwin, 455,456 
 
 Horatio Nelson to Mrs. Nelson, .... 456 
 'Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to 
 
 Admiral Sir John Jervis, K.B., . .• . 457 
 
 Nelson to Lady Nelson, 457 
 
 Beckford to , 458 
 
 R. Hall to Mr. H. Fysli, 460 
 
 The Duke of Wellington to Lieutenant-Colonel 
 
 Close,' . . .461 
 ,, ,, ,, Lady Sarah Napier, 461 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lord Somers, . . 462 
 
 ,, Samuel Whitbread, 462 
 
 ,, a correspondent, . 462 
 
 „ Lord Beresford, . 463 
 
 Wordsworth to Scott, 464 
 
 Sir Walter Scott to Mr. J. Ballantyne, Kdso 
 
 Mail Office, Kelso, 465 
 
 Geo. Canning to Scott, 465 
 
 Adam Ferguson to Walter Scott, Esq., . . 466 
 Scott to John Ballantyne, ..... 468 
 
 ,, ,, James Ballantyne, 469 
 
 „ J. B. S. MoiTitt, . . . 469,470,471 
 ,, „ John Ballantyne, . . . 472, 473, 474 
 Sir Charles Bell to Joseph Bell, .... 474 
 
 John Murray to Scott, 475 
 
 Scott to John [Murray, 475 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Scott to the Duke of Buccleucli, . . .476 
 
 Croker, 476, 477 
 
 ,, Sir Samuel Toller, . . . .478 
 
 A. Constable to Scott, 4S0 
 
 Sir R. Peel to Scott, 4S1 
 
 Peter Plymley's Letters ou the subject of the 
 
 Catholics, by Sydney Smith, 481, 4S4, 486, 490 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Joseph Cottle, . 494 
 
 Coleridge to James Gillman 498 
 
 Davy to Poole, 499 
 
 Mrs. Grant of Laggau to Miss Harriet Reid, 
 
 Glasgow, . . .501 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Miss Ewing, Glasgow, 504 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Miss Dunbar, Boatli, . 505 
 
 RatHes to Somerset, 506 
 
 Dr. Brewster to his wife, 508 
 
 Charles Maclaren to the Duke of Wellington, . 508 
 
 Jane Taylor to Mr. J. C 511 
 
 Bishop Heber to his mother, .... 512 
 Lord Byron to Miss Pigot, .... 514, 515 
 
 Lord Byron to Mrs. Byron, . . . 515, 516 
 „ „ Mr. Hodgson, . . . 516, 517 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mrs. By roll, . . . . 51S 
 
 Slielley to Lord Byron 519 
 
 Peter Williams to the Rev. JJavid Williams, 
 
 by Lockhart, 520 
 
 Mrs. Hemans to a friend, 525 
 
 Mr. Disraeli to Mr. Daniel O'Conuell, M.P. for 
 
 Dublin, 520 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's letter to Count Karolyi, . . 527 
 Mr. John Bright, M.P., to Mr. Ephraim 
 
 Rigby, 52? 
 
 Mr. Ruskin to the Associated Societies of 
 
 Edinburgh University, . 528 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Morning Post on Jumbo, . 529 
 
 The Queen to her subjects, .... 529 
 
 „ ,, ,, Miss Burke, 5o0 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire to the Vice-Chancellor 
 
 and Senate of the University of Cambridge, 530 
 
 Isabella L. Bird to , 530 
 
 t 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 0 
 
 FAMILIAR AND DOMESTIC LETTERS. 
 
 [We are indebted to Sir John Fenn, of East 
 Dereham, in Norfolk, for the first issue of 
 the Paston Letters in two folio volumes in 
 1787. Other volumes followed, and their 
 editor was knighted by the king, to whom 
 they were dedicated. These letters are 
 extremely valuable in this sense, that 
 they reflect the political and domestic 
 history of England from 1422 to 1500. 
 A more comi)lete collection of these letters, 
 containing about 400 additional specimens, 
 gleaned from many sources, was made by 
 Mr. James Gardner, carefully edited and 
 chronologically arranged. The work was 
 completed in 1875.] 
 
 AGNES PASTON TO HER SON. 
 To MY WELL-BELOVED SON, JOHN PASTON,— 
 
 Son, I greet you well, and send you God's 
 blessing and mine, and let you weet [knoio] 
 that Eobert Hill came homeward by Orwell- 
 bury, and Guerney telled him he had been at 
 London for money, and could not speeden, and 
 behested {promised) Eobert that he should send 
 me money by you ; I pray forget it not as ye 
 come homeward, and speak sadly {seriously) for 
 another farmer. And as for tydings, Philip 
 Berney is passed to God on Monday last past 
 with the greatest pain that ever I saw man ; 
 and on Tuesday Sir John Hevingham yede 
 {v)ent) to his church and heard three masses, 
 and came home again never merrier, and said 
 to his wife that he would go say a little devotion 
 in his garden, and then he would dine ; and 
 forthwith he felt a fainting in his leg, and syyd 
 {slid) down ; this was at nine of the clock, and 
 he was dead ere noon. 
 
 My cousin Clere prays ye that you let no 
 man see her letter, v/hich is ensealed under my 
 seal. I pray you that you will pay your 
 brother William for four ounces and an 
 
 half of silk as he paid, which he sent me by 
 William Taverner, and bring with you a quarter 
 of an ounce even like of the same that I send 
 you closed in this letter; and say {tell) your 
 brother William that his horse hath one farcy 
 and great running sores in his legs. God have 
 you in keeping. 
 
 Written at Norwich, on Saint Thomas' Even, 
 in great haste, by your mother, 
 
 Agnes Paston. 
 
 JSTm^ivich, Friday, 6th of July 1453. 
 
 EDMUND clere TO JOHN PASTON. 
 
 January 9, 1455. 
 Right well-beloved Cosyn,— I recomaund 
 me to you, latyng you wite such tidings as we 
 have. 
 
 Blessed be God, the King is wel amended, 
 and hath ben syn Cristemesday, and on Seint 
 Jones day comaunded his awmener to ride to 
 Caunterbury with his offryng, and comaunded 
 the secretarie to offre at Seint Edwards. 
 
 And on the Moneday after noon the Queen 
 came to him, and brought my Lord Prynce with 
 her. And then he askid what the Princes name 
 was, and the Queen told him Edward ; and then 
 he hild up his hands and thankid God thereof. 
 And he seid he never knew til that tyme, nor 
 wist not what was seid to him, nor wist not 
 where he had be, whils he hath be seke til 
 now. And he askid who was godfaders, and 
 the Queen told him, and he was well apaid. 
 
 And she told him that the Cardinal^ was 
 dede, and he said he knew never thereof till 
 that time ; and he seid oon of the wisist Lords 
 in his land was dede. 
 
 And my Lord of Wynchestr and my Lord of 
 Seint Jones were with him on the morrow after 
 Tweltheday, and he speke to hem as well as 
 ever he did ; and when thei come out thei 
 
 1 John Kemp, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and Chancellor. 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 wejit for joye. And he seith he is in charitee with 
 all the world, and so he wold all the Lords were. 
 And now he seith matyns of Our Lady and 
 evesong, and herith his masse devoutly ; and 
 Eichard shall tell yow more tidings by mouth. 
 
 I pray yow recomaund me to my Lady Morley 
 and to Maister Prior, and to my Lady Felbrigge 
 and to my Lady Hevenyngham, and to my 
 cosyn your moder, and to my cosyn your wife. 
 
 Wreten at Grenewich on Thursday after 
 Twelftheday, he your cosyn, 
 
 Edmund Cleke. 
 
 [The originals of some of these letters of Henry 
 VIIL to Anne Boleyn are supposed to 
 have been stolen from her in 1528, and 
 were afterwards deposited in the Vatican, 
 where they remained until taken from 
 thence in the invasion of Italy by the 
 French. They were again restored in 
 1815. Anne Boleyn was one of the maids 
 of honour to Queen Catherine, and it was 
 while residing at the palace that the King 
 formed an attachment to her. She en- 
 joyed her elevation for three years, when 
 the liking of this volatile monarch fell 
 upon Jane Seymour. She was accused of 
 conjugal infidelities, arrested by the King's 
 command, and executed in 1536. The 
 determination of the King to marry her 
 caused the rupture between England and 
 the Church of Rome. She was the mother 
 of Queen Elizabeth.] 
 
 HENKT VIIL TO ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 My Sweetheart and Friend,— I and my 
 heart put themselves into your hands, begging 
 of you to take them to your good favour ; and 
 that, by my being absent from you, your 
 affection may not be diminished towards them ; 
 for it would be a great pity to augment their 
 pain ; for absence gives me enough, and more 
 than ever, and more than I could have thought ; 
 and calls to my remembrance a point of 
 astronomy, which is this. That by how much 
 farther the moors are distant from the sun, the 
 heat is notwithstanding more fervent ; so it is 
 with our love. For though we are ])ersonally 
 distant from each other, the heat of love 
 remains, at least on our side, and I hope the 
 same on yours ; assuring you that the anxiety 
 of absence is already too great; and when I 
 think of the augmentation thereof, which I 
 must still suffer, if it was not for the firm hope 
 I have of your inviolable affection towards me, 
 to jmt you in remembrance of that, since I 
 cannot be personally with you at present. I 
 
 send you the nearest likeness to it I can, to 
 wit, my picture set in bracelets, the only 
 device which I have left, wishing myself in 
 their place whenever it shall please you. 
 Written by the hand of 
 
 Your Servant and Friend. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 The uneasiness I bore by being uncertain of 
 your health, gave me a great deal of troxible ; 
 nor could I enjoy any quiet without knowing 
 the truth. But as you have as yet felt nothing, 
 I hope I may assure you that you will escape 
 it,^ as I hope we have ; for we were at Waltham, 
 where two ushers, two valets de chambre, your 
 brother, and master treasurer fell sick, but 
 are now jjerfectly recovered ; since which we 
 betook ourselves to your house at Hondson, 
 where, God be praised, we are very well for the 
 present ; and I believe, if you will retire from 
 Surrey, as we have done, you will escape it 
 without any danger. And to give you still 
 greater comfort, I am informed, of a truth, that 
 very few or no women have fell sick, but none 
 of our court, and that very few in these jparts 
 have died ; wherefore I beg of you, my dearly 
 beloved, to harbour no fear, nor to give yourself 
 uneasiness at our absence. For wheresoever I 
 am, I am yours. Notwithstanding we must 
 sometimes obey the will of fortune ; for who 
 will, in some things, strive against her, are 
 often drove the farthest back ; wherefore com- 
 fort yourself, and be courageous, and fling away 
 all evil as far as you can. I hope soon to make 
 you sing the return. Time, at present, will let 
 me write no more, but that I wish myself in 
 your arms, to ease you of your just thoughts. 
 
 Written by the hand of him who is, and ever 
 shall be, Yours. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 [1528.] 
 
 The examining the contents of your letters 
 put me into a very great agony, not knowing 
 how to understand them, whether to my dis- 
 advantage, as in some others I understand ; 
 begging of you, with a sincere heart, to inform 
 me of your intentions, in regard to the love 
 between us. Necessity obliges me to insist on 
 this answer, having, for more than a year past, 
 been pierced by a dart of love, not being assured 
 where to find place in your heart and affection ; 
 which certain last point has guarded me a little 
 while in this, not to call you my mistress, with 
 which, if you love me but with a common love, 
 this name is not appropriated to you ; for that 
 denotes a singularity vastly different from 
 common love. But if you have a mind to 
 perform the part of a truly loyal mistress and 
 friend, give yourself body and heart to me, who 
 would be, and has been long, your most loyal 
 
 1 The sweating sickness. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 3 
 
 servant. If with rigour you do not forbid me, 
 I promise, that not only the name shall be due 
 to you, but likewise take you for my mistress ; 
 rejecting and treating others, in comparison of 
 you, far from thought and affection, and to 
 serve you only ; begging of you to give me a full 
 answer to this rude letter, on which and in 
 which I may trust. But if you do not please to 
 give an answer in writing, appoint some place 
 where I may have it by word of mouth, and 
 with a willing heart I will meet you at the 
 place. No more, for fear of incommoding you. 
 
 "Written with the hand of him who would will- 
 ingly remain Yours. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I heartUy thank you for your handsome 
 present, than which, well weighing the whole, 
 nothing is more beautiful, not only for the 
 beautiful diamond, and vessel in which the 
 solitary damsel is tossed; but principally for 
 the beautiful interpretation and most humble 
 submission, by your goodness in this case made 
 use of, well thinking, that to merit this by 
 opportunity will be very difficult, if your great 
 humanity and favour did not assist me, for 
 which I have watched, watch, and will watch all 
 opportunities of retaliation possible ; to remain 
 in which, my whole hope has placed its immut- 
 able intention, which says, aut illic, aut nullihi. 
 
 The demonstrances of your affection are such, 
 the beautiful words, the letters so affectionately 
 couched, which, in truth, oblige for ever to 
 honour you, love and serve you; begging of 
 you to continue in this firm and constant 
 purpose ; on my part assuring you, that I will 
 rather augment it, than make it reciprocal, if 
 loyalty of heart, desire of pleasing you, without 
 any other motive, may advance it ; praying 
 you, that if any time heretofore I have given 
 you offence, that you would give me the same 
 pardon that you ask ; assuring you, that for the 
 future my heart shall be wholly dedicated to 
 you, much desiring that the body might be also, 
 as God can do it, if he pleases, to whom I beg 
 once a day to do it, hoping that in time my 
 prayers may be heard, wishing the time to be 
 short, thinking it very long to our review. 
 
 Written by the hand of my secretary, who, in 
 heart, body, and will, is 
 
 Your loyal and most assured Servant. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Approaching near the time, which has 
 seemed so long to me, I rejoice the more, 
 because it seems to me almost come, notwith- 
 standing the entire accomplishment cannot be 
 till the two persons are met ; which meeting 
 is more desired on my part than any worldly 
 thing ; for what satisfaction can be so great in 
 this world, as to enjoy the company of one's 
 
 most dearly beloved, knowing that she has the 
 same pleasure on her side ? The thought of 
 which gives me a deal of pleasure ; then judgcj 
 what must the person do, whose absence has 
 given me more heart-achings than tongue or 
 waiting can express, and which nothing but 
 her preference can remedy ? Begging you, my 
 dear, to tell your father on my part, to come 
 two days before the time appointed, that he 
 may be at court before, or at least on the day 
 fixed ; for otherwise I shall think that he made 
 not the course of the amorous, nor answered 
 my expectation. No more at present, for want 
 of time ; hoping very soon that, by word of 
 mouth, I shall tell you the pains I have suffered 
 during your absence. 
 
 Written by the hand of my secretary, who 
 wishes himself now privately with you, who is, 
 and ever will be. 
 
 Your loyal and most assured Servant. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Darling, — These shall be only to advertise 
 you, that this bearer and his fellow be despatched 
 with as many things to compass our matter, 
 and to bring it to pass, as our wits could imagine 
 or devise ; which brought to pass, as I trust by 
 their diligence it shall be shortly, you and I 
 shall have our desired end, which should be more 
 to my heart's ease, and more quietness to my 
 mind than any other thing in this world, as, 
 with God's grace, shortly I trust shall be proved ; 
 bui not so soon as I would it were. Yet I will 
 insure you there shall be no time lost that may 
 be won, and further cannot be done, for ultra 
 posse non est esse. Keej) him not too long with 
 you, but desire him, for your sake, to make 
 the more speed ; for the sooner we shall have 
 word from him, the sooner shall our matter 
 come to pass. And thus, upon trust of your 
 short repair to London, I make an end of my 
 letter, mine own sweetheart. 
 
 Written with the hand of him who desireth as 
 much to be yours, as you do to have him. 
 
 [Probably one of the most affecting effusions 
 ever penned is poor Anne Boleyn's last 
 letter to her capricious lord and master, 
 embracing as it does — to use the language 
 of Addison — ' the expostulations of a 
 slighted lover, the resentments of an injured 
 woman, and the sorrows of an imprisoned 
 queen.' — Teton's Letters and Letter Wi'iters.] 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN TO HENRY Vni. 
 
 Sir, — Your Grace's displeasure, and my 
 imprisonment, are things so strange unto me, 
 as what to write, or what to excuse, I am alto- 
 
4 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 gether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me 
 (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain 
 your favour) by such an one, whom you know 
 to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner 
 received this message by him, than I rightly 
 conceived your meaning ; and if, as you say, , 
 confessing a truth indeed may procure my 
 safety, I shall with all willingness and duty 
 perform your command. 
 
 But let not your Grace ever imagine, that your 
 poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a 
 fault, where not so much as a thought thereof 
 preceded. And to speak a truth, never Prince 
 had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true 
 affection, than you have ever found in Ann 
 Boleyn ; with which name and place I could 
 willingly have contented myself, if God and your 
 Grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither 
 did I at any time so far forget myself in my 
 exaltation or received Queenship, but that I 
 always looked for such an alteration as I now 
 find ; for the ground of my preferment being 
 on no surer foundation than your Grace's 
 ' fancy, the least alteration, I knew, was fit and 
 sufficient to draw that fancy to some other 
 object. You have chosen me, from a low estate, 
 to be your queen and companion, far beyond 
 my desert or desire. If, then, you find me 
 worthy of such honour, good your Grace, let 
 not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine 
 enemies, withdraw your princely favour from 
 j me ; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, 
 j of a disloyal heart towards your good Grace, 
 ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, 
 and the Infant-Princess your daughter. Try me, 
 good King, but let me have a lawful trial, and 
 let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers 
 and judges ; yea, let me I'eceive an open trial, for 
 my truth shall fear no open shame ; then shall 
 you see either mine innocence cleared, your 
 suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy 
 and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt 
 openly declared. So that whatsoever God or 
 you may determine of me, your Grace may be 
 freed from an open censure, and mine offence 
 being so lawfully proved, your Grace is at 
 liberty, both before God and man, not only to 
 ! execute worthy punishment on me as an un- 
 i lawful wife, but to follow your affection, 
 ' already settled on that party for whose sake I 
 am now as I am, whose name I could some good 
 while since have pointed unto, your Grace not 
 being ignorant of my suspicion therein. 
 I But if you have already determined of me, 
 I and that not only my death, but an infamous 
 j slander must bring you the enjoying of your 
 desired happiness ; then I desii-e of God, that 
 He will pardon your great sin therein, and like- 
 wise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, 
 and that He will not call you to a strict account 
 for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at 
 His general judgment-seat, where both you and 
 myself must shortly appear, and in whose 
 
 judgment I doubt not (whatsoever the world 
 may think of me) mine innocence shall be openly 
 and sufficiently cleared. 
 
 My last and only request shall be, that 
 myself may only bear the burden of your 
 Grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch 
 the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen 
 who (as I understand) are likewise in strait im- 
 prisonment for my sake. If ever I have found 
 favour in your sight, if ever the name of Ann 
 Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then 
 let me obtain this request, and I will so leave 
 to trouble your Grace any further, with mine 
 earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your 
 Grace in His good keeping, and to direct you 
 in all yovir actions. From my doleful prison in 
 the Tower, this sixth of May. 
 
 Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, 
 Ann Boleyn. 1 
 
 [On receipt of the news that the greater part of 
 his house at Chelsea, with outhouses and 
 granaries, had been burnt.] 
 
 SIE THOMAS MOEE TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 With the Court at Woodstock : 
 September 3, 1529. 
 MiSTEESS Altce, — In my most harty wise, 
 I recomend me to you. And whereas I am 
 enfourmed by my son Heron of the loss of our 
 barnes, and our neighbours also, with all the 
 corne that was therein, albeit (saving God's 
 pleasure) it is great pitie of so much good corne 
 lost, yet sith it hath liked Hym to send us such 
 a chance, we must not only be content, but 
 also be glad of His visitation. He sent us all 
 that we have lost : and sith He hath by such a 
 chance taken it away againe. His pleasure be 
 fulfilled. Let us never grudge thereat, but 
 take it in good worth, and heartely thank Him, 
 as well for adversitie, as for prosperitie. And 
 par adventure we have more cause to thank 
 Him for om- loss than for our winning. For His 
 wisdom better seeth what is good for us than 
 we do ourselves. Therefore I pray you be of 
 good cheere, and take all the howsold with you 
 to church, and there thank God both for that 
 He hath given us, and for that He hath left us, 
 which if it please Hym, he can increase when He 
 wilL And if it please Him to leave us yet lesse, 
 at Hys pleasure be it. I pray you to make 
 some good ensearche what my poor neighbours 
 have lost, and bidde them take no thought 
 therefore, and if I shold not leave myself a 
 spoone, there shall no poore neighbour of mine 
 here no losse by any chance happened in my 
 
 1 First printed in the JAfe and Reign of Heni-y VIII., 
 1649, by Lord Herbert; but doubts are entertained 
 by some as to its genuiueuess. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 5 
 
 house. I pray you be with my children and 
 household mery in God. And devise somewhat 
 with your friends, what way wer best to take, 
 for provision to be made for corne for our 
 household and for sede thys yere coming, if ye 
 thinke it good that we keepe the ground still in 
 our handes. 
 
 And whether ye think it good yt we so shall 
 do or not, yet I think it were not best sodenlye 
 thus to leave it all up, and to put away our 
 folk of our farme, till we have somewhat 
 advised us thereon. Howbeit if we have more 
 nowe than ye shall neede, and which can get the 
 other maister's, ye may then discharge us of 
 them. Btit I would not that any men wer 
 sodenly sent away he wote nere wether. At 
 my coming hither I perceived none other, but 
 that I should tary still with the Kinges grace. 
 But now I shall (I think), because of this 
 chance, get leave this next weke to come home 
 and se you ; and then shall we further devise 
 together uppon all things, what order shall be 
 best to take : and thus as hartely fare you well 
 with all our children as you can wishe. 
 
 At Woodstok the thirde daye of September, 
 by the hand of your loving husband, 
 
 Thomas More, Knight. 
 
 ax original letter froii lady more to 
 mr. secretary cromwell. 
 
 Eight honorable, and my especyall gud 
 Maister Secretarye.— In my most humble 
 wyse I recommend me unto your gud Masfcer- 
 shypp, knowlegyng myseK to be most deeply 
 boundyn to your gud maistershypp, for your 
 manyfold gudenesse, and lovyng favor, both 
 before this tyme, and yet dayly, now also 
 shewyd towards my poure husband and me. 
 I pray Almyghtye God continew your gudnes 
 so styll, for thereupon hangith the greatest part 
 of my poure husband's comfort and myne. 
 The cause of my wrytyng, at this tyme, is to 
 certyfye your especiall gud maistershypp of my 
 great and extreme necessyte ; which on and 
 besydes the charge of myn own house, doe pay 
 weekly 15 shillings for the board-wages of my 
 poure husband, and his servant ; for the mayn- 
 taining whereof I have ben compellyd, of 
 verey necessyte, to sell part of myn apparell, 
 for lack of other substance to make money of. 
 "WTierefore my most humble petition and 
 sewte to your maistershypp at this time, is to 
 desire your maistershipp's favorable advyse and 
 counsell whether I may be so bold to attend 
 upon the King's most gracyouse Highnes. I 
 trust theyr is no dowte in the cause of my 
 impediment ; for the yonge man, being a 
 ploughman, had been dyseased with the aggue 
 by the space of three years before that he 
 departed. And besides this, it is now fyve 
 weeks sith he departed, and no other person 
 
 dyseased in the house sith that tyme : where- 
 fore I most humblye beseche your especyal gud 
 maistershypp (as my only trust is, and ells 
 knowe not what to doe, but utterly in this 
 world to be imdone) for the love of God to 
 consyder the premisses ; and therupponn of your 
 most subundant gudnes, to shewe your most 
 favorable helpe to the comfortyng of my poure 
 husband and me, in this our great hevynes, 
 extreme age, and necessyte. And thus we, and 
 all ours, shall dayly, duryng our lyves, pray to 
 God for the prosperous successe of your ryght 
 honorable dygnyte. 
 
 By your poure contynuall oratryx, 
 
 Dame Alis More. 
 To the Right Honorable, and her especyall 
 gud Maister, Maister Secretarye. 
 
 [Sir Thomas Wyatt, an accomplished poet of the 
 time of Henry VIII., had been sent to Spain 
 on an embassy in 1537. While abroad, he 
 sent these letters to his son Thomas. "VVyatt 
 was executed in 1554, because he disapproved 
 of the marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of 
 Spain. In the writing of these letters, 
 Professor Morley is of opinion that he had 
 Seneca as his model.] 
 
 SIR THOMAS WYATT FROM OUT OF SPAIN, TO HIS 
 SON WHEN SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 Inasmuch as now ye are come to some years 
 of understanding, and that ye should gather 
 within yourself some frame of honesty ; I 
 thought that I should not lese^ my labour 
 wholly if now I did something advertise you 
 to take the sure foundations, and stablished 
 opinions that leadeth to honesty. j 
 
 And here, I call not honesty that men com- 
 monly call honesty, as reputation for riches, for 
 authority, or some like thing ; but that honesty, 
 that I dare well say your grandfather (whose 
 soul God pardon) had rather left to me than all 
 the lands he did leave me ; that was, wisdom, 
 gentleness, soberness, desire to do good, friend- 
 liness to get the love of many, and truth above 
 all the rest. 
 
 A great part to have all these things, is to 
 desire to have them. And although glory and 
 honest name are not the very ends wherefore 
 these things are to be followed, yet surely they 
 must needs follow them as light followeth fire, 
 though it were kindled for warmth. 
 
 Out of these things the chiefest and infallible 
 ground is the dread and reverence of God, 
 whereupon shall ensue the eschewing of the 
 contraries of these said virtues ; that is to say, 
 
 1 Early English, 'leo'san,' passed into the two forms 
 Zese and Zose. 
 
6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ignorance, unkinclness, rashness, desire of harm, 
 unquiet enmity, hatred, many and crafty fabc- 
 hoods, the very root of all shame and dishonesty. 
 I say, the only dread and reverence of God that 
 seeth all things, is the defence of the creeping 
 in of all these mischiefs into you. And for my 
 part, although I do well say there is no man 
 that would his son better than I, yet on my 
 faith I had rather have you lifeless, than subject 
 to these vices. 
 
 Think and imagine always that ye are in 
 presence of some honest man that ye know ; as 
 Sir John Kussell, your father-in-law, your Uncle 
 Parson, or some other such, and ye shall, if at 
 any time ye find a pleasure in naughty touches, 
 remember what shame it were afore these men to 
 do naughtily. And sure this imagination shall 
 cause you remember, that the pleasure of a 
 naughty deed is soon past, and the rebuke, 
 shame, and the note thereof shall remain ever. 
 
 Then, if these things ye take for vain imagina- 
 tions, yet remember that it is certain, and no 
 imagination, that ye are alway in the presence 
 and sight of God ; and though ye see Him not, 
 so much is the reverence the more to be had for 
 that He seeth, and is not seen. 
 
 Men punish with shame as greatest punish- 
 ment on earth ; yea, greater than death. But 
 His punishment is : first, the withdrawing of 
 His favour, and grace, and, in leaving His hand 
 to rule the stern, to let the ship run without 
 guide to its own destruction ; and suff ereth so 
 the man that He forsaketh to run headlong as 
 subject to all mishaps, and at last with shame- 
 ful end to everlasting shame and death. 
 
 Ye may see continual examjiles both of the 
 (me sort, and of the other-; and the better, if 
 ye mark them well that yourself are come of ; 
 and consider well your good grandfather,^ what 
 things there were in him, and his end. And 
 they that knew him noted him thus. First, and 
 chiefly to have a great reverence of God and 
 good opinion of godly things. Next, that there 
 was no man more pitiful ; no man more true of 
 his word ; no man faster to his friend ; no man 
 diligenter nor more circumspect, which thing 
 both the Kings his masters noted in him greatly. 
 And if these things, and specially the grace of 
 God that the fear of God alway kept with him, 
 had not been, the chances of this troublesome 
 world that he was in had long ago overwhelmed 
 him. This preserved him in prison from the 
 hands of the tyrant that could find in his heart 
 to see him racked ; from two years and more 
 prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks ; 
 from the danger of sudden changes and com- 
 motions divers, till that well beloved of many, 
 hated of none, in his fair age, and good repu- 
 tation, godly and christianly he went to Him 
 that loved him, for that he always had Him in 
 reverence. 
 
 1 Sir Hciiry Wyatt. 
 
 And of myself, I may be a near example unto 
 you of my folly and unthriftiness, that hath, as 
 I well deserved, brought me into a thousand 
 dangers and hazards, enmities, hatreds, prison- 
 ments, despites, and indignations ; but that 
 God hath of His goodness chastised me, and not 
 cast me clean out of His favour ; which thing I 
 can impute to nothing but to the goodness of 
 my good father, that, I dare well say purchased 
 with continual request of God His grace towards 
 me more than I regarded, or considered myself ; 
 and a little part to the small fear that I had of 
 God in the most of my rage, and the little 
 delight that I had in mischief. You therefore 
 if you be sure, and have God in your sleeve 
 to call you to His grace at last, venture hardily 
 by mine example upon naughty unthriftiness, 
 in trust of His goodness, and besides the shame, 
 I dare lay ten to one ye shall perish in the 
 adventure. For trust me, that my wish or 
 desire of God for you shall not stand you in as 
 much effect, as I think my father's did for me : 
 we are not all accepted of Him. 
 
 Begin, therefore, betimes. Blake God and 
 goodness your foundations. Make your ex- 
 amples of wise and honest men : shoot at that 
 mark : be no mocker, mocks follow them that 
 delight therein. He shall be sure of shame 
 that feeleth no grief in other men's shames. 
 Ilave your friends in a reverence; and think 
 unkindness to be the greatest offence, and least 
 punished among men ; but so much the more to 
 be dread, for God is justicer upon that alone. 
 
 Love well, and agree with your wife ; for 
 where is noise and debate in the house there is 
 unquiet dwelling ; and much more, when it is 
 in one bed. Frame well yourself to love and 
 rule well and honestly your wife as your fellow, 
 and she shall love and reverence you as her 
 head. Such as you are unto her, such shall she 
 be unto you. Obey and reverence your father- 
 in-law, as you would me ; and remember that 
 long life followeth them that reverence their 
 fathers and elders ; and the blessing of God for 
 good agreement between the wife and husband 
 is fruit of many children. 
 
 Read oft this my letter, and it shall be as 
 though I had often written to you ; and think 
 that I have herein printed a fatherly affection 
 to you. If I may see that I have not lost my 
 pain, mine shall be the contentation, and yours 
 the profit. And, upon condition that you follow 
 my advertisement, I send you God's;blessing and 
 mine, and as well to come to honesty, as to 
 increase of years. 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 I doubt not but long ere this time my letters 
 are come to you. I remember I wrote to you in 
 them, that if ye read them often it shall be as 
 though I had written often to you. For all 
 that, I cannot so content me but still to call 
 upon you with my letters. I would not for all 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 7 
 
 that, that if any thing be well Avarned in the 
 other that ye should leave to remember it 
 because of this new. For it is not like vniYi 
 advertisements as it is with apparel, that with 
 long wearing a man casteth away when he hath 
 new. Honest teachings never wear ; unless 
 they wear out of his remembrance that should 
 keei? and follow them, to the shame and hurt 
 of himself. Think not also that I have any 
 new or change of advertisements to send you ; 
 but still it is one that I would, I have nothing 
 to cry and call upon you for but honesty, 
 honesty. It may be diversely named, but 
 alway it tendeth to one end. And as I wrote 
 to you last, I mean not that honesty that the 
 common sort calleth an honest man. Tiaist 
 me, that honest man is as common a name as 
 the name of a good fellow ; that is to say, a 
 drunkard, a tavern haunter, a rioter, a gamer, 
 a waster. So are among the common sort of all 
 men honest men that are not known for 
 manifest naughty knaves. 
 
 Seek not I pray thee, my son, that honesty 
 which appeareth, and is not indeed. Be well 
 assured it is no common thing, nor no common 
 man's judgment to judge well of honesty ; nor 
 it is no common thing to come by ; but so much 
 it is the more goodly, for that it is so rare and 
 strange. 
 
 Follow not there|ore the common reputation 
 of honesty. If ye will seem honest, be honest ; 
 or else seem as ye are. Seek not the name 
 without the thing ; nor let not the name be the 
 only mark ye shoot at. That will follow though 
 ye regard it not ; yea, the more you regard it, 
 the less. I mean not by regard it not, esteem 
 it not ; for well I wot honest name is goodly. 
 But he that hunteth only for that, is like him 
 that had rather seem warm than be warm, and 
 edgeth a single coat about with a fur. Honest 
 name is to be kept, preserved, and defended, 
 and not to employ all a man's wit about the 
 study of it ; for that smelleth of a glorious and 
 ambitious fool, I say, as I wrote unto you in 
 my last letters, get the thing, and the other 
 must of necessity follow ; as the shadow 
 foUoweth the thing that it is of. And even 
 so much is the very honesty better than the 
 name, as the thing is better than the shadow. 
 
 The coming to this point that I would so 
 fain have you have, is to consider a man's own 
 self what he is, and wherefore he is. And 
 herein let him think verily that so goodly a 
 work as man is, for whom all other things were 
 wrought, was not wrought but for goodly things. 
 
 After a man hath gotten a will and desire to 
 them, is first to avoid evil, and learn that point 
 alone : ' Never to do that, that within yourself 
 ye find a certain grudging against.' No doubt 
 in any thing ye do, if ye ask yourself, or 
 examine the thing in yourself afore ye do it, ye 
 shall find, if it be evil, a repining against it. 
 My son, for our Lord's love keep well that 
 
 repining; suffer it not to be darked and cor- 
 rupted by naughty example, as though anything 
 were to you excusable because other men do the 
 same. That same repining, if it did punish as 
 he doth judge, there were no such justicer. 
 And of truth, so doth it punish ; but not so 
 apparently. Here however it is no small grief, 
 of a conscience that condemneth itself ; but be 
 well assured, after this life it is a continual 
 gnawing. 
 
 "When there is a custom gotten of avoiding to 
 do evil, then cometh a gentle courage. Be 
 content to be idle, and to rest without doing 
 any thing. Then too had ye need to gather an 
 heap of good opinions and to get them perfectly, 
 as it were on your fingers' ends.. Eest not 
 greatly upon the approving of them ; take 
 them as already approved, because they were 
 of honest men's leavings. Of them of God, 
 there is no question. And it is no small help 
 to them, the good opinion of moral philosophers : 
 among whom I would Seneca your study ; and 
 Epictetus, because it is little, to be ever in 
 bosom. 
 
 These things shall lead you to know goodly 
 [guides]; which when a man knoweth and 
 taketh pleasure in them, he is a beast that 
 followeth not them : no, nor he cannot but 
 follow them. 
 
 But take this for conclusion and sum of all ; 
 that if God and His grace be not the foundation, 
 neither can ye avoid evil, nor judge well, nor 
 do any goodly thing. Let Him be foundation 
 of all. Will these things ; desire them 
 earnestly, and seek them at His hands, and 
 knowledge 1 them to come of Him, and ques- 
 tionless He will both give you the use and 
 l^leasure in using them, and also reward you 
 for them that come of Him ; so liberal and 
 good is He. 
 
 I would fain see that my letters might work 
 to frame you honest. And think that without 
 that, I esteem nothing of you : no, not that 
 you are my son. For I reckon it no small 
 dishonesty to myself to have an unhonest 
 taught child ; but the fault shall not be in me. 
 I shall do the part of a father : and if ye answer 
 not to that I look for at your hands, I shall as 
 well study with that that I shall leave, to make 
 such [serve an] honest man, as you. 
 
 [A letter of condolence on the death of his son 
 
 I Acknowledge. 
 
 Sturm. Ascham had the honour of direct- 
 ing Queen Elizabeth's studies ; after being 
 nominated as Professor of Greek and Public 
 Orator at Cambridge, he acted as Latin 
 Secretary and tutor to her Majesty in the 
 learned languages. He is chiefly remem- 
 
8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 bered for his treatises, The Schoolmaster, 
 and Toxophilus, a treatise on archery, for 
 which he received a pension from Henry 
 VIII.] 
 
 EOGEE ASCHAM TO HIS WIFE MARGARET. 
 
 [Noveniber 15G8.] 
 Mine own good Margaret,— The more I 
 think upon your sweet babe, as I do many times 
 both day and night, the greater cause I always 
 find of giving thanks continually to God for His 
 singular goodness bestowed at this time upon 
 the child, yourself, and me, even because it 
 hath rather pleased Him to take the child to 
 Himself into heaven, than to leave it here with 
 us still on earth. When I mused on the matter 
 as nature, flesh, and fatherly fantasy did carry 
 me, I found nothing but sorrows and care, 
 which very much did vex and trouble me, but 
 at last forsaking these worldly thoughts, and 
 referring me wholly to the will and order of 
 God in the matter, I found such a change, such 
 a cause of joy, such a plenty of God's grace 
 towards the child, and of His goodness towards 
 you and me, as neither my heart can compre- 
 hend, nor yet my tongue express the twentieth 
 part thereof. 
 
 Nevertheless, because God and goodwill hath 
 so joined you and me together as we must not 
 only be the one a comfort to the other in sorrow, 
 but also partakers together in any joy, I could 
 not but declare unto you what just cause I 
 think we both have of comfort and gladness by 
 that God hath so graciously dealt with us as He 
 hath. My first step from care to comfort was 
 this, I thought God had done His will with our 
 child, and because God by His wisdom knoweth 
 what is best, and by His goodness will do best, 
 I was by and by fully persuaded the best that 
 can be is done with our sweet child ; but seeing 
 God's wisdom is unsearchable with any man's 
 heart, and His goodness unspeakable with any 
 man's tongue, I will come down from such high 
 thoughts, and talk more sensibly with you, and 
 lay open before you such matter as may be both 
 a full comfort of all our cares past, and also a 
 just cause of rejoicing as long as we live. You 
 well remember our continual desire and wish, 
 our nightly prayer together, that God would 
 •vouchsafe to us to increase the number of this 
 ^orld ; we wished that nature should beautifully 
 perform the work by us ; we did talk how to 
 bring up our child in learning and virtue ; we 
 had care to i)rovide for it, so as honest fortune 
 should favour and follow it. And see, sweet 
 wife, how mercifully God hath dealt with us in 
 all points, for what wish could desire, what 
 prayer could crave, what nature could perform, 
 wlaat virtue could deserve, what fortune could 
 afford, both we have received, and our child 
 doth enjoy already. And because our desire 
 (thanked be God) was always joined with honesty, 
 
 and our prayers mingled with fear, and applied 
 always to the world too, the will and pleasure 
 of God hath given us more than we wished, and 
 that which is better for us now than we could 
 hope to think upon ; but you desire to hear and 
 know how marry, even thus, we desired to be 
 made vessels to increase the world, and it hath 
 pleased God to make us vessels to increase 
 heaven, which is the greatest honour to man, 
 the greatest joy to heaven, the greatest spite to 
 the devil, the greatest sorrow to hell, that any 
 man can imagine. Secondarily, when nature 
 had performed what she would, grace stepped 
 forth and took our child from nature, and gave 
 it such gifts over and above the power of nature, 
 as where it could not creep in earth by nature 
 it was straightway well able to go to heaven by 
 grace. It could not then speak by nature, and 
 now it doth praise God by grace ; it could not 
 then comfort the sick and careful mother by 
 nature, and now through prayer is able to help 
 father and mother by grace ; and yet, thanked 
 be nature, that hath done all she could do, and 
 blessed be grace that hath done more and better 
 than we would wish she should have done. 
 Peradventure yet you do wish that nature had 
 kept it from death a little longer, yea, but 
 grace hath carried it where now no sickness can 
 follow, nor any death hereafter meddle with it ; 
 and instead of a short life with troubles on 
 earth, it doth now live a life that never shall 
 end with all manner of joy in heaven. 
 
 And now, Margaret, go to, I pray you, and 
 tell me as you think, do you love your sweet 
 babe so little, do you envy his happy state so 
 much, yea, once to wish that nature should 
 have rather followed your pleasure in keeping 
 your child in this miserable world, than grace 
 should have purchased such profit for your 
 child in bringing him to such felicity in heaven ? 
 Thirdly, you may say unto me, if the child had 
 lived in this world, it might have come to such 
 goodness by grace and virtue as might have 
 turned to great comfort to us, to good service 
 to our country, and served to have deserved as 
 high a place in heaven as he doth now. To 
 this, in short, I answer, ought we not in all 
 things to submit to God's good will and pleasure, 
 and thereafter to rule our affections, which I 
 doubt not but you will endeavour to do ? And 
 therefore I will say no more, but with all com- 
 fort to you here, and a blessing hereafter, which 
 I doubt not but is prepared for you. 
 
 Your dearly loving husband, 
 
 Roger Askasi. 
 
 To my dear wife, Mrs. Margaret Askam, these. 
 
 sir henry SYDNEY TO HIS SON, PHILIP SYDNEY. 
 
 [1566.] 
 
 I have received two letters from you, one 
 written in Latin, the other in French, which I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 9 
 
 take in good part, and will you to exercise that 
 practice of learning often : for that will stand 
 you in most stead, in that profession of life that 
 you are born to live in. And, since this is my 
 first letter that ever I did write to you, I will 
 not that it be all empty of some advices, which 
 my natural care of you provoked me to wish 
 you to follow, as documents to you in this your 
 tender age. Let your first action be, the lifting 
 up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty 
 jjrayer, and feelingly digest the words you speak 
 in prayer, with continual meditation, and think- 
 ing of Him to whom you pray, and of the matter 
 for which you pray. And use this as an 
 ordinary, and at an ordinary hour. Whereby 
 the time itself will put you in remembrance 
 to do that which you are accustomed to do. In 
 that time apply your study to such hours as 
 your discreet master doth assign you, earnestly ; 
 and the time (I know) he will so limit, as sho.ll 
 be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for 
 your health. And mark the sense and the 
 matter of that you read, as well as the words. 
 So shall you both enrich your tongue with 
 words, and your wit with matter; and judg- 
 ment will grow as years groweth in you. Be 
 humble and obedient to your master, for unless 
 you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel 
 in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be 
 able to teach others how to obey you. Be court- 
 eous of gesture, and affable to all men, with 
 diversity of reverence, according to the dignity 
 of the person. There is nothing that winneth 
 so much with so little cost. Use moderate diet, 
 so as, after your meat, you may find your wit 
 fresher, and not duller, and your body more 
 lively, and not more heavy. Seldom drink 
 wine, and yet sometime do, lest being enforced 
 to drink upon the sudden, you should find your- 
 self inflamed. Use exercise of body, but such 
 as is without peril of your joints or bones. It 
 will increase your force and enlarge your breath. 
 Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of 
 your body, as in your garments. It shall make 
 you grateful in each company, and otherwise 
 loathsome. Give yourself to be merry, for you 
 degenerate from your father, if you find not 
 yovirseK most able in wit and body, to do any 
 thing, when you be most merry ; but let your 
 mirth be ever void of all scurrility, and biting 
 words to any man, for a wound given by a word 
 is oftentimes harder to be cured than that which 
 is given with the sword. Be you rather a 
 hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, 
 than a beginner or procurer of speech, otherwise 
 you shall be counted to delight to hear yourself 
 speak. If you hear a wise sentence, or an apt 
 phrase, commit it to your memory, with respect 
 of the circumstance, when you shall speak it. 
 Let never oath be heard to come out of your 
 mouth, nor words of ribaldry; detest it in 
 others, so shall custom make to yourself a law 
 against it in yourself. Be modest in each 
 
 assembly ; and rather be rebuked of light 
 fellows, for maiden-like shamefacedness, than 
 of your sad friends for pert boldness. Think 
 upon every word that you will speak, before 
 you utter it, and remember how nature hath 
 rampired up (as it were) the tongue with teeth, 
 lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all 
 betokening reins, or bridles, for the loose use of 
 that member. Above all things tell no untruth, 
 no, not in trifles. The custom of it is naughty, 
 and let it not satisfy you, that, for a time, the 
 hearers take it for a truth ; for after it will be 
 known as it is, to your shame ; for there cannot 
 be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be 
 accounted a liar. Study and endeavour your- 
 self to be virtuously occupied. So shall you 
 make such an habit of well-doing in you, that 
 you shall not know how to do evil, though you 
 would. Remember, my son, the noble blood 
 you are descended of, by your mother's side ; 
 and think that only by virtuous life and good 
 action, you may be an ornament to that illus- 
 trious family ; and otherwise, through vice and 
 sloth, you shall be counted lahes generis, one of 
 the greatest curses that can happen to man. 
 Well (my little Philip) this is enough for me, 
 and too much, I fear, for you. But if I shall 
 find that this light meal of digestion nourish 
 anything the weak stomach of your young 
 capacity, I will, as I find the same grow 
 stronger, feed it with tougher food. 
 
 Yoiir loving father, so long as you live in the 
 fear of God. 
 
 [Tliis outspoken protest by Sir Philip Sydney 
 is a good reflection of the prevailing public 
 feeling at the overtures made by Franeis, 
 Duke of Anjou, for the hand of Queen 
 Elizabeth. He came over to London per- 
 sonally in 1580 ; the marriage was arranged 
 in the following year ; popular clamour rose 
 to a great height, when the Frenchman was 
 dismissed. He died in 1584,] 
 
 sir philip sydney to queen elizabeth. 
 
 Most Feaeed and Beloved, most Sweet 
 AND Gkacious Sovereign,— To seek out ex- 
 cuses of this my boldness, and to arm the 
 acknowledging of a fault with reasons for it, 
 might better show, I know I did amiss, than any 
 way diminish the attempt ; especially in your 
 judgment, who being able to discern lively into 
 the nature of the thing done, it were folly to 
 hope, by laying on better colours, to make it 
 more acceptable. Therefore carrying no other 
 olive-branch of intercession, than the laying of 
 myself at your feet ; nor no other insinuation, 
 either for attention or pardon, but the true 
 
10 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 vowed sacrifice of unfeigned love, I will in 
 simple and direct terms (as hoping they shall 
 only come to your merciful eyes) set down the 
 overflowings of my mind, in this most important 
 matter : importing, as I think, the continuance 
 of your safety ; and (as I know) the joys of my life. 
 And because my words (I confess, shallow ; but 
 coming from the deep well-spring of most loyal 
 affection) have delivered unto your most gracious 
 ears, what is the general sum of my travelling 
 thoughts therein ; I will now but only declare, 
 what be the reasons that make me think that 
 the marriage with Monsieur will be unprofit- 
 able to you : then, will I answer the objections 
 of those fears, which might jorocure so violent a 
 refuge. The good or evils that will come to you 
 by it, must be considered, either according to 
 your estate, or person. To your estate : what 
 can be added to the being an absolute born, and 
 accordingly, respected jDrincess ? But, as they 
 say, the Irishmen were wont to call over them 
 that dye. They are rich, they are fair, what 
 needed they to dye so cruelly? not unfitly to 
 you, endowed with felicity above all others, 
 a man might well ask, "What makes you in such 
 a calm, to change course ? To so healthful a 
 body, to apply so unsavoury a medicine ? What 
 can recomjDense so hazardous an adventure? 
 Indeed, were it but the altering of a well 
 maintained, and well approved trade : for, as in 
 bodies natural, every sudden change is full of 
 peril : so, this body politic, whereof you are the 
 only head, it is so much the more dangerous, as 
 there are more humours, to receive a hurtful 
 impression. But hazards are then most to be 
 regarded, when the nature of the patient is 
 fitly composed to occasion them. 
 
 The patient I account your realm, the agent 
 Monsieur, and his design ; for neither outward 
 accidents do much prevail against a true inward 
 strength, nor doth inward weakness lightly 
 subvert itself, without being thrust at by some 
 outward force. 
 
 Your inward force (for as for your treasures 
 indeed, the sinews of your crown, your Majesty 
 doth best and only know) consisteth in your 
 subjects, generally unexpert in warlike defence : 
 and as they are divided now into mighty factions 
 (and factions bound upon the never-dying knot 
 of religion) the one of them to whom your hapi)y 
 government hath granted the free exercise of 
 the eternal truth ; with this, by the continuance 
 of time, by the multitude of them, by the 
 principal offices and strength they hold ; and 
 lastly, by your dealings both at home and 
 abroad against the adverse party, your state is 
 so entrapped, as it were impossible for you, 
 without excessive trouble, to pull yourself out 
 of the party so long maintained. For such a 
 course once taken in hand, is not much unlike 
 a ship in a tempest, which how dangerously 
 soever it be beaten with waves, yet is there no 
 safety or succour without it : these therefore. 
 
 as their souls live by your happy government, 
 so are they your chief, if not your sole strength. 
 These, howsoever the necessity of humane life 
 make them lack, yet can they not look for 
 better conditions than presently they enjoy : 
 these, how their hearts will be galled, if not 
 aliened, when they see you take a husband, a 
 Frenchman and a Papist ; in whom (howsoever 
 fine wits may find further dealings or i^ainted 
 excuses) the very common peojile well knew 
 this, that he is the son of a Jezebel of our age ; 
 that his brother made oblation of his own sister's 
 marriage, the easier to make massacres of our 
 brethren on belief ; that he himself, contrary to 
 his promise, and all gratefulness, having had 
 his liberty, and principal estate by the Hugo- 
 nites means, did sack Lacharists, and utterly 
 spoil them with fire and sword : this I say, even 
 at the first sight, gives occasion to all truly 
 religious to abhor such a master, and con- 
 sequently to diminish much of the hopeful love 
 they have long held to you. 
 
 The other faction (most rightly indeed to be 
 called a faction) is the Papists ; men whose 
 spirits are full of anguish ; some being infested 
 by others, whom they accounted damnable ; 
 some having their ambition stopped, because 
 they are not in the way of advancement ; 
 some in prison, and disgi'ace ; some, whose 
 best friends are banished practisers ; many 
 thinking you are an usurper ; many thinking 
 also, you had disannulled your right, because 
 of the pope's excommunication ; all bur- 
 dened with the weight of their conscience ; 
 men of great numbers, of great riches (because 
 the affairs of State have not lain on them), of 
 united minds (as all men that deem themselves 
 oppressed, naturally are), with these I would 
 willingly join all discontented persons, such as 
 want and disgrace keeps lower than they have 
 set their hearts. Such as have resolved what 
 to look for at your hands ; such, as Csesar said, 
 Quibus opus est hello civili; and are of his 
 mind ; Blalo in acie quam in foro cadere : these 
 be men so much the more to be doubted, 
 because, as they do embrace all estates, so are 
 they, commonly, of the bravest and wakefuUest 
 sort, and that know the advantage of the wgrld 
 most. This double rank of people, how their 
 minds have stood, the northern rebellion, and 
 infinite other practices have well taught you : 
 which, if it be said, it did not prevail, that is 
 true indeed ; for, if they had prevailed, it were 
 too late now to deliberate. But, at this present, 
 they want nothing so much as a head, who, in 
 effect, needs not but to receive their instruc- 
 tions, since they may do mischief enough only 
 with his countenance. Let the Signignian in 
 Henry the Fourth's time, Perkin AVarbeck in 
 your grandfather's ; but of all, the most lively 
 and proper, is that of Louis the French king's 
 son in Henry the Third's time, who having at 
 all no show of title, yet did he cause the nobility, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 II 
 
 and more, to swear direct fealty and vassalage ; 
 and they delivered the strongest holds unto him. 
 I say, let these be sufficient to prove, that 
 occasion gives mind and scope to stranger things 
 than ever would have been imagined. If then 
 the affectionate side have their affections weak- 
 ened, and the discontented have a gap to utter 
 I their discontent ; I think, it will seem an ill 
 I preparative for the patient, I mean your estate, 
 ! to a great sickness. 
 
 ! Now the agent party, which is Monsieur, 
 whether he be or not apt to work upon the 
 disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged 
 by his will and power : his will to be as full of 
 light ambition as is possible ; besides the French 
 disposition, and his own education, his incon- 
 stant attempt against his brother, his thrusting 
 himself into the low country matters, his some- 
 times seeking the King of Spain's daughter, 
 sometimes your Majesty, are evident testimonies 
 of his being carried away with every wind of 
 hope : taught to love greatness any way gotten, 
 and having for the motioners and ministers of 
 the mind, only such young men as have showed 
 they think evil contentment a ground of any 
 rebellion ; who have seen no commonwealth 
 but in faction, and divers of which have defiled 
 their hands in odious murders. With such 
 fancies, and favourites, what is to be hoped 
 for ? or that he will contain himself within the 
 limits of your conditions, since in truth it were 
 strange, that he that cannot be contented to be 
 the second person in France, and heir apparent, 
 should be content to come to be second person, 
 where he should pretend no way to sovereignty ? 
 His power, I imagine, is not to be despised, since 
 he is come into a country where the way of evil- 
 doing will be presented unto him : where there 
 needs nothing but a head to draw together all 
 the ill-affected members : himself a prince of great 
 revenues, of the most popular nation of the 
 world, fuU of soldiery, and such as are used to 
 serve without pay, so as they may have show of 
 spoil; and without question shall have his 
 brother ready to help him, as well for old 
 revenge, as to divert him from troubling France, 
 and to deliver his own country from evil 
 humours. Neither is King Philip's marriage 
 herein any example ; since then it was between 
 two of one religion ; so that he in England stood 
 only upon her strength, and had abroad King 
 Henry of France, ready to impeach any enter- 
 prise he should make for his greatness that way. 
 And yet, what events time would have brought 
 forth of that marriage, your most blessed reign 
 hath made vain all such considerations. But 
 things holding in present state, I think, I may 
 easily conclude, that your country, as well by 
 long peace and fruits of peace, as by the poison 
 of division (wherewith the faithful shall by this 
 means be wounded, and the contrary enabled) 
 is made fit to receive hurt ; and Monsieur 
 being every way likely to use the occasions to 
 
 hurt, there can almost happen no vv^orldly thing 
 of more imminent danger to your estate royal. 
 And as to your person, in the scale of your 
 happiness, what good there may come by it, to 
 balance with the loss of so honourable a con- 
 stancy, truly yet I perceive not. I will not show 
 so much malice, as to object the universal 
 doubt, the race's unhealthfulness ; neither vv'ill 
 I lay to his charge the ague-like manner of 
 proceedings, sometimes hot and sometimes cold 
 in the time of pursuit, which always rightly is 
 most fervent. And I will temper my speeches 
 from any other unreverend disgracings of him 
 in particular (though they may be never so 
 true), this only I will say, that if he do come 
 hither, he must live here in far meaner repu- 
 tation than his mind will well brook, having no 
 other royalty to countenance himself with ; or 
 else you must deliver him the keys of your 
 kingdom, and live at his discretion ; or lastly, 
 he must separate himself with more dishonour, 
 and further disuniting of heart, than ever before. 
 Often have I heard you with protestation say, 
 no private pleasure or self-affection could lead 
 you unto it ; but if it be both unprofitable for 
 your kingdom, and unpleasant to you, certainly 
 it were a dear purchase of repentance. Nothing 
 can it add unto you, but the bliss of children, 
 which I confess were a most unspeakable 
 comfort. But yet no more appertaining unto 
 him, than to any other to whom the height of 
 all good haps Avere allotted, to be your husband; 
 and therefore I may assuredly affirm, that what 
 good soever can follow marriage, is no more his 
 than anybody's ; but the evils and dangers are 
 peculiarly annexed to his person and condition. 
 For as for the enriching of your country with 
 treasure which either he hath not or hath other- 
 wise bestowed it ; or the staying of your 
 servants' minds with new expectation and 
 liberality, which is more dangerous than 
 fruitful ; or the easing of your Majesty of cares, 
 which is as much as to say, the easing of you 
 to be queen and sovereign ; I think everybody 
 perceives this way either to be full of hurt, or 
 void of help. Now resteth to consider, what be 
 the motives of this sudden change ; as I have 
 heard you in most sweet words deliver. Fear 
 of standing alone, in resiDect of foreign dealings ; 
 and in them from whom you should have 
 respect, doubt of contempt. Truly standing 
 alone with good foresight of government, both 
 in peace and warlike defence, is the honourablest 
 thing that can be to a well-established monarchy. 
 Those buildings being ever most strongly 
 durable, which lean to none other, but remain 
 from their own foundation. 
 
 So yet in the particulars of your estate 
 presently, I will not altogether deny, that a true 
 Massinissa were very fit to countermine the 
 enterprise of mighty Carthage. But how this 
 general truth can be applied unto Monsieur, in 
 truth I perceive not. The wisest, that have 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 12 
 
 given best rules where surest leagues are to be 
 made, have said, that it must be between such 
 as either vehement desire of a third thing, or as 
 vehement fear doth knit their minds together. 
 Desire is counted the weaker bond ; but yet 
 that bound so many princes to the expedition 
 of the Holy Land. It united that invincible 
 Henry V. and that good duke of Burgundy ; the 
 one desiring to win the crown of France from 
 the Dauphin, the other, desiring to revenge his 
 father's murder upon the Dauphin, which both 
 tended to one. That coupled Louis XII. and 
 Ferdinando of Spain to the conquest of Naples. 
 Of fear, there are innumerable examples. 
 Monsieur's desires, and yours ; how they 
 should meet in public matters, I think no oracle 
 can tell ; for, as the geometricians say, that 
 parallels, because they maintain divers lines, 
 can never join ; so truly, to having in the 
 beginning contrary princii^les, to bring forth 
 one doctrine must be some miracle. He, of the 
 Eomish religion ; and, if he be a man, must needs 
 have that manlike property, to desire that all 
 men be of his mind. You, the erector and 
 defender, of the contrary, and the only sun 
 that dazzleth their eyes. He, French, and 
 desiring to make France great ; your Majesty 
 English, and desiring nothing less than that 
 France should grow great. He, both by his own 
 fancy, and his youthful governors, embracing all 
 ambitious hopes, having Alexander's image in 
 his head, but perhaps evil painted. Your 
 Majesty, with excellent virtue, taught what you 
 should hoi^e ; and by no less wisdom, what you 
 may hope ; with a council renowned over all 
 Christendom, for their well-tempered minds, 
 having set the utmost of their ambition in your 
 favour, and the study of their souls in your 
 safety. 
 
 Fear hath as little show of outward appear- 
 ance, as reason, to match you together ; for in 
 this estate he is in, whom should he fear? His 
 brother? alas ! his brother is afraid, since the 
 King of Navarre is to step into his place. 
 Neither can his brother be the safer by his fall ; 
 but he may be the greater by his brother's ; 
 whereto whether you will be an accessary, you 
 are to determine. The King of Spain, certainly, 
 cannot make war upon him, but it must be upon 
 all the crown of France, which is no likelihood 
 he will do. Well may Monsieur (as he hath 
 done) seek to enlarge the bounds of France upon 
 his state ; which likewise, whether it be safe 
 for you to be a countenance to, any other way, 
 may be seen. So that if neither desire nor fear 
 be such in him, as are to bind any public 
 fastness, it may be said, that the only fortress 
 of this your marriage, is of his private affection ; 
 a thing too incident to the person laying it up 
 in such knots. 
 
 The other objection of contempt in the sub- 
 jects, I assure your Majesty if I had not heard it 
 proceed out of your mouth, which of all other I 
 
 do most dearly reverence, it would as soon (con- 
 sidering the perfections both of body and mind 
 have set all men's eyes by the height of your 
 estate) have come to the possibility of my 
 imagination, if one should have told me, on the 
 contrary side, that the greatest princess of the 
 world should envy the state of some poor 
 deformed pilgrim. What is there either within 
 you, or without you, that can possibly fall into 
 the danger of contempt, to whom fortunes are 
 tried by so long descent of your royal ancestors ? 
 but our minds rejoice with the experience of 
 your inward virtues, and our eyes are delighted 
 with the sight of you. But because your own 
 eyes cannot see yourself, neither can there be 
 in the world any example fit to blaze you by, I 
 beseech you vouchsafe to weigh the grounds 
 thereof. The natural causes are lengths of 
 government, and uncertainty of succession. 
 The effects, as you term them, appear by 
 cherishing some abominable speeches which 
 some hellish minds have uttered. The longer 
 a good prince reigneth, it is certain the more he 
 is esteemed. There is no man ever was weary 
 of well-being; and good increased to good 
 maketh the same good both greater and stronger ; 
 for it useth men to know no other cares, 
 when either men are born in the time, and so 
 never saw other ; or have spent much part of 
 their flourishing time, and so have no joy to seek 
 other. In evil princes, abuse growing upon 
 abuse, according to the nature of evil, with the 
 increase of time, ruins itself : but in so rare a 
 government, where neighbours' fires give us light 
 to see our quietness, where nothing wants that 
 true administration of justice brings forth, 
 certainly the length of time rather breeds a mind 
 to think there is no other life but in it, than 
 that there is any tediousness in so fruitful a 
 government. Examples of good princes do ever 
 confirm this, who the longer they lived, the 
 deeper still they sunk into the subjects' hearts. 
 Neither will I trouble you with examples, being 
 so many and manifest. Look into your own 
 estate ; how willingly they grant, and how duti- 
 fully they pay such subsidies as you demand of 
 them ; how they are no less troublesome to your 
 Majesty in certain requests, than they were in 
 the beginning of your reign : and your Majesty 
 shall find you have a people more than ever 
 devoted to you. 
 
 As for the uncertainty of succession, although 
 for mine own part, I know well I have cast the 
 utmost anchor of my hopes, yet for England's 
 sake I would not say any thing against such 
 determination ; but that uncertain good should 
 bring contempt to a certain good. I think it is 
 beyond all reach of reason : nay because, if 
 there were no other cause (as there arc infinite), 
 common reason and profit would teach us to 
 hold that jewel dear, the lots of which would 
 bring us to we know not what : which likewise 
 is to be said of your Majesty's speech of the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 13 
 
 rising sun; a speech first used by Scylla to 
 Pompey in Kome, as then a popular city, where 
 indeed men were to rise or fall, according to the 
 flourish and breath of a many-headed confusion. 
 But in so lineal a monarchy, wherever the 
 infant sucks the love of their rightful prince, 
 who would leave the beams of so fair a sun, for 
 the dreadful expectation of a divided company 
 of stars ? Virtue and justice are the only bonds 
 of people's love : and as for that point, many 
 princes have lost their crowns, whose own 
 children were manifest successors ; and some, 
 that had their own children used as instruments 
 of their ruin. Not that I deny the bliss of 
 children, but only to show religion and equity to 
 be of themselves sufficient stays. Neither is 
 the love, borne in the Queen your sister's days, 
 any contradiction hereunto ; for she was the 
 oppressor of that religion which lived in many 
 men's hearts, and whereof you are known to be 
 the favourer. By her loss, was the most excel- 
 I lent prince in the world to succeed; by your 
 loss, all blindness light upon him that sees not 
 our misery. Lastly, and most properly to this 
 purpose, she had made an odious marriage with 
 a stranger (which is now in question whether 
 your Majesty should do or no) ; so that if yoiu: 
 subjects do at this time look for any after- 
 chance, it is but as the pilot doth to the ship- 
 boat, if his ship should perish ; driven by 
 extremity to the one ; but, as long as he can 
 with his life, tendering the other. And this I 
 say, not only for the lively parts that be in you, 
 but even for their own sakes, since they must 
 needs see what tempests threaten them. 
 
 The last proof of this contempt should be the 
 venomous matter certain men impostumed with 
 wickedness should utter against you. Certainly 
 not to be evil spoken of, neither Christ's holiness, 
 nor Caesar's might, could ever prevent or 
 warrant ; there being for that no other rule, 
 than so to do, as that they may not justly say 
 evil of you ; which whether your Majesty have 
 not done, I leave it in you, to the sincereness of 
 your own conscience, and wisdom of your judg- 
 ment in the world, to your most manifest fruits 
 and fame through Europe. Augustus was told, 
 that men spoke of him much hurt ; ' It is no 
 matter,' said he, ' so long as they cannot do much 
 hurt.' And lastly, Charles V., to one that told 
 him, Le Hollandour parlent tncd, mais ih patient 
 hien; answered, Le. I might make a scholar-like 
 reckoning of many such examples. It sufficeth, 
 that these great princes knew well enough upon 
 what ways they flew, and cared little for the 
 barking of a few curs. And truly in the behalf 
 your subjects, I durst with my blood answer it, 
 that there was never monarch held in more 
 precious reckoning of her people ; and before 
 God, how can it be otherwise ? For my own part, 
 j when I hear some lost wretch hath defiled such 
 I a name with his mouth, I consider the right 
 ' name of blasphemy, whose unbridled soul doth 
 
 delight to deprave that which is accounted 
 generally most high and holy. No, no, most 
 excellent lady, do not raze out the impression 
 you have made in such a multitude of hearts, 
 and let not the scum of such vile minds bear 
 any witness against your subjects' devotions ; 
 which, to proceed one point further, if it were 
 otherwise, could little be helloed, but rather 
 nourished, and in effect begun by this. The 
 only means of avoiding contempt, are love and 
 fear : love as you have by divers means sent 
 into the depth of their souls ; so if any thing 
 can stain so true a form, it must be the trim- 
 ming yourself, not in your own likeness, but in 
 new colours unto them. Their fear by him 
 cannot be increased without appearance of 
 French forces, the manifest death of your 
 estate ; but well may it against him bear that 
 face, which, as the tragic Seneca saith, Metus in 
 authorem regit, as because both in will and 1 
 power he is like enough to do harm. Since 
 then it is dangerous for your State, as well 
 because by inward weakness (principally caused 
 by division) it is fit to receive harm ; since to 
 your person it can no way be comfortable, you 
 not desiring marriage ; and neither to person nor 
 state he is to bring any more good than any 
 body, but more evil he may ; since the causes 
 that should drive you to this, are either fears 
 of that which cannot happen, or by this means 
 cannot be prevented ; I do with most humble 
 heart say unto your Majesty (having assayed 
 this dangerous help) for your standing alone, 
 you must take it for a singular honour God hath 
 done you, to be indeed the only protector of 
 His Church ; and yet in worldly respects your 
 kingdom very sufficient so to do, if you make that 
 religion upon which you stand, to carry the only 
 strength ; and have abroad those that still 
 maintain the same course, who, as long as they 
 may be kept from utter falling, your Majesty is 
 sure enough from your mightiest enemies. 
 
 As for this man, as long as he is hwt 
 Monsieur in might, and a Papist in profession, 
 he neither can nor will greatly shield you : and 
 if he grow to be king, his defence wiU be like 
 Ajax's shield, which rather weighed down than 
 defended those that bore it. Against contempt, 
 if there be any, which I will never believe, let 
 your excellent virtues of piety, justice, and | 
 liberality daily (if it be possible, more and more) j 
 shine. Let such particular actions be found 
 out (which be easy as I think to be done) by 
 which you may gratify all the hearts of your 
 people. Let those in whom you find trust, and 
 to whom you have committed trust in your 
 weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your 
 subjects. Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as 
 you be, the example of princes, the ornament 
 of this age, the comfort of the afflicted, the 
 delight of your people, the most excellent fruit 
 of your progenitors, and the perfect min-or of 
 your posterity ! 
 
14 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [This letter warns the Scottish king of his 
 ' contrarious dealings,' and supplies a hint 
 as to her ideas upon the English succession. 
 It is mitten in her usual determined and 
 emphatic way ; any intention of deceiving 
 her would be frustrated by the sharpness 
 of 'we old foxes.'] 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH TO JAMES VI. OP SCOTLAND. 
 
 [1586.] 
 
 Eight deaee Brother, — Your gladsome 
 acceptance of my oifred amitie, together with 
 the desiar you seem to have ingraven in your 
 mynde to make merites correspondant, makes 
 me in ful opinion that some ennemis to our 
 good wyl shall loose muche travel, with making 
 frustrat.thar baiting stratagems, whiche I knowe 
 to be many, and by sondry meanes to be ex- 
 X)lored. I cannot halt with you so muche as to 
 denye that I have seen suche evident shewes of 
 your contrarious dealings, that if I mad not my 
 rekening the bettar of the moneths, I might 
 condemne you as unworthy of such as I mynd 
 to she we myself e toward you, and therefor I 
 am wel pleased to take any coulor to defend 
 your honor, and hope that you wyl remember that 
 who seaketh two stringes to one bowe, he may 
 shoote strong, but never straight ; and if you 
 suppose that princes causes be vailed so couvertly 
 that no intelligence may bewraye them, deceave 
 not yourselfe ; we old foxes can find shiftes to 
 save ourselves by others malice, and come by 
 knowledge of greattest secreat, spetiallye if it 
 touche our freholde. It becometh, therefor, 
 all our rencq to deale sincerely, lest, if we use 
 it not, whan we do it, we be hardly beleaved. I 
 write not this, my deare brother, for dout but 
 for remembrances. 
 
 My ambassador writes so muche of your 
 honorable traitment of him and of Alexandar, 
 . that I believe they be convertid Scotes. You 
 oblige me for them ; for wiche I rendar you a 
 milion of most entire thankes, as she that meaneth 
 to desarve many a good thoght in your brest 
 throwe good desart. And for that your request 
 is so honorable, retaining so muche reason, I 
 wer out of [my] sences if I shold not suspend 
 of any hiresay til the answer of your owne 
 action, wiche the actor ought best to knowe, 
 and so assure yourselfe I meane and vowe to 
 do ; with this request, that you wyl affourd me 
 the reciproque. And thus, with my many 
 petitions to the Almighty for your long life and 
 preservation, I ende these skribled lines. 
 
 Yom- verey assured lovinge sistar and cousin, 
 Elizabeth R. 
 
 [Written after the earl had been proscribed the 
 court cu'cle for his discourteous manner. 
 When the appointment of Sir William 
 Knollys to the Governor-Generalship of 
 Ireland was under discussion, and Eliza- 
 beth boxed his ears before her councillors, 
 the earl laid his hand on his sword, and 
 swore he would not take such treatment 
 from her father. When a reconciliation 
 was effected, Essex was appointed to the 
 government of Ireland, but being unsuccess- 
 ful, some sharp letters passed between 
 them, of which the second, here given, may 
 serve as an example.] 
 
 ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX, TO QUEEN 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 [1598.] 
 
 Madam, — When I think how I have preferred 
 your beauty above all things, and received no 
 pleasure in life but by the increase of your 
 favour towards me, I wonder at myself what 
 cause there could be to make me absent myself 
 one day from you. But when I remember that 
 your Majesty hath, by the intolerable wrong 
 you have done both me and yourself, not only 
 broken all laws of affection, but done against 
 the honour of your sex, I think all places better 
 than that where I am, and all dangers well 
 undertaken, so I might retire myself from the 
 memory of my false, inconstant, and beguiling- 
 pleasures. I am sorry to write thus much, for I 
 cannot think your mind so dishonourable but 
 that you punish yourself for it, how little soever 
 you care for me. But I desire whatsoever falls 
 out that your Blajesty shall be without excuse, 
 you knowing yourself to be the cause, and all 
 the world wondering at the effect. I was never 
 proud till your Majesty sought to make me too 
 base. And now, since my destiny is no better, 
 my despair shall be as my love was, without 
 repentance. I v/ill as a subject and an humble 
 servant owe my life, my fortune, and all that is 
 in me ; but this place is not fit for me, for 
 she which governs this world is weary of me, 
 and I of the world. I must commend my faith 
 to be judged by Him who judgeth all hearts, 
 since on earth I find no right. Wishing your 
 Majesty all comforts and joys in the world, and 
 no greater punishment for your wrongs to me 
 than to know the faith of him you have lost, 
 and the baseness of those you shall keep. 
 Your Majesty's most humble servant, 
 
 Essex. 
 
 TO the same. 
 
 From a mind delighting in sorrow, from 
 spirits wasted with passion, from a heart torn 
 in pieces with care, grief, and travel, from a man 
 that hateth himself and all things that keepeth 
 him alive, what service can your Majesty expect, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 15 
 
 since your service past deserves no more than 
 banishment or prescription in the cursedest of 
 all other countries ? Nay, nay, it is your rebel's 
 pride and success that must give me leave to 
 ransom my life out of this hateful prison of 
 my loathed body ; which if it happen so, your 
 Majesty shall have no cause to mislike the 
 fashion of my death, since the course of my life 
 could never please you. 
 
 Your Majesty's exiled servant, 
 
 Eo. Essex. 
 
 [Lord Bacon here deals out a good deal of sage 
 advice to Sir George Yilliers, afterwards 
 Duke of Buckingham. That this selfish 
 political adventurer was incapable of receiv- 
 ing such is evident from his after career, 
 when his policy helped not a little to drag 
 down the throne of the Stuarts. 'Never 
 any man,' says Clarendon, 'in any age, nor I 
 believe in. any country, rose in such short a 
 time to so much greatness of honour, power, 
 or fortune, upon no other advantage or 
 recommendation than of the beauty and 
 gracefulness of his person. '] 
 
 SIR FRAJS'CIS BACON TO SIE GEORGE VILLIERS. 
 
 { TJ'pGn the sending his patent for Viscount 
 Villiers to be signed.) 
 
 Sir, — I have sent you now your patent, of 
 creation of Lord Bletchly of Bletchly, and of 
 Viscount Villiers. Bletchly is your own, and 
 I liked the sound of the name better than 
 "WTiaddon ; but the name will be hid, for you 
 will be called Viscount Villiers. I have j)ut 
 them in a patent, after the manner of the patent 
 for earls, where baronies are joined; but the 
 chief reason was, because I would avoid double 
 prefaces, which had not been fit; neverthe- 
 less the ceremony of robing and otherwise must 
 be double. 
 
 And now, because I am in the country, I will 
 send you some of my country fruits, which with 
 me are good meditations ; which, when I am in 
 the city, are choked with business. 
 
 After that the King shall have watered your 
 new dignities with the bounty of the lands 
 which he intends you, and that some other 
 things concerning your means, which are now 
 likewise in intention, shall be settled upon you, 
 I do not see, but you may think your private 
 fortunes established; and therefore it is now 
 time that you should refer your actions to the 
 good of your sovereign and your country. It is 
 the life of an ox or beast always to eat, and 
 never exercise; but men are born (especially 
 Christian men) not to cramb in their fortunes, 
 
 but to exercise their virtues ; and yet the other 
 hath not been the unworthy, and (thanks be to 
 God) sometimes the unlucky humour of great 
 persons in our times. Neither will your fortune 
 be the further off ; for assure yourself, that 
 fortune is of a woman's nature, and will sooner 
 follow by slighting, than by too much wooing. 
 And in this dedication of yourself to the public, 
 I recommend unto you principally, that which, 
 I think, was never done since I was born ; and 
 which, because it is not done, hath bred almost 
 a wilderness and solitude in the King's service ; 
 which is, that you countenance, and encotu'age, 
 and advance, able men, in all kinds, degrees, and 
 professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the 
 father and the son, able men were by design 
 and of purpose suppressed; and though of late, 
 choice goeth better, both in church and common- 
 wealth, yet money, and turn-serving, and 
 cunning canvasses, and importunity, prevail too 
 much. And, in places of moment, rather make 
 able and honest men yours, than advance those 
 that are otherwise, because they are yours. As 
 for cunning and corrupt men, you must (I know) 
 sometimes use them ; but keep them at a 
 distance ; and let it appear rather, that you 
 make use of them, than that they lead you. 
 Above all, depend wholly (next unto God) upon 
 the King, and be ruled (as hitherto you have 
 been) by his instructions; for that is best for 
 yourself. For the King's care and thoughts for 
 you, are according to the thoughts of a great 
 king ; whereas your thoughts concerning your- 
 self, are, and ought to be, according to the 
 thoughts of a modest man. But let me not 
 Aveary you ; the sum is, that you think goodness 
 the best -part of greatness : and that you 
 remember whence your rising comes, and make 
 return accordingly. God keep you. 
 August 12, 1616. 
 
 [Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief- Justice of Eng- 
 land, had gained the post of Attorney- 
 General in spite of the rival claims of 
 Bacon, and did not scruple when it lay in 
 his power to lower Bacon's credit in the 
 eyes of his countrymen. Here Bacon 
 'holds the mirror uj) to nature,' and lets 
 him know what he thought of his conduct 
 towards himself.] 
 
 SIR FRANCIS BACON TO SIR EDWARD COKE. 
 
 [1606.] 
 
 Mr. Attorney,— I thought best once for all 
 to let you know in plainness what I find of you, 
 and what you shall find of me. I am one that 
 know both mine own wants and other men's, 
 and it may be perchance that mine may mend 
 when others stand at a stay. And surely I may 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 not in public place endure to be wronged, 
 without repelling the same to my best advantage 
 to right myself. You are great, and therefore 
 have the more enviers, which would be glad to 
 have you paid at another's cost. Since the time 
 I missed the Solicitor's place, the rather I think, 
 by your means, I cannot expect that you and I 
 shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor ; but 
 either to serve with another upon your remove, 
 or to step into some other course. So as I am 
 more free than ever I was from any occasion of 
 unworthy conforming myself to you, more than 
 general good manners, or your particular good 
 usage shall provoke ; and if you had not been 
 short-sighted in your own fortune (as I think) 
 you might have had more use of me ; but that 
 tide is past. I write not this to show any 
 friends what a brave letter I have writ to Mr. 
 Attorney ; I have none of those humours : but 
 that I have written is to a good end, that is, 
 to the more decent carriage of my master's 
 service, and to our particular better understand- 
 ing one another. This letter, if it shall be 
 answered by you in deed, and not in word, I 
 suppose it will not be worse for us both ; else it 
 is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller 
 matter I would adventure. So this being to 
 yourself, I for my part rest yours, etc., 
 
 Fr. Bacon-. 
 
 to the same, whex lord chief-justice in 
 disgrace. 
 
 My VERT GOOD Lord, — Though it be true, 
 that who considereth the wind and the rain, 
 shall neither sow nor reap, Eccles. ix. 15, yet 
 there is a season for every action. And so there 
 is a time to speak, and a time to keep silence ; 
 there is a time when the words of a poor simple 
 man may profit ; and that poor man in the 
 Preacher which delivered the city by his wisdom, 
 found, that without this opportunity, the power 
 both of -wisdom and eloquence lose but their 
 labour, and cannot charm the deaf adder. God 
 therefore, before His Son that bringeth mercy, 
 sent His servant the trumpeter of rejDentance, 
 to level a very high hill, to prepare the way 
 before him, making it smooth and straight. 
 And as it is in spiritual things, where Christ 
 never comes before His way-maker hath laid 
 even the heart with sorrow and repentance ; 
 since self-conceited and proud persons think 
 themselves too good and too wise to learn of their 
 inferior, and therefore need not the Physician : 
 so in the rules of earthly wisdom, it is not pos- 
 sible for nature to attain any mediocrity of 
 perfection, before she be humbled by knowing 
 herself and her own ignorance. Not only know- 
 ledge, but also every other gift (which we call 
 the gift of fortune) have power to pull up 
 earthly — Afflictions only level these molehills 
 of pride, plough the heart, and make it fit for 
 wisdom to sow her seed, and for grace to bring 
 
 forth her increase. Happy is that man there- 
 fore, both in regard of heavenly and earthly 
 wisdom, that is thus wounded, to be cured ; 
 thus broken, to be made straight ; thus made 
 acquainted with his own imperfections, that 
 he may be perfected. 
 
 Supposing this to be the time of your afiiiction, 
 that which I have propounded to myself is, by 
 taking this seasonable advantage, like a true 
 friend (though far unworthy to be counted so) 
 to show you your true shape in a glass, and that 
 not in a false one to flatter you, nor yet in one 
 that should make you seem worse than you are, 
 and so offend you ; but in one, made by the 
 reflection of your own words and actions, from 
 whose light proceeds the voice of the people, 
 which is often not unfitly called the voice of 
 God. But therein (since I purposed a truth) I 
 must entreat liberty to be plain, a liberty at 
 this time I know not whether or no I may 
 use safely ; I am sure at other times I could 
 not : yet of this resolve yourself, it proceedeth 
 from love, and a true desire to do you good ; 
 that you, knowing the general opinion, may not 
 altogether neglect or contemn it, but mend 
 what you find amiss in yourself, and retain 
 what your judgment shall appraise ; for to this 
 end shall truth be delivered as naked as if 
 yourself were to be anatomized by the hand of 
 opinion. All men can see their own profit ; 
 that part of the wallet hangs before. A true 
 friend (whose worthy oflSce I would perform, 
 since I fear both yourself and all great men 
 want such, being themselves true friends to few 
 or none) is first to show the other, and which is 
 from your eyes. 
 
 First therefore behold your errors. In dis- 
 course you delight to speak too much, not to 
 hear other men ; this some say becomes a jplead- 
 er, not a judge. For by this sometimes your 
 affections are entangled with a love of your 
 own arguments, though they be the weaker; 
 and rejecting of those, which when your affec- 
 tions were settled, your own judgment would 
 allow for sti-ongest. Thus while you speak 
 in your own element, the law, no man ordinarily 
 equals you ; but when you wander (as you often 
 delight to do) you then wander indeed, and 
 give never such satisfaction as the curious time 
 requires. This is not caused by any natural 
 defect, but first for want of election, when you, 
 having a large and fruitful mind, should not so 
 much labour what to speak, as to find what to 
 leave unspoken. Eich soils are often to be 
 weeded. 
 
 Secondly, you cloy your auditory, when you 
 would be observed. Speech must either be 
 sweet or short. 
 
 Thirdly, you converse with books, not men, 
 and books specially humane, and have no 
 excellent choice with men, who are the best 
 books ; for a man of action and employment you 
 seldom converse with, and then but with your 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 17 
 
 underlings ; not freely, but as a schoolmaster 
 with his scholars, ever to teach, never to learn. 
 But if sometimes you would in your familiar 
 discourse hear others, and make election of such 
 as know what they speak, you should know many 
 of these tales you tell to be but ordinary, and 
 many other things which you delight to repeat, 
 and serve in for novelties, to be but stale. As 
 in your pleadings you were wont to insult over 
 misery, and to inveigh bitterly at the persons 
 (which bred you many enemies, whose poison 
 yet swelleth, and the effects now appear), so 
 are you still wont to be a little careless in this 
 point to praise or dispraise upon slight grounds, 
 and that sometimes untruly, so that yoTir 
 reproofs or commendations are for the most 
 part neglected and contemned ; when the cen- 
 sure of a judge (coming slow but sure) should be 
 a brand to the guilty, and a crown to the 
 virtuous. You will jest a man in public, 
 without respect to the person's dignity, or your 
 own. This disgraceth your gravity more than 
 it can advance the opinion of your wit ; and so 
 do all actions which we see you do directly with 
 a touch of vainglory, having no respect to the 
 true end. You make the law to lean too much 
 to your opinion, whereby you show yourself to 
 be a legal tyrant, striking Avith that weapon 
 where you please, since you are able to turn the 
 edge any way. For thus the wise master of the 
 law gives warning to young students, that they 
 should be wary, lest while they hope to be 
 instructed by your integrity and knowledge, 
 they should be deceived with your skill, armed 
 with authority. Your too much love of the 
 world is too much .seen, when having the 
 living of £10,000 you relieve few or none. The 
 hand that hath taken so much, can it give so 
 little? Herein you show no bowels of com- 
 passion, as if you thought all too little for 
 yourself ; or that God had given you all that 
 you have (if you think wealth to be His gift, I 
 mean that you get well, for I know sure the 
 rest is not) only to that end you should still 
 gather more, and never be satisfied, but try 
 how much you could gather, to account for all 
 at the great and general audit-day. We desire 
 you to amend this, and let your poor tenants in 
 Norfolk find some comfort, where nothing of 
 your estate is spent towards their relief, but all 
 brought up hither, to the impoverishing of your 
 country. 
 
 In your last, which might have been your 
 best piece of service to the State, affectioned to 
 follow that old rule which giveth justice leaden 
 heels and iron hands, you used too many de- 
 lays, till the delinquent's hands were loosed, 
 and yours bound. In that work you seemed 
 another Fabius ; here the humour of Marcellus 
 would have done better. What needed you 
 have sought more evidences than enough ? while 
 you pretended the finding out of more (missing 
 your aim) you discredited what you had found. 
 
 This best judgments think, though you never 
 used such speeches as are fathered upon you, 
 yet you might well have done it, and but 
 rightly : for this crime was second to none but 
 the powder plot; that would have blo\vn 
 up all at one blow ; a merciful cruelty ; this 
 would have done the same by degrees ; a linger- 
 ing, but a sure way : one might by one be 
 called out, till all opposers had been removed. 
 Besides, that other plot was scandalous to 
 Eome, making Popery odious in the sight of the 
 whole World. This has been scandalous to the 
 truth of the whole gospel ; and since the first 
 nullity to this instant, when justice hath her 
 hands bound, the devil could not have invented 
 a more mischievous practice to our State and 
 Church, than this hath been, is, and is like to 
 be. God avert the evil. 
 
 But herein you committed another fault, that 
 you were too open in your proceedings, and so 
 taught them whereby to defend themselves ; so 
 you gave them time to undermine justice, and 
 to work upon all advantages both of affections 
 and honour, and opportunity, and breach of 
 friendship, which they have so well followed, 
 sparing neither pains nor cost, that it almost 
 seemeth an offence in you to have done so 
 much indeed, than that you have done no more. 
 You stopt the confessions and accusations of 
 some, who perhaps had they been suffered, 
 would have sjioken enough to have removed 
 some stumbling-blocks out of your way ; and 
 that you did not this in the favour of any one, 
 but of I know not what present unadvised 
 humours, supposing enough behind to discover 
 all, which fell not out so. Howsoever, as 
 the apostle saith in another case, you went not 
 rightly to the truth, and therefore though you 
 were to be commended for what you did, yet 
 you were to be reprehended for many circum- 
 stances in the doing ; and doubtless God hath 
 an eye in this cross to your negligence, and the 
 briers are left to be pricks in your sides, and 
 thorns in your eyes. 
 
 But that which we commend you for, are 
 those excellent i^arts of nature, and knowledge 
 in the law, which you are endued withal ; but 
 these are only good in their good use. Where- 
 fore we thank you heartily for standing stoutly 
 in the commonwealth's behalf, hoping it pro- 
 ceedeth not from a disposition to oppose great- 
 ness (as your enemies say), but to do justice, and j 
 deliver truth indifferently, without respect of | 
 persons; and in this we pray for your pros- (' 
 perity, and are sorry that your good actions ' 
 should not always succeed happily. But in the j 
 carriage of this, you were faulty ; for you took | 
 it in hand in an evil time, both in respect of | 
 the present business which it interrupted, and | 
 in regard of his present sickness whom it con- j 
 cerned : whereby you disunited your strength, j 
 and made a gaj) for the enemies to pass out at, I 
 and to return and assault you. 
 
 B 
 
I8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 But now, since the case so standetli, we 
 desire you to give way to power, and so to fight, 
 that you be not utterly broken, but reserved 
 entirely to serve the commonwealth again, and 
 do what good you can, since you cannot do all 
 the good you would. And since you are fallen 
 upon this rock, cast out the goods to save the 
 bottom ; stop the leaks, and make towards 
 land ; learn of the steward to make friends of 
 the unrighteous mammon. Those Spaniards in 
 Mexico who were chased of the Indians, tell us 
 what to do with our goods in our extremities ; 
 they being to pass over a river in their flight, 
 as many as cast away their gold swam over safe ; 
 but some more covetous, keeping their gold, 
 were either drowned with it, or overtaken and 
 slain by the savages. You have received, now 
 learn to give. The beaver learns us this lesson, 
 who being hunted for his stones, bites them off. 
 You cannot but have much of your estate 
 (pardon my plainness) ill got. Think how 
 much of that you never spake for : how much, 
 by speaking unjustly, or in unjust causes. 
 Account it then a blessing of God, if thus it 
 may be laid out for your good, and not left for 
 your heir to hasten the wasting of much of the 
 rest, perhaps of all ; for so we see God often- 
 times proceeds in judgment with many hasty 
 gatherers. You have enough to spare, being 
 well laid, to turn the tide, and fetch all things 
 again. But if you escape (I suppose it worthy 
 of an if), since you know the old use, that none 
 called in question must go away uncensured : 
 yet consider, that accusations make wounds, 
 and leave scars ; and though you see your tail 
 behind your back, yourself free, and the covert 
 before ; yet remember there are stands. Trust 
 not to reconciled enemies, but think the peace 
 is but to secure you for further advantage. 
 Expect a second and a third encounter; the 
 main battle, the wings are yet unbroken ; they 
 may charge you at an instant, or death before 
 them. Walk therefore circumspectly ; and if 
 at length by means of our good endeavours and 
 yours, you recover the favour that you have 
 lost ; give God the glory in action, not in words 
 only ; and remember us with sense of your past 
 misfortune, whose estate hath, doth, and may 
 hereafter lie in the power of your breath. 
 There is a great mercy in dispatch. Delays are 
 tortures wherewith we are by degrees rent out 
 of our estates. Do not you (if you be restored) 
 as some others do, fly from the service of 
 virtue to serve the time, as if they repented 
 their goodness, or meant not to make a second 
 hazard in God's house. But rather let this 
 cross make you zealous in God's cause, sensible 
 in ours, and more sensible in all, which express 
 thus. You have been a great enemy to Papists ; 
 if you love God, be so still, but more indeed 
 I than heretofore ; for much of your zeal was 
 heretofore wasted in words. Call to remem- 
 brance that they were the persons that pro- 
 
 phesied of that cross of yours long before it 
 happened ; they saw the storm coming, being 
 the i^rincipal contrivers and furtherers of the 
 plot ; the men that blew the coals, heat the 
 iron, and made all things ready ; they owe you 
 a good turn, and will, if they can, pay it you. 
 You see their hearts by their deeds ; prove then 
 your faith so too. The best good woi'k you can 
 do, is to do the best you can against them, that 
 is, to see the law severely, justly, and diligently 
 executed. And now we beseech you, my lord, 
 be sensible both of the stroke, and hand that 
 strike th. Learn of David to leave Shimei, and 
 call upon God ; He hath some great work to do, 
 and He prepareth you for it ; He would neither 
 have you faint, nor yet bear this cross with a 
 Stoical resolution. There is a Christian medi- 
 ocrity worthy of your greatness. I must be 
 plain, perhaps rash. Had some notes which 
 you have taken at sermons, been written in 
 your heart to practise, this work had been done 
 long ago, without the envy of your enemies. 
 But when we will not mind ourselves, God (if 
 we belong to Him) takes us in hand ; and 
 because He seeth that we have unbridled 
 stomachs, therefore He sends outward crosses, 
 which while they cause us to mourn, do comfort 
 us ; being assured testimonies of His love that 
 sends them. To humble ourselves therefore 
 before God, is the part of a Christian ; but for 
 the world and our enemies, the counsel of 
 the poet is apt ; Txmc cede malis, sed contra 
 audeniior ito. 
 
 The last part of this counsel you forget, yet 
 none need be ashamed to make use of it ; that 
 so being armed against casualties, you may stand 
 firm against the assaults on the right hand and 
 on the left. For this is certain ; the mind that 
 is most prone to be puffed up with prosperity, 
 is most weak, and apt to be dejected with the 
 least puff of adversity. Indeed she is strong 
 enough to make an able man stagger, striking 
 terrible blows, but true Christian wisdom gives 
 us armour of proof against all assaults, and 
 teacheth us in all estates to be content. For 
 though she cause our truest friends to declare 
 themselves our enemies, though she give heart 
 then to the most cowardly to strike us, though 
 an hour's continuance countervail an age of 
 prosperity, though she cast in our dish all that 
 ever we have done ; yet hath she no power to 
 hurt the humble and wise, but only to break 
 such as too much i^rosperity hath made stiff in 
 their own thoughts, but weak indeed and fitted 
 for renewing, when the wise rather gather from 
 thence profit and wisdom by the example of 
 David, who said, ' Before I was chastised I went 
 wi'ong.' Now then, he that knoweth the right 
 way, will look better to his footing. Garden 
 saith, 'That weeping, fasting, and sighing are 
 the chief purgers of griefs.' Indeed naturally 
 they help to assuage sorrow; but God in this 
 case is the only and best physician. The means 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 19 
 
 He hath ordained are the advice of friends, the 
 amendment of ourselves : for amendment is 
 both physician and cure. For friends, although 
 jour lordship be scant, yet I hope you are not 
 altogether destitute ; if you be, do but look on 
 good books, they are true friends, that will 
 neither flatter nor dissemble ; be you but true 
 to yourself, applying what they teach unto the 
 party grieved, and you shall need no other 
 comfort nor counsel. To them, and to God's 
 Holy Spirit directing you in the reading of them, 
 I commend your lordship, beseeching Him to 
 send you a good issue out of these troubles, and 
 from henceforth to work a reformation in all 
 that is amiss, and a resolute perseverance i^ro- 
 ceeding, and growth in all that is good, and 
 that for His glory, the bettering of yourself, 
 this church and commonwealth, whose faithful 
 servant whilst you remain, I remain a faithful 
 servant to you. 
 
 
 
 [Addressed to Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of 
 the Bodleian Library, on the occasion of 
 Bacon's presenting him with a co\}y of his 
 Advamemcnt of Learning. '[ 
 
 THE SAME TO SIK THOMAS BODLEY. 
 
 [1607.] 
 
 SiK, — I think no man may more truly say 
 with the Psalm, Multum incolafv.it anima mea. 
 For I do confess, since I was of any understand- 
 ing, my mind hath in effect been absent from 
 that I have done, and in absence errours are 
 committed, which I do willingly acknowledge ; 
 and amongst the rest, this great one that led 
 the rest ; that knowing myself by inward calling 
 to be fitter to hold a book, than to play a part, 
 I have led my life in civil causes ; for which I 
 was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by 
 the pre-occupation of my mind. Therefore 
 calling myself home, I have now for a time 
 enjoyed myself; where likewise I desire to 
 make the world partaker ; my labours (if so I 
 may term that which was the comfort of my 
 other labours) I have dedicated to the King, 
 desirous if there be any good in them, it may be 
 as fat of a sacrifice incensed to his honour ; and 
 the second copy have sent unto you, not only 
 in good affection, but in a kind of congruity, in 
 regard of your great and rare desert of learning. 
 For books are the shrines where the saint is, 
 or is believed to be. And you having built an 
 ark to save learning from deluge, deserve in 
 propriety, any new instrument or engine, 
 whereby learning should bo improved or 
 advanced. 
 
 [Ealeigh had been indicted at Staines, September 
 21st, 1603, for an alleged conspiracy, with 
 Lords Grey and Cobham. The plague 
 raging in London at that time, the term 
 was held at Winchester, whither Raleigh 
 was removed on the 10th of November. A 
 full account of the accusations against him 
 may be seen in his life by Birch. The jury, 
 after deliberating for a quarter of an hour, 
 pronounced him guilty of treason ; although 
 some, according to Osborne, subsequently 
 besought his pardon upon their knees. 
 After being detained at Winchester nearly 
 a month in daily expectation of death, 
 Raleigh was removed to the Tower on the 
 15th of December, where his wife was soon 
 allowed to join him. During his confine- 
 ment, he composed his History of the 
 World, and at length obtained his release, 
 after an imprisonment of more than twelve 
 years, in 1615-16.— i2. A. Wilmott.] 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 Written t?ie night before he exjoected to be 
 beheaded at Winchester, 1603. 
 
 You shall now receive (my dear wife) my last 
 words in these my last lines. My love I send 
 you, that you may keep it when I am dead ; 
 and my counsel, that you may remember it 
 when I am no more. I would not by my will 
 present you with sori-ows (dear Bess), let them 
 go to the grave, and be buried with me in the 
 dust ; and seeing it is not the will of God that 
 ever I shall see you more in this life, bear it 
 patiently, and with a heart like thyself. First, 
 I send you all the thanks my heart can conceive, 
 or my words can express, for your many travails 
 and cares taken for me ; which, though they 
 have not taken effect as you wished, yet my 
 debt to you is not the less : but pay it I never 
 shall in this world. Secondly, I beseech you, 
 for the love you bear me living, do not hide 
 yourself many days ; but by your travail, seek 
 to help your miserable fortune and the right of 
 your poor child ; thy mourning cannot avail me, 
 I am but dust. Thirdly, you shall understand 
 that my land was conveyed {bona fide) to my 
 child ; the writings were drawn at Midsummer 
 was twelve months ; my honest cousin Brett can 
 testify so much, and Dalberie too can remember 
 somewhat therein : and I trust my blood will 
 quench their malice, that have thus cruelly 
 murdered me ; and that they will not seek also I 
 to kill thee and mine with extreme poverty. 
 To what friend to direct thee I know not, for 
 all mine have left me in the true time of trial ; 
 and I plainly perceive that my death was deter- 
 
20 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 mined from the first day. Most sorry I am, 
 (as God knows) that, being thus surprised by 
 death, I can leave you no better estate : God is 
 my witness, I meant you all my office of wines, 
 or that I could have purchased by selling it ; 
 half my stuff, and all my jewels, but some one 
 for the boy ; but God hath prevented all my 
 resolutions, even that great God that worketh 
 all in all ; but if you live free from want, care 
 for no more, for the rest is but vanity ; love 
 God, and begin betimes to repose your trust in 
 Him ; therein shall you find true and lasting 
 riches, and endless comfort. For the rest, when 
 you have travailed and wearied your thoughts, 
 over all sorts of worldly cogitation, you shall 
 but sit down by sorrow in the end. Tep,ch your 
 son also to serve and fear God whilst he is yet 
 young, that the fear of God may grow up with 
 him ; and then will God be a husband unto you, 
 and a father unto him — a husband and a father 
 which can never be taken from you. Bayly 
 oweth me two hundred pounds, and Adrian 
 Gilbert six hundred pounds. In Jersey, also, 
 I have much money owing me ; besides, the 
 arrearages of the wines will pay my debts ; and 
 howsoever you do, for my soul's sake, pay all 
 poor men. When I am gone, no doubt you 
 shall be sought for by many, for the world 
 thinks that I was very rich : but take heed of 
 the pretences of men and their affections, for 
 they last not but in honest and worthy men ; 
 and no greater misery can befall you in this 
 life than to become a prey, and afterwards to 
 be despised. I speak not this (God knows) to 
 dissuade you from marriage, for it will be best 
 for you, both in respect of this world and of 
 God. As for me, I am no more yours, nor you 
 mine, death has cut us asunder ; and God hath 
 divided me from the world, and you from me. 
 
 Remember your poor child for his father's 
 sake, who chose you, and loved you in his 
 happiest time. Get those letters (if it be pos- 
 sible) v/hich I writ to the Lords, wherein I 
 sued for my life. God is my witness, it was for 
 you and yours that I desired life ; but is true 
 that I disdain myself for begging it ; for know 
 it (dear wife), that your son is the son of a true 
 man, and one who in his own respect despiseth 
 death, and all his misshapen and ugly forms. 
 I cannot write much ; God He knoweth how 
 hardly I steal this time while others sleep ; and 
 it is also high time that I should separate my 
 thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, 
 which living was denied thee, and either lay it 
 at Sherborn (if the land continue), or in Exeter 
 Church, by my father and mother : I can say no 
 more ; time and death call me away. 
 
 The everlasting God, infinite, powerful, and 
 inscrutable ; that Almighty God which is good- 
 ness itself, mercy itself, the true life and light, 
 keep theo and thine, have mercy on me, and 
 teach me to forgive my persecutors and false 
 accusers, and send us to meet again in His 
 
 glorious kingdom ! My true wife, farewell I 
 bless my poor boy ; pray for me, and let my 
 good God hold you both in His arms. 
 
 Written with the dying hand of sometime 
 thy husband, but now (alas !) overthrown. 
 Yours that was, but now not my own. 
 
 Walter Ralegh. 
 
 [Dr. Donne's letters were published in 1654, 
 by his son. 'All the characteristics,' says 
 Mr. R. A. Wilmott, * of the poetry and prose 
 of Donne will be found in his letters ; the 
 same eccentricity of expression, originality 
 of thought, and liveliness of illustration 
 surprise the reader.'] 
 
 DR. DONNE TO SIR HENRY GOODERE. 
 
 Sir, — In the history or style of friendship 
 which is best written both in deeds and words, 
 a letter which is of a mixed nature, and hath 
 something of both is a mixed parenthesis. It 
 may be left out, yet it contributes, though not 
 to the being, yet to the verdure and freshness 
 thereof. Letters have truly the same office as 
 oaths. As these amongst light and empty men 
 are but fillings and pauses and interjections ; but 
 with weightier, they are sad attestations ; so 
 are letters to some compliment, and obligation 
 to others. For mine, as I never authorized my 
 servant to lie in my behalf (for if it were officious 
 in him, it might be worse in me), so I allow my 
 letters much less that civil dishonesty, both 
 because they go from me more considerately, 
 and because they are permanent ; for in them I 
 may speak to you in your chamber a year hence 
 before I know not whom, and not hear myself. 
 
 They shall therefore ever keep the sincerity 
 and intemperateness of the fountain whence 
 they are derived. And as wheresoever these 
 leaves fall, the root is my heart, so shall 
 they as that sucks good affection towards you 
 there, have ever true impressions thereof. 
 Thus much information is in the very leaves, that 
 they can tell what the tree is, and these can tell 
 you I am a friend and an honest man. Of what 
 general use the fruit should speak, and I have 
 none ; and of what particular profit to you, your 
 application and experimenting should tell you, 
 and you can make none of such a nothing ; yet 
 even of barren sycamores, such as I, there were 
 use, if either any light flashings, or scorching 
 vehemencies, or sudden showers made you need 
 so shadowy an example or remembrancer. But, 
 sir, your fortune and mind do you this happy 
 injury, that they make all kinds of fruits useless 
 unto you. Therefore I have placed my love 
 wisely where I need communicate nothing. All 
 this, though perchance you read it not till 
 Michaelmas, was told you at Micham. 
 Anrjiist 15, 1G07. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 21 
 
 TO THE SAME.— ALLUSIONS TO HIMSELF. 
 
 SiK, — Every Tuesday I make account that I 
 turn a great hour-glass, and consider that a 
 week's life is run out since I writ. But if I ask 
 myself what I have done in the last watch, or 
 would do in the next, I can say nothing ; if I 
 say that I have passed it without hurting any, 
 so may the spider in my window. The primitive 
 monks were excusable in their retirings and 
 enclosures of themselves : for even of them 
 every one cultivated his own garden and orchard, 
 that is, his soul and body, by meditation and 
 manufactures ; and they ought the world no 
 more, since they consumed none of her sweet- 
 ness, nor begot others to burden her. But for 
 me, if I were able to husband all my time so 
 thriftily, as not only not to wound my soul in 
 any minute by actual sin, but not to rob and 
 cozen her by giving any part to pleasure to 
 business, but bestow it all upon her in medita- 
 tion, yet even in that I should wound her more, 
 and contract another guiltiness ; as the eagle 
 were very unnatural, if, because she is able to 
 do it, she should perch a whole day upon a tree, 
 staring in contemplation of the majesty and 
 glory of the sun, and let her young eaglets 
 starve in the nest. Two of the most precious 
 things which God hath afforded us here, for the 
 agony and exercise of our sense and spirit, which 
 are a thirst and inhiation after the next life, 
 and a frequency of prayer and meditation in 
 this, are often envenomed and putrefied, and 
 stray into a corrupt disease : for as God doth 
 thus occasion and positively concur to evil, that 
 when a man is purposed to do a great sin, God 
 infuses some good thoughts which make him 
 choose a less sin, or leave out some circum- 
 stance which aggravated that ; so the devil 
 doth not only suffer but provoke us to some 
 things naturally good, upon condition that we 
 shall omit some other more necessary and more 
 obligatory. And this is his greatest subtilty, 
 because herein we have the deceitful comfort of 
 having done well, and can very hardly spy our 
 error, because it is but an insensible omission, 
 tvnd no accusing act. "With the first of these I 
 have often suspected myself to be overtaken ; 
 which is, with the desire of the next life : which 
 though I know it is not merely out of a weari- 
 ness of this, because I had the same desires 
 when I went with the tide, and enjoyed fairer 
 hopes than now : yet I doubt worldly incum- 
 brances have increased it. I would not that 
 death should take me asleep. I would not have 
 him merely seize me, and only declare me to be 
 dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I 
 must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where 
 mine impotency might have some excuse ; not 
 in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have 
 so much as exercise for my swimming. There- 
 fore I would fain do something ; but that I 
 cannot tell what, is no wonder. For to choose, 
 
 is to do ; but to be no part of anybody, is to be 
 nothing. At most, the greatest persons are 
 but great wens and excrescences ; men of wit 
 and delightful conversation, but as moles for 
 ornament, except they be so incorporated into 
 the body of the world, that they contribute 
 something to the sustentation of the whole. 
 This I made account that I began early, when 
 I undertook the study of our laws : but was 
 diverted by the worst voluptuousness, which is 
 an hydroptique immoderate desire of human 
 learning and languages : beautiful ornaments to 
 great fortunes ; but mine needed an occupation, 
 and a course which I thought I entered well 
 into, when I submitted myself to such a service 
 as I thought might have employed those poor 
 advantages which I had. And there I stumbled 
 too, yet I would try again : for to this hour I 
 am nothing, or so little, that I am scarce subject 
 and argument good enough for one of mine own 
 letters : yet I fear that doth not ever proceed 
 from a good root, that I am so well content to be 
 less, that is dead. You, sir, are far enough 
 from these descents ; your virtue keeps you 
 secure, and your natural disposition to mirth 
 will preserve you. But lose none of these 
 holds ; a slip is often as dangerous as a bruise, 
 and though you cannot fall to my lowness, yet, 
 in a much less distraction, you may meet my 
 sadness ; for he is no safer which falls from an 
 high tower into the leads, than he which falls 
 from thence to the ground ; make therefore to 
 yourself some mark, and go towards it algrement. 
 Though I be in such a planetary and erratic 
 fortune, that I can do nothing constantly, yet 
 you may find some constancy in my constant 
 advising you to it. 
 
 Your hearty true friend, 
 
 J. Donne. 
 
 [This letter has been commended by a com- 
 petent critic as a perfect specimen of 
 finished courtliness, and superior to any 
 composition of a similar character in Pope's 
 Letters.] 
 
 SIK JOHN SUCKLING TO A NOBLEMAN. 
 —COMPLIMENTS. 
 
 My noble Lord,— Your humble servant had 
 the honour to receive from your hand a letter, 
 and had the grace upon the sight of it to blush ; 
 I but then found my own negligence, and but 
 now have the opportunity to ask pardon for it. 
 We have ever since been upon a march, and 
 the places we have come to, have afforded 
 rather blood than ink ; and of all things, sheets 
 have been the hardest to come by, especially 
 those of paper. If these few lines shall have 
 the happiness to kiss your hand, they can assure 
 
22 
 
 777^ BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 you, that he who sent them knows no one to 
 whom he owes more obligation than to yor.r 
 lordshij), and to whom he would more willingly 
 pay it ; and that it must be no less than 
 necessity itself that can hinder him from often 
 presenting it. Germany hath no whit altered 
 me ; I am still the humble servant of my lord 
 that I was ; and when I cease to be so, I must 
 cease to be John Suckling. 
 
 [As James Howell has been regarded as the 
 father of epistolary literature, we give 
 several varied examples of his i)owers from 
 his book bearing the title, ' Epistolce Ho- 
 eliance. Familiar Letters Domestic and 
 Forren ; Divided into Six Sections, partly 
 Historicall, Politicall, Philosophical!, upon 
 Emergent Occasions : By J. H., Esq. ; one 
 of the Clerks of his Majesty's most Honour- 
 able Privy Councell. London, Printed for 
 Humphrey Mosely ; and are to be sold at 
 his shop at the Prince's Arms in S, Paul's 
 Churchyard, 1645.' Sergeant-Major Peter 
 Fisher, Poet Laureate to the Protector, said 
 of Howell, who wrote upwards of forty 
 miscellaneous works, that he may be called 
 * the prodigy of the age for the variety of 
 his volumes ; he teacheth a new way of 
 epistolizing ; and that Familiar Letters 
 may not only consist of words, and a bombast 
 of complements, but that they are capable 
 of the highest speculations and solidest kind 
 of knowledge. And 'tis observed that in 
 all his writings there is something still new, 
 either in the matter, method, or fancy, and 
 in an untrodden tract.' The specimens 
 given amply vindicate Fisher's opinion of 
 this master of an animated, racy, and 
 picturesque style.] 
 
 JAMES HOWELL TO MR. J. WILSON. 
 
 Sir,— I received yours of the 10th current, 
 and I have many thanks to give you, that you 
 so quaintly acquaint me how variously the pulse 
 of the pulpiters beat in your town. Touching 
 ours here (by way of corresponding with you) 
 I'll tell you of one whom I heard lately, for 
 dropping casually into a church in Thames 
 Street, I fell upon a winter-preacher, who spoke 
 of nothing but of the fire and flames of hell, so 
 that if a Scythian or Greenlander, who are 
 habituated to such extreme cold, had heard 
 and understood him, would have thought he had 
 preached of paradice. His mouth methought 
 
 did fume with the lake of brimstone, with the 
 infernal torments, and the thunderings of the 
 law ; not a syllable of the gospel, so I con- 
 cluded him to be one of those who used to 
 preach the law in the church and the gospel in 
 their chambers, when they make some female 
 hearts melt into peeces. He repeated his text 
 once, but God knows how far it was from the 
 subject of his preachment. He had also hot 
 and fiery incitements to war, and to swim in 
 blood for the cause. But after he had run 
 away from his text so long, the Spirit led him 
 into a wilderness of prayer, and there 1 left him. 
 
 God amend all, and begin with me, who am 
 your assured friend to serve you, J. H. 
 
 TO MT LORD CLIFFORD, FROM EDINBURGH. 
 
 My Lord,— I have seen now all the King of 
 Great Britain's dominions, and he is a good 
 traveller that hath seen all his dominions. I 
 was born in Wales, I have been in all the four 
 corners of England, I have traversed the 
 diameter of France more than once, and now 
 I am come through Ireland into this kingdom 
 of Scotland. This town of Edenburgh is one of 
 the fairest streets I ever saw (excepting that of 
 Palermo in Sicily). It is about a mile long, 
 coming sloping down from the Castle (called of 
 old the Castle of Virgins, and by Pliny, Castrum 
 alatum) to Holyrood House, now the Royal 
 Palace ; and these two begin and terminate the 
 town. I am come hither in a very convenient 
 time, for here's a National Assembly and a Par- 
 liament, my Lord Traquair being his Majestie's 
 Commissioner. The bishops are all gon to wrack, 
 and they have had but a sorry funeral, the very 
 name is grown so contemptible that a black dog 
 if he hath any white marks about him, is called 
 bishop. Our Lord of Canterbury is grown here 
 so odious, that they call him commonly in 
 the pulpit, the priest of Bail, and the son of 
 Belial. 
 
 I'll tell your lordship of a passage which 
 happen'd lately in my lodging, which is a 
 tavern. I had sent for a shoo-maker to make me 
 a pair of boots, and my landlord, who is a pert, 
 smart man, brought up a chopin of white wine 
 (and for this particular, ther are better French 
 wines here than in England, and cheaper, for 
 they are but at a groat a quart, and it is a crime 
 of high nature to mingle or sophisticat any 
 wine here). Over this choiiin of white wine 
 my vintner and shoo-maker fell into a hot 
 dispute about bishops. The shoo-maker grew 
 very furious, and called them the firebrands of 
 heU, the panders of the whore of Babylon, and 
 the instrument of the devil, and that they 
 were of his institution, not of God's. My 
 vintner took him up smartly and said. Hold, 
 neighbour, there. Do you know as well as I, [ 
 that Titus and Timothy were bishops? that 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 23 
 
 our Saviour is entitled, the Bishop of our souls ? 
 that the word bishop is as frequently mentioned 
 in Scripture as the name pastor, elder, or 
 deacon ? Then why do you inveigh so bitterly 
 against them? The shoo-maker answered, 
 I know the name and office to be good, but they 
 have abused it. My ^'intner replies. Well then 
 you are a shoo-maker by youi* j^rofession ; 
 imagine that you, or a hundred, or a thousand, 
 or a hundred thousand of your trade, should 
 play the knaves, and sell calfskin leather boots 
 for neats' leather, or do other cheats, must we 
 therefore go barefoot ? Must the gentle craft of 
 shoo-makers fall therefore to the ground ? It 
 is the fault of the men, not of the calUng. The 
 shoo-maker was so gravell'd at this, that he was 
 put to his last, for he had not a word more to 
 say, so my vintner got the day. 
 
 Ther is a fair Parliament House built here 
 lately, and 'twas hoped his Majestie would have 
 tane the maidenhead of it, and com hither to 
 set in person ; and they did ill who advised him 
 otherwise. 
 
 I am to go hence shortly back to Dublin, and 
 so to London, wher I hope to find your lord- 
 ship, that according to my accustomed bold- 
 ness, I may attend you. In the interim I rest 
 your lordship's most humble servitor, 
 
 Edenhurgh, 1639. J. H. 
 
 [The original stoiy of Robert Browning's ' Pied 
 Piper of Hamelin ' is here given. In the 
 Index at the end, or * Extract of the choicest 
 matters that go interwoven 'mongst these 
 Letters,' the following is called 'Of a 
 miraculous accident happened in Hamelen 
 in Germany.' The story is also given in 
 M. Merimee's first chapter of his Chron- 
 ique sous Charles J., by L. Etienne ; in 
 Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelli- 
 fjence (1605) ; and in Gaspar Schott's 
 Physica Curiosa sivc Mirahilia Natune et 
 Artis (1697).] 
 
 JAMES HOWELL TO MR. E. P. 
 
 Sir, — I saw such prodigious things daily don 
 these few yeers, that I had resolv'd with my 
 self to give over wondering at any thing ; yet a 
 passage happen'd this week, that forc'd me to 
 wonder once more, because it is without 
 parallell. It was, that som odd fellows went 
 skulking up and down London streets, and 
 with figs and reasons allur'd little children, and 
 so pourloyn'd them away from their parents, 
 and carried them a ship-board for beyond sea, 
 wher, by cutting their hair, and other divises, 
 they so disguis'd them, that their parents 
 could not know them. 
 
 This made me think upon that miraculous 
 passage in Hamelen, a town in Germany, which 
 I hop'd to have pass'd through when I was in 
 Hamburgh, had we return 'd by Holland ; which 
 was thus (nor would I relate it unto you, were 
 not there som ground of truth for it). The 
 said town of Hamelen was annoyed with rats 
 and mice ; and it chanc'd that a pied-coated 
 piper came thither, who covenanted with the 
 chief burgers for such a reward, if he could free 
 them quite from the said vermin, nor would he 
 demand it, till a twelve-month and a day after : 
 The agreement being made, he began to play on 
 his pipes, and all the rats, and the mice, 
 followed him to a great lough hard by, where 
 they all perish'd ; so the town was infested no 
 more. At the end of the yeer, the pied piper 
 return'd for his reward, the burgers put him off 
 with slightings, and neglect, offring him som 
 small matter, which he refusing, and staying 
 som dayes in the town, one Sunday morning at 
 high-masse, when most people were at church, 
 he fell to play on his pipes, and all the children 
 up and down, follow'd him out of the town, to 
 a great hill not far off, which rent in two, and 
 open'd, and let him and the children in, and so 
 closed up agnin : this happen'd a matter of two 
 hundred and fifty yeers since [a.d, 1643-250 = 
 1393 A.D.i] ; and in that town, they date then- 
 bills and bonds, and other instruments in law, 
 to this day from the yeer of the going out of 
 their children : besides, ther is a great piller of 
 stone at the foot of the said hill, whereon this 
 story is engraven. 
 
 No more now, for this is enough in conscience 
 for one time : So I am your most affectionate 
 servitor, 
 
 [Fleet, 1 Octoh. 1643.] J. H. 
 
 JAMES HOWELL TO SIR J. S AT LEEDS 
 
 CASTLE. 
 
 Westminster : July 25, 1625. 
 Sir, — It was a quaint difference the ancients 
 did put betwixt a letter and an oration ; that 
 the one should be attired like a woman, the 
 other like a man : the latter of the two is 
 allowed large side robes, as long periods, par- 
 entheses, similes, examples, and other parts of 
 rhetorical flourishes ; but a letter or epistle 
 should be short-coated and closely couched ; a 
 hungerlin becomes a letter more handsomely 
 than a gown ; indeed we should write as we 
 speak ; and that's a true familiar letter which 
 expresseth one's mind, as if he were discoursing 
 with the party to whom he writes, in succinct and 
 
 1 This is the year in which Chaucer, out in the cold 
 at Greenwich, most likely wrote his Envoy to Scogan, 
 then in the sun of Court-favour at Windsor. If 
 Chaucer had but heard of the stoiy, how he would 
 have liked to try his hand at it !— F. J. Furnivall. 
 
24 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 short terms. The tongue and the pen are both 
 of them interpreters of the mind ; but I hold 
 the pen to be the more faithful of the two. 
 The tongue in udo posita, being seated in a 
 moist slippery place, may fail and faulter in her 
 Budden extemporal expressions ; but the pen 
 having a greater advantage of premeditation, is 
 not so subject to error, and leaves things behind 
 it upon firm and authentic record. Now letters, 
 though they be capable of any subject, yet 
 commonly they are either narratory, objurga- 
 tory, consolatory, monitory, or congratulatory. 
 The first consists of relations, the second of 
 reprehensions, the third of comfort, the two last 
 of counsel and joy : there are some who in 
 lieu of letters write homilies ; they preach 
 when they should epistolize : there are others 
 that turn them to tedious tractates : this is to 
 make letters degenerate from their true nature. 
 Some modern authors there are who have 
 exposed their letters to the world, but most of 
 them, I mean among your Latin epistolizers, go 
 freighted with mere Bartholomew ware, with 
 trite and trivial phrases only lifted with ped- 
 antic shreds of school-boy verses. Others there 
 are among our next transmarine neighbours 
 eastward, who write in their own language, but 
 their style is so soft and easy, that their letters 
 may be said to be like bodies of loose flesh with- 
 out sinews, they have neither joints of art nor 
 arteries in them ; they have a kind of simpering 
 and lank hectic expressions made up of a 
 bombast of words and finical affected compli- 
 ments only. I cannot well away with such 
 fleazy stuff, with such cob-web compositions, 
 where there is no strength of matter, nothing 
 for the reader to carry away with him that may 
 enlarge the notions of his soul. One shall 
 hardly find an apophthegm, example, simile, or 
 anything of philosophy, history, or solid know- 
 ledge, or as much as one new created phrase in a 
 hundred of them ; and to draw any observations 
 out of them, were as if one went about to distil 
 cream out of froth ; insomuch that it may be said 
 of them, what was said of the echo, ' That she is 
 a mere sound and nothing else.' 
 
 I return you your Balzac by this bearer : and 
 when I found these letters wherein he is so 
 familiar with his King, so flat ; and those to 
 Richlieu so puffed with prophane hyperboles, 
 and larded up and down with such gross 
 flatteries, I forbore him fvirther. 
 
 So I am your most affectionate servitor. 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK TO HIS UNCLE SIR WILLIAM 
 HERRICK. 
 
 Cambridge : January, 1616. 
 Before you unsealed my letter, right Worship- 
 ful, it cannot be doubted but you had perfect 
 knowledge of the essence of my writing, before 
 you read it ; for custom hath made you expect 
 
 in my plain-song, mitte pecuniam, that being 
 the cause sine qua non, or the power that gives 
 life and being to each matter. I delight not to 
 draw your imagination to inextricable perplex- 
 ities, or knit up my love in indissoluble knots, 
 but make no other exposition but the literal 
 sense, which is to entreat you to pay to Mr. 
 Adrian Morice the sum of ten pounds as 
 customarily, and to take a note of his hand for 
 the receipt, which I desire may be effected 
 briefly, because the circumstance of the time 
 must be expressed. I perceive I must cry with 
 the afflicted usquequo, usquequo, Domine. Yet 
 I have confidence that I live in your memory, 
 howsoever time brings not the thing hoped for 
 to its just maturity ; but my belief is strong, 
 and I do establish my hopes on rocks, and fear 
 no quicksands ; be you my firm assistant, and 
 good effects, produced from virtuous causes, will 
 follow. So shall my wishes pace with yours for 
 the supplement of your own happiness, and the 
 perfection of your own posterity. 
 
 Ever to be commanded, 
 
 Robert Herrick. 
 To pay to Mr. Blunt, bookseller in Paul's 
 Churchyard, the sum above-named. 
 
 [Hall was not justified in calling himself the 
 first English satirist, for he had been pre- 
 ceded by Lodge in 1593 ; but he introduced 
 a precision, a force, and a harmony, of 
 which few previous examples had been 
 given. His claim, however, to the earliest 
 publication of epistles (1608-11) in our lan- 
 guage cannot be disputed. 'Further,' he 
 says in the Dedication to Prince Henry, 
 'which these times account not the least 
 praise, your Grace shall herein perceive a 
 new fashion of discourse by epistles ; new 
 to our language ; usual to all others : and 
 so as novelty is never without plea of use, 
 more free, more familiar. Thus we do but 
 talk with our friends by our pen, and 
 express ourselves no whit less easily ; some- 
 what more digestedly.' The Latin Letters 
 of Ascham (and Howell's, 1645) do not of 
 course interfere with the bishop's priority. 
 
 Lord Denny, afterwards Earl of Norwich, 
 was the bountiful patron to whom Hall was 
 indebted for the living of "Waltham, where 
 he passed more than twenty years of his 
 laboriousandChristianlife.— i?.^. WilmoU.'] 
 
 bishop hall to lord DENNY. 
 
 An account of his manner of life. 
 
 Every day is a little life ; and our whole life 
 is but a day repeated ; whence it is that old 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 25 
 
 Jacob numbers his life by days; and ]\Ioses 
 desires to be taught this i^oint of holy arith- 
 metic, to number not his years, but his days. 
 Those, therefore, that dare lose a day, are 
 dangerously prodigal ; those that dare misspend 
 it, desperate. We can best teach others by 
 ourselves : let me tell your lordship how I 
 would ijass my days, whether common or 
 sacred ; that you (or whosoever others over- 
 hearing me) may either approve my thriftiness, 
 or correct my errors ; to whom is the account of 
 my hours either more due, or more known ? 
 All days are His who gave time a beginning and 
 continuance ; yet some He hath made ours ; not 
 to command, but to use. In none may we 
 forget Him ; in some we must forget all, besides 
 Him. First, therefore, I desire to awake at 
 those hours, not when I will, but when I must ; 
 pleasure is not a fit rule for rest, but health ; 
 neither do I consult so much with the sun, as 
 mine own necessity, whether of body, or in that 
 of the mind. If this vassal could well serve me 
 waking, it should never sleep ; but now it must 
 be pleased, that it may be serviceable. Now, 
 when sleep is rather driven away than leaves 
 me, I would ever awake with God ; my first 
 thoughts are for Him, who hath made the night 
 for rest, and the day for travail ; and as He 
 gives, so blesses both. If my heart be early 
 seasoned with His presence, it will savour of 
 Him aU day after. While my body is dressing, 
 not with an effeminate curiosity, nor yet with 
 rude neglect, my mind addresses itself to her 
 ensuing task, bethinking what is to be done, 
 and in what order, and marshalling (as it may) 
 my hours with my work ; that done, after some- 
 while meditation, I walk up to my masters and 
 companions, my books ; and sitting down 
 amongst them, with the best contentment, I 
 dare not reach forth my hand to salute any of 
 them, tni I have first looked up to heaven, and 
 craved favour of Him to whom all my studies 
 are duly referred ; without whom I can neither 
 profit nor labour. After this, out of no over 
 great variety, I call forth those which may best 
 fit my occasions ; wherein I am not scrupulous 
 of age. Sometimes I put myself to school to 
 one of those ancients, whom the Church hath 
 honoured with the name of fathers ; whose 
 volumes I confess not to open, without a sacred 
 reverence of their holiness and gravity ; some- 
 times to those later doctors, which want 
 nothing but age to make them classical : always 
 to God's Book. That day is lost whereof some 
 hours are not improved in those Divine Monu- 
 ments : others, I turn over out of choice ; these, 
 out of duty. Ere I can have sate unto 
 weariness, my family, having now overcome all 
 household distractions, invites me to our 
 common devotions, not without some short 
 preparation. These, heartily performed, send 
 me up with a more strong and cheerful appetite 
 to my former work, which I find made easy to 
 
 me by intermission and variety. Now, there- 
 fore, can I deceive the hours with change of 
 pleasiires, that is, of labours. One while, mine 
 eyes are busied ; another while my hand ; and 
 sometimes my mind takes the burden from 
 them both ; wherein I would imitate the skil- 
 fuUest cooks, which make the best dishes with 
 manifold mixtures. One hour is spent in 
 textual divinity, another in controversy : 
 histories relieve them both. Now, when the 
 mind is weary of other labours, it begins to 
 undertake her own ; sometimes it meditates 
 and winds up for future use ; sometimes it lays 
 forth her conceits into present discourse ; some- 
 times for itself, ofter for others. Neither 
 know I whether it works or plays in these 
 thoughts ; I am sure no sport hath more plea- 
 sure, no work more use ; only the decay of a 
 weak body makes me think these delights 
 insensibly laborious. Thus could I all day (as 
 ringers use) make myself music with changes, 
 and complain sooner of the day for shortness, 
 than of the business for toil ; were it not that 
 this faint monitor interrupts me still in the 
 midst of my busy pleasures, and enforces me 
 both to respite and repast. I must yield to 
 both ; while my body and mind are joined to- 
 gether in unequal couples, the better must 
 follow the weaker. Before my meals, there- 
 fore, and after, I let myself loose from all 
 thoughts ; and now, would forget that I ever 
 studied : a full mind takes away the body's 
 appetite, no less than a full body makes a dull 
 and unwieldy mind ; company, discourse, recrea- 
 tions, are now seasonable and welcome ; these 
 prepare me for a diet, not gluttonous, but 
 medicinal ; the palate may not be pleased, but 
 the stomach ; nor that for its own sake : 
 neither would I think any of these comforts 
 worth respect in themselves, but in their use, 
 in their end ; so far as they may enable me to 
 better things. If I see any dish to tempt my 
 palate, I fear a serpent in that apple, and 
 would please myself in a wilful denial; I rise 
 capable of more, not desirous ; not now im- 
 mediately from my trencher to my book ; but 
 after some intermission. Moderate speed is a 
 sure help to all proceedings; where those 
 things which are prosecuted with violence of 
 endeavour, or desires, either succeed not, or 
 continue not. 
 
 After my latter meal my thoughts are slight : 
 only my memory may be charged with her task 
 of recalling what was committed to her custody 
 in the day ; and my heart is busy in examining 
 my hands and mouth, and all other senses, of 
 that day's behaviour. And, now the evening is 
 come, no tradesman doth more carefully take 
 in his wares, clear his shop-board, and shut his 
 windows, than I would shut up my thoughts, 
 and clear my mind. That student shall Hve 
 miserably which, like a camel, lies down under 
 his burden. All this done, calling together my 
 
26 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 family, we end the day with God. Thus do we 
 rather drive the time before us, than follow it. 
 I grant neither is my practice worthy to be 
 exemplary, neither are our callings proportion- 
 able. The lives of a nobleman, of a courtier, of 
 a scholar, of a citizen, of a countryman, differ 
 no less than their dispositions ; yet must all 
 conspire in honest labour. 
 
 Sweet is the destiny of all trades, whether of 
 the brows, or of the mind ; God never allowed 
 any man to do nothing. How miserable is the 
 condition of those men, which spend the time 
 as if it were given them, and not lent ; as if 
 hours were waste creatures, and such as never 
 should be accounted for ; as if God would take 
 this for a good bill of reckoning : '/fern, spent 
 upon my pleasures forty years ! ' These men 
 shall once find that no blood can privilege 
 idleness, and that nothing is more precious to 
 God than that which they desire to cast away 
 — time. Such are my common days ; but God's 
 day calls for another respect. The same sun 
 arises on this day, and enlightens it ; yet, 
 because that Sun of Eighteousness arose upon it, 
 and gave a new life unto the world in it, and 
 drew the strength of God's moral precept unto 
 it, therefore justly do we sing with the Psalmist, 
 — This is the day which the Lord hath made. 
 Now, I forget the world, and in a sort myself ; 
 and deal with my wonted thoughts, as great 
 men use, who at some times of their privacy 
 forbid the access of all suitors. Prayer, medi- 
 tation, reading, hearing, preaching, singing, 
 good conference, are the businesses of this day, 
 which I dare not bestow on any work, or plea- 
 sure, but heavenly. 
 
 I hate superstition on the one side, and 
 looseness on the other ; but I find it hard to 
 offend in too much devotion ; easy in profane- 
 ness. The whole week is sanctified by this day ; 
 and, according to my care of this, is my blessing 
 on the rest. I show your lordship what I 
 would do, and what I ought ; I commit my 
 desires to the imitation of the weak ; my 
 actions, to the censures of the wise and holy ; 
 my weaknesses, to the pardon and redress of 
 my merciful God. 
 
 [When Milton went to Cambridge, it had been 
 with the intention that he should enter the 
 Church. Before he had taken his Master's 
 degree, however, this intention had been 
 entirely or all but entirely abandoned. 
 There exists an interesting letter of his, 
 written about the very time when his 
 determination against the Church began to 
 be taken ; and in this letter he describes 
 the reasons of his hesitation at some length. 
 The letter, of which there are two drafts in 
 
 Milton's handwriting in the library of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, must have been 
 written in December 1631, or in the early 
 part of 1631-2 ; and it was clearly sent, 
 or meant to be sent, to some friend in 
 Cambridge, his senior in years, who had 
 been remonstrating with him on his aimless 
 course of life at the University. — Masson's 
 Life of Milton, Vol. i. p. 289 (1859).] 
 
 LETTER OF JOHN MILTON TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Sir, — Besides that in sundry respects I must 
 acknowledge me to profit by you whenever we 
 meet, you are often to me, and were yesterday 
 especially, as a good watchman to admonish, 
 that the hours of the night pass on (for so I call 
 my life, as yet obscure and unserviceable to 
 mankind), and that the day with me is at hand 
 wherein Christ commands all to labour while 
 there is light. Which because I am persuaded 
 you do to no other purpose than out of a true 
 desire that God should be honoured in every 
 one, I therefore think myself bound, though 
 unasked, to give you an account, as oft as 
 occasion is, of this my tardy moving, according 
 to the precept of my conscience, which I firmly 
 trust is not without God. Yet now I will 
 not strain for any set apology, but only refer 
 myself to what my mind shall have at any time 
 to declare herself at her best ease. 
 
 But if you think, as you said, that too much 
 love of learning is in fault, and that I have 
 given up myself to dream away my years in 
 the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion 
 with the moon, as the tale of Latmus goes ; 
 yet consider that if it were no more than the 
 mere love of learning — whether it proceed from 
 a principle bad, good, or natural — it could not 
 have held out thus long against a strong opposi- 
 tion on the other side of every kind. For if it 
 be bad, why should not all the fond hoj^es that 
 forward youth and vanity are fledge with, 
 together with gain, pride, and ambition, call me 
 forward more powerfully than a poor, regardless, 
 and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able 
 to withhold me ; whereby a man cuts himself 
 off from all action and becomes the most help- 
 less, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature 
 in the world, the most unfit and unable to do 
 that which all mortals most aspire to, either to 
 be useful to his friends or to offend his enemies ? 
 Or if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there 
 is against that a much more potent inclination 
 inbred, which about this time of a man's life 
 solicits most — the desire of house and family of 
 his own, to which nothing is esteemed more 
 helpful than the early entering into credible 
 employment, and nothing hindering than this 
 affected solitariness. And though this were 
 enough, yet is there another act, if not of pure 
 
2/ 
 
 yet of refined nature, no less available to 
 dissuade prolonged obscurity, a desire of honour 
 and repute and immortal fame, seated in the 
 breast of every true scholar; which all make 
 haste to by the readiest ways of publishing and 
 divulging conceived merits — as well those that 
 shall as those that never shall obtain it. 
 Isature, therefore, would presently work the 
 more prevalent way, if there were nothing but 
 this inferior bent of herself to restrain her. 
 Lastly, the love of learning, as it is the pursuit 
 of something good, it would sooner follow the 
 more excellent and supreme good known and 
 presented, and so be quickly diverted from the 
 emptj' and fantastic chase of shadows and 
 notions, to the solid good flowing from due and 
 timely obedience to that command in the 
 gospel set out by the terrible feasing of him 
 that hid the talent. It is more probable, 
 therefore, that not the endless delight of 
 speculation, but this very consideration of that 
 great commandment does not press forward as 
 soon as many do, to undergo, but keeps off, with 
 a sacred reverence and religious advisement how 
 best to undergo, not taking thought of being 
 late, so it give advantage to be more fit ; for 
 those that were latest lost nothing when the 
 Master of the vineyard came to give each one 
 his hire. And here I am come to a stream head, 
 copious enough to disburden itself, like Nilus, 
 at seven mouths into an ocean. But then I 
 should also run into a reciprocal contradiction 
 of ebbing and flowing at once, and do that 
 which I excuse myself for not doing — preach 
 and not preach. Yet, that you may see that 
 I am something suspicious of myself, and do 
 take notice of a certain belatedness in me, I 
 am the bolder to send you some of my night- 
 ward thoughts some while since, because they 
 come in not altogether unfitly, made up in a 
 Petrarchian stanza, which I told you of : — 
 
 [On his being arrived at the age of 
 twenty -tliree.'\ 
 
 How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, 
 Stolen on his way my three-and-twentieth year ! 
 My hasting days fly on with full career ; 
 But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth. 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear 
 Than some more timely spirits endueth. 
 Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 
 To that same lot, however mean or high. 
 Toward which time leads me, and the will of 
 Heaven. 
 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. 
 
 By this I believe you may well repent of 
 having made mention at all of this matter ; 
 
 for if I have not all this while won you to tliis, 
 I have certainly wearied you of it. This, 
 therefore, may be a sufficient reason for me to 
 keep as I am, lest having thus tired you singly, 
 I should deal worse with a whole congregation, 
 and spoil all the patience of a parish; for I 
 myself do not only see my own tediousness, but 
 now grow offended with it. That has hindered 
 me thus long from coming to the last and best 
 l^eriod of my letter, and that which must now 
 chiefly work my pardon, that I am, 
 
 Your true and unfeigned friend, etc. 
 
 [Written to Prince Charles of England, who in 
 company with the Duke of Buckingham 
 had arrived in Madrid in search of a wife. 
 The young prince eventually married 
 Henrietta Maria of France, after his 
 accession as Charles I, ; but her influence 
 did not help to mitigate the evils of his 
 reign.] 
 
 JAilES I. TO PEINCE CHARLES AND THE DUKE OP 
 BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 Theobalds : May 9, 1623. 
 My sweet Boys,— If the Dutch post had not 
 been robbed and sore beaten in Kent, three 
 days ago, ye had sooner received the duplicate 
 of the power I put in my sweet babies' hands, 
 which I send you for the more security, seeing 
 the expedition of your return depends upon it ; 
 but it rejoiceth my heart that your opinion 
 anent the three conditions annexed to the 
 dispensation agreeth fully with mine, as ye 
 will find by one of my letters, dated Theobalds, 
 which Gresley will deliver unto you. Carlisle 
 came yesterday morning to Dos Castellanos, 
 and a devoted servant to the Conde d'Olivares ; 
 but my sweet Steenie Gossip, I heartily thank 
 thee for thy kind, droll letter. I do herewith 
 send thee a kind letter of thanks to that king 
 for the elephant, as thou desired, wherein I 
 likewise thank for him, for a letter of his which 
 Carlisle delivered unto me, which is indeed the 
 kindest and courtesest letter ever I received 
 from any king. I have likewise received from 
 Carlisle the list of the jewels which ye have 
 already received, and which of them my baby 
 means to present to his mistress ; I pray you, 
 sweet baby, if ye think not fit to present her 
 the collar of great ballest rubies and knots of 
 pearls, bring it home again, and the like I say 
 of the head-dressing which Frank Stewart is to 
 deliver unto you, for they are not presents fit 
 for subjects ; but if ye please, ye may present 
 one of them to the Queen of Spain. Carlisle 
 thinks my baby will bestow a rich jewel upon 
 the Conde d'Olivares ; but in my opinion. 
 
28 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 horses, dogs, hawks, and such like stuff to be 
 sent him out of England by you both, will be a 
 far more noble, acceptable present to him. And 
 now, my sweet Steenie Gossip, that the poor 
 fool, Kate, hath also sent thee her pearl chain, 
 which, by accident, I saw in a box in Frank 
 Stewart's ; I hope I need not conjure thee not 
 to give any of her jewels away there, for thou 
 knowest what necessary use she will have of 
 them at your return here, besides that it is not 
 lucky to give away that I have given her. Now 
 as for mails, the more strong mails for carriage 
 that ye can provide me with, I will be the 
 better secured in my journeys, and the better 
 cheap. If ye can get the deer handsomely here, 
 they shall be welcome. I hope the elephant, 
 camels, and asses are already by the way. 
 
 And so God bless you both, and after a happy 
 success there, send you speedy and comfortable 
 home in the arms of your dear dad. 
 
 James R. 
 
 [Sir John Eliot was the recognised leader of the 
 ' Opposition ' in the first, second, and 
 third Parliaments of Charles I. He was 
 imprisoned more than once for his freedom 
 of speech, and his refusal to pay the forced 
 loan; on the last occasion he lay in the 
 Tower until his death, which was in the 
 November of the year in which this was 
 written.] 
 
 SIR JOHN ELIOT TO JOHN HAMPDEN. 
 
 The Tower, 1632. 
 Besides the acknowledgment of your favour, 
 that have so much compassion on your friend, 
 I have little to return you from him that has 
 nothing worthy of your acceptance, but the con- 
 testation that I have between an ill body and 
 the air, that quarrel, and are friends, as the 
 summer winds affect them. I have these three 
 days been abroad, and as often brought in new 
 impressions of the colds, yet, body and strength 
 and appetite I find myself bettered by the 
 motion. Cold at first was the occasion of my 
 sickness, heat and tenderness by close keeping 
 in my chamber have since increased my weakness. 
 Air and exercise are thought most projDer to 
 repair it, which are the prescription of my 
 doctors, though no physic. I thank God other 
 medicines I now take not, but those catholicons, 
 and do hope I shall not need them. As children 
 learn to go, I shall get acquainted with the air, 
 practice and use will compass it, and now and 
 then a fall is an instruction for the future. 
 These varieties He does try us with, that will 
 have us perfect at all parts, and as He gives the 
 trial, He likewise gives the ability that shall be 
 necessary for the work. He has the Philistine 
 
 at the disposition of His will, and those that 
 trust Him, under His protection and defence. 
 Oh ! infinite mercy of our Master, dear friend, 
 how it abounds to us, that are unworthy of His 
 service ! How broken ! how imperfect ! how 
 perverse and crooked are our ways in obedience 
 to Him ! How exactly straight is the line of His 
 providence to us ! drawn out through all occur- 
 rents and particulars to the whole length and 
 measure of our time ! How perfect is His hand 
 that has given His Son unto us, and through Him 
 has promised likewise to give us all things — 
 relieving our wants, sanctifying our necessities, 
 preventing our dangers, freeing us from all 
 extremities, and dying HimseK for us ! What 
 can we render ? What retribution can we make 
 worthy so great a majesty? worthy such love 
 and favour? We have nothing but ourselves 
 who are unworthy above all, and yet that, as 
 all other things, is His. For us to offer up that, 
 is but to give Him of His own, and that in far 
 worse condition than we at first received it, 
 which yet (for infinite is His goodness for the 
 merits of His Son) He is contented to accept. 
 This, dear friend, must be the comfort of 
 His children ; this is the physic we must use in 
 all our sickness and extremities ; this is the 
 strengthening of the weak, the nourishing of the 
 poor, the liberty of the captive, the health of 
 the diseased, the life of those that die, the death 
 of the wretched life of sin ! And this happi- 
 ness have His saints. The contemplation of this 
 happiness has led me almost beyond the compass 
 of a letter ; but the haste I use unto my friends, 
 and the affection that does move it, will I hope 
 excuse me. Friends should communicate their 
 joys : this as the greatest, therefore, I could not 
 but impart unto my friend, being therein moved 
 by the present expectation of your letters, 
 which always have the grace of much intelli- 
 gence, and are happiness to him that is truly 
 yours. 
 
 [The writer of this letter, after playing a decided 
 part on the side of the Parliamentarians in 
 1643, conscious of the offence he had done 
 the Royalist party, when on a political 
 mission abroad, remained in exile for about 
 seventeen years, when he received a pardon, 
 and returned to England in 1677. Sidney 
 was executed in 1687, on the strength of 
 the suspicion that he was implicated in 
 the Rye House Plot. Sidney's name stands 
 high as synonymous with a love of political 
 freedom.] 
 
 THE HON. ALGERNON SIDNEY TO HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Sir,— I am sorry I cannot in all things con- 
 form myself to the advices of my friends; if 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 29 
 
 theirs had any joint concernment with mine, I 
 would willingly submit my interest to theirs ; 
 but when I alone am interested, and they only 
 advise me to come over as soon as the act of 
 indemnity is passed, because they think it is best 
 for me, I cannot wholly lay aside my o^vn 
 judgment and choice. I confess, we are natur- 
 ally inclined to delight in our own country, 
 and I have a particular love to mine ; and I 
 hope I have given some testimony of it. I think 
 that being exiled from it is a great evil, and 
 would redeem myself from it with the loss of a 
 great deal of my blood. But when that country 
 of mine, which used to be esteemed a paradise, 
 is now like to be made a stage of injury ; the 
 liberty which we hoped to establish oppressed ; 
 all manner of profaneness, looseness, luxury, 
 and lewdness set up in its height; instead of 
 piety, virtue, sobriety, and modesty, which we 
 hoped God, by our hands, would have intro- 
 duced ; the best of our nation made a prey to 
 the worst ; the parliament, court, and army 
 corrupted, the people enslaved, all things 
 vendible, and no man safe, but by such evil and 
 infamous means as flattery and bribery ; what 
 joy can I have in my own country in this 
 condition? Is it a pleasure to see all that I 
 love in the world sold and destroyed? Shall 
 I renounce all my old principles, learn the vile 
 ! court arts, and make my peace by bribing some 
 of them ? Shall their corruption and vice be 
 my safety? Ah no! Better is a life among 
 strangers, than in my own country upon such 
 conditions. "Whilst I live, I will endeavour to 
 preserve my liberty ; or, at least, not consent to 
 the destroying of it. I hope I shall die in the 
 same principle in which I have lived, and will 
 live no longer than they can preserve me. I 
 have in my life been guilty of many follies, but, 
 as I think of no meanness, I will not blot and 
 defile that which is past, by endeavouring to 
 provide for the future. I have ever had in my 
 mind, that when God should cast me into such 
 a condition as that I cannot save my life but 
 by doing an indecent thing. He shows me the 
 time is come wherein I should resign it. And 
 when I cannot live in my own country but by 
 such means as are worse than dying in it, I 
 think He shows me I ought to keep myself out 
 of it. Let them please themselves with making 
 the King glorious, who think a whole people may 
 justly be sacrificed for the interest and pleasure 
 of one man and a few of his followers : let 
 them rejoice in their subtilty, who by betraying 
 the former powers, have gained the favour of 
 this, not only preserved, but advanced them- 
 selves in these dangerous changes. Nevertheless 
 (perhaps) they may find the King's gloi-y is their 
 shame, his plenty the people's misery ; and that 
 the gaining of an office, or a little money, is a 
 poor reward for destroying a nation ! (which if 
 it were preserved in liberty and virtue would 
 truly be the most glorious in the world) and 
 
 that others may find they have, with much 
 pains, purchased their own shame and misery, 
 a dear price paid for that which is not worth 
 keeping, nor the life that is accompanied with 
 it : the honour of English parliaments have ever 
 been in making the nation glorious and happy, 
 not in selling and destroying the interest of it 
 to satisfy the lusts of one man. Miserable 
 nation ! that, from so great a height of glory, is 
 fallen into the most despicable condition in the 
 world, of having all its good depending upon 
 the breath and will of the vilest persons in it } 
 cheated and sold by them they trusted ! In- 
 famous traffic, equal almost in guilt to that of 
 Judas ! In all preceding ages, parliaments 
 have been the pillars of ovir liberty, the sure 
 defenders of tlie oppressed : they, who formerly 
 could bridle kings, and keep the balance equal 
 between them and the people, are now become 
 the instruments of all our oppressions, and a 
 sword in his hand to destroy us; they them- 
 selves led by a few interested persons, who are 
 willing to buy offices for themselves by the 
 misery of the whole nation, and the blood of 
 the most worthy and eminent persons in it. 
 Detestable bribes, worse than the oaths now in 
 fashion in this mercenary court ! I mean to owe 
 neither my life nor liberty to any such means ; 
 when the innocence of my action will not 
 protect me, I will stay away till the storm be 
 overpassed. In short, where Vane, Lambert, 
 and Haslerigg cannot live in safety, I cannot live 
 at all. If I had been in England, I should have 
 expected a lodging with them : or, though they 
 may be the first, as being more eminent than I, 
 I must expect to follow their example in 
 suffering, as I have been their companion in 
 acting. I am most in amaze at the mistaken 
 informations that were sent to me by my 
 friends, full of expectations, of favours, and 
 employments. Wlio can think, that they, who 
 imprison them, would employ me, or suffer me 
 to live, when they are put to death ? If I might 
 live, and be employed, can it be expected that 
 I should serve a government that seeks such 
 detestable ways of establishing itself? Ah 
 no, I have not learnt to make my own peace ! 
 by persecuting and betraying my brethren, more 
 innocent and worthy than myself. I must live 
 by just means, and serve to just ends, or not at 
 all, after such a manifestation of the ways by 
 which it is intended the King shall govern. I 
 should have renounced any place of favour into 
 which the kindness and industiy of my friends 
 might have advanced me, when I found those 
 that were better than I were only fit to be 
 destroyed. I had formerly some jealousies, the 
 fraudulent proclamation for indemnity in- 
 creased the imprisonment of those three men ; 
 and turning out of all the officers of the army, 
 contrary to promise, confirmed me in my 
 resolutions not to return. 
 To conclude : the tide is not to be diverted, 
 
30 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 nor the oppressed delivered ; but God in His 
 time will have mercy on His people ; He will 
 save and defend them, and avenge the blood of 
 those who shall now perish upon the heads of 
 those who in their pride think nothing is able 
 to oppose them. Happy are those whom God 
 shall make instruments of His justice in so 
 blessed a work. If I can live to see that day, 
 I shall be ripe for the grave, and able to say 
 with joy, Lord ! now lettest Thou Thy servant 
 depart in peace, &c. [So Sir Arthur Haslerigg 
 on Oliver's death.] Farewell my thoughts, as 
 to King and State, depending upon their 
 actions. No man shall be a more faithful 
 servant to him than I, if he make the good and 
 prosperity of his people his glory ; none more 
 his enemy, if he doth the contrary. To my 
 particular friends I shall be constant in all 
 occasions, and to you, 
 
 A most affectionate servant, 
 
 A. Sidney. 
 
 [After this manner Charles I. said good-bye to 
 a faithful servant. The assurance that he 
 would not suffer in 'life, honour, or 
 fortune,' did not mean much, as after his 
 impeachment, when the King gave his 
 assent to the attainder, he was beheaded on 
 Tower Hill, May 12, 1G41.] 
 
 CHARLES I. TO THE EAEL OP STEAFFOED. 
 
 Straffoed, — The misfortune that is falen 
 upon you by the strange mistaking and con- 
 junctur of thease tymes being such that I must 
 lay by the thought of imploing you heereafter 
 in my affaires ; yet I cannot satisfie myself in 
 honnor or conscience, without asseuring you 
 {now in the midest of your trebles) that, upon 
 the word' of a King you shall not suffer in lyfe, 
 honnor, or' fortune. This is but justice, and 
 therefore a verie meane rewarde from a maister, 
 to so faitheful and able a servant, as you, have 
 showed yourselfe to bee ; yet it is as much, as I 
 conceave the present tymes will permitt, though 
 none shall hinder me from being your con- 
 stant, faithful friend, Chaeles E. 
 
 Whythall, Apr. 23, 1641. 
 
 EAEL OF STEAFFOED TO HIS SON. 
 
 ( Written the day before he xvas beheaded.) 
 
 My deaeest Will,— These are the last lines 
 that you are to receive from a father tliat 
 tenderly loves you. I wish there were a greater 
 leisure to impart my mind unto you ; but our 
 merciful God will supply all things by His grace, 
 and guide and protect you in all your ways : to 
 
 whose infinite goodness I bequeath you ; and 
 therefore be not discouraged, but serve Him, and 
 trust in Him, and He will preserve and prosper 
 you in all things. 
 
 Be sure you give all respect to my wife, that 
 hath ever had a great love unto you, and there- 
 fore will be well becoming you. Never be 
 awanting in your love and care to your sisters, 
 but let them ever be most dear unto you ; for 
 this will give others cause to esteem and respect 
 you for it, and is a duty that you owe them in 
 the memory of your excellent mother and my- 
 self : therefor your care and affection to them 
 must be the very same that you are to have of 
 yourself ; and the like regard must yovi have to 
 your youngest sister ; for indeed you owe it her 
 also, both for her father and mother's sake. 
 
 Sweet 'Will, be careful to take the advice of 
 those friends, which are by me desired to advise 
 you for your education. Serve God diligently 
 morning and evening, and recommend yourself 
 unto Him, and have Him before your eyes in all 
 your ways. "With patience hear the instructions 
 of those friends I leave with you, and diligently 
 follow their counsel : for, till you come by time 
 to have experience in the world, it will be far 
 more safe to trust to their judgments than your 
 own. 
 
 Lose not the time of your youth, but gather 
 those seeds of virtue and knowledge, which may 
 be of use to yourself, and comfort to your 
 friends, for the rest of your life. And that this 
 may be the better effected, attend thereunto with 
 patience, and be sure to correct and refrain your- 
 self from anger. Suffer not sorrow to cast you 
 down, but with cheerfulness and good courage 
 go on the race you have to run in all sobriety 
 and truth. Be sure with an hallowed care to 
 have respect to all the commandments of God, 
 and give not yourself to neglect them in the 
 least things, lest by degrees you come to forget 
 them in the greatest : for the heart of man is 
 deceitful above all things. And in all your 
 duties and devotions towards God, rather 
 perform them joyfully than pensively ; for God ^ 
 loves a cheerful giver. For your religion; let it 
 be directed according to that which shall be taught 
 by those Avhich are in God's church the proper 
 teachers therefore, rather than that you ever 
 either fancy one to yourself, or be led by men 
 that are singular in their own opinions, and 
 delight to go ways of their own finding out : for 
 you will certainly find soberness and truth in 
 the one, and much unsteadiness and vanity in 
 the other. 
 
 The King I trust will deal graciously with 
 you, restore you those honours and that fortune 
 which a distempered time hath deprived you 
 of, together with the life of your father : which 
 I rather advise might be by a new gift and 
 creation from himself, than by any other means, 
 to the end you may pay the thanks to him 
 without having obligation to any other. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 31 
 
 Be sure to avoid as much as you can to 
 inqviire after those that have been sharp in 
 their judgments towards me, and I charge you 
 never to suffer thought of revenge to enter your 
 heart, but be careful to be informed, who 
 were my friends in this prosecution, and to 
 them apply yourself to make them your friends 
 also ; and on such you may rely, and bestow 
 much of your conversation amongst them. 
 
 And God Almighty of His infinite goodness 
 bless you and your children's children ; and His 
 same goodness bless your sisters in like manner, 
 perfect you in every good work, and give you 
 right understandings in all things. Amen. 
 Your most loving father, 
 
 T. Wentwokth. 
 
 Tower, this 11th of May 1641. 
 
 You must not fail to behave yourself towards 
 my Lady Clare your grandmother with all duty 
 a"-d observance ; for most tenderly doth she 
 love you, and hath been passing kind unto me. 
 God reward her charity for it. And both in this 
 and all the rest, the same that I counsel you, the 
 same do I direct also to your sisters, that so the 
 same may be observed by you all. And once 
 more do I, from my very soul, beseech our 
 
 I gracious God to bless and govern you in all, to 
 the saving you in the day of His visitation, and 
 
 j join us again in the communion of His blessed 
 
 j saints, where is fulness of joy and bliss for 
 
 i evermore. Amen, amen. 
 
 [Henry Cromwell has no major-generals in 
 Ireland, but has his anarchies there also 
 to deal with. Let him listen to this good 
 advice on the subject. — Carlyle's Cromwell.] 
 
 OLIVEB CBOMWELD TO HIS SON H. CROMWELL. 
 
 Sonne, — I have seen your letter writ unto Mr. 
 Secretary Thurloe, and do finde thereby, that 
 you are very apprehensive of the carriage of 
 some pei-sons with you towards your selfe, and 
 the publique affairs. I doe believe there may 
 be some particular persons, who are not very 
 well pleased with the present condition of 
 things, and may be apt to show their discontent 
 as they have opportunitie ; but this should not 
 make too great impressions in you. Tyme and 
 patience may worke them to a better frame of 
 spirit, and bring them to see that, which for 
 the present seems to be hid from them ; especi- 
 ally if they shall sec your moderation and love 
 towards them, whilst they are found in other 
 ways towards you ; which I earnestly desire you 
 to studye and endeavour all that lyes in you, 
 whereof both you and I too shall have the 
 comfort, whatsoever the issue and event thereof 
 be. 
 
 For what you write of more help, I have 
 longe endeavovired it, and shall not be wanting 
 to send you some further addition to the 
 councell, as soon as men can be found out who 
 are fit for that trust. I am alsoe thinkinge of 
 sending over to you a fitt person, who may 
 command the north of Ireland, which I believe 
 stands in great need of one, and am of your 
 opinion, that Trevor and Colonel Mervin arc 
 very dangerous persons, and may be made the 
 heads of a new rebellion : and therefore I would 
 have you move the councell, that they be 
 secured in some very safe place, and the further 
 out of their own countryes the better. 
 
 I commend you to the Lord, and rest. 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 Olivek P, 
 
 November 21, 1G53. 
 
 [It was in this year, 1650, that the resignation 
 of Fairfax opened to Cromwell the path to 
 supreme power. The brief communication 
 to Colonel Hacker is highly characteristic 
 of the writer.—^. A. Wibnott.] 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL TO COLONEL HACKER. 
 
 Religious Soldiers. 
 
 Sir, — I have the best consideration I can for 
 the present, in this business ; and although I 
 believe Captain Hubbert is a worthy man, and 
 hear so much, yet as the case stands, I cannot 
 with satisfaction to myself and some others, 
 revoke the commission I had given to Captain 
 Empson, without offence to them, and reflection 
 upon my own judgment. I pray let Captain 
 Hubbart know I shall not be unmindful of him, 
 and that no disrespect is intended to him. 
 But, indeed, I was not satisfied with your last 
 speech to me about Empson, that he was a 
 better j)reacher than a fighter, or soldier, or 
 words to that effect. Truly I think, that he 
 that prays and preaches best, will fight best. I 
 know nothing will give like courage and con- 
 fidence, as the knowledge of God in Christ wiU ; 
 and I bless God to see any in this army able and 
 willing to impart the knowledge they have for 
 the good of others. And I expect it be en- 
 couraged by all chief officers in this army 
 especially ; and I hope you will do so. I pray 
 receive Captain Empson lovingly. I dare assure 
 you he is a good man, and a good officer. I 
 would we had no worse. 
 
 I rest, your loving friend, 
 
 O. Cromwell. 
 
 December 25, 1650. 
 
32 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [The Mr. Eich mentioned here is Lord Eich's 
 son, grandson of the Earl of "Warwick, to 
 whom the sister of the writer, Frances 
 Cromwell, was married in 1657, while 
 Mary married Lord Fauconberg about 
 the same time. 'Here,' says Carlyle, 'are 
 affairs of the heart, romances of reality, 
 such as have to go on in all times, under all 
 dialects and fashions of dress-caps, Puritan, 
 Protectoral, and other.'] 
 
 LADY MARY CROMWELL TO HENRY CROMWELL, 
 MAJOR-GENERAL OP THE FORCES IN IRELAND. 
 
 Dear Brother, — Your kind letters do so much 
 engage my heart towards you, that I can never 
 tell how to express in writing the true affection 
 and value I have of you, who truly I think none 
 that knows you but you may justly claim it 
 from. I must confess myself in a great fault in 
 the omitting of writing to you and your dear 
 wife so long a time ; but I suppose you cannot 
 be ignorant of the reason, which truly has been 
 the only cause, which ia this business of my 
 sister Frances and Mr. Eich. Truly I can truly 
 say it, for these three months I think our 
 family, and myself in particular, have been in 
 the greatest confusion and trouble as ever poor 
 family can be in : the Lord tell us His ... in 
 it, and settle us, and make us what He would 
 have us to be. I suppose you heard of the 
 breaking of the business, and according to your 
 desire in your last letter, as well as I can, I shall 
 give you a full account of it, which is this. 
 After a quarter of a year's admittance, my 
 father and my Lord Warwick began to treat 
 about the estate, and it seems my lord did not 
 offer that that my father expected. I need 
 not name particulars, for I suppose you may 
 have had it from better hands ; but if I may 
 say the truth, I think it was not so much estate, 
 as some private reasons, that my father dis- 
 covered to none but my sister Frances and his 
 own family, which was a dislike to the young 
 j)erson, which he had from some reports of his 
 being a vicious man, given to play, and such 
 like things, which office was done by some that 
 had a mind to break off the match. My sister 
 hearing these things, was resolved to know the 
 truth of it ; and truly did find all the reports 
 to be false that were raised of him ; and to tell 
 you the truth, they were so much engaged in 
 affection before this, that she could not think 
 of breaking of it off, so that my sister engaged 
 me and all the friends she had, who truly were 
 very few, to speak in her behalf to my father ; 
 which we did, but could not be heard to any 
 purpose ; only this my father promised, that if 
 he were satisfied as to the report, the estate 
 should not break it off, which she was satisfied 
 with ; but after this there was a second treaty. 
 
 and my Lord Warwick deferred my father to 
 name what it was he demanded more, and to 
 his utmost he would satisfy him ; so my father 
 upon this made new propositions, which my 
 Lord Warwick has answered as much as he 
 can ; but it seems there is five hundred pounds 
 a year in my Lord Eich's hands, which he has 
 power to sell, and there are some peorple that 
 persuaded his highness, that it would be dis- 
 honourable for him to conclude of it, without 
 these five hundred pounds a year be settled 
 upon Mr. Eich, after his father's death ; and my 
 Lord Eich having no esteem at all of his son, 
 because he is not bad as himself, will not agree 
 to it ; and these people upon this persuade my 
 father, it would be a dishonour to him to yield 
 upon these terms ; it would show, that he was 
 made a fool on by my Lord Eich ; which the 
 truth is, how it should be, I can't understand, 
 nor very few else ; and truly I must tell you 
 privately, that they are so far engaged, as the 
 match cannot be broke off. She acquainted 
 none of her friends with her resolution, when 
 she did it. Dear brother, this is as far as I can 
 tell the state of the business. The Lord direct 
 them what to do ; and all I think ought to beg 
 of God to pardon her in her doing of this thing, 
 which I must say truly, she was put upon by 
 the of things. Dear, let me beg 
 
 my excuses to my sister for not writing my best 
 respects to her. Pardon this trouble, and 
 believe me, that I shall ever strive to approve 
 myself, dear brother. 
 
 Your affectionate sister and servant, 
 
 Mary Cromwell. 
 Hampton Court, June 23, 1656. 
 
 [Edmund Waller the poet had courted the 
 sister of this lady for ten years under the 
 name of Sacharissa, and on the occasion of 
 her marriage to Lord Spencer, addressed 
 the Lady Lucy in this lively note.] 
 
 MR. waller to lady LUCY, SISTER TO LADY 
 DOROTHY SYDNEY. 
 
 July, 1630. 
 
 Madam, — In this common joy at Penshurst; 
 I know none to whom complaints may come less 
 unseasonable than to your ladyship ; the loss of 
 a bedfellow being almost equal to that of a 
 mistress, and therefore you ought at least to 
 pardon, if you consent not to, the imprecations 
 of the deserted, which just Heaven no doubt 
 will hear. May my Lady Dorothy, if we may 
 yet call her so, suffer as much, and have the 
 like passion for this young lord, whom she has 
 preferred to the rest of mankind, as others have 
 had for her; and may this love, before the 
 year go about, make her taste of the first curse 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 33 
 
 imposed on womankind, the pains of becoming 
 a mother. May her first-born be none of her 
 own sex, nor so like her, but that he may 
 resemble her lord as much as herself. May she, 
 that always affected silence and retiredness, 
 have the house filled with the noise and number 
 of her children, and hereafter of her grand- 
 children ; and then may she arrive at that great 
 curse so much declined by fair ladies, old age. 
 May she live to be very old, and yet seem young ; 
 be told so by her glass, and have no aches to 
 inform her of the truth ; and when she shall 
 appear to be mortal, may her lord not mourn 
 for her, but go hand in hand with her to that 
 place, where we are told there is neither 
 marrying nor giving in marriage, that, being 
 there divorced, we may all have an equal 
 interest in her again. My revenge being 
 immortal, I wish all this may also fall uj)on 
 their posterity to the world's end, and after- 
 wards. To you, madam, I wish all good things, 
 and that this loss may in good time be happily 
 supplied with a more constant bed-fellow of the 
 other sex. 
 
 Madam, I humbly kiss your hands, and beg 
 pardon for this trouble, from 
 
 Your ladyship's most humble servant, 
 
 E. AVallek. 
 
 [The Memoir of Burnet has introduced us into 
 the family of Hale ; and a few notes com- 
 municated by Baxter, who knew him in 
 advanced life, have also illustrated the 
 simplicity and elevation of his mind. 
 Burnet says that he divided himseK 
 between the duties of religion and the 
 studies of his profession. ' He took a strict 
 account of his time, of which the reader 
 will best judge by the scheme he drew for 
 a day. It is set down in the same simplicity 
 in which he writ it for his own private 
 use : — Morning, — to lift up my heart to 
 God in thankfulness for renewing thy life. 
 Evening, — cast up the accounts of the day. 
 If aught amiss, beg pardon. Gather resolu- 
 tion of more vigilance. If well, bless the 
 m.ercy and grace of God that hath supported 
 thee.' The same humility marked his 
 actions. Baxter, who was himself notorious 
 for negligence of costume, has noticed the 
 homeliness of his dress, and the humbleness 
 cf his residence at Acton. Four letters 
 from Sir Matthew Hale to his children 
 have been published in his moral and 
 religious works : they were written during 
 the brief intervals of leisure afforded to 
 
 him upon the circuit, and display the 
 natural vigour and practical wisdom by 
 which he was distinguished. — R. A. 
 Willmott. 
 
 SIR MATTHEW HALE TO HIS CHILDKEN. 
 
 Directions for the Employment of their Time. 
 
 Dear Children,— I intended to have been 
 at Alderley this AMiitsuntide, desirous to renew 
 those counsels and advices which I have often 
 given you, in order to your greatest concern- 
 ment ; namely, the everlasting good and wel- 
 fare of your souls hereafter, and the due order- 
 ing of your lives and conversations here. 
 
 And although young people are apt, through 
 their own indiscretion, or the ill advice of 
 others, to think these kinds of entertainments 
 but dry and empty matters, and the morose and 
 needless interpositions of old men ; yet give me 
 leave to tell you, that these things are of more 
 importance and concernment to you, than 
 external gifts and bounties, (wherein) neverthe- 
 less I have not been wanting to you, according 
 to my ability. 
 
 This was my intention in this journey ; and 
 though I have been disappointed therein, yet I 
 thought good, by letters and messages, to do 
 something that might be done that way for your 
 benefit, that I had otherwise intended to have 
 done in person. 
 
 Assure yourselves, therefore, and believe" it 
 from one that knows what he says, — from one 
 that can neither have any reason or end to 
 deceive you, — that the best gift I can give you 
 is good counsel ; and the best counsel I can 
 give you, is that which relates to yonr greatest 
 import and concernment, religion. 
 
 And therefore, since I cannot at this time 
 deliver it to you in person, I shall do so by this 
 letter, wherein I shall not be very large, but 
 keep myself within the bounds proper for a 
 letter, and to those things only, at this time, 
 which may be most of present use and moment 
 to you; and by your due observance of these 
 directions, I shall have a good character, both 
 of your dutifulness to God, your obedience to 
 your father, and also of your discretion and 
 prudence ; for it is most certain, that as religion 
 is the best means to advance and certify human 
 nature, so no man shall be either truly wise or 
 truly happy without it, and the love of it ; no, 
 not in this life, much less in that which is to I 
 come. 
 
 First. Therefore, every morning and every 
 evening, ujion your knees, humbly commend 
 yourselves to the Almighty God in prayer, 
 begging His mercy to pardon your sins, His 
 grace to dii'ect you. His providence to ijrotect 
 you ; returning Him humble thanks for all His 
 dispensations towards you, yea, even for His 
 very corrections and afflictions : entreating Him 
 to give you wisdom and grace, to make a sober, 
 
34 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 patient, humble, profitable use of them, and in 
 His due time to deliver you from them ; con- 
 cluding your prayers with the Lord's Prayer. 
 This will be a certain means to bi-ing your mind 
 into a right frame, to procure you comfort and 
 blessing, and to prevent thousands of incon- 
 veniences and mischiefs, to which you will be 
 otherwise subjected. 
 
 Secondly. Eveiy morning, read seriously and 
 reverently a i)ortion of the Holy Scriijture, and 
 acquaint yourself with the history and doctrine 
 thereof : it is a book full of light and wisdom, 
 wUl make you wise to eternal life, and furnish 
 you with direction, and principles, to guide and 
 order your life safely and prudently. 
 
 Thirdly. Conclude every evening with read- 
 ing some part of the Scripture, and prayer in 
 your family. 
 
 Fourthly. Be strict and religious observers 
 of the Lord's day. Resort to your parish church 
 twice that day if your health will permit, and 
 attend diligently and reverently to the public 
 prayers and sermons. He cannot reasonably 
 expect a blessing from God the rest of the week, 
 that neglects his duty to God in the due con- 
 secration of this day to the special service and 
 duty to God, which this day requires. 
 
 Fifthly. Eeceive the sacrament at least three 
 times in the year, and oftener as there is 
 occasion, in your parish church. The laws of 
 the land require this, and the law of your 
 Saviour requires it, and the law of duty and 
 gratitude requires it of you. Prepare yourselves 
 seriously for this service beforehand, and per- 
 form it with reverence and thankfulness. The 
 neglect of this duty procures great inconven- 
 iences and strangeness ; and commonly the 
 neglect hereof ariseth from some conceited 
 opinion, that people inconsiderately take up ; 
 but most ordinarily from a sluggishness of mind, 
 and an unwillingness to fit and prepare the 
 mind for it, or to leave some sinful or vain 
 course that men are not willing to leave, and 
 yet condemn themselves in the practice of. 
 
 Sixthly. Beware of those that go about to 
 seduce you from that religion wherein you have 
 been brought up hitherto, namely, the true 
 Protestant religion. It is not unknown to any 
 that observes the state of things in the world, 
 how many erroneous religions are scattered 
 I abroad in the world ; and how industrious men 
 ' of false persuasions are to make proselytes. 
 There are Antinomians, Quakers, Anabaptists, 
 and divers others ; nay, although the laws of 
 this kingdom, and especially the statute of 23 
 Eliz. cap. 1, have inflicted the severest penalty 
 upon those that go about to withdraw persons 
 to the Romish religion from the religion 
 established in England, as any man that reads 
 that statute may find ; yet there are scattered 
 up and down the world divers factors and agents, 
 that, under several disguises and pretences, 
 endeavour the j)erverting of weak and easy 
 
 persons. Take heed of all such persuaders. 
 And that you may know and observe the better, 
 you shall ever find these artifices practised by 
 them. They will use all flattering applications 
 and insinuations to be master of your humour ; 
 and when they have gotten that advantage, — 
 they seemed before to serve you, — will then 
 command you. 
 
 They will use all possible skill to raise in you 
 jealousy and dislike towards those who may 
 otherwise continue and keep you in the truth ; 
 as, to raise dislike in you against your minister ; 
 nay, rather than fail, to raise dissension among 
 relations, yea, to cast jealousies and surmises 
 among them, if it may be instrumental to 
 corrupt them. They will endeavour to with- 
 draw the people from the public ministry of 
 God's Word ; encourage men to slight and 
 neglect it ; and when they have once effected 
 this, they have a fair opportunity to infuse their 
 own corrupt princii^les. 
 
 They will engage you, by come means or 
 other, to them ; either by some real, but, most 
 ordinarily, by some pretended kindness or 
 familiarity, that, in a little time, you shall not 
 dare to displease them : you must do and speak 
 what they will have you, because, some way or 
 other, you are entangled with them, or engaged 
 to them ; and then they become your governors, 
 and you will not dare to contradict or disobey 
 them. 
 
 These are some of those artifices Avhereby 
 crafty and subtle seducers gain proselytes, and 
 bring men under captivity. 
 
 Seventhly. Be very careful to moderate your 
 passions, especially of choler and anger : it 
 inflames the blood, disorders the brain, and, 
 for the time, exterminates not only religion, 
 but common reason ; it puts the mind into 
 confusion, and throws wild-fire into the tongue, 
 whereby men give others great advantage against 
 them : it renders a man incapable of doing his 
 duty to God, and puts a man upon acts of 
 violence, unrighteousness, and injustice to men : 
 therefore keep your passions under discipline, 
 and under as strict a chain as you would keep 
 a curst, unruly mastiff. Look to it, that you 
 give it not too much line at first ; but if it hath 
 gotten any fire within you, quench it presently 
 with consideration, and let it not break out 
 into passionate or unruly actions ; but what- 
 ever you do, let it not gangrene into malice, 
 envy, or spite. 
 
 Eighthly. Send your children early to learn 
 their catechism, that they may take in the true 
 principles of religion betimes, which may grow- 
 up with them, and habituate them both to the 
 knowledge and practice of it ; that they may 
 escape the danger of corruption by error or 
 vice, being antecedently seasoned with better 
 rinciples. 
 
 Ninthly. Receive the blessings of God with 
 very much thankfulness to Him ; for He is the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 35 
 
 root and fountain of all the good you do, or can 
 receive. 
 
 Tenthly. Bear all aflflictions and crosses 
 patiently : it is your duty ; for afflictions come 
 not from the dust. The great God of heaven and 
 earth is He that sends the messages to you; 
 though, possibly, evil occuri-ences may be the 
 immediate instruments of them. You owe to 
 Almighty God an infinite subjection and obed- 
 ience, and to expostulate with Him is rebelKon ; 
 and as it is your duty, so it is your wisdom and 
 your prudence ; impatience will not discharge 
 your yoke, but it will make it gall the worse, 
 and sit the harder. 
 
 Eleventhly. Learn not only patience under 
 your afflictions, but also profitably to improve 
 them to your soul's good. Learn by them how 
 vain and uni^rofitable things the world and all 
 the pleasures thereof are, that a sharp or a 
 lingering sickness renders utterly tasteless. 
 Learn how vain and weak a thing human nature 
 is, which is pulled down to the gates of death, and 
 clothed with rottenness and corruption, by a 
 little disorder in the bloods, in a nerve, in a vein, 
 in an artery. And since we have so little hold 
 of a temporal life, which is shaken and shattered 
 by any small occurrence, accident, or distemper, 
 learn to lay hold of eternal life, and of that 
 covenant of peace and salvation, which Christ 
 hath bought for all that believe and obey the 
 gospel of peace and salvation : there shall be 
 no death, no sickness, no pain, no weakness, 
 but a state of unchangeable and everlasting 
 happiness. And if you thus improve affliction, 
 you are gainers by it ; and most certain it is, 
 that there is no more probable way, under 
 heaven, to be delivered from affliction (if the 
 wise God see it fit) than thus to improve it ; 
 for affliction is a messenger, and the rod hath a 
 voice, and that is, to require mankind to be 
 the more patient, and the more humble, and the 
 more to acknowledge Almighty God in all our 
 ways. And if men listen to this voice of the 
 rod, and conform to it, the rod hath done his 
 errand ; and either will leave a man, or at least 
 give a man, singular comfort, even under the 
 sharpest affliction. And this affliction, which is 
 but for a moment, thus improved, will work for 
 us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
 
 Twelfthly. Reverence your minister : he is a 
 wise and a good man, and one that loves you, 
 and hath a tender care and respect for you. 
 Do not grieve him, either by neglect or dis- 
 respect. Assure yourselves, if there be any per- 
 son that sets any of you against him, or provokes, 
 or encourageth any of you to despise or neglect 
 him, that person, whoever he be, loves not you, 
 nor the office he bears. And, therefore, as the 
 laws of the land, and the Divine Providence, 
 have placed him at Alderley, to have the care of 
 your souls, so I must tell you, I do expect you 
 should reverence and honour him, for his own, 
 for your, and for his office's sake. 
 
 And now I have written this long epistle to 
 you, to perform that office for me that I should 
 have done in person, if I could have taken tliis 
 journey. The epistle is long ; but it had been 
 longer if I had had more time. And though, 
 perchance, some there may be in the world, that 
 when they hear of it will interpret it to be but 
 the excursions and morose rules of old age, 
 unnecessary, and such as might have been 
 spared ; yet I am persuaded it will find better 
 acceptation thereof from you that are my chil- 
 dren. I am now on the shady side of threescore 
 years : I write to you what you have often 
 heard me in substance speak. And possibly 
 when I shall leave this world, you will want 
 such a remembrancer as I have been to you. 
 
 The words that I now and at former times 
 have written to you, are words of truth and 
 soberness, and words and advices that proceed 
 from a heart full of love and affection to you 
 all. If I should see you do amiss in anything, 
 and should not reprove you, or if I should find 
 you want counsel and direction, and should not 
 give it, I should not perform the trust of a 
 father; and if you should not thankfully 
 receive it, you would be somewhat defective in 
 the duty you owe to God and me, as children. 
 As I have never spared my purse to supply you, 
 according to my abilities, and the reasonable- 
 ness of occasions, so I have never been wanting 
 to you in good and prudent counsels ; and the 
 God of heaven give you wisdom, constancy, 
 and fidelity, in the observance of them. 
 
 I am your ever loving father, 
 
 Matthew Hale. 
 
 [The next two specimens we give represent the 
 light and lively style of John Wilmot, Earl 
 of Rochester (1647-1680), one of the most 
 profligate members of the court of Charles 
 II. He died of physical exhaustion at the 
 early age of thirty-three, but not without 
 having made a death-bed repentance, 
 which Dr. Burnet, his spiritual guide, 
 believed to be genuine.] 
 
 THE EARL OP ROCHESTER TO THE HONOURABLE 
 HENRY SAVILLE. 
 
 Harry,— 'Tis not the least of my happiness, 
 that I think you love me ; but the first of all 
 my pretensions is to make it appear that I 
 faithfully endeavour to deserve it. If there be a 
 real good upon earth, 'tis in the name of friend, 
 without which all others are mere fantastical. 
 How few of us are fit stuff to make that thing, 
 we have daily the melancholy experience. 
 
 However, dear Harry, let us not give out, 
 nor despair of bringing that about, which, as it 
 
r 
 
 36 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 is the most diflficult and rare accident of life, 
 is also the best ; nay, (perhaps) the only good 
 one. This thought has so entirely possessed 
 me since I came into the country (where only 
 one can think ; for you at court think not at 
 all, or, at least, as if you were shut uj) in a 
 drum, as you think of nothing but the noise 
 that is made about you), that I have made 
 many serious reflections upon it, and amongst 
 others gathered one maxim, which I desire 
 
 should be communicated to our friend Mr. G , 
 
 that we are bound in morality and common 
 honesty to endeavour after competent riches ; 
 since it is certain that few men, if any, uneasy 
 in their fortunes, have proved firm and clear in 
 their friendships. A very poor fellow is a very 
 poor friend ; and not one of a thousand can be 
 good-natured to another who is not pleased 
 within himself. But wliile I grow into proverbs, 
 I forget that you may impute my philosophy 
 to the dog-days, and living alone. To prevent 
 the inconveniences of solitude, and many 
 others, I intend to go to the Bath on Sunday 
 next, in visitation to my lord treasurer. Be 
 so politick, or be so kind (or a little of both, 
 which is better), as to stei^ down thither, if 
 famous affairs at "Windsor do not detain you. 
 
 Dear Harry, I am your hearty, faithful, 
 affectionate, humble servant, 
 
 Rochester. 
 
 to the same, on hearing the news of his 
 
 OWN DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 Dear Saville,— This day I received the 
 unhappy news of my own death and burial. 
 But, hearing what heirs and successors were 
 decreed me in my place, and chiefly in my 
 lodgings, it was no small joy to me that those 
 tidings prove untrue ; my passion for living is 
 so increased, that I omit no care of myself ; which 
 before I never thought life worth the trouble 
 of taking. The King, who knows me to be a 
 very ill-natured man, will not think it an easy 
 matter for me to die, now I live chiefly out of 
 spite. Dear Mr. Saville, afford me some news 
 from your land of the living ; and though I 
 have little curiosity to hear who's well, yet I 
 would be glad my few friends are so, of whom 
 you are no more the least than the leanest. I 
 have better compliments for you, but that may 
 not look so sincere as I would have you believe 
 I am, when I profess myself. 
 
 Your faithful, affectionate, humble servant, 
 Rochester. 
 
 Adderbury, near Banhury. 
 
 GEORGE VILLIERS (1627-1688), DUKE OP BUCK- 
 INGHAM, to the duke of SHREWSBURY. 
 
 Giving a Description of Buckingham House. 
 
 You accuse me of singularity in resigning 
 the Privy Seal, with a good pension added to 
 
 it, and yet afterwards of staying in town, at a 
 season when everybody else leaves it, which you 
 say is at once both despising court and country ; 
 you desire me, therefore, to defend myself, if I 
 can, by describing very particularly in what 
 manner I s^jend so many hours, that appear so 
 long to you who know nothing of the matter, 
 and yet methinks are but too short for me. 
 
 No part of this task which you propose is 
 uneasy, except the necessity of using the sing- 
 ular number too often. That one letter (I) is a 
 most dangerous monosyllable, and gives an air 
 of vanity to the modestest discourse whatsoever. 
 But you will remember, that I write this only 
 by way of apology ; and that, under accusation, 
 it is allowable to plead anything for defence, 
 though a little tending to one's own commen- 
 dation. 
 
 To begin, then, without more preamble : I 
 rise now in summer about seven o'clock, from a 
 very large bed-chamber (entirely quiet, high, 
 and free from the early sun), to walk in the 
 garden ; or, if rainy, in a saloon, filled with 
 pictures, some good, but none disagreeable. 
 There also, in a row above them, I have so 
 many portraits of famous persons in several 
 kinds, as are enough to excite ambition in any 
 man less lazy, or less at ease than myself. 
 
 Instead of a little dozing closet (according to 
 the unwholesome custom of most people) I choose 
 this spacious room for all my small affairs, 
 reading books, or writing letters, where I am 
 never in the least tired, by the help of stretching 
 my legs sometimes in so long a room, or of 
 looking into the pleasantest park in the world, 
 just underneath it. 
 
 Visits after a certain hour are not to be 
 avoided ; some of which I own a little fatiguing 
 (though, thanks to the town's laziness, they 
 come pretty late), if the garden was not so near 
 as to give a seasonable refreshment between 
 those ceremonious interruptions. And I am 
 more sorry than my coachman himself, if I am 
 forced to go abroad any part of the morning ; 
 for though my garden is such as, by not pre- 
 tending to rarities and curiosities, has nothing 
 in it to inveigle one's thoughts ; yet, by the 
 advantage of situation and jirospect, it is able 
 to suggest the noblest that can be, in presenting 
 at once to view a vast town, a palace, and a 
 magnificent cathedral. I confess the last, with 
 all its splendour, has less share in exciting my 
 devotion than the most common shrub in my 
 garden. For though I am apt to be sincerely 
 devout in any sort of religious assemblies, from 
 the very best (that of our own church) even to 
 those of Turks, Jews, and Indians; yet the 
 works of nature appear to me the better sort of 
 sermons ; every flower contains in it more 
 edifying rhetoric, to fill us with admiration of 
 its omnipotent Creator. 
 
 After I have dined (either agreeably with 
 friends, or, at worst, with better company than 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 37 
 
 your country neighbours), I drive away to a 
 place of air and exercise, which some consti- 
 tutions are in absolute need of, and diversion of 
 the mind, being a composition for health above 
 all the skill of Hippocrates. 
 
 The small distance of this place from London 
 is just enough for recovering my weariness, and 
 recruiting my spirits, so as to make me fitter 
 than before I set out for either business or 
 pleasure. At the mentioning the last of these, 
 methinks I see you smile ; but I confess myself 
 so changed (which you maliciously will call 
 decayed) as to my former enchanting delights, 
 that the company I commonly find at home is 
 agreeable enough to make me conclude the 
 evening on a delightful terrace, or in a place 
 free from late visits, except of familiar ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 By this you will see, that most of my time is 
 conjugally spent at home, and consequently you 
 will blame my laziness more than ever, for not 
 employing it in a way which your partiality is 
 wont to think me capable of, therefore I am 
 obliged to go on with this trifling description, 
 as some excuse for my idleness ; but how such 
 a description of itself is excusable, is what I 
 should be very much in pain about, if I thought 
 anybody could see it besides yourself, who are 
 too good a judge in all things to mistake a 
 friend's compliance in a private letter for the 
 least touch of vanity. 
 
 The avenues to this house are along through 
 St. James's Park, through rows of goodly elms 
 on one hand, and gay flourishing limes on the 
 other ; that for coaches, this for walking, with 
 the Mall lying between them ; this reaches to 
 my iron pallisade, that encompasses a square 
 court, which has in the midst a great bason, 
 with statues and water- works ; and from its 
 entrance rises all the way imperceptibly, till we 
 mount to a terrace, in the front of a large hall, 
 paved with square, white stone, mixed with a 
 dark-coloured marble ; the walls of it covered 
 with a set of pictures, done in the school of 
 Raphael. Out of this, on the right hand, we 
 go into a parlour, thirty-three feet by thirty- 
 nine, with a nitch fifteen feet broad for a 
 buffet, paved with white marble, and placed 
 within an arch, with pilasters of divers colours ; 
 the upper part of which, as high as the ceiling, 
 is ])ainted by Ricci. 
 
 From hence we pass through a suite of large 
 rooms into a bed-chamber of thirty-four feet by 
 twenty-seven; within it a large closet, that 
 opens into a green-house. 
 
 On the left hand are three stone arches, sup- 
 ported by Corinthian pillars, under one of 
 which are eight and forty steps, ten feet broad, 
 each step of one entire Portland stone. These 
 stairs, by the help of two resting-places, are so 
 very easy, there is no need of leaning on the 
 iron balluster. The walls are painted with the 
 story of Dido, whom, though the poet was 
 
 obliged to despatch away mournfully, in order 
 to make room for Lavinia, the better-natured 
 painter has brought no farther than to that 
 fatal cave, where the lovers appear just entering, 
 and languishing with desire. 
 
 The roof of this staircase, which is fifty-five 
 feet from the ground, is of forty feet by thirty- 
 six, filled with the figures of gods and goddesses ; 
 in which is Juno condescending to beg assistance 
 from Venus to bring about a marriage, which 
 the Fates intended should be the ruin of her 
 own darling queen and people ; by which that 
 sublime poet wisely intimates, that we should 
 never be over-eager for anything either in our 
 pursuits or in our prayers, lest what we endea- 
 vour to ask too violently for our interest, should 
 be granted us by Providence only in order to 
 our ruin. 
 
 The bas reliefs, and little squares above, are 
 all episodical paintings of the same story ; and 
 the largeness of the whole has admitted of a 
 sure remedy against any decay of the colours 
 from saltpetre in the wall, by making another 
 of oak laths four inches within it, and so primed 
 over like a picture. 
 
 From a wide landing-place on the stairs-head, 
 a great double door opens into an apartment of 
 the same dimensions with that below, only 
 three feet higher, notwithstanding which, it 
 would appear too low, if the higher saloon had 
 not been divided from it. The first room on 
 this floor has within it a closet of original 
 paintings, which yet are not so entertaining as 
 the delightful prosi)ect from the windows. 
 Out of the second room, a pair of great doors 
 give entrance into the saloon, which is thirty- 
 five feet high, thirty-six broad, and forty-five 
 long. In the midst of its roof, a round picture 
 of Gentileschi, eighteen feet in diameter, 
 represents the Muses playing in concert to 
 Apollo, lying along on a cloud to hear them. 
 The rest of the room is adorned with paintings 
 relating to arts and sciences ; and underneath, 
 divers original pictures hang, all in good lights, 
 by the help of an u.pper row of windows, which 
 drown the glaring. 
 
 Much of this seems appertaining to parade, 
 and therefore I am glad to leave it to describe 
 the rest, which is all for conveniency ; as first, 
 a covered passage from the kitchen without 
 doors, and another down to the cellars, and all 
 the ofiices within. Near this, a large and light- 
 some back-stairs leads up to such an entry 
 above, as secures our private bed-chambers both 
 from noise and cold. Here we have necessary 
 dressing-rooms, servants' rooms, and closets, 
 from which are the pleasantest views of all the 
 house, with a little door for communication 
 betv/een this private apartment and the great 
 one. 
 
 These stairs, and those of the same kind at 
 the other end of the house, carry us up to the 
 highest storey, fitted for the women and children, 
 
38 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 with floors so contrived as to prevent all noise 
 over my wife's head, during the mysteries of 
 Lucina. 
 
 In mentioning the court at first, I forgot the 
 two wings in it, built on stone arches, which 
 join the house corridors, supported on Ionic 
 pillars. In one of these wings is a large kitchen, 
 thirty feet high, with an open cupola on the 
 top ; near it a larder, brewhouse, and laundry, 
 with rooms over them for servants. The upper 
 sort of servants are lodged in the other wing, 
 which has also two wardrobes, and a storeroom 
 for fruit. On the top of all, a leaden cistern, 
 holding fifty tuns of water, driven up by an 
 engine from the Thames, supi)lies all the 
 water-works in the courts and gardens, which 
 lie quite round the house ; through one of 
 which, a grass walk conducts to the stables, 
 built round a court, with six coach-houses, and 
 forty stalls. 
 
 I will add but one thing more before I carry 
 you into the garden, and that is about walking 
 too ; but 'tis on the top of all the house, which 
 being covered with smooth milled lead, and 
 defended by a parapet of ballusters from all 
 apprehension, as well as danger, entertains the 
 eye with a far distant prospect of hills and dales, 
 and a near one of parks and gardens. 
 
 To these gardens we go down from the house 
 by seven steps into a gravel walk, that reaches 
 across the whole garden, with a covered arbour 
 at each end of it. Another of thirty feet broad, 
 leads from the front of the house, and lies 
 between two groves of tall lime-trees, planted 
 in several equal ranks upon a carpet of grass ; 
 the outside of these groves are bordered with 
 tubs of bays and orange trees. 
 
 At the end of this broad walk you go up to a 
 terrace, four hundred paces long, with a large 
 semi-circle in the middle, from whence is beheld 
 the Queen's two parks, and a great part of 
 Surrey ; then going down a few steps, you walk 
 on the bank of a canal six hundred yards long 
 and seventeen broad, with two rows of limes on 
 each side of it. 
 
 On one side of this terrace, a wall, covered 
 with roses and jessamines, is made low, to admit 
 the view of a meadow full of cattle just under 
 it (no disagreeable object in the midst of a great 
 city), and at each end a descent in parterres, 
 with fountains and water-works. 
 
 From the biggest of those parterres, we pass 
 into a little square garden that has a fountain 
 in the middle, and two green-houses on the 
 sides, with a convenient bathing apartment in 
 one of them, and near another part of it lies 
 a flower garden. Below all this, a kitchen- 
 garden, full of the best sorts of fruits, has 
 several walks in it, fit for the coldest weather. 
 
 Thus I have done with a tedious description, 
 only one thing I forgot, though of more satis- 
 faction to me than all the rest, which I fancy 
 you guess already ; and it is a little closet of 
 
 books at the end of that green-house, which 
 joins the best apartment ; which, besides their 
 being so very near, are ranked in such a method, 
 that by its mark a very Irish footman may fetch 
 any book I want. 
 
 Under the windows of this closet and green- 
 house, is a little wilderness of blackbirds and 
 nightingales. The trees, though planted by my- 
 self, require lopping already, to prevent their 
 hindering the view of that fine canal in the 
 park. 
 
 After all this (to a friend I will expose my 
 weakness as an instance of the mind's unquiet- 
 ness under the most pleasing enjoyments) I am 
 oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house 
 I piilled down, than pleased with a saloon which 
 I built in its stead though a thousand times 
 better in all manner of respects. 
 
 And now {'pour faire bonne louche, with a 
 grave reflection) it were well for us, if this inca- 
 pacity of being entirely contented was as sure 
 a proof of our being reserved for happiness in 
 another world, as it is of our frailty and imper- 
 fection in this ; I confess the divines tell us so, 
 but though I believe a future state more firmly 
 than a great many of them appear to do, by 
 their inordinate desires of the good things in 
 this ; yet I own my faith is founded, not on the 
 fallacious arguments of preachers, but on that 
 adorable conjunction of unbounded power and 
 goodness, which certainly must some way re- 
 compense hereafter so many thousands of 
 innocent wretches created to be so miserable 
 here. 
 
 [If Sprat, to whom Cowley bequeathed by his 
 wiU the revision and collection of his 
 works, had given to us the familiar letters 
 of his friend, we might have reaped a 
 richer harvest from 'those seven or eight 
 years' in which he was 'concealed in his 
 beloved obscurity.' But Sprat was deter- 
 mined, to borrow his own metaphor, that 
 the soul of the poet should not appear 
 undressed ; and the world has been de- 
 frauded of some of the tenderest and 
 purest sentiments which ever flowed from 
 a human heart. One of his letters is 
 printed in the correspondence of Evelyn ; 
 Mr. D'Israeli has recovered another; and 
 the following appears in the folio edition 
 of his works. Of such a writer, nothing 
 should be lost;— his verse, with all its 
 extravagances of principle, abounds in 
 beautiful images, and ingenious novelties 
 of fancy ; but his prose is almost i^erfect — 
 clear, animated, unaffected, and eloquent. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 39 
 
 Nor was the man less admirable tlian the 
 writer ; wherever he went, the love of 
 friends seems to have waited upon him. 
 Evelyn, a severe and a competent judge, 
 mentions his death in terms of affection 
 and sorrow. He says in his Diary: — 
 ' 1 Aug. (1667), I received the sad news of 
 Abr. Cowley's death; that incomparable 
 poet, and virtuous man, my very dear friend. 
 3. Went to Mr. Cowley's funeral ; his corps 
 lay at Wallington House ; and was thence 
 conveyed to "Westr. Abbey in a hearse 
 with 6 horses, and all funeral decency, 
 neare a himdred coaches of noblemen and 
 persons of qualitie following ; among these 
 all the wits of the towne, divers bishops 
 and cleargymeii. He was interred next 
 Geffry Chaucer, and neare Spenser.' — B. A. 
 Willmott.} 
 
 COWLEY TO ME. S. L. 
 
 The Danger of Procrastination. 
 I am glad that you approve and applaud my 
 design of withdrawing myself from all tumult 
 and business of the world; and consecrating 
 the little rest of my time to those studies, to 
 which nature had so motherly inclined me, and 
 from which fortune, like a step-mother, has so 
 long detained me. But nevertheless (you say, 
 which, But, is cerugo mera, a rust which spoils 
 the good metal it grows upon. But you say), 
 you would advise me not to precipitate that 
 resolution, but to stay a while longer with 
 patience and complaisance, till I had gotten 
 such an estate as might afford me (according to 
 the saying of that person whom you and I love 
 very much, and would believe as soon as an- 
 other man) cum dignitate otium. This were 
 excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the 
 sun stay too. But there's no fooling with life 
 when it is once turned beyond forty. The 
 seeking for a fortune, then, is but a desperate 
 after-game ; 'tis a hundred to one if a man 
 fling two sixes and recover all, especially if his 
 hand be no luckier than mine. There is some 
 help for all the defects of fortune ; for if a man 
 cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he 
 may have remedy by cutting of them shorter. 
 Epicurus writes a letter to Idomeneus (who 
 was then a very powerful, wealthy, and, it 
 seems, bountiful person), to recommend to him, 
 who had made so many rich, one Pythocles, a 
 friend of his, whom he desired might be made 
 a rich man too ; ' but I entreat you that you 
 would not do it just the same way as you have 
 done to many less deserving persons, but in the 
 most gentlemanly manner of obliging him, 
 which is not to add anything to his estate, but 
 to take something from his desires.' The sum 
 of this isjvtluit for the uncertain hopes of some 
 
 conveniences, we ought not to defer the 
 execution of a work that is necessary, especially 
 when the use of those things which we would 
 stay for may otherwise be supplied, but the loss 
 of time never recovered. Nay, farther yet, 
 though we were sure to obtain all that we had 
 a mind to, though we were siire of getting 
 never so much by continuing the game, yet 
 when the light of life is so near going out, and 
 ought to be so precious, Le jeu ne vaut pas la 
 chandelle, the play is not worth the expense of 
 the candle. After having been long tost in a 
 tempest, if our masts be standing, and we have 
 still sail and tackling enough to carry us to our 
 port, it is no matter for the want of streamers 
 and top-gallants. Utere velis, totos pande sinus. 
 A gentleman in our late civil wars, when his 
 quarters were beaten up by the enemy, was 
 taken prisoner, and lost his life afterwards only 
 by staying to put on a band and adjust his 
 periwig ; he would escape like a person of 
 quality, or not at all, and died the noble 
 martyr of ceremony and gentility. I think your 
 counsel of Festina lente is as ill to a man who is 
 flying from the world, as it would have been 
 to that unfortunate, well-bred gentleman who 
 was so cautious as not to fly undecently from 
 his enemies ; and therefore I i)ref er Horace! s 
 advice before yours, 
 
 Sapere, aude, incipe. 
 
 Begin ; the getting oiit of doors is the greatest 
 part of the journey. Varro teaches us that 
 Latin proverb, — Portain itineri longissimam esse. 
 But to return to Horace^ 
 
 Sajjcre, aude, 
 
 Incipe, vieendi qui recte prorogat horam, 
 Eusticus expedat dum labitur amnis, at ille 
 Lahitur, et labetur in omne volubilis cuvum. 
 
 Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise ; 
 He who defers this work from day to day, 
 Does on a river's bank expecting stay. 
 Till the whole stream which stopt him should be 
 gone, 
 
 That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on. 
 
 Csesar (the man of expedition above all others) 
 was so far from this folly, that whensoever, in 
 a journey, he was to cross any river, he never 
 went one foot out of his way for a bridge, or a 
 ford, or a ferry, but flung himself into it im- 
 mediately, and swam over ; and this is the 
 course we ought to imitate, if we meet with 
 any stops in our way to hai^piness. Stay till 
 the waters are low, stay till some boats come 
 by to transport you, stay till a bridge be built 
 for you ; you had better stay till the river be 
 quite past. Persius (who, you use to say, you 
 do not know whether he be a good poet or no, 
 because you cannot understand him, and whom 
 therefore, I say, I know to be not a good poet) 
 has an odd expression of these procrastinators, 
 which, methinks, is full of fancy. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 40 
 
 Jam eras hestcrnum consumpsimus. Ecce aliud eras, 
 Egerit hos annos.— Pers. Sat. 5. 
 
 Our yesterday's to-morrow now is gone, 
 And still a new to-morrow does come on ; 
 "We by to-morrows draw up all our store, 
 Till the exhausted well can yield no more. 
 
 And now, I think I am even with you, for your 
 otium cum dignitate and festiyia lente, and three 
 or four other more of your new Latin sentences : 
 if I should draw ujDon you all my forces out of 
 Seneca and Plutarch upon this subject, I should 
 overwhelm you ; but I leave those as Triary for 
 your next charge. I shall only give you now a 
 light skirmish out of an ei^igrammatist, your 
 sjDecial good friend, and so vale. 
 
 Mart., Lib. 5, Ep. 59. 
 
 To-morrow you will live, you always crj' ; 
 In what far countiy does this morrow lye; 
 That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive? 
 Beyond the Indies does this morrow live? 
 'Tis so far-fetcht this morrow, that I fear 
 'Twill be both very old and very dear ; 
 To-morrow I will live, the fool does say, 
 To-day itself's too late, the wise liv'd yesterday. 
 
 Mart., Lib. 2, Ep. 99. 
 
 Wonder not, sir (you who instruct the town 
 
 In the true wisdom of the sacred gown). 
 
 That I make haste to live, and cannot hold 
 
 Patiently out, till I grow rich and old. 
 
 Life for delays and doubts no time does give. 
 
 None ever yet made haste enough to live. 
 
 Let him defer it, whose preposterous care 
 
 Omits himself, and reaches to his heir ; 
 
 Who does his father's bounded stores despise, 
 
 And whom his own too never can suffice. 
 
 My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require. 
 
 Or rooms that shine with aught but constant lire. 
 
 I well content the avarice of my sight 
 
 With the fair gildings of reflected light : 
 
 Pleasures abroad, the sport of nature yields 
 
 Her living fountains, and her smiling fields. 
 
 And then at home, what pleasure is't to see 
 
 A little cleanly chearful familie : 
 
 Which if a chaste wife crow, no less in her 
 
 Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer ; 
 
 Too noble, nor too wise, she should not be, 
 
 No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me ; 
 
 Thus let my life slide silently away. 
 
 With sleep all night, and quiet all the day. 
 
 [Watts said that he would sooner have written 
 the Call to the Unconverted than Paradise 
 Lost; few religious appeals have obtained 
 such immediate and extensive celebrity. 
 The heartiness and sincerity of Baxter's 
 manner more than compensate for the 
 acrimonious, pungent style which his friend 
 Sylvester (to whom he entrusted the 
 publication of his autobiography) supposed 
 him to have contracted ' by his plain dealing 
 
 with desperate sinners.' The following 
 letter refers to a transaction detailed at 
 greater length in his own interesting 
 Memoirs. It appears to have originated 
 out of a report, injurious to the character 
 of Baxter, which he supposed to have been 
 promulgated by Allestree, from whom 
 Sylvester has printed a note, dated 
 December 13, 1670, in the Preface to the 
 Life of Baxter. Of Allestree, who had 
 been his school-fellow at Mr. John Owen's, 
 Baxter relates an anecdote : — ' When my 
 master set him up into the lower end of 
 the highest form, where I had long been 
 chief, I took it so ill, that I began to talk 
 of leaving the school ; whereupon my 
 master gravely but very tenderly rebuked 
 my pride, and gave me for my theme, — 
 Nc sutor ultra crepidam^ {Life, Part 1, 
 p. 3). 
 
 The following passage from his Memoirs 
 will illustrate some of the circumstances 
 mentioned in the letter : — 'As soon as I 
 came to the army, Oliver Cromwell coldly 
 bid me welcome, and never spake one word 
 to me more while I was there ; nor once all 
 that time vouchsafed me an opportunity 
 to come to headquarters, where the 
 councils and meetings of the officers were, 
 so that most of my design was thereby 
 frustrated ; and his secretary gave out 
 that there was a reformer come to the 
 army to undeceive them, and to save 
 Church and State, with some other jeers; 
 by v/hich I perceived that all that I had 
 said but the night before to the committee, 
 was come to Cromwell before me. (I 
 believe by Col. Purefoy's means.) But 
 Col. Whalley welcomed me, and was the 
 worse thought on for it by the rest of the 
 cabal.'— i?. A. Willmott.] 
 
 EICHARD BAXTER TO THE EEY. EICHARD 
 ALLESTEEE. 
 
 So7ne Passages in his own History. 
 
 Leccmber 20, 1C79. 
 SiE, — As 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 acquaint- 
 ance than of later, and to value most their 
 esteem, whom we most esteem ; and the 
 current report of your honesty, as well as. 
 knowledge, commandetli a great estimation of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 41 
 
 you from us all. I was, before the war, 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 
 for little things. I was one of those that were 
 glad that the Parliament, 1640, attempted a 
 reformation of these things, which I expressed, 
 perhaps, too openly. I lived in a town (Kidder- 
 minster) then famous for wickedness and 
 drunkenness. They twice rose against me, 
 and sought to kill me. Once for sayins: the 
 infants had original sin, etc. ; 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 knocked down 
 two strangers for my sake, v/ho carried it to 
 their graves. Then the old curate indicted me 
 at the assizes, I never heard for what, but I 
 was forced to begone. If any did but sing a 
 psalm or repeat a sermon in their houses, the 
 rabble cried, ' Down with the Eound-heads ! ' 
 and were ready to destroy them ; so that the 
 religious part of the town were forced to fly 
 after me to Coventry, where we lived quietly ; 
 but having nothing of their own, they were 
 constrained to become garrison soldiers, and I 
 took my bare diet, to j)reach once a week, 
 refusing the offered place of chaplain to the 
 garrison. The news of 200,000 murdered by 
 the Irish and Papist strength in the King's 
 annies, and the great danger of the kingdom, 
 was published by the Parliament ; my judgment 
 then was, that neither King nor Parliament 
 might lawfully fight against each other ; that 
 dividing was dissolving and destroying; and 
 only necessary defence of the constitution 
 was lawful ; but that the honum publicum 
 was the essential end of government; and 
 though I thought both sides faulty, I thought 
 that both the defensive part and solus popuH lay 
 on the Parliament's side, and I very openly 
 published and preached accordingly, the Parlia- 
 ment 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, etc. In a word, my 
 principles were the same with Bishop Bilson's 
 (of subjection) and Jewell's, but never so 
 popular as K. Hooker's. When I had stayed 
 in Coventry a year, my father in Shropshire 
 was plundered by the King's soldiers (who never 
 was against the King or conformity). I v/ent 
 into Shropshire, and he was for my sake taken 
 prisoner to TinshuU. I stayed at Longford 
 garrison for two months, and got him exchanged 
 for Mr. R. Fowler. In that time, the garrison 
 being little more than a mile distance, the 
 soldiers on each side used frequently to have 
 small attempts against each other, in which 
 Judge Fienne's 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 soldiers hurt him not, but 
 offered him quarter ; but he would not take it, 
 nor lay down his arms : 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 j 
 from him ; and Captain Holydaye, 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 sink-hole, 
 and the rest were exchanged. I returned to 
 Coventry, and followed my studies another 
 year ; all that garrison abhorred sectarian and 
 popular rebellious principles. The Parliament 
 then put out the Earl of Essex, and new 
 modelled their armies ; and gave 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 days 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 
 them with destructive principles against King, 
 Parliament, and Church. And now they said, 
 God's providence had put the trust of the 
 ' people's safety in our hands, and they would, 
 when the conquest was finished, change the 
 government of Church and State, and become 
 our lords.' This struck me to the heart ; I 
 went among them, and found it true. Here- 
 upon they persuaded me yet to come among 
 them, and got "Whalley (then sober, and against 
 those men) to invite me to his regiment (the 
 most sectarian and powerful in the army). I 
 went home to Coventry, and slept not till I 
 had called together about twelve or more 
 reverend ministers, who then lived there (divers | 
 are yet living), and told them our sad case ; 
 and that I had an invitation, and was willing 
 to venture my life in a trial to change the 
 soldiers' minds. They all consented. I pro- 
 mised presently to go. I asked leave of the 
 committee and Government, who consented. 
 Before midnight, the garrison reviled the 
 committee for consenting. They sent for me 
 again, and told me I must not go, for the 
 garrison would mutiny. I told them I had . 
 promised, and would go. But I foolishly, to 
 satisfy them, told my reasons, which set 
 Lieutenant-Col. Purefoy in a rage against me, 
 for so accusing the army. The next morning I 
 went, and met with the consequent of my 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 42 
 
 error ; for Cromwell had notice of what I had 
 said, and came about before I could get thither • 
 and I was met with scorn (as one that meant 
 to save Church and State from the army). 
 There I stayed a while, and found that being 
 but in one i)lace I could do little good. I got 
 Mr. Cooke to come and heli) me (who since 
 helped Mr. G. Booth into Chester for the 
 King, and was imi^risoned for it, though now he 
 is silenced). He and I spent our time in 
 speaking and disputing against the destroyers ; 
 and I so far j)revailed as to render the seducers 
 in the regiment contemned, except in one troop, 
 or a few more. I told the orthodox Parliament 
 men of their danger. But Cromwell frustrated 
 ray cherished hope, and would never suffer me 
 to come near the general, nor the headquarters, 
 nor himself, nor never once to speak to him. 
 AVhen the war seemed over, I was invited home 
 again ; but I called near twenty ministers to- 
 gether at Coventry, and told them that the 
 crisis was not now far off ; the army would 
 shortly show themselves in rebellion against 
 King, the Parliament, and Church ; and I was 
 unwilling to venture my life to try to draw off 
 as many against them as I could. They voted 
 me to stay. I went back, and it pleased God 
 that the very first day they met at Nottingham 
 in council, to confederate, as I foresaw, I was 
 not only kept away, but finally separated from 
 them, by bleeding almost to death ( 120 ounces 
 at the nose). Had not that prevented it, I had 
 hazarded my life at Triploe-heath, where they 
 broke out, but had done little good ; for when 
 the sober part then declared against them, they 
 drew off about 5000 or 6000 men ; and Cromwell 
 filled up their places with sectaries, and was 
 much stronger than before. All that I could 
 do after, was to preach and write against them. 
 This is a true account of the case of your old 
 friend, E. Baxtee. 
 
 [Mr. Penruddock, when he received his wife's 
 note, was under sentence of death by 
 Cromwell for his share in the Eoyalist 
 rising at Exeter, and was beheaded there in 
 1655.] 
 
 MRS. PENRUDDOCK's LAST LETTER TO HER 
 HUSBAND. 
 
 May 3, 1655. 
 My dear Heart, — My sad parting was so far 
 from making me forget you, that I scarce 
 thought upon myself since, but wholly upon 
 you. Those dear embraces which I yet feel, 
 and shall never lose, being the faithful testi- 
 monies of an indidgent husband, have charmed 
 my soul to such a reverence of your remem- 
 brance, that were it jjossible, I would, with my 
 
 own blood, cement your dead limbs to live 
 again, and (with reverence) think it no sin to 
 rob heaven a little longer of a martyr. Oh 
 my dear, you must now pardon my passion, 
 this being my last (oh, fatal word !) that ever 
 you will receive from me ; and know, that until 
 the last minute that I can imagine you shall 
 live, I shall sacrifice the prayers of a Christian, 
 and the groans of an afflicted wife. And when 
 you are not (which sure by sympathy I shall 
 know), I shall wish my own dissolution with 
 you, that so we may go hand in hand to 
 heaven. 'Tis too late to tell you what I have, 
 or rather have not done for you ; how being 
 turned out of doors because I came to beg 
 mercy; the Lord lay not your blood to their 
 charge. 
 
 I would fain discourse longer with you, but 
 dare not ; i^assion begins to drown my reason, 
 and will rob me of my devoirs, which is all I 
 have left to serve you. Adieu, therefore, ten 
 thousand times, my dearest dear ; and since I 
 must never see you more, take this prayer, — 
 May your faith, be so strengthened that your 
 constancy may continue ; and then I know 
 heaven will receive you ; whither grief and 
 love will in a short time (I hope) translate. 
 My dear. 
 
 Your sad, but constant wife, even to love 
 your ashes when dead, 
 
 Arundel Penruddock. 
 May the 3d, 1655, eleven o'clock at night. 
 Your children beg your blessing, and present 
 their duties to you. 
 
 MR. PENRUDDOCK's LAST LETTER TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 May 1655. 
 
 Dearest, best of Creatures !— I had taken 
 leave of the world when I received yours : it 
 did at once recall my fondness to life, and 
 enable me to resign it. As I am sure I shall 
 leave none behind me like you, which weakens 
 my resolution to part from you, so when I 
 refiect I am going to a place where there are 
 none but such as you, I recover my courage. 
 But fondness breaks in upon me; and as I 
 would not have my tears flow to-morrow, when 
 your husband, and the father of our dear babes, 
 is a public spectacle, do not think meanly of me, 
 that I give way to grief now in private, when I 
 see my sand run so fast, and within a few hours 
 I am to leave you helpless, and exposed to the 
 merciless and insolent that have wrongfully put 
 me to a shameless death, and will object the 
 shame to my poor children. I thank you for 
 all your goodness to me, and will endeavour so 
 to die as to do nothing unworthy that virtue in 
 which we have mutually supported each other, 
 and for which I desire you not to repine that I 
 am first to be rewarded, since you ever pre- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 43 
 
 ferred me to yourself in all other things. 
 Afford me, with cheerfulness, the precedence of 
 this. I desire your prayers in the article of 
 death ; for my own will then be offered for you 
 and yours. 
 
 J. Pexruddock. 
 
 [Margaret Lucas, afterwards Duchess of Noav- 
 castle, was one of the maids of honour to 
 Henrietta Maria, and was married to the 
 Marquis of Newcastle in 1645. During the 
 Commonwealth, they remained at Antwerp 
 till the troubles were over. The duchess was 
 indefatigable in her devotion to literature, 
 in which she was assisted by her noble 
 husband, and between them they filled 
 about twelve volumes with plays, poems, 
 etc. Eetuming to England on the restora- 
 tion of Charles II. , their lives presented a 
 curious picture of industrious, but often 
 ill-directed, literary effort. 'She had,' says 
 a critic, 'invention, knowledge, and ima- 
 gination, but wanted energy and taste.'] 
 
 MARGAKET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, TO HER 
 HUSBAND, THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 
 
 London, 16G7. 
 Certainly, my lord, you have had as many 
 enemies and as many friends as ever any one par- 
 ticular person had ; nor do I so much wonder at 
 it, since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the 
 malice and aspersions of spiteful tongues which 
 they cast upon my poor writings, some denying 
 me to be the true authoress of them ; for your 
 grace remembers well, that those books I put 
 out first to the judgment of this censorious age 
 were accounted not to be written by a woman, 
 but that somebody else had writ and published 
 them in my name ; by which your lordship was 
 moved to prefix an epistle before one of them in 
 my vindication, wherein you assure the world, 
 upon your honour, that what was written and 
 printed in my name was my own ; and I have 
 also made known that your lordship was my 
 only tutor, in declaring to me what you had 
 found and observed by your own experience ; 
 for I, being young when your lordship married 
 me, could not have much knowledge of the 
 world; but it pleased God to command His 
 servant Nature to endue me with a poetical 
 and philosophical genius, even from my birth ; 
 for I did write some books in that kind before I 
 was twelve years of age, which for want of good 
 method and order I would never divulge. But 
 though the world would not believe that those 
 conceptions and fancies which I writ were my 
 own, but transcended my capacity, yet they 
 
 found fault, that they were defective for want 
 of learning, and on the other side, they said I 
 had j)luckt feathers out of the universities ; 
 which was a very preposterous judgment. 
 Truly, my lord, I confess that for want of 
 scholarship, I could not express myself so well 
 as otherwise I might have done in those philo- 
 sophical writings I published first ; but after I 
 was returned with your lordship into my native 
 country, and led a retired country life, I applied 
 myself to the reading of philosophical authors, 
 on purpose to learn those names and words of 
 art that are used in schools ; which at first were 
 so hard to me that I could not understand 
 them, but was fain to guess at the sense of them 
 by the whole context, and so writ them down 
 as I found them in those authors ; at which my 
 readers did wonder, and thought it impossible 
 that a woman could have so much learning and 
 understanding in terms of art and scholastical 
 expressions ; so that I and my books are like 
 the old apologue mentioned in JEsop, of a 
 father and his son who rid on an ass. . . . The 
 old man, seeing he could not please mankind in 
 any manner, and having received so many 
 blemishes and aspersions for the sake of his ass, 
 was at last resolved to drown him when he 
 came to the next bridge. But I am not so 
 passionate to burn my writings for the various 
 humours of mankind, and for then finding 
 fault ; since there is nothing in this world, be 
 it the noblest and most commendable action 
 whatsoever, that shall escape blameless. As 
 for my being the true and only authoress of 
 them, your lordship knows best ; and my 
 attending servants are witness that I have had 
 none but my own thoughts, fancies, and sj^ecu- 
 lations, to assist me ; and as soon as I set them 
 down I send them to those that are to transcribe 
 them, and fit them for the press ; whereof, 
 since there have been several, and amongst 
 them such as only could write a good hand, but 
 neither understood orthography, nor had any 
 learning (I being then in banishment with your 
 lordship, and not able to maintain learned 
 secretaries), which hath been a great disadvan- 
 tage to my poor works, and the cause that they 
 have been printed so false, and so full of errors ; 
 for besides that I want also skill in scholarship 
 and true writing, I did many time not peruse 
 the copies that were transcribed, lest they 
 should disturb my following conceptions ; by 
 which neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt 
 into my works, which, yet I hope, learned and 
 impartial men will soon rectify, and look more 
 upon the sense than carj^ at words. I have 
 been a student even from childliood ; and since 
 I have been your lordship's wife, I have lived 
 for the most part a strict and retired life, as is 
 best known to your lordship ; and therefore my 
 censurers cannot know much of me, since they 
 have little or no acquaintance with me. 'Tis 
 true I have been a traveller both before and 
 
44 
 
 after I was married to your lordship, and some- 
 times shown myself at your lordship's command 
 in public places or assemblies, but yet I converse 
 with few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the 
 censures of this age, but am rather proud of 
 them ; for it shows that my actions are more 
 than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, 
 it is better to be envied than pitied ; for I know 
 well that it is merely out of spite and malice, 
 v/hereof this present age is so full that none 
 can escape them, and they'll make no doubt 
 to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble, and 
 heroic actions as well as they do mine ; though 
 yours have been of war and fighting, mine of 
 contemplating and writing ; yours were per- 
 formed publicly in the field, mine privately in 
 my closet : yours had many thousand eye- 
 witnesses ; mine none but my waiting-maids. 
 But the great God, that hitherto blessed both 
 your grace and me, will, I question not, preserve 
 both our fames to after ages. 
 Your grace's honest wife and humble servant, 
 M. Newcastle. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR TO JOHN EVELYN, 
 
 Upon the Loss of his Children. 
 
 February 17, 1657. 
 Dear Sir, — If dividing and sharing griefs 
 were like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to 
 you, you would find ycur stream much abated ; 
 for I account myself to have a great cause of 
 sorrow, not only in the diminution of the num- 
 bers of your joys and hopes, but in the loss of 
 that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. 
 I cannot tell all my own sorrows, without 
 adding to yours ; and the causes of my real 
 sadness in your loss are so just and so reason- 
 able, that I can no otherwise comfort you but 
 by telling you that you have very great cause 
 to mourn ; so certain it is that grief does propa- 
 gate as fire does. You have enkindled my 
 funeral torch, and by joining mine to yours I 
 do but increase the flame. Hoc me male urit, 
 is the best signification of my apprehension 
 of your sad story. But, sir, I cannot choose, 
 but I must hold another and a brighter flame 
 to you, it is already burning in your heart ; 
 and if I can but remove the dark side of the 
 lantern, you have enough within you to warm 
 yourself and to shine to others. Eem ember, 
 sir, your two boys are two bright stars, and 
 their innocence is secured, and you shall never 
 hear evil of them again. Their state is safe, and 
 heaven is given to them upon very easy terms ; 
 nothing but to be born and die. It will cost 
 you more trouble to get where they are ; and 
 amongst other things one of the [hardness] will 
 be, that you must overcome even this just and 
 reasonable grief ; and, indeed, though the grief 
 
 hath but too reasonable a cause, yet it is much 
 more reasonable that you master it. For 
 besides that they are no losers, but you are the 
 person that complains, do but consider what 
 you would have suffered for their interest : 
 you [would] have suffered them to go from you, 
 to be great princes in a strange country : and if 
 you can be content to suffer your own incon- 
 venience for their interest, you command your 
 worthiest love, and the question of mourning is 
 at an end. But you have said and dor.e well, 
 when you look upon it as a rod of God ; and He 
 that so smites will spare hereafter ; and if you, 
 by patience and submission, imprint the dis- 
 cipline upon your own flesh, you kill the cause, 
 and make the effect very tolerable ; because it 
 is in some sense chosen, and therefore in no 
 sense insufferable. 
 
 Sir, if you do not look to it, time will snatch 
 your honour from you, and reproach you for 
 not effecting that by Christian philosophy which 
 time will do alone. And if you consider, that 
 of the bravest men in the world we find the 
 seldomest stories of their children, and the 
 apostles had none, and thousands of the 
 worthiest persons, that sound most in story, 
 died childless ; you will find it is a rare act of 
 Providence so to impose upon worthy men a 
 necessity of perpetuating their names by worthy 
 actions and discourses, governments and reason- 
 ings. If the breach be never repaired, it is 
 because God does not see it fit to be ; and if you 
 will be of this mind, it will be much better. 
 But, sir, you will pardon my zeal and passion 
 for your comfort, I will readily confess that you 
 have no need of any discourse from me to com- 
 fort you. Sir, now you have an opportunity of 
 serving God by passive graces ; strive to be an 
 example and a comfort to your lady, and by 
 your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the 
 breaches of your own family, and make it appear 
 that you are more to her than ten sons. Sir, 
 by the assistance of Almighty God, I "pm'pose 
 to wait on you some time next week, that I 
 may be a witness of your Christian courage and 
 bravery, and that I may see that God never 
 displeases you as long as the main stake is pre- 
 served — I mean your hopes and confidences of 
 heaven. Sir, I shall pray for all that you can 
 want — that is, some degrees of comfort and a 
 present mind ; and shall always do you honour, 
 and fain also would do you service, if it were in 
 the power, as it is in the affections and desires 
 of, dear sir, 
 
 Your most affectionate and obliged friend 
 and servant, 
 
 Jer. Taylor. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [As these letters plainly show, the two celebrated 
 diarists could chat and gossip pleasantly 
 with one another aside from business ; and 
 their mutual letters are only second in 
 interest to their diaries, as they unbosom 
 themselves in a friendly and confidential 
 manner.] 
 
 MR. EVELYN TO ME. PEPYS. 
 
 Jan. 20, 1702-3, Dover Street. 
 My worthy Feiend,— I had not deferred so 
 long either from waiting on you, or giving you 
 an account of my impertinent life, since I last 
 had the happiness to kiss your hands at your 
 Paradisian Clapham, had my own health and 
 several other uneasy circumstances since I came 
 here, permitted me to repay the many kind 
 friends their visits, for which I stand yet a 
 debtor. In the fii-st place, it did not a little 
 grieve me, that, coming so near you, when I 
 past almost by your door, it was so late, that 
 with no small difficulty we got to Lambeth 
 whilst it was tolerably light ; and with much 
 more that, when we came to the water side, 
 j neither of the ferry-boats were there, or could 
 be gotten to return till it was dark, very cold, 
 and uncomfortable passing. Since I came to 
 Dover Street I have scarcely enjoyed three or 
 four days without incessant and pungent attacks, 
 j proceeding from gravel, disabling both my body 
 j and mind from some sort of activity, till now 
 competently enjoyed, considering my great age. 
 j I have yet at last gained so much relaxation, as 
 to employ the very first opportunity of sending 
 I you this volant messenger, to let you know, in 
 j whatever place or state I am, you have a most 
 I faithful servant. I was continually out of order 
 in the country last summer ; yet with such in- 
 tervals as did not altogether interrupt my 
 taking some satisfaction in the improvement I 
 had made, partly in the dwelling-house, and 
 without doors, for conveniences suitable to our 
 economy, without reproach among our neigh- 
 bours, — my taste for things superfluous being 
 extremely altered from what it was : every day 
 called upon to be ready with my packet, 
 according to the advice of Epictetus, and a 
 wiser Monitor, who is gone before to provide 
 better places and more lasting habitations. In 
 the meanwhile one of the greatest consolations 
 I am capable of, is the virtuous progress which 
 my grandson continues to make in an assiduous 
 cultivation of the talents God has lent him. 
 Having formerly seen his own country, as 
 Bristol, Bath, Salisbury, and the little towns 
 about Oxford, he went this summer, with his 
 i Uncle Draper, as far as the Land's End, which 
 was an excursion of a month. The next 
 progress, if God continue health, is designed to 
 be northward as far as Newcastle: in the in- 
 
 terim, he is perusing such authors and maps as 
 may be assistant to the speculative part of 
 these motions ; and, to supply the present un- 
 favourable period for travelling foreign countries, 
 has learned the Italian tongue, and intends to 
 proceed to the Spanish, having abeady the 
 French from a child ; whilst his inclinations 
 more seriously lead him to History, Chronology, 
 Mathematics, and the study of the Civil Law, 
 which he joins with our Municipal Constitutions, 
 without which he finds a country gentleman 
 makes but a poor figure, and very useless. He 
 not only keeps but greatly improves his Greek, 
 by diligently reading their histories ; and now 
 and then, amongst other exercises, he turns 
 some passages into Latin, translates select 
 Epistles out of Cicero and Pliny, and letting 
 them lie by for some time, lest the impression 
 of the style and phrase prepossess him, turns 
 them into Latin again, the better to judge of 
 his improvement. He has his time for his 
 Agrestic Flute, in which, with his tutor Mr. 
 Bannister, they spend a morning's hour together. 
 He is likewise Islx. Hale's scholar, and goes to 
 the Fencing School here; and when in the 
 country takes as much pleasure with his hand- 
 bill and pruning-knife about our grounds and 
 gardens, as I should do if I were able. Some- 
 times, if weather and neighbours invite, he 
 hunts with them ; my worthy friend Mr. Finch 
 using that diversion when he is in tolerable 
 health : in sum, finding him so moderately and 
 discreetly disposed, studious, and mindful of 
 his own improvement, I give him free liberty, 
 and, I bless God ! have never found any indul- 
 gence prejudice him. It is a great word when I 
 assure you I never yet saw him in a passion, or 
 do a fault for which he deserved reproof. And 
 now you will no more believe half this, than I 
 do of what Xenophon has written of his Cyrus : 
 however, it entertains an old dotard, and as 
 such I relate it. Now as for myself, I cannot 
 but let you know the incredible satisfaction I 
 have taken in reading my late Lord Clarendon's 
 Histoiy of the Rebellion, so well, and so un- 
 expectedly well written, — the preliminary so 
 like that of the noble Polybius, leading us by 
 the courts, avenues, and porches, into the 
 fabric ; the style masculine ; the characters so 
 just, and tempered without the least ingredient 
 of passion or tincture of revenge, yet with such 
 natural and lively touches, as show his lordship 
 well knew not only the persons' outsides, but 
 their very interiors ; whilst yet he treats the 
 I most obnoxious, who deserved the severest 
 rebuke, with a becoming generosity and free- 
 dom, even where the ill conduct of those of the 
 pretended loyal party, as well as of the most 
 flagitious, might have justified the worst that 
 could be said of their miscarriages and demerits : 
 in sum, there runs through this noble piece a 
 thread so even, and without breach or knot in 
 the whole contexture, with such choice and 
 
I 
 
 46 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 profitable instructions naturally emerging from 
 the subject, as persons of the sublimest rank 
 and. office need not be ashamed to learn their 
 duty, and how to govern themselves, and from 
 the lapses and false politics of others, how the 
 greatest favourites and men in grace should be 
 examples of modesty and temperance, undated, 
 easy, and accessible without abusing their 
 power; whilst, being apt to forget themselves, 
 and the slippery precipices they stand on, they 
 too often study, not so much how to make their 
 treading sure by the virtue of justice, moder- 
 ation, and public spirit, as to raise themselves 
 fortunes, and purchase titles and adorations, 
 by flattering the worst and most destructive 
 inclinations of princes in the most servile 
 compliances and basest offices. What I have 
 written more in this style, and from my heart, 
 to my present Lord Clarendon, who sent me 
 his father's books, I wish you had seen, for I 
 acknowledge myself so transported with all the 
 parts of this excellent History, that knoAving as 
 I did most of the persons then acting the 
 tragedy, and those against it, I have no more to 
 say, but much, very much to admire, not 
 doubting but the rest which follows will be still 
 matter of panegyric, and justify the highest 
 epithets; and that, by the time he has done, 
 there will need no other history or account of 
 what passed during the reign of that suffering 
 and unfortunate Prince, to give the world a 
 piece equal to anything extant, not only in our 
 own poorly furnished history of this, but of any 
 nation about us. To conclude ; it required no 
 little skill, prudence, and dexterity, to adven- 
 ture so near the truth without danger or just 
 resentment of those who deserved so ill, as no 
 reflections could have been severe enough. 
 But I have done : let what I have written to 
 his lordship spealc the rest of my sentiments on 
 this author and noble work. Thus, what I 
 would wish for myself and all I love, as I do 
 Mr. Pepys, should be the old man's life as 
 described in the distich, which you deservedly 
 have attained : 
 
 Vita Senis, libri, domus, hortus, lectus amicus, 
 Vina, Nepos, ignis, mens hilaris, pietas. 
 
 In the meantime I feed on the past conversa- 
 tion I once had in York Buildings, and starve 
 since my friend has forsaken it. 
 
 J. Evelyn. 
 
 MR. EVELYN TO MR. PEPYS. 
 
 Wotton, July 22, 1700. 
 I could no longer suffer this old servant of 
 mine to pass and repass so near Clapham with- 
 out a particular account of your health and all 
 your hai>py family. You will now inquire 
 what do I do here ? Why, as the patriarchs of 
 
 old, I pass the day in the fields, among horses 
 and oxen, sheep, cows, bulls, and sows, et cetera 
 pecora campi. We have, thank God, finished 
 our hay harvest prosperously. I am looking 
 after my hinds, providing carriage and tackle 
 against reaping time and sowing. What shall 
 I say more ? Venio ad volupfates agricolariim, 
 which Cicero, you know, reckons amongst the 
 most becoming diversions of old age ; and so I 
 render it. This without : — now within doors, 
 never was any matron more busy than my wife, 
 disposing of our plain country furniture for a 
 naked old extravagant house, suitable for our 
 employments. She has a dairy, and distaffs, 
 for lac, linum, et lanum, and is become a very 
 Sabine. But can you thus hold out ? will my 
 friend say : is philosophy, Gresham College, and 
 the example of Mr Pepys and agreeable conver- 
 sation of York Buildings, qmte forgotten and 
 abandoned? No, no ! JVaturam expellas furcd 
 licet. Know I have been ranging of no fewer 
 than 30 large cases of books, destined for a 
 competent standing library, during 4 or 5 days, 
 wholly destitute of my young coadjutor, who 
 upon some pretence of being much engaged in 
 the mathematics, and desiring he may continue 
 his course at Oxford till the beginning of August, 
 I have wholly left it to him. You will now 
 suspect something by this disordered hand ; and 
 truly I was too happy in these little domestic 
 affairs, when on a sudden, as I was about my 
 books in the library, I found myself sorely 
 attacked with a shivering, followed by a feverisli 
 disposition, and a strangury, so as to have kept, 
 not my chamber only, but my bed, till very 
 lately, and with just so much strength as to 
 scribble these lines to you. For the rest, I give 
 God thanks for this gracious warning, my great 
 age calling upon me sarcinam compomre, every 
 day expecting it, who have still enjoyed a 
 wonderful course of bodily health for 40 years. 
 And now to give you some further account of 
 your favourite, I wdl make you part of what 
 he wrote from Oxon, though it come somewhat 
 late as to what he acquaints me of the most un- 
 happy catastrophe of that excellent poet and 
 philosopher, Mr. Creech. 
 
 MR. PEPYS TO MR. EVELYN. 
 
 Clapham, August 7, 1700. 
 I have no herds to mind, nor will my doctor 
 allow me any books here. What then, will you 
 say too, are you doing? Why, truly, nothing 
 that will bear naming, and yet I am not, I 
 think, idle ; for who can, that has so much of 
 past and to come to think on as I have ? And 
 thinking, I take it, is working, though many 
 forms beneath what my lady and you are doing. 
 But pray remember what o'clock it is with you 
 and me ; and be not now, by over-stirring, too 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 A7 
 
 bold witli your present complaint, any more than 
 I dare be with mine, which too has been no less 
 kind in giving me my warning, than the other 
 to yo\T, and to neither of us, I hope, and through 
 God's mercy dare say, either unlooked for or 
 unwelcome. I wish, nevertheless, that I were 
 able to administer anything towards the length- 
 ening that precious rest of life which God has 
 thus long blessed you (and in you mankind) 
 with ; but I have always been too little regard- 
 ful of my own health to be a prescriber to 
 others. I cannot give myself the scope I other- 
 wise should in talking now to you at this 
 distance, on account of the care extraordinary 
 I am now under from Mrs. Skinner's being 
 suddenly fallen very ill; but ere long I may 
 possibly venture at entertaining you with some- 
 thing from my young man in exchange— I don't 
 say in payment— for the pleasure you gratify me 
 with from yours, whom I pray God to bless 
 with continuing but what he is ! and I'll ask no 
 more for him. S. P. 
 
 MR. PKPTS TO LADY CAETEnET. 
 
 Woohoich, Sept. 4, 16G5. 
 
 Dear Madaii,— Your ladyship will not {I 
 hope) imagine I expected to be provoked by 
 letters from you to think of the duty I ought 
 and should long since have paid your ladyship 
 by mine, had it been fit for me (during my 
 indispensable attendance alone in the city) to 
 have ventured the affrighting you with any- 
 thing from thence. But now that by the des- 
 patch of the fleet I am at liberty to retire 
 wholly to "Woolwich, where I have been purging 
 my inkhorn and papers these six days, your 
 ladyship shall find no further cause to reproach 
 me my silence. And in amends for what's past, 
 let me conjure you (madam) to believe that no 
 day hath passed since my last kissing your 
 hands without my most interested wishes for 
 your health and uninterrupted prosperity of 
 your ladyship and family. 
 
 I took care for the present disposal of what 
 were enclosed in your ladyship's to me ; and in 
 answer to that to Dagenham's return these from 
 my Lady Wright, who in hers to myself gives 
 assurance of my Lord Hinchingbroke's being got 
 up, and the health of the rest of her family. 
 
 My Lord Sandwich is gone to sea with a noble 
 fleet, in want of nothing but a certainty of 
 meeting the enemy. 
 
 My best Lady Sandwich with the flock at 
 Hinchingbrook was by my last letters very well. 
 
 The absence of the Court and emptiness of 
 the city takes away all occasion of news, save 
 only such melancholy stories as would rather 
 sadden than find your ladyship any divertise- 
 mcnt in the hearing ; I have stayed in the city 
 till about 7400 died in one week, and of them 
 
 above GOOO of the plague, and little noise heard 
 day or night but tolling of bells ; till I could 
 walk Lumber Street, and not meet twenty per- 
 sons from the one end to the other, and not 
 50 upon the Exchange ; till whole families (10 
 or 12 together) have been swept away ; till my 
 very physician (Dr. Burnet), who undertook to 
 secure me against any infection (having sur- 
 vived the month of his own being shut up), 
 died himself of the plague; till the nights 
 (though much lengthened) are grown too short 
 to conceal the burials of those that died the day 
 before, peoj)le being thereby constrained to 
 borrow daylight for that service : lastly, till I 
 could neither find meat nor drink safe, the 
 butcheries being everywhere visited, my brewer's 
 house shut up, and my baker with his whole 
 family dead of the plague. 
 
 Yet (madam) through God's blessing, and the 
 good humours begot in my attendance upon 
 our late amours,^ your poor servant is in a 
 perfect state of health, as well as resolution of 
 employing it as your ladyship and family shall 
 find work for it. 
 
 How Deptford stands your ladyship is, I 
 doubt not, informed from nearer hands. 
 
 Greenwich begins ajDace to be sickly ; but we 
 are, by the command of the King, taking all the 
 care we can to jDrevent its growth ; and meeting 
 to that purpose yesterday after sermon with the 
 town ofiicers, many doleful informations were 
 brought us, and among others this, which I 
 shall troiible your ladyship with the telling. — 
 Complaint was brought us against one in the 
 town for receiving into his house a child newly 
 brought from an infected house in London. 
 Upon inquiry we found that it was the child of 
 a very able citizen in Gracious Street, who 
 having lost already all the rest of his children, 
 and himself and wife being shut up and in de- 
 spair of escapijig, implored only the liberty of 
 using the means for the saving of this only babe, 
 which with difficulty was allowed, und they 
 suffered to deliver it, stripped naked, out at a 
 window into the arms of a friend, who, shifting 
 it into fresh clothes, conveyed it thus to 
 Greenwich, where upon this information from 
 Alderman Hooker we suffer it to remain. 
 
 This I tell your ladyship as one instance of 
 the miserable streights our poor neighbours are 
 reduced to. 
 
 But (madam) I'll go no further in this dis- 
 agreeable discourse, hoping (from the coolness 
 of the last 7 or 8 days) my next may bring you 
 a more welcome accompt of the lessening of the 
 disease, which God say Amen to. 
 
 Dear madam, do me right to my good Lady 
 Slaning in telling her that I have sent and sent 
 again to Mr. Porter's lodging (who is in the 
 country) for an answer to my letter about her 
 
 iThe man-iage of Lady Carteret's son and Lord 
 Sandwich's daughter. 
 
48 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ladyship's business, but am yet unable to give 
 her any accompt of it. 
 
 My wife joins with me in ten thousand happy 
 wishes to the young couple, and as many 
 humble services to your ladyship and them, 
 my Lady Slaning, Lady Scott, and Mr. Sidny, 
 whose return to Scotts-hall (if not burthensome 
 to your ladyship) will, I am sure, be as full of 
 content to him as it will ever be of joy and 
 honour to me to be esteemed, dearest madam, 
 
 Your ladyship's most affectionate and obe- 
 dient servant, 
 
 Samuel Pepys. 
 
 [Charles Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury (1660-1718), 
 was a good scholar, a fine gentleman, and a 
 general favourite in society. He was a 
 zealous iJromoter of the Eevolution, and 
 was made Secretary of State by the Prince 
 of Orange. The atrocity of the Popish 
 Plot, combined with the influence of Dr. 
 Tillotson over him, had been the means of 
 his forsaking the Eoman Catholic religion. 
 The concern of his spiritual adviser, that he 
 should avoid the contamination of court 
 life, may here be read in this model of 
 gentlemanlike reproof.] 
 
 DK. TILLOTSON TO THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY. 
 
 [1G79.] 
 
 My Lord, — It was a great satisfaction to me 
 to be any ways instrumental in the gaining your 
 lordship to our religion, which I am really 
 persuaded to be the truth ; but I am, and 
 always was, more concerned that your lordship 
 should continue a virtuous and good man, than 
 become a Protestant ; being assured that the 
 ignorance and errors of men's understanding will 
 find a much easier forgiveness with God, than 
 the faults of the will ; I remember that your 
 lordship once told me, that you would en- 
 deavour to justify the sincerity of your change, 
 by a conscientious regard to all other parts and 
 actions of your life ; I am sure you cannot 
 more effectually condemn your own act, than 
 by being a Avorse man after your profession to 
 have embraced a better religion. I will cer- 
 tainly be one of the last to believe anything 
 of your lordship that is not good; but I 
 always feared I should be one of the first that 
 should hear it. The time I last waited upon 
 your lordship, I had heard something that 
 affected me very sensibly, but I hoped it was 
 not true, and was therefore loth to trouble 
 your lordship about it ; but having heard the 
 same from those who I believe bear no ill-will 
 to your lordship, I now think it my duty to 
 acquaint you with it. To speak plainly, I have 
 
 been told that your lordship is of late fallen 
 into a conversation, dangerous both to your 
 reputation and vu'tue, two of the tenderest and 
 dearest things in the world. I believe your 
 lordship to have a great command and conduct 
 of yourself ; but I am very sensible of human 
 frailty, and of the dangerous temptations to 
 which youth is exposed in this dissolute age. 
 Therefore I earnestly beseech your lordship to 
 consider, besides the high provocation of Al- 
 mighty God, and the hazard of your soul when- 
 ever you engage in a bad course, what a blemish 
 you will bring upon a fair and unspotted 
 reputation, what uneasiness and trouble you 
 will create to yourself from the severe reflec- 
 tions of a guilty conscience, and how great a 
 violence you will offer to your good principles, 
 your nature, and your education. Do not 
 imagine you can stop when you please : ex- 
 perience shows us the contrary, and that nothing 
 is more vain than for men to think they can 
 set bounds to themselves in anything that is 
 bad. I hope in God no temptation has yet 
 prevailed upon your lordship, so far as to be 
 guilty of any loose act ; if it has, as you love 
 your soul, let it not proceed to an habit ; the 
 retreat is yet easy and open, but will every 
 day become more difficult and obstructed. God 
 is so merciful that upon your repentance and 
 resolution of amendment, He is not only ready 
 to forgive what is past, but to assist us by His 
 grace to do better for the future. But I need 
 not enforce these considerations upon a mind 
 so capable of and easy to receive good counsel. 
 I shall only desire your lordship to think again 
 and again, how great a point of wisdom it is, 
 in all our actions to consult the peace of our 
 minds ; and to have no quarrel with the con- 
 stant and inseparable companion of our lives. 
 If others displease us, we may quit their com- 
 pany, but he that is displeased with himself is 
 unavoidably unhappy, because he has no way 
 to get rid of himself. 
 
 My lord, for God's sake and your own, think 
 of being happy, and resolve by all means to 
 save yourself from this untoward generation. 
 Determine rather upon a speedy change of your 
 condition, than to gratify the inclinations of 
 your youth, in anything but what is lawful 
 and honourable ; and let me have the satis- 
 faction to be assured from your lordship, either 
 that there has been no grounds for this report, 
 or that there shall be none for the future ; which 
 will be the welcomest news to me in the world, 
 I have only to beg of your lordship, to believe 
 that I have not done this to satisfy the forma- 
 lity of my profession, but that it proceeds from 
 the truest affection and good-will that one man 
 can possibly bear to another. I pray to God 
 every day for your lordship, with the same 
 constancy and fervour as for myself, and do 
 now earnestly beg that this counsel may be 
 acceptable and effectual. I am, etc. 
 
 I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 49 
 
 [Anne, the daughter of Edward Hyde, Lord 
 Clarendon, was married to the Duke of 
 York, afterwards James II., and the issue 
 of this marriage, the two daughters Anne 
 and Mary, both ascended the throne. At 
 the Restoration, Clarendon was an able and 
 popular Miaister, and one of the King's 
 most trusted counsellors ; but becoming 
 unpopular, he was banished by Act of 
 Parliament. The feeling was abroad and 
 growing at this time, that a plot was on 
 foot for the establishment of Catholicism 
 and despotism ; the Duke of York was 
 already at heart a Papist, and Charles 
 had privately indicated lus desire for the 
 establishment of the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion in his realm. Clarendon's earnest 
 solicitude as to his daughter's religion may 
 be pardoned in view of these things.] 
 
 EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON (1608- 
 1704), TO THE DUKE OF YORK, 
 
 On the Duchess's turning Catholic. 
 I have not presumed in any manner to approach 
 your royal presence since I have been marked 
 with the brand of banishment ; and I would still 
 with the same forbear this presumption, if I did 
 not believe myself bound by all the obligations 
 of duty to make this address to you. I have 
 been too much acquainted with the presumption 
 and impudence of the times in raising false and 
 scandalous reproaches upon innocent and worthy 
 persons of aU qualities and degrees, to give 
 credit to those bold whispers which have been 
 too long scattered abroad concerning your wife's 
 being shaken in her religion ; but when those 
 whispers break out into noise, and public 
 persons begin to report that the duchess is be- 
 come a Roman Catholic ; when I heard that many 
 worthy persons of unquestionable devotion to 
 your royal highness are not without some fear 
 and apprehension of it, and many reflections are 
 made from thence to the prejudice of your 
 royal person, and even of the King's majesty, 
 I hope it may not misbecome me, at what 
 distance soever, to cast myself at your feet, and 
 beseech you to look on this matter in time, and 
 to apply some antidote to expel the poison of it. 
 
 It is not possible your royal highness can be 
 without zeal and entire devotion for that 
 church, for the purity and preservation where- 
 of your blessed father made himself a sacrifice, 
 and to the restoration whereof you have con- 
 tributed so much yourself, and which highly 
 deserves the King's protection, and yours, since 
 there can be no possible defection in the hearts 
 of the people while due reverence is made to 
 the church. 
 
 Your wife is generally believed to have so 
 
 perfect a duty and entire resignation to the 
 will of your royal highness, that any defection 
 in her from her religion will be for want of 
 circumspection in you ; and not using your 
 authority, or to your connivance. I need not 
 tell the ill consequence that such a mutation 
 would be attended with in reference to your 
 royal highness, and even to the King himself, 
 whose greatest security (under God) is in the 
 affection and duty of his Protestant subjects. 
 Your royal highness knows how far I have 
 always been from wishing that the Roman 
 Catholics should be prosecuted with severity ; 
 but I less wish it should ever be in their power 
 to be able to prosecute those who dilfer from 
 them, since we well know how little modei'ation 
 they would or could use. 
 
 And if this which people so much talk of (I 
 hope without ground) should fall out, it might 
 very probably raise a greater storm against the 
 Roman Catholics in general, than modest men 
 can wish ; since after such a breach any jealousy 
 of their presumiition would seem reasonable. I 
 have written to the duchess with the freedom 
 and affection of a troubled and perplexed father. 
 I do most humbly beseech your royal highness by 
 your authority, to rescue her from bringing a 
 mischief upon you and herself that can never 
 be repaired ; and to think it worthy your wis- 
 dom to remove and dispel those reproaches (how 
 false soever) by better evidence than contempt ; 
 and hope you do believe, that no severity I have, 
 or can undergo, shall in any degree lessen or 
 diminish my most profound dvity to his majesty 
 and your royal highness ; but that I do with 
 all imaginable obedience submit to your good 
 pleasure in all things. 
 
 God j)reserve your royal highness, and keep 
 me in your favour. — Sir, your royal highness's 
 most humble and obedient servant. 
 
 Clarendon. 
 
 EARL of clarendon TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK, 
 
 On the same occasion. 
 You have much reason to believe that I have 
 no mind to trouble you, or displease you, 
 especially in an argument that is so unpleasant 
 and grievous to myself ; but as no distance of a 
 place that is between us, in respect of our 
 residence, or the greater distance in respect of 
 the high condition you are in, can make me less 
 your father, or absolve me from performing 
 those obligations which that relation requires 
 from me ; so when I receive any credible 
 advertisement of what reflects upon you, in point 
 of honour, conscience, or discretion, I ought not 
 to omit the informing you of it, or administering 
 such advice to you as to my understanding 
 seems reasonable, and which I must still hope 
 will have some credit with you. I will confess 
 to you, that what you wrote to me many months 
 since upon those reproaches, which I told you 
 
50 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 were generally reported concerning your defec- 
 tion in religion, gave me so much satisfaction, 
 that I believed them to proceed from that ill 
 spirit of the times that delights in slander and 
 calumny. But I must tell you, that the same 
 report increases of late very much, and I myself 
 saw the last week a letter from Paris, from a 
 person who said the English ambassador assured 
 him the day before that the duchess was be- 
 come a Eoman Catholic; and which makes 
 greater impressions upon me, I am assured that 
 many good men in England, who have great \ 
 affection for you and me, and who have thought 
 nothing more impossible than that there shoudd 
 be such a change in you, are at present under 
 much affliction, with the observation of a great 
 change in your course of life, and that constant 
 exercise of that devotion which was so notorious ; 
 and do apprehend from your frequent discourses, 
 that you have not the same reverence and venera- 
 tion that you used to have for the Church of 
 England ; the church in which you were baptized, 
 and the church the best constituted, and the 
 most free from errors of any Christian church 
 this day in the world ; and that some persons 
 by their insinuations have prevailed with you 
 to have a better opinion of that which is most 
 opposite to it, the Church of Eome, than the 
 integrity thereof deserves. 
 
 It is not yet in my power to believe, that 
 your wit and understanding (with God's bless- 
 ing upon both) can suffer you to be shaken 
 farther than with melancholy reflections upon 
 the iniquity and wickedness of the age we live 
 in ; which discredits all religion, and which 
 with equal licence breaks into the professors of 
 all, and prevails upon the members of all 
 churches, and whose manners will have no 
 benefit from the faith of any church. 
 
 I presume you do not entangle yourself in the 
 X)articular controversies between the Eomanists 
 and us, or think yourself a competent judge of 
 all difficulties which occur therein ; and there- 
 fore it must be some fallacious argument of 
 antiquity, and universality, confidently urged 
 by men who know less than many of those you 
 are acquainted with, and ought less to be 
 believed by you, that can raise any doubts and 
 scruples in you ; and if you will with equal 
 temper hear those who are well able to instruct 
 you in those particulars, it is not possible for 
 you to suck in that poison which can only cor- 
 rupt and prevail over you by stopping your own 
 ears and shutting your own eyes. There are 
 but two persons in the world who have greater 
 authority with you than I can pretend to, and 
 am sure they both suffer more in this rumour, 
 and would suffer much more if there were 
 ground for it, than I can do ; and truly I am 
 as unlikely to be deceived myself, or to deceive 
 you, as any man that endeavours to pervert 
 you in your religion. And therefore, I beseech 
 you, let me have so much credit with you as to 
 
 persuade you to communicate any doubts or 
 scruples which occur to you, before you suffer 
 them to make too deep an impression upon you. 
 
 The common argument that there is no sal- 
 vation out of the church, and that the Church 
 of Rome is that only true church, is both 
 irrational and untrue ; there are many churches 
 in which salvation may be attained, as well as 
 in any one of them ; and were many even in 
 the apostles' time, otherwise they would never 
 have directed their epistles to so many several 
 chui^ches in which there were different opinions 
 received, and very different doctrines taught. 
 There is indeed but one faith in which we can 
 be saved, the stedfast belief of the birth, passion, 
 and resurrection of our Saviour ; and every 
 chui'cli that receives and embraces that faith is 
 in a state of salvation. If the apostles preached 
 true doctrine, the reception and retention of 
 many errors does not destroy the essence of a 
 church ; if it did, the Church of Rome would 
 be in as ill, if not in a worse condition than 
 most other Christian churches, because its 
 errors are of a greater magnitude, and more 
 destructive to religion. Let not the canting 
 discourses of the universality and extent of the 
 church, which has as little truth as the rest, 
 prevail over you. They who will imitate the 
 greatest part of the world, must turn heathens ; 
 for it is generally believed, that above one-half 
 of the world is possessed by them, and that the 
 Mahommedans possess above one-half of the 
 remainder. There is as little question, that of 
 the rest, which is inhabited by Christians, one 
 part of four is not of the communion of the 
 Church of Rome ; and God knows in that very 
 communion there is as great discord in opinion, 
 and in matters of as great moment, as is between 
 the other Christians. 
 
 I hear you do in public discourses dislike some 
 things in tha Church of England, as the mamage 
 of the clergy, which is a point which no Eoman 
 Catholic will pretend to be of the essence of 
 religion, and is in use in many places which are 
 of the communion of the Church of Eome ; as 
 in Bohemia, and those parts of the Greek Church 
 which submit to the Eoman ; and all men know, 
 that in the late Council of Trent the sacraments 
 of both kinds, and liberty of the clergy to 
 marry, were very passionately pressed both by 
 the emperor and king of France for their 
 dominions ; and it was afterwards granted to 
 Germany, though under such conditions as made 
 it ineffectual, which, however, shows that it was 
 not nor ever can be looked upon as a matter of 
 religion. Christianity was many hundred years 
 old before such a restraint was ever heard of in 
 the church; and when it was endeavoured, it met 
 with great opposition, and was never submitted 
 to. And as the positive inhibition seems 
 absolutely unlawful, so the inconveniences 
 which result from thence will, upon a just dis- 
 quisition, be found superior to those which 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 attend the liberty whicn the Christian religion 
 permits. Those arguments which are not strong 
 enough to draw persons from the Roman com- 
 I munion into that of the Church of England, 
 j when custom and education, and a long stupid 
 \ resignation of all their faculties to their teachers, 
 j usually shuts out all reason to the contrary, 
 may yet be abundant to retain those who have 
 I been baptized, and bred, and instructed in the 
 I grounds and principles of that religion ; which 
 ! are, in truth, not only founded upon the clear 
 authority of the Scriptures, but upon the 
 consent of antiquity, and the practice of the 
 primitive church ; and men who look into an- 
 j tiquity, know well by what corruption and 
 violence, and with what constant and continual 
 opposition, those opinions, which are contrary 
 to ours, crept into the world, and how warrant- 
 I ably the authority of the Bishop of Eome, 
 which alone supports all the rest, came to pre- 
 i vail ; which has no more pretence of authority 
 I and power in England, than the Bishop of Paris, 
 ' or Toledo, can as reasonably lay claim to ; and 
 is so far from being matter of Catholic religion, 
 ; that the pope has so much and no more to do 
 in France or Spain, or any other Catholic do- 
 minion, than the crown, and laws, and con- 
 stitutions of several kingdoms give him leave ; 
 ' which makes him so little (if at all) considered 
 in France, and so much in Spain, and therefore 
 the English Catholics, which attribute so much 
 to him, make themselves very unwarrantably 
 of another religion than the Catholic Church 
 professes ; and without doubt those who desert 
 j the Church of England, of which they are 
 i members, and become thereby disobedient to 
 i the ecclesiastical and civil laws of their country, 
 i and therein renounce their subjection to the 
 State as well as to the Church (which are 
 grievous sins), had need of a better excuse than 
 the meeting with some doubts which they could 
 not answer; and less than a manifest evidence, 
 ! that their salvation is desperate in that com- 
 I munion, cannot serve their turn : and they who 
 I imagine they have such an evidence, ought 
 j rather to suspect that their understanding has 
 forsaken them, and that they are become mad, 
 than that the church, which is replenished with 
 all learning and piety requisite, can betray them 
 to perdition. 
 
 I beseech you to consider (which I hope will 
 overrule those ordinary doubts and objections 
 which may be infused into you) that if you 
 change your religion, you renounce all obedience 
 and affection to your father, who loves you so 
 tenderly that such an odious mutation would 
 break his heart ; you condemn your father and 
 your mother (whose incomparable virtues, and 
 piety, and devotion, have placed her in heaven) 
 for having impiously educated you ; you declare 
 the Church and State, to both which you owe 
 ! reverence and subjection, to be, in your judg- 
 ment, anti-Christian ; you bring irreparable dis- 
 
 51 
 
 honour, scandal, and prejudice to the duke your 
 husband, to whom you ought to pay all imagin- 
 able duty, and whom, I presume, is much more 
 precious to you than your own life; and all 
 possible ruin to your children, of whose company 
 and conversation you mtist look to be deprived ; 
 for God forbid, that after such an apostasy, you 
 should have any power in the education of your 
 children. You have many enemies, whom you 
 would here abundantly gratify, and some friends 
 whom you will thereby (at least as far as in you 
 lies) perfectly destroy ; and afflict many others, 
 who have deserved well of you. 
 
 I know you are not inclined to any part of 
 this mischief, and therefore offer these conside- 
 rations as all those particulars would be infal- 
 lible consequences of such a conclusion. It is 
 to me the saddest circumstance of my banish- 
 ment, that I may not be admitted in such a 
 season as this to confer with you, when I am 
 confident I would satisfy yovi in all doubts, and 
 make it appear to you that there are many 
 absurdities in the Roman religion inconsistent 
 with your judgment and understanding, and 
 many impieties inconsistent with your con- 
 science ; so that, before you can submit to the 
 obligations of faith, you must divest yourself of 
 your natural reason and common sense, and 
 captivate the dictates of your conscience to the 
 impositions of an authority which has not any 
 pretence to oblige or advise you. If you will 
 not with freedom communicate the doubts 
 which occur to you to those near you, of whose 
 learning and piety you have had such experience, 
 let me conjure you to impart them to me, and 
 to expect my answer before you suffer them to 
 prevail over you. God bless you and yours. 
 
 THE duchess's ANSWER. 
 
 "Whereas I have been ever from my infancy 
 bred up in the English Protestant religion, and 
 have had very able persons to instruct me in 
 the grounds thereof, and I doubt not but I am 
 exposed to the censure of an infinite number of 
 persons, who are astonished at my quitting it 
 to embrace the religion of the Roman Catholics 
 (for which I have ever professed a great aver- 
 sion) ; therefore I have thought fit to give some 
 satisfaction to my friends, by declaring unto 
 them the reasons upon which I have been moved 
 to do it, without engaging myself in long and 
 unprofitable disputes touching the matter. 
 
 I protest therefore before God, that since my 
 coming into England, no person, either man or 
 woman, hath at any time persuaded me to alter 
 my religion, or hath used any discourses to me 
 upon that subject. It hath been only a par- 
 ticular favour from God, who hath been 
 graciously pleased to hear the prayers I daily 
 made unto Him, both in France and Flanders, 
 whilst I was there, that He would vouchsafe to 
 
52 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 bring me into the true church before I died, in 
 case I was not in the right. And it was the 
 devotion I observed in the Catholics there 
 which induced me to make that prayer, 
 although my own devotion during all that time 
 was very slender. I did notwithstanding, all 
 the time I was in those countries, believe I was 
 in the true religion ; neitlier had I the least 
 scruple of it, until November last, at which 
 time, reading Dr. Heylin's History of the 
 Reformation, which had been highly recom- 
 mended to me, I was so far from finding the 
 satisfaction I expected, that I found nothing 
 but sacrileges ; and looking over the reasons 
 therein set down, which caused the separation 
 of the Church of England from that of Rome, I 
 read three there, which to me were great 
 impieties. The first was, that Henry VIII. 
 had cast off the pope's authority because he 
 would not permit him to quit his wife and 
 marry another. 
 
 The second, that during th'^ minority of 
 Edward VI., his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, 
 who then governed all, and was the principal in 
 that alteration, did greatly enrich himself with 
 the goods of the church, which he engrossed. 
 
 And the third consisted in this, that Queen 
 Elizabeth, not being rightful heir to the crown, 
 could not keep it but by renouncing a church 
 which would never have allowed of such 
 injustice. I could not be persuaded the Holy 
 Ghost would ever have made use of such 
 motives as these were, to change religion, and 
 was astonished that the bishops, if they had no 
 other intention than to establish the doctrine of 
 the primitive church, had not attempted it 
 before the schism of Henry VIII., which was 
 grounded upon sach unjustifiable pretences. 
 
 Being troubled with these scruples, I began to 
 make some reflections upon the points of doctrine 
 wherein we differed from the Catholics ; and to 
 that purpose had recourse to the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and though I pretend not to be able 
 perfectly to understand it, I found notwith- 
 standing several points which seemed to me 
 very plain; and I cannot but wonder that I 
 stayed so long without taking notice of them. 
 Amongst these were the real presence of our 
 Saviour in the sacraments, the infallibility of 
 the church, confession, and prayers for the 
 dead. I treated of these particulars severally, 
 with two of the most learned bishops of 
 England ; and advising upon these subjects, 
 they told me, that it was to be wished that the 
 Church of England had retained several things 
 it altered : as, for example, confession, v^hich, 
 without doubt, is of divine institution. They 
 told me also, that prayer for the dead had been 
 in use in the primitive church during the first 
 centuries; and that they themselves did daily 
 observe those things, though they desired not 
 publicly to own those doctrines. And having 
 pressed one of them somewhat earnestly touch- 
 
 ing these things, he frankly told me, that if ho 
 had been bred up in the Catholic religion, he 
 should not have left it ; but now being a 
 member of that church which believed all the 
 articles necessary to salvation, he thought he 
 should do ill to quit it, because he was beholden 
 to that church for his baptism, and he should 
 thereby give occasion of great scandal to others. 
 
 All these discourses were a means to increase 
 the desire I had to embrace the Eoman Catholic 
 religion, and added much to the inward trouble 
 of my mind ; but the fear I had to be hasty in 
 a matter of that importance, made me act 
 warily, with all precautions necessary in such a 
 case. I prayed incessantly to God, that He 
 would be pleased to inform me in the truth of 
 these points whereof I doubted. Upon Christ- 
 mas-day, going to receive at the King's chapel, I 
 found myself in greater trouble than ever I had 
 been in, neither was it possible for me to be at 
 quiet until I had discovered myself to a certain 
 Catholic who presently brought me a priest. 
 He was the first of them with whom I ever 
 conversed, and the more I conversed with him, 
 the more I found myself to be confirmed in the 
 resolution I had taken. It was, I thought, 
 impossible to doubt of these words. This is my 
 body ; and I am verily persuaded, that our 
 Saviour, who is truth itself, and hath promised 
 to continue with His church to the world's end, 
 would never suffer these holy mysteries to the 
 laity, only under one kind, if it was inconsistent 
 with His institution of that sacrament. 
 
 I am not able to dispute touching these things 
 with anybody, and if I were, I would not go 
 about to do it, but I content myself to have 
 wrote this, to justify the change I have made 
 of my religion ; and I call God to witness, I 
 had not done it, had I believed I could have 
 been saved in that church whereof till then I 
 was a member. I protest seriously, I have not 
 been induced to this by any worldly interests 
 or motives, neither can the truth of this my 
 protestation be rationally doubted by any per- 
 son, since it was evident that thereby I lost all 
 my friends, and very much prejudiced my re- 
 putation ; but having seriously considered with 
 myself, whether I ought to renounce my ijortion 
 in the other world to enjoy the advantages of 
 my present being here, I assure you I found it 
 no difficulty at all to resolve the contrary, for 
 which I render thanks to God, who is the 
 Author of all goodness. 
 
 My only prayer to Him is, that the \)oor 
 Catholics of this kingdom may not be prose- 
 cuted upon my account ; and I beseech God to 
 grant me patience in my afflictions, and that 
 what tribulations soever His goodness has ap- 
 pointed for me, I may so go through with them, 
 as that I may hereafter enjoy a happiness for all 
 eternity. 
 
 Given at St, James's the 20th day of August, 
 1670. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 53 
 
 [If Sir AVilHam Temple (1628-1699) was not, as 
 Dr. Johnson would have it, the first writer 
 who gave cadence to English prose, his 
 reputation still stands high as an easy 
 and perspicuous writer. Temi^le was the 
 negotiator of the celebrated triple alliance 
 between England, Holland, and Sweden, 
 as a check against the designs of Louis XIV., 
 who aimed at the subjugation of the 
 Netherlands. Previous to this, he had 
 acted with success on a secret mission to 
 the Eishop of Munster, and had been 
 appointed English resident at the court of 
 Brussels. When recalled from his appoint- 
 ment as ambassador at the Hague, he 
 retired to his residence at Sheen, near 
 Eichmond, where his interests were divided 
 between gardening and literary work. Of 
 Temi^le's other diplomatic work we shall 
 not speak further here.] 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE TO DAME AUGUSTINE CAEY. 
 
 Madam, — I know not whether the shame of 
 having been so long in your debt, be greater 
 than that of paying it so ill at last, but I am 
 sure, 'tis much harder to be excused, and 
 therefore shall not attemjit it, but leave it to 
 Father Placid's oratory, though having failed in 
 the substantial part of your business, I have 
 little reason to hope he will succeed better in 
 the ceremonial part of mine. The truth is, 
 there is so great a difference in common sound 
 between, it is done, and, it will be done, that I 
 was unwilling to acknowledge the honour of 
 having received your ladyship's commands 
 before I had compassed that of obeying them, 
 which the marquis here hath so often assured 
 me would suddenly fall to my share, that I 
 thought we had both equal reason, his Excel- 
 lency to do it, and I to believe it. This right I 
 must yet do him, that I never prest him in this 
 concern of your ladyship's, but he told me, all 
 my arguments were needless, for the thing should 
 be done ; and how to force a man that yields I 
 never understood ; but yet I much doubt that 
 till the result be given upon the gross of this 
 affair, which is and has been some time under 
 view, your part in particular will hardly be 
 thought ripe for either his justice or favour, 
 which wiU be rather the style it must run in, if 
 it be a desire of exemption from a general rule 
 given in the case : whatever person (after the 
 father's return) shall be appointed to observe 
 the course of this affair, and pursue the lady's 
 pretensions here, will be sure of all the assist- 
 ance I can at any time give him ; though I think 
 it would prove a more public service to find 
 some way of dissolving your society, and by 
 
 that means dispersing so much worth about the 
 world, than, by preserving you together, confine 
 it to a corner, and suffer it to shine so much 
 less, and go out so much sooner, than otherwise 
 it would. The ill effects of your retreat appear 
 too much in the ill success of your business ; for 
 I cannot think anything could fail that your 
 ladyship would solicit ; but I presume, no- 
 thing in this lower scene is worthy either that, 
 or so much as your desire or care, which are 
 words that enter not your grates, to disturb 
 that perfect quiet and indifferency, which I will 
 believe inhabit there ; and by your happiness 
 decide the long dispute, whether the greater 
 lies in wanting nothing or jpossessing much. 
 
 I cannot but tell you it was unkindly done to 
 refresh the memory of your brother Da Gary's 
 loss, which was not a more general one to man- 
 kind than it was particular to me ; but if I can 
 succeed in your ladyship's service as well as I 
 had the honour once to do in his friendshix), I 
 shall think I have lived to good purpose here ; 
 and for hereafter, shall leave it to Almighty 
 God, with a submission as abandoned as you 
 can exercise in the low common concernments 
 of this worthless life, which I can hardly 
 imagine was intended us for so great a misery 
 as it is here commonly made, or to betray so 
 large a part of the world to so much greater 
 hereafter as is commonly believed. However, I 
 am obliged to your ladyship for your prayers, 
 which I am sure are well intended me, and shall 
 return you mine. That no ill thoughts of my 
 faith may possess your ladyship with an ill one 
 of my works too, which I am sure cannot fail 
 of being very meritorious, if ever I reach the 
 intentions I have, of expressing myself upon all 
 occasions. Madam, 
 
 Your ladyship's most humble and most 
 obedient servant. 
 
 Brussels, Feb. 16, S.N. 1666. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE TO SIR JOHN TEMPLE. 
 
 Sir, — I must make you my humble acknow- 
 ledgments for so great a present as you have 
 been pleased to send me towards that expense 
 I have resolved to make at Sheen ; and assure 
 you, no part of it shall either go any other way 
 or lessen what I had intended of my own. I 
 doubt not to compass what I told you of my 
 Lord Lisle, for enlarging my small territories 
 there ; when that is done, I propose to bestow a 
 thousand pounds upon the conveniences of the 
 house and garden ; and hope that will reach all 
 I care for : so that your five hundred pounds 
 may be laid out rather for ornament than use, 
 as you seem to desire, by ordering me to make 
 the front perfectly uniform. Yoiir care of that, 
 and me, in this matter is the more obliging, the 
 
54 
 
 less I find you concur Avith me in my thoughts 
 of retiring wholly from public affairs, and to 
 that puri>ose, of making my nest at this time 
 as pleasant and commodious as I can afford it. 
 Nor shall I easily resolve to offer at any of 
 those advantages you think I might make upon 
 such a retreat, of the King's favour or good 
 opinion, by pretending either to pension or 
 any other employment. The honour and pay 
 of such posts as I have been in, ought to be 
 esteemed sufficient for the best services of them : 
 and if I have credit left with the i^resent Ministers 
 to get what is owing me upon my embassy, I 
 shall think myself enough rewarded, consider- 
 ing how different a value is now like to be put 
 upon my services in Holland from what there 
 was when they were performed. 'Tis very 
 likely at that time, as you believe, there were 
 few reasonable things the King would have 
 denied me, while the triple alliance and our 
 league with Holland had so great a vogue ; and 
 my friends were not wanting in their advices to 
 me to make use of it. But I have resolved 
 never to ask him anything, otherwise than by 
 serving him well ; and you will have the less 
 reason perhaps to reproach me this method, if 
 you will please to remember how the two em- 
 bassies of Aix-la-Chapelle and Holland were 
 not only thrown upon me without my seeking, 
 but also, what my Lord Arlington told me was 
 designed for me upon Secretary Morris's removal, 
 in case the King had not thought my embassy 
 into Holland of the greatest necessity in pursu- 
 ance of those measures we had taken with that 
 State. 
 
 For what you think of the interest we have 
 still to pursue them, and consequently of the 
 use the King will still have of me upon that 
 occasion : I will not enter into any reasonings 
 with you upon that matter at this distance ; 
 but will only tell you some passages of fact 
 upon vrhich I ground the judgment I make of 
 affairs wherein I have no part, and which I am 
 not so solicitous to draw into the light as I 
 doubt others are to keep them in the dark. 
 And when I have told you these, I shall leave 
 you to judge whether I take my measures right 
 as to my own private conduct. 
 
 You know first the part I had in all our 
 alliances with Holland ; how far my own 
 personal credit was engaged upon them to 
 Monsieur de Witt ; and the resolutions I not 
 only acquainted him and you with, but his 
 majesty too; that I would never have any 
 part in breaking them whatever should happen : 
 though that I confess could hardly enter into 
 anybody's head that understood the interests of 
 Christendom as well as our own. I have given 
 you some intimations how cold I have observed 
 our temper at court in those matters for this 
 last year ; and how different it was thought 
 abroad from that warmth with which we en- 
 gaged in them : so as it was a common saying 
 
 at the Hague, QuHl faut avouer, quHl y a eu 
 7ieuf mois du plus grand ministere du monde en 
 Angleterre ; for they would hardly allow a longer 
 term to the vigour of that council which made 
 the triple alliance and the peace of Aix, and 
 sent me over into Holland this last embassy to 
 pursue the great ends of them, and draw the 
 emperor and princes of the empire into the 
 common guaranty of the peace. Instead of this, 
 our pretensions upon the business of Surinam, 
 and the East India Companies, have grown high 
 and been managed with sharpness between us 
 and the States ; and grounded (as Monsieur de 
 "VVitt conceives) more upon a design of showing 
 them our ill humour than our reason. I was 
 sensible that my conduct in all these matters 
 had fallen short for many months past of the 
 approbation at court it used to receive ; and that 
 Mr. Warden was sent over to me only to dis- 
 parage it, or espy the faults of it ; though I think 
 he returned with the opinion that the business 
 would not bear it. 'Tis true, both my Lord 
 Arlington and Sir John Trevor continued to the 
 last of my stay in Holland to assure me that 
 the King still remained firm in his measures 
 with the States : but yet I found the business 
 of admitting the emperor into the guaranty 
 went downright lame ; and that my Lord 
 Keeper was in a manner out of the foreign 
 councils ; for so he writ to me himself, and 
 gave me notice at the same time, that my 
 Lord Arlington was not at all the same to me 
 that he had been : which I took for an ill 
 sign in our public business, and an ill circum- 
 stance in my own ; and the more because I was 
 sure not to have deserved it, and found nothing 
 of it in his own letters, but only that they came 
 seldom, and ran more upon indifferent things 
 than they used to do. 
 
 Ever since madam's journey into England, 
 the Dutch had grown jealous of something be- 
 tween us and France, and were not like to be 
 cured by these particulars I have mentioned; but 
 upon the invasion and seizure of Lorraine by 
 France, and my being sent for over so suddenly 
 after it, Monsieur de Witt himself could keep 
 his countenance no longer, though he be neither 
 suspicious in his nature, nor thought it the best 
 course to discover any such disj)osition upon 
 this occasion, how much soever he had of it ; 
 but yet he told me at my coming away, that he 
 should make a judgment of us by the suddenness 
 of my return, which the King had ordered me 
 to assure him of. 
 
 When I came to town, I went immediately to 
 my Lord Arlington, according to my custom. 
 And whereas upon my several journeys over in 
 the late conjunctures, he had ever quitted all 
 company to receive me, and did it always with 
 open arms, and in the kindest manner that 
 could be, he made me this last time stay an 
 hour and half in an outward room before he t 
 came to me, while he was in private with my 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 55 
 
 Lord Aslily. He received me with a coldness 
 that I confess surprised me ; and after a quarter- 
 of-an-hour"s talk of my journey and his friends 
 at the Hague, instead of telling me the occasion 
 of my being sent for over, or anything else 
 material, he called in Tata that was in the next 
 room, and after that my Lord Crofts, who came 
 upon a common visit ; and in that company the 
 rest of mine passed, till I found he had nothing 
 more to say to me, and so went away. 
 
 The next morning I went, however, to him 
 again, desiring to be brought by him to kiss the 
 King's hand, as I had used upon my former 
 journeys. He thought fit to bring me to his 
 majesty as he was walking in the Mall ; who 
 stopt to give me his hand, and ask me haK-a- 
 dozen questions about my journey, and about 
 the Prince of Orange, and so walked on. Since 
 which time, neither the King nor my Lord 
 Arlington have ever said three words to me 
 about anything of business ; though I have 
 been as often in their way as agreed with such 
 an ill courtier as I am, or a man without 
 business as I found myself to be. 
 
 I have seen my Lord Keeper and Mr. Se- 
 cretary Trevor, and find the first uneasy and 
 apprehensive of our present councils ; the last 
 sufiScient and confident that no endeavours can 
 break the measures between us and Holland, 
 because they are esteemed so necessary abroad 
 and so rational at home ; but I find them both 
 but barely in the skirts of business, and only in 
 right of their j)osts ; and that in the secret of it, 
 the Duke of Buckingham, my Lord Arlington, 
 my Lord Ashly, and Sir Thomas Clifford, at 
 present compose the Ministry. This I tell you 
 in short, as the constitution of our affairs here 
 at this time, and which I believe you may reckon 
 upon. 
 
 You know how different Sir Thomas Clifford 
 and I have always been since our first acquaint- 
 ance, in our schemes of government, and many 
 other matters, especially concerning our alliance 
 with Holland ; and that has been the reason, I 
 suppose, of very little commerce between us 
 farther than common civility, in our frequent 
 encounters at my Lord Arlington's for several 
 years past. This made me a little surprised at 
 his receiving me upon my first coming over, and 
 treating me since with a most wonderful gracious- 
 ness, till t'other day, which I suppose has ended 
 that style. Upon the first visit he made me, after 
 many civilities, he told me he must needs have 
 two hours talk with me at some time of leisure 
 and in private, upon our affairs in Holland, and 
 still repeated this almost every time he saw me, 
 till one day last week, when we appointed the 
 hour, and met in his closet. He began with 
 great compliments to me about my services to 
 the King in my employments abroad, went on 
 with the necessity of preserving our measures 
 with Holland, and the mutual interest both 
 nations had in it, and concluded with wondering 
 
 why the States should have showed so much 
 difficulty upon those two affairs of Surinam and 
 the East India Company, wherein our demands 
 seemed so reasonable. And how it came about 
 that I had failed in compassing his majesty's 
 satisfaction in those two matters, after having 
 succeeded so much in all my other negotiations. 
 I thought he might not have understood the 
 detail of those two affairs ; and so deduced it to 
 him, with the Dutch reasons, which I confess 
 seemed to me in many points but too well 
 grounded. He seemed unsatisfied with them 
 all, and told me I must undertake that matter 
 again, and bring it to a period ; and asked me 
 whether I did not think I could bring them to 
 reason. I said plainly I believed I never could 
 to what we called so, and therefore was very un- 
 willing to undertake it ; that I had spent all my 
 shot in vain ; and therefore thought their best 
 way would be to employ some person in it that 
 had more wit or ability than I. Upon this he 
 grew a little moved ; and replied, that for my 
 wit and ability they all knew I had enough; 
 and all the question was, whether I was willing 
 to employ them upon this occasion, which so 
 much concerned the King's service and the 
 honour of the nation. Hereupon I told him, 
 how I had used my utmost endeavours in it 
 already, how many representations I had made 
 the States ; how many conferences I had had 
 -svith their commissioners, how long and par- 
 ticular accounts I had given them hitherto ; 
 and how I had valued all the reasons trans- 
 mitted me from hence ; and how all to no 
 purpose ; and being, I confess, a little heated 
 after so long and unpleasant a conversation (as 
 well as he), I asked him in the name of God 
 what he thought a man could do more ? Upon 
 this in a great rage he answered me : yes, he 
 would tell me what a man might do more, and 
 what I ought to do more ; which was to let the 
 King and all the world know how basely and 
 unworthily the States had used him ; and to 
 declare publicly how their Ministers were a 
 company of rogues and rascals, and not fit for 
 his majesty or any other prince to have any- 
 thing to do with ; and this was a part that no- 
 body could do so well as I. My answer was 
 very calm, that I was not a man fit to make 
 declarations ; that whenever I did upon any 
 occasion, I should speak of all men what I 
 thought of them ; and so I should do of the 
 States, and the Ministers I had dealt with 
 there ; which was all I could say of this business. 
 And so our conversation ended. 
 
 Uiion all these i)assages, and some others not 
 fit for a letter, I have fixed my judgment of 
 the affairs and counsels at present in design or 
 deliberation here. I apprehend weather coming 
 that I shall have no mind to be abroad in ; and 
 therefore resolved to get a warm house over my 
 head as soon as I could, and neither apprehend 
 any uneasiness of mind or fortune in the private 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 S6 
 
 life I propose to myself ; unless some public 
 revolutions should draw both upon me, which 
 cannot touch me alone, and must be borne like 
 a common calamity. 
 
 I cannot find them willing yet to end my 
 embassy in form, or give me leave to send over 
 for my wife and family ; which I easily 
 apprehend the reason of, and must go through 
 as well as I can ; though my expense at the Hague 
 be great, and my hopes little here of getting 
 my pay, as I find affairs go and disjjositions too 
 in the Treasury, where all is disposed in a 
 manner by Sir Thomas Clifford. In the mean- 
 time, I have sent over for my Spanish horse, 
 and intend to send a groom away with him to 
 Dublin, in hopes you will be pleased with him. 
 I can be so with nothing more than the occasions 
 of expressing always that duty wherewith I am, 
 sir, Your, etc. 
 
 London, Nov. 22, 1670. 
 
 [We here present the greater part of Sir Thomas 
 Browne's (1605-1682) famous Letter to a 
 Friend, upon the occasion of the Death of 
 his Intimate Friend, which was first issued 
 as a folio pamphlet in 1690, and reprinted 
 in his posthumous works. Some of the 
 reflections which it contained towards the 
 close formed the basis of a larger work on 
 'Christian Morals.'] 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Give me leave to wonder that news of this 
 nature should have such heavy wings that you 
 should hear so little concerning your dearest 
 friend, and that I must make that unwilling 
 repetition to tell you, ' ad portam rigidos calces 
 extendit,' that he is dead and buried, and by 
 this time no puny among the mighty nations of 
 the dead ; for though he left this world not 
 very many days past, yet every hour you know 
 largely addeth unto that dark society ; and 
 considering the incessant mortality of mankind, 
 you cannot conceive there dieth in the whole 
 earth so few as a thousand an hour. 
 
 Although at this distance you had no early 
 account or particular of his death, yet your 
 affection may cease to wonder that you had not 
 some secret sense or intimation thereof by 
 dreams, thoughtful whisperings, mcrcurisms, 
 airy nuncios or sympathetical insinuations, 
 which many seem to have had at the death of 
 their dearest friends ; for since we find in that 
 famous story, that spirits themselves were fain 
 to tell their fellows at a distance that the great 
 Antonio was dead, we have a sufficient excuse 
 for our ignorance in such particulars, and must 
 rest content with the common road and Appian 
 
 way of knowledge by information. Though the 
 uncertainty of the end of this world hath con- 
 founded all human predictions, yet they who 
 shall live to see the sun and moon darkened, 
 and the stars to fall from heaven, will hardly 
 be deceived in the advent of the last day ; and 
 therefore strange it is, that the common fallacy 
 of consumptive persons who feel not themselves 
 dying, and therefore still hope to live, should 
 also reach their friends in perfect health and 
 judgment; — that you should be so little ac- 
 quainted v/ith Plautus's sick complexion, or 
 that almost an Hippocratical face should not 
 alarm you to higher fears, or rather despair, of 
 his continuation in such an emaciated state, 
 wherein medical predictions fail not, as some- 
 times in acute diseases, and wherein 'tis as 
 dangerous to be sentenced by a physician as a 
 judge. 
 
 Upon my first visit I was bold to tell them 
 who had not let fall all hopes of his recovery, 
 that in my sad opinion he was not like to 
 behold a grasshopper,^ much less to pluck 
 another fig ; and in no long time after seemed 
 to discover that odd mortal symptom in him not 
 mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, to lose his 
 own face, and look like some of his near relations ; | 
 for he maintained not his proper countenance, | 
 but looked like his uncle, the lines of whose face 
 lay deep and invisible in his healthful visage 
 before ; for as from our beginning we run 
 through variety of looks, before we com.e to 
 consistent and settled faces ; so before our end, 
 by sick and languishing alterations, we jmt on 
 new visages, and in our retreat to earth may 
 fall upon such looks which from community of 
 seminal originals were before latent in us. 
 
 He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage 
 by change of air, and imbibing the pure aerial 
 nitre of these parts ; and therefore, being so far 
 spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli,^ and 
 the most healthful air of little effect, where 
 death had set her broad arrow ; ^ for he lived 
 not unto the middle of May, and confirmed the 
 observation of HijDpocrates of that mortal time 
 of the year when the leaves of the fig-tree 
 resemble a. daw's claw. He is happily seated 
 who lives in places whose air, earth, and water 
 promote not the infirmities of his weaker parts, 
 or is early removed into regions that correct 
 them. He that is tabidly'^ inclined, were un- 
 wise to pass his days in Portugal ; cholical 
 persons will find little comfort in Austria or 
 Vienna ; he that is weak-legged must not be in 
 love with Rome, nor an infirm head with 
 Venice or Paris. Death hath not only par- 
 ticular stars in heaven, but malevolent places 
 
 1 Would not survive until next season. 
 
 2 ' Cum mors venerit, in medio Tiburc Sardinia est.' 
 
 3 In the king's forests they set the figure of a broad 
 an-ow upon trees that are to be cut down. 
 
 4 WastefuUy. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 on earth, which single out our infirmities, and 
 strike at our weaker parts ; in which concern, 
 passager and migrant birds have the great 
 advantages, who are naturally constituted for 
 distant habitations, whom no seas nor places 
 limit, but in their appointed seasons will visit 
 us from Greenland and Mount Atlas, and, as 
 i some think, even from the Antipodes. ^ 
 
 Though we could not have his life, yet we 
 missed not our desires in his soft departure, 
 which was scarce an expiration ; and his end 
 not unlike his beginning, when the salient 
 point scarce affords a sensible motion, and his 
 departure so like unto sleep, that he scarce 
 needed the civil ceremony of closing his eyes ; 
 contrary unto the common way, wherein 
 death draws up, sleep lets fall the eyelids. 
 I With what strife and pains we came into the 
 j world we know not ; but 'tis commonly no easy 
 j matter to get out of it ; yet if it could be made 
 out, that such who have easy nativities have 
 commonly hard deaths, and contrarily, his 
 departure was so easy that we might justly 
 suspect his birth was of another nature, and 
 that some Juno sat cross-legged at his nativity. 
 
 Besides his soft death, the incurable state of 
 his disease might somewhat extenuate your 
 sorrow, who know that monsters but seldom 
 happen, miracles more rarely in i^hysick.^ 
 Angelus Victorius gives a serious account of a 
 consumptive, hectical, phthisical woman, who 
 was suddenly cured by the intercession of 
 Ignatius. We read not of any in Scrijiture who 
 in this case applied unto our Saviour, though 
 some may be contained in that large expression, 
 that He went about Galilee healing aU manner 
 of sickness and all manner of diseases.^ Am- 
 ulets, spells, sigils, and incantations, practised 
 in other diseases, are seldom pretended in this 
 and we find no sigil in the Archidoxis of 
 Paracelsus to cure an extreme consumption or 
 marasmus, which, if other diseases fail, will put 
 a period unto long livers, and at last makes 
 dust of all. And therefore the Stoics could not 
 but think that the fiery principle would wear 
 out all the rest, and at last make an end of the 
 world, which notwithstanding without such a 
 lingering period the Creator may effect at His 
 pleasure : and to make an end of all things on 
 earth, and our planetical system of the world. 
 He need but put out the sun. 
 
 I was not so curious to entitle the stars unto 
 any concern of his death, yet could not but take 
 notice that he died when the moon was in 
 motion from the meridian ; at which time an 
 old Italian long ago would persuade me that 
 the greatest part of men died ; but herein I 
 confess I could never satisfy my curiosity, 
 
 1 Bellonius, de Avibus. 
 
 2 'Monstra contingunt in mediciua.' — Hippoc. 
 ' Strange and rare escapes there happen sometimes in 
 physick.' 
 
 3 JIatt. iv. 23. 
 
 57 
 
 although from the time of tides in i)laces upon 
 or near the sea, there may be considerable 
 deductions ; and Pliny hath an odd and re- 
 markable passage concerning the death of men 
 and animals upon the recess or ebb of the sea. 
 However, certain it is, he died in the dead and 
 deep part of the night, when Nox might be 
 most apprehensibly said to be the daughter of 
 Chaos, the mother of sleep and death according j 
 to old genealogy ; and so went out of this world 
 about that hour when our blessed Saviour 
 entered it, and about what time many conceive 
 He will return again unto it. Cardan^ hath a 
 peculiar and no hard observation from a man's 
 hand to know whether he was born in the day 
 or night, which I confess holdeth in my own. 
 And Scaliger to that purpose hath another from 
 the tip of the ear : most men are begotten in 
 the night, animals in the day ; but whether 
 more persons have been born in the night or 
 day, were a curiosity undecidable, though more 
 have perished by violent deaths in the day ; yet 
 in natural dissolutions both times may hold an 
 indifferency, at least but contingent inequality. 
 The whole course of time runs out in the 
 nativity and death of things ; which, whether 
 they happen by succession or coincidence, 
 are best computed by the natural, not artificial 
 day. 
 
 That Charles the Fifth^ was crowned upon 
 the day of his nativity, it being in his own 
 power so to order it, makes no singular anim- 
 adversion ; but that he should also take King 
 Francis prisoner upon that day, was an un- 
 expected coincidence, which made the same 
 remarkable. Antipater, who had an anni- 
 versary feast every year upon his birthday, 
 needed no astrological revolution to know v»^hat 
 day he should die on. When the fixed stars 
 have made a revolution unto the points from 
 whence they first set out, some of the ancients 
 thought the world would have an end ; which 
 was a kind of dying upon the day of its nativity. 
 Now the disease prevailing and swiftly ad- 
 vancing about the time of his nativity, some 
 were of opinion that he would leave the world 
 on the day he entered into it ; but this being a 
 lingering disease, and creeping softly on, nothing 
 critical was found or expected, and he died not 
 before fifteen days after. Nothing is more com- 
 mon with infants than to die on the day of their 
 nativity ; to behold the worldly hours, and but 
 the fractions thereof ; and even to perish before 
 their nativity in the hidden world of the womb, 
 and before their good angel is conceived to 
 undertake them. But in persons who outlive 
 many years, and when there are no less than 
 three hundred and sixty-five days to determme 
 their lives in every year, that the first day j 
 should make the last, that the tail of the snake 
 
 1 An Italian physician, who died 1576. 
 
 2 Born February 24th, 1500. 
 
58 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 should return into its mouth precisely at that 
 time, and they should wind up upon the day of 
 their nativity, is indeed a remarkable coin- 
 cidence, which, though astrology hath taken 
 witty pains to solve, yet hath it been very wary 
 in making i^redictions of it.^ 
 
 In this consumptive condition and remarkable 
 extenuation, he came to be almost half himself, 
 and left a great part behind him, Avhich he 
 carried not to the grave. And though that 
 story of Duke John Ernestus Mansfield^ be not 
 so easily swallowed, that at his death his heart 
 was found not to be so big as a nut ; yet if the 
 bones of a good skeleton weigh little more than 
 twenty pounds, his inwards and flesh remaining 
 could make no bouflage,"^ but a light bit for the 
 grave. I never more lively beheld the starved 
 characters of Dante'* in any living face ; an 
 aruspex might have read a lecture upon him 
 without exenteration, his flesh being so con- 
 sumed that he might, in a manner, have dis- 
 cerned his bowels without opening of him ; so 
 that to be carried, sextw cervice, ^ to the grave, 
 was but a civil unnecessity; and the com- 
 plements of the coffin might outweigh the 
 subject of it. 
 
 Omnihonus Ferrarius in mortal dysenteries of 
 children looks for a spot behind the ear ; in con- 
 sumptive diseases some eye the complexion of 
 moles ; Cardan eagerly vieAvs the nails, some 
 the lines of the hand, the thenar or muscle of 
 the thumb ; some are so curious as to observe 
 the depth of the throat-pit, how the pi-oportion 
 varieth of the small of the legs unto the calf, or 
 the compass of the neck unto the circumference 
 of the head ; but all these, with many more, were 
 so drowned in a mortal visage, and last face of 
 Hippocrates, that a weak phj'siognomist might 
 say at first eye, this was a face of earth, and 
 that Morta^ had set her hard seal upon his 
 temples, easily perceiving what caricatiira'^ 
 draughts death makes upon pined faces, and 
 unto what an unknown degree a man may live 
 backward. 
 
 Though the beard be only made a distinction 
 of sex, and sign of masculine heat by Ulmiis, 
 yet the precocity and early growth thereof in 
 him was not to be liked in reference unto long 
 life. Lewis, that virtuous but unfortunate king 
 of Hungary, who lost his life at the battle of 
 MohacZjS was said to be born without a skin, to 
 have bearded at fifteen, and to have shown 
 some grey hairs about twenty; from whence 
 
 1 According to the Egyptian hieroglyphic. 
 
 2 Turkish history. 
 
 3 Or swelling. 
 
 4 In the poet Dante's description. 
 
 5 i.e. 'by six persons.' 
 
 <! Morta, the diety of death or fate. 
 
 7 When men's faces are dra-\vn with resemblance to 
 some other animals, the Italians call it to be drawn 
 in caricatura. 
 
 8 August 29th, 1526. 
 
 the diviners conjectured that ho would be 
 spoiled of his kingdom, and have but a short 
 life ; but hairs make fallible predictions, and 
 many temples early grey have outlived the 
 Psalmist's period. Hairs which have most 
 amused me have not been in the face or head, 
 but on the back, and not in men but children, 
 as I long ago observed in that endemial dis- 
 temper of children in Languedoc, called the 
 morgellons, wherein they critically break out 
 with harsh hairs on their backs, which takes 
 off the unquiet symptoms of the disease, and 
 delivers them from coughs and convulsions. 
 
 The Egyptian mummies that I have seen, have 
 had their mouths open, and somewhat gaping, 
 which affordeth a good opportunity to view 
 and observe their teeth, wherein 'tis not easy 
 to find any wanting or decayed ; and therefore 
 in Egypt, where one man practised but one 
 operation, or the diseases but of single parts, it 
 must needs be a barren profession to confine 
 unto that of drawing of teeth, and to have been 
 little better than tooth-di"awer unto King 
 Pyrrhus,! who had but two in his head. How 
 the banyans of India maintain the integrity of 
 those parts, I find not particularly observed ; 
 who notwithstanding have an advantage of 
 their preservation by abstaining from all flesh, 
 and employing their teeth in such food unto 
 which they may seem at first framed, from 
 their figure and conformation; but sharp and 
 corroding rheums had so early mouldered those 
 rocks and hardest parts of his fabric, that a 
 man might well conceive that his years were 
 never like to double or twice tell over his teeth.2 
 Corruption had dealt more severely with them 
 than sepulchral fires and smart flames with 
 those of burnt bodies of old ; for in the burnt 
 fragments of urns which I have inquired into, 
 although I seem to find few incisors or shearers, 
 yet the dog teeth and grinders do notably resist 
 those fires. 
 
 In the years of his childhood he had languished 
 under the disease of his country, the rickets ; 
 after which, notwithstanding many have become 
 strong and active men ; but whether any have 
 attained unto very great years, the disease is 
 scarce so old as to afford good observation. 
 Whether the children of the English plantations 
 be subject unto the same infirmity, may be 
 worth the observing. Whether lameness and 
 halting do still increase among the inhabitants 
 of Kovigno in Istria, I know not; yet scarce 
 twenty years ago Monsieur du Loyr observed 
 that a third part of that people halted ; but too 
 certain it is, that the rickets increaseth among 
 us ; the small-pox grows more pernicious 
 than the great ; the king's purse knows that 
 the king's evil grows more common. Quartan 
 
 1 His upper jaAV being solid, and without distinct 
 rows of teeth. 
 
 2 Twice tell over his teeth, never live to threescore 
 years. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 agiies are become no strangers in Ireland ; more 
 common and mortal in England; and though 
 the ancients gave that disease very good words, 
 yet now that bell makes no strange sound which 
 rings out for the effects thereof. 
 
 Some think there were few consumptions in 
 the old world, when men lived much upon 
 milk ; and that the ancient inhabitants of this 
 island were less troubled with coughs when 
 they went naked and slept in caves and woods, 
 than men now in chambers and feather-beds. 
 Plato will tell us, that there was no such disease 
 as a catarrh in Homer's time, and that it was 
 but new in Greece in his age. Polydore Virgil 
 delivereth that pleurisies were rare in England, 
 who lived but in the days of Henry the Eighth. 
 Some will allow no diseases to be new, others 
 think that many old ones are ceased, and that 
 such which are esteemed new, will have but their 
 time. However, the mercy of God hath scattered 
 the great heap of diseases, and not loaded any 
 one country with all : some may be new in one 
 country which have been old in another. New 
 discoveries of the earth discover new diseases ; 
 for besides the common swarm, there are en- 
 demial and local infirmities proper unto certain 
 regions, which in the whole earth make no 
 small number ; and if Asia, Africa, and 
 America should bring in their list. Pandora's 
 box would swell, and there must be a strange 
 pathology. 
 
 Most men expected to find a consumed kell,i 
 empty and bladder-like guts, livid and marbled 
 lungs, and a withered pericardium in this exsuc- 
 cous cori)se ; but some seemed too much to 
 wonder that two lobes of his lungs adhered unto 
 his side ; for the like I have often found in 
 bodies of no suspected consumptions or diflSculty 
 of respiration. And the same more often 
 happeneth in men than other animals, and 
 some think in women than in men ; but the 
 most remarkable I have met with, was in a 
 man, after a cough of almost fifty years, in whom 
 all the lobes adhered unto the pleura, and each 
 lobe unto another ; who having also been much 
 troubled with the gout, brake the rule of 
 Cardan,^ and died of the stone in the bladder. 
 Aristotle makes a query, why some animals 
 cough, as man ; some not, as oxen. If coughing 
 be taken as it consisteth of a natural and volun- 
 tary motion, including expectoration and 
 spitting out, it may be as proper unto man as 
 bleeding at the nose ; otherwise we find that 
 Vegetius and rural writers have not left so 
 many medicines in vain against the coughs of 
 cattle ; and men who perish by coughs die the 
 death of sheep, cats, and lions ; and though 
 birds have no midriff, yet we meet with divers 
 
 1 Caul. 
 
 2 Cardan, in his Encomium Podagrcc, reckoneth 
 this among the Dona Podagrce, that they are de- 
 livered thereby from the phtliisis and stone in the 
 
 ! bladder. 
 
 59 
 
 remedies in AiTianus against the coughs of hawks. 
 And though it might be thought that all 
 animals who have lungs do cough ; yet in 
 cetaceous fishes, who have large and strong 
 lungs, the same is not observed, nor yet in 
 oviparous quadrupeds ; and in the greatest 
 thereof, the crocodile, although we read much 
 of then- tears, we find nothing of that motion. 
 
 From the thoughts of sleep, when the soul 
 was conceived nearest unto divinity, the ancients 
 erected an art of divination, wherein while they 
 too widely expatiated in loose and inconsequent 
 conjectures, Hippocrates^ wisely considered 
 dreams as they presaged alterations in the 
 body, and so afforded hints toward the pre- 
 servation of health and prevention of diseases ; 
 and therein was so serious as to advise alteration 
 of diet, exercise, sweating, bathing, and vomit- 
 ing ; and also so religious as to order prayers 
 and supj)lications unto respective deities, in 
 good dreams unto Sol, Jupiter coelestis, Jupiter 
 opulentus, Minerva, Mercurius, and Apollo ; in 
 bad, unto Tellus and the heroes. 
 
 And therefore I could not but notice hov/ 
 his female friends were irrationally curious so 
 strictly to examine his dreams, and in this low 
 state to hope for the phantasms of health. 
 He was now past the healthful dreams of the 
 sun, moon, and stars, in their clarity and proper 
 courses. 'Twas too late to dream of flying, of 
 limpid fountains, smooth waters, white vest- 
 ments, and fruitful green trees, which are the 
 visions of healthful sleeps, and at good distance 
 from the grave. 
 
 And they v/ere also too deeply dejected that 
 he should dream of his dead friends, inconse- 
 quently divining, that he would not be long 
 from them ; for strange it was not that he 
 should sometimes dream of the dead, whose 
 thoughts run always upon death ; beside, to 
 dream of the dead, so they a^^pear not in dark 
 habits, and take nothing away from us, in 
 Hippocrates' sense was of good signification : 
 for we live by the dead, and everything is or 
 must be so before it becomes our nourishment. 
 And Cardan, who dreamed that he discoursed 
 with his dead father in the moon, made thereof 
 no mortal interpretation ; and even to dream 
 that we are dead, was no condemnable jjhantasm 
 in old oneiro-criticism, as having a significa- 
 tion of liberty, vacuity from cares, exemi)tion 
 and freedom from troubles unknown unto the 
 dead. 
 
 Some dreams I confess may admit of easy and 
 feminine exposition ; he who dreamed that he 
 could not see his right shoulder, might easily 
 fear to lose the sight of his right eye ; he that 
 before a journey dreamed that his feet were cut 
 off, had a plain warning not to undertake his 
 intended journey. But why to dream of lettuce 
 should presage some ensuing disease, why to eat 
 
 1 Hippoc. de Insomniis. 
 
6o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 figs should signify foolish talk, why to eat eggs 
 great trouble, and to dream of blindness should 
 be so highly commended, according to the 
 oneiro-critical verses of Astrampsychus and 
 Nicephorus, I shall leave unto your divina- 
 tion. 
 
 He was willing to quit the world alone and 
 altogether, leaving no earnest behind him for 
 corruption or after-grave, having small content 
 in that common satisfaction to survive or live 
 in another, but amply satisfied that his disease 
 should die with himself, nor revive in a j)osterity 
 to puzzle i:)hysic, and make sad mementoes of 
 their parent hereditary. Leprosy awakes not 
 sometimes before forty, the gout and stone often 
 later ; but consumptive and tabid ^ roots sprout 
 more early, and at the fairest make seventeen 
 years of our life doubtful before that age. 
 They that enter the world with original diseases 
 as well as sin, have not only common mortality 
 bvit sick traductions to destroy them, make 
 commonly short courses, and live not at length 
 but in figures ; so that a sound Csesarean 
 nativity 2 may outlast a natural birth, and a 
 knife may sometimes make way for a more 
 lasting fruit than a midwife ; which makes so 
 few infants now able to endure the old test of 
 the river,^ and many to have feeble children 
 who could scarce have been married at Sparta, 
 and those provident states who studied strong 
 and healthful generations ; which happen but 
 contingently in mere pecuniary matches or 
 I marriages made by the candle, wherein not- 
 I withstanding there is little redress to be hoped 
 I from an astrologer or a lawyer, and a good dis- 
 cerning physician were like to prove the most 
 successful counsellor. 
 
 Julius Scaliger, who in a sleepless fit of the 
 gout could make two hundred verses in a night, 
 would have but five* plain words upon his 
 tomb. And this serious person, though no 
 minor wit, left the poetry of his epitaph unto 
 others ; either unwilling to commend himself, 
 or to be judged by a distich, and perhaps con- 
 sidering how unhappy great poets have been in 
 versifying their own epitaphs ; wherein Petrarch, 
 Dante, and Ariosto have so unhappily failed, 
 that if their tombs should outlast their 
 works, posterity would find so little of Apollo 
 on them as to mistake them for Ciceronian 
 poets. 
 
 In this deliberate and creeping progress unto 
 the grave, he was somewhat too young and of 
 too noble a mind, to fall upon that stupid 
 symptom observable in divers persons near their 
 
 1 ' Tabies maxime contingunt ab anno decimo octavo 
 ad trigesimum quintum.'— Hippoc. 
 
 2 A sound child cut out of the body of the 
 mother. 
 
 3 'Natos ad flnmina primum dcferimussajvoquegelu 
 duramus et undis.' 
 
 4 'JuliiCsesarisScaligeriquod fuit.'— Joseph Scali- 
 ger, vih Vita Patris. 
 
 journey's end, and which may be reckoned 
 among the mortal symptoms of their last 
 disease ; that is, to become more narrow-minded, 
 miserable, and tenacious, unready to part with 
 anything, when they are ready to part with 
 all, and afraid to want when they have no time 
 to spend; meanwhile physicians, who know 
 that many are mad but in a single depraved 
 imagination, and one prevalent decipiency, and 
 that beside and out of such single deliriums a 
 man may meet with sober actions and good 
 sense in Bedlam, cannot but smile to see the 
 heirs and concerned relations gratulating 
 themselves on the sober departure of their 
 friends ; and though they behold such mad 
 covetous passages, content to think they die 
 in good understanding, and in their sober 
 senses. 
 
 Avarice, which is not only infidelity, but idola- 
 try, either from covetous progeny or questuary i 
 education, had no root in his breast, who made 
 good works the expression of his faith, and was 
 big with desires unto public and lasting charities ; 
 and surely where good wishes and charitable 
 intentions exceed abilities, theorical beneti- 
 cency may be more than a dream. They build 
 not castles in the air who would build churches 
 on earth ; and though they leave no such struc- 
 tures here, may lay good foundations in heaven. 
 In brief, his life and death were such, that I 
 could not blame them who wished the like, and 
 almost to have been himself : almost, I say ; for 
 though we may wish the prosperous appur- 
 tenances of others, or to be another in his 
 happy accidents, yet so intrinsical is every 
 man unto himself, that some doubt may be 
 made whether any would exchange his being, 
 or substantially become another man. 
 
 He had wisely seen the world at home and 
 abroad, and thereby observed under what 
 variety men are deluded in the pursuit of that 
 which is not here to be found. And although 
 he had no opinion of reputed felicities below, 
 and apprehended men widely out in the estimate 
 of such happiness, yet his sober contempt of the 
 world wrought no democratism or cynicism, no 
 laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding 
 there are not felicities in this world to satisfy 
 a serious mind; and therefore, to soften the 
 stream of our lives, we are fain to take in the 
 reputed contentations of this world, to unite 
 with the crowd in their beatitudes, and to 
 make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion, 
 and co-existimation ; for strictly to separate 
 from received and customary felicities, and to 
 confine unto the rigour of realities, were to 
 contract the consolation of our beings unto too 
 uncomfortable circumscriptions. 
 
 Not to fear death, nor desire it, was short of 
 his resolution : to be dissolved, and be with 
 Christ, was his dying ditty. He conceived his 
 
 1 Trained to love money. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 6i 
 
 thread long, in no long course of years, and 
 when he had scarce outlived the second life of 
 Lazarus ; ^ esteeming it enough to approach the 
 years of his Saviour, who so ordered His own 
 human state as not to be old upon earth. 
 
 But to be content with death may be better 
 than to desire it ; a miserable life may make us 
 wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest in it ; 
 which is the advantage of those resolved 
 Christians, who, looking on death not only as 
 the sting, but the period and end of sin, the 
 horizon and isthmus between this life and a 
 better, and the death of this world but as a 
 nativity of another, do contentedly submit 
 unto the common necessity, and envy not 
 Enoch or Elias. 
 
 Not to be content with life is the unsatis- 
 factory state of those who destroy themselves, 
 who being afraid to live run blindly upon their 
 own death, which no man fears by experience ; 
 and the Stoics had a notable doctrine to take 
 away the fear thereof ; that is, in such ex- 
 tremities, to desire that which is not to be 
 avoided, and wish what might be feared; and 
 so made evils voluntary, and to suit with their 
 own desires, which took off the terror of them. 
 
 But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged 
 by such fallacies ; who, though they feared not 
 I death, were afraid to be their own executioners ; 
 and therefore thought it more wisdom to crucify 
 their lusts than their bodies, to circumcise than 
 stab their hearts, and to mortify than kill 
 themselves. 
 
 His willingness to leave this world about that 
 age, when most men think they may best enjoy 
 it, though paradoxical unto worldly ears, was 
 not strange unto mine, who have so often 
 observed, that many, though old, oft stick fast 
 unto the world, and seem to be drawn like 
 Cacus's oxen,2 backward, with great struggling 
 and reluctancy, unto the grave. The long 
 habit of living makes mere men more hardly to 
 part with hfe, and all to be nothing, but what 
 is to come. To live at the rate of the old world, 
 when some could scarce remember themselves 
 young, may afford no better digested death than 
 j a more moderate period. Many would have 
 thought it an happiness to have had their lot of 
 life in some notable conjunctures of ages past ; 
 but the uncertainty of future times has 
 tempted few to make a part in ages to come. 
 And surely, he that hath taken the true 
 altitude of things, and righty calculated the 
 degenerate state of this age, is not like to envy 
 those that shall live in the next, much less three 
 or four hundred years hence, when no man can 
 comfortably imagine what face this world will 
 
 1 Who upon some accounts and tradition is said to 
 have lived thirty years after he was raised by our 
 Saviour.— Baronius. 
 
 2 Which, when stolen from Hercules, he drew 
 backward into his cave, in order to mislead regarding 
 their footsteps. 
 
 carry : and therefore since every age makes a 
 step unto the end of all things, and the Scrip- 
 ture affords so hard a character of the last 
 times, quiet minds will be content with their 
 generations, and rather bless ages past, than be 
 ambitious of those to come. 
 
 Though age had set no seal upon his face, yet 
 a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in his 
 actions ; and therefore, since wisdom is the 
 grey hair, and an unspotted life old age ; 
 although his years come short, he might have 
 been said to have held up with longer livers, 
 and to have been Solomon's old man. And 
 surely if we deduct all those days of our life 
 which we might wish unlived, and which abate 
 the comfort of those we now live ; if we reckon 
 up only those days which God hath accepted of 
 our lives, a life of good years will hardly be a 
 span long : the son in this sense may outlive 
 the father, and none be climacterically old. 
 He that early arrive th unto the parts and 
 prudence of age, is happily old without the 
 uncomfortable attendants of it ; and 'tis super- 
 fluous to live unto grey hairs, when in precocious 
 temper we anticipate the virtues of them. In 
 brief, he cannot be accounted young who out- 
 liveth the old man. He that hath early arrived 
 unto the measure of a perfect stature in Christ, 
 hath already fulfilled the prime and longest 
 intention of his being ; and one day lived after 
 the perfect rule of piety, is to be preferred 
 before sinning immortality. 
 
 ['It is very surprising,' observes Horace 
 Walpole, 'how much better women write 
 than men. I have now before me a volume 
 of letters by the widow of the beheaded 
 Lord Russell, which are full of the most 
 moving and impressive eloquence.' Bishop 
 Burnet declared in one of his letters to Lady 
 Eussell, 'You have so strange a way of 
 expressing yourself, that I sincerely acknow- 
 ledge my pen is apt to drop from my hand 
 when I begin writing to you, for I am very 
 sensible I cannot rise up to your strain.' 
 Some interesting letters from Lady Russell 
 to her husband, written during their occa- 
 sional separations, in the fourteen happy 
 years of their union, were published in 
 1819. Of her feelings upon that event, 
 which over-clouded her earthly enjoyments, 
 nothing has been recorded ; but we know, 
 that when the melancholy result of the 
 trial was proclaimed, she neither disturbed 
 the court, nor distracted the attention of 
 her husband. Lady Russell siirvived her 
 lord many years, dying at the advanced age 
 
62 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of 86 years ; and that sorrow, which time 
 could not dispel, a sincere and a Christian 
 faith softened and reduced. No mourner 
 ever walked through life with a more affect- 
 ing resignation, or a more unostentatious 
 dignity of demeanour. — Wilhnott.^ 
 
 LADY RUSSELL TO THE BISHOP OF SALISBUEY, 
 
 On the Loss of her Sister. 
 
 mh October 1690. 
 I have, my lord, so upright a heart to my 
 friends, that though your great weight of 
 business had forced you to a silence of this kind, 
 yet I should have no doubt but that one I so 
 distinguish in that little number God has left 
 me, does join with me to lament my late losses ; 
 the one was a just, sincere man, and the only 
 son of a sister, and a friend I loved with too 
 much passion ; the other my last sister, and I 
 ever loved her tenderly. It pleases me to think 
 that she deserves to be remembered by all those 
 who knew her. But after above forty years' 
 acquaintance with so amiable a creature, one 
 must needs, in reflecting, bring to remembrance 
 so many engaging endearments as are yet at 
 present embittering and painful ; and, indeed, 
 we may be sure, that when anything below God 
 is the object of our love, at one time or another 
 it will be a matter of our sorrow. But a little 
 time will put me again into my settled state of 
 mourning ; for a mourner I must be all my days 
 upon earth, and there is no need I should be 
 other. My glass runs low. The world does 
 not want me, nor I want that ; my business is 
 at home, and within a narrow compass. I 
 must not deny, as there was something so 
 glorious in the object of my biggest sorrow, I 
 believe that, in some measure, kept me from 
 being then overwhelmed. So now it affords 
 me, together with the remembrance hov/ many 
 years we lived together, thoughts that are joy 
 enough for one who looks no higher than a quiet 
 submission to her lot ; and such i^leasures in 
 educating my young folks, that surmount the 
 cares that it will afford. If I shall be spared 
 the trial, where I have most thought of being 
 prepared to bear the pain, I hope I shall be 
 thankful, and I think I ask it faithfully, that it 
 may be in mercy, not in judgment. Let me 
 rather be tortured here, than they or I be 
 rejected in that other blessed, peaceful home to 
 all ages to which my soul aspires. There is 
 something in the younger going before me, that 
 I have observed all my life to give a sense I 
 cannot describe ; it is harder to be borne than 
 a bigger loss, wliere there has been spun out a 
 longer thread of life. Yet I see no cause for it, 
 for every day we see the young fall with the 
 old ; but methinks it is a violence upon nature. 
 A troubled mind has a multitude of these 
 thoughts ; yet I hope I mastei* all murmurings : 
 
 if I have had any, I am sorry, and will have no 
 more, assisted by God's grace ; and rest satisfied 
 that whatever I think, I shall one day be entirely 
 satisfied what God has done, and shall do, will 
 be best, and justify both His justice and mercy. 
 I meant this as a very short epistle ; but you 
 have been some years acquainted with my 
 infirmity, and have endured it, though you 
 never had waste time, I believe, in your life ; } 
 and better times do not, I hope, make your | 
 patience less. However, it will become me to j 
 put an end to this, which I will do, signing i 
 myself cordially your, etc. i 
 
 LADY RUSSELL TO LORD RUSSELL. 
 
 Tunbridge Wells, 1678. I 
 After a toilsome day, there is some refresh- j 
 ment to be telling our story to our best friends. 
 I have seen your girl well laid in bed, and 
 ourselves have made our suppers upon biscuits, 
 a bottle of white wine, and another of beer, and 
 mingled my uncle's whey with nutmeg and 
 sugar. None are disposing to bed, not so 
 much as complaining of weariness. Beds and 
 things are all very well here ; our want is 
 yourself and good weather. But now I have 
 told you our present condition ; to say a little 
 of the past, I do really think, if I could have 
 imagined the illness of the journey, it would 
 have discouraged me ; it is not to be expressed 
 how bad the way is from Seven Oaks ; but our 
 horses did exceeding well, and Spencer very 
 diligent, often off his horse to lay hold of the 
 coach. I have not much more to say this 
 night ; I hope the quilt is remembered ; and 
 Frances must remember to send more biscuits, 
 either when you come or soon after. I long to 
 hear from you, my dearest soul, and truly 
 think your absence already an age. I have no 
 mind to my gold plate ; here is no table to set 
 it on ; but if that does not come, I desire you 
 would bid Betty Forster send the silver glass I 
 use every day. In discretion, I haste to bed, 
 longing for Monday, I assure you. From your 
 
 EUSSELL. 
 
 Past ten o'clock. —Lady IMargaret says we are 
 not glutted with company yet ; you will let 
 Northumberland knov/ we are well, and Allie. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 TO THE 6A3IE. 
 
 Stratton, 1681. — Thursday morning, 
 A messenger bringing things from Ailesford 
 this morning, gives me the opportunity of 
 sending this by post. If he will leave it at 
 Frimley, it will let you know we are all well ; 
 if he does not, it may let such know it as do not 
 care, but satisfy no one's curiosity on any other 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 point. For having said thus much, I am ready 
 to conclude with this one secret : — first, that 
 as thy precious self is the most endearing 
 husband, I believe, in the world, so I am the 
 most grateful wife, and my heart most gladly 
 passionate in its returns. Now you have all for 
 this time. From yoxir 
 
 E. EUSSELL. 
 
 Boy is asleep, girls singing abed. Lord 
 Marquis sent a compliment yesterday, that he 
 heard one of the girls had the measles ; and if I 
 would remove the rest, he would leave his 
 house at an hour's warning. I hope you 
 deUver my service to Mr. James. 
 
 For the Lord Russell, to he left at Frimley. 
 
 [In reference to a paper written in justification 
 of his political conduct, which was handed 
 to the sheriffs, on the scaffold, by Lord 
 William Eussell previous to his execution.] 
 
 LADY KACHEL RUSSELL TO KING CHARLES II. 
 
 [1683.] 
 
 May it please Your Majesty,— I find my 
 husband's enemies are not appeased with his 
 blood, but still continue to misrepresent him to 
 your Majesty, 'Tis a great addition to my 
 sorrows, to hear your Majesty is prevailed upon 
 to believe that the paper he delivered to the 
 sheriff at his death was not his own. I can 
 trxily say, and am ready in the solemnest 
 manner to attest, that I often heard him dis- 
 course the chiefest matters contained in that 
 paper, in the same expressions he therein uses, 
 as some of those few relations that were ad- 
 mitted to him can likewise aver. And sure 
 'tis an argument of no great force, that there is 
 a phrase or two in it that another uses, when 
 nothing is more common than to take up such 
 words we like, or are accustomed to in our 
 conversation. I beg leave further to avow to 
 your Majesty, that all that is set down in the 
 paper read to your Majesty on Sunday night, 
 to be spoken in my presence, is exactly true ; as 
 I doubt not but the rest of the paper is, which 
 was written at my request ; and the author of 
 it, in all his conversation with my husband that 
 I was privy to, showed himseK a loyal subject 
 to your Majesty, a faithful friend to him, and a 
 most tender and conscientious minister to his 
 soul. I do therefore humbly beg your Majesty 
 would be so charitable to believe, that he who 
 in all his life was observed to act with the 
 greatest clearness and sincerity, would not at i 
 the point of death do so disingenuous and false 
 a thing as to deliver for his own that what was 
 not properly and expressly so. 
 
 53 
 
 And if, after the loss in such a manner of the 
 best husband in the world, I were capable of any 
 consolation, your Majesty only could afford it 
 by having better thoughts of him, which when 
 I was so importvmate to speak with your 
 Majesty, I thought I had some reason to believe 
 I had inclined you to, not from the credit of 
 my word, but upon the evidence of what I had 
 to say. I hope I have writ nothing in this that 
 will displease your Majesty. If I have, I 
 humbly beg of you to consider it as coming 
 from a woman amazed with grief ; and that you 
 will consider it as coming from the daiighter of 
 a person^ who served your Majesty's father in 
 his greatest extremities (and your Majesty in 
 your greatest posts), and one that is not con- 
 scious of having ever done anything to offend 
 you. I shall ever pray for your Majesty's 
 long life and happy reign, who am, with all 
 humility, may it please your Majesty, etc. 
 
 BISHOP BURNET TO LADY RUSSELL, 
 
 On the Death of her Son. 
 
 Salisbury, SOth Maij 1711. 
 I cannot keep myself from writing, though 
 I cannot tell how to express the deep sense I 
 have of this heavy stroke with which God is 
 trying your faith and patience. To lose the 
 only son of such a father, who was become so 
 truly his son in all respects, is indeed a new 
 opening, a deep wound which God had, by many 
 special providences, for several years been 
 binding up and healing. But now you will see 
 whether you can truly say, ' Not my will, but 
 Thy will be done.' For God's sake do not 
 abandon yourself once more unto a deep, in- 
 consolable melancholy. Eouse up the spirit 
 God has given you, and say, ' The Lord has 
 given, the Lord has taken away ; blessed be the 
 name of the Lord.' "VYhen God took his blessed 
 father, he was left as a branch to spring up in 
 his stead : now God has taken him, but the 
 branches are left in whom he is to live again. 
 Eemember you are now much older than when you 
 suffered yourseK to sink so much under a great 
 though a just load. You cannot now stand under 
 what you bore then; and you do not know but that, 
 as God has helped you in so eminent a manner 
 to do your diity to your own children, He may yet 
 have a great deal for you to do to your children's 
 children ; and, therefore, study to compose your 
 spirits into a resignation to the holy will of God, 
 and see what remains for you yet to be done 
 before your course is finished. I could not help 
 giving this vent to that true and hearty concern 
 j I have in everything that touches you in so 
 tender a part. I can do no more but follow 
 
 1 The Earl of Southampton. 
 
64 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 this with my most earnest prayers to the God 
 of all comfort for you and all yours, more par- 
 ticularly for the sweet remnants of him whom 
 God has taken to Himself. 
 
 I am, beyond all expression, madam, your most 
 humble and most obedient servant. 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN TO JOHN DENNIS. 
 
 In reply to a complimentary letter from the 
 latter upon his genius. 
 
 1693-4. 
 
 My deae Mr. Dennis, — When I read a letter 
 so full of my commendations as your last, I cannot 
 but consider you as the master of a vast treasure 
 who, having more than enough for yourself, 
 are forced to ebb out upon your friends. You 
 have indeed the best right to give them, since 
 you have them in jjropriety ; but they are no 
 more mine when I receive them, than the light 
 of the moon can be allowed to be her own, who 
 shines but by the reflection of her brother. 
 Your own poetry is a more powerful example to 
 prove that the modern writers may enter into 
 comparison with the ancients, than any which 
 Perrault could jDroduce in France ; yet neither 
 he, nor you, who are a better critic, can 
 persuade me that there is any room left for a 
 solid commendation at this time of the day, at 
 least for me. If I undertake the translation of 
 Virgil, the little which I can perform will show, 
 at least, that no man is fit to write after him in 
 a barbarous modern tongue : neither will his 
 machines be of any service to a Christian poet. 
 We see how ineffectually they have been tried 
 by Tasso and by Ariosto. 'Tis using them too 
 dully if we only make devils of his gods : as if, 
 for example, I would raise a storm, and make 
 use of jEoIus, with this only difference of calling 
 him prince of the air : what invention of mine 
 would there be in this ? Or who would not see 
 Virgil through me, only the same trick played 
 over again by a bungling juggler ? Boileau has 
 well observed, that it is an easy matter in a 
 Christian poem for God to bring the devil to 
 reason. I think I have given a better hint for 
 new machines in my preface to Juvenal, where 
 I have particularly recommended two subjects, 
 one of King Arthur's conquest of the Saxons, and 
 the other of the Black Prince in his conquest of 
 Spain. But the guardian angels of monarchies 
 and kingdoms are not to be touched by every 
 hand. A man must be deeply conversant in the 
 Platonic philosophy to deal with them ; and 
 therefore I may reasonably expect that no 
 poet of our age will presume to handle those 
 machines for fear of discovering his own ignor- 
 ance ; or if he should, he might perhaps be 
 ungrateful enough not to own me for his bene- 
 factor. After I have confessed thus much of 
 our modern heroic poetry, I cannot but con- 
 
 clude with Mr. Kymer, that our English 
 comedy is far beyond anything of the ancients. 
 And notwithstanding our irregularities, so is 
 our tragedy. Shakespeare had a genius for it ; 
 
 and we know in spite of Mr. R , that genius 
 
 alone is a greater virtue (if I may so call it) than 
 all other qualifications put together. You see 
 what success this learned critic has found ia 
 the world, after his blaspheming Shakespeare. 
 Almost all the faults which he has discovered 
 
 are truly there ; yet who will read Mr. Rym , 
 
 or not read Shakespeare ? For my own part, I 
 
 reverence Mr. Rym 's learning, but I detest 
 
 his ill-nature and his arrogance. I indeed, and 
 such as I, have reason to be afraid of him, but 
 Shakespeare has not. There is another part 
 of poetry in which the English stand almost 
 upon an equal foot with the ancients ; and 'tis 
 that which we call Pindaric, introduced but 
 not perfected by owv famous Mr. Cowley ; and 
 of this, sir, you are certainly one of the greatest 
 masters ; you have the sublimity of sense as 
 well as sound, and know how far the boldness 
 of a poet may lawfully extend. I could wish 
 you would cultivate this kind of ode, and reduce 
 it either to the same measure which Pindar 
 used, or give new measures of your own. For, 
 as it is, it looks like a vast tract of land newly 
 discovered ; the soil is wonderfully fruitful, 
 but unmanured, overstocked with inhabitants, 
 but almost all savages, without laws, arts, 
 arms, or policy. I remember poor Nat. Lee, 
 who was then upon the verge of madness, yet 
 made a sober and witty answer to a bad poet, 
 who told him. It was an easy thing to write 
 like a madman. No, said he, 'tis very difficult 
 to write like a madman, but 'tis a very easy 
 matter to write like a fool. Otway and he are 
 safe by death from all attacks, but we poor 
 poets militant (to use Mr. Cowley's expression) 
 are at the mercy of wretched scribblers ; and 
 when they cannot fasten upon our verses, they 
 fall upon our morals, our principles of state, and 
 religion. For my principles of religion I will 
 not justify them to you ; I know yours are far 
 different. For the same reason, I shall say 
 nothing of my principles of state ; I believe 
 you in yours follow the dictates of your reason, 
 as I in mine do those of my conscience. If I 
 thought myself in an error, I would retract it ; 
 I am sure that I suffer for them ; and Milton 
 makes even the devil say, that no creature is 
 in love with pain. For my morals betwixt man 
 and man, I am not to be my own judge ; I 
 appeal to the world if I have deceived or de- 
 frauded any man ; and for my private conver- 
 sation, they who see me every day can be the 
 best witnesses whether or no it be blameless 
 and inoffensive. Hitherto I have no reason to 
 complain that men of either party shun my 
 company. I have never been an impudent 
 beggar at the doors of noblemen ; my visits 
 have indeed been too rare to be unacceptable. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and but just enough to testify my gratitude for 
 their bounty ; which I have frequently received, 
 but always unasked, as themselves will witness. 
 I have written more than I needed to you on 
 this subject ; for I dare say you justify me to 
 yourself. As for that which I first intended 
 for the principal subject of this letter, which is 
 my friend's passion, and his design of marriage, 
 on better consideration I have changed my 
 mind; for having had the honour to see my 
 friend Wycherley's letter to him on that occa- 
 sion, I find nothing to be added or amended. 
 But as well as I love Mr. "Wycherley, I confess I 
 love myself so well, that I will not show how 
 much I am inferior to him in wit and judgment, 
 by undertaking anything after him ; there is 
 Moses and the prophets in his council. Jupiter 
 and Juno, as the poets tell us, made Tiresias 
 their imipire, in a certain merry dispute which 
 fell out in heaven betwixt them ; Tiresias, you 
 know, had been of both sexes, and therefore 
 was a proper judge ; our friend Mr. Wycherley 
 is full as competent an arbitrator ; he has been 
 a bachelor, and married man, and is now a 
 widower. Virgil says of Ceneus, 
 
 ' Nunc vir, nunc fcemina Ceneus, 
 
 Rursus et in veterem sato revohita figuram.' 
 
 Yet, I suppose, he will not give any large com- 
 mendations to his middle state ; nor, as the 
 sailor said, will be found after a shipwreck to 
 put to sea again. If my friend will adventure 
 after this, I can but wish him a good wind, as 
 being his, and, my dear Mr. Dennis, 
 
 Your most affectionate and most faithful 
 servant, John Dryden. 
 
 [John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650- 
 1722), had married Sarah Jennings, a 
 penniless beauty of Charles' court, who, 
 along with a bad temper, had the power 
 of inspiring and retaining affection. Her 
 influence over the Princess Anne was 
 paramount. Marlborough had endeavoured 
 to use the Tory influence of the time 
 against King William ; so that by causing a 
 revolt he would be driven from the throne, 
 and thus, without replacing James, the crown 
 would be given to Anne, his wife's influence 
 over whom would place him at the head of 
 affairs. On discovering this plot, William 
 exclaimed, 'Were I and my Lord Marl- 
 borough private persons, the sword would 
 have to settle between us.' The duke was 
 stripped of his offices, and with the 
 duchess was exiled from the court for 
 the time.] 
 
 QUEEN MARY TO THE PRINCESS ANNE. 
 
 [1G92.] 
 
 Having something to say to you, which I 
 know will not be very pleasing, I chuse rather 
 to write it first, being unwilling to surprise you ; 
 though, I think, what I am going to tell you 
 should not, if you give yourself the time to 
 think, that never anybody was suffered to live 
 at court in my Lord Marlborough's circum- 
 stances. I need not repeat the cause he has 
 given the King to do what he has done, nor his 
 unwillingness at all times to come to such 
 extremities, though people do deserve it. 
 
 I hope you do me the justice to believe, it is 
 as much against my will, that I now tell you, 
 that, after this, it is very unfit Lady Marl- 
 borough should stay with you, since that gives 
 her husband so just a j)retence of being where 
 he ought not. 
 
 I think, I might have expected you should 
 have spoke to me of it. And the King and I 
 both believing it, made us stay thus long. But 
 seeing you were so far from it, that you brought 
 Lady Marlborough hither last night, makes us 
 resolve to put it off no longer, but tell you, she 
 must not stay ; and that I have all the reason 
 imaginable to look upon your bringing her, as 
 the strangest thing that was ever done. Nor 
 could all my kindness for you (which is ever 
 ready to turn all you do the best way, at any 
 ther time) have hindered me showing you that 
 moment, but I considered your condition, and I 
 that made me master myself so far as not to | 
 take notice of it then. 
 
 But now I must tell you, it was very unkind 
 in a sister, would have been very uncivil in an 
 equal, and I need not say I have more to claim. 
 Which, though my kindness would make me 
 never exact, yet when I see the use you would 
 make of it, I must tell you, I know what is due 
 to me, and expect to have it from you. 'Tis 
 upon that account, I tell you plainly, Lady 
 Marlborough must not continue with you in the 
 circumstances her lord is. 
 
 I know this will be uneasy to you, and I am 
 sorry for it ; and it is very much so to me to say 
 all this to you, for I have all the real kindness 
 imaginable for you, and as I ever have, so will 
 always do my part to live with you as sisters 
 ought. That is, not only like so near relations, j 
 but like friends. And, as such, I did think to [ 
 write to you. For I would have made myself i 
 believe your kindness for her made you at first 
 forget that you should have for the King and 
 me ; and resolved to put you in mind of it my- 
 self, neither of us being willing to come to 
 harsher ways. 
 
 But the sight of Lady Marlborough having 
 changed my thoughts, does naturally alter my 
 style. And since by that I see how little you 
 seem to consider what even in common civility 
 you owe us, I have told it you plainly; but 
 
66 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 withal assure you, that let me have never so 
 much reason to take anything ill of you, my 
 kindness is so great, that I can jDass over most 
 things, and live with you as becomes me. 
 And I desire to do so merely from that motive ; 
 for I do love you, as my sister, and nothing 
 but yourself can make me do otherwise. And 
 that is the reason I chuse to write this, rather 
 than tell it you, that you may overcome your 
 first thoughts ; and when you have well con- 
 sidered, you will find, that though the thing be 
 hard (which I again assure you I am sorry for), 
 yet it is not unreasonable, but what has ever 
 been practised, and what you yourself would 
 do were you in my place. 
 
 I will end this with once more desiring you to 
 consider the matter impartially, and take time 
 for it. I do not desire an answer presently, 
 because I would not have you give a rash one. 
 I shall come to your drawing-room to-mori'ow 
 before you play, because you know why I 
 cannot make one : at some other time we shall 
 reason the business calmly ; which I willingly 
 do, or anything else that may show, it shall 
 never be my fault if we do not live kindly 
 together : nor will I ever be other by choice. 
 
 Your truly loving and affectionate sister, 
 
 M. E. 
 
 Kensinoton, Feb. 5. 
 
 PRINCESS ANNE TO QUEEN MARY. 
 
 Your Majesty was in the right to think your 
 letter would be very surprising to me. For you 
 must needs be sensible enough of the kindness 
 I have for my Lady Marlborough, to know, 
 that a command from you to part with her must 
 be the greatest mortification in the world to 
 me ; and indeed of such a nature, as I might 
 well have hoped your kindness to me would 
 have always prevented. I am satisfied she 
 cannot have been guilty of any fault to you. 
 And it would be extremely to her advantage, if 
 I could here repeat every word that ever she 
 had said to me of you in her whole life. I con- 
 fess, it is no small addition to my trouble to 
 find the want of your Majesty's kindness to me 
 upon this occasion; since I am sure I have 
 always endeavoured to deserve it by all the 
 actions of my life, 
 j Your care of my present condition is extreme- 
 j ly obliging. And if you would be pleased to 
 add to it so far, as upon my account to recall 
 your severe command (as I must beg leave to 
 call it in a matter so tender to me, and so little 
 reasonable, as I think, to be imposed upon me, 
 that you would scarce require it from the mean- 
 est of your subjects), I should ever acknowledge 
 it as a very agreeable mark of your kindness to 
 me. And I must as freely own, that as I think 
 
 this proceeding can be for no other intent than 
 to give me a very sensible mortification, so 
 there is no misery that I cannot readily resolve 
 to suffer, rather than the thoughts of parting 
 with her. If after all this that I have said, I 
 must still find myself so unhappy as to be 
 farther pressed in this matter, yet your Majesty 
 may be assured that, as my past actions have 
 given the greatest testimony of my respect both 
 for the King and you, so it shall always be my 
 endeavour, wherever I am, to preserve it care- 
 fully for the time to come, as becomes 
 
 Your Majesty's very affectionate sister and 
 servant, Anne. 
 
 From the Coclpit, Feb. 6, 1G92. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I have now, God be thanked, recovered my 
 strength well enough to go abroad. And though 
 my duty and inclination would both lead me to 
 wait upon your Majesty as soon as I am able 
 to do it, yet I have of late had the misfortune 
 of being so much under your Majesty's dis- 
 pleasure, as to apprehend there may be hard 
 constructions made upon anything I either do, 
 or not do, with the most respectful intentions. 
 And I am in doubt whether the same arguments 
 that have prevailed with your Majesty to forbid 
 people from shoAving their usual respects to me, 
 may not be carried so much farther, as not to 
 permit me to pay my duty to you. That, I 
 acknowledge, would be a great increase of 
 afiliction to me ; and nothing but your Majesty's 
 own command shall ever willingly make me 
 submit to it ; for whatever reason I may think 
 in my own mind I have to complain of being 
 hardly used, yet I will strive to hide it as 
 much as possible. And though -I will not 
 pretend to live at the Cockpit, unless you would 
 be so kind as make it easy to me, yet wherever 
 I am, I will endeavour always to give the con- 
 stant marks of duty and respects, which I have 
 in my heart for your Majesty, as becomes 
 
 Your Majesty's very affectionate sister and 
 servant, ' Anne. 
 
 Sion, May 20. 
 
 QUEEN MARY TO THE PRINCESS ANNE. 
 
 I have received yours by the Bishop of 
 Worcester, and have very little to say to it ; 
 since you cannot but know, that as I never 
 used compliments, so now they will not serve. 
 
 'Tis none of my fault we live at this dis- 
 tance, and I have endeavoured to show my 
 willingness to do otherwise. And I will do no 
 more. Don't give yourself any unnecessary 
 trouble ; for, be assured, it is not words can 
 make us live together as we ought. You know 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 67 
 
 ■what I required of you. And I now tell you, if 
 you doubted it before, that I cannot change my 
 mind, but expect to be complied with, or you 
 must not wonder if I doubt of your kindness. 
 You can give me no other marks that will 
 satisfy me. Nor can I put any other construc- 
 tion upon your actions than what all the world 
 must do that sees them. These things don't 
 hinder me being very glad to hear you are so 
 well, and wishing you may continue so ; and 
 that you may yet, while 'tis in power, oblige 
 me to be. 
 Your affectionate sister, 
 
 Marie E. 
 
 [The later years of the author of the Esmy 
 concerning Human Understanding were 
 spent at Gates, in Essex, the residence of 
 Sir Francis Masham and his wife, the 
 latter of whom had been i^reviously known 
 by the philosopher. He was now in deli- 
 cate health, and his later contemplations 
 and works were chiefly religious. The last 
 letter of advice seems to have been written 
 exactly a month before his death, which 
 took place October 28th, 1704.] 
 
 MR. LOCKE TO THE REVEREND MR. KING. 
 
 Sir, — Yours of the 4th instant I received ; and 
 though I am conscious I do not deserve those 
 advantageous things which your civility says of 
 me in it, give me leave to assure you, that the 
 offer of my service to you, which you are pleased 
 to take notice of, is that part which I shall not 
 fail to make good on all occasions. 
 
 You ask me, what is the shortest and surest 
 way for a young gentleman to attain a true 
 knowledge of the Christian religion, in the full 
 and just extent of it ? For so I understand your 
 question ; if I have mistaken it, you must set 
 me right. And to this I have a short and i^lain 
 answer. Let him study the Holy Scripture, 
 especially the New Testament, wherein are 
 contained the words of eternal life ; it has God 
 for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, 
 without any mixture of error, for its matter. 
 So that it is a wonder to me how any one, 
 professing Christianity, that would seriously set 
 himself to know his religion, should be in any 
 doubt where to employ his search, and lay out 
 his pains for his information, when he knows a 
 book wherein all is contained pure and entire, 
 and whither, at last, every one must have 
 recourse, to verify that of it which he finds any- 
 where else. 
 
 The other question, which I think I may call 
 two or three, will require a larger answer. 
 As to morality, which, I take it, is the first 
 
 in those things which you inquire after, that is 
 best to be found in the book that I have already 
 recommended to you ; but because you may 
 perhaps think that, the better to observe those 
 rules, a little warning may not be inconvenient, 
 and some method of ranging them be useful for 
 the memory, I recommend to you the Wliole 
 Duty of 3Ian, as a methodical system ; and if 
 you desire a lai-ger view of the Parts of Morality, 
 I know not where you will find them so well and 
 distinctly explained, and so strongly enforced, 
 as in the practical divines of the Church of 
 England. The sermons of Dr. Barrow, Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson, and Dr. Whichcot are master- 
 pieces in this kind ; not to name abundance of 
 others who excel on that subject. If you have a 
 mind to see how far human reason advanced in 
 the discovery of morality, you'll have a good 
 specimen in TuJly^s Offices ; ixnless you have a 
 mind to look farther back, into the source from 
 whence he drew his rules, and then you must 
 consult Aristotle, and the other Greek philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 Though prudence be reckoned among the 
 cardinal virtues, yet I do not remember any 
 professed treatise of morality, where it is treated 
 in its full extent, and with that accuracy it 
 ought ; for which, possibly, this may be a reason, 
 that every imprudent action does not make a 
 man culpable in foro conscientice. The business 
 of morality I look upon to be, the avoiding of 
 crimes of prudence, inconveniences ; the foun- 
 dation whereof lies in knowing men and manners. 
 History teaches this best, next to experience, 
 which is the only effectual way to get a know- 
 ledge of the world. As to the rules of j)rudence 
 in the conduct of common life ; though there be 
 several that have employed their pens therein, 
 yet these writers have their eyes so fixed on 
 conveniency, that they sometimes lose the sight 
 of virtue, and do not take care to keep them- 
 selves always clear from the borders of dis- 
 honesty, while they are tracing out, what they 
 take to be sometimes the securest way to 
 success : most of those that I have seen on this 
 subject, having, as it seemed to me, something 
 of this defect. So that I know none that I can 
 confidently recommend to your young gentle- 
 man, but the son of Syrac. 
 
 To comi^lete a man in the practice of human 
 offices (for to that tend your inquiries), there is 
 one thing more required ; which though it be or- 
 dinarily considered as distinct from both virtue 
 and prudence, yet I think it is so nearly allied 
 to them, that he will scarce kee^) himself from 
 slips in both who is without : that which I mean 
 is good breeding. The school for a young 
 gentleman to learn it in, is the conversation of 
 those who are well bred. 
 
 As to the last part of your inquiry, which is, 
 after books that will give an insight into the 
 constitution of the government, and real interest 
 of his country; to proceed orderly in this, I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER V/R ITERS. 
 
 68 
 
 think the foundation should be laid in inquiring 
 into the ground and nature of civil society ; and 
 how it is formed on different models of govern- 
 ment ; and what are the several species of it. 
 Aristotle is allowed a masterpiece in this science ; 
 and few enter upon the consideration of govern- 
 ment, without reading his politics. Hereunto 
 should be added, true notions of laws in general ; 
 and property, the subject-matter about which 
 laws are made. He that would acquaint himself 
 with the former of these, should thoroughly study 
 the judicious Hooker's first book of Ecclesiastical 
 Polity. And j)roperty I have nowhere found 
 more clearly explained, than in a book intittiled, 
 Two Treatises on Government. But, not to load 
 your young gentleman with too many books on 
 this subject, which requires more meditation 
 than reading, give me leave to i-ecommend to 
 him Puffendorf's little treatise, De Officio 
 Hcminis et Civis. 
 
 To get an insight into the particular consti- 
 
 j tution of the government of his own country, 
 will require a little more reading, unless he 
 will content himself with such a superficial 
 knowledge of it as is contained in Chamber- 
 layne's State of England, or Smith de Eepublica 
 Anglicana. Your inquiry manifestly looks far- 
 ther than that ; and to attain such a knowledge 
 of it as becomes a gentleman of England to 
 have, to the purpose you mention, I think he 
 should read our ancient lawyers, such as Brac- 
 ton, Eleta, the Mirror of Justice, etc., which 
 your cousin 1 King can better direct you to than 
 I ; joining with them the History of England 
 imder the Romans, and so continuing it down 
 quite to our times, reading it always in those 
 authors who lived nearest those times ; their 
 names you will find, and characters often, in 
 Mr. Tyrrell's History of England : to which if 
 there be added a serious consideration of the 
 laws made in each reign, and how far any of 
 them influenced the constitution, all these to- 
 
 I gether will give him a full insight into what you 
 
 i desire. 
 
 j As to the interest of any covintry : that, 'tis 
 I manifest, lies in its prosperity and security ; 
 j plenty of well-employed people, and riches 
 ' within, and good alliances abroad, make its 
 strength ; but the ways of attaining these com- 
 ' prehend all the arts of peace and war, the 
 management of trade, the employment of the 
 ■poor, and all those other things that belong 
 to the administration of the public ; which 
 are so many, so various, and so changeable, 
 I according to the mutable state of men and 
 things in the world, that 'tis not strange if a 
 very small part of this consists in book-learning : 
 he that would know it, must have his eyes open 
 upon the present state of affairs, and from 
 thence take his measures of what is good, or 
 prejudicial, to the interest of his country. 
 
 I Sir Peter King. 
 
 You see how ready I am to obey your com- 
 mands, though in matters wherein I am sensible 
 of my own ignorance. I am so little acquainted 
 with books, especially on these subjects 
 relating to politics, that you must forgive me, 
 if perhaps I have not named to you the best in 
 every kind ; and you must take it as a mark of 
 readiness to serve you, if I have ventured so far 
 out of what lay in my way of reading, in the 
 days when I had leisure to converse with books. 
 The knowledge of the Bible, and the business 
 of his calling, is enough for an ordinary man : a 
 gentleman ought to go farther. 
 
 Those of this place return their service and 
 thanks for the honour of your remembrance. 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am sorry to find that the 
 question which was the most material, and my 
 mind was most upon, was answered so little to 
 your satisfaction, that you are fain to ask it 
 again : since therefore you ask me a second 
 time. What is the best method to study religion? 
 I must ask yoa, what religion you mean ? for if 
 it be, as I understood you before, the Christian 
 religion, in its full extent and purity, I can 
 make no other answer than what I did, viz. that 
 the only way to attain a certain knowledge of 
 that, is to study the Holy Scripture ; and my 
 reason is, because the Christian religion is a 
 revelation from C4od Almighty, which is con- 
 tained in the Bible ; and so all the knowledge 
 we can have of it must be derived from thence. 
 But if you ask, which is the best way to get the 
 knowledge of the Romish, Lutheran, or Re- 
 formed religion, of this or that particular church, 
 etc., each whereof entitles itself to be the true 
 Christian religion, with some kind of exclusion 
 or diminution to the rest, that will not be hard 
 to tell yovi : but then it is plain, that the books 
 that best teach you any of these, do most 
 remove you from all the rest : and, in this way 
 of studying, you jntch upon one as the right 
 before you know it to be so : whereas that 
 choice should be the result of your study of the 
 Christian religion in the Sacred Scriptures. 
 And the method I have proposed would, I pre- 
 sume, bring you the surest way to that church, 
 which I imagine you already think most con- 
 formable to the Word of God. 
 
 I find the letter you last honoured me with 
 contains a new question, and that a very 
 material one, viz. What is the best way of 
 interpreting the Sacred Scripture? Taking 
 interpreting to mean understanding, I think 
 the best way for understanding the Scripture, 
 or the New Testament (for of that, the question 
 will here be in the first place), is to read it 
 assiduously and diligently ; and, if it can be, 
 in the original. I do not mean, to read every 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 69 
 
 day some certain number of chapters, as is 
 xisual; but to read it so as to study and con- 
 sider ; and not leave, till you are satisfied that 
 you have got the true meaning. 
 
 To this purpose, it will be necessary to take 
 the assistance of interpreters and commentators ; 
 such as are those called the Critics, and PooVs 
 Synopsis Criticorum, I>r. Hammond on the 
 Neio Testament, and Dr. Whitby, etc. 
 
 I should not think it convenient to multiply 
 books of this kind, were there any one I could 
 direct you to that was infallible. But you will 
 not think it strange if I tell you, that, after all, 
 you must make use of your own judgment, 
 when you consider that it is, and always will 
 be, impossible to find an expositor whom you 
 can blindfold rely upon, and cannot be mistaken 
 in following. Such a resignation as that is due 
 to the Holy Scriptures alone, which are dictated 
 by the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 Such writings as Mr. Mede's, and Dr. Light- 
 foot's, are very much conducive to lead us into 
 a true sense of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 
 As to the method of reading them, order re- 
 quires that the Four Evangelists should, in the 
 first place, be well studied, and thoroughly 
 imderstood : they all, treating of the same 
 subject, do give great light to one another ; and, 
 I think, may with the greatest advantage be 
 read in harmony. To this purpose Monsieur le 
 Clerc's or Mr. "Whiston's Harmony of the Four 
 Evangelists will be of use, and save a great deal 
 of time and trouble in turning the Bible ; they 
 are now both in English, and Monsieur le 
 Clerc's has a paraphrase. But if you would 
 read the Evangelists in the original, Monsieur le 
 Clerc's edition of his Harmony in Greek and 
 Latin will be the best. 
 
 If you find that by this method you advance 
 in the knowledge of the gospel, when you have 
 laid a foundation there to your satisfaction, it 
 will not be hard to add what may help you for- 
 wards in the study of the other parts of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 But I have troubled you too much already ; 
 ! for which I beg your pardon, and 
 
 Am, etc. 
 
 Oates, Sept. 27, 1704. 
 
 [This letter, which gives a picture of London in 
 the early part of the eighteenth century, 
 is a good example of ' how it strikes a 
 stranger.' It is given anonymously in 
 what is by far the best collection of letters 
 published up till that date : ' A Select 
 Collection of Original Letters, written by 
 the Most Eminent Persons, on various 
 
 entertaining subjects, etc. 2 vols. Riving- 
 ton and Dodsley, 1755.' "We present it 
 here as a picture of travel, and of the 
 London of a past age.] 
 
 FROM MR. IN LONDON, TO HIS FRIEND AT 
 
 EXETER. 
 
 Sir, — As it is common for all persons when 
 deprived of a certain haijpiness, to use all 
 endeavours to make their loss less grievous ; 
 so, sir, though I am by the distance between us 
 deprived of the pleasure of your company, give 
 me leave to keep up the friendship between us 
 by an epistolary corresiDondence, and having | 
 little else to write to you, shall only send you a j 
 short account of what occurred the most re- 
 markable in my jovirney to London. Though, j 
 sir, you may think that we have all the news I 
 in town, yet favour me with a letter, and draw | 
 me from the inquietude and fears of being by j 
 absence blotted from your memory. i 
 
 In our first day's journey nothing signal i 
 befell us, save that the coachman stopped at | 
 least a dozen times to drink and light his jiipe. 
 Furthermore, a hard shower of rain fell upon 
 us five miles beyond Dorchester, but wet us 
 not, we being in the stage-coach. We dined 
 this day upon a leg of mutton and spinage, and j 
 had good Southam cider. 
 
 As soon as we came to our inn, I took a view 
 of Dorchester. It has a market-house in the 
 middle of it, and there is a river running by H, 
 in which it is credibly reported there are some 
 fish. We supped this night upon a neck of 
 mutton and broth, and some rare October as 
 pale as sack, and as soft as sherry, and as 
 strong as brandy — rare beer, indeed ! 
 
 When we came to Piddle Town, they brought 
 us some run wine ; it was small and sour, so 
 that I (being also fasting) could not drink 
 above a quart thereof. When we came to 
 Blandford I also took a view thereof ; it has 
 also a market -house in the centre, and a river 
 running by it, near unto which there is store 
 of meadow-ground. I saw there a very comely 
 bay gelding, lame of the string-halt, — it was a 
 thousand pities. We dined this day upon a 
 good fat gammon and greens, and had, more- 
 over, excellent October. 
 
 We stopt in Cranbourn Chase, at a small hut 
 upon the highway, where I gulped a thwacking 
 glass of rare French brandy, and ate a biscuit ; 
 the ways here are very good, being all upon the 
 Down, and you see on eveiy side flocks of sheep. 
 We dined this day upon beef and carrots, the 
 October not strong enough. 
 
 When we came to Salisbury, I walked into 
 the market-place and round it, for at least a 
 quarter of an hour, because I would be able to 
 give a good account of this city. It lies low, 
 and has water about it ; it has a large market- 
 
70 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 place, and they say tliey have a brave large 
 church, but our beer at the inn was very bad. 
 We supped this night on bacon and fowls, the 
 October stark enough. 
 
 Stockbridge is famous for store of fish, upon 
 which I concluded, before I saw it, that it had 
 a good river near it, and it proved so. Here I 
 drank some bottled ale, and a dram after it; 
 excellent French brandy ! Sutton has nothing 
 extraordinary, but that it is a poor, little, 
 ordinary town. "We dined this day upon a 
 hog's face and a couple of rabbits. No good 
 beer ! 
 
 Basingstoke stands upon the side of a hill, 
 and near it there is a common ; there is also, 
 hard by, a deer park, belonging to some great 
 duke, but I know not who it may be ; it is like 
 he has a place at court, for they say he seldom 
 lives here. Here we drank a dram, and I jogged 
 on. 
 
 We lay at Hertford Bridge. It stands close 
 by a good heath, twenty miles over, for aught 
 I know to the contrary: my landlady was a 
 widow woman, and a very good woman she 
 was. I never supped better in my lifetime. 
 We had bacon and eggs and a roasted turkey, 
 and some good brown beer. As we went 
 through the aforesaid heath, we saw a gibbet 
 where a highwayman had been hanged. May 
 they all come to the same untimely fate ! 
 
 Egham is a long town, not worth the pains 
 to describe it so exactly as I have described the 
 rest ; there are two or three inns in it, but never 
 a market-house ; here I first saw the river 
 Thames, and a lovely, sweet river it is. We 
 dined at Tim Harris's ; we had a leg of boiled 
 pork and turnips, and some curious red port. 
 The maid of the house knew me, but I pretended 
 not to know her, for I suppose she expected 
 something from me ; so I thought it became us 
 travellers to carry our wits about us. 
 
 Brentford is the longest town I ever saw ; it 
 stands upon the aforesaid river Thames, and 
 has a market-house in it. Here I saw sitting 
 upon a bench in the street, a grave, fat old 
 gentleman, with whiskers and a fur cap ; he 
 had likewise on a long grave coat ; I bowed to 
 him, taking him to be the mayor of the town, 
 but they told me he was a waterman past 
 business. Here I drank half a pint of Lisbon. 
 Very good ! 
 
 Beyond Hammersmith, I began to see a great 
 many houses on both sides of the aforesaid 
 river Thames ; I was surprised to hear that 
 many of them belonged to tradesmen in the 
 city, for I thought they all belonged to noble 
 dukes. Just as we came into Hammersmith, a 
 wheel broke off from the coach, and while it 
 was mending, I went to an alehouse, where I 
 asked the tapster several questions about the 
 place and the people ; as well knowing that we 
 travellers should improve ourselves. He proved 
 in conversation to bo an understanding lad, for 
 
 I found he had been once at a grammar school ; 
 so when I paid for my pint of ale, I gave him a 
 penny over and above for himself. The ale 
 here was bu.t poor stuff. The country here- 
 abouts is well wooded, and very full of people. 
 
 At Kensington the King has a fine house and 
 large garden. Here are also several other 
 gardens very tine ; but (more shame is theirs) 
 they sell whatever they produce. The ale here 
 is stark enough. We went through Hide Parjc 
 to London, which is as iiretty a piece of road as 
 ever crow flew over, 
 
 London is certainly the greatest city upon 
 earth, at least there is nothing like it in Devon- 
 shire ; but our beer is infinitely better than 
 theirs, which is as black as bull's blood, and as 
 thick as mustard. Everything is shamefully 
 dear here ; you pay half-a-crown or three 
 shillings for a chicken, which with us would not 
 yield above a groat or fivepence ; but they have 
 so many customers, that they ask and have just 
 what they please. You see a great many 
 coaches standing in the street ready to be hired, 
 and they will carry a beggar for his money as 
 soon as a lord, and sooner ; for they say that 
 persons of quality, instead of paying the coach- 
 man, do often run him through the body ; and 
 it seems there is no law against lords, which is 
 the reason that persons of quality are greater 
 than any sort of men whatsoever. These 
 coaches are very convenient, if they were not 
 so confounded dear ; but if one of them carries 
 you but three doors, he will have a shilling ; 
 whereas in our country, you may have a coui)le 
 of horses a dozen miles for half-a-crown. 
 
 The houses are all built of brick, and for the 
 most part one house holds several families ; so 
 fond are people of living in London, notwith- 
 standing the badness of the drink ! 
 
 Here are also hireling chairs ; they are 
 covered with black leather and brass nails, they 
 have fine sashed windows, and a sashed door, 
 and fine silk curtains, and a rare soft cushion ; 
 one of them is carried by two short fellows, 
 with no heels to their shoes ; they use two long 
 poles, and pace al6ng with wonderful expedi- 
 tion. These chairs too are devilish dear. 
 
 There are here houses called chocolate-houses, 
 covered all over with sconces and looking-glasses. 
 Hither gentlemen who have nothing to do but 
 to dress themselves, repair to show their fine 
 clothes ; it is worth while to see a whole row 
 of those beaus sit looking at one another, or at 
 themselves ; or if they do anything else, it is 
 only to swear and take snuff, or to play at dice, 
 and then all the while they play they are 
 constantly damning themselves. It is almost 
 become a proverb here, in London, that all 
 your fine fellows are prodigiously ignorant 
 and prodigiously wicked ; insomuc^i that they 
 are the jest of men of wit, and pitied by men 
 of virtue, and shunned by both. 
 
 There is a fine river running by London full 
 
r 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITER^. 
 
 71 
 
 of ships and boats ; one of these boats will 
 carry you for sixpence, and some of them for 
 threepence, a great way ; and it would be very 
 pleasant, if it were not for the abuse and ugly 
 language you meet with ; for the people upon 
 the water will affront you to your teeth, and 
 call you a hundred names, though you do not say 
 a word to them ; it is to no purpose to be angry, 
 or to threaten them : they laugh at all that. I 
 offered to get out of the boat and to box with 
 several of those saucy fellows, but not one of 
 them would accept of my challenge ; nay, the 
 women are as bad as the men. The more shame 
 is theirs ! 
 
 I went to see St, Paul's Church (which is 
 almost as big as a town, and much taller) to see 
 my Lord Mayor. He was an elderly man in a 
 red gown, pretty fat, and slept all the time of 
 divine service ; for which I thought he was to 
 blame, seeing it would have better become a 
 magistrate like him, to have reproved the 
 people for walking about the church, as they 
 (lid, and talking about their own worldly 
 affairs. 
 
 Westminster Hall is a vast great room, where 
 law and justice have been bought so dear, that 
 one had oftener better go without them. The 
 
 lawyers stroll ahou.t here, and look 
 
 sharp and greedy for fees. There are in the hall 
 other toymen besides lawyers, and they will 
 sell you their baubles at treble prices, so there 
 is nothing but biting on all hands. 
 
 Not far from hence is the House of Commons. 
 I went to see it, and to see the manner of their 
 proceedings, and came away very much dissatis- 
 fied; for a dozen members talked at a time, 
 and I could not understand a word of the debate. 
 I also visited the House of Lords ; there indeed 
 I perceived more order, but neither heard nor 
 saw anything remarkable, but some grave folks 
 in odd habits. 
 
 In this great city they are quite another 
 thing than what they are out of it ; insomuch, 
 that he who will be great with you in the 
 country will scarce pull off his hat to you in 
 London. I once dined at Exeter with a couple 
 of judges, and they talked to me there, and 
 drank my health, and we were very familiar 
 together ; so when I saw them again, passing 
 through Westminster Hall, I was glad of it, 
 with all my heart, and ran to meet them with 
 a broad smile, and asked them how they did, 
 and to shake hands with them ; but they looked 
 at me so coldly, and so proudly, as you cannot 
 imagine, and did not seem to know me ; at 
 which I was confounded angry and mad ; but I 
 kept my mind to myself. At another time I 
 was at the play-house (which is a rare place for 
 mirth, and music, and dancing), and being in 
 the pit, saw in one of the boxes a member of 
 Parliament of our country, with whom I have 
 been as great as hand and glove ; so being over- 
 joyed to see him, I called to him aloud by his 
 
 name, and asked him how he did ; but instead 
 of saluting me again, or making any manner of 
 answer, he looked plaguy sour, and never 
 opened his mouth ; though when he is in the 
 country, he is as merry a grig as any in fifty 
 miles, and we have cracked many a bottle 
 together. 
 
 Thus, my good friend, I have given to you. 
 so long an account of my journey, that I fear I 
 have tired you ; but never mind it, when I come 
 down I'll tell you as much more, when we sit 
 over a bottle and can find no other subject to 
 talk of. Till which time I tell you plainly that 
 I am 
 
 Your friend and humble servant. 
 
 [Tom Brown, originally a schoolmaster at I 
 Kingston-upon-Thames, lost his situation 
 through immoral conduct, and set up as 
 wit, libeller, and ' merry fellow ' in the 
 metropolis. His writings are shrewdly 
 humorous, but disfigured by vulgarity. 
 He died in 1704.] 
 
 TOM BROWN TO A LADY WHO SMOKED TOBACCO. 
 
 Madam,— Though the ill-natured world cen- | 
 sures you for smoking, yet I v/ould advise you, 
 madam, not to part with so innocent a diver- 
 sion. In the first place, it is healthful ; and, 
 as Galen rightfully observes, is a sovereign 
 remedy for the toothache, the constant persecutor 
 of old ladies. Secondly, tobacco, though it be a 
 heathenish weed, it is a great help to Christian 
 meditations ; which is the reason, I suppose, 
 that recommends it to your parsons, the gener- 
 ality of whom can no more write a sermon 
 without a i^ipe in their mouths, than a 
 concordance in their hands ; besides, every 
 pipe you break may serve to put you in mind 
 of mortality, and show you upon what slender 
 accidents man's life depends. I knew a 
 dissenting minister who, on fast-days, used to 
 mortify upon a rump of beef, because it put 
 him, as he said, in mind that all flesh was 
 grass ; but, I am sure, much more is to be 
 learnt from tobacco. It may instruct you that 
 riches, beauty, and all the glories of the world 
 vanish like a vapour. Thirdly, it is a pretty 
 plaything. Fourthly, and lastly, it is fashion- 
 able, at least 'tis in a fair way of becoming so. 
 Cold tea, you know, has been a long while 
 in reputation at court, and the gill as naturally 
 ushers in the pipe as the sword-bearer walks 
 before the lord mayor. i 
 
72 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 [The most voluminous and the most natural 
 writer in our language might be expected 
 to excel in the familiar communication of 
 his sufferings and hopes to a near and 
 beloved relation. English literature con- 
 tains no page of livelier pathos than the 
 following picture of a father, broken-hearted 
 through the cruelty of a child. Mr. 
 Baker, whom Defoe's daughter, Sophia, had 
 married, contributed some valuable papers 
 to natural history. The author of Bdbinson 
 Crusoe died, it is supposed, in insolvent 
 circumstances, April 1731, in the parish of 
 ! St. Giles, Cripplegate. — Willmott.] 
 
 I 
 
 I DANIEL DEFOE TO HIS SON-IN-LAW, MR. BAKER. 
 
 Pathetic Complaints of the Cruelty of his Son. 
 
 About tioo miles from Greemvich, Kent, 
 Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1730. 
 Dear Mr. Baker, — I have your very kind 
 j and affectionate letter of the first, but not come 
 I to my hand until the tenth ; where it had been 
 delayed I know not. As your kind manner, and 
 kinder thought from which it flows (for I take 
 all you say to be as I always believed you to be, 
 sincere and Nathaniel-like, without guile), was 
 a particular satisfaction to me ; so the stop of a 
 letter, however it happened, deprived me of 
 that cordial too many days, considering how 
 much I stood in need of it, to support a mind 
 sinking under the weight of an affliction too 
 I heavy for my strength, and looking on myself 
 I as abandoned of every comfort, every friend, 
 and every relative, except such only as are able 
 to give me no assistance. I was sorry you 
 should say at the beginning of your letter you 
 were debarred seeing me. Depend upon my 
 sincerity for this. I am far from debarring you. 
 On the contrary, it would be a greater comfort 
 to me than any I now enjoy, that I could have 
 your agreeable visits with safety, and could see 
 both you and my dearest Sophia, could it be 
 without giving her the grief of seeing her 
 father in tenebris, and under the load of insup- 
 portable sorrows. I am sorry I must open my 
 griefs so far as to tell her, that it is not the blow 
 I received from a wicked, perjured, and con- 
 temptible enemy, that has broken in upon my 
 spirit ; which, as she well knows, has carried 
 me on through greater disasters than these. 
 But it has been the injustice, unkindness, and, 
 I must say, inhuman dealing of my own son, 
 which has both ruined my family, and, in a 
 word, has broken my heart ; and, as I am at 
 this time under a weight of heavy illness, which 
 I think will be a fever, I take this occasion to 
 vent my grief in the breasts of those who I know 
 will make a prudent use of it, and tell you, that 
 nothing but this has conquered, or could conquer 
 
 me. Et tu quoque, Brute / I depended upon him ; 
 I trusted him; I gave up my two dear unpro- 
 vided children into his hands; but he has no 
 compassion, and suffers them, and their poor 
 dying mother, to beg their bread at his door, 
 and to crave, as if it were an alms, what he is 
 bound under hand and seal, besides the most 
 sacred promises, to supply them with ; himself, 
 at the same time, living in a profusion of plenty. 
 It is too much for me, excuse my infirmity, — I 
 can say no more,— my heart is too full. I only 
 ask one thing of you, as a dying request : stand 
 by them when I am gone, and let them not be 
 wronged, while he is able to do them right. 
 Stand by them as a brother ; and if you have 
 anything within you owing to my memory, who 
 have bestowed upon you the best gift I had to 
 give, let them not be injured and trampled on 
 by false pretences, and unnatural reflections. 
 I hope they will want no help but that of com- 
 fort and counsel; but that they will, indeed, 
 want, being too easy to be managed by words 
 and promises. 
 
 It adds to my grief, that it is so difiicult to 
 me to see you. I am at a distance from London, 
 in Kent ; nor have I a lodging in London ; nor 
 have I been at that place in the Old Bailey, 
 since I wrote to you I was removed from it. 
 At present I am weak, having had some fits of a 
 fever that have left me low, but those things 
 much more. I have not seen son or daughter, 
 wife or child, many weeks, and know not which 
 way to see them. They dare not come by 
 water, and by land there is no coach : and I 
 know not what to do. 
 
 It is not possible for me to come to Enfield, 
 unless you could find a retired lodging for me, 
 where I might not be known, and might have 
 the comfort of seeing you both, now and then : 
 upon such a circumstance, I could gladly give 
 the days to solitude, to have the comfort of an 
 haK hour, now and then, with you both for two 
 or three weeks. But just to come and look at 
 you, and retire immediately, it is a burden too 
 heavy. The parting will be a price beyond the 
 enjoyment. I would say (I hope) with comfort 
 that it is yet well I am so near my journey's end, 
 and am hastening to the place where the weary 
 are at rest, and where the wicked cease to 
 trouble ; be it that the passage is rough, and 
 the day stormy. By what way soever He please 
 to bring me to the end of it, I desire to finish 
 life with this temper of soul in all cases : Te 
 Deum laudamus. I congratulate you on the 
 occasion of your happy advance in your employ- 
 ment. May all you do be prosjjerous, and all 
 you meet with pleasant ; and may you both 
 escape the tortures and troubles of uneasy life. 
 May you sail the dangerous voyage of life with 
 a forcing loind, and make the port of heaven 
 witliout a storm. It adds to my grief, that I 
 must never see the pledge of your mutual love, 
 my little grandson. Give him my blessing, and. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 73 
 
 may he be to you both your joy in youth and 
 your comfort in age, and never add a sigh to 
 your sorrow. But, alas ! that is not to be 
 expected. Keep my dear Sophy once more 
 for me ; and if I must see her no more, tell 
 her this is from a father that loved her above all 
 his comforts, to his last breath. 
 
 Your imhappy 
 
 Daniel Defoe. 
 
 DANIEL DE FOE TO THE EAEL OF HALIFAX. 
 
 [1705.] 
 
 Pardon me, mt Lord,— If to a man that has 
 seen nothing for some years, but the rough face 
 of things, the exceeding goodness of your lord- 
 ship's discourse softened me even to a weakness 
 I could not conceal. 
 
 'Tis a novelty, my lord, I have not been used 
 to, to receive obligations from persons of your 
 lordship's character and merit, nor indeed from 
 any part of the world, and the return is a task 
 too hard for me to undertake. 
 
 I am, my lord, a plain and unpolished man, 
 and perfectly unquaHfied to make formal 
 acknowledgments ; and a temper soured by a 
 series of afla.ictions, renders me still the more 
 awkward in the received method of common 
 gratitude, I mean the ceremony of thanks. 
 
 But, my lord, if to be encouraged in giving 
 myself up to that service your lordship is 
 pleased so much to overvalue, if going on with 
 the more cheerfulness in being useful to, and 
 promoting the general peace and interest of this 
 nation, if to the last vigorously opposing a 
 stupid, distracted party, that are for ruining 
 themselves rather than not destroy their neigh- 
 bour, if this be to merit so much regard, your 
 lordship binds me in the most durable and to 
 me the most pleasant engagement in the world, 
 because 'tis a service that, with my gratitude to 
 your lordship, keeps an exact unison with my 
 reason, my principle, my inclination, and the 
 duty every man owes to his country and his 
 posterity. 
 
 Thus, my lord, heavenly bounty engages man- 
 kind, while the commands are so far from being 
 giievous, that at the same time we obey, we 
 promote our own felicity, and join the reward 
 to the duty. 
 
 As to the exceeding bounty I have now 
 received, and which your lordship obliges me to 
 reserve my acknowledgments of for a yet un- 
 known benefactor, pardon me, my lord, to 
 believe your lordship's favour to me has at least 
 so much share in the conduct of it, if not in the 
 substance, that I am persuaded I cannot be 
 more obliged to the donor, than to your lord- 
 ship's singular goodness, which though I cannot 
 deserve, yet I shall always sensibly reflect on, and 
 improve. And I should be doubly blest, if Pro- 
 vidence would put it into my hands, to render 
 
 your lordship some service suited to the sense 
 I have of your lordship's extraordinary favour. 
 
 And yet I am your lordship's most humble 
 petitioner, that if possible I may know the 
 originals of this munificence, sure that hand 
 that can suppose me to merit so much regard, 
 must believe me fit to be trusted with the 
 knowledge of my benefactor, and incapable of 
 discovering any part of it, that should be con- j 
 cealed ; but I submitt this to your lordship and | 
 the persons concerned. I frankly acknowledge I 
 to your lordship, and to the unknown rewarders I 
 of my mean performances, that I do not see the ! 
 merit they are thus pleased to value ; the most j 
 I wish and which I hope I can answer for is, 
 that I shall always preserve the homely des- 
 picable title of an honest man. If this will 
 recommend me, your lordship shall never be 
 ashamed of giving me that title, nor my enemies 
 be able by fear or reward to make me otherwise. 
 
 In all things I justly ajpprehend your lordship's 
 disappointment, and that your lordship will 
 find little else in me worth your notice. 
 
 I am, may it please your lordship, your lord- 
 ship's highly obliged, most humble and most 
 obedt. servt., 
 
 Daniel de Foe. 
 
 [When this letter Avas written, Gay v/as re- 
 siding in the family of the Duke of 
 Queensberry. It is an admirable specimen 
 of the Dean's caustic humour, and of his 
 strong i)i-actical sense. Of Swift we should 
 know little, but for his journals, and the 
 occasional allusions to his peculiarities in 
 the letters of his friends. ' You will 
 understand me,' writes Lord Bolingbroke ; 
 ' and I conjure you to be persuaded that if 
 I could have half-an-hour's conversation 
 with you, for which I would barter whole 
 hours of my life, you would stare, haul 
 your wig, and bite paper, more than ever 
 you did in your life.'^ Swift shared with 
 his friend Pope in the enmity of Lady 
 Wortley Montagu, who undervalued his 
 wit, and found his prototype in Caligula. — 
 Willmott.] 
 
 SWIFT TO GAT. 
 
 A Portrait. 
 
 DuUin, May 4, 1732. 
 I am as lame as when you writ your letter, 
 and almost as lame as your letter itself, for 
 want of that limb from my lady duchess, 
 which you promised, and without which I 
 wonder how it could limp hither. I am not in 
 
 1 To Swift, October 23, 1716. 
 
74 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 a condition to rtlake a true step even on 
 Amesbury Downs, and I declare that a cor- 
 poreal false step is worse than a political one ; 
 nay, worse than a thousand political ones, for 
 which I appeal to courts and ministers, who 
 hobble on and prosper, without the sense of 
 feeling. To talk of riding and walking, is insult- 
 ing me, for I can as soon fly as do either. It is 
 your pride or laziness, more than chair-hire, that 
 makes the town expensive. No honour is lost 
 by walking in the dark ; and in the day you 
 may beckon a blackguard-boy under a gate near 
 your visiting place {exi^erto crede), save eleven- 
 pence, and get half-a-crown's worth of health. 
 The worst of my present misfortune is, that I 
 eat and drink, and can digest neither for want 
 of exercise ; and to increase my misery, the 
 knaves are sure to find me at home, and make 
 huge void spaces in my cellars. I congratulate 
 with you for losing your great acquaintance ; 
 in such a case, philosophy teaches that we must 
 submit, and be content with good ones. I like 
 Lord Cornbury's refusing his pension, but I 
 demur at his being elected for Oxford ; which, 
 I conceive, is wholly changed, and entirely de- 
 voted to new i^rinciples ; so it appeared to me 
 the two last times I was there. 
 
 I find, by the whole cast of your letter, that 
 you are as giddy and as volatile as ever, just the 
 reverse of Mr. Pope, who hath always loved a 
 domestic life from his youth. I was •going to 
 wish you had some little place that you could 
 call your own, but I profess, I do not know you 
 well enough to contrive any one system of life 
 that would please you. You pretend to preach 
 up riding and walking to the duchess, yet from 
 my knowledge of you, after twenty years, you 
 always joined a violent desire of perpetually 
 shifting places and company, with a rooted 
 laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. 
 A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise 
 you can bear, and this only when you can fill it 
 with such company as is best suited to your 
 taste ; and how glad would you be if it could 
 waft you in the air to avoid jolting? while I, 
 who am so much later in life, can, or at least 
 could, ride 500 miles on a trotting horse. You 
 mortally hate writing, only because it is the 
 tiling you chiefly ought to do ; as well to keep 
 up the vogue you have in the world, as to make 
 you easy in your fortune. You are merciful to 
 everything but money, your best friend, whom 
 you treat with inhumanity. Be assured, I will 
 hire people to watch all your motions, and to 
 return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you 
 cured your absence of mind ? can you attend to 
 trifles? can you at Amesbury write domestic 
 libels to divert the family and neighbouring 
 squires for five miles round? or venture so far 
 on horseback, without apprehending a stumble 
 at every step ? can you set the footmen a-laugh- 
 ing as they wait at dinner ? and do the duchess's 
 women admire your wit? in what esteem are 
 
 you with the vicar of the parish ? can you play 
 with him at backgammon? have the farmers 
 found out that you cannot distinguish rye from 
 barley, or an oak from a crab tree ? You are 
 sensible that I know the full extent of your 
 country skill is in fishing for roaches, or gudgeons 
 at the highest. 
 
 I love to do you good offices with your friends, 
 and therefore desire you will show this letter 
 to the duchess, to improve her grace's good 
 opinion of your qualifications, and convince her 
 how useful you are like to be in the family. 
 Her grace shall have the honour of my corre- 
 spondence again, when she goes to Amesbury. 
 Hear a piece of Irish news ; I buried the famous 
 General Meredyth's father last night in my 
 cathedral ; he was ninety-six years old : so that 
 Mrs. Pope may live seven years longer. 
 
 You saw Mr. Pope in health; pray, is he 
 generally more healthy than when I was amongst 
 you ? I would know how your own health is, 
 and how much wine you drink in a day ; my 
 stint in company is a pint at noon, and half as 
 much at night ; but I often dine at home like a 
 hermit, and then I drink little or none at all. 
 Yet I differ from you, for I would have society, 
 if I could get what I like — people of middle 
 understanding, and middle rank. Adieu. 
 
 SWIFT TO LORD BOLINGBROKE. 
 
 Ambitious Hopes ; Anecdote of his Early Days. 
 
 Dublin, April 5, 1729. 
 I do not think it could be possible for me 
 to hear better news than that of your getting 
 over your scurvy suit, which always hung as a 
 dead weight on my heart. I hated it in all its 
 circumstances, as it affected your fortune and 
 quiet, and in a situation of life that must make 
 it every way vexatious ; and as I am infinitely 
 obliged to you for the justice you do me, in 
 supposing your affairs do at least concern me as 
 much as my own, so I would never have par- 
 doned your omitting it. But before I go on, I 
 cannot forbear mentioning what I read last 
 summer in a newspaper, that you were writing 
 the history of your own times. I suppose such 
 a report might arise from what was not secret 
 among your friends, of your intention to write an- 
 other kind of history, which you often promised 
 Mr. Pope and me to do : I know he desires it 
 very much, and I am sure I desire nothing more, 
 for the honour and love I bear you, and the 
 perfect knowledge I have of your public virtue. 
 My lord, I have no other notion of economy 
 than that it is the parent of liberty and ease ; 
 and I am not the only friend you have who 
 hath chid you in his heart for the neglect of it, 
 though not with his mouth, as I have done. 
 For there is a silly error in the world, even 
 among friends otherwise very good, not to 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 75 
 
 intermeddle with men's affairs in such nice 
 matters ; and, my lord, I have made a maxim, 
 that should be writ in letters of diamonds, that 
 a ■wise man ought to have money in his head, 
 but not in his heart. Pray, my lord, inquire 
 whether your prototype, my Lord Digby, after 
 the Kestoration, when he was at Bristol, did not 
 take some care of his fortune, notwithstanding 
 that quotation I once sent you out of his speech 
 to the House of Commons. In my conscience, 
 I believe fortune, like other drabs, values a man 
 gradually less for every year he lives. I have 
 demonstration for it ; because if I play at piquet 
 for sixpence with a man or a woman two years 
 younger than myself, I always lose ; and there 
 is a young girl of twenty, who never fails of 
 winning my money at backgammon, though she 
 is a bungler, and the game be ecclesiastic. As 
 to the public, I confess nothing could cure my 
 itch of meddling with it but these frequent 
 returns of deafness, which have hindered me 
 from passing last winter in London ; yet I 
 cannot but consider the perfidiousness of some 
 people, who I thought when I was last there, 
 upon a change that happened, were the most 
 impudent in forgetting their professions that I 
 have ever known. Pray, will you please to take 
 your pen, and blot me out that political maxim 
 from whatever book it is in, that Res nolunt diu 
 male administrari ; the commonness makes me 
 not know who is the author, but sure he must 
 be some modern. 
 
 I am sorry for Lady Bolingbroke's ill-health ; 
 but I protest I never knew a very deserving 
 IDerson of that sex, who had not too much 
 reason to complain of ill-health. I never wake 
 without finding life a more insignificant thing 
 than it was the day before ; which is one great 
 advantage I get by living in this country, where 
 there is nothing I shall be sorry to lose. But 
 my greatest misery is recollecting the scene of 
 twenty years past, and then, all on a sudden, 
 dropping into the present. I remember, when 
 I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end 
 of my line, which I drew up almost on the 
 ground, but it dropped in, and the disappoint, 
 ment vexes me to this very day ; and I believe 
 it was the type of all my future disappointments. 
 I should be ashamed to say this to you, if you 
 had not a spirit fitter to bear your own misfor- 
 tunes than I have to think of them. Is there 
 patience left to reflect, by what qualities wealth 
 and greatness are got, and by what qualities 
 they are los*? I have read my friend Con- 
 greve's verses to Lord Cobham, which end with 
 a vile and false moral, and I remember is not in 
 Horace to Tibullus, which he imitates, 'that 
 all times are equally virtuous and vicious,' 
 wherein he differs from all poets, philosophers, 
 and Christians that ever writ. It is more 
 probable, that there may be an equal quantity 
 of virtues always in the world ; but sometimes 
 there may be a peck of it in Asia, and hardly a 
 
 thimbleful in Europe. But if there be no 
 virtue, there is abundance of sincerity ; for I 
 will venture all I am worth, that there is not 
 one human creature in power, who will not be 
 modest enough to confess that he proceeds 
 wholly upon a principle of corruption. I say 
 this, because I have a scheme, in spite of your 
 notions, to govern England upon the princijiles j 
 of virtue ; and when the nation is ripe for it, I | 
 desire you will send for me. I have learned this 
 by living like a hermit, by which I am got back- 
 wards about nineteen hundred years in the era 
 of the world, and begin to wonder at the wicked- 
 ness of men. I dine alone upon half a dish of 
 meat, mix water with my wine, walk ten miles a 
 day, and read Baronius. Hie explicit epistola 
 ad Dom. Bolingbroke, et incijiit ad amicum 
 Pope. 
 
 Having finished my letter to Ai'istippus, I 
 now begin to you. I was in great pain about 
 Mrs. Pope, having heard from others that she 
 was in a very dangerous way, which made me 
 think it unseasonable to trouble you. I am 
 ashamed to tell you, that, when I was very 
 young, I had more desire to be famous than 
 ever since ; and fame, like all things else in 
 this life, grows with me every day more a trifle. 
 But you, who are so much younger, although 
 you want that health you deserve, yet your 
 spirits are as vigorous as if your body were 
 sounder. I hate a crowd, where I have not an 
 easy place to see and be seen. A great library 
 always makes me melancholy, where the best 
 author is as much squeezed, and as obscure, as 
 a porter at a coronation. In my own little 
 library, I value the compilements of GrjBvius and 
 Gronovius, Avhich make thirty-one volumes in 
 folio (and were given me by my Lord Bolingbroke), 
 more than all my books besides ; because, who- 
 ever comes into my closet, casts his eyes 
 immediately upon them, and will not vouchsafe 
 to look upon Plato or Xenophon. I tell you it 
 is almost incredible how opinions change by the 
 decline or decay of spirits, and I will farther 
 tell you, that all my endeavours, from a boy, to 
 distinguish myself, were only for want of a 
 great title and fortune, that I might be used 
 like a lord by those who have an opinion of my 
 parts ; whether right or wrong, it is no great 
 matter ; and so the reputation of wit, or great 
 learning, does the ofiice of a blue ribbon, or of a 
 coach and six horses. To be remembered for 
 ever, on account of our friendship, is what 
 would exceedingly please me ; but yet I never 
 loved to make a visit, or be seen walking with 
 my betters, because they get all the eyes and 
 civilities from me. I no sooner writ this than 
 I corrected myself, and remembered Sir Eulk 
 Greville's epitaph, — ' Here lies, etc., who was 
 friend to Sir Philip Sidney.' And therefore I 
 most heartily thank you for your desire that I 
 would record our friendship in verse, which if 
 I can succeed in, I will never deske to -vvrita 
 
76 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 one more line in poetry while I live. You must 
 present my humble service to Mrs. Pope, and 
 let her know I pray for her continuance in the 
 world, for her own reason, that she may live to 
 take care of you. 
 
 LORD BOLINGBROKE TO SWIFT. 
 
 A Beautiful Picture of Contemplative Life. 
 
 I am not so lazy as Pope, and therefore you 
 must not expect from me the same indulgence 
 to laziness ; in defending his own cause, he 
 pleads yours, and becomes your advocate, while 
 he appeals to you as his judge : you will do the 
 same on your part ; and I, and the rest of your 
 common friends, shall have great justice to 
 expect from two such righteous tribunals. You 
 remember perfectly the two alehouse-keepers 
 in Holland, who were at the same time burgo- 
 masters of the town, and taxed one another's 
 bills alternately. I declare beforehand I will 
 not stand to the award ; my title to your friend- 
 ship is good, and wants neither deeds nor 
 writings to confirm it : but annual acknowledg- 
 ments at least are necessary to preserve it : and 
 I begin to suspect, by your defrauding me of 
 them, that you hope in time to dispute it, and 
 to urge prescription against me. I would not 
 say one word to you about myself (since it is 
 a subject on which you appear to have no 
 curiosity), were it not to try how far the contrast 
 between Pope's fortune and manner of life and 
 mine may be carried. 
 
 I have been, then, infinitely more uniform, 
 and less dissipated, than when you knew me 
 and cared for me. A great many misfortunes 
 (for so they are called, though sometimes very 
 improperly), and a retirement from the world, 
 have made that just and nice discrimination 
 j between my acquaintance and my friends, 
 j which we have seldom sagacity enough to make 
 for ourselves : those insects of various hues, 
 whicli used to hum and buz about me, while I 
 stood in the sunshine, have disappeared since I 
 lived in the shade. No man comes to a hermit- 
 age but for the sake of the hermit ; a few 
 philosophical friends come often to mine, and 
 they are such as you would be glad to live with, 
 if a dull climate and duller company have not 
 altered you extremely from what you were nine 
 years ago. 
 
 The hoarse voice of party was never heard in 
 this quiet i>lace ; gazettes and pamphlets are 
 banished from it ; and if the lucubrations of 
 Isaac Bickerstaff be admitted, this distinction is 
 owing to some strokes by which it is judged 
 that this illustrious philosopher had (like the 
 Indian Fohu, the Grecian Pythagoras, the 
 Persian Zoroaster, and others his precursors 
 among the Zabians, magians, and the Egyptian 
 
 seers) both his outward and his inward 
 doctrine, and that he was of no side at the 
 bottom. When I am there, I forget I was ever 
 of any party myself ; nay, I am often so happily 
 absorbed by the abstracted reason of things, 
 that I am ready to imagine there never was any 
 such monster as party. Alas ! I am soon 
 awakened from that pleasing dream by the 
 Greek and Roman historians, by Guicciardine, 
 by Machiavel, and Thuanus ; for I have vowed 
 to read no history of our own country till that 
 body of it which you promise to finish, appears. 
 
 I am under no apprehension that a glut of 
 study and retirement should cast me back into 
 the hurry of the world ; on the contrary, the 
 single regret which I ever feel is, that I fell so 
 late into this course of life ; my philosophy 
 grows confirmed by habit ; and if you and I 
 meet again, I will extort this approbation from 
 you: Jam non consilio bonus, sed more to 
 2)erauctus, ut non tantum recte facere possim^ 
 sed nisi recte facere non possim. The little 
 incivilities I have met with from opposite sets 
 of people, have been so far from rendering me 
 violent or sour to any, that I think myself 
 obliged to them all : some have cured me of my 
 fears, by showing me how impotent the malice 
 of the world is ; others have cured me of my 
 hopes, by showing how precarious popular 
 friendships are ; all have cured me of surprise. 
 In driving me out of party, they have driven 
 me out of cursed company ; and in stripping me 
 of titles, and rank, and estate, and such trinkets, 
 which every man that will may spare, they have 
 given me that which no man can be happy 
 without. 
 
 Reflection and habit have rendered the world 
 so indifferent to me, that I am neither afflicted 
 nor rejoiced, angry nor pleased, at what happens 
 in it, any further than personal friendships 
 interest me in the afi'airs of it ; and this prin- 
 ciple extends my cares but a little way. Perfect 
 tranquillity is the general tenour of my life : 
 good digestions, serene weather, and some other 
 mechanic springs, wind me above it now and 
 then, but I never fall below it ; I am sometimes 
 gay, but I am never sad. I have gained new 
 friends, and have lost some old ones ; my acqui- 
 sitions of this kind give me a good deal of 
 pleasure, because they have not been made 
 lightly : I know no vows so solemn as those of 
 friendship, and therefore a pretty long noviciate 
 of acquaintance should, methinks, precede 
 them : my losses of this kind give me but little 
 trou.ble ; I contributed not to them ; and a 
 friend who breaks with me unjustly is not 
 worth preserving. As soon as I leave this toAvn 
 (which will be in a few days) I shall fall back 
 into that course of life which keeps knaves and 
 fools at a great distance from me ; I have an 
 aversion to them both ; but in the ordinary 
 course of life, I think I can bear the sensible 
 knave better than the fool. One must, indeed, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 77 
 
 with the former be in some or other of the 
 attitudes of those wooden men whom I have 
 seen before a sword-cutler's shop in Germany ; 
 but even in these constrained postures, the 
 witty rascal will divert me ; and he that diverts 
 me does me a great deal of good, and lays me 
 under an obligation to him, which I am not 
 obliged to j)ay him in another coin ; the fool 
 obliges me to be almost as much upon my guard 
 as the knave, and he makes me no amends ; he 
 numbs me like the torpor, or he teases me like 
 the fly. This is the picture of an old friend, 
 and more like him than that will be which you 
 once asked, and which he will send you, if you 
 continue still to desire it. 
 
 Adieu, dear Swift ; with all thy faults I love 
 thee entirely; make an effort, and love me on 
 with all mine. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 The Tranquillity of a Philosopher ; ivith a P.S, 
 by Pope respecting his Mother. 
 
 I I have delayed several posts answering your 
 letter of January last, in hopes of being able to 
 speak to you about a project which concerns us 
 I both, but me the most, since the success of it 
 ■ would bring us together. It has been a good 
 I while in my head, and at my heart ; if it can 
 I be set agoing, you shall hear more of it. I was 
 ill in the beginning of winter for near a week, 
 but in no danger either from the nature of 
 my distemper, or from the attendance of three 
 jihysicians. Since that bilious intermitting 
 fever I have had, as I had before, better health 
 1 than the regard I have paid to health deserves. 
 
 We are both in the decline of life, my dear 
 j Dean, and have been some years going down 
 
 ithe hill ; let us make the passage as smooth as 
 we can. Let us fence against the physical evil 
 by care, and the use of those means which 
 experience must have pointed out to us : let us 
 fence against m.oral evil by philosophy. I 
 renounce the alternative you propose. But we 
 may, nay (if we will follow nature, and do not 
 work up imagination against her plainest dic- 
 tates), we shall of course grow every year more 
 indifferent to life, and to the affairs and interests 
 of a system out of which we are soon to go. 
 This is much better than stupidity. The decay 
 of passion strengthens philosophy ; for passion 
 may decay, and stupidity not succeed. Passions 
 (says Pope, our divine, as you will see one time 
 or other) are the gales of life ; let us not com- 
 plain that they do not blow a storm. What 
 hurt does age do us, in subduing what we toil 
 to subdue all our lives? It is now six in the 
 morning ; I recall the time (and am glad it is 
 over) when about this hour I used to be going 
 to bed surfeited with pleasure, or jaded with 
 business : my head often full of schemes, and 
 my heart as often full of anxiety. Is it a mis- 
 fortune, think you, that I rise at this hour 
 
 refreshed, serene, and calm ? that the past, and 
 even the present affairs of life stand like objects 
 at a distance from me, where I can keep off the 
 disagreeable so as not to be strongly affected by 
 them, and from whence I can draw the others 
 nearer to me? Passions in their force would 
 bring all these, nay, even future contingencies, 
 about my ears at once, and reason would but 
 ill defend me in the scuffle. I leave Pope to 
 speak for himself ; but I must tell you how 
 much my wife is obliged to you. She says, she 
 would find strength enough to nurse you, if you 
 were here ; and yet, God knows, she is extremely 
 weak : the slow fever works under, and mines 
 the constitution ; we keep it off sometimes, but I 
 still it returns, and makes new breaches before 
 nature can repair the old ones. I am not 
 ashamed to say to you, that I admire her more 
 every hour of my life : death is not to her the 
 king of terrors ; she beholds him without the 
 least. When she suffers much, she wishes for 
 him as a deliverer from pain ; when life is ' 
 tolerable, she loolcs on him with dislike, because 
 he is to separate her from those friends to whom 
 she is more attached than to life itself. You 
 shall not stay for my next so long as you have 
 for this letter ; and in every one Pope shall 
 write something mu.ch better than the scraps of 
 old philosophers, which were the presents, 
 Munuscula, that stoical fop Seneca used to send 
 in every epistle to his friend Lucilius. 
 
 P.S.—M.y lord has spoken justly of his lady ; 
 why not I of my mother ? Yesterday was her 
 birthday, now entering on the ninety-first year 
 of her age ; her memory much diminished, but 
 her senses very little hurt, her sight and hearing 
 good ; she sleeps not ill, eats moderately, drinks 
 water, says her prayers ; this is all she does. I 
 have reason to thank God for her continuing so 
 long a very good and tender parent, and for 
 allowing me to exercise for some years those 
 cares which are now as necessary to her as hers 
 have been to me. An object of this sort daily 
 before one's eyes very much softens the mind, 
 but perhaps may hinder it from the willingness 
 of contracting other ties of the like domestic 
 nature, when one finds how painful it is even 
 to enjoy the tender pleasures. I have formerly 
 made some strong efforts to get and to deserve 
 a friend : perhaps it were wiser never to attempt 
 it, but live extempore, and look upon the world 
 only as a place to pass through : just pay your 
 hosts their dues, disi^erse a little charity, and 
 hurry on. Yet I am just now writing (or rather 
 planning) a book,i to make mankind look upon 
 this life with comfort and pleasure, and put 
 morality in good humour. And just now too I 
 am going to see one I love very tenderly ; and 
 to-morrow to entertain several civil people, 
 whom if we call friends, it is by the courtesy of 
 
 1 The Essay on Man. 
 
78 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 England. Sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras. 
 While we do live, we must make the besfc of 
 life. 
 
 Cantantes licet usque (minus via Icedit) eamv^ : 
 
 as the shepherd said in "Virgil, when the road 
 was long and heavy. 
 
 I am yours. 
 
 [There would be a great blank in the epistolary 
 literature of this period, were Sir Richard 
 Steele's name to be dropped from it. To 
 his second wife, Mary Scurlock, a rich 
 heiress of Llangunnor, Caermarthen, to 
 whom he was married September 9, 1707, 
 he addressed at least 400 letters, couched 
 in the most endearing terms. Perhaps the 
 majority of these were apologies for absence 
 through late hours, and his careless and 
 extravagant living. Still we cannot doubt 
 the depth or sincerity of his affection any 
 more than the easy and graceful style in 
 which he uniformly addressed his sometimes 
 impatient and much tried correspondent.] 
 
 RICHARD STEELE TO MARY SCURLOCK. 
 
 September 1, 1707. 
 
 It is the hardest thing in the world to be in 
 love, and yet attend to business. 
 
 As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and 
 I must lock myself up, or other people will do 
 it for me. 
 
 A gentleman asked me this morning, ' Wliat 
 news from Lisbon?' and I answered, 'She is 
 exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to 
 know when I had been last at Hampton Court. 
 I replied, ' I will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' 
 Pr'ythee, allow me at least to kiss your hand 
 before that day, that my mind may be in some 
 composure. O love ! 
 
 A tliousand torments dwell about tliee ! 
 Yet who would live to live without thee ? 
 
 Methinks I could write a volume to you ; but 
 all the language on earth would fail in saying 
 how much, and with what disinterested pas- 
 sion, I am ever yours, 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 STEELE TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 June 20, 1717. 
 Dear Prue, — I have yours of the 14th, and 
 am infinitely obliged to you for the length of it. 
 I do not know another whom I could commend 
 for that circumstance; but where we entirely 
 
 love, the continuance of anything they do to 
 please us is a pleasure. As for your relations ; 
 once for all, pray take it for gi-anted, that my 
 regard and conduct towards all and singular of 
 them shall be as you direct. 
 
 I hope, by the grace of God, to continue 
 what you wish me, every way an honest man. 
 My wife and my children are the objects that 
 have wholly taken up my heart ; and as I am 
 not invited or encouraged in anything which 
 regards the public, I am easy under that neglect 
 or envy of my past actions, and cheerfully 
 contract that diffusive spirit within the interests 
 of my own family. You are the head of us; 
 and I stoop to a female reign, as being naturally 
 made the slave of beauty. But, to prepare for 
 OMT manner of living when we are again 
 together, give me leave to say, while I am here 
 at leisvire, and come to lie at Chelsea, what I 
 think may contribute to our better way of 
 living. I very much approve Mrs. Evans and 
 her husband, and, if you take my advice, I 
 would have them have a being in our house, 
 and Mrs. Clai'k the care and inspection of the j 
 nursery. I would have you entirely at leisure, 1 
 to pass your time with me, in diversions, in { 
 books, in entertainments, and no manner of 
 business intrude upon us but at stated times ; 
 for, though you are made to be the delight of ] 
 my eyes, and food of all my senses and faculties, j 
 yet a turn of care and housewifery, and I know 
 not what prepossession against conversation- 
 pleasures, robs me of the witty and the hand- 
 some woman, to a degree not to be expressed. 
 I will work my brains and fingers to j)rocure 
 us plenty of all things, and demand nothing of 
 you but to take delight in agreeable dresses, I 
 cheerful discourses, and gay sights, attended by 
 me. This may be done by putting the kitchen 
 and the nursery in the hands I propose ; and I 
 shall have nothing to do but to pass as much 
 time at home as I possibly can in the best 
 company in the world. We cannot tell here 
 what to think of the trial of my Lord Oxford ; 
 if the Ministry are in earnest in that, and I 
 should see it will be extended to a length of 
 time, I will leave them to themselves, and wait 
 upon you. 
 
 Miss Moll grows a mighty beauty, and she 
 shall be very prettily dressed, as likewise shall 
 Betty and Eugene ; and if I throw away a little 
 money in adorning my brats, I hope you will 
 forgive me. They are, I thank God, all very 
 well ; and the charming form of their mother 
 has tempered the likeness they bear to their 
 rough sire, who is, with the greatest fondness. 
 
 Your most obliged and most obedient 
 husband, RiCH. Steele. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 79 
 
 [This forms the dedication to his Ladies' 
 Library (1714).] 
 
 STEELE TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 July 21, 1714. 
 
 Madam, — If great obligations received are 
 just motives for addresses of this kind, you 
 have an unquestionable i^retension to my ac- 
 knowledgments, who have condescended to give 
 me your very self. I can make no return for so 
 inestimable a favour but in acknowledging the 
 generosity of the giver. To have either wealth, 
 wit, or beauty, is generally a temptation to a 
 woman to put an unreasonable value upon her- 
 self ; but with all these, in a degree which drew 
 upon you the addresses of men of the amplest 
 fortunes, you bestowed your person where you 
 could have no expectations but from the grati- 
 tude of the receiver, though you knew he could 
 exert that gratitude in no other returns but 
 esteem and love. For which must I first thank 
 you? For what you have denied yourself, or 
 for what you have bestowed on me ? 
 
 I owe to you that for my sake you have 
 overlooked the prospect of living in pomp and 
 plenty, and I have not been circumspect enough 
 to preserve you from care and sorrow. I will 
 not dwell upon this particular ; you are so good 
 a wife, that I know you think I rob you of more 
 than I can give, when I say anything in your 
 favour to my own disadvantage. 
 
 ■\\Tioever shoidd see or hear you, would 
 think it were worth leaving all the world for 
 you ; while I, habitually possessed of that hap- 
 piness, have been throwing away impotent endea- 
 vours for the rest of mankind, to the neglect 
 of her for whom any other man in his senses 
 would be apt to sacrifice everything else. 
 
 I know not by what unreasonable preposses- 
 sion it is, but methinks there must be something 
 austere to give authority to wisdom ; and I can- 
 not account for having only rallied many season- 
 able sentiments of yours, but that you are too 
 beautiful to appear judicious. 
 
 One may grow fond, but not wise, from 
 what is said by so lovely a counsellor. Hard 
 fate, that you have been lessened by your 
 perfections, and lost power by your charms ! 
 
 That ingenuous spirit in all your behaviour, 
 that familiar grace in your words and actions, 
 has for this seven years only inspired admiration 
 and love; but experience has taught me the 
 best counsel I ever have received has been 
 pronounced by the fairest and softest lips, and 
 convinced me that I am in you blest with a 
 wise friend as well as a charming mistress. 
 
 Your mind shall no longer suffer by your 
 person, nor shall your eyes for the future dazzle 
 me into a blindness towards your understanding. 
 I rejoice in this public occasion to show my 
 esteem for you, and must do you the justice to 
 say that there can be no virtue represented in 
 
 all this collection for the female world which I 
 have not known you exert, as far as the oppor- 
 tunities of your fortune have given you leave. 
 Forgive me that my heart overflows with love 
 and gratitude for daily instances of your prudent 
 economy, the just disposition you make of your 
 little affairs, your cheerfulness in despatch of 
 them, your prudent forbearance of any reflec- 
 tions that they might have needed less vigilance 
 had you disposed of your fortune suitably ; in 
 short, for all the arguments you every day give 
 me of a generous and sincere affection. 
 
 It is impossible for me to look back on many 
 evils and pains which I have suffered since we 
 came together, without a pleasure which is not 
 to be expressed, from the proofs I have had, in 
 those circumstances, of your unwearied good- 
 ness. How often has your tenderness removed 
 pain from my sick head ! how often anguish 
 from my afflicted heart ! With how skilful 
 patience have I known you comply with the 
 vain projects which pain has suggested to have 
 an aching limb removed by journeying from 
 one side of a room to another ! how often, the 
 next instant, travelled the same ground again, 
 without telling your patient it was to no purpose 
 to change his situation ! If there are such 
 beings as guardian angels, thus are they em- 
 ployed. I will no more believe one of them more 
 good in its inclinations, than I can conceive 
 it more charming in its form than my wife. 
 
 But I offend and forget that what I say to 
 you is to appear in public. You are so great a 
 lover of home, that I know it will be irksome 
 to you to go into the world even in an applause. 
 I will end this without so much as mentioning 
 your little flock, or your own amiable figure at 
 the head of it. That I think them preferable 
 to all other children, I know is the effect of 
 passion and instinct. That I believe you the 
 best of wives, I know i)roceeds from experience 
 and reason. 
 
 I am, madam, your most obliged husband, and 
 most obedient, humble servant. 
 
 Rich. Steele. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Dec. 13, 1716. 
 My dear Prue,— Mrs, Secretary Bevans ^ has 
 acquainted me, by the 7th instant, that you are 
 well, and very much my friend and servant. 
 Mrs. Evans went to see Betty yesterday, who, 
 she says, is grown a very fine lady. Moll sat by 
 me a little as I was writing yesterday ; she will 
 not be at all marked, but is a dear child. 
 Eugene is grown a very lively gentleman. 
 After all this news, which takes in all the com- 
 pass of whatever you care for,^ you wiU not 
 
 1 Sister to Lady Steele's mother. She was at this 
 time a widow. 
 
 2 By this expression it appears their first hoy, Dick, 
 was now dead. Eugene died in November 1723. 
 
8o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 much regard politics if I should write any. But 
 it seems my Lord Townshend is out, and Stan- 
 hope and Methven the two secretaries for 
 England, and Duke Roxborough made a third 
 secretary for Scotland ; for which place I intend 
 to set out this day, with an opportunity of a 
 gentleman's coach going down. 
 
 I am, dear Prue, your most affectionate, 
 obedient, languishing relict, 
 
 EiCH. Steele. 
 
 The machine is almost ready. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Dec. IS, 1716. 
 Dear Peue, — ^^Vhether I love you because 
 you are the mother of the children, or them 
 because you are their mother, I know not ; but 
 I am sure I am growing a very covetous creature 
 for the sake of both of you. I am making 
 haste to Scotland ; have only a small affair, 
 v/hich I will acqtiaint you with in my next, and 
 am entirely yours, 
 
 EicH, Steele. 
 
 TO the same. 
 
 July 20, 1717. 
 Dear Prue, — I have your kind letter, which 
 expresses your fears that I do not take care of 
 myself as 40 catching cold and the like. I am 
 careful enough when I am awake, but in the 
 night the clothes are kicked on the floor, and I 
 am exposed to the damp till the coolness wakes 
 me. This I feel at present in my arms and 
 legs, but will be carefully tucked up hereafter. 
 I wait with impatience for the receipt of money 
 i out of the Treasury to make further payments. 
 I I believe, when I have it, I shall wholly turn off 
 I my coach-horses ; for, since I am at my study 
 i whole days together, it is, I think, a senseless 
 i thing for me to pay as if I was padding all that 
 while, and showing myself to the world. I 
 have sent your enclosed to Mrs. Keck. She 
 came into the dining-room to me when I sent 
 away my last letter, and we had some tea ; and, 
 instead of such chat as should naturally arise 
 I between a great gallant and a fine lady, she 
 I took upon her to tell me that I did spend my 
 [ money upon my children, but that they ought 
 to be better accommodated as to their dress and 
 the like. She is indeed a very good Prue ; and 
 though I divert myself with her gravity and 
 .admonition, I have a sincere respect for her. I 
 I was last night so much enamoured with an 
 author I was reading, and some thoughts which 
 I i^ut together on that occasion, that I was up 
 
 1 John Ker, Duke of Roxburgh, was appointed 
 secretary for North Britain, December IG, 171G. He 
 resigned that office August 25, 1725 ; and since that 
 period, instead of a distinct secretary for Scotland, 
 there has been regularly a keeper of the Signet under 
 the other two secretaries. 
 
 i 
 
 till morning, which makes me a little restive 
 to-day. Your daughter Moll has stole away my 
 very heart, but doubt not but her brother and 
 sister will i-ecover their share when we are all 
 together, except their mother robs them all of 
 him who is, dear Prue, entirely yours. 
 
 Rich. Steele. 
 
 to the SAAIE.l 
 
 Dear Prue,— I shall not come home till five 
 o'clock, at which time I have good news to tell 
 you. 
 
 to the same. 2 
 
 Dear Prue,— Don't be displeased that I do 
 not come home till eleven o'clock. — Yoms ever, 
 Eich. Steele. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Pray, Prue, look a little dressed, and be 
 beautiful, or else everybody will be entertained 
 but the entertainer ; but, if you please, you can 
 outshine the whole company, and my costly 
 lustre. Come in good humour. — Yours, 
 
 Rich. Steele. 
 
 to the same.=^ 
 
 Dear Prue,— It is a strange thing, because 
 you are handsome, you will not behave yourself 
 with the obedience that people of worse features 
 do, but I must be always giving you an account 
 of every trifle and minute of my time. 
 
 I send you this to tell you I am waiting to be 
 sent for when my Lord "Wharton is stirring. 
 
 Rich. Steele. 
 
 STEELE TO POPE. 
 
 June 1, 1712. 
 Sir, — I am at a solitude, an house between 
 Hampstead and London, wherein Sir Charles 
 Sedley died. This circumstance set me a 
 thinking and ruminating upon the employments 
 in which men of wit exercise themselves. It 
 was said of Sir Charles, who breathed his last 
 in this room, — 
 
 ' Sedley has that prevailing gentle art, 
 Which can with a resistless charm impart 
 The loosest wishes to the chastest heart.' 
 
 This was an happy talent to a man of the 
 town ; but, I dare say, without presuming to 
 make uncharitable conjectures on the author's 
 
 1 In Berry Street. 
 
 - At Mrs. Sewell's, in King Street, Westminster. 
 3 At Mrs. Binn's, at a mathematical maker, Dean 
 Street. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 8l 
 
 present condition, he would rather have had it 
 said of him that he prayed,— 
 
 ' O Thou my voice inspire, 
 ■Who touch'd Isaiah's haUow'd hps with fire ! ' 
 
 I have turned to every verse and chapter, 
 and think you have preserved the sublinie 
 heavenly spirit throughout the whole, especially 
 at—' Hark, a glad voice,' and—' The lamb with 
 wolves shall graze.' 
 
 There is but one line which I think below the 
 original : 
 
 ' He wipes the tears for eve'r from our eyes.' 
 You have expressed it with a good and pious, 
 but not so exalted and poetical a spirit as the 
 prophet, ' The Lord God will wipe away tears 
 from off all faces.' If you agree with me in this, 
 alter it by way of paraphrase or otherwise, that, 
 when it comes into a volume, it may be 
 amended. 
 
 Your poem is already better than the 
 ' PoUio.' 
 
 * [Dr. William King (1663-1712), one of the wits 
 of Queen Anne's reign, was trained for the 
 law, and went to Ireland as a judge in 1702, 
 and amused himself at times in issuing 
 playful satires. He published in 1709 a 
 l^layful poem, entitled, 'The Art of Cookery, 
 in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry ; with 
 spme letters to Dr. Lister and others, 
 occasioned principally by the title of a 
 Book published by the Doctor, being the 
 works of Apicius Coelius, concerning the 
 Soups and Sauces of the Ancients. With 
 an Extract of the greatest Curiosities con- 
 tained in that Book.' The following is a 
 covert satire on waste erudition.] 
 
 LETTER IX. TO MR. . 
 
 Dear Sir, — I must communicate my happi- 
 ness to you, because you are so much my friend 
 as to rejoice at it. I some days ago met with 
 an old acquaintance, a curious person, of whom 
 I inquired if he had seen the book concerning 
 soups and sauces. He told me he had ; but 
 that he had but a very slight view of it, the 
 person who v/as master of it not being willing 
 to part with so valuable a rarity out of his 
 closet. I desired him to give me what account 
 he could of it. He says that it is a very hand- 
 some octavo ; for ever since the days of Ogilby 
 good paper, and good print, and fine cuts make 
 a book become ingenious, and brighten up an 
 author strangely ; that there is a copious index ; 
 and at the end a catalogue of all the Doctor's 
 works concerning cockles, English beetles, snails, 
 
 spiders that get up into the air and throw us 
 down cobwebs, a monster vomited up by a 
 baker, and such like ; which, if carefully 
 perused, would wonderfully improve us. There 
 is, it seems, no manuscript of it in England, 
 nor any other country that can be heard of ; 
 so that this impression is from one of Humel- 
 bergius, who, as my friend says, he does not 
 believe contrived it himself, because the things 
 are so very much out of the way, that it is not 
 probable any learned man would set himself 
 seriously to work to invent them. He tells me 
 of this ingenious remark made by the editor, 
 ' That, whatever manuscripts there might have 
 been, they must have been extremely vicious 
 and corrupt, as being written out by the cooks 
 themselves, or some of their friends or servants, 
 who are not always the most accurate.' And 
 then, as my friend observed, if the cook had 
 used it much it might be sullied ; the cook 
 perhaps not always licking his fingers when he 
 had occasion for it. I should think it no im- 
 provident matter for the State to order a select 
 scrivener to transcribe receipts, lest ignorant 
 women and housekeepers should impose upon 
 future ages by ill-spelt and incorrect receipts 
 for potting of lobsters or pickling of turkeys, 
 Coelius Apicius, it seems, passes for the author 
 of this treatise ; whose science, learning, and 
 discipline were extremely contemned, and 
 almost abhorred, by Seneca and the Stoics, as 
 introducing luxury, and infecting the manners 
 of the Romans ; and so lay neglected till the 
 inferior ages ; but then were introduced, as 
 being a help to physic, to which a learned 
 author, called Donatus, says that ' the kitchen 
 is a handmaid.' I remember in our days, 
 though we cannot in every respect come up to 
 the ancients, that by a very good author an old 
 gentleman is introduced as making use of three 
 doctors. Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman. 
 They are reported to be excellent physicians ; 
 and, if kept at a constant pension, their fees 
 will not be very costly. 
 
 It seems, as my friend has learnt, there were 
 two persons that bore the name of Apicius, one 
 under the Republic, the other in the time of 
 Tiberius, who is recorded by Pliny 'to have 
 had a great deal of wit and judgment in all 
 affairs that related to eating,' and consequently 
 has his name affixed to many sorts of omelets 
 and pancakes. Nor were emperors less contri- 
 butors to so great an undertaking, as Vitellius, 
 Commodus, Didius Julianus, and Yarius Helio- 
 gabalus, whose imperial names are prefixed to 
 manifold receipts ; the last of which emperors 
 had the peculiar glory of first making sausages 
 of shrimps, crabs, oysters, prawns, and lobsters. 
 And these sausages being mentioned by the 
 author which the editor publishes, from that 
 and many other arguments the learned doctor 
 irrefragably maintains that the Book, as now 
 printed, could not be transcribed till after the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 time of Heliogabalus, who gloried in the titles 
 of Apicius and Vitellius, more than Antoninus, 
 who had gained his reputation by a temperate, 
 austere, and solid virtue. And, it seems, under 
 his administration, a person that found out a 
 new soup might have as great a reward as 
 Drake or Dampier might expect for finding a 
 new continent. My friend says, the editor tells 
 us of unheard-of dainties ; how ' ^sopus had 
 a supper of the tongues of birds that could 
 speak ; ' and that * his daughter regaled on 
 pearls,' though he does not tell us how she 
 dressed them ; how * Hortensius left ten thou- 
 sand pipes of wine in his cellar, for his heir's 
 drinking ; ' how * Yedius Pollio fed his fish- 
 ponds with man's flesh ; ' and how * Caesar 
 bought six thousand weight of lampreys for 
 his triumphal supper.' He says, the editor 
 proves equally to a demonstration, by the 
 proportions and quantities set down, and the 
 nauseousness of the ingredients, that the 
 dinners of the emperors were ordered by their 
 physicians ; and that the recipe was taken by 
 the cook as the collegiate doctors would do 
 their bills ^ to a modern apothecary ; and that 
 this custom was taken from the Egyptians ; 
 and that this method continued till the Goths 
 and Vandals overran the western empire ; and 
 that they, by use, exercise, and necessity of 
 abstinence, introduced the eating of cheese and 
 venison without those additional sauces, which 
 the physicians of old found out to restore the 
 depraved appetites of such great men as had 
 lost their stomachs by an excess of luxury. 
 Out of the ruins of Erasistratus's book of 
 endive, Glaucus Lorrensis' of cow-heel, Mithaecus 
 of hofc-pots, Dionysius of sugar-sops, Agis of 
 pickle 1 broom-buds, Epinetus of sack-posset, 
 Euthedemus of apple - dumplings, Hegesippus 
 of black-pudding, Crito of soused mackerel, 
 Stephanus of lemon-cream, Archites of hogs- 
 harslet, Acestius of quince-marmalade, Hickesius 
 of potted pigeons, Diodes of sweet-breads, and 
 Philistion of oat-cakes, and several other such 
 authors, the great Humelbergius composed his 
 annotations upon Apicius ; whose receipts, when 
 parts of TuUy, Livy, and Tacitus have been 
 neglected and lost, were preserved in the utmost 
 parts of Transylvania, for the peculiar palate of 
 the ingenious editor. Latinus Latinius finds 
 fault with several dishes of Apicius, and is 
 pleased to say they are nauseous ; but our 
 editor defends that great person, by showing 
 the difference of our customs ; how Plutarch 
 says, 'tho ancients used no pepper,' whereas 
 all, or at least five or six hundred of Apicius's 
 deUtates were seasoned with it. For we may 
 as w^ell admire that some "West Indians should 
 abstain from salt, as that we should be able to 
 bear the bitterness of hops in our common 
 drink : and therefore we should not be averse 
 
 1 UUk, prescriptions. 
 
 to rue, cummin, parsley-seed, marsh-mallows, 
 or nettles, with our common meat ; or to have 
 pepper, honey, salt, vinegar, raisins, mustard 
 and oil, rue,, mastic, and cardamoms, strewn 
 promiscuously over our dinner when it comes 
 to table. My friend tells me of some short 
 observations he made out of the annotations, 
 which he owes to his memory ; and therefore 
 begs pardon if in some things he may mistake, 
 because it is not wilfully, as that Papirius 
 Petus was the great patron of custard : * That 
 the tetrapharmacon, a dish much admired by 
 the Emperors Adrian and Alexander Severus, 
 was made of pheasant, peacock, a wild sow's 
 hock and udder, with a bread-pudding over it ; 
 and that the name and reason of so odd a dish 
 are to be sought for amongst the physicians.' 
 
 The work is divided into ten books, of which 
 the first treats of soups and pickles, and 
 amongst other things shows that saucepans 
 were tinned before the time of Pliny ; that 
 Gordian used a glass of bitter in the morning ; 
 that the ancients scalded their wine ; and that 
 burnt claret, as now practised, with spice and 
 sugar, is pernicious ; that the adulteration of 
 wine was as ancient as Cato ; that brawn was 
 a Eoman dish, which Apicius commends as 
 wonderful ; its sauce then was mustard and 
 honey, before the frequent use of sugar : nor 
 were soused hog's feet, cheeks, and ears un- 
 known to those ages. It is very probable they 
 were not so superstitious as to have so great a 
 delicate only at Christmas. It were worth a 
 dissertation between two learned persons, so it 
 were managed with temper and candour, to 
 know whether the Britons taught it to the 
 Romans, or whether Caesar introduced it into 
 Britain : and it is strange he should take no 
 notice of it ; whereas he has recorded that they 
 did not eat hare's flesh ; that the ancients used 
 to marinate their fish, by frying them in oil, 
 and the moment they were taken out pouring 
 boiling vinegar upon them. The learned anno- 
 tator observes, that the best way of keeping 
 the liquor in oysters is by laying the deeji shell 
 downwards ; and by this means Apicius con- 
 veyed oysters to Tiberius when in Parthia. 
 A noble invention, since made use of at 
 Colchester with most admirable success ! What 
 estates might brawn or locket have got in those 
 days, when Apicius, only for boiling sprouts 
 after a new fashion, deservedly came into the 
 good graces of Drusus, who then commanded 
 the Roman armies ! 
 
 The first book having treated of sauces or 
 standing pickles for relish, which are used in 
 most of the succeeding receipts, the second 
 has a glorious subject, of sausages, both with 
 skins and without, which contain matters no 
 less remarkable than the former. The ancients 
 that were delicate in their eating prepared their 
 own mushrooms with an amber or at least a 
 silver knife; where the annotator shows 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 83 
 
 elegantly, against Hardouinus, that the whole 
 knife, and not only the handle, was of amber 
 or silver, lest the rustiness of an ordinary knife 
 might prove infectious. This is a nicety which 
 I hope we may in time arrive to; for the 
 Britons, though not very forward in inventions, 
 yet are out-done by no nations in imitation or 
 improvements. 
 
 The third book is of such edibles as are pro- 
 duced in gardens. The Eomans used nitre to 
 make their herbs look green ; the annotator 
 shows our saltpetre at present to differ from 
 the ancient nitre. Apicius had a way of minc- 
 ing them first with oil and salt, and so boiling 
 them ; which Pliny commends. But the pre- 
 sent receipt is, to let the water boil well ; 
 throw in salt and a bit of butter ; and so not 
 only sprouts but spinage will be green. There 
 is a most extraordinary observation of the 
 editor's, to which I cannot but agree ; that it 
 is a vulgar error, that walnut-trees, like ruflBan 
 wives, thrive the better for being beaten ; and 
 that long poles and stones are used by boys 
 and others to get the fruit down, the walnut- 
 tree being so very high they could not otherwise 
 reach it, rather out of kindness to themselves, 
 than any regard to the tree that bears it. As 
 for asparagus, there is an excellent remark, 
 that, according to Pliny, they were the great 
 care of i, the ancient gardeners, and that at 
 Kavenna three weighed a pound ; but that in 
 England it was thought a rarity when a hun- 
 dred of them weighed thirty ; that cucumbers 
 are apt to rise in the stomach, unless pared, or 
 boiled with oil, vinegar, and honey : that the 
 Egyptians would drink hard without any dis- 
 turbance, because it was a rule for them to 
 have always boiled cabbage for their first dish 
 at supper ; that the best way to roast onions 
 is in colewort leaves, for fear of burning them ; 
 that beets are good for smiths, because they, 
 working at the fire, are generally costive : that 
 Petronius has recorded a little old woman, who 
 sold the ayreste olus of the ancients ; which 
 honour I take to be as much due to those who 
 in our days cry nettle-tops, elder-buds, and 
 cliver,^ in springtime very wholesome. 
 
 The fourth book contains the universal art 
 of cookery. As Matthaeus Sylvaticus composed 
 the pandects of physic, and Justinian those of 
 law, so Apicius has done the pandects of his 
 art, in this book which bears that inscription. 
 The first cliapter contains the admirable receipt 
 of a salacacaby of Apicius, Bruise in a mortar 
 parsley-seed, dried pennyroyal, dried mint, 
 ginger, green coriander, raisins stoned, honey, 
 vinegar, oil, and wine; put them into a caca- 
 bulum ; three crusts of pycentine bread, the 
 flesh of a pullet, goat stones, vestine cheese, 
 pine kernels, cucumbers, dried onions minced 
 small ; pour a soup over it, garnish it with 
 
 1 Cliver, goosegi-ass. 
 
 snow, and send it up in the cacabulum. This 
 cacabulum being an unusual vessel, my friend 
 went to his dictionary, where, finding an odd 
 interpretation of it, he was easily persuaded, 
 from the whimsicalness of the comj)osition, and 
 the fantasticalness of snow for its garniture, 
 that the properest vessel for a j)liysician to 
 prescribe to send to table upon that occasion 
 might be a bed-pan. There are some admii\able 
 remarks in the annotations to the second 
 chapter, concerning the Dialogue of Asselius 
 Sabinus, who introduces a combat between 
 mushrooms, chats or beccafico's, oysters, and 
 red-wings, a work that ought to be published ; 
 for the same annotator observes that this island 
 is not destitute of red-wings, though coming to 
 us only in the hardest weather, and therefore 
 seldom brought fat to our tables ; that the 
 chats come to us in April and breed, and about 
 autumn return to Africk ; that experience show^, 
 us they may be kept in cages, fed with beef or 
 wether mutton, figs, grapes, and minced filberts, 
 being dainties not unworthy the care of such 
 as would preserve our British hospitality. 
 There is a curious observation concerning the 
 diversity of Eoman and British dishes ; the 
 first delighting in hodge-podge, gallimaufreys, 
 forced meats, jussels, and salmagundies ; ^ the 
 latter in spear-ribs, surloins, chines, and barons ; 
 and thence our terms of art both as to dressing 
 and carving, become very different ; for they, 
 lying upon a sort of couch, could not have 
 carved those dishes which our ancestoi'S when 
 they sat upon forms used to do. But, since 
 the use of cushions and elbow-chairs, and the 
 editions of good books and authors, it may be 
 hoped in time we may come up to them. For 
 indeed hitherto we have been something to 
 blame. 
 
 The fifth book is of peas porridge ; under 
 which are included frumetary, watergruel, 
 milk-porridge, rice-milk, flummery, stir-about, 
 and the like. The Latin or rather Greek name 
 is Ausprios ; but my friend was pleased to en- 
 title it Pantagruel, a named used by Eabelais, 
 an eminent physician. There are some very 
 remarkable things in it ; as the Emperor 
 Julianus had seldom anything but spoon meat 
 at supper : that the herb fenugreek, with 
 pickles, oil, and wine, was a Eoman dainty; 
 upon which the annotator observes, that it is 
 not used in our kitchens for a certain ungrateful 
 bitterness that it has ; and that it is plainly a 
 physical diet ; and that, mixed with oats, it is 
 the best jiurge for horses : an excellent invention 
 for frugality, and that nothing might be lost ; 
 for what the lord did not eat he might send to 
 his stable ! 
 
 1 Gallimaufry was a hash of several meats ; jussel, 
 a mince of several meats, for which old recipes are 
 extant ; salmagundy was a mixture of chopped meat 
 and pickled herring, with oil, vinegar, pepper, and 
 onions. —M or.LEY. 
 
84 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 The sixth book treats of wild-fowl ; how to 
 dress ostriches (the biggest, grossest, and most 
 difficult of digestion of any bird), phoenicop- 
 triceSji parrots, etc. 
 
 The seventh book treats of things sumptuous 
 and costly, and therefore chiefly concerning 
 hog-meat ; in which the Romans came to that 
 excess, that the laws forbade the usage of hogs- 
 harslet, sweet-breads, cheeks, etc., at their 
 public suppers ; and Cato, when censor, sought 
 to restrain the extravagant use of brawn, by 
 several of his orations. So much regard was 
 had then to the art of cookery, that we see it 
 took i)lace in the thoughts of the wisest men, 
 and bore a part in their most important 
 counsels. But, alas ! the degeneracy of our 
 present age is such, that I believe few besides 
 the annotator know the excellency of a virgin 
 sow, especially of the black kind brought from 
 China, and how to make the most of her liver, 
 lights, brains, and pettitoes ; and to vary her 
 into those fifty dishes which, Pliny says, were 
 usually made of that delicious creature. Be- 
 sides, Galen tells us more of its excellences : 
 ' That fellow that eats bacon for two or three 
 days before he is to box or wrestle, shall be 
 much stronger than if he should eat the best 
 roast beef or bag pudding in the parish.' 
 
 The eighth book treats of such dainties as four- 
 footed beasts afford us ; as (1) the wild boar, 
 which they used to boil with all its bristles on. 
 (2) The deer, dressed with broth made with 
 pepper, wine, honey, oil, and stewed damsons, 
 etc. (3) The wild sheep, of which there are 
 'innumerable in the mountains of Yorkshire 
 and Westmoreland, that will let nobody handle 
 them ; ' but if they are caught they are to be 
 sent up with an elegant sauce, prescribed after a 
 physical manner, in form of an electuary, made 
 of pepper, rue, parsley-seed, juniper, thyme dried, 
 mint, pennyroyal, honey, etc., with which any 
 apothecary in that country can furnish you. 
 (4) Beef, with onion sauce, and commended by 
 Celsus, but not much approved by Hippocrates, 
 because the Greeks scarce knew how to make 
 oxen, and powdering-tubs were in very few 
 families : for physicians have been very peculiar 
 in their diet in all ages ; otherwise Galen would 
 scarce have found out that young foxes were in 
 season in autumn. (5) The sucking pig boiled 
 in paper. (6) The hare, the chief of the Roman 
 dainties ; its blood being the sweetest of any 
 animal, its natural fear contributing to that 
 excellence. Though the emperors and nobility 
 had parks to fatten them in, yet in the time 
 of Didianus Julianus, if any one had sent him 
 one, or a pig, he would make it last him three 
 days ; whereas Alexander Severus had one 
 every meal, which must have been a great 
 expense, and is very remarkable. But the most 
 exquisite animal was reserved for the last 
 
 1 rhceiiicoptrices, flamingoes. 
 
 chapter ; and that was the dormouse, a harm- 
 less creature, whose innocence might at least 
 have defended it both from cooks and physicians. 
 But Apicius found out an odd sort of fate for 
 those poor creatures ; some to be boned, and 
 others to be put whole, with odd ingredients, 
 into hogs-guts, and so boiled for sausages. In 
 ancient times people made it their business to 
 fatten them : Aristotle rightly observes that 
 sleep fattened them, and Martial from thence 
 too poetically tells us that sleep was their only 
 nourishment. But the annotator has cleared 
 that point ; he, good man, has tenderly 
 observed one of them for many years, and finds 
 that it does not sleep all the winter, as falsely 
 reported, but wakes at meals, and after its 
 repast then rolls itself up in a ball to sleep. 
 This dormouse, according to the author, did not 
 drink in three years time ; but whether other 
 dormice do so, I cannot tell, because Bam- 
 bouselbergius's treatise ' of fattening dormice ' 
 is lost. Though very costly, they became a 
 common dish at great entertainments. Petro- 
 nius delivers us an odd , receipt for dressing 
 them, and serving them up with poppies and 
 honey ; which must be a very soporiferous 
 dainty, and as good as owl-pie to such as want 
 a nap after dinner. The fondness of the 
 Romans came to be so excessive towards them, 
 that, as Pliny says, ' the Censorian Laws, and 
 Marcus Scarus in his consulship, got them 
 prohibited from public entertainments.' But 
 Nero, Commodus, and Heliogabalus would not 
 deny the liberty, and indeed property, of their 
 subjects in so reasonable an enjoyment : and 
 therefore we find them long after brought to 
 table in the times of Ammianus Marcellinus, 
 who teUs us likewise, that ' scales were brought 
 to table in those ages, to weigh curious fishes, 
 birds, and dormice,' to see whether they were at 
 the standard of excellence and perfection, and 
 sometimes, I suppose, to vie with other pre- 
 tenders to magnificence. The annotator takes 
 hold of this occasion to show of how great use 
 scales would be at the tables of our nobihty, 
 especially upon the bringing up of a dish of 
 v/ild-fowl : ' for if twelve larks (he says) should, 
 weigh below twelve ounces, they would be very 
 lean and scarce tolerable ; if twelve and down- 
 weight, they would be very well ; but if thirteen, 
 they would be fat to perfection.' We see upon 
 how nice and exact a balance the happiness of 
 eating depends ! 
 
 I could scarce forbear smiling, not to say 
 worse, at such exactness and such dainties ; and 
 told my friend, that those scales would be of 
 extraordinary use at Dunstable ; and that, if the 
 annotator had not prescribed his dormouse, I 
 should upon the first occasion be glad to visit 
 it, if I knew its visiting days and hours, so as 
 not to distui'b it. 
 
 My friend said there remained but two books 
 more, one of sea and the other of river fish, in 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 85 
 
 tue account of whicli he would not be long, 
 seeing his memory began to fail him almost as 
 much as my patience. 
 
 •'Tis trae, in a long work, soft slumbers creep. 
 And gently sink the artist into sleep ; ' 
 
 especially when treating of dormice. 
 
 The ninth book is concerning sea fish, where, 
 amongst other learned annotations, is recorded 
 that famous voyage of Apicius, who, having 
 spent many millions, and being retired into 
 Campania, heard that there were lobsters of a 
 vast and unusual bigness in Africa, and there- 
 upon impatiently got on shipboard the same 
 day ; and, having suffered much at sea, came 
 at last to the coast. But the fame of so great a 
 man's coming had landed before him, and all 
 the fishermen sailed out to meet him, and 
 presented him with their fairest lobsters. He 
 asked if they had no larger. They answered, 
 * Their sea produced nothing more excellent 
 than what they had brought.' This honest 
 freedom of theirs, with his disappointment, so 
 disgusted him, that he took pet, and bade the 
 master return home again immediately : so it 
 seems Africa lost the breed of one monster more 
 than it had before. There are many receipts in 
 the book to dress cramp-fish, that numb the 
 hands of those that touch them ; the cuttle-fish, 
 whose blood is like ink ; the pourcontrel, or 
 many feet ; the sea-urchin, or hedge-hog ; with 
 several others, whose sauces are agreeable to their 
 natures. But, to the comfort of us moderns, 
 the ancients often eat their oysters alive, and 
 spread hard eggs minced over their sprats as we 
 do now over our salt-fish. There is one thing 
 very curious concerning herrings : it seems the 
 ancients were very fantastical in making one thing 
 pass for another ; so, at Petronius's supper, the 
 cook sent up a fat goose, fish, and wild-fowl of all 
 sorts to appearance, but still all were made out 
 of the several parts of one single porker. The 
 great Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, had a very 
 delightful deception of this nature put upon him 
 by his cook ; the king was extremely affected 
 with fresh herrings (as indeed who is not ?) ; 
 but, being far up in Asia from the sea coast, 
 his whole wealth coiild not have purchased one ; 
 but his cook contrived some sort of meat which, 
 put into a frame, so resembled a herring, that 
 it was extremely satisfactory both to this 
 prince's eyes and gusto. My friend told me 
 that, to the honour of the city of London, he 
 had seen a thing of this nature there ; that is, 
 a herring, or rather a salmagundy, with the 
 head and tail so neatly laid, that it surprised 
 him. He says, many of the species may be 
 found at the Sugar-loaf in Bell Yard, as giving 
 an excellent relish to Burton ale, and not 
 costing above sixpence, an inconsiderable price 
 for so imperial a dainty. 
 
 The tenth book, as my friend tells me, is 
 concerning fish sauces, which consist of variety 
 
 of ingredients, amongst which is generally a 
 kind of frumetary. But it is not to be for- 
 gotten by any person who would boil fish 
 exactly, that they threw them alive into the 
 water, which at present is said to be a Dutch 
 receipt, but was derived from the Romans. It 
 seems Seneca the philosopher (a man from 
 whose morose temper little good in the art of 
 cookery could be expected), in his third book of 
 Natviral Questions, correcting the luxury of the 
 times, says, the Eomans were come to that 
 daintiness, that they would not eat a fish unless 
 upon the same day it was taken, ' that it might 
 taste of the sea,' as they expressed it ; and 
 therefore had them brought by persons who 
 rode post, and made a great outcry, whereupon 
 all other people were obliged to give them the 
 road. It was an usual expression for a Roman 
 to say, ' In other matters I may confide in you, 
 but in a thing of this weight it is not consistent 
 with my gravity and prudence. I will trust 
 nothing but my own eyes. Bring the fish 
 hither, let me see him breathe his last.' And 
 when the poor fish was brought to table swim- 
 ming and gasping, would cry out, ' Nothing is 
 more beautiful than a dying mullet ! ' My 
 friend says, 'the annotator looks upon these 
 as jests made by the Stoics, and spoken absurdly 
 and beyond nature ; ' though the annotator 
 at the same time tells us, that it was a law 
 at Athens that the fishermen should not wash 
 their fish, but bring them as they came out of 
 the sea. Happy were the Athenians in good laws, 
 and the Romans in great examples ! But I believe 
 our Britons need wish their friends no longer 
 life, than till they see London served with live 
 herrings and gasping mackerel. It is true, we 
 are not quite so barbarous, but that we throw 
 our crabs alive into scalding water, and tie our 
 lobsters to the spit to hear them squeak when 
 they are roasted ; our eels use the same peri- 
 staltic motion upon the gridiron, when their 
 skin is off and their guts are out, as they did 
 before ; and our gudgeons, taking opportunity 
 of jumping after they are flowered, give occasion 
 to the admirable remark of some persons' folly, 
 when, to avoid the danger of the frying-pan, 
 they leap into the fire. My friend said that 
 the mention of eels j)ut him in mind of the 
 concluding remark of the annotator, ' That they 
 who amongst the Sybarites would fish for eels, 
 or sell them, should be free from all taxes.' I 
 was glad to hear of the word conclude ; and 
 told him nothing could be more acceptable to 
 me than the mention of the Sybarites, of whom 
 I shortly intend a history, showing how they 
 deservedly banished cocks for waking them in 
 a morning, and smiths for being useful; how 
 one cried out because one of the rose-leaves he 
 lay on was rumpled ; how they taught their 
 horses to dance; and so their enemies coming 
 against them with guitars and harpsichords, 
 set them so upon their round O's and minuets. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 86 
 
 that the form of their battle was broken, and 
 three hundred thousand of them slain, as 
 Gouldman, Littleton, and several other good 
 authors affirm. I told my friend, I had much 
 overstayed my hour; but if, at any time, he 
 would find Dick Humelbergius, Caspar Barthius, 
 and another friend, with himself, I would invite 
 him to dinner of a few but choice dishes to 
 cover the table at once, which, except they 
 would think of anything better, should be a 
 salacacaby, a dish of fenugreek, a wild sheep's 
 head and appurtenance with a suitable elec- 
 tuary, a ragout of caj^ons' stones, and some 
 dormouse sausages. 
 
 If, as friends do with one another at a venison- 
 pasty, you should send for a plate, you know 
 you may command it ; for what is mine is 
 yours, as being entirely your, etc. 
 
 [Born in 1G72, — five years after the author of 
 Gulliver, — Joseph Addison terminated his 
 comparatively short career at the age of 
 forty-seven. Only a few of his letters 
 appear to have been preserved. Although 
 most of them were written at an early 
 period of his life, they exhibit many 
 evidences of that delightful humour which 
 is more fully developed in the classic pages 
 of the Spectator, now, unfortunately, too 
 little known. For sweetness of expression, 
 propriety of treatment, and dignity of tone, 
 the language of Addison can hardly be 
 surpassed. 'Whoever wishes,' says Dr. 
 Johnson, 'to attain an English style, 
 familiar but not coarse, and elegant but 
 not ostentatious, must give his days and 
 nights to the volumes of Addison.' In 
 the capacity of Secretary of State, it has 
 been said that he was a better man of 
 business than Prior, but still a bad one. 
 His business letters, however, which are 
 extant, are clear and concise, as well as 
 graceful, and certainly do not justify the 
 reproach of Pope, that * he could not issue 
 an order without losing his time in quest 
 of fine expressions.' — Seton's Letters and 
 Letter Writer sJ] 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON TO MR. CONGREVE. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I was very sorry to hear in your 
 last letter that you were so terribly afflicted 
 with the gout, though for your comfort I believe 
 you are the first English poet that has been 
 complimented with the distemper. I was my- 
 self at that time sick of a fever, which I believe 
 
 proceeded from the same cause ; but at present 
 I am so well recovered that I can scarce forbear 
 beginning my letter with Tully's preface, Si 
 vales bene est, ego quidem valeo. You inust 
 excuse me for giving you a line of Latin now 
 and then, since I find myself in some danger of 
 losing the tongue, for I perceive a new language, 
 like a new mistress, is apt to make a man 
 forget all his old ones. I assure you I met with 
 a very remarkable instance of this nature at 
 Paris, in a poor Irishman that had lost the 
 little English he had brought over with him, 
 without being able to learn any French in its 
 stead. I asked him what language he spoke ; 
 he very innocently answered me, ' No language. 
 Monsieur,' which, as I afterwards found, were 
 all the words he was master of in both tongues. 
 I am at present in a town Avhere all the languages 
 in Europe are spoken except English, which is 
 not to be heard, I believe, within fifty miles of 
 the place. My greatest diversion is to run over 
 in my thoughts the variety of noble scenes I 
 was entertained with before I came hither. I 
 don't believe, as good a poet as you are, that 
 you can make finer landscapes than those about 
 the king's houses, or, with all your descriptions, 
 build a more magnificent palace than Versailles. 
 I am, however, so singular as to prefer Fontaiue- 
 bleau to all the rest. It is situated among 
 rocks and woods, that give you a fine variety of 
 savage prospects. The King has humoured the 
 genius of the i)lace, and only made use of so 
 much art as is necessary to help and regulate 
 nature without refonning her too much. . . . 
 But I begin to talk like Dr. Lister. To pass, 
 therefore, from works of nature to those of art : 
 in my opinion, the pleasantest part of Versailles 
 is the gallery. Every one sees on each side of 
 it something that will be sure to please him, 
 for one of them commands a view of the finest 
 garden in the v.^orld, and the other is wainscoted 
 with looking-glass. The history of the present 
 king to the year 16 ^ is painted on the roof by 
 Le Brun, so that his Majesty has actions enough 
 by him to furnish another gallery much longer 
 than the first. He is represented with all the 
 terror and majesty that you can imagine in 
 every part of the picture, and sees his young 
 face as perfectly drawn in the roof as his present 
 one in the side. The painter has rejiresented 
 his Most Christian Majesty under the figure of 
 Jupiter throwing thunderbolts, and striking 
 terror into the Danube and Ehine, that lie 
 astonished and blasted with lightning a little 
 above the cornice. I believe by this time you 
 are afraid I shall carry you from room to room, 
 and lead you through the whole palace ; truly, 
 if I had not tired you already I could not forbear 
 showing you a staircase that they say is the 
 noblest in its kind ; but after so tedious a letter 
 
 1 The sixteenth year of his reign is supposed to be 
 meant. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 87 
 
 I shall conclude with the petition to you, that 
 you would deliver the enclosed to Mr. Montague, 
 for I am afraid of interrupting him with my 
 impertinence when he is engaged in more serious 
 affairs. Tu facilcs aditus et moUia tempora 
 n&vis. — I am, etc. 
 Blois, 106r, 1699. 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON TO CHAMBERLAIN DASHWOOD. 
 
 Geneva, July 1102. 
 Dear Sie, — About three days ago IMr. Bocher 
 put a very i^retty snuff-box in my hand. I was 
 not a little pleased to hear that it belonged to 
 myself, and was much more so when I found it 
 was a present from a gentleman that I have so 
 great an honour for. You did not probably 
 foresee that it would draw on you ye trouble of 
 a letter, but you must blame yourself for it. 
 For my part I can no more accept of a snuff-box 
 without returning my acknowledgments, than 
 I can take snuff without sneezing after it. 
 This last I must own to you is so great an 
 absurdity that I should be ashamed to confess 
 it, were not I in hopes of correcting it very 
 speedily. I am observed to have my box oftener 
 in my hand than those that have been used to 
 one these twenty years, for I can't forbear 
 taking it out of my pocket whenever I think of 
 Mr. Dashwood. You know Mr. Bays recom- 
 mends snuff as a great provocative to wit, but 
 you may produce this letter as a standing 
 evidence against him. I have since ye begin- 
 ning of it taken above a dozen pinches, and still 
 find myself much more inclined to sneeze than 
 to jest. From whence I conclude that wit and 
 tobacco are not inseparable, or to make a pun 
 of it, though a man may be master of a snuff- 
 box, 
 
 'Xon cuicunque datum est habere Nasum.' 
 
 I should be afraid of being thought a pedant for 
 my quotation did not I know that ye gentleman 
 I am writing to always carries a Horace in his 
 pocket. But whatever you may think me, pray, 
 sir, do me ye justice to esteem me 
 
 Your most, etc. 
 
 [Swift painted a very agreeable portrait of 
 Berkeley in a letter to Lord Cartaret. He 
 seems to have possessed the art of attaching 
 to himself all who knew him. Atterbury, 
 after a single interview, declared his 
 opinion of him in these emphatic words : 
 *So much understanding, so much know- 
 ledge, so much innocence, and such 
 humility, I did not think had been the 
 portion of any but angels, till I saw this 
 
 gentleman.' Blackwell, whom he was 
 desirous of taking out as a xjrofessor in the 
 proposed college at the Bermudas, has 
 pronounced a similar eulogium. Of the 
 fervour and vivacity of his fancy, an illus- 
 tration is afforded by a story which Lard 
 Bathurst communicated to Dr. Warton : — 
 'AH the members of the Scriblerus Club 
 being met at his house at dinner, they 
 agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his 
 guest, on his scheme at the Bermudas. 
 Berkeley, having listened to all the lively 
 things they had to say, begged to be heard 
 in his turn, and displayed his plan with 
 such astonishing and animated force of 
 eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were 
 struck dumb, and, after some pause, rose 
 up all together with earnestness, exclaiming, 
 "Let us all set out with him immediately. '' ' 
 Berkeley accompanied the son of the Bishop 
 of Clogher in a tour through the south of 
 Europe. While at Paris, he visited the 
 philosopher Malebranche, whom he is 
 reported to have found in his cell preparing 
 a medicine in a small pipkin for an inflam- 
 mation of the lungs, under which he was 
 suffering. The conversation turned upon 
 the non-existence of matter, and Male- 
 branche argued with an impetuosity which, 
 by aggravating the disorder, occasioned his 
 death a few days after. Sir James Mac- 
 kintosh regretted that Berkeley had not 
 introduced this dramatic scene into one of 
 his own beautiful dialogues. Berkeley was 
 at this time in his 31s fc, and Malebranche 
 in his 77th year. Mackintosh has traced 
 a resemblance in the features of their 
 character. They were, indeed, both amply 
 endowed with imagination and invention ; 
 but, while Malebranche regarded poetry 
 with invincible disgust, Berkeley not only 
 wrote harmonious verses himself, but 
 possessed the friendship of one of the 
 greatest masters of the art, who, in a 
 famous line, assigned 
 
 ' To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.' 
 
 During his residence in Italy, Berkeley 
 accumulated, with great diligence, mateiials 
 for a history of Sicily, which were lost in 
 the passage to Naples. He had the qualities 
 of a traveller in the highest perfection. 
 Blackwell says that he travelled over a 
 part of Sicily on foot, climbing up moun- 
 
88 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 tains, and creeping into caverns. To the 
 widest views in knowledge and literature 
 he united the minutest examinations of 
 detail. In the island to which he gives the 
 name of Inarime, the reader will recognise 
 the modern Ischia. — Willmott.] 
 
 DEAN BERKELEY TO POPE. 
 
 Description of the Island of Inarime. 
 
 Naples, Oct. 22, N.S., 1717. 
 
 I have long had it in my thoughts to trouble 
 you with a letter, but was discouraged for want 
 of something that I could think worth sending 
 fifteen hundred miles. 
 
 Italy is such an exhausted subject that, I dare 
 say, you would easily forgive my saying nothing 
 of it ; and the imagination of a poet is a thing 
 so nice and delicate, that it is no easy matter to 
 find out images capable of giving pleasure to 
 one of the few who (in any age) have come up 
 to that character. I am, nevertheless, lately 
 returned from an island, where I passed three 
 or four months ; which, were it set out in its 
 true colours, might, methinks, amuse you 
 agreeably enough for a minute or two. The 
 island Inarime is an epitome of the whole earth, 
 containing, within the compass of eighteen 
 miles, a wonderful variety of hills, dales, 
 rugged rocks, fruitful plains, and barren moun- 
 tains, all thrown together in a most romantic 
 confusion. The air is, in the hottest season, 
 constantly refreshed by cool breezes from the 
 sea. The vales produce excellent wheat and 
 Indian corn ; but are mostly covered with vine- 
 yards, intermixed with fruit trees. Besides the 
 common kinds, as cherries, apricots, peaches, 
 etc., they produce oranges, limes, almonds, 
 pomegranates, figs, water-melons, and many 
 other fruits unknown to our climates, which lie 
 everywhere open to the passenger. The hills 
 are the greater part covered to the top with 
 vines, some with chestnut groves, and others 
 with thickets of myrtle and lentiscus. The 
 fields on the northern side are divided by 
 hedge-rows of myrtle. Several fountains and 
 rivulets add to the beauty of this landscape, 
 which is likewise set off by the variety of some 
 barren spots and naked rocks. But that which 
 crowns the scene is a large mountain rising out 
 of the middle of the island (once a terrible 
 volcano, by the ancients called Mons Epomeus) ; 
 its lower parts are adorned with vines and 
 other fruits, the middle affords pasture to 
 flocks of goats and sheep, and the top is a sandy 
 pointed rock, from which you have the finest 
 prospect in the world, surveying at one view, 
 besides several pleasant islands lying at your 
 feet, a tract of Italy about three Imndred miles 
 in length, from the j^romontory of Antium to 
 the cape of Palinurus; the greater part of 
 
 which hath been sung by Homer and Virgil, as 
 making a considerable part of the travels and 
 adventures of their two heroes. The islands 
 Caprea, Prochyta, and Parthenope, together 
 with Cajeta, Cumae, Monte Miseno, the habita- 
 tions of Circe, the Syrens, and the Lsestrigones, 
 the Bay of Naples, the promontory of 
 Minerva, and the whole Campagna Felice, 
 make but a part of this noble landscape ; 
 which would demand an imagination as warm, 
 and numbers as flowing as your own to describe 
 it. The inhabitants of this delicious isle, as 
 they are without riches and honours, so they 
 are without the vices and follies that attend 
 them ; and were they but as much strangers to 
 revenge as they are to avarice and ambition, 
 they might in fact answer the poetical notions 
 of the golden age. But they have got as an 
 alloy to their happiness an ill habit of murder- 
 ing one another on slight offences. We had an 
 instance of this the second night after our 
 arrival, a youth of eighteen being shot dead by 
 our door ; and yet, by the sole secret of minding | 
 our own business, we found a means of living 
 securely among these dangerous people. Would 
 you know how we pass the time at Naples? 
 Our chief entertainment is the devotion of our 
 neighbours, besides the gaiety of their churches 
 (where folks go to see what they call una hella 
 devotione, i.e. a sort of religious opera). They 
 make fireworks almost every week, out of 
 devotion ; the streets are often hung with 
 arras, out of devotion ; and (what is still more 
 strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their 
 houses, and treat them with music and sweet- 
 meats, out of devotion ; in a word, were it not 
 for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples 
 would have little else to recommend it beside 
 the air and situation. Learning is in no very 
 thriving state here, as, indeed, nowhere else in 
 Italy ; however, among many pretenders, some 
 men of taste are to be met with. A friend of 
 mine told me, not long since, that being to visit 
 Salvini at Florence, he found him reading your 
 Homer. He liked the notes extremely, and 
 could find no other fault with the version, but 
 that he thought it approached too near a 
 j)araphrase ; which shows him not to be sufii- 
 ciently acquainted with our language. I wish 
 you health to go on with that noble work ; and 
 when you have that I need not wish you 
 success. You will do me the justice to believe, 
 that, whatever relates to your welfare, is 
 sincerely wished by 
 
 Your, etc. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 S9 
 
 [Pope has recorded his iutunacy with ^^"ycherley, 
 by whose verses he said that he was ' ex- 
 tremely plagued, up and down, for about 
 two years.' Forty years before his death, 
 Wycherley lost his memory by a fever, and 
 would repeat the same thought two or three 
 times in a single page. He could not 
 retain more than a sentence at a time. 
 Pope's troublesome task of correction was 
 aggravated by Wycherley's custom of 
 reading himseK to sleep, out of Montaigne, 
 Kochefoucault, and Seneca, and of produc- 
 ing a poem on the following morning, into | 
 which he had imconsciously transplanted 
 the thoughts of his favourite authors. His 
 celebrated friend justly esteemed this habit 
 one of the most singular phenomena in 
 the history of the human mind. Wycher- 
 ley's vanity could not endure the superior 
 taste of his critic. 'We were, however,' 
 says Pope, ' pretty well together, to the 
 last ; only his memory was so totally bad, 
 that he did not remember a kindness done 
 to him, even from minute to minute. He 
 was peevish too, latterly ; so that some- 
 times we were out a little, and sometimes 
 in. He never did any unjust thing to me 
 in his whole life, and I went to see him on 
 his deathbed. ' Pope, at the commencement 
 of their correspondence, was sixteen, and 
 Wycherley seventy years old. — Willmott.^ 
 
 POPE TO WTCHEKLET. 
 
 0/ Dryden, his Character and Poetical 
 Successors. 
 
 Binfield, in Windsor Forest, 
 Dec. 26, 1704. 
 It was certainly a great satisfaction to me, 
 to see and converse with a man, whom, in his 
 writings, I had so long known with pleasure ; 
 but it was a high addition to it to hear you, 
 at our first meeting, doing justice to your dead 
 friend, Mr. Dryden. I was not so happy as to 
 know him ; Virgilium tantum vidi. Had I been 
 born early enough, I must have known and 
 loved him, for I have been assured, not only by 
 yourself, but by Mr. Congreve and Sir William 
 Turnbull, that his personal qualities were as 
 amiable as his poetical, notwithstanding the 
 many libellous misrepresentations of them, 
 against which the former of these two gentle- 
 men has told me he will one day vindicate him. 
 I suppose those injuries were begun by the 
 violence of party ; but 'tis no doubt they were 
 continued by envy at his success and fame : 
 and those scribblers who attacked him in latter 
 
 times were only like gnats in a summer's 
 evening, which are never very troublesome but 
 in the finest and most glorious season ; for his 
 fire, like the sun's, shined clearest towards its 
 setting. You must not, therefore, imagine, 
 that, when you told me my own performances 
 were above those critics, I was so vain as to 
 believe it, and yet I may not be so humble as 
 to think myself quite below their notice. For 
 critics, as they are birds of prey, have ever a 
 natural inclination to carrion ; and though such 
 poor writers as I are but beggars, no beggar is 
 so poor but he can keep a cur, and no author is 
 so beggarly but he. can keep a critic. I am far 
 from thinking the attacks of such people either 
 any honour or dishonour, even to me, much less 
 to Mr. Dryden. I agree with you that what- 
 ever wits have risen since his death, are but 
 like stars appearing when the sun is set, that 
 twinkle only in his absence, and with the rays 
 they have borrowed from him. Our wit, as 
 you call it, is but refl.ection or imitation, there- 
 fore scarce to be called ours. True wit, I 
 believe, may be defined a justness of thought, 
 and a facility of expression. However, this is 
 far from a complete definition ; pray help me 
 to a better, as I doubt not you can. 
 
 POPE TO STEELE. 
 
 Reflections upon Early Death, and Allusions to 
 his oivn Infirmities. 
 
 July 15, 1712. 
 You formerly observed to me, that nothing 
 made a more ridiculous figure in a man's life 
 than the disparity we often find in him, sick 
 and well. Thus, one of an unfortunate con- 
 stitution is perpetually exhibiting a miserable 
 example of the weakness of his mind and of 
 his body in their turns. I have had frequent 
 opportunities of late to consider myself in these 
 diiferent views, and I hope have received some 
 advantage by it, if what Waller says be true, 
 that 
 
 ' The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, 
 Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. 
 
 Then surely sickness, contributing no less than 
 old age to the shaking down this scaffolding o 
 the body, may discover the inward structure 
 more plainly. Sickness is a sort of early old 
 age ; it teaches us a difiidence in our earthly 
 state, and inspires us with thoughts of a future, 
 better than a thousand volumes of philosophers 
 and divines. It gives so warning a concussion 
 to those props of our vanity, our strength and 
 youth, that we think of fortifying ourselves 
 within, when there is so little dependence upon 
 our outworks. Youth, at the very best, is but 
 a betrayer of human life in a gentler and 
 smoother manner than age : 'tis like a stream 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 90 
 
 that nourishes a plant uj^on a bank, and causes 
 it to flourish and blossom to the sight, but at 
 the same time is undermining it at the root in 
 secret. My youth has dealt more fairly and 
 openly with me ; it has afforded several pros- 
 pects of my danger, and given me an advantage 
 not very common to young men, that the 
 attractions of the world have not dazzled me 
 very much, and I begin, where most people 
 end, with a full conviction of the emptiness of 
 all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory 
 nature of all human pleasures, when a smart 
 fit of sickness tells me this scurvy tenement of 
 my body will fall in a little time ; I am even as 
 unconcerned as was that honest Hibernian, who, 
 being in bed in the great storm some years ago, 
 and told the house would tumble over his head, 
 made answer, ' '\Vhat care I for the house ? — I 
 am only a lodger.' I fancy it is the best time 
 to die, when one is in the best humour ; and 
 so excessively weak as I now am, I may say 
 with conscience, I am not at all uneasy at the 
 thought, that many men whom I never had any 
 esteem for are likely to enjoy this world after 
 me. When I reflect what an inconsiderable 
 little atom every single man is, with respect to 
 the whole creation, methinks 'tis a shame to be 
 concerned at the removal of such a trivial 
 animal as I am. The morning after my exit, 
 the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers 
 smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the 
 world will proceed in its old course, peojile will 
 laugh as heartily and marry as fast as they 
 were used to do. The memory of man (as it is 
 elegantly expressed in the Book of Wisdom) 
 passeth away as the remembrance of a guest 
 that tarrieth but one day. There are reasons 
 enough, in the fourth chapter of the same book, 
 to make any young man contented with the 
 prospect of death. ' For honourable age is not 
 that which standeth in length of time, or is 
 measured by number of years. But wisdom is 
 grey hairs to men, and an unspotted life is old 
 age. He was taken away speedily, lest wicked- 
 ness should alter his understanding, or deceit 
 beguile his soul.' 
 
 POrE TO A PEIEND. 
 
 TJi^on the Vanity of Human Learning and 
 Ambition. 
 
 July 13, 1714. 
 You mention the account I gave you some 
 time ago of the things which Phillips said in his 
 foolishness, but I cannot tell from anything in 
 your letter, whether you received a long one 
 from me about a fortnight since. It was princi- 
 pally intended to thank you for the last 
 obliging favour you did me, and perhaps for 
 that reason yoii pass it in silence. I there 
 launched into some account of my temporal 
 affairs, and intend now to give you some hints 
 
 of my spiritual. The conclusion of your letteir 
 draws this upon you, where you tell me you 
 prayed for me. Your proceeding, sir, is con- 
 trary to that of most other friends, who never 
 talk of praying for a man after they have done 
 him a service, but only when they will do him 
 none. Nothing can be more kind than the 
 hint you give me of the vanity of human 
 sciences, which, I assure you, I am daily more 
 convinced of ; and, indeed, I have for some 
 years past looked upon all of them as no better 
 than amusements. To make them the ultimate 
 end of our pursuit, is a miserable and short 
 ambition, which will drop from us at every 
 little disappointment here, and even in case of 
 no disappointment here, will infallibly desert 
 us hereafter. The utmost fame they are 
 capable of bestowing is never worth the pains 
 they cost us, and the time they lose us. If you 
 attain the top of your desires that way, all 
 those who envy you will do you harm ; and of 
 those who admire you, few will do you good. 
 The unsuccessful writers are your declared 
 enemies, and probably the successful your 
 secret ones ; for those hate not more to be 
 excelled, than these to be rivalled. And at the 
 upshot, after a life of perpetual application, 
 you reflect that you have been doing nothing 
 for yourself, and that the same, or less industry, 
 might have gained you a friendship that can 
 never deceive or end, a satisfaction which praise 
 cannot bestow, nor vanity feel, and a glory 
 which (though in one respect, like fame, not 
 to be had till after death) yet shall be felt and 
 enjoyed to eternity. These, dear sir, are un- 
 feignedly my sentiments, whenever I think at 
 all ; for half the things that employ our heads 
 deserve not the name of thoughts, they are 
 only stronger dreams of impressions upon the 
 imagination : our schemes of government, our 
 systems of jDhilosophy, our golden words of 
 poetry, are all but so many shadowy images 
 and airy prospects, which arise to us but so 
 much the livelier and more frequent, as we are 
 overcast with the darkness, and disturbed with 
 the fumes of human vanity. The same thing 
 that makes old men willing to leave this world 
 makes me willing to leave poetry, — long habit, 
 and weariness of the same track. Homer will 
 work a cure upon me ; fifteen thousand verses 
 are equivalent to fourscore years, to make one 
 old in rhyme ; and I should be sorry and 
 ashamed to go on jingling to the last step, like 
 a waggoner's horse in the same road, and so 
 I leave my bells to the next silly animal that 
 will be proud of them. That man makes a 
 mean figure in the eyes of reason, who is measur- 
 ing syllables and coupling rhymes, when he 
 should be mending his own soul, and securing 
 lus own immortality. If I had not this opinion, 
 I should be unworthy even of those small and 
 limited parts which God has given me, and 
 unworthy the friendship of such a man as you. 
 
91 
 
 [' Pope,' writes Lady Montagu in one of her 
 latest letters, ' courted, with the utmost 
 assiduity, all the old men from whom he 
 could hope a legacy,— the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, Lord Peterborough, Sir G. Kneller, 
 Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Wycherley, Mr. 
 Congreve, Lord Harcourt, etc., and I do 
 not doubt projected to sweep the Dean's 
 whole inheritance, if he could have per- 
 suaded him to throw up his deanery, and 
 come to reside in his house ; and his 
 general preaching against money was 
 meant to induce people to throw it away, 
 that he might pick it up.' This was said 
 in the bitterness of her heart, after her 
 quarrel with the poet had obliterated the 
 recollection of his flattery and his song.] 
 
 POPE TO swirr. 
 
 On his Dex)arture from Twickenham. 
 
 Aug. 22, 1726. 
 Many a short sigh you cost me the day I 
 left you, and many more you will cost me till 
 the day you return. I really walked about 
 like a man banished, and when I came home, 
 found it no home. 'Tis a situation like that of a 
 limb lopped off ; one is trying every minute 
 unawares to use it, and finds it is not. I may 
 say you have used me more cruelly than you 
 have any other man ; you have made it more 
 impossible for me to live at ease without you ; 
 habitude itself would have done that, if I had 
 less friendship in my nature than I have. 
 Besides my natural memory of you, you have 
 made a local one, which presents you to me in 
 every place I frequent; I shall never more 
 think of Lord Cobham's, the woods of Ciceter, 
 or the pleasing prospect of Byberry, but your 
 idea must be joined with them ; nor see one 
 seat in my own garden, or one room in my 
 house, without a phantom of you sitting or 
 walking before me. I travelled with you to 
 Chester, I felt the extreme heat of the weather, 
 the inns, the roads, the confinement and close- 
 ness of the uneasy coach, and wished a hundred 
 times I had either a deanery or a horse in my 
 gift. In real truth, I have felt my soul peevish 
 ever since with all about me, from a warm, 
 uneasy desire after you. I am gone out of 
 myself to no purpose, and cannot catch you. 
 Inhiat in pedes was not more properly applied 
 to a poor dog after a hare, than to me after 
 j your departure. I wish I could think no more 
 { of it, but lie down and sleep till we meet again, 
 and let that day (how far soever off it be) 
 be the morrow. Since I cannot, may it be my 
 amends, that everything you wish may attend 
 you where you are, and that you may find every 
 
 friend you have there in the state j'ou wish 
 him or her, so that your visits to us rriay have 
 no other effect than tlie progress of a rich man 
 to a remote estate, which he finds greater than 
 he expected, which knowledge only serves to 
 make him live happier where he is, with no 
 disagreeable prospect if ever he should choose 
 to remove. May this be your state till it 
 become what I wish. But, indeed, I cannot 
 express the warmth with which I wisli you all 
 things, and mj^self you. Indeed you are 
 engraved elsewhere than on the cups you sent 
 me (with so kind an inscription), and I might 
 throw them into the Thames without injury to 
 the giver. I am not pleased with them, but 
 take them very kindly too ; and had I suspected 
 any such usage from you, I should have 
 enjoyed your company less than I really did, 
 for at this rate I may say, 
 
 Nec tecum possum viverc, n^cc shie te. 
 I will bring you over just such another present 
 when I go to the Deanery of St. Patrick's, 
 which I promise you to do, if ever I am enabled 
 to return your kindness. Donarcm patcras, etc. 
 Till then I'll drink (or Gay shall drink) daily 
 healths to you, and I add to your inscription 
 the old Roman vow for years to come, Votis X. 
 votis XX. ]My mother's age gives me authority 
 to hope it for yours. Adieu. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Binficld, Dec. 8, 1713. 
 SiK, — Not to trouble you at present with a. 
 recital of all my obligations to you, I shall only 
 mention two things, which I take particularly 
 kind of you ; your desire that I should write to 
 you, and your proposal of giving me twenty 
 guineas to change my religion, which last you 
 must give me leave to make the subject of this 
 letter. 
 
 Sure no clergyman ever offered so much out 
 of his own purse for the sake of any religion. 
 'Tis almost as many pieces of gold as an apostle 
 could get of silver from the priests of old, on a 
 much more valuable consideration. I believe it 
 will be better worth my while to propose a 
 change of my faith by subscription, than a 
 translation of Homer. And to convince you 
 how well disposed I am to the reformation, I 
 shall be content if you can prevail with my 
 Lord Treasurer and the Ministry to rise to the 
 same sum, each of them, on this pious account, 
 as my Lord Halifax has done on the profane 
 one. I am afraid there is no being at once a 
 poet and a good Christian ; and I am very much 
 straitened between two, while the "VVliigs seem 
 willing to contribute as much, to continue me 
 the one, as you would to make me the other. 
 But if you can move every man in the Govern- 
 ment, who has above ten thousand pounds a 
 year, to subscribe as much as yourself, I shall 
 
92 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 become a convert, as most men do, when the 
 Lord turns it to my interest. I know they have 
 the truth of religion so much at heart, that they 
 would certainly give more to have one good 
 subject translated from Popery to the Church 
 of England, than twenty heathenish authors out 
 of any unknown tongue in ours. I therefore 
 commission you, Mr. Dean, with full authority, 
 to transact this affair in my name, and to pro- 
 pose as follows : — First, that as to the head of 
 our Church, the Pope, I may engage to renounce 
 his power whensoever I shall receive any par- 
 ticular indulgences from the head of your 
 Church, the Queen. 
 
 As to communion in one kind, I shall also 
 promise to change it for communion in both, as 
 soon as the Ministry will allow me, 
 
 Por invocations to saints, mine shall be 
 turned to dedications to sinners, when I shall 
 find the great ones of this world as willing to do 
 me any good as I believe those of the other are. 
 
 You see I shall hot be obstinate in the main 
 points ; but there is one article I must reserve, 
 and which you seemed not unwilling to allow 
 me, — prayer for the dead. There are people to 
 whose souls I wish as well as to my own ; and I 
 must crave leave humbly to lay before them, 
 that though the subscriptions above-mentioned 
 will suffice for myself, there are necessaxy 
 perquisites and additions, which I must demand 
 on the score of this charitable article. It is also 
 to be considered, that the greater jiart of those 
 whose souls I am most concerned for, were 
 unfortunately heretics, schismatics, poets, 
 painters, or persons of such lives and manners 
 I as few or no churches are willing to save. The 
 expense will therefore be the greater to make 
 an effectual provision for the souls. 
 
 Old Dryden, though a Eoman Catholic, was a 
 poet ; and 'tis revealed in the visions of some 
 ancient saints, that no poet was ever saved 
 under some hundred of masses. I cannot set 
 his delivery from purgatory at less than fifty 
 pounds sterling. 
 
 Walsh was not only a Socinian, but (what 
 you will own is harder to be saved) a Whig. 
 He cannot modestly be rated at less than a 
 hundred. 
 
 L'Estrange, being a Tory, we compute him 
 but at twenty pounds, which I hope no friend 
 of the party can deny to give, to keep him from 
 damning in the next life, considering they never 
 gave him sixpence to keep him from starving in 
 this. 
 
 All this together amounts to one hundred and 
 seventy pounds. 
 
 In the next place, I must desire you to repre- 
 sent that there are several of my friends yet 
 living, whom I design, God willing, to outlive, 
 in consideration of legacies ; out of which it is 
 a doctrine in the reformed church, that not a 
 farthing shall be allowed to save their souls who 
 gave them. 
 
 There is one . . . who will die within these 
 few months, with . . . one Mr. Jervas, who 
 hath grievously offended in making the likeness 
 of almost all things in heaven above and earth 
 below ; and one Mr. Gay, an unhappy youth, 
 who writes pastorals during the time of divine 
 service, whose case is the more deplorable, as 
 he hath miserably lavished away all that silver 
 he should have reserved for his soul's health, in 
 buttons and loops for his coat. 
 
 I can't pretend to have these people honestly 
 saved under some hundred pounds, whether you 
 consider the difficulty of such a work, or the 
 extreme love and tenderness I bear them, which 
 will infallibly make me push this charity as far 
 as I am able. There is but one more whose 
 salvation I insist upon, and then I have done ; 
 but indeed it may prove of so much greater 
 charge than all the rest, that I will only lay the 
 case before you and the Ministry, and leave to 
 their prudence and generosity what sum they 
 shall think fit to bestow upon it. 
 
 The person I mean is Dr. Swift, a dignified 
 clergyman, but one who, by his own confession, 
 has composed more libels than sermons. If it 
 be true, what I have heard often affirmed by 
 innocent people, that too much wit is dangerous 
 to salvation, this unfortunate gentleman must 
 certainly be damned to all eternity. But I hope 
 his long experience in the world, and frequent 
 conversation with great men, will cause him (as 
 it has some others) to have less and less wit 
 every day. Be it as it will, I should not think 
 my own soul deserved to be saved, if I did not 
 endeavour to save his ; for I have all the 
 obligations in nature to him. He has brought 
 me into better company than I cared for, made 
 me merrier when I was sick than I had a mind 
 to be, and put me upon making poems, on 
 purpose that he might alter them, etc. 
 
 I once thought I could never have discharged 
 my debt to his kindness, but have lately been 
 informed, to my unspeakable comfort, that I 
 have more than paid it all. For Monsieur de 
 Montaigne has assured me, * that the person who 
 receives a benefit obliges the giver ; ' for since 
 the chief endeavour of one friend is to do good 
 to the other, he who administers both the 
 matter and occasion is the man who is liberal. 
 At this rate it is impossible Dr. Swift should 
 be ever out of my debt, as matters stand 
 already ; and, for the future, he may expect 
 daily more obligations from his most faithful, 
 affectionate, humble servant, 
 
 A. Pope. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 93 
 
 [Swift, in his reply to the following letter, gives 
 his friend an account of the comforts he 
 ■would find at the Deanery. *I say one 
 thing, that both summers and winters are 
 milder here than with you : all things for 
 life in general better for a middling fortune : 
 you will have an absolute command of your 
 time and company, with whatever obsequi- 
 ousness or freedom you may expect or allow. 
 I have an elderly housekeeper who hath 
 been my wolf above thirty years, v»^henever 
 I lived in this kingdom. I have the com- 
 mand of one or two villas near this town. 
 You have a warm apartment in this house, 
 and two gardens for amusement.' In 
 another letter, he confessed that he did 
 not ' converse with one creature of station 
 or title,' but could command the attendance 
 of 'a set of easy people,' when he desired 
 their company. Four years later he pre- 
 sented Gay with a more melancholy picture 
 of his situation, living in a large house, 
 thankful for the society of a friend, and 
 usually obliged to * hire one ' with a bottle 
 of wine. Pope, after many ingenious de- 
 vices and courtly expressions of regard, 
 finally settled the question of an Irish 
 journey, by expressing his belief that 'a 
 sea-sickness would kill ' him. Pope's filial 
 affection is the most beautiful feature in 
 his moral character. "Who has forgotten 
 his pathetic lines, warm from the heart : — 
 
 'Me, let the tender office long engage,' 
 To rock the cradle of reposing Age ; 
 With lenient acts extend a Mother's breath, 
 Make Languor smile, and smooth the bed of Death. 
 Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
 And keep awhile one parent from the sky.' 
 
 — Willmott.^ 
 
 POPE TO SWIFT. 
 
 Gvlliver—The Beggars' Opera, etc. 
 
 I send you a very odd thing, a paper printed 
 in Boston in New England ; wherein you'll find 
 a real person, a member of their parliament, of 
 the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of 
 that traveller has travelled thither, it has 
 travelled very quick, to have folks christened 
 already by the name of the supposed author. 
 But if you object, that no child so lately chris- 
 tened could be arrived at years of maturity to 
 be elected into parliament, I reply (to solve the 
 riddle), that the person is an Anabaptist, and 
 not christened till full age, which sets all right. 
 However it be, the accident is very singular, 
 that these two names should be united. 
 
 Mr. Gay's opera has been acted near forty 
 
 days running, and will certainly continue the 
 whole season. So he has more than a fence 
 about his thousand pounds ; he'll soon be 
 thinking of a fence about his two thousand. 
 Shall no one of us live as we would wish each 
 other to live ? Shall we have no annuity : you 
 no settlement on this side, and I no prospect of 
 getting to you on the other? This world is 
 made for Caesar ; as Cato said, for ambitious, 
 false, or flattering people to domineer in ; nay, 
 they would not, by their own good-will, leave us 
 our very books, thoughts, or words in quiet. I 
 despise the world; yet, I assure you, more 
 than either Gay or you, and the court more 
 than all the rest of the world. As for those 
 scribblers for whom you apprehend I would 
 supj)ress my dulness (which, by the way, for 
 the future you are to call by a more pompous 
 name. The Dunciad), how much that nest of 
 hornets are my regard, will easily appear to 
 you when you read the Treatise of the Bathos. 
 
 At all adventures, yours and my name shall 
 stand linked as friends to posterity, both in 
 verse and prose ; and as TuUy calls it, ' in con- 
 suetudine Studiorum ; ' would to God, our 
 persons could but as well, and as surely, be 
 inseparable. I find my other ties dropping 
 from me ; some worn off, some torn oft*, some 
 relaxing daily. My greatest, both by duty, 
 gratitude, and humanity, time is shaking every 
 moment, and it now hangs but by a thread ! I 
 am many years the older for living so much 
 with one so old ; much the more helpless, for 
 having been so long helped and tended by her ; 
 much "the more considerate and tender, for a 
 daily commerce with one who required me 
 justly to be both to her ; and consequently the 
 more melancholy and thoughtful, and the less 
 fit for others, who want only in a companion or 
 a friend to be amused or entertained. My 
 constitution, too, has had its share of decay, as 
 well as my spirits ; and I am as much in the 
 decline at forty, as you at sixty. I believe we 
 should be fit to live together, could I get a 
 little more health, which might make me not 
 quite insupportable ; your deafness would agree 
 with my dulness ; you would not want me to 
 speak when you could not hear, Bu.t God 
 forbid you should be as destitute of the social 
 comforts of life, as I must when I lose my 
 mother ; or that ever you should lose your more 
 useful acquaintance so utterly, as to turn your 
 thoughts to such a broken reed as I am, who 
 could so ill supply your wants ! I am extremely 
 troubled at the return of your deafness ; you 
 cannot be too particular in the accounts of your 
 health to me ; everything you do or say in this 
 kind obliges me, nay, delights me, to see the 
 justice you do me, in thinking me concerned in 
 all your concerns ; so that though the pleasantest 
 thing you can tell me be that you are better or 
 easier, next to that it pleases me, that you 
 make me the person you would complain to» 
 
94 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 As the obtaining the love of valuable men is 
 the happiest end I know of in this life, so the 
 next felicity is to get rid of fools and scoundrels ; 
 which I can't but own to you, was one part of 
 my design in falling upon these authors, whose 
 incapacity is not greater than their insincerity, 
 and of whom I have always found (if I may 
 quote myself), 
 
 That each bad Author is as bad a Friend. 
 This poem will rid me of these insects, — 
 
 Ceditc, Romcmi Scriptores, cedite, Graii ; 
 Nescio quid inajus nascitur Iliade. 
 
 I mean than my Iliad ; and I call it Nescio quid, 
 which is a degree of modesty ; but however, if 
 it silence those fellows, it must be something 
 greater than any Iliad in Christendom. 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 POrE TO aXEELH. 
 
 June 18, 1712. 
 You have obliged me with a very kind letter, 
 by which I find you shift the scene of your 
 life from the town to the country, and enjoy 
 that mixed state which wise men both delight 
 in and are qualified for. Methinks the moralists 
 and philosophers have generally run too much 
 into extremes in commending entirely either 
 solitude or public life. In the former, men for 
 the most part grow useless by too much rest ; 
 and in the latter, are destroyed by too much 
 precipitation; as waters, lying still, putrefy 
 and are good for nothing ; and running violently 
 on, do but the more mischief in their passage to 
 others, and are swallowed up and lost the 
 sooner themselves. Those, indeed, who can be 
 useful to all states, should be like gentle streams, 
 that not only glide through lonely valleys and 
 forests amidst the flocks and the shepherds, but 
 visit j)opulous towns in their course, and are at 
 once of ornament and service to them. But 
 there are another sort of people who seem 
 designed for solitude ; such, I mean, as have 
 more to hide than to show. As for my own 
 part, I am one of those of whom Seneca says, 
 *Tam umbratiles sunt, ut putent in turbido 
 esse quicquid in luce est.' Some men, like 
 some pictures, are fitter for a corner than a 
 full light ; and I believe such as have a natural 
 bent to solitude (to carry on the former simili- 
 tude) are like waters which may be forced 
 into fountains, and, exalted into a great height, 
 may make a noble figure, and a louder noise ; 
 but, after all, they would run more smoothly, 
 quietly, and plentifully, in their own natural 
 course upon the ground. The consideration of 
 this would make me very well contented with 
 the possession of that quiet which Cowley calls 
 the companion of obscurity. But whoever has 
 the Muses, too, for his companions, can never 
 
 be idle enough to be uneasy. Thus, sir, you 
 see I would flatter myself into a good opinion 
 of my own way of living. Plutarch just now- 
 told me that it is in human life as in a game 
 at tables, where a man may wish for the highest 
 cast, but, if his chance be otherwise, he is e'en 
 to play it as well as . he can, and to make the 
 best of it. 
 
 POPE TO MP^S. AKABELLA TERMOR. 
 
 On her Marriage. 
 
 You are by this time satisfied how much the 
 tenderness of one man of merit is to be pre- 
 ferred to the addresses of a thousand. And by 
 this time the gentleman you have made choice 
 of is sensible how great is the joy of having all 
 those charms and good qualities which have 
 pleased so many, now applied to please one 
 only. It was but just that the same virtues 
 which gave you reputation should give you 
 happiness ; and I can wish you no greater than 
 that you may receive it in as high a degree 
 yourself, as so much good -humour must 
 infallibly give it to your husband. 
 
 It may be expected, perhaps, that one who 
 has the title of a poet should say something 
 more polite on this occasion ; but I am really 
 more a well-wisher to your felicity than a 
 celebrator of your beauty. Besides, you ai"e 
 now a married woman, and in a way to be a 
 great many better things than a fine lady ; such 
 as an excellent wife, a faithful friend, a tender 
 parent, and at last, as the consequence of them 
 all, a saint in heaven. You ought now to hear 
 nothing but that which was all you ever desired 
 to hear (whatever others may have spoken to you), 
 I mean truth ; and it is with the utmost pleasure 
 that I assure you, no friend you have can more 
 rejoice in any good that befalls you, is more 
 sincerely delighted with the prospect of your 
 future happiness, or more unfeignedly desires a 
 long continuance of it. I hope you will think 
 it but just that a man who will certainly be 
 spoken of as your admirer after he is dead, 
 may have the happiness to be esteemed while 
 he is living, Yours, etc. 
 
 POPE TO THE POET GAY. 
 
 September 23, 1714. 
 Dear Mr. Gay, — "Welcome to your native 
 soil ! welcome to your friends ! thrice welcome 
 to me ! whether returned in glory, blessed with 
 court interest, the love and familiarity of the 
 great, and filled with agreeable hopes ; or 
 melancholy with dejection, contemplative of 
 the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the 
 future ; whether returned a triumphant Whig 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 or a desponding Tory, equally all liail ! equally 
 beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, I am 
 to partake in your elevation ; if unhappy, you 
 have still a warm corner in my heart, and a 
 retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your 
 service. ... I knew not whither to aim a 
 letter after you ; that was a sort of shooting 
 flying : add to this the demand Homer had upon 
 me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned 
 notes, all which are at a conclusion for this year. 
 Rejoice with me, O my friend, that my labour 
 is over ; come and make merry with me in 
 much feasting. We will feed among the lilies 
 (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not 
 the Rosalindas of Britain as charming as the 
 Blousalindas of the Hague? . . . Talk not of 
 expenses. Homer shall support his children. 
 ... I shall never know where to end, and am 
 confounded in the many things I have to say 
 to you, though they all amount but to this, that 
 I am entirely, as ever. Yours, etc. 
 
 [Samuel Richardson to Miss Mulso (afterwards 
 Mrs. Chapone), on correct ideas of love, a 
 discussion occasioned by his sketching the 
 character of Sir Charles Grandison in his 
 novel as handsome and attractive, while 
 profligate. The interest in the letters to 
 and from the clique of literary ladies with 
 whom he corresponded has now almost 
 died out.] 
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSON TO MISS MULSO. 
 
 Sevt. 3, 1751. 
 
 You tell me, my dear Miss ]\Iulso, 'that I 
 am really such a bamboozler on the subject of 
 love, that you can't tell what to make of me. ' 
 Sometimes, say you, I am persuaded that ' you 
 have a noble and just idea of the noblest kind of 
 love ; ' and sometimes I think that ' you and I 
 have different ideas of the passion.' 
 
 In another place you are offended with the 
 word gratitude ; as if your idea of love excluded 
 gratitude. 
 
 And further on, you are offended that I call 
 this same passion, 'a little selfish passion.' 
 
 And you say that you have known few girls, 
 and still fewer men, whom you have thought 
 'capable of being in love.' 
 
 ' By this,' proceed you, ' you wiU see, that my 
 ideas of the word love are different from yours, 
 when you call it a little selfish passion.' 
 
 Now, madam, if that passion is not little and 
 selfish that makes two vehement souls prefer 
 the gratification of each other, often to a sense 
 of duty, and always to the whole world without 
 them, be pleased to tell me what it is. And 
 pray be so good as to define to me what the 
 
 95 
 
 noble passion is, of which so few people of 
 either sex are capable. Give me your ideas 
 of it. 
 
 I put not this question as a puzzler, a bam- 
 boozler, but jDurely for information ; and that I 
 may make my Sir Charles susceptible of tho 
 generous (may I say generous ?) flame ; and yet 
 know what he is about, yet be a reasonable man. 
 
 Harriet's passion is founded in gratitude for 
 relief given her in a great exigence. But tho 
 man who rescued her is not, it seems, to have 
 such a word as gratitude in his head in return 
 for her love. 
 
 I repeat that I will please you if I can ; please . 
 you. Miss Mulso, I here mean (before, I meant 
 not you particularly, my dear, but your sex), in 
 Sir Charles's character ; and I sincerely declare, 
 that I would rather form his character to youi- 
 liking, than to the liking of three parts out of 
 four of the persons I am acquainted with. 
 
 You are one of my best girls, and best judges. 
 Of whom have I the opinion that I have of Miss 
 Mulso on these nice subjects ? — I ask, therefore, 
 repeatedly for your definition of the passion 
 which you dignify by the word noble, and from 
 which you exclude everything mean, little, or 
 selfish. 
 
 And you really think it marvellous that a 
 young woman should find a man of exalted 
 merit to be in love with? — Why, truly, I am 
 half of your mind ; for how should people find 
 what, in general, they do not seek ? — Yet what 
 good creatures are many girls ! — They will be in 
 love for all that. 
 
 Why, yes, to be sure, they would be glad of 
 a Sir Charles Grandison, and prefer him even 
 to a Lovelace, were he capable of being terribly 
 in love. And yet, I know one excellent girl 
 who ' is afraid that ladies in general will think 
 him too wise.' — Dear, dear girls, help me to a 
 few monkey tricks to throw into his character, 
 in order to shield him from contempt for his 
 wisdom. 
 
 'It is one of my maxims,' you say, 'that 
 people even of bad hearts will admire and love 
 people of good ones.' Very true ! — And yet 
 admiration and love, in the sense before us, do 
 not always shake hands, except at parting, and 
 with an intention never to meet again. I have 
 known women who professed to admire good 
 men ; but have chosen to marry men — not so 
 good, when lovers of both sorts have tendered 
 themselves to their acceptance. There is some- 
 thing very pretty in the sound of the word wild, 
 added to the word fellow ; and good sense is a 
 very grateful victim to be sacrificed on the 
 altar of love. Fervour and extravagance in 
 expression will please. How shall a woman, 
 who, moreover, loves to be admired, know a 
 man's heart, but from his lips ?— Let him find 
 flattery, and she will find credulity. Sweet 
 souls ! .can they be always contradicting ? 
 
 ' You believe it is not in human natm-e, how- 
 
96 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ever depraved, to prefer evil to good in another, 
 whatever people may do in themselves.' Why, 
 no one would really think so, did not experience 
 convince us that many, very many young 
 women, in the article of marriage, though not 
 j before thought to be very depraved, are taken 
 i by this green sickness of the soul, and prefer 
 dirt and rubbish to wholesome diet. 
 
 The result of the matter is this, with very 
 many young women : — They will admire a good 
 man, but they will marry a bad one. Are not 
 rakes pretty fellows? 
 
 But one thing let me add to comfort you in 
 relation to Harriet's difficulties, I intend to 
 make her shine by her cordial approbation, as 
 I she goes along, of every good action of her 
 I beloved. She is humbled by her love (suspense 
 I in love is a mortifier) to think herself inferior 
 , to his sisters ; but I intend to raise her above 
 i them, even in her own just opinion, and when 
 I she shines out the girl worthy of the man, not 
 i exalt but reward her, and at the same time 
 j make him think himself highly rewarded by 
 ] the love of so frank and so right an heart. 
 ! There now !— Will that do, my Miss Mulso ? 
 I laid indeed a heavy hand on the good 
 Clarisso. But I had begun with her, with a 
 view to the future saint in her character : and 
 could she, but by sufferings, shine as she does ? 
 Do you, my dear child, look upon me as your 
 I paternal friend, S. KiCHABDSON. 
 
 ! SAMUEL KICHARDSON TO AAEON HILL. 
 
 I OctoUr 27, 1748. 
 
 I Deae Sir, — With regard to some parts of 
 j your favour of the nineteenth, I will only say 
 I that I am too much pained on your account to 
 express anything but my pain. A mind so 
 noble ! so generous ! so underrating intentional 
 good from himself ! so overrating trifling 
 benefits from others ! But no more on this 
 subject. You are an alien, sir, in this world ; 
 and no wonder that the base world treat you as 
 such. 
 
 You are so very earnest about transferring to 
 me the copyright to all your works, that I will 
 only say, that that point must be left to 
 the future issues of things. But I will keep 
 account. I will, though I were to know how 
 to use the value of your favours as to those 
 issues (never can I the value of your generous 
 intentions). You will allow me to repeat, I 
 will keep account. It is therefore time enough 
 to think of the bank receipt you have had 
 the goodness to send me to fill up. 
 
 Would to heaven that all men had the same 
 (I am sure I may call it just) opinion of your 
 works that I have ! But — shall I tell you, 
 sir? — the world, the taste of the world, is 
 altered since you withdrew from it. Your 
 
 writings required thought to read, and to take 
 in their whole force ; and the world has no 
 thought to bestow. Simplicity is all their cry ; 
 yet hardly do these criers know what they 
 mean by the noble word. They may see a 
 thousand beauties obvious to the eye ; but if 
 there lie jewels in the mine that require labour 
 to come at, they will not dig. I do not think, 
 that were Milton's Paradise Lost to be now 
 published as a new work, it would be well 
 received. Shakespeare, with all his beauties, 
 would, as a modern writer, be hissed off the 
 I stage. Your sentiments, even they will have it 
 who allow them to be noble, are too munifi- 
 cently adorned ; and they want you to descend 
 to their level. Will you, sir, excuse me this 
 freedom ? Yet I can no longer excuse myself, 
 to the love and to the veneration mingled that 
 I bear to you, if I do not acquaint you with 
 what the world you wish to mend says of your 
 writings. And yet for my own part, I am 
 convinced that the fault lies in that indolent 
 (that lazy, I should rather call it) world. You 
 would not, I am sure, wish to write to a future 
 age only. — A chance too so great, that posterity 
 will be mended by what shall be handed down 
 to them by this. And few, very few are they 
 Avho make it their study and their labour to 
 stem the tide of popular disapprobation or 
 prejudice. Besides, I am of opinion that it 
 is necessary for a genius to accommodate itself 
 to the mode and taste of the world it is cast 
 into, since works published in this age must 
 take root in it to flourish in the next. 
 
 As to your title, sir, which you are pleased 
 to require my opinion of, let me premise, that 
 there was a time, and that within my own 
 remembrance, when a pompous title was 
 almost necessary to promote the sale of a 
 book. But the booksellers, whose business is 
 to watch the taste and foibles of the public, 
 soon (as they never fail on such occasions to do) 
 wore out that fashion ; and now, verifying the 
 old observation, that good wine needs no bush, 
 a pompous or laboured title is looked upon as a 
 certain sign of want of merit in the perform- 
 ance, and hardly ever becomes an invitation 
 to the purchaser. 
 
 As to your particular title to this great work, 
 I have your pardon to beg, if I refer to your 
 consideration, whether epic, truly epic, as the 
 piece is, you would choose to call it epic in the 
 title page ; since hundreds who will see the 
 title, will not, at the time, have seen your 
 admirable definition of the word. Excuse, sir, 
 this freedom also, and excuse these excuses.— I 
 am exceedingly pressed in time, and shall be 
 for some time to come, or, sloven as I am in my 
 pen, this should not have gone. 
 
 God forbid that I should have given you 
 cause to say, as a recommendation, that there 
 will be more prose than verse in your future 
 works ! I believe, sir, that Mr. Garrick in 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 97 
 
 particular has not in any manner entered into 
 vindictive reflections. I never saw Mm on the 
 stage ; but of late I am pretty well acquainted 
 with him. I know he honours you. But he 
 thinks you above the present low taste (this I 
 speak in confidence), and once I heard him say 
 as much, and wish that you could descend to it. 
 Hence one of the reasons that have impelled me 
 to be so bold as I have been in this letter. 
 
 The occasion of the black wax I use is the 
 loss of an excellent sister. We loved each 
 other tenderly ! But my frequent, I might 
 say constant, disorders of the nervous kind 
 i ought to remind me, as a consolation, of David's 
 I self-comfort on the death of his child, perhaps 
 I oftener than it does, immersed as I am in my 
 ] own trifles, and in business, that the common 
 parental care permits me not to quit, though it 
 becomes every day more irksome to me than 
 another. 
 
 I am, sir, with true affection, your most 
 faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 S. Richardson. 
 
 j [Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards Lady Mary 
 ■yVortley Montagu, wrote in this sprightly 
 and animated fashion, displayed in the first 
 letter, to her future husband. "When he 
 became ambassador to the Porte in 1716, 
 she accompanied him in his sojourn abroad, 
 and we quote a few of the letters sent 
 home to friends, which contain a record of 
 her travels. 'Keep my letters,' she said 
 to one of her correspondents, ' they will be 
 as good as Madame Sevigne's forty years 
 hence.' But a certain critic has said, that 
 ' the Frenchwoman speaks out of the 
 abundance of her heart, and the English- 
 woman out of the clearness of her head.' 
 If less admired now than they once were, 
 they have been read with pleasure by many 
 readers of a past generation,] 
 
 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (THEN 
 pierrepont) to E. W. MONTAGU. 
 
 March 1711. 
 Though your letter is far from what I ex- 
 pected, having once promised to answer it, with 
 the sincere account of my inmost thoughts, I 
 am resolved you shall not find me worse than 
 my word, which is (whatever you may think) 
 inviolable. 
 
 'Tis no affectation to say, that I despise the 
 pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise : all the 
 fine equipages that shine in the ring never gave me 
 another thought than either pity or contempt 
 
 gave me for the owners, that could place happiness 
 in attracting the eyes of strangers. Nothing 
 touches me with satisfaction but what touches 
 my heart, and I should find more pleasure in 
 the secret joy I should feel at a kind expression 
 from a friend I esteemed, than at the admira- 
 tion of a whole playhouse, or the envy of those of 
 my own sex who could not attain to the same 
 number of jewels, fine clothes, etc. , supposing I 
 was at the very summit of this sort of happiness. 
 
 You may be this friend if you please. Did 
 you really esteem me, had you any tender 
 regard for me, I could, I think, j)ass my life in 
 any station, happier with you than in all the 
 grandeur of the world with any other. You 
 have some humours, that would be disagree- 
 able to any woman that married with an inten- 
 tion of finding her happiness abroad. That is 
 not my resolution. If I marry, I propose to 
 myself a retirement ; there is few of my 
 acquaintance I should ever wish to see again ; 
 and the pleasing one, and only one, is the way 
 in which I design to please myself. Happiness 
 is the natural design of all the world ; and 
 everything we see done, is meant in order to 
 attain it. My imagination places it in friend- 
 ship. By friendship, I mean an entire com- 
 munication of thoughts, wishes, interests, and 
 pleasures, being undivided ; a mutual esteem, 
 which naturally carries with it a pleasing sweet- 
 ness of conversation, and terminates in the 
 desire of making one or another hapj^y, without 
 being forced to run into visits, noise, and hurry, 
 which serve rather to trouble than compose 
 the thoughts of any reasonable creature. There 
 are few capable of a friendship sucli as I have 
 described, and 'tis necessary for the generality of 
 the world to be taken up with trifles. Carry a 
 fine lady or a fine gentleman out of town, and 
 they know no more what to say. To take from 
 them plays, operas, and fashions, is taking 
 away all their tojDics of discourse ; and they 
 know not how to form their thoughts on any 
 other subjects. They know very well what it 
 is to be admired, but are perfectly ignorant of 
 what it is to be loved. I take you to have sense 
 enough not to think this science romantic : I 
 rather choose to use the word friendship than 
 love, because in the general sense that word 
 is spoke, it signifies a passion rather founded 
 on fancy than reason ; and when I say friend- 
 ship, I mean a mixture of friendship and 
 esteem, and which a long acquaintance increases, 
 not decays ; how far I deserve such a friendshii?, 
 I can be no judge of myself : I may want the 
 good sense that is necessary to be agreeable to 
 a man of merit, but I know I want the vanity to 
 believe I have ; and can promise you shall never 
 like me less, upon knowing me better ; and that 
 I shall never forget that you have a better 
 understanding than myself. 
 
 And now let me entreat you to think (if 
 possible) tolerably of my modesty, after so bold a 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 declaration : I am resolved to throw off reserve, 
 and use me ill if you please. I am sensible to 
 own an inclination for a man is putting one- 
 self wholly in his power; but sure you have 
 generosity enough not to abuse it. After all I 
 have said, I pretend no tie but on your heart : 
 if you do not love me, I shall not be happy 
 with you; if you do I need add no further. 
 I am not mercenary, and would not receive an 
 obligation that comes not from one who loves 
 me. I do not desire my letter back again : you 
 have honour, and I dare trust you. I am going 
 to the same place I went last spring. I shall 
 think of you there : it depends ui)on you in 
 what manner. M. P. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OP MAR. 
 
 Rotterdam, Aug. 3, O.S., 1716. 
 I filatter myself, dear sister, that I shall give 
 you some ideasure in letting you know that I 
 have safely passed the sea, though we had the 
 ill fortune of a storm. We were persuaded by 
 the captain of the yacht to set out in a calm, 
 and he pretended there was nothing so easy as 
 to tide it over ; but after two days slowly 
 moving, the wind blew so hard that none of the 
 sailors could keep their feet, and we were all 
 Sunday night tossed very handsomely, I never 
 saw a man more frighted than the captain. 
 For my part I have been so lucky neither to 
 suffer from fear nor sea-sickness ; though, I 
 confess, I was so impatient to see myself once 
 more upon dry land, that I would not stay till 
 the yacht could get to Rotterdam, but went in 
 the long boat to Helvoetsluys, where we had 
 voitures to carry us to the Briel. I was charmed 
 with the neatness of that little town ; but my 
 arrival at Eotterdam presented me a new scene 
 of pleasure. All the streets are joaved with 
 broad stones, and before many of the meanest 
 artificers' doors are placed seats of various- 
 coloured marble, so neatly kept that, I'll assure 
 you, I walked almost all over the town yester- 
 day, incognito, in my slippers, without receiving 
 one spot of dirt ; and you may see the Dutch 
 maids washing the pavement of the street, with 
 more application than ours do our bed-chambers. 
 The town seems so full of people with such busy 
 faces, all in motion, that I can hardly fancy it 
 is not some celebrated fair ; but I see it is every 
 day the same. 'Tis certain no town can be 
 more advantageously situated for commerce. 
 Here are seven large canals, on which the 
 merchants' ships come up to the very doors of 
 their houses. The shops and warehouses are of 
 a suri^rising neatness and magnificence, filled 
 with an incredible quantity of fine merchandise, 
 and so much cheaper than what we see in 
 England, that I have much ado to persuade 
 myself I am still so near it. Here is neither 
 
 dirt nor beggary to be seen. One is not shocked 
 with those loathsome cripples so common in 
 London, nor teased with the importunity of 
 idle fellows and wenches that choose to be nasty 
 and lazy. The common servants and little 
 shop-women here are more nicely clean than 
 most of our ladies, and the great variety of neat 
 dresses (every woman dressing her head after 
 her own fashion) is an additional pleasure in 
 seeing the town. You see, hitherto, I make no 
 complaints, dear sister, and if I continue to 
 like travelling as well as I do at present, I shall 
 not repent my project. It will go a great way 
 in making me satisfied with it, if it affords me 
 an opportunity of entertaining you. But it is 
 not from Holland that you may expect a dis- 
 interested, offer. I can write enough in the 
 style of Rotterdam, to tell you plainly, in one 
 word, that I expect returns of all the London 
 news. You see I have already learnt to make a 
 good bargain, and that it is not for nothing I 
 will so much as tell you. 
 
 I am, your affectionate sister. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Vienna, Sept. 8, O.S., 1716. 
 I am now, my dear sister, safely arrived at 
 Vienna, and, I thank God, have not at all 
 suffered in my health, nor (what is dearer to 
 me) in that of my child, by all our fatigues. 
 "We travelled by water from Ratisbon, a journey 
 perfectly agreeable, down the Danube, in one 
 of those little vessels that they, very properly, 
 call wooden houses, having in them all the 
 conveniences of a palace, stoves in the chambers, 
 kitchens, etc. They are rowed by twelve men 
 each, and move with such an incredible swift- 
 ness, that in the same day you have the pleasure 
 of a vast variety of prospects, and within the 
 space of a few hours you have the pleasure of 
 seeing a populous city, adorned with magnificent 
 palaces, and the most romantic solitudes, whicli 
 appear distant from the commerce of mankind, 
 the banks of the Danube being charmingly 
 diversified with woods, rocks, mountains covered 
 with vines, fields of corn, lai'ge cities, and ruins 
 of ancient castles. I saw the great towns of 
 Passau and Lintz, famous for the retreat of 
 the imperial court, when Vienna was besieged. 
 This town, which has the honour of being the 
 Emperor's residence, did not at all answer my 
 expectations nor ideas of it, being much less 
 than I expected to find it ; the streets are very 
 close, and so narrow, one cannot observe the 
 fine fronts of the palaces, though many of them 
 very well deserve observation, being truly 
 magnificent. They are built of fine white 
 stone, and are excessive high. For as the 
 town is too little for the number of the people 
 that desire to live in it, the builders seem to 
 have i)rojected to repair that misfortune by 
 clapping one town on the top of another, most 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of the houses being of five, and some of them 
 of six storeys. You may easily imagine, that 
 the streets being so narrow, the rooms are 
 extremely dark, and what is an inconveniency 
 much more intolerable, in my opinion, there is 
 no house which has so few as five or six families 
 in it. The apartments of the greatest ladies, 
 and even of the IMinisters of State, are divided 
 but by a partition from that of a tailor or 
 shoemaker, and I know nobody that has 
 above two floors in any house, one for their 
 own use, and one higher for their servants. 
 Those that have houses of their own let out 
 the rest of them to whoever will take them, 
 and thus the great stairs (which are aU of stone) 
 are as common and as dirty as the street. 'Tis 
 true, when you have once travelled through 
 them, nothing can be more surprisingly magni- 
 ficent than the apartments. They are commonly 
 a suite of eight or ten large rooms, all inlaid, 
 the doors and windows richly carved and gilt, 
 and the furniture such as is seldom seen in the 
 palaces of sovereign princes in other countries. 
 Their apartments are adorned with hangings of 
 the finest tapestry of Brussels, prodigious large 
 looking-glasses in silver frames, fine japan 
 tables, beds, chairs, canopies and window 
 curtains of the richest Genoa damask or velvet, 
 almost covered with gold lace or embroidery. 
 All this is made gay by pictures and vast jars 
 of japan china, and large lustres of rock crystal. 
 I have already had the honour of being invited 
 to dinner by several of the first people of 
 quality, and I must do them the justice to say, 
 the good taste and magnificence of their tables 
 very well answer to that of their fui-niture. I 
 have been more than once entertained with 
 fifty dishes of meat, all served in silver, and 
 well dressed ; the dessert proportionable, served 
 in the finest china. But the variety and rich- 
 ness of their wines is what appears the most 
 surprising. The constant way is, to lay a list 
 of their names upon the plates of the guests 
 along with the napkins, and I have counted 
 several times to the number of eighteen differ- 
 ent sorts, all exquisite in their kinds. I was 
 yesterday at Count Schoonbourn the vice-chan- 
 cellor's garden, where I was invited to dinner. 
 I must own I never saw a place so perfectly 
 delightful as the Fauxbourg of Vienna. It is 
 very large, and almost wholly composed of 
 delicious palaces. If the Emperor found it 
 proper to permit the gates of the town to be 
 laid open, that the Fauxbourgs might be joined 
 to it, he would have one of the largest and best 
 built cities in Europe. Count Schoonbourn's 
 villa is one of the most magnificent ; the 
 furniture all rich brocades, so well fancied and 
 fitted up, nothing can look more gay and 
 splendid ; not to speak of a gallery full of 
 rarities of coral, mother-of-pearl, and through- 
 out the whole house a profusion of gilding, 
 carving, fine paintings, the most beautiful porce- 
 
 99 
 
 lain, statues of alabaster and ivory, and vast 
 orange and lemon trees in gilt pots. The 
 dinner was perfectly fine and well ordered, and 
 made still more agreeable by the good-humour 
 of the Count. I have not yet been at court, 
 being forced to stay for my gown, without 
 which there is no waiting on the Empress ; 
 though I am not without great impatience to 
 see a beauty that has been the admiration of 
 so many different nations. When I have had 
 that honour, I will not fail to let you know my 
 real thoughts, always taking a particular pleasure 
 in communicating them to my dear sister. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Vienna, Jan. 16, O.S., 1717. 
 
 I am now, dear sister, to take leave of you 
 for a long time, and of Vienna for ever, design- 
 ing to-morrow to begin my journey through 
 Hungary in spite of the excessive cold and deep 
 snows, which are enough to damp a greater 
 courage than I am mistress of. But my 
 principle of passive obedience carries me 
 through everything. I have had my audience 
 of leave of the Empress. His Imperial Majesty 
 was pleased to be present when I waited on the 
 reigning Empress, and, after a very obliging 
 conversation, both their Imperial Majesties 
 invited me to take Vienna on my road back ; 
 but I have no thoughts of enduring over again 
 so great a fatigue. I delivered a letter from 
 the Duchess of Blankenburg. I stayed but a 
 few days at that court, though her highness 
 pressed me very much to stay, and when I left 
 her, engaged me to write to her. I wrote you 
 a long letter from thence, which I hope you 
 have received, though you don't mention it ; 
 but I believe I forgot to tell you one cviriosity in 
 all the German courts, which I cannot forbear 
 taking notice of, — all the princes keep favourite 
 dwarfs. The Emperor and Empress have two of i 
 these little monsters, as ugly as devils, especially i 
 the female ; but they are all bedaubed with ! 
 diamonds, and stand at her Majesty's elbow in 
 all public places. The Duke of Wolfenbuttle !, 
 has one, and the Duchess of Blankenburg is not i 
 without hers, but indeed the most proportion- 
 able I ever saw. I am told the King of | 
 Denmark has so far improved upon this fashion, j 
 that his dwarf is his chief Minister. I can 
 assign no reason for their fondness for these 
 pieces of deformity, but the opinion all the 
 absolute princes have, that 'tis below them to 
 converse with the rest of mankind ; and not to 
 be quite alone, they are forced to seek their 
 companions among the refuse of human nature, 
 these creatures being the only part of their 
 court privileged to talk freely to them. I am 
 at present confined to my chamber by a sore 
 throat, and am really glad of the excuse to 
 avoid seeing people, that I love well enough, to 
 be very much mortified when I think I am going ; 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 100 
 
 to part with them for ever. 'Tis true, the 
 Austrians are not commonly the most polite 
 peoijle in the world, nor the most agreeable. 
 But Vienna is inhabited by all nations, and I 
 had formed to myself a little society of such 
 as were perfectly to my own taste. And though 
 the number was not great, I could never i)ick up, 
 in any other place, such a number of reasonable, 
 agreeable people. We were almost always 
 together, and you know I have ever been of 
 opinion that a chosen conversation, composed of 
 a few that one esteems, is the greatest hai)piness 
 of life. Here are some Spaniards of both sexes, 
 that have all the vivacity and generosity of 
 sentiments anciently ascribed to their nation ; 
 and could I believe that the whole kingdom 
 were like them, I should wish nothing more than 
 to end my days there. The ladies of my 
 acquaintance have so much goodness for me, 
 they cry whenever they see me, since I am 
 determined to undertake this journey. And, 
 indeed, I am not very easy when I reflect on 
 what I am going to suffer. Almost everybody 
 I see frights me with some new difficulty. 
 Prince Eugene has been so good as to say all the 
 things he could to persuade me to stay till the 
 Danube is thawed, that I might have the 
 conveniency of going by water, assuring me that 
 the houses in Hungary are such as are no 
 defence against the weather, and that I shall 
 be obliged to travel three or fom- days between 
 Buda and Essek without finding any house at 
 all, through desert plains covered with snow; 
 where the cold is so violent, many have been 
 killed by it. I own these terrors have made a 
 very deep impression on my mind, because I 
 believe he tells me things truly as they are, 
 and nobody can be better informed of them. 
 
 Now I have named that great man, I am sure 
 you expect I should say something particular of 
 him, having the advantage of seeing him very 
 often ; but I am as unwilling to speak of him at 
 Vienna, as I should be to talk of Hercules 
 in the court of Omphale, if I had seen him 
 there. I don't know what comfort other people 
 find in considering the weakness of great men 
 (because, perhaps, it brings them nearer to their 
 level), but 'tis always a mortification to me to 
 observe that there is no perfection in humanity. 
 The young Prince of Portugal is the admiration 
 of the whole court ; he is handsome and polite, 
 with a great vivacity. All the officers tell 
 wonders of his gallantry the last campaign. 
 He is lodged at court with all the honours due 
 to his rank. Adieu, dear sister, this is the last 
 account you will have from me of Vienna. If 
 I survive my journey, you shall hear from me 
 again. I can say, with great truth, in the words 
 of Moneses, ' I have long learnt to hold myself 
 as nothing,' but when I think of the fatigue my 
 poor infant must suffer, I have all a mother's 
 fondness in my eyes, and all her tender passions 
 in my heart. 
 
 P.S. — I have written a letter to my Lady 
 
 , that I believe she won't like, and upon 
 
 cooler reflection, I think I had done better to 
 have let it alone ; but I was downright peevish 
 at all her questions, and her ridiculous imagina- 
 tion that I have certainly seen abundance of 
 wonders which I keep to myself out of mere 
 malice. She is very angry that I won't lie like 
 other travellers. I verily believe she expects 
 I should tell her of the Anthropophagi, men 
 whose heads grow below their shoulders ; how- 
 ever, pray say something to pacify her. 
 
 TO MR. POPE. 
 
 Belgrade, Feb. 12, O.S., 1717. 
 I did verily intend to write you a long letter 
 from Peterwaradin, where I expected to stay 
 three or four days, but the bassa here was in 
 such haste to see us, that he despatched the 
 
 courier back (which Mr. W had sent to 
 
 know the time he would send the convoy to 
 meet us) without suffering him to pull off his 
 boots. My letters were not thought important 
 enough to stop our journey, and we left Peter- 
 waradin the next day, being waited on by the 
 chief officers of the garrison, and a considerable 
 convoy of Germans and Kussians. The Emperor 
 has several regiments of these people ; but, to 
 say the truth, they are rather plunderers than 
 soldiers ; having no pay, and being obliged to 
 furnish their own arms and horses ; they rather 
 look like vagabond gipsies, or stoot beggars, 
 than regular troops. I cannot forbear speaking 
 a word of this race of creatures, who are very 
 numerous all over Hungary. They have a 
 patriarch of their own at Grand Cairo, and are 
 really of the Greek Church, but their extreme 
 ignorance gives their j)riests occasion to impose 
 several new notions upon them. These fellows, 
 letting their hair and beard grow inviolate, 
 make exactly the figure of the Indian Brahmins. 
 They are heirs-general to all the money of the 
 laity ; for which, in return, they give them 
 formal passports signed and sealed for heaven ; 
 and the wives and children only inherit the 
 house and cattle. In most other points they 
 follow the Greek Church. — This little digression 
 has interrupted my telling you we passed over 
 the field of Carlowitz, where the last great 
 victory was obtained by Prince Eugene over the 
 Turks. The marks of that glorious bloody day 
 are yet recent, the field being yet strewed with 
 ; the skulls and carcases of unburied men, horses, 
 and camels. I could not look without horror 
 on such numbers of mangled human bodies, nor 
 without reflecting on the injustice of war, that 
 makes murder not only necessary, but meri- 
 tox'ious. Nothing seems to be a plainer proof 
 of the irrationality of mankind (whatever fine 
 claims we pretend to reason) than the rage 
 I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 lOI 
 
 with which they contest for a small spot of 
 ground, when such vast parts of fruitful earth 
 lie quite uninhabited. 'Tis true, custom has 
 now made it unavoidable ; but can there be 
 a greater demonstration of want of reason, 
 than a custom being firmly established so 
 plainly contrary to the interest of man in 
 general? I am a good deal inclined to believe 
 Mr. Hobbes, that the state of nature is a state 
 of war ; but thence I conclude human nature, 
 not rational, if the word reason means common 
 sense, as I suppose it does. I have a gi-eat 
 many admirable arguments to support this 
 reflection ; I won't, however, trouble you with 
 them, but return, in a ijlain style, to the 
 history of my travels. 
 
 A\'e were met at Betsko (a village in the 
 midway between Belgrade and Peterwaradin) 
 by an aga of the janizaries, with a body of 
 Turks, exceeding the Germans by one hundred 
 men, though the bassa had engaged to send 
 exactly the same number. You may judge by 
 this of their fears. I am really persuaded that 
 they hardly thought the odds of one hundred 
 men set them even with the Germans ; how- 
 ever, I was very \ineasy till they were parted, 
 fearing some quarrel might arise notwithstand- 
 ing the parole given. AVe came late to 
 Belgrade, the deep snows making the ascent 
 to it very difficult. It seems a strong city, 
 fortified on the east side by the Danube ; and 
 on the south by the river Save, and was 
 formerly the barrier of Hungary. It was first 
 taken by Solyman the Magnificent ; and since, 
 by the Emperor's forces, led by the Elector of 
 Bavaria. The Emperor held it only two years, 
 it being retaken by the Grand Vizier. It is 
 now fortified with the utmost care and skill 
 the Turks are capable of, and strengthened by 
 a very numerous garrison of their bravest 
 janizaries, commanded by a Bassa Seraskier 
 {i.e. general), though this last expression is not 
 very just ; for to say truth, the Seraskier is 
 commanded by the janizaries. These troops 
 have an absolute authority here, and their 
 conduct carries much more the aspect of re- 
 bellion than the appearance of subordination. 
 You may judge of this by the following story, 
 which, at the same time, will give you an idea 
 of the admirable intelligence of the governor 
 of Peterwaradin, though so few hours distant. 
 A\"e were told by him at Peterwaradin that the 
 garrison and inhabitants of Belgrade were so 
 weary of the war, they had killed their bassa 
 about two months ago, in a mutiny, because he 
 had suffered himself to be prevailed upon by a 
 bribe of five purses (five hundred pound sterling) 
 to give permission to the Tartars to ravage the 
 German frontiers. We were very well pleased 
 to hear of such favourable dispositions in the 
 people ; but when we came hither we found 
 the governor had been ill informed, and the 
 real truth of the story to be this. The late 
 
 bassa fell under the displeasure of his soldiers, 
 for no other reason but restraining their incur- 
 sions on the Germans. They took it into their 
 heads from that mildness that he had intelligence 
 with the enemy, and sent such information to 
 the Grand Signior at Adrianople ; but redress 
 not coming quick enough from thence, they 
 assembled themselves in a tumultuous manner, 
 and by force dragged their bassa before the 
 Cadi and Mufti, and there demanded justice 
 in a mutinous way ; one crying out, why he 
 protected the infidels? another, why he 
 squeezed them of their money? The bassa, 
 easily guessing their purpose, calmly replied to 
 them tbat they asked him too many questions, 
 and that he had but one life, which must 
 answer for all. They then immediately fell 
 upon him with their scimitars (without wait- 
 ing the sentence of their heads of the law), and 
 in a few moments cut him in pieces. The 
 present bassa has not dared to punish the 
 murder; on the contrary, he affected to 
 apj)laud the actors of it, as brave fellows that 
 knew how to do themselves justice. He takes 
 all i^retences of throwing money amongst the 
 garrison, and suffers them to make little ex- 
 cursions into Hungary, where they burn some 
 poor Russian houses. 
 
 You may imagine I cannot be very easy in a 
 town which is really under the government of 
 an insolent soldiery. — We expected to be im- 
 mediately dismissed, after a night's lodging 
 here ; but the bassa detains us till he receives 
 orders from Adrianople, which may possibly be 
 a month coming. In the meantime we are 
 lodged in one of the best houses, belonging to 
 a very considerable man amongst them, and 
 have a whole chamber of janizaries to guard 
 us. My only diversion is the conversation of 
 our host, Achmet-beg, a title something like 
 that of count in Germany. His father was a 
 great bassa, and he has been educated in the 
 most polite Eastern learning, being perfectly 
 skilled in the Arabic and Persian languages, 
 and an extraordinary scribe, which they call 
 Effendi. This accomplishment makes way to the 
 greatest preferments ; but he has had the good 
 sense to prefer an easy, quiet, secure life to all 
 the dangerous honours of the Porte. He sups 
 with us every night, and drinks wine very 
 freely. You cannot imagine how much he is 
 delighted with the liberty of conversing with 
 me. He has explained to me many pieces of 
 Arabian poetry, which, I observe, are in num- 
 bers not unlike ours, generally of an alternate 
 verse, and of a very musical sound. Their 
 expressions of love are very passionate and 
 lively. I am so much pleased with them, I 
 really believe I shoxild learn to read Arabic if 
 I was to stay here a few months. He has a 
 very good library of their books of all kind ; 
 and, as he tells me, spends the greatest part of 
 his life there. I pass for a great scholar with 
 
102 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 him, by relating to him some of the Persian 
 tales, which I find are genuine. At first he 
 believed I understood Persian. I have frequent 
 disputes with him concerning the difference of 
 our customs, particularly the confinement of 
 women. He assures me there is nothing at all 
 in it ; only, says he, we have the advantage that 
 when our wives cheat us nobody knows it. He 
 has wit, and is more iwlite than many Christian 
 men of quality. I am very much entertained 
 with him. He has had the curiosity to make 
 one of our servants set him an alphabet of our 
 letters, and can already write a good Eoman 
 hand. But these amusements do not hinder 
 my wishing heartily to be out of this place ; 
 for the weather is colder than I believe it ever 
 was anywhere but in Greenland. "VVe have a 
 very large stove constantly kept hot, and yet 
 the windows of the room are frozen on the 
 inside. God knows when I may have an 
 opportunity of sending this letter, but I have 
 written it for the discharge of my own con- 
 science ; and you cannot now reproach me that 
 one of yours makes ten of mine. Adieu. 
 
 TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF 
 WALES. 1 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S., 1717. 
 I have now, madam, finished a journey that 
 has not been undertaken by any Christian since 
 the time of the Greek emperors; and I shall 
 not regret all the fatigues I have suffered in it, 
 if it gives me an opportunity of amusing your 
 K.H. by an account of x>laces utterly unknown 
 amongst us : the Emperor's ambassadors, and 
 those few English that have come hither, 
 always going on the Danube to Nicopolis. 
 
 But the river was now frozen, and Mr. "VV 
 
 was so zealous for the service of his Majesty, 
 that he would not defer his journey to wait 
 for the conveniency of that passage. We 
 crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite 
 over -grown with wood, though a country 
 naturally fertile. The inhabitants are indus- 
 trious ; but the oppression of the peasants is 
 so great, they are forced to abandon their 
 houses, and neglect their tillage, all they have 
 being a prey to the janizaries, whenever they 
 please to seize upon it. We had a guard of 
 five hundred of them, and I was almost in 
 tears every day to see their insolences in the 
 poor villages through which we passed. After 
 seven days' travelling through thick woods, we 
 came to Nissa, once the capital of Servia, 
 situated in a fine plain on the river Nissava, 
 in a very good air, and so fruitful a soil that 
 the great plenty is hardly credible. I was 
 certainly assured that the quantity of wine 
 
 last vintage was so prodigious, that they were 
 forced to dig holes in the earth to put it in, 
 not having vessels enough in the town to hold 
 it. The happiness of this plenty is scarce 
 perceived by the oppressed people. I saw 
 here a new occasion for my compassion ; the 
 wretches that had i)rovided twenty waggons 
 for our baggage from Belgrade hither for a 
 certain hire, being all sent back without pay- 
 ment, some of their horses lamed, and others 
 killed, without any satisfaction made for them. 
 The poor fellows came round the house weeping 
 and tearing their hair and beards in a most 
 pitiful manner, without getting anything but 
 drubs from the insolent soldiers. I cannot 
 express to your E..H. how much I was moved 
 at this scene. I would have paid them the 
 money out of my own pocket with all my 
 heart, but it would only have been giving so 
 much to the aga, who would have taken it 
 from them without any remorse. After four 
 days' journey from this place over the moun- 
 tains, we came to Sophia, situated in a large, 
 beautiful plain on the river Isca, and surrounded 
 with distant mountains. 'Tis hardly possible 
 to see a more agreeable landscape. The city 
 itself is very large, and extremely populous. 
 Here are hot baths, very famous for their 
 medicinal virtues. Four days' journey from 
 hence we arrived at Philippopolis, after having 
 passed the ridges between the mountains of 
 Hoemus and Rhodope, which are always 
 covered with snow. This town is situated on 
 a rising ground near the river Hebrus, and is 
 almost wholly inhabited by Greeks ; here are 
 still some ancient Christian churches. They 
 have a bishop ; and several of the richest 
 Greeks live here ; but they are forced to con- 
 ceal their wealth with great care, the appear- 
 ance of poverty (which includes part of its 
 inconveniences) being all their security against 
 feeling it in earnest. The country from hence 
 to Adrianople is the finest in the world. Vines 
 grow wild on all the hills, and the perpetual 
 spring they enjoy makes everything gay and 
 flourishing. But this climate, happy as it 
 seems, can never be preferred to England, with 
 all its frosts and snows, while we are blessed 
 with an easy government under a king who 
 makes his own happiness consist in the liberty 
 of his people, and chooses rather to be looked 
 upon as their father than their master. — This 
 theme would carry me very far, and I am 
 sensible I have already tired your R.H.'s 
 patience. But my letter is in your hands, 
 and you may make it as short as you please by 
 throwing it into the fire when weary of reading 
 it. I am, madam, with the greatest respect. 
 
 1 Queen Caroliue. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT . 
 
 Adrianaph, May 17,'O.S. 
 I am going to leave Adrianople, and I would 
 not do it without giving you some account of 
 all that is curious in it, which I have taken a 
 great deal of pains to see. I will not trouble 
 you with wise dissertations whether or no this 
 is the same city that was anciently called 
 Orestesit or Oreste, which you know better 
 than I do. It is now called from the Emperor 
 Adrian, and was the first European seat of 
 the Turkish empire, and has been the favourite 
 residence of many sultans. Mahomet the 4th, 
 and Mustapha, the brother of the reigning 
 emperor, were so fond of it that they wholly 
 abandoned Constantinople, which humour so 
 far exasperated the janizaries, that it was a con- 
 siderable motive to the rebellions that deposed 
 them. Yet this man seems to love to keep his 
 court here. I can give you no reason for this 
 partiality. 'Tis true, the situation is fine, and 
 the country all round very beautiful, but the 
 air is extremely bad, and the seraglio itself is 
 not free from the ill effect of it. The town is 
 said to be eight miles in compass, I suppose 
 they reckon in the gardens. There are some 
 good houses in it, I mean large ones, for the 
 architecture of their palaces never makes any 
 great show. It is now very full of people, but 
 they are, most of them, such as follow the court 
 or camp, and when they are removed, I am told 
 'tis no populous city. The river Maritza 
 (anciently the Hebrus), on which it is situated, 
 is dried up every summer, which contributes 
 very much to make it unwholesome. It is now 
 a very pleasant stream. There are two noble 
 bridges built over it. I had the curiosity to go 
 to see the Exchange in my Turkish dress, which 
 is disguise sufficient. Yet I own I was not very 
 easy when I saw it crowded with janizaries ; 
 but they dare not be rude to a woman, and 
 made way for me with as much respect as if I 
 had been in my own figure. It is half a mile in 
 length, the roof arched, and kept extremely 
 neat. It holds three hundred and sixty-five 
 shops, furnished with all sorts of rich goods, 
 exposed to sale in the same manner as at the 
 New Exchange in London. But the pavement 
 is kept much neater, and the shops are all so 
 clean, they seem just new painted. Idle people 
 of all sorts walk here for their diversion, or 
 amuse themselves with drinking coffee or 
 sherbet, which is cried about as oranges and 
 sweetmeats are in our playhouses. I observed 
 most of the rich tradesmen were Jews. That 
 people are in incredible power in this country. 
 They have many privileges above all the natural 
 Turks themselves, and have formed a very 
 considerable commonwealth here, being judged 
 by their own laws. They have drawn the whole 
 trade of the empire into their hands, partly by 
 the firm union amongst themselves, and partly 
 
 103 
 
 by the idle temper and want of industry in the 
 Turks. Every bassa has his Jew, who is his 
 homme d'affaires ; he is let into all his secrets, 
 and does all his business. No bargain is made, 
 no bribe received, no merchandise disposed of, 
 but what passes through their hands. They are 
 the physicians, the stewards, and the inter- 
 preters of all the great men. You may judge 
 how advantageous this is to a people who never 
 fail to make use of the smallest advantages. 
 They have found the secret of making them- 
 selves so necessary, that they are certain of the 
 protection of the court, whatever Ministry is in 
 power. Even the English, French, and Italian 
 merchants, who are sensible of their artifices, 
 are, however, forced to trust their affairs to 
 their negotiation, nothing of trade being 
 managed without them, and the meanest among 
 them being too important to be disobliged, 
 since the whole body take care of his interests 
 with as much vigour as they would those of the 
 most considerable of their members. They are 
 many of them vastly rich, but they care to 
 make little public show of it, though they live 
 in their houses in the utmost luxury and 
 magnificence. This copious subject has drawn 
 me from my description of the Exchange, [ 
 founded by Ali Bassa, whose name it bears. 
 Near it is the Sherski, a street of a mile in ' 
 length, full of shops of all kinds of fine 
 merchandise, but excessive dear, nothing being 
 made here. It is covered on the top with 
 boards to keep out the rain, that merchants 
 may meet conveniently in all weathers. The 
 Besiten, near it, is another exchange built upon 
 pillars, where all sorts of horse furniture is 
 sold. Glittering everywhere with gold, rich 
 embroidery, and jewels, it makes a very agree- 
 able show. From this place I went in my 
 Turkish coach to the camp, which is to move 
 in a few days to the frontiers. The Sultan is 
 already gone to his tents, and all his court ; the 
 appearance of them is, indeed, very magnificent. 
 Those of the great men are rather like palaces 
 than tents, taking up a great compass of ground, 
 and being divided into a vast number of apart- 
 ments. They are all of green, and the bassas 
 of three tails have those ensigns of their power 
 placed in a very conspicuous manner before 
 their tents, which are adorned on the top with 
 gilded balls, more or less, according to their 
 different ranks. The ladies go in coaches to see 
 the camp, as eagerly as ours did to that of Hyde 
 Park, but 'tis very easy to observe that the 
 soldiers do not begin the campaign with any 
 great cheerfulness. The war is a general 
 grievance upon the people, but particularly 
 hard upon the tradesmen, now that the Grand 
 Signior is resolved to lead his army in person. 
 Every company of them is obliged, upon this 
 occasion, to make a present according to their 
 ability. 1 
 I took the pains of rising at six in the 
 
104 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 morning to see the ceremony, which did not, 
 however, begin till eight. The Grand Signior 
 was at the Seraglio window to see the procession, 
 which passed through the principal streets. It 
 was preceded by an Effendi, mounted on a 
 camel, richly furnished, reading aloud the 
 Alcoran, finely bound, laid upon a cushion. He 
 was surrounded by a parcel of boys, in white, 
 singing some verses of it, followed by a man 
 dressed in green boughs, representing a clean 
 husbandman sowing seed. After him several 
 reapers with garlands of ears of corn, as Ceres 
 is pictured, with scythes in their hands, seeming 
 to mow. Then a little machine drawn by oxen, 
 in which was a wind-mill and boys employed in 
 grinding corn, followed by another machine 
 drawn by buffaloes carrying an oven, and two 
 more boys, one employed in kneading the bread 
 and another in drawing it out of the oven. 
 These boys threw little cakes on both sides 
 amongst the crowd, and were followed by the 
 whole company of bakers, marching on foot, two 
 by two, in their best clothes, with cakes, loaves, 
 pasties, and pies of all sorts on their heads, and 
 after them two buffoons or jack puddings, with 
 their faces and clothes smeared with meal, who 
 diverted the mob with their antic gestures. In 
 the same manner followed all the companies of 
 trade in the empire ; the nobler sort, such as 
 jewellers, mercers, etc., finely mounted, and 
 many of the pageants that represent their trades 
 perfectly magnificent, amongst which that of 
 the furriers made one of the best figures, being 
 a very large machine set round with the skins 
 of ermines, foxes, etc., so well stuffed that the 
 animals seemed to be alive, and followed by 
 music and dancers. I believe they were, upon 
 the whole, twenty thousand men, all ready to 
 follow his highness if he commanded them. 
 The rear was closed by the volunteers, who 
 came to beg the honour of dying in his service. 
 This part of the show seemed to me so barbarous 
 that I removed from the window upon the first 
 appearance of it. They were all naked to the 
 mi(Jdle. Some had their arms pierced through 
 with arrows left sticking in them. Others had 
 them sticking in their heads, the blood trickling 
 down their faces. Some slashed their arms 
 with sharp knives, making the blood spring out 
 upon those that stood there, and this is looked 
 upon as an expression of their zeal for glory. I 
 am told that some make use of it to advance 
 their love, and when they are near the window 
 where their mistress stands (all the women in 
 town being veiled to see this spectacle), they 
 stick another arrow for her sake, who gives 
 some sign of approbation and encouragement to 
 this gallantry. The whole show lasted for near 
 eight hours, to my great sorrow, who was 
 heartily tired, though I was in the house of the 
 widow of the captain bassa (admiral), who 
 refreshed me with coffee, sweetmeats, sherbet, 
 etc., with all possible civility. 
 
 I went two days after to see the mosque of 
 Sultan Selim I., which is a building very well 
 worth the curiosity of a traveller. I was 
 dressed in my Turkish habit, and admitted 
 without scruple, though I believe they guessed 
 who I was, by the extreme officiousness of the 
 doorkeeper to show me every part of it. It is 
 situated very advantageously in the midst of 
 the city, and in the highest part of it, making a 
 very noble show. The first court has four gates, 
 and the innermost three. They are both of 
 them surrounded with cloisters, with marble 
 pillars of the Ionic order, finely poUshed, and 
 of very lively colours ; the whole pavement is 
 of white marble, and the roof of the cloisters 
 divided into several cupolas or domes, headed 
 with gilt balls on the top. In the midst of 
 each court are fine fountains of white marble, 
 and before the great gate of the mosque, a 
 portico with green marble pillars, which has 
 five gates, the body of the mosque being one 
 prodigious dome. I understand so little of 
 architecture, I dare not pretend to speak of the 
 proportions. It seemed to be very regular ; 
 this I am sure of, it is vastly high, and I thought 
 it the noblest building I ever saw. It has two 
 rows of marble galleries on pillars, with marble 
 balusters ; the pavement is also marble, covered 
 with Persian carpets. In my opinion, it is a 
 great addition to its beauty that it is not 
 divided into pews, and encumbered with forms 
 and benches like our churches ; nor the pillars 
 (which are the most of them red and white 
 marble) disfigured by the little tawdry images 
 and pictures that give Roman Catholic churches 
 the air of toy-shops. The walls seem to me 
 inlaid with such very lively colours in small 
 flowers, that I could not imagine what stones 
 had been made use of. But going nearer, I saw 
 they were crusted with Japan china, which has 
 a very beautiful effect. In the midst hangs a 
 vast lamp of silver gilt, besides which, I do 
 verily believe, there were at least two thousand 
 of a lesser size. This must look very glorious 
 when they are all lighted, but being at night no 
 women are suffered to enter. Under the large 
 lamp is a great pulpit of carved wood gilt, and 
 just by, a fountain to wash, which you know is 
 an essential part of their devotion. In one 
 corner is a little gallery enclosed with gilded 
 lattices for the Grand Signior. At the upper 
 end a large niche, very like an altar, raised two 
 steps, covered with gold brocade, and standing 
 before it two silver-gilt candlesticks, the height 
 of a man, and in them white wax candles as 
 thick as a man's waist. The outside of the 
 mosque is adorned with towers vastly high, 
 gilt on the top, from whence the Imaums call 
 the people to prayers. I had the curiosity to 
 go up one of them, which is contrived so artfully 
 as to give surprise to all that see it. There is 
 but one door, which leads to three different 
 staircases, going to the three different storeys cf 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 105 
 
 the tower in such a manner that three priests 
 may ascend, rounding, without ever meeting 
 each other, a contrivance very much admired. 
 Behind the mosque is an exchange full of shops, 
 where poor artificers are lodged gratis. I saw 
 several dervishes at their prayers here. They 
 are dressed in a plain piece of woollen, with 
 their arms bare, and a woollen cap on their 
 heads, like a high-crowned hat without brims. 
 I went to see some other mosques, built much 
 after the same manner, but not comparable in 
 point of magnificence to this I have described, 
 which is infinitely beyond any church in Ger- 
 many or England ; I won't talk of other 
 countries I have not seen. The Seraglio does 
 not seem a very magnificent palace. But the 
 gardens are very large, plentifully supplied 
 with water, and full of trees, which is all I 
 know of them, having never been in them. 
 
 I tell you nothing of the order of Mr. W 's 
 
 entry, and his audience. These things are 
 always the same, and have been so often 
 described, I won't trouble you with the repe- 
 tition. The young prince, about eleven years 
 old, sits near his father when he gives audience. 
 He is a handsome boy, but probably will not 
 immediately succeed the Sultan, there being 
 two sons of Sultan Mustapha (his eldest brother) 
 remaining, the eldest about twenty years old, 
 on whom the hopes of the people are fixed. 
 This reign has been bloody and avaricious. I 
 am apt to believe they are very impatient to 
 see the end of it. I am, sir, 
 
 Your, etc. 
 
 P.S. — I will write to you again from Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 [Dr. Johnson and Lord Macaulay have both 
 denounced Lord Chesterfield's Letters in 
 pretty strong language, the former saying 
 that they taught the morals of a courtesan 
 and the manners of a dancing master. 
 They were, however, written at a time 
 when the standard of public morals was 
 not very exalted. The aim of Philip 
 Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield 
 (1691-1773), in writing these letters to his 
 natural son, Philip Stanhope, was to 
 adapt tlie dawnings of instruction to the 
 capacity of a boy, 'rising gradually by 
 precept and monition calculated to direct 
 and guard the age of incautious youth to 
 the advice and knowledge requisite to form 
 the man ambitious to shine as an accom- 
 jjlished courtier, an orator in the senate, or 
 a minister at foreign co\irts. The Earl of 
 
 Chesterfield showed good sense and a know- 
 ledge of the world, and was master of a 
 pleasant style in these celebrated letters ; 
 but their recipient, who acted for a time as 
 envoy to the court at Dresden, was not 
 much benefited by them, as his manners 
 continued shy, distant, and repulsive. 
 These letters of this ingenious and witty ; 
 statesman were not intended for publication. 
 Philip Stanhope, to whom the letters were 
 addressed, died in 1768 ; when these letters, ! 
 after the death of Lord Chesterfield, coming \ 
 into the hands of Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, j 
 his son's widow, were published by her. The j 
 sum of £1500 was paid for the work, and ' 
 five editions were called for within twelve 
 months. The letters extend between 1738 
 and 1768.] 
 
 THE EARL OP CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON, 
 
 PHILIP STANHOPE. I 
 
 London, N'ovemher 24, 1747. 
 
 Dear Boy, — As often as I write to you (and 
 that you know is pretty often), so often I am 
 in doubt whether it is to any iDurpose, and 
 whether it is not labour and paper lost. This ' 
 entirely depends upon the degree of reason and 
 reflection which you are master of, or think 
 proper to exert. If you give yourself time to 
 think, and have sense enough to think right, 
 two reflections must necessarily occur to you : 
 the one is, that I have a great deal of experi- 
 ence and that you have none ; the other is, that 
 I am the only man living who cannot have, 
 directly or indirectly, any interest concerning- 
 you but your own. From which two undeniable 
 principles, the obvious and necessary conclusion 
 is that you ought, for your own sake, to attend 
 to and follow my advice. 
 
 If, by the ajiplication which I recommend to 
 you, you acquire great knowledge, you alone 
 are the gainer ; I jtay for it. If you should 
 deserve either a good or a bad character, mine 
 will be exactly what it is now, and will neither 
 be the better in the first case, nor the worse in 
 the latter. You alone will be the gainer or 
 the loser. 
 
 Whatever your pleasures. may be, I neither 
 can nor shall envy you them, as old people are 
 sometimes suspected by young people to do ; 
 and I shall only lament, if they should prove 
 such as are unbecoming a man of honour, or 
 below a man of sense. But you will be the 
 real sufferer, if they are such. As, therefore, it 
 is plain that I have no other motive than that 
 of affection in whatever I say to you, you ought 
 to look upon me as your best and, for soma 
 years to come, your only friend. 
 
 1 
 
io6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 True friendship requires certain proportions 
 of age and manners, and can never subsist 
 where they are extremely different, except in 
 the relations of parent and child, where affec- 
 tion on one side and regard on the other make 
 up the difference. The friendship which you 
 may contract with people of your own age, may 
 be sincere, may be warm ; but must be for some 
 time reciprocally unprofitable, as there can be 
 no experience on either side. 
 
 The young leading the young, is like the 
 blind leading the blind ; ' they will both fall 
 into the ditch.' The only sure guide is he 
 who has often gone the road which you want 
 to go. Let me be that guide, who have gone 
 all roads, and who can consequently point out 
 to you the best. If you ask me why I went 
 any of the bad roads myself, I will answer you 
 very truly, that is for want of a good guide ; 
 ill example invited me one way, and a good 
 guide was wanting to show me a better. But 
 if anybody, capable of advising me, had taken 
 the same pains with me, which I have taken, 
 and will continue to take with you, I should have 
 avoided many follies and inconveniences, which 
 undirected youth ran me into. My father was 
 neither able nor desirous to advise me ; which 
 is what I hope you cannot say of yours. You 
 see that I make use of the word advise; because 
 I would much rather have the assent of your 
 reason to my advice, than the submission of 
 your will to my authority. This, I persuade 
 myself, will happen, from that degree of sense 
 which I think you have ; and therefore I will 
 go on advising, and with hopes of success. 
 You are now settled for some time at Leipsic : 
 the princix)al object of your stay there is the 
 knowledge of books and sciences ; which if you 
 do not, by attention and application, make 
 yourself master of while you are there, you 
 will be ignorant of them all the rest of your 
 life : and take my word for it, a life of ignorance 
 is not only a very contemptible, but a very 
 tiresome one. Redouble your attention, then, 
 to Mr. Harte, in your private studies of the 
 litercc humaniores, especially Greek. State 
 your difficulties whenever you have any ; do 
 not suppress them either from mistaken shame, 
 lazy indifference, or in order to have done the 
 sooner. Do the same with Professor Mascow 
 or any other jjrofessor. 
 
 When you have thus usefully employed your 
 mornings, you may with a safe conscience divert 
 yourself in the evenings, and make those even- 
 ings very useful too, by passing them in good 
 company, and, by observation and attention, 
 learning as much of the world as Leipsic can teach 
 you. You will observe and imitate the manners 
 of the people of the best fashion there ; not that 
 they are (it may be) the best manners in the 
 world, but because they are the best manners of 
 the place where you are, to which a man of sense 
 always conforms. The nature of things is 
 
 always and everywhere the same, but the 
 modes of them vary, more or less, in eveiy 
 country ; and an easy and genteel conformity 
 to them, or rather the assuming of them at 
 proper times and in proper places, is what 
 particularly constitutes a man of the world, and 
 a well-bred man. 
 
 Here is advice enough, I think, and too much 
 it may be you will think, for one letter : if you 
 follow it, you will get knowledge, character, 
 and pleasure by it ; if you do not, I only lose 
 operam et oleum, which, in all events, I do not 
 grudge you. 
 
 I send you by a person who sets out this day 
 for Leipsic, a small packet containing some 
 valuable things which you left behind ; to 
 which I have added, by way of New Year's 
 gift, a very pretty tooth-pick case : and, by the 
 way, pray take care of your teeth, and keep 
 them extremely clean. I have likewise sent 
 you the Greek roots lately translated into 
 English from the French of the Port Royal. 
 Inform yourself what the Port Royal is. To 
 conclude with a quibble : I hope you will not 
 only feed upon the Greek roots, but likewise 
 digest them perfectly. Adieu. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 London, April 19, 1749. 
 
 Dear Boy, — This letter will, I believe, still 
 find you at Venice, in all the dissipations of 
 masquerades, riddotos, operas, etc.; with all 
 my heart, they are decent evening amusements, 
 and very properly succeed that serious application 
 to which I am sure you devote your mornings. 
 
 There are liberal and illiberal pleasures, as 
 well as liberal and illiberal arts. There are 
 some pleasures that degrade a gentleman as 
 much as some trades could do. Sottish drink- 
 ing, indiscriminate gluttony, driving coaches, 
 rustic sports, such as fox-chases, horse-races, 
 etc., are in my opinion infinitely below the 
 honest and industrious professions of a tailor 
 and a shoemaker, which are said to deroger. 
 
 As you are now in a musical country, where 
 singing, fiddling, and piping are not only the 
 common topics of conversation, but almost the 
 principal objects of attention, I cannot help 
 cautioning you against giving into those (I will 
 call them illiberal) pleasures (though music is 
 commonly reckoned one of the liberal arts) to 
 the degree that most of your countrymen do 
 when they travel in Italy. If you love music, 
 hear it ; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers 
 to play to you, but I insist on your neither 
 piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentle- 
 man in a very frivolous, contemptible light ; 
 brings him into a great deal of bad company ; 
 and takes up a great deal of time which might 
 be much better employed. Few things would 
 mortify me more than to see you bearing part 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 107 
 
 in a concert with a fiddle under your chin or 
 a pipe in your mouth. 
 
 I have had a great deal of conversation with 
 Conate du Perron and Comte Lascaris, upon 
 your subject ; and I will tell you, very 
 truly, what Comte de Perron (who is, in 
 my opinion, a very pretty man) said of you. 
 * II a de I'esprit, un savoir pen common \ son 
 4ge, una grande vivacite, et quand il aura pris 
 des manieres U sera parfait ; car il faut avouer 
 qu'il sent encore le college ; mais cela viendra.' 
 I was very glad to hear from one whom I think 
 so good a judge, that you wanted nothing but 
 des manures ; which I am convinced you will 
 now soon acquire in the company which 
 henceforwards you are likely to keep. But I 
 must add too, that if you should acquire them, 
 all the rest will be of very little use to you. 
 By manieres I do not mean bare common 
 civility ; everybody must have that who would 
 not be kicked out of company ; but I mean 
 engaging, insinuating, shining manners, a 
 distinguished politeness, an almost irresistible 
 address, a superior gracefulness in all you say 
 and do. It is this alone that can give all your 
 other talents their full lustre and value, and 
 consequently it is this which should now be 
 the imncipal object of your attention. Observe 
 minutely, wherever you go, the allowed and 
 established models of good breeding, and form 
 yourself upon them. Whatever pleases you 
 most in others will infallibly please others in 
 you. I have often repeated this to you ; now 
 is your time of putting it in practice. 
 
 Pray make my compliments to Mr. Harte, 
 and tell him I have received his letter from 
 Vienna, but that I shall not trouble him till 
 I have received the other letter he promises 
 me upon the subject of one of my last. I long 
 to hear from him after your settlement at 
 Turin ; the months that you are to pass there 
 will be very decisive ones for you. The 
 exercises of the Academy, and the manners of 
 courts, must be attended to and acquired, and 
 at the same time your other studies continued. 
 I am sure you ■vyiH not pass, nor desire, one 
 single idle hour there ; for I do not foresee 
 that you can, in any part of your life, put out 
 gix months to greater interest than these next 
 six at Turin. 
 
 "We will talk hereafter about your stay at 
 Pvome and in other parts of Italy. This only I [ 
 will recommend to you, which is, to extract the -i 
 spirit of every place you go to. In those places 
 which are only distinguished by classical fame 
 and valuable remains of antiquity, have your 
 classics in your hand and in your head ; com- 
 pare the ancient geography and descriptions 
 with the modern ; and never fail to take notes. 
 Rome wUl furnish you with business enough of 
 that sort, but then it furnishes you with many 
 other objects well deserving your attention, such 
 as deep ecclesiastical craft and policy. Adieu. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 London, May 27, O.S., 1752. 
 Mt dear Friend,— I send you the enclosed 
 original from a friend of ours, with my own com- 
 mentaries upon the text, a text which I have 
 so often paraphrased and commented upon 
 already, that I can hardly say anything new 
 upon it ; but, however, I cannot give it over 
 till I am better convinced, than I yet am, that 
 you feel all the utility, the importance, and 
 the necessity of it ; nay, not only feel, but 
 practise it. Your panegyrist allows you, what 
 most fathers would be more than satisfied with 
 in a son, and chides me for not contenting 
 myself with VessentieUement hon ; but I, who 
 have been in no one respect like other fathers, 
 cannot neither, like them, content myself with 
 VessentieUement Ion; because I know that it 
 will not do your business in the world, while 
 you want quelques couches de vernis. Few 
 fathers care much for their sons, or, at least, 
 most of them care more for their money ; and 
 consequently content themselves with giving 
 them, at the cheapest rate, the common run of 
 education ; that is, at school tiU eighteen, the 
 university till twenty, and a couple of years | 
 riding post through the several towns of Europe; 
 impatient till their boobies come home to be 
 married and, as they call it, settled. Of those 
 who really love their sons, few know how to do 
 it. Some spoil them by fondling them while 
 they are young, and then quarrel with them 
 when they are grown up for having been 
 spoiled ; some love them like mothers, and 
 attend only to the bodily health and strength 
 of the hopes of their family, solemnize his 
 birthday, and rejoice, like the subjects of the 
 Great Mogul, at the increase of his bulk ; while 
 others, minding, as they think, only essentials, 
 take pains and pleasure to see in their heir all 
 their favourite weaknesses and imperfections. 
 I hope and believe that I have kept clear of aU 
 these errors in the education which I have 
 given you. No weaknesses of my own have 
 warped it, no parsimony has starved it, no 
 rigour has deformed it. Sound and extensive 
 learning was the foundation which I meaned to 
 lay ; I have laid it, but that alone, I knew, 
 would by no means be sufficient ; the orna- 
 mental, the showish, the pleasing super- 
 structure, was to be begun. In that view I 
 threw you into the great world, entirely your 
 own master, at an age when others either 
 guzzle at the university, or are sent abroad in 
 servitude to some awkward, pedantic Scotch 
 governor. This was to put you in the way, 
 and the only way, of acquiring those manners, 
 that address, and those graces, which exclusively 
 distinguish people of fashion, and without 
 which all moral virtues and all acquired learn- 
 ing are of no sort of use in courts and le beau 
 monde ; on the contrary, I am not sure if they 
 
io8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 are not a hindrance. They are feared and 
 disliked in those places, as too severe, if not 
 smoothed and introduced by the graces ; but of 
 the graces, of this necessary heau vernis,\i seems 
 there are still quelques couches qui manquent. 
 Now, pray let me ask you, coolly and seriously, 
 pourquoi ces couches manquent dies? For you 
 may as easily take them, as you may wear 
 more or less powder in your hair, more or less 
 lace upon your coat. I can, therefore, account 
 for your wanting them, no other way in the 
 world than from your not being yet convinced of 
 their full value. You have heard some English 
 
 bucks say, ' these finical, outlandish airs ; 
 
 give me a manly, resolute manner. They 
 make a rout with their graces, and talk like a 
 parcel of dancing masters, and dress like a 
 imrcel of fops ; one good Englishman will beat 
 three of them.' But let your own observation 
 vmdeceive you of these prejudices. I will give 
 you one instance only, instead of a hundred 
 that I could give you, of a very shining fortune 
 and figure, raised upon no other foundation 
 whatsoever than that of address, manners, and 
 graces. Between you and me (for this example 
 must go no farther) what do you think made 
 
 our friend, Lord A e, colonel of a regiment 
 
 of Guards, Governor of Virginia, Groom of the 
 Stole, and Ambassador to Paris ; amounting in 
 all to sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds a 
 year? Was it his birth? no, a Dutch gentle- 
 man only. "Was it his estate ? no, he had none. 
 Was it his learning, his parts, his political 
 abilities and application? You can answer 
 those questions as easily, and as soon, as I can ask 
 them. What was it, then ? Many people 
 wondered, but I do not ; for I know, and will 
 tell you. It was his air, his address, his 
 manners, and his graces. He pleased, and by 
 pleasing became a favourite ; and by becoming 
 a favourite, became aU that he has been since. 
 Show me any one instance, where intrinsic 
 worth and merit, unassisted by exterior 
 accomplishments, have raised any man so high. 
 You know the Due de Eichelieu, now Marechal, 
 Cordon bleu, Gentilhomme de la Chamhre, twice 
 .ambassador, etc. By what means ? not by 
 the purity of his character, the depth of his 
 knowledge, or any uncommon penetration and 
 sagacity. Women alone formed and raised 
 him. The Duchess of Burgundy took a fancy 
 to him, and had him before he was sixteen 
 years old ; this put him in fashion among the 
 heau monde ; and the late Regent's eldest 
 daughter, now Madame de Modene, took him 
 next, and was near marrying him. These early 
 connections with women of the first distinction, 
 give him those manners, graces, and address 
 v/hich you see he has ; and which, I can assure 
 you, are all that he has ; for strip him of them, 
 and he will be one of the poorest men in 
 Europe. Man nor woman cannot resist an 
 engaging exterior ; it will please, it will make 
 
 its way. You want, it ' seems, but quelques 
 couches; for God's sake lose no time in 
 getting them, and now that you have gone so 
 far, complete the work. Think of nothing else 
 till that work is finished ; unwearied application 
 will bring about anything, and surely your 
 application can never be so well emj)loyed as 
 upon that object, which is absolutely necessary 
 to facilitate all others. With your knowledge 
 and parts, if adorned by manners and graces, 
 J what may you not hope one day to be ? But 
 without them you will be in the situation of a 
 man who should be very fleet of one leg, but 
 very lame of the other. He could not run, the 
 lame leg would check and clog the well one, 
 which would be very near useless. 
 
 From my original plan for your education, I 
 meaned to make you un homme universel; 
 what depended upon me is executed, the 
 little that remains undone depends singly 
 upon you. Do not, then, disappoint when you 
 can so easily gratify me. It is your own 
 interest which I am pressing you to pursue, 
 and it is the only return that I desire for all 
 the care and affection of, Yours. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 London, May 31, O.S., 1752. 
 My dear Friend,— The world is the book, 
 and the only one to which, at present, I would 
 have you apply yourself ; and the thorough 
 knowledge of it will be of more use to you, 
 than all the books that ever were read. Lay 
 aside the best book whenever you can go into 
 the best company, and depend upon it, you 
 change for the better. However, as the most 
 tumultuous life, whether of business or pleasure, 
 leaves some vacant moments every day, in 
 which a book is the refuge of a rat^nal being, 
 I mean now to point out to you the method of 
 employing those moments (which will and 
 ought to be but few) in the most advantageous 
 manner. Throw away none of your time upon 
 those trivial, futile books, published by idle 
 or necessitous authors, for the amusement of 
 idle and ignorant readers; such sort of books 
 swarm and buzz about one every day ; flap 
 them away, they have no sting. Certam fete 
 finem, — have some one object for those leisure 
 moments, and pursue that object invariably 
 till you have attained it ; and then take soma, 
 other. For instance, considering your destina- 
 tion, I would advise you to single out the most 
 remarkable and interesting eras of modern 
 history, and confine all your reading to that 
 era. If you pitch upon the treaty of Munster 
 (and that is the proper period to begin with, 
 in the course which I am now recommending), 
 do not interrupt it by dipping and deviating 
 into other books unrelative to ii ; but consult 
 only the most authentic histories, letters, 
 memoirs, and negotiations relative to that 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 great transaction ; reading and comparing 
 them, with all that caution and distrust which ; 
 Lord Bolingbroke recommends to you, in aj 
 better manner and in better words than I can. ' 
 The next period, worth your particular know- 
 ledge, is the treaty of the Pyrenees ; which was 
 calculated to lay, and in effect did lay, the 
 foundation of the succession of the house of 
 Bourbon to the crown of Sixain. Pursue that in 
 the same manner, singling out of the millions 
 of volumes written upon that occasion the two 
 or three most authentic ones ; and particularly 
 letters, which are the best authorities in matters 
 of negotiation. Next come the treaties of 
 Nimeguen and Kyswick, postscripts in a manner 
 to those of Munster and the Pyrenees. Those 
 two transactions have had great light thrown 
 upon them by the publication of many authentic 
 and original letters and pieces. The concessions 
 made at the treaty of Ryswick, by the 
 then triumphant Louis XIV., astonished all 
 those who viewed things only superficially; 
 but, I should think, must have been easily 
 accounted for by those who knew the state of 
 the kingdom of Spain, as well as of the health 
 of its king, Charles II., at that time. The 
 interval between the conclusion of the peace 
 of Eyswick, and the breaking out of the great 
 ; war in 1702, though a short, is a most interest- 
 ing one. Every week of it almost produced some 
 great event. Two partition treaties, the death 
 of the King of Spain, his unexpected will, 
 and the acceptance of it by Louis XIY., in 
 violation of the second treaty of partition, just 
 signed and ratified by him. Philip V. quietly 
 and cheerfully received in Spain, and acknow- 
 I ledged as king of it by most of those powers 
 who afterwards joined in an alliance to dethrone 
 him. I cannot help making tliis observation 
 upon that occasion, that character has often 
 more to do in great transactions than prudence 
 and sound policy ; for Louis XIV. gratified 
 Lis personal pride, by giving a Bourbon king to 
 Spain at the expense of the true interest of 
 j France, which woxTld have acquired much more 
 j solid and permanent strength by the addition 
 : of Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine, upon the foot 
 \ of the second partition treaty ; and I think it 
 I was fortunate for Europe that he preferred the 
 ! will. It is true, he might hope to influence his 
 grandson; but he could never expect that his 
 Bourbon posterity in France should influence 
 his Bourbon posterity in Spain; he knew too 
 well how weak the ties of blood are among men, 
 and how much weaker still they are among 
 princes. The memoirs of Count Harrach 
 and of Las Torres give a good deal of light into 
 the transactions of the court of Spain previous 
 to the death of that weak king ; and the 
 ( letters of the Marechal d'Harcourt, then the 
 French ambassador in Spain, of which I have 
 authentic copies in manuscript, from the year 
 1698 to 1701, have cleared up that whole affair 
 
 109 
 
 to me. I keep that book for you. It appears 
 by those letters that the imprudent conduct of 
 the house of Austria, with regard to the King 
 and Queen of Spain and Madame Berlips, her 
 favourite, together with the knowledge of the 
 partition treaty, which incensed all Spain, 
 were the true and only reasons of the will in 
 favour of the Duke of Anjou. Cardinal Porto- 
 carrero, nor any of the grandees, were bribed 
 by France, as was generally reported and 
 believed at that time ; which confirms Voltaii'e's 
 anecdote upon that subject. Then opens a 
 new scene and a new century : Louis XIV. 's 
 good fortune forsakes him, till the Duke of 
 Marlborough and Prince Eugene make him 
 amends for all the mischief they had done 
 him, by making the allies refuse the terms of 
 peace offered by him at Gertruydenberg. How 
 the disadvantageous peace of Utrecht was after- 
 wards brought on, you have lately read ; and 
 you cannot inform yourself too minutely of all 
 those circumstances, that treaty being the fresh- 
 est source from whence the late transactions of 
 Europe have flowed. The alterations that have 
 since happened, whether by wars or treaties, 
 are so recent that all the written accounts are 
 to be helped out, proved, or contradicted by 
 the oral ones of almost every informed person 
 of a certain age or rank in life. For the facts, 
 dates, and original pieces of this century, you 
 will find them in Lamberti, till the year 1715, 
 and after that time in Eouffet's Recueil. 
 
 I do not mean that you should plod hours 
 together in researches of this kind ; no, you 
 may employ your time more usefully; but I 
 mean that you should make the most of the 
 moments you do employ by method, and the 
 pursuit of one single object at a time ; nor 
 should I call it a digression from that object, 
 if, when you meet with clashing and jarring- 
 pretensions of different princes to the same 
 thing, you had immediately recourse to other 
 books, in which those several pretensions were 
 clearly stated ; on the contrary, that is the only 
 way of remembering those contested rights and 
 claims : for, were a man to read tout de suite 
 Schwederus's Theatrum Pretensionum, he would 
 only be confounded by the variety, and remem- 
 ber none of them ; whereas, by examining them 
 occasionally, as they happen to occur either in 
 the course of your historical reading, or as they 
 are agitated in your own times, you will retain 
 them, by connecting them with those historical 
 facts which occasioned your inquiry. For 
 example, had you read, in the course of two 
 or three folios of Pretensions, those, among 
 others, of the two Kings of England and 
 Prussia to Oost Frise, it is impossible that you 
 should have remembered them ; but now, 
 that they are become the debated object at 
 the Diet at Eatisbon, and the topic of all 
 political conversations, if you consult both 
 books and persons concerning them, and inform 
 
no 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 yourself thoroughly, you will never forget them 
 as long as you live. You will hear a great 
 deal of them on one side at Hanover ; and as 
 much on the other side afterwards at Berlin : 
 hear both sides, and form your own oi)inion, 
 but dispute with neither. 
 
 Letters from foreign Ministers to their 
 courts, and from their courts to them, are, if 
 genuine, the best and most authentic records 
 you can read, as far as they go. Cardinal 
 D'Offat's, President Jeannin's, D'Estrade's, Sir 
 William Temple's will not only inform your 
 mind, but form your style ; which, in letters 
 of business, should be very x>lain and simple, 
 but, at the same time, exceedingly clear, correct, 
 and pure. 
 
 All that I have said may be reduced to 
 these two or three plain principles ; firstly, 
 That you should now read very little, but 
 converse a great deal : secondly. To read no 
 useless, unprofitable books : and, thirdly, that 
 those which you do read may all tend to a 
 certain object, and be relative to, and conse- 
 quential of, each other. In this method, half- 
 nn-hour's reading every day will carry you a 
 great way. People seldom know how to employ 
 their time to the best advantage, tUl they have 
 too little left to employ; but, if at your age, 
 in the beginning of life, people would but 
 consider the value of it, and put every moment 
 to interest, it is incredible what an additional 
 fund of knowledge and pleasure such an economy 
 would bring in. I look back with regret upon 
 that large sum of time which in my youth I 
 lavished away idly, without either improvement 
 or pleasure. Take warning betimes, and enjoy 
 every moment ; pleasures do not commonly last 
 so long as life, and therefore should not be 
 neglected ; and the longest life is too short for 
 knowledge, consequently every moment is pre- 
 cious. 
 
 I am surprised at having received no letter 
 from you since you left Paris. I still direct 
 this to Strasburg, as I did my two last. I shall 
 direct my next to the post house at Mayence, 
 unless I receive, in the meantime, contrary 
 instructions from you. Adieu ! Remember 
 Zcs attentions : they must be your passports into 
 good company. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Bath, Novemher 4, 1757. 
 My dear Friend,— The sons of Britain, like 
 those of Noah, must cover their parent's shame 
 as well as they can ; for to retrieve its honour is 
 now too late. One would really think that our 
 ministers and generals were all as drunk as the 
 l)atriarch was. However, in your situation, you 
 must not be cham ; but spread your cloak over 
 
 our disgrace as far as it will go. M 1 calls 
 
 aloud for a public trial ; and in that, and that 
 only, the public agrees with him. There will 
 
 certainly be one ; but of what kind is not yet 
 fixed. Some are for a parliamentary inquiry, 
 others for a martial one ; neither will, in my 
 opinion, discover the true secret; for a secret 
 there most unquestionably is. "Why we stayed six 
 whole days in the island of Aix, mortal cannot 
 imagine ; which time the French employed, as it 
 was obvious they would, in assembling all their 
 troops in the neighbourhood of Rochfort, and 
 making our attempt then really impracticable. 
 The day after we had taken the island of Aix, 
 your friend, Colonel Wolfe, publicly offered to 
 do the business with five hundred men and 
 three ships only. In all these complicated 
 political machines, there are so many wheels 
 within wheels, that it is always difficult, 
 and sometimes impossible, to guess which of 
 them gives directions to the whole. Mr. Pitt 
 is convinced that the principal wheel, or if you 
 will, ' the spoke in his wheel,' came from Stade. 
 
 This is certain, at least, that M 1 was the 
 
 man of confidence with that person. Whatever j 
 be the truth of the case^ there is, to be sure i 
 hitherto, an hiatus valde deflendus. j 
 
 The meeting of the Parliament will certainly I 
 be very numerous, were it only from curiosity ; 
 but the majority on the side of the covirt will, I 
 daresay, be a great one. The people of the 
 late Captain - General, however inclined to \ 
 oppose, will be obliged to concur. Their com- 
 missions, which they have no desire to lose, will 
 make them tractable ; for those gentlemen, 
 though all men of honour, are of Sofia's mind, 
 que le vrai Amphitrion est celui oil Von dine. 
 The Tories, and the city, have engaged to support 
 Pitt ; the Whigs, the Duke of Newcastle ; the 
 independent and the impartial, as you well know, 
 are not worth mentioning. It is said that the 
 duke intends to bring the affair of his convention 
 into Parliament, for his own justification : I 
 can hardly believe it ; as I cannot conceive 
 that transactions so merely electoral can be 
 proper objects of inquiry or deliberation for a 
 British parliament ; and therefore, should such 
 a motion be made, I presume it will be immedi- 
 ately quashed. By the commission lately given 
 to Sir John Ligonier, of General and Commander- 
 in-chief of all his Majesty's forces in Great Britain, 
 the door seems to be not only shut, but bolted, 
 against his royal highness' return ; and I have 
 good reason to be convinced that that breach is 
 irreparable. The reports of changes in the 
 Ministry, I am pretty sure, are idle and ground- 
 less. The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt 
 really agree very well; not, I presume, from 
 any sentimental tenderness for each other, but 
 from a sense that it is their mutual interest ; 
 and, as the late Captain-General's party is now 
 out of question, I do not see what should produce 
 the least change. 
 
 The visit, lately made to Berlin, was, I dare- 
 say, neither a friendly nor an inoffensive one. 
 —The Austrians always leave behind them 
 
777^ BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 iir 
 
 pretty lasting monuments of their visits, or 
 rather visitations : not so much, I believe, 
 from their thirst of glory, as from their hunger 
 of prey. 
 
 This winter, I take for granted, must produce 
 a peace of some kind or other ; a bad one for 
 us, no doubt, and yet perhaps better than we 
 should get the year after. I suppose the King 
 of Prussia is negotiating with France, and 
 endeavouring by those means to get out of the 
 scrape, with the loss only of Silesia, and 
 perhaps Halberstadt, by way of indemnification 
 to Saxony ; and, considering all circumstances, 
 he would be well off upon those terms. But 
 then how is Sweden to be satisfied ? Will the 
 Russians restore Memel? Will France have 
 been at all this expense gratis ? Must there be 
 no acquisition for them in Flanders ? I daresay 
 they have stipulated something of that sort for 
 themselves by the additional secret treaty, 
 which I know they made, last May, with tlie 
 Queen of Hungary. Must we give up whatever 
 the French please to desire in America, besides 
 the cession of Minorca in jierpetuity ? I fear we 
 must, or else raise twelve millions more next 
 year, to as little purpose as we did this, and 
 have consequently, a worse peace afterwards. 
 I turn my eyes away, as much as I can, from 
 this miserable prospect ; but, as a citizen and 
 member of society, it recurs to my imagination, 
 notwithstanding all my endeavours to banish it 
 from my thoughts. I can do myself nor my 
 country no good ; but I feel the wretched situa- 
 tion of both : the state of the latter makes me 
 better bear that of the former ; and, when I am 
 called away from my station here, I shall think 
 it rather (as Cicero says of Crassus), Mors donata 
 qvxim vita erepta. 
 
 I have often desired, but in vain, the favour 
 of being admitted into your private apartment 
 at Hamburg, and of being informed of your 
 private life there. Your mornings, I hope and 
 believe, are employed in business ; but give me 
 an account of the remainder of the day, which I 
 suppose is, and ought to be, appropriated to 
 amusements and pleasures. In what houses 
 are you domestic ? Who are so in yours ? In 
 short, let me in, and do not be denied to me. 
 
 Here I am, as usual, seeing few people, and 
 hearing fewer ; drinking the waters regularly, to 
 a minute, and am something the better for them. 
 I read a great deal, and vary occasionally my 
 dead company. I converse with grave folios in 
 the morning, while my head is clearest, and my 
 attention strongest; I take up less severe 
 quartos after dinner, and at night I choose 
 mixed company and the amusing chit-chat of 
 octavos and duodecimos, Je tire parti de tout 
 ce que je puis ; that is my philosophy, and I 
 mitigate, as much as I can, my physical ills, 
 by diverting my attention to other objects. 
 
 Here is a report that Admiral Holbourne's 
 fleet is destroyed, in a manner, by a storm ; I 
 
 hope it is not true, in the full extent of the 
 report; but I believe it has suffered. This 
 would fill up the measure of our misfortunes. 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 London, March 3, 1767. 
 
 My dear Friend, — Yesterday I received two 
 letters at once from you, both dated Mont- 
 pellier, one of the 29th of last December, and 
 the other the 12th of February ; but I cannot 
 conceive what became of my letters to you, for 
 I assure you that I answered all yours the 
 next post after I had received them, and about 
 ten days ago, I wrote you a volunteer, because 
 you have been so long silent, and I was afraid 
 that you were not Avell ; but your letter of the 
 12th February has removed all my fears upon 
 that score. The same climate that has restored 
 your health so far, will probably, in a little 
 more time, restore your strength too, though 
 you must not expect it to be quite what it was 
 before your late painful complaints. At least 
 I find that, since my late great rheumatism, I 
 cannot walk above half an hour at a time, which I 
 do not place singly to the account of my years, 
 but chiefly to the great shock given them to 
 my limbs. D'ailUurs I am pretty well, for my 
 age and shattered constitution. 
 
 As I told you in my last, I must tell you 
 again in this, that I have no news to send. 
 Lord Chatham, at last, came to town yesterday, 
 full of gout, and is not able to stir hand or 
 foot. During his absence, Charles Townsend 
 has talked of him and at him in such a manner, 
 that henceforwards they must be either much 
 worse or much better together than ever they 
 were in their lives. On Friday last, Mr. 
 Dowdeswell and Mr. Grenville moved to have 
 one shilling in the pound of the land-tax taken 
 off, which was opposed by the court, but the 
 court lost it by eighteen. The Opposition 
 triumph much upon this victory, though, I 
 think, without much reason ; for it is plain that 
 all the landed gentlemen bribed themselves with 
 this shilling in the pound. 
 
 The Duke of Buccleugh is very soon to be 
 married to Lady Betty Montague ; Lord Essex 
 was married, yesterday, to Harriet Bladen ; and 
 Lord Strathmore, last week, to Miss Bowes ; 
 both couples went directly from church to con- 
 summation in the country, from an unnecessary 
 fear that they should not be tired of each other 
 if they stayed in town. And now dixi ; God 
 bless you ! 
 
 You are in the right to go to see the Assembly 
 of the States of Languedoc, though they are but 
 the shadow of the original Etats, while their 
 was some liberty subsisting in France. 
 
112 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [The following letter, though wanting a date, 
 is supposed, from the allusion to the 
 publication of The Castle of Indolence, to 
 have been written in the April of 1748. 
 Paterson, to whom Thomson devoted one 
 of the stanzas of that exquisite poem, had 
 been his companion, and was then his 
 deputy in the office of Sm-veyor-General of 
 the Leeward Isles. Paterson was accus- 
 tomed, as we are informed by Murdoch, 
 ' to write out fair copies for his friend, 
 when such were required, for the press or 
 for the stage. This gentleman, likewise, 
 courted the tragic muse, and had taken 
 for his subject the story of Arminius, the 
 German hero. But his play, guiltless as 
 it was, being presented for a licence, no 
 sooner had the censor cast his eyes on the 
 hand-writing in which he had seen Edivard 
 and Eleonora, than he cried out, "Away 
 with it ; " and the author's jirofits were 
 reduced to what his bookseller could afford 
 for a tragedy in distress.' The play alluded 
 to had been offered by Thomson to the 
 theatre in 1739, but its representation 
 was prohibited on account of some political 
 allusions. In little more than four months 
 after the transmission of this interesting 
 letter, the poet of The Seasons was no 
 more. Thomson disliked letter-writing, 
 and his prose is deficient in harmony and 
 grace ; but it reflects the man, although the 
 aiithor is for a time forgotten. — Willmott.] 
 
 THE POET THOMSON TO MK. PATERSON. 
 
 I^ews from Home. 
 
 Dear Paterson,— In the first place, and 
 previous to my letter, I must recommend to 
 your favour and protection, Mr. James Smith, 
 searcher, in St. Christopher's; and I beg of 
 you, as occasion shall serve, and you find he 
 merits it, to advance him in the business of 
 the customs. He is warmly recommended to 
 me by Sargent, who, in verity, turns out one 
 of the best men of our youthful acquaintance, 
 honest, honourable, friendly, and generous. 
 If we are not to oblige one another, life be- 
 comes a paltry selfish affair, — a pitiful morsel 
 in a corner, Sargent is so happily married, 
 that I could almost say, the same case happen 
 to us all. That I have not answered several 
 letters of yours is not owing to the want of 
 friendship, and the sincerest regard for you ; 
 but you know me well enough to account for 
 my silence, without my saying any more upon 
 that head; besides, I have very little to say 
 
 that is worthy of being transmitted over the 
 great ocean. The world either fertilizes so 
 much, or we grow so dead to it, that its 
 transactions make but feeble impressions upon 
 us. Retirement and nature are more and 
 more my passion every day ; and now, even 
 now, the charming time comes on. Heaven is 
 just on the point, or rather in the very act, 
 of giving earth a green gown. The voice of 
 the nightingale is heard in our lane. You 
 must know that I have enlarged my rural 
 domain much to the same dimensions you have 
 done yours. The two fields next to me, from 
 the first of which I have walled, — no, no, — 
 paled in, about as much as my garden consisted 
 of before, so that the walk runs round the 
 hedge, where you may figure me walking any 
 time of the day, and sometimes in the night. 
 I imagine you reclining under cedars, and 
 there enjoying more magnificent slumbers than 
 are known to the pale climates of the north; 
 slumbers rendered awful and divine by the 
 solemn stillness and deep fervours of the 
 torrid noon. At other times I imagine you 
 drinking punch in groves of lime or orange- 
 trees, gathering pine-apples from hedges as 
 commonly as we may blackben-ies, poetizing 
 under lofty laui'els, or making love under full- 
 spread myrtles. But, to lower my style a 
 little, as I am such a genuine lover of garden- 
 ing, why do not you remember me in that 
 instance, and send me some seeds of things 
 that might succeed here in the summer, though 
 they cannot perfect their seed sufficiently in 
 this to them uncongenial climate to propagate ? 
 As to more important business, I have nothing 
 to write to you. You know best. Be, as you 
 always must be, just and honest ; but if you 
 are unhappily romantic, you shall come home 
 without money, and write a tragedy on your- 
 self. Mr. Lyttleton told me that the Grenvilles 
 and he had strongly recommended the person 
 the governor and you proposed for that con- 
 siderable office lately fallen vacant in your 
 department, and that there was good hope of 
 succeeding. He told me, also, that Mr. Pitt 
 said that it was not to be expected that offices 
 such as that is, for which the greatest interest 
 is made here at home, could be accorded to 
 your recommendation ; but that as to the 
 middling or inferior offices, if there was not 
 some particular reason to the contrary, regard 
 would be had thereto. This is all that can be 
 reasonably desired ; and if you are not infected 
 with a certain Creolian distemper, whereof I 
 am persuaded your soul will utterly resist the 
 contagion, as I hope your body will that of 
 the natural ones, there are few men so capable 
 of that imperishable happiness, that peace and 
 satisfaction of mind, at least, that proceeds 
 from being reasonable and moderate in our 
 desires as you. These are the treasures dug 
 from an inexhaustible mine in our own breasts, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 which, like those in the kingdom of heaven, 
 the rust of time cannot corrupt, nor thieves 
 break through and steal. I must learn to 
 work this mine a little more, being struck off 
 from a certain hundred pounds a year, which 
 you know I had. AYest, Hallet, and I were all 
 routed in one day; if you know not why — 
 out of compliment to our friend in Argyll 
 Street. Yet I have hopes given me of having 
 it restored with interest some time or other. 
 Oh ! that * some time or other ' is a great 
 deceiver. 
 
 Coriolanus has not yet appeared on the stage, 
 from the little dirty jealousy of Tullusi towards 
 him who alone can act Coriolanus. ^ Indeed, 
 the first has entirely jockeyed the last off the 
 stage for this season, like a giant in his wrath. 
 Let us have a little more patience, Paterson ; 
 nay, let us be cheerful ; at last all will be well, 
 at least all will be over — here I mean : God 
 forbid it should be so hereafter ! But, as sure 
 as there is a God, that cannot be. Now that 
 I am prating of myself, know that, after 
 fourteen or fifteen years, the Castle of Indolence 
 comes abroad in a fortnight. It will certainly 
 travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an 
 apartment in it as a night pensioner, which 
 you may remember I filled xip for you during 
 our delightful party at North End. Will 
 ever those days return again? Do you not 
 remember eating the raw fish that were never 
 caught? All our friends are pretty much in 
 statu quo, except it be poor Mr. Lyttleton : he 
 has had the severest trial a human, tender heart 
 can have; 3 but the old physician, Time, will 
 at last close up his wounds, though there must 
 always remain an inward smarting. Mitchell'* 
 is in the House for Aberdeenshire, and has 
 spoke modestly well ; I hope he will be some- 
 thing else soon, — none deserves better : true 
 friendship and humanity dwell in his heart. 
 . . . Symmer is at last tired of gaiety, and is 
 going to take a semi-country house at Hammer- 
 smith. I am sorry that honest, sensible "Warren- 
 der, who is in town, seems to be stunted in 
 church preferments : he ought to be a tall cedar in 
 the house of the Lord. If he is not so at last, 
 it will add more fuel to my indignation, that 
 burns already too intensely, and throbs towards 
 an eruption. Patrick Murdoch is in town, 
 tutor to Admiral Vernon's son, and is in good 
 hope of another living in Suffolk, Good-natured, 
 obliging Miller is as usual. Though the doctor ^ 
 increases in business, he does not decrease in 
 spleen, that is, both humane and agreeable, 
 like Jacques in the play ; I sometimes, too, 
 have a touch of it. But I must break off that 
 chat with you about your friends, which, were 
 
 1 Garrick. 
 
 2 Quin. 
 
 3 Death of Mrs. Lyttleton, in the January of 17'16-47. 
 
 4 Afterwards envoy to Berlin, 
 
 5 Dr. Armstrong. 
 
 I to indulge in, would be endless. As for 
 politics, we are, I believe, on the brink of a 
 peace. The French are vapouring at present 
 in the siege of Maestricht, at the same time 
 they are mortally sick in their marine, and 
 through all the vitals of France. It is a pity 
 we cannot continue the war a little longer, and 
 put their agonizing trade quite to death. This 
 siege, I take it, they mean as their last flourish 
 in the war. May your health, which never 
 failed you yet, still continue, till you have 
 scraped together enough to return home and 
 live in some snug corner as happy as the 
 corycian senex, in Virgil's fourth Georgic, 
 whom I recommend, both to you and myself, 
 as a perfect model of the honest, happy life. 
 
 Believe me to be ever most sincerely and 
 affectionately yours, 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
 A LETTER OP HENRY FIELDING'S TO THE 
 * TRUE PATRIOT.' 
 
 Tuesday, January 14, 1746, 
 Sir, — I am a citizen, a haberdasher by trade, 
 and one of those persons to whom the world 
 allow the epithets of wise and prudent. And 
 I enjoy this character the more as I can fairly 
 assure myself I deserve it ; nor am indebted on 
 this account to anything but my own regular 
 conduct, unless to the good instructions with 
 which my father launched me into the world, 
 and upon which I formed this grand principle, 
 'That there is no real value in anything but 
 money.' 
 
 The truth of this proposition may be argued 
 from hence, that it is the only thing in the 
 value of which mankind are agreed ; for, as to 
 all other matters, while they are held in high 
 estimation by some, they are disregarded and 
 looked on as cheap and worthless by others. 
 Nay, I believe it is difiicult to find any two 
 persons who place an equal valuation on any 
 virtue, good or great quality, whatever. 
 
 Now, having once established this great rule, 
 I have, by reference to it, been enabled to set a 
 certain value on everything else ; in which I 
 have governed myself by two cautions : 1st, 
 Never to purchase too dear ; and, 2dly (which 
 is a more uncommon degree of wisdom), Never 
 to overvalue what I am to sell ; by which latter 
 misconduct I have observed many persons guilty 
 of great imprudence. 
 
 It is not my purpose to trouble you with 
 exemplifications of the foregoing rule in my 
 ordinary calling : I shall proceed to acquaint 
 you with my conduct concerning those things 
 which some silly people call invaluable, such as 
 reputation, virtue, sense, beauty, etc., all which 
 I have reduced to a certain standard ; ' for,' as 
 your friend Mr. Adams says in his letter on the 
 late fast, *I imagine every man, woman, and 
 
114 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 thing, to have their price.' His astonishment 
 at which truth made me smile, as I dare swear 
 it did you ; it is, indeed, agreeable enough to 
 the simplicity of his character. 
 
 But to proceed : — In my youth I fell violently 
 in love with a very pretty woman. She had a 
 good fortune ; but it was £500 less than I could 
 with justice demand (I was heartily in love with 
 her, that's the truth of it) ; I therefore took my 
 pen and ink (for I do nothing without them), 
 and set down the particulars in the following 
 manner : — 
 
 Mrs. Amey Fairface debtor to Stephen Grub. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 For fortune, as per marriage 
 
 5000 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Per contra creditor. 
 
 
 
 
 Imprimis, to cash 
 
 4500 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Item, to beauty (for she had a 
 
 
 
 
 great deal, and I had a great 
 
 
 
 
 value for it) . 
 
 100 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Item, to wit as per conversation 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 00 
 
 Item', to her affection for me 
 
 30 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Item, to good housewifery, a 
 
 
 
 
 sober, chaste education, and 
 
 
 
 
 being a good workwoman at 
 
 
 
 
 her needle, in all . 
 
 50 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Item, to her skill in music 
 
 1 
 
 01 
 
 00 
 
 Item, to dancing 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 06 
 
 
 4683 
 
 11 
 
 06 
 
 Mrs. Amey debtor 
 
 5000 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Per contra creditor 
 
 4683 
 
 11 
 
 00 
 
 Due to balance .... 
 
 310 
 
 08 
 
 06 
 
 You see, sir, I strained as hard as possible, 
 and placed a higher value, perhaps, on her 
 several perfections than others would have 
 done ; but the balance still remained against 
 her, and I was reduced to the necessary alterna- 
 tive of sacrificing that sum for ever, or of 
 quitting my mistress. You may easily guess 
 on which a prudent man would determine. 
 Indeed, I had sufficient reason to be afterwards 
 pleased with my prudence, as she proved to be 
 a less valuable woman than I imagined ; for, 
 two years afterwards, having had a considerable 
 loss in trade, by which the balance above was 
 satisfied, I renewed my addresses, but the false- 
 hearted creature (forsooth) refused to see me. 
 
 A second occasion which I had for my pen and 
 ink, in this way, was when the situation of my 
 affairs, after some losses, was such that I could 
 clearly have put £1500 in my pocket by break- 
 ing. The account then stood thus :— 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Stephen Grubb, debtor to cash . 
 
 1500 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 Per contra creditor. 
 
 
 
 
 To danger to soul as per perjury 
 
 105 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 To danger to body as per felony 
 
 1000 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 To loss of reputation . 
 
 500 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 To conscience as per injuring 
 
 
 
 
 others 
 
 00 
 
 02 
 
 06 
 
 To incidental charges, trouble, 
 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 00 
 
 00 
 
 I am convinced you are so good a master of 
 figures that I need not cast up the balance 
 which must so visibly have determined me to 
 jireserve the character of an honest man. 
 
 Not to trouble you with more instances of a 
 life of which you may easily guess the whole by 
 this specimen (for it hath been entirely trans- 
 acted by my golden rule), I shall hasten to 
 apply this rule, by which I suppose many other 
 persons in this city conduct themselves, to the 
 present times. 
 
 And here, sir, have we not reason to suppose 
 that some good men, for want of duly consider- 
 ing the danger of their property, etc., from the 
 present rebellion and low state of public credit, 
 have been too tenacious of their money on the 
 present occasion ; for, if we admit that the 
 whole is in danger, surely it is the office of 
 prudence to be generous of the lesser part, in 
 order to secure the greater ? 
 
 Let us see how this stands on paper, for thus 
 only we can argue with certainty. 
 
 Suppose, then, the given sum of your pro- 
 perty be £20,000. 
 
 The value of securing this will be more or less 
 in proportion to the danger; for the truth of 
 which I need only appeal to the common 
 practice of insurance. 
 
 If the chance, then, be twenty to one, it 
 follows that the value of insurance is at an 
 average with £1000, and proportionally more or 
 less as the danger is greater or less. 
 
 There are, besides, two other articles, which 
 I had like to have forgot, to which every man 
 almost fixes some value. These are religion 
 and liberty. 
 
 Suppose, therefore, we set down 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Religion at 00 15 00 
 
 And liberty at . . . . 00 02 06 
 
 And I think none but a jirofligate fellow can 
 value them at a lower rate ; it follows that 
 to secure them from the same proportion of 
 danger as above is worth lO^d. 
 
 Now this last sum may be undoubtedly saved, 
 as it would not be missed or called for if men 
 would only seriously consider the preservation 
 of what is so infinitely more valuable, their 
 property, and advance their money in its 
 defence in due proportion to the degree of its 
 danger. And as there is nothing so pleasant as 
 clear gain, it must give some satisfaction to 
 every thinking man that, while he risks his 
 money for the preservation of his property, his 
 religion and liberty ai*e tossed him into the 
 bargain. 
 
 You see, sir, I have fairly balanced between 
 those hot-headed zealots who set these con- 
 veniences above the value of money, and those 
 profligate wicked people who treat them as 
 matters of no concern or moment. 
 
 I have therefore been a little surprised at the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 backvrardness of some very prudent men on this 
 occasion ; for it would be really doing them an 
 injury to suspect they do not set a just value on 
 money, while every action of their lives demon- 
 strates the contrary. I can therefore impute 
 this conduct only to a firm persuasion that there 
 will be foolish people enow found who from 
 loyalty to their king, zeal for their country, or 
 some other ridiculous principle, will subscribe 
 sufiicient sums for the defence of the public ; 
 and so they might save their own money, which 
 will still increase in value in proportion to the 
 distress and poverty of the nation. 
 
 This would be certainly a wise and right way 
 j of reasoning, and such a conduct must be highly 
 I commendable if the : fact supposed was true ; 
 I for, as nothing is so truly great as to turn the 
 j penny while the world suspects your ruin, so to 
 I convert the misfortunes of a whole community 
 to your own emolument, must be a thing 
 highly eligible by every good man, i.e. every 
 Plumb. ^ But I am afraid this rule will reach 
 only private persons at most, and cannot extend 
 to those whose examples, while they keep their 
 \ own purses shut, lock uj) the purses of all their 
 j neighbours. 
 
 j A fallacy of the same kind I am afraid we 
 fall into when we refuse to lend our money to 
 the Government at a moderate interest, in 
 hopes of extorting more from the public i)U.rse ; 
 with which thought a very good sort of man, a 
 Plumb, seemed yesterday to hug himself, in a 
 conversation which we had upon this subject ; 
 but upon the nearest computation I could make 
 with my pen, which I handled the moment he 
 left me, I find that this very person, who pro- 
 posed to gain 1 per cent, in £20,000, would, by 
 the consequential elffect on the public credit, be 
 a clear loser of 2\. 
 
 In short, I am afraid certain persons may at 
 this time rim the hazard of a fate which too 
 often attends veiy vkdse men, who have not on 
 all occasions a recourse to figures, and may 
 incur the censure of an old proverb, by being 
 'penny wise and pound foolish.' And since I 
 may be involved against my will in the calamity, 
 I shall be obliged to you if you will publish 
 these cautions from, sir, your humble sei-vant, 
 Stephen Grub. 
 N.B. — As your paper supplies the place of 
 three Evening Posts, I save IW. per week by it, 
 for which pray accept my acknowledgments. 
 
 CONGRATULATORY LETTER BY HENRY FIELDING 
 TO THE HON. GEORGE LYTTLETON. 
 
 On his Second Alarriage. 
 
 Bow Street, August 29, 1749, 
 Sir,— Permit me to bring up the rear of your 
 friends in paying my compliments of congratula- 
 
 ] - — ■ _ 
 
 j 1 Plumb, a man, or fortune, of £100,000. 
 
 tion on your late happy nuptials. There may, 
 perhaps, be seasons when the rear may be as 
 honourable a post in friendship as in war ; and 
 if so, such certainly must be every time of joy 
 and felicity. Your present sitxiation must be 
 full of bliss ; and so will be, I am confident, 
 your future life from the same fountain. No- 
 thing can equal the excellent character your 
 lady bears amongst those of her own sex, and 
 I never yet knew them speak well of a woman 
 who did not deserve their good words. How 
 admirable is your fortune in the matrimonial 
 lottery ! I will venture to say there is no man 
 alive who exults more in this, or in any other 
 happiness that can attend you, than myself, 
 and you ought to believe me from the same 
 reason that fully persuades me of the satisfac- 
 tion you receive from any happiness of mine ; 
 this reason is that you must be sensible how 
 much of it I owe to your goodness ; and there 
 is a great i^leasure in gratitude, though I 
 believe it second to that of benevolence ; for of 
 all the delights upon earth, none can equal the 
 raptures which a good mind feels in conferring 
 happiness on those whom we think worthy of 
 it. This is the sweetest ingredient in power, 
 and I solemnly i^rotest I never wished for 
 power more than a few days ago, for the sake 
 of a man whom I love, the more, perhaps, from 
 the esteem I know he bears you than any other 
 reason. This man is in love with a young 
 creature of the most apparent worth who re- 
 turns his affections. Nothing is wanting to 
 make two very miserable people extremely 
 blest, but a moderate portion of the greatest of 
 human evils, so philosophers call it, and so it is 
 called by divines, whose word is the rather to 
 be taken as they are many of them more con- 
 versant with this evil than even the philosophers 
 were. The name of this man is Moore, to 
 whom you kindly destined the laurel, which, 
 though it hath long been withered, may not 
 probably soon drop from the brow of its present 
 possessor. But there is another place of much 
 the same value now vacant : it is that of 
 deputy licenser to the stage. Be not offended 
 at this hint ; for thougli I will own it impudent 
 enough in one who hath so many obligations 
 of his own to you to venture to recommend 
 another man to your favour, yet impudence 
 itself may possibly be a virtue when exerted on 
 behalf of a friend : at least I am the less 
 ashamed of it, as I have known men remark- 
 able for the opposite modesty, possess it without 
 the mixture of any other quality. In this 
 fault, then, you must indulge me ; for should I 
 ever see you as high in power as I wish, and as 
 it is perhaps more my interest than your own 
 that you should be, I shall be guilty of the j 
 like as often as I find a man in whom I can, 
 after much intimacy, discover no want but that 
 of the evil above mentioned. I beg you will do 
 me the honour of making my compliments to 
 
ii6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 your unknown lady, and believe me to be, with 
 the highest esteem, respect, and gratitude, 
 Sir, your most obliged, most obedient, humble 
 servant, Henry Fielding. 
 
 [It was in the senate, as seen in Cowper's noble 
 description, — 
 
 ' "With all his country beaming in his face,'— 
 that Chatham appeared in the full splen- 
 dour and majesty of his genius. Lord 
 Chesterfield, one of his acutest and most 
 accomplished contemporaries, declared that 
 the dignity of his action and countenance 
 terrified his opponents ; and that even the 
 arms of a Campbell and a Mansfield 'fell 
 from their hands, as they shrank under the 
 ascendant which his genius gained over 
 them.' Sir Robert Walpole used to say to 
 his friends, that he should be delighted 
 ' at any rate to muzzle that terrible cornet 
 of horse.' Mr. Pitt, on leaving the Univer- 
 sity, had entered the army as a cornet in 
 the Blues, and in 1735 was returned to 
 Parliament for the family borough of Old 
 Sarum. The intellectual physiognomy of 
 Chatham was of a severe and commanding 
 order ; his genius was eminently practical ; 
 and while no person ever surpassed him in 
 the lofty aspirations and generous enthusi- 
 asm of patriotism, few have equalled him 
 in their calm and Christian application. 
 His private character shone with a lustre 
 very different from the unhealthy glare of 
 l^olitical fame. The i)ublication of his 
 correspondence presented him under an 
 engaging aspect, and enabled the reader to 
 admire the husband and the father, not 
 less than the statesman and the orator. — 
 Willmott.l 
 
 THE EARL OP CHATHAM TO HIS NEPHEW, 
 THOMAS PITT.l 
 
 How to conduct himself at Cambridge — Religion 
 the perfection and glory of human nature. 
 
 Bath, Jan. 14, 1754. 
 I My dear Nephew,— You will hardly have 
 read over one very long letter from me, before 
 you are troubled with a second. I intended to 
 have writ soon, but I do it the sooner on account 
 of your letter to your aunt, which she trans- 
 mitted to me here. If anything, my dear boy, 
 
 could have happened to raise you higher in my 
 esteem, and to endear you more to me, it is the 
 amiable abhorrence you feel for the scene of 
 vice and folly (and of real misery and perdition, 
 under the false notion of pleasure and spirit) 
 which has opened to you at your college ; and 
 at the same time, the manly, brave, generous, 
 and wise resolution and true spirit with which 
 you resisted and repulsed the first attempts 
 upon a mind and heart, I thank God, infinitely 
 too firm and noble, as well as too elegant and 
 enlightened, to be in any danger of yielding to 
 such contemptible and wretched corruptions. 
 You charm me with the description of Mr. 
 Wheeler ; ^ and while you say you could adore 
 him, I could adore you for the natural, generous 
 love of virtue which speaks in all you feel, say, 
 or do. As to your companions, let this be your 
 rule. Cultivate the acquaintance with Mr. 
 Wheeler, which you have so fortunately begun ; 
 and in general be sure to associate with men 
 much older than yourself : scholars whenever 
 you can ; but always with men of decent and 
 honourable lives. As their age and learning, 
 superior both to your own, must necessarily, in 
 good sense, and in the view of acquiring know- 
 ledge from them, entitle them to all deference, 
 and submission of your own lights to theirs, 
 you will particularly practise that first and 
 greatest rule for pleasing in conversation, as 
 well as for di'awing instruction and improvement 
 from the company of one's superiors in age and 
 knowledge ; namely, to be a patient, attentive, 
 and well-bred hearer, and to answer with 
 modesty ; to deliver your own opinions sparingly, 
 and with proper diflSdence ; and if you are 
 forced to desire further information or explana- 
 tion upon a point, to do it with proper apologies 
 for the trouble you give ; or, if obliged to differ, 
 to do it with all possible candour, and an 
 unprejudiced desire to find and ascertain truth, 
 with an entire indifference to the side on which 
 that truth is to be found. There is likewise 
 a particular attention required to contradict 
 with good manners; such as, 'begging pardon,' 
 ' begging leave to doubt,' and such like phrases. 
 Pythagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute 
 silence for a long noviciate. I am far from 
 approving such a taciturnity; but I highly 
 recommend the end and intent of Pythagoras' 
 injunction, which is, to dedicate the first 
 parts of hfe more to hear and learn, in order 
 to collect materials, out of which to form 
 opinions founded on proper lights, and well- 
 examined, sound principles, than to be presum- 
 ing, prompt, and flii^pant in hazarding one's 
 own slight crude notions of things, and thereby 
 exposing the nakedness and emptiness of the 
 mind, like a house opened to company before 
 
 1 Rev. John Wheeler, prebendary of Westminster. 
 The friendship thus commenced, continued until the 
 death of Lord Camelford. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 117 
 
 it is fitted either with necessaries, or any orna- 
 ments for their reception and entertainment. 
 And not only will this disgrace follow from such 
 temerity and presumption, but a more serious 
 danger is sure to ensue, that is, the embracing 
 errors for truth, prejudices for principles ; and 
 ■when that is once done (no matter how vainly 
 and weakly), the adhering, perhaps, to false and 
 dangerous notions, only because one has declared 
 for them, and submitting for life the under- 
 standing and conscience to a yoke of base and 
 servile prejudices, vainly taken up and obsti- 
 nately retained. This will never be your danger, 
 but I thought it not amiss to offer these reflec- 
 tions to your thoughts. As to your manner of 
 behaving towards these unhappy young gentle- 
 men you describe, let it be manly and easy ; 
 decline their parties with civility, retort their 
 raillery with raillery, always tempered with 
 good breeding ; if they banter your regularity, 
 order, decency, and love of study, banter in 
 return their neglect of them ; and venture to 
 own frankly that you came to Cambridge to 
 learn what you can, not to follow what they are 
 pleased to call jileasure. In short, let your 
 external behaviour to them be as full of polite- 
 ness and ease, as your inward estimation of 
 them is full of pity mixed with contempt. 
 
 I come now to the part of the advice I have 
 to offer to you, which most nearly concerns your 
 welfare, and upon which every good and honour- 
 able purpose of your life will assuredly turn. 
 I mean the keeping up in your heart the true 
 sentiments of i-eligion. If you are not right 
 towards God, you can never be towards man : 
 the noblest sentiment of the human breast is 
 here brought to the test. Is gratitude in the 
 number of a man's virtues ? If it be, the high- 
 est Benefactor demands the warmest returns 
 of gratitude, love, and praise. Ingraiuvi qui 
 dixerit, omnia dixit. If a man wants this 
 virtue, where there are infinite obligations to 
 excite and quicken it, he will be likely to want 
 all others towards his fellow creatures, whose 
 utmost gifts are poor, compared to those he 
 daily receives at the hands of his never-failing 
 Almighty Friend. ' Remember thy Creator in 
 the days of thy youth,' is big with the deepest 
 wisdom. ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning 
 of wisdom; and an upright heart, that is 
 understanding.' This is eternally true, whether 
 the wits and rakes of Cambridge allow it or not ; 
 nay, I must add of this religious wisdom, ' Her 
 ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths 
 are peace.' Hold fast, therefore, by this sheet- 
 anchor of happiness, religion ; you will often 
 want it in the times of most danger, the storms 
 and tempests of life. Cherish true religion as 
 preciously as you will fly, with abhorrence and 
 contempt, superstition and enthusiasm. The 
 first is the perfection and glory of the human 
 nature, the two last the depravation and dis- 
 grace of it. Eemember, the essence of religion 
 
 is a heart void of offence towards God and 
 man ; not subtle speculative opinions, but an 
 active vital principle of faith. The words of a 
 heathen were so fine that I must give them to 
 you : Composituvi jus fasque animi, sanctosque 
 recessus mentiSy et incoctum gcneroso pectus 
 honesto. 
 
 Go on, my dear child, in the admirable 
 dispositions you have towards all that is right 
 and good, and make yourself the love and 
 admiration of the world. I have neither paper 
 nor words to tell you how tenderly I am yours. 
 
 WILLIAM PITT TO HIS WIFE, LADY CHATHAM. 
 
 Fcbruarrj 22, 1766 (past 4 o'clock). 
 
 Happy, indeed, was the scene of this glorious 
 morning (for at past one we divided),^ when the 
 sun of liberty shone once more benignly uj)on 
 a country too long benighted. My dear love, 
 not all the applauding joy which the hearts of 
 animated gratitude, saved from despair and 
 bankruptcy, uttered in the lobby, could touch 
 me, in any degree, like the tender and lively 
 delight which breathes in your warm and 
 affectionate note. 
 
 All together, my dearest life, mnkes me not I 
 ill to-day after the immense fatigue, or not 
 feeling that I am so. Wonder not if I should 
 find myself in a placid and sober fever, for 
 tumultuous exultation you know I think not 
 permitted to feeble mortal successes ; but my 
 delight, heartfelt and solid as it is, must want 
 its sweetest ingredient (if not its very essence) 
 till I rejoice with my angel, and with her join 
 in thanksgivings to protecting Heaven for all 
 our happy deliverances. 
 
 Thank you for the sight of Smith ; his 
 honest joy and affection charm me. Loves to 
 the sweet babes, patriotic or not ; though I 
 hope impetuous William is not behind in 
 feelings of that kind. Send the saddle-horses 
 if you please, so as to be in town early to- 
 morrow morning. I propose and hope to 
 execute my journey to Hayes by eleven. 
 Your ever loving husband, 
 
 W. Pitt. 
 
 ["When Boswell was setting out on his journey 
 to Holland, Johnson testified the sincerity 
 of his regard and esteem by accompanying 
 him to Harwich. They rested the first 
 night at Colchester, and during supper 
 Boswell began, as he confesses, to tease his 
 companion with fanciful apprehensions of 
 unhappiness. Johnson corrected his folly 
 in a manner peculiar to himself. ' A moth 
 
 1 On the American Stamp Act 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Ii8 
 
 having fluttered round the candle and 
 burnt itself, he laid hold of this little 
 incident to admonish me, saying, with a 
 sly look, and in a solemn and quiet tone, 
 " That creature was its own tormentor, 
 and I believe its name was Boswell."' 
 The gloom of Utrecht, contrasted with the 
 gaiety of London, deepened Boswell's 
 depression, and under its influence he 
 addressed a very desponding letter to 
 Johnson, who took no notice of his com- 
 plaints. A second communication, written 
 in a happier temper, brought the following 
 reply. — WillnwU.] 
 
 JOHNSON TO BOSWELL. 
 
 The Proper Mode of Lctter-ioritimg. 
 
 London^ December 8, 1763. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You are not to think yourself 
 forgotten, or criminally neglected, that you 
 have had yet no letter from me. I love to see 
 my friends, to hear from them, to talk to them, 
 and to talk of them ; but it is not without a 
 considerable effort of resolution that I prevail 
 upon myself to write. I would not, however, 
 gratify my own indolence by the omission of any 
 important duty, or any ofBce of real kindness. 
 
 To tell you that I am not well, that I have or 
 have not been in the country, that I drank your 
 health in the room in which we sat last together, 
 and that your acquaintances continue to speak 
 of you with their former kindness, topics with 
 which those letters are commonly filled which 
 are written only for the sake of writing, I 
 seldom shall think worth communicating ; but 
 if I can have it in my jjower to calm any 
 harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous 
 desire to rectify any important opinion, or 
 fortify any generous resolution, you need not 
 doubt buo I shall at least wish to prefer the 
 pleasure of gratifying a friend much less 
 esteemed than yourself before the gloomy 
 calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall easily 
 arrive at an exact punctuality of correspondence, 
 I cannot tell. I shall at present expect that 
 you will receive this in return for two I have 
 had from you. The first, indeed, gave me an 
 account so hopeless of the state of your mind, 
 that it hardly admitted or deserved an answer ; 
 by the second I was much better pleased, and 
 the pleasure will be still increased by such a 
 narrative of the progress of your studies, as 
 may evince the continuance of an equal and 
 rational application of your mind to some useful 
 inquiry. 
 
 You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I 
 would recommend. I shall not speak of theology, 
 because it ought not to be considered as a 
 question whether you shall endeavour to know 
 the will of God. 
 
 I shall, therefore, consider only such studies 
 as we are at liberty to pursue or to neglect ; 
 and of these I know not how you will make a 
 better choice, than by studying the civil lav/, 
 as your father advises, and the ancient languages, 
 as you had determined for yourself ; at least, 
 resolve that while you remain in any settled 
 residence, to spend a certain number of hours 
 every day amongst your books. The dissipa- 
 tion of thought, of which you complain, is 
 nothing more than the vacillation of a mind 
 suspended between different motives, and 
 changing its direction as any motive gains or 
 loses strength. 
 
 If you can but kindle in your mind any strong 
 desire, if you can but keep predominant any 
 wish for some i)articular excellence or attain- 
 ment, the gusts of imagination will pass 
 away, without any effect upon your conduct, 
 and commonly without any traces left upon 
 the memory. 
 
 There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a 
 desire of distinction, which inclines every man 
 first to hope, and then to believe, that naturw 
 has given him something peculiar to himself. 
 This vanity makes one mind nurse aversions, 
 and another acute desires, till they rise by art 
 much above their original state of power ; and 
 as affection in time improves to habit, they at 
 last tyrannize over him who at first encouraged 
 them only for show. Every desire is a viper in 
 the bosora, who while he was chill was harmless, 
 but, when warmth gave him strength, exerted 
 it in poison. You know a gentleman, who, 
 when he first set his foot in the gay world, as 
 he prepared himself to whirl in the vortex of 
 pleasure, imagined a total indifference and 
 universal negligence to be the most agreeable 
 concomitants of youth, and the strongest indica- 
 tion of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. 
 Vacant to every object, and sensible of every 
 impulse, he thought that all appearance of 
 diligence would deduct something from the 
 reputation of genius ; and hoped that he should 
 appear to attain, amidst all the ease of care- 
 lessness, and the tumult of diversion, that 
 knowledge, and those accomplishments, which 
 mortals of the common fabric obtain only by a 
 mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He 
 tried this scheme of life a while, was made 
 weary of it by his sense and his virtue ; he then 
 wished to return to his studies, and, finding 
 long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to 
 be cured than he expected, still willing to 
 retain his claim to some extraordinary preroga- 
 tive, resolved the common consequences of 
 irregularity into an unalterable decree of 
 destiny, and concluded that nature had 
 originally formed him incapable of rational 
 employment. 
 
 Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, 
 be banished henceforward from your thoughts 
 for ever. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Uesolve, and keep your resolution ; choose, 
 and pursue your choice. If you spend this day 
 in study, you will find yourself still more able 
 to study to-morrow ; not that you are to expect 
 that you shall at once obtain a complete victory. 
 Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolu- 
 tion will sometimes relax, and diligence will 
 sometimes be interrupted ; but let no accidental 
 surprise or deviation, whether short or long, 
 dispose you to despondency. Consider these 
 failings as incidental to all mankind. Begin 
 again where you left off, and endeavour to avoid 
 the inducements that prevailed over you 
 before. 
 
 This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, 
 perhaps, has been often given you, and given 
 you %vithout effect. But this advice, if j'ou 
 will not take from others, you must take from 
 your own reflections, if you purpose to do the 
 duties of the station to which the bounty of 
 Providence has called you. 
 
 Let me have a long letter from you as soon 
 as you can. I hope you continue your journal, 
 and enrich it with many observations upon the 
 country in which you reside. It will be a 
 favour if you can get me any books in the 
 Frisick language, and can inquire how the poor 
 are maintained in the Seven Provinces. — I am, 
 dear Sir, 
 
 Your most affectionate servant. 
 
 [This is the first letter, Mr. Croker observes, in 
 which we perceive that coldness towards 
 Mrs. Thrale, which had, however, existed 
 for some time. The allusion to the friends 
 he had lost is solemnly pathetic. Johnson 
 was now in his seventy-fourth year, and 
 looking back upon the brilliant circle, in 
 which he had been accustomed to display 
 his wonderful powers of conversation and 
 eloquence, he could not but recall with 
 sensations of sadness him whose death had 
 eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and him of 
 v/hom he had declared that he touched 
 nothing he did not adorn. Many years 
 before he had dismissed his Dictionary 
 with 'frigid indifference,' as having no 
 relatives or friends whom his success could 
 gratify. But these feelings of gloomy 
 dissatisfaction never overcame the natural 
 sagacity of his understanding. ' If a man 
 does not make new acquaintance,' he 
 remarked to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ' as he 
 advances through life, he will soon find 
 himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep 
 
 n9 
 
 his friendship in constant repair.' The 
 moralist realized his own theory. 
 
 Johnson had visited during his tour to 
 Wales the seat of Lord Kilmurry, of whom 
 mention is made, and significantly noted 
 in his Journal, that *he showed the place 
 with too much exultation.' — WillmoU.I 
 
 TO MRS. THRALB. 
 
 Old Friends. 
 
 Lmdon, Nov. 13, 1783. 
 
 Dear Madam, — Since you have written to 
 me with the attention and tenderness of 
 ancient time, your letters give me a great part 
 of the pleasure which a life of solitude admits. 
 You will never bestow any share of your good- 
 will on one who deserves better. Those that 
 have loved longest, love best. A sudden blaze 
 of kindness may by a single blast of coldness be 
 extinguished ; but that fondness, which length 
 of time has connected with many circumstances 
 and occasions, though it may for a while be 
 suppressed by disgust or resentment, with or 
 without a cause, is hourly revived by accidental 
 recollection. To those that have lived long 
 together, everything heard and everything seen 
 recalls some pleasure communicated or some 
 benefit conferred, some petty quarrel or some 
 slight endearment. Esteem of great powers, 
 or amiable qualities newly discovered, may 
 embroider a day or a week, but a friendship 
 of twenty years is interwoven with the texture 
 of life. A friend may be often found and lost, 
 but an old, friend never can be found, and 
 nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost. 
 
 I have not forgotten the Davenants, though 
 they seem to have forgotten me. I began very 
 early to tell them what they have commonly 
 found to be true. I am sorry to hear of their 
 building. I have always warned those whom I 
 loved against that mode of ostentatious waste. 
 
 You seem to mention Lord Kilmurry as a 
 stranger. We were at his house in Cheshire ; 
 and he one day dined with Sir Lynch. ^ What 
 he tells of the epigram is not true, but perhaps 
 he does not know it to be false. Do not you 
 remember how he rejoiced in having no park ? 
 he could not disoblige his neighbours by sending 
 them no venison. 
 
 The frequency of death, to those who look 
 upon it in the leisure of Arcadia is very 
 dreadful. We all know what it should teach 
 us ; let us all be diligent to learn. Lucy Porter 
 has lost her brother. But whom I have lost — 
 let me not now remember. 
 
 Let not your loss be added to the mournful 
 catalogue. Write soon again to, Madam, 
 
 Yours, etc. 
 
 1 Sir Lynch Cotton. See Jolinsou's Journal o/ the 
 Tour to Wales. 
 
120 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 TO MRS. LUCY PORTEB, IN LICHFIELD. 
 
 London, March 2, 1782. 
 
 Dear Madam, — I went away from Lichfield 
 ill, and have had a troublesome time with my 
 breath ; for some weeks I have been disordered 
 by a cold, of which I could not get the violence 
 abated till I had been let blood three times. I 
 have not, however, been so bad but that I could 
 have written, and am sorry that I neglected it. 
 
 My dwelling is but melancholy ; both "Wil- 
 liams, and Desmoulins, and myself are very 
 sickly ; Frank is not well ; and poor Levett 
 died in his bed the other day, by a sudden 
 stroke. I suppose not one minute passed be- 
 tween health and death ; so uncertain are 
 human things. 
 
 Such is the appearance of the world about 
 me ; I hope your scenes are more cheerful. 
 But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be 
 serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps 
 sinful, to be gloomy. Let us therefore keep 
 ourselves as easy as we can ; though the loss of 
 friends will be felt, and poor Levett had been a 
 faithful adherent for thirty years. 
 
 Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of 
 writing; I hope to mend that and my other 
 faults. Let me have your prayers. 
 
 Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and 
 Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and the whole 
 company of my friends. 
 
 I am, my dear, your most humble servant, 
 Sam. Johnson. 
 
 TO CAPTAIN LANGTON,! IN ROCHESTER. 
 
 Bolt Court, Fleet Street, 
 March 20, 1782. 
 
 Dear Sir, — It is now long since we saw one 
 another ; and, whatever has been the reason, 
 neither you have written to me nor I to you. 
 To let friendship die away by negligence and 
 silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily 
 to throw away one of the greatest comforts of 
 this weary pilgrimage, of which when it is as it 
 must be, taken finally away, he that travels on 
 alone will wonder how his esteem could be so 
 little. Do not forget me ; you see that I do 
 not forget you. It is pleasing, in the silence of 
 solitude, to think that there is one at least, 
 however distant, of whose benevolence there is 
 little doubt, and whom there is yet hope of 
 seeing again. 
 
 Of my life, from the time we parted, the 
 history is mournful. The spring of last year 
 deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for 
 fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me 
 
 1 Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at 
 Rochester, he is addressed by his military title. — 
 
 BObWKLU 
 
 but with respect or tenderness ; for such an- 
 other friend the general course of human things 
 will not suffer man to hope. I passed the 
 summer at Streatham, but there was no 
 Thrale ; and having idled away the summer 
 with a weakly body and neglected mind, I made 
 a journey to Staffordshire on the edge of winter. 
 The season was dreary ; I was sickly, and found 
 the friends sickly whom I went to see. After 
 a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a habitation 
 possessed for the present by two sick women, 
 where my dear old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom, 
 as he used to tell me, I owe your acquaintance, 
 died a few weeks ago suddenly in his bed. 
 There i^assed not, I believe, a minute between 
 health and death. At night, as at Mrs. Thrale's, 
 I was musing in my chamber, I thought with 
 uncommon earnestness, that however I might 
 alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might 
 remove, I would endeavour to retain Levett 
 about me. In the morning my servant brought 
 me word that Levett was called to another state, 
 — a state for which, I think, he was not unpre- 
 pared, for he was very useful to the poor. How 
 much soever I valued him, I now wish that I 
 had valued him more. 
 
 I have myself been ill more than eight 
 weeks of a disorder from which, at the expense 
 of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now 
 recovering. 
 
 You, dear sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful 
 scene : you see George fond of his book, and the 
 pretty misses airy and lively, with my own little 
 Jenny equal to the best ; and in whatever can 
 contribute to your quiet or pleasure, you have 
 Lady Rothes ready to concur. Llay whatever 
 you enjoy of good be increased, and whatever 
 you suffer of evil be diminished. 
 
 I am, dear sir, your humble servant, 
 Sam. Johnson. 
 
 [Of Sterne's correspondence, a curious anecdote 
 is related by one of Hannah More's sisters. 
 'Mrs. Medalle (Sterne's daughter) sent to 
 all the correspondents of her deceased 
 father, begging the letters which he had 
 written to them : among other wits, she 
 sent to "Wilkes with the same request. 
 He sent for answer that as there appeared 
 nothing extraordinary in those he had 
 received, he had burnt or lost them. On 
 which the faithful editor of her father's 
 works sent back to say, that if Blr. "Wilkes 
 would be so good as to write a few letters 
 in her father's style, it would do just as 
 well, and she would insert them.' "We are 
 not informed whether "Wilkes complied 
 with this singular request. Literature, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 121 
 
 however, has not suffered by the loss of 
 so many of Sterne's letters. His epistolary 
 style has all the faults, with very few of 
 the excellences, of his works ; it is full of 
 theatrical starts of passion ; and even his 
 expressions of sympathy and regard seem 
 to be spoken in character. "\ATien this 
 letter was written, Garrick was upon the 
 Continent, where he had been residing since 
 the autumn of 1763. He returned to 
 England in the April of 1765. Powell, to 
 whom Sterne alludes, is described as 'a 
 young man from Sir Kobert Ladbroke's 
 counting-house in the city; with slender 
 education, few means of study, not striking 
 in his person, but possessing an ardent 
 love for acting, and the faculty of strongly 
 interesting the passions of the audience.' 
 Such was the fickleness of the popular 
 taste, that the town, which had begun to 
 weary of Garrick, thronged to see his 
 successor. It ought, however, to be men- 
 tioned, that the youthful actor, in the 
 height of his success, remembered and vene- 
 rated his illustrious master. — Willmott.] 
 
 STERNE TO GARRICK. 
 
 Urging his Eeturn to the Stage, 
 
 Bath, ApHl 6, 1765. 
 I scalp you ! my dear Garrick ! — my dear 
 friend ! foul befall the man who hurts a hair 
 of your head ! — and so full was I of that very 
 sentiment, that my letter had not been jjut 
 into the post office ten minutes before my 
 heart smote me ; and I sent to recall it — but 
 failed. You are sadly to blame, Shandy ! for 
 this, quoth I, leaning with my head on my 
 hand, as I recriminated vipon my false delicacy 
 in the affair. Garrick's nerves (if he has any 
 left) are as fine and delicately spun as thy 
 own — his sentiments as honest and friendly ; 
 thou knowest, Shandy, that he loves thee — 
 why wilt thou hazard him a moment's pain? 
 Puppy! fool! coxcomb! jackass! etc. etc.; 
 and so I balanced the account to your favour, 
 before I received it drawn up in your way, I 
 say your way ; for it is not stated so much to 
 your honour and credit, as I had passed the 
 account before; for it was a most lamented 
 truth, that I never received one of the letters 
 your friendship meant me, except whilst in 
 Paris. Oh ! how I congratulate you for the 
 anxiety the world has, and continues to be 
 under, for your return. Eeturn — return to the 
 few who love you, and the thousands who 
 admire you. The moment you set your foot 
 upon your stage — mark ! I tell it you, by some 
 magic, irresisted power, every fibre about your 
 
 heart will vibrate afresh, and as strong and 
 feelingly as ever. Nature, with Glory at her 
 back, will light up the torch within you ; and 
 there is enough of it left to lieat and enlighten 
 the world these many, many, many years. 
 
 Heaven be praised ! (I utter it from my soul) 
 that your lady and Minerva is in a condition to 
 walk to "Windsor — full rapturously will I lead 
 the graceful pilgrim to the temple, where I will 
 sacrifice with the purest incense to her ; but 
 you may worship with me or not, 'twill make 
 no difference either in the truth or warmth of 
 my devotion ; still (after all I have seen), I 
 still maintain her peerless. 
 
 Powell — good heaven ! give me some one 
 with less smoke and more fire. There are, 
 who, like the Pharisees, still think they shall 
 be heard for much speaking. Come, come away, 
 my dear Garrick, and teach us another lesson. 
 
 Adieu!— I love you dearly — and your lady 
 better — not hobihorsically — but most senti- 
 mentally and affectionately — for I am yours 
 (that is, if you never say another word about 
 
 ) with all the sentiments of love and 
 
 friendship you deserve from me. 
 
 FROM IGNATIUS SANCHO, AN EMANCIPATED 
 NEGRO, TO MR. STERNE. 
 
 1766. 
 
 Reverend Sir, — It would be an insult on 
 your humanity (or perhaps look like it) to 
 apologize for the liberty I am taking ; I am one 
 of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal 
 call negroes. The first part of my life was 
 rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who 
 judged ignorance the best and only security for 
 obedience. A little reading and writing I got 
 by unwearied application. The latter part of 
 my life has been, through God's blessing, truly 
 fortunate, having spent it in the service of one 
 of the best and greatest families in the king- 
 dom. My chief pleasure has been books ; phil- 
 anthropy I adore. How very much, good sir, 
 am I (amongst millions) indebted to you for 
 the character of your amiable Uncle Toby ! I 
 declare I would walk ten miles in the dog-days 
 to shake hands with the honest corporal. Your 
 sermons have touched me to the heart, and I 
 hope have amended it, which brings me to the 
 point. In your tenth discourse is this very 
 affecting passage : — ' Consider how great a part 
 of our species, in all ages down to this, have 
 been trod under the feet of cruel and capricious 
 tyrants, who would neither hear their cries, 
 nor pity their distresses. Consider slavery — 
 what it is — how bitter a draught — and how 
 many millions are made to drink of it.' Of all 
 my favourite authors, not one has drawn a tear 
 in favour of my miserable black brethren, ex- 
 cei)ting yourself, and the humane author of Sir 
 George Ellison. I think you will forgive me ; 
 
122 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 I am sure you will applaud me for beseeching 
 you to give one half-hour's attention to slavery 
 as it is this day practised in our "West Indies. 
 That subject, handled in your striking manner, 
 VN'ould ease the yoke (perhaps) of many; but, 
 if only of one, gracious God ! what a feast to a 
 benevolent heart ! and sure I am you are an 
 epicurean in acts of charity. You who are 
 universally read, and as universally admired, 
 you could not fail. Dear sir, think in me you 
 behold the uplifted hands of thousands of my 
 brother Moors. Grief (you pathetically observe) 
 is eloquent : figure to yourself their attitudes ; 
 hear their supplicating addresses ! Alas ! you 
 cannot refuse ! Humanity must comply ; in 
 which hope I beg permission to subscribe my- 
 self, reverend sir, I. S. 
 
 FEOM ME, STERNE TO IGNATIUS SANCHO. 
 
 Coxwould, July 27, 1766. 
 There is a strange coincidence, Saneho, in 
 the little events (as well as in the great ones) of 
 this world; for I had been writing a tender 
 tale of the sorrows of a friendless, poor negro 
 girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting 
 with it, when your letter of recommendation, 
 in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, 
 came to me. But why her brethren, or yours, 
 Sancho, any more than mine ? It is by the finest 
 tints and most insensible gradations that nature 
 descends from the fairest face about St. James's 
 to the sootiest complexion in Africa. At which 
 tint of these is it that the ties of blood are to 
 cease ? and how many shades must we descend 
 lower still in the scale, ere mercy is to vanish 
 with them ? But 'tis no uncommon thing, my 
 good Sancho, for one-half of the world to use 
 the other half of it like brutes, and then endea- 
 vour to make them so. For my own part, I never 
 look westward (when I am in a pensive mood, at 
 least) but I think of the burthens which our 
 brothers and sisters are there carrying ; and 
 could I ease their shoulders from one ounce of 
 them, I declare I would set out this hour upon 
 a pilgrimage to Mecca for their sakes, which, 
 by the bye, Sancho, exceeds your walk of ten 
 miles in about the same proportion that a visit 
 of humanity should one of mere form. How- 
 ever, if you meant my Uncle Toby, more he is 
 your debtor. If I can weave the tale I have 
 wrote into the work I am about, 'tis at the 
 service of the aflQicted, and a much greater 
 matter; for, in serious truth, it casts a sad 
 shade upon the world, that so great a part of it 
 are, and have been so long, bound in chains of 
 darkness, and in chains of misery ; and I can- 
 not but both respect and felicitate you, that by 
 so much laudable diligence you have broke the 
 one, and that by falling into the hands of so 
 good and merciful a family, Providence has 
 rescued you from the other. 
 
 And so, good-hearted Sancho, adieu ! and 
 believe me, I will not forget your letter. — 
 Yours, L. Sternjl 
 
 WILLIAM SHENSTONE TO RICHARD JAGO, 
 A MINOR POET (1715-1781). 
 
 Novemher 15, 1752. 
 
 Dear Mr. Jago, — Could I with convenience 
 mount my horse, and ride to Harbury this 
 instant, I should much more willingly do so 
 than begin this letter. Such terrible events 
 have happened to us, since we saw each other 
 last, that, however irksome it may be to dwell 
 upon them, it is in the same degree unnatural 
 to substitute any subject in their j)lace. I do 
 sincerely forgive your long silence, my good 
 friend,— indeed I do, though it gave me un- 
 easiness. I hope you do the same by mine. I 
 own, I could not readily account for the former 
 period of yours, any otherwise than by sup- 
 posing that I had said or done something, in 
 the levity of my heart, which had given you 
 disgust ; but being conscious to myself of the 
 most sincere regard for you, and believing it 
 could never be discredited for any trivial 
 inadvertences, I remember, I continued still in 
 expectation of a letter, and did not dream of i 
 writing till such time as I had received one. I 
 trusted you would write at last ; and that, by | 
 all my past endeavours to demonstrate my | 
 friendship, you would believe the tree v/as 
 rooted in my heart, whatever irregularity you j 
 might observe in the branches. i 
 
 This was my situation before that dreadful 
 era which gave me such a shock as to banish 
 my best friends for a time out of my memory. 
 And when they recurred, as they did the first 
 of anything, I was made acquainted with that 
 deplorable misfortune of yours ! believe me, I 
 sympathized in your affliction, notwithstanding 
 my own ; but alas ! what comfort could I 
 administer, who had need of every possible j 
 assistance to support myself ? I wrote indeed a 
 few letters with difficulty ; amongst the rest, 
 one to my friend Graves ; but it was to vent ' 
 my complaint. I will send you the letter, if 
 you please, as it is by far my least painful 
 method of conveying you some account of my 
 situation. Let it convince you, that I could 
 have written nothing at that time, which could 
 have been of any service to you : let it afford 
 you, at least, a faint sketch of my dearest 
 brother's character ; but let it not appear an 
 ostentatious display of sorrow, of which I am 
 by no means guilty. I know but too well that I 
 discovered upon the occasion, what some would 
 call an unmanly tenderness ; but I know also, 
 that sorrow upon such subjects as these is very 
 consistent with virtue, and with the most 
 absolute resignation to the just decrees of 
 Providence— ' iTbmtms est enim affici doloi-e 
 sentire; resistere tamen et solatia admittere non 
 
123 
 
 solatiis non egere. '—Pliny. I drank, purchased 
 amusements, never suffered myself to be a 
 minute without company, no matter what, so 
 it was but continuaL At length, by an 
 attention to such conversation and such amuse- 
 ments as I could at other times despise, I 
 forgot so far as to be cheerful. And after this, 
 the summer, through an almost constant 
 succession of lively and agreeable visitants, 
 proved even a scene of jollity. It was in- 
 ebriation all, though of a mingled nature ; yet 
 has it maintained a sort of truce with grief, 
 till time can assist me more effectually by 
 throwing back the event to a distance. Now, 
 indeed, that my company has all forsaken me, 
 and I am delivered up to winter, silence, and 
 reflection, the incidents of the last year revive 
 apace in my memory ; and I am even astonished 
 to think of the gaiety of my summer. The 
 fatal anniversary, the dies quern temper 
 acerbum, etc., is beginning to approach, and 
 every face of the sky suggests the ideas of last 
 winter. Yet I find myself cheerful in company, 
 nor would I recomm.end it to you to be much 
 alone. You would lay the highest obligation 
 upon me by coming over at this time. I pressed 
 your brother, whom I saw at Birmingham, to 
 use his influence with you ; but if you can by 
 no means undertake the journey, I will take 
 ray speediest opportunity of seeing you at 
 Harbury. Mr. Miller invited me strenuously 
 to meet Dr. Lyttelton at his house ; but I 
 believe my most convenient season will be, 
 when my Lord Dudley goes to Barrels; for I 
 can but ill bear the pensiveness of a long and 
 lonely expedition. After all, if you can come 
 hither first, it would afford me the most entire 
 satisfaction. I have been making alterations 
 in my house that would amuse you ; and have 
 many matters to discourse with you, which it 
 would be endless to mention upon paper. 
 Adieu ! my dear friend ! May your merit be 
 known to some one who has greater power to 
 serve you than myself; but be assured at the 
 same time, that no one loves you better, or 
 esteems you more. W. Shenstone. 
 
 [Thomas Gray, the poet, was an excellent cor- 
 respondent, and his letters as such are 
 quite equal to his poetical reputation. His 
 descriptions of nature are genuine in an 
 age which was beginning to emerge from a 
 stilted and artificial style. Gray, it will 
 be remembered, after he became intimate 
 with Walpole, accompanied him so far in 
 his tour of Europe, but returned to England 
 in 1741. The first letter to Walpole was 
 written from Burnham, celebrated for its 
 beeches and fine woodland scenery, to 
 which Gray was the first to draw public 
 
 attention. Burnham is about twenty-five 
 miles from London, and about five or six 
 from Windsor. When Burnham Beeches 
 was recently in the market, through the exer- 
 tions of Mr. Heath, the jilace was bought, 
 along with 374 acres of common ground, by 
 the Corporation of London. Gray's spelling 
 of Scotch names in his letter descriptive of 
 his Scotch tour is sometimes curious. We 
 quote the letter as he wrote it. The remarks 
 of a poet, and such an acute observer, are 
 valuable ; but his association of Edinburgh 
 with the itch is decidedly uncomplimentary. 
 The Edinburgh of that day was to him 
 the most picturesque at a distance, and th« 
 'nastiest when near,' of all capital cities.] 
 
 MB. GKAY TO MR. WALPOLE. 
 
 I was hindered in my last, and so could not 
 give you all the trouble I would have done. 
 The description of a road, which your coach 
 wheels have so often honoured, it would be 
 needless to give you ; sufiice it that I arrived 
 safe at my uncle's,^ who is a great hunter in 
 imagination ; his dogs take up every chair in 
 the house, so I am forced to stand at this pre- 
 sent writing ; and though the gout forbids him 
 galloping after them in the field, yet he con- 
 tinues still to regale his ears and nose with their 
 comfortable noise and stink. He holds me 
 mighty cheai?, I perceive, for walking when I 
 should ride, and reading when I should hunt. 
 My comfort amidst all this is, that I have at 
 the distance of half a mile, through a green 
 lane, a forest (the vulgar call it a common) all 
 my own, at least as good as so, for I spy no 
 human thing in it but myself. It is a little 
 chaos of mountains and precipices ; mountains, 
 it is true, that do not ascend much above the 
 clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing 
 as Dover cliff : but just such hills as people 
 who love their necks as well as I do may venture 
 to climb, and crags that give the eye as much 
 pleasure as if they were more dangerous : both 
 vale and hill are covered with most venerable 
 beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, 
 that, like most other ancient people, are always 
 dreaming out their old stories to the winds. 
 
 And as they bow their hoary tops relate, 
 
 In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; 
 
 While visions, as poetic eyes avow, 
 
 Cling to each leaf and swarm on every bough. 
 
 At the foot of one of these squats me I {il 
 penseroso), and there grow to the trunk for a 
 whole morning. The timorous hare and sport- 
 ive squirrel gambol around me like Adam in 
 Paradise (before he had an Eve) ; but I think he 
 
 1 At Burnham in Buckinghamshire. For its pre- 
 sent and past history see Heath's Burnham Beeches. 
 
124 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 did not use to read Virgil, as I commonly do 
 there. In this situation I often converse with 
 my Horace, aloud too ; that is talk to you, but I 
 do not remember that I ever heard you answer 
 me. I beg pardon for taking all the conversation 
 to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. 
 We have old Mr. Southern at a gentleman's 
 house a little way off, who often comes to see 
 us ; he is now seventy -seven years old, and 
 has almost wholly lost his memory ; but is as 
 agreeable as an old man can be, at least I 
 persuade myself so when I look at him, and 
 think of Isabella and Oroonoko. I shall be in 
 town in about three weeks. Adieu. 
 September, 1737. 
 
 MR. GRAY TO ME. MASON.'^ 
 
 Cambridge, Dec. 19, 1757. 
 
 A life spent out of the world has its hours of 
 despondence, its inconveniences, its sufferings, 
 as numerous and as real, though not quite of the 
 same sort, as a life spent in the midst of it. 
 The power we have, when we will exert it over 
 our own minds, joined to a little strength and 
 consolation, nay, a little pride we catch from 
 those that seem to love us, is our only support 
 in either of these conditions. I am sensible I 
 cannot return you more of this assistance than 
 I have received from you ; and can only tell 
 you, that one who has far more reason than you, 
 I hope, ever will have to look on life with 
 something worse than indifference, is yet no 
 enemy to it ; but can look backward on many 
 bitter moments partly with satisfaction, and 
 partly with patience ; and forward too, on a 
 scene not very promising, with some hope, and 
 some expectations of a better day. The cause, 
 however, which occasioned your reflection 
 (though I can judge but very imperfectly of it) 
 does not seem, at present, to be weighty enough 
 to make you take any such resolution as you 
 meditate. Use it in its season, as a relief from 
 what is tiresome to you, but not as if it was in 
 consequence of anything you take ill ; on the 
 contrary, if such a thing had happened at the 
 time of your transmigration, I would defer it 
 merely to avoid that appearance. 
 
 As to myself, I cannot boast, at present, 
 either of my spirits, my situation, my employ- 
 ments, or fertility. The days and the nights 
 pass, and I am never the nearer to anything, 
 but that one to which we are all tending ; yet 
 I love people that leave some traces of their 
 journey behind them, and have strength 
 enough to advise you to do so while you can. I 
 expect to see Caractacus completed, and there- 
 fore I send you the books you wanted. I do 
 not know whether they will furnish you with 
 any new matter ; but they are well enough 
 
 1 W. Mason, M.A., editor of an edition of the poet's 
 works (1821), with Memoir and Letters. 
 
 written, and easily read. I told you before 
 that (in a time of dearth) I would borrow from 
 the Edda, without entering too minutely on 
 particulars : but, if I did so, I would make each 
 image so clear, that it might be fully under- 
 stood by itself ; for in this obscure mythology 
 we must not hint at things, as we do with the 
 Greek fables, that everybody is supposed to 
 know at school. However, on second thoughts, 
 I think it would be still better to graft any wild 
 picturesque fable, absolutely of one's own inven- 
 tion, on the Druid stock ; I mean on those half 
 dozen of old fancies that are known to be a part 
 of their system. This will give you more 
 freedom and latitude, and will leave no hold 
 for the critics to fasten on. 
 
 I send you back the Elegy^ as you desired me 
 to do. My advices are always at your service 
 to take or to refuse, therefore you should not 
 call them severe. You know I do not love, 
 much less pique myself on criticism ; and think 
 even a bad verse as good a thing or better than 
 the best observation that ever was made upon 
 it. I like greatly the spirit and sentiment of it 
 (much of which you perhaps owe to your present 
 train of thinking) ; the disposition of the whole 
 too is natural and elegiac ; as to the expression, 
 I would venture to say (did not you forbid me) 
 that it is sometimes too easy. The last line I 
 protest against (this, you will say, is worse than 
 blotting out rhymes); the descriptive part is 
 excellent. 
 
 Pray, when did I pretend to finish, or even 
 insert passages into other people's works, as if 
 it were equally easy to pick holes and to mend 
 them ? All I can say is, that your Elegy must 
 not end with the worst line in it. 2 It is flat; 
 it is prose ; whereas that, above all, ought to 
 sparkle, or at least to shine. If the sentiment 
 must stand, twirl it a little into an apophthegm : 
 stick a flower in it ; gild it with a costly expres- 
 sion; let it strike the fancy, the ear, o'r the 
 heart, and I am satisfied. 
 
 The other particular expressions which I 
 object to, I mark on the manuscript. Now, I 
 desire you would neither think me severe, nor at 
 all regard what I say further than as it coin- 
 cides with your own judgment ; for the child 
 deserves your partiality ; it is a healthy, well 
 made boy with an ingenuous countenance, and 
 promises to live long. .1 would only wash its 
 face, dress it a little, make it walk upright and 
 strong, and keep it from learning paw words. 
 
 I hope you couched my refusal ^ to Lord 
 
 1 Elegy in the Garden of a Friend. 
 
 2 ' An attempt was accordingly made to improve it ; 
 how it stood when this criticism upon it was written, 
 I cannot now recollect.'— Mason. 
 
 3 ' Of being Poet Laureate on the death of Gibber, 
 which place the late Duke of Devonshire (then Lord 
 Cliamberlain) desired his brother to offer to Mr. 
 Gray ; and his lordship had commissioned me (then 
 in town) to write to him concerning it.'— Mason. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 125 
 
 John Cavendish in as respectful terms as 
 possible, and with all due acknowledgment to 
 the Duke. If you hear who it is to be given to, 
 pray let me know ; for I interest myself a little 
 in the history of it, and rather wish somebody 
 may accept it that Avill retrieve the credit of 
 the thing, if it be retrievable, or ever had any 
 credit. Rowe was, I think, the last man of 
 character that had it ; Eusden was a person of 
 great hopes in his youth, though at last he 
 turned out a drunken parson; Dryden was as 
 disgraceful to the office, from his character, as 
 the poorest scribbler could have been from his 
 verses. 
 
 MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON. 
 
 Glames Castle, Sept. 14, 1765. 
 I deferred writing to you till I had seen a 
 little more of this country than you yourself 
 had seen ; and now being just returned from an 
 excursion, which I and Major Lyon have been 
 making into the Highlands, I sit down to give 
 you an account of it. But first I must return 
 to my journey hither, on which I shall be very 
 short ; partly because you know the way as far 
 as Edinburgh, and partly that there was not a 
 great deal worth remarking. The first night 
 we passed at Tweedmouth (77 miles) ; the next 
 
 I at Edinburgh (53 miles) ; where Lord Strath- 
 more left the Major and me, to go to Lenox- 
 Love (Lord Blantyre's), where his aunt lives ; 
 so that afternoon and all next day I had leisure 
 to visit the Castle, Holyrood House, Heriot's 
 Hospital, Arthur's Seat, etc., and am not sorry 
 
 I to have seen that most picturesque (at a dis- 
 
 I tance) and nastiest (when near) of all capital 
 cities. I supped with Dr. Robertson and 
 other literati, and the next morning Lord Strath- 
 more came for us. We crossed at the Queen's 
 Ferry in a four-oared yawl without a sail, and 
 were tossed about rather more than I should 
 wish to hazard again ; lay at Perth, a large 
 
 I Scotch town with much wood about it, on the 
 banks of the Tay, a very noble river. Next 
 
 I morning ferried over it, and came by dinner-time 
 to Glames; being (from Edinburgh) 67 miles, 
 which makes in all (from Hetton) 197 miles. 
 The castlei stands in Strathmore {i.e. the Great 
 Valley), which winds about from Stonehaven on 
 the east coast of Kincardineshire, obliquely, 
 as far as Stirling, near 100 miles in length, and 
 from seven to ten miles in breadth, cultivated 
 everywhere to the foot of the hills, on either 
 hand, with oats or here, a species of barley, 
 except where the soil is mere peat-earth 
 (black as a coal), or barren sand covered only 
 with broom and heath, or a short grass fit for 
 
 ! sheep. Here and there appear, just above 
 ground, the huts of the inhabitants, which they 
 
 ;'j 1 This is said to be the very castle in which Duncan 
 [I was murdered by Macbeth. 
 
 call towns, built of, and covered with, turf; 
 and among them, at great distances, the 
 gentlemen's houses, with enclosures and a few 
 trees round them. 
 
 Amidst these the Castle of Glames dis- 
 tinguishes itself, the middle part of it rising 
 proudly out of what seems a great and thick 
 wood of tall trees, with a cluster of hanging 
 towers on the top. You descend to it gradupJly 
 from the south, through a double and triple 
 avenue of Scotch firs 60 or 70 feet high, under 
 three gateways. Thisapproach is a full mile long; 
 and when you have passed the second gate, the 
 firs change to limes, and another oblique avenue 
 goes off on either hand towards the offices. 
 These, as well as all the enclosures that surround 
 the hovise, are bordered with three or four ranks 
 of sycamores, ashes, and white poplars of the 
 noblest height, and from 70 to 100 years old. 
 Other alleys there are, that go off at right 
 angles with the long one ; small groves, and 
 walled gardens, of Earl Patrick's planting, full 
 of broad-leaved elms, oaks, birch, black cherry- 
 trees, laburnums, etc., all of great stature and 
 size, which have not till this week begun to 
 show the least sense of morning frosts. The 
 third gate delivers you into a court with a broad 
 pavement, and grass-plats adorned with statues 
 of the foui- Stuart kings, bordered with old 
 silver firs and yew-trees alternately, and 
 opening with an iron palisade on either side to 
 two square old-fashioned parterres surrounded 
 by stone fruit- walls. The h ouse, from the height 
 of it, the greatness of its mass, the many 
 towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has 
 really a very singular and striking appearance, 
 like nothing I ever saw. You will comprehend | 
 something of its shape from the plan of the 
 second floor, which I enclose. The wings are 
 about 50 feet high ; the body (which is the old 
 castle, with walls 10 feet thick) is near 100. 
 From the leads I see to the south of me (just 
 at the end of the avenue) the little town of 
 Glames, the houses built of stone, and slated, 
 with a neat kirk and small square tower (a 
 rarity in this region). Just beyond it rises a 
 beautiful round hill, and another ridge of a 
 longer form adjacent to it, both covered with 
 woods of tall fir. Beyond them, peep over the 
 black hills of Sid-law, over which winds the 
 road to Dundee. To the north, within about 
 seven miles of me, 'begin to rise the Grampians, 
 hill above hill, on whose tops three weeks ago I 
 could plainly see some traces of the snow that 
 fell in May last. To the east, winds a way to 
 the Strath, such as I have before described it, 
 among the hills, which sink lower and lower as 
 they approach the sea. To the west, the same 
 valley (not plain, but broken, unequal ground) 
 runs on for above 20 miles in view : there I see 
 the crags above Dunkeld ; there Beni-Gloe and 
 Beni-More rise above the clouds ; and there is 
 that Shc-khallian, that spires into a cone above 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 them all, and lies at least 45 miles (in a direct 
 line) from this xjlace. 
 
 Lord Strathmore, who is the greatest farmer 
 in this neighbourhood, is from break of day 
 to dark night among his husbandmen and 
 labourers ; he has near 2000 acres of land in his 
 own hands, and is at present emj)Ioyed in 
 building a low wall of four miles long, and in 
 widening the bed of the little river Deane, 
 which runs to south and south-east of the house, 
 from about twenty to fifty feet wide, both to 
 prevent inundations, and to drain the lake of 
 Forfar. This work will be two years more in 
 completing, and must be three miles in length. 
 All the Highlanders that can be got are employed 
 in it ; many of them know no English, and I 
 hear them singing Erse songs all day long. The 
 price of labour is eightpence a day ; but to 
 such as will join together, and engage to perform 
 a certain portion in a limited time, two shillings. 
 
 I must say that all his labours seem to prosper ; 
 and my lord has casually found in digging, such 
 quantities of shell-marl as not only fertilize his 
 own grounds, but are disposed of at a good 
 price to all his neighbours. In his nurseries are 
 thousands of oaks, beech, larches, horse-chest- 
 nuts, spruce-firs, etc., thick as they can stand, 
 and whose only fault is, that they are grown 
 tall and vigorous before he has determined 
 where to plant them out ; the most advantage- 
 ous spot we have for beauty lies west of the house, 
 where (when the stone walls of the meadows 
 are taken away) the grounds, naturally unequal, 
 will have a very park-like appearance : they 
 are already full of trees, which need only thin- 
 ning here and there to break the regularity of 
 their trout-stream which joins the river Deane 
 hard by. Pursuing the course of this brook 
 upwards, you come to a narrow sequestered 
 valley sheltered from all winds, through which 
 it runs murmuring among great stones ; on 
 one hand the ground gently rises into a hill, on 
 the other are the rocky banks of the rivulet, 
 almost perpendicular, yet covered with syca- 
 more, ash, and fir, that (though it seems to have 
 no place or soil to grow in) yet has risen to a 
 good height, and forms a thick shade ; you may 
 continue along this gill, and passing by one 
 end of the village and its church for half a mile, 
 it leads to an opening between the two hills 
 covered with fir- woods, that I mentioned above, 
 through which the stream makes its way, and 
 forms a cascade of ten or twelve feet over broken 
 rocks. A vci-y little art is necessary to make 
 all this a beautiful scene. The weather, till the 
 last week, has been in general very fine and 
 warm ; we have had no fires till now, and often 
 have sat with the windows open an hour after 
 sunset ; now and then a shower has come, and 
 sometimes sudden gusts of wind descend from 
 the mountains, that finish as suddenly as they 
 arose ; but to-day it blows a hurricane. Upon 
 the whole, I have been exceeding lucky in my 
 
 weather, and particularly in my Highland 
 expedition of five days. 
 
 We set out then the 11th of September, and 
 continuing along the Strath to the west, passed 
 through Megill (where is the tomb of Queen 
 Wanders, that was riven to dethe by staned 
 h<yrses for nae gude that she did; so the women 
 there told me, I assure you), through Cowper of 
 Angus ; over the river Ila ; then over a wide 
 and dismal heath, fit for an assembly of witches, 
 till we came to a string of four small lakes in 
 a valley, whose deep-blue waters and green 
 margin, with a gentleman's house or two seated 
 on them in little groves, contrasted with the 
 black desert in which they were enchased. The 
 ground now grew unequal ; the hills, more rocky, 
 seemed to close in upon us, till the road came 
 to the brow of a steep descent, and (the sun 
 then setting) between two woods of oak we 
 saw far below us the river Tay come sweeping 
 along at the bottom of a precipice, at least 150 
 feet deep, clear as glass, full to the brim, and 
 very rapid in its course ; it seemed to issue out 
 of woods thick and tall, that rose on either hand, 
 and were overhung by broken rocky crags of 
 vast height ; above them, to the west, the tops 
 of higher mountains appeared, on which the 
 evening clouds reposed. Down by the side of 
 the river, under the thickest shades, is seated 
 the town of Dunkeld ; in the midst of it stands 
 a ruined cathedral, the towers and shell of the 
 building stUl entire : a little beyond it, a large 
 house of the Duke of Athol, with its offices and 
 gardens, extends a mile beyond the town ; and 
 as his grounds were interrupted by the streets 
 and roads, he has flung arches of communication 
 across them, that add to the scenery of the 
 place, which of itself is built of good white 
 stone, and handsomely slated ; so that no one 
 would take it for a Scotch town till they come 
 into it. Here we passed the night; if I told 
 you how, you would bless yourself. 
 
 Next day we set forward to Taymouth, 27 
 miles farther west ; the road winding through 
 beautiful woods, with the Tay almost always in 
 full view to the right, being here from 3 to 400 
 feet over. The Strath-Tay, from a mile to three 
 miles or more wide, covered with corn, and 
 spotted with groups of people, then in the 
 midst of their harvest ; on either hand a vast 
 chain of rocky mountains that changed their 
 face and opened something new every hundred 
 yards, as the way turned, or the clouds passed ; 
 in short, altogether it was one of the most 
 pleasing days I have passed these many years, 
 and at every step I wished for you. At the 
 close of day we came to Balloch,i so the place 
 was called ; but now Taymouth, improperly 
 enough ; for here it is that the river issues out 
 of Loch-Tay, a glorious lake 15 miles long and 
 
 1 Mr. Pennant, in his tour in Scotland, explains this 
 word ' the Mouth of the Loch.' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 one mile and a half broad, surrounded with 
 prodigious mountains ; there on its north-eastern 
 brink, impending over it, is the vast hill of 
 Lawers ; to the east is that enormous creature, 
 She-khallian (i.e. the maiden's pap), spiring 
 above the clouds : directly west, beyond the 
 end of the lake, Beni-More, the great mountain, 
 rises to a most awful height, and looks down on 
 the tomb of Fingal. Lord Breadalbane's ^oZicy (so 
 they call here all such ground as is laid out for 
 pleasure) takes in about 2000 acres, of which his 
 house, oflBces, and a deer-park, about three miles 
 round, occupy the plain or bottom, which is 
 little above a mile in breadth ; through it winds 
 the Tay, which, by means of a bridge, I found 
 here to be 156 feet over : his plantations and 
 woods rise with the ground, on either side the 
 vale, to the very summit of the enormous crags 
 that overhang it : along them, on the mountain's 
 side, runs a terrace a mile and a half long, that 
 overlooks the course of the river. From several 
 seats and temples perched on particular rocky 
 eminences, you command the lake for many 
 mUes in length, which turns like some huge 
 river, and loses itself among the mountains that 
 surround it ; at its eastern extremity, where 
 the river issues out of it, on a peninsula my 
 lord has built a neat little town and church 
 with a high square tower ; and just before it 
 lies a small round island in the lake, covered 
 with trees, amongst which are the ruins of some 
 little religious house. 
 
 Trees, by the way, grow here to great size 
 and beauty. I saw four old chestnuts in the 
 road, as you enter the park, of vast bulk and 
 height ; one beech tree I measured that was 16 
 feet 7 inches in the girth, and, I guess, near 80 
 feet in height. The gardener presented us with 
 peaches, nectarines, and plums from the stone 
 walls of the kitchen-garden (for there are no 
 brick nor hot walls) ; the peaches were good, 
 the rest well tasted, but scarce ripe ; we had 
 also golden pippins from an espalier, not ripe, 
 and a melon very well flavoured and fit to cut : 
 of the house I have little to say : it is a very 
 good nobleman's house, handsomely furnished 
 and well kept, very comfortable to inhabit, but 
 not worth going far to see. Of the earl's taste I 
 have not much more to say ; it is one of those 
 noble situations that man cannot spoil : it is, 
 however, certain that he has buUt an inn and a 
 town just where his principal walks should 
 have been, and in the most wonderful spot of 
 ground that perhaps belongs to him. In this inn, 
 however, we lay ; and next day, returning down 
 the river four miles, we passed it over a fine 
 bridge, built at the expense of the Government, 
 and continued our way to Logie-Eait, just below 
 which, in a most charming scene, the Tummel, 
 which is here the larger river of the two, falls 
 into the Tay. We ferried over the Tummel in 
 order to get into Marshal Wade's road, which 
 leads from Dunkeld to Inverness, and continued 
 
 127 
 
 our way along it toward the north : the road is 
 excellent, but dangerous enough, in conscience ; 
 the river often running directly under us at the 
 bottom of a precipice 200 feet deep, sometimes 
 masked indeed by wood that finds means to grow 
 where I could not stand, but very often quite 
 naked and without any defence ; in such places 
 we walked for miles together, partly for fear, 
 and partly to admire the beauty of the country, 
 which the beauty of the weather set off to the 
 greatest advantage : as evening came on, we 
 approached the pass of Gillikrankie (Killie- 
 krankie), where, in the year 1745, the Hessians, 
 with their prince at their head, stopped short, 
 and refused to march a foot farther. 
 
 Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus 
 Orci stands the solitary mansion of Mr. Eobertson 
 of Fascley ; close by it rises a hill covered with 
 oak, with grotesque masses of rock staring from 
 among their trunks, like the sullen countenances 
 of Fingal and all his family, frowning on the 
 little mortals of modern days : from between 
 this hill and the adjacent mountains, pent in a 
 narrow channel, comes roaring out the river 
 Tummel, and falls headlong down involved in 
 white foam which rises into a mist all round it : 
 but my paper is deficient, and I must say 
 nothing of the pass itself, the black river Garry, 
 the Blair of Athol, Mount Beni-GIoe, my return 
 by another road to Dunkeld, the Hermitage, the 
 Stra-Bram, and the Bumbling Brig : in short, 
 since I saw the Alps, I have seen nothing sublime 
 till now. In about a week I shall set forward, by 
 the Stirling road, on my return all alone. Pray 
 for me till I see you, for I dread Edinburgh and 
 the itch, and expect to find very little in my 
 way worth the perils I am to endure. 
 
 MR. GEAY TO MR. NICHOLLS. 
 
 Pembroke College, June 24, 1769. 
 And so you have a garden of your own,^ and 
 you plant and transplant, and are dirty and 
 amused ! Are not you ashamed of yourself ? 
 Why, I have no such thing, you monster, nor 
 ever shall be either dirty or amused as long as 
 I live. My gardens are in the windows, like 
 those of a lodger up three pair of stairs in 
 Petticoat Lane or Camomile Street, and they 
 go to bed regularly under the same roof that 
 I do. Dear, how charming it must be to walk 
 out in one's own garding, and sit on a bench in 
 the open air, with a fountain and leaden statue, 
 and a rolling stone, and an arbour : have a care 
 of sore throats though, and the agoe. 
 
 1 ' Mr. Nicholls, by having pursued the advice of his 
 correspondent, we find was now possessed of that 
 competency which he wished him ; happy, not only 
 in having so sage an adviser, but in his own good sense 
 which prompted him to follow such advice. The 
 gaiety, whim, and humour of this letter contrast 
 prettily with the gravity and serious reflection of a 
 former communication.' — Mason. 
 
128 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 However, be it known to you, though I have 
 no garden, I have sold my estate and got a 
 thousand guineas,^ and fourscore pounds a year 
 for my old aunt, and a twenty-pound prize in 
 the lottery, and Lord knows what arrears in 
 the treasury, and am a rich fellow enough, go 
 to ; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one 
 that hath two gowns, and everything handsome 
 about him, and in a few days shall have new 
 window curtains : are you advised of that ? ay, 
 and a new mattress to lie upon. 
 
 My Ode has been rehearsed again and again,^ 
 
 I and the scholars have got scraps by heart : I 
 expect to see it torn piecemeal in the North 
 Briton before it is born. If you will come, you 
 shall see it, and sing in it amidst a chorus from 
 Salisbury and Gloucester music meeting, great 
 names there, and all well versed in Judas 
 
 ; Maccaboeus. I wish it were once over ; for 
 then I immediately go for a few days to London, 
 and so with Mr. Brown to Aston, though I fear 
 it will rain the whole summer, and Skiddaw 
 will be invisible and inaccessible to mortals. 
 I have got De la Landes' Voyage through 
 
 i Italy in eight volumes ; he is a member of the 
 Academy of Sciences, and pretty good to read. 
 I have read too an octavo volume of Shenstone's 
 Letters : poor man ! he was always wishing for 
 money, for fame, and other distinctions ; and 
 his whole philosophy consisted in living against 
 his will in retirement, and in a place which his 
 taste had adorned ; but which he only enjoyed 
 when people of note came to see and commend 
 it: his correspondence is about nothing else 
 but this ]3lace and his own writings, with two 
 or three neighbouring clergymen who wrote 
 verses too. 
 
 I have just found the beginning of a letter, 
 which somebody had dropped : I should rather 
 call it first-thoughts for the beginning of a 
 letter ; for there are many scratches and cor- 
 rections. As I cannot use it myself (having 
 got a beginning already of my own), I send it 
 for your use on some great occasion : 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — After so long silence, the hopes 
 of pardon and prospect of forgiveness might 
 seem entirely extinct, or at least very remote, 
 was I not truly sensible of your goodness and 
 candour, which is the only asylum that my 
 negligence can fly to, since every apology would 
 l)rove insufficient to counterbalance it, or 
 alleviate my fault : how then shall my 
 deficiency presume to make so bold an 
 attempt, or be able to suffer the hardships of 
 so rough a campaign ? ' etc. etc. etc. 
 
 1 Consisting of houses on the west side of Handalley, 
 London : Mrs. OllifTe was the aunt here mentioned, 
 who had a share in this estate, and for whom he 
 procured this annuity. She died in 1771, a few 
 months before her nephew. 
 
 2 Ode for Music on the Duke of Grafton's Installa- 
 tion. 
 
 [As a British letter-writer, Horace "VValpole, Earl 
 of Orford, takes the first rank, for variety, 
 anecdote, humour, gossip, and reminiscence, 
 with all the other qualities which go to 
 make an interesting, familiar letter. Lord 
 Dover edited the letters addressed to Sir 
 Horace Mann ; the last and most complete 
 collection, edited by Cunningham, occupied 
 9 vols. 8vo. The correspondence extends 
 over 62 years, from 1735 to 1797. When 
 "Walpole retired from public life in 1768, it 
 was to devote himself to literature and 
 to the collection of works of art and relics 
 of antiquity, and to the adornment of 
 his Gothic villa at Strawberry Hill, near 
 Twickenham. Walpole's letters, says Mr. 
 Seton in his Letters and Letter Writers, 
 have been described as 'inimitable 
 pictures of society and of human 
 character, drawn by the hand of one 
 who was a master in the delineation 
 of scenes from familiar life ; not, it is 
 true, inspiring his figures with poetic 
 truth or serious significance, but shedding 
 over all of them a gaily comic light. 
 They are a kind of satires ; and few com- 
 positions claiming that name are equal 
 to them in lively wit, in striking grasp of 
 character, in picturesque colouring of 
 incidents, and in apposite, epigrammatic, 
 vigorous language.' "Whatever may be 
 thought of Walpole's tastes and friend- 
 ships in the present day, they were cer- 
 tainly quite sincere ; and accordingly it is 
 to be hoped that no impartial reader will 
 acquiesce in Macaulay's estimate of his 
 character, to the effect that ' affectation is 
 the essence of the man, and if it were 
 taken away nothing would be left.' No 
 doubt, his earliest letters are overloaded 
 with classical quotations ; but it ought to 
 be borne in mind, that he wrote at a period 
 when every man of letters considered that 
 an idea was greatly enhanced in value when 
 expressed in Latin ; and moreover, the 
 blemish in question entirely disappears in 
 his later life. 'The bulk, as well as the 
 best of his letters,' in the opinion of Mr. 
 Cunningham, ' are addressed to people at a 
 distance : fto Mann, in Florence ; to Mon- 
 tagu, on tne skirts of a Northamptonshire 
 forest; to Bentley, in exile for debt; to 
 Cole, in the Fens of Cambridgeshire ; to 
 Mason, in his Yorkshire parsonage ; xo 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 blind Madame du Deffand, in the gilded 
 saloons of Paris; and to Lady Ossory, 
 seeking solitude, after her divorce, in the 
 woods of Ampthill. . . . He lived through- 
 out a long life in the best society and in 
 the best clubs. . . . His letters are absolute 
 jests and story-books, and the exact stand- 
 ard of easy, engaging writing. ... He has 
 the art to interest us in very little matters, 
 and to enliven subjects seemingly the most 
 barren.' Walpole himself tells us that his 
 letters are to be looked upon 'in their 
 proper character of newspapers,' and that 
 if they possess any excellence in point of 
 style, it must be imputed to his careful 
 study of the correspondence of Madame de 
 Sevigne and his friend Gray. ' I generally 
 write in a hurry,' he informs one of his 
 many correspondents, 'and say anything 
 that comes into my head. ... I cannot 
 compose letters like Pliny and Pope.' Else- 
 where he says to Montagu, ' Mine is a life 
 of letter- writing.' The notes here given are 
 chiefly from Lord Dover's edition of Wal- 
 Xiole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann (1833). 
 
 THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE TO MR. GRAY. 
 
 Arlington Street, Feh. 18, 1768. 
 You have sent me a long and very obliging 
 letter, and yet I am extremely out of humour 
 mth you. I saw Poems hy Mr. Gray adver- 
 tised ; I called directly at Dodsley's to know if 
 this was to be more than a new edition. He 
 was not at home himself, but his foreman told 
 me he thought there were some new lueces, 
 and notes to the whole. It was very unkind, 
 not only to go out of town without mentioning 
 them to me, without showing them to me, but 
 not to say a word of them in this letter. Do 
 you think I am indifferent, or not curious, 
 about what you v/rite ? I have ceased to ask 
 you, because you have so long refused to show 
 me anything. You could not suppose I thoughk. 
 that you never write. No, but I concluded you 
 did not intend, at least yet, to publish what 
 you had written. As you did intend it, I 
 might have expected a month's preference. 
 You will do me the justice to own that I had 
 always rather have seen your writings, than 
 have shown you mine, which you know are the 
 most hasty trifles in the world, and which, 
 though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, 
 I constantly forget in a very short time after 
 they are published. This would sound like 
 affectation to others, but will not to you. 
 It would be affected, even to you, to say I am 
 indifferent to fame ; I certainly am not, but I 
 
 129 
 
 am indifferent to almost anything I have done 
 to acquire it. The greater part are mere com- 
 pilations ; and no wonder they are, as you say, 
 incorrect, when they are commonly written 
 with people in the room, as Richard and the 
 Noble Authors were. But I doubt there is a 
 more intrinsic fault in them ; which is, that I 
 cannot correct them. If I write tolerably, it 
 must be at once ; I can neither mend nor add. 
 The articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peter- 
 borough, in the second edition of the NoUe 
 Authors, cost me more trouble than all the rest 
 together ; and you may perceive that the 
 worst part of Richard,^ in point of ease and 
 style, is what relates to the papers you gave me 
 on Jane Shore, because it was tacked on so 
 long afterwards, and when my impetus was 
 chilled. If some time or other you will take 
 the trouble of pointing out the inaccuracies of 
 it, I shall be much obliged to you ; at present I 
 shall meddle no more with it. It has taken its 
 fate, nor did I mean to complain. I found it 
 was condemned, indeed, beforehand, which was 
 what I alluded to. Since publication (as has 
 happened to me before) the success has gone 
 beyond my expectation. 
 
 Not only at Cambridge, but here, there 
 have been people wise enough to think me too 
 free with the King of Prussia ! A newspaper 
 has talked of my known inveteracy to him. 
 Truly, I love him as well as I do most kings. 
 The greater offence is my reflection on Lord 
 Clarendon. It is forgotten that I had over- 
 praised him before. Pray turn to the new 
 State Papers, from which, it is said, he 
 com.posed his history. You will find they are 
 the papers from which he did not compose his 
 history. And yet I admire my Lord Clarendon 
 more than these pretended admirers do. But I 
 do not intend to justify myself. I can as little 
 satisfy those who complain that I do not let 
 them know what really did happen. If this 
 inquiry can ferret out any truth, I shall be 
 glad. I have picked up a few more circum- 
 stances. I now want to know what Perkin 
 Warbeck's proclamation was, which Speed in 
 his history says is preserved by Bishop 
 Leslie. If you look in Speed, perhaps you will 
 be able to assist me. 
 
 The Duke of Kichmond and Lord Lyttelton 
 agree with you, that I have not disculpated 
 Richard of the murder of Henry VI. I own to 
 you, it is the crime of which in my own mind I 
 believe him most guiltless. Had I thought he 
 committed it, I should never have taken the 
 trouble to apologize for the rest. I am 
 not at all positive or obstinate on your other 
 objections, nor know exactly what I believe on 
 many points of this story. And I am so 
 sincere, that except a few notes hereafter, I 
 
 1 His work entitled Historic Doubts on the Life and 
 Eeign of Richard III. 
 
I30 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 shall leave the matter to be settled or discussed 
 by others. As you have written much too 
 little, I have written a great deal too muoh, 
 and think only of finishing the two or three 
 other things I have begun ; and of those, 
 nothing but the last volume of painters is 
 designed for the present public. What has one 
 to do when turned fifty but really think of 
 finishing ? 
 
 I am much obliged and flattered by INIr. 
 Mason's approbation, and particularly by having 
 had almost the same thought with him. 
 I said, ' People need not be angry at my 
 excusing Richard ; I have not diminished their 
 fund of hatred, I have only transferred it from 
 Eichard to Henry.' Well, but I have found 
 you close with Mason — No doubt, cry prating 
 
 I, something will come out.^ Oh ! no — leave 
 
 us, both of you, to Annabellas and Epistles to 
 Ferney, that give Voltaire an account of his 
 own tragedies, to Macarony fables that are 
 more unintelligible than Pilpay's are in the 
 original, to ]\Ir. Thornton's hurdy-gurdy poetry, 
 
 and to Mr. , who has imitated himself worse 
 
 than any fop in a magazine would have done. 
 In truth, if you should abandon us, I could 
 not wonder. — When Garrick's prologues and 
 epilogues, his own Cymons and farces, and the 
 comedies of the fools that pay court to him, 
 are the delight of the age, it does not deserve 
 anything better. 
 
 Pray read the new account of Corsica. What 
 relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There 
 is a deal about the island and its divisions that 
 one does not care a straw for. The author, 
 
 Boswell, is a strange being, and, like , has 
 
 a rage of knowing anybody that ever was 
 talked of. He foi'ced himself upon me at 
 Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors, and I 
 see has given a foolish account of all he could 
 pick up from me about King Theodore. He 
 then took an antipathy to me on Eousseau's 
 account, abused me in the newspapers, and 
 exhorted Rousseau to do so too ; but as he 
 came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest. 
 I see he now is a little sick of Rousseau himself, 
 but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to 
 me. However, his book will, I am sure, 
 entertain you. 
 
 I will add but a word or two more. I am 
 criticized for the expression tinker up in the 
 preface. Is this one of those that you object 
 to? I own I think such a low expression, 
 placed to ridicule an absurd instance of wise 
 folly, very forcible. Replace it with an 
 elevated word or phrase, and to my conception 
 it becomes as flat as possible. 
 
 George Selwin says I may, if I please, write 
 
 J 'I found him close with Swiff— ' Indeed ?'— 
 'No doubt,' 
 
 Cries prating Balbus, ' something will come out.' 
 
 Pope's Epistle to Arbutlmot. 
 
 historic doubts on the present Duke of G 
 
 too. Indeed they would be doubts, for I know 
 nothing certainly. 
 
 Will you be so kind as to look into Leslie de 
 rebus Scotorum, and see if Perkin's proclama- 
 tion is there, and if there, how authenticated. 
 You will find in Speed my reason for asking 
 this. 
 
 I have written in such a hurry, I believe you 
 v^'ill scarce be able to read my letter ; and as I 
 have just been writing French, perhaps the 
 sense may not be clearer than the writing. 
 Adieu ! Yours ever. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Arlington Street, Friday night, Feb. 26. 
 
 I plague you to death, but I must reply a few 
 more words. I shall be very glad to see in 
 print, and to have those that are worthy see 
 your ancient odes ; but I was in hopes there 
 were some pieces, too, that I had not seen. I 
 am sorry there are not. 
 
 I troubled you about Perkin's proclamation, 
 because Mr. Hume lays great stress upon it, 
 and insists, that if Perkin affirmed his brother 
 was killed, it must have been true, if he was 
 true Duke of York. Mr. Hume would have 
 persuaded me that the proclamation is in Stowe, 
 but I can find no such thing there ; nor, what 
 is more, in Casley's catalogue, which I have 
 twice looked over carefully. I wrote to Sir 
 David Dalrymple in Scotland, to inquire 
 after it, because I would produce it if I could, 
 though it should make against me ; but he, I 
 believe, thinking I inquired with the contrary 
 view, replied very drily, that it was imblished 
 at York, and was not to be found in Scotland. 
 "Whether he is displeased that I have plucked 
 a hair from the tresses 'of their great historian, 
 or whether, as I suspect, he is offended for 
 King William, this reply was all the notice ho 
 took of my letter and book. I only smiled, as 
 I must do when I find one party is angry with 
 me on King William's and the other on Lord 
 Clarendon's account. 
 
 The answer advertised is Guthrie's, who is 
 furious that I have taken no notice of his 
 History. I shall take as little of his pamphlet ; 
 but his end will be answered, if he sells that 
 and one or two copies of his History. Mr. 
 Hume, I am told, has drawn up an answer too, 
 which I shall see, and, if I can, will get him to 
 publish; for, if I should ever choose to say 
 anything more on this subject, I had rather 
 reply to him than to hackney-writers : to the 
 latter, indeed, I never will reply. A few notes 
 I have to add that will be very material ; and 
 I wish to get some account of a book that was 
 once sold at Osborn's, that exists perhaps at 
 Cambridge, and of which I found a memoran- 
 dum t'other day in my note-book. It is called 
 A Paradox, or Apology for Richard the Third, by 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Sir William Cornwallis.^ If you could discover 
 it, I should be much obliged to you. 
 
 Lord Sandwich, with whom I have not 
 exchanged a syllable since the general warrants, 
 very obligingly sent me an account of the roll 
 at Kimbolton ; and has since, at my desire, 
 borrowed it for me and sent it to town. ^ It is 
 as long as my Lord Lyttelton's History ; but 
 by what I can read of it (for it is both ill 
 ■written and much decayed), it is not a roll of 
 kings, but of all that have been possessed of, 
 or been earls of Warwick ; or have not — for 
 one of the first earls is JSneas. How, or where- 
 fore, I do not know, but amongst the first is 
 Richard the Third, in whose reign it was 
 finished, and with whom it concludes. He is 
 there again with his wife and son, and Edward 
 the Fourth, and Clarence and his wife, and 
 Edward their son (who unluckily is a little old 
 man), and Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, 
 
 their daughter But why do I say with 
 
 these ? There is everybody else too — and what 
 is most meritorious, the habits of all the times 
 are admirably well observed from the most 
 savage ages. Each figure is tricked with a pen, 
 well drawn, but neither coloured nor shaded. 
 Eicharcl is straight, but thinner than my j)rint ; 
 his hair short, and exactly curled in the same 
 manner; not so handsome as mine, but what 
 one might really believe intended for the same 
 countenance, as drawn by a different jiainter, 
 especially when so small; for the figures in 
 general are not so long as one's finger. His 
 queen is ugly, and with just such a square 
 forehead as in my print, but I cannot say like 
 it. Nor, indeed, Avhere forty-five figures out 
 of fifty (I have not counted the number) must 
 have been imaginary, can one lay great stress 
 on the five. I shall, however, have these 
 figures copied, especially as I know of no other 
 image of the son. Mr. Astle is to come to me 
 to-morrow morning to explain the writing. 
 
 I wish you had told me in what age your 
 Franciscan friars lived; and what the passage 
 in Comines is. I am very ready to make 
 amende honorable. 
 
 Thank you for the notes on the NoUe Authors. 
 They shall be inserted when I make a new 
 edition, for the sake of the trouble the person 
 has taken, though they are of little consequence. 
 Dddsley has asked me for a new edition ; but I 
 have had little heart to undertake such work, 
 no more than to mend my old linen. It is pity 
 one cannot be born an ancient, and have 
 commentators to do such jobs for one ! 
 Adieu ! Yours ever. 
 
 1 The Praise of King Riclmrd the Tliird, wliicli was 
 published by Sir William Comwallis, Knight, the 
 ' Essayist,' in 1617, is reprinted in the third volume of 
 the Somers Collection of Tracts. 
 
 2 From this roll were taken the two plates of 
 portraits in the Historic Doubts. 
 
 Saturday morning. 
 On reading over your letter again this 
 morning, I do find the age in which the friars 
 lived. I read and write in such a hurry, 
 that I think I neither know what I read or say. 
 
 TO THE EARL OF STEAFFORD. 
 
 Straivberri/ Hill, Aug. 16, 1768. 
 
 As you have been so good, my dear lord, as 
 twice to take notice of my letter, I am bound 
 in conscience and gratitude to try to amuse you 
 with anything new. A royal visitor, quite 
 fresh, is a real curiosity — by the reception of 
 him, I do not think many more of the breed 
 will come hither. He came from Dover in 
 hackney-chaises ; for somehow or other the 
 master of the horse happened to be in Lincoln- 
 shire ; and the king's coaches having received 
 no orders, were too good subjects to go and 
 fetch a stranger king of their own heads. 
 However, as his Danish majesty travels to 
 improve himself for the good of his people, he 
 will go back extremely enlightened in the arts of 
 government and morality, by having leai'ued 
 that crowned heads may be reduced to ride in a 
 hired chaise. 
 
 By another mistake, King George happened to 
 go to Eichmond about an hour before King Chris- 
 tiern arrived in London. An hour is exceedingly 
 long ; and the distance to Richmond still 
 longer ; so with all the despatch that could 
 possibly be made, King George could not get 
 back to his capital till next day at noon. 
 Then, as the road from his closet at St. 
 James's to the King of Denmark's apartments 
 on t'other side of the palace is about thirty 
 miles, which posterity, having no conception of 
 the prodigious extent and magnificence of St. 
 James's, will never believe, it was half an hour 
 after three before his Danish majesty's courier 
 could go, and return to let him know that his 
 good brother and ally was leaving the palace in 
 which they both were, in order to receive him 
 at the queen's palace, which you know is about 
 a million of snail's paces from St. James's. 
 Notwithstanding these difficulties and unavoid- 
 able delays, Woden, Thor, Friga, and all the 
 gods that watch over the kings of the north, 
 did bring these two invincible monarchs to each 
 other's embraces about half an hour after five 
 the same evening. They passed an hour in 
 projecting a family compact that will regulate 
 the destiny of Europe to latest posterity ; and 
 then, the fates so willing it, the British prince 
 departed for Richmond, and the Danish poten- 
 tate repaired to the widowed mansion of his 
 royal mother-in-law, where he poured forth the 
 fulness of his heart in praises on the lovely 
 bride she had bestowed on him, from whom 
 nothing but the benefit of his subjects could 
 
132 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ever have torn him. And here let calumny 
 blush, who has aspersed so chaste and faithful 
 a monarch with low amours ; pretending that 
 he has raised to the honour of a seat in his 
 sublime council, an artisan of Hamburg, known 
 only by repairing the soles of buskins, because 
 that mechanic would, on no other terms, 
 consent to his fair daughter's being honoured 
 with majestic embraces. So victorious over his 
 passions is this young Scipio from the Pole, that 
 though on Shooter's Hill he fell into an ambush 
 laid for him by an illustrious countess, of blood- 
 royal herself, his majesty, after descending from 
 his car and courteously greeting her, again 
 mounted his vehicle, without being one moment 
 eclipsed from the eyes of the surrounding 
 multitude. Oh ! mercy on me ! I am out of 
 breath. Pray let me descend fromx my stilts, or 
 I shall send you as fustian and tedious a history 
 as that of Henry II. ^ Well, then, this great 
 king is a very little one ; not ugly, nor ill-made. 
 He has the sublime strut of his grandfather, or 
 I of a cock-sj)arrow ; and the divine white eyes 
 of all his family by the mother's side. His 
 curiosity seems to have consisted in the original 
 plan of travelling, for I cannot say he takes 
 notice of anything in r>articular. His manner 
 is cold and dignified, but very civil and gracious 
 and proper. The mob adore him and huzza 
 him ; and so they did the first instant. At 
 present they begin to know why ; for he 
 flings money to them out of his windows ; 
 and by the end of the week I do not doubt 
 they will want to choose him for Middlesex, 
 j His court is extremely well ordered; for 
 they bow as low to him at every word as if 
 his name was Sultan Amurat. You would 
 take his first Minister for only the first of his 
 slaves. I hope this example, which they have 
 been so good as to exhibit at the opera, will 
 contribute to civilise us. There is, indeed, a 
 pert young gentleman, who a little discomposes 
 this august ceremonial. His name is Count 
 Holke, his age three-and-twenty ; and his post 
 I answers to one that we had formerly in England 
 I many years ago, and which in our tongue was 
 i called the lord high favourite. Before the 
 I Danish monarchs became absolute, the most 
 j refractory of that covmtry used to write libels, 
 I called North Danes, against this great officer ; 
 but that practice has long since ceased. Count 
 Holke seems rather proud of his favour than 
 shy of displaying it. 
 
 I hope, my dear, you will be content with 
 my Danish politics, for I trouble myself with 
 no other. There is a long history about the 
 Baron de Bottetourt, and Sir Jeffery Amherst, 
 who has resigned his regiment ; but it is 
 nothing to me, nor do I care a straw about 
 it. I am deep in the anecdotes of the new 
 court ; and if you want to know more of 
 
 1 Lord Lyttcltoii's. 
 
 Count Holke or Count Molke, or the Grand 
 Vizier BernsdorflF, or Mynheer Schimmelman, 
 apply to me, and you shall be satisfied. But 
 what do I talk of ? You will see them yourself. 
 Minerva in the shape of Count Bernsdorff, or 
 out of all shape in the person of the Duchess 
 
 of , is to conduct Telemachus to York 
 
 races ; for can a monarch be perfectly accom- 
 plished in the mysteries of king-craft, as our 
 Solomon James I. called it, unless he is initiated 
 in the arts of jockeyship ? When this northern 
 star travels towards its own sphere, Lord 
 Hertford will go to Ragley. I shall go with 
 him ; and, if I can avoid running foul of the 
 magi that will be thronging from all parts to 
 worship that star, I will endeavour to call at 
 Wentworth Castle for a day or two, if it will \ 
 not be inconvenient, I should think it would be i 
 about the second week in September ; but your 
 lordship shall hear again, unless you should 
 forbid me, who am ever Lady Strafford's and 
 your lordship's 
 
 Most faithful, humble servant. i 
 
 TO SIR HORACE MANN.^ [ 
 
 London, Feb. 25, 1742. | 
 I am impatient to hear that you have received j 
 my first account of the change ; as, to be sure, i 
 you are now for every post. This last week 
 has not produced many new events. The 
 Prince of Wales has got the measles, so there i 
 has been but little incense offered up to him : 
 his brother of Saxe-Gotha has got them too. 
 When the Princess went to St. James's, she 
 fell at the King's feet, and struggled to kiss 
 his hand, and burst into tears. At the Norfolk 
 masquerade she was vastly bejewelled ; Frankz 
 had lent her forty thousand pounds' worth, 
 and refused to be paid for the hire, only 
 desiring that she would tell whose they were. 
 All this is nothing, but to introduce one of 
 Madame de Pomfret's ingenuities, who, being 
 dressed like a pilgrim, told the princess that 
 she had taken her for the Lady of Loretto. 
 
 But you will wish for politics now, more than 
 for histories of masquerades, though this last 
 has taken up people's thoughts full as much. 
 The House met last Thursday, and voted the 
 army without a division : Shippen^ alone, 
 unchanged, opposed it. They have since been 
 busied on elections, turning out our friends, 
 and voting in their own, almost without opposi- 
 tion. The chief affair has been the Denbighshire 
 
 1 A contemporary and early friend of Sir Horace 
 Walpole, who was appointed Minister Plenipotentiai y 
 from England to the Court of Florence, a post he 
 occupied for forty-six years. 
 
 2 William Shippcn, a celebrated Jacobite. Sir K. 
 Walpolo said that he was the only man whose price 
 he did not know. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 133 
 
 election, on the petition of Sir Watkyn Williams. 
 They have voted him into Parliament, and the 
 High-Sheriff into Newgate. Murray ^ was most 
 eloquent : Loyd,^ the counsel on the other side, 
 and no bad one, said (for I go constantly, though 
 I do not stay long, but ' leave the dead to bury 
 their dead ') that it was objected to the Sheriff, 
 that he was related to the sitting member ; but, 
 indeed, in that country (Wales) it would be 
 difficult Tiot to be related. Yesterday we had 
 another hearing of the petition of the merchants, 
 when Sir Eobert Godschall shone brighter than 
 even his usual : there was a copy of a letter 
 produced, the original being lost; he asked 
 whether the copy had been taken before the 
 original was lost, or after ! 
 
 Next week they commence their prosecutions, 
 which they will introduce by voting a committee 
 to inquire into all the offices : Sir William 
 Yonge is to be added to the impeachments, 
 but the chief whom they wish to x^unish is my 
 uncle. ^ He is the more to be pitied, because no- 
 body will pity him. They are not fond of a formal 
 message which the States General have sent to 
 Sii- Kobert, ' to compliment him on his new honour, 
 and to condole with him on being out of the 
 Ministry, which will be so detrimental to Europe !' 
 
 The third augmentation in Holland is con- 
 firmed, and that the Prince of Hesse is chosen 
 Generalissimo, which makes it believed that 
 his Grace of Argyll will not go over, but that 
 we shall certainly have a war with France in 
 the spring. Argyll has got the oi'dnance re- 
 stored to him, and they wanted to give him 
 back his regiment ; to which end Lord Hertford'* 
 was desired to resign it, with the offer of his 
 old troop again. He said he had received the 
 regiment from the King ; if his majesty pleased 
 to take it back, he might, but he did not know 
 why he should resign it. Since that, he wrote 
 a letter to the King, and sent it by his son. 
 Lord Beauchamp, resigning his regiment, his 
 government, and his wife's pension as lady of 
 the bed-chamber to the late queen. 
 
 No more changes are made yet. They have 
 offered the Admiralty to Sir Charles Wager 
 again, but he refused it : he said he heard that 
 he was an old woman, and that he did not know 
 what good old women could do anywhere. 
 
 A comet has appeared here for two nights, 
 which, you know, is lucky enough at this time, 
 and a pretty ingredient for making prophecies. 
 
 These are all the news. I receive your letters 
 
 1 William Murray, Mr. Pope's friend, afterwards 
 Solicitor and then Attorney-General. 
 
 2 Sir Richard Loyd, who succeeded Mr. Murray, in 
 1754, as Solicitor-General. 
 
 3 Horace Walpolc, brother of Sir Robert. 
 
 4 Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, eldest son 
 of Charles, called the proud Duke of Somerset, whom 
 he succeeded in that title, and was the last Duke of 
 Somerset of that branch— his son, who is here 
 mentioned, having died before him. 
 
 regularly, and hope you receive mine so : I never 
 miss one week. Adieu ! my dearest child I I 
 am perfectly well ; tell me always that you are. 
 Are the good Chutes still at Florence? My 
 best love to them, and services to all. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Straivherry Jlill, May 3, 1749. 
 I am come hither for a few days to repose 
 myself after a torrent of diversions, and am 
 writing to you in my charming bow-window, 
 with a tranquillity and satisfaction which, I 
 fear, I am grown old enough to prefer to the 
 hurry of amusements, in which the whole world 
 has lived for this last week. We have at last 
 celebrated the peace, and that as much in the 
 extremes as we generally do everything, whether 
 we have reason to be glad or sorry, pleased or 
 angry. Last Tuesday it was proclaimed ; the 
 King did not go to St. Paul's, but at night the 
 whole town was illuminated. The next day 
 what was called a jubilee-masquerade in the 
 Venetian manner at Ranelagh : it had nothing 
 Venetian in it, but was by far the best under- 
 stood and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw ; 
 nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it. One 
 of the proprietors, who is a German and belongs 
 to court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade 
 the King to order it. It began at three o'clock, 
 and about five, people of fashion began to go. 
 When you entered, you found the whole garden 
 filled with masks, and spread with tents, which 
 remained all night very commodely. In one 
 quarter was a May-pole dressed with garlands, 
 and people dancing round it to a tabor and 
 pipe and rustic music, all masqued, as were 
 all the various bands of music that were dis- 
 posed in different parts of the garden, some 
 like huntsmen with French horns, some like 
 peasants, and a troop of harlequins and scara- 
 mouches in the little open temple on the mount. 
 On the canal was a sort of gondola, adorned 
 with flags and streamers, and filled with music, 
 rowing about. All round the outside of the 
 amphitheatre were shops filled with Dresden 
 china, japan, etc., and all the shopkeepers in 
 mask. The ami^hitheatre was illuminated, and 
 in the middle was a circular bower, com- 
 posed of all kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty 
 to thirty feet high ; under them orange 
 trees, with small lamps in each orange, and 
 below them all sorts of the finest auriculas in 
 pots, and festoons of natural flowers hanging 
 from tree to tree. Between the arches too were 
 firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above. 
 There were booths for tea and wine, gambling- 
 tables and dancing, and about two thousand 
 persons. In short, it pleased me more than 
 anything I ever saw. It is to be once more, and 
 probably finer as to dresses, as there has since 
 been a subscription-masquerade, and x>eopl3 
 will go in their rich habits. The next day were 
 
134 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the fireworks, which by no means answered the 
 expense, the length of preparation, and the 
 expectation that had been raised ; indeed for a 
 week before, the town was like a country fair, 
 the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds 
 building wherever you could or could not see, 
 and coaches arriving from every corner of the 
 kingdom. This hurry and lively scene, with the 
 sight of the immense crowd in the park and on 
 every house, the guards, and the machine itself, 
 which was very beautiful, was all that was worth 
 seeing. The rockets and whatever was thrown 
 up into the air succeeded mighty well, but the 
 wheels and all that was to compose the principal 
 part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no 
 changes of coloured fires and shapes : the illum- 
 ination was mean, and lighted so slowly that 
 scarce anybody had i^atience to wait the finishing ; 
 and then what contributed to the awkwardness of 
 the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, 
 and being burnt down in the middle of the 
 show. The King, the Duke, and Princess Emily 
 saw it from the library, ^ with their courts ; the 
 Prince and Princess with their children from Lady 
 Middlesex's, no place being provided for them, 
 nor any invitation given to the library. The 
 Lords and Commons had galleries built for them 
 and the chief citizens along the rails of the 
 Mall; the lords had four tickets a-piece, and 
 each commoner at first but two, till the 
 Speaker bounced and obtained a third. Very 
 little mischief was done, and but two persons 
 killed : at Paris there were forty killed, arid near 
 three hundred wounded, by a dispute between 
 the French and Italians in the management, who, 
 quarrelling for precedence in lighting the fires, 
 both lighted at once and blew up the whole. 
 Our mob was extremely tranquil, and very 
 unlike those I remember in my father's time, 
 when it was a measure in the Oi>position to 
 work up everything to mischief, the excise and 
 the French players, the convention and the gin- 
 act. We are as much now in the opposite 
 extreme, and in general so pleased with the 
 peace, that I could not help being struck with 
 a passage I read lately in Pasquier, an old 
 French author, who says, ' Tliat in the time of 
 Francis I. the French used to call their creditors 
 Dts Anglois, from the facility with which the 
 English gave credit to them in all treaties, 
 though they had broken so many. On Saturday 
 we had a serenata at the Opera-house, called 
 Peace in Europe, but it was a wretched per- 
 formance. On Monday there was a subscription- 
 masquerade, much fuller than that of last year, 
 but not so agreeable or so various in dresses. 
 The King was well disguised in an old-fashioned 
 English habit, and much pleased with somebody 
 
 1 Probably the old brick building near the bottom 
 of the Green Park, which was called 'the Queen's 
 Library,' and which was pulled down by the Duke 
 of York when he built his new house in the Stable 
 yard, Ht. James's. 
 
 who desh'ed him to hold their cup as they were 
 drinking tea. The Duke had a dress of the 
 same kind, but was so immensely corpulent, 
 that he looked like Cacofogo, the drunken 
 captain in ' Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. ' The 
 Duchess of Richmond i was a lady mayoi-ess in 
 the time of James L, and Lord Delawarr,^ Queen 
 Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard- 
 chamber at Kensington ; they were admir- 
 able masks. Lady Rochford,^ Miss Evelyn, 
 Miss Bishop, Lady Stafford,^ and Mrs. Pitt.s 
 were in vast beauty, particularly the last, who 
 had a red veil, which made her look gloriously 
 handsome. I forgot Lady Kildare.^ Mr. Con- 
 way was the duke in Don Quixote, and the 
 finest figure I ever saw. Miss Chudleigh^ was 
 IpLigenia, but so naked that you would have 
 taken her for Andromeda ; and Lady Betty 
 Sniithson ^ had such a pyramid of baubles upon 
 her head, that she was exactly the Princess of 
 Babylon in Grammont. You will conclude that 
 after all these diversions jjeople begin to think 
 of going out of town — no such matter; the 
 Parliament continues sitting, and wiU till the 
 middle of June; Lord Egmont told us we 
 should sit till Michaelmas. There are many 
 private bills, no public ones of any fame. 
 We were to have had some chastisement for 
 Oxford, where, besides the late riots, the 
 famous Dr. King,^ the Pretender's great agent, 
 made a most violent speech at the opening of 
 the Ratcliffe library. The IMinistry denounced 
 judgment ; but, in their old style, have grown 
 frightened, and dropped it. However, this 
 menace gave occasion to a meeting and union 
 between the Prince's party and the Jacobites, 
 which Lord Egmont has been labouring all the 
 winter. They met at the St. Alban's tavern 
 near Pall Mall last Monday morning, an 
 hundred and twelve lords and commoners. 
 The Duke of Beaufort opened the assembly 
 with a panegyric on the stand that had been 
 made this winter against so corrupt an adminis- 
 tration, and hoped it would continue, and 
 
 1 Sarah Cadogan, wife of Charles, second Duke of 
 Richmond. 
 
 2 John West, seventh Lord Delawarr,— created Earl 
 Delawarr in 1761. 
 
 3 Lucy Young, wife of William Henry Nassau, fourth 
 Earl of Rochford. 
 
 4 Henrietta Cantillon, wife of Matthias Howard, 
 third Earl of Stafford. 
 
 5 Penelope Atkyns, a celebrated beauty, wife of 
 George Pitt, Esq. of Stratfieldsaye, in Hants, created 
 in 1776 Lord Rivers. 
 
 6 Lady Emily Lennox, Countess of Kildare. 
 
 7 Afterwards Duchess of Kingston. 
 
 8 Afterwards Countess and Duchess of Northumber- 
 land. 
 
 9 The last conspicuous Jacobite at Oxford. He was 
 public orator of that university, and Principal of St. 
 Mary Hall, 
 
 i« Lord Noel Somer.set, who succeeded his brother in 
 the dukedom. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 135 
 
 desired harmony. Lord Egmont seconded this 
 strongly, and begged they would come up to 
 Parliament early next winter. Lord Oxford^ 
 spoke next; and then Potter with great 
 humour, and to the great abashment of the 
 Jacobites said, he was very glad to see this 
 union, and from thence hoped that if another 
 attack like the last rebellion should be made 
 on the royal family, they would all stand by 
 them. No reply was made to this. Then Sir 
 TN'atkyn Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dashwood, 
 and Tom Pitt,^ and the meeting broke up. I 
 don't know what this coalition may produce ; 
 it ■will require time with no better heads than 
 compose it at present, though the great iMr. 
 Doddington had carried to the conference the 
 assistance of his. In France a very favourable 
 event has happened for us, the disgrace of 
 Maurepas,^ one of our bitterest enemies, and 
 the greatest promoter of their marine. Just at 
 the beginning of the war, in a very critical 
 period, he had obtained a very large sum for 
 that service, but which one of the other factions, 
 lest he should gain credit and glory by it, got to 
 be suddenly given away to the King of Prussia. 
 
 Sir Charles AVilliams is appointed envoy to 
 this last king : here is an epigram which he has 
 just sent over on Lord Egmont's oiiposition to 
 the mutiny bill : 
 
 ' Wliy has Lord Egmont 'gainst this bill 
 So much declamatory skill 
 
 So tediously exerted ? 
 The reason's plain : but t'other day 
 He mutinied himself for pay, 
 And he has twice deserted.' 
 
 I must tell you a Ion-mot that v/as made the 
 other night at the serenata of Peace in Europe, 
 by "Wall,^ who is much in fashion, and a kind of 
 Gondomar. Grossatesta, the Modenese Minister, 
 a very low fellow, with all the jackpudding- 
 hood of an Italian, asked, ' Mais qui est ce qui 
 represente mon maitre ? ' "Wall replied, ' Mais, 
 man Dieu ! Vdbhe, ne sgavez tons pas que ce 
 Ti'est pas un opera houfon?^ And here is 
 another Ion-mot of my Lady Townshend : we 
 were talking of the Methodists ; somebody said. 
 
 1 Edward Harlcy of Eye wood, in the county of 
 Hereford, to whom, pursuant to the limitations of 
 the patent, the earldoms of Oxford and Mortimer 
 descended, upon the death without male issue of the 
 Lord Treasurer's only son, Edward the second carl. 
 Lord Oxford was of the Jacobite party. He died in 1755. 
 
 - Thomas Pitt, Esq. of Boconnock in Cornwall, 
 Warden of the ^tanneries. He married the sister of 
 George Lord Lyttelton, and was the father of the first 
 Lord Camelford. 
 
 - 3 Phelypeaux Count de Maurepas, son of the 
 Chancellor de Tontchartrain. He was disgraced in 
 consequence of some quarrel with the King's mistress. 
 He returned to office, unhappily for France, in the 
 commencement of the reign of Louis XVI. 
 
 * General Wall, the Spanish ambassador. Gon- 
 domar was the able Spanish ambassador in England 
 in the reign of James I. 
 
 'Pray, Madam, is it true that Whitfield has 
 recanted ? ' ' No, sir, he has only canted. ' 
 
 If you ever think of returning to England, as*^ 
 I hope it will be long first, you must prepare 
 yourself with Methodism ; I really believe that 
 by that time it will be necessary : this sect 
 increases as fast as almost ever any religious 
 nonsense did. Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen 
 this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty ; 
 and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same 
 sacrifice of the dregs of all those various charac- 
 ters that he has worn. The Methodists love your 
 big^ sinners, as proper subjects to work upon, 
 and indeed they have a plentiful harvest ; I 
 think what you call flagrancy was never more 
 in fashion. Drinking is at the highest wine- 
 mark; and gaming joined with it so violent, 
 that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the 
 rapidity of both, a bank bill was thrown down, 
 and nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed 
 to give it to a man that was standing by. 
 
 I must tell you of Stosch's letter, which he had 
 the impertinence to give you without telling 
 the contents. It was to solicit the arrears of 
 his pension, which I beg you will tell him I 
 have no manner of interest to procure ; and to 
 tell me of a Galla Placidia, a gold medal lately 
 found. It is not for myself, but I wish you 
 would ask him the price for a friend of mine 
 who would like to buy it. 
 
 Adieu ! my dear child ; I have been long in 
 arrears to you, but I trust you will take this 
 huge letter as an acquittal. You see my villa 
 makes me a good corresi)ondent ; how happy I 
 should be to show it you, if I could with no 
 mixture of disagreeable circumstances to you ! 
 I have made a vast plantation ! Lord Leicester 
 told me the other day that he heard I would 
 not buy some old china, because I was laying 
 out all my money in trees : * Yes, 'said I, 'my 
 lord, I used to love blue trees, but now I like 
 green ones.' 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Strawherry Hill, June 4, 1749. 
 As summerly as June and Strawberry Hill 
 may sound, I assure you I am writing to you by 
 the fireside : English weather will give vent to 
 its temper, and whenever it is out of humour it 
 will blow east and north and all kinds of cold. 
 Your brothers Ned and Gal. dined with me to- 
 day, and I carried the latter back to Richmond : 
 as I passed over the green, I saw Lord Bath, 
 Lord Lonsdale, and half-a-dozen more of the 
 White's ckib sauntering at the door of a house 
 which they have taken there, and come to every 
 Saturday and Sunday to play at whist. You 
 will naturally ask why they can't play at whist 
 in London on those two days as well as on the 
 other five ; indeed I can't tell you, except that 
 it is so established a fashion to go out of town 
 at the end of the week, that peoi^le do go. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 136 
 
 though it be only into another town. It made 
 me smile to see Lord Bath sitting there, like a 
 citizen that has left off trade ! Your brother 
 Ned had not seen Strawberry Hill since my 
 great improvements ; he was astonished : it is 
 pretty : you never saw so tranquil a scene, 
 without the least air of melancholy ; I should 
 hate it, if it was dashed with that. I forgot to 
 ask Gal. what is become of the books of Hough- 
 ton which I gave him six months ago for you 
 and Dr. Cocchi, You perceive I have got your 
 letter of May 23d, and v/ith it Prince Craon's 
 simple epistle to his daughter : I have no mind 
 to deliver it : it would be a proper recommen- 
 dation of a staring boy on his travels, and is 
 consequently very suitable to my colleague, 
 Master St, Leger ; but one hates to be coupled 
 with a romping greyhound puppy, qui est moins 
 prudent que Monsieur Val2')ol ! I did not want to 
 be introduced to Madame de Mirepoix's assem- 
 blies, but to be acquainted with her, as I like 
 her family : I concluded, simple as he is, that 
 an old Frenchman knew how to make these 
 distinctions. By thrusting St. Leger into the 
 letter with me, and talking of my prudence, I 
 shall not wonder if she takes me for his bear- 
 leader, his travelling governor ! 
 
 Mr. Chute, who went from hence this morn- 
 ing, and is always thinking of blazoning your 
 pedigree in the noblest colours, has turned over 
 all my library, till he has tapped a new and 
 very great family for you : in short, by your 
 mother it is very clear that you are descended 
 from Hubert de Burgh, Grand Justiciary to 
 Eichard the Second ; ^ indeed I think he was 
 hanged; but that is a misfortune that will 
 attend very illustrious genealogies ; it is as 
 common to them as to the pedigrees about 
 Paddington and Blackheath. I have had at 
 least a dozen great-great-grandfathers that 
 came to untimely ends. All your Virtuosos in 
 heraldry are content to know that they had 
 ancestors who lived five hundred years ago, no 
 matter how they died. A match with a low 
 woman corrupts a stream of blood as long as the 
 Danube, — tyranny, villainy, and executions 
 are mere flea-bites, and leave no stain. The 
 good Lord of Bath, whom I saw on Richmond 
 Green this evening, did intend, I believe, to 
 ennoble my genealogy with another execution ; 
 how low is he sunk now from those views, and 
 how entertaining to have lived to see all those 
 virtuous patriots proclaiming their mutual 
 iniquities ! Your friend Mr. Doddington, it 
 seems, is so reduced as to be relapsing into 
 virtue. In my last I told you some curious 
 anecdotes of another part of the band, of Pope 
 and Bolingbroke. The friends of the former 
 have published twenty pamphlets against the 
 latter ; I say against the latter, for, as there is 
 
 1 This could not he the case, as the ofTicc was at 
 that time abolished. 
 
 no defending Pope, they are reduced to satirize 
 Bolingbroke. One of them tells him how little 
 he would be known himself from his own 
 writings, if he were not immortalized in Pope's ; 
 and still more justly, that if he destroys Pope's 
 moral character, what will become of his own, 
 which has been retrieved and sanctified by the 
 embalming art of his friend? However, there 
 are still new discoveries made every day of 
 Pope's dirty selfishness. Not content with the 
 great profits which he proposed to make of the 
 work in question, he could not bear that the 
 interest of his money should be lost till 
 Bolingbroke's death ; and therefore told him 
 that it would cost very near as much to have 
 the press set for half-a-dozen copies as it would 
 for a complete edition, and by this means made 
 Lord Bolingbroke pay very near the whole 
 expense of the fifteen hundred. Another story 
 I have been told on this occasion, was of a 
 gentleman who, making a visit to Bishop 
 Atterbury in France, thought to make his 
 court by commending Pope. The Bishop replied 
 not : the gentleman doubled the dose : at last 
 the Bishop shook his head, and said, ' Menscurvd 
 in corpore curvo ! ' The world will now think 
 justly of these men : that Pope was the greatest 
 poet, but not the most disinterested man in the 
 world ; and that Bolingbroke had not all those 
 virtues and not all those talents which the other 
 so proclaimed ; and that he did not even deserve 
 the friendship which lent him so much merit ; 
 and for the mere loan of which he dissembled 
 attachment to Pope, to whom in his heart he 
 was as perfidious and as false as he has been to 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, 
 for the unaccountable and unenvied pleasure of 
 shutting himself uj) at Chatsworth with his 
 ugly, mad duchess ; the more extraordinary 
 sacrifice, as he turned her head, rather than 
 give up a favourite match for his son. She has 
 consented to live with him there, and has even 
 been with him in town for a few days, but did 
 not see either her son or Lady Harrington. On 
 his resignation he asked and obtained an English 
 barony for Lord Besborough, whose son Lord 
 Duncannon, you know, married the duke's 
 eldest daughter. I believe this is a great dis- 
 appointment to my uncle, who hoped he would 
 ask the peerage for him or Pigwiggin. The 
 Duke of Marlborough succeeds as lord steward. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Arlington Street, March 11, 1750. 
 ' Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent, 
 That they have lost their naine.'i 
 
 My text is not literally true ; but as far as 
 earthquakes go towards lowering the price of 
 
 1 Dryden's All for Love, 
 
137 
 
 wonderful commodities, to be sure we are OA'er- 
 stocked. We have had a second much more 
 violent than the first; and you must not be 
 surprised if by next post you hear of a burning 
 mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the 
 night between Wednesday and Thursday last 
 (exactly a month since the first shock), the 
 earth had a shivering fit between one and two ; 
 but so slight, that if no more had followed, I 
 don't believe it would have been noticed. I 
 had been awake, and had scarce dozed again— 
 on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head ; 
 I thought somebody was getting from under my 
 bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, 
 that lasted nearly half a minute, with a violent 
 vibration and great roaring, I rang my bell ; 
 my servant came in, frightened out of his 
 senses ; in an instant we heard all the windows 
 in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up and 
 found peoj)le running into the streets, but saw 
 no mischief done : there has been some ; two old 
 houses flung down, several chimneys and much 
 china-ware. The bells rung in several houses. 
 Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in 
 Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was 
 more violent than any of them : Francesco 
 prefers it to the dreadful one in Leghorn. 
 The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we 
 shall certainly have more. Several people are 
 going out of town, for it has nowhere reached 
 above ten miles from London ; they say, they 
 are not frightened, but that it is such fine 
 weather, ' Lord ! one can't help going into the 
 country ! ' The only visible effect it has had, 
 was on the ridotto, at which, being the follow- 
 ing night, there were but four hundred people. 
 A parson, who came into White's the morning 
 of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on 
 whether it was an earthquake or the blowing 
 up of powder-mills, went away exceedingly 
 scandalized, and said, ' I protest, they are such 
 an impious set of people, that I believe if the 
 last trumpet was to sound, they would bet 
 puppet-show against judgment.' If we get any 
 nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique 
 myself on sending you a present of cedrati and 
 orange-flower water ; I am already planning a 
 Terreno for Strawberry Hill. 
 
 The Middlesex election is carried against the 
 court ; the Prince, in a green frock (and I won't 
 swear but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat), sat 
 under the park- wall, in his chair, and hallooed 
 the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites 
 are so transported, that they are opening sub- 
 scriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant 
 —-this is wise ! They will spend their money to 
 carry a few more seats in a parliament where 
 they will never have the majority, and so have 
 none to carry the general elections. The omen, 
 however, is bad for Westminster ; the high- 
 bailiff went to vote for the Opposition, 
 
 I now jump to another topic ; I find all this 
 letter will be detached scraps ; I can't at all 
 
 contrive to hide the seams ; but I don't care. 
 I began my letter merely to tell you of the 
 earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon 
 doing any more than telling you what you would 
 be glad to have told you. I told you too, how 
 pleased I was with the triumphs of another old 
 beauty, our friend the Princess. ^ Do you know, 
 I have found a history that has a great resem- 
 blance to hers ; that is, that will be very like 
 hers, if hers is but like it. I will tell it you in 
 as few words as I can. Madame la Marechal de 
 I'Hopital was the daughter of a sempstress ; - a 
 young gentleman fell in love with her, and was 
 going to be married to her, but the match was 
 broken off. An old Fermier-general, who had 
 retired into the province where this hajppened, 
 hearing the story, had a curiosity to see the 
 victim ; he liked her, married her, died and 
 left her enough not to care for her inconstant. 
 She came to Paris, where the Marechal de 
 I'Hopital married her for her riches. After the 
 Marechal's death, Casimir, the abdicated King 
 of Poland, who was retired into France, fell in 
 love with the Marechale, and privately married 
 her. If the event ever happens, I shall 
 certainly travel to Nancy, to hear her talk of 
 ma belle fille la Heine de France. What pains 
 my Lady Pomfret would take to prove ^ that 
 an abdicated king's Avife did not take place 
 of an English countess ! and how the Princess 
 herself would grow still fonder of the Pretender* 
 for the similitude of his fortune with that of le 
 Roi mon mari! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was 
 frightened the other night, with Mrs. Nugent's 
 calling out, Un toleur ! un voleur ! The am- 
 bassadress had heard so much of robbing, 
 that she did not doubt but dam ce pais cy they 
 robbed in the middle of an assembly. It 
 turned out to be a thief in the candle ! Good- 
 night ! 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Arlington Street, April 2, 1750. 
 You will not wonder so much at our earth- 
 quakes as at the effects they have had. All 
 
 1 The Princess Craon, who, it had been reported, 
 was to marry Stanislaus Leczinska, Duke of Lorraine 
 and ex-King of Poland, whose daughter, Maria Lec- 
 zinska, was married to Louis XV., king of France. 
 
 2 This is the story of a ■\Voraan named Mary 
 Mignot. She was near marrying a young man of 
 the name of La Gardie, who afterwards entered the 
 Swedish service, and became a Field-Marshal in that 
 country. Her first husband was, if I mistake not, 
 a Procureur of Grenoble. Her second was the 51 arshal 
 de I'Hopital ; and her third is supposed to have been. 
 Casimir, the ex-king of Poland, who had retired, afte 
 his abdication, to the monastery oi St. Germain des 
 Pres. It does not, however, appear certain whether 
 Casimir actually married her or not. 
 
 3 Lady Pomfret and Princess Craon did not visit at 
 Florence upon a dispute of precedence. 
 
 4 The Pretender, when in Lorraine, lived in Prince 
 Craou's house. 
 
138 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the women in town have taken them up upon 
 the foot of Judgments; and the clergy, who 
 have had no windfalls of a long season, have 
 driven horse and foot into this opinion. There 
 has been a shower of sermons and exhortations ; 
 Seeker, the Jesuitical bishop of Oxford, began 
 the mode. He heard the women were all going 
 out of town to avoid the next shock ; and so, 
 for fear of losing his Easter offerings, he set 
 himself to advise them to await God's good 
 pleasure in fear and trembling. But what is 
 more astonishing, Sherlock, ^ who has much 
 better sense, and much less of the popish con- 
 fessor, has been running a race with him for the 
 old ladies, and has written a pastoral letter, 
 of which ten thousand were sold in two days, 
 and fifty thousand have been subscribed for 
 since the two first editions. 
 
 I told you the women talked of going out of 
 town ; several families are literally gone, and 
 many more going to-day and to-morrow ; for 
 what adds to the absurdity is, that the second 
 shock having happened exactly a month after 
 the former, it prevails that there will be a third 
 on Thursday next, another month, which is to 
 swallow up London. I am almost ready to burn 
 my letter now I have begun it, lest you should 
 think I am laughing at you ; but it is so true, 
 that Arthur of White's told me last night, that 
 he should put off the last ridotto, which was to 
 be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would 
 come to it. I have advised several who are 
 going to keep their next earthquake in the 
 country, to take the bark for it, as it is so 
 periodic. Dick Levesen and Mr. Eigby, who 
 had supped and stayed late at Bedford House, 
 the other night, knocked at several doors, and in 
 a watchman's voice cried, 'Past four o'clock, 
 and a dreadful earthquake ! ' But I have done 
 with this ridiculoiis panic, two pages were too 
 much to talk of it. 
 
 We have had nothing in Parliament but trade 
 bills, on one of which the Speaker humbled the 
 arrogance of Sir John Barnard, who had reflected 
 upon the proceedings of the House. It is to 
 break up on Thursday se'nnight, and the King 
 goes this day fortnight. He has made Lord 
 Vere Beauclerc a baron, ^ at the solicitation of 
 the Pelhams, as this lord had resigned upon a 
 pique with Lord Sandwich. Lord Anson, who 
 is treading in the -same path, and leaving the 
 Bedfords to follow his father-in-law the Chan- 
 cellor, is made a privy councillor with Sir 
 Thomas Eobinson and Lord Hyndford. Lord 
 Conway is to be an earl, and Sir John Rawdon ^ 
 
 1 Thomas Sherlock, Master of the Temple, first, 
 Bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards of London. 
 ~ Lord Vere of Han worth, in Middlesex. 
 
 3 Lord Conway was made Earl of Hertford. 
 
 4 Sir John Rawdon was created in this year Baron 
 Rawdon, and in 1761 Earl of Moira, in Ireland. Sir 
 John Vesey was created Lord Knapton ; and his son 
 was made Viscount de Vesci in Ireland, in 17CG. 
 
 (whose follies you remember, and whose boasted 
 loyalty of having been kicked down-stairs for 
 not drinking the Pretender's health, though 
 even that was false, is at last rewarded) and Sir 
 John Vesey are to be Irish lords ; and a Sir 
 William Beauchamp Proctor, and a Mr. Loyd, 
 Knights of the Bath. 
 
 I was entertained the other night at the house 
 of much such a creature as Sir John Rawdon, 
 and one whom you remember too, Naylor. He 
 has a wife who keeps the most indecent house 
 of all those that ai-e called decent ; every 
 Sunday she has a contraband assembly : I had 
 had a card for Monday a fortnight before. As 
 the day was new, I expected a great assembly, 
 but found scarce six persons. I asked where 
 the company was— I was answered — ' Oh ! they 
 are not come yet, they will be here presently ; 
 they all supped here last night, stayed till 
 morning, and I suppose are not up yet.' 
 
 My Lord Bolingbroke has lost his wife. ^ When 
 she was dying, he acted grief ; flung himself 
 upon her bed, and asked her if she could forgive 
 him. I never saw her, but have heard her wit 
 and parts excessively commended. Dr. Middle- 
 ton told me a compliment she made him two 
 years ago, which I thought pretty. She said 
 she was persuaded that he was a very great 
 writer, for she understood his works better 
 than any other English book, and that she had 
 observed that the best writers were always the 
 most intelligible. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 I had not time to finish my letter on Monday. 
 I return to the earthquake, which I had mis- 
 taken ; it is to be to-day. This frantic terror 
 prevails so much, that within these three days 
 seven hundred and thirty coaches have been 
 counted j)assing Hyde Park corner, mth whole 
 parties removing into the country ; here is a 
 good advertisement which I cut out of the 
 papers to-day, — 
 
 ' On Monday next will be published (price 6d.), a 
 true and exact list of all the nobility and gentry who 
 have left or shall leave this place through fear of 
 another earthquake.' 
 
 Several women have made earthquake gowns, 
 — that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all 
 to-night. These are of the more courageous. 
 One woman still more heroic is come to town 
 on purpose ; she says all her friends are in 
 London, and she will not survive them. But 
 what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, 
 Lady Frances Arundell,^ and Lord and Lady 
 
 1 She was a Frenchwoman, the widow of a Monsieur 
 de Villettes (and niece of Madame de Maintenon). 
 
 2 Lady Frances Arundell was the daughter of John 
 Manners, second Duke of Rutland, and was married 
 to the Hon. Richard Arundell, second son of John, 
 Lord Arundell of Trerice, and a Lord of the Treasury. 
 
 I Lady Frances was sister of Lady Catherine Pelham, 
 i the wife of the Minister. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 139 
 
 Gal-n-ay,^ who go this evening to an inn ten 
 miles out of town, where they are to play at 
 brag till five in the morning, and then come 
 back— I suppose, to look for the bones of their 
 husbands and families under the rubbish ! The 
 prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of 
 London) is a trooper of Lord Delawarr's, who 
 was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His Colonel sent 
 to the man's wife, and asked her if her husband 
 had ever been disordered before. She cried, 
 * Oh dear ! my lord, he is not mad now ; if your 
 lordship would but get any sensible man to 
 examine him, you would find he is quite in his 
 right mind.' 
 
 I shall now tell yon something more serious. 
 Lord Dalkeith ^ is dead of the small-pox in three 
 days. It is so dreadfully fatal in his family, 
 that besides several uncles and aunts, his eldest 
 boy died of it last year ; and his only brother, 
 who was ill but two days, putrefied so fast, that 
 his limbs fell off as they lifted the body into the 
 coffin. Lady Dalkeith ^ is five months gone 
 ■with child ; she was hurrying to him, but was 
 stopped on the road by the physician, who told 
 her that it was a milliary fever. They were 
 remarkably happy. 
 
 The King goes on Monday se'nnight ; * it is 
 looked upon as a great event that the Duke of 
 IN'ewcastle has i)revailed on him to speak to Mr. 
 Pitt, who has detached himself from the Bed- 
 fords. The monarch, who had kept up his 
 Hanoverian resentments, though he had made 
 him paymaster, is now beat out of the dignity 
 of his silence ; he was to pretend not to know 
 Pitt, and was to be directed to him by the lord- 
 in-waiting. Pitt's jealousy is of Lord Sandwich, 
 who knows his own interest and unpopularity 
 so well, that he will prevent any breach, and 
 thereby what you fear, which yet I think you 
 would have no reason to fear. I could not say 
 enough of my anger to your father, but I shall 
 take care to say nothing, as I have not forgot 
 how my zeal for you made me provoke him once 
 before. 
 
 Your genealogical affair is in great train, and 
 will be quite finished in a week or two. Mr. 
 Chute has laboured at it indef atigably ; General 
 Guise has been attesting the authenticity of it 
 to-day before a justice of peace. You will find 
 yourself mixed with every drop of blood in 
 England that is worth bottling up : the Duchess 
 of Norfolk and you grow on the same bough of 
 
 1 John Monckton, first Viscount Gal way in Ireland. 
 The Lady Galway mentioned here was his second wife, 
 Jane, daughter of Henry Westenra, Esq. of Dublin. 
 His first wife, who died in 1730, was Lady Elizabeth 
 Manners, the sister of Lady Catherine Pelham and 
 Lady Frances Arundell. 
 
 2 Francis Scott, eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch. 
 
 3 Caroline, eldest daughter and heiress of John, 
 Duke of Argj'le. She was married again in 1755 to 
 Charles, second son of Lord Townshend, and one of 
 the Lords of the Admiralty. 
 
 4 To Hanover. 
 
 the tree. I must tell you a veiy curious 
 anecdote that Strawberry King-at-Arms ^ has 
 discovered by the way, as he was tumbling over 
 the mighty dead in the Heralds' Office. You 
 have heard me speak of the great injustice that 
 the Protector Somerset did to the children of 
 his first wife, in favour of those by his second ; 
 so much that he not only had the dukedom 
 settled on the younger brood, but to deprive the 
 eldest of the title of Lord Beauchamp, which he 
 wore by inheritance, he caused himself to be 
 anew created Viscount Beauchamp. Well, in 
 Vincent's Baronage, a book of great authority, 
 speaking of the Protector's wives, are these 
 remarkable words : ' Katherina,filia et una Coli. 
 Gul: Fillol de FilloVs hall in Essex, uxor prima; 
 rcpudiata, quia Pater ejus post nuptias earn 
 cognovit.' The Speaker has since refei-red me 
 to our journals, where are some notes of a trial 
 in the reign of James the First, between 
 Edward, the second son of Katherine the dutiful, 
 and the Earl of Hertford, son of Anne Stanhope, 
 v/hich in some measure confirms our MS., for 
 it says, the Earl of Hertford objected, that 
 John, the eldest son of all, was begotten while 
 the duke was in Franco. This title, which now 
 comes back at last to Sir Edward Seymour, is 
 disputed ; my Lord Chancellor has refused him 
 the writ, but referred his case to the Attorney- 
 General,^ the iJresent great Opinion of England, 
 who, they say, is clear for Sir Edward's 
 succession. 
 
 I shall now go and show you Mr. Chute in a 
 different light from heraldry, and in one in 
 which I believe you never saw him. He will 
 shine as usual ; but as a little more severely 
 than his good-nature is accustomed to, I must 
 tell you that he was provoked by the most 
 impertinent usage. It is an epigram on Lady 
 Caroline Petersham, whose present fame, by 
 the way, is coupled with young Harry Vane. 
 
 WHO IS THIS? 
 
 Her face has beauty, we must all confess, 
 
 But beauty on the brink of ugliness. 
 
 Her mouth's a rabbit feeding on a rose ; 
 
 With eyes— ten times too good for such a nose ! 
 
 Her blooming cheeks — what paint could ever draw 'em ? 
 
 That paint, for which no mortal ever saw 'em. 
 
 Air without shape— of royal race divine— 
 
 'Tis Emily— oh ! fie !— 'tis Caroline. 
 
 Do but think of my beginning a third sheet ! 
 but as the Parliament is rising, and I shall 
 probably not write you a tolerably long letter 
 again these eight months, I will lay in a stock 
 of merit with you to last me so long. BIr. 
 Chute has set me too upon making epigrams ; 
 but as I have not his art, mine is almost a copy 
 
 1 Mr. Chnte. 
 
 2 Sir Dudley Ryder. 
 
 3 Sir Edward Seymour, when he became Duke of 
 Somerset, did not inherit the title of Beauchamp. 
 
140 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of verses : the story he told me, and is literally 
 true of an old Lady Bingley : ^ 
 
 Celia now had completed some thirty campaigns, 
 And for new generations was hammering chains ; 
 When whetting those terrible weapons, her eyes. 
 To Jenny, her handmaid, in anger she cries, 
 ' Careless creature ! did mortal e'er see such a glass ! 
 Who that saw mc in this, could e'er guess what I was ! 
 Much you mind what I say ! pray how oft have I bid 
 you 
 
 Provide me a new one ? how oft have I chid you ? ' 
 • Lord, madam ! ' cried Jane, ' you're so hard to be 
 pleased ! 
 
 I am sure every glassman in town I have teased ; 
 I have hunted each shop from Pall Mall to Cheapside ; 
 Both Miss Carpenter's 2 man and Miss Banks' 3 Pve 
 tried.' 
 
 ' Don't tell me of those girls ! — all I know to my cost 
 Is, the looking-glass art must be certainly lost ! 
 One us'd to have mirrors so smooth and so bright. 
 They did one's eyes justice, they heightened one's 
 white. 
 
 And fresh roses diffused o'er one's bloom— but alas ! 
 In the glasses made now, one detests one's own face ; 
 They pucker one's cheeks up, and furrow one's brow, 
 And one's skin looks as yellow as that of Miss 4 
 Howe ! ' 5 
 
 After an epigram that seems to have found 
 out the longitude, I shall tell you but one more, 
 and that wondrous short. It is said to be made 
 by a cow ; you must not wonder ; we tell as 
 many strange stories as Baker and Livy : 
 
 A warm winter, a dry spring, 
 A hot summer, a new king. 
 
 Though the sting is veiy epigrammatic, the 
 whole of the distich has more of the truth that 
 becomes prophecy ; that is, it is false ; for the 
 spring is wet and cold. 
 
 There is come from France a Madame Bocage, 
 who has translated Milton : my Lord Chester- 
 field prefers the copy to the original ; but that 
 is not uncommon for him to do, who is the 
 patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has 
 written a play too which was damned — and 
 worthy my lord's approbation. You would be 
 more diverted with a Mrs. Holman, whose 
 passion is keeping an assembly, and inviting 
 literally everybody to it. She goes to the 
 drawing-room to watch for sneezes ; whips out 
 a curtsey, and then sends next morning to know 
 how your cold does, and to desire your company 
 next Thursday. 
 
 Mr. "VVhithed has taken my Lord Pembroke's 
 house at Whitehall ; a glorious situation, but 
 as madly built as my lord himself was. He has 
 bought some delightful pictures too of Claud, 
 
 1 Lady Elizabeth Finch, eldest daughter of 
 Heneage, Earl of Aylcsford, and widow of Robei-t 
 Benson, Lord Bingley. 
 
 2 Countess of Egremont. 
 
 3 Miss Margaret Banks, a celebrated beauty. 
 
 4 Charlotte, sister of Lord Howe, and wife of Mr. 
 Fctti place. 
 
 5 Those lines arc published in Walpole's Works. 
 
 Caspar, and good masters, to the amount of 
 four hundred pounds. 
 
 Good-night ! I have nothing more to tell 
 you, but that I have lately seen a Sir William 
 Boothby, who saw you about a year ago, and 
 adores you, as all the English you receive ought 
 to do. He is much in my favour. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Strawberry Hill; June 12, 1753. 
 I could not rest any longer with the thought 
 of your having no idea of a place of which you 
 hear so much, and therefore desired Mr. 
 Bentley to draw you as much idea of it as the 
 post would be persuaded to carry from Twicken- 
 ham to Florence. The enclosed enchanted little 
 landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill ; and I wUI 
 try to explain so much of it to you as vnll help 
 to let you know whereabouts we are when we 
 are talking to you, for it is uncomfortable in so 
 intimate a correspondence as ours not to be 
 exactly master of every spot where one another 
 is writing, or reading, or sauntering. This view 
 of the castle ^ is what I have just finished, and 
 is the only side that will be at all regular. 
 Directly before it is an open grove, through 
 which you see a field, which is bounded by 
 a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and 
 flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn before 
 the house is situated on the top of a small hill, 
 from whence to the left you see the town and 
 church of Twickenham encircling a turn of the 
 river, that looks exactly like a seaport in 
 miniature. The opposite shore is a most 
 delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, 
 which loses itself in the noble woods of the 
 park to the end of the prospect on the right, 
 where is another turn of the river, and the 
 suburbs of Kingston as luckily placed as Twick- 
 enham is on the left ; and a natural terrace on 
 the brow of my hill, with meadows of my own 
 down to the river, commands both extremities. 
 Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must 
 figure that all this is perpetually enlivened by a 
 navigation of boats and barges, and by a road 
 below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, 
 waggons, and horsemen, constantly in motion, 
 and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and 
 sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. 
 The bow window below leads into a little 
 l^arlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper 
 and Jackson's Venetian i)rints, which I could 
 never endure while they pretended, infamous 
 as they are, to be after Titian, etc., but when I 
 gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they 
 succeeded to a miracle ; it is impossible at first 
 sight not to conclude that they contain the 
 history of Attila or Tottila, done about the 
 very era. From hence under two gloomy arches 
 
 1 It was a view of the south side towards the north- 
 casti 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 141 
 
 you come to the hall and staircase, which it is 
 impossible to describe to you, as it is the most 
 jiarticular and chief beauty of the castle. 
 Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, 
 but it is really paper j)ainted in perspective to 
 represent) Gothic fretwork ; the lightest Gothic 
 balustrade to the staircase, adorned with 
 antelopes (our supporters) bearing shields ; lean 
 windows fattened with rich saints in painted 
 glass, and a vestibule open with three arches on 
 the landing-place, and niches full of trophies 
 of old coats of mail, Indian shields made of 
 rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, long- 
 bows, arrows, all supposed to be taken by Sir 
 Terry Kobsart ^ in the holy wars. But as none 
 of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pass 
 to that. The room on the ground floor nearest 
 to you is a bed-chamber, hung with yellow 
 paper and prints, framed in a new manner 
 invented by Lord Cardigan, that is, with black 
 and white borders printed. Over, this is Mr. 
 Chute's bedchamber, hung with red in the same 
 manner. The bow window room one pair of 
 stairs is not yet finished; but in the tower 
 beyond it is the charming closet where I am 
 now writing to you. It is hung with green 
 paper and water - colour pictures ; has two 
 windows, — the one in the drawing looks to the 
 garden, the other to the beautiful prospect ; 
 and the top of each glutted with the richest 
 painted glass of the arms of England, crimson 
 roses, and twenty other pieces of green, purple, 
 and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, 
 that the castle, when finished, will have two- 
 and - thirty windows enriched with painted 
 glass. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's 
 college of arms, are two presses with books of 
 heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sevigne's 
 Letters, and any French books that relate to 
 her and her acquaintance. Out of this closet 
 is the room where we always live, hung with a 
 blue-and-white paper in stripes adorned with 
 festoons, and a thousand plump chairs, couches, 
 and luxurious settees covered with linen of the 
 same pattern, and with a bow window com- 
 manding the prospect, and gloomed with limes 
 that shade half each window, already darkened 
 with painted glass in chiaroscuro, set in deep- 
 blue glass. Under this room is a cool little 
 hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper 
 to imitate Dutch tiles. 
 
 I have described so much, that you will 
 begin to think that all the accounts I used to 
 give you of the diminutiveness of our habitation 
 were fabulous ; but it is really incredible how 
 small most of the rooms are. The only two 
 good chambers I shall have are not yet built ; 
 they will be an eating-room, and a library, each 
 twenty by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet 
 high. For the rest of the house, I could send 
 
 1 An ancestor of Sir K. W. who was Knight of the 
 Garter. 
 
 it you in this letter as easily as the drawing, 
 only that I should have nowhere to live till the 
 return of the post. The Chinese summer-house, 
 which you may distinguish in the distant land- 
 scape, belongs to my Lord Eadnor.^ "We pique 
 ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, and 
 have no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayingg, 
 or tawdry businesses. 
 
 You will not be sorry, I believe, by this time 
 to have done with Strawberry Hill, and to 
 hear a little news. The end of a very dreaming 
 session has been extremely enlivened by an 
 accidental bill which has opened great quarrels, 
 and those not unlikely to be attended with 
 interesting circumstances. A bill to prevent 
 clandestine marriages,'^ so drawn by the judges 
 as to clog all matrimony in general, was 
 inadvertently espoused by the Chancellor, and 
 having been strongly attacked in the House of 
 Commons by Nugent, the Speaker, Mr. Fox, 
 and others, the last went very great lengths of 
 severity on the whole body of the law, and on 
 its chieftain in particular, which, however, at 
 the last reading he softened and explained off 
 extremely. This did not appease ; but on the 
 return of the bill to the House of Lords, where 
 our amendments were to be read, the Chan- 
 cellor in the most personal terms harangued 
 against Fox, and concluded with saying that 
 ' he despised his scurrility as much as his 
 adulation and recantation.' As Christian 
 charity is not one of the oaths taken by privy 
 councillors, and as it is not the most eminent 
 virtue in either of the champions, this quarrel 
 is not likely to be soon reconciled. There are 
 natures 3 whose disposition it is to patch up 
 political breaches, but whether they will 
 succeed, or try to succeed in healing this, can I 
 tell you ? 
 
 The match for Lord Granville, which I 
 announced to you, is not concluded ; his flames 
 are cooled in that quarter as well as in others. 
 
 I begin a new sheet to you, which does not 
 match with the other, for I have no more of 
 the same paper here. Dr. Cameron is executed, 
 and died with the greatest firmness. His 
 parting with his wife the night before was 
 heroic and tender ; he let her stay till the last 
 moment, when being aware that the gates of 
 the Tower would be locked, he told her so ; she 
 fell at his feet in agonies : he said, ' Madam, 
 this was not what you promised me,' and 
 embracing her, forced her to retire ; then with 
 the same coolness, looked at the window till 
 her coach was out of sight, after which he 
 turned about and wept. His only concern 
 
 1 John Robarts, the last Earl of Raduor of that 
 house. 
 
 2 This was Lord Hardwicke's marriage hill, which 
 continued in force until the injustice of its pro-visions, 
 and the grievances resulting from them, became too 
 great to be borne. 
 
 3 Mr. Pelham. 
 
142 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn ; he 
 was not disturbed at the dresser for his body, 
 or at the fire to burn his bowels. The crowd 
 was so great, that a friend who attended him 
 could not get away, but was forced to stay and 
 behold the execution ; but what will you say to 
 the minister or i^riest who accompanied him? 
 The wretch, after taking leave, went into a 
 landau, where, not content with seeing the 
 doctor hanged, he let down the top of the 
 landau for the better convenience of seeing him 
 embowelled ! I cannot tell you positively that 
 what I hinted of this Cameron being com- 
 missioned from Prussia was true, but so it is 
 believed. Adieu ! my dear child ; I think this 
 is a very tolerable letter for summer ! 
 
 TO GEOEGE MONTAGU. 
 
 Houghton, March 25, 1761. 
 Here I am at Houghton ! and alone ! in this 
 spot, where (except two hours last month) I 
 have not been in sixteen years ! Think, what 
 a crowd of reflections ! No, Gray and forty 
 churchyards could not furnish so many ; nay, I 
 know one must feel them with greater indiffer- 
 ence than I possess, to have patience to put 
 them into verse. Here I am, jirobably for the 
 last time of my life, though not for the last 
 time : every clock that strikes tells me I am 
 an hour nearer to yonder church — that church, 
 into which I have not yet had courage to 
 enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, 
 and who doated on me ! There are the two 
 rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom 
 ever wished to enjoy it ! There too lies he 
 who founded its greatness, to contribute to 
 whose fall Europe was embroiled ; there he 
 sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and 
 his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, 
 Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the 
 dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and 
 pamphlets. 
 
 The surprise the picture gave me is again 
 renewed ; accustomed for ma,ny years to see 
 nothing but wretched daubs and varnished 
 copies at auctions, I look at these as enchant- 
 ment. My own description of them seems poor ; 
 but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of 
 Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm 
 nature of Flemish colouring. Alas I don't I 
 grow old? My young imagination was fired 
 with Guide's ideas ; must they be plump and 
 prominent as Abishag to warm me now ? Doth 
 great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as 
 see with poetic eyes ? In one respect, I am 
 very young, I cannot satiate myself with 
 looking : an incident contributed to make me 
 feel this more strongly. A party arrived, just 
 as I did, to see the house, a man and three 
 women in riding-dresses, and they rode post 
 
 through the apartments. I could not hurry 
 before them fast enough ; they were not so 
 long in seeing for the first time, as I could have 
 been in one room, to examine what I knev/ 
 by heart. I remember formerly being often 
 diverted with this kind of seers; they come, 
 ask what such a room is called, in which Sir 
 Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster or 
 a cabbage in a market piece, dispute whether 
 the last room was green or purple, and then 
 hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be 
 over-dressed. How different my sensations ! 
 not a picture here but recalls a history ! not 
 one but I remember in Downing Street or 
 Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired 
 them, though seeing them as little as these 
 travellers ! 
 
 When I had drank tea, I strolled into the 
 garden; they told me it was now called the 
 pleasure-groimd. What a dissonant idea of 
 pleasure ! those groves, those all&es, where I 
 have passed so many charming moments, are 
 now stripijed up or overgrown— many fond 
 paths I could not unravel, though with a very 
 exact clue in my memory : I met two game- 
 keepers, and a thousand hares ! In the days 
 when all my soul was turned to i^leasure and 
 vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far 
 from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton 
 and its solitude ; yet I loved this garden, as now, 
 with many regrets, Hove Houghton; Houghton, 
 I know not what to call it, a monument of 
 grandeur or ruin ! How I have wished tliis 
 evening for Lord Bute ! how I could preach to 
 him ! For myself, I do not want to be preached 
 to ; I have long considered how every Baalbec 
 must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood.^ The 
 servants wanted to lay me in the great apart- 
 ment — what, to make me pass my night as I 
 have done my evening ! It were like proposing 
 to Margaret Roper to be a duchess in the court 
 that cut off her father's head, and imagining it 
 would please her. I have chosen to sit in my 
 father's little dressing-room, and am now by 
 his scrutoire, where, in the height of his 
 fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his 
 farmers, and deceive himself, or us, with the 
 thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at 
 once, and how weak ! For what has he built 
 Houghton? for his grandson to annihilate, or 
 for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh 
 could rise and view his representative driving 
 the Hatfield stage, he would feel as I feel now. 
 Poor little Strawbei-ry ! at least it will not be 
 stripped to pieces by a descendant ! You will 
 find all these fine meditations dictated by pride, 
 not by philosophy. Pray consider tlirough how 
 many mediums xjhilosophy must pass before it 
 is purified — 
 
 ' liow oftcu must it weep, how often bum ! ' 
 
 1 The Ruins of Baalbec, otherwise Helioiiolis. Atlas 
 fol., 46 plates, 1757. By Robert Wood. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 My mind was extremely prepared for all this 
 gloom by parting with IMr. Conway yesterday 
 morning ; moral reflections or commonplaces 
 are the livery one likes to wear when one has 
 just had a real misfortune. He is going to 
 Germany : I v.-as glad to dress myself up in 
 transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible 
 concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted with 
 thoughts, at least images, of a very different 
 complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected 
 on Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, 
 again alone, to exi^ect Buileighides on Sunday, 
 whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in 
 my life see him on his grandfather's throne. 
 
 Epping, Monday night, thirty-first. — No, I 
 have not seen him ; he loitered on the road, 
 and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday morning. 
 It is plain I never knew for how many trades 
 I was formed, when at this time of day I can 
 begin electioneering, and succeed in my new 
 vocation. Think of me, the subject of a mob, 
 who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing 
 them in the town hall, riding at the head of 
 two thousand people through such a town as 
 Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them 
 amid bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and 
 finishing with country dancing at a ball and six- 
 penny whist ! I have borne it all cheerfully ; 
 nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing 
 upon earth that I hate ; have been to hear misses 
 play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's 
 copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet to do 
 the folks justice, they are sensible, and reason- 
 able, and civilised; their very language is 
 polished since I lived among them. I attribute 
 this to their more frequent intercourse with the 
 world and the capital, by the help of good 
 roads and post-chaises, which, if they have 
 abridged the King's dominions, have at least 
 tamed his subjects. Well, how comfoi-table it 
 will be to-morrow, to see my jjarroquet, to play 
 at loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously ! 
 The Heraclitus of the beginning of this letter 
 will be overjoyed on finishing it to sign himself 
 your old friend, Democeitus. 
 
 P.S.—l forgot to tell you that my ancient 
 aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me ; 
 not from any affection, but curiosity. The first 
 thing she said to me, though we have not met 
 these sixteen years, was, ' Child, you have done 
 a thing to-day that your father never did in all 
 * his life ; you sat as they carried you, he always 
 stood the whole time.' ' Madam,' said I, ' when 
 I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit 
 in it ; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in 
 great things, I am not at all ambitious of 
 mimicking him in little ones.' I am sure she 
 proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle 
 Horace's ghost the instant they meet. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Arlington Street, February 2, 1762. 
 
 I scolded you in my last, but I shall forgive 
 you if you return soon to England, as you talk 
 of doing ; for though you are an abominable 
 correspondent, and only write to beg letters, 
 you are good company, and I have a notion I 
 shall stiQ be glad to see you. 
 
 Lady IMary "Wortley is arrived ; I have seen 
 her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her 
 vivacity are all increased. Her dress, like her 
 language, is a galimatias of several countries ; 
 the ground-work rags, and the embroidery 
 nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, 
 no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black- 
 laced hood reiJresents the first ; the fur of a 
 horseman's coat, which replaces the third, 
 serves for the second ; a dimity petticoat is 
 deputy and officiates for the fourth, and slippers 
 act the part of the last. When I was at 
 Florence, and she was expected there, we were 
 drawing sortes Virgilianas for her ; we literally 
 drew 
 
 ' Insanam vatem aspicies.' 1 
 
 It would have been a stronger prophecy now 
 even than it was then. 
 
 You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton, 
 and I have a great mind to be as coolly indolent 
 about OTU' famous ghost in Cock Lane. AVhy 
 should one steal half an hour from one's amuse- 
 ments to tell a story to a friend in another 
 island ? I could send you volumes on the ghost, 
 and I believe if I were to stay a little, I might 
 send its life, dedicated to my Lord Dartmouth, 
 by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great 
 patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot 
 out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted it, 
 and the whole town of London think of nothing 
 else. Elizabeth Canning and the Eabbit- woman 
 were modest impostors in comparison of this, 
 which goes on without saving the least appear- 
 ances. The archbishop, who would not suffer the 
 Minor to be acted in ridicule of the Methodists, 
 permits this farce to be i^layed every night, and 
 I shall not be surprised if they perform in the 
 great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for 
 it is not an apparition, but an audition. We 
 set out from the opera, changed our clothes at 
 Northumberland House, the Duke of York, 
 Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord 
 Hertford, and I, all in one hackney coach, and 
 drove to the spot ; it rained torrents ; yet the 
 lane was full of mob, and the house so full we 
 could not get in ; at last they discovered it was 
 the Duke of York, and the company squeezed 
 themselves into one another's pockets to make 
 room for us. The house, which is borrowed, 
 and to which the ghost has adjourned, is 
 
 1 Mndd, III. 443 : ' You shall see the insane 
 prophetess.' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 wretchedly small and miserable ; when we 
 opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, 
 with no light but one tallow candle at the end, 
 we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom 
 the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering 
 by inches in such insufiei-able heat and stench. 
 At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. 
 I asked, if we were going to have rope-dancing 
 between the acts ? We had nothing ; they told 
 us, they would at a pupi^et-show, that it would 
 not come that night till seven in the morning, 
 that is, when there are only 'prentices and old 
 women. AVe stayed, however, till half an hour 
 after one. The Methodists have promised them 
 contributions ; provisions are sent in like forage, 
 and all the taverns and ale-houses in the neigh- 
 bourhood make fortunes. The most diverting 
 part is to hear the people wondering xvlien it 
 vMl he found out — as if there was anything to 
 find out — as if the actors would make their 
 noises when they can be discovered. How- 
 ever, as this pantomime cannot last much 
 longer, I hope Lady Fanny Shirley will set up a 
 ghost of her own at Twickenham, and then you 
 shall hear one. The Methodists, as Lord Ayles- 
 ford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at Lord 
 Dacre's, have attempted ghosts three times in 
 ■Warwickshire. There, how good I am ! 
 
 Yours ever. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Arlington Street, April 5, 17G5. 
 
 I sent you two letters t'other day from your 
 Idn, and might as well have written then as now, 
 for I have nothing to tell you. Mr. Chute has 
 quitted his bed to-day the first time for above 
 five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. 
 He was near relapsing ; for old Mildmay, whose 
 lungs, and memory, and tongue will never wear 
 out, talked to him t'other night from eight till 
 half an hour after ten, on the Poor-bill : but he 
 has been more comfortable with Lord Dacre 
 and me this evening. 
 
 I have read the Siege of Calais, and dislike it 
 extremely, though there are fine lines, but the 
 conduct is woful. The outrageous applause it 
 has received at Paris was certainly political, 
 and intended to stir up their spirit and 
 animosity against us, their good, merciful, and 
 forgiving allies. They will have no occasion 
 for this ardour ; they may smite one cheek, 
 and we shall turn t'other. 
 
 Though I have little to say, it is worth while 
 to write only to tell you two hon-mots of Quin, 
 to that turn-coat hypocrite infidel, Bishop War- 
 burton. That saucy priest was haranguing at 
 Bath in behalf of prerogative : Quin said, * Pray, 
 my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with 
 my principles ; I am a republican, and perhaps 
 I even think that the execution of Charles I. 
 might be justified.' — 'Ay!' said Warburton, 
 * by what law ? ' Quin replied, ' By all the laws 
 
 he had left them. ' The bishop would have got off 
 upon judgments, and bade the player remember 
 that all the regicides came to violent ends ; a 
 lie, but no matter. ' I would not advise your 
 lordship,' said Quin, 'to make use of that in- 
 ference, for if I am not mistaken, that was the 
 case of the twelve apostles.' There was great 
 Wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think 
 the former equal to anything I ever heard. It 
 is the sum of the whole controversy couched 
 in eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once 
 the King's guilt and the justice of punishing it. 
 The more one examines it, the finer it proves. 
 One can say nothing after it, so good-night. 
 
 Yours ever. 
 
 GILBERT WHITE TO HESTER CHAPONE.-^ 
 
 Selborne, August 31, 1784. 
 
 Most respectable Lady, — Your letter gave 
 me great satisfaction, being the first that ever 
 I was honoured with. It is my wish to answer 
 you in your own way ; but I never could make a 
 verse in my life, so you must be contented with 
 plain prose. Having seen but little of this 
 great world, conversed but little and read less, 
 I feel myself much at a loss how to entertain so 
 intelligent a correspondent. Unless you will 
 let me write about myself, my answer will 
 be very short indeed. 
 
 Know, then, that I am an American, and was 
 born in the year 173i in the Province of 
 Virginia, in the midst of a savanna that lay 
 between a large tobacco plantation and a creek 
 of the sea. Here I spent my youthful days 
 among my relations with much satisfaction, and 
 saw around me many venerable kinsmen, who 
 had attained to great ages, without any 
 interruption from distempers. Longevitj'^ is 
 so general among our species that a funeral is 
 quite a strange occurrence. I can just remember 
 the death of my great-great-grandfather, who 
 departed this life in the 160th year of his age. 
 Happy should I have been in the enjoyment 
 of my native climate, and the society of my 
 friends, had not a sea-boy, who was wandering 
 about to see what he could pick up, surprised 
 me as I was sunning myself under a bush ; and 
 whipping me into his wallet, carried me aboard 
 his ship. The circumstances of our voyage are 
 not worthy a recital ; I only remember that the 
 rippling of the water against the sides of our 
 vessel as we sailed along was a very lulling and 
 composing sound, which served to soothe my 
 slumbers as I lay in the hold. We had a short 
 voyage, and came to anchor on the coast of 
 
 1 As Miss Mulso, this lady was Gilbert Wliite's first 
 love. After she became Mrs. Cliapone, she addressed 
 some verses to his favourite tortoise 'Timothy,' when 
 the naturalist penned this facetious reply. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 145 
 
 England in the harbour of Chichester. In that 
 city my kidnapper sold me for half-a-crown to 
 a country gentleman, who came up to attend an 
 election. I was immediately packed in a hand- 
 basket, and carried, slung by the servant's 
 side, to their place of abode. As they rode 
 very hard for forty miles, and I had never been 
 on horseback before, I found myself somewhat 
 giddy from my airy jaunt. My purchaser, who 
 was a great humorist, after showing me to some 
 of his neighbours, and giving me the name of 
 Timothy, took little further notice of me ; so I 
 fell under the care of his lady, a benevolent 
 woman, whose humane attention extended to 
 the meanest of her retainers. 
 
 "With this gentlewoman I remained almost 
 forty years, living in a little walled-in court in 
 the front of her house, and enjoying much 
 quiet, and as much satisfaction as I could 
 expect without society. At last this good old 
 lady died in a very advanced old age, such as a 
 tortoise would call a good old age ; and I then 
 became the property of her nephew. This 
 man, my present master, dug me out of my 
 winter retreat, and packing me in a deal box, 
 jumbled me eighty miles in post-chaises to my 
 present place of abode. I was sore shaken by 
 this expedition, which was the worst journey I 
 ever experienced. In my present situation I 
 enjoy many advantages — such as the range of 
 an extensive garden, affording a variety of sun 
 and shade, and abounding in lettuces, poppies, 
 kidney beans, and many other salubrious and 
 delectable herbs and plants, and especially with 
 a great choice of delicate gooseberries ! But 
 still at times I miss my good old mistress, whose 
 grave and regular deportment suited best with 
 my disposition. For you must know that my 
 master is what they call a naturalist, and much 
 visited by people of that turn, who often put 
 him on whimsical experiments, such as feeling 
 my pulse, putting me in a tub of water to try 
 if I can swim, etc., and twice in the year I am 
 carried to the grocer's to be weighed, that it 
 may be seen how much I am wasted during the 
 months of my abstinence, and how much I 
 gain by feasting in the summer. Upon these 
 occasions I am placed in the scale on my back, 
 where I sprawl about to the great diversion of 
 the shopkeeper's children. These matters 
 displease me ; but there is another that much 
 hurts my pride ; I mean that contempt shown 
 for my understanding which these lords of the 
 creation are very apt to discover, thinking 
 that nobody knows anything but themselves. 
 I heard my master say that he expected 
 that I should some day tumble down 
 the ha-ha ; whereas I would have him to 
 know that I can discern a precipice from 
 plain ground as well as himself. Sometimes 
 my master repeats with much seeming triumph 
 the following lines, which occasion a loud 
 laugh : 
 
 Tiiaotheus placed on high 
 Amidst the tuneful choir, 
 With flying fingers touched the lyre. 
 
 For my part I see no wit in the application, 
 nor know whence the verses are quoted, 
 perhaps from some prophet of his own, who if 
 he penned them for the sake of ridiculing 
 tortoises, bestowed his pains, I think, to poor 
 purposes. These are some of my grievances ; 
 but they sit very light on me in comparison of 
 what remains behind. Know, then, tender- 
 hearted lady, that my greatest misfortune, and 
 what I have never divulged to any one before, 
 is the want of society of my own kind. This 
 reflection is always uppermost in my own mind, 
 but comes upon me with irresistible force every 
 spring. It was in the month of May last, that 
 I resolved to elope from my place of confine- 
 ment, for my fancy had represented to me that 
 probably many agreeable tortoises of both 
 sexes might inhabit the heights of Baker's Hill, 
 or the extensive plains of the neighbouring 
 meadow, both of which I could discern from 
 the terrace. One sunny morning, therefore, I 
 watched my opportunity, found the wicket 
 open, eluded the vigilance of Thomas Hoar, and 
 escaped into the saint-foin, which began to bo 
 in bloom, and thence into the beans. I was 
 missing eight days, wandering in this wilderness 
 of sweets, and exploring the meadow at times. 
 But my pains were all to no purpose ; I could 
 find no society such as I wished and sought for. 
 I began to grow hungry, and to wish myself at 
 home. I therefore came forth in sight, and 
 surrendered myself up to Thomas, who had 
 been inconsolable in my absence. Thus, 
 Madam, have I given you a faithful account 
 of my satisfactions and sorrows, the latter 
 of which are mostly u^jpermost. You are a 
 lady, I understand, of much sensibility. Let 
 me therefore make my case your own in the 
 following manner, and then you will judge of 
 my feelings. Suppose you were to be kid- 
 napped away to-morrow^ in the bloom of your 
 life, to the land of Tortoises, and were never 
 to see again for fifty years a human face ! ! ! 
 Think on this, dear lady, and pity 
 
 Your sorrowful Reptile, Timothy. 
 
 [Mrs. Montagu, the daughter of Matthew 
 Robinson, Esq. of West Layton, was born 
 at York, October 2, 1720, and was, from 
 her childhood, remarkable for vivacity and 
 beauty. She became a letter- writer in her 
 eleventh year, and her correspondence at 
 that age with Lady INIargaret Harley has 
 been preserved. She carried into maturer 
 life all the buoyancy of her youth ; her 
 friends called her ^ La petite Fidget J Her 
 
146 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 residence in Portman Square, the resort of 
 the celebrated Blue Stocking Club, was the 
 centre of the most brilliant society in 
 London. Her literary talents were neither 
 extensive nor profound. The Essay upon 
 Shakespeare, which Johnson said consisted 
 of pack-thread, is a pleasing and discursive 
 review of dramatic poetry, such as might 
 easily be written by an accomplished 
 woman whose learning was inferior to her 
 taste. When Johnson asserted that not a 
 single sentence of true criticism was to be 
 found in her book, he certainly exceeded 
 the legitimate bounds of criticism. She 
 originates nothing, but some of her repro- 
 ductions are ingenious and appropriate ; of 
 the genius of Ben Jonson, whose Catiline 
 and Sejanus Mrs. Montagu vehemently 
 censures, her knowledge appears to have 
 been very superficial; but her remarks 
 upon the French Drama are often just and 
 penetrating. Dying in the autumn of 
 1800, Mrs. Montagu lived to behold the 
 dawn of a new era in poetry and in art ; to 
 find the Night Thoughts of her friend Young 
 superseded by a more gorgeous spirit of 
 imagination ; and the Vicar of Goldsmith, 
 and the Evelina of Miss Burney, almost 
 buried by the overflow of a new school of 
 romance. — WiUmott.'] 
 
 MKS. MONTAGU TO THE DUCHESS OF POKTLAND. 
 
 A Letter from the Shades. 
 
 1739. 
 
 Madam, — As I always acquaint your grace 
 with my motions from place to place, I think it 
 incumbent upon me to let you know I died 
 last Thursday; having that day expected to 
 hear of a certain duchess, and being disappointed, 
 I fell into a vexation, and from thence into a 
 chagrin, and from that into a melancholy, with 
 a complicated et cetera, and so expired, and 
 have since crossed the Styx, though Charon was 
 loth to receive me into the boat. Pluto inquired 
 into the cause of my arrival, and upon telling 
 it him, he said, that lady had sent many lovers 
 there by her cruelty, but I was the first friend 
 who was despatched by her neglect. I thought 
 it proper to acquaint you with my misfortune, 
 and therefore called for the pen and ink Mrs. 
 Kowe had used to write her letters from the 
 dead to the living, and consulted with the 
 melancholy lovers you had sent there before 
 me, what I should say to you ; one was for 
 beginning ' Obdurate Fair,' one for addressing 
 j you in metre, another in metaphor ; but I found 
 these lovers so sublime a set of ghosts, that 
 their advice was no service to me, so I applied 
 
 to the other inhabitants of Erebus. I went to 
 Ixion for counsel, but his head was so giddy 
 with turning, that he could not give me a 
 steady opinion; Sisyphus was so much out of 
 breath with walking up hill, he could not make 
 me an answer ; Tantalus was so dry he could 
 not speak to be understood; and Prometheus 
 had such a gnawing at his stomach, he could 
 not attend to what I said. Presently after I 
 met Eurydice, who asked me if I could sing a 
 tune, for Pluto had a very good ear, and I 
 might release her for ever, for though 
 
 Fate had fast bound her, 
 
 With Styx nine times round her, 
 
 Yet singing a tune was victorious. 
 
 I told her that I had no voice, but that there 
 was one Lady Wallingford in the other world 
 who could sing and play like her own Orpheus, 
 but that I hoped she would not come thither a 
 great while. The fatal sisters said they had 
 much fine thread to spin for her yet, and so 
 Madame Eurydice must wait with patience, i 
 Charon says the packet-boat is ready, and | 
 ghosts will not wait, so I must take my leave of j 
 you, to my great grief ; for as Bayes in the j 
 BeJiearsal says, ' Ghosts are not obliged to speak 
 sense.' I could have added a great deal more, j 
 Pluto gives his service, and Proserpine is your j 
 humble servant. We live here very elegantly ; j 
 
 we dine upon essence, like the Duke of N ; j 
 
 we eat and drink the soul and spirit of every- j 
 thing ; we are all thin, and well shaped ; but ' 
 what most surprised me was, to see Sir Robert 
 Austin,^ who arrived here when I did, a perfect 
 shadow ; indeed, I was not so much amazed 
 that he had gone the way of all flesh, as to meet 
 him in the state of all spirit. At first, I took 
 
 him for Sir , his cousin ; but upon hearing 
 
 him say how many ton he was shrunk in cir- 
 cumference, I easily found him out. I shall 
 wait patiently till oiu- packet wafts me a letter 
 from your grace ; being now divested of passion, 
 I can, as a ghost, stay a jjost or two under your 
 neglect, though flesh and blood would not bear 
 it. All that remains of me is, 
 
 Your faithful shade, 
 
 E. EOBINSON. 
 
 Written from Pluto's palace, by darkness 
 visible. 
 
 MKS. ELIZABETH MONTAGU TO GILBERT WEST. 
 
 Sandleford, September 3, 1753. 
 I am much obliged to my dear cousin for 
 his kind and agi-eeable letter, which gave mc a 
 higher pleasure and more intense delight than 
 those rural objects which employed my atten- 
 tion in my walks, or filled the magic lantern of 
 my mind, in those noonday dreams you suppose 
 to have amused me. You are mistaken, when 
 
 A A very I'at man. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 147 
 
 you imagine I sent invitations to beaux and 
 belles, to fiU the vacant apartments of my mind. 
 True, indeed, that there may be empty space 
 enough to receive French hoops, and, from the 
 same reason, an echo to repeat French senti- 
 ments ; but there are few of the fine world 
 whom I should invite into my mind, and fewer 
 still who are familiar enough there to come 
 unasked. I make use of these seasons of 
 retirement and leisure to do like the good 
 housewives, to sweep the rooms, range the 
 little homely furniture in order, and deck 
 them with a little sage and other herbs of 
 grace, as they are called, and then hope the 
 fairies will come and visit them, and not the 
 dull creatures of earth's mould, of whom I 
 have enough when I am in town. But you 
 are a welcome and a frequent guest, because 
 you bring with you those virtues and graces 
 whose presence I would desire. I am pleased 
 with your praise of Lloliere, but not with your 
 application of his Misanthrope. When virtue 
 and wisdom live out of the world, they grow 
 delicate, but it is too severe to call that 
 moroseness ; and, perhaps, they lose something 
 of their purity when they mix with the crowd, 
 and abate in strength as they imj^rove in 
 flexibility. There is a limit, and a short one 
 too, beyond which human virtue cannot go ; a 
 hair's breadth beyond the line, and it is vice. 
 I am now satisfied of what I had before believed 
 (as you seem so much to admire the Misan- 
 thrope), that it is far beyond all comedies 
 that ever were written, the character being 
 so entirely kept up, and the error, though 
 everjrwhere visible, nowhere monstrous. The 
 Misanthrope has the same moroseness in his 
 love suit and his law siiit ; he is as rigid and 
 severe to a bad verse as a bad action, and as 
 strict in a salutation in the street or address 
 in a drawing-room as he would be in his 
 testimony in a court of justice ; right in the 
 principle, wrong only in the excess, you cannot 
 hate him when he is unpleasant, nor despise 
 him when he is absurd. "VYhen the ground- 
 work of a character is virtuous, whatever 
 fantastic forms or uncouth figures may be 
 wrought upon it, it cannot appear absolutely 
 odious or ridiculous. On the contrary, where 
 the ground is vicious, however prettily adorned 
 or gaily coloured, set it in open day, it will be 
 detestable ; of which we have an instance in 
 this play; we hate and despise the lively 
 agreeable coquette as soon as we discover her, 
 and esteem the rigid, unamiable Misanthrope. 
 I think my young cousin can hardly have a 
 better amusement than reading Moliere ; from 
 whose delicate wit and nice satirical touch, he 
 will find that not only the worst passions want 
 correction and restraint, but the best regula- 
 tion. The first prayer I should make, if I had 
 a son, would be that he might be free from 
 ! vice ; the second, that he might be free from 
 
 absurdity : the least grain of it spoils a whole 
 character, and I do not know any comic author 
 moi-e useful than Moliere for both these 
 purposes. Our English play- writers give some 
 vice or affectation to all their principal cha- 
 racters. I am very well, and careful of my 
 health ; all peoj^le are fond of novelty, and you • 
 know health is such to me ; but nothing can 
 more recommend it to me, than thinking my 
 welfare of consequence to you. Adieu, Cousin ! 
 I must put on a great hoojD, and go three miles 
 to dinner ; how much better was our gipsy- 
 life ! I believe I shall enter myself of the 
 society at Norwood, the rather tempted to it as 
 I should be your neighbour. I have not heard 
 from Mrs. Boscawen, but I am glad she had the 
 pleasure of spending some time at Wickham. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Hill Street, 1754. 
 My most inestimable Cousin,— I am much 
 more satisfied now I find that your indisposition 
 was owing to tlie rencontre of salt fish, milk, 
 and a strange olio of diet, than wheia I imagined 
 it was the gout in your stomach. But pity, 
 which sometimes subsides into soft passions, on 
 this occasion warms and hardens into anger. 
 Why, when an invalid, would you be so careless 
 of your diet? However diflScult it may be to 
 the strong temper of the budge doctors of the 
 stoic fur, to run mad with discretion, I assure you 
 it is not impossible to the gentle dame in blonde 
 lace and Paris hoop; I followed the in-ecepts 
 of the trh precieuse Lady Grace, and visited 
 'soberly.' I have not been out since Sunday, 
 Mr. Montagu's cold having given me a reason for 
 staying at home, and my indolence would have 
 been glad even of an excuse. I did not see 
 Sir George Lyttelton till yesterday morning, 
 but the account he gave of your health pleased 
 me very much. The good Dean called in the 
 evening, and unfolded to me the horrid tale of 
 the salt fish and asses' milk. Oh, could the 
 milky mother, who is so often insulted, so 
 much despised and oppressed by man, have 
 known his perverseness of api^etite would have 
 turned her salutary milk, the effect of prudent 
 and fit diet, into a kind of poison, how wovild 
 she have animadverted upon the occasion? I 
 dare say she would have made better observa- 
 tions on the different powers of reason and 
 instinct than have been made by any philosopher 
 on two legs. I wish I had her critique upon 
 human reason, in black and white, with her 
 modest apology for long ears and walking on 
 four legs. I have just received Mr. Bower's 
 third volume of the Pop)es, with so polite an 
 Italian epistle, as shows he can play what note 
 he pleases on Apollo's harp. I had the pleasure 
 of seeing Mr. Berenger on Monday morning : he 
 has been under discipline for his eyes, but his 
 spirits and vivacity are not abated. Pray, has 
 
148 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Mr. Birch sent you his Queen Elizabeth? I 
 have not seen it, and I know I shall read it 
 with sorrow. A belle passion at threescore is 
 ■worse than eating salt fish in the gout. I shall 
 hate these collectors of anecdotes, if they cure 
 one of that admiration of a great character 
 that arises from a pleasing deception of sight. 
 I desire you not to read aloud this part of 
 Queen Bess's story when the ass is at your 
 door ; it would make a bad chapter for us in 
 her history of human reason, sixty odd to 
 twenty-one ! instinct never made such a blunder. 
 An old woman and a young man, a sin against 
 nature ; an old queen and a young counsellor, 
 a sin against politics and prudence. ' Ambition 
 should be made of sterner stuff.' I shall begin 
 to believe Madame Scudery's romances, in 
 which Lucretia is adroit at intrigue, the stern 
 Brutus a whining lover, and Cato the censor 
 admirable at writing the billet-doux. I cannot 
 forgive Mr. Birch for bringing this story to 
 light in such a manner ; I supposed with 
 Shakespeare that, in spite of Cupid's idle 
 darts, 'she passed on in maiden meditation 
 fancy free.' I should have written to you 
 before if I had not been in hopes Mr. Montagu's 
 cold would have given me some room to flatter 
 myself with a visit to Wickham. 
 
 LETTER OF ADVICE FROM SIR JOSflUA REYNOLDS 
 TO A YOUNG ARTIST (MR. BARRY). 
 
 1769. 
 
 Dear Sir,— I am very much obliged to you 
 for your remembrance of me in your letter to 
 Mr. Burke, which, though I have read with 
 great pleasure as a composition, I cannot help 
 saying with some regret to find that so great a 
 liortion of your attention has been engaged 
 upon temporary matters, which might be so 
 much more profitably employed upon what 
 would stick by you through your whole life. 
 
 Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or 
 indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind 
 to bear upon that one object, from the moment 
 he rises till he goes to bed ; the effect of every 
 object that meets the painter's eye may give 
 him a lesson, i^rovided his mind is calm, 
 unembarrassed with other objects, and open to 
 instruction. This general attention, with other 
 studies connected with the art, which must 
 employ the artist in his closet, will be found 
 sufficient to fill up life if it was much longer 
 than it is. Were I in your place, I would 
 consider myself as playing a great game, and 
 never suffer the little malice and envy of my 
 rivals to draw off my attention from the main 
 object ; which, if you pursue with a steady 
 eye, it will not be in the power of all the 
 cicerones in the world to hurt you. Wliilst 
 they are endeavouring to prevent the gentlemen 
 from employing the young artists, instead of 
 
 injuring them, they are, in my opinion, doing 
 them the greatest service. 
 
 AVhilst I was at Rome I was very little 
 employed by them, and that I always con- 
 sidered as so much time lost. Copying those 
 ornamental pictures, which the travelling gentle- 
 men always bring home with them as furniture 
 for their houses, is far from being the most pro- 
 fitable manner of a student spending his time. 
 
 Whoever has great views I would recommend 
 to him, whilst at Rome, rather to live on bread 
 and water, than lose those advantages which 
 he can never hope to enjoy a second time, and 
 which he will find only in the Vatican ; where, 
 I will engage, no cavalier sends his students to 
 copy for him. I do not mean this as any 
 reproach to the gentlemen ; the works in that 
 place, though they are the proper study of an 
 artist, make but an awkward figure painted in 
 oil, and reduced to the size of easel pictures. 
 The Capella Sistina is the production of the 
 greatest genius that was ever employed in the 
 arts ; it is worth considering by what principles 
 that stupendous greatness of style is produced ; 
 and endeavouring to produce something of your 
 own on those principles, will be a more 
 advantageous method of study than copying 
 the St. Cecilia in the Borghese, or the Herodias 
 of Guide, which may be copied to eternity 
 without contributing one jot towards making a 
 man a more able painter. 
 
 If you neglect visiting the Vatican often, and 
 particularly the Capella Sistina, you will 
 neglect receiving that pecvdiar advantage which 
 Rome can give above all other cities in the 
 world. In other places you will find casts from 
 the antique, and capital pictures of the great 
 painters, but it is there only that you can form 
 an idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there 
 only that you can see the works of Michael 
 Angelo and Raffaelle. If you should not relish 
 them at first, which may probably be the case, 
 as they have none of those qualities which are 
 captivating at first sight, never cease looking 
 till you feel something like inspiration come 
 over you, till you think every other painter 
 insipid in comparison, and to be admired only 
 for petty excellences. 
 
 I suppose you have heard of the establishment 
 of a Royal Academy here ; the first opportunity 
 I have I will send you the discourse I delivered 
 at its opening, which was the first of January. 
 I am, with the greatest esteem, yours, 
 
 J. Reynolds. 
 
 [The following letters of Goldsmith's are largely 
 autobiographical, and give a charmingly 
 realistic account of several episodes in his 
 career that will be familiar to all who have 
 perused any one of the numerous bio- 
 graphies of the genial poet and essayist.] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 149 
 
 OLIVEK GOLDSMITH TO MRS. ANNE GOLDSMITH. 
 
 1751. 
 
 Mt dear Mother,— If you will sit down and 
 calmly listen to what I say, you shall be fully 
 resolved in every one of those many questions 
 you have asked me. I went to Cork and con- 
 verted my horse, which you prize so much 
 higher than Fiddleback, into cash, took my 
 passage in a ship bound for America, and, at 
 the same time, paid the captain for my freight 
 and all the other expenses of my voyage. But 
 it so happened that the wind did not answer 
 for three weeks ; and you know, mother, that 
 I could not command the elements. My mis- 
 fortune was that when the wind served I hap- 
 pened to be with a party in the country, and my 
 friend the captain never inquired after me, but 
 set sail with as much indifference as if I had 
 been on board. The remainder of my time 
 I employed in the city and its environs, viewing 
 everything curious ; and you know no one can 
 starve while he has money in his pocket. 
 
 Eeduced, however, to my last two guineas, I 
 began to think of my dear mother and friends 
 whom I had left behind me, and so bought that 
 generous beast Fiddleback, and made adieu to 
 Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. 
 This to be sure was but a scanty allowance for 
 man and horse towards a journey of above a 
 hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I 
 knew I must find friends on the road. 
 
 I recollected particularly an old and faithful 
 acquaintance I made at college, who had often 
 and earnestly jpressed me to spend a summer 
 with him, and he lived but eight miles from 
 Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would 
 expatiate on to me with peculiar emphasis. 
 * "We shall,' says he, ' enjoy the delights of both 
 city and country, and you shall command my 
 stable and my purse.' 
 
 However, upon the way, I met a poor woman 
 all in tears, who told me her husband had been 
 arrested for a debt he was not able to pay, and 
 that his eight children must now starve, bereaved 
 as they were of his industry, which had been 
 their only support. I thought myself at home, 
 being not far from my good friend's house, and 
 therefore parted with a moiety of all my store ; 
 and pray, mother, ought I not to have given her 
 the other half-crown, for what she got would be 
 of little use to her? However, I soon arrived at 
 tha mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded 
 by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at 
 me, and would have torn me to pieces but for 
 the assistance of a woman, whose countenance 
 was not less grim than that of the dog ; yet she 
 with great humanity relieved me from the jaws 
 of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry 
 up my name to her master. 
 
 Without suffering me to wait long, my old 
 friend, who was then recovering from a severe 
 fit of sickness, came down in his night-cap, 
 
 night-gown, and slippers, and embraced me 
 with the most cordial welcome, showed me in, 
 and, after giving me a history of his indis- 
 position, assured me that he considered himself 
 peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof 
 the man he most loved on earth, and whose 
 stay with him must, above all things, contribute 
 to his perfect recovery. I now repented sorely 
 I had not given the poor woman the other half- 
 crown, as I thought all my biUs of humanity 
 would be punctually answered by this worthy 
 man. I revealed to him my whole soul ; I 
 opened to him all my distresses ; and freely 
 owned that I had but one half-crown in my 
 pocket ; but that now, like a ship weather- 
 ing out the storm, I considered myself secure in 
 a safe and hospitable harbour. He made no 
 answer, but walked about the room rubbing 
 his hands as one in deep study. This I imputed 
 to the sympathetic feelings of a tender heart, 
 which increased my esteem for him, and, as 
 that increased, I gave the most favourable in- 
 terpretation to his silence. I construed it into 
 delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded to wound 
 my pride by expressing his commiseration in 
 words, leaving his generous conduct to speak 
 for itself. 
 
 It now approached six o'clock in the evening, j 
 and as I had eaten no breakfast, and as my 
 spirits were raised, my appetite for dinner grew 
 uncommonly keen. At length the old woman 
 came into the room with two jjlates, one spoon, 
 and a dirty cloth, which she laid upon the table. 
 This appearance, without increasing my spirits, 
 did not diminish my appetite. My protectress 
 soon returned with a small bowl of sago, a small 
 porringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown 
 bread, and the heel of an old cheese all over 
 crawling with mites. My friend apologized that 
 his illness obliged him to live on slops, and that 
 better fare was not in the house ; observing, at 
 the same time, that a milk diet was certainly 
 the most healthful ; and at eight o'clock he 
 again recommended a regular life, declaring 
 that for his part he would lie down with the 
 lamb and rise with the lark. My hunger was 
 at this time so exceedingly sharp that I wished 
 for another slice of the loaf, but was obliged to 
 go to bed without even that refreshment. 
 
 This lenten entertainment I had received made 
 me resolve to depart as soon as possible : ac- 
 cordingly next morning, when I spoke of going, 
 he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather 
 commended my design, adding some very sage 
 counsel upon the occasion. 'To be sure,' said 
 he, ' the longer you stay away from your mother 
 the more you will grieve her and youi' other 
 friends ; and possibly they are already afflicted 
 at hearing of this foolish expedition you have 
 made.' Notwithstanding all this, and without 
 any hope of softening such a sordid heart, I 
 again renewed the tale of my distress, and ask- 
 ing 'how he thought I could travel above a 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 150 
 
 hundred miles upon one half-crown ? ' I begged 
 to borrow a single guinea, which I assured him 
 should be repaid with thanks. ' And you know, 
 sir,' said I, 'it is no more than I have often 
 done for you.' To which he firmly answered, 
 * Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither 
 here nor there, I have paid you all you ever 
 lent me, and this sickness of mine has left me 
 bare of cash. But I have bethought myself of a 
 conveyance for you ; sell your horse and I will 
 furnish you with a much better one to ride on.' 
 I readily grasped at this proposal, and begged to 
 see the nag ; on which he led me to his bed- 
 chamber, and from under the bed he pulled out 
 a stout oak stick. ' Here he is,' said he ; ' take 
 this in your hand, and it will carry you to your 
 mother with more safety than such a horse as 
 you ride.' I was in doubt, when I got it into 
 my hand, whether I should not, in the first 
 place, apply it to his pate ; but a rap at the 
 street door made the wretch fly to it, and when 
 I returned to the parlour, he introduced me, as 
 if nothing of the kind had happened, to the 
 gentleman who entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his 
 most ingenious and worthy friend, of whom he 
 had so often heard him speak with raj)ture. I 
 could scarcely compose myself ; and must have 
 betrayed indignation in my mien to the stranger, 
 who was a counsellor-at-law in the neigh- 
 bourhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite 
 address. 
 
 After spending an hour, he asked my friend 
 and me to dine with him at his house. This I 
 declined at first, as I wished to have no further 
 communication with my hospitable friend ; but 
 at the solicitation of both I at last consented, 
 determined as I was by two motives : one, that 
 I was prejudiced in favour of the looks and 
 manner of the coimsellor ; and the other, that 
 I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And 
 there, indeed, I found everything that I could 
 wish, abundance without profusion, and ele- 
 gance without affectation. In the evening, 
 when my old friend, who had eaten very 
 plentifully at his neighbour's table, but talked 
 again of lying down with the lamb, made a 
 motion to me for retiring, our generous host 
 requested I should take a bed with him, upon 
 which I plainly told my old friend that he 
 might go home and take care of the horse he 
 had given me, but that I should never re-enter 
 his doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving 
 me to add this to the other little things the coun- 
 sellor already knew of his plausible neighbour. 
 
 And now, my dear mother, I found s\xfficient 
 to reconcile me to all my follies ; for here I 
 spent three whole days. The counsellor had 
 two sweet girls to his daughters, who pl'ayed 
 enchantingly on the harpsichord ; and yet it 
 was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first 
 time I heard them ; for that being the first 
 time also that either of them had touched the 
 instrument since their mother's death, I saw 
 
 the tears in silence trickle down their father's 
 cheeks. I every day endeavoured to go away, 
 but every day was pressed and obliged to stay. 
 On my going, the counsellor offered me his 
 purse, with a horse and servant to convey me 
 home ; but the latter I declined, and only took 
 a guinea to bear my necessary exj)enses on the 
 road. Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 TO EGBERT BRTANTON, ESQ. 
 
 Edinburgh, Sept. 26, 1753. 
 
 My dear Bob, — How many good excuses 
 (and you know I was ever good at an excuse) 
 might I call up to vindicate my past shameful 
 silence ! I might tell how I wrote a long letter 
 on my first coming hither, and seem vastly 
 angry at my not receiving an answer ; I might 
 allege that business (with business you know I 
 was always pestered) had never given me time 
 to finger a pen ; but I suppress these and 
 twenty more equally plausible, and as easily 
 invented, since they might be attended with a 
 slight inconvenience of being known to be lies. 
 Let me then speak truth ; an hereditary indo- 
 lence (I have it from the mother's side) has 
 hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still 
 prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters 
 more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turn- 
 spit dog gets up into his wheel with more 
 reluctance than I sit down to write ; yet no 
 dog ever loved the i-oast meat he turns better 
 than I do him I now address. Yet what shall 
 I say now I'm entered ? Shall I tire you with 
 a description of this unfruitful coimtry, where 
 I must lead you over their hills all brown with 
 heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a 
 rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only 
 creature who has arrived to the natural size 
 in this poor soil. Every part of the country 
 presents the same dismal landscape. No grove 
 nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, 
 or make the inhabitants forget their poverty; 
 yet with all these disadvantages, enough to call 
 him down to humility, a Scotchman is one of 
 the proudest things alive. The poor have 
 pride ever ready to relieve them : — if mankind 
 should happen to desj^ise them, they are masters 
 of their own admiration ; and that they can 
 plentifully bestow upon themselves. 
 
 From their pride and poverty, I take it, results 
 one advantage this country enjoys, namely, the 
 gentlemen here are much better bred than 
 amongst us. No such characters here as our 
 fox-hunters ; and they have expressed great 
 surprise when I informed them that some men 
 in Ireland of £1000 a year spend their whole 
 lives in running after a hare, drinking to be 
 drunk, and getting every girl that will let them 
 with child : and truly, if such a being, equipped 
 in his hunting-dress, came among a circle of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Scotch gentry, they would behold him with the 
 same astonishment that a countryman would 
 King George on horseback. 
 
 The men here have generally high cheek- 
 bones, and are lean and swarthy, fond of action, 
 dancing in particular. Though noAv I mention 
 dancing, let me say something of their balls, 
 which are very frequent here. When a stranger 
 enters the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the 
 room taken up with ladies, who sit dismally 
 in a group by themselves. On the other end 
 stand their pensive partners that are to be ; but 
 no more intercourse between the sexes than 
 there is between two countries at war : — the 
 ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen 
 sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer com- 
 merce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the 
 lady directress or intendant, or what you will, 
 pitches on a gentleman and lady to walk a 
 minuet, which they perform with a formality 
 that approaches to despondence. After five or 
 six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all 
 stand up to country dances, each gentleman 
 furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady 
 directress ; so they dance much and say nothing, 
 arid thus concludes our assembly. I told a 
 Scotch gentleman that such profound silence re- 
 sembled the ancient procession of the Roman 
 matrons in honour of Ceres, and the Scotch 
 gentleman told me (and faith, I believe he was 
 right) that I was a very great pedant for my 
 pains. 
 
 Now I am come to the ladies, and to show that 
 I love Scotland, and everything that belongs to 
 so charming a country, I insist on it, and will 
 give him leave to break my head that denies it, 
 that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times 
 handsomer and finer than the Irish ; — to be sure 
 now I see your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly 
 surprised at my partiality, but tell them flatly, 
 I don't value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, 
 
 or good sense, or , a potato ; for I say it, and 
 
 will maintain it, and as a convincing proof (I'm 
 in a very great passion) of what I assert, the 
 Scotch ladies say it themselves. But to be less 
 serious : where will you find a language so 
 pretty become a pretty mouth as the broad 
 Scotch? and the women here speak it in its 
 highest purity ; for instance, teach one of 
 their young ladies to pronounce ' Whoar wull I 
 gong?' with a becoming wideness of mouth, 
 and I'll lay my life they will wound every 
 hearer. 
 
 We have no such character here as a coquette ; 
 but, alas ! how many envious prudes ! Some 
 days ago I walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's 
 (don't be surprised, ray lord is but a glover), 
 when the Duchess of Hamilton ^ (that fair who 
 sacrificed her beauty to ambition, and her in- 
 ward peace to a title and gilt equipage) passed 
 
 1 Elizabeth Gunning, the most beautiful woman in 
 the world. 
 
 by in her chariot ; her battered husband, or more 
 properly the guardian of her charms, sat by her 
 side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no 
 less than three ladies who sat with me, to find 
 faults in her faultless form. 'For my part,' 
 says the first, ' I think, what I always thought, 
 that the duchess has too much red in her com- 
 plexion.' 'Madam, I'm of your opinion,' says 
 the second ; ' I think her face has a palish cast 
 too much on the delicate order.' 'And let "Yne 
 tell you,' adds the third lady, whose mouth was 
 puckered up to the size of an issue, ' that the 
 duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth.' 
 At this every lady drew up her mouth as if going 
 to i^ronounce the letter P. 
 
 But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to 
 ridicule women with whom I have scarce any cor- 
 respondence ! There are, 'tis certain, handsome 
 women here ; and 'tis as certain there are hand- 
 some men to keep them company. An ugly and 
 a poor man is society for himself ; and such 
 society the world lets me enjoy in great abund- 
 ance. Fortune has given you circumstances, and 
 nature a i^erson to look charming in the eyes of 
 the fair world. Nor do I envy, my dear Bob, 
 such blessings, while I may sit down and laugh 
 at the world, and at myself, the most ridiculous 
 object in it. But I begin to grow splenetic ; and 
 perhaps the fit may continue till I receive an 
 answer to this. I know you can't send news 
 from B[ally]mahon, but such as it is send it all ; 
 everything you write will be agreeable and 
 entertaining to me. Has George Conway put 
 up a sign yet ? or John Finecly left off drinking 
 drams? or Tom Allen got a new wig? but I 
 leave to your own choice what to write. — 
 While Oliver Goldsmith lives, know you 
 have a friend. 
 
 P.S. — Give my sincere regards (not compli- 
 ments, do you mind) to your agreeable family, 
 and give my service to my mother if you see 
 her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have a 
 sneaking kindness for her still. 
 
 Direct to me , Student in Physic, in 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 TO THE REV. THOMAS CONTARINE. 
 
 Leyden, April or May 1754. 
 Dear Sir, — I suppose by this time I am 
 accused of either neglect or ingratitude, and 
 my silence imputed to my usual slowness of 
 writing. But, believe me, sir, when I say, that 
 till now I had not an opportunity of sitting 
 down with that ease of mind which writing 
 required. You may see by the top of the 
 letter that I am at Leyden ; but of my journey 
 hither you must be informed. Some time after 
 the receipt of your last, I embarked for Bour- 
 deaux, on board a Scotch ship called the 
 St. Andrews, Capt. John Wall, master. The 
 
152 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ship made a tolerable appearance, and. as 
 another inducement, I was let to know that six 
 agreeable passengers were to be my company. 
 "Well, we were but two days at sea when a storm 
 drave us into a city of England called Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh us 
 after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and 
 I were one day on shore, and on the following 
 evening, as we were all very merry, the room 
 doOr bursts open, enters a sergeant and twelve 
 grenadiers, with their bayonets screwed, and 
 puts us all under the King's arrest. It seems my 
 company were Scotchmen in the French service, 
 and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the 
 French army. I endeavoured all I could to prove 
 my innocence ; however, I remained in prison 
 ^vith the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got 
 off even then. Dear sir, keep this all a secret, or 
 at least say it was for debt ; for if it were once 
 knovm at the university, I should hardly get a 
 degree. But hear how Providence interposed 
 in my favour : the ship was gone on to Bour- 
 deaux before I got from prison, and was wrecked 
 at the mouth of the Garonne, and every one of 
 the crew were drowned. It happened the last 
 great storm. There was a ship at that time 
 ready for Holland : I embarked, and in nine 
 days, thank my God, I arrived safe at Rotter- 
 dam, whence I travelled by land to Leyden, and 
 whence I now write. 
 
 You may expect some account of this country, 
 and though I am not well qualified for such an 
 undertaking, yet shall I endeavour to satisfy 
 some part of your expectations. Nothing sur- 
 l^rised me more than the books every day 
 published, descriptive of the manners of this 
 country. Any young man who takes it into 
 his head to publish his travels, visits the 
 countries he intends to describe ; passes through 
 them with as much inattention as his valet-de- 
 chambre; and consequently not having a fund 
 himself to fill a volume, he applies to those 
 who wrote before him, and gives us the 
 manners of a country, not as he must have 
 seen them, but such as they might have been 
 fifty years before. The modern Dutchman is 
 quite a different creature from him of former 
 times : he in everything imitates a Frenchman 
 but in his easy, disengaged air, which is the 
 result of keeping polite company. The Dutch- 
 man is vastly ceremonious, and is perhaps 
 exactly what a Frenchman might have been in 
 the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better 
 bred. But the downright Hollander is one 
 of the oddest figures in nature : upon a head 
 of lank hair he wears a half-cocked narrow 
 hat laced with black ribbon : no coat, but 
 seven waistcoats, and nine pairs of breeches ; 
 so that his hips reach almost up to his arm- 
 jnts. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit 
 to see company, or make love. But what a 
 pleasing creature is the object of his appetite ! 
 Why, she wears a large fur cap with a deal of 
 
 Flanders lace ; and for every pair of breeches 
 he carries, she puts on two petticoats. 
 
 A Dutch lady burns nothing about her 
 phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You 
 must know, sir, every woman carries in her 
 hand a stove with coals in it, which, when 
 she sits, she snugs under her petticoats : and 
 at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his 
 pipe. I take it that this continual smoking 
 is what gives the man the ruddy healthful 
 complexion he generally wears, by draining 
 his superfluous moisture, while the woman, 
 deprived of this amusement, overflows with 
 such viscidities as tint the complexion, and 
 give that paleness of visage which low fenny 
 grounds and mpist air conspire to cause. A 
 Dutch woman and Scotch will well bear an 
 opposition. The one is pale and fat, the other 
 lean and ruddy : the one walks as if she were 
 straddling after a go-cart, and the other takes 
 too masculine a stride. I shall not endeavour 
 to deprive either country of its share of beauty ; 
 but must say, that of all objects on this earth, 
 an English farmer's daughter is most charming. 
 Every woman there is a complete beauty, while 
 the higher class of women want many of the 
 requisites to make them even tolerable. Their 
 pleasures here are very dull though very various. 
 You may smoke, you may doze, you may go to 
 the Italian comedy, as good an amusement 
 as either of the former. This entertainment 
 always brings in Harlequin, who is generally a 
 magician, and in consequence of his diabolical 
 art performs a thousand tricks on the rest of 
 the persons of the drama, who are all fools. 
 I have seen the pit in a roar of laughter at 
 this humour, when with his sword he touches 
 the glass from which another was drinking. 
 'Twas not his face they laughed at, for that 
 was masked. They must have seen something 
 vastly queer in the wooden sword, that neither 
 I, nor you, sir, were you there, could see. 
 
 In winter, when their canals are frozen, 
 every house is forsaken, and all people are on 
 the ice ; sleds drawn by horses, and skating, 
 are at that time the reigning amusements. 
 They have boats here that slide on the ice, 
 and ai-e driven by the winds. When they 
 spread all their sails they go more than a mile 
 and a half a minute, and their motion is so 
 rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. 
 Their ordinary manner of travelling is very 
 cheap and very convenient : they sail in 
 covered boats drawn by horses ; and in these 
 you are sure to meet people of all nations. 
 Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, 
 and the English play at cards. Any man who 
 likes company may have them to his taste. 
 For my part I generally detach myself from 
 aU society, and was wholly taken up in 
 observing the face of the country. Nothing 
 can equal its beauty; wherever I turn my 
 eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 grottoes, vistas, presented themselves ; but, 
 when you enter their towns you are charmed 
 beyond description. No misery is to be seen 
 here ; every one is usefully employed. 
 
 Scotland and this country bear the highest 
 contrast. There hills and rocks intercept every 
 prospect ; here 'tis all a continued plain. There 
 you might see a well-dressed duchess issuing 
 from a dirty close ; and here a dirty Dutchman 
 inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be com- 
 pared to a tulip planted in dung ; but I never 
 see a Dutchman in his own house but I think 
 of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated 
 to an ox. Physic is by no means here taught 
 so well as in Edinburgh ; and in all Leyden 
 there are but four British students, owing to 
 all necessaries being so extremely dear, and 
 the professors so very lazy (the chemical pro- 
 fessor excepted) that we don't much care to 
 come hither. I am not certain how long my 
 stay here may be ; however, I expect to have 
 the happiness of seeing you at Kilmore, if I 
 can, next March. 
 
 Direct to me, if I am honoured with a letter 
 from you, to Madame Diallion's, at Leyden. 
 
 Thou best of men, may Heaven guard and 
 preserve you, and those you love. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your punctuality in answering 
 a man, whose trade is writing, is more than I 
 had reason to expect ; and yet you see me 
 generally fill a whole sheet, which is all the 
 recompense I can make for being so frequently 
 troublesome. The behaviour of Mr. Mills and 
 Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. How- 
 ever, their answering neither you nor me is 
 a sufficient indication of their disliking the 
 employment which I assigned them. As their 
 conduct is different from what I expected, so 
 I have made an alteration in mine. I shall, 
 the beginning of next month, send over two 
 hundred and fifty books, which are all that 
 I fancy can be well sold among you, and I 
 would have you make some distinction in the 
 persons who have subscribed. The money, 
 which will amount to sixty pounds, may be 
 left with Mr. Bradley, as soon as possible. I 
 am not certain but I shall quickly have occasion 
 for it. I have met with no disappointment with 
 respect to my East Indian voyage ; nor are my 
 resolutions altered ; though, at the same time, 
 I must confess it gives me some pain to think 
 I am almost beginning the world at the age of 
 thirty-one. Though I never had a day's sick- 
 ness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong 
 and active man you once knew me. You 
 scarcely can conceive how much eight years 
 
 of disappointment, anguish, and study have 
 worn me down. If I remember right, you are 
 seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare 
 venture to say, that if a stranger saw us both, 
 he would pay me the honours of seniority. 
 Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, 
 with two great wrinkles between the eye- 
 brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and 
 a big wig, and you may have a perfect picture 
 of my present appearance. On the other hand, 
 I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, 
 passing many a happy day among your own 
 children, or those who knew you a child. 
 Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is 
 a pleasure I have not known. I have passed 
 my days among a parcel of cool designing 
 beings, and have contracted all their susi)icious 
 manner in my own behaviour. I should actually 
 be as unfit for the society of my friends at 
 home, as I detest that which I am obliged to 
 partake of here. I can now neither partake 
 of the pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to 
 raise its jollity. I can neither laugh nor drink, 
 have contracted a hesitating, disagreeable 
 manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill- 
 nature itself ; in short, I have thought myself 
 into a settled melancholy, and an utter disgust 
 of all that life brings with it. Whence this 
 romantic turn, that all our family are possessed 
 with? Whence this love for every place and 
 every country but that in which we reside ? for 
 every occupation but our own? this desire of 
 fortune, and yet this eagerness to dissipate ? 
 I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals 
 for indulging this splenetic manner, and follow- 
 ing my own taste, regardless of yours. 
 
 The reasons you have given me for breeding 
 up your son as a scholar are judicious and 
 convincing. I should, however, be glad to 
 know for what particular profession he is 
 designed. If he be assiduous, and divested of 
 strong passions (for passions in youth always 
 lead to pleasure), he may do very well in 
 your college ; for it must be owned that the 
 industrious poor have good encouragement 
 there, perhaps better than in any other in 
 Europe. But if he has ambition, strong 
 passions, and an exquisite sensibility of con- 
 tempt, do not send him there, unless you 
 have no other trade for him except your own. 
 It is impossible to conceive how much may be 
 done by a proper education at home. A boy, 
 for instance, who understands perfectly well 
 Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles 
 of the civil law, and can write a fine hand, 
 has an education that may qualify him for 
 any undertaking. And these parts of learning 
 should be carefully inculcated, let him be 
 designed for whatever calling he will. Above 
 all things, let him never touch a romance or 
 novel ; those paint beauty in colours more 
 charming than nature, and describe happiness 
 that man never tastes. How delusive, how 
 
154 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 destructive are those pictures of consummate 
 bliss ! They teach the youthful mind to sigh 
 after beauty and happiness which never 
 existed ; to despise the little good which 
 fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting 
 more than she ever gave ; and in general, take 
 the word of a man who has seen the world, 
 and who has studied human nature more by 
 experience than precept, — take my word for 
 it, that books teach us very little of the world. 
 The greatest merit in a state of poverty would 
 only serve to make the possessor ridiculous ; 
 may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, 
 and even avarice, in the lower orders of man- 
 kind, are true ambition. These afford the 
 only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. 
 Teach then, my dear sir, to your son thrift 
 and economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's 
 example be placed before his eyes. I had 
 learned from books to be disinterested and 
 generous, before I was taught from experience 
 the necessity of being prudent. I had con- 
 tracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, 
 while I was exposing myself to the insidious 
 approaches of cunning ; and often by being, 
 even with my narrow finances, charitable to 
 excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed 
 myself in the very situation of the wretch who 
 thanked me for my bounty. While I am in 
 the remotest part of the world tell him this, 
 and perhaps he may improve from my example. 
 But I find myself again falling into my gloomy 
 habits of thinking. 
 
 My mother, I am informed, is almost blind ; 
 even though I had the utmost inclination to 
 return home, under such circumstances I could 
 not ; for to behold her in distress without a 
 capacity of relieving her from it, would add too 
 miich to my splenetic habit. Your last letter 
 was much too short, it should have answered 
 some queries I had made in my former. Just 
 sit down as I do, and write forward until you 
 have filled all your paper; it requires no 
 j thought, at least from the ease with which my 
 own sentiments rise when they are addressed 
 to you. For, believe me, my head has no 
 share in all I write; my heart dictates the 
 whole. Pray, give my love to Bob Bryanton, 
 and entreat him, from me, not to di-ink. My 
 dear sir, give me some account about poor 
 Jenny (his younger sister, who had married 
 unprosperously). But her husband loves her ; 
 if so, she cannot be unhappy. 
 
 I know not whether I should tell you — yet 
 why should I conceal those trifles, or, indeed, 
 anything from you? — there is a book of mine 
 will be published in a few days, the life of a 
 very extraordinary man — no less than the great 
 Voltaire. You know already by the title, that 
 it is no more than a catch-penny. However, 
 I spent but four weeks on the whole perform- 
 ance, for which I received twenty pounds, 
 "When published, I shall take some method of 
 
 conveying it to you, unless you may think it 
 dear of the postage, which may amount to 
 four or five shillings. However, I fear you 
 will not find an equivalent of amusement. 
 Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; 
 you should have given me your opinion of the 
 design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent 
 you; you remember I intended to introduce 
 the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale- 
 house. You may take the following specimen of 
 the manner, which I flatter myself is quite 
 original. The room in which he lies may be 
 described somewhat this way : 
 
 The window, patched with paper, lent a ray, 
 That feebly showed tlie state in which he lay. 
 The sandy floor, that grits beneath the tread : 
 The humid wall with paltry pictures spread : 
 The game of goose was there exposed to view, 
 And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ; 
 The seasons framed with listing, found a place. 
 And Prussia's monarch showed his lamp-black face. 
 Tlie mom was cold ; he views with keen desire 
 A rusty grate unconscious of a fire. 
 An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 
 And five cracked teacups dressed the chimney l^oard. 
 
 And now imagine after his soliloquy, the 
 landlord to make his appearance, in order to 
 dun him for the reckoning : 
 
 Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
 That welcomes every stranger that can pay, 
 With sulky eye he smoak'd the patient man, 
 Then puU'd his breeches tight, and thus began, etc. 
 
 All this is taken, you see, from nature. It 
 is a good remark of Montaigne's, that the 
 wisest men often have friends with whom 
 they do not care how much they play the 
 fool. Take my present follies as instances of 
 regard. Poetry is a much easier, and more 
 agreeable, species of composition than prose ; 
 and, could a man live by it, it were not un- 
 l)leasant emj)loyment to be a poet. I am 
 resolved to leave no si)ace, though I should 
 fill it up only by telling you, what you very 
 well know already, — I mean, that I am your 
 most affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Paris, July 29, 1770. 
 My DEAR Friend, — I began a long letter 
 to you from Lisle, giving a description of all 
 that we had done and seen ; but finding it very 
 dull, and knowing that you would show it again, 
 I threw it aside, and it was lost. You see by 
 the top of this letter that we are at Paris, and 
 (as I have often heard you say) we have brought 
 our own amusement with us, for the ladies do 
 not seem to be very fond of what we have yet 
 seen. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 With regard to myself, I find that travelling 
 at twenty and at forty are very dilBFerent things. 
 I set out with all my confirmed habits about 
 me, and can find nothing on the Continent so 
 good as when I formerly left it. One of our 
 chief amusements here, is scolding at every- 
 thing we meet with, and in-aising everything 
 and every person we left at home. You 
 - may judge, therefore, whether your name 
 is not frequently bandied at table among us. 
 To tell you the truth, I never thought I could 
 regret your absence so much as our various 
 mortifications on the road have often taught 
 me to do. I could teU you of disasters and 
 adventures without number, of our lying in 
 barns, and of my being half-poisoned with a 
 dish of green peas, of our quarrelling with 
 postilions, and being cheated by our landladies, 
 but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I 
 expect to share with you on my return. 
 
 I have little to tell you more but that we 
 are at present all well, and expect returning 
 when we have stayed out one month, which I 
 should not care if it were over this very day. 
 I long to hear from you all ; how you your- 
 self do, how Johnson, Burke, Dyer, Chamier, 
 
 j Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish 
 I could send you some amusement in this 
 letter, but I protest I am so stupefied by the 
 air of this country (for I am sure it can never 
 be natural), that I have not a word to say. 
 I have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, 
 which shall be entitled, A Journey to Paris, 
 in which a family shall be introduced with a 
 full intention of going to France to save 
 money. You know there is not a place in the 
 world more promising for that purpose. As 
 for the meat of this country, I can scarce eat 
 it ; and though we pay two good shillings a 
 head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that 
 I have spent less time with my knife than my 
 pick-tooth. I said this as a good thing at table, 
 but it was understood. I believe it to be a 
 
 I good thing. 
 
 I As for our intended journey to Devonshire, 
 I find it out of my power to perform it ; for, 
 as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the 
 ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging 
 somewhere near that place in order to do some 
 business. I have so outrun the constable, that 
 I must mortify a little to bring it up again. 
 For God's sake, the night you receive this take 
 your pen in your hand, and tell me something 
 about yourself and myself, if you know of 
 anything that has happened. About Miss 
 Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my nephew, 
 or anybody that you regard. I beg you mil 
 send to Griffith, the bookseller, to know if 
 there be any letters left for me, and be so good 
 as to send them to me at Paris. They may, 
 perhaps, be left for me at the porter's lodge 
 opposite the pump in Temple Lane. The same 
 messenger will do. I expect one from Lord 
 
 Clare from Ireland. As for others, I am nut 
 much uneasy about. 
 
 Is there anything I can do for you at Paris ? 
 I wish you would tell me. The whole of my 
 own purchases here is one silk coat, which I 
 have i^ut on, and which makes me look like a 
 fooL But no more of that. I find that 
 Colman has gained his lawsuit. I am glad of 
 it. I supj)ose you often meet. I will soon 
 be among you, better pleased with my situation 
 at home than I ever was before. And yet I 
 must say, that if anything could make France 
 lileasant, the very good women with whom I 
 am at present would certainly do it. I could 
 say more about that, but I intend showing 
 them this letter before I send it away. What 
 signifies teasing you longer with moral obser- 
 vations, when the business of my writing is 
 over ? I have one thing only more to say, and 
 of that I think every hour in the day, namely, 
 that I am your most sincere and most alfec- 
 tionate friend, 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, 
 
 Ptue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains, 
 
 TO DAVID GARKICK, ESQ. 
 
 1773. 
 
 I^Iy DEAR Sir, — Your saying you would play 
 my Good-Natured 3Ian makes me wish it. The 
 money you advanced me upon Newbery's note, 
 I have the mortification to find is not yet paid, 
 but he says he will in two or three days. 
 What I mean by this letter is to lend me sixty 
 pounds, for which I will give you Newbery's 
 note, so that the whole of my debt will be a 
 hundred, for which you shall have Newbery's 
 note as a security. This may be paid either 
 from my alteration, if my benefit should come 
 to so much ; but at any rate, I will take care 
 you shall not be a loser. I will give you a new 
 character in my comedy, and knock out Lofty, 
 which does not do, and will make such other 
 alterations as you direct. I am yours, 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 I beg an answer. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 1773. 
 
 My DEAR Friend,— I thank you ! I wish I 
 could do something to serve you. I shall have 
 a comedy for you in a season or two at furthest, 
 that I believe will be worth your acceptance, 
 for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You 
 shall have the refusal. I wish you would not 
 take up Newbery's note, but let WalUs tease 
 him, without, however, coming to extremities ; 
 let him haggle after him and he will get it. 
 He owes it and will pay it. I'm sorry you are 
 
156 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ill. I will draw upon you one month after 
 date for sixty pound, and your acceptance will 
 be ready money, part of which I want to go 
 down to Barton with. May God preserve my 
 honest little man, for he has my heart. 
 Ever, Oliver Goldsmith, 
 
 TO ME. GRIFFITH. 1 
 
 January 1759. 
 
 Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to which 
 my own imiDrudences and your letter seem to 
 point. I have seen it inevitable these three or 
 four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as a 
 favour, — as a favour that may prevent something- 
 more fatal. I have been some years struggling 
 with a wretched being — with all that contempt 
 that indigence brings with it — with all those 
 passions which make contempt insupportable. 
 What, then, has a jail that is formidable? I 
 shall at least have the society of wretches, and 
 such is to me true society. I tell you, again 
 and again, that I am neither able nor willing to 
 pay you a farthing, but I will be i)unctual to 
 any appointment you or the jailor shall make ; 
 thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, 
 since, unable to i)ay my own debts one way, I 
 would generally give some security another. 
 No, sir ; had I been a sharper, — had I been 
 possessed of less good-nature and native gene- 
 rosity, — I might surely now have been in better 
 circumstances. 
 
 I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which 
 poverty unavoidably brings with it : my 
 reflections are filled with repentance for my 
 imprudence, but not with any remorse for 
 being a villain ; that may be a character you 
 unjustly charge me with. Your books, I can 
 assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but in 
 the custody of a friend, from whom my 
 necessities obliged me to borrow some money. 
 "Wliatever becomes of my i^erson, you shall have 
 them in a month. It is very possible both the 
 reports you have heard and your own sugges- 
 tions may have brought you false information 
 with respect to my character ; it is very 
 possible that the man whom you now regard 
 with detestation may inwardly burn with 
 grateful resentment. 
 
 It is very possible that, upon a second perusal 
 of the letter I sent you, you may see the 
 workings of a mind strongly agitated with 
 gratitude and jealousy. If such circumstances 
 should appear, at least spare invective till my 
 book with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and 
 
 1 Goldsmith's fortunes were sorely beclouded .at 
 this time, and this letter is la reply to Griffith the 
 bookseller, who had threatened to send him to prison 
 because he had i)awned a suit of clothes, which he 
 had lent him, to meet his more pressing necessities. 
 
 then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a 
 mind, when my professions shall not appear the 
 dictates of necessity, but of choice. 
 
 You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. 
 Perhaps so; but he was a man I shall ever 
 honoiu-; but I have friendships only with the 
 dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much 
 time; nor shall I add to it by any other 
 professions than that I am, sir, your humble 
 servant, Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 P.S. — I shall expect impatiently the result of 
 your resolutions. 
 
 TO MAURICE GOLDSMITH. 
 
 January 1770. 
 
 Dear Brother, — I should have answered 
 your letter sooner, but, in truth, I am not fond 
 of thinking of the necessities of those I love, 
 when it is so very little in my power to help 
 them. I am sorry to find you are every way 
 unprovided for; and what adds to my un- 
 easiness is, that I have received a letter from 
 my sister Johnson by which I learn that she is 
 pretty much in the same circumstances. As to 
 myself, I believe I think I could get both you 
 and my poor brother-in-law something like that 
 which you desire, but I am determined never 
 to ask for little things, nor exhaust any little 
 interest I may have, until I can serve you, 
 him, and myself more effectually. As yet, no 
 opportunity has offered ; but I believe you are 
 pretty well convinced that I will not be remiss 
 v>^hen it arrives. 
 
 The King has lately been pleased to make me 
 Professor of Ancient History in the Eoyal 
 Academy of Painting which he has just estab- 
 lished, but there is no salary annexed ; and I 
 took it rather as a compliment to the institu- 
 tion than any benefit to myself. Honours to 
 one in my situation are something like ruffles to 
 one that wants a shirt. 
 
 You tell me that there are fourteen or 
 fifteen pounds left me in the hands of my 
 cousin Lawder, and you ask me what I would 
 have done with them. My dear brother, I 
 would by no means give any directions to my 
 dear worthy relations at Kilmore how to dis- 
 pose of money which is, properly speaking, 
 more theirs than mine. All that I can say is, 
 that I entirely, and this letter will serve to 
 witness, give up any right and title to it ; and 
 I am sure they will dispose of it to the best 
 advantage. To them I entirely leave it ; 
 whether they or you may think the whole 
 necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor 
 sister Johnson may not want the half, I leave 
 entirely to their and your discretion. The 
 kindness of that good couple to our shattered 
 family demands our sincerest gratitude ; and 
 though they have almost forgotten me, yet, if 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 good things at last arrive, I hope one day to 
 return and increase their good-humour by 
 adding to my own. 
 
 I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature 
 picture of myself, as I believe it is the most 
 acceptable present I can offer. I have ordered 
 it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, 
 folded in a letter. 
 
 The face you well know is ugly enough, but 
 it is finely painted. I will shortly also send my 
 friends over the Shannon some mezzotint prints 
 of myself, and some more of my friends here, 
 such as Burke, Johnson, Eeynolds, and Colman. 
 I believe I have -wTitten a hundred letters to 
 different friends in your country, and never 
 received an answer to any of them. I do not 
 know how to account for this, or why they are 
 imwilling to keep up for me those regards 
 which I must ever retain for them. 
 
 If, then, you. have a mind to oblige me, you 
 will write often, whether I answer you or not. 
 Let me particularly have the news of our 
 family and old acquaintances. For instance, 
 you may begin by telling me about the family 
 where you reside, how they spend their time, 
 and whether they ever make mention of me. 
 Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson 
 and his son, my brother Harry's son and 
 daughter, my sister Johnson, the family of 
 Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where 
 they live, and how they do. You talked of 
 being my only brother. I don't understand 
 you. "Where is Charles? A sheet of paper 
 occasionally filled with the news of this kind 
 would make me very happy, and would keep 
 you nearer my mind. As it is, my dear 
 brother, believe me to be 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 [In all Burke's correspondence we could hardly 
 expect to meet with anything more strongly 
 marked by his 'uncommon qualities of head 
 and heart,' than this letter to the painter 
 Barry, upon the froward temper which had 
 involved him in bickerings with his brethren 
 and the picture-dealers at Rome. It is 
 affectionate, eloquent, prophetic, and per- 
 fectly adapted to the character of the 
 person to whom it was addressed. It is, 
 perhaps, to use the words of his biographer, 
 Mr. Prior, 'still more admirable for its 
 keen estimate of the importance of temper 
 and conduct to all men, for teaching the 
 truest wisdom in the practical business of 
 living, not merely in the world, but with 
 the world.' 'The conclusion,' says Allan 
 Cunningham, 'of this memorable letter 
 
 seems dictated by a spirit of inspiration, 
 which, looking mournfully and prophetically 
 forward, expressed in a few clear and 
 eloquent words the disastrous career of the 
 object of this solicitude.' It might be 
 studied as the summary of the life of this 
 unfortunate painter. Barry was born in 
 Cork, in 1741, and after acquiring in his 
 native city the rudiments of his art, he 
 went, at nineteen, friendless and unknown, 
 to Dublin, to exhibit an historical picture 
 which excited considerable admiration. On 
 this occasion he was introduced to the 
 notice of Burke, who thenceforward ex- 
 tended to him his powerful and generous 
 patronage. He directed his studies, 
 removed him, after an interval, to London, 
 made him known to the principal artists, 
 and subsequently, in conjunction with his 
 brother William, maintained him abroad 
 for five years, that he might perfect his 
 knowledge of art by the diligent study of 
 the greatest masters. — Willmott.'\ 
 
 EDMUND BURKE TO THE PAINTER BARRY. 
 
 Affectionate Interest in his Welfare. 
 
 Gregories, Sept. 16, 1769. 
 
 Mt DEAR Barry, — I am most exceedingly 
 obliged to your friendship and partiality, which 
 attributed a silence very blameable on our parts 
 to a favourable cause ; let me add in some 
 measure to its true cause, a great deal of 
 occupation of various sorts, and some of them 
 disagreeable enough. 
 
 As to any reports concerning your conduct 
 and behaviour, you may be very sure they could 
 have no kind of influence here ; for none of us 
 are of such a make as to trust to any one's 
 report for the character of a person whom we 
 ourselves know. Until very lately, I had never 
 heard anything of your i^roceedings from others, 
 and when I did, it was much less than I had 
 known from yourself, that you had been upon 
 ill terms with the artists and virtuosi in Eome, 
 without much mention of cause or consequence. 
 If you have improved these unfortunate quarrels 
 to your advancement in your art, you have 
 turned a very disagreeable circumstance to a 
 very capital advantage. However you may 
 have succeeded in this common attempt, j)ermit 
 me to suggest to you, with that friendly liberty 
 which you have always had the goodness to 
 bear from me, that you cannot possibly have 
 always the same success, either with regard to 
 your fortune or your repu.tation. Depend upon 
 it, that you will find the same competitions, 
 the same jealousies, the same arts and cabals. 
 
158 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 tlie emulations of interest and of fame, and the 
 same agitations and passions here, that you 
 have experienced in Italy ; and if they have the 
 same effect on your temper, they will have just 
 the same effects upon your interest ; and be 
 your merit what it will, you will never be 
 employed to paint a picture. It will be the 
 same at London as at Rome, and the same in 
 Paris as in London ; for the world is pretty 
 nearly alike in all its parts ; nay, though it 
 would, perhaps, be a little inconvenient to me, 
 I had a thousand times rather you should fix 
 your residence in Rome than here, as I should 
 not then have the mortification of seeing with 
 my own eyes, a genius of the first rank lost to 
 the world, himself, and his friends, as I certainly 
 must, if you do not assume a manner of acting 
 and thinking here, totally different from what 
 your letters from Rome have described to me. 
 
 That you have had subjects of indignation 
 always, and of anger often, I do no ways doubt ; 
 who can live in the world without some trial of 
 his i)atience ? Bat believe me, my dear Barry, 
 that the arms with which the ill dispositions of 
 the world are to be combated, and the qualities 
 by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we 
 reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a 
 little indulgence to others, and a great deal of 
 distrust of ourselves ; which are not qualities of 
 a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, 
 but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such 
 as dignify our nature as much as they con- 
 tribute to our repose and fortune ; for nothing 
 can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul, as 
 to pass away life in bickerings and litigations, 
 in snarling and scufiling with every one about us. 
 
 Again and again, my dear Barry, we must be 
 at i^eace with our species ; if not for their sakes, 
 yet very much for our own. Think what my 
 feelings must be, from my unfeigned regard, 
 and from my v/ishes that your talents might 
 be of use, when I see wliat the inevitable con- 
 sequences must be, of your persevering in what 
 has hitherto been your course, ever since I knew 
 you, and which you will permit me to trace 
 out for you beforehand. , 
 
 You will come here ; you will observe what 
 the artists are doing ; and you will sometimes 
 speak a disapprobation in plain words, and 
 sometimes by a no less expressive silence. By 
 degrees you will produce some of your own 
 works. They will be variously criticized ; you 
 will defend them ; you will abuse those that 
 have attacked you ; expostulations, discussions, 
 letters, possibly challenges, will go forward ; 
 you will shun your brethren, they will shun 
 you. In the meantime, gentlemen will avoid 
 your friendship, for fear of being engaged in 
 your quarrels ; you will fall into distresses 
 which will only aggravate your disposition for 
 further quarrels ; you v/ill be obliged, for 
 maintenance, to do anything for anybody ; your 
 very talents will depart for want of hope and 
 
 encouragement ; and you will go out of the 
 world fretted, disappointed, and ruined. 
 
 Nothing but my real regard for you could 
 induce me to set these considerations in this 
 light before you. Remember we are born to 
 serve and to adorn our country, and not to 
 contend with our fellow citizens, and that in 
 particular, your business is to i>aint and not to 
 dispute. [ 
 
 If you think this a proper time to leave j 
 Rome (a matter which I leave entirely to your- I 
 self), I am quite of opinion you ought to go j 
 to Venice. Further, I think it right to see | 
 Florence and Bologna ; and that you cannot do j 
 better than to take that route to Venice. In i 
 short, do everything that may contribute to I 
 your improvement, and I shall rejoice to see 
 you what Providence intended you, a very great 
 man. This you were, in your ideas, before you 
 quitted this ; you best know how far you have { 
 studied, that is, practised the mechanic, despised j 
 nothing till you had tried it ; practised dissec- j 
 tions with your own hands ; painted from j 
 nature as well as from the statues, and portrait 
 as well as history, and this frequently. If you ^ 
 have done all this, as I trust you have, you i 
 want nothing but a little prudence, to fulfil all ! 
 our wishes. This, let me tell you, is no small j 
 matter, for it is impossible for you to find any j 
 persons anywhere more truly interested for j 
 you; to these dispositions attribute everything | 
 which may be a little harsh in this letter. "We [ 
 are, thank God, all well, and all most truly and ' 
 sincerely yours. I seldom write so long a j 
 letter. Take this as a sort of proof how much j 
 I am, dear Barry, ■ 
 Your faithful friend and humble servant, 
 Edmund Bukke. 
 
 i 
 
 [Lady Hesketh, the cousin of William Cowper, 
 was a refined and amiable woman, whose 
 influence over the poet was of the healthiest 
 kind ; the thought of her or her near pre- 
 sence inspired him with . cheerfulness and 
 hope, and helped to balance the influence 
 of his more austere and exacting clerical j 
 
 friend, the Rev. John Newton.] i 
 
 I 
 
 "WILLIAM COWPER TO LADY HESKETH. I 
 
 i 
 
 Sept. 4, 1765. | 
 Though I have some very agreeable acquaint- 
 ance at Huntingdon, my dear cousin, none are 
 so agreeable as the arrival of your letters. I 
 thank you for that which I have just received 
 from Droxford, and particularly for that part of 
 it where you. give me an unlimited liberty upon 
 the subject I have already so often written upon. 
 Whatever interests us deeply, as naturally flows 
 into the pen as it does from the lips, when 
 every restraint is taken away, and we meet 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 with a friend indulgent enough to attend to us. 
 How many, in all that variety of characters 
 with whom I am acquainted, could I find, after 
 the strictest search, to whom I could write as I 
 do to you ? I hope the number will increase : 
 I am sure it cannot easily be diminished. 
 Poor ! I have heard the whole of his his- 
 tory, and can only lament what I am sure I 
 can make no apology for. Two of my friends 
 have been cut off, during my illness, in the 
 midst of such a life as it is frightful to reflect 
 upon, and here am I, in better health and 
 spuits than I can almost remember to have 
 enjoyed before, after having spent months in 
 the apprehension of instant death. How mys- 
 terious are the ways of Providence ! Why did 
 I receive grace and mercy? Why was I pre- 
 served, afficted for my good, received, as I 
 trust, into favour, and blessed with the greatest 
 happiness I can ever know, or hojie for, in this 
 life, while these were overtaken by the great 
 arrest, unawakened, unrepenting, and every 
 way unprepared for it? His infinite wisdom, 
 to whose infinite mercy I owe it all, can solve 
 these questions, and none besides Him. If a 
 freethinker, as many a man miscalls himself, 
 could be brought to give a serious answer to 
 them, he would certainly say, * Without doubt, 
 sir, you were in great danger ; you had a 
 narrow escape ; a most fortunate one indeed.' 
 How excessively foolish, as well as shocking ! 
 As if life depended upon luck, and all that we 
 are or can be, all that we have or hojie for, could 
 possibly be referred to accident. Yet to this 
 freedom of thought it is owing that He, who, as 
 our Saviour tells us, is thoroughly aj)prized of 
 the death of the meanest of His creatures, is 
 supposed to leave those, whom He has made in 
 His own image, to the mercy of chance : and to 
 this therefore [it is likewise owing, that the 
 correction which our Heavenly Father bestows 
 upon us, that we may be fitted to receive His 
 blessing, is so often disappointed of its bene- 
 volent intention, and that men despise the 
 chastening [of the Almighty. Fevers and all 
 diseases are accidents, and long life, recovery at 
 least from sickness, is the gift of the physician. 
 No man can be a greater friend to the use of 
 means upon these occasions than myself, for it 
 were presumption and enthusiasm to neglect 
 them. God has endued them with salutary 
 properties on purpose that we might avail our- 
 selves of them, otherwise that part of His 
 creation were in vain. But to impute our 
 recovery to the medicine, and to carry our views 
 no further, is to rob God of His honour, and is 
 saying in effect that He has parted with the 
 keys of life and death, and by giving to a drug 
 the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of 
 His own reach. He that thinks thus, may as 
 well fall upon his knees at once, and retui-n 
 thanks to the medicine that cured him, for it 
 was certainly more instrumental in his recovery 
 
 than either the apothecary or the doctor. l\Iy 
 dear cousin, a firm persuasion of the superin- 
 tendence of Providence over all our concerns is 
 absolutely necessary to our happiness. Without 
 it, we cannot be said to believe in the Scripture, 
 or practise anything like resignation to His will. 
 If I am convinced that no ajffliction can befall 
 me without the permission of God, I am con- 
 vinced likewise that He sees and knows that I 
 am afflicted; believing this, I must, in the 
 same degree, believe that if I pray to Him for 
 deliverance, He hears me ; I must needs know 
 likewise, with equal assurance, that if He hears 
 He will also deliver me, if that will upon the 
 whole be most conducive to my hapi)iness ; 
 and if He does not deliver me, I may be well 
 assured that He has none but the most bene- 
 volent intention in declining it. He made us, 
 not because we could add to His happiness, 
 which was always perfect, but that we might 
 be happy ourselves ; and will He not, in all His 
 dispensations towards us, even in the minutest, 
 consvilt that end for which He made us ? To 
 suppose the contrary, is (which we are not 
 always aware of) affronting every one of His 
 attributes ; and, at the same time, the certain 
 consequence of disbelieving His care for us is 
 that we renounce utterly our dependence upon 
 Him. In this view it will appear plainly that 
 the line of duty is not stretched too tight, 
 when we are told that we ought to accept 
 everything at His hands as a blessing, and to 
 be thankful even while we smart under the 
 rod of iron, with which He sometimes rules us. 
 Without this persuasion, eveiy blessing, how- 
 ever we may think ourselves happy in it, loses 
 its greatest recommendation, and every afflic- 
 tion is intolerable. Death itself must be wel- 
 come to him who has this faith, and he who has 
 it not must aim at it, if he is not a madman. 
 You cannot think how glad I am to hear you 
 are going to commence lady, and mistress of 
 Freemantle.^ I know it well, and could go to 
 it from Southampton blindfold. You are kind 
 to invite me to it, and I shall be so kind to 
 myself as to accept the invitation, though I 
 should not, for a slight consideration, be pre- 
 vailed ui^on to quit my beloved retirement at 
 Huntingdon. — Yours ever, W. 0. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 19, 1786. 
 My dearest Cousin,— Since so it must be, 
 so it shall be. If you will not sleep under the 
 roof of a friend, may you never sleep under the 
 roof of an enemy ! An enemy, however, you 
 will not presently find. Mrs. Unwin bids me 
 mention her affectionately, and tell you that 
 she willingly gives up a part for the sake of the 
 rest — willingly, at least as far as willingly may 
 
 1 Freemantle, a villa near Southampton. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 consist with some reluctance ; I feel my reluc- 
 tance too. Our design was that you should 
 have slept in the room that serves me for a 
 study, and its having been occupied by you 
 would have been an additional recommendation 
 of it to me. But all reluctances are superseded 
 by the thought of seeing you ; and because we 
 have nothing so much at heart as the wish to 
 see you happy and comfortable, we are desirous 
 therefore to accommodate you to your own 
 mind, and not to ours. Mrs. Unwin has 
 already secured for you an apartment, or 
 rather two, just such as we could wish. The 
 house in which you will find them is within 
 thirty yards of our own, and opposite to it. 
 The whole affair is thus commodiously adjusted ; 
 and now I have nothing to do but to wish for 
 June ; and June, my cousin, was never so 
 wished for since June was made. I shall have 
 a thousand things to hear, and a thousand to 
 say, and they will all rush into my mind 
 together, till it will be so crowded with things 
 impatient to be said, that for some time I shall 
 say nothing. But no matter — sooner or later 
 they will all come out ; and since we shall 
 have you the longer for not having you under 
 our own roof (a circumstance that more than 
 anything reconciles us to that measure), they 
 will stand the better chance. After so long a 
 separation — a separation that of late seemed 
 likely to last for life — we shall meet each other 
 as alive from the dead ; and- for my own i^art, I 
 can truly say, that I have not a friend in the 
 other world whose resurrection would give me 
 greater pleasure. 
 
 I am truly happy, my dear, in having pleased 
 you with what you have seen of my Homer. I 
 wish that all English readers had your unso- 
 phisticated, or rather unadulterated taste, and 
 could relish simplicity like you. But I am 
 well aware that in this respect I am under a 
 disadvantage, and that many, especially many 
 ladies, missing many turns and prettinesses of 
 expression, that they have admired in Pope, 
 will account my translation in those particulars 
 defective. But I comfort myself with the 
 thought, that in reality it is no defect ; on the 
 contrary, that the want of all such embellish- 
 ments as do not belong to the original, will be 
 one of its principal merits with persons indeed 
 capable of relishing Homer. He is the best 
 poet that ever lived for many reasons, but for 
 none more than for that majestic plainness that 
 distinguishes him from all others. As an 
 accomplished i)erson moves gracefully without 
 thinking of it, in like manner the dignity of 
 Homer seems to cost him no labour. It was 
 natural to him to say great things, and to say 
 them well, and little ornaments were beneath 
 his notice. If Maty, my dearest cousin, should 
 return to you my copy, with any such strictures 
 as may make it necessary for me to see it again 
 before it goes to Johnson, in that case you 
 
 shall send it to me, otherwise to Johnson 
 immediately ; for he writes me word he 
 wishes his friend to go to work upon it as soon 
 as possible. When you come, my dear, we 
 will hang all these critics together ; for they 
 have worried me without remorse or conscience. 
 At least one of them has. I had actually 
 murdered more than a few of the best lines 
 in the specimen, in compliance with his 
 requisitions, but plucked up my courage at 
 last, and, in the very last opportunity that I 
 had, recovered them to life again by restoring 
 the original reading. At the same time I 
 readily confess that the specimen is the better 
 for all this discipline its author has undergone ; 
 but then it has been more indebted for its 
 improvement to that pointed accuracy of 
 examination, to which I was myself excited, 
 than to any proposed amendments from Mr. 
 Critic ; for, as sure as you are my cousin, whom 
 I long to see at Olney, so surely would he have 
 done me irreparable mischief, if I would have 
 given him leave. 
 
 My friend Bagot writes to me in a most friendly 
 strain, and calls loudly upon me for original 
 poetry. "When I shall have done with Homer, 
 probably he will not call in vain. Having 
 found the prime feather of a swan on the banks 
 of the smuc) and silver Trent, he keeps it for 
 me. — Adieu, dear cousin, \Y. C. 
 
 I am sorry that the General has such indif- 
 ferent health. He must not die. I can by no 
 means spare a person so kind to me. 
 
 [Cowper has drawn the portrait of his corre- 
 spondent, in that letter to Lady Hesketh, 
 Sept. 14, 1763, in which he relates his intro- 
 duction to the Unwin family. ' The son is 
 about twenty-one years of age ; one of the 
 most unreserved and amiable young men I 
 ever conversed with.' The young man had 
 been interested by the poet's countenance, 
 and ventured at length to speak to him while 
 he was taking a solitary walk under a row 
 of trees. Their conversation terminated in 
 an invitation to drink tea at Mr. Unwin's 
 upon that afternoon, and the friendshii> 
 then commenced, continued unabated until 
 the premature death of Mr. Unwin, in 
 the flower of his age, and the full career of 
 Christian activity and virtue. — Willmott.] 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 His Amusements. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 21, 1779. 
 Amico mio, be pleased to buy me a glazier's 
 diamond pencil. I have glazed the two frames 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 I6l 
 
 designed to receive my pine plants. But I 
 cannot mend the kitchen windows, till, by the 
 help of that implement, I can reduce the glass 
 to its proper dimensions. If I were a plumber, 
 I should be a complete glazier, and possibly the 
 happy time may come, when I shall be seen 
 trudging away to the neighbouring towns with 
 a shelf of glass hanging at my back. If Govern- 
 ment should impose another tax upon that 
 commodity, I hardly know a business in which 
 a gentleman might more successfully employ 
 himself. A Chinese, of ten times my fortune, 
 would avail himself of such an opportunity 
 without scruple ; and why should not I, who 
 want money as much as any mandarin in 
 China? Kousseau would have been charmed 
 to have seen me so occupied, and would have 
 exclaimed with rapture, ' that he had found the 
 Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only 
 in his own idea.' I would recommend it to 
 you to follow my example. You will presently 
 qualify yourself for the task, and may not 
 only amuse yourself at home, but may even 
 exercise your skill in mending the church 
 "windows ; which, as it would save money to 
 the parish, would conduce, together with your 
 other ministerial accomplishments, to make 
 you extremely popular in the j)lace. 
 
 I have eight pair of tame pigeons. When I 
 first enter the garden in the morning, I find 
 them perched upon the wall, waiting for their 
 breakfast, for I feed them always upon the 
 gravel walk. If your wish should be accom- 
 plished, and you should find yourself furnished 
 with the wings of a dove, I shall undoubtedly 
 find you amongst them. Only be so good, if 
 that should be the case, to announce yourself 
 by some means or other. For I imagine your 
 crop will require something better than tares 
 to fill it. 
 
 Your mother and I, last week, made a trip 
 in a post-chaise to Gayhurst, the seat of Mr. 
 "Wright, about four miles off. He understood 
 that I did not much affect strange faces, and 
 sent over his servant, on purpose to inform me 
 that he was going into Leicestershire, and that 
 if I chose to see the gardens I might gratify 
 myself without danger of seeing the proprietor. 
 I accepted the invitation, and was delighted 
 with all I found there. The situation is happy, 
 the gardens elegantly disposed, the hot-house 
 in the most flourishing state, and the orange- 
 trees the most captivating creatures of the 
 kind I ever saw. A man, in short, had need 
 have the talents of Cox or Langford, the 
 auctioneers, to do the whole scene justice. 
 Our love attends you all. Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Olney, A ug. G, 1780. 
 My dear Friend,— You like to hear from 
 me— this is a very good reason why I should 
 
 write — but I have nothing to say — this seems 
 equally a good reason why I should not ; yet 
 if you had alighted from your horse at our 
 door this morning, and, at this present wnting, 
 being five o'clock in the afternoon, had found 
 occasion to say to me, ' Mr. Cowper, you have 
 not spoke since I came in ; have you resolved 
 never to speak again?' — it would be but a 
 poor reply, if, in answer to the summons, I 
 should plead inability as my best and only 
 excuse. And this, by the way, suggests to me 
 a seasonable piece of instruction, and reminds 
 me of what I am very apt to forget when I 
 have any epistolary business in hand ; that a 
 letter may be written upon anything or nothing, 
 just as that anything or nothing happens to 
 occur. A man that has a journey before him 
 twenty miles in length, which he is to perform 
 on foot, will not hesitate and doubt whether 
 he shall set out or not, because he does not 
 readily conceive how he shall ever reach the 
 end of it ; for he knows that, by the simple 
 operation of moving one foot forward first and 
 then the other, he shall be sure to accomplish 
 it. So it is in the present case, and so it is in 
 every similar case. A letter is written, as a 
 conversation is maintained or a journey per- 
 formed, not by preconcerted or premeditated 
 means, a new contrivance, or an invention 
 never heard of before ; but merely by main- 
 taining a progress, and resolving, as a postilion 
 does, having once set out, never to stop till we 
 reach the appointed end. If a man may talk 
 without thinking, why may he not write upon 
 the same terms ? A grave gentleman of the 
 last century, a tie-wig, square-toe, Steinkirk 
 figure, would say, 'My good sir, a man has no 
 right to do either. ' But it is to be hoped that 
 the present century has nothing to do with 
 the mouldy opinions of the last ; and so, good 
 Sir Launcelot, or St. Paul, or whatever be your 
 name, stej) into your picture-frame again, and 
 look as if you thought for another century, and 
 leave us moderns in the meantime to think 
 when we can, and to write whether we can or 
 not, else we might as well be dead as you are. 
 
 When we look back upon our forefathers, we 
 seem to look back upon the people of another 
 nation, almost upon creatures of another species. 
 Their vast rambling mansions, spacious halls, 
 and painted casements, the Gothic porch, 
 smothered with honeysuckles, their little gar- 
 dens and high walls, their box-edgings, balls 
 of holly, and yew-tree statues, are become so 
 entirely unfashionable now, that we can hardly 
 believe it possible that a peojile who resembled 
 us so little in their taste should resemble us in 
 anything else. But in everything else I sup- 
 pose they were our counterparts exactly, and 
 time, that has sewed up the slashed sleeve, 
 abd reduced the large trunk hose to a neat 
 pair of silk stockings, has left human nature 
 just where it found it. The inside of the mau 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 at least has undergone no change. His iiassions, 
 appetites, and aims are just what they ever 
 were. They wear perhaps a handsomer disguise 
 than they did in the days of yore, for philosophy 
 and literature will have their effect upon the 
 exterior ; but in every other respect a modern 
 is only an ancient in a different dress. Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 24, 1783. 
 
 My dear Feiend, — An evening unexpectedly 
 retired, and which your mother and I spend 
 without company (an occurrence far from fre- 
 quent), affords me a favourable opportunity 
 to write by to-morrow's post, which else I 
 could not have found. You are very good to 
 consider my literary necessities with so much 
 attention, and I feel proportionally grateful. 
 Blair^s Lectures (though I suppose they must 
 make a part of my private studies, not being 
 ad captum fcemina7'um) will be perfectly wel- 
 come. You say you felt my verses ; I assure 
 you that in this you followed my example, for 
 I felt them first. A man's lordship is nothing 
 to me, any farther than in connection with 
 qualities that entitle him to my respect. If he 
 thinks himself x^rivileged by it to treat me with 
 neglect, I am his humble servant, and shall 
 never be at a loss to render him an equivalent. 
 I will not, however, belie my knowledge of 
 mankind so much as to seem surprised at a 
 treatment which I had abundant reason to 
 expect. To these men with whom I was once 
 intimate, and for many years, I am no longer 
 necessary, no longer convenient, or in any 
 respect an object. They think of me as of 
 the man in the moon, and, whether I have a 
 lantern, or a dog and faggot, or whether I have 
 neither of those desirable accommodations, is 
 to them a matter of perfect indifference : upon 
 that point we are agreed ; our indifference is 
 mutual ; and, were I to publish again, which 
 is not i)ossible, I should give them a i^roof of it. 
 
 KEstrange's Josephus has lately furnished 
 us with evening lectures. But the historian is 
 so tediously circumstantial, and the translator 
 so insupportably coarse and vulgax-, that we 
 are all three weary of him. How would Tacitus 
 have shone upon su^ch a subject, great master 
 as he was of the art of description, concise 
 without obscurity, and affecting without being 
 poetical ! But so it was ordered, and for wise 
 reasons no doubt, that the greatest calamities 
 any people ever suffered, and an accomplish- 
 ment of one of the most signal prophecies in 
 the Scripture, should be recorded by one of 
 the worst writers. The man was a temporizer 
 too, and courted the favour of his Koman 
 masters at the expense of his own creed, or 
 else an infidel and absolutely disbelieved it. 
 You will think me very difficult to please; I 
 
 quarrel with J osephus for the want of elegance, 
 and with some of our modern historians for 
 having too much — with him for running right 
 forward like a gazette without stopping to 
 make a single observation by the way, and with 
 them for pretending to delineate characters 
 that existed two thousand jxars ago, and 
 to discover the motives by which they were 
 influenced, with the same precision as if they 
 had been their contemporaries. Simplicity is 
 become a very rare quality in a writer. In 
 the decline of great kingdoms, and where re- 
 finement in all the arts is carried to an excess, 
 I suppose it is always rare. The later Koman 
 writers are remarkable for false ornament, 
 they were yet no doubt admired by the readers 
 of their own day ; and with respect to authors 
 of the present era, the most popular among 
 them appear to me equally censurable on the 
 same account. Swift and Addison were simj)le. 
 Yours, W. C. 
 
 TO the EEV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olne7j, Nov. 30, 1783. 
 My deae Feiend, — I have neither long visits 
 to pay nor to receive, nor ladies to spend hours 
 in telling me that which might be told in five 
 minutes, yet often find myself obliged to be an 
 economist of time, and to make the most of a 
 short opportunity. Let our station be as retired 
 as it may, there is no want of playthings and 
 avocations, nor much need to seek them, in 
 this v/orld of ours. Business, or what presents 
 itself to us under that imposing character, v\^ill 
 find us out, even in the stillest retreat, and 
 plead its importance, however trivial in reality, 
 as a just demand upon our attention. It is 
 wonderful how, by means of such real or 
 seeming necessities, my time is stolen away, 
 I have just time to observe that time is short, 
 and, by the time I have made the observation, 
 time is gone. I have wondered in former days 
 at the patience of the antediluvian world, that 
 they could endure a life almost millenary, with 
 so little variety as seems to have fallen to their 
 share. It is probable that they had much fewer 
 employments than we. Their affairs lay in a 
 narrower compass ; their libraries were in- 
 differently furnished; philosophical researches 
 were carried on with much less industry and 
 acuteness of penetration, and fiddles, perhaps, 
 were not even invented. How then could 
 seven or eight hundred years of life be sup- 
 portable ? I have asked this question formerly, 
 and been at a loss to resolve it ; but I think I 
 can answer it now. I will suppose myself born 
 a thousand years before Noah was born or 
 thought of. I rise with the sun ; I worship ; 
 I prepare my breakfast; I swallow a bucket 
 of goats' milk, and a dozen good sizeable cakes. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 I fasten a new string to my bow, and my 
 youngest boy, a lad of about thirty years of 
 age, having played with my arrows till he 
 has stripped off all the feathers, I find myself 
 obliged to repair them. The morning is thus 
 . spent in preparing for the chase, and it is 
 become necessary that I should dine, I dig up 
 my roots ; I wash them ; I boil them ; I find 
 them not done enough, I boil them again ; my 
 wife is angry ; we dispute ; we settle the point ; 
 but in the meantime the fire goes out, and 
 must be kindled again. All this is very 
 i amusing. I hunt; I bring home the prey; 
 j with the skin of it I mend an old coat, or I 
 I make a new one. By this time the day is far 
 I spent ; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. 
 Thus, what with tilling the grourid, and eating 
 the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and run- 
 ning, and mending old clothes, and sleeping, 
 and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant 
 of the primeval world so much occupied as to 
 sigh over the shortness of life, and to find, at 
 the end of many centuries, that they had all 
 slij)ped through his fingers, and were passed 
 away like a shadow. What wonder, then, that 
 I, who live in a day of so much greater refine- 
 ment, v/hen there is so much more to be wanted, 
 and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel 
 myself now and then pinched in point of 
 opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to fill 
 four sides of a sheet like this ? Thus, however, 
 it is, and if the ancient gentlemen to whom I 
 have referred, and their complaints of the 
 disproportion of time to the occasions they had 
 for it, will not serve me as an excuse, I must 
 even plead guilty, and confess that I am often 
 in haste, when I have no good reason for 
 being so. 
 
 This by way of introduction ; now for my 
 letter. Mr. Scott is desired by Mr. de Coetlogon 
 to contribute to the Theolo(jical Review, of which 
 I suppose that gentleman is a manager. He 
 says he has ensured yoiu: assistance, and at the 
 same time desires mine, either in prose or verse. 
 He did well to apply to you, because you can 
 afford him substantial help ; but as for me, 
 had he known me better, he would never have 
 suspected me for a theologian, either in rhyme 
 or otherwise. 
 
 Lord Dartmouth's Mr, Wright spent near 
 two hours with me this morning ; a resi^ectable 
 old man, whom I always see with pleasure, 
 both for his master's sake and for his own, I 
 was glad to learn from him that his lordshij) 
 has better health than he has enjoyed for some 
 years. — Believe me, my dear friend, your 
 affectionate W. C. 
 
 [Gibbon mentions in his Memoirs, that the first 
 rough manuscript of his great history was 
 committed to the press without any inter- 
 mediate copy, and without undergoing any 
 revision but his own. He has, however, 
 in an earlier page, furnished the key to this 
 mystery of excellence. ' Three times,' he 
 says, ' did I compose the first chapter, and 
 twice the second and third, before I was 
 tolerably satisfied with their effect.' We 
 may conclude that similar difficulties, in 
 successive chapters, were polished down by 
 the same elaboration. He seems to have 
 bestowed equal solicitude upon his corre- 
 spondence, Dugald Stewart relates, that an 
 exact copy of the letter to Robertson, upon 
 his History of America, was discovered 
 among the papers of Gibbon, ' I have 
 often wondered,' he wrote to Mrs. Gibbon, 
 ' why we are not fonder of letter- writing. 
 We all delight to talk of ourselves, and it 
 is only in letters, in writing to a friend, 
 that we can enjoy that conversation, not 
 only without reproach or interruption, but 
 with the highest propriety and mutual 
 satisfaction ; sure that the person whom 
 we address feels an equal, or at least a 
 strong and lively interest in the consider- 
 ation of the pleasing subject.' No man will 
 write letters with pleasure, who composes 
 them like an author, and is always iu 
 search of graceful turns and combinations 
 of imagery, sparkling sentiments, and 
 harmonious, periods. While residing 
 at Lausanne, in the summer of 1753, 
 after the change of his religious creed 
 had closed upon him the gates of 
 Magdalen College, Gibbon formed an 
 acquaintance with Mr. Deyverdun, then 
 'a young man of amiable temper and 
 excellent understanding,' Hither, after 
 the lapse of many years, he at length 
 returned, and renewed the intimacy with 
 his youthful companion, which was only 
 terminated by his death. In this retreat 
 he completed, on the 27th of June 1787, 
 his celebrated History of the Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire, which must 
 ever remain an imperishable monument of 
 human learning and human weakness. 
 The arrangements of the two friends were 
 brief and simple ; Deyverdun possessed a 
 pleasant residence at the foot of the Alps, 
 and Gibbon undertook the expense of their 
 
i64 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 common house. The lady to "whom 
 this letter was addressed was the 
 historian's aunt, and had watched over 
 his infancy and childhood with more 
 than maternal interest. The most 
 affecting account of her is contained in 
 a letter from Gibhon to Lord Sheffield, 
 upon the intelligence of her death : 
 ' To her care I am indebted in earliest 
 infancy for the preservation of my life 
 and health. I was a puny child, 
 neglected by my mother, starved by my 
 nurse, and of whose being very little care 
 or expectation was entertained. Without 
 her maternal vigilance I should either have 
 been in my grave, or imperfectly lived, a 
 crooked ricketty monster, a burden to 
 myself and others. To her instructions I 
 owe the first rudiments of knowledge, the 
 first exercise of reason, and a taste for 
 books, which is still the pleasure and glory 
 of my life; and though she taught me 
 neither language nor science, she was cer- 
 tainly the most useful preceptor I ever had. 
 As I grew up, an intercourse of thirty 
 years endeared her to me, as the faithful 
 friend and the agreeable companion. You 
 have seen with what freedom and con- 
 fidence we lived together, and have often 
 admired her character and conversation, 
 which could alike please the young and 
 the old. All this is now lost, finally, irre- 
 coverably lost ! ' — Willmott.] 
 
 j GIBBON TO MRS. PORTEK. 
 
 I Lausanne, Dec. 27, 1783. 
 
 I Dear Madame, — The unfortunate are loud 
 and loquacious in their complaints, but real 
 happiness is content with its own sUent enjoy- 
 ment ; and if that happiness is of a quiet 
 uniform kind, we suffer days and weeks to 
 ! elapse without communicating our sensations to 
 j a distant friend. By you, therefore, whose 
 I temper and understanding have extracted from 
 human life on every occasion the best and 
 most comfortable ingredients, my silence will 
 always be interpreted as an evidence of content, 
 I and you would only be alarmed (the danger is 
 I not at hand) by the too-frequent repetition of 
 I my letters. Perhaps I should have continued 
 to slumber, I don't know how long, had I not 
 been awakened by the anxiety which you 
 express in your last letter. . . . 
 
 From this base subject I ascend to one which 
 more seriously and strongly engages your 
 thoughts, the consideration of my health and 
 happiness. And you will give me credit when 
 
 I assure you, with sincerity, that I have not 
 repented a single moment of the step which I 
 have taken, and that I only regret the not having 
 executed the same design two, or five, or even 
 ten years ago. By this time, I might have 
 returned independent and rich to mj' native 
 country ; I should have escaped many disagree- 
 able events that have happened in the mean- 
 while, and I should have avoided the parlia- 
 mentary life, which experience has proved to 
 be neither suitable to my temper nor conducive 
 to my fortune. In speaking of the happiness 
 which I enjoy, you will agree with me in 
 giving the preference to a sincere and sensible 
 friend ; and though you cannot discern the full 
 extent of his merit, you can easily believe that 
 Deyverdun is the man. Perhaps two persons, 
 so perfectly fitted to live together, were never 
 formed by nature and education. We have 
 both read and seen a great variety of objects ; 
 the lights and shades of our different characters 
 are happily blended, and a friendship of thirty 
 years has taught us to enjoy our mutual advan- 
 tages, and to support our unavoidable imper- 
 fections. In love and marriage, some harsh 
 sounds will sometimes interrupt the harmony, 
 and in the course of time, like our neighbours, 
 we must expect some disagreeable moments ; 
 but confidence and freedom are the two pillars 
 of our union, and I am much mistaken if the 
 building be not solid and comfortable. One 
 disappointment I have indeed experienced, and 
 patiently supported. The family who were 
 settled in Deyverdun's house started some 
 unexpected difficulties, and will not leave it 
 till the spring ; so that you must not yet 
 expect any poetical, or even historical, descrip- 
 tion of the beauties of my habitation. During 
 the dull months of winter, we are satisfied 
 with a very comfortable apartment in the 
 middle of the town, and even derive some 
 advantage from this delay, as it gives us time 
 to arrange some plans of alteration and furni- 
 ture which will embellish our future and more 
 elegant dwelling. In this season I rise (not at 
 four in the morning) but a little before eight ; 
 at nine, I am called from my study to breakfast, 
 which I always perform alone, in the English 
 style ; and, with the aid of Caplin,^ I perceived 
 no difference between Lausanne and Bentinck 
 Street. Our mornings are usually passed in 
 separate studies ; we never approach each 
 other's door without a previous message, or 
 thrice knocking, and my apartment is already 
 sacred and formidable to strangers. I dress at 
 half-past one, and at two (an early hour, to 
 which I am not perfectly reconciled) we sit 
 down to dinner. We have hired a female cook, 
 well skilled in her profession, and accustomed 
 to the taste of every nation ; as for instance, 
 we had excellent mince-pies yesterday. After 
 
 1 His English valet de chambre. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 dinner, and the departure of our company, one, 
 two, or three friends, we read together some 
 amusing book, or play at chess, or retire to our 
 rooms, or make visits, or go to the coffee-house. 
 Between six and seven the assemblies begin, 
 and I am oppressed only with their number and 
 variety. Whist, at shillings or half-crowns, is 
 the game I generally play, and I play three 
 I rubbers with pleasure. Between nine and ten 
 we withdraw to our bread and cheese, and 
 friendly converse, which sends us to bed at 
 eleven ; but these sober hours are too often 
 interrupted by private and numerous suppers, 
 which I have not the courage to resist, though 
 I practise a laudable abstinence at the best- 
 furnished tables. Such is the skeleton of my 
 life ; it is impossible to communicate a perfect 
 idea of the vital and substantial parts, the 
 characters of the men and women with whom I 
 have very easily connected myself in looser and 
 closer bonds, according to their inclination and 
 my own. If I do not deceive myself, and if 
 Deyverdun does not flatter me, I am already 
 a general favourite ; and, as our likings and 
 dislikes are commonly mutual, I am equally 
 satisfied with the freedom and elegance of 
 manners, and (after proper allowances and 
 exceptions) with the worthy and amiable 
 qualities of many individuals. The autumn 
 has been beautiful, and the winter, hitherto, 
 mild ; but in January we must expect some 
 severe frost. Instead of rolling in a coach, I 
 walk the streets, wrapped up in a fur cloak; 
 but this exercise is wholesome, and, except an 
 accidental fit of the gout of a few days, I never 
 enjoyed better health. I am no longer in 
 Pavillard's house, where I was almost starved 
 ■with cold and hunger, and you may be assured 
 I now enjoy every benefit of comfort, plenty, 
 and even decent luxury. You wish me hajipy ; 
 acknowledge that such a life is more conducive 
 to happiness, than five nights in the week 
 passed in the House of Commons, or five 
 mornings spent at the Custom House. Send me, 
 in return, a fair account of your own situation, 
 in mind and body. I am satisfied your own 
 good sense would have reconciled you to 
 inevitable separation ; but there never was a 
 more suitable diversion than your visit to 
 Sheffield Place. Among the innumerable proofs 
 of friendship which I have received from that 
 family, there are none which affect me more 
 sensibly than their kind civilities to you, though 
 I am persuaded that they are at least as much 
 on your account as on mine. At length, 
 
 Madame de is delivered by her tyrant's 
 
 death ; her daughter, a valuable woman of this 
 place, has made some inquiries, and, though 
 her own circumstances are narrow, she will not 
 suffer her father's widow to be left totally 
 destitute. I am glad you derived so much 
 melancholy pleasure from the letters, yet had 
 I known it, I should have withheld. . . . 
 
 TO MKS. GIBBON, BATH. 
 
 Lausanne, May 28, 1784. 
 Dear Madam, — I begin without preface or 
 apology, as if I had received your letter by the 
 last post. In my own d^ence I know not what 
 to say ; but if I were disposed to recriminate, 
 I might observe that you yourself are not 
 perfectly free from the sin of laziness and 
 procrastination. I have often wondered why 
 we are not fonder of letter-writing. AVe all 
 delight to talk of ourselves, and it is only in 
 letters, in writing to a friend, that we can 
 enjoy that conversation, not only without 
 reproach or interruption, but with the highest 
 propriety and mutual satisfaction ; sure that 
 the person whom we address feels an equal or 
 at least a strong and lively interest in the 
 consideration of the pleasing subject. On the 
 subject therefore of self I will entertain a friend 
 to whom none of my thoughts or actions, none 
 of my pains or i)leasures, can ever be indifferent. 
 When I first cherished the design of retiring to 
 Lausanne, I was much more apprehensive of 
 wounding your tender attachment than of 
 offending Lord Sheffield's manly and vehement 
 friendship. In the abolition of the Board of 
 Trade the motives for my retreat became more 
 urgent and forcible; I wished to break loose, 
 yet I delayed above a year before I could take 
 my final resolution ; and the letter in which I 
 disclosed it to you cost me one of the most 
 painful struggles of my life. As soon as I had 
 conquered that difficulty, all meaner obstacles 
 fell before me, and in a few weeks I found 
 myself at Lausanne, astonished at my firmness 
 and my success. Perhaps you still blame or 
 still lament the step which I have taken. If on 
 your own account, I can only sympathize with 
 your feelings, the recollection of which often 
 costs me a sigh : if on mine, let me fairly state 
 what I have escaped in England, and what I 
 have found at Lausanne. Recollect the tem- 
 pests of this winter ; how many anxious days I 
 should have passed, how many noisy, turbulent, 
 hot, unwholesome nights, Avhile my political 
 existence, and that of my friends, was at stake ; 
 yet these feeble efforts were unavailing; I 
 should have lost my seat in Parliament, and 
 after the extraordinary expense of another 
 year, I must still have pursued the road to 
 Switzerland, unless I had been tempted by 
 some selfish patron, or by Lord S.'s aspiring 
 spirit, to incur a most inconvenient expense for 
 a new seat, and once more, at the beginning of 
 an Opposition, to engage in new scenes of 
 business. As to the immediate prosjiect of 
 anything like a quiet and profitable retreat, I 
 should not know where to look ; my friends are 
 
 no longer in power. With and his party 
 
 I have no connection ; and were he disposed to 
 favour a man of letters, it is difficult to say 
 what he could give, or what I would accept; 
 
i66 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the reign of pensions and sinecures is at an end, 
 and a commission in the Excise or Customs, the 
 summit of my hopes, would give me income at 
 the expense of leisure and liberty. When I 
 revolve these circumstances in my mind, my 
 only regret, I repeat it again and again, is, that 
 I did not embrace this salutary measure three, 
 five, ten years ago. Thus much I thought it 
 necessary to say, and shall now dismiss this 
 unpleasing part of the subject. For my 
 situation here, health is the first consideration ; 
 and on that head your tenderness had conceived 
 some degree of anxiety. I know not whether 
 it has reached you that I had a fit of the gout 
 the day after my arrival. The deed is true, 
 but the- cause was accidental; carelessly step- 
 ping down a flight of stairs, I sprained my 
 ancle; and my ungenerous enemy instantly 
 took advantage of my weakness. But since my 
 breaking that double chain, I have enjoyed a 
 winter of the most perfect health that I have 
 perhaps ever known, without any mixture of 
 the little flying incommodities which in my best 
 days have sometimes disturbed the tranquillity 
 of my English life. You are not ignorant of 
 Dr. Tissot's reputation, and his merit is even 
 above his reputation. He assures me that, in 
 his opinion, the moisture of England and 
 Holland is most pernicious, the dry, pure air of 
 Switzerland most favourable, to a gouty con- 
 stitution; that experience justifies the theory; 
 and that there are fewer martyrs of that 
 disorder in this than in any other country in 
 Europe. This winter has everywhere been 
 most uncommonly severe, and you seem in 
 England to have had your full share of the 
 general hardship: but in this corner, sur- 
 rounded by the Alps, it has rather been long 
 than rigorous ; and its duration stole away our 
 spring, and left us no interval between furs and 
 silks. We now enjoy the genial influ.ence of 
 the climate and the season ; and no station was 
 ever more calculated to enjoy them than 
 Deyverdun's house and garden, which are now 
 become my own. You will not expect that the 
 pen should describe what the pencil would 
 imperfectly delineate. A few circumstances 
 may, however, be mentioned. My library is 
 about the same size with that of Bentinck 
 Street, with this difference, however, that 
 instead of looking on a paved court, twelve feet 
 square, I command a boundless prospect of vale, 
 mountain, and water, from my three windows. 
 My apartment is comi)Ieted by a spacious light 
 closet or store-room, with a bed-chamber and 
 dressing-room. Deyverdun's habitation is 
 pleasant and convenient, though less extensive ; 
 for our common use we have a very handsome 
 winter apartment of four rooms; and on the 
 ground-floor, two cool saloons for the summer, 
 with a sufficiency or rather superfluity of 
 offices, etc. A terrace, one hundred yards long, 
 extends beyond the front of the house, and 
 
 leads to a close, impenetrable shrubbery ; and 
 from thence the circuit of a long and various 
 walk carries me round a meadow and vineyard. 
 The intervals afford abundant supply of fruit, 
 and every sort of vegetables; and if you add, 
 that this villa (which has been much orna- 
 mented by my friend) touches the best and 
 most sociable part of the town, you will agree 
 with me that few persons, either princes or 
 philosophers, enjoy a more desirable residence. 
 Deyverdun, who is proud of his own works, 
 often walks me round, i^ointing out, with 
 acknowledgment and enthusiasm, the beauties 
 that change with every step and with every 
 variation of 4ight. I share, or at least I 
 sympathize with his pleasure. He appears 
 contented with my progress, and has already 
 told several people that he does not despair of 
 making me a gardener. Be that as it may, you 
 will be glad to hear that I am, by my own 
 choice, infinitely more in motion, and in the 
 open air, than I ever have been formerly; yet 
 my perfect liberty atid leisure leave me many 
 studious hours; and as the circle of our 
 acquaintance retire into the country, I shall be 
 much less engaged in company and diversion. 
 I have seriously resumed the prosecution of my 
 History ; each day and each month adds some- 
 thing to the completion of the great work. 
 The progress is slow, the labour continual, and 
 the end remote and uncertain ; yet every day 
 brings its amusement, as well as labour; and 
 though I dare not fix a term, even in my own 
 fancy, I advance with the pleasing reflection, 
 that the business of publication (should I be 
 detained here so long) must enforce my return 
 to England, and restore me to the best of 
 mothers and friends. In the meanwhile, with 
 health and competence, a full independence of i 
 mind and action, a delightful habitation, a true 
 friend, and many pleasant acquaintance, you j 
 will allow that I am rather an object of envy 
 than of pity ; and if you were conversant with 
 the use of the French language, I would 
 seriously propose to you to repose yourself with 
 us in this fine country. My indirect intelligence 
 (on which I sometimes depend with more 
 implicit faith than on the kind dissimulation of 
 your friendship) gives me reason to hope that 
 the last winter has been more favourable to 
 your health than the preceding one. Assure 
 me of it yourself honestly and truly, and you 
 will afford me one of the most lively pleasures. 
 
 TO LADY SHEFFIELD. 
 
 Lausanne, October 22, 1784. 
 A few weeks ago, as I was walking on our 
 terrace with M. Tissot, the celebrated physician ; 
 INI. Mercier, the author of the Tableau de Paris; 
 the Abbe Raynal; Monsieur, Madame, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Mademoiselle Necker; tlie Abbe de Bourbon, 
 a natural son of Louis the Fifteenth ; the 
 hereditary Prince of Brunswick ; Prince Henry 
 of Prussia; and a dozen counts, barons, and 
 extraordinary persons, among whom was a 
 
 natural son of the Empress of Kussia Are 
 
 you satisfied with this list? which I could 
 enlarge and embellish, without departing from 
 truth; and was not the Baron of Sheffield 
 (profound as he is on the subject of the American 
 trade) doubly mistaken with regard to Gibbon 
 and Lausanne? Whenever I used to hint my 
 design of retiring, that illustrious baron, after a 
 
 proper effusion of d d fools, condescended 
 
 to observe, that such an obsciire nook in 
 Switzerland might please me in the ignorance 
 of youth, but that after tasting for so many 
 years the various society of Paris and London, 
 I should soon be tired with the dull and 
 uniform round of a provincial town. In the 
 winter Lausanne is indeed reduced to its native 
 powers ; but during the summer it is possibly, 
 after Spa, one of the most favourite i^laces of 
 general resort. The tour of Switzerland, the 
 Alps, and the Glaciers, is become a fashion. 
 Tissot attracts the invalids, especially from 
 France; and a colony of English have taken up 
 the habit of spending their winters at Nice and 
 their summers in the Pays de Vaud. Such are 
 the splendour and variety of our summer 
 visitors; and you will agree with me more 
 readily than the baron, when I say that this 
 variety, instead of being a merit, is, in my 
 opinion, one of the very few objections to the 
 residence of Lausanne. After the dissipation 
 of the winter, I expected to have enjoyed, with 
 more freedom and solitude, myself, my friend, 
 my books, and this delicious paradise ; but my 
 position and character make me here a sort of a 
 public character, and oblige me to see and be 
 seen. However, it is my firm resolution for 
 next summer to assume the independence of a 
 philosopher, and to be visible only to the 
 persons whom I like. On that principle I 
 should not, most assuredly, have avoided the 
 Neckers and Prince Henry. The former have 
 purchased the barony of Copet, near Geneva ; 
 and as the buildings were very much out of 
 repair, they passed this summer at a country- 
 house at the gates of Lausanne. They afford a 
 new example, that persons who have tasted of 
 greatness can seldom return with pleasure to a 
 l)rivate station. In the moments when we 
 were alone he conversed with me freely, and I 
 believe truly, on the subject of his admin- 
 istration and fall; and has opened several 
 passages of modern history which would make 
 a very good figure in the American book.^ If 
 they spent the summers at the castle of Copet, 
 about nine leagues from hence, a fortnight or 
 
 three weeks' visit would be a pleasant and 
 healthful excursion ; but, alas ! I fear there is 
 little appearance of its being executed. Her 
 health is impaired by the agitation of her mind : 
 instead of returning to Paris, she is ordered to 
 pass the winter in the southern provinces of 
 France ; and our last parting was solemn, as I 
 very much doubt whether I shall ever see her j 
 again. They have now a very troublesome 
 charge, which you will experience in a few i 
 years, the disposal of a baroness ; Mademoiselle 
 Necker, 1 one of the greatest heiresses in Europe, 
 is now about eighteen, wild, vain, but good- 
 natured, and with a much larger i^rovision of 
 wit than of beauty : what increases their 
 difficulties is their religious obstinacy of marry- 
 ing her only to a Protestant. It would be an 
 excellent opi}ox'tu.nity for a young Englishman 
 of a great name and a fair reputation. Prince 
 Henry must be a man of sense ; for he took 
 more notice, and expressed more esteem for me 
 than anybody else. He is certainly (without 
 touching his military character) a very lively 
 and entertaining comjianion. He talked with 
 freedom, and generally with contempt, of most 
 of the princes of Europe ; with respect of the 
 Empress of Kussia; but never mentioned the 
 name of his brother, except once, when he 
 hinted that it was lie himself that won the battle 
 of Kosbach. His nephew, and our nephew, the 
 hereditary Prince of Brunswick, is here for his 
 education. Of the English, who live very 
 much as a national colony, you will like to hear 
 of Mrs. Fraser and one more. Donna Catherina^ 
 pleases everybody by the perfect simi)licity of 
 her state of nature. You know she has had 
 resolution to return from England (where she 
 told me she saw you) to Lausanne, for the sake 
 of Miss Bristow, who is in bad health ; and in a 
 few days they set off for Nice. The other is the 
 Eliza; she passed through Lausanne, in her 
 road from Italy to England ; poorly in health, 
 but still adorable (nay, do not frown!), and I 
 enjoyed some delightful hours by her bedside. 
 She wrote me a line from Paris, but has not 
 executed her promise of visiting Lausanne in 
 the month of October. My pen has run much 
 faster, and much farther, than I intended on 
 the subject of others ; yet in describing them, I 
 have thrown some light over myself and my 
 situation, A year, a very short one, has now 
 elapsed since my arrival at Lausanne; and 
 after a cool review of my sentiments, I can 
 sincerely declare that I have never during a 
 single moment rej^ented of having executed my 
 absurd project of retiring to Lausanne. It is 
 needless to dwell on the fatigue, the hurry, the 
 vexation, which I must have felt in the narrow 
 and dirty circle of English politics. My present 
 life wants no foil, and shines by its own native 
 
 1 OhservatioTis on the Commerce with iha American 
 8UUe$. 
 
 1 Afterwards Madame de Stael. 
 
 2 The Honourable Mrs, Fraser. 
 
i68 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 light. The chosen part of my library is now 
 arrived, and arranged in a room full as good as 
 that in Bentinck Street, with this difference 
 indeed, that instead of looking on a stone court, 
 twelve feet square, I command, from three 
 windows of plate-glass, an unbounded prospect 
 of many a league of vineyard, of fields, of wood, 
 of lake, and of mountains ; a scene which Lord 
 Sheffield will tell you is superior to all you can 
 imagine. The climate, though severe in winter, 
 has perfectly agreed with my constitution, and 
 the year is accomplished without any return of 
 the gout. An excellent house, a good table, a 
 pleasant garden, are no contemptible ingredients 
 in human happiness. The general style of 
 society hits my fancy ; I have cultivated a large 
 and agreeable circle of acquaintance, and I am 
 much deceived if I have not laid the foun- 
 dations of two or three more intimate and 
 valuable connections; but their names would 
 be indifferent, and it would require pages, or 
 rather volumes, to describe their persons and 
 characters. With regard to my standing dish, 
 my domestic friend, I could not be much 
 disappointed, after an intimacy of eight-and- 
 twenty years. His heart and his head are 
 excellent ; he has the warmest attachment for 
 me, he is satisfied that I have the same for him : 
 some slight imperfections must be mutually 
 supported ; two bachelors, who have lived so 
 long alone and independent, have their peculiar 
 fancies and humours ; and when the mask of 
 form and ceremony is laid aside, every moment 
 in a family life has not the sweetness of the 
 honeymoon, even between the husbands and 
 wives who have the truest and most tender 
 regard for each other. Should you be very 
 much surprised to hear of my being married ? 
 Amazing as it may seem, I do assure you that 
 the event is less improbable than it would 
 have appeared to myself a twelvemonth ago. 
 Deyverdun and I have often agreed, in jest and 
 in earnest, that a house like ours would be 
 regulated, and graced, and enlivened, by an 
 agreeable female companion; but each of us 
 seems desirous that his friend should sacrifice 
 himself for the public good. Since my resi- 
 dence here I have lived much in women's 
 company ; and, to your credit be it spoken, I 
 like you the better the more I see of you. Not 
 that I am in love with any particular person. 
 I have discovered about half-a-dozen wives who 
 would please me in different ways and by 
 various merits : one as a mistress (a widow, 
 vastly like the Eliza ; if she returns, I am to 
 bring them together) ; a second, a lively 
 entertaining acquaintance ; a third, a sincere, 
 good-natured friend; a fourth, who would 
 preside with grace and dignity at the head of 
 my table and family ; a fifth, an excellent 
 economist and housekeeper ; and a sixth, a very 
 useful nurse. Could I find all these qualities 
 united in a single person, I should dare to make- 
 
 my addresses, and should deserve to be refused. 
 You hint, in some of your letters, or rather 
 postscripts, that you consider me as having 
 renounced England, and having fixed myself for 
 the rest of my life in Switzerland, and that 
 you suspect the sincerity of my vague or 
 insidious schemes of purchase or return. To 
 remove, as far as I can, your doubts and 
 suspicions, I will tell you, on that interesting 
 subject, fairly and simply as much as I know of 
 my own intentions. There is little appearance 
 that I shall be suddenly recalled by the oft'er of 
 a place or pension. I have no claim to the 
 friendship of your young JMinister ; and should 
 he propose a Commissioner of the Customs, or 
 Secretary at Paris, the supposed objects of my 
 low ambition, Adam in Paradise would refuse 
 them with contempt. Here therefore I shall 
 certainly live till I have finished the remainder 
 of my History ; an arduous work, which does 
 not proceed so fast as I expected, amidst the 
 avocations of society and miscellaneous study. 
 As soon as it is completed, most probably in 
 three or four years, I shall infallibly return to 
 England about the month of May or June ; and 
 the necessary labour of printing with care two 
 or three quarto volumes will detain me till 
 their publication in the ensuing spring. Lord 
 Sheffield and yourself will be the loadstone that 
 most forcibly attracts me ; and as I shall be a 
 vagabond on the face of the earth, I shall be 
 the better qualified to domesticate myself with 
 you, both in town and country. Here, then, at 
 no very extravagant distance, we have the 
 certainty (if we live) of spending a year together 
 in the peace and freedom of a friendly inter- 
 course ; and a year is no very contemptible 
 l^ortion of this mortal existence. Beyond that 
 period all is dark, but not gloomy. Whether, 
 after the final completion of my History, I 
 shall return to Lausanne, or settle in England, 
 must depend on a thousand events which lie 
 beyond the reach of human foresight, — the 
 state of public and private affairs, my own 
 health, the health and life of Deyverdun, the 
 various changes which may have rendered 
 Lausanne more dear, or less agreeable, to me 
 than at present. But without losing ourselves 
 in this distant futurity, which perhaps we may 
 never see, and without giving any positive 
 answer to Maria's parting question, whether I 
 shall be buried in England or Switzerland, let 
 me seriously and earnestly ask you, whether 
 you do not mean to visit me next summer? 
 The defeat at Coventry would, I should think, 
 facilitate the project ; since the baron is no 
 longer detained the whole winter from his 
 domestic affairs, nor is there any attendance on 
 the House that keeps him till midsummer in 
 dust and dispute. I can send you a pleasant 
 route through Normandy, Paris, and Lyons, a 
 visit to the glaciers, and your return down the 
 lihine, which would be commodiously executed 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 i6g 
 
 in three or four months, at no very extravagant 
 expense, and would be productive of health and 
 spirits to you, of entertainment to both, and of 
 instruction to the Maria. Without the smallest 
 inconveniency to myself, I am able to lodge 
 yourselves and family by arranging you in the 
 winter apartment, which in the summer season 
 is not of any use to us. I think you will be 
 satisfied with your habitation, and already see 
 you in your dressing-room — a small, pleasant 
 room with a delightful prospect to the west and 
 south. If poor Aunt Kitty— (you oblige me 
 beyond expression by your tender care of that 
 excellent woman) — if she were only ten years 
 younger, I would desire you to take her with 
 you; but I much fear we shall never meet 
 again. You will not complain of the brevity of 
 this epistle ; I expect, in return, a full and fair 
 account of youi'self, your thoughts and actions, 
 soul and body, present and future, in the safe 
 though unreserved confidence of friendship. 
 The baron in two words hinted but an in- 
 different account of your health ; you are a 
 fine machine ; but as he was absent in Ireland, I 
 hope I understand the cause and the remedy. 
 Xext to yourself, I want to hear of the two 
 baronesses. You must give me a faithful 
 picture (and though a mother, you can give it) 
 of their present external and internal forms ; for 
 a year has now elapsed, and in their lives a year 
 is an age. Adieu. Ever yours. 
 
 TO LOED SHEFFIELD. 
 
 Lausanne, January 20, 1787. 
 After some sallies of wrath, you seem at 
 length to have subsided in sullen silence, and I 
 must confess not totally without reason. Yet 
 if your mind be still open to truth, you will 
 confess that I am not so black as I appear. 1. 
 Your lordship has shown much less activity and 
 eloquence than formerly, and your last letter 
 was an answer to mine, which I have expected 
 some time with impatience. Bad examples are 
 dangerous to young people. 2. Formerly I have 
 neglected answering your epistles on essential 
 though unpleasant business ; and the res-publica 
 or privata may have suffered by my neglect. 
 Supposing, therefore, we had no transactions, 
 why should I write so often? To exchange 
 sentimental compliments, or to relate the various 
 and important transactions of the republic of 
 Lausanne. As long as I do not inform you of 
 my death, you have good grounds to believe me 
 alive and well. You have a general, and will 
 soon have a more particular, idea of my system 
 and arrangement here. One day glides away 
 after another in tranquil uniformity. Every 
 object must have sides and moments less lumin- 
 ous than others ; but, upon the whole, the life 
 and the place which I have chosen are most 
 happily adapted to my character and circum- 
 stances; and I can now repeat, at the end of 
 
 three years, what I soon and sincerely affirmed, 
 that never, in a single instant, have I repented 
 of my scheme of retirement to Lausanne — a 
 retirement which was judged by my best and 
 wisest friend a project little short of insanity. 
 The place, the people, the climate, have answered 
 or exceeded my warmest expectations. And 
 though I truly rejoice in my approaching visit 
 to England, Mr. Pitt, were he your friend and 
 mine, would not find it an easy task to prevent 
 my return. 3. And now let me add a third reason, 
 which often diverted me from writing, namely, 
 my impatience to see you this next summer. I 
 am building a great book, which, besides the 
 three storeys already exposed to the public eye, 
 will have three storeys more before we reach the 
 roof and battlements. You too have built or 
 altered agreat Gothic castle with baronial battle- 
 ments. Did you finish it within the time you 
 intended? As that time drew near, did you 
 not find a thousand nameless and unexx^ected 
 works that must be performed, each of them 
 calling for a portion of time and labour ? And 
 had you not despised, nobly despised, the 
 minute diligence of finishing, fitting up, and 
 furnishing the apartments, you would have 
 discovered a new train of indispensable business. 
 Such, at least, has been my case. A long while 
 ago, when I contemplated the distant prospect 
 of my work, I gave you and mj^'self some hopes 
 of landing in England last autumn ; but, alas I 
 when autumn drew near, hills began to rise on 
 hills, Alps on Alps, and I found my journey far 
 more tedious and toilsome than I had im.agined. 
 When I look back on the length of the under- 
 taking, and the variety of materials, I cannot 
 accuse or suft'er myself to be accused of idleness ; 
 yet it appeared that unless I doubled my diligence, 
 another year, and perhaps more, would elapse be- 
 fore I could embark with my complete manuscript. 
 Under these circumstances I took, and am still 
 executing, a bold and meritorious resolution. 
 The mornings in winter, and in a country of 
 early dinners, are very concise ; to them, my 
 usual period of study, I now frequently add the 
 evenings, renounce cards and society, refuse the 
 most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my 
 api^earance at a late supx^er . By this extraordinary 
 industry, which I never practised before, and to 
 which I hope never to be again reduced, I see the 
 last part of my History growing apace under 
 my hands ; all my materials are collected and 
 arranged ; I can exactly compute, by the square 
 foot, or the square page, all that remains to be 
 done ; and after concluding text and notes, after 
 a general review of my time and my ground, I 
 now can decisively ascertain the final period of 
 the Decline and Fall, and can boldly promise 
 that I will dine with you at Sheffield Place in 
 the month of August, or perhaps of J uly , in the 
 present year, within less than a twelvemonth 
 of the term which I had loosely and originally 
 fixed. And perhaps it would not be easy to find 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 a work of that size and importance in whicli the 
 workman has so tolerably kept his word with 
 himself and the public. But in this situation, 
 opi)ressed with this particular object, and 
 stealing every hour from my amusement, to 
 the fatigue of the pen and the eyes, you will 
 conceive, or you might conceive, how little 
 stomach I have for the epistolary style ; and 
 that instead of idle though friendly corre- 
 spondence, I think it far more agreeable to 
 employ my time in the effectual measures that 
 may hasten and exhilarate our personal inter- 
 view. About amonth ago I had a voluntary, and 
 not unjileasing, epistle from Cadell ; he informs 
 me that he is going to print a new octavo edition, 
 the former being exhausted, and that the public 
 exi')ect with impatience the conclusion of that 
 excellent work, whose reputation increases 
 every day, etc. I answered him by the return 
 of the post, to inform him of the period and 
 extent of my labours, and to express a reason- 
 able hope that he would set the same value on 
 the three last as he had done on the three 
 former volumes. Should we conclude in this 
 easy manner a transaction so honourable to the 
 author and bookseller, my way is clear and open 
 before me ; in pecuniary matters I think I am 
 assured for the rest of my life of never troubling 
 my friends, or being troubled myself ; a state 
 to which I aspire, and which I indeed deserve, 
 if not by my management, at least by my 
 moderation. 
 
 In your last, you talk more of the French 
 treaty than of yourself and your wife and family ; 
 a true English quidnunc ! For my part, in 
 this remote, inland, neutral country, you will 
 suppose that after a slight glance on the jDapers, 
 I have neither had the means nor the inclination 
 to think very deeply about it. As a citizen of 
 the world, a character to which I am every day 
 rising or sinking, I must rejoice in every 
 agreement that diminishes the separation 
 between neighbouring countries, which softens 
 their prejudices, unites their interests and 
 industry, and renders their future hostilities 
 less frequent and less imijlacable. With regard 
 to the present treaty, I hope both nations are 
 gainers ; since otherwise it cannot be lasting ; 
 and such double mutual gain is surely possible 
 in fair trade, though it could not easily happen 
 in the mischievous amusements of war and 
 gaming. . . . What a delightful hand have 
 these great statesmen made of it since my 
 departure ! Without power, and, as far as I 
 can see, without hope. When we meet, I shall 
 advise you to digest all your political and 
 commercial knowledge (England, Ireland, 
 France, America), and with some attention to 
 style and order, to make the whole a classic 
 book, which may preserve your name and benefit 
 your country. I know not whether you have 
 seen Sir Henry Clinton since his return : he 
 passed a day with me, and seemed pleased with 
 
 my reception and place. We talked over you 
 and the American war. I embrace the Hxlent my 
 lady, and the two honourable misses, whom I 
 sigh to behold and admire. Adieu. Ever yours. 
 
 Though I can part with land, you find I cannot 
 part with books : the remainder of my library 
 has so long embarrassed your room, but it may 
 now await my presence and final judgment. 
 Has my lady read a novel intitled Caroline de 
 Lichfield, of our own manufacture ? I may say 
 of ours, since Deyverdun and myself were the 
 judges and patrons of the manuscript. The 
 author, who is since married a second time 
 (Madame de Crousaz, now l\Iontolieu), is a 
 charming woman. I was in some danger. 
 
 DK. WILLIAM EOBEKTSON TO MR. GIBBON. 
 
 College of Edinburgh, 
 July 30, 1788. 
 Dear Sir, — Long before this I should have 
 acknowledged the receipt of your most accept- 
 able present ; but for several weeks I have been 
 afflicted with a violent fit of deafness, and that 
 unsocial malady is always accompanied with 
 such a degree of languor, as renders even the 
 writing of a letter an effort. During my soli- 
 tude the perusal of your book has been my 
 chief amusement and consolation. I have gone 
 through it once with great attention, and am 
 now advanced to the last volume in my second 
 reading. I ventured to predict the superior ex- 
 cellence of the volumes lately published, and I 
 have not been a false prophet. Indeed, when I 
 consider the extent of your undertaking, and the 
 immense labour of historical and philosophic 
 research requisite towards executing every part of 
 it, I am astonished that all this should have been 
 accomplished by one man. I know no example, 
 in any age or nation, of such a vast body of valu- 
 able and elegant information communicated 
 by any individual. I feel, however, some degree 
 of mortification mingled with my astonishment. 
 Before you began your historic career, I used to 
 pride myself in being at least the most indus- 
 trious historian of the age ; but now, alas ! I can 
 pretend no longer even to that praise, and 
 must say, as Pliny did of his uncle, * Si comparer 
 illi sum desidiosissimus.' Your style appears to 
 me improved in these new volumes; by the 
 habit of writing you write with greater ease. I 
 am sorry to find that our ideas on the effects 
 of the Crusades do not altogether coincide. I 
 considered that point with great care, and cannot 
 help thinking still that my opinion was well 
 founded. I shall consult the authorities to which 
 I refer ; for when my sentiments differ from 
 yours, I have some reasons to distrust them ; 
 and I may possibly trouble you with a letter on 
 the subject. I am much flattered with the 
 manner in which you have so often mentioned 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 171 
 
 my name. Latus sum laudari a te laudato viro. 
 I feel much satisfaction in having been dis- 
 tinguished by the two historians of my own 
 times, whose favourable opinion I was most 
 ambitious of obtaining. 
 
 I hope this letter may find you still in England. 
 When you return to Lausanne, permit me to 
 recommend to your good offices my youngest 
 son, who is now at Yverdun on account of his 
 health, and lives Avith M. Herman, a clergy- 
 man there. You will find the young man 
 (if you can rely on the partial testimony of a 
 father) sensible, modest, and well-bred; and 
 though no great scholar, he has seen much, 
 having returned from India, where he served 
 last war, by Bassora, Bagdat, Moussul, and 
 Aleppo. He is now a captain in the t wenty-third 
 regiment. If you have any friend at Yverdun, 
 be so good as to recommend him. It will do 
 him credit to have your countenance. I have 
 desired him to pay his respects to you at 
 Lausanne. Farewell, my dear sir. I ever am, 
 yours most faithfully, 
 
 \YlLLIAM EOBERTSON. 
 
 JAIIES BOSWELL TO DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 Durinrj the Tour to the Hebrides with Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 Inverness, August 29, 1773. 
 My dear Sir, — Here I am, and Mr. Samuel 
 Johnson actually with me. AYe were a night j 
 at Forres, in coming to which, in the dusk of 
 the evening, we passed over the bleak and 
 blasted heath where Macbeth met the witches. 
 Your old preceptor repeated, with much solem- 
 nity, the speech, ' How far is't called to Fores ? 
 What are these, so withered and so wild in their 
 attire ? ' 
 
 This day we visited the ruins of Macbeth's 
 castle at Inverness. I have had great romantic 
 satisfaction in seeing Johnson upon the classical 
 scenes of Shakespeare in Scotland, which I 
 really looked upon as almost as improbable as 
 that ' Birnam Wood should come to Dunsinane.' 
 Indeed, as I have always been accustomed to 
 view him as a permanent London object, it 
 would not be much more wonderful to me to 
 see St. Paul's church moving along where we 
 now are. As yet we have travelled in post- 
 chaises; but to-morrow we are to mount on 
 horseback, and ascend into the mountains by 
 Fort-Augustus, and so on to the ferry, where 
 we are to cross to Skye. We shall see that 
 island fully, and then visit some more of the 
 Hebrides ; after which we are to land in 
 Argyleshire, proceed by Glasgow to Auchinleck, 
 repose there a competent time, and then return 
 to Edinburgh, from whence the Rambler will 
 depart for Old England again, as soon as he 
 
 finds it convenient. Hitherto we have had a 
 very prosperous expedition. I flatter myself, 
 servetur ad inium, qualis ah incepto processerit. 
 He is in excellent spirits, and I have a rich 
 journal of his conversation. Look back, Davy, 
 to Lichfield ; run up through the time that has 
 elapsed since you first knew Mr. Johnson, and 
 enjoy with me his present extraordinary tour. 
 I could not resist the impulse of writing to you 
 from this place. The situation of the old castle 
 corresponds exactly to Shakespeare's descrip- 
 tion. While we were there to-day, it happened 
 oddly that a raven perched upon one of the 
 chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I in my turn 
 repeated — 
 
 ' The raven himself is hoarse, 
 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
 Under embattlemeuts.' 
 
 I wish you had been with us. Think what an 
 enthusiastic happiness I shall have to see Mr. 
 Samuel Johnson walking among the romantic 
 rocks and woods of my ancestors at Auchinleck. 
 Write to me at Edinburgh. You owe me his 
 verses on great George and tuneful Gibber, and 
 the bad verses which led him to make his fine 
 ones on Philips the musician. Keep your 
 promise, and let me have them. I ofi'er my 
 very best compliments to Mrs. Garrick, and 
 ever am, your warm admirer and friend, 
 
 James Boswell. 
 
 [Hannah More visited London, accompanied by 
 two of her sisters, in 1773 or 1774, and 
 was soon afterwards introduced to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Garrick. She remained in London 
 about six weeks. Mrs. Gwatkin resided 
 near Bristol, and is described as one of 
 Miss More's earliest and firmest friends. 
 The letter is without a date. — Willmott.] 
 
 HANNAH MORE TO MRS. GWATKIN. 
 
 Pictures of Harapton Court ; Pope's Villa at 
 TioicTcenham ; Garrick'' s House. 
 
 Hampton Court. 
 My dear Madam,— At length I have the 
 pleasure of being well enough to be suffered to 
 gratify my inclination to pay a visit to this 
 most charming and delightful place. I have 
 been here these three days, but till this morning 
 could not venture to visit the palace, which, to 
 a weak person, is a ver-y great undertaking, and 
 I cannot but felicitate myself upon having 
 accomplished it without the least fatigue. I 
 think, madam, I have heard you say, you have 
 never seen this i)lace ; but I hope, if you come 
 to town in the spring, as you sometimes 
 IJromise, your curiosity will excite you to it. 
 It is the second sight (the museum was the 
 
172 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 first) that ever, with me, more than satisfied a 
 raised expectation. 
 
 This immense edifice is rather like a town 
 than a palace, and I would not pretend to 
 venture out of the apartment we are in without 
 a clue of thread in my hand to bring me back by. 
 The private apartments are almost all full ; 
 they are all occupied by people of fashion, mostly 
 quality ; and it is astonishing to me that people 
 of large fortune will solicit for them. Mr. 
 Lowndes has ajiartments next to these, not- 
 withstanding he has an estate of £4000 a-year. 
 In the opposite one lives Lady Augusta Fitzroy. 
 You know she is the mother of the Duke of 
 Grafton. 
 
 I must now say a word about the place I am 
 in. My extreme ignorance does not permit me 
 to judge of this magnificent building according 
 to the rules of architecture or taste. Yet that 
 cannot destroy the iDleasure I receive in viewing 
 it. I need not tell you, my dear madam, that 
 it was built by the ambitious Wolsey, not for 
 a royal palace, but for his own use ; and is a 
 striking monument of his presumption, luxury, 
 and riches. The grand state apartments are 
 all that they show ; and these are six-and- 
 twenty in number, and for magnificence of 
 every kind are, indeed, admirable. I except 
 the furniture, which the iron tooth of time 
 has almost totally destroyed. This brings to 
 my mind the fable of -3^sop, where the old 
 woman, smelling the lees of the brandy-cask, 
 cries out, ' Ah ! dear soul ! if you are so good 
 now that it is almost over with you, what must 
 you have been when you were in perfection ? ' 
 It is a false report that this place was stripped 
 of its fine paintings to adorn Buckingham 
 House, as there were none removed but seven 
 of the cartoons, six of these glorious pieces 
 having been burnt. What shall I say of these 
 j)aintings ? I was never more at a loss. A con- 
 noisseur would be confounded at their number 
 and beauty ; what, then, can I do, who scarcely 
 know blue from green, or red from yellow ? I 
 will only say, that they are astonishingly 
 beautiful ; they are the originals of the greatest 
 master of the Italian school, and, consequently, 
 of the whole world. The staircase is superb, 
 light, and modern, richly ornamented with the 
 f.nest paintings, I should have continued to 
 think, if I had not seen finer afterwards. The 
 Muses, and Apollo, gods, devils, and harpies 
 (I forget by what hand), ten thousand pieces, I 
 believe, in different rooms, by Vandyke, Lely, 
 Rubens, Guide, Baptiste, Rousseau, Kneller, 
 and every other name that does honour to this 
 divine science. In the grand council-chamber, 
 nothing can surpass the ceiling ; yet something 
 can, too, — King William's writing closet is 
 prettier. It is Endymion and the moon ; so 
 sweet the attitudes — so soft the colouring — such 
 inimitable graces ! 
 
 I do not know a more respectable sight than 
 
 a room containing fourteen admirals, all by Sir 
 Godfrey. Below stairs is what they call the 
 beauty room; this is entirely filled with the 
 beauties of King William's time, his queen at 
 the head, who makes a very considerable figure 
 among them, and must have been very hand- 
 some ; but no encomiums can do justice to the 
 labours of this industrious princess, her tapestry 
 and other works being some of the finest orna- 
 ments here. The other tapestry is immensely 
 rich, the ground gold ; but what surpass every- 
 thing of this kind, are two rooms hung, the 
 one with historical pieces of the battles and 
 victories of Alexander, the other with those of 
 Julius Caesar. The celebrated cynic, and his 
 no less celebrated tub, is worthy of the highest 
 admiration. The contempt and scorn that 
 animate his countenance, in addressing himself 
 to the victorious Macedonian, delighted me 
 extremely. You have the character of Clytus 
 in the lines of his face. These famous pieces of 
 tapestry were done at Brussels, from the 
 paintings of Le Bruin at Versailles. Another 
 room, and what is esteemed one of the finest, is 
 hung round with the defeat of the Spanish 
 Armada, with an inimitable piece of Lord 
 Effingham Howard, then lord-high-admiral. It 
 would be endless to aim at recounting the 
 numberless curiosities with which the jjalace 
 abounds; but I must not omit mentioning an 
 ordinary room, full of the original furniture of 
 the cardinal. It is curious chiefly for its 
 antiquity, consisting of cane tables, chairs, etc. 
 I have not yet seen the play-house, chapel, and 
 gardens. Every day this week is destined to 
 pleasure, of which I shall plague you with 
 an account in the next sheet. This day, had 
 we been in town, we should have had tickets 
 for the birth-night ; but you will believe I did 
 not much regard that loss, when I tell yoit 
 I have visited the mansion of the tuneful 
 Alexander : I have rambled through the im- 
 mortal shades of Twickenham : I have trodden 
 the haunts of the swan of Thames. You know, 
 my dear madam, what an enthusiastic ardour I 
 have ever had to see this almost sacred spot, 
 and how many times I have created to myself 
 an imaginary Thames ; but, enthusiasm apart, 
 there is very little merit in the grotto, house, 
 or gardens, but that they once belonged to one 
 of the greatest poets on earth. The house 
 must have been originally very small ; but 
 Sir William Stanhope, who has bought it, 
 has added two considerable wings, so that it 
 is now a very good residence. The furniture 
 is only genteel— all light linen— not a picture 
 to be seen; and I was sorry to see a library 
 contemptibly small, with only French and 
 English authors, in the house where Pope had 
 lived. The grotto is very large, very little 
 ornamented, with but little spar or glittering 
 stones. You know, madam, the garden is 
 washed by the Thames, without any enclosure : 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 it is beautiful. This noble current was frozen 
 quite over; the reason, I suppose, we saw no 
 naiades; every hamadryad was also congealed 
 in its parent tree. I covdd not be honest for 
 the life of me; from the grotto I stole two 
 bits of stone, from the garden a sprig of laurel, 
 and from one of the bed-chambers a pen : 
 because the house had been Pope's, and 
 because Sir "William, whose pen it was, was 
 brother to Lord Chesterfield. As our obliging 
 friend will not let us pass over anything that 
 is worth seeing, we went to Lord Radnor's, 
 now Mrs. Henley's. This is within a hundred 
 yards of Mr. Pope's ; consequently the situation, 
 the water, and the gardens are much the same. 
 It is fitted up in a whimsical taste ; there is a 
 pretty picture-gallery — the pieces mostly Dutch ; 
 the apartments are small, and rather oddly than 
 magnificently furnished. I believe there is no 
 such thing as a large room in this part of the 
 world, except in this palace ; a room the size 
 of one of your parlours would be accounted a 
 wonder. You will easily believe, madam, that 
 I could not leave Twickenham without paying 
 a visit to the hallowed tomb of my beloved 
 bard. For this purpose I went to the church, 
 and easily found out the monument of one 
 who would not be buried in Westminster 
 Abbey. The inscription, I am afraid, is a 
 little ostentatious ; yet I admire it, as I do the 
 epitaph, which I will not transcribe, as I am 
 sure it is as fresh in your memory as in mine. 
 I imagine the same motive induced him to be 
 interred here which made Csesar say, he * had 
 rather be the first man in a village than the 
 second at Rome ; ' Pope, I suppose, had rather 
 be the first ghost at Twickenham than an 
 inferior one at Westminster Abbey. I need 
 not describe the monument to you, as you 
 have seen it as well as his father's. 
 This day I have been to see 
 * Esher's groves, and Claremont's ten-aced heights,' 
 
 as the sweet poet of the Seasons calls them. 
 I need not tell you, madam, that this famous 
 Claremont is the seat of the Duke of Newcastle ; 
 but, alas ! this is an unpropitious season for 
 l)arks, gardens, and wildernesses. You have 
 undoubtedly seen Claremont, so I shall not 
 describe it ; it commands thirty miles prospect, 
 St. Paul's among the rest. The park is vast, 
 and I like it better than Bushy Park, of which 
 Lord Halifax is ranger; it is almost close to 
 Hampton Park, not quite twenty mUes from 
 London. On our return, we went to see Mr. 
 Garrick's ; his house is repairing and is not 
 worth seeing, but the situation of his garden 
 pleases me infinitely ; it is on the banks of the 
 Thames, the temple about thirty or forty yards 
 from it. There is the famous chair, curiously 
 wrought out of a cherry tree, which really 
 grew in the garden of Shakespeare at Stratford ; 
 I sat in it, but caught no ray of inspiration. 
 
 But what drew and deserved my attention was 
 a noble statue of this most original man, in an 
 attitude sti'ikingly pensive ; his limbs strongly 
 muscular, his countenance expressive of some 
 vast conception, and his whole form seeming 
 the bigger from some immense idea with which 
 you su^ipose his great imagination pregnant. 
 This statue cost five hundred pounds. — Adieu, 
 my dear madam, with grateful respects, 
 
 H. Moke. 
 
 [' K there be any persons remaining,' says Mr. 
 Roberts, 'who were in habits of social 
 intercourse with the family of Mrs. H. 
 More, they will readily bear testimony to 
 the originality of humour and playfulness 
 of imagination which enlivened the conver- 
 sation and letters of this lady. Miss Sally 
 More, who possessed also talents of another 
 kind, some of the most valuable of the 
 cheap repository tracts being the productions 
 of her pen.' Hannah More's first intro- 
 duction to the Doctor was exceedingly 
 auspicious ; having been prepared by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, at whose house the 
 interview took place, to exjDect a silent 
 reception, she was delighted, upon entering 
 the room, to see Johnson advance towards 
 her with good-humour in his countenance. 
 Sir Joshua's macaw on his hand, and a 
 verse, from one of her own poems, upon his 
 lips. — Willniott.'] 
 
 MISS SALLY MORE TO THE FAMILY AT HOME. 
 
 A Visit to Dr. Johnson. 
 
 London, 1774. 
 We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds. 
 She has sent Dr. Percy (Percy's Collection— no-w 
 you know him), who is quite a sprightly 
 modern, instead of a rusty antiqvie, as I 
 expected. He was no sooner gone, than the 
 most amiable and delightful of women (Miss 
 Reynolds) ordered the coach to take us to 
 Dr. Johnson's very own house, — yes, Abyssinia's 
 Johnson ! Dictionary Johnson ! Rambler's, 
 Idler's, and Irene's Johnson ! Can you picture 
 to yourself the palpitation of our hearts as we 
 approached his mansion ? The conversation 
 turned upon a new work of his, just going to 
 the press {The Tour to the Hebrides), and his 
 old friend Richardson. Mrs. Williams, the 
 blind poet, who lives with him, was introduced 
 to us. She is engaging in her manners ; her 
 conversation lively and entertaining. Miss 
 Reynolds told the Doctor of all our rapturous 
 exclamations on the road. He shook his 
 scientific head at Hannah, and said, ' She was 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 a &illy thimj.'' When our visit was ended, he 
 called for his hat (as it rained), to attend Tis 
 down a very long entry to our coach, and not 
 Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en 
 cavalier. We are engaged with him at Sir 
 Joshua's, Wednesday evening — what do you 
 think of us? I forgot to mention that, not 
 finding Johnson in his little parlour when we 
 came in, Hannah seated herself in his great 
 chaii-, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius ; 
 when he heard it, he laughed heartily, and told 
 her it was a chair in which he never sat. He 
 said, it reminded him of Boswell and himself, 
 when they stopped a night at the spot (as they 
 imagined) where the weird sisters appeared to 
 Macbeth ; the idea so worked upon their enthu- 
 siasm, that it qu.ite deprived them of rest ; 
 however, they learned the next morning, to 
 their mortification, that they had been deceived, 
 and were quite in another part of the country. 
 
 [Returning from Bristol, in the December of 
 1779, Hannah More took up her abode with 
 Mrs. Garrick, at Hampton. Their mode of 
 life she has very agreeably described : — 
 ' Hampton is very clean, very green, very 
 beautiful, and very melancholy ; but the 
 " long dear calm of fixed repose" suits me 
 mightily, after the hurry of London. We 
 have been on the wing every day this week ; 
 our way is to walk out four or five miles, to 
 some of the prettiest villages, or prospects, 
 and when we are quite tired, we get into 
 the coach, which is waiting for us, with 
 our books, and we come home to dinner as 
 hungry as Dragon himself.' — Willmott.] 
 
 HANNAH MOKE TO HER SISTER. 
 
 Lord Spencer^s Seat at Wimbledon ; Anecdote of 
 Lord Cohham. 
 
 London, 1780. 
 My being obliged to walk so much, makes me 
 lose seeing my friends who call upon me ; and, 
 what is worse, it makes me lose my time, which 
 will never call on me again. Yesterday I spent 
 a very agreeable day in the country. The 
 Bishop of St. Asaph and his family invited me 
 to come to Wimbledon Park, Lord Spencer's 
 charming villa, which he always lends to the 
 bishop at this time of the year. I did not 
 think there could have been so beautiful a place 
 Avithin seven miles of London. The park has as 
 much variety of ground, and is as un-Londonish 
 as if it were an hundred miles off ; and I 
 enjoyed the violets, and the birds, more than 
 all the marechal powder of this foolish town. 
 There was a good deal of company at dinner, 
 
 but we were quite at our ease, and strolled 
 about, or sat in the library, just as we liked. 
 This last amused me much, for it was the 
 Duchess of Marlborough's (old Sarah), and 
 numbers of the books were presents to her 
 fi'om all the great authors of her time, whose 
 names she had carefully written in the blank 
 leaves ; for I believe she had the pride of being 
 thought learned, as well as rich and beautiful. 
 I drank tea one day last week with our bishop 
 (Newton), whom I never thought to see again 
 on this side heaven ; he has gone through 
 enough to kill half the stout young men, and 
 seems to be patched up again for a few months. 
 They are supcrabun-dantly kind to me. 
 
 The gentlemen of the museum came on 
 Saturday to fetch poor Mr. Garrick's legacy of 
 the old plays and curious black-letter books. 
 Though they were not things to be read, and 
 are only valuable to antiquaries for their age 
 and scarcity, yet I could not see them carried 
 off without a pang. I was the other night at 
 Mrs. Ord's. Everybody was there; and in 
 such a crowd I thought myself well off to be 
 wedged in with Mr. Smelt, Langton, Ramsay, 
 and Johnson. Johnson told me he had been 
 with the King that morning, who enjoined him 
 to add Spenser to the Lives of the Poets. I 
 seconded the motion ; he promised to think of 
 it, but said the booksellers had not included 
 him in their list of the poets. I dined at Mrs. 
 Boscawen's the other day, very pleasantly ; for 
 Berengeri was there, and was all himself, all 
 chivalry, and blank verse, and anecdote. He 
 told me some curious stories of Pope, with 
 whom he used to spend the summer at his 
 uncle's. Lord Cobham, of whom Pope asserts, 
 you know, that he would feel 'the ruling 
 passion strong in death,' and that ' Save my 
 country, Heaven,' ^ would be his last words. 
 But what shows that Pope was not so good a 
 prophet as a poet (though the ancients some- 
 times express both by the same word), was, 
 that in his last moments, not being able to carry 
 a glass of jelly to his mouth, he was in such a 
 passion, feeling his own weakness, that he threw 
 jelly, glass, and all, into Lady Chatham's face 
 and expired ! 
 
 Instead of going to Audley Street, where I 
 was invited, I went to Mr. Reynolds', and sat 
 for my picture. Just as he began to paint, in 
 came Dr. Johnson, and stayed the whole time, 
 
 1 Miss More says that this gentleman Avas every- 
 body's favourite, even Dr. Johnson's. He was equeny 
 to George III. 
 
 2 'And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath, 
 Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death ; 
 Such in those moments as in all the past ; 
 *' Oh, save my country, Heaven ! " shall be your last.' 
 
 Moral Essays, Ep. 1. 
 
 Warton observes, in a note upon this passage, that 
 
 the expression ' ruling passion ' was first employed by 
 
 Roscommon. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and said good things by way of making me look 
 well. I did not forget to ask him for a page for 
 your memorandum book, and he promised to 
 write, but said you ought to be contented with 
 a quotation ; this, however, I told him you 
 would not accejjt. 
 
 HAXXAH JIOIIE TO ZACHARY MACAULAT. 
 
 T, B. Macaulay in his ninth year. 
 
 My deak Sir, — I wanted Tom to write to-day, 
 bxit as he is likely to be much engaged with a 
 favourite friend, and I shall have no time to- 
 morrow, I scribble a line. This friend is a 
 sensible youth at "Woolwich ; he is qualifying for 
 the artillery. I overheard a debate between 
 them on the comparative merits of Eugene and 
 Marlborough as generals. The quantity of 
 reading that Tom has poured in, and the 
 quantity of writing he has poured out, is as- 
 tonishing. It is in vain I have tried to make 
 him subscribe to Sn Harry Savile's notion that 
 the poets are the best writers next to those who 
 write prose. We have poetry for bi-eakfast, 
 dinner, and supper. He recited all ' Palestine,' 
 while we breakfasted, to our pious friend Mr. 
 Whalley, at my desire, and did it incomparably, 
 I was pleased with his delicacy in one thing. 
 You know the Italian jDoets, like the French, 
 too much iadulge in the profane habit of attest- 
 ing the Supreme Being ; but without any hint 
 from me, whenever he comes to the sacred name 
 he reverently i^asses it over. I sometimes fancy 
 I observe a daily progress in the growth of his 
 mental powers. His fine promise of mind 
 expands more and more, and, what is extra- 
 ordinary, he has as much accuracy in his ex- 
 pression as spirit and vivacity in his imagination. 
 I like, too, that he takes a lively interest in all 
 passing events, and that the child is still pi-e- 
 served ; I like to see him as boyish as he is 
 studious, and that he is as much amused with 
 making a pat of butter as a poem. Though 
 loquacious, he is very docile, and I don't 
 remember a single instance in which he has 
 persisted in doing anything when he saw we 
 did not approve it. Several men of sense and 
 learning have been struck with the union of 
 gaiety and rationality in his conversation. It 
 was a pretty trait of him yesterday; being 
 invited to dine abroad, he hesitated, and then 
 said, ' No ; I have so few days, that I will give 
 them all to you.' And he said to-day at 
 dinner, when speaking of his journey, ' I know 
 not whether to think on my departure with 
 most pain or pleasure — with most kindness for 
 my friends, or affection for my parents.' 
 
 Sometimes we converse in ballad rhymes, 
 sometimes in Johnsonian sesquipedalians; at 
 tea we condescend to riddles and charades. He 
 rises early, and walks an hour or two before 
 breakfast, generally comiDosing verses. 
 
 [Mr. Crisp was an old and honoured friend of 
 Dr. Burney's, who retired owing to a 
 change of fortune to a country house near 
 Kingston, Surrej'. He was on the best of 
 terms with the whofe family, and the 
 Burneys frequently made Chessington Hall 
 a place of change.] 
 
 MISS F. BUENEY TO ME. CEISP. 
 
 St, Martin's Street, January 22, 17S0. 
 
 My deaeest Daddy, — As this sheet is but to 
 contain a sequel of what I writ last, not to 
 aspire at being regarded as a sej)arate or answer- 
 claiming letter, I shall proceed without fresh 
 preamble. 
 
 You make a comique kind of inquiry about my 
 ' incessant and uncommon engagements. ' Now, 
 my dear daddy, this is an inquiry I feel rather 
 small in answering, for I am sure you expect to 
 hear something respectable in that sort of way, 
 whereas I have nothing to enumerate that com- 
 mands attention, or that will make a favourable 
 report. For the truth is, my 'uncommon' 
 engagements have only been of the visiting 
 system, and my 'incessant' ones only of the 
 loorking party; for perpetual dress requires 
 perpetual replenishment, and that replenish- 
 ment actually occupies almost every moment I 
 spend out of comj^any. 
 
 ' Fact ! fact ! ' I assure you, however paltry, 
 ridiculous, or inconceivable it may sound. Caps, 
 hats, and ribbons make, indeed, no venerable 
 appearance upon paper ; no more do eating and 
 drinking; yet the one can no more be worn 
 without being made, than the other can be 
 swallowed without being cooked ; and those who 
 can neither pay milliners nor keep scullions, 
 must either toil for themselves or go capless and 
 dinnerless. So if you are for a high, polished 
 comparison, I'm your man ! 
 
 Now, instead of furbelows and gewgaws of this 
 sort, my dear daddy pi'obably expected to hear 
 of duodecimos, octavos, or quartos ! Helas ! I 
 am sorry that is not the case ; but not one 
 word, no, not one syllable, did I write to any 
 purpose, from the time you left me ' at 
 Streatham, till Christmas, when I came home. 
 But now I have something to communicate 
 concerning which I must beg you to give me 
 your opinion. 
 
 As my play was settled in its silent suiipres- 
 sion, I entreated my father to call on Mr. 
 Sheridan, in order to prevent his expecting 
 anything from me, as he had had a good right 
 to do, from my having sent him a positive 
 message that I aJiould, in compliance with his 
 exhortations at Mrs. Cholmondeley's, try my 
 fortune in the theatrical line, and send him a 
 piece for this winter. My father did call, but 
 found him not at home, neither did he happen 
 
176 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 to see him till about Christmas. He then 
 acquainted him that what I had written had 
 entirely dissatisfied me, and that I desired to 
 decline for the present all attempts of that 
 sort. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan was pleased to express great 
 concern,— nay more, to protest he would not 
 accept my refusal. He begged my father to 
 tell me that he could take no denial to seeing 
 what I had done — that I could be no fair judge 
 for myself — that he doubted not but it would 
 please, but was glad I was not satisfied, as he 
 had much rather see pieces before their authors 
 were contented with them than afterwards, on 
 account of sundry small changes always neces- 
 sary to be made by the managers, for theatrical 
 purposes, and to which they were loth to sub- 
 mit when their writings were finished to their 
 own apj)robation. In short, he said so much, 
 that my father, ever easy to be worked upon, 
 began to waver, and told me he wished I would 
 show the play to Sheridan at once. 
 
 This very much disconcerted me : I had taken 
 a sort of disgust to it, and was myself most 
 earnestly desirous to let it die a quiet death. 
 I therefore cooled the affair as much as I 
 conveniently could, and by evading from time 
 to time the conversation, it was again sinking 
 into its old state, when again Mr. Sheridan 
 saw my father, and asked his leave to call upon 
 me himself. 
 
 This could not be refused. 
 
 Well, I was now violently fidgeted, and 
 began to think of alterations, and by setting 
 my head to work, I have actually now written 
 the fourth act from beginning to end, except 
 one scene. Mr. Sheridan, however, has not yet 
 called, and I have so little heart in the affair, 
 that I have now again quite dropt it. 
 
 Such is the present situation of my politics. 
 Now, I wish you much to write me your private 
 opinion what I had best do in case of an 
 emergency. Your letters are always sacred, so 
 pray write with your usual sincerity and open- 
 ness. I know you too well to fear your being 
 offended if things should be so managed that 
 your counsel cannot be followed ; it will, at any 
 rate, not be thrown away, since it will be a 
 fresh proof of your interest in my affairs and 
 my little self. 
 
 My notions I will also tell you ; they are (in 
 case I must produce this piece to the 
 manager) : 
 
 To entirely omit all mention of the club. 
 
 To curtail the parts of Smatter and Dabbler 
 as much as possible. 
 
 To restore to (^ensor his £5000 and not trouble 
 him even to offer it. 
 
 To give a new friend to Cecilia, by whom 
 her affairs shall be retrieved, and through 
 whose means the catastrophe shall be brought 
 to be happy. 
 
 And to change the nature of Beaufort's con- 
 
 nections with Lady Smatter, in order to obviate 
 the unlucky resemblance the adopted nephew 
 bears to our female pride of literature. 
 
 This is all I have at present thought of. And 
 yet, if I am so allowed, even these thoughts 
 shall all turn to nothing ; for I have so much 
 more fear than hope, and anxiety than pleasure 
 in thinking at all of the theatre, that I believe 
 my wisest way will be to shirk, which, if by 
 evasive and sneaking means I can, I shall. 
 
 Now concerning Admiral Jem ; — you have 
 had all the accounts of him from my mother ; 
 whether or not he has made any change in his 
 situation we cannot tell. The Morning Post 
 had yesterday this paragraph : 
 
 ' We hear Lieutenant Burney has succeeded 
 to the command of Capt. Clerk's ship.' 
 
 That this, as Miss Waldron said of her hair, 
 is all a falsity, we are, however, certain, as Lord 
 Sandwich has informed my father that the first 
 lieutenant of poor Capt. Cook was promoted to 
 the Discovery. Wliether, however, Jem has 
 been made first lieutenant of the Resolution, or 
 whether that vacancy has been filled up by 
 the second lieutenant of that ship, we are not 
 informed. The letter from my admiral has not, 
 it seems, been very clear, for I met the Hon. 
 Cajit. Walsingham last week on a visit, and he 
 said he had been at court in the morning. ' And 
 the King,' he continued, 'said to me, "Why, I 
 don't think you captains in the navy shine 
 much in the literary way ! " " No, sir," answered 
 I, "but then, in return, no more do your 
 Majesty's captains in the army" — except Bur- 
 goyne, I had a good mind to say ! — but I did 
 not dare.' 
 
 I shall give you some further particulars of 
 my meeting this Capt. Walsingham in some 
 future letter, as I was much pleased with 
 him. 
 
 I am sure you must have been grieved for 
 poor Capt. Cook.^ How hard, after so many 
 dangers, so much toil, to die in so shocking a 
 manner in an island he had himself discovered, 
 among savages he had himself, in his first 
 visit to them, civilised and rendered kind and 
 hospitable, and in pursuit of obtaining justice 
 in a cause in which he had himself no interest, 
 but zeal for his other captain ! He was, besides, 
 the most moderate, humane, and gentle circum- 
 navigator who ever went out upon discoveries ; 
 agreed the best with all the Indians, and till 
 this fatal time, never failed, however hostile 
 they met, to leave them his friends. 
 
 Dr. Hunter, who called here lately, said that 
 he doubted not but Capt. Cook had trusted 
 them too unguardedly ; for as he always had 
 declared his opinion that savages never com- 
 mitted murder without provocation, he boldly 
 
 1 The news of Captain Cook's melancholy death had 
 just reached England. It took place in the preceding 
 February. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 177 
 
 went among them without precautions for 
 safety, and paid for his incautious intrepidity 
 with his very valuable life. 
 
 The Th rales are all tolerably well, Mr. Thrale 
 I think and hope much better. I go to them 
 very often, and they come here certainly once 
 every week, and Mrs. Thrale generally oftener. 
 I have had some charming meetings at their 
 house, which, though in brief, I will enumerate. 
 
 At the first the party was, Mr. Murphy, 
 Mr. Seward, Mr. Evans, Dr. Solander, and 
 Lady Ladd. Dr. Johnson had not then settled 
 in the borough. 
 
 Mr. Evans is a clergyman, very intimate with 
 the Thrales, and a good-humoured and a sensible 
 man. 
 
 Dr. Solander, whom I never saw before, I 
 found very sociable, fuU of talk, information, 
 and entertainment. My father has very exactly 
 named him, in calling him a philosoi>hical 
 gossip. 
 
 The others you have heard of frequently. 
 
 Mr. Murphy ' made at me ' immediately ; — 
 he took a chair next mine, and would talk to 
 me, and to me only, almost all the day. He 
 attacked me about my play, entreated me most 
 earnestly to show him the rest of it, and made 
 it many compliments. I told him that I had 
 quite given it up— that I did not like it now it 
 was done, and would not venture to try it, and 
 therefore could not consent to show it. He quite 
 flew at this — vowed I should not be its judge. 
 
 ' What ! ' cried he, ' condemn in this manner ! 
 — give up such writing ! such dialogue ! such 
 character ! No, it must not be. Show it me — 
 you shall show it me. If it wants a few stage- 
 tricks trust it with me, and I will put them in. 
 I have had a long experience in these matters. 
 I know what the galleries will and will not 
 bear. I will promise not to let it go out of my 
 hands without engaging for its success.' 
 
 This, and much more he went on with in a 
 low voice, obliging me by the nature of the 
 subject to answer him in the same, and making 
 everybody stare at the closeness of our confab, 
 which I believe was half its pleasure to him, for 
 he loves mischievous fun as much as if he was 
 but sixteen. 
 
 While we were thus discoursing, Mr. Seward, 
 who I am sure wondered at us, called out, 
 'Miss Bumey, you don't hear Dr. Solander.' 
 I then endeavoured to listen to him, and found 
 he was giving a very particular account to the 
 company of Captain Cook's appearance at 
 Khamschatka— a subject which they naturally 
 imagined would interest me. And so indeed it 
 did ; but it was in vain, for Mr. Murphy would 
 not hear a word ; he continued talking to me in 
 a whisper, and distracted my attention in such 
 a manner that I heard both and understood 
 neither. 
 
 Again, in a few minutes, Mr. Seward called 
 out, ' Miss Burney, you don't hear this ; ' and 
 
 yet my neighbour would not regard him, nor 
 would allow that I should. Exhortation fol- 
 lowed exhortation, and entreaty entreaty, till, 
 almost out of patience, Mr. Seward a third time 
 exclaimed, 
 
 ' Wliy, Miss Burney, Dr. Solander is speaking 
 of your brother's ship.' 
 
 I was half ashamed, and half ready to laugh. 
 
 'Ay,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'Mr. Murphy and 
 Miss Burney are got to flirtation, so what care 
 they for Captain Cook and Captain Clerke.' 
 
 ' Captain Cook and Captain Clerke ? ' repeated 
 Mr. Murphy, — ' who mentioned them ? ' 
 
 Everybody laughed. 
 
 'Who?' said Mrs. Thrale. 'Why, Dr. Sol- 
 ander has been talking of them this hour.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' exclaimed he, ' why then it's Miss 
 Burney's fault ; she has been talking to me all 
 this time on purpose to prevent my listening.' 
 
 Did you ever hear such assurance ? 
 
 I can write no more particulars of my visit, 
 as my letter is so monstrously long already ; but 
 in conclusion. Dr. Solander invited the whole 
 party to the Museum that day week, and Lady 
 Ladd, who brought me home, invited us all to 
 dine with her after seeing it. This was by all 
 accepted, and I will say something of it hereafter. 
 I am very sorry I have forgot to ask for franks, 
 and must not forget to ask your pardon. 
 
 And so God bless you, my dear daddy ! and 
 bless Mrs. Gast, Mrs. Ham, and Kitty, and do 
 you say God bless 
 
 Your ever loving and affectionate 
 
 F. B.i 
 
 [Mr. Crabbe's journal of his London life, 
 extending over a period of three months, 
 is one of the most affecting documents 
 which ever lent an interest to biography. 
 Arriving in the metropolis in the beginning 
 of 1780, without money, friends, or intro- 
 ductions, he rapidly sank into penury and 
 suffering. His landlord threatened him, 
 and hunger and a gaol already stared him 
 in the face. In this emergency, he ventured 
 to solicit the notice of three individuals, 
 eminent for station and influence. He 
 applied to Lord North, Lord Shelburne, 
 and Lord Thurlow, but without success. 
 In a happy moment the name of Burke 
 entered his mind, and he appealed to his 
 sympathy in the following letter. The 
 result is well known. In Burke the happy 
 poet found not only a patron and a friend, 
 but a sagacious adviser and an accomplished 
 critic. Crabbe supposed the following 
 
 1 From Madame D'Avblay's Diartj and Letters, by 
 permission of Messrs. Bickers & Son. 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 verses to have satisfied Burke of his poetical 
 genius : he is describing Aldborough, his 
 native town : — 
 
 Here wand'ring long, amid those frowning fields, 
 I sought the simple life that nature yields ; 
 Rapine, and wrong, and fear usurped her place, 
 And a bold, artful, surly, savage race, 
 Who only skilled to take the finny tribe, 
 The yearly dinner, or septemiial bribe. 
 Wait on the shore, and as the waves run high, 
 On the lost vessel bend their eager eye. 
 Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way, 
 Theirs or the ocean's miserable prey. 
 As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows 
 stand, 
 
 And wait for favouring winds to leave the land, 
 While still for flight the ready wing is spread, 
 So waited I the favouring hour, and fled ; 
 Pled from those shores where guilt and rapine 
 reign. 
 
 And cried, ah ! hapless they who stiU remain, — 
 Who still remain to hear the ocean roar, 
 Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore. 
 Till some fierce tide, with more superior sway. 
 Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away ; 
 When the sad tenant weeps from door to door. 
 And begs a poor protection from the poor. 
 
 During Crabbe's visit to Sir Walter Scott, 
 at Edinburgh, he was almost constantly in 
 the company of Mr. Lockhart, who communi- 
 cated to the poet's son some interesting anec- 
 dotes respecting him, knd one especially, 
 relating to his sojourn in London (see pp. 
 184-6), — * He told us that, during many 
 months, when he was toiling in early life in 
 London, he hardly ever tasted butcher's 
 meat, except on a Sunday, when he dined, 
 usually, with a tradesman's family, and 
 thought their leg of mutton, baked in a 
 pan, the perfection of luxury. The tears 
 stood in his eyes while he talked of Burke's 
 kindness to him in his distress; and, I 
 remember, he said, "The night after I 
 delivered my letter at his door, I was in 
 such a state of agitation, that I walked 
 AVestminster Bridge backwards and for- 
 wards until daylight."' — Willmott.^^ 
 
 THE POET CKABBE TO BUEKE. 
 
 An Appeal to his Generosity and Compassion. 
 
 Sir, — I am sensible that I need even your 
 talents to apologize for the freedom I now take ; 
 but I have a plea which, however simply urged, 
 will, with a mind like yours, sir, procure me 
 pardon : I am one of those outcasts on the 
 world, who are without a friend, without 
 employment, and without bread. 
 
 Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial 
 father, who gave me a better education than his 
 broken fortune would have allowed; and a 
 
 better than was necessary, as he could give me 
 that only. I was designed for the profession of 
 physic; but not having wherewithal to com- 
 plete the requisite studies, the design but 
 served to convince me of a parent's affection, 
 and the error it had occasioned. In April last 
 I came to London, with three pounds, and 
 flattered myself this would be sufficient to 
 supply me with the common necessaries of life, 
 till my abilities should procure me more ; of. 
 these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical 
 vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew 
 little of the world, and had read books only. I 
 wrote, and fancied perfection in my composi- 
 tions ; when I wanted bread, they promised me 
 affluence, and soothed me with dreams of 
 reputation, whilst my appearance subjected me 
 to contempt. Time, reflection, and want have 
 shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that 
 which I think the true light ; and, whilfet I 
 deem them such, have yet the opinion that 
 holds them superior to the common run of 
 poetical publications. 
 
 I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, 
 the brother of Lord Rochford ; in consequence 
 of which, I asked his lordship's permission to 
 inscribe my little work to him. Knowing it to 
 be free from all political allusions and personal 
 abuse, it was no very material point to me to 
 whom it was dedicated. His lordship thought 
 it none to him, and obligingly consented to my 
 request. 
 
 I was told that a subscription would be the 
 more profitable method for me, and therefore 
 endeavoured to circulate copies of the enclosed 
 proj)osals. 
 
 I am afraid, sir, I disgust you with this very 
 dviU narration, but believe me punished in the 
 misery that occasions it. You will conclude 
 that, during this time, I must have been at 
 more expense than I could afford ; indeed the 
 most parsimonious could not have avoided it. 
 The printer deceived me, and my little business 
 has had every delay. The people with whom 
 I live, perceive my situation, and find me to be 
 indigent and without friends. About ten days 
 since, I was compelled to give a note for seven 
 pounds, to avoid an arrest for about double 
 that sum which I owe. I wrote to every friend • 
 I had, but my friends are poor likewise ; the 
 time of x>ayment approached, and I ventured 
 to represent my case to Lord Rochford. I 
 begged to be credited for this sum till I received 
 it of my subscribers, which I believe will be 
 within one month ; but to this letter I had no 
 reply, and I have probably offended by my 
 importunity. Having used every honest means 
 in vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, 
 and obtained, with much entreaty, and as the 
 greatest favour, a week's forbearance, when I 
 am positively told that I must pay the money, 
 or ijrepare for a prison. 
 
 You will guess the purpose of so long 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 179 
 
 an introduction. I appeal to you, sir, as a 
 good, and, let me add, a great man. I have 
 no other pretensions to your favour than that 
 I am an unhappy one. it is not easy to 
 support the thoughts of confinement ; and I 
 am coward enough to dread such an end to 
 mj' suspense. 
 
 Can you, sir, in any degree, aid me with 
 propriety? Will you ask any demonstrations 
 of my veracity ? I have imposed upon myself, 
 but I have been guilty of no other imposition. 
 Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. 
 I know those of rank and fortune are teased 
 with frequent petitions, and are compelled to 
 refuse the requests even of those whom they 
 know to be in distress ; it is, therefore, with a 
 distant hope I ventured to solicit such favour ; 
 but you will forgive me, su-, if you do not think 
 proper to relieve. It is impossible that 
 sentiments like yours can proceed from any 
 but a humane and generous heart. 
 
 I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I 
 have not the hapj)iness to obtain credit with 
 you, I must submit to my fate. My existence 
 is pain to myself, and every one near and dear 
 to me are distressed in my distresses. My 
 connections, once the source of happiness, now 
 embitter the reverse of my fortune ; and I have 
 only to hope a speedy end to a life so unpromis- 
 ingly begun, in which (though it ought not to 
 be boasted of) I can reap some consolation 
 from looking to the end of it. I am, sir, with 
 the greatest respect, your obedient and m^ost 
 humble servant, Geoege Crabbe. 
 
 CKABBE TO LOED SHELBUENE. 
 
 June 6. 
 
 [I wUl now, my dearest Mira [his affianced 
 wife], give you my letter to Lord Shelburne, 
 but cannot recollect an exact copy, as I altered 
 much of it, and I believe, in point of expression, 
 for the better. I want not, I know, your best 
 wishes; those and her prayers my Mira gives 
 me. God will give us peace, my love, in His 
 time : pray chiefly that we may acquiesce in His 
 righteous determinations. — Ceabbe's Journal. ] 
 
 To the Bight Honourable the Earl of Shelburne. 
 
 Ah ! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great, 
 
 T" adorn a rich, or save a sinking state, 
 
 If public ills engross not all thy care, 
 
 Let private woe assail a patriot's ear. 
 
 Pity confined, but not less warm, impart, 
 
 And unresisted win thy noble heart : 
 
 Nor deem I rob thy soul of Britain's share, 
 
 Because I hope to have some interest there ; 
 
 Still wilt thou shine on all a fostering sun. 
 
 Though with more fav'ring beams enlight'ning one,— 
 
 As Heaven will oft make some more amply blest, 
 
 Yet still in general bounty feeds the rest. 
 
 Oh hear the virtue thou reverest plead ; 
 
 She'll swell thy breast, and there applaud the deed. 
 
 She bids thy thoughts one hour from greatness stray, 
 
 And leads thee on to fame a shorter way ; 
 
 Where, if no withering laurel's thy reward. 
 
 There's shouting Conscience, and a grateful Bard, — 
 
 A bard untrained in all but misery's school, 
 
 Who never bribed a knave or praised a fool. 
 
 'Tis glory prompts, and as thou read'st attend. 
 
 She dictates pity, and becomes my friend ; 
 
 She bids each cold and dull reflection flee. 
 
 And yields her Shelburne to distress and me ! 
 
 Forgive, my lord, a free, and, perhaps, 
 unusu.al address; misfortune has in it, I hojie, 
 some excuse for presumption. Your lordshii) 
 will not, cannot, be greatly displeased with an 
 unfortunate man, whose wants are the most 
 urgent ; who wants a friend to assist him, and 
 bread. 
 
 I will not tire your lordship with a recital of 
 the various circumstances which have led to 
 this situation. It would be too long a tale ; 
 though there are parts in it which, I will 
 venture to assure your lordship, would not 
 only affect your compassion, but, I hope, engage 
 your approbation. It is too dull a view of the 
 progression from pleasing, though moderate 
 expectation, to unavoidable penury. 
 
 Your lordshii) will pardon me the relation of a 
 late and unsuccessful attempt to become useful 
 to myself and the community I live in. Starving 
 as an ajoothecary, in a little venal borough in ! 
 Suffolk, it was there suggested to me that Lord 
 North, the present Minister, was a man of that 
 liberal disi)osition, that I might hope success 
 from a reiDresentation of my particular circum- 
 stances to him. This I have done, and laid 
 before his lordship, I confess a dull, but a 
 faithful account of my misfortunes. My 
 request had bounds the most moderate. I 
 asked not to feed upon the spoils of my country, 
 but by an honest diligence and industry to earn 
 the bread I needed. The most pressing part of 
 my prayer entreated of his lordship his speedy 
 determination, as my little stock of money was 
 exhausted, and I was reduced to live in misery 
 and on credit. 
 
 "Why I complain of his lordship is not that 
 he denied this, though an humble and moderate 
 Ijetition, but for his cruel and unkind delay. 
 My lord, you will pardon me a resentment 
 expressed in one of the little pieces I have taken 
 the liberty of enclosing, when your lordship 
 considers the inhumanity I was treated with : 
 my repeated prayers for my sentence were put 
 off by a delay ; and at length a lingering 
 refusal, brought me by an insolent domestic, 
 determined my suit, and my opinion of liis 
 lordship's private virtues. 
 
 My lord, I now turn to your lordship, and 
 entreat to be heard. I am ignorant what to 
 ask, but feel forcibly my wants — patronage and 
 bread. I have no other claim on your lordship 
 than my necessities, but they are great, unless 
 
i8o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 my Muse, and she has, I am afraid, as few- 
 charms ; nor is it a time for such to flourish : in 
 serener days, my lord, I have produced some 
 poetical compositions the public might approve, 
 and your lordship not disdain to patronize. I 
 would not, my lord, be vain farther than 
 necessity warrants, and I pray your lordship to 
 pardon me this. May I not hope it will occur 
 to you how I may be useful? My heart is 
 humbled to all but villainy, and would live, if 
 honestly, in any situation. Your lordship has 
 my fortune in your power, and I will, with 
 resi)ect and submission, await your determin- 
 ation. I am, my lord, etc. etc. 
 
 ['You see, my dear Mira, to what our 
 situation here may reduce us. Yet am I not 
 conscious of losing the dignity becoming a man : 
 some respect is due to the supei'iority of station ; 
 and that I will always pay, but I cannot flatter 
 or fawn, nor shall my humblest request be so 
 presented. If respect will not do, adulation 
 shall not ; but I hope it will ; as I'm sure he 
 must have a poor idea of greatness, who delights 
 in a supple knee bending to him, or a tongue 
 voluble in paltry praise, which conscience says 
 is totally undeserved.' — Crabbe's Journal.'\ 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT TO CRABBE. 
 
 Ashestiel, October 21, 1809. 
 Dear Sir, — I am just honoured with your 
 letter, which gives me the more sensible 
 pleasure, since it has gratified a wish of more 
 than twenty years' standing. It is, I think, 
 fully that time since I was, for great part of a 
 very snowy winter, the inhabitant of an old 
 house in the country, in a course of poetical 
 study, so very like that of your admirably 
 painted Young Lad, that I could hardly help 
 saying, 'That's me!' when I was reading the 
 tale to my family. Among the very few books 
 which fell under my hands was a volume or two 
 of Dodsley's Annual Register, one of which 
 contained copious extracts from The Village 
 and The Library, particularly the conclusion 
 of book first of the former, and an extract from 
 the latter, beginning with the description of the 
 old Eomancers. I committed them most faith- 
 fully to my memory, where your verses must 
 have felt themselves very strangely lodged in 
 company with ghost stories, border - riding 
 ballads, scraps of old plays, and all the 
 miscellaneous stuff which a strong appetite for 
 reading, with neither means nor discrimination 
 for selection, had assembled in the head of a lad 
 of eighteen. New ijublications, at that time, 
 were very rare in Edinburgh, and my means of 
 procuring them very limited ; so that, after a 
 long search for the poems which contained these 
 beautiful specimens, and which had afforded 
 
 me so much delight, I was fain to rest contented 
 with the extracts from the Register, which I 
 could repeat at this moment. You may, 
 therefore, guess my sincere delight when I saw 
 your poems at a later period assume the rank in 
 the public consideration which they so well 
 deserve. It was a triumph to my own im- 
 mature taste to find I had anticipated the 
 api)lause of the learned and of the critical, and 
 I became very desirous to offer my gratulor, 
 among the more imjDortant plaudits which yoii 
 have had from every quarter. I should cer- 
 tainly have availed myself of the freemasonry 
 of authorship — (for our trade may claim to be a 
 mystery as well as Abhorson's) — to address to 
 you a copy of a new poetical attempt, which I 
 have now upon the anvil, and I esteem myself 
 particularly obliged to Mr. Hatchard, and to 
 your goodness acting upon his information, for 
 giving me the opportunity of paving the way 
 for such a freedom. I am too proud of the 
 compliments you honour me with, to affect to 
 decline them ; and with respect to the compar- 
 ative view I have of my own labours and yours, 
 I can only assure you, that none of my little 
 folks, about the formation of whose taste and 
 principles I may be supposed naturally soli- 
 citous, have ever read any of my own poems ; 
 while yours have been our regular evening's 
 amusement. My eldest girl begins to read well, 
 and enters as well into the humour as into the 
 sentiment of your admirable descriptions of 
 human life. As for rivalry, I think it has 
 seldom existed among those who know, by 
 experience, that there are much better things 
 in the world than literary reputation, and that 
 one of the best of these good things is the 
 regard and friendship of those deservedly and 
 generally esteemed for their worth or their 
 talents. I believe many dilettanti authors do 
 cocker themselves up into a great jealousy of 
 anything that interferes with what they are 
 pleased to call their fame ; but I should as soon 
 think of nvirsing one of my own fingers into a 
 whitlow for my private amusement, as encourag- 
 ing such a feeling. I am truly sorry to observe 
 you mention bad health : those who contribute 
 so much to the improvement as well as the 
 delight of society should escape this evil. I 
 hope, however, that one day your state of 
 health may permit you to view this country. I 
 have very few calls to London, but it will 
 greatly add to the interest of those which may 
 occur, that you will permit me the honour of 
 waiting upon you in my journey, and assuring 
 you, in person, of the early admiration and 
 sincere respect with which I have the honour to 
 be, dear sir, yours, etc., Walter Scott. 
 
 , TO the same. 
 
 ['My father wrote a letter,' says the Rev. 
 George Crabbe, ' to Mr. Scott, and sent him a 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 i8r 
 
 copy of all his works. His^ brother poet 
 honoured him with the following beautiful 
 reply ' :— ] 
 
 Ahhotsford, June 1, 1812. 
 
 My dear Sie,— I have too long delayed to 
 thank you for the most kind and acceptable 
 present of your three volumes. Now am I 
 doubly armed, since I have a set for my cabin 
 at Abbotsford as well as in town ; and, to say 
 truth, the auxiliary copy arrived in good time, 
 for my original one suffers as much by its 
 general popularity among my young people as a 
 popular candidate from the hugs and embraces 
 of his democratical admirers. The clearness 
 and accuracy of your painting, whether natural 
 or moral, renders, I have often remarked, your 
 works generally delightful to those whose youth 
 might render them insensible to the other 
 beauties with which they abound. There are a 
 sort of pictures — surely the most valuable, were 
 it but for that reason — which strike the 
 uninitiated as much as they do the connoisseur, 
 though the last alone can render reason for his 
 admiration. Indeed, our old friend Horace 
 knew what he was saying, when he chose to 
 address his ode ' Virginibus puerisque ; ^ and so 
 did Pope when he told somebody he had the 
 mob on the side of his version of Homer, and 
 did not mind the high-flying critics at Button's. 
 After all, if a faultless poem could be produced, 
 I am satisfied it would tire the critics them- 
 selves, and annoy the whole reading world with 
 the spleen. 
 
 You must be delightfully situated in the 
 Vale of Belvoir— a part of England for which I 
 entertain a special kindness, for the sake of the 
 gallant hero, Robin Hood, who, as probably you 
 will readily guess, is no small favourite of mine ; 
 his indistinct ideas concerning the doctrine of 
 meum and tuum being no great objection to an 
 outriding borderer. I am happy to think that 
 your station is under the protection of the 
 Rutland family, of whom fame speaks highly. 
 Our lord of the ' cairn and the scaur,' waste 
 wilderness and hundred hills, for many a league 
 around, is the Duke of Buccleuch, the head of 
 my clan ; a kind and benevolent landlord, a 
 warm and zealous friend, and the husband of a 
 lady, comme il y en a peu. They are both 
 great admirers of Mr. Crabbe's poetry, and 
 would be happy to know him, should he ever 
 come to Scotland, and venture into the Gothic 
 halls of a border chief. The early and uniform 
 kindness of this family, with the friendship of 
 the late and present Lord Melville, enabled me, 
 some years ago, to exchange my toils as a 
 barrister for the lucrative and respectable 
 situation of one of the clerks of our supreme 
 court, which only requires a certain routine of 
 ofl&cial duty, neither laborious nor calling for 
 any exertion of the mind. So that my time is 
 entirely at my own command, except when I 
 
 am attending the court, which seldom occupies 
 more than two hours of the morning during 
 sitting. I besides hold in commendam the 
 sheriffdom of Ettrick Forest, — which is now no 
 forest ; — so that I am a sort of pluralist as to | 
 law appointments, and have, as Dogberry says, 
 two gowns, and everything handsome about 
 me. I have often thought it is the most 
 fortunate thing for bards like you and me, to 
 have^an established profession and professional 
 character, to render us independent of those 
 worthy gentlemen, the retailers, or, as some 
 have called them, the midwives of literature, 
 who are so much taken up with the abortions 
 they bring into the world, that they are scarcely 
 able to bestow the proper care upon young and 
 flourishing babes like ours. That, however, is 
 only a mercantile way of looking at the matter ; 
 but did any of my sons show poetical talent, of 
 which, to my great satisfaction, there are no 
 appearances, the first thing I should do, would 
 be to inculcate upon him the duty of cultivating 
 some honourable profession, and qualifying 
 himself to play a more resjpectable part in 
 society than the mere poet. And as the best 
 corollary of my doctrine, I would make him 
 get your tale of The Patron by heart from 
 beginning to end. It is curious enough that 
 you should have republished The Village for the 
 purpose of sending your young men to college, 
 and I should have written the Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel for the purpose of buying a new horse 
 for the Volunteer Cavalry. I must now send 
 this scrawl into town to get a frank, for God 
 knows it is not worthy of postage. "With the 
 warmest wishes for your health, prosperity, and 
 increase of fame, — though it needs not, — I 
 remain, most sincerely and affectionately yovirs, 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 CRABBE TO SCOTT. 
 
 ['My father's answer,' continues his son, *to 
 this kind communication has been placed in my 
 hands ; and I feel convinced that no offence will 
 be taken by any one at an extract which I am 
 about to give from it. The reader will presently 
 discover that my father had no real cause to 
 doubt the regard of the noble person to whom 
 he alludes, and who subsequently proved a most 
 efficient patron and friend. Mr. Crabbe says to 
 Sir Walter':] 
 
 Accept my very sincere congratulations on 
 your clerkship, and all things beside which you 
 have had the goodness to inform me of. It is 
 indeed very pleasant to me to find that " the 
 author of works that give me and thousands 
 delight, is so totally independent of the mid- 
 wives you speak of. Moreover, I give you joy 
 of an honourable intercourse with the noble 
 family of Buccleuch, whom you happily describe 
 to me, and by whose notice, or rather notice of 
 
! l82 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 my book, I am much favoured. With respect 
 to my delightful situation in the Yale of 
 Belvoir, and under the very shade of the castle, 
 I will not say that your imasination has created 
 its beauties, but I must confess it has enlarged 
 and adorned them. The Vale of Belvoir is flat 
 and unwooded, and save that an artificial, 
 straight -lined piece of water, and one or two 
 small streams, intersect it, there is no other 
 variety than is made by the different crops, 
 wheat, barley, beans. The castle, however, is 
 a noble place, and stands on one entire hill, 
 taking up its whole surface, and has a fine 
 appearance from the window of my jiarsonage, 
 at which I now sit, at about a mile and a half 
 distance. The duke also is a duke-like man, 
 and the duchess a very excellent lady. They 
 have great possessions, and great patronage, hut 
 — you see this unlucky particle, in one or other 
 of Home Tooke's senses, will occur — hut I am 
 now of the old race. And what then ? Well, I 
 will explain. Thirty years since I was taken to 
 Belvoir by its late possessor, as a domestic 
 chaplain. I read the sei'vice on a Sunday, and 
 fared sumptuously every day. At that time, 
 the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, gave me a 
 rectory in Dorsetshire, small, but a living ; this 
 the duke taught me to disregard as a provision, 
 and promised better things. While I lived 
 with him on this pleasant footing, I observed 
 many persons in the neighbourhood, who came 
 occasionally to dine, and were civilly received. 
 'How do you do, Dr. Smith? How is Mrs. 
 Smith ? ' 'I thank your grace, well ; ' and so 
 they took their venison and claret. ' Who are 
 these ? ' said I to a young friend of the duke's. 
 ' Men of the old race, sir ; people whom the 
 old duke was in the habit of seeing ; for some of 
 them he had done something, and had he yet 
 lived, all had their chance. They now make 
 way for us, but keep up a sort of connection.' 
 The son of the old duke of that day and I were 
 of an age to a week ; and with the wisdom of a 
 young man, I looked distantly on his death 
 and my own. I went into Suffolk and married, 
 with decent views, and i^rospects of views more 
 enlarging. His grace Avent into Ireland — and 
 died. Mrs. Crabbe and I philosophized as well 
 as we could ; and after some three or four years, 
 Lord Thurlow, once more at the request of the 
 duchess dowager, gave me the crown livings I 
 now hold, on my I'esignation of that in Dorset- 
 shire. They were at that time worth about £70 or 
 £80 a year more than that, and now bring me 
 about £400; but a long minority ensued, — new 
 connections were formed ; and when, some few 
 years since, I came back into this country, and 
 expressed a desire of inscribing my verses to the 
 duke, I obtained leave, indeed, but I almost 
 repented the attempt, from the coldness of the 
 reply. Yet, recollecting that great men are 
 beset with applicants of all kinds, I acquitted 
 the duke of injustice, and determined to with- 
 
 draw myself, as one of the old race, and give 
 way to stronger candidates for notice. To this 
 resolution I kept strictly, and left it entirely to 
 the family whether or no I should consider my- 
 self as a stranger, who, having been disappointed 
 in his expectation, by unforeseen events, must 
 take his chance, and ought to take it i^atiently. 
 For reasons I have no inclination to canvass, 
 his grace has obligingly invited me, and I 
 occasionally meet his fi-iends at the castle, 
 without knowing whether I am to consider that 
 notice as the promise of favour, or as favour in 
 itself. I have two sons, both in orders, partly 
 from a promise given to Mrs. Crabbe's family, 
 that I would bring them uj) precisely alike, and 
 partly because I did not know what else to do 
 with them. They will share a family property 
 that will keep them from pining upon a curacy. 
 And what more?— I must not perplex myself 
 with conjecturing. You find, sir, that you are 
 much the greater man ; for except what Mr. 
 Hatchard puts into my privy purse, I doubt 
 whether £G00 be not my total receipts ; but he 
 at present helps us, and my boys being no 
 longer at college, I can take my wine without 
 absolutely repining at the enormity of the cost. 
 I fully agree with you respecting the necessity 
 of a profession for a youth of moderate fortu.ne. 
 Woe to the lad of genius without it ! and I am 
 flattered by what you mention of my Patron, 
 Your praise is current coin. 
 
 THOMAS MOOEE TO JOHN MURKAY. 
 
 Recollections of Crabhe. 
 
 Sloperton Cottage, January 1, 1834. 
 
 My dear Mr, Murray,— Had I been aware 
 that your time of publication was so near, the 
 few scattered notices and recollections of Mr. 
 Crabbe, which it is in my power to furnish for 
 his son's memoir, should have been i^resented in 
 a somewhat less crude and careless shape than, 
 in this hasty reply to your letter, I shall be 
 able to give them. 
 
 It was in the year 1817, if I recollect right, 
 that, during a visit of a few weeks to London, 
 I first became acquainted with Mr. Crabbe ; 
 and my opportunities of seeing him during that 
 period, at Mr. Rogers's and Holland House, 
 were frequent. The circumstance connected 
 with him at that time, which most dwelt upon 
 my memory, was one in which you yourself were 
 concerned, as it occurred in the course of the 
 negotiation which led to your purchase of the 
 copyright of his x)oems. Though to Crabbe 
 himself, who had up to this period received but 
 little for his writings, the liberal sum which 
 you offered, namely £3000, appeared a mine of 
 wealth, the two friends whom he had employed 
 to negotiate for him, and who, both exquisite 
 judges of literaiy merit, measured the market- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 able value of his \vorks by their own admiration 
 of them, thought that a bai-gain more advan- 
 tageous might be made, and (as you, j)robably, 
 now for the first time learn) aj)plied to another 
 eminent house on the subject. Taking but too 
 just a measure of the state of public taste at 
 that moment, the respectable publishers to 
 whom I allude named, as the utmost which 
 they could afford to give, but a third of the sum 
 which you had the day before offered. In this 
 predicament, the situation of poor Crabbe was j 
 most critical. He had seen within his reach a 
 prize fai- beyond his most sanguine hopes, and 
 was now, by the over-sanguineness of friends, 
 put in danger of losing it. Change of mind, or 
 a feeling of umbrage at this reference to other 
 IJubHshers, might, not unnaturally, it was feared, 
 induce you to decline all further negotiation; 
 and that such was likely to be the result there 
 appeared every reason to apprehend, as a letter 
 which Crabbe had addressed to you, saying that 
 he had made u^^ his mind to accept your offer, 
 had not yet received any answer. 
 
 In this ci-isis it was that Mr. Rogers and my- 
 self, anxious to relieve our poor friend from 
 his suspense, called upon you, as you must well 
 remember, in Albemarle Street; and seldomhave 
 I watched a countenance Avith more solicitude, or 
 heard words that gave me much more pleasure, 
 than when, on the subject being mentioned, 
 you said, 'Oh yes, I have heard from Mr. Crabbe, 
 and look upon the matter as all settled.' I was 
 rather pressed, I recollect, for time that morning, 
 having an appointment on some business of my 
 own ; but Mr. Eogers insisted that I should 
 accompany him to Crabbe's lodgings, and enjoy 
 the pleasure of seeing him relieved from his 
 suspense. We found him sitting in his room, 
 alone, and expecting the worst ; but soon dissi- 
 pated all his fears by the agreeable intelligence 
 which we brought. 
 
 When he received the bills for £3000, we 
 earnestly advised that he should, without delay, 
 deposit them in some safe hands ; but no — he 
 must take them with him to TroAvbridge, and 
 show them to his son John. They would hardly 
 believe in his good luck, at home, if they did 
 not see the bills. On his way down to Trow- 
 bridge, a friend at Salisbury, at whose house he 
 rested (Mr. Everett, the banker), seeing that he 
 carried these bills loosely in his waistcoat pocket, 
 requested to be allowed to take charge of them 
 for him ; but with equal ill-success. There was 
 no fear, he said, of his losing them, and he 
 must show them to his son John. 
 
 It was during the same visit of Mr. Crabbe to 
 London, that we enjoyed a very agreeable day 
 together, at Mr. Horace Twiss's, — a day 
 remarkable, not only for the presence of this 
 great poet, but for the amusing assemblage of 
 other remarkable characters who were there 
 collected ; the dinner guests being, besides the 
 Dowager Countess of Cork, and the present 
 
 183 
 
 Lord and Lady Clarendon, Mr. William Spencer, 
 Kean the actor, Colonel Berkeley, and Lord 
 Petersham. Between these two last-mentioned 
 gentlemen Mr. Crabbe got seated at dinner ; 
 and though I was not near enough to hear 
 distinctly their conversation, I could see that 
 he was alternately edified and surprised by the 
 information they were giving him. 
 
 In that same year, I had the good luck to be 
 present with him at a dinner in celebration of 
 the memory of Burns, where he was one of a 
 large party (yourself among the number) whom 
 I was the means of collecting for the occasion ; 
 and who, by the way, subscribed liberally 
 towards a monument to the Scottish bard, of 
 which we have heard nothing ever since. 
 Another public festival to which I accompanied 
 him was the anniversary of the Wiltshire 
 Society : where, on his health being proposed 
 from the chair by Lord Lansdowne, he returned 
 thanks in a short speech, simply, but collectedly, 
 and with the manner of a man not deficient in 
 the nerve necessary for such displays. In looking 
 over an old newspaper report of that dinner, I 
 find, in a speech of one of the guests, the 
 following passage, which, more for its truth 
 than its eloquence, I here venture to cite : — ' Of 
 Mr. Crabbe, the speaker would say, that the 
 Mma severior which he worshij^s has had no 
 influence whatever on the kindly dispositions of 
 his heart : but that, while, with the eye of a 
 sage and a poet, he looks penetratingly into 
 the darker region of human nature, he stands 
 surrounded by its most genial light himself.' 
 
 In the summer of the year 1824, I passed a 
 few days in his company at Longleat, the noble 
 seat of the Marquis of Bath ; and it was there, 
 as we walked about those delicious gardens, that 
 he, for the first time, told me of an unpublished 
 poem which he had by him, entitled, as I think 
 he then said, the Departure and the Return, and 
 the same, doubtless, which you. are now about 
 to give to the world. Among the visitors at 
 Longleat, at that time, was the beautiful 
 Madame , a Genoese lady, whose know- 
 ledge and love of English literature rendered 
 her admiration of Crabbe's genius doubly 
 flattering. Nor was either the beauty or the 
 praises of the fair Italian thrown away upon the 
 venerable poet, among whose many amiable 
 attributes a due appreciation of the charms of 
 female society was not the least conspicuous. 
 There was, indeed, in his manner to women a 
 sweetness bordering rather too much upon what 
 the French call doucereux, and I remember 
 
 hearing Miss , a lady known as the writer 
 
 of some of the happiest jeux d'esprit of our 
 day, say once of him, in allusion to this excessive 
 courtesy, ' The cake is no doubt very good, but 
 there is too much sugar to cut through in getting 
 at it,' 
 
 In reference to his early intercourse with Mr. 
 Burke, Sir James Mackintosh had, more than 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 once, said to me, 'It is incumbent on you, Moore, 
 who are Crabbe's neighbour, not to allow him 
 to leave this world without putting on record, 
 in some shape or other, all that he remembers 
 of Burke.' On mentioning this to Mr. Eogers, 
 when he came down to Bowood, one summer, 
 to meet Mr. Crabbe, it was agreed between us 
 that we should use our united efforts to sift 
 him upon this subject, and endeavour to collect 
 whatever traces of Beaconsfield might still 
 have remained in his memory. But beyond a 
 few vague generalities, we could extract nothing 
 from him whatever, and it was plain that, in 
 his memory at least, the conversational powers 
 of the great orator had left but little vestige. 
 The range of subjects, indeed, in which Mr. 
 Crabbe took any interest was, at all times of his 
 life, very limited ; and, at the early period 
 when he became acquainted with Mr. Burke, 
 when the power of poetry was but newly 
 awakening within him, it may easily be conceived 
 that whatever was unconnected with his own 
 absorbing art, or even with his own peculiar 
 province of that art, would leave but a feeble 
 and transient impression upon his mind. 
 
 This indifference to most of the general topics, 
 whether of learning or politics, which diversify 
 the conversation of men of the world, Mr. Crabbe 
 retained through life ; and in this peculiarity, I 
 think, lay one of the causes of his comparative 
 inefficiency as a member of society, — of that im- 
 pression, so disproportionate to the real powers 
 of his mind, which he produced in ordinary life. 
 Another cause, no doubt, of the inferiority of 
 his conversation to his writings is to be found 
 in that fate which threw him, early in life, into 
 a state of dependent intercourse with persons 
 far superior to him in rank, but immeasurably 
 beneath him in intellect. The courteous policy 
 which would then lead him to keep his conver- 
 sation down to the level of those he lived with, 
 afterwards grew into a habit which, in the 
 commerce of the world, did injustice to his 
 great powers. 
 
 You have here all that, at this moment, 
 occurs to me, in the way either of recollection 
 or remark, on the subject of our able and 
 venerated friend. The delightful day which Mr. 
 Rogers and myself passed with him at Syden- 
 ham, you have already, I believe, an account of 
 from my friend, Mr. Campbell, who was our 
 host on the occasion. Mr. Lockhart has, I take 
 for granted, communicated to you the amusing 
 anecdote of Crabbe's interview with the two 
 Scottish lairds — an anecdote which I cherish the 
 more freshly and fondly in my memory, from its 
 having been told me, with his own peculiar ! 
 humour, by Sir Walter Scott, at Abbotsford. 
 I have, therefore, nothing further left than to 
 assure you how much and truly I am, yours, 
 Thomas Moore. 
 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART TO THE REV. GEORGE 
 CRABBE. 
 
 Eeminiscences of his Father. 
 
 London, Dec. 26, 1833. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am sorry to tell you that Sir 
 Walter Scott kept no diary during the time of 
 your father's visit to Scotland, otherwise it 
 would have given me pleasure to make extracts 
 for the use of your memoirs. For myself, 
 although it is true that, in consequence of Sir 
 Walter's being constantly consulted about the 
 details of every procession and festival of that 
 busy fortnight, the pleasing task of showing to 
 Mr. Crabbe the usual lions of Edinburgh fell 
 principally to my share, I regret to say that my 
 memory does not supply me with many traces 
 of his conversation. The general impression, 
 however, that he left on my mind was strong, 
 and, I think, indelible : while all the mummeries 
 and carousals of an interval, in which Edinburgh 
 looked very unlike herself, have faded into a 
 vague and dreamlike indistinctness, the image 
 of your father, then first seen, but long before 
 admired and revered in his works, remains as 
 fresh as if the years that have now passed were 
 but so many days. His noble forehead, his 
 bright beaming eye, without anything of old 
 age about it, — though he was then, I presume, 
 above seventy, — his sweet, and, I would say, 
 innocent smile, and the calm mellow tones of 
 his voice — all are reproduced the moment I 
 open any page of his poetry ; and how much 
 better have I understood and enjoyed his poetry, 
 since I was able thus to connect with it the 
 living presence of the man ! 
 
 The literary persons in company with whom I 
 saw him the most frequently were Sir Walter 
 and Henry Mackenzie ; and between two such 
 thorough men of the world as they were, perhaps 
 his apparent simplicity of look and manners 
 struck one more than it might have done under 
 different circumstances ; but all three harmon- 
 ized admirably together — Mr. Crabbe's avowed 
 ignorance about Gaels, and clans and tartans, 
 and everything that was at the moment upper- 
 most in Sir Walter's thoughts, furnishing him 
 with a welcome apology for dilating on such 
 topics with enthusiastic minuteness, while your 
 father's countenance spoke the quiet delight he 
 felt in opening his imagination to what was 
 really a new world ; and the venerable ' Man of 
 Feeling,' though a fiery Highlander himself at 
 bottom, had the satisfaction of lying by and lis- 
 tening until some opportunity offered itself of 
 hooking in, between the links, perhaps, of some 
 grand chain of poetical imagery, some small 
 comic or sarcastic trait, which Sir Walter caught 
 up, played with, and, with that art so peculiarly 
 his own, forced into the service of the very im- 
 pression it seemed meant to disturb. One even- 
 ing, at Mr. Mackenzie's own house, I particularly 
 remember, among the noctes coenceque DeHm. j 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Mr. Crabbe had, I presume, read very little 
 about Scotland before that excursion. It 
 appeared to me that he confounded the Inchcolm 
 of the Firth of Forth with the Icolmkill of the 
 Hebrides ; but John Kemble, I have heard, did 
 the same. I believe he really never had known, 
 until then, that a language radically distinct 
 from the English was still actually spoken 
 within the island. And this recalls a scene of 
 high merriment which occurred the very morn- 
 ing after his arrival. When he came down into 
 the breakfast parlour, Sir "Walter had not yet 
 appeared there ; and Mr. Crabbe had before him 
 two or three portly personages all in the full 
 Highland garb. These gentlemen, arrayed in a 
 costume so novel, were talking in a language which 
 he did not understand ; so he never doubted that 
 they were foreigners. The Celts, on their part, 
 conceived Mr. Crabbe, dressed as he was in 
 rather an old-fashioned style of clerical pro- 
 priety, with buckles in his shoes for instance, 
 to be some learned abbe, who had come on a 
 pilgrimage to the shrine of Waverley ; and the 
 result was, that when, a little afterwards. Sir 
 "Walter and his family entered the room, they 
 fo\md your father and these worthy lairds 
 hammering away, with pain and labour, to 
 make themselves mutually understood in most 
 execrable French. Great was the relief and 
 potent the laughter, when the host interrupted 
 their colloquy with his plain English good- 
 morning. 
 
 It surprised me, on taking Mr. Crabbe to 
 see the house of Allan Ramsay on the Castle 
 Hill, to find that he had never heard of Allan's 
 name ; or, at all events, was unacquainted with 
 his works. The same evening, however, he 
 perused The Gentle Shepherd, and he told me 
 next morning that he had been pleased with it, 
 but added, there is a long step between Ramsay 
 and Burns. He then made Sir "Walter read 
 and interpret some of old Dunbar to him ; and 
 said, I see that the Ayrshire bard had one giant 
 before him. 
 
 Mr. Crabbe seemed to admire, like other 
 people, the grand natural scenery about 
 Edinburgh ; but when I walked with him to 
 the Salisbury Crags, where the superb view 
 had then a lively foreground of tents and 
 batteries, he appeared to be more interested 
 with the stratification of the rocks about us 
 than with any other feature in the landscape. 
 As to the city itself, he said he soon got wearied 
 of the New Town, but could amuse himself for 
 ever in the Old one. He was more than once 
 detected rambling after nightfall by himself, 
 among some of the obscurest wynds and closes ; 
 and Sir Walter, fearing that, at a time of such 
 confusion, he might get into some scene of 
 trouble, took the precaution of desiring a friendly 
 caddie (see Humphrey Clinker), from the corner 
 of Castle Street, to follow him the next time he 
 went out alone in the evening. 
 
 Mr. Crabbe repeated his visits several times 
 to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and 
 expressed great admiration of the manner in 
 which the jjatients were treated. He also 
 examined pretty minutely the interior of the 
 Bedlam. I went with him both to the Castle 
 and Queen Mary's apartment inHolyrood House ; 
 but he did not appear to care much about either. 
 I remember, however, that when the old dame 
 who showed us Darnley's armour and boots 
 comjilained of the impudence, as she called it, 
 of a preceding visitor, who had discovered 
 these articles to be relics of a much later age, 
 your father warmly entered into her feelings ; 
 and said, as we came away, 'This pedantic 
 l)uppyism was inhumane.' 
 
 The first Sunday he was in Edinburgh, my 
 wife and her sister carried him to hear service 
 in St. George's Church, where the most popular 
 of the Presbyterian clergy, the late Dr. Andrew 
 Thomson, then officiated. But he was little 
 gratified either with the aspect of the church, 
 which is large without grandeur, or the style of 
 the ceremonial, which he said was bald and bad, 
 or the eloquence of the sermon, which, however, 
 might not be preached by Dr. Thomson him- 
 self. Next Sunday he went to the Episcopalian 
 Chapel, where Sir "Walter Scott's family were 
 in tlie habit of attending. He said, however, 
 in walking along the streets that day, this 
 unusual decorum says not a little for the 
 Scotch system : the silence of these well-dressed 
 crowds is really grand. King George the Fourth 
 made the same remark. 
 
 Mr. Crabbe entered so far into the feelings of 
 his host, and of the occasion, as to write a set 
 of verses on the royal visit to Edinburgh ; they 
 were printed along with many others, but I 
 have no copy of the collection. (Mr. Murray can 
 easily get one from Edinburgh, in case you 
 wish to include those stanzas in your edition of 
 his poetical works.) He also attended one of 
 the King's levees at Holyrood, where his 
 Majesty appeared at once to recognise his 
 person, and received him with attention. 
 
 All my friends who had formed acquaintance 
 with Mr. Crabbe on this occasion appeared ever 
 afterwards to remember him with the same 
 feeling of affectionate respect. Sir Walter 
 Scott and his family parted with him most 
 reluctantly. He had been quite domesticated 
 under their roof, and treated the young people 
 very much as if they had been his own. His 
 unsophisticated, simple, and kind address put 
 everybody at ease with him ; and, indeed, one 
 would have been too apt to forget what lurked 
 beneath that good-humoured, unpretending 
 aspect, but that every now and then he uttered 
 some brief, pithy remark, which showed how 
 narrowly he had been scrutinizing into whatever 
 might be said or done before him, and called 
 us to remember, with some awe, that we were 
 in the j)resence of the author of The Borough. 
 
i86 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 I recollect that he used to have a lamp and 
 writing materials placed by his bedside every 
 night ; and when Lady Scott told him she 
 wondered the day was not enough for author- 
 ship, he answered, 'Dear lady, I should have 
 lost many a good hit, had I not set down, at 
 once, things that occurred to me in my dreams,' 
 
 I never could help regretting very strongly 
 that ]Mr. Crabbe did not find Sir Walter at 
 Abbotsford, as he had expected to do. The 
 fortnight he passed in Edinburgh was one scene 
 of noise, glare, and bustle, — reviews, levees, 
 banquets, and balls, — and no person could either 
 see or hear so much of him as might, under other 
 circumstances, have been looked for. Sir 
 Walter himself, I think, took only one walk 
 with Mr. Crabbe : it was to the ruins of St. 
 Anthony's Chapel, at the foot of Arthur's Seat, 
 which your father wished to see, as connected 
 with part of the Heart of Mid-Lothian. I had 
 the pleasure to accompany them on this 
 occasion ; and it was the only one on which I 
 heard your father enter into any details of his 
 own personal history. He told us, that during 
 many months when he was toiling in early life 
 in London, he hardly ever tasted butcher's meat, 
 except on a Sunday, when he dined usually 
 with a tradesman's family, and thought their leg 
 of mutton, baked in the pan, the perfection of 
 luxury. The tears stood in his eyes while he 
 talked of Burke's kindness to him in his distress ; 
 and I remember he said, * The night after I 
 delivered my letter at his door, I was in such a 
 state of agitation, that I walked Westminster 
 Bridge backwards and forwards until daylight.' 
 Believe me, dear sir, your very faithful servant, 
 
 J. G. LOCKHAKT. 
 
 [The eventful history of the mutiny of the 
 Bounty^ and of Bligh's voyage of four 
 thousand miles over the j)erilous Atlantic, 
 has been narrated by Sir John Barrow 
 with feeling and impartiality. Among 
 those who remained in the ship, after the 
 expulsion of its commander, was Peter 
 Heywood, a native of the Isle of Man, 
 where his father was seneschal to the 
 Duke of Athol. He was a midshipman 
 of the Bounty^ iind, being the only sur- 
 viving officer, was probably subjected to a 
 severer scrutiny. He was convicted by a 
 court-martial, but subsequently received 
 the King's pardon, and was restored to the 
 service. It was during the distressing 
 interval between the accusation and the 
 trial, that his sister, Nessy Heywood, 
 addressed to him this pathetic expression 
 
 of hope, affection, and pity. She lived, 
 in her own words, to clasp her freed brother 
 once more to her bosom, and to jiroclaim 
 herself, in a hasty note to her mother, 
 one of the hai)piest beings upon eai'th. 
 But her constitution sank under the 
 violent emotions it had undergone, and 
 she died at Hastings, September 25, 1793, 
 within a year of her brother's liberation. 
 If the tenderest love, the most generous 
 self-devotion, and the liveliest sense of 
 honour and virtue, be some of the noblest 
 endowments of human nature, we shall 
 not hesitate to class Nessy Heywood 
 among Eminent Persons. She appeals for 
 distinction neither to the understanding nor 
 to the fancy, but to the hQ^xi.—WillmoU.'] 
 
 NESSY HEYWOOD TO HER BEOTHER. 
 
 Fervent Assurances of Love and Confidence. 
 
 Isle of Man, June 2, 1792. 
 
 In a situation of mind only rendered sui3- 
 portable by the long and painful state of 
 misery and suspense we have suffered on his 
 account, how shall I address my dear, my 
 fondly-beloved brother? how describe the 
 anguish we have felt at the idea of this long 
 and painful separation, rendered still more 
 distressing by the terrible circumstances attend- 
 ing it ? Oh ! my ever-dearest boy, when I look 
 back to that dreadful moment which brought 
 us the fatal intelligence, that you had remained 
 in the Bounty after Mr. Bligh had quitted her, 
 and were looked upon by him as a mutineer! 
 when I contrast that day of horror with my 
 present hopes of again beholding you, such as 
 my most sanguine wishes could expect, I know 
 not which is the most predominant sensation, 
 pity, compassion, and terror for your sufferings, 
 or joy and satisfaction at the i^rospect of their 
 being near a termination, and of once more 
 embracing the dearest object of our affections. 
 I will not ask you, my beloved brother, whether 
 you are innocent of the dreadful crime of 
 mutiny ; if the transactions of that day were 
 as Mr. Bligh has represented them, such is 
 my conviction of your worth and honour, that 
 I will, without hesitation, stake my life on 
 your innocence. If, on the contrary, you 
 were concerned in such a consi^iracy against 
 your commander, I shall be as firmly persuaded 
 that his conduct was the occasion of it ; but, 
 alas ! could any occasion justify so atrocious 
 an attempt to destroy a number of our fellow 
 creatures? No, my ever dearest brother, no- 
 thing but conviction from your own mouth can 
 possibly persuade me that you would commit 
 an action in the smallest degree inconsistent 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 187 
 
 with honour and cinty ; and the circumstance 
 of your ha\dng swam off to the Pandora, on 
 her arrival at Otaheite (which filled us with 
 joy to which no words can do justice), is 
 sufficient to convince aU who know you, that 
 you certainly stayed behind either by force, or 
 from views of preservation. 
 
 How strange does it seem to me that I am 
 now engaged in the delightful task of wiiting 
 to you ! Alas ! my beloved brother, two years 
 ago I never expected again to enjoy such a 
 felicity ; and even yet I am in the most painful ! 
 uncertainty whether you are alive. Gracious j 
 God ! grant that we may be at length blessed 
 by your return ; but, alas ! the Pandora's people 
 have been long expected, and are not even yet 
 arrived. Should any accident have happened, 
 after all the miseries you have already suffered, 
 the poor gleam of hope, with which we have 
 been lately indulged, will render our situation 
 ten times more insupportable than if time had 
 inured us to your loss. I send this to the care 
 of Mr. Hayward of Hackney, father to the 
 young gentleman you so often mention in your 
 letters while you were on board the Bounty, 
 and who went out as third lieutenant of the 
 Pandora, a circumstance which gave us infinite 
 satisfaction, as you would, on entering the 
 Pandora, meet your old friend. On discovering 
 old Mr. Hayward's residence, I wrote to him, 
 as I hoped he could give me some information 
 respecting the time of your arrival, and, in 
 return, he sent me a most friendly letter, and 
 has promised this shall be given to you when 
 you reach England, as I well know how great 
 must be your anxiety to hear of us, and how 
 much satisfaction it will give you to have a 
 letter immediately on your return. Let me 
 conjure you, my dearest Peter, to write to us 
 the very first moment — do not lose a post — 
 'tis of no consequence how short your letter 
 may be, if it only informs us you are well. I 
 need not tell you that you are the first and 
 dearest object of our affections ; think, then, 
 my adored boy, of the anxiety we must feel on 
 your account ; for my own part, I can know 
 no real happiness or joy independent of you, 
 and if any misfortune should now deprive us 
 of you, my hopes of felicity are fled for ever. 
 
 We are at present making all possible interest 
 with every friend and connection we have, to 
 insure you a sufficient support and protection 
 at your approaching trial ; for a trial you must 
 unavoidably undergo, in order to convince the 
 world of that innocence which those who 
 know you will not for a moment doubt; but, 
 alas ! while circumstances are against you, the 
 generality of mankind will judge severely. 
 Bligh's representations to the Admiralty are, 
 I am told, very unfavourable, and hitherto the 
 tide of public opinion has been greatly in his 
 favour. My mamma is at present well, con- 
 sidering the distress she has suffered since you 
 
 left us ; for, my dearest brother, we liavc 
 experienced a complicated scene of misery 
 from a variety of causes, which, however, when 
 comiDared with the sorrow we felt on your 
 account, was trifling and insignificant : that 
 misfortune made all others light, and to see 
 you once more retu.rned and safely restored to 
 us will be the summit of all earthly hai:)piness. 
 
 Farewell, my most beloved brother ! God 
 grant this may soon be put into your hands 2 
 Perhaps at this moment you are arrived in 
 England, and I may soon have the dear delight 
 of again beholding you. My mamma, brothers, 
 and sisters join with me in every sentiment of 
 love and tenderness. "Write to us immediately, 
 my ever-loved Peter, and may the Almighty 
 preserve you until you bless with your presence 
 your fondly affectionate family, and particvilarly 
 your unalterably faithful friend and sister, 
 
 Nessy Heywood. 
 
 [Upon his return from Harrow, in the autumnal 
 vacation of 1769, with his pupil, Lord 
 Althorpe, Sir William, then Mr., Jones 
 visited his friends at Oxford; and during 
 his residence among them, he made the 
 excursion to Forest Hill which is related 
 with so much animation in the following 
 letter. But a careful investigation of his 
 hypothesis respecting Milton has shown 
 that it cannot be supported. He says 
 that the poet chose this spot for his 
 abode after his first marriage ; but Milton's 
 union with the daughter of Mr. Powell 
 did not take place until 1643,^ when he 
 had entered upon his thirty-fifth year ; 
 and he himself expressly alludes to the 
 collection in which V Allegro and II Pen- 
 seroso ajipeared as the work of his youth- 
 ful hand. But although Milton did not 
 write these famous poems at Forest Hill, 
 it is not improbable that he introduced 
 into them some of the features of the 
 beautiful landscape which that spot pre- 
 sented to his eyes ; he may have visited 
 it when admitted in 1635, according to 
 the custom of the age, to the same degree 
 at Oxford which he had previously taken 
 at his own university. That, at a later 
 period of his life, he actually resided at 
 Forest Hill, may also be admitted, although 
 
 1 Professor Masson, whose word may safely be re- 
 garded as final in sucli a matter, is of opinion that 
 Milton spent a month at Forest Hill in the year 1643. 
 The house no longer exists, but the site of it is still 
 pointed out near the pretty vicarage of Forest Hill. 
 
i88 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 one of his recent biographers very positively 
 asserts that such a supposition must be 
 given up. Mr. Todd has quoted from a 
 letter of Madame de Bocage, who visited 
 Baron Schutz and his wife at Shotover 
 Hill, in the June of 1750, a singular con- 
 firmation of the local tradition mentioned 
 by Sir William Jones. ' They showed 
 me,' she says, 'from a small eminence, 
 Milton's house, to which I bowed with 
 all the reverence Avitli which that poet's 
 memory inspires me.' The same writer 
 notices the observation of the laureate 
 Warton, that a large portion of Paradise 
 Lost was composed at Forest Hill. The 
 question is more curious than important. 
 Both L' Allegro and II Penscroso ought, 
 perhaps, to be regarded as fancy pieces, 
 into which the jDoet has grouped the most 
 harmonious circumstances of description, 
 as they dwelt upon his memory, without 
 intending to describe any particular 
 situation. We know that the Deserted 
 Village of Goldsmith was composed in 
 this manner ; and the attempts to ac- 
 commodate every particular in it to 
 some imaginary original have been more 
 ingenious than successful. Living with 
 his father, in the rural quiet of Horton, 
 one of the most secluded hamlets in 
 Buckinghamshire, Milton would be likely 
 to indulge in that varied strain of contem- 
 plative description, of which these poems 
 offer so exquisite an example. — Willmott.] 
 
 SIK WILLIAM JONES TO THE COUNTESS OP 
 SPENCER. 
 
 A Romance about Milton. 
 
 September 7, 1762. 
 
 The necessary trouble of correcting the first 
 printed sheets of my History prevented me 
 to-day from paying a proper respect to the 
 memory of Shakespeare, by attending his 
 jubilee. But I was resolved to do all the 
 honour in my power to as great a poet, and 
 set out in the morning in company with a 
 friend, to visit a place where Milton spent 
 some part of his life, and where, in all proba- 
 bility, . he composed several of his earliest 
 productions. It is a small village, situated 
 on a pleasant hill, about three miles from 
 Oxford, and called Forest Hill, because it 
 formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has 
 since been cut down. The poet chose this 
 place of retirement after his first marriage, and 
 
 he describes the beauty of his retreat in that 
 fine passage of his Allegro : 
 ' Sometimes walking not unseen, 
 By hedge-xow elms, or hillocks green. 
 
 "While the ploughman, near at hand. 
 
 Whistles o'er the furrowed land, 
 
 And the milkmaid singeth blithe^ 
 
 And the mower whets his scythe ; 
 
 And every shepherd tells his tale, 
 
 Under the hawthorn in the dale. 
 
 Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures. 
 
 While the landscape round it measures. 
 
 Russet lawns, and fallows gray, 
 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 
 
 Mountains, on whose barren breast 
 
 The lab'ring clouds do often rest ; 
 
 Meadows trim, with daisies pied, 
 
 Shallow brooks and rivers wide ; 
 
 Towers and battlements it sees, 
 
 Bosomed high in tufted trees. 
 
 Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes, 
 From betwixt two aged oaks,' etc. 
 
 It was neither the proper season of the year, 
 nor time of the day, to hear all the rural 
 sounds and see all the objects mentioned in 
 this description ; but by a pleasing concurrence 
 of circumstances, we were saluted, on our 
 approach to the village, with the music of the 
 mower and his scythe ; we saw the ploughman 
 intent upon his labour, and the milkmaid 
 returning from her country employment. 
 
 As we ascended the hill, the variety of 
 beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and 
 natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave us 
 the highest pleasure. We at length reached 
 the spot whence Miltom undoubtedly took most 
 of his images ; it is on the top of the hill, from 
 which there is a most extensive prospect on 
 all sides ; the distant mountains that seemed 
 to support the clouds, the villages and turrets, 
 partly shaded by trees of the finest verdure, 
 and partly raised above the groves that sur- 
 rounded them, the dark plains and meadows, 
 of a greyish colour, where the sheep were 
 feeding at large ; in short, the view of the 
 streams and rivers convinced us that there 
 was not a single useless or idle word in the 
 above-mentioned description, but that it was 
 a most exact and lively representation of 
 nature. Thus will this fine passage, which 
 has always been admired for its elegance, 
 receive an additional beauty from its exactness. 
 After we had walked, with a kind of poetical 
 enthusiasm, over this enchanted ground, we 
 returned to the village. 
 
 The i^oet's house was close to the church ; 
 the greatest part of it has been pulled down, 
 and what remains belongs to an adjacent farm. 
 I am informed that several papers in Milton's 
 own hand were found by the gentleman who 
 was last in possession of the estate. The 
 tradition of his having lived there is current 
 among the villagers; one of them showed us 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 a ruinous wall that made part of his chamber ; 
 and I was much pleased with another, who 
 had forgotten the name of Milton, but 
 recollected him by the title of the poet. 
 
 It must not be omitted, that the groves near 
 this village ai-e famous for nightingales, which 
 are so elegantly described in the Penseroso. 
 Most of the cottage -svindows are over-grown 
 with sweetbriers, vines, and honeysuckles ; and 
 that Milton's habitation had the same rustic 
 ornament, we may conclude from his descrip- 
 tion of the lark bidding him good-morrow : 
 
 ' Througli the sweetbrier, or the vine, 
 Or the twisted eglantine.' 
 
 For it is evident that he meant a sort of 
 honeysuckle by the . eglantine, though that 
 word is commonly used for the sweetbrier, 
 which he could not mention twice in the 
 same couplet. If I ever pass a month or six 
 weeks at Oxford in the summer, I shall be 
 inclined to hire and rej)air this venerable 
 mansion, and to make a festival for a circle of 
 friends, in honour of Milton, the most perfect 
 scholar, as well as the subliraest poet, that 
 our country ever produced. Such an honour 
 will be less splendid, but more sincere and 
 respectful, than all the pomp and ceremony 
 on the banks of the Avon. I have, etc. 
 
 [Cuthbert CoUingwood was born at Newcastle, 
 September 26, 1750, and sent to a school 
 in that town, where his companions, Lord 
 Eldon and his brother, Lord Stowell, 
 remembered him to have been a pretty and 
 gentle boy. In 1761 he commenced his 
 naval career on board the Shannon, 
 commanded by Admiral Brathwaite. 
 While on the "West India station, he was 
 brought into frequent intercourse with 
 the illustrious Nelson. CoUingwood, by 
 the force of merit alone, gradually rose to 
 the highest rank in his profession. He 
 participated in the glory of St. Vincent 
 and Trafalgar, and distinguished himself 
 upon evei-y occasion by his intrepidity 
 and prudence. His health, however, 
 visibly declined under the constant 
 anxieties of service ; but to those friends 
 who advised him to relinquish his com- 
 mand, he always replied, that his life 
 belonged to his country. When at 
 length he determined upon returning 
 to England, the time was gone by. On 
 Monday, March 7, 1810, we are informed 
 by his biographer, there was a considerable 
 
 swell, and his friend Captain Thomas, on 
 entering his cabin, expressed his apprehen- 
 sions that the motion of the vessel 
 disturbed him, — *No, Thomas,' he said, 
 'nothing in this world can disturb me 
 more ; I am dying, and I am sure it must 
 be consolatory to you, and all who love me, 
 to see how comfortably I am coming to my 
 end.' With affectionate remembrances of 
 his absent family, after taking ' a tender 
 farewell of his attendants,' he expired, in 
 perfect tranquillity, olf Port Mahon, at six 
 o'clock in the evening, aged 59 years and 
 6 months. He was buried in St. Paul's, 
 by the side of Nelson. The history of his 
 life is recorded in the annals of his country ; 
 the history of his mind, in his most 
 delightful correspondence. It has been 
 very elegantly and justly observed, that 
 there is something peculiarly affecting in 
 his thoughts of home, and the trees he had 
 planted, and the flower-garden, and the 
 summer-seat, which he is perpetually 
 breathing from the distant and lonely 
 seas. — Willmott.} 
 
 LOED COLLINGWOOD TO HIS DAUGHTER. 
 
 Suggestions respecting her Education. 
 
 Ocean, at Malta, February 5, 1809. 
 I received your letter, my dearest child, and 
 it made me very happy to find that you and 
 dear Mary were well, and taking pains with 
 your education. The greatest pleasure I 
 have amidst my toils and troubles, is in the 
 expectation which I entertain of finding you 
 improved in knowledge, and that the under- 
 standing which it has pleased God to give you 
 both, has been cultivated with care and 
 assiduity. Your future happiness and respect- 
 ability in the world depend on the diligence 
 with which you apply to the attainment of 
 knowledge at this period of your life ; and 
 I hope that no negligence of your own will be 
 a bar to your progress. When I write to you, 
 my beloved child, so much interested am I 
 that you should be amiable, and worthy of the 
 friendship and esteem of good and wise people, 
 that I cannot forbear to second and enforce 
 the instruction which you receive, by admoni- 
 tion of my own, pointing out to you the great 
 advantages that will result from a tempei-ate 
 conduct and sweetness of manner, to all people 
 on all occasions. It does not follow that you 
 are to coincide and agree in opinion with every 
 ill-judging person ; but, after showing them 
 your reason for dissenting from their opinion, 
 your argument and opposition to it should not 
 
190 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 be tinctured by anything offensive. Never 
 forget for one moment that you are a gentle- 
 woman ; and all your words, and all your 
 actions, should mark you gentle. I never 
 knew your mother — your dear, your good 
 mother — say a harsh or a hasty thing to any 
 person in my life. Endeavour to imitate her. 
 I am quick and hasty in my temper; my 
 sensibility is touched sometimes with a trifle, 
 and my expression of it sudden as gunpowder ; 
 but, my darling, it is a misfortune which, not 
 having been sufficiently restrained in my youth, 
 has caused me much pain. It has, indeed, 
 given me more trouble to subdue this natural 
 impetuosity, than anything I ever undertook. 
 I believe that you are both mild ; but if ever 
 you feel in your little breasts that you inherit 
 a particle of your father's infirmity, restrain 
 it, and quit the subject that has caused it, 
 until your serenity be recovered. So much for 
 mind and manners ; next for accomplishments. 
 
 No sportsman ever hits a partridge without 
 aiming at it ; and skill is acquired by repeated 
 attempts. It is the same thing in every art ; 
 unless you aim at perfection, you will never 
 attain it ; but frequent attempts will make it 
 easy. Never, therefore, do anything with 
 indifference. Whether it be to mend a rent 
 in your garment, or finish the most delicate 
 piece of art, endeavour to do it as perfectly as 
 it is possible. When you write a letter, give 
 it your greatest care, that it may be as perfect 
 in all its parts as you can make it. Let the 
 subject be sense, expressed in the most plain, 
 intelligible, and elegant manner that you are 
 capable of. If, in a familiar epistle, you 
 should be playful and jocular, guard carefully 
 that your wit be not sharp, so as to give pain 
 to any person ; and before you write a sentence, 
 examine it, even the words of which it is 
 composed, that there be nothing vulgar or 
 inelegant in them. Remember, my dear, that 
 your letter is the picture of your brains, and 
 those whose brains are a compound of folly, 
 nonsense, and impertinence are to blame to 
 exhibit them to the contempt of the world, or 
 the pity of their fi-iends. To write a letter 
 with negligence, without proi^er stops, with 
 crooked lines, and great flourishing dashes, is 
 inelegant ; it argues either great ignorance of 
 what is proper, or great ignorance towards the 
 person to whom it is addressed, and is conse- 
 quently disrespectful. It makes no amends to 
 add an apology, for having scrawled a sheet of 
 l)aper, of bad pens, for you should mend them ; 
 or want of time, for nothing is more important 
 to you, or to which your time can more properly 
 be devoted. I think I can know the character 
 of a lady pretty nearly by her hand-writing. 
 The dashers arc all impudent, however they 
 may conceal it from themselves or others, and 
 the scribblers flatter themselves Avith a vain 
 hope that, as their letter cannot be read, it 
 
 may be mistaken for sense. I am very anxious 
 to come to England, for I have lately been 
 unwell. The greatest happiness which I expect 
 there, is to find that my dear girls have been 
 assiduous in their learning. 
 
 May God Almighty bless you, my beloved 
 little Sarah, and sweet Mary too. 
 
 TO LADY COLLINGWOOD. 
 
 Cherished Hopes of returning to his Icmihj. 
 
 Ocean, June 16, 1806. 
 
 This day, my love, is the anniversary of our 
 marriage, and I wish you many happy returns 
 of it. If ever we have peace, I hope to spend 
 my latter days amid my family, which is the 
 only sort of happiness I can enjoy. After this 
 life of labour to retire to peace and quietness 
 is all I look for in the world. Should we 
 decide to change the place of our dwelling, 
 our route would of course be to the southward 
 of Morpeth ; but then I should be for ever 
 regretting those beautiful views which are 
 nowhere to be exceeded ; and even the rattling 
 of that old waggon that used to pass our door 
 at six o'clock in a winter's morning had its 
 charms. The fact is, whenever I think how I 
 am to be happy again, my thoughts carry me 
 back to Morpeth, where, out of the fuss and 
 parade of the world, surrounded by those I 
 loved most dearly, and who loved me, I 
 enjoyed as much happiness as my nature is 
 capable of. Many things that I see in the 
 world give me a distaste to the finery of it. 
 The great knaves are not like those poor 
 unfortunates, who, driven perhaps to distress 
 from accidents which they could not prevent, 
 or at least not educated in principles of honour 
 and honesty, are hanged for some little 
 thievery : while a knave of education and 
 high-breeding, v,^ho brandishes his honour in 
 the eyes of the world, would rob a state to 
 its ruin. For the fii'st I feel pity and com- 
 passion ; for the latter, abhorrence and contempt ; 
 they are the tenfold vicious. 
 
 Have you read — but what I am more interested 
 about, is your sister with you, and is she well 
 and happy ? Tell her — God bless her ! — I wish 
 I were with you, that we might have a good 
 laugh. God bless me ! I have scarcely laughed 
 these three years. I am here with a very 
 reduced force, having been obliged to make 
 detachments to all quarters. This leaves me 
 weak, while the Spaniards and French within 
 are daily gaining strength. They have patched 
 and pieced until they have now a very con- 
 siderable fleet. Whether they will venture 
 out, I do not know ; if they come, I have no 
 doubt we shall do an excellent deed, and then 
 I will bring them to England myself. 
 
 How do the dear girls go on ? I would have 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 191 
 
 them taught geometry, which is of all sciences 
 in the world the most entertaining ; it expands 
 the mind more to the knowledge of all things 
 in nature, and better teaches to distinguish 
 between truths and such things as have the 
 appearance of being truths, yet are not, than 
 any other. Their education, and the proper 
 cultivation of the sense which God has given 
 them, are the objects on which my happiness 
 most depends. To inspire them with a love of 
 everything that is honourable and virtuous, 
 though in rags, and with contempt for vanity 
 in embroidery, is the way to make them the 
 darlings of my heart. They should not only 
 read, but it requires a careful selection of 
 books ; nor should they ever have access to 
 two at the same time ; but when a subject is 
 begun, it should be finished before anything 
 else is undertaken. How would it enlarge 
 their minds if they could acquire a sufficient 
 knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to 
 give them an idea of the beauty and wonders 
 of the creation ! I am persuaded that the 
 generality of people, and particularly fine 
 ladies, only adore God because they are told 
 it is proper, and the fashion to go to church ; 
 but I would have my girls gain such knowledge 
 of the works of the creation, that they may 
 j have a fixed idea of the nature of that Being 
 1 who could be the author of such a world. 
 1 Whenever they have that, nothing on this side 
 j the moon will give them much uneasiness of 
 mind. I do not mean that they should be stoics, 
 or want the common feelings for the sufferings 
 that flesh is heir to ; but they would then have 
 a source of consolation for the worst that could 
 happen. 
 
 Tell me how do the trees which I planted 
 thrive? Is there shade under the three oaks 
 for a comfortable summer-seat ? Do the poplars 
 grow at the walk, and does the wall of the 
 terrace stand firm? My bankers tell me that 
 all my money in their hands is exhausted by 
 fees on the peerage, and that I am in their 
 debt, which is a new epoch in my life, for it is 
 the first time I was ever in debt since I was a 
 midshipman. Here I got nothing; but then 
 my expenses are nothing, and I do not want it 
 particularly, now that I have got my knives, 
 forks, tea-pot, and the things you were so kind 
 as to send me. 
 
 [The most eloquent tribute to the memory of 
 Wakefield is contained in a letter from Dr. 
 Parr to a private friend, acknowledging the 
 communication of Mr. Wakefield's death. 
 *I loved him,' he said, ' unfeignedly, and 
 though our opinions on various subjects, 
 both of theology and criticism, were diffe- 
 rent, that difference never disturbed our 
 
 quiet, nor relaxed our mutual good-will. 
 For my part,' he added, ' I shall ever think 
 and ever speak of Mr. Wakefield as a very 
 profound scholar, as a most honest man, 
 and as a Christian who united knowledge 
 with zeal, piety with benevolence, and the 
 simplicity of a child with the fortitude of a 
 martyr.' From this eulogy some deductions 
 may be properly made ; for Parr knew no 
 middle path, either of censure or of praise. 
 But with all his errors, both of religion and 
 scholarship, Wakefield was undoubtedly 
 a man of genuine talent; with a heart 
 frequently governed by prejudice, and a 
 temper at once irritable and overbearing. 
 His edition of Lucretius, the second volume 
 of which he inscribed to Mr. Fox, has been 
 commended by those whose i)raise possesses 
 an intrinsic value, and wUl preserve the 
 name of a very original and a very eccentric 
 scholar. Fox, who was particularly attached 
 to the study of Greek literature, shared 
 Milton's affection for Euripides; an essay 
 upon the beauties of that dramatist was 
 one of his favourite literary projects. He 
 agreed with Milton, also, in his admiration 
 of Ovid, a writer neglected at our colleges 
 and our schools, but surpassing all the Latin 
 poets in playfulness and brilliancy of 
 imagination ; more inventive than Virgil, 
 more tender than Claudian, more earnest 
 than TibuUus. Dryden praises the prodi- 
 gality of his wit, by which he meant the 
 fertility of allusion, and ingenuity of appli- 
 cation, which we discover in the pages of 
 Moore. His defects flow out of his luxuri- 
 ance ; and his fancy often runs into 
 grotesque shapes from the very richness of 
 the vine. But Ovid is not only the 
 picturesque embellisher of sentiments; 
 Dryden acknowledged his power in moving 
 the passions : and no person can read his 
 allusion to the death of his parents without 
 confessing that the commendation was 
 deserved. — Willmott. ] 
 
 CHArvLES JAMES FOX TO GILBERT WAKEFIELD. 
 
 The Character of Cicero's Eloquence; Genius 
 of Ovid. 
 
 St. Anne's Hill, Oct. 22, 1799. 
 Sir,— I believe I had best not continue the 
 controversy about field sports ; or at least, if I 
 do, I must have recourse, I believe, to authority 
 
192 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 and precedent, rather than to argument, and 
 content myself with rather excusing than justi- 
 fying them. Oicero says, I believe, somewhere, 
 S>i quern, nihil delectaret nisi quod cum laude 
 et dignitate conjunctum foret, . . . huic homini 
 ego fortasse, et pauci, Deos propitios, plerique 
 iratos putarent. But this is said, I am afraid, 
 in defence of a libertine, whose public principles, 
 when brought to the test, proved to be as 
 unsound as his private life was irregular. By 
 the way, I know of no speech of Cicero's more 
 full of beautiful passages than this is {pro M. 
 Coelio), nor where he is more in his element. 
 Argumentative contention is what he by no means 
 excels in ; and he is never, I think, so happy as 
 when he has an opportunity of exhibiting a 
 mixture of philosophy and pleasantry; and 
 especially, where he can interpose anecdotes, 
 
 j and references to the authority of the eminent 
 characters in the history of his country. No 
 man appears, indeed, to have had such real 
 respect for authority as he ; and, therefore, when 
 he sj)eaks on that subject, he is always natural 
 and in earnest ; and not like those among us, 
 
 i who are so often declaiming about the wisdom 
 
 j of our ancestors, without knowing what they 
 mean, or hardly ever citing any particulars of 
 their conduct, or of their dicta. 
 
 I showed your proposed alteration in the 
 Tristia to a very good judge, who approved of 
 
 I it very much. I confess, myself, that I like the 
 old reading best, and think it more in Ovid's 
 manner ; but this, perhaps, is mere fancy. I 
 have always been a great reader of him, and 
 
 I thought myself the greatest admirer he had, till 
 you called him the first poet of antiquity, which 
 is going even beyond me. The grand and 
 spirited style of the Iliad, the true nature and 
 simplicity of the Odyssey, the poetical language 
 (far excelling that of all other poets in the 
 world) of the Georgics, and the pathetic strokes 
 in the yEneid, give Homer and Virgil a rank, in 
 my judgment, clearly above all competitors ; 
 but next after them I should be very apt to 
 class Ovid, to the great scandal, I believe, of all 
 who pique themselves upon what is called purity 
 of taste. You have somewhere compared him 
 to Euripides, I think ; and I can fancy I see a 
 resemblance in them. This resemblance it is, I 
 suppose, which makes one prefer Euripides to 
 Sophocles ; a preference which, if one were 
 writing a dissertation, it would be very difficult 
 to justify. 
 
 I cannot conceive upon what principle, or, 
 indeed, from what motive, they have so 
 restricted the intercourse between you and your 
 family. My first impulse was, to write to Lord 
 Ilchester to speak to Mr. Frampton ; but as you 
 seem to suspect that former applications have 
 (lone mischief, I shall do nothing. Did you, 
 who are such a hater of war, ever read the lines 
 at the beginning of the second book of Cowper's 
 Task? There are few things in our language 
 
 superior to them, in my judgment. He is a fine 
 poet, and has, in a great degree, conquered my 
 prejudices against blank verse. I am, with 
 great regard, sir. 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 C. J. Fox. 
 
 My hand is not yet so well as to give me the 
 use of it, though the wound is nearly healed. 
 The surgeon suspects there is more bone to 
 come away. I have been here something more 
 than a fortnight. 
 
 [Among the schemes of intellectual exertion 
 which presented themselves to the mind of 
 Fox, during his repose from the excitement 
 of politics and party, were treatises on 
 Poetry, History, and Oratory; an edition 
 of the works of Dryden ; and a Defence of 
 Racine, whom he appears to have admired 
 with the enthusiasm of Gray. But Fox, 
 although the most fluent of speakers, 
 was the slowest and most cautious of 
 writers. He confessed that he was too 
 scrupulous about language. The Fragment 
 upon the History of James the Second 
 disappointed the curiosity its appearance 
 had awakened. His published correspond- 
 ence, however, displays the kindliness of 
 his heart, the elegance of his taste, and the 
 cultivation of his mind. Lord Holland has 
 printed one of his familiar letters, which 
 is not more interesting in itself than valu- 
 able as an illustration of character. The 
 reader should refer to the ' Observations ' 
 upon this letter, appended to the History 
 of the reign of James, where the opinion of 
 Mr. Fox respecting the nightingale is very 
 ingeniously examined and refuted. — Will- 
 mott.] 
 
 THE SAME TO MK. GRAY. 
 
 TJie Note of the Nightingale. 
 
 Dear Gray, — In defence of my opinion about 
 the nightingales, I find Chaucer, who of all 
 poets seems to have been the fondest of the 
 singing of birds, calls it a merry note ; and 
 though Theocritus mentions nightingales six or 
 seven times, he never mentions their note as 
 plaintive or melancholy. It is true, he does 
 not call it anywhere merry, as Chaucer does ; 
 but by mentioning it with the song of the 
 blackbird, and as answering it, he seems to 
 imply that it was a cheerful note. Sophocles 
 is against us, but even he says, 'lamenting Itys,^ 
 and the comparison of her to Electra is rather 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 as to perseverance day ami night, than as to 
 sorrow. At all events, a tragic poet is not half 
 so good authority on this question as Theocritus 
 and Chaucer. I cannot light upon the passage 
 in the Odyssey, where Penelope's restlessness is 
 compared to the nightingale; but I am sure 
 that it is only as to restlessness that he makes 
 the comparison. If you will read the last 
 twelve books of the Odyssey, you will certainly 
 find it ; and I am sure you will be paid for your 
 hunt, whether you find it or not. The passage 
 in Chaucer is in the ' Flower and Leaf,' p. 99. 
 The one I particularly allude to in Theocritus 
 is in his Epigrams, I think in the fourth. 
 Dryden has transferred the word merry to the 
 goldfinch in the ' Flower and the Leaf,' in 
 deference, may be, to the vulgar error ; but 
 pray read his description of the nightingale 
 there : it is quite delightful. I am afraid that 
 I like those researches as much better than 
 those that relate to Shaftesbury, Sunderland, 
 etc., as I do those better than attending the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 C. J. Fox. 
 
 [Hannah More, while pronouncing, very un- 
 justly, the severest censure upon Shenstone's 
 Correspondence, excepted the letters of the 
 Countess of Hertford, which she thought 
 very pleasant and unaffected productions. 
 —Willmott.'] 
 
 THE COUNTESS OF HERTFORD, AFTERWARDS 
 DUCHESS OF SOMERSET, TO LADY LUXBOROUGH. 
 
 Spring Weather; Thomson's 'Castle of Indolence; ' 
 Shenstone's ' Schoolmistress. ' 
 
 Piercy Lodge, May 16, 1748. 
 Dear Madam, — How long soever your letters 
 are in coming, they never fail to assure their 
 welcome, by being more agreeable and enter- 
 taining, as well as breathing more of friendship 
 than anybody's else have the art of doing. I 
 have been here about a month, and find some 
 little improvements, which were ordered when 
 we went to London, completed; and I think 
 they are not quite unworthy of the name. A 
 piece of waste ground, on the lower side of the 
 Abbey walk, has been turned into a corn-field, 
 and a turf walk about eight feet wide round 
 it, close to a flourishing hawthorn hedge ; on 
 one side there is a thatched seat open on three 
 .sides, which pretends to no name of greater 
 dignity than justly belongs to what it represents, 
 namely, a shepherd's hut ; before it there is 
 an irregiilar piece of turf, which was spared 
 for the sake of some old oaks and beeches 
 
 which are scattered upon it ; and as you are 
 sitting down there, you have, under these 
 boughs, a direct view of Windsor Castle. 
 There are sweet-williams, narcissuses, rose- 
 campions, and such flowers as the hares will 
 not eat, in little borders, round the foot of 
 every tree ; and I almost flatter myself that 
 you would not be displeased with the rural 
 appearance of the whole. The rains have 
 given us the strongest verdure I ever saw ; 
 our lawns and meadows are enamelled with a 
 profusion of daisies and cowslips ; and we have 
 the greatest appearance of fruit that has been 
 seen there many years. I conclude you will 
 read Mr. Thomson's Castle of Indolence : it is 
 after the manner of Spenser; but I think he 
 does not always keep so close to his style as 
 the author of the Schoolmistress, whose name 
 I never knew till you were so good as to inform 
 me of it. I think it a charming poem ; and 
 was very much pleased with his ballad of 
 Queen Elizabeth's seeing the milkmaid. She 
 ai)pears at least, in my humble imagination, 
 in a more natural light than when we hear of 
 her bullying foreign powers, and cutting ofl 
 the head of an unhappy queen who fled to 
 her for protection. But to return to the 
 Castle of Indolence, I believe it will afford you 
 much entertainment ; there are many pretty 
 paintings in it, but I think the AVizard's Song 
 deserves a preference. ' He needs no muse 
 who dictates from his heart.' Have you met 
 with two little volumes, which contain four con- 
 templations, written by a Mr. James Hervey, 
 a young Cornish or Devonshire clergyman ? 
 The subjects are, upon "Walking among the 
 Tombs, upon a Flower Garden, upon Night, 
 and upon the Starry Heavens, There is 
 something poetical and truly pious. Now I 
 have got into the impertinence of recommend- 
 ing books to one who is a much better judge 
 than myself, I must name an Essay on Delicacy, 
 a subject which, if I were not acquainted with 
 you, and one or two more, I should imagine 
 had no longer an existence upon our globe. 
 
 I sincerely sympathize in the pleasure which 
 you must feel, dear madam, from the extreme 
 good character which everybody gives of your 
 son, and which his behaviour to you proves he 
 deserves ; may this, with every other blessing, 
 be long continued to you ; and may you always 
 look upon me as a sincere though insignificant 
 friend, as well as a most faithful and obedient, 
 etc. 
 
 My lord is at present in London, but I hope 
 he will be here time enough to save the postage 
 of this letter. I should be very glad to see 
 anything of Mr. Shenstone's. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [In the winter of the year 1790, an authoress, 
 residing in a single room up two pair of 
 stairs in Frith Street, presented to the 
 world a tale, which, in natural truth and 
 skilful delineation of the passions, has 
 seldom been equalled. That authoress 
 was Mrs. Inchbald; that tale was the 
 Simple Story. The success of the novel was 
 rapid and extensive ; but its most grateful 
 fruit was the friendship of Mrs. Phillips, 
 wife of the surgeon to the King. Mrs. 
 Inchbald's letters to this lady are the 
 pleasantest in her biography, and afford 
 the reader the clearest insight into her very 
 singular character. The ' mutual acquaint- 
 ance' was Mrs. Opie. — Willmott.] 
 
 MRS. INCHBALD TO MRS. PHILLIPS. 
 
 An Anecdote of Madame de Stael. 
 
 August 26, 1813. 
 I will now mention the calamity of a neigh- 
 bour, by many degrees the first female writer in 
 the world, as she is called by the Edinburgh 
 Reviewers. Madame de Stael asked a lady of 
 my acquaintance to introduce her to me. The 
 lady was our mutual acquaintance, of course, 
 and so far my friend as to conceal my place of 
 abode ; yet she menaced me with a visit from 
 the Baroness of Holstein, if I would not consent 
 to meet her at a third house. After much 
 persuasion, I did so. I admired Madame de 
 Stael much ; she talked to me the whole time ; 
 so did Miss Edgeworth, whenever I met her in 
 company. These authoresses suppose me dead, 
 and seem to pay a tribute to my memory ; but, 
 with Madame de Stael, it seemed no iDassing 
 compliment : she was inquisitive as well as 
 attentive, and entreated me to explain to her 
 the motive why I shunned society. 'Because,' 
 I replied, ' I dread the loneliness that will 
 follow.' 'What, will you feel your solitude 
 more when you return from this company than 
 you did before you came hither?' 'Yes.' 'I 
 should think it would elevate your spirits : why 
 will you feel your loneliness more ? ' ' Because 
 I have no one to tell that I have seen you; no 
 one to describe your person to ; no one to whom 
 I can repeat the many encomiums you have 
 passed on my Simple Story ; no one to enjoy 
 any of your praises but myself.' ' Ah ! ah ! you 
 have no children ; ' and she turned to an elegant 
 young woman, her daughter, with pathetic 
 tenderness. She then so forcibly depicted a 
 mother's joys, that she sent me home more 
 melancholy at the comparison of our situations 
 in life than could have arisen from the con- 
 sequences of riches or poverty. I called, by 
 appointment, at her house, two days after : I 
 was tol4 she was ill. The next morning, my 
 
 paper explained her illness. You have seen the 
 death of her son in the papers ; he was one of 
 Bernadotte's aides-de-camp, — the most beauti- 
 ful young man that ever was seen, only nineteen, 
 — a duel with sabres, and the first stroke liter- 
 ally cut off his head! Necker's grandson. 
 
 [When the British Government had determined 
 to punish the atrocious cruelty of the 
 Algerines, the command of the expedition 
 was entrusted to Lord Exraouth. Of his 
 manner and appearance upon the memor- 
 able day which witnessed the destruction 
 of this stronghold of piracy, a very graphic 
 sketch has been given by his Arabic 
 interpreter, Mr. Salame, who had been 
 despatched to the Dey with a flag of truce, 
 to receive his reply to the Admiral's final 
 demands. * I was quite surprised,' he says, 
 ' to see how his lordship was altered from 
 what I left him in the morning, for I knew 
 his manner was in general very mild, but 
 now he seemed to me all fightful, as a 
 fierce lion which had been chained in a 
 cage, and was set at liberty. With all 
 that his lordship's answer to me was, 
 " Never mind, we shall see ! " and at the 
 same time he turned towards the officer, 
 saying, "Be ready!" whereupon, I saw 
 every one standing with the match or the 
 string of the lock in his hand, anxiously 
 waiting for the word " Fire ! " During this 
 time, the Queen Charlotte, in a most 
 gallant and astonishing manner, took up a 
 position opposite the head of the mole, and 
 at a few minutes before three, the Algerines, 
 from the eastern battery, fired the first 
 shot at the Impregnable, which was astern, 
 when Lord Exmouth, having seen only the 
 smoke of the gun, and before the sound 
 reached him, said, with great alacrity, 
 "That will do — fire, my fine fellows!"* 
 Lord Exmouth, in a spirit of confident 
 bravery, which will remind the reader of 
 the Duke of Wellington's conduct at 
 Waterloo, had ordered his steward to keep 
 several dishes ready, and he, accordingly, 
 entertained the officers of the ship at 
 supper after the engagement.— Trt7^77io«.] 
 
 LORD EXMOUTH TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 The Battle of Algiers. 
 
 It has pleased God to give me again the 
 opportunity of writing to you, and it has also 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 pleased Him to give success to our efforts 
 against these hordes of barbarians. I never, 
 however, saw any set of men more obstinate at 
 their guns, and it was superior fire only that 
 could keep them back. To be sure, nothing 
 could stand before the Queen Charlotte's broad- 
 side. Everything fell before it; and the 
 Swedish consul assures me we killed about five 
 hundred at the very first fire, from the crowded 
 way in which troops were drawn up, four deep, 
 along the gun-boats, which were also full of 
 men. I had myself beckoned to many around 
 the guns close to us, to move away, previous to 
 giving the order to fire ; and I believe they are 
 within bounds when they state their loss at 
 seven thousand men. Our old friend, John 
 Gaze, was as steady as a rock ; and it was a 
 glorious sight to see the Charlotte take her 
 anchorage, and to see her flag towering on high, 
 when she appeared to be within the flames of 
 the mole itseK; and never was a ship nearer 
 burnt ; it almost scorched me off the poop : we 
 were obliged to haul in the ensign, or it would 
 have caught fire. Everybody behaved uncom- 
 monly well. Admiral Slilne came on board at 
 two o'clock in the morning, and kissed my hand 
 fifty times before the people, as did the Dutch 
 admkal. Von Capellan. I was but slightly 
 touched in the thigh, face, and fingers, my glass 
 cut in my hand, and the skirts of my coat torn 
 off by a large shot ; but as I bled a good deal, 
 it looked as if I was badly hurt, and it was 
 gratifying to see and hear how it was received, 
 even in the cockpit, which was then pretty full. 
 My thigh is not quite skinned over, but I am 
 perfectly well, and hope to reach Portsmouth 
 by the 10th of October. Ferdinand has sent me 
 a diamond star. Wise behaved most nobly, 
 and took up a line-of -battle ship's station ; but 
 all behaved nobly. I never saw such enthusiasm 
 in all my service, — not a wretch shrunk any- 
 where ; and I assure you it was a very arduous 
 task, but I had formed a very correct judgment 
 of all I saw, and was confident, if supported, I 
 should succeed. I could not wait for an off- 
 shore wind to attack ; the season was too far 
 advanced, and the land winds become light and 
 calmy. I was forced to attack at once with a 
 lee-shore, or perhaps wait a week for a precarious 
 wind along shore ; and I was quite sure I should 
 have a breeze off the land about one or two in 
 the morning, and equally sure we could hold 
 out that time. Blessed be God, it came, and a 
 dreadful night with it of thunder, lightning, and 
 rain, as heavy as I ever saw. Several ships had 
 expended all their powder, and been supplied 
 from the brigs. I had latterly husbanded, and 
 only fired when they fired on us; and we 
 expended 350 barrels, and 5420 shot, weighing 
 about 65 tons of iron. Such a state of ruin of 
 fortifications and houses was never seen ; and 
 it is the opinion of all the consuls, that two 
 hours' more firing would have levelled the town, 
 
 — the walls are all so cracked. Even the aque- 
 ducts were broken uj), and the people famishing 
 for water. The sea-defences, to be made effect- 
 ive, must be rebuilt from the foundation. The 
 tire all round the mole looked like Pandemonium. 
 I never saw anything so grand and so terrific, 
 for I was not on velvet, for fear they would 
 drive on board us. The copper bottoms floated 
 full of fiery hot charcoal, and were red hot 
 above the surface, so that we could not hook on 
 our fire-grapnels to put our boats on, and could 
 do nothing but push fire-booms, and spring the 
 ship off by our warj)s, as occasion required. 
 
 [This letter is one of a series written during a 
 tour into Staffordshire in company with 
 Mr. Basil Montagu. The journey was 
 accomplished in a one-horse carriage. This 
 letter is given from Mr. Paul's William 
 Godwin, by permission of C. K. Paul 
 &Co.] 
 
 WILLIAM GODWIN TO MAEY WOLLSTONECKOFT 
 GODWIN. 
 
 June 17, 1797. 
 You cannot imagine anything like Mr. Wynn 
 and his wife. He is a raw country booby of 
 eighteen, his hair about his ears, and a beard 
 that has never deigned to submit to the stroke 
 of the razor. His voice is loud, broad, and un- 
 modulated, the mind of the possessor has never 
 yet felt a sentiment that should give it flexible- 
 ness or variety. He has at present a brother 
 with him, a lad, as I guess, of fifteen, who has 
 come to Dr. Parr's house at Hatton, with a high 
 generosity of sentiment, and a tone of mind, 
 declaring that, if his brother be disinherited, 
 he, who is the next brother, will not reap the 
 benefit. His name is Julius, and John Wynn, 
 the husband, is also a lad of very good disposi- 
 tions. They both stammer: Julius extremely, 
 John less ; but with the stuttering of Julius 
 there is an ingenuousness and warmth that have 
 considerable charms. John, on the contrary, 
 has all the drawling, both of voice and thinking, 
 that usually characterizes a clown. His air is 
 gauche, his gait negligent and slouching, his 
 whole figure boorish. Both the lads are as 
 ignorant, and as destitute of adventure and 
 ambition, as any children that aristocracy has 
 to boast. Poor Sarah, the bride, is the victim 
 of her mother, as the bridegroom is her victim 
 in turn. The mother taught her that the 
 height of female wisdom was to marry a rich 
 man and a fool, and she has religiously complied. 
 Her mother is an admirable woman, and the 
 daughter mistook, and fancied she was worthy 
 of love. Never was a girl more attached to het 
 mother than Sarah Wynn (Parr). You do not 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 know, but I do, that Sarah has an uncommon 
 tinders tanding, and an exquisite sensibility, 
 which glows in her complexion, and flashes 
 from her eyes. Yet she is silly enough to 
 imagine that she shall be happy in love and a 
 I cottage with John Wynn. She is excessively 
 I angry with the fathers on both sides, who, as 
 she says, after having promised the contrary, 
 i attempted clandestinely to separate them, 
 j They have each, beyond question, laid up a 
 ( magazine of unhappiness ; yet I am persuaded 
 j Dr. Parr is silly enough to imagine the match a 
 j desirable one. 
 
 j We slept, as I told you, at Tamworth on 
 j Wednesday evening. Thursday morning we 
 I)roceeded through Coleshill (where I found a 
 l^ermanent pillory established in lieu of the 
 stocks), and where we passed through a very 
 I deej) and rather formidable ford, the bridge 
 I being under repair, and breakfasted at the 
 ' George, in the Tree, 18 miles. From thence 
 the road by Warwick would have been 14 miles, 
 ' and by a cross-country road only six. By this, 
 I therefore, we proceeded, and a very deep and 
 j rough road we found it. We arrived at Hatton 
 about one, so, after dinner, thinking it too mvich 
 to sit all day in the company I have described, 
 i I proposed to IMontagu a walk to Kenilworth 
 Castle, the seat originally of Simon de Montfort, 
 Earl of Leicester, who in the reign of Henry 
 I III., to whom he was an implacable enemy, 
 I was the author of the institution of the House 
 I of Commons ; and, more recently, the seat of 
 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favourite, 
 j and, as he hoped and dtesigned, the husband of 
 1 Elizabeth, to whom he gave a most magnificent 
 and memorable entertaimnent at this place. 
 The ruins are, beyond comparison, the finest in 
 i England. I found Montagu by no means a 
 , desirable companion in this expedition. He 
 i could not be persuaded to indulge the divine 
 , enthusiasm I felt coming on my soul, while I 
 ' felt revived, and, as it were, embodied the 
 I image of ancient times ; bxit, on the contrary, 
 j expressed nothing but indignation against the 
 1 aristocracy displayed, and joy that it was 
 ! destroyed. From Dr. Parr's to Kenilworth, 
 ; across the fields, is only four miles. By the 
 I road, round by Warwick, it is nine. We of 
 ■ course took the field way, but derived but little 
 i benefit from it, as we were on foot from half 
 I after four to half after ten, exclusive of a rest 
 of ten minutes. One hour out of the six we 
 I spent at Kenilworth, and two hours and a half 
 ' in going and returning respectively, so utterly 
 ! incaiiable were we of finding the path prescribed 
 I us. 
 
 i To-day, Friday, as fortune determined, was 
 i Coventry Fair, with a iirocession of all the 
 i trades, with a female representative of Lady 
 j Godiva at their head, dressed in a close dress 
 to represent nakedness. As fortune had thus 
 disposed of us, we deemed it our duty not to 
 
 miss the opportunity. We accordingly set out 
 after breakfast, for Montagu proved lazy, and 
 we did not get off till half after eleven. From 
 Dr. Parr's to Warwick is four miles, from War- 
 wick to Coventry ten miles. One mile on the 
 Coventry side of Warwick is Guy's Cliff, Mr. 
 Greathed's. My description of his garden was 
 an irresistible motive with Montagu to desire to 
 visit it, though I by no means desired it. We 
 accordingly went, and walked round the garden. 
 Mr. Greathed was in his grounds, and I left a 
 card, signifying I had done myself the pleasure 
 of paying my respects to him, and taken the 
 liberty of leading my friend over his garden. 
 This delay of half an hour precisely answered 
 the purpose of making us too late for Lady 
 Godiva. We saw the crowd, which was not 
 yet dispersed, and the booths of the fair", but 
 the lady, the singularity of the scene, was 
 i-etired. 
 
 It is now Sunday evening : we are at 
 Cambridge. Montagu says we shall certainly 
 be in town to-morrow (Monday) night. The 
 distance is fifty-three miles : we shall therefore 
 probably be late, and he requests that, if we be 
 not at home before ten, you will retain somebody 
 to take the whisky from Summers Town to 
 Lincoln's Inn. If Mary be at a loss on the 
 subject, perhaps the people of Montagu's lodging 
 can assist her. 
 
 Farewell : be happy : be in health and spirits. 
 Keep a look-out, but not an anxious one. 
 Delays are not necessarily tragical. I believe 
 there will be none. 
 
 [The letters of Burns want the simplicity, the 
 heartiness, and the facility of his verse. 
 For these deficiencies two excuses have 
 been offered. The first has been found in 
 his comparative ignorance of our language. 
 ' Burns, though for the most i^art he writes 
 with singular force and even gracefulness, 
 is not master of English prose, as he is of 
 Scottish verse, — not master of it in pro- 
 Ijortion to the depth and vehemence of his 
 matter.' The second, and more important 
 excuse, is discovered in the peculiarity of 
 the poefs social position. ' His correspond- 
 ents are often men whose relation to hini 
 he has never accurately ascertained ; whom, 
 therefore, he is either forearming himself 
 against, or else unconsciously flattering, 
 by adopting the style he thinks will please 
 them. AVhenever he writes, as one would 
 ever wish to do, to trusted friends, and on 
 real interests, his style becomes simple, 
 vivid, vigorous, expressive, sometimes even 
 
I 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 197 
 
 beautiful.' Sir "Walter Scott found many 
 j)assages of great eloquence, accompanied 
 by an air of affectation, and a tincture of 
 pedantiy; while Mr. Jeffrey, with more 
 relentless severity, supposed a large portion 
 of his letters to have been composed only 
 with a view to effect. 'When Burns 
 wrote this touching letter to his father,' 
 observes Allan Cunningham, in his illus- 
 trative note, 'he was toiling as a heckler 
 in his unfortunate flax speculation, a dull 
 as well as a dusty employment. On the 
 fourth day after it was penned, the poet 
 and his relation Peacock were welcoming 
 in the new year ; a lighted candle touched 
 some flax, and there was an end to all 
 their hopes. Of William Burns, the 
 father of the poet, much has already been 
 said ; he was a worthy and joious man, 
 desirous of maintaining rigid discipline in 
 his house, and solicitous about the future 
 welfare of his children. He was somewhat 
 austere of manners ; loved not boisterous 
 jocularity ; was rarely himself moved to 
 laughter ; and has been described as 
 abstemious of speech. His early and con- 
 tinued misfortunes, though they saddened 
 his brow, never afflicted the warm benevo- 
 lence of his nature ; he was liberal to the 
 poor, and stern and self-denying only to 
 himself. He is buried in AUoway Kirk- 
 yard, and his grave is visited by all who 
 desire to pay homage to the fame of his 
 eminent son.' — WUlviottJ] 
 
 THE POET BURNS TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 Melancholy Forebodings. 
 
 Irvine, Dec. 27, 1781. 
 Honoured Sir,— I have purposely delayed 
 wx-iting, in the hope that I should have the 
 pleasure of seeing you on New- Year's Day ; 
 but work comes so hard upon us, that I do 
 not choose to be absent on that account, as 
 well as for some other little reasons which I 
 shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly 
 the same as when you were here, only my 
 sleep is a little sounder ; and on the whole I 
 am rather better than otherwise, though I 
 mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of 
 my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that 
 I dare neither review past events, nor look 
 forward into futurity; for the least anxiety 
 or perturbation in my breast produces most 
 unhappy effects on my whole frame. Some- 
 times, indeed, when for an hour or two my 
 spirits are alightened, I glimmer a little into 
 
 futurity; but my principal, and, indeed, my 
 only pleasurable employment is, looking back- 
 wards and forwards in a moral and religious 
 way : I am quite transported at the thought, 
 that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid 
 an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, 
 and disquietudes of this weary life ; for I 
 assure you I am heartily tired of it ; and if I 
 do not very much deceive myself, I could 
 contentedly and gladly resign it. 
 
 The soul, uneasy and confined at home, 
 Eests and expatiates in a life to come. 
 
 It is for this reason I am more pleased with 
 the 15th, 16th, and 17th of the seventh chapter 
 of Revelations, than with any ten times as 
 many verses in the whole Bible, and would 
 not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which 
 they inspire me, for all that this world has to 
 offer. As for this world, I despair of ever 
 making a figure in it. I am not formed for 
 the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the 
 gay. I shall never again be capable of entering 
 into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether 
 unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I 
 foresee that poverty and obscurity i^robably 
 await me, and I am in some measure pre- 
 pared, and daily preparing to meet them. 
 I have but just time and paper to return you 
 my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue 
 and piety you have given me, which were too 
 much neglected at the time of giving them, 
 but which I hope have been remembered ere 
 it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects 
 to my mother, and my compliments to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Muir ; and with wishing you a merry 
 New- Year's Day, I shall conclude. I am, 
 honoured sir, your dutiful son, 
 
 Robert Burns. 
 
 P.S. — My meal is out, but I am going to 
 borrow till I get more. 
 
 [Burns arrived in Edinburgh towards the close 
 of November 1786, and continued in the 
 Scottish capital for several months, the 
 wonder of every literary coterie. ' Mrs. 
 Dunlop of Dunlop,' writes Allan Cunning- 
 ham, ' the daughter of Sir Thomas Wallace, 
 of Craigie, was proud of her descent from 
 the race of Elderslie, and proud of her 
 acquirements, which were considerable. 
 Nor should we leave unmentioned, that she 
 had some talent for rhyme. She had 
 been ailing, and the first advantage she 
 took of returning health was to read the 
 poems of the Ayrshire Ploughman. She 
 was struck with the beauty, natural and 
 religious, of the Cottar's Saturday Night.'' 
 
198 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 * The poet's description of the simple 
 cottagers,' she told Gilbert Burns, 'operated 
 on her mind like the charm of a powerful 
 exorcist, repelling the demon ennui, and 
 restoring her to her wonted harmony and 
 satisfaction.' An express, sent sixteen 
 miles, for half-a-dozen copies of the book, 
 and an invitation to Dvinloj) House, 
 attested her sincerity. From this period 
 we must date a friendship which did not 
 close with the poet's life. The poet's 
 letters to Mrs. Dunlop are by far the 
 most valuable and interesting in his 
 collected correspondence. They could not 
 fail of being so, having been written, as 
 he confessed, with all the artlessness of 
 truth, and consisting, in his own words, of 
 the 'rhapsody of the minute.' — Willmott.] 
 
 BUENS TO MRS. DUNLOP. 
 
 His Situation and Prospects. 
 
 Edinhurgh, March 22, 1787. 
 
 Madam,— I read your letter with watery 
 eyes. A little, very little while ago, I had 
 scarce a friend but the stubborn pride of my 
 own bosom ; now I am distinguished, i>atronized, 
 befriended by you. Your friendly advices, I 
 will not give them the cold name of criticisms, 
 I receive with reverence. I have made some 
 small alteration in what I before had printed. 
 I have the advice of some very judicious friends 
 among the literati here ; but with them I 
 sometimes find it necessary to claim the 
 privilege of thinking for myself. The noble 
 Earl of Glencairn, to whom I owe more than 
 to any man, does me the honour of giving me 
 his strictu.res ; his hints, with respect to im- 
 propriety or indelicacy, I follow imj)licitly. 
 
 You kindly interest yourself in my future 
 views and prospects ; there I can give you no 
 light. It is all 
 
 * Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun 
 Was roU'd together, or had tried his beams 
 Athwart the gloom profound.' 
 
 The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far 
 my highest i)ride ; to continue to deserve it, 
 is my most exalted ambition. Scottish themes 
 and Scottish story are the themes I could wish 
 to sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it 
 in my power, unplagued with the routine of 
 business, for which, heaven knows, I am unfit 
 enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through 
 Caledonia ; to sit on the fields of her battles ; 
 to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers ; 
 and to muse by the stately towers or venerable 
 ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes. 
 But these are all utopian thoughts. I have 
 dallied long enough with life ; 'tis time to be 
 
 in earnest. I have a fond, an aged mother 
 to care for ; and some other bosom ties perhaps 
 equally tender. Where the individual only 
 suffers by the consequences of his own thought- 
 lessness, indolence, or folly, he may be excusable ; 
 nay, shining abilities, and some of the nobler 
 virtues, may half sanctify a heedless character ; 
 but where God and nature have entrusted the 
 welfare of others to his care — where the trust 
 is sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must 
 be far gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to 
 reflection, when these connections will not 
 rouse to exertion. 
 
 I guess that I shall clear two or three 
 hundred pounds by my authorship ; with that 
 sum I intend, so far as I may be said to have 
 any intention, to return to my old acquaintance 
 the plough ; and, if I can meet with a lease by 
 which I can live, to commence farmer. I do 
 not intend to give up poetry ; being bred to 
 labour secures me independence, and the 
 Muses are my chief, sometimes have been my 
 only enjoyment. If my practice second my 
 resolution, I shall have principally at heart 
 the serious business of life ; but while following 
 my plough, or building up my shocks, I shall 
 cast a leisure glance to that dear — that only 
 feature of my character, which gave me the 
 notice of my country, and the patronage of a 
 Wallace. 
 
 Thus, honoured madam, I have given you 
 the bard, his situation, and his views, native 
 as they are in his own bosom. R. B. 
 
 TO FEANCIS GEOSE. 
 
 The Origin of Tarn CShanter. 
 
 Dumfries, 1792. 
 
 Among the many witch stories I have heard 
 relating to Alloway Kirk, I distinctly remem- 
 ber only two or three. 
 
 Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls 
 of wind and bitter blasts of hail, — in short, on 
 such a night as the devil would choose to take 
 the air in, — a farmer, or farmer's servant, was 
 plodding and plashing homeward, with his 
 plough irons on his shoulder, having been 
 getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring 
 smithy. His way lay by the Kirk of Alloway, 
 and being rather on the anxious look-out in 
 approaching a place so well known to be a 
 favourite haunt of the devil, and the devil's 
 friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by 
 discovering through the horrors of the storm 
 and stormy night a light, which, on his nearer 
 approach, i^lainly showed itself to proceed from 
 the haunted edifice. Whether he had been 
 fortified from above, on his devout supplication, 
 as i^ customary with people when they suspect 
 the immediate presence of Satan, or whether, 
 according to another custom, he had got courage- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 199 
 
 ously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend 
 to determine ; but so it was that he ventured 
 to go up to, nay into, the very kirk. As luck 
 would have it, his temerity came off un- 
 punished. 
 
 The members of the infernal junto were all 
 out on some midnight business or other, and he 
 saw nothing but a kind of kettle or cauldron, 
 depending from the roof over the fire, simmer- 
 ing some heads of unchristened children, limbs 
 of executed malefactors, etc., for the business 
 of the night. It was in for a penny in for a 
 pound with the honest j)loughman ; so, with- 
 out ceremony, he unhooked the cauldron from 
 off the fire, and pouring out the damnable 
 ingi-edients, inverted it on his head, and 
 carried it fairly home, where it remained long 
 in the family, a living evidence of the truth of 
 the story. 
 
 Another story, which I can prove to be equally 
 authentic, was as follows : — 
 
 On a market day, in the town of Ayr, a 
 farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose 
 way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirkyard, 
 in order to cross the river Doon at the old 
 bridge, which is about two or three hundred 
 yards farther on than the said gate, had been 
 detained by his business, till by the time he 
 reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, 
 between night and morning. 
 
 Though he was terrified with a blaze stream- 
 ing from the kirk, yet it is a well-known fact 
 that to turn back upon these occasions is 
 running by far the greatest risk of mischief ; he 
 prudently advanced on his road. Wten he had 
 reached the gate of the kirkyard he was sur- 
 prised and entertained through the ribs and 
 arches of an old gothic windov.', which still 
 faces the highway, to see a dance of witches, 
 merrily footing it round their old sooty black- 
 guard master, who was keeping them all alive 
 with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer, 
 stopping his horse to observe them a little, 
 could jjlainly descry the faces of many old 
 women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. 
 How the gentleman was dressed tradition does 
 not say, but that the ladies were all in their 
 smocks ; and one of them, happening unluckily 
 to have a smock which was considerably too 
 short to answer all the purposes of that piece of 
 dress, our farmer was so tickled that he in- 
 voluntarily burst out with a loud laugh : ' Weel 
 luppen, Maggy wi' the short sark ! ' and recol- 
 lecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to 
 the top of his speed. I need not mention the 
 universally known fact, that no diabolical power 
 can liursue you beyond the middle of a running 
 stream. Lucky it was for the poor farmer that 
 the river Doon was so near, for, notwithstand- 
 ing the speed of his horse, which was a good one, 
 against he reached the middle of the arch of 
 the bridge, and consequently the middle of the 
 stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags were so 
 
 close at his heels, that one of them actually 
 sprung to seize him ; but it was too late, 
 nothing was on her side of the stream but the 
 horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her 
 infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of light- 
 ning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. 
 However, the unsightly, tailless condition of 
 the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the 
 noble creature's life, an awful warning to the 
 Carrick farmer not to stay too late in Ayr 
 markets. 
 
 The last relation I shall give, though equally 
 true, is not so well identified as the two former 
 with regard to the scene ; but as the best 
 authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. 
 
 On a summer's evening, about the time that 
 nature puts on her sable to mourn the expiring 
 of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging 
 to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 Alloway Kirk, had just folded his charge and 
 was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in 
 the adjoining field he fell in with a crew of 
 men and women, who were busy pulling stems 
 of the plant ragwort. He observed that as each 
 j)erson pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride 
 of it, and called out, *Up, horsee,' on which 
 the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the 
 air, with its rider. The foolish boy likewise 
 pulled his ragwort, and cried with the rest, 
 ' Up, horsee,' and, strange to tell, away he flew 
 with the company. The first stage at which 
 the cavalcade stopped was a merchant's wine- 
 cellar in BordeaiTx, where, without saying by 
 your leave, they quaffed away at the best the 
 cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to 
 the imps and works of darkness, threatened to 
 throw light on the matter, and frightened 
 them from their carousals. 
 
 The poor shepherd lad being equally a 
 stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly 
 got himself drunk ; and when the rest took 
 horse he fell asleep, and was found so next day 
 by some of the people belonging to the merchant. 
 Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him 
 who he was, he said such-a-one's herdboy in 
 Alloway, and by some means or other getting 
 home again, he lived long to tell the world the 
 wondrous tale. I am, etc., E. B. 
 
 [John Murdoch kept the school of Lochlea, and 
 was for a time the teacher of Eobert Burns 
 and his brother Gilbert. He appears to 
 have been a man of parts, and a willing 
 teacher of clever and promising pupils. 
 He removed to London, where he heard of 
 the fame of his former pupil with much 
 surprise. He died in London in April 1S24. 
 He published several educational works 
 of some note in their day, and taught 
 
200 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 English to several eminent i>ersonages, 
 Talleyrand among the number. He said 
 of Burns and his brother Gilbert :— 
 ' Gilbert always appeared to me to possess 
 a more lively imagination, and to be more 
 of a wit, than Robert. I attempted to 
 teach them a little church music ; here 
 they were left far behind by all the rest of 
 the school. Robert's ear, in particular, 
 was remarkably dull, and his voice un- 
 tunable ; his countenance was generally 
 grave, and expressive of a serious, contem- 
 plative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's 
 face said, "Mirth, with thee I mean to 
 live," and certainly if any person who 
 knew the two boys had been asked which 
 of them was most likely to court the Muses, 
 he would surely never have guessed that 
 Robert had a propensity of that kind. 'J 
 
 BURNS TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH, SCHOOLMASTER, 
 STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON. 
 
 Locldea, Jan. 15, 1783. 
 
 Dear Sib, — As I have an opportunity of 
 sending you a letter without putting you to 
 that expense Avhich any production of mine 
 would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure, 
 to tell you that I have not forgotten, nor ever 
 will forget, the many obligations I lie under to 
 your kindness and friendship. 
 
 I do not doubt, su% but you will wish to 
 know what has been the result of all the pains 
 of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher ; 
 and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with 
 such a recital as you would be pleased with ; 
 but that is what I am afraid will not be the 
 case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of 
 vicious habits ; and, in this respect, I hope 
 my conduct will not disgrace the education I 
 have gotten ; but as a man of the world I am 
 most miserably deficient. One would have 
 thought that, bred as I have been, under a 
 father who has figured pretty well as un homme 
 des affaires, I might have been what the world 
 calls a pushing, active fellow ; but to tell you 
 the truth, sir, there is hardly anything more 
 my reverse. I seem to be one sent into the 
 world to see and observe ; and I very easily 
 compound with the knave who tricks me of my 
 money, if there be anything original about him, 
 which shows me human nature in a different 
 light from anything I have seen before. In 
 short, the joy of my heart is to ' study men, 
 their manners, and their ways,' and for this 
 darling subject I cheerfully sacrifice every other 
 consideration, I am quite indolent about 
 those gi-eat concerns that set the bustling, 
 busy sons of care agog ; and if I have to answer 
 
 for the present hour, I am very easy with 
 regard to anything further. Even the last, 
 worst shift of the unfortunate and the 
 wretched ^ does not much terrify me ; I know 
 that even then my talent for what country- 
 folks call *a sensible crack,' when once it is 
 sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me 
 so much esteem that even then I would learn 
 to be happy. However, I am under no 
 apprehensions about that ; for though indolent, 
 yet so far as an extremely delicate constitution 
 permits, I am not lazy ; and in many things, 
 especially in tavern matters, I am a strict 
 economist,— not, indeed, for the sake of the 
 money, but one of the principal i^arts in my com- 
 position is a kind of pride of stomach ; and I 
 scorn to fear the face of any man living ; above 
 everything, I abhor as hell the idea of sneaking 
 into a corner to avoid a dun— possibly some 
 pitiful, sordid wretch, who in my heart I 
 despise and detest. 'Tis this, and this alone, 
 that endears economy to me. In the matter 
 of books, indeed, I am very profuse. My 
 favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, 
 such as Shenstone, particularly his Elegies ; 
 Thomson ; Man of Feeling, a book I prize 
 next to the Bible ; Man of the World ; Sterne, 
 especially his Sentimental Journey ; Macpher- 
 son's Ossian, etc.; — these are the glorious 
 models after which I endeavour to form my 
 conduct; and 'tis incongruous, 'tis absurd, to 
 suppose that the man whose mind glows with 
 sentiments lighted up at their sacred flame, 
 the man whose heart distends with benevolence 
 to all the human race, — he ' who can soar above 
 this little scene of things,' — can descend to 
 mind the paltry concerns about which the 
 terrse-filial race fret, and fume, and vex them- 
 selves ! Oh, how the glorious triumph swells 
 my heart ! I forget that I am a poor, in- 
 significant devil, unnoticed and unknown, 
 stalking up and down fairs and markets, when 
 I happen to be in them, reading a page or 
 two of mankind, and 'catching the manners 
 living as they rise,' whilst the men of business 
 jostle me on every side, as an idle encumbrance 
 in their way. But I daresay I have by this 
 time tired your patience ; so I shall conclude 
 with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch — not 
 my compliments, for that is a mere common- 
 place story, but my wai'mest, kindest wishes 
 for her welfare ; and accept of the same for 
 yourself, from, dear sir, yours, R. B. 
 
 ^ The last shift alluded to here must be tho 
 condition of an itinerant beggar.— Currie. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 201 
 
 TO MR. JAMES SMITH, AT MILLER -A>JD SMITH'S 
 OFFICE, LINLITHGOW. 
 
 June 30, 1787. 
 
 My deak Friend, — On our return, at a 
 Highland gentleman's hospitable mansion we 
 fell in with a merry party, and danced till the 
 ladies left us at three in the morning. Our 
 dancing was none of the French or English 
 insipid, formal movements. The ladies sang 
 Scotch songs at intervals like angels ; then we 
 flew at 'Bab at the Bowster,' ' Tullochgorum,' 
 'Locherroch Side,' etc., like midges sporting in 
 the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm 
 in a hairst day. "WTien the dear lasses left us, 
 we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow 
 hour of six ; except a few minutes that we went 
 out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of 
 day peering over the towering top of Ben 
 Lomond. We all kneeled. Our worthy land- 
 lord's son held the bowl, each man a full glass 
 in his hand, and I, as priest, repeated some 
 rhyming nonsense; like Thomas the Ehymer's 
 in-ophecies, I suppose. 
 
 After a small refreshment of the gifts of 
 Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on 
 Loch Lomond, and reached Dumbarton in the 
 evening. "We dined at another good fellow's 
 house, and consequently pushed the bottle; 
 when we went out to mount our horses, we 
 found ourselves 'no very fou, but gayly yet.' 
 My two friends and I rode soberly down the 
 loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the 
 gallop on a tolerably good horse, but which had 
 never known the ornaments of iron or leather. 
 We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highland- 
 man, so off we started, whip and spur. My 
 companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, 
 fell sadly astern ; but my old mare, Jenny 
 Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, strained 
 past the Highlandman, in spite of all his efforts 
 with the hair halter. Just as I was passing 
 Ixim, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross 
 before me to mar my progress, when down 
 came his horse, and threw his rider's breekless 
 bottom into a dipt hedge, and down came 
 Jenny Geddes over all, and my hardship be- 
 tween her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny 
 trode over me with such cautious reverence 
 that matters were not so bad as might well have 
 been expected ; so I came off with a few cuts 
 and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a 
 pattern of sobriety for the future. As for the 
 rest of my acts and my wars, and all my wise 
 sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny 
 Geddes, they shall be recorded in a few weeks 
 hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your 
 memory. K. B. 
 
 TO MR. PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. 
 
 EUisland, Feb. 2, 1790. 
 
 No ! I will not say one word about apologies 
 or excuses for not writing — I am a poor, rascally 
 ganger, condemned to gallop at least 200 miles 
 every week to insjiect dirty ponds and yeasty 
 barrels, and where can I find time to write to, 
 or importance to interest anybody? The up- 
 braidings of my conscience, nay, the upbraidings 
 of my wife, have persecuted me on your account 
 these two or three months past. I wish to God 
 I was a great man, that my correspondence 
 might throw light upon you, to let the world 
 see what you really are ; and then I would 
 make your fortune, without putting my hand 
 in my pocket for you, Avhich, like all other 
 great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as 
 possible. What are you doing, and how are 
 you doing? Have you lately seen any of my 
 new friends ? What has become of the BOROUGH 
 REFORM, or how is the fate of my poor name- 
 sake Mademoiselle Burns decided ? O man ! 
 but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dis- 
 honest artifices, that beauteous form, and that 
 once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might 
 have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faith- 
 ful Avife and the affectionate mother ; and shall 
 the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have 
 no claim on thy humanity ! ^ 
 
 I saw lately in a review some extracts from a 
 new poem, called the Village Curate; send it 
 me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The 
 Woi'ld. Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who 
 does me the honour to mention me so kindly 
 in his works, please give him my best thanks 
 for the copy of his book — I shall write him my 
 first leisure hour. I like his poetiy much, but 
 I think his style in prose quite astonishing. 
 
 Your book came safe, and I am going to 
 trouble you with further commissions. I call 
 it troubling you — because I want only books ; 
 the cheapest way, the best ; so you may have to 
 hunt for them in the evening auctions. I want 
 Smollett's AVorks, for the sake of his incom- 
 parable humour. I have already Roderick 
 Random, and Humphrey Clinker. Peregrine 
 Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Ferdinand, 
 Count Fathom, I still want ; but as I said, 
 the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am 
 nice only in the appearance of my poets. I 
 forget the price of Cowper's Poems, but I believe 
 I must have them. I saw the other day pro- 
 posals for a publication, entitled, Banks's iYew 
 and Complete Christian's Family Bible, printed 
 for C. Cooke, Paternoster Row, London. He 
 promises, at least, to give in the work, I think 
 it is three hundred and odd engravings, to 
 
 1 The frail female here alluded to had been the 
 subject of some rather oppressive magisterial pro- 
 ceedings, which took their character from Creechj 
 and roused some public feeling in her behalf. 
 
202 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 -which he has put the names of the first artists 
 in London. You will know the character of 
 the performance, as some numbers of it are 
 published ; and, if it is really what it pretends 
 to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send 
 me the published numbers. 
 
 Let me hear from you, your first leisure 
 minute, and trust me you shall in future have 
 no reason to complain of my silence. The 
 dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate, 
 and leave me to pursue my course in the quiet 
 path of methodical routine. E. B. 
 
 TO MR. GRAHAM OF FINTRAT. 
 
 Decemher 1792. 
 Sir, — I have been surprised, confounded, and 
 distracted by Mr. Mitchel, the collector, telling 
 me that he has received an order from your 
 board to inqiiire into my political conduct, and 
 blaming me as a person disaffected to govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Sir, you are a husband — and a father. You 
 know what you would feel, to see the much- 
 loved wife of your bosom, and your heljiless, 
 prattling little ones, turned adrift into the 
 world, degraded and disgraced from a situation 
 in which they had been respectable and respected, 
 and left almost without the necessary support 
 of a miserable existence. Alas, sir ! must I 
 think that such soon will be my lot ! and from 
 the d d, dark insinuations of hellish, ground- 
 less envy, too ! I believe, sir, I may aver it, and 
 in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not 
 tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even 
 worse horrors, if worse can be, than those I 
 have mentioned, hung over my head ; and I 
 say, that the allegation, whatever villain has 
 made it, is a lie ! To the British constitution, 
 on Revolution principles, next after my God, I 
 am most devoutly attached. You, sir, have 
 been much and generously my friend. Heaven 
 knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, 
 and how gratefully I have thanked you. 
 Fortune, sir, has made you powerful, and me 
 impotent ; has given you patronage, and me 
 dependence. I would not for my single self 
 call on your humanity ; were such my insular, 
 unconnected situation, I would despise the tear 
 that now swells in my eye — I could brave 
 misfortune, I could face ruin ; for at the worst, 
 * Death's thousand doors stand open ; ' but, 
 good God ! the tender concerns that I have 
 mentioned, the claims and ties that I see at 
 this moment, and feel around me, how they 
 unnerve courage and wither resolution ! To 
 your patronage, as a man of some genius, you 
 have allowed me a claim ; and your esteem, as 
 an honest man, I know is my due : to these, 
 
 sir, permit me to api^eal; by these may I 
 adjure you to save me from that misery which 
 threatens to overwhelm me, and which, with 
 my latest breath I will say it, I have not 
 deserved. E. B. 
 
 TO G. THOMSON. 
 
 Brow, on the Solivay Firth, 
 July 12, 1796. 
 After all my boasted independence, curst 
 necessity compels me to implore you for five 
 pounds. A cruel wretch of a haberdasher, to 
 whom I owe an account, taking it into his head 
 that I am dying, has commenced a jjrocess, and 
 will infallibly put me into jail. Do, for God's 
 sake, send me that sum, and that by return of 
 post. Forgive me this earnestness, biit the 
 horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. 
 I do not ask all this gratuitously ; for, upon 
 returning health, I hereby promise and engage 
 to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the 
 neatest song-genius you have seen. I tried 
 my hand on * Rothemurche ' this morning. 
 The measure is so difficult that it is impossible 
 to infuse much genius into the lines ; they are 
 on the other side. Forgive, forgive me ! 
 
 G. THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 July 14, 1796. 
 
 My DEAR Sir, — Ever since I received you.r 
 melancholy letters by Mrs. Hyslop, I have been 
 ruminating in what manner I could endeavour 
 to alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I 
 thought of a pecuniary offer, but the recollection 
 of one of your letters on this subject, and the 
 fear of offending your independent spirit, 
 checked my resolution. I thank you heartily, 
 therefore, for the frankness of your letter of 
 the 12th, and, with great pleasure, enclose a 
 draft for the very sum I proposed sending. 
 Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer but 
 for one day, for your sake ! 
 
 Pray, my good sii', is it not jiossible for you 
 to muster a volume of poetry? If too much 
 trouble to you, in the present state of your 
 health, some literary friend might be found 
 here, who would select and arrange from your 
 manuscrij)ts, and take upon him the task of 
 editor. In the meantime it could be advertised 
 to be published by subscription. Do not shun 
 this mode of obtaining the value of your labour : 
 remember Pope published the Iliad by sub- 
 scription. Think of this, my dear Burns, and 
 do not reckon me intrusive with my advice. 
 You are too well convinced of the respect 
 and friendship I bear you, to impute anything 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 203 
 
 I say to an unworthy motive. Yours faith- 
 fully, G. T. 
 
 The verses to ' Rothemurche ' will answer 
 finely. I am happy to see you can still tune 
 your lyre. 
 
 [The Clarinda of the Burns correspondence was 
 a Mrs. M'Lehose, who resided in General's 
 Entry, Potterrow, so called from a tradi- 
 tion that General Monk had lodged there. 
 Her maiden name was Agnes Craig; she 
 was the daughter of a highly respectable 
 surgeon in Glasgow, and when only 
 seventeen years of age was married to a 
 Mr. M'Lehose, a law agent. Her husband 
 seems to have been in no way worthy of 
 her, and a separation was the consequ.ence. 
 At the time Burns met her (1787), her 
 husband was in the West Indies. In 
 addition to being beautiful in person and 
 fascinating in manner, she was something 
 of a poetess, and more than ordinarily 
 intelligent ; need it be wondered at, then, 
 that she made a powerful impression on 
 the susceptible poet, who was always 
 ready to burst into a glow, even when the 
 lady was not so attractive as Mrs. M'Lehose 
 appears to have been ! Burns has been 
 blamed by several of his biographers 
 for his connection with Mrs. M'Lehose 
 in the face of his engagement with 
 Jean Armour ; but at the time there 
 can be no doubt that he believed, 
 and was justified in believing, that his 
 engagement with her had come to an end. 
 How slight was the impression made upon 
 the poet by Clarinda, will be seen from 
 the speedy making up of all his differences 
 with Jean Armour and her family, and 
 the rapid disappearance of Clarinda from 
 his thoughts and correspondence. Mrs. 
 M'Lehose acutely felt the poet's forget- 
 fulness of her, but never ceased to hold 
 his memory in affectionate remembrance. 
 In her private journal, written forty years 
 after the date of her last interview with 
 him, she writes :— ' Qth Dec. 1831.— This day 
 I never can forget. Parted with Burns in 
 the year 1791, never more to meet in 
 this world. Oh, may we meet in heaven ! ' 
 Mr. Chambers says : — * I have heard 
 Clarinda, at seventy-five, express the same 
 hope to meet in another sphere the one 
 
 heart that she had ever found herself able 
 entirely to sympathize with, but which had 
 been divided from her on earth by such 
 pitiless obstacles.' She died in 1841, in 
 her eighty-second year. There is but one 
 opinion as to the nature of the correspond- 
 ence. She can be charged with nothing 
 more serious than the imprudence of 
 loving and giving warm expression to her 
 love for the poet while she was still the 
 wife of another. Notwithstanding this, 
 Clarinda apj)ears to better advantage in 
 the correspondence than Sylvander, and 
 there can be no doubt as to the reality 
 and intensity of her love and admiration 
 for him ; while his letters and after forget- 
 fulness i^rove the truth of Gilbert Burns' 
 assertion, that he was 'constantly the 
 victim of some fair enslaver. One 
 generally reigned paramount in his affec- 
 tions ; but as Yorick's affections flowed 
 
 out towards Madame de L at the 
 
 remise door, while the eternal vows of 
 Eliza were upon him, so Robert was 
 frequently encountering other attractions, 
 which formed so many under-plots in the 
 drama of his love.'] 
 
 MKS. M'lEHOSE to EGBERT BURNS. 
 
 Wednesday Morning. 
 
 Sylvander, — I fancy you and Vulcan are 
 intimates. He has lent you a key which opens 
 Clarinda's heart at pleasure, shows you what is 
 there, and enables you to adapt yourself to 
 every feeling. I believe I shall give over 
 writing to you. Your letters are too much ! 
 My way, alas ! is hedged in ; but had I, like 
 Sylvander, * the world before me,' I should 
 bid him, if he had a friend that loved me, tell 
 him to write as he does, and ' that would woo 
 me.' Seriously, you are the first letter- writer 
 I ever knew. 
 
 Either to-morrow or Friday I shall be happy 
 to see you. On Saturday I am not sure of 
 being alone, or at home. Say which you'll 
 come. Come to tea if you choose ; but eight 
 will be an hour less liable to intiaisions. You 
 are a consummate flatterer ; really my cheeks 
 glow while I read your flights of fancy. I 
 think you see I like it. If I grow affected or 
 conceited, you alone are to blame. Sylvander, 
 some most interesting parts of yours I cannot 
 enter upon at present. I dare not think on 
 the parting — on the interval; but I am sure 
 both are ordered for our good. 
 
 ' Lasting impressions ! ' Your key might 
 have shown you better. Say, my lover-poet 
 
I 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 204 
 
 and my friend, what day next month the 
 eternity will end. When you use your key, 
 don't rummage too much, lest you find I am 
 half as great a fool in the ' tender ' as yourself. 
 Farewell ! Sylvander. I may sign, for I am 
 already sealed, your friend, 
 
 Clarinda. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS TO CLAEINDA. 
 
 Sunday Morning. 
 I have just been before the throne of my 
 God, Clarinda ; according to my association of 
 ideas, my sentiments of love and friendship, 
 I next devote myself to you. Yesterday night 
 I was happy — happiness ' that the world cannot 
 give.' I kindle at the recollection ; but it is a 
 flame where innocence looks smiling on, and 
 honour stands by a sacred guard. Your heart, 
 your fondest wishes, your dearest thoughts, 
 these are yours to bestow, your iDerson is 
 unajiproachable by the laws of your country ; 
 and he loves not as I do who would make you 
 miserable. 
 
 You are an angel, Clarinda ; you are surely 
 no mortal that ' the earth owns.' To kiss your 
 hand, to live on your smile, is to me far more 
 exqu.isite bliss than the dearest favours that 
 the fairest of the sex, yourself excepted, can 
 bestow. 
 
 Sunday Evening. 
 
 You are the constant companion of my 
 thoughts. How wretched is the condition of 
 one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and 
 trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance ! 
 and what a placid calm, what a charming, 
 secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the kind 
 feelings of friendship and the fond throes of 
 love ! Out upon the tempest of anger, the 
 acrimonious gall of fretful impatience, the 
 sullen frost of lowering resentment, or the 
 corroding poison of Avithered envy ! They eat 
 up the immortal part of man ! If they spent 
 their fury only on the unfortunate objects of 
 them, it would be something in their favour ; 
 but these miserable passions, like traitor 
 Iscariot, betray their lord and master. 
 
 Thou Almighty Author of peace and good- 
 ness and love, do Thou give me the social 
 heart that kindly tastes of every man's cup ! 
 Is it a draught of joy? — warm and open my 
 heart to share it with cordial, unenvying 
 rejoicing ! Is it the bitter potion of sorrow ? — 
 melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe ! 
 Above all, do Thou give me the manly mind, 
 that resolutely exemplifies in life and manner 
 those sentiments which I would wish to be 
 thought to possess ! The friend of my soul- 
 there may I never deviate from the firmest 
 fidelity and most active kindness ! Clarinda, 
 the dear object of my fondest love — there 
 
 may the most sacred, inviolate honour, the 
 most faithful, kindling constancy, ever watch 
 and animate my every thought and imagina- 
 tion ! 
 
 Did you ever meet with the following lines 
 spoken of religion, your darling topic ? — 
 
 'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright ! 
 "lis this that gilds the horrors of our night ; 
 When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few. 
 When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue, 
 'Tis tliis tliat wards the blow, or stills the smart, 
 Disarms affliction, or repels its dart ; 
 Within the breast bids purest rapture rise, i 
 Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies.' I 
 
 I met with these verses very early in life, 
 and was so delighted with them that I have 
 them by me, copied at school. 
 
 Good -night and sound rest, my dearest 
 Clarinda ! Sylvander. 
 
 TO THE SAME, 
 
 I was on the way, my Love, to meet you (I 
 never do things by halves) when I got your 
 
 card. M goes out of town to-morrow 
 
 morning to see a brother of his who is newly 
 
 arrived from . I am determined that he 
 
 and I shall call on you together ; so, look you, 
 lest I should never see to-morrow, we will call 
 
 on you to-night ; and you may put off tea 
 
 till about seven ; at which time, in the Gallo- 
 v/ay phrase, ' an the beast be to the fore, an 
 the branks bide hale,' expect the humblest of 
 your humble servants, and his dearest friend. 
 We propose staying only half an hour, 'for 
 aught we ken.' I could suffer the lash of 
 misery eleven months in the year, were the 
 twelfth to be composed of hours like yester- 
 night. You are the soul of my enjoyment ; all 
 else is of the stuff and stocks of stones. 
 
 Sylvander. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Thursday Morning. 
 ' Unlavisli Wisdom never works in vain.' 
 
 I have been tasking my reason, Clarinda, 
 why a woman, who for native genius, poignant 
 wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of 
 soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is 
 without a peer, and whose personal charms 
 have few, very, very few parallels among her 
 sex, — why, or how she should fall to the 
 blessed lot of a poor harum-scarum poet, 
 whom Fortune had kept for her particular use, 
 to wreak her temper on whenever she was in 
 ill- humour. One time I conjectured that, as 
 Fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, 
 she may have taken, not a fit of remorse, but a 
 paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out 
 of the mire, where he had so often and so 
 conveniently served her as a stepping-stone, 
 and given him the most glorious boon she ever 
 
205 
 
 had ia her gift, merely for the maggot's sake, 
 to see how his fool head and his fool heart 
 will bear it. At other times I was vain 
 enough to think that Nature, who has a great 
 deal to say with Fortune, had given the 
 coquettish goddess some such hint as, ' Here 
 is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal 
 in all ray former compositions I never was 
 lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever 
 doing so again ; you have cast her rather in the 
 shades of life ; there is a certain poet of my 
 making ; among your frolics it would not be 
 amiss to attach him to this masterpiece of my 
 hand, to give her that immortality among 
 mankind which no woman of any age ever 
 more deserved, and which few rhymsters of 
 this age are better able to confer.' 
 
 Evening, 9 o'clocl: 
 I am here, absolutely unfit to finish my 
 letter — jjretty hearty after a bowl, which has 
 been constantly plied since dinner till this 
 moment. I have been with Mr, Schetki, the 
 musician, and he has set it ^ finely. . . I have 
 no distinct ideas of anything, but that I have 
 drunk your health twice to-night, and that you 
 are all my soul holds dear in this world. 
 
 Stlvander. 
 
 £Mr. Wilberforce has recorded an Easter Sunday 
 passed at Mr. Unwin's vicarage. He says 
 in his journal : 'At Stock with the Unwins 
 — day delightful, out almost all of it — 
 communicated — very happy.' Wilberforce, 
 who was ' devoted to Cowper,' delighted to 
 ramble in his footsteps through the rural 
 scenes round Newport Pagnel. ' It is quite 
 classic ground to me,' he wrote to Lord 
 Muncaster. ' I have once already (but the 
 day was bad, and I mean to do it again) 
 carried some cold meat to a venerable old 
 oak, to which he was much attached.' His 
 fiiend, Mr. Bowdler, has given a pleasing 
 sketch of him at this time. ' Mr. Wilber- 
 iorce,' he says, ' enjoys his parsonage, I 
 think, as much as possible : to say that he 
 j is happier than usual, is very bold; but 
 certainly he is as happy as I ever beheld 
 any human being. He carried me one day 
 to "Weston, and we wandered over many a 
 spot which Cowper's feet had trod, and 
 gazed on those scenes which his pen had 
 immortalized. On another day we visited 
 Stowe, a work to wonder at, for we were 
 
 1 'Clarinda, mistress of my soul.' 
 
 still in the land of poetry, and of music 
 too, for Mr. Wilberforce made the shades 
 resound with his voice, singing like a black- 
 bird wherever he went.' With so much 
 poetical sensibility, he would naturally 
 derive a peculiar gratification from the 
 society of Cowper's favourite correspondent. 
 — WiUmott.] 
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 A Sabbath in the Countrij. 
 
 Stock, April IG, 1786. 
 About five o'clock yesterday I put myself 
 into a post-chaise, and in four hours found 
 myself safely lodged with the vicar of Stock. 
 It is more than a month since I slept out of 
 town, and I feel all that Milton attributes to 
 the man who has been 
 
 ! ' Long in populous city pent, 
 
 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.' 
 
 I scarce recollect to have spent so pleasant a 
 day as that which is now nearly over. My 
 heart opens involuntarily to Unwin and his 
 wife ; I fancy I have been with them every 
 day since we first became acquainted at Notting- 
 ham, and expand to them with all the confidence 
 of a twelve years' intimacy. Can my dear 
 sister wonder that I call on her to participate in 
 the ]3leasure I am tasting? I know how you 
 sympathize in the happiness of those you love, 
 and I could not, therefore, forgive myself if I 
 were to keep my raptures to myself, and not 
 invite you to partake of my enjoyment. The 
 day has been delightful. I was out before six, 
 and made the fields my oratory, the sun shining 
 as bright and as warm as at midsummer. I 
 think my own devotions become more fervent 
 when offered in this way amidst the general 
 chorus, with which all nature seems on such a 
 morning to be swelling the song of praise and 
 thanksgiving ; and, except the time that has 
 been spent at church and at dinner . . . ^ and 
 neither in the sanctuary nor at table, I trust, 
 had I a heart unwarmed with gratitude to the 
 Giver of all good things. I have been all day 
 basking in the sun. On any other day I should 
 not have been so happy ; a sense that I was 
 neglecting the duties of my situation might 
 have interrupted the course of my enjoyments, 
 and have taken from their totality ; for in such 
 a situation as mine every moment may be made 
 useful to the happiness of my fellow-creatures. 
 But the Sabbath is a season of rest, in which 
 we may be allowed to unbend the mind, and 
 give a complete loose to those emotions of 
 gratitude and admiration which a contemplation 
 of the works, and a consideration of the good- 
 
 1 Something appears to have been omitted here in 
 the transcript of the original MS. 
 
205 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ness of God, cannot fail to excite in a mind 
 of the smallest sensibility. And surely this 
 Sabbath, of all others, is that which calls forth 
 these feelings in a supreme degree ; a frame of 
 united love and triumph well becomes it, and 
 holy x^onfidence and unrestrained affection. 
 May every Sabbath be to me, and to those I 
 love, a renewal of those feelings, of which the 
 small tastes we have in this life should make us 
 look forward to that eternal rest, which awaits 
 the people of God, when the whole will be a 
 never-ending enjoyment of those feelings of 
 love, and joy, and admiration, and gratitude, 
 which are, even in the limited degree we here 
 experience them, the truest sources of comfort ; 
 when these (I say) will dictate i)erpetual songs 
 of thanksgiving without fear, and without 
 satiety. My eyes are bad, but I could not resist 
 the impulse I felt to call on you and tell you 
 how happy I have been. 
 
 [The history of this unfortunate and misguided 
 nobleman has caused many tears to flow 
 upon the annals of Ireland. While his 
 public career must ever lie open to censure, 
 his private character shines with imsullied 
 beauty. He was an affectionate son, a 
 tender father, and a stedfast friend. In 
 the duties of social life, the charm of his 
 temper developed itself. His letters have 
 not been praised by his biographer more 
 than they deserve. The verses, quoted by 
 IMoore from Beaumont and Fletcher, are 
 happily descriptive of their pleasant and 
 unaffected simplicity : 
 
 'There's no art in 'em, 
 They lie disordered on the paper, just 
 As hearty nature speaks 'em.' 
 
 The following account of a halting in an 
 American wilderness is one of the most 
 interesting in the collection. 'The quiet 
 and affecting picture,' remarks Mr. Moore, 
 * of an evening in the woods, detailed with 
 such natural eloquence, affords one of those 
 instances in which a writer may be said to 
 be a poet without knowing it.' — Willmott.] 
 
 LOKD EDWAKD FITZGERALD TO HIS MOTHEE. 
 
 A Night Scene in an American Forest. 
 
 St. John^s, New Brunstvick, 
 July 8, 1788. 
 My deaeest Mother, — Here I am, after a 
 very long and fatiguing journey. I had no idea 
 of what it was : it was more like a campaign 
 than anything else, except in one material point, 
 
 that of having no danger. I should have 
 enjoyed it most completely but for the mos 
 quitoes, but they took off a great deal of my 
 pleasure ; the millions of them are dreadful ; if 
 it had not been for this inconvenience, my 
 journey would have been delightful. The 
 country is almost all in a state of nature, as 
 well as its inhabitants. There are four sorts of 
 these, — the Indians, the French, the old English 
 settlers, and now the refugees from the other 
 parts of America: the last seem the most 
 civilised. The old settlers are almost as wild 
 as Indians, but lead a very comfortable life : 
 they are all farmers, and live entirely within 
 themselves. They supply all their own wants 
 by their contrivances, so that they seldom buy 
 anything. They ought to be the happiest people 
 in the world, but they do not seem to know it. 
 They imagine themselves poor because they 
 have no money, without considering they do 
 not want it ; everything is done by barter, and 
 you will often find a farmer well supplied with 
 everything, and yet not having a shilling in 
 money. Any man that will work is sure, in a 
 few years, to have a comfortable farm : the first 
 eighteen months is the only hard time, and 
 that in most places is avoided, particularly near 
 the rivers, for in every one of them a man will 
 catch in a day enough to feed him for the year. 
 In the winter, with very little trouble, he 
 supplies himself with meat by killing moose- 
 deer ; and in summer with pigeons, of which 
 the woods are full. These he must subsist on 
 till he has cleared ground enough to raise a little 
 grain, which a hard-working man will do in the 
 course of a few months. By selling his moose- 
 skins, by making sugar out of the maple tree, 
 and. by a few days' work for other people, for 
 which he gets gxeat wages, he soon acquires 
 enough to purchase a cow. This, then, sets him 
 up, and he is sure, in a few years, to have a 
 comfortable supply of every necessary of life. 
 I came through a whole tract of country peopled 
 by Irish, who came out not worth a shilling, 
 and have all now farms, worth (according to 
 the value of money in this country) from £1000 
 to £3000. The equality of everybody, and their 
 manner of life, I like very much. There are no 
 gentlemen ; everybody is on a footing, i^rovided 
 he works, and wants nothing ; every man is 
 exactly what he makes himself, or has made 
 himself, by industry. The more children a 
 man has the better ; the father has no uneasiness 
 about providing for them, as this is done by 
 the profit of their work. By the time they are 
 fit to settle, he can always afford them two 
 oxen, a cow, a gun, and an axe, and, in a few 
 years, if they work, they will thrive. I came 
 by a settlement along one of the rivers, which 
 was all the work of one pair ; the old man was 
 seventy-two, the old lady seventy : they had 
 been there thirty years ; they came there with 
 one cow, three children, and one servant ; there 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 was not a being "within sixty miles of them. 
 The first year they lived mostly on milk and 
 marsh leaves ; the second year they contrived 
 to purchase a bull, by the produce of their 
 moose skins and fish : from this time they got 
 on very well ; and there are now five sons and a 
 daughter, all settled in different farms along 
 the river for the space of twenty miles, and all 
 living comfortably and at ease. The old pair 
 live alone in the little old cabin they first 
 settled in, two miles from any of their children; 
 their little spot of ground is cultivated by these 
 children, and they are supplied with so much 
 butter, grain, meal, etc., from each child, 
 according to the share he got of the land, so 
 that the old folks have nothing to do but to 
 mind their house, which is a kind of inn they 
 keep, more for the sake of the company of the 
 few travellers there are than for gain. I was 
 obliged to stay a day with the old people on 
 account of the tides, which did not answer 
 for going up the river till next morning : it was, 
 I think, as odd and as j)leasant a day (in its 
 way) as ever I passed. I wish I could describe 
 it to you, but I cannot ; you must only help it 
 out with your own imagination. Conceive, 
 dearest mother, arriving about twelve o'clock 
 in a hot day at a little cabin upon the side of a 
 rapid river, the banks all covered with wood — 
 not a house in sight, and there finding a little 
 clean, tidy woman, spinning, with an old man, 
 of the same appearance, weeding salad. We 
 had come for ten miles up the river without 
 seeing anything but woods. The old paii", on 
 our arrival, got as active as if only five-and- 
 twenty, the gentleman getting wood and water, 
 the lady frying eggs and bacon, both talking a 
 gi'eat deal, telling their story, as I mentioned 
 before, how they had been there thirty years, 
 and how their children were settled, and, when 
 either's back was turned, remarking how old 
 the other had grown ; at the same time all 
 kindness, all cheerfulness, and love to each 
 other. The contrast of all this, which had 
 passed during the day, with the quietness of 
 the evening, when the spirits of the old peo^^le 
 had a little subsided, and began to wear off 
 with the day, and with the fatigue of their little 
 work, sitting quietly at their door, on the same 
 spot they had lived in thirty years together ; 
 the contented thoughtfulness of their counten- 
 ances, which was increased by their age and the 
 solitary life they had led, the wild quietness of 
 the place, not a living creature or habitation to 
 be seen, and me, Tony, and our guide, sitting 
 with them all on one log ; the difference of the 
 scene I had left, — the immense way I had to 
 get from this corner of the world to see any- 
 thing I loved,— the difference of the life I 
 should lead from that of this old pair, perhajis, 
 at their age, discontented, disappointed, and 
 miserable, wishing for power, etc., — my dearest 
 mother, if it was not for you, I believe I never 
 
 should go home, at least I thought so at that 
 moment. However, here I am with my regi- 
 ment, up at six in the morning doing all sorts 
 of right things, and liking it very much, deter- 
 mined to go home next spring, and live with 
 you a great deal. Employment keeps up my 
 spirits, and I shall have more every day. I own 
 I often think how happy I should be with 
 
 G in some of the spots I see ; and envied 
 
 every young farmer I met, whom I saw sitting 
 down with a young wife whom he was going to 
 work to maintain. I believe these thoughts 
 made my journey pleasanter than it otherwise 
 would have been ; but I don't give way to them 
 here. Dearest mother, I sometimes hope it 
 will end well ; but shall not think any more of 
 it till I hear from England. Tell Ogilvie I am 
 obliged sometimes to say to myself, Tii Vas 
 voulu, George Dandin, when I find things 
 disagreeable, but, on the whole, I do not repent 
 coming; he won't believe me, I know. He will 
 be in a fine passion when he finds I should have 
 been lieutenant-colonel for the regulated price, 
 if I had stayed in the Sixtieth ; however, as fate 
 seems to destine me for a major, I am deter- 
 mined to remain and not purchase. Give my 
 love to him ; I wish I could give him some of 
 the wood here for Kilrush. 
 
 [Dr. Gregory obtained from Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh a few particulars of his early intimacy 
 with Robert Hall. They were both members 
 of King's College, Aberdeen, Sir James 
 being in his 18th year, and Hall about a 
 year older. Their friendship soon grew 
 close and affectionate. They read together, 
 sat together at lectures, when they were 
 able, and walked together. Mackintosh 
 explained his attachment to Hall by saying 
 'that he could not help it.' Their praise 
 of each other was constant and generous ; 
 Mackintosh admired the splendour of Hall's 
 eloquence, and Hall discovered in the mind 
 of Mackintosh a relationship to the intellect 
 of Bacon. The occasion of the following 
 letter was the most afflicting calamity to 
 which humanity is subject. When Mr. 
 Hall resumed his ministerial duties at 
 Cambridge, he resided at Foulmire, a situa- 
 tion where he was totally deprived of 
 society and relaxation. Solitude, sleepless- 
 ness, and i^ain combined to renew the 
 malady which had already interrupted his 
 labours. Complete abstraction from study, 
 and the skilful attention of Dr. Coxe, near 
 Bristol, gradually restored him to health 
 
208 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and activity. Writing to a friend, Feb. 1, 
 1806, he thus alludes to his recovery 
 *With the deeijest submission I wish to 
 bow to the mandate of that awful, yet, 
 I trust, paternal Power, which, when it 
 pleases, confounds all human hopes, and 
 lays us prostrate in the dust. It is for Him 
 to dispose of His creatures as He j)leases : 
 and, if they be willing and obedient, to 
 work out their happiness, though by 
 methods the most i)ainful and affictive — it 
 is with the sincerest gratitude that I would 
 acknowledge the goodness of God in restor- 
 ing me. I am, as far as I can judge, as 
 remote from anything wild and irregular in 
 the state of my mind as I ever was in my 
 life ; though I think, owing probably to the 
 former increased excitation, I feel some 
 abatement of vigour. My mind seems 
 inert. ' — Wil Imott. ] 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH TO ROBERT HALL. 
 
 Bombay, Sept. 21, 1805. 
 My dear Hall, — I believe that in the hurry 
 of leaving London, I did not answer the letter 
 that you wrote to me in December 1803. I 
 did not, however, forget your interesting young 
 friend, from whom I have had one letter from 
 Constantinople, and to whom I have twice 
 written at Cairo, where he is. No request of 
 yours could be lightly esteemed by me. It 
 happened to me a few days ago, in drawing up 
 (merely for my own use) a short sketch of my 
 life, that I had occasion to give a statement of 
 my recollection of the circumstances of my first 
 acquaintance with you. On the most impartial 
 survey of my early life, I could see nothing 
 which tended so much to excite and invigorate 
 my understanding, and to direct it towards 
 high, though, perhaps, scarcely accessible 
 objects, as my intimacy with you. Five and 
 twenty years are now i)ast since we first met ; 
 yet hardly anything has occurred since which 
 has left a deeper or more agreeable impression 
 on my mind. I now remember the extraordinary 
 union of brilliant fancy with acute intellect, 
 which would have excited move admiration 
 than it has done if it had been dedicated to 
 the amusement of the great and the learned, 
 instead of being consecrated to the far more 
 noble office of consoling, instructing, and 
 reforming the poor and forgotten. It was then 
 too early for me to discover that extreme purity 
 ^vhich, in a mind preoccupied with the low 
 realities of life, would have been no natural 
 companion of so much activity and ardour, but 
 which thoroughly detached you from the world, 
 and made you the inhabitant of regions where 
 
 alone it is possible to be always active without 
 impurity, and where the ardour of your sensi- 
 bility had unbounded scope amidst the inex- 
 haustible combination of beauty and excellence. 
 
 It is not given us to preserve an exact medium. 
 Nothing is so difficult as to decide how much 
 ideal models ought to be combined with ex- 
 perience ; how much of the future should be 
 let into the present in the progress of the 
 human mind. To ennoble and purify, without 
 raising us above the sphere of our usefulness, to 
 qualify us for what we ought to seek, without 
 unfitting us for that to which we must submit— 
 are great and difficult problems, which can be 
 but imperfectly solved. It is certain the child 
 may be too manly, not only for his present 
 engagements, but for his future prospects. 
 Perhaps, my good friend, you have fallen into 
 this error of superior natures. From this error 
 has, I think, arisen that calamity, with which 
 it has pleased Providence to visit you, which, 
 to a mind less fortified by reason and religion, 
 I should not dare to mention; and which I 
 consider in you little more than the indignant 
 struggles of a pure mind with the low realities 
 which surround it — the fervent aspirations after 
 regions more congenial to it — and a momentary 
 blindness, produced by the fixed contemplation 
 of objects too bright for human vision. I may 
 say in this case, in a far grander sense than that 
 in which the words were originally spoken by 
 our great poet : 
 
 ' And yet 
 
 The light that led astray was light from heaven.' 
 
 On your return to us you must surely have 
 found consolation in the only terrestrial product 
 which is pure and truly exquisite, in the affec- 
 tions and attachments you have inspired, which 
 you were most worthy to inspire, and which no 
 human pollution can rob of their heavenly 
 nature. If I were to prosecute the reflections, 
 and indulge the feelings which at this moment 
 fill my mind, I should soon venture to doubt 
 whether for a calamity deiived from such a 
 source, and attended with such consolations, I 
 should so far yield to the views and opinions of 
 men as to seek to condole with you. But I 
 check myself, and exhort you, my most worthy 
 fi'iend, to check your best propensities, for the 
 sake of obtaining their object. You cannot 
 live for men without living loith them. Serve 
 God, then, by the active service of men. Con- 
 template more the good you can do than the 
 evil you can only lament. Allow yourself to 
 see the loveliness of nature amidst all its 
 imperfections, and employ your moral imagina- 
 tion, not so much by bringing it into contrast 
 with the model of ideal perfection, as in gently 
 blending some of the fainter colours with the 
 brighter hues of real experience and excellence ; 
 thus brightening their beauty, instead of broad- 
 ening the shade, which must surround us till 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 209 
 
 we waken fi'om this dream in other spheres of 
 existence. 
 
 My habits of life have not been favourable to 
 this train of meditation. I have been too busy, 
 or too trifling. My nature would have been 
 better consulted if I had been placed in a quitter 
 situation, where speculation might have been 
 my business, and \'isions of the fair and good 
 my chief recreation. When I approach you, I 
 feel a powerful attraction towards this, which 
 seems the natural destiny of my mind ; but 
 habit opposes obstacles, and duty calls me off, 
 and reason frowns on him who wastes that 
 reflection on a destiny independent of him, 
 which he ought to reserve for actions of which 
 he is the master. In another letter I may 
 write to you on miscellaneous subjects ; at 
 present I cannot bring my mind to speak of 
 them. Let me hear from you soon and often. 
 Farewell, my dear fi'iend, 
 
 Yours ever most faithfully, 
 
 James Mackintosh. 
 
 [John Philpot Curran was of humble origin, 
 born near Cork in 1750, and educated 
 at Trinity College, Dublin. He went to 
 London, and studied law in the Temple. 
 At first he met with great difficulties in his 
 career, but his talent for defence and debate 
 soon caused him to be distinguished. He 
 was a member of the Irish House of Com- 
 mons in 1784, and on the Whigs coming 
 into office in 1806, he was made Master of 
 the Rolls in Ireland. He held this office 
 till 1814, when he received a pension of 
 £3000, after which time he for the most 
 part resided in London. He died in 1817. 
 The following is not the only record that 
 Mr. Curran has left of his admiration of Scot- 
 land. His defence of IMr. Hamilton Rowan 
 contains a short but glowing eulogium 
 upon the genius of that countiy, for whose 
 splendid services in the cause of the human 
 mind no praises can be too great. After 
 speaking of the excessive terror of French 
 principles by which juries were governed 
 in their verdicts, he proceeded : ' There 
 is a sort of aspiring and adventurous 
 credulity, which disdains assenting to 
 obvious truths, and delights in catching at 
 the improbability of circumstances as its 
 best ground of faith. To what other cir- 
 cumstance can you ascribe that, in the 
 wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic 
 nation of Great Britain, a printer has been 
 gravely found guilty of a libel for publish- 
 
 ing those resolutions to which the present 
 Minister of that kingdom had actually 
 subscribed his name ? To what other cause 
 can you ascribe what, in my mind, is still 
 more astonishing ; — in such a country as 
 Scotland — a nation cast in the happy 
 medium between the spiritless acquiescence 
 of submissive poverty and the sturdy 
 credulity of pampered wealth — cool and 
 ardent — adventurous and persevering — 
 winging her eagle flight against the blaze 
 of every science, with an eye that never 
 winks, and a wing that never tires — 
 crowned as she is with the spoils of every 
 art, and decked with the wreath of every 
 muse, from the deep and scrutinizing 
 researches of her Hume, to the sweet and 
 simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, 
 morality of her Burns — how from the 
 bosom of a country like that, genius, and 
 character, and talents should be banished 
 to a distant, barbarous soil, condemned to 
 pine under the horrid communion of vulgar 
 vice and base-born profligacy, for twice the 
 period that ordinary calculation gives to 
 the continuance of human life ? ' ^] 
 
 LETTER WRITTEN BY J. P. CURRAN ON 
 HIS ARRIVAL IN SCOTLAND, 
 
 The day is too bad for shooting, so I write. 
 We arrived in miserable weather at Donagh- 
 adee ; thence we set sail for the Port," where, 
 after a prosperous voyage of ten hours, we 
 arrived. The English gentlemen had got before 
 us to the inn, and engaged four horses, all there 
 were ; two might have drawn them one very 
 short stage, and they saw us prepare to set out 
 in a cart, which we did, and I trust with a 
 cargo of more good manners and good humour 
 aboard us, than the two churls could boast in 
 their chaise and four. 
 
 I was greatly delighted with this country ; 
 you see no trace here of the devil working 
 against the wisdom and beneficence of God, 
 and torturing and degrading His creatures. It 
 seems the romancing of travelling ; but I am 
 satisfied of the fact, that the poorest man here 
 has his children taught to read and write, and 
 
 1 In this latter outspoken sentiment Curran alludes 
 to the sentence of Muir, Palmer, etc., who had 
 been transported for sedition. 
 
 - Port-Patrick, then the usual landing-place in 
 Scotland. The harbour and lighthouse are now dis- 
 used, and the line of communication between Scotland 
 and Irela)id in this district transferred to Stranraer, 
 a few miles distant. 
 
 O 
 
210 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 that in every house is found a Bible, and in 
 almost every house a clock ; and the fruits of 
 this are manifest in the intelligence and manners 
 of all ranks. The natural effect of literary 
 information, in all its stages, is to give bene- 
 volence and modesty. Let the intellectual 
 taper burn ever so brightly, the horizon which 
 it lights is sure, but scanty ; and if it soothes 
 our vanity a little, as being the circle of our 
 light, it must check it also, as being the 
 boundary of the interminable region of dark- 
 ness that lies beyond it. I never knew any 
 person of any real taste and feeling, in whom 
 knowledge and humility were not in exact 
 proportion. In Scotland, what a work have 
 the four-and-twenty letters to show for them- 
 selves ! — the natural enemies of vice, and folly, 
 and slavery ; the great sowers, but the still 
 greater weeders, of the human soil. Nowhere 
 can you see the cringing hypocrisy of dissembled 
 detestation, so inseparable from oppression ; 
 and as little do you meet the hard, and dull, 
 and right-lined angles of the southern visage ; 
 you find the notion exact and the phrase 
 direct, with the natural tone of the Scottish 
 muse. 
 
 The first night, at Ballantrae, the landlord 
 attended us at supper ; he would do so, though 
 we begged him not. We talked to him of the 
 cultivation of potatoes. I said, I wondered at 
 his taking them in place of his native food, 
 oatmeal, so much more substantial. His answer 
 struck me as very characteristic of the genius 
 of Scotland — frugal, tender, and picturesque. 
 * Sir,' said he, ' we are not so much i' the Avrong 
 as you think ; the tilth is easy, they are swift i' 
 the cooking, they take little fuel ; and then it 
 is pleasant to see the gudewife wi' a' her bairns 
 aboot the pot, and each wi' a potato in its 
 hand.' 
 
 We got on to Ayr. It was fortunate ; it was 
 the last day of the rain, and the first of the 
 races ; the town was unusually full, and we 
 stood at the inn door — no room for us. 'My 
 dear captain,' ^ said I, ' I suppose we must lie 
 in the streets.' ' No, that you shall not,' says a 
 good-looking man — it was Campbell of Fairfield 
 — ' my wife and I knew you were coming, and 
 we have a warm bed ready for you ; she is your 
 countrywoman, and I am no stranger to you ; I 
 had a trial in Dublin eight years ago, and you 
 were in the cause.' ' Oh ! yes, sir, I remember ; 
 we beat the enemy.' 'Oh! yes, sir,' says 
 Campbell of Fairfield, '/ beat the enemy, 
 though you were at his head.' I felt my 
 appetite keen. I was charmed with the comical 
 forgiveness of his hospitality. I assured him I 
 heartily forgave him for threshing my rascal 
 client ; and a few moments brought me to the 
 kind greeting of my very worthy country- 
 j woman. They went a little aside, and I over- 
 
 1 Joseph Atkinson, of Dublin. 
 
 heard their whispers about dinner. Trouble, 
 you may suppose, I did not wish to give ; but 
 the feeling of the possible delay by an additional 
 dish was my panic. ' My dear madam, I hope 
 you won't make me feel that I am not one of 
 your family by adding anything.' *No, that I 
 won't,' says she ; ' and if you doubt my word, 
 I'll give you the security of seven gentlemen 
 against any extravagance.' So saying, she 
 pointed to a group of seven miniatures of young 
 men that hung over the fireplace. ' Six of 
 those poor fellows are all over the earth ; the 
 seventh, and these two little girls, are with us ; 
 you will think that good bail against the 
 wickedness of extravagance. Poor fellows ! ' 
 she repeated. 'Nay, madam, don't say "poor 
 fellows ; " at the moment when you feel that 
 hospitality prevents the stranger from being a 
 poor fellow, you don't think this the only house 
 in the world Avhere the wanderer gets a dinner 
 and a bed ; who knows, my dear countrywoman, 
 but Providence is at this moment paying to some 
 of your poor fellows far away from you, for 
 what your kind heart thinks it is giving for 
 nothing.' 'Oh ! yes,' cried she : ' God bless you 
 for the thought.' 'Amen, my dear madam,' 
 answered I ; 'and I feel that He has done it.' 
 
 We were much pleased with the races ; not, 
 you may suppose, at a few foolish horses forced 
 to run after each other, but to see so much 
 order and cheerfulness ; not a single dirty 
 person, nor a ragged coat. I was introduced to 
 many of their gentry. Lord Eglinton, Lord Cassi- 
 lis, Lord Archibald Hamilton, etc., and pressed 
 very kindly to spend some time with them. 
 
 Poor Burns ! — his cabin could not be passed 
 unvisited or unwept : to its two little thatched 
 rooms — kitchen and sleeping-place — a slated 
 sort of parlour is added, and 'tis now an ale- 
 house. We found the keeper of it tipsy ; he 
 pointed to the corner on one side of the fire, 
 and, with a most mal-d-po'opos laugh, observed, 
 ' There is the very spot where Robert Burns was 
 born.' The genius and the fate of the man 
 were already heavy on my heart; but the 
 drunken laugh of the landlord gave me such a 
 view of the rock on which he foundered, I 
 could not stand it, but burst into tears. 
 
 On Thursday we dine with Lord Eglinton, 
 and thence I hope to pursue our little tour to 
 Loch Lomond, Glasgow, Edinburgh, etc. These 
 places are at this time of the year much 
 deserted ; however, we sha'n't feel it quite a 
 solitude ; and at all events, public buildings, etc. 
 do not go to watering-places, so that still some- 
 thing will be visible. In this region the winter 
 is always mild ; but the rain is almost perpetual, 
 and still worse as you advance to the north. 
 An Englishman said to a Highlander, 'Bless 
 me, sir, does it rain for ever?' The other 
 answered, 'Oh ! nay, sir, it snaws whiles.' 
 
 See what a chronicle I have written, etc. etc. 
 
 J. P. C. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 211 
 
 [Letter from Sir John Dalrymple, Barfc., autlior 
 of the Memoirs of Great Britain, etc., to 
 Admiral Dalrymple. He was for many 
 years a Baron of Exchequer in Scotland, 
 and died in 1810, in his 84th year.] 
 
 SIK JOHN DALRYMPLE TO ADMIEAL DALRYMPLE. 
 
 Cranston, Jan. 1, 1772. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Your shirts are safe. I have 
 made many attempts upon them ; but Bess, 
 who has in honesty what she wants in temper, 
 keeps them in safety for you. 
 
 You ask me what I have been doing. To the 
 best of my memory, what has passed since I 
 came home is as follows : — 
 
 Finding the roof bad, I sent slaters, at the 
 peril of their necks, to repair it. They mended 
 three holes, and made thirty themselves. 
 
 I pulled down as many walls round the house 
 as would have fortified a town. This was in 
 summer ; but now that winter is come, I woulA 
 give all the money to put them up again that it 
 cost me to take them down. 
 
 I thought it would give a magnificent air to 
 the hall to throw a passage into it. After it was 
 done, I went out of town to see how it looked. 
 It was night when I went into it ; the wind 
 blew out the candle from the over-size of the 
 room ; upon which, I ordered the partition to 
 be built up again, that I might not die of cold 
 in the midst of summer. 
 
 I ordered the old timber to be thinned ; to 
 which, perhaps, the love of lucre a little con- 
 tributed. The workmen, for every tree they 
 cut, destroyed three by letting them fall on 
 each other. I received a momentaiy satisfac- 
 tion from hearing that the carpenter I employed 
 had cut off his thumb in felling a tree. But 
 this pleasure was soon allayed, when, upon 
 examining his measure, I found that he had 
 measured false, and cheated me of twenty per 
 cent. 
 
 Instead of saddle horses I bought mares, and 
 had them sent to an Arabian. AVhen I went, 
 some months after, to mount them, the groom 
 told me I should kill the foals ; and now I walk 
 on foot, with the stable full of horses, unless 
 when, with much humility, I asked to be 
 admitted into the chaise, which is generally 
 refused me. 
 
 Remembering, with a pleasing complacency, 
 the Watcombe pigs, I paid thirty shillings for a 
 sow with pig. My wife starved them. They 
 ran over to a madman, called Lord Adam 
 Gordon, who distrained them for damage ; and 
 the mother, with ten helpless infants, died of 
 bad usage. 
 
 Loving butter much, and cream more, I 
 bought two Dutch cows, and had plenty of 
 both. I made my wife a present of tv/o more ; 
 she learned the way to market for their pro- 
 
 duce, and I have never got a bowl of cream 
 since. 
 
 I made a fine hay-stack, but quarrelled with 
 my wife as to the manner of drying the hay 
 and building the stack. The hay-stack took 
 fire ; by which I had the double mortification of 
 losing my hay, and finding my wife had more 
 sense than myself. 
 
 I kept no plough ; for which I thank my 
 Maker, because then I must have wrote this 
 letter from a gaol. 
 
 I paid twenty pounds for a dung-hill, because 
 I was told it was a good thing ; and now I would 
 give anybody twenty shillings to tell me what 
 to do with it. 
 
 I built and stocked a pigeon-house ; but the 
 cats watched below, the hawks hovered above ; 
 and pigeon-soup, roasted pigeon, or cold pigeon 
 pie have I never seen since. 
 
 I fell to drain a piece of low ground behind 
 the house ; but hit upon the tail of the rock, 
 and drained the well of the house ; by which I 
 can get no water for my victuals. 
 
 I entered into a great jDroject for selling lime, 
 upon a promise from one of my own farmers to 
 give me land off his farm. But when I went to 
 take off the ground, he laughed, said he had 
 choused the lawyer, and exposed me to a 
 dozen law-suits for breach of bargains, which I 
 could not perform. 
 
 I fattened black cattle and sheep, but could 
 not agree with the butchers about the price. 
 From mere economy, we ate them ourselves, 
 and almost killed all the family with surfeits. 
 
 I bought two score of six-year-old wethers for 
 my own table ; but a butcher, who rented one 
 of the fields, put my mark upon his own carrion 
 sheep ; by which I have been living upon carrion 
 all the summer. 
 
 I brewed much beer ; but the small turned 
 sour, and the servants drank all the strong. 
 
 I found a ghost in the house, whose name was 
 M'Alister, a pedlar, that had been killed in one 
 of the rooms at the top of the house two 
 centuries ago. No servant would go on an 
 errand after the sun was set for fear of M'Alister, 
 which obliged me to set off one set of my 
 servants. Soon after the housekeeper, your old 
 friend Mrs. Brown, died, aged ninety ; and 
 then the belief ran, that another ghost was in 
 the house, upon which many of the new set of 
 servants begged leave to quit the house, and 
 got it. 
 
 In one thing only I have succeeded. I have 
 quarrelled with all my neighbours ; so that, 
 with a dozen gentlemen's seats in my view, I 
 stalk alone like a lion in a desert. 
 
 I thought I should have been happy with my 
 tenants, because I could be insolent to them 
 without their being insolent to me. But they 
 paid me no rent ; and in a few days I shall have 
 above one-half of the very few friends I have iu 
 the country in a i^risou. 
 
 L. 
 
212 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Such being the pleasures of a country life, I 
 intend to quit them all in about a month, to 
 submit to the mortification of spending the 
 spring in London, where, I am happy to hear, 
 "we are to meet. But I am infinitely happier to 
 hear that Mrs. Dahymple is doing so well. 
 May God preserve her long to you ! for she is a 
 fine creature. 
 
 Just when I was going to you last spring, I 
 received a letter from Bess that she was dying. 
 I put off my journey to Watcombe, and almost 
 killed myself with posting to Scotland, where I 
 found madam in perfect good health. Yours 
 always, my dear Jack, 
 
 John Dalrymple. 
 
 Sir H. Dalrymple was member of Parliament 
 for Haddington, and Sir Laurence Dundas 
 an ancestor of the present Earl of Zet- 
 land.] 
 
 LETTER FEOM SIR HEW DALRYMPLE TO 
 SIR LAURENCE DUNDAS. 
 
 Church Patronage, 
 
 Dalzell, May 24, 1775. 
 
 Dear Sir, —Having spent a long life in 
 pursuit of pleasure and health, I am now re- 
 tired from the world in poverty, and with the 
 gout ; so, joining with Solomon, that ' all is 
 vanity and vexation of spirit,' I go to church 
 and say my prayers. 
 
 I assure you that most of us religious people 
 reap some little satisfaction in hoping that you 
 wealthy voluptuaries have a fair chance of 
 being damned to all eternity ; and that Dives 
 shall call out for a drop of water to Lazarus, 
 one drop of which he seldom tasted when he 
 had the twelve apostles {twelve hogsheads of 
 claret) in his cellar. 
 
 Now, sir, that doctrine being laid down, I 
 vidsh to give you, my friend, a loop-hole to 
 creep through. Going to church last Sunday 
 as usual, I saw an unknown face in the pulpit, 
 and rising uj) to prayers, as others do upon like 
 occasions, I began to look around the church to 
 find out if there were any pretty girls there, 
 when my attention was attracted by the foreign 
 accent of the parson. I gave him my attention, 
 and had my devotion awakened by the most 
 pathetic prayer I ever heard. This made me 
 all attention to the sermon ; a finer discourse 
 never came from the lips of a man. I returned 
 in the afternoon, and heard the same preacher 
 exceed his morning work by the finest chain of 
 reasoning, conveyed by the most eloquent ex- 
 l)ressions. I immediately thought of what 
 Agrippa said to Paul, ' Almost thou persuadest 
 me to be a Christian.' I sent to ask the man of 
 
 God to honour my roof and dine with me. I 
 asked him of his country, and what not ; I even 
 asked him if his sermons were his own composi- 
 tion, which he afiirmed they were. I assured 
 him I believed it, for never man had si)oke or 
 wrote so well. * My name is Dishington,' said 
 he. ' I am an assistant to an old minister in 
 the Orkneys, who enjoys a fruitful benefice of 
 £50 a year, out of which I am allowed £20 for 
 preaching and instructing 1200 people, who live 
 in two separate islands ; out of which I pay 
 £1, 5s. to the boatman who transports me from 
 the one to the other. I should be happy could 
 I continue in that terrestrial paradise ; but we 
 have a great lord, who has many little people 
 soliciting him for many little things that he can 
 do, and that he cannot do ; and if my minister 
 dies, his succession is too great a prize not to 
 raise up many powerful rivals to baulk my hopes 
 of preferment.' 
 
 I asked him if he possessed any other wealth. 
 ' Yes,' says he, ' I married the prettiest girl in 
 the island ; she has blessed me with three 
 children, and as we are both young, we may 
 expect more. Besides, I am so beloved in the 
 island, that I have all my peats brought home 
 carriage free.' 
 
 This is my story, — now to the prayer of my 
 petition. I never before envied you the posses- 
 sion of the Orkneys, which I now do, only to 
 provide for this eloquent, innocent apostle. 
 The sun has refused your barren isles his 
 kindly influence ; do not deprive them of so 
 pleasant a preacher ; let not so great a treasure 
 
 be for ever lost to that inhospitable 
 
 country ; for I assure you, were the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury to hear him, or hear of him, he 
 would not do less than make him an archdeacon. 
 The man has but one weakness, that of prefer- 
 ring the Orkneys to all the earth. 
 
 This way, and no other, you have a chance 
 for salvation. Do this man good, and he will 
 pray for you. This will be a better purchase 
 than your Irish estate, or the Orkneys. I think 
 it will help me forward too, since I am the man 
 who told you of the man so worthy and de- 
 serving, so pious, so eloquent, and whose 
 prayers may do so much good. Till I hear 
 from you on this head, yours in all meekness, 
 love, and benevolence, H. D. 
 
 [In a most characteristic postscript, Daliymple 
 remarks what an 'unspeakable pleasure' 
 it woiild be to look down from the upper 
 world upon Rigby and Masterton, and 
 all the Campbells and Nabobs who have 
 their portion in the lower world ; which 
 happy result would attend his efforts in 
 settling this man after the present in- 
 cumbent.] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 213 
 
 [The following is inserted merely to show what 
 effect the singular letter of Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple produced.] 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. DISHINGTON TO SIR JOHX 
 SINCLAIR. 
 
 Edinhurgli, August 2, 1791. 
 
 Sir, — Though it may seem ridiculous for one 
 to talk of his own private concerns, I hope I 
 may, without incurring the censure of egotism 
 or vanity, be allowed to lay before you the 
 following narrative, which may serve as an 
 explanation of Sir Hew Dalrymple's letter. In 
 the year 1776, being an assistant to a minister 
 in the Orkneys, who was then in a very ill state 
 of health, I went to Edinburgh, to try, if 
 possible, to secure the survivancy, a«id to be 
 appointed his successor. In this attempt being 
 disappointed, I went to pay a visit to Mr. 
 Thomas Hepburn, minister at Athelstaneford, 
 with whom I had contracted an intimacy in my 
 early years, and from whom I had often ex- 
 perienced every mark of the most sincere 
 fi-iendship. Indeed, it is but justice to his 
 memory to observe, that he was the friend and 
 patron of young men who had none to re- 
 commend them or to introduce them into the 
 world. One Saturday evening, when I happened 
 to be with him at Athelstaneford, he received a 
 letter from one of his brethren, informing him, 
 that being on his way to pay Mr. Hepburn a 
 visit, and preach for him next day, he had 
 unfortunately fallen from his horse, and re- 
 ceived a slight hurt in his shoulder. At the 
 same time he desired him, if any preachers 
 were in the neighbourhood, to send one to 
 officiate for him ; upon which I was despatched 
 away on Sunday morning, and had the good 
 fortune to be taken notice of by my worthy and 
 honourable friend Sir Hew Dalrymple, whose 
 letter to Sir Laurence Dundas procured me my 
 present living. 
 
 Before my presentation came to hand, I re- 
 ceived a letter from Mr. Hepburn, dated October 
 8, 1776; a paragraph or two of which, as far 
 as it respects the present subject, I here send 
 you. 'Dear Andrew, the last time I saw Sir 
 Hew, he told me he had spoke to Sir Laurence 
 Dundas, who told him, "Sir Hew, your man 
 shall get the first vacancy ; and to show you 
 that I am fixed in this matter, I will tell you 
 that the Princess Amelia desired the favour of 
 me to give my first kirk to a young man of her 
 recommendation; I told her I was sorry I 
 was pre-engaged. She asked to whom ? when 
 I replied to you, and she said it was well, 
 for that it was for your man she was applying." 
 This in the days of the renowned Don Quixote, 
 or even in those of modern chivalry, might 
 pass for enchantment ; and I tell it you, that 
 your soul may rest at ease. Meanwhile I charge 
 you and Messrs. Lindsay and Laing, instantly 
 
 to notify the first vacancy to me, that I may 
 inform Sir Hew Dalrymple, who is going to 
 winter at London. Whether I write you fre- 
 quently or not, you may believe that no man 
 has your happiness more at heart,' etc. 
 
 After the presentation came to hand, I was 
 in danger of losing all, by the jure devoluto : 
 the six months since the decease of my pre- 
 decessor being near elapsed, at the end of which 
 the right of j)resentation would have gone from 
 the patron to the presbytery. It was now the 
 depth of winter, and at that season of the year 
 there is usually no communication between 
 Orkney and Shetland ; when I had therefore 
 given up all for lost, a vessel came into Papa 
 Sound, in Orkney, very near the manse where 
 I resided ; and on making inquiry, I was told it 
 was the packet from Leith on her way for 
 Shetland. There again was another surprising 
 and uncommon circumstance, for it is very 
 remarkable that this same packet was never 
 known to put into the Orkneys either before or 
 since that period. Not to trouble you any 
 longer with a detail of uninteresting circum- 
 stances, I hasten to conclude with one general 
 remark. Such a combination of fortuitous 
 incidents, or what you please to call them, 
 served to impress on my mind the truth of 
 Cicero's observations more forcibly, and with a 
 more powerful effect, than a whole body of 
 divinity, or 50,000 sermons, preached by the 
 most celebrated doctors of the church. ^ JSfec 
 rero xmiverso generi Immano solum, sed etiam 
 singulis, Deus consuli et pi'ovide7'i soleV^ — I 
 am, etc. A. D. 
 
 THE HONOURABLE ANDREW ERSKINE TO 
 JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 
 
 New Tarbat, Nov. 23, 1761. 
 Dear Boswell, — As we never heard that 
 Demosthenes could broil beef-steaks, or Cicero 
 poach eggs, we may safely conclude that these 
 gentlemen u.nderstood nothing of cookery. In 
 like manner it may be concluded that you, 
 James Boswell, and I, Andrew Erskine, cannot 
 write serious epistles. This, as Mr. Tristram 
 says, I deny ; for this letter of mine shall 
 contain the quintessence of solidity ; it shall be 
 a piece of boiled beef and cabbage, a roasted 
 goose, and a boiled leg of pork and greens ; in 
 one word, it shall contain advice, sage and 
 mature advice. O James Boswell ! take care 
 and don't break your neck, pray don't fracture 
 your skull, and be very cautious in your 
 manner of tumbling down precipices ; beware 
 of falling into coal-pits, and don't drown your- 
 
 1 ' Providence seems to watch over the happiness, 
 not only of the human race in general, but even of 
 individuals.' 
 
214 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 self in every pool you meet with. Having thus 
 warned you of the most material dangers which 
 your youth and inexperience will be ready to 
 lead you into, I now proceed to others, less 
 momentary indeed, but very necessary to be 
 strictly observed. Go not near the Soaping 
 Club ; never mention Drury Lane Playhouse ; 
 be attentive to those pinchbeck buckles which 
 fortune has so graciously given you, of which 
 I am afraid you're hardly fond enough ; never 
 wash your face ; but above all, forswear poetry ; 
 from experience I can assure you, and this 
 letter may serve as a proof, that a man may 
 be as dull in prose as in verse ; and as dulness 
 is what we aim at, i^rose is the easiest of the 
 two. Oh, my friend ! j)rofit by these my 
 instructions; think that you see me studying 
 for your advantage, my reverend locks over- 
 shadowing my paper, my hands trembling, and 
 my tongue hanging out, a figure of esteem, 
 affection, and veneration. By heavens, Boswell ! 
 
 I love you more But this, I think, may be 
 
 more conveniently expressed in rhyme : 
 
 More than a herd of swine a kennel muddy, 
 Store than a brilliant belle polemic study, 
 More than fat Falstaff lov'd a cup of sack, 
 More than a guilty criminal the rack, 
 More than attorneys love by cheats to thrive. 
 And more than witches to he burnt alive. 
 
 I begin to be afraid that we shall not see you 
 here this winter, which will be a great loss 
 to you. If ever you travel into foreign jDarts, 
 as Machiavel used to say, everybody abroad 
 will require a description of New Tarbat ^ from 
 you. That you may not appear totally ridic- 
 ulous and absurd, I shall send you some little 
 account of it. Imagine, then, to yourself what 
 Thomson would call an interminable plain, 
 interspersed in a lovely manner with beautiful 
 green hills. The seasons here are only shifted 
 by summer and spring. Winter, with his fur 
 cap and his cat-skin gloves, was never seen in 
 this charming retreat. The castle is of Gothic 
 structure, awful and lofty ; there are fifty bed- 
 chambers in it, with halls, saloons, and galleries 
 
 without number. Mr. M 's father, who 
 
 was a man of infinite humour, caused a magni- 
 ficent lake to be made just before the entry of 
 the house. His diversion was to peep out of 
 his window, and see the people who came to 
 visit him skipping through it — for there was 
 no other passage — then he used to jjut on such 
 huge fires to dry their clothes, that there was 
 no bearing them. Ho used to declare, that he 
 never thought a man good company till he was 
 half droAvned and half burnt ; but if in any 
 part of his life he had narrowly escaped hang- 
 ing (a thing not uncommon in the Highlands), 
 he would perfectly doat upon him ; and when- 
 ever the story was told him, he was ready to 
 
 choke himself. But to return. Everything 
 here is in the grand and sublime style. But, 
 
 alas ! some envious magician, with his 
 
 enchantments, has destroyed all these beauties. 
 By his potent art, the house, with so many 
 bed-chambers in it, cannot conveniently lodge 
 above a dozen people. The room which I am 
 writing in jiTst now is in reality a handsome 
 parlour of twenty feet by sixteen ; though in 
 my eyes, and to all outward appearance, it 
 seems a garret of six feet by four. The 
 magnificent lake is a dirty i)uddle ; the lovely 
 plain a rude, wild country, covered with the 
 most astonishing high black mountains ; the 
 inhabitants, the most amiable race under the 
 sun, appear now to be the ugliest, and look as 
 if they were overrun with the itch. Their 
 delicate limbs, adorned with the finest silk 
 stockings, are now bare, and very dirty ; but 
 to describe all the transformations would take 
 
 up more paper than Lady B , from whom 
 
 I had this, would choose to give me. My own 
 metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary that 
 I must make you acquainted with it. You 
 know I am really very thick and short, pro- 
 digiously talkative, and wonderfully impudent. 
 Now I am thin and tall, strangely silent, and 
 very bashful. If these things continue, who 
 is safe ? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. 
 Your fair and transparent complexion may turn 
 black and oily ; your person little and squat ; 
 and who knows but you may eternally rave 
 about the King of Great Britain's guards— a 
 species of madness from which, good Lord, 
 deliver us ! 
 
 I have often wondered, Boswell, that a man 
 of your taste in music cannot play upon the 
 Jew's harp; there are some of us here that 
 touch it very melodiously, I can tell you. 
 Corelli's solo of Maggie Lauder, and Pergolesi's 
 sonata of Tiic Carle he eaitie o'er the Graft, are 
 excellently adapted to that instrument : let 
 me advise you to learn it. The first cost is 
 but three halfpence, and they last a long time. 
 I have composed the following ode upon it, 
 which exceeds Pindar as much as the Jew's 
 harp does the organ : 
 
 ODE UPON A JEW'S HARP. 
 
 Sweet instrument ! which fix'd in yellow teeth, 
 So clear, so sprightly, and so gay is found, 
 
 Whether you breathe along the shore of Leith, 
 Or Lomond's lofty cliffs thy strains resound ; 
 Struck by a taper finger's gentle tip. 
 Ah, softly in our ears thy pleasing murmurs slip I 
 
 Where'er thy lively music's found, 
 
 All arc jumping, dancing round : 
 
 Even trusty William lifts a leg, 
 
 And capers like sixteen with Meg ; 
 
 Both old and young confess thy powerful sway. 
 
 They skip like madmen, and they frisk away. 
 
 1 A wild seat in the Western Highlands of Scotland, 
 surrounded with mountains. 
 
 Rous'd by the magic of the charming air, 
 The yawning dogs forego their heavy slumbers; 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 215 
 
 The ladies listen on the narrow stair, 
 And Captain Andrew straight forgets his numbers. 
 Cats and mice give o'er their battling, 
 Pewter plates on shelves are rattling ; 
 But falling down, the noise my lady hears, 
 Whose scolding drowns the trump more tuneful than 
 the spheres ! 
 
 Having thus, Boswell, written you a most 
 entertaining letter, with which you are highly 
 pleased, to your great grief I give over in these 
 or the like words, your affectionate friend, 
 
 Andeew Erskine. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 New Tarbat, Dec. 13, 1761. 
 
 Deak Boswell,— An Ode to Tragedy, by a 
 gentleman of Scotland, and dedicated to you ! ^ 
 Had there been only one spark of curiosity in 
 my whole composition, this would have raised 
 it to a flame equal to the general conflagra- 
 tion. May me, as Lord Peter says, if 
 
 the edge of my appetite to know what it can 
 be about is not as keen as the best razor ever 
 used by a member of the Soaping Club. Go 
 to Donaldson, demand from him two of my 
 franks, and send it me even before the first 
 post : write me, oh write me ! what sort of 
 man this author is, where he was born, how 
 he was brought up, and with what sort of diet 
 he has been princii)ally fed ; tell me his gene- 
 alogy, like IMr. M ; how many miles he has 
 
 travelled in post-chaises, like Colonel R ; 
 
 tell me what he eats, like a cook ; what he 
 drinks, like a wine-merchant ; what shoes he 
 wears, like a shoemaker ; in what manner 
 his mother was delivered of him, like a man- 
 midwife ; and how his room is furnished, like 
 an upholsterer : but if you happen to find it 
 dijfficult to utter all this in terms befitting Mr. 
 
 M , Colonel R , a cook, a wine-merchant, 
 
 a shoemaker, a man-midwife, and an uphol- 
 sterer, oh ! tell it me all in your own manner, 
 and in your own incomparable style. 
 
 Your scheme, Boswell, has met with — but 
 the thoughts of this ode-writing gentleman 
 of Scotland again come across me — I must now 
 ask, like the Spectator, is he fat or lean, tall 
 or short? does he use spectacles? what is the 
 length of his walking-stick? has he a landed 
 estate? has he a good coal- work? — Lord! Lord! 
 what a melancholy thing it is to live twenty 
 miles fi'om a post-town ! why am I not in 
 Edinburgh ? why am I not chained to Donald- 
 Bon's shop ? 
 
 I received both your letters yesterday, for 
 we send to the post-house but once a week : I 
 
 1 This letter was occasioned by seeing an Ode to 
 Tragedy, wiitten by a gentleman of Scotland, and 
 dedicated to James Boswell, Esq., advertised in the 
 Edinburgh newspapers. It afterwards appeared that 
 the Ode v.-a3 written by Mr. Boswell himself. 
 
 need not tell you how I liked them ; v/ere I to 
 acquaint you with that, you would consecrate 
 the pen with which they were written, and 
 deify the inkhorn ; I think the outside of one 
 of them was adorned with the greatest quantity 
 of good sealing-wax I ever saw ; and my 
 
 brother A and Lady A , both of whom 
 
 have a notable comprehension of these sort of 
 things, agree with me in this my oi)inion. 
 
 Your Ode to Gluttony is altogether excellent ; 
 the descriptions are so lively, that mistaking 
 the paper on which they were written for a 
 piece of bread and butter spread with marma- 
 lade, I fairly swallowed the whole composition, 
 and I find my stomach increased threefold 
 since that time ; I declare it to be the most 
 admirable whet in the world, superior to a 
 solan goose, or white wine and bitters ; it 
 ought to be hung up in every cook's shop in the 
 three kingdoms, engraved on pillars in all 
 market places, and pasted in all rooms in all 
 taverns. 
 
 You seem to doubt in your first letter if ever 
 Captain Erskine was better entertained by the 
 great Donaldson than you were lately ; banish 
 that opinion ; tell it not in Gath, nor publish 
 it in Askalon ; repeat it not in John's Coffee- 
 house, neither whisjDer it in the Abbey of 
 Holyroodhouse : no, I shall never forget the 
 fowls and oyster-sauce which bedecked the 
 board ; fat were the fowls, and the oysters of 
 the true pandore or croat kind; then the 
 apple-pie with raisins, and the mutton with 
 colliflower, can never be erased from my 
 remembrance. I may forget my native 
 country, my dear brothers and sisters, my 
 poetry, my art of making love, and even you, 
 O Boswell ! but these things I can never 
 forget ; the impression is too deep, too well 
 imi^rinted, ever to be effaced ; I may turn 
 Turk or Hottentot, I may be hanged for 
 stealing a bag to adorn my hair, I may 
 court the fattest Wapping landlady, but these 
 things I can never forget ; I may be sick and 
 in prison, I may be deaf, dumb, and may lose 
 my memory, but these things I can never 
 forget. 
 
 And now, Boswell, I am to acquaint you, 
 that your proposal is received with the utmost 
 joy and festivity ; and the scheme, if I live till 
 to-morrow fortnight, will be put in execution. 
 The New Tarbat chaise will arrive at Glasgow 
 on Monday evening, the 28th of December, 
 drove by William. Captain Andrew's slim 
 personage will slip out ; he will inquire for 
 James Boswell, Esq. ; he will be shown into 
 the room where he is sitting before a large fire, 
 the evening being cold, raptures and poetry 
 will ensue, and every man will soap his own 
 beard ; every other article of the proposals will 
 be executed as faithfully as this. But to speak 
 very seriously, you must be true to your 
 appointment, and come with the utmost 
 
2l6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 regularity upon the Monday; think of my 
 emotions at Graeme's if you shoukl not come ; 
 view my melancholy posture ; hark ! I rave 
 like Lady Wishfort, No Boswell yet, Boswell's 
 a lost thing. I must receive a letter from you 
 before I set out, telling me whether you keep 
 true to your resolution ; and pray send me the 
 Ode to Tragedy. I beg you'll bring me out in 
 your pocket my Critical Eeview, which you 
 may desire Donaldson to give you ; but above 
 all, employ Donaldson to get me a copy of 
 Fingal, which tell him I'll pay him for ; I long 
 to see it. 
 
 There are some things lately published in 
 London which I would be glad to have, particu- 
 larly a Spousal Hijmn on the Marriage of the 
 King aiid Queen, and an Elegy on vieioing a 
 Ruined Pile of Buildings ; see what you can do 
 for me ; I know you will not take it ill to be 
 busied a little for that greatest of all poets, r 
 Captain Andrew. 
 
 The sluice of happiness you have let in 
 upon me has quite overflowed the shallows 
 of my understanding ; at this moment I am 
 determined to write more and print more than 
 any man in the kingdom, except the great Dr. 
 Hill, who writes a folio every month, a quarto 
 every fortnight, an octavo every week, and a 
 duodecimo every day, Hogarth has humor- 
 ously represented a brawny porter almost 
 sinking to the ground under a huge load of his 
 works, I am too lazy just now to copy out an 
 Ode to Indolence, which I have lately written ; 
 besides, it's fitting I reserve something for you 
 to peruse when we me^, for upon these 
 occasions an exchange of poems ought to be 
 as regular as an exchange of prisoners between 
 two nations at war. Believe me, dear Boswell, 
 to be yours sincerely, 
 
 Andeew Erskixe, 
 
 P.S. — Pray write me before I set out for 
 Glasgow.— The Ode to Tragedy, by a gentle- 
 man of Scotland ; good now ! wonderful ! 
 
 [William Cobbett was born in 1762, near 
 Farnham in Surrey. His childhood was 
 spent in the occupations usual upon a farm, 
 as his father's had been. At sixteen he 
 attempted to make off to sea ; at seventeen 
 he went to London; at twenty-two he 
 enlisted as a private soldier, and rose to 
 the rank of sergeant-major. His regiment 
 was in America for four years, when on its 
 recall to England in 1791 he obtained his 
 discharge. He married in 1792 and went 
 to France, but on the outbreak of the 
 Revolution he went to America, where he 
 remained eight years. He now commenced 
 
 his career as author and editor, and on his 
 return to England in 1800, published the 
 Porcupine and WeeTclu Register^ the latter 
 of which was continued up till the time of 
 his death. It appeared at first as a Tory, 
 but became eventually a Radical publi- 
 cation. It abounded in violent personal 
 and i)olitical attacks on public men. He 
 was twice fined and prosecuted for libel, 
 and in 1809 was fined and imprisoned in 
 Newgate for two years. In 1817 he went 
 to America t© avoid a prosecution under 
 the * Six Acts Bill,' where he remained two 
 years until the Act was repealed. After 
 the passing of the Reform Bill, he entered 
 Parliament in 1832 as member for Oldham. 
 He died in 1835. Besides his political 
 writings, Cobbett wrote his Cottage 
 Economy, English Grammar, History of the 
 Protestant Reformation, and Rural Rides, 
 etc. His language is uniformly forcible 
 and vigorous, and as he himself says, ' his 
 popularity' was owing to his 'giving truth 
 in clear language.' The following is 
 Cobbett's advertisement to his Grammar 
 of the French Language : — ' All that I 
 shall ask of the public is, that those 
 who are expending, or have been 
 expending, money for the purpose of 
 obtaining a knowledge of the French 
 language for themselves or for their 
 children — all 1 ask is, that these persons 
 will first read steadily through all that 
 they find in the first fifty pages of any 
 other French Grammar, and that they 
 will then read steadily through the first 
 fifty pages of my Grammar. If this were 
 done by all such persons, there would, 
 I am convinced, be but one French 
 Grammar in use in a very short time. 
 Any person who has never studied French 
 at all, will be able, by such reading, to 
 form a competent judgment. He will find 
 that, from other grammars, he can, by 
 such reading, get no knowledge at all of the 
 matter, while from mine he will get at 
 some knowledge of it. Those who under- 
 stand the subject, I request to compare 
 what they find in my Grammar on those 
 difficult parts, the impersonals, the two 
 past times of the verbs, and the particiiiles 
 —I request them to compare these parts of 
 my Grammar with what they find as to 
 the same matters in any other grammar.'] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 21/ 
 
 VvILLIAM COBBETT TO HIS SON EICHAKD. 
 
 On the Utility of Learning French. 
 
 My dear little Son, — 1. Before we set about 
 learning anything, be it what it may, it is right 
 that we ascertain the thing to be such as is 
 likely to be useful to us ; and it is but reason- 
 able that the usefulness should, in point of 
 magnitude, bear a just proportion to the expense, 
 whether of money or of time, demanded by the 
 task which we are going to encounter. If I did 
 not think the French language a thing of this 
 character, I certainly should not wish you. to 
 learn it . But a very little reflection will convince 
 you that it is a branch of learning which, in the 
 present age, stands, in the scale of importance, 
 next after that of our native language. 
 
 2. It would be tedious, my dear Richard, to 
 enumerate all the reasons for learning French ; 
 but when I tell you that the laws of Eng- 
 land were, for several centuries, written and 
 administered in French ; that some of the 
 present statutes stand in that language ; that a 
 great part of the law terms in use at this day 
 are also French, — were I to tell you only this, 
 you would, I hope, see a motive more than 
 suflScient to induce you to undertake the 
 learning of this language, especially when you 
 find that I have done all in my power to render 
 the undertaking easy and pleasant. 
 
 3. There are, however, many other motives of 
 equal, and some, perhaps, of greater weight. 
 The French language is the language of all the 
 courts of Europe. The cause of this is of no con- 
 sequence; the fact is all that we have to do with 
 here, and that is undeniable. Then, observe, 
 that though each of the great nations of 
 Europe generally insists that the treaties, to 
 which it is a party, shall be in its own language 
 or in Latin, yet the French is, in spite of all 
 the efforts that have been made to prevent it, 
 the universal language of negotiations. Few, 
 indeed, comparatively speaking, are the persons 
 employed in this way ; but the instances in 
 which, for purposes connected with war or 
 with foreign commerce, it is necessary to be 
 master of the French language are by no 
 means few nor of little importance. 
 
 4. In the carrying on of trade, and in the 
 affairs of merchants, it is frequently absolutely 
 necessary to be able to speak and to write 
 French. A young man, whether in trade of 
 wholesale or of retail, and especially in the 
 counting-house of a merchant, is worth a great 
 deal more when he possesses the French 
 language than when he does not. To travel 
 on the continent of Europe without being able 
 to speak French, is to be, during such travelling, 
 a sort of deaf and dumb j^erson. Humiliation 
 and mortification greater than this it is hardly 
 possible to imagine ; and these will be by no 
 means diminished by the reflection that we owe 
 them to our own want of attention and industry. 
 
 5. Though many of the French books are 
 translated into English, the far greater part 
 are not ; and in every branch of knowledge 
 great indeed is the number of those books which 
 it may be useful to read. But, were there 
 only the pain arising from the want of a 
 knowledge of French, when we fall into a 1 
 company where we hear one of our own nation | 
 conversing with a Frenchman, this alone ! 
 ought to be more than sufficient to urge a j 
 young person on to the study. I remember a 
 young lady in Long Island, who had been out 
 on a visit to a house where one of the company 
 happened to be a French lady who could not 
 speak English, and where a young American 
 lady had been interpretress between this 
 foreigner and the rest of the company ; and I 
 shall never forget the manner in which the first- 
 mentioned young lady expressed tlie sense of 
 her humiliation. 'I never before,' said she, 
 
 ' in all my life, felt envy ; but there was 
 
 Miss , first turning to the right, and then 
 
 to the left, and, at each turn, changing her 
 language ; and there sat I like a post, feeling 
 myself more her inferior than I can describe.' 
 
 6. It is really thus. This talent gives, in such 
 cases, not only an air of superiority, but also 
 a reasonable and just claim to real superiority, 
 because it must be manifest to every one that 
 
 it is the effect of attention and of industry j 
 as well as of good natural capacity of mind. It I 
 is not a thing like dancing or singing, perfec- 
 tion in the former of which is most likely to 
 arise from an accidental pliancy of the limbs, 
 and in the latter from an organization of the 
 throat and lungs not less accidental : it is not 
 a thing of this sort, but a thing, the posses- 
 sion of which necessarily implies considerable 
 powers of mind, and a meritorious application 
 of those i)owers. Besides these considerations, 
 there is this, that by learning French well, you 
 will really become more thoroughly acquainted 
 with your own language. If Dr. Johnson had 
 known the French language, he could have 
 committed scarcely any of those numerous 
 blunders (relating to words from the French) 
 which are contained in his Dictionary, and of 
 which I will here give you a specimen. He has 
 this passage : ^Rabbet, a joint made by paring two 
 pieces of wood, so that they wrap over one 
 another.' Then the verb he has thus : ' To 
 rabbet, to pare down two pieces of wood so as to 
 fit one another.' The Doctor meant, * to make 
 them fit one another.' But to our point. The 
 Doctor says, that to rabbet comes from the 
 French verb rabbatre, which means to bate, or 
 abate, to bring down. So, says the Doctor, to 
 rabbet comes from rabbatre ; for the wood is ! 
 brought down by the carpenter's tool ! "What ! 
 Doctor ? to bate, abate, the wood ! This is far- 
 fetched indeed. Now, if the Doctor had 
 known French only tolerably well, he would 
 have known that robot is a carpenters plane ; 
 
2l8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 that rahoter is to plane wood with a carpenter's 
 plane ; and that boards fitted together by- 
 means of the plane, and not by means of the 
 saw, the chisel, or other tools, are boards rabotes, 
 or, in English, raboted. How plain is all this ! 
 And how clear it is that we have here got 
 a piece of nonsense in our language, because 
 Dr. Johnson did not know French ! 
 
 7. Having now spoken of the motives to the 
 learning of French, I shall, in the next letter, 
 speak of the way to go to work and how to 
 proceed, in order to accomi^lish the object. 
 Before, however, I proceed further, let me 
 explain to you the meaning of the numerical 
 figures which I have used here, from one to 
 seven. Each of the portions of writing, dis- 
 tinguished by these figures respectively, is 
 called a paragraph ; and as you, in the course 
 of the letters that I am addressing to you, will 
 find yourself frequently directed to look at 
 parts of them other than the part which you 
 are then reading, you will more quickly find 
 the thing which you want by being referred 
 to the paragraph, than you would if you were 
 referred to the page. 
 
 8. The hope which I entertain of seeing you 
 write and of hearing you speak French 
 correctly is, I am sure, equalled by the desire 
 which you have not to disai^point that hope. 
 My dear little son, I beg you to remember, 
 that to succeed in an undertaking like this 
 requires great assiduity and perseverance ; but 
 remember also, that nothing is justly gained 
 without labour of some sort or other ; and bear 
 constantly in mind, that in proportion to 
 your increase in knowledge and talent will be 
 the increase of the satisfaction of your affec- 
 tionate father, 
 
 William Cobbett. 
 Kensington, 17th June 1824. 
 
 [Mrs. Cockburn, mentioned by Scott in his 
 Memoir as the authoress of the modern 
 ' Flowers of the Forest,' born a Rutherford, 
 of Fairnalie, in Selkirkshire, was distantly 
 related to the i^oet's mother, with whom 
 she had through life been in habits of 
 intimate friendship. This accomplished 
 woman was staying at Ravelstonc, in the 
 vicinity of Edinburgh, a seat of the Keiths 
 of Dunnotar, nearly related to Mrs. Scott 
 and to herself. With some of that family 
 she spent an evening in George Square. 
 She chanced to be writing next day to 
 Dr. Douglas, the well-known and much- 
 respected minister of her native parish, 
 Galashiels; and her letter contains the 
 following i>assage. — LocJchart. ] 
 
 MRS. COCKBURN TO DR. DOUGLAS. 
 
 Boylwod of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 Edinburgh, Saturday Night, lUh [1777] of the 
 gloomy month when the people of England 
 Jiang and droivn themselves. 
 ... I last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. 
 He has the most extraordinary genius of a boy 
 I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his 
 mother when I went in. I made him read on ; 
 it was the description of a shipwreck. His 
 passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes 
 and hands. ' There's the mast gone,' says he ; 
 ' crash it goes ! they will all perish ! ' After his 
 agitation, he turns to me. 'That is too 
 melancholy,' says he; 'I had better read you 
 something more amusing.' I preferred a little 
 chat, and asked his opinion of Milton and other 
 books he was reading, which he gave me wonder- 
 fully. One of his observations was, 'How 
 strange it is that Adam, just new come into 
 the world, should know everything — that must 
 be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when he was 
 told he was created perfect by God, he instantly 
 yielded. When taken to bed last night, he told 
 his aunt he liked that lady. ' What lady ? ' says 
 she. ' Why, Mrs. Cockburn ; for I think she is 
 a virtuoso, like myself.' 'Dear Walter,' says 
 Aunt Jenny, ' what is a virtuoso ? ' ' Don't ye 
 know? Why, it's one who wishes and will 
 know everything.' 
 
 Now, sir, you will think this a very silly story. 
 Pray, what age do you supi^ose this boy to be ? 
 Name it now, before I tell you. Why, twelve 
 or fourteen. No such thing; he is not quite 
 six years old.^ He has a lame leg, for which he 
 was a year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect 
 English accent, which he has not lost since he 
 came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will 
 allow this an uncommon exotic. 
 
 [Riding one day with Fei'gusson, they met, some 
 
 1 lie was, in fact, six years and three months old 
 before this letter was written. 
 
 miles from Gilsland, a young lady taking 
 the air on horseback, whom neither of 
 them had previously remarked, and whose 
 appearance instantly struck both so much 
 that they kept her in view until they had 
 satisfied themselves that she also was one 
 of the party at Gilsland. The same 
 evening there was a ball, at which Captain 
 Scott produced himself in his regimentals, 
 and Fergusson also thought proper to be 
 equipped in the uniform of the Edinburgh 
 Volunteers. There was no little rivalry 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 2ig 
 
 among the young travellers as to who 
 should fii-st get presented to the unknown 
 beauty of the morning's ride; but though 
 both the gentlemen in scarlet had the 
 advantage of being dancing partners, their 
 friend succeededin handing the fair stranger 
 to supper — and such was his first intro- 
 duction to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter. 
 Without the featiu'es of a regular beauty, 
 she was rich in personal attractions ; ' a 
 form that was fashioned as light as a fay's ; ' 
 a complexion of the clearest and lightest 
 olive ; eyes large, deep-set, and dazzling, 
 of the finest Italian brown ; and a profusion 
 of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing 
 — her address hovering between the reserve 
 of a pretty young Englishwoman who has 
 not mingled largely in general society, and 
 a certain natural archness and gaiety that 
 suited well with the accompaniment of a 
 French accent. A lovelier vision, as all 
 who remember her in the bloom of her 
 days have assured me, could hardly have 
 been imagined ; and from that hour the 
 fate of the young poet was fixed. She 
 was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of 
 Lyons, a devoted royalist, who held an 
 office under Government,^ and Charlotte 
 Volere, his wife. She and her only 
 brother, Charles Charpentier, had been 
 educated in the Protestant religion of their 
 mother; and when their father died, 
 which occurred in the beginning of the 
 Revolution, Madame Charpentier made her 
 escape with her children, first to Paris, 
 and then to England, Avhere they found 
 a warm friend and protector in the late 
 Marquis of Downshire, who had, in the 
 course of his travels in France, formed an 
 intimate acquaintance Avith the family, 
 and, indeed, spent some time under their 
 roof. M. Charpentier had, in his first alarm 
 as to the coming Revolution, invested £4000 
 in English securities, part in a mortgage 
 upon Lord Downshire's estates. On the 
 mother's death, which occurred soon 
 after her arrival in London, this nobleman 
 took on himself the character of sole guar- 
 dian to her children ; and Charles Char- 
 pentier received in due time, through his 
 
 1 ' In several deeds which I have seen, M. Charpentier 
 is designed " Ecuyer du roi." What the post he held 
 ■was I never heard.'— Lockhart. 
 
 interest, an api^ointment in the service of 
 the East India Company, in which he had 
 by this time risen to the lucrative situa- 
 tion of Commercial Resident at Salem. — 
 Loclchart.] 
 
 MISS CARPENTEE TO WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Carlisle, Oct. 22, 1797. 
 Your last letter, my dear sir, contains a very 
 fine train of perhaps, and of so many pretty 
 conjectures, that it is not flattering you to say 
 you excel in the art of tormenting yourself. As 
 it happens, you are quite wrong in all your 
 suppositions. I have been waiting for Lord D.'s 
 answer to your letter, to give a full answer to 
 your very j)roper inquiries about my family. 
 Miss Nicolson says, that when she did offer to 
 give you some information, you refused it — and 
 advises me now to wait for Lord D.'s letter. 
 Don't believe I have been idle : I have been 
 writing very long letters to him, and all about 
 you. How can you think that I will give an 
 answer about the house tmtil I hear from 
 London? -that is quite impossible; and I 
 believe you are a little out of your senses to 
 imagine I can be in Edinburgh before the 
 twelfth of next month. Oh, my dear sir, no, 
 you must not think of it this great while ! I am 
 much flattered by your mother's remembrance : 
 present my respectful compliments to her. You 
 don't mention your father in your last anxious 
 letter; I hope he is better. I am expecting 
 every day to hear from my brother. You may 
 tell your uncle he is Commercial Resident at 
 Salem. He will find the name of Charles C. 
 in his India list. My compliments to Captain 
 Scott. Sans adieu, C. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Carlisle, Oct. 25. 
 Indeed, Mr. Scott, I am by no means i)leased 
 with all this writing. I have told you how 
 much I dislike it, and yet you still persist in 
 asking me to write, and that by return of post. 
 Oh, you really are quite out of your senses ! I 
 should not have indulged you in that whim of 
 yours had you not given me that hint that my 
 silence gives an air of mystery. I have no 
 reason that can detain me in acquainting you 
 that my father and mother were French, of the 
 name of Charpentier; he had a place under 
 Government; their residence was at Lyons, 
 v/here you would find on inquiries that they 
 lived in good repute and in very good style. I 
 had the misfortune of losing my father before I 
 could know the value of such a parent. At his 
 death we were left to the care of Lord D. , who 
 was his very great friend, and very soon after I 
 had the affliction of losing my mother. Our 
 taking the name of Carxienter was on my 
 
220 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 brother's going to India, to prevent any little 
 difficulties that might have occurred. I hope 
 now you are pleased. Lord D. could have given 
 you every information, as he has been acquainted 
 with all^my family. You say you almost love 
 Mm, but until your ahnost comes to a quite I 
 cannot love you. Before I conclude this famous 
 epistle, I will give you a little hint — that is, 
 not to put so many must in your letters — it is 
 beginning rather too soon ; and another thing is, 
 that I take the liberty not to mind them much, 
 but I expect you mind me. You must take care 
 of yourself ; you must think of me, and believe 
 me yours sincerely, C. C, 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Carlisle, Oct. 26. 
 I have only a minute before the post goes, to 
 assure you, my dear sir, of the welcome recep- 
 tion of the stranger.^ The very great likeness 
 to a friend of mine will endear him to me ; he 
 shall be my constant companion, but I wish he 
 could give me an answer to a thousand questions 
 I have to make — one in particular, what reason 
 have you for so many fears you express ? Have 
 your friends changed ? Pray let me know the 
 truth — they perhaps don't like me being French. 
 Do write immediately, let it be in better spirits. 
 M croyez-moi tovjours voire sincere C. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 October 31. 
 
 , . . All your apprehensions about your friends 
 make me very uneasy. At your father's age 
 prejudices are not easily overcome ; old people 
 have, you know, so much more wisdom and 
 experience, that we must be guided by them. 
 If he has an objection on my being French, I 
 excuse him with all my heart, as I don't love 
 them myself. Oh, how all these things plague 
 me ! when will it end ? And to complete the 
 matter you talk of going to the West Indies. 
 I am certain your father and uncle say you are 
 a hot, heady young man, quite mad, and I assure 
 you I join with them ; and I must believe that, 
 when you have such an idea, you have then 
 determined to think no more of me. I begin to 
 repent of having accepted your picture. I will 
 send it back again, if you ever think again about 
 the West Indies. Your family then would love 
 me very much, to forsake them for a stranger, 
 a person who does not possess half the charms 
 and good qualities that you imagine. I think I 
 hear your uncle calling you a hot, heady young 
 man. I am certain of it, and I am generally 
 right in my conjectures. What does your sister 
 say about it? I suspect that she thinks on the 
 matter as I should do, with fears and anxieties 
 for the happiness of her brother. If it be 
 
 1 A miniature of Scott. 
 
 proper, and you think it would be acceptable, 
 present my best compliments to your mother ; 
 and to my old acquaintance Captain Scott I 
 beg to be remembered. This evening is the 
 first ball ; don't you wish to be of our party ? I 
 guess your answer — it would give me infinite 
 pleasure. En attendant leplaisir de vous revoir, 
 je suis toujours voire constanfe 
 
 Charlotte. 
 
 TO the same. 
 
 The Castle, Hartford, October 29, 1797. 
 Sir, — I received the favour of your lettei'. 
 It was so manly, honourable, candid, and so 
 full of good sense, that I think Miss Carpenter's 
 friends cannot in any way object to the union 
 you propose. Its taking place, when or where, 
 will depend upon herself, as I shall write to her 
 by this night's post. Any jjrovision that may 
 be given to her by her brother, you will have 
 settled upon her and her children ; and I hope 
 with all my heart, that every earthly happiness 
 may attend you both. I shall be always happy 
 to hear it, and to subscribe myself your faithful 
 friend and obedient humble servant, 
 
 DOWNSHIRE. 
 
 {On the same sheet.) 
 
 Carlisle, JVov. 4. 
 Last night I received the enclosed for you 
 from Lord Downshire. If it has your approba- 
 tion, I shall be very glad to see you as soon as 
 will be convenient. I have a thousand things 
 to tell you ; but let me beg of you not to think 
 for some time of a house. I am sure I can 
 convince you of the propriety and prudence of 
 waiting until your father will settle things more 
 to your satisfaction, and until I have heard 
 from my brother. You must be of my way of 
 thinking. — Adieu. C. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Carlisle, Nov. 14. 
 Your letter never could have come in a more 
 favourable moment. Anything you could have 
 said would have been well received. You sur- 
 prise me much at the regret you express you 
 had of leaving Carlisle. Indeed, I can't believe 
 it was on my account, I was so uncommonly 
 stupid. I don't know what could be the matter 
 with me, I was so very low, and felt really ill : 
 it was even a trouble to speak. The settling of 
 our little plans all looked so much in earnest, 
 that I began reflecting more seriously than I 
 generally do, or approve of. I don't think that 
 very thoughtful people ever can be happy. As 
 this is my maxim, adieu to all thoughts. I 
 have made a determination of being pleased 
 with everything and with everybody in Edin- 
 burgh ; a wise system for happiness, is it not 2 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 221 
 
 I enclose the lock ; I have had almost all my 
 hair cut off. Miss Nicolson has taken some, 
 which she sends to London to be made into 
 something, but this you are not to know of, as 
 she intends to present it to you. ... I am 
 happy to hear of your father's being better 
 pleased as to money matters; it will come at 
 last ; don't let that trifle disturb you. Adieu, 
 Monsieur, fai Vhmneur d'etre voire ires humble 
 et ires obeissante C. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Carlisle, Nov. 27. 
 
 You have made me very triste all day. Pray 
 never more complain of being poor. Are you 
 not ten times richer than I am? Depend on 
 yourself and your profession. I have no doubt 
 you will rise very high, and be a great rich man, 
 but we should look down to be contented with 
 our lot, and banish all disagreeable thoughts. 
 We shall do very well. I am very sorry to hear 
 you have such a bad head. I hope I shall nurse 
 away all your aches. I think you write too 
 much. "When I am mistress I shall not allow it. 
 How very angry I should be with you if you 
 were to part with Lenore. Do you i-eally 
 believe I should think it an unnecessary/ expense 
 where your health and pleasure can be con- 
 cerned ? I have a better opinion of you, and I 
 am very glad you don't give up the cavalry, as 
 I love anything that is stylish. Don't forget to 
 find a stand for the old carriage, as I shall like 
 to keep it, in case we should have to go any 
 joui'ney ; it is so much more convenient than 
 the post chaises, and will do very well till we 
 can keep our carriage. "What an idea of yours 
 was that to mention where you wish to have 
 your bones laid / If you were married I should 
 think you were tired of me. A very ijretty 
 compliment before marriage. I hope sincerely 
 that I shall not live to see that day. If you 
 always have those cheerful thoughts, how very 
 pleasant and gay you must be ! 
 
 Adieu, my dearest friend ; take care of your- 
 self if you love me, as I have no wish that you 
 should visit that beautiful and romantic scene, 
 the burying-place. Adieu, once more, and 
 believe that you are loved very sincerely by 
 
 C. 0. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Dec. 10. 
 
 If I could but really believe that my letter 
 gave you only half the pleasure you express, I 
 should almost think, my dearest Scott, that I 
 should get very fond of writing, merely for the 
 pleasure to indulge you — that is saying a great 
 deal. I hope you are sensible of the compli- 
 ment I pay you, and don't expect I shall always 
 be so pretty behaved. You may depend on me, 
 my dearest friend, for fixing as early a day as 
 I possibly can; and if it happens to be not 
 
 quite so soon as you wish, you must not be 
 angry with me. It is very unlucky you are 
 such a bad housekeeper, as I am no better. I 
 shall try. I hope to have very soon the pleasure 
 of seeing you, and to tell you how much I love 
 you ; but I wish the first fortnight was over. 
 With all my love, and those sort of pretty 
 things, adieu. Charlotte. 
 
 P.S. — Etudicz voire Frangais. Remember you 
 are to teach me Italian in return, but I shall be 
 but a stupid scholar. A imcz Charlotte. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Carlisle, Dec. 14. 
 ... I heard last night fi'om my friends in 
 London, and I shall certainly have the deed 
 this week. I will send it to you directly ; but 
 not to lose so much time as you have been 
 reckoning, I will prevent any little delay that 
 might happen by the post, by fixing already 
 next Wednesday for your coming here, and on 
 Thursday the 21st — oh, my dear Scott ! — on that 
 day I shall be yours for ever. C. C. 
 
 P.S. — Arrange it so that we shall see none of 
 your family the night of our arrival. I shall be 
 so tired and such a fright, I should not be seen 
 to advantage. 
 
 MR. SCOTT TO MISS JOANNA BAILLIE. 
 
 Ulva House, July 19, 1810. 
 I cannot, my dear Miss Baillie, resist the 
 temptation of writing to you from scenes which 
 you have rendered classical as well as immortal. 
 We, which in the present case means my wife, 
 my eldest girl, and myself, are thus far in 
 fortunate accomplishment of a pilgrimage to 
 the Hebrides. The day before yesterday we 
 passed the Lady's Rock, in the Sound of Mull, 
 so Rear that I covild almost have touched it. 
 This is, you know, the rock of your Family 
 Legend. The boat, by my desire, went as near 
 as prudence permitted, and I wished to have 
 picked a relic from it, were it but a cockle-shell 
 or a mussel, to have sent to you ; but a spring 
 tide was running with such force and velocity 
 as to make the thing impossible. About two 
 miles farther we passed under the Castle of 
 Duart, the seat of Maclean, consisting of one 
 huge (indeed immense) square tower, in ruins, 
 and additional turrets and castellated buildings 
 (the work, doubtless, of Benlora's guardianship), 
 on which the roof still moulders. It overhangs 
 the strait channel from a lofty rock, without a 
 single tree in the vicinity, and is surrounded 
 by high and barren mountains, forming alto- 
 gether as wild and dreary a scene as I ever 
 beheld. Duart is confronted by the opposite 
 castles of Dunstaffnage, DunoUy, Ardtornish, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 222 
 
 and others, all once the abodes of grim feudal 
 chiefs, who warred incessantly with each other. 
 I think I counted seven of these fortresses in 
 sight at once, and heard seven times seven 
 legends of war and wonder connected with them. 
 We landed late, wet and cold, on the island of 
 Mull, near another old castle called Aros ; 
 separated, too, from our clothes, which were in 
 a large wherry, which could not keep pace with 
 our row-boat. Mr. Macdonald of StaiTa, my 
 kind friend and guide, had sent his piper (a 
 constant attendant, mark that !) to rouse a 
 Highland gentleman's family in the neighbour- 
 hood, where we were received with a profusion 
 of kindness and hospitality. Why should I 
 appal you \dth a description of our difficulties 
 and distresses — how Charlotte lost her shoes, 
 and little Sophia her whole collection of pebbles 
 — how I was divorced from my razors, and the 
 whole party looked like a Jewish sanhedrim? 
 By this time we were accumulated as follows : — 
 Sir George Paul, the great philanthropist ; Mrs. 
 Apreece, a distant relation of mine ; Hannah 
 Mackenzie, a daughter of our friend Henry ; and 
 Mackinnon of Mackinnon, a young gentleman 
 born and bred in England, but nevertheless a 
 Highland chief. It seems his father had 
 acquired wealth, and this young man, who now 
 visits the Highlands for the first time, is anxious 
 to buy back some of the family property which 
 was sold long since. Some twenty Mackinnons, 
 who happened to live within hearing of our arrival 
 (that is, I suppose, within ten miles of Aros), 
 came posting to see their young chief, who 
 behaved with great kindness, and projDriety, 
 and liberality. Next day we rode across the isle 
 on Highland ponies, attended by a numerous 
 retinue of gillies, and arrived at the head of the 
 salt-water loch called Loch an Gaoil, where 
 Staffa's boats awaited us with colours flying and 
 pipes playing. We proceeded in state to this 
 lonely isle, where our honoured lord has a very 
 comfortable residence, and were received by a 
 discharge of swivels and musketry from his 
 peoi)le. 
 
 Yesterday we visited StafEa and lona. The 
 former is one of the most extraordinary places 
 I ever beheld. It exceeded, in my mind, every 
 description I had heard of it ; or rather, the 
 appearance of the cavern, composed entirely of 
 basaltic j)illars as high as the roof of a cathedral, 
 and running deep into the rock, entirely swept 
 by a deep and swelling sea, and paved, as it 
 were, with ruddy marble, baffles all description. 
 You can walk along the broken pillars, with 
 some difficulty, and in some places with a little 
 danger, as far as the farthest extremity. Boats 
 also can come in below when the sea is jilacid, 
 which is seldom the case. I had become a sort 
 of favourite with the Hebridean boatmen, I 
 suppose from my anxiety about their -old 
 customs, and they were mucli iileascd to see mo 
 get over the obstacles which stopped some of 
 
 the party. So they took the whim of solemnly 
 christening a great stone seat at the mouth of 
 the cavern, Clachan an Bairdh, or the Poet's 
 Stone. It was consecrated with a pibroch, 
 which the echoes rendered tremendous, and a 
 glass of whisky, not poured forth in the 
 ancient mode of libation, but turned over the 
 throats of the assistants. The head boatman, 
 whose father had been himself a bard, made me 
 a speech on the occasion ; but as it was in 
 Gaelic, I could only receive it as a silly beauty 
 does a fine-spun compliment — bow, and say 
 nothing. 
 
 When this fun was over (in which, strange 
 as it may seem, the men were quite serious), we 
 went to lona, where there are some ancient and 
 curious monuments. From this remote island 
 the light of Christianity shone forth on Scotland 
 and Ireland. The ruins are of a rude architec- 
 ture, but curious to the antiquary. Our return 
 was less comfortable; we had to row twenty 
 miles against an Atlantic tide and some wind, 
 besides the pleasure of seeing occasional squalls 
 gathering to windward. The ladies were sick, 
 especially poor Hannah Mackenzie, and none of 
 the gentlemen escaped except Staffa and myself. 
 The men, however, cheered by the pipes, and 
 by their own interesting boat-songs, which were 
 uncommonly mid and beautiful, one man lead- 
 ing and the others answering in chorus, kept 
 pulling away without apparently the least sense 
 of fatigue, and we reached Ulva at ten at night, 
 tolerably wet, and well disposed for bed. 
 
 Our friend Stalfa is himself an excellent 
 specimen of Highland chieftainship ; he is a 
 cadet of Clanronald, and lord of a cluster of 
 isles on the western side of Mull, and a large 
 estate (in extent at least) on that island. By 
 dint of minute attention to the property, and 
 particularly to the management of his kelp, he 
 has at once trebled his income and doubled his 
 population, while emigration is going on all 
 around him. He is very attentive to his jieople, 
 who are distractedly fond of him, and has them 
 under such regulations as conduce both to his 
 own benefit and their profit ; and keeps a certain 
 sort of rude state and hospitality, in which they 
 take much pride. I am quite satisjSed that 
 nothing imder the personal attention of the 
 landlord himself will satisfy a Highland 
 tenantry, and that the substitution of factors, 
 which is now becoming general, is one great 
 cause of emigration. This mode of life has, 
 however, its evils, and I can see them in this 
 excellent man. The habit of solitary power is 
 dangerous even to the best regulated minds, and 
 this ardent and enthusiastic young man has not 
 escaped the prejudices incident to his situation. 
 But I think I have bestowed enough of my 
 tcdiousness upon you. To ballast my letter, I 
 put in one of the hallowed green pebbles from 
 the shore of St. Columba; put it into your 
 work-basket until we meet, when you will give 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 223 
 
 me some account of its virtues. Don't suppose 
 the lapidaries can give you any information 
 about it, for in their profane eyes it is good for 
 nothing. But the piper is sounding to break- 
 fast, so no more (excepting love to Miss Agnes, 
 Dr., and Mrs. Baillie) from your truly 
 affectionate Walter Scott. 
 
 P.S.—I am told by the learned, the pebble 
 will wear its way out of the letter, so I will keep 
 it till I get to Edinburgh. I must not omit to 
 mention that all through these islands, I have 
 found every person familiarly acquainted with 
 the Family Legend, and great admirers. 
 
 £\Yhile the abortive negotiation as to the Ex- 
 chequer was still pending, Scott was 
 visited, for the first time since his childish 
 years, with a painful illness, which j)roved 
 the harbinger of a series of attacks, all 
 nearly of the same kind, continued at short 
 intervals dtiring more than two years. 
 Various letters indicate how widely 
 his habits of life when in Edinburgh 
 differed from those of Abbotsford. They 
 at all times did so to a great extent ; but 
 he had pushed his liberties with a most 
 robust constitution to a i^erilous extreme 
 while the affairs of the Ballantynes were 
 labouring, and he was now to pay the penalty. 
 The first serious alarm occurred towards 
 the close of a merry dinner party in Castle 
 Street (on the 5th of March 1817), when Scott 
 suddenly sustained such exquisite torture 
 from cramp in the stomach, that his mas- 
 culine powers of endurance gave way, and 
 he retired from the room with a scream of 
 agony which electrified his guests. This 
 scene was often repeated, as we shall 
 see presently. His friends in Edinburgh 
 continued aU that spring in great anxiety 
 on his account. Scarcely, however, had the 
 first symptoms yielded to severe medical 
 treatment, than he is found to have be- 
 guiled the intervals of his suffering by 
 planning a dramatic j)iece on a story 
 supplied to him by one of Train's communi- 
 cations, which he desired to present to 
 Terry on behalf of the actor's first- 
 born son, who had been christened by 
 the name of Walter Scott Terry. Such was 
 the origin of the Fortunes of Devorgoil, a 
 piece which, though completed soon after- 
 wards, and submitted by Terry to many 
 
 manipulations with a view to the stage, 
 was never received by any manager, and 
 was first published, towards the close of 
 the author's life, under the title, slightly 
 altered for an obvious reason, of the Doom 
 of Devorgoil. The sketch of the story which 
 he gives in the following letter will probably 
 be considered by many besides myseK as 
 well worth the drama. It appears that the 
 actor had mentioned to Scott his intention 
 of Terrifying the Black Dwarf. — Loclihart.'l 
 
 MR. SCOTT TO MR. TERRY. 
 
 Dear Terry, — I am now able to write to you 
 on your own affairs, though still as weak as 
 water from the operations of the medical faculty, 
 who, I think, treated me as a recusant to their 
 authority, and having me once at advantage, 
 were determined I should not have strength to 
 rebel again in a hurry. After all, I believe it 
 was touch and go ; and considering how much 
 I have to do for my own family and others, my 
 elegy might have been that of the ' Auld Man's 
 Mare ' — 
 
 ' The peats and turf are all to lead, 
 What ail'd the beast to die?' 
 
 You don't mention the nature of your under- 
 taking in your last, and in your former you 
 spoke both of the Black Divarf^nd. of Triermain. 
 I have some doubts whether the town will 
 endure a second time the following up a well- 
 known tale with a dramatic representation, and 
 there is no vis comica to redeem the Black 
 Dwarf, as in the case of Dominie Sampson. I 
 have thought of two subjects for you, if, like 
 the archbishop's homilies, they do not smell of 
 the apoplexy. The first is a noble and very 
 dramatic tradition i^reserved in Galloway, which 
 runs briefly thus : — The Barons of Plenton (the 
 
 family name,I think, was by Jupiter, forgot !) 
 
 boasted of great antiquity, and formerly of 
 extensive power and wealth, to which the ruins 
 of their huge castle, situated on an inland loch, 
 still bear Avitness. In the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, it is said, these ruins were still 
 inhabited by the lineal descendant of this 
 powerful family. But the ruinous halls and 
 towers of his ancestors were all that had 
 descended to him, and he cultivated the garden 
 of the castle, and sold its fruits for a subsistence. 
 He married in a line suitable rather to his 
 present situation than the dignity of his descent, 
 and was quite sunk into the rank of peasantry, 
 excepting that he v.ras still called — more in 
 mockery, or at least in familiarity, than in 
 respect— the Baron of Plenton. A causeway 
 connected the castle with the mainland ; it was 
 cut in the middle, and the moat only passable 
 by a drawbridge which yet subsisted, and which 
 
224 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 the poor old couple contrived to raise every 
 niglit by their joint efforts, the country being 
 very unsettled at the time. It must be observed, 
 that the old man and his wife occupied only 
 one apartment in the extensive ruins, a small 
 one adjoining to the drawbridge ; the rest was 
 waste and dilapidated. As they were about to 
 retire one night to rest, they were deterred by 
 a sudden storm, which, rising in the wildest 
 manner possible, threatened to bury them under 
 the ruins of the castle. While they listened in 
 terror to the complicated sounds of thunder, 
 wind, and rain, they were astonished to hear 
 the clang of hoofs on the causeway, and the 
 voices of people clamouring for admittance. 
 This was a request not rashly to be granted. 
 The couple looked out, and dimly discerned 
 through the storm that the causeway was 
 ) crowded with riders. 'How many of you are 
 I there ? ' demanded John. ' Not more than the 
 hall will hold,' was the answer ; * but open the 
 gate, lower the bridge, and do not keep the 
 ladies in the rain.' John's heart was melted for 
 the ladies, and, against his wife's advice, he 
 I undid the bolts, sunk the drawbridge, and bade 
 them enter in the name of God. Having done 
 so, he instantly retired into his sanctum sanc- 
 torum to await the event, for there was some- 
 thing in the voices and language of his guests 
 that sounded mysterious and awful. They 
 rushed into the castle, and appeared to know 
 their way through all its recesses. Grooms were 
 heard hurrying their horses to the stables, 
 sentinels were heard mounting guard, a thou- 
 sand lights gleamed from place to place through 
 the ruins, till at length they seemed all concen- 
 trated in the baronial hall, whose range of broad 
 windows threw a resplendent illumination on 
 the moss-grown court below. After a short 
 time, a domestic, clad in a rich but very antique 
 dress, appeared before the old couple, and com- 
 manded them to attend his lord and lady in the 
 great hall. They went with tottering steps, 
 and to their great terror found themselves in 
 the midst of a most brilliant and joyous com- 
 pany ; but the fearful part of it was, that most 
 of the guests resembled the ancestors of John's 
 family, and were known to him by their resem- 
 blance to pictures which mouldered in the 
 castle, or by traditionary description. At the 
 head, the founder of the race, dressed like 
 some mighty baron, or rather some Galwegian 
 prince, sat with his lady. There was a differ- 
 ence of opinion between these ghostly personages 
 concerning our honest John. The chief was 
 inclined to receive him graciously; the lady 
 considered him, from his mean marriage, as 
 utterly unworthy of their name and board. 
 The upshot is, that the chief discovers to his 
 descendant the means of finding a huge treasure 
 concealed in the castle ; the lady assures him 
 that the discovery shall never avail him. In 
 the morning no trace can be discovered of tlie 
 
 singular personages who had occupied the haH, 
 But John sought for and discovered the vault 
 where the spoils of the Southrons were con- 
 cealed, rolled away the covering stone, and 
 feasted his eyes on a range of massy chests of 
 iron, filled doubtless with treasure. As he 
 deliberated on the best meatis of bringing them 
 up, and descending into the vault, he observed 
 it began slowly to fill with water. Baling and 
 pumping were resorted to, and when he had 
 exhausted his own and his wife's strength, 
 they summoned the assistance of the neigh- 
 bourhood. But the vengeance of the visionary 
 lady was perfect : the waters of the lake had 
 forced their way into the vault, and John, 
 after a year or two spent in draining and so 
 forth, died broken-hearted, the last Baron of 
 Plenton. 
 
 Such is the tale, of which the incidents seem 
 new, and the interest capable of being rendered 
 striking ; the story admits of the highest degree 
 of decoration, both by poetry, music, and 
 scenery, and I propose (in behalf of my god- 
 son) to take some pains in dramatizing it. As 
 thus, you shall play John, as you can speak a 
 little Scotch ; I will make him what the Baron 
 of Bradwardine would have been in the circum- 
 stances, and he shall be alternately ludicrous 
 from his family pride and prejudices, contrasted 
 with his poverty, and respectable from his just 
 and independent tone of feeling and character. 
 I think Scotland is entitled to have something 
 on the stage to balance Macklin's two worthies. 
 You understand the dialect will be only tinged 
 with the national dialect— not that the baron 
 is to speak broad Scotch, while all the others 
 talk English. His wife and he shall have one 
 child, a daughter, suitored unto by the conceited 
 young parson or schoolmaster of the village, 
 whose addresses are countenanced by her 
 mother, and by Halbert the hunter, a youth 
 of unknown descent. Now this youth shall be 
 the rightful heir and representative of the Eng- 
 lish owners of the treasure, of which they had 
 been robbed by the baron's ancestors, for which 
 unjust act their spirits still walked the earth. 
 These, with a substantial character or two, and 
 the ghostly personages, shall mingle as they 
 may ; and the discovery of the youth's birth 
 shall break the spell of the treasure-chamber. 
 I will make the ghosts talk as never ghosts 
 talked in the body or out of it ; and the music 
 may be as unearthly as you can get it. The 
 rush of the shadows into the castle shall be 
 seen through the window of the baron's apart- 
 ment in the flat scene. The ghosts' banquet 
 and many other circumstances may give great 
 exercise to the scene-painter and dresser. If 
 you like this plan, you had better suspend any 
 other for the present. In my opinion it has 
 
 1 Sir Arcliy MacSarcasm and Sir Pertinax JlacSyco- 
 phant. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the infinite merit of being perfectly new in plot 
 and structure, and I will set about the sketch 
 as soon as my strength is restored in some 
 measure by air and exercise. I am sure I can 
 finish it in a fortnight then. Ever yours truly, 
 
 TV. Scott. 
 
 [About this time, as the succeeding letter will 
 show, Abbotsford had the honour of a short 
 visit from Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 
 afterwards King of the Belgians. Imme- 
 diately thereafter Scott heard of the death 
 of BIrs. William Erskine, and repaired to 
 Edinburgh to condole with his afflicted 
 friend. His allusions meanwhile to views 
 of buying more land on Tweedside are 
 numerous. These speculations are ex- 
 plained in a most characteristic style 
 to the comet, and we see that one of 
 them was cut short by the tragical death 
 of a bonnet - laird — namely, LaucMe 
 Longlegs, the admired of Geoffrey Crayon. 
 —Lockhart] 
 
 ME. SCOTT TO HIS SON WALTEK. 
 
 Abbotsford, October 3, 1819. 
 My dear Loed, — I am honoured with your 
 Buxton letter. . . . Anent Prince Leopold, I 
 only heard of his approach at eight o'clock in 
 the morning, and he was to be at Selkirk by 
 eleven. The magistrates sent to ask me to help 
 them to receive him. It occurred to me he 
 might be coming to Melrose to see the abbey, 
 in which case I could not avoid asking him to 
 Abbotsford, as he must pass my very door. I 
 mentioned this to Mrs. Scott, who was lying 
 quietly in bed, and I wish you had heard the 
 scream she gave on the occasion. ' What have 
 we to offer him?' 'Wine and cake,' said I, 
 thinking to make all things easy; but she 
 ejaculated, in a tone of utter despair, ' Cake ! 
 where am I to get cake ? ' However, being partly 
 consoled with the recollection that his visit was 
 a very improbable incident, and curiosity, as 
 usual, proving too strong for alarm, she set out 
 with me in order not to miss a peep at the great 
 man. James Skene and his lady were with us, 
 and we gave our carriages such additional 
 dignity as a pair of leaders could add, and went 
 off to meet him in full puff. The Prince very 
 civilly told me, that, though he could not see 
 Melrose on this occasion, he wished to come to 
 Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the 
 part of Mrs. Scott, who began to institute a 
 domiciliary search for cold meat through the 
 whole city of Selkirk, which produced one shoulder 
 of cold lamb. In the meanwhile, his Eoyal 
 
 225 
 
 Highness received the civic honours of tho 
 BIRSE very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie 
 Lang 1 that it ought only to be licked S7jmholi- 
 cally on the present occasion ; so he flourished 
 it three times before his mouth, but without 
 touching it with his lips, and the Prince followed 
 his example as directed. Lang made an ex- 
 cellent speech, sensible, and feeling, and well 
 delivered. The Prince seemed much surprised 
 at this great projDriety of expression and be- 
 haviour in a magistrate, whose people seemed 
 such a rabble, and whose whole band of music 
 consisted in a drum and fife. He noticed to 
 Bailie Anderson that Selkirk seemed very 
 populous in proportion to its extent. ' On an 
 occasion like this it seems so,' answered the 
 bailie, neatly enough I thought. I question 
 if any magistrates in the kingdom, lord mayors 
 and aldermen not excepted, could have behaved 
 with more decent and quiet good-breeding. 
 Prince Leopold repeatedly alluded to this 
 during the time he was at Abbotsford. I do 
 not know how Mrs. Scott ultimately managed ; 
 but with broiled salmon, and blackcock, and 
 partridges, she gave him a very decent lunch ; 
 and I chanced to have some very fine old hock, 
 v/hich was mighty germain to the matter. 
 
 The Prince seems melancholy, whether 
 naturally or from habit I do not i)retend to say ; 
 but I do not remember thinking him so at 
 Paris, where I saw him frequently, then a much 
 poorer man than myself ; yet he showed some 
 humour, for, alluding to the crowds that 
 followed him everywhere, he mentioned some 
 place where he had gone out to shoot, but was 
 afraid to proceed for fear of 'bagging a boy.' 
 He said he really thought of getting some 
 shooting-place in Scotland, and promised me a 
 longer visit on his return. If I had had a day's 
 notice to have loarned the loaters, we could have 
 met him with a very respectable number of the 
 gentry ; but there was no time for this, and 
 probably he liked it better as it was. There 
 was only young Clifton who could have come, 
 and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, 
 though requested by the Selkirk people. He 
 was perhaps ashamed to march through Coven- 
 try with them. It hung often and sadly on my 
 mind that he was wanting who could and would 
 have received him like a prince indeed ; and yet 
 the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated 
 to meet, would have been a very sad one. I think 
 I have now given your lordship a very full, true, 
 and particular account of our royal visit, un- 
 matched even by that of King Charles at the 
 Castle of TUlietudlem. That we did not speak of 
 it for more than a week after it happened, and 
 that that emphatic monosyllable, The Prince, is 
 not heard amongst us more than ten times a day, 
 
 1 Scott's good friend, Mr. Andrew Lang, Procurator- 
 Fiscal for Selkirkshire, was then chief magistrate of 
 the county town. 
 
226 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 is, on the whole, to the credit of my family's 
 understanding. The piper is the only one 
 whose brain he seems to have endangered ; for, 
 as the Prince said he preferred him to any he 
 had heard in the Highlands (which, by the 
 way, shows his Royal Highness knows nothing 
 of the matter), the fellow seems to have be- 
 come incapable of his ordinary occupation as a 
 forester, and has cut stick and stem without 
 remorse to the tune of PAaiZ Phranse, i.e. the 
 Prince's welcome. 
 
 [In January 1822, Sir Walter had the great 
 satisfaction of seeing Ersldne at length 
 promoted to a seat on the bench of the 
 Court of Session, by the title of Lord 
 Kinnedder ; and his pleasure was enhanced 
 doubtless by the reflection that his friend 
 owed this elevation very much, if not 
 mainly, to his own unwearied exertions 
 on his behalf. This happy event occurred 
 just about the time when Joanna Baillie 
 was distressed by hearing of the sudden 
 and total ruin of an old friend of hers, a 
 Scotch gentleman long distinguished in the 
 commerce of the city of London ; and she 
 thought of collecting among her literary 
 acquaintance such contributions as might, 
 with some gleanings of her own portfolios, 
 fill up a volume of poetical miscellanies, to 
 be published, by subscription, for the benefit 
 of the merchant's family. In requesting 
 Sir Walter to write something for this pur- 
 pose, she also asked him to communicate 
 the scheme, in her name, to various com- 
 mon friends in the north — among others, to 
 the new judge. — Lochhart.l 
 
 MR. SCOTT TO JOANNA BAILLIE. 
 
 My dear Friend, — No one has so good a title 
 as you to command me in all my strength 
 and in all my weakness, I do not believe I 
 have a single scrap of unpublished poetry, for 
 I was never a willing composer of occasional 
 pieces, and when I have been guilty of such 
 effusions, it was to answer the purjiose of some 
 publisher of songs, or the like immediate de- 
 mand. The consequence is that all these trifles 
 have been long before the public, and whatever 
 I add to your collection must havp the grace of 
 novelty, in case it should have no other. I do 
 not know what should make it rather a melan- 
 choly task for me now-a-days to sit down to 
 versify ; I did not use to think it so, but I have 
 ceased, I know not why, to find pleasvire in it, 
 and yet I do not think I have lost any of the 
 
 faculties I ever possessed for the task ; but I 
 was never fond of my own i)oetry, and am now 
 much out of conceit with it. All this another 
 person less candid in construction than yourself 
 would interpret into a hint to send a good dose 
 of praise ; but you know we have agreed long 
 ago to be above ordinances, like Cromwell's 
 saints. When I go to the country upon the 
 12th of March, I will try what the water-side 
 can do for me, for there is no inspiration in 
 causeways and kennels, or even the Court of 
 Session. You have the victory over me now, 
 for I remember laughing at you for saying you 
 could only write your beautiful lyrics M^on a 
 fine warm day. But what is this something to 
 be? I wish you would give me a subject, for 
 that would cut off half my difficulties. 
 
 I am delighted with the i)rospect of seeing 
 Miss Edgeworth, and making her personal 
 acquaintance. I expect her to be just what 
 you describe: a being totally void of affecta- 
 tion, and who, like one other lady of my 
 acquaintance, carries her literary reputation as 
 freely and easily as the milk-maid in my country 
 does the leglen, which she carries on her head, 
 and walks as gracefully with it as a duchess. 
 Some of the fair sex, and some of the foul sex 
 too, carry their renown in London fashion — on 
 a yoke and a pair of pitchers. The consequence 
 is, that besides poking frightfully, they are 
 hitting every one on the shins with their 
 buckets. Now, this is all nonsense, too fan- 
 tastic to be written to anybody but a person of 
 good sense. By the way, did you know Miss 
 A^lsten, authoress of some novels which have 
 a great deal of nature in them? — nature in 
 ordinary and middle life, to be sure, but valu- 
 able from its strong resemblance and correct 
 drawing. I wonder which way she carried her 
 pail? 
 
 I did indeed rejoice at Erskine's promotion. 
 There is a degree of melancholy attending the 
 later stage of a barrister's profession, which, 
 though no one cares for sentimentalities attend- 
 ant on a man of fifty or thereabout, in a rusty 
 black bombazine gown, are not the less cruelly 
 felt; their business sooner or later fails, for 
 younger men will work cheaper, and longer, 
 and harder — besides that the cases are few, 
 comparatively, in which senior counsel are en- 
 gaged, and it is not etiquette to ask any one in 
 that advanced age to take the whole burden of 
 a cause. Insensibly, without decay of talent, 
 and without losing the public esteem, there is a 
 gradual decay of employment, which almost no 
 man ever practised thirty years without experi- 
 encing ; and thus the honours and dignities of 
 the Bench, so hardly earned, and themselves 
 leading but to toils of another kind, are pecu- 
 liarly desirable. Erskine would have sat there 
 ten years ago but for wretched intrigues. He 
 has a very poetical and elegant mind, but I do 
 not know of any poetry of his writing, except 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 227 
 
 some additional stanzas to Collins' Ode on 
 Scottish Superstitions, long since published in 
 the Border Minstrelsy. I doubt it would not 
 be consistent with his high office to write 
 poetry now, but you may add his name with 
 Mrs. Scott's (Heaven forgive me ! I should have 
 said Lady Scott's) and mine to the subscription 
 list. I will not promise to get you more, for 
 people always look as if you were asking the 
 guinea for yourself — there John Bull has the 
 better of Sawney ; to be sure he has more 
 guineas to bestow, but we retain our reluctance 
 to part with hard cash, though profuse enough 
 in our hospitality. I have seen a laird, after 
 giving us more champagne and claret than we 
 cared to drink, look pale at the idea of paying 
 a crown in charity. 
 
 I am seriously tempted, though it would be 
 sending coals to Newcastle with a vengeance, 
 not to mention salt to Dysart, and all other 
 superfluous importations — I am, I say, strangely 
 tempted to write for your proteges a dramatic 
 scene on an incident which happened at the 
 battle of Halidon Hill (I think). It was to me 
 a nursery tale, often told by Mrs. Blargaret 
 Swinton, sister of my maternal grandmother, a 
 fine old lady of high blood, and of as high a 
 mind, who was lineally descended from one of 
 the actors. The anecdote was briefly thus : 
 The family of Swinton is very ancient, and was 
 once very powerful, and at the period of this 
 battle the Knight of Swinton was gigantic in 
 sta^ture, unequalled in strength, and a sage and 
 experienced leader to boot. In one of those 
 quarrels which divided the kingdom of Scotland 
 in every corner, he had slain his neighbour, the 
 head of the Gordon family, and an inveterate 
 feud had ensued ; for it seems that, powerful as 
 the Gordons always were, the Swintons could 
 then bide a bang with them. Well, the battle 
 of Halidon began, and the Scottish army, un- 
 skilfully disposed on the side of a hill where no 
 arrow fell in vain, was dreadfully galled by the 
 archery of the English, as usual, upon which 
 Swinton approached the Scottish general, re- 
 questing command of a body of cavalry, and 
 pledging his honour that he would, if so sup- 
 ported, charge and disperse the English archers 
 — one of the manoeuvres by which Bruce gained 
 the battle of Bannockbum. This was refused, 
 out of stupidity or sullenness, by the general, 
 on which Swinton expressed his determination 
 to charge at the head of his own followers, 
 though totally inadequate for the purpose. The 
 young Gordon heard the proposal, son of him 
 whom Swinton had slain, and with one of those 
 irregular bursts of generosity and feeling which 
 redeem the dark ages from the character of 
 utter barbarism, he threw himself from his 
 horse, and kneeled down before Swinton. 'I 
 have not yet been knighted,' he said, 'and 
 never can I take the honour from the hand of 
 a truer, more loyal, more valiant leader than 
 
 he who slew my father; grant me,' he said, 
 ' the boon I ask, and I unite my forces to yours, 
 that we may live and die together.' His feudal 
 enemy became instantly his godfather in chivalry 
 and his ally in battle. Swinton knighted the 
 young Gordon, and they rushed down at the 
 head of their united retainers, dispersed the 
 archery, and would have turned the battle 
 had they been supported. At length they both 
 fell, and all who followed them were cut off ; 
 and it was remarked that while the fight lasted 
 the old giant guarded the young man's life more 
 than his own, and the same was indicated by 
 the manner in which his body lay stretched 
 over that of Gordon. Now, do not laugh at 
 my Berwickshire burr, which I assure you is 
 literally and lineally handed down to me by 
 my grandmother from this fine old Goliath. 
 Tell me, if I can clamper up the story into a 
 sort of single scene, will it answer your purpose? 
 I would rather try my hand in blank verse than 
 rhyme. 
 
 The story, with many others of the same 
 kind, is consecrated to me by the remembrance 
 of the narrator, with her brown silk gown and 
 triple rufiies, and her benevolent face, which 
 was always beside our beds when there were 
 childish complaints among us. Poor Aunt 
 Margaret had a most shocking fate, being mur- 
 dered by a favourite maid-servant in a fit of 
 insanity, when I was about ten years old ; the 
 catastrophe was much owing to the scrupulous 
 delicacy and high courage of my jjoor relation, 
 who would not have the assistance of men 
 called in for exposing the unhappy wretch her 
 servant. I think you will not ask for a letter 
 from me in a hurry again, but, as I have no 
 chance of seeing you for a long time, I must be 
 contented with writing. My kindest respects 
 attend Mrs. Agnes, your kind brother and 
 family, and the Eichardsons, little and big, 
 short and tall ; and believe me most truly yours, 
 
 W. Scott. 
 
 P.S. — Sophia is come up to her Sunday 
 dinner, and begs to send a thousand remem- 
 brances, with the important intelligence that 
 her baby actually says ma-ma, and bow-wow 
 when he sees the dog. Moreover, he is chris- 
 tened John Hugh ; and I intend to plant two 
 little knolls at their cottage, to be called Mount 
 Saint John and Hougomont. The papa also 
 sends his respects. 
 
 TO MISS EDGEWORTH. 
 
 Ahhotsford, April 24, 1822. 
 My dear Miss Edgeworth,— I am extremely 
 sorry indeed that you cannot fulfil your kind 
 intentions to be at Abbotsford this year. It is 
 a great disappointment, and I am grieved to 
 think it should have arisen from the loss of a j 
 
228 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 valued relation. That is the worst part of life 
 when its earlier path is trod. If my limbs get 
 stiff, my walks are made shorter, and my rides 
 slower; if my eyes fail me, I can use glasses 
 and a large print ; if I get a little deaf, I com- 
 fort myself that, except in a few instances, I 
 shall be no great loser by missing one full half 
 of what is sj)oken ; but I feel the loneliness of 
 age when my companions and friends are taken 
 from me. The sudden death of both the Bos- 
 wells, and the bloody end of the last, have 
 given me great pain.^ You have never got 
 half the praise Vivian ought to have procured 
 you. The reason is, that the class from which 
 the excellent portrait was drawn feel the resem- 
 blance too painfully to thank the author for it ; 
 and I do not believe the common readers under- 
 stand it in the least. I, who, thank God, am 
 neither great man nor politician, have lived 
 enough among them to recognise the truth and 
 nature of the painting, and am no way impli- 
 cated in the satire. I begin to think that of 
 the three kingdoms the English alone are 
 qualified to mix in politics safely and without 
 fatal results ; the fierce and hasty resentments 
 of the Irish, and the sullen, long-enduring, 
 revengeful temper of my countrymen, make 
 such agitations have a much wider and more 
 dreadful eifect amongst them. Well, we will 
 forget what we cannot help, and pray that we 
 may lose no more friends till we find, as I hope 
 and am sure we shall do, friends in each other. 
 I had arranged to stay at least a month after 
 the 12th of May, in hopes of detaining you at 
 Abbotsford, and I will not let you off under a 
 month or two the next year. I shall have my 
 house completed, my library replaced, my 
 armoury new furbished, my pijier new clothed, 
 and the time shall be July. I trust I may have 
 the same family about me, and perhaps my two 
 sons. Walter is at Berlin studying the great 
 art of war — and entertaining a most military 
 conviction that all the disturbances of Ireland 
 are exclusively owing to his last regiment, the 
 
 1 James Boswell, of the Temple, editor of the last 
 "Variorum Shakespeare, etc., a man of considerable 
 learning and admirable social qualities, died suddenly, 
 in the prime of life, about a fortnight before his 
 brother Sir Alexander. Scott was warmly attached 
 to them both, and the fall of the baronet might well 
 give him a severe shock, for he had dined in Castle 
 Street only two or three days before it occurred, and 
 the merriest tones of his voice were still ringing in 
 his friend's ears when he received the fatal intelli- 
 gence. That evening was, I think, the gayest I ever 
 spent in Castle Street ; and though Charles Matthews 
 was present, and in his best force, poor Boswell's 
 songs, jokes, and anecdotes had exhibited no symp- 
 tom of eclipse. It turned out that he had joined the 
 liarty whom he thus delighted inunediately after com- 
 pleting the last arrangements for his duel. It may be 
 worth while to add, that several circumstances of his 
 death are exricUy reproduced iu the duel scene of St. 
 Eonan's Well. 
 
 18th Hussars, having been imprudently reduced. 
 Little Charles is striving to become a good 
 scholar and fit for Oxford. Both have a chance 
 of being at home in autumn 1823. I know nothin;; 
 I should wish you to see which has any particu- 
 lar chance of becoming invisible in the course of 
 fourteen months, excejiting my old bloodhound, 
 poor fellow, on whom age now sits so heavily 
 that he cannot follow me far from the hou.se. 
 I wished you to see him very much — he is of 
 that noble breed which Ireland, as well as Scot- 
 land, once possessed, and which is now almost 
 extinct in both countries. I have sometimes 
 thought of the final cause of dogs having such 
 short lives, and I am quite satisfied it is in com- 
 passion to the human race ; for if we suffer so 
 much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of 
 ten or twelve years, what would it be if they 
 were to live double that time ? 
 
 I don't propose being in London this year ; I 
 do not like it — there is such a riding and driving 
 — so much to see — so much to say — not to men- 
 tion plovers' eggs and champagne — that I alv/ays 
 feel too much excited in London, though it is 
 good to rub off the rust too, sometimes, and 
 brings you up abreast with the world as it goes. 
 But I must break off, being summoned to a 
 conclave to examine how the progress of decay, 
 which at present threatens to destroy the ruins 
 of Melrose, can yet be arrested. The Duke of 
 Buccleuch, though but a boy, is very desirous 
 to have something done, and his guardians have 
 acquiesced in a wish so reasonable and creditable 
 to the little chief. I only hope they will be 
 liberal, for a trifle will do no good, or rather, 
 I think, any partial tampering is likely to do 
 harm. But the Duke has an immense estate, 
 and I hope they will remember that though a 
 moderate sum may keep uj) this national monu- 
 ment, yet his whole income could not replace it 
 should it fall. — Yours, dear Miss Edgeworth, 
 with true respect and regard, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 TO ME. MOREITT. 
 
 Fdgeworthstown, Aug. 3, 1825. 
 Your kind letter, my dear Morritt, finds me 
 sweltering under the hottest weather I ever 
 experienced, for the sake of seeing sights — of 
 itself, you know, the most feverish occupation 
 in the world. Luckily we are free of Dublin, 
 and there is nothing around ns but green fields 
 and fine trees, ' barring the high roads,' which 
 make those who tread on them the most com- 
 lAete piepoudreux ever seen; that is, if the old 
 definition of piepoudres be authentic, and if not, 
 you may seek another dusty simile for yourself 
 —it cannot exceed the reality. I have with me 
 Lockhart and Anne, Walter and his cava sposa, 
 for all whom the hospitality of Edgeworthstowu 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 229 
 
 has found ample space and verge enough. In- 
 deed it is impossible to conceive the extent of 
 this virtue in all classes ; I don't think even our 
 Scottish hospitality can match that of Ireland. 
 Everything seems to give way to the desire to 
 accommodate a stranger, and I reaUy believe 
 the story of the Irish harper, who condemned 
 his harp to the flames for want of firewood to 
 cook a guest's supper. Their personal kindness 
 to me has been so great, that were it not from 
 the chilling recollection that novelty is easily 
 substituted for merit, I should think, like the 
 booby in Steele's play, that I had been Iccpt 
 lack, and that there was something more about 
 me than I had been led to suspect. As I am 
 LL.D. of Trinity College, and am qualified as a 
 Catholic seer, by having mounted up into the 
 bed of Saint Kevin at the celebrated seven 
 churches of Glendalough, I am entitled to pre- 
 scribe, cx cathedra, for all the diseases of Ireland, 
 as being free both of the Catholic and Protestant 
 parties. But the truth is that Pat, while the 
 doctors were consulting, has been gradually and 
 sec\irely recovering of himself. He is very loth 
 to admit this, indeed, there being a strain of 
 hypochondria in his complaints which will not 
 permit him to believe he's getting better. Nay, 
 he gets even angry when a physician, more 
 blunt than polite, continues to assure him that 
 he is better than he supposes himself, and that 
 much of his present distress consists partly of 
 the recollection of former indisposition, partly 
 of the severe practice of modern empirics. 
 
 In sober sadness, to talk of the misery of 
 Ireland at this time is to speak of the illness of 
 malade imaginaire. Well she is not, but she is 
 rapidly becoming so. There are all the outward 
 and visible tokens of convalescence. Every- 
 thing is mending : the houses that arise are 
 better a hundredfold than the cabins which are 
 falling; the peasants of the younger class are 
 dressed a great deal better than with the rags 
 which clothe the persons of the more ancient 
 Teagues, which realize the wardrobe of Jenny 
 Sutton, of whom Morris sweetly sings — 
 
 • One single pin at night let loose 
 The robes which veiled her beauty.' 
 
 I am sure I have seen with apprehension a single 
 button perform the same feat, and when this 
 mad scarecrow hath girded up his loins to run 
 hastily by the side of the chaise, I have feared 
 it would give way, and that then, as King 
 Lear's fool says, we should all be shamed. But 
 this, which seems once to have generally been 
 the attire of the fair of the Green Isle, pro- 
 bably since the time of King Malachi and the 
 collar of gold, is now fast disappearing, and the 
 habit of the more youthful Pats and Patesses is 
 more decent and comely. Here they all look 
 well coloured, and well fed, and well contented ; 
 and as I see in most places great exertions 
 making to reclaim bogs upon a large scale, and 
 
 generally to improve ground, I must needs hold 
 that they are in constant employment. 
 
 With all this there is much that remains to 
 be amended, and which time and increase of 
 capital only can amend. The price of labour is 
 far too low, and this naturally reduces the 
 labouring poor beyond their just level in society. 
 The behaviour of the gentry in general to the 
 labourers is systematically harsh, and this arro- 
 gance is received with a servile deference which 
 argues anything excepting affection. This, 
 however, is also in the course of amending. 
 I have heard a great deal of the far-famed 
 Catholic Question from both sides, and I think 
 I see its bearings better than I did ; but these are 
 for your ear when we meet— as meet we shall — if 
 no accident prevent it. I return via Holyhead, 
 as I wish to show Anne something of England, 
 and you may believe that we shall take Eokeby 
 in our way. To-morrow I go to Killarney, 
 which will occupy most part of the week. 
 About Saturday I shall be back at Dublin to 
 take leave of friends ; and then for England, 
 ho ! I will, avoiding London, seek a pleasant 
 route to Eokeby. Fate Avill only allow us to 
 rest there for a day or two, because I have 
 some desire to see Canning, who is to be on the 
 Lakes about that time. Et finis, my leave 
 will be exhausted. Anne and Lockhart send 
 kindest compliments to you and the ladies. I 
 am truly rejoiced that Mrs. John Morritt is 
 better. Indeed, I had learned that agreeable 
 intelligence from Lady Louisa Stuart. I found 
 AValter and his wife living happily and ration- 
 ally, affectionately, and prudently. There is 
 great good sense and quietness about all Jane's 
 domestic arrangements, and she plays the 
 leaguer's lady very prettily. I will write again 
 when I reach Britain, and remain ever yours, 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 [When Scott returned to Edinburgh from 
 Abbotsford on Monday the 16th of January 
 1826, he found that Hurst & Co. had dis- 
 honoured a bill of Constable's, and then 
 proceeded, according to engagement, to dine 
 at Mr. Skene's of Eubislaw. Mr. Skene 
 assures me that he appeared that evening 
 quite in his usual spirits, conversing on 
 whatever topic was started as easily and 
 gaily as if there had been no impending 
 calamity ; but at parting he whispered, 
 ' Skene, I have something to speak to you 
 about ; be so good as to look in on me as 
 you go to the Parliament House to-morrow.' 
 When Skene called in Castle Street, about 
 half-past nine o'clock next morning, he 
 found Scott writing in his study. He rose 
 
230 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and said, *My friend, give me a shake of 
 your hand — mine is that of a beggar.' He 
 then told him that Ballantyne had just 
 been with him, and that his ruin was cer- 
 tain and complete, explaining briefly the 
 nature of his connection with the three 
 houses, whose downfall must that morning 
 be made public. He added, ' Don't fancy 
 I am going to stay at home to brood idly 
 on what can't be helped. I was at work 
 upon Woodstock when you came in, and I 
 shall take up the pen the moment I get 
 back from Court. I mean to dine with you 
 again on Sunday, and hope then to report 
 progress to some purpose.' "When Sunday 
 came he reported accordingly, that, in spite 
 of all the numberless interruptions of meet- 
 ings and conferences with his partner, the 
 Constables, and men of business — to say 
 nothing of his distressing anxieties on 
 account of his wife and daughter — he had 
 written a chapter of his novel every inter- 
 vening day. The reader may be curious to 
 see what account James Ballantyne's Memo- 
 randum gives of that dark announcement 
 on the morning of Tuesday the 17th. It is 
 as follows : — ' On the evening of the 16th I 
 received from Mr. Cadell a distinct message 
 putting me in possession of the truth. I 
 called immediately in Castle Street, but 
 found Sir Walter had gained an imconscious 
 respite by being engaged out at dinner. It 
 was between eight and nine next morning 
 that I made the final communication. !bTo 
 doubt he was greatly stunned — but, upon 
 the whole, he bore it with wonderful for- 
 titude. He then asked, "Well, what is 
 the actual step we must first take — I sup- 
 pose we must do something ? " I reminded 
 him that two or three thousand pounds 
 were due that day, so that we had only to 
 do what we must do — refuse payment — to 
 bring the disclosure sufficiently before the 
 world. He took leave of me with these 
 striking words, *'Well, James, depend 
 upon that, I will never forsake you. " ' — 
 Lockhart.'\ 
 
 SCOTT TO LOCKHART. 
 
 Edinburgh, January 20, 182G. 
 My dear Lockhart,— I have your kind 
 letter. Whenever I heard that Constable had 
 made a cessio fori, I thought it became me to 
 make public how far I was concerned in these 
 
 matters, and to offer my fortune so far as it was 
 prestable, and the completion of my literary 
 engagements (the better thing almost of the 
 two) ; to make good all claims upon Ballan- 
 tyne & Co. ; and even supposing that neither 
 Hurst & Co. nor Constable & Co. ever pay 
 a penny they owe me, my old age will be far 
 from destitute— even if my right hand should 
 lose its cunning. This is the very worst that 
 can befall me ; but I have little doubt that, 
 with ordinary management, the affairs of those 
 houses will turn out favourably. It is needless 
 to add that I will not engage myself, as Con- 
 stable desires, for £20,000 more— or £2000— or 
 £200. I have advanced enoxigh already to pay 
 other people's debts, and now must pay my 
 own. If our friend C. had set out a fortnight 
 earlier nothing of all this would have happened ; 
 but he let the hour of distress precede the hour 
 of provision, and he and others must pay for it. 
 Yet don't hint this to him, poor fellow; it is 
 an infirmity of nature. 
 
 I have made my matters public, and have had 
 splendid offers of assistance, all which I have 
 declined, for I would rather bear my own bur- 
 den than subject myself to obligation. There is 
 but one way in such cases. 
 
 It is easy, no doubt, for any friend to blame 
 me for entering into connection with commercial 
 matters at all. But I wish to know what I 
 could have done better, excluded from the Bar, 
 and then from all profits for six years, by my 
 colleague's prolonged life. Literature was not 
 in those days what i^oor Constable has made it ; 
 and, with my little capital, I was too glad to 
 make commercially the means of supporting my 
 family. I got but £600 for the Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel, and — it was a price that made men's 
 hair stand on end— £1000 for Marmion. I 
 have been far from suffering by James Ballan- 
 tyne. I owe it to him to say, that his difficulties, 
 as well as his advantages, are owing to me. I 
 trusted too much to Constable's assurances of 
 his own and his correspondents' stability, but 
 yet I believe he was only sanguine. The upshot 
 is just what Hurst & Co. and Constable may 
 be able to pay me ; if 15s. in the pound, I shall 
 not complain of my loss, for I have gained many 
 thousands in my day. But while I live I shall 
 regret the downfall of Constable's house, for 
 never did there exist so intelligent and so liberal 
 an establishment. They went too far when 
 money was plenty, that is certain ; yet if every 
 author in Britain had taxed himself half a year's 
 income, he should have kept up the house which 
 first broke in upon the monopoly of the London 
 trade, and made letters what they now are. 
 
 I have had visits from all the monied people, 
 offering their purses — and those who are credi- 
 tors, sending their managers and treasurers to 
 assure me of their joining in and adopting any 
 measures I may proiioso. I am glad of this for 
 their sake, and for my own; for although I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 shall not desire to steer, yet I am the only- 
 person that can cann^ as Lieutenant Hatchway- 
 says, to any good purpose. A very odd anony- 
 mous offer I had of £30,000,^ which I rejected, 
 as I did every other. Unless I die, I shall beat 
 up against this foul weather. A penny I will 
 not borrow from any one. Since my creditors 
 are content to be patient, I have the means of 
 righting them perfectly, and the confidence to 
 employ them. I would have given a good deal 
 to have avoided the coup d' eclat; but that 
 having taken place, I would not give sixpence 
 for any other results. I fear you will think I 
 am -vmting in the heat of excited resistance to 
 bad fortune. My dear Lockhart, I am as calm 
 and temperate as you ever saw me, and working 
 at Woodstock like a very tiger. I am grieved 
 for Lady Scott and Anne, who cannot conceive 
 adversity can have the better of them, even for 
 a moment. If it teaches a little of the frugality 
 which I never had the heart to enforce when 
 money was plenty, and it seemed cruel to inter- 
 rupt the enjoyment of it in the way they liked 
 best, it will be well. 
 
 Kindest love to Sophia, and tell her to study 
 the song and keej) her spirits up. Tyne heart, 
 tyne all ; and it is making more of money than 
 it is worth to grieve about it. Kiss Johnnie 
 for me. How glad I am fortune carried you to 
 London before these reverses haj^pened, as they 
 would have embittered parting, and made it 
 resemble the boat leaving the sinking ship. — 
 Yours, dear Lockhart, affectionately, 
 
 Waltee Scott. 
 
 [Towards the end of the year 1813, the Ettrick 
 Shepherd wrote from Edinburgh to his 
 brother William, -with reference to his 
 celebrated poem, The Queen's Wake, and 
 various other matters.] 
 
 JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD, TO HIS 
 BROTHER. 
 
 Edinlurcjh, Nov. 28, 1813. 
 Dear Brother, — I have been very much to 
 blame in not answering your letter, but the 
 truth is that I never write any letters. The 
 one of yours which I received in Athol I cannot 
 lay my hands upon, but I know I objected 
 particularly to the terms 'perfect breed and 
 perfection of a breed. I received all my things 
 in the box safe, and I find them of excellent 
 quality. I am sorry I have not got a copy of 
 the Wake to you, though I sent for one. I send 
 you the Review and Mag. You shall have a 
 copy of the poem soon. I will see my nejDhew 
 Robert to-day, as I am bound to the south. 
 
 1 Sir Walter never knew the name of this munificent 
 person. 
 
 2 • Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee.* 
 
 231 
 
 Mr. Gray has a good letter from you, which 
 I understand he has been reading in all the 
 literary circles of Edinburgh, to show them, as 
 he says, that the genius of the family is not all 
 concentred in one head. For God's sake, take 
 some thought of your wases and weres, has and 
 have, is and are, etc. Excuse me, my dear 
 William, for, believe me, the writing of a letter 
 is now the greatest penance I suffer. — I am 
 your affectionate brother, James Hogg. 
 
 TO professor JOHN WILSON. 
 
 Mount Benger, August 1829. 
 My dear and honoured John,— I never 
 thought you had been so unconscionable as to 
 desire a sportsman on the 11th or even the 13tli 
 of August to leave Ettrick Forest for the bare 
 scraggy hills of Westmoreland ! — Ettrick Forest, 
 where the black cocks and white cocks, brown 
 cocks and grey cocks, ducks, plovers aiid 
 peaseweeps and whilly-whaups are as thick as 
 the flocks that cover her mountains, and come 
 to the hills of Westmoreland that can nourish 
 nothing better than a castril or stonechat ! To 
 leave the great yellow-fin of Yarrow, or the 
 still larger grey-locher, for the degenerate fry 
 of Troutbeck, Esth waits, or even Wastwater ! 
 No, no, the request will not do ; it . is an 
 unreasonable one, and therefore not unlike 
 yourself, for besides, what wou.ld become of 
 Old North and Blackwood and all our friends 
 for game, were I to come to Elleray just now? 
 I know of no home of man where I could be so 
 happy within doors with so many lovely and 
 joyous faces around me; but this is not the 
 season for in-door enjoyments; they must be 
 reaped on the wastes among the blooming 
 heath, by the silver spring, or swathed in the 
 delicious breeze of the wilderness. Elleray, 
 with all its sweets, could never have been my 
 choice for a habitation, and i)erhaps you are the 
 only Scottish gentleman who ever made such a 
 choice, and still persists in maintaining it, in 
 spite of every disadvantage. Happy days to 
 you and a safe retiirn! Yours most respect- 
 fully, James Hogg, 
 
 [The smart critic in the Edinburgh could stoop 
 to write a charming friendly letter. The 
 work of the busy lawyer, the keen debater, 
 and the ready journalist has served its day 
 and generation, and few revive his criticism 
 unless by way of comparison with views 
 which have advanced and progressed ; but 
 the personal good qualities of Jeffrey shine 
 throughout his Life and Correspondence, 
 which was edited shortly after his death, 
 by his friend Lord Cockburn.] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 232 
 
 LORD JEFFREY TO HIS COUSIN, MISS CROCKETT. 
 
 Oxford, March 9, 1792. 
 My dear Crocke,— I fancy I have provoked 
 you. I have entirely forgotten what I wrote in 
 my last, but recollect that it was written imme- 
 diately after a very hearty dinner, on a very 
 cold and a very cloudy day. I conclude it was 
 incredibly amusing. I beg your i^ardon — I 
 excuse your silence — and I proceed. But I 
 would excuse anything at present, for I am 
 mollified and melted to the very temper of a 
 lamb within these three weeks, and all owing 
 to the reading of some very large and admirably 
 elegant books ; which have so stupefied and 
 harassed my understanding, so exercised and 
 confirmed my patience, and, withal, so petrified 
 and deadened my sensibility, that I can no 
 longer perceive or resent any injury or affront 
 that might be offered me. I have just intellect 
 enough remaining to suggest the impi'opriety of 
 proclaiming this my unhappy state, so tempting 
 to insult or malice ; but I know to whom I 
 confide the secret, and I know that I am safe ; 
 for benevolence and compassion, especially when 
 allied to a genuine nobility of spirit, will never 
 take advantage of infirmity or misfortune ; and 
 the assiirance of impunity can only be a tempta- 
 tion to the ungenerous and unfeeling. Now I 
 beg you would never think of copying such 
 sentences as these — I mean v/hen you write to 
 me on any other occasion. I am sure your 
 purer taste must render the caution siiperfluous. 
 There is a charm in simplicity and naturality of 
 expression, for which neither excellent sense, 
 nor egregious sentiment, nor splendid diction, 
 can compensate. But this simplicity, in this 
 vile, conceited, and puerile age, it is infinitely 
 difficult to acquire ; and all our best writers 
 since Shakespeare, except the gentle Addison, 
 and sometimes Sterne, have given up the 
 attempt in despair, and trusted to gaudier 
 vehicles for the conveyance of their respective 
 reputations to the ears of posterity and the 
 mansion of fame ; which practice, you will 
 allow, is greatly to the prejudice of those who 
 are taught to consider them as the models of 
 fine Avriting. However, I intend in a year or 
 two to correct the depravity of taste, and to 
 revive the simple and the sublime in all their 
 j)urity and in all their majesty. This, you will 
 perceive, is private and confidential. I wish 
 you understood Latin, and particularly Greek, 
 that you might understand what it is that I am 
 talking about, in which wish I doubt nothing 
 you join me most cordially. Now you conceive 
 I am grown a j)edant ; that I have done 
 nothing but read law and language and science 
 since I came here. Shall I tell you the truth, — 
 though it would bo a pity to undeceive you 
 in an error so flattering to my diligence and 
 industry, — I never was so dissipated in my life, 
 being out almost every day, and pestered with 
 
 languor all the morning. But the vacation is 
 coming on, and we shall have leisure enow, and 
 there will be nothing but reading, and then we 
 will get learning enow, etc. 
 
 Write me a letter as long as these two last of 
 mine, and believe me, yours sincerely. 
 
 TO HE. R. MOREHEAD. 
 
 Edinburgh, September 20, 1799. 
 My dear Bobby, — I am happy to tell you 
 that I found Mainie ^ almost entirely recovered 
 from her late illness, and in every respect a 
 great deal better than I had expected. This is 
 the first chapter, and now I come to myself ; 
 and a whole chapter of accidents I have to 
 indite on that subject, though I am not sure if I 
 shall have the patience to i^resent you with the 
 whole of it. I was roused carefully half an 
 hour before four yesterday morning, and passed 
 two delightful hours in the kitchen waiting for 
 the mail. There was an enormous fire, and a 
 whole houseful of smoke. The waiter was 
 snoring with great vehemency upon one of the 
 dressers, and the deep, regular intonation had a 
 very solemn effect, I can assure you, in the 
 obscurity of that Tartarean region, and the 
 melancholy silence of the morning. An in- 
 numerable number of rats were trotting and 
 gibbering in one end of the place, and the rain 
 clattered freshly on the windows. The dawn 
 heavily in clouds brought on the day, but not, 
 alas, the mail ; and it was long past five when 
 the guard came galloping into the yard, upon a 
 smoking horse, with all the wet bags lumbering 
 beside him (like Scylla's water-dogs), roaring out 
 that the coach was broken down somewhere 
 near Dundee, and commanding another steed to 
 be got ready for his transportation. The noise 
 he made brought out the other two sleepy 
 wretches that had been waiting like myself for 
 places, and we at length persuaded the heroic 
 chamxiion to order a post-chaise instead of a 
 horse ; into which we crammed ourselves all 
 four with a whole mountain of leather bags, 
 that clung about our legs like the entrails, of a 
 fat cow all the rest of the journey. At Kinross, 
 as the morning was very fine, we prevailed with 
 the guard to go on the outside to dry himself, 
 and got on to the ferry about eleven, after 
 encountering various perils and vexations, in 
 the loss of horse-shoes and wheel-pins, and in a 
 great gap in the road, over which we had to 
 lead the horses and haul the carriage separately. 
 At this place we supplicated our agitator for 
 leave to eat a little breakfast; but he would 
 not stop an instant, and we were obliged to 
 snatch up a roll or two a-piece to gnaw the dry 
 crusts during our passage, to keep soul and 
 
 1 Ilis sister Mary. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 233 
 
 body together. "We got in soon after one, and 
 I have spent my time in eating, drinking, 
 sleeping, and other recreations, down to the 
 present hour. This is the conclusion of my 
 journal, you see. Yours is not in such forward- 
 ness. But I hope the part of it that has been 
 performed out of my guidance has been pros- 
 perous and agreeable. I rather think my return 
 must have been a riddance to you, for I was 
 both dull and ill-tempered during the last days 
 of our travelling, etc. 
 
 And now farewell to you, my trusty travelling 
 companion. We shall make another trip 
 together again, I hope, very soon ; and, in the 
 meantime, try to make as few trips as possible 
 asunder. • I am j)ersuaded that they are good 
 things both for the mind and the body, and are 
 very amusing, both past, present, and future ; 
 which is more than you can say of any other 
 kind of gratification. 
 
 Kemember me very kindly to INIrs. Morehead 
 and her children twain, Mrs, B. and all the 
 other members of that illustrious family, to all 
 my friends and acquaintances, and, lastly, to 
 the whole human race, rich and poor, friends 
 and foes. Amen. — I am, dear Bob, always 
 most affectionately yours. 
 
 TO A GRANDCHILD. 
 
 Craigcrook, June 20, 1848. 
 My sonsy Nancy ! — I love you very much, 
 and think very often of your dimples, and your 
 IDimples, and your funny little plays, and all 
 your pretty ways : and I send you my blessing, 
 and wish I were kissing your sweet, rosy lips, or 
 your fat finger tips; and that you were here, 
 so that I could hear your stammering words 
 from a mouthful of curds ; and a great purple 
 tongue (as broad as it's long) ; and see your round 
 eyes, open wide with surprise, and your wonder- 
 ing look, to find yourself at Craigcrook ! To- 
 morrow is Maggie's birthday, and we have built 
 up a great bonfire in honour of it ; and Maggie 
 Kutherfurd (do you remember her at all?) is 
 coming out to dance round it, — and all the 
 servants are to drink her health, and wish her 
 many happy days with you and Frankie, — and 
 all the mammys and pappys, whether grand 
 or not grand. We are very glad to hear that 
 she and you love each other so well, and are 
 happy in making each other happy ; and that 
 you do not forget dear Tarley or Frankie when 
 they are out of sight, nor Granny either,— or 
 even old Granny pa, who is in most danger 
 of being forgotten, he thinks. We have had 
 showery weather here, but the garden is full of 
 flowers ; and Frankie has a new wheel-barrow, 
 and does a great deal of work, and some mischief 
 now and then. All the dogs are very well ; 
 and Foxey is mine, and Froggy is Tarley's, and 
 
 Frankie has taken up with great white Neddy, 
 —so that nothing is left for Granny but old 
 barking Jacky and Dover when the carriage 
 comes. The donkey sends his compliments to 
 you, and maintains that you are a cousin of his ! 
 or a near relation, at all events. He wishes, 
 too, that you and Maggie would come ; for he 
 thinks that you will not be so heavy on his back 
 as Tarley and Maggie Eutherfurd, who now 
 ride him without mercy. This is Sunday, and 
 Ali is at church — Granny and I taking care of 
 Frankie till she comes back, and he is now 
 hammering very busily at a corner of the carpet, 
 which he says does not lie flat. He is very 
 good, and really too joretty for a boy, though I 
 think his two eye-brows are growing into one, — 
 stretching and meeting each other above his 
 nose ! But he has not near so many freckles as 
 Tarley, who has a very fine crop of them, which 
 she and I encourage as much as we can. I hope 
 you and Maggie will lay in a stock of them, 
 as I think no little girl can be i^retty without 
 them in summer. Our pea-hens are suspected 
 of having young families in some hidden place, 
 for though they pay us short visits now and 
 then, we see them but seldom, and always alone. 
 If you and Maggie were here with your sharp 
 eyes, we think you mxight find out their secret, 
 and introduce us to a nice new family of young 
 peas. The old jjapa cock, in the meantime, 
 says he knows nothing about them, and does 
 not care a farthing ! We envy you your young 
 peas of another kind, for we have none yet, nor 
 any asparagus either, and hope you will bring 
 some down to us in your lap. Tarley sends her 
 love, and I send mine to you all, though I shall 
 think most of Maggie to-morrow morning, and 
 of you when yovir birth morning comes. When 
 is that, do you know? It is never dark now 
 here, and we might all go to bed without 
 candles. And so bless you ever and ever, my 
 dear dimply pussie. — Your very loving 
 Grandpa, 
 
 [At a time when the relationships between 
 author and pviblisher are sometimes 
 strained, and when they too often only 
 stand in the position of buyer and seller 
 of literary wares, this letter of Southey's is 
 worth referring to, as an example of honour- 
 able and high-minded business dealing. 
 Shortly after Joseph Cottle, an enlightened 
 Bristol bookseller, had been introduced to 
 South ey, and while the poet was yet unknown 
 to fame, he gave him eighty guineas for his 
 Poems and Joan of Arc. This was the 
 first stepping-stone to fame, and the com- 
 mencement of a prosperous career of author- 
 
234 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ship for Southey ; and when Cottle, after 
 the sale of his effects, regretted he had not 
 returned his copyrights, the poet replied 
 in a letter which speaks strongly for the 
 friendly feeling still subsisting between 
 them.] 
 
 EGBERT SOUTHEY TO JOSEPH COTTLE. 
 
 Wednesday evening, Greta Hall, 
 April 28, 1808. 
 
 My dear Cottle, — What you say of my copy- 
 rights affects me very much. Dear Cottle, set 
 your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to 
 be at rest. They were yours ; fairly bought, 
 and fairly sold. You bought them on the 
 chance of their success, what no London book- 
 seller would have done ; and had they not 
 been bought, they could not have been ]Dublished 
 at all. Nay, if you had not published Joan 
 of Arc, the poem never would have existed, 
 nor should I, in all probability, ever have 
 obtained that reputation which is the capital 
 on which I subsist, nor that power which 
 enables me to support it. 
 
 But this is not all. Do you suppose, Cottle, 
 that I have forgotten those true and most 
 essential acts of friendship which you showed 
 me when I stood most in need of them ? Your 
 house was my house when I had no other. The 
 very money with wliich I bought my wedding- 
 ring, and paid my marriage fees, was supplied 
 by you. It was with your sisters that I left my 
 Edith, during my six months' absence ; and for 
 the six months after my return, it was from 
 you that I received, week by week, the little 
 on which we lived, till I was enabled to live 
 by other means. It is not the settling of our 
 cash account that can cancel obligations like 
 these. You are in the habit of preserving 
 your . letters, and if you were not, / would 
 entreat you to preserve this, that it might he seen 
 hereafter. Sure I am, that there never was a 
 more generous nor a kinder heart than yours ; 
 and you will believe me when I add, that there 
 does not live that man upon earth, whom I 
 remember with more gratitude and more 
 affection. My heart throbs and my eyes burn 
 with these recollections. Good-night, my dear 
 old friend and benefactor. 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 [Charles Lamb, the delightful humorist and 
 essayist, was born in London, in Crown 
 Office Eow, Inner Temple, on Friday the 
 10th of February 1775. He was the 
 youngest surviving child of a family of seven, 
 and after attending a little day school, in 
 his eighth year was presented to Christ's 
 
 Hospital by Timothy Yeates, the governor. 
 In 1792 he obtained a situation in the ac- 
 countant's office of the East India Company, 
 where he remained thirty-three years, till 
 his salary had gradually risen from about 
 £70 to £600 per annum. His thirty-three 
 years' clerkship closed on Tuesday the 29th 
 March 1825, when he received a retiring 
 j)ension of £450 per annum, with a separate 
 provision for his sister Mary. His feelings 
 when ' he came home for ever ' will be seen 
 in his letter to Wordsworth. He did not 
 marry, but during his lifetime remained 
 devotedly attached to his sister, Blary 
 Lamb, who was subject to periodical 
 attacks of insanity, and who had, while 
 under the influence of one of these attacks, 
 stabbed her mother to death with one of 
 the knives from the dinner-table. Through- 
 out his lifetime he enjoyed the friendship 
 of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Eogers, 
 Hazlitt, and other eminent men of the 
 time. The 'Essays of Elia' were con- 
 tributed to the London Magazine between 
 1820-25. The largest sum he received for 
 these essays was £170 a year for two years 
 together. Lamb died December 27, 1834. 
 Three years afterwards his friend Justice 
 Talfourd embalmed his memory in his 
 Final Memorials, which have been any- 
 thing but final, as we have had many mono- 
 graphs and biographies of Lamb since that 
 time. His letters are as whimsical and 
 entertaining as his essays, with this ad- 
 ditional advantage, that they are at the 
 same time autobiographical. Without these 
 letters, no correct biography of Lamb would 
 be possible at this distance of time.] 
 
 LAMB TO COLERIDGE. 1 
 
 [In allusion to a small volume of Poems by 
 Coleridge, Lloyd, and Lamb, which was 
 published by Cottle of Bristol.) 
 
 Priestley, wliom I sin in almost adoring, speaks 
 of ' such a choice of company as tends to keep 
 up that right bent, and firmness of mind, which 
 a necessary intercourse with the world would 
 otherwise warp and relax.' 'Such fellowship ) 
 is the true balsam of life ; its cement is in- 
 finitely more durable than that of the friend- 
 
 1 This selection is quoted from The Letters of Charles 
 Lavib, luith a Sketch of his Life, by Thomas Noon Talfourd. 
 London, 1837. Lamb has liad many biographers, in- 
 cluding Talfourd, Barry Cornwall, Percy Fitzgerald, 
 Charles Kent, and Alfred Ainger. 
 
] 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 235 
 
 ships of the world, and it looks for its proper 
 fruit, and complete gratification, to the life 
 beyond the grave.' Is there a possible chance 
 for such an one as I to realize in this world 
 such friendships ? Where am I to look for 'em ? 
 ■\Miat testimonials shall I bring of my being 
 worthy of such friendship? Alas! the great 
 and good go together in separate herds, and 
 leave such as I to lag far, far behind in all 
 intellectual, and, far more grievous to say, in 
 all moral accomplishments. Coleridge, I have 
 not one truly elevated character among my 
 acquaintance ; not one Christian ; not one but 
 undervalues Christianity — singly what am I to 
 do? Wesley (have you read his life?), was he 
 not an elevated character? Wesley has said, 
 
 * Religion is not a solitary thing.' Alas ! it 
 necessarily is so with me, or next to solitary. 
 'Tis true you write to me. But correspondence 
 by letter, and personal intimacy, are very 
 widely different. Do, do write to me, and do 
 some good to my mind, already how much 
 
 * warped and relaxed ' by the world ! 'Tis the 
 conclusion of another evening. Good-night, 
 God have us all in His keeping. 
 
 If you are suflficiently at leisure, oblige me 
 with an accoimt of your plan of life at Stowey, 
 — your literary occupations and jirospects, — 
 in short, make me acquainted with every cir- 
 cumstance, which, as relating to you, can be 
 interesting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan ? 
 Make me one. I rejoice in being speculatively 
 a Necessitarian. Would to God I were habitu- 
 ally a practical one. Confirm me in the faith 
 of that great and glorious doctrine, and keep 
 me steady in the contemplation of it. You 
 some time since expressed an intention you had 
 of finishing some extensive work on the Evi- 
 dences of Natural and Revealed Religion. Have 
 you let that intention go? Or are you doing 
 anything towards it? Make to yourself other 
 ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. 
 I talk of nothing. But I must talk. I love to 
 write to you. I take a pride in it. It makes 
 me think less meanly of myself. It makes me 
 think myself not totally disconnected from the 
 better part of mankind. I know I am too 
 dissatisfied with the beings around me ; but I 
 cannot help occasionally exclaiming, 'Woe is 
 me that I am constrained to dwell with 
 Meshech, and to have my habitation among 
 the tents of Kedar.' I know I am in noways 
 better in practice than my neighbours, but I 
 have a taste for religion, an occasional earnest 
 aspiration after perfection, which they have 
 not. I gain nothing by being with such as 
 myself ; we encourage one another in mediocrity. 
 I am always longing to be with men more 
 excellent than myself. All this must sound 
 old to you, but these are my predominant 
 feelings when I sit down to write to you, and 
 I should put force upon my mind were I to 
 reject them. Yet I rejoice, and feel my 
 
 privilege with gratitude, when I have been 
 reading some wise book, such as I have just 
 been reading, Priestley on Philosophical Neces- 
 sity, in the thought that I enjoy a kind of 
 communion, a kind of friendship even with the 
 great and good. Books are to me instead of 
 friends. I wish they did not resemble the latter 
 in their scarceness. 
 
 And how does little David Hartley? Ecquid 
 antiquam virtutem? Does his mighty name 
 work wonders yet upon his little frame and 
 opening mind ? I did not distinctly understand 
 you ; you don't mean to make an actual plough- 
 man of him ? Is Lloyd with you jet ? Are you 
 intimate with Southey? What poems is he 
 about to publish ? He hath a most prolific brain, 
 and is indeed a most sweet j^oet. But how can 
 you answer all the various mass of interroga- 
 tion I have put to you in the course of the 
 sheet? Write back just what you like, only 
 write something, however brief. I have now 
 nigh finished my page, and got to the end of 
 another evening (Monday evening), and my 
 eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain un- 
 suggestive. I have just heart enough awake to 
 say good-night once more, and God love you, 
 my dear friend. God love us all. Mary bears 
 an affectionate remembrance of you. 
 
 [1797.] Chaeles Lamb. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Your poem ^ is altogether admirable, parts of 
 it are even exquisite. I perceived all its ex- 
 cellences, on a first reading, as readily as now 
 you have been removing a supposed film from 
 my eyes. I was only struck with a certain 
 faulty disproportion, in the matter and the 
 style, which I still think I perceive between 
 these lines and the former ones. I had an end 
 in view ; I wished to make you reject the i)oem, 
 only as being discordant with the other, and, in 
 subservience to that end, it was politically done 
 in me to over-pass, and make no mention of 
 merit, which, could you think me capable of 
 overlooTcing, might reasonably damn for ever in 
 your judgment all pretensions, in me, to be 
 critical. There— I will be judged by Lloyd, 
 whether I have not made a very handsome re- 
 cantation. I was in the case of a man whose 
 friend has asked him his opinion of a certain 
 young lady — the deluded wight gives judgment 
 against her in toto, don't like her face, her walk, 
 her manners ; finds fault with her eyebrows ; 
 can see no wit in her ; his friend looks blank, 
 he begins to smell a rat — wind veers about — he 
 acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in 
 dress, a certain simplicity of manners and 
 honesty of heart, something too in her manners 
 which gains upon you after a short acquaintance, 
 and then her accurate pronixnciation of the 
 
 1 A poem of Coleridge's, which he proposed to call 
 the Maid of Orleans. 
 
236 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 French language, and a pretty uncultivated 
 taste in drawing. The reconciled gentleman 
 smiles applause, squeezes him by the hand, and 
 hopes he will do him the honour of taking a bit 
 
 of dinner with Mrs. and him, a jjlain family 
 
 dinner, some day next week ; ' for I suppose 
 you never heard we were married. I'm glad to 
 see you like my wife, however ; you'll come 
 and see her, ha?' Now, am I too proud to 
 retract entirely? Yet I do perceive I am in 
 some sort straitened ; you are manifestly wedded 
 to this poem, and what fancy has joined let no 
 man separate. I turn me to the Joan of Arc, 
 second book. 
 
 The solemn openings of it are with sounds, 
 which LI. would say 'are silence to the mind.' 
 The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate 
 the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sub- 
 limest mysteries of theory concerning man's 
 nature, and his noblest destination — the philo- 
 sophy of a first cause— of subordinate agents in 
 creation, superior to man — the subserviency of 
 Pagan worship and Pagan faith to the intro- 
 duction of a iDurer and more perfect religion, 
 which you so elegantly describe as winning 
 with gradual steps her difficult way northward 
 from Bethabra. After all this cometh Joan, a 
 puhlican^s daughter, sitting on an ale-house 
 bench, and marking the swingings of the sign- 
 hoard, finding a poor man, his wife and six 
 children, starved to death with cold, and thence 
 roused into a state of mind proper to receive 
 visions emblematical of equality; which, what 
 the devil Joan had to do with, I don't know, 
 or, indeed, with the French and American 
 revolutions, though that needs no pardon, it is 
 executed so nobly. After all, if you perceive 
 no disproportion, all argument is vain ; I do not 
 so much object to parts. Again, when you talk 
 of building your fame on these lines in pre- 
 ference to the Religious Musings, I cannot help 
 conceiving of you, and of the author of that, as 
 two different persons, and I think you a very 
 vain man. 
 
 I have been re-reading your letter ; much of 
 it I could dispute, but with the latter part of it, 
 in which you compare the two Joans, with 
 respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I, 
 toto corde, coincide, only I think that Southey's 
 strength rather lies in the description of the 
 emotions of the IMaid under the weight of 
 inspiration — these (I see no mighty difference 
 between her describing them or you describing 
 them), these if you only equal, the jirevious 
 admirers of his poem, as is natural, will prefer 
 his, — if you surpass, prejudice will scarcely allow 
 it ; and I scarce think you will surpass, though 
 your specimen at the conclusion, I am in 
 earnest, I think very nigh equals them. And 
 in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet, the 
 description of her emotions is expected to be 
 most highly finished. By the way, I spoke far 
 toodispai-agingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed 
 
 to say, purposely. I should like you to specify 
 or particularize ; the story of the ' Tottering 
 Eld,' of 'his eventful years all come and gone,' 
 is too general ; why not make him a soldier, or 
 some character, however, in which he has been, 
 witness to frequency of 'cruel wrong and 
 strange distress ' ? I think I should. When I 
 laughed at the 'miserable man crawling from 
 beneath the coverture,' I wonder I did not 
 perceive that it was a laugh of horror, such as I 
 have laughed at Dante's picture of the famished 
 Ugolino. Without falsehood, I perceive an 
 hundred beauties in your narrative. Yet I 
 wonder you do not perceive something out of 
 the way, something unsimple and artificial, in 
 the expression 'voiced a sad tale.' I hate 
 made-dishes at the muses' banquet. I believe 
 I was wrong in most of my other objections. 
 But surely ' hailed him immortal,' adds nothing 
 to the terror of the man's death, which it was 
 your business to heighten, not diminish, by a 
 phrase which takes away all terror from it. I 
 like that line, ' They closed their eyes in sleep, 
 nor knew 'twas death.' Indeed there is scarce 
 a line I do not like. * Turbid ecstasy ' is surely 
 not so good as what you had written, ' troublous.' 
 Turbid rather suits the muddy kind of in- 
 spiration which London porter confers. The 
 versification is, throughout, to my ears un- 
 exceptionable, with no disparagement to the 
 measure of the Religious Musings, which is 
 exactly fitted to the thoughts. 
 
 You were building your house on a rock, 
 when you rested your fame on that poem. I 
 can scarce bring myself to believe that I am 
 admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all 
 the licence of friendship, with a man who writes 
 blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate 
 flattery, indirect flattery. Go on with your 
 Maid of Orleans, and be content to be second 
 to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, 
 when 'tis finished. 
 
 This afternoon I attend the funeral of my 
 poor old aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I 
 am thankful that the good creature has ended 
 all her days of suffering and infirmity. She 
 was to me the ' cherisher of infancy,' and one 
 must fall on those occasions into reflections, 
 which it would be commonplace to enumerate, 
 concerning death, 'of chance and change, and 
 
 fate and human life.' Good , who could 
 
 have foreseen all this but four months back? 
 I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's 
 living many years ; she was a very hearty old 
 woman. But she was a mere skeleton before 
 she died, looked more like a corpse that had 
 lain weeks in the grave than one fresh dead. 
 ' Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing 
 it is for the eyes to behold the sun ; but let a 
 man live many days and rejoice in them all, 
 yet let him remember the days of darkness, for 
 they shall be many.' Coleridge, why are wc to 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 237 
 
 live on after all the strength and beauty of 
 existence are gone, when all the life of life is 
 fled, as Burns expresses it ? Tell Lloyd I have 
 had thoughts of turning Quaker, have been 
 reading, and, or am rather just beginning to 
 read, a most capital book, good thoughts in 
 good language, William Penn's No Cross, no 
 Crown. I like it immensely. Unluckily I 
 went to one of his meetings, tell him, in St. 
 John's Street, yesterday, and saw a man under 
 all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who 
 believed himself under the influences of some 
 • inevitable presence. ' This cured me of Quaker- 
 ism ; I love it in the books of Penn and Wool- 
 man, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking 
 he speaks by the Spirit, vv^hen what he says an 
 ordinary man might say without all that 
 quaking and trembling. In the midst of his 
 inspiration, and the effects of it were most 
 noisy, was handed into the midst of the meet- 
 ing a most terrible blackguard Wapping sailor ; 
 the poor man, I believe, had rather have been 
 in the hottest part of an engagement, for the 
 congregation of broad-brims, together with the 
 ravings of the prophet, were too much for his 
 gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy 
 enough not to laugh out. And the inspired 
 gentleman, though his manner was so super- 
 natui-al, yet neither talked nor professed to 
 talk anything more than good sober sense, 
 common morality, with now and then a declara- 
 tion of not speaking from himself. Among other 
 things, looking back to his childhood and early 
 youth, he told the meeting what a graceless 
 young dog he had been, that in his youth he 
 had a good share of wit : reader, if thou hadst 
 seen the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn 
 that it must indeed have been many years ago, 
 for his rueful physiognomy would have scared 
 away the playful goddess from the meeting 
 where he presided for ever. A wit ! a wit ! 
 what could he mean ? Lloyd, it minded me of 
 Falkland in the Eivals, ' Am I full of wit and 
 humour ? No, indeed you are not. Am I the 
 life and soul of every company I come into? 
 No, it cannot be said you are.' That hard- 
 faced gentleman a wit ! ^Vhy, nature wrote on 
 his fanatic forehead fifty years ago, ' Wit never 
 comes, that comes to all.' I should be as 
 scandalized at a bon mot issuing from his oracle- 
 looking mouth, as to see Cato go down a country 
 dance. God love you all. You are very good 
 to submit to be pleased with reading my 
 nothings. 'Tis the privilege of friendship to 
 talk nonsense, and to have nonsense resiDected. 
 Yours ever, C, Lamb. 
 
 Monday [1797]. 
 
 [The following letter — rich in fun — bears 
 date Saturday, July 28, 1798. In order to 
 make its allusions intelligible, it is only 
 necessary to mention that Southey was 
 then contemplating a calendar illustrative 
 of the remarkable days of the year. — 
 Talfourd.] 
 
 LAMB TO MK. SOUTHEY. 
 
 I am ashamed that I have not thanked you 
 before this for the Joan of Arc, but I did not 
 know your address, and it did not occur to me 
 to write through Cottle. The poem delighted 
 me, and the notes amused me, but methinks 
 she of Neufchatel, in the print, holds her sword 
 too 'like a dancer.' I sent your notice to Phillips, 
 particularly requesting an immediate insertion, 
 but I suppose it came too late. I am some- 
 times curious to know what progress you make 
 in that same ' Calendar,' whether you insert the 
 nine worthies and Whittington ; what you do 
 or how you can manage when two Saints meet 
 and quarrel for precedency; Martlemas, and 
 Candlemas, and Christmas are glorious themes 
 for a writer like you, antiquity-bitten, smit 
 with the love of boars' heads and rosemary ; 
 bvit how you can ennoble the 1st of Aj)ril I 
 know not. By the way, I had a thing to say, 
 but a certain false modesty has hitherto pre- 
 vented me ; perhaps I can best communicate 
 my wish by a hint — my birthday is on the 
 10th of February, new style, but if it interferes 
 with any remarkable event, why, rather than 
 my country should lose her fame, I care not 
 if I put my nativity back eleven days. Fine 
 family patronage for your 'Calendar,' if that 
 old lady of prolific memory wei'e living, who 
 lies (or lyes) in some church in London (saints 
 forgive me, but I have forgot what church), 
 attesting that enormous legend of as many 
 children as days in the year. I marvel her 
 impudence did not grasp at a leap year. Three 
 hundred and sixty-five dedications, and all in 
 a family — you might spit in spirit on the one- 
 ness of Maecenas patronage ! 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal 
 regret of his native Devonshire, emigrates to 
 Westphalia — 'Poor Lamb (these were his last 
 words), if he wants any knowledge, he may 
 
 apply to me,' in ordinary cases, I thanked 
 
 him, I have an Encyclopedia at hand, but on 
 such an occasion as going over to a German 
 university, I could not refrain from sending 
 him the following propositions, to be by him 
 defended or oppugned (or both) at Leipsic or 
 Gottingen. 
 
 THESES QUiEDAM THEOLOGIZE, 
 1. 
 
 ' Whether God loves a lying angel better than 
 a true man ? ' 
 
238 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 II. 
 
 * Whether the archangel Uriel coitZcZ knowingly 
 affirm an untruth, and whether, if he could, he 
 would ? ' 
 
 III. 
 
 * Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or 
 not rather belonging to that class of qualities 
 which the Schoolmen term " virtutes minus 
 splendidae, ethominis et terras nimis participes ? " ' 
 
 IV. 
 
 'Wliether the seraphim ardentes do not 
 manifest their goodness by the way of vision 
 and theory? and whether practice be not a 
 sub-celestial and merely human virtue ? ' 
 
 V. 
 
 'Whether the higher order of seraphim 
 illuminati ever sneer ? ' 
 
 VI. 
 
 'Whether pure intelligences can love, or 
 whether they can love anything besides pure 
 intellect?' 
 
 VII. 
 
 'Whether the beatific vision be anything 
 more or less than a perpetual representment 
 to each individual angel of his own present 
 attainments and future capabilities, something 
 in the manner of mortal looking-glasses ? ' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Whether an "immortal and amenable soul" 
 may not come to be damn'd at last and the man 
 never suspect it beforehand ? ' 
 
 Samuel Taylor hath not deigned an answer ; 
 was it impertinent in me to avail myseK of that 
 offered source of knowledge ? 
 
 Wishing Madoc may be born into the world 
 with as splendid promise as the second birth, 
 or purification, of the Maid of Neufchatel, I 
 remain, yours sincerely, C. Lamb. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Dear Wordsworth,— I have not forgot 
 your commissions. But the truth is, — and why 
 should I not confess it ? — I am not plethorically 
 abounding in cash at this present. Merit, 
 Heaven knows, is very little rewarded ; but 
 it does not become me to speak of myself. 
 My motto is, 'Contented with little, yet 
 wishing for more.' Now, the books you wish 
 for would require some pounds, which, I am 
 sorry to say, I have not by me ; so, I will say 
 at once, if you will give me a draft upon your 
 town banker for any sum you propose to lay 
 out, I will disjiose of it to the very best of my 
 skill in choice old books, such as my own soul 
 loveth. In fact, I have been waiting for the 
 liquidation of a debt to enable myself to set 
 about your commission handsomely ; for it is 
 a scurvy thing to cry, 'Give mc the money 
 first,' and I am the first of the family of the 
 Lambs that have done it for many centuries ; 
 
 but the debt remains as it was, and my old 
 friend that I accommodated has generously 
 forgot it ! The books which you want, I 
 calculate at about £8. Ben Jonson is a 
 guinea book. Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio, 
 the right folio not now to be met with; the 
 octavos are about £3. As to any other drama- 
 tists, I do not know where to find them, except 
 what are in Dodsley's old plays, which are 
 about £3 also. Massinger I never saw but at 
 one shop, but it is now gone ; but one of the 
 editions of Dodsley contains about a fourth 
 (the best) of his plays. Congreve, and the 
 rest of King Charles' moralists, are cheap and 
 accessible. The works on Ireland I will in- 
 quire after, but, I fear, Spenser's is not to be 
 had apart from his poems; I never saw it. 
 But you may depend upon my sparing no 
 pains to furnish you as complete a library of 
 old poets and dramatists as will be prudent to 
 buy; for I suppose you do not include the 
 £20 edition of Hamlet, single play, which 
 Kemble has. Marlow's plays and poems are 
 totally vanished; only one edition of Dodsley 
 retains one, and the other two of his plays; 
 but John Ford is the man after Shakespeare. 
 Let me know your will and pleasure soon, for 
 I have observed, next to the pleasure of buying 
 a bargain for oneself, is the pleasure of per- 
 suading a friend to buy it. It tickles one v/ith 
 the image of an imprudency, without the 
 penalty usually annexed. C, LAMB. 
 
 [1800.] 
 
 [Thomas Manning was a mathematical tutor 
 at Cambridge when Lamb first made his 
 acquaintance. He had a strong scientific 
 turn, and afterwards travelled in the 
 remoter parts of China and Thibet. ] 
 
 LAMB TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 Dear Manning, — Had you written one week 
 before you did, I certainly should have obeyed 
 your injunction ; you should have seen me 
 before my letter. I will explain to you my 
 situation. There are six of us in one depart- 
 ment. Two of us (within these four days) are 
 confined with severe fevers ; and two more, 
 who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to 
 have marching orders on Friday. Now six are 
 absolutely necessary. I have already asked 
 and obtained two young hands to supply the 
 loss of the feverites. And, with the other 
 prospect before me, you may believe I cannot 
 decently ask leave of absence for myself. All 
 I can promise is (and I do promise, with the 
 sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of 
 sinner Peter if I fail), that I will come the very 
 first spare week, and go nowhere till I have 
 been at Cambridge. No matter if you arc in 
 a state of pupilage when I come ; for I can 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 239 
 
 employ myself in Cambridge very pleasantly 
 in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, 
 colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you 
 had made London in your way. There is an 
 exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which 
 could not have escaped your genius,— a live 
 rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the thick- 
 ness of a big leg. I went to see it last night 
 by candlelight. We were ushered into a room 
 very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A 
 man and woman and four boys live in this 
 room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of 
 them such as no remedy has been discovered 
 for their bite. "We walked into the middle, 
 which is formed by a half moon of wired boxes, 
 all mansions of snakes — whip-snakes, thunder- 
 snakes, pig-nose snakes, American vipers, and 
 this monster. He lies curled up in folds ; and 
 immediately a stranger enters (for he is used 
 to the family, and sees them play at cards), he 
 set up a rattle like a watchman's in London, 
 or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the 
 midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook 
 his head, and showed every sign a snake can 
 show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity 
 to strike the wires with my finger, and the 
 devil flew at me with his toad mouth wide 
 open ; the inside of his mouth is quite white. 
 I had got my finger away, nor could he well 
 have bit me with his big mouth, which would 
 have been certain death in five minutes. But 
 it frightened me so much, that I did not 
 recover my voice for a minute's space. I 
 forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You 
 would have forgot too, for 'tis incredible how 
 such a monster can be confined in small, gauzy- 
 looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the 
 night. I wish to heaven you could see it. 
 He absolutely swelled with passion to the 
 bigness of a large thigh. I could not retreat 
 without infringing on another box, and just 
 behind, a little devil, not an inch from my 
 back, had got his nose out, with some difiiculty 
 and pain, quite through the bars ! He was 
 soon taught better manners. All the snakes 
 were curious, and objects of terror; but this 
 monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up 
 the imjiression of the rest. He opened his 
 cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide 
 as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite 
 loud, and felt pains all over my body with the 
 fright. 
 
 I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer 
 read out one book of The Farmer's Boy. I 
 thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is 
 originality in it (which, in your self-taught 
 geniuses, is a most rare quality, they generally 
 getting hold of some bad models, in a scarcity 
 of books, and forming their taste on them), 
 but no selection. All is described. 
 
 Mind, I have only heard read one book. 
 I Yours sincerely, Philo- Snake, 
 
 [1800.] C. L. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Dear Manning, — I have received a very kind 
 invitation from Lloyd and Sophia, to go and 
 spend a month with them at the lakes. Now 
 it fortunately happens (which is so seldom the 
 case !) that I have spare cash by me, enough 
 to answer the expenses of so long a journey ; 
 and I am determined to get away from the 
 office by some means. The purpose of this 
 letter is to request of you (my dear friend) 
 that you will not take it unkind, if I decline 
 my proposed visit to Cambridge for the present. 
 Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge in 
 my way, going or coming. I need not describe 
 to you the expectations which such an one as 
 myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, 
 have formed of a tour to the lakes. Con- 
 sider, Grasmere ! Ambleside ! Wordsworth ! 
 Coleridge ! Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains 
 
 to the eternal . I will eat snipes with 
 
 thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess 
 a tite. 
 
 P.S. — I think you named the 16th ; but was 
 it not modest of Lloyd to send such an invitation ! 
 It shows his knowledge of money and time. I 
 would be loath to think he meant 
 • Ironic satire sidelong sklented on my poor pursie. 
 
 BUENS. 
 
 For my part, with reference to my friends 
 northward, I must confess that I am not 
 romance-bit about nature. The earth, and 
 sea, and sky (when all is said), is but as a house 
 to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and 
 good liquors fiow like the conduits at an old 
 coronation, if they can talk sensibly, and feel 
 properly, I have no need to stand staring upon 
 the gilded looking-glass (that strained my 
 friend's purse strings in the purchase), nor his 
 five-shilling print over the mantelpiece of old 
 Nabbs the carrier (which only betrays his false 
 taste). Just as important to me, in a sense, is 
 all the furniture of my world ; eye pampering, 
 but satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, streets, 
 markets, theatres, churches, Co vent Gardens, 
 shops si^arkling with pretty faces of industrious 
 milliners, neat sempstresses, ladies cheapening, 
 gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in 
 the street with spectacles (you may know them 
 by their gait), lamps lit at night, pastry-cook 
 and silver-smith shops, bea.utiful Quakers of 
 Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy cry of 
 mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks 
 reeling home drunk ; if you happen to wake 
 at midnight, cries of fire and stop thief, inns 
 of court, with their learned air, and halls, and 
 butteries, just like Cambridge colleges ; old.book- 
 stalls, Jeremy Taylors^ Burtons on Melancholy , 
 and Religio Medicis on every stall. These are 
 thy pleasures, O London, with the many sins. 
 
 O city, abounding in , for these may 
 
 Keswick and her giant brood go hang ! 
 [1800.] C. L. 
 
240 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 TO MK. WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 I ought before this to have replied to your 
 very kind invitation into Cumberland. With 
 you and your sister I could gang anywhere ; 
 but I am afraid whether I shall ever be able 
 to afford so desperate a journey. Separate 
 from the i)leasure of your company, I don't 
 now care if I never see a mountain in my life. 
 I have passed all my days in London, until I 
 have formed as many and intense local attach- 
 ments as any of you mountaineers can have 
 done with dead nature. The lighted shops of 
 the Strand and Fleet Street, the innumerable 
 trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, 
 waggons, playhouses ; all the bustle and 
 wickedness round about Covent Garden ; the 
 watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles ; life awake, 
 if you awake, at all hours of the night ; the 
 impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street ; 
 the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun 
 shining upon houses and pavements, the print- 
 shops, the old book-stalls, parsons cheapening 
 books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from 
 kitchens, the pantomimes — London itself a 
 pantomime and a masquerade— all these things 
 work themselves into my mind, and feed me 
 without a i)ower of satiating me. The wonder 
 of these sights impels me into night walks 
 about her crowded streets, and I often shed 
 tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy 
 at so much life. All these emotions must be 
 strange to you ; so are your rural emotions to 
 me. But consider, what must I have been 
 doing all my life, not to have lent great portions 
 of my heart with uaury to such scenes ? 
 
 My attachments are all local, purely local 
 — I have no passion (or have had none since I 
 was in love, and then it was the spurious 
 engendering of poetry and books) to groves 
 and valleys. The rooms where I was born, 
 the furniture which has been before my eyes 
 all my life, a book-case which has followed me 
 about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him 
 in knowledge) wherever I have moved, old 
 chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I 
 have sunned myself, my old school, these are 
 my mistresses — have I not enough without your 
 mountains? I do not envy you. I should 
 pity you, did I not know that the mind will 
 make friends of anything. Your sun, and 
 moon, an^ skies, and hills, and lakes affect 
 me no more, or scarcely come to me in more 
 venerable characters, than as a gilded room 
 with tapestry and tapers, where I might live 
 with handsome, visible objects. I consider the 
 clouds above me but as a roof beautifully 
 I)ai?ited, but unable to satisfy the mind ; and 
 at last, like the pictures of the apartment of 
 a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer 
 a iDleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, 
 have been the beauties of nature, as they 
 have been confinedly called ; so ever fresh, 
 
 and green, and warm are all the inventions of 
 men and assemblies of men in this great city. 
 I should certainly have laughed with dear 
 Joanna.^ 
 
 Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to 
 D. and yourself. And a kiss from me to little 
 Barbara Lethwaite.^ Thank you for liking my 
 play ! C. L. 
 
 [Lamb, accompanied by his sister, visited the 
 lake country in 1802, and spent three 
 weeks with Coleridge at Keswick. There 
 he also met Thomas Clarkson, the i^hilan- 
 thropist and opponent of the slave trade.] 
 
 LAMB TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 London, Sept. 24, 1802. 
 
 My dear Manning,— Since the date of my 
 last letter, I have been a traveller. A strong 
 desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My 
 first impulse was to go and see Paris. It was 
 a trivial objection to my aspiring mind that I 
 did not understand a word of the language, 
 since I certainly intend some time in my life 
 to see Paris, and equally certainly intend never 
 to learn the language ; therefore that could be 
 no objection. However, I am very glad I did 
 not go, because you had left Paris (I see) before 
 I could have set out. I believe, Stoddart pro- 
 mising to go with me another year, prevented 
 that plan. My next scheme (for to my restless, 
 ambitious mind London has become a bed of 
 thorns) was to visit the far-famed peak in 
 Derbyshire, where the devil sits, they say, 
 without breeches. This my purer mind rejected 
 as indelicate. And my final resolve was a tour 
 to the lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, 
 without giving Coleridge any notice, for, my 
 time being precious, did not admit of it. He 
 received us with all the hospitality in the 
 world, and gave up his time to show us all 
 the wonders of the country. He dwells upon 
 a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a com- 
 fortable house, quite enveloped on all sides by 
 a net of mountains ; great floundering bears 
 and monsters they seemed, all couchant and 
 asleep. We got in in the evening, travelling 
 in a post-chaise from Penrith in the midst of 
 a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the 
 mountains into colours, purple, etc. etc. We 
 thought we had got into fairyland. But that 
 went off (and it never came again ; while we 
 stayed we had no more fine sunsets) ; and we 
 entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in 
 the dusk, when the mountains were all dark 
 
 1 Alluding to the Inscription of Wordsworth's, 
 entitled ' Joanna,' containing a magnificent description 
 of the effect of laughter echoing amidst tlie great 
 mountains of Westmoreland. 
 
 2 Alluding to Wordsworth's poem ' The Pet Lamb.' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 241 
 
 with clouds upon their heads. Such an im- 
 pression I never received from objects of sight 
 before, nor do I suppose that I can ever again. 
 Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw, 
 etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about 
 that night, like an entrenchment ; gone to bed, 
 as it seemed, for the night, but promising that 
 ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge 
 had got a blazing fire in his study, which is a 
 large, antique, Ul-shaped room, with an old- 
 fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough 
 for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an 
 iEolian harp, and an old sofa, half bed, etc. 
 And all looking out upon the fading view of 
 Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted brethren : 
 what a night ! Here we stayed three full 
 weeks, in which time I visited "Wordsworth's 
 cottage, where we stayed a day or two with 
 the Clarksons (good people, and most hospitable, 
 at whose house we tarried one day and night), 
 and saw Lloyd. The AVordsworths were gone 
 to Calais. They have since been in London, 
 and passed much time with us ; he is now gone 
 into Yorkshire to be married. So we have 
 seen Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater 
 (where the Clarksons live), and a place at the 
 other end of Ulswater, I forget the name,i to 
 which we travelled on a very sultry day, over 
 the middle of HelveUyn. We have clambered 
 up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded 
 up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied 
 myself that there is such a thing as that which 
 toTirists call romantic, which I very much 
 suspected before ; they make such a spluttering 
 about it, and toss their splendid epithets around 
 them, till they give as dim a light as at four 
 o'clock next morning the lamps do after an 
 illumination. Mary was excessively tired 
 when she got about half-way up Skiddaw ; 
 but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing 
 can be imagined more cold, running over cold 
 stones), and with the reinforcement of a draught 
 of cold water, she surmounted it most manfully. 
 Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop 
 of it, with a prospect of mountains all about 
 and about making you giddy ; and then Scotland 
 afar off, and the border counties so famous in 
 song and ballad ! It was a day that will stand 
 out like a mountain, I am sure, in my life. 
 But I am returned (I have now been come 
 home near three weeks — I was a month out), 
 and you cannot conceive the degradation I 
 felt at first, from being accustomed to wander 
 free as air among mountains, and bathe in 
 rivers without being controlled by any one, to 
 come homo and work. I felt very little. I 
 had been dreaming I was a very great man. 
 But that is going off, and I find I shall conform 
 in time to that state of life to which it has 
 pleased God to call me. Besides, after all, 
 Fleet Street and the Strand are better places 
 
 1 Patterdale. 
 
 to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. 
 Still, I turn back to those great places where I 
 wandered about, participating in their greatness. 
 After all, I could not live in Skiddaw. I could 
 spend a year, two, three years among them, 
 but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet 
 Street at the end of that time, or I should 
 mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw 
 is a fine creature. My habits are changing, I 
 think, i.e. from drunk to sober. Whether I 
 shall be happier or no, remains to be proved. 
 I shall certainly be more happy in a morning ; 
 but whether I shall not sacrifice the fat, and 
 the marrow, and the kidneys, i.e. the night, 
 glorious care-drowning night, that heals all our 
 wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, 
 changes the scene from indifferent and flat to 
 bright and brilliant? — O Manning, if I should 
 have formed a diabolical resolution, by the time 
 you come to England, of not admitting any 
 spirituous liquors into my house, will you be 
 my guest on such shame-worthy terms? Is 
 life, with such limitations, worth trying ? The 
 truth is that my liquors bring a nest of friendly 
 harpies about my house, who consume me. 
 This is a pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard, 
 
 but it is jvist now nearest my heart. F is 
 
 a ruined man. He is hiding himself from his 
 creditors, and has sent his wife and children 
 
 into the country. , my other drunken 
 
 companion (that has been : nam hie ccestus 
 artemque repono), is turned editor of a Naval 
 Chronicle. Godwin continues a steady friend, 
 though the same facility does not remain of 
 visiting him often. Holcroft is not yet come 
 to town. I expect to see him, and will deliver 
 your message. Things come crowding in to 
 say, and no room for 'em. Some things are too 
 little to be told, i.e. to have a preference ; some 
 are too big and circumstantial. Thanks for 
 yours, which was most delicious. Would I 
 had been with you, benighted, etc. I feai my 
 head is turned with wandering. I shall never 
 be the same acquiescent being. Farewell; 
 write again quickly, for I shall not like to 
 hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates 
 have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 [The following letter, containing the germ of 
 the well-known Dissertation on Roast Pig, 
 was addressed to Coleridge, who had 
 received a pig as a present, and attributed 
 it erroneously to 'Ldimb.—Talfourd.'] 
 
 LAMB TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 Dear C.,— It gives me great satisfaction to 
 hear that the pig turned out so well— they are 
 interesting creatures at a certain age — what a 
 pity such buds should blow out into the 
 maturity of rank bacon ! You had all some of 
 
242 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the crackling — and brain sauce — did you 
 remember to rub it with butter, and gently 
 dredge it a little, just before the crisis? Did 
 the eyes come away kindly, with no OEdipean 
 avulsion ? Was the crackling the colour of the 
 ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed com- 
 pliment of boiled neck of mutton before it, to 
 blunt the edge of delicate desire? Did you 
 flesh maiden teeth in it ? Not that I sent the 
 pig, nor can form the remotest guess what part 
 
 O could play in the business. I never knew 
 
 him give anything away in my life. He would 
 not begin with strangers. I suspect the pig, 
 after all, was meant for me ; but at the unlucky 
 juncture of time being absent, the present 
 somehow went round to Highgate. To confess 
 an honest truth, a pig is one of those things 
 I could never think of sending away. Teals, 
 widgeons, snipes, barn-door fowl, ducks, geese, 
 — your tame viUalio things, — Welsh mutton, 
 collars of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, 
 your potted char, Swiss cheeses, French pies, 
 early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely 
 unto my friends as to myself. They are but 
 self extended ; but pardon me if I stop some- 
 where — where the fine feeling of benevolence 
 giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity, 
 there my friends (or any good man) may 
 command me ; but pigs are pigs, and I myself 
 therein am nearest to myself. Nay, I should 
 think it an affront, an undervaluing done to 
 Nature who bestowed such a boon upon me, if 
 in a churlish mood I parted with the precious 
 gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of 
 remorse was when a child. My kind old aunt 
 had strained her pocket strings to bestow a 
 sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my 
 way home through the Borough, I met a 
 venerable old man, not a mendicant, — but 
 thereabouts ; a look-beggar, not a verbal 
 petitionist ; and in the coxcombry of taught- 
 charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked 
 on a little in all the i)ride of an Evangelical 
 peacock, when of a sudden my old aunt's 
 kindness crossed me; the sum it was to her; 
 the pleasure she had a right to expect that I — 
 not the old impostor — should take in eating her 
 cake; the cursed ingratitude by which, under 
 the colour of a Christian virtue, I had frustrated 
 her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and 
 took it to heart so grievously, that I think I 
 never suffered the like — and I was right. It 
 was a liiece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved 
 a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long 
 been masticated, consigned to dunghill with 
 the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. 
 
 But when Providence, who is better to us all 
 than our aunts, gives ine a pig, remembering 
 my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour 
 to act towards it more in the spirit of the 
 j donor's purpose. 
 
 Yours (short of pig) to command in every- 
 thing, C. L. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 Dear B. B,, — Do you know what it is to 
 succumb under an insurmountable day-mare, — 
 'a whoreson lethargy,' Falstaff calls it, — an 
 indisposition to do anything, or to be anything, 
 — a total deadness and distate, — a suspension 
 of vitality, — an indifference to locality, — a 
 numb, soporifical good-for-nothingness, — an 
 ossification all over, — an oyster-like insensi- 
 bility to the passing events, — a mind-stupor, — 
 a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting- 
 in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad 
 cold, with a total irresolution to submit to 
 water-gruel processes? This has been for many 
 weeks my lot, and my excuse ; my fingers drag 
 heavily over this j)aper, and to my thinking it's 
 three-and-twenty furlongs from hence to the 
 end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to 
 say; nothing is of more importance than 
 another ; I am flatter than a denial or a pan- 
 cake ; emptier than Judge 's wig when the 
 
 head is in it ; duller than a country stage when 
 the actors are ofiP it ; a cipher, an O ! I 
 acknowledge life at all, only by an occasional 
 convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic 
 pain in the chest. I am weary of the world, 
 and the world is weary of me. My day is gone 
 into twilight, and I don't think it worth the 
 expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, 
 but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale 
 suffocation ; I can't distinguish veal from 
 mutton; nothing interests me. 'Tis twelve 
 o'clock, and Thurtell is just now coming out 
 upon the New Drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking 
 up his greasy sleeves to do the last ofl&ce of 
 mortality, yet cannot I elicit a groan or a moral 
 reflection. If you told me the world will be at 
 an end to-morrow, I should just say, * Will it?' 
 I have not volition enough left to dot my •i's, 
 much less to comb my eyebrows ; my eyes are 
 set in my head ; my brains are gone out to see 
 a poor relation in Moorfields, and they did not 
 say when they'd come back again ; my skull is 
 a Grub Street attic to let — not so much as a 
 joint-stool left in it ; my hand writes, not I ; 
 just as chickens run about a little when their 
 heads are off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, of 
 cholic, toothache, — an earwig in my auditory, 
 a fly in my visual organs ; pain is life — the 
 sharper, the more evidence of life ; but this 
 apathy, this death ! Did you ever have an 
 obstinate cold,— a six or seven weeks' uninter- 
 mitting chill and suspension of hope, fear, 
 conscience, and everything? Yet do I try all 
 I can to cure it ; I try wine, and spirits, and 
 smoking, and snuff in unsparing quantities, but 
 they aU only seem to make me worse instead of 
 better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does me 
 no good; I come home late o' nights, but do 
 not find any visible amendment ! 
 
 It is just fifteen minutes after twelve; 
 Thurtell is by this time a good way on his 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 243 
 
 journey, baiting at ScoqDion perhaps ; Ketch is 
 bargaining for his cast coat and waistcoat ; the 
 Jew demurs at first at three half-crowns, but, 
 on consideration that he may get somewhat by 
 showing 'em in the town, finally closes. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 ["Written on his retirement from the post as 
 clerk in the East India House in 1825.] 
 
 LAMB TO WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 Colehroolcc Cottage, April 6, 1825. 
 
 Deae Wordswoeth, — I have been several 
 times meditating a letter to you concerning the 
 good thing which has befallen me, but the 
 thought of poor Monkhouse came across me. 
 He was one that I had exulted in the prospect 
 of congratulating me. He and you were to 
 have been the first participators, for indeed it 
 has been ten weeks since the first motion of it. 
 Here am I, then, after thirty-three years' 
 slavery, sitting in my own room at eleven 
 o'clock this finest of aU April mornings, a freed 
 man, with £441 a-year for the remainder of my 
 life, live I as long as John Dennis, who outlived 
 his annuity and starved at ninety : £441, i.e. 
 £450, with a deduction of £9 for a provision 
 secured to my sister, she being survivor, the 
 pension guaranteed by Act Georgii Tertii, etc. 
 
 I came home FOR ever on Tuesday in last 
 week. The incomprehensibleness of my con- 
 dition overwhelmed me. It was like passing 
 from life into eternity. Every year to be as 
 long as three, i.e. to have three times as much 
 real time — time that is my own, in it ! I 
 wandered about thinking I was happy, but 
 feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is 
 passing off, and I begin to understand the 
 nature of the gift. Holidays, even the annual 
 month, were always uneasy joys, with their 
 conscious fugitiveness, the craving after making 
 the most of them. Now when all is holiday, 
 there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in 
 rain or shine, without a restless impulse for 
 walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon 
 find it as natural to me to be my own master 
 as it has been irksome to have had a master, 
 Mary wakes every morning with an obscure 
 feeling that some good has happened to us. 
 
 and , after their releasements, 
 
 describe the shock of their emancipation much 
 as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I 
 eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever. I lay no 
 anxious schemes for going hither and thither, 
 but take things as they occur. Yesterday I 
 excursioned twenty miles ; to-day I write a few 
 letters. Pleasuring was for fugitive play-days, 
 mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is 
 fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent ! 
 
 At the foot of such a call upon you for 
 gratulation, I am ashamed to advert to that 
 
 melancholy event. Monkhouse was a character 
 I learned to love slowly, but it grew upon me, 
 yearly, monthly, daily. Wliat a chasm has 
 it made in our pleasant parties ! His noble, 
 friendly face was always coming before me, till 
 this hurrying event in my life came, and for the 
 time has absorbed all interest ; in fact it has 
 shaken me a little. My old desk companions, 
 with whom I have had such merry hours, seem 
 to reproach me for removing my lot from 
 among them. They were pleasant creatures; 
 but to the anxieties of business, and a weight 
 of iJossible woes ever impending, I was not 
 equal. Indeed this last winter I was jaded out 
 — winters were always worse than other parts 
 of the year, because the spirits are worse, and I 
 had no daylight. In summer I had daylight 
 evenings. The relief was hinted to me from a 
 superior power when I, poor slave, had not a 
 hope but that I must wait another seven years 
 with Jacob — and lo ! the Eachel which I 
 coveted is brought to me. 
 
 Have you read the noble dedication of Irving's 
 Missionary Orations to S. T. C. "Who shall 
 call this man a quack hereafter? What the 
 Kirk will think of it neither I nor Irving care. 
 "When somebody suggested to him that it would 
 not be likely to do him good, videlicet, among 
 his own people, ' That is a reason for doing it,' 
 was his noble answer. That Irving thinks he 
 has profited mainly by S. T. C, I have no 
 doubt. The very style of the dedication shows 
 it. 
 
 Commixnicate my news to Southey, and beg 
 his pardon for my being so long acknowledg- 
 ing his kind present of the Church, which 
 circumstances, having no reference to himself, 
 prevented at the time. Assure him of my deep 
 respect and friendliest feelings. 
 
 Divide the same, or rather each take the 
 whole to you — I mean you and all yours. To 
 Miss Hutchinson I must write separate. 
 
 Farewell ! and end at last, long selfish letter ! 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 [The following letter, written in the beginning 
 of 1830, describes his landlord and landlady, 
 and expresses, with a fine solemnity, the 
 feelings which still held him at Enfield. — 
 Talfourd.'] 
 
 LAMB TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 And is it a year since we parted from you at 
 the steps of Edmonton stage? There are not 
 now the years that there used to be. The tale 
 of the dwindled age of men, reported of succes- 
 sional mankind, is true of the same man only. 
 We do not live a year in a year now. 'Tis a 
 punctum stans. The seasons i)ass with indiffer- 
 ence. Spring cheers not, nor winter heightens 
 
244 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 our gloom ; autumn hath foregone its moralities, 
 — they are ' hey-pass repass,' as in a show-box. 
 Yet, as far as last year recurs, — for they scarce 
 show a reflex now, they make no memory as 
 heretofore, — 'twas sufficiently gloomy. Let the 
 sullen nothing pass. Suffice it, that after sad 
 spirits, prolonged through many of its months, 
 as it called them, we have cast our skins ; have 
 taken a farewell of the pompous, troublesome 
 trifle called housekeeping, and are settled down 
 into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with 
 an old couple, the Baucis and Baucida of dull 
 Enfield. Here we have nothing to do with our 
 victuals but to eat them ; with the garden but 
 to see it grow; with the tax-gatherer but to 
 hear him knock ; with the maid but to hear 
 her scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker, are 
 things unknown to us, save as spectators of 
 the pageant. We are fed we know not how ; 
 quietists, — confiding ravens. "We have the 
 otiwii pro dignitate, a respectable insignificance. 
 Yet in the self -condemned obliviousness, in the 
 stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life, 
 not quite killed, rise, jirompting me that there 
 was a London, and that I was of that old 
 Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market, 
 but I wake and cry to sleep again. I die hard, 
 a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete. 
 Whsit have I gained by health? Intolerable 
 dulness. What by early hours and moderate 
 meals ? A total blank. Oh ! never let the lying 
 poets be believed, who 'tice men from the 
 cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean 
 it not of a country village. In the ruins of 
 Palmyra I would gird myself uj) to solitude, or 
 muse to the snoring of the Seven Sleepers ; but 
 to have a little teazing image of a town about 
 one ; country folks that do not look like country 
 folks; shops two yards square, half-a-dozen 
 apples and two penn'orth of overlooked ginger- 
 bread for the lofty fruiterers of Oxford Street ; 
 and, for the immortal book and print stalls, a 
 circulating library that stands still, where the 
 show-picture is a last year's valentine, and 
 whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels 
 has not yet travelled (marry, they just begin 
 to be conscious of Bedgauntlet) ; to have a new- 
 plastered flat church, and to be wishing that it 
 was but a cathedral ! The very blackguards 
 here are degenerate ; the topping gentry stock- 
 brokers ; the passengers too many to ensure 
 your quiet, or let you go about whistling or 
 gaping, too few to be the fine indifferent 
 Ijageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room- 
 keeping, thickest winter, is yet more bearable 
 here than the gaudy months. Among one's 
 books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into 
 an oblivion that one is not in the country ; but 
 with the light the green fields return, till I 
 gaze, and in a calenture can plunge myself into 
 St. Giles'. Oh ! let no native Londoner imagine 
 that health, and rest, and innocent occupation, 
 interchange of converse sweet, and recreative 
 
 study, can make the country anything better 
 than altogether odious and detestable. A 
 garden was the primitive prison, till man, with 
 Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned 
 himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, 
 Nineveh, Venice, London, haberdashers, gold- 
 smiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, epigrams, 
 puns, — these all came in on the town part, and 
 the thither side of innocence. Man found out 
 inventions. From my den I return you con- 
 dolence for your decaying sight ; not for any- 
 thing there is to see in the country, but for the 
 miss of the pleasure of reading a London news- 
 paper. The poets are as well to listen to ; any- 
 thing high may, nay must, be read out ; you 
 read it to yourself with an imaginary auditor ; 
 but the light paragraphs must be glid over 
 by the proper eye; mouthing mumbles their 
 gossamery substance. 'Tis these trifles I should 
 mourn in fading sight. A newspaper is the 
 single gleam of comfort I receive here ; it comes 
 from rich Cathay with tidings of mankind. 
 Yet I could not attend to it, read out by the 
 most beloved voice. But your eyes do not get 
 worse, I gather. Oh for the collyrium of Tobias 
 enclosed in a whiting's liver, to send you with 
 no apocryphal good wishes ! The last long time 
 I heard from you, you had knocked your head 
 against something. Do not do so; for your 
 head (I do not flatter) is not a nob, or the top 
 of a brass nail, or the end of a ninepin, — unless 
 a Vulcanian hammer could fairly batter a 
 ' Eecluse ' out of it ; then would I bid the 
 smirch'd god knock, and knock lustily, the two- 
 handed skinker. Mary must squeeze out a line 
 propria, manu, but indeed her fingers have been 
 incorrigibly nervous to letter-writing for a long 
 interval. 'Twill please you all to hear, that 
 though I fret like a lion in a net, her present 
 health and spirits are better than they have 
 been for some time past ; she is absolutely three 
 years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we 
 have adopted this boarding plan. 
 Our providers are an honest pair. Dame 
 
 W and her husband ; he, when the light of 
 
 prosperity shined on them, a moderately thriv- 
 ing haberdasher within Bow Bells, retired since 
 with something under a competence ; writes 
 himself gentleman ; hath borne parish offices ; 
 sings fine old sea songs at threescore and ten ; 
 sighs only now and then when he thinks that he 
 has a son on his hands about fifteen, whom he 
 finds a difficulty in getting out into the world, 
 and then checks a sigh with muttering, as I 
 once heard him prettily, not meaning to be 
 heard, * I have married my daughter, however ; ' 
 takes the weather as it comes ; outsides it to 
 town in severest season ; and o' winter nights 
 tells old stories not tending to literature (how 
 comfortable to author-rid folks !), and has oiie 
 anecdote, upon which and about forty pounds a 
 year he seems to have I'ctired in green old age. 
 It was how he was a rider in his youth, 
 
! 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 245 
 
 travelling for shops, and once (not to balk his 
 employer's bargain), on a sweltering day in 
 August, rode foaming into Dunstable upon a 
 mad horse, to the dismay and expostulatory 
 wonderment of inn-keepers, ostlers, etc., who 
 declared they would not have bestrid the beast 
 to win the Derby. Understand, the creature 
 galled to death and desperation by gadflies, 
 connorant-winged, worse than beset Inachus' 
 daughter. This he tells, this he brindles and 
 burnishes on a winter's eve ; 'tis his star of set 
 glory, his rejuvenescence, to descant ujpon. Far 
 from me be it {dii avertant) to look a gift story 
 in the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those 
 who doubt the jjlunge of Curtius) that the 
 iuseparate conjuncture of man and beast, the 
 centaur-phenomenon that staggered all Dun- 
 stable, might have been the effect of unromantic 
 necessity ; that the horse - part carried the 
 reasoning, willy nilly ; that needs must when 
 such a devil drove ; that certain spiral configura- 
 tions in the frame of T W unfriendly 
 
 to alighting, made the alliance more forcible 
 than voluntary. Let him enjoy his fame for 
 me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall dis- 
 mount Bellerophon. But in case he was an 
 involuntary martyr, yet if in the fiery conflict 
 he buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher 
 to him, and adopted his flames, let accident and 
 
 he share the glory. You would all like T 
 
 "W [ ] Howweak is painting to describe 
 
 a man ! Say that he stands four feet and a nail 
 high by his own yard measure, which, like the 
 sceptre of Agamemnon, shall never sprout again, 
 still you have no adequate idea ; nor when I tell 
 you that his dear hump, which I have favoured 
 in the picture, seems to me of the buffalo — 
 indicative and repository of mild qualities, a 
 budget of kindnesses — still you have not the 
 man. Knew you old Norris of the Temple ? 
 sixty years ours and our father's friend ? He 
 was not more natural to us than this old W. , 
 the acquaintance of scarce more weeks. Under 
 his roof now ought I to take my rest, but that 
 back-looking ambition tells me I might yet be a 
 Londoner ! AVell, if ;we ever do move, we have 
 incumbrances the less to impede us ; all our 
 furniture has faded under the auctioneer's 
 hammer, going for nothing like the tarnished 
 frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a 
 spoon or two left to bless us. Clothed we came 
 into Enfield, and naked we must go out of it. 
 I would live in London shirtless, bookless. 
 Henry Crabbe is at Kome ; advices to that 
 effect have reached Bury. But by solemn 
 legacy he bequeathed at parting (whether he 
 should live or die) a turkey of Suffolk to be 
 sent every succeeding Christmas to us and 
 divers other friends. "What a genuine old 
 bachelor's action ! I fear he will find the air of 
 
 1 Here was a rude sketch of a gentleman answering 
 to the description. 
 
 Italy too classic. His station is in the Harz 
 forest ; his soul is be-Goethed. Miss Kelly we 
 never see ; Talfourd not this half-year : the 
 latter flourishes, but the exact number of his 
 children, God forgive me, I have utterly for- 
 gotten ; we single people are often out in our 
 count there. Shall I say two ? We see scarce 
 anybody. Can I cram loves enough to you all 
 in this little 0? Excuse particularizing. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 [John Leyden (1775-lSll) was an enthusiastic 
 student, with an extraordinary power for 
 acquiring languages, and any branch of 
 knowledge in which he might be interested. 
 He went out to India as an assistant 
 surgeon, and was rapidly rising in the 
 Indian service when death cut short a 
 l)romising career. His arrival at Bladras, 
 and his first experiences in that city, are 
 graphically depicted by his own hand as 
 follows : — ] 
 
 LEYDEN's AEEIVAL at MADEAS.l 
 
 "We landed, after passing through a very 
 rough and dangerous surf, and being completely 
 wetted by the spray. We were received 011 the 
 beach by a number of the natives, who wanted 
 to carry us from the boat on their naked, greasy 
 shoulders, shining with cocoa oil. I leapt on 
 shore with a loud huzza, tumbling half a dozen 
 of them on the sand. But the sun was so 
 excmciatingly hot, that my brains seemed to be 
 boiling, for which reason I got into a palanquin 
 and proceeded to the i^rincipal inn. On my 
 way thither, wishing to speak to one of my 
 messmates, I overset the palanquin, by leaning 
 incautiously to one side, and nearly tumbled 
 head foremost into the street. At the inn I 
 was tormented to death by the impertinent 
 persevering of the black people, for every one 
 is a beggar as long as you. are reckoned a [/rijjin, 
 or new-comer. I then saw a number of jugglers, 
 and fellows that play with the hooded snake a 
 thousand tricks, though its bite is mortal ; and 
 among the rest, I saw a fellow swallow a sword. 
 You are not to suppose, however, that this was 
 a Highland broadsword, or even a horseman's 
 sabre ; it was only a broad piece of iron, 
 perfectly blunt at the edges. I then set out 
 to survey the town in the self-same palanquin. 
 The houses had all of them an unearthly 
 appearance, by no means consonant to our ideas 
 of Oriental splendour. The animals differed 
 a good deal from ours. The dogs looked wild 
 and mangy, their hair stood on end, and they 
 
 1 We quote our letters from the centenary edition 
 of the Poetical Works of John Leyden, edited by 
 Thomas Brown, M.A., 1875. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 246 
 
 had all the appearance of being mad. The cows 
 and bnllocks had all bunches on their shoulders, 
 and their necks low, and apparently bowed 
 beneath the burden. The trees were totally 
 different from any that I had seen, and the long 
 hedges of prickly aloes, like large house leeks 
 in their leaves; and spurge, whose knotted 
 and angular branches seemed more like a collec- 
 tion of tapeworms than anything else. The dress 
 of the natives was so various and fantastic, as 
 quite to confuse you ; and their complexions, 
 of all kinds of motley hues, except the healthy 
 European red and white. Can you be surprised 
 that my curiosity was so thoroughly satisfied, 
 that I even experienced a considerable degree 
 of sickness, and felt all my senses so dazzled 
 and tormented, that my head ached, and my 
 ears tingled, and I was so completely fatigued 
 by the multitude of new sensations which 
 crowded on me on every side, that, to free my- 
 self from the torment, like an ox tormented 
 with gad-flies, I took to the water, and got 
 again on ship-board, with more satisfaction than 
 I had descried land after a five months' voyage. 
 
 The first night I slept ashore I was waked 
 by my side smarting very severely, and, rolling 
 myself on my side, discovered, with very little 
 satisfaction, that the smart was occasioned by a 
 large animal, which I imagined to be a snake. 
 As the chamber was dark, I disengaged myself 
 from it with as little bustle and violence as 
 possible, not wishing to irritate such an anta- 
 gonist. With great pleasure I heard it make 
 its way from the couch to the floor, and, with 
 great sang froid, lay down to sleep again, as 
 quietly as my blistered side would permit. On 
 the morn, however, I discovered it to be a large 
 lizard, termed a blood-sucker here, which nods 
 with its head when you look at it ; and it 
 saluted me with a nod from the window, like 
 Xailoun's cousin, the Karduwan, in the Arabian 
 Tales, which saluted him so kindly, though it 
 would not condescend to enter into conver- 
 sation. 
 
 [Leyden here relates the incidents of a trip 
 taken for the benefit of his health, and 
 other events that occurred during the first 
 two years of his Indian life, in two letters 
 sent in Ocrtober 1805 to Constable and 
 Ballantyne.] 
 
 LIFE IN INDIA. 
 
 Prince of Wales' Island, 
 alias Puloo Pcnang, Oct. 23, 1805, 
 Dear Constable, — I would with great pleasure 
 apologize for not answering sooner your brief 
 note, accompanying a vol. of the Edinburgh 
 Review, but really it is not a couple of months 
 since I received it, and the last of these has 
 been spent at sea, between Travancoro and 
 
 Achin. I had almost forgot, that it is very 
 probable these names are not quite so familiar to 
 you as York and Newcastle, or any other two 
 places one might pitch on between Edinburgh 
 and London, on the great high road. Be it 
 therefore known to you, that the one is the 
 name of a kingdom on the Malabar coast, and 
 the other of a sultanship on the western coast 
 of Sumatra, the sultan of which styles himself 
 'Lord of heaven and earth, and of the four-and- 
 twenty umbrellas.' But how came you to be 
 so long in receiving my card and volume ? You 
 will say, Why so ? Because I have been 
 stationed in Mysore during the greater part of 
 the time I have been in India, and during a 
 considerable part of the time amid the jungles 
 of Coimbatore, and on the confines of the 
 Wynaad, where neither mail-coach nor post- 
 chaise ever come at all ; and during a consider- 
 able part of that time, the communication 
 between Mysore and Madras has been cut off by 
 the Gentoo Polygars, and between Mysore and 
 Malabar by the Nairs of the Wynaad, into 
 whose hands I nearly fell about five months 
 ago, when I descended into Malabar through 
 the passes of Coory. Besides all these obstacles, 
 you must take into consideration that ever 
 since I left Madras, which was a few months 
 after my arrival, it has seldom been an easy 
 matter to tell where I should be in a few days, 
 or even within a few hundred miles of it. 
 
 You say you will be glad to hear that I have 
 found Madras according to my wish. Why 
 then rejoice therefor, as ancient Pistol says. I 
 assure you that I have found it exactly the 
 field for me, where, if I stretch out my arms, I 
 may grasp at anything — no fear but I show 
 you I have long hands. There is, to be sure, 
 one terrible drawback with all this — the 
 pestilent state of health I have enjoyed, or 
 rather suffered under, ever since I came to the 
 country. This, however, I think I may expect 
 to triumph over, though it has, even at this 
 very time, brought me from Mysore to Puloo 
 Penang. In spite of all this, I think I may 
 venture safely to say, that , no person whatever 
 has outstripped me in the acquisition of 
 country languages, whether sick or well. I 
 have, nevertheless, been given up by the 
 physicians three or four times within these last 
 eleven months, as any one might very well be, 
 afflicted at once with the four most formidable 
 diseases of India— i.e. liver, spleen, bloody flux, 
 and fever of the jungles, which is reckoned 
 much akin to the African yellow fever. Not- 
 withstanding all that, I am the old man, a 
 pretty tough chap, with a heart as sound as a 
 roach, and, moreover, as merry as a grig,— 
 ' So let the world go as it will, 
 I'll be free and easy still.' 
 
 I shall only add that my first medical appoint- 
 ment has been worth more than any possessed 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 247 
 
 by three-fourths of the medical men on the 
 Madras establishment. I have been extremely- 
 successful in all my medical and surgical practice 
 so that at Madras my medical reputation is at 
 least as high as my literary character. This 
 I may say without vanity, after some of the 
 services I have been employed in. 
 
 I have forgot two things which ought to have 
 been mentioned. The first is, when you are 
 disposed to remember old friends, and my 
 name comes athwart you, direct to the care of 
 Messrs. Binnie & Dennison, Madras, who are 
 my agents, and consequently always better 
 apprised of my motions than others ; else your 
 letters may chance not to reach me in a couple 
 of years, or perhaps never come within a 
 thousand miles of me. I should be well pleased 
 if you were to send the Scots Magazine, from 
 the time I was first connected with it to the 
 present, and continue. I lost the copy in 
 London of the first year ; send also the 
 Edinburgh Revieio, for I have only odd numbers 
 of it, and Murray's Bruce^s Travels, when 
 published. Let this, however, be entirely at 
 jour own pleasure. I cannot transmit you the 
 value till I have opened a communication with 
 London direct, which cannot be till I revisit 
 Madras, which may be perhaps some time, as 
 after the ]\Iysore survey is closed, I am to be 
 employed, I understand, as a Mahratta inter- 
 preter, as well as physician and surgeon, at one 
 of the Mahratta residences or courts. So you 
 see I cannot immediately answer that you will 
 be paid for them ; therefore, do as you think 
 fit; if they come in my way I shall provide 
 myself. Is Sir Tristram published? I have 
 not seen a Reviexo less than a year and ten 
 months old. The wars of Wynaad are nearly 
 finished. When I was there the Nairs could 
 not venture to show themselves, though they 
 sometimes kept up a rattling fiire from the 
 bushes. The rebellion of the Nairs in Travan- 
 core has been quashed by the skill of Colonel 
 Macaulay, the resident. The war in Ceylon 
 goes badly on from our own misconduct. We 
 lately took Candy a second time, and were 
 obliged to leave it from not having provided 
 magazines. The wars with the Mahrattas are 
 more glorious than advantageous : had the 
 Marquis Wellesley remained half a year longer, 
 they would have been crushed to pieces. But 
 M. Cornwallis is unfit for such active service, 
 and besides, he is just dying of the dropsy in 
 the chest. We are tigers among hares here. 
 
 [The following letter was sent by Leyden from 
 Puloo Penang to Mr. Ballantyne : — ] 
 
 My dear Ballantyne,— Finding an extra 
 Indiaman, The Revenrje, which has put into this 
 
 harbour in distress, bound to Europe, I take 
 another opportunity of attempting to revive, 
 or rather commence, an intercourse with my 
 European friends, for since my arrival in India 
 I have never received a single letter from one 
 of them — Proh Deum! — Mr. Constable excepted; 
 and my friend Erskine writes me from Bombay, 
 that none of you have received the least 
 intelligence of my motions since I left Europe. 
 This is to me utterly astonishing and incom- 
 prehensive, considering the multitude of 
 letters and parcels that I have despatched 
 from Mysore, especially during my confinement 
 for the liver disease at Seringapatam, where I 
 had for several months the honour of inhabiting 
 the i^alace of Tippoo's prime minister. I 
 descended into Malabar in the beginning of 
 May, in order to proceed to Bombay, and 
 perhaps eventually up the Persian Gulf as far 
 as Bassorah, in order to try the effect of a sea 
 voyage. I was, however, too late, and the 
 rains had set in, and the last vessels sailed two 
 or three days before my arrival. As I am 
 always a very lucky fellow, as well as an 
 unlucky one, which all the world knows, it so 
 fell out that the only vessel which sailed after 
 my arrival was wrecked, while some secret pre- 
 sentiment, or rather 'sweet little cherub that 
 sits up aloft,' prevented my embarking on 
 board of her. I journeyed leisurely down to 
 Calicut from Cananore, intending to pay my 
 respects to the Cutwall a,nd the Admiral, so 
 famous in the Lusiad of Camoens ; but only 
 think of my disappointment when I found that 
 the times are altered, and the tables turned 
 with respect to both these sublime characters. 
 The Cutwall is only a species of borough-bailiff, 
 while the Admiral — God help him — is only 
 the chief of the fishermen. From Calicut I 
 journeyed to Paulgantcherry, which signifies, 
 in the Tamal language, ' the town of the forest 
 of palms,' which is exactly the meaning of 
 Tadmor, the name of a city founded by Solomon- — 
 not for the Queen of Sheba, but, as it happened, 
 for the equally famous Queen Zenobia. Thus 
 having demonstrated that Solomon understood 
 the Tamal language, we may proceed to construct 
 a syllogism in the following manner : Solomon 
 understood the Tamal language, and he was 
 wise; I understand the Tamal language, therefore 
 I am as wise as Solomon ! I fear your logical 
 lads of Europe will be very little disposed to 
 admit the legitimacy of the conclusion ; but, 
 however the matter may stand in Europe, I 
 can assure you it's no bad reasoning for India. 
 At Paulgantcherry I had a most terrible attack 
 of the liver, and should very probably have 
 passed away, or, as the Indians say, changed my 
 climate — an elegant periphrasis for dying, how- 
 ever — had I not obstinately resolved on living, 
 to have the pleasure of being revenged on all of 
 you for your determined silence and persever- 
 ance therein to the end. 
 
248 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Hearing about the middle of August that a 
 Bombay cruiser had touched at Aleppo, between 
 Quilon and Cochin, I made a desperate push 
 through the jungles of the Cochin rajah's 
 country, in order to reach her, and arrived 
 about three hours after she had set sail. Any- 
 body else would have died of chagrin, if they had 
 not hanged themselves outright. I did neither 
 one nor the other, but ' tuned my pipes and 
 played a spring to John o' Badenyon !' after 
 which I set myself coolly down and translated 
 the famous Jewish tablets of brass, preserved 
 in the synagogue of Cochin ever since the days 
 of Methuselah. Probably you may think this 
 no more difficult a task than deciphering the 
 brazen tablet on any door of Princes or Queen 
 Street. But here I beg your pardon ; for so 
 far from anybody, Jew, Pagan, or Christian, 
 having ever been able to do this before, I 
 assure you the most learned men of the world 
 have never been able to decide in what language 
 or in what alphabet they were written. As the 
 character has for a long time been supposed 
 to be antediluvian, it has for a long time been 
 as much despaired of as the Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics. So much was the diwan — or grand 
 vizier, if you like it — of Travancore astonished 
 at the circumstance, that he gave me to under- 
 stand that I had only to pass through the Sacred 
 Cow in order to merit adoption into the holy 
 order of Brahmins. I was forced, however, to 
 decline the honour of the sacred cow, for 
 unluckily Phalaris' bull and Moses' calf presented 
 themselves to my imagination, and it occurred 
 to me that perhaps the Ram-rajah's cow might 
 be a beast of the breed. Apprehensive of a 
 severe attack of the liver, I was forced to leave 
 Travancore with great precipitation, in the 
 first vessel that presented itself, which, as the 
 devil would have it, was a Mapilla brig, bound 
 to Puloo Penang, the newly-erected presidency 
 on the Straits of Malacca, where I have just 
 arrived, after a perverse pestilent voyage, in 
 which I have been terribly ill of revulsions of 
 bile and liver, without any of the conveniences 
 which are almost necessary to a European in 
 these parts, and particularly to an invalid. We 
 have had a very rough ])assage, the cabin very 
 often all afloat, while I have been several times 
 completely drenched. In addition to this, we 
 have been i)ursued by a Frenchman, and kept 
 in a constant state of alarm and agitation ; 
 and now, to mend the matter, I am writing you 
 at a kind of naval tavern, while all around me 
 is ringing with the vociferation of tarpaulins, the 
 hoarse bawling of sea-oaths, and the rattling of 
 the dice-box. However, I flatter myself I have 
 received considerable benefit from the voyage, 
 tedious and disgusting and vexatious as it has 
 been. Thank God, my dear fellow, that you 
 have nothing to do with tedious, tiresome semi- 
 Bavages, who have no idea of the value of time 
 whatsoever, and who will dispute even more 
 
 keenly about a matter of no importance what- 
 soever than one that deserves the highest 
 consideration. Not knowing where to begin or 
 where to end, I have said nothing of my 
 previous rambles and traverses in Mysore or 
 elsewhere ; of course, if no person has heard 
 from me at all, all my proceedings must 
 be completely a riddle. But I beg and request 
 you to consider, that all this is utterly out of 
 my power to prevent, if nobody whatsoever 
 will condescend to take the trouble of writing 
 me ; for how is it possible for me to divine 
 which of my letters arrive at their destination 
 and which do not? I have now despatched 
 for Europe exactly fifty-seven letters. I had 
 intended to make a dead pause after the fiftieth, 
 for at least a couple of years, and wrote Erskine 
 to that effect, w^hen he informed me in return, 
 that he had the utmost reason to think nobody 
 had ever heard from me at all, not only since 
 I arrived in India, but for some time before 
 leaving London. Utterly amazed, astonished, 
 and confounded at this, I have resolved to 
 write out the hundred complete ; and if none 
 of my centenary brings me an answer, why 
 then farewell, till we meet ... I write no 
 more, except in crook-backed characters, and 
 this I swear by all petty oaths that are not 
 dangerous. 
 
 Now, my friend, the situation in which I am 
 placed by this most vexatious silence is ex- 
 tremely odd and perplexing. I am actually 
 afraid to inquire for anybody, lest it should 
 turn out that they have for a long time been 
 dead, damned,Sindstraur/hted. Itisallin vain that 
 I search for every obituary, and peruse it with 
 the utmost care, anxiety, and terror. There 
 are many of you good Scotch folks that love to 
 slip slUy out of the world, like a knotless thread, 
 without ever getting into any obituary at all ; 
 and, besides, it is always very nearly a couple 
 of years before any review, magazine, or obituary 
 reaches the remote and almost inaccessible 
 regions in which my lot has been long cast. To 
 remedy a few of these inconveniences, I propose 
 taking a short trip to Bengal as soon as I have 
 seen how the climate of Puloo Penang agrees 
 with my health ; and as in that region they 
 are generally better informed with regard to all 
 European matters, and better provided with 
 reviews, m^agazines, and newspapers, I shall 
 probably be able to discover that a good many 
 of you have gone 'to kingdom come' since I 
 bade adieu to Auld Eeekie. 
 
 "When I arrived in Madras, I first of all recon- 
 noitered my ground, when I perceived that the 
 public men fell naturally into two divisions. 
 The mercantile party consisting chiefly of men 
 of old standing, versed in trade, and inspired 
 with a spirit in no respect superior to that of 
 the most pitiful pettifogging pedlar, nor in their 
 views a whit more enlarged ; in short, men 
 whose sole occupation is to make money, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 249 
 
 who have no name for such phrases as national 
 honour, and would not scruple to sell their 
 country's credit to the highest bidder. What 
 is more unfortunate, this is the party that 
 stands highest in credit with the East India 
 Company. There is another party, for whom I 
 am more at a loss to find a name. They cannot 
 with propriety be termed the anti-mercantile 
 party, as they have the interests of our national 
 commerce more at heart than the others ; but 
 they have discovered that we are not merely 
 merchants in India, but legislators and gover- 
 nors, and they assert that our conduct there 
 ought to be calculated for stabihty and security, 
 and equally marked by a wise internal adminis- 
 tration of justice, financial and political eco- 
 nomy, and by a vigilant, firm, and steady system 
 of external politics. This class is represented 
 by the first as only actuated by the spirit of 
 innovation, and tending to embroil vis every- 
 where in India. Its members consist of men of 
 the first abilities, as well as princij)les, that 
 have been drafted from the common professional 
 routine for difficult or dangerous service. I 
 fancy this division applies as much to Bombay 
 and Bengal as to Madras. As to the members 
 of my own profession, I found them in a state 
 of complete depression, so much so, that the 
 commander-in-chief had assumed all the powers 
 of the medical board, over whom a court- 
 martial was at that very time impending. The 
 medical line had been from time immemorial 
 shut out from every appointment, except pro- 
 fessional, and the emoluments of these had 
 been greatly diminished just before my arrival. 
 In this situation I found it veiy difficult at first 
 what to resolve on. I saw clearly that there 
 were only two routes in a person's choice : first, 
 to sink into a mere professional drudge, and, 
 by strict economy, endeavour to amass a few 
 thousand pounds in the course of twenty years ; 
 or, secondly, to aspire a little beyond it, and 
 by a superior knowledge of India, its laws, 
 relations, politics, and languages, to claim a 
 situation somewhat more resjjectable in addition 
 to those of the line itself. You know when I 
 left Scotland, I had determined at all events to 
 become a furious Orientalist, ncmini secundus, 
 but I was not aware of the difficulty. I found 
 the expense of native teachers would prove 
 almost insurmountable to a mere assistant 
 surgeon, whose pay is seldom equal to his 
 absolutely necessary expenses; and, besides, 
 that it was necessary to form a library of MSS. 
 at a most terrible expense, in every language to 
 which I should api)ly, if I intended to proceed 
 beyond a mere smattering. After much con- 
 sideration I determined on this plan, at aU 
 events, and was fortunate enough in a few 
 months to secure an appointment which fur- 
 nished me with the means of doing so, though 
 the tasks and exertions it imposed on me were 
 a good deal more arduous than the common 
 
 duties of a surgeon, even in a Mahratta cam- 
 paign. I was aj)pointed medical assistant to 
 the Mysore survey, and at the same time 
 ordered to carry on inquiries concerning the 
 natural history of the country, and the manners 
 and languages, etc. of the natives of Mysore. 
 This, you would imagine, was the very situation 
 I wished for, and so it would, had I previously 
 had time to acquire the country languages. 
 But I had them now to acquire after severe 
 marches and counter-marches in the heat of the 
 sun, night-marches and day-marches, and, amid 
 the disgusting details of a field hospital, the 
 duties of which were considerably, arduous. 
 However, I wrought incessantly and steadily, 
 and without being discouraged by any kind of 
 difficulty, till my health absolutely gave way ; 
 and when I could keep the field no longer, I 
 wrought on my couch, as I generally do still, 
 though I am much better than I have been. 
 As I had the assistance of no intelligent Euro- 
 peans, I was obliged long to grope my way ; but 
 I have now acquired a pretty correct idea of 
 India in all its departments, which increases 
 in geometrical iDrogression as I advance in the 
 languages. The languages that have attracted 
 my attention since my arrival have been Arabic, 
 Persic, Hindostani, Mahratta, Tamal, Telinga, 
 Canara, Sanskrit, Malayalara, Malay, and 
 Armenian ! You will be ready to ask where the 
 
 I picked up these hard names, bu.t I assure 
 
 you it is infinitely more difficult to pick up the 
 languages themselves ; several of which include 
 dialects as different from each other as French 
 or Italian from Spanish or Portuguese ; and in 
 all these, I flatter myself, I have made con- 
 siderable progress. What would you say, were 
 I to add the Maldivian and Mapella languages 
 to these ? Besides, I have deciphered the 
 inscriptions of Mavalipoorani, which were 
 written in an ancient Canara character, which 
 had hitherto defied all attempts at understand- 
 ing it ; and also several Lada Lippi inscriptions, 
 which is an ancient Tamal dialect and character ; 
 in addition to the Jewish tablets of Cochin, 
 which were in the ancient Malayalam, generally 
 termed Malabar. I enter into these details 
 merely to show you that I have not been idle, 
 and that my time has neither been dissijiated 
 nor without plan, though that plan is not 
 sufficiently unfolded. To what I have told you 
 of, you are to add constant and necessary ex- 
 posure to the sun, damps and dews from the 
 jungles, and putrid exhalations of marshes, 
 before I had been proj)erly accustomed to the 
 climate ; constant rambling in the haunts of 
 tigers, leopards, bears, and serpents of thirty 
 or forty feet long, that make nothing of 
 swallowing a buffalo, by way of demonstrating 
 their appetite, in a morning, together with 
 smaller and more dangerous snakes, whose 
 haunts are dangerovis, and bite deadly — and 
 you have a faint idea of a situation, in which, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 250 
 
 with health, I lived as happy as the day was 
 long. It was diversified with rapid jaunts of a 
 hundred miles or so, as fast as horses or bearers 
 could carry me, by night or day, swimming 
 through rivers, afloat in an old brass kettle, at 
 midnight ! Oh, I could tell you adventures to 
 outrival the AYitch of Endor, or any witch that 
 ever swam in egg-shell or sieve ; but you would 
 undoubtedly imagine I wanted to impose on 
 you were I to relate what I have seen and 
 passed through. No ! I certainly shall never 
 repent of having come to India. It has 
 awakened energies in me that I scarcely 
 imagined I possessed, though I could gnaw my 
 living nails with pure vexation, to think how 
 much I have been thwarted by indisposition. 
 If, however, I get over it, I shall think the 
 better of my constitution as long as I live. It 
 is not every constitution that can resist the 
 combined attack of liver, spleen, bloody flux, 
 and jungle fever, which is much akin to the 
 plague of Egypt and yellow fever of America. 
 It is true I have been five times given up by the 
 most skilful physicians in these j)arts ; but in 
 spite of that, I am firmly convinced that * my 
 doom is not to die this day,' and that you shall 
 see me emerge from this tribulation like gold 
 purified in the fire ; and when tliat happens, 
 egad, I may boast that I have been refined by 
 the very same menstruum too, even the uni- 
 versal solvent mercury, which is almost the 
 only cure for the liver, though I have been 
 obliged to try another, and make an issue on 
 my right side. Now pray, my dear Ballantyne, 
 if this ever comes to hand, instantly sit down, 
 and write me a letter a mile long, and tell me 
 of all our common friends ; and if you see any 
 of them that have the least spark of friendly 
 recollection, say to them how vexatious their 
 silence is, and how very unjust, if they have 
 received my letters. But particularly you are 
 to commend me kindly to your good motherly 
 mother, and tell her I wish I saw her oftener ; 
 and then to your brother Alexander, and 
 request him sometimes on a Saturday night, 
 precisely at eight o'clock, for my sake, to play 
 Jingling Johnnie on his flageolet. If I had you 
 both in my tent, you should drink yourself 
 drunk with wine of Shiraz, which is our 
 Eastern Falernian, in honour of Hafez, our 
 Persian Anacreon. As for me, I often drink 
 your health in water (ohon a ree !), having 
 abandoned both wine and animal food, not 
 from choice, but dire necessity. 
 
 [Lord Minto's expedition arrived at Java on the 
 4th of August 1811, and on the 7th entered 
 Batavia, its capital, without resistance. The 
 enemy had retired to a stronger position some 
 miles inland. After a hard-fought battle 
 
 the British troops remained masters of the 
 field. Leyden meanwhile busied himself in 
 exploring the captured city. Its fragments 
 of literature especially attracted his atten- 
 tion, and it was while one day searching 
 for a valuable library, that he entered into 
 a low, unventilated house which contained 
 some interesting manuscripts and books. 
 He inadvertently neglected to allow the 
 fresh air to pass through it, but went in 
 and breathed its pestiferoue particles for 
 some hours. On leaving he was seized 
 with sickness and shivering. He felt from 
 the first that the end of his career was 
 approaching, and that the poison of 
 Batavia's noxious air was deadly for a 
 frame that had frequently been, for some 
 years, on the very brink of death. The 
 fever increased for three days, and cut 
 short his useful and laborious life on the 
 27th of August 1811, when he was within 
 ten days of completing his thirty-sixth 
 year. Lord Minto and Mr. Baffles per- 
 formed the last sad services to his remains, 
 and communicated the sad tidings to his 
 parents. The news produced universal 
 sorrow among his friends at home, for they 
 were in the full hope of seeing him again 
 among them at a very early date.] 
 
 LEYDEN TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 Ship ' Phoenix,'' in the latitude of 
 Masulijmtam, March 20, 1811. 
 Mr DEAR Father,— After what I wrote you 
 in my last letter, of the probability of my con- 
 fining my wanderings to Calcutta for the time 
 I may stay in India, you will probably be not a 
 little surprised to find me again at sea. How- 
 ever, yo\;i need not, I hope, be the least alarmed, 
 for I am in company with Lord Minto, and not 
 in the least likely to be more exposed than Lis 
 lordship. We left Calcutta on the 9th of this 
 month for Madras, where there is an army 
 collected of about 10,000 men, black and white, 
 ready to sail the instant his lordship arrives, 
 against the Dutch and French in the islands of 
 Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and the other 
 Malay countries which are under the celebrated 
 Batavia. We expect to reach Madras in four 
 days, where we do not mean to stay more than 
 three days. From Madras we set sail for 
 Malacca and Puloo Penang, or Prince of Wales' 
 Island, which we expect to reach in twenty 
 days more. In three weeks further we expect 
 to be off Batavia, which is now very much 
 deserted by the Dutch, from its unhealthy 
 situation. For that reason we shall not stop 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 251 
 
 there, but advance to the centre of the island 
 of Java, which is reckoned the healthiest coun- 
 try in the East, and where the Dutch and 
 French army are encamped about 20,000 strong ; 
 but we have no fear of beating them with half 
 their force, as we will be joined by all the 
 Malays and Javanese, which make the gi-eatest 
 part of their force. I take the advantage of 
 the ship Georgiana, which goes part of the 
 way in our company, to send you the dupli- 
 cate of the £100, of which I sent the j&rst in 
 the end of last month. I shall send the 
 duplicate of the same for fear the first or 
 second miscarry from Madras, and it is my 
 intention to remit another £100 by the first 
 ship which leaves Java. 
 
 I accompany Lord Minto on this occasion, to 
 assist in settling the country when conquered, 
 and as interpreter for the Malay language, 
 which I acquired when I was among the East- 
 ern Isles four years ago ; and I hold myself 
 highly honoured on the occasion, as his lordship 
 has taken very few persons to accompany him, 
 and those who have volunteered, and been 
 refused, are very numerous. It is not my 
 intention, however, to take up ray residence in 
 J ava, but to return with his lordship to Bengal. 
 I therefore do not resign my appointment of 
 Assay Master of the Mint, but my assistant is 
 appointed to supply my place till my return, 
 
 ! which I expect to be in eight or ten months 
 
 I from the present. I am highly delighted at 
 the prospect, for I shall have the opportunity 
 
 ! of seeing a very curious and very fine country, 
 with which the English are very little 
 
 j acquainted. 
 
 i I hope you will not think of being anxious 
 about me on this occasion, as I do not consider 
 j it as more dangerous than a common journey, 
 i of which I have not taken a few. Moreover, if 
 I there v/ere any dangers, I should not hesitate a 
 I particle more than as it is ; for I should think 
 ' all paternal and other feelings most unworthily 
 j exerted in endeavouring to detain me from the 
 ; clear and obvious path of duty, if ever it called 
 f me to expose myself to danger for my country, 
 ^ or for my benefactors. Indeed, if the truth be 
 i spoken, I am only sorry there appears no danger 
 whatever, for I should certainly think it my 
 duty to encounter it if it were, and I am not 
 a man to shrink from dangers of any kind, 
 especially if it were to be on Lord Minto's 
 account. About 6000 or 7000 have already 
 sailed from Bengal, but we shall probably over- 
 take them at Malacca. The Madras army is 
 chiefly that which has returned from the boasted 
 \ Isle of France, which did not cost us 200 men 
 I killed and wounded, though about two months 
 before the arrival of the fleet, four of our 
 frigates were driven on the rocks and compelled 
 j to surrender. However, the crews were all 
 j recovered when the island was taken, and as 
 [ soon as our army had landed, the French 
 
 surrendered after a slight skirmish. Java ig 
 now the last place that remains to them in the 
 East. I will let you know how we come on by 
 the first ships. Tell my mother not to be 
 so frightened as she generally is. — I am, dear 
 father, your most affectionate son, 
 
 John Leyden. 
 
 [John "Wilson, the genial and inspired Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy in the University of 
 Edinburgh, and the ' Christopher North ' of 
 BlacJctoood' s Magazine, is here seen in a 
 holiday mood. In the first letter he is as 
 whimsical and facetious as Lamb in some 
 of his famous letters to Manning, with a 
 wholesome, breezy freshness running riot 
 in his pages. In September 1830, he was 
 at Penny Bridge, and wrote in this manner 
 to his wife.] 
 
 JOHN WILSON TO JAMES HOGG. 
 
 Edinburgh, September 1815. 
 
 My dear Hogg,— I am in Edinburgh, and 
 wish to be out of it. Mrs. Wilson and I walked 
 350 miles in the Highlands, between the 5th 
 of July and the 26th of August, sojourning 
 in divers glens from Sabbath unto Sabbatli, 
 fishing, eating, and staring. I purpose appear- 
 ing in Glasgow on Thursday, where I shall 
 stay till the Circxiit is over. I then go to 
 Elleray, in the character of a Benedictine monk, 
 till the beginning of November. Now pause 
 and attend. If you will meet me at Moffat on 
 October 6th, I will walk or mail it with you to 
 Elleray, and treat you there with fowls and 
 Irish whisky. Immediately on receipt of this, 
 write a letter to me, at Mr. Smith's Bookshop, 
 Hutcheson Street, Glasgow, saying positively if 
 you will or will not do so. If you don't, I tvill 
 lick you, and fish up at Douglas Burn before 
 you, next time I come to Ettrick. I saw a 
 
 letter from you to M the other day, by 
 
 which you seem to be alive and well. You are 
 right in not making verses when you can catch 
 trout. Francis Jeffrey leaves Edinburgh this 
 day for Holland and France. I presume, after 
 destroying the King of the Netherlands he 
 intends to annex that kingdom to France, and 
 assume the supreme power of the United 
 Countries, under the title of Geoffrey the First. 
 You he M'ill make poet laureate and fish- 
 monger, and me admiral of the Musquito Fleet, 
 
 If you have occasion soon to write to Murray, 
 I pray introduce something about The City of 
 the Plague, as I shall probably offer him that 
 poem in about a fortnight or sooner. Of course 
 I do not wish you to say that the poem is 
 utterly worthless. I think that a bold eulogy 
 
252 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 from you (if administered immediately) would 
 be of service to me ; but if you do write about 
 it, do not tell him that I have any intention of 
 offering it to him, but you may say, you hear I 
 am going to offer it to a London bookseller. 
 We stayed seven days at Mrs. Izett's, at 
 Kinnaird, and were most kindly received. Mrs. 
 Izett is a great ally of yours, and is a fine 
 creature. I killed in the Highlands 170 dozen 
 of trouts. One day 19 dozen and a half, 
 another seven dozen. I one morning killed ten 
 trouts that weighed nine pounds. In Loch 
 Awe, in three days, I killed 76 pounds' weight 
 of fish, all with the fly. The Gaels were 
 astonished. I shot two roebucks, and had 
 nearly caught a red deer by the tail. I was 
 within half a mile of it at farthest. The good 
 folks in the Highlands are not dirty. They are 
 clean, decent, hospitable, iigly people. We 
 domiciliated with many, and found no remains 
 of the great plague of fleas, etc., that devastated 
 the country from the time of Ossian to the 
 accession of George the Third. We were at 
 Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, Inveraray, Dal- 
 mally, Loch Etive, Glen Etive, Dalness, Appin, 
 Ballachulish, Fort- William, Moy, Dalwhinnie, 
 Loch Ericht (you dog), Loch Eannoch, Glen 
 Lyon, Taymouth, Blair Athole, Bruar, Perth, 
 Edinburgh. Is not Mrs. Wilson immortalized ? 
 
 I know of Cona. It is very creditable to our 
 excellent friend, but will not sell any more than 
 the Isle of Palms, or The White Doe. The 
 White Doe is not in season ; venison is not 
 liked in Edinburgh. It wants flavour ; a good 
 Ettrick wether is i^referable. Wordsworth has 
 more of the poetical character than any living 
 writer, but he is not a man of first-rate 
 intellect ; his genius oversets him. Southey's 
 Rodey-ic is not a first-rate work ; the remorse of 
 Roderic is that of a Christian devotee rather 
 than that of a dethroned monarch. His battles 
 are ill fought. There is no processional march 
 of events in the poem, no tendency to one great 
 end, like a river increasing in majesty till it 
 reaches the sea. Neither is there national 
 character, Spanish or Moorish. No sublime 
 imagery ; no profound passion. Southey wrote 
 it, and Southey is a man of talent ; but it is his 
 worst poem. 
 
 Scott's Field, of Waterloo I have seen. What 
 a poem ! — such bald and nerveless language, 
 mean imagery, commonplace sentiments, and 
 clumsy versification ! It is beneath criticism. 
 Unless the latter part of the battle be very fine 
 indeed, this poem will injure him. 
 
 Wordsworth is dished ; Southey is in pur- 
 gatory ; Scott is dying ; and Byron is married. 
 Herbert is frozen to death in Scandinavia. 
 ]\Ioore has lost his manliness. Coleridge is 
 always in a fog. Joanna Baillie is writing a 
 system of cookery. Montgomery is in a mad- 
 house, or ought to be. Campbell is sick of a 
 constipation in the bowels. Hogg is herding 
 
 sheep in Ettrick Forest ; and Wilson has taken 
 the plague. O wretched writers ! Unfortunate 
 bards ! What is Bobby Miller's back shop to do 
 this winter ? Alas ! alas ! alas ! a wild doe is a 
 noble animal; write an address to one, and it 
 shall be inferior to one I have written — for half 
 a barrel of red herrings ! The Highlanders are 
 not a poetical people. They are too national; 
 too proud of their history. They imagine that 
 a colleyshangy between the Macgregors and 
 Campbells is a sublime event ; and they over- 
 look mountains four thousand feet high. If 
 Ossian did write the poems attributed to him, 
 or any poems like them, he was a dull dog, and 
 deserved never to taste whisky as long as he 
 lived. A man who lives for ever among mist 
 and mountains knows better than to be always 
 prosing about them. Methinks I feel about 
 objects familiar to infancy and manhood, but 
 when we speak of them, it is only upon great 
 occasions, and in situations of deep passion. 
 Ossian was probably born in a flat country. 
 
 Scott has written good lines in the Lord of 
 the Isles, but he has not done justice to the 
 Sound of Mull, which is a glorious strait. The 
 Northern Highlanders do not admire Waverley, 
 so I presume the South Highlanders despise 
 Guy Mannering. The Westmoreland peasants 
 think Wordsworth a fool. In Borrowdale, 
 Southey is not known to exist. I met ten men 
 at Hawick who did not think Hogg a poet, and 
 the whole city of Glasgow think me a madman. 
 So much for the voice of the people being the 
 voice of God. I left my snuff-box in your 
 cottage. Take care of it. The Anstruther 
 bards have advertised their anniversary ; I 
 forget the day. 
 
 I wish Lieutenant Gray of the Marines had 
 been devoured by tlie lion he once carried on 
 board his ship to the Dey of Algiers, or that he 
 was kept a perpetual prisoner by the Moors in 
 Barbary. Did you hear that Tennant had been 
 taken before the session for an offence against 
 good morals ? If you did not, neither did I ! 
 Indeed it is, on many accounts, exceedingly 
 improbable. Yours truly, 
 
 John Wilson. 
 
 JOHN WILSON TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 Penny Bridge, Tuesday, Sept. 1830. 
 My deaeest Jane, — We came here yester- 
 day ; and my intention was to take Maggy back 
 to Elleray with me to-day, and thence in a few 
 days to Edinburgh. But I find that that 
 arrangement would not suit, and therefore have 
 altered it. Our plans now are as follows : — We 
 return in a body to Elleray (that is, I and 
 Maggy, and James Ferrier) this forenoon. 
 Tliere is a ball at Mrs. Edmund's (the Gale !) 
 to-night, where we shall be. On Thursday, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 253 
 
 there is a grand public ball at Ambleside, where 
 we shall be ; and I shall keep Maggy at EUeray 
 till Monday, when she and the boys mil go in a 
 body to Penny Bridge, and I return alone to 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 From your letters I see you are well ; and I 
 cannot deny Maggy the pleasure of the two 
 balls ; so remain on her account, which I hope 
 will please you, and that you wiU be happy till 
 and after my return. The session will begin 
 soon, and I shall have enough to do before it 
 comes on. Dearest Jane, be good and cheerful ; 
 and I hope all good will attend us all during 
 the winter. Such weather never was seen as 
 here ! Thursday last was fixed for a regatta at 
 Lowood. It was a dreadful day, and nothing 
 occurred but a dinner-party of twenty-four, 
 where I presided. On Friday, a sort of small 
 regatta took place. A repast at three o'clock 
 was attended by about seventy-five ladies and 
 gentlemen, and the ball in the evening was, I 
 believe, liked by the young people. The 
 ' worstling ' took place during two hours of rain 
 and storm. The ring was a tarn. Eobinson, 
 the schoolmaster, threw Brunskil, and Irvine 
 threw Robinson ; but the last fall was made up 
 between them, and gave no satisfaction. The 
 good people here are all well and kind. Maggy 
 has stood her various excursions well, and is 
 fat. I think her also grown tall. She is a 
 quarter of an inch taller than Mrs. Barlow. 
 
 Colonel B lost his wife lately by elopement, 
 
 but is in high spirits, and all his conversation 
 is about the fair sex. He is a pleasant man, I 
 think, and I took a ride with him to Grasmere 
 t'other day. The old fool waltzes very well, 
 and is in love with Maggy. He dined with us 
 at EUeray on Sunday. I have not seen the 
 "Watsons for a long time, but shall call on them 
 to-morrow. The weather and the uncertainty 
 of my motions have stood in the way of many 
 things. I have constant toothache and rheu- 
 matism, but am tolerably well notwithstanding. 
 Give my love to IMolly and Umbs. Tell them 
 both to be ready on my arrival, to help me in 
 arranging my books and papers in the garrets 
 and elsewhere. My dearest Jane, God bless 
 you always. — Your affectionate husband, 
 
 J. Wilson. 
 
 [Next year he paid another visit to Westmore- 
 land, from which he writes to his wife.] 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Penny Bridge, Sunday, Sept. 26, 1831. 
 My dear Jane,— I delayed visiting this 
 place with Mary till I could leave Elleray, 
 without interruption, for a couple of days. T. 
 Hamilton stayed with us a fortnight, and as 
 he came a week later, and stayed a week longer, 
 
 than he intended, so has my return to 
 Edinburgh been inevitably prevented. Mary 
 and I came here on Thursday, since which hour 
 it has never ceased raining one minute, nor has 
 one of the family been out of doors. They are 
 all well, including Mrs. and Miss Hervey, who 
 have been staying about a month. It now 
 threatens to be fair, and I purpose setting off 
 by and by on foot to Elleray, a walk of fifteen 
 miles, which perhaps may do me good ; but if I 
 feel tired at Newby Bridge, I will take a boat 
 or chaise. Mary I leave at Penny Bridge for 
 another week. The boys will join her here 
 next Thursday, and remain till the Monday 
 following, when they will all return to Winder- 
 mere. On that Monday, Mary will go to 
 Rayrig for two days or three, and either on 
 Thursday or Friday arrive together in Edin- 
 burgh. I and Gibb will most probably be in 
 Edinburgh on Thursday first, unless I find any 
 btisiness to detain me at Elleray for another 
 day, on my return there to-night. If so, you 
 will hear from me on Wednesday. As Mary 
 wrote a long letter on Tuesday last, full, I 
 presume, of news, I have nothing to communi- 
 cate in that line. Birkbeck has been at Elleray 
 for two or three days, and Johnny says he 
 expects Stoddart, who perhaps may be there on 
 my return to-night. We all went to the Kendal 
 ball, which the young people seemed to enjoy. 
 Twenty-six went from Bowness, forming the 
 majority of the rank and beauty. I hope you 
 have been all quite well since I saw you, as all 
 letters seem to indicate, and that I shall find 
 you all well on my return. A severe winter 
 lies before me, for I must lecture on Political 
 Economy this session, as well as Moral 
 Philosophy ; and that Magazine will also weigh 
 heavy on me. I certainly cannot work as I 
 once could, and feel easily wearied and worn 
 down with long sitting; but what must be 
 must, and toil I must, whatever be the con- 
 sequence. The month before the session opens 
 will be of unspeakable importance to me, to 
 relieve, if possible, my miserable appearance in 
 College beginning of last session. I wish to do 
 my duty in that place at least, and change and 
 exposure there are hard to bear, and of infinite 
 loss to my interests. I feel great uneasiness 
 and pain very often from the complaint I spoke 
 of ; but how else can I do what is necessary for 
 me to do ? Whatever be the consequence, and 
 however severe the toil, I must labour this 
 winter like a galley-slave ; and since it is for us 
 all, in that at least I shall be doing what is at 
 once right and difficult, and in itself deserving 
 of commendation. If I fall through it, it shall 
 only be with my life, or illness beyond my 
 strength to bear up against. I hope Maggy's 
 playing the guitar and singing frequently, and 
 that Umbs is a good boy. Kindest love to 
 them. I should like to have a few kind lines 
 from you, written on Monday, the evening you 
 
254 
 
 I'eceive this, and sent to post office then. I 
 may, or rather must miss them, but if anything 
 prevents it I shall conclude you are undoubt- 
 edly all well. You need not send any 
 newspapers after receipt of this, but please to 
 keep them together. Do not say anything 
 about my motions to the Blackwoods, as I wish 
 to be at home a day or two incog. I shall get 
 my room done up when I arrive, which will 
 save me trouble perhaps afterwards in looking 
 out for papers. Mary is getting fat, and looks 
 well, and the boys are all right. — I am, my 
 dearest Jane, yours ever affectionately, 
 
 John Wilson. 
 
 [Henry Kirke White fell a martyr to over- 
 exertion in his studies in 1806. How hard 
 a student he was appears from time to 
 time in these letters, which are his best 
 biography. He was destined to fill an 
 early grave, like Chatterton and Keats in 
 England, and Michael Bruce in Scotland, 
 before the remarkable promise of his life 
 obtained fulfilment. He was in turn 
 stocking-weaver, clerk with an attorney, 
 and student at St, John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, and at all times a hard and earnest 
 student. His Eemains were edited by 
 Southey, and proved eminently successful.] 
 
 HENKY KIEKE WHITE TO HIS BROTHEK NEVILLE. 
 
 Nottingham, June 26, 1800. 
 
 Deae Brother, — My mother has allowed me 
 a good deal lately for books, and I have a large 
 assortment (a retailer's phrase). But I hope 
 you do not suppose they consist of novels ; no, 
 I have made a firm resolution never to spend 
 above one hour at this amusement. Though 
 I have been obliged to enter into this resolution 
 in consequence of a vitiated taste acquired by 
 reading romances, I do not intend to banish 
 them entirely from my desk. After long and 
 fatiguing researches in BlacJcstone or Cojje, 
 when the mind becomes weak, through intense 
 application, Tom Jones, or Robinson Crusoe, 
 will afltord a pleasing and necessary relaxation. 
 
 Apro;pos, now we are speaking of Bohinson 
 Crusoe, I shall observe that is allowed to be 
 the best novel for youth in the English language. 
 De Foe, the author, was a singular character ; 
 but as I make no doubt you have read his 
 life, I will not trouble you with any further 
 remarks. 
 
 The books which I now read with attention 
 are, BlacJcstone, Knox's Essays, Plutarch, 
 Chesterfield's Letters, four large volumes ; Virgil, 
 Homer, and Cicero, and several others. Black- 
 
 stone and Knox, Virgil and Cicero, I have got ; 
 the others I read out of Mr. Coldham's library. 
 I have finished Eollin's Ancient History, Blair's 
 Lectures, Smith's Wealth of Nations, Hume's 
 England and British Nepos lately. When I 
 have read Knox I will send it you, and recom- 
 mend it to your attentive perusal ; it is a most 
 excellent work. I also read now the British 
 Classics, the common edition of which I now 
 take in ; it comes every fortnight. I dare say 
 you have seen it; it is Cooke's edition. I 
 would recommend you also to read these ; I will 
 send them to you. I have got the Citizen of \ 
 the World, Idler, Goldsmith^s Essays, and part j 
 of the Rambler. I will send you soon the 
 fourth number of the Monthly Preceptor. I I 
 am noticed as worthy of commendation, xind as 
 affording an encouraging prospect of future j 
 excellence. You will laugh. I have also ' 
 turned poet, and have translated an Ode of ' 
 Horace into English verse, also for the Monthly \ 
 Preceptor, but, unfortunately, when I sent it ' 
 I forgot the title, so it won't be noticed. i 
 
 I do not forsake the flowery paths of poesy, 
 for that is my chief delight ; I read the best ; 
 poets. Mr. Coldham has got Johnson's com- \ 
 plete set, with their lives; these, of course, I 
 read. 
 
 With a little drudgery, I read Italian ; have 
 got some good Italian works, as Pastor Fido, \ 
 etc. I taught myself, and have got a grammar, j 
 
 I must now beg leave to return you my j 
 sincere thanks for your kind present. I like | 
 La Bruere the Less very much ; I have read the ! 
 original La Bruere : I think him like Roche- i 
 foucault. Madame de Genlis is a very able 
 woman. j 
 
 But I must now attempt to excuse my neglect 
 in not writing to you. First I have been very 
 busy with these essays and poems for the 
 Monthly Preceptor. Second, I was rather angry 
 at your last letter. I can bear anything but 
 a sneer, and it was one continued grin from 
 beginning to end, as were all the notices you 
 made of me in my mother's letters, and I could 
 not, nor can I now, brook it. I could say much 
 more, but it is very late, and must beg leave to 
 wish you good night. — I am, dear brother, your 
 affectionate friend, H. K. AVhite. 
 
 P.S. — You may expect a regular correspond- 
 ence from me in future, but no sneers ; and 
 shall be very obliged by a long letter. 
 
 TO the same. 
 
 Nottingham, Michaelmas-day, 1800. 
 Dear Neville,— I cannot divine what, in an 
 epistolary correspondence, can have such charms 
 (with people who write only commonplace 
 occurrences) as to detach a man from his usual 
 affairs, and make him waste time and paper on 
 what cannot be of the least real benefit to his 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 correspondent. Amongst relatives, certainly, 
 there is always an incitement ; we always feel 
 an anxiety for their welfare. But I have no 
 frimd so dear to me as to cause me to take the 
 trouble of reading his letters, if they only con- 
 tained an account of his health, and the mere 
 nothings of the day ; indeed, such an one would 
 be unworthy of friendship. What, then, is 
 requisite to make one's correspondence valu- 
 able ? I answer, sound sense. Nothing more is 
 requisite. As to the style, one may very readily 
 excuse its faults, if repaid by the sentiments. 
 You have better natural abilities than many 
 youth, but it is with regret I see that you will 
 not give yourself the trouble of writing a good 
 letter. There is hardly any species of com- 
 position (in my opinion) easier than the epis- 
 tolary ; but, my friend, you never found any 
 art, however trivial, that did not require some 
 application at first. For if an artist, instead 
 of endeavouring to surmount the difficulties 
 which presented themselves, were to rest con- 
 tented with mediocrity, how could he possibly 
 ever arrive at excellence ? Thus 'tis with you ; 
 instead of that indefatigable perseverance which, 
 in other cases, is the leading trait in your 
 character, I hear you say, ' Ah, my poor brains 
 were never formed for letter-writing, I shall 
 never write a good letter,' or some such phrases ; 
 and thus by despairing of ever arriving at 
 excellence, you render yourself hardly tolerable. 
 You may perhaps think this art beneath your 
 notice, or unworthy of your pains ; if so, you 
 are assuredly mistaken, for there is hardly any- 
 thing which would contribute more to the 
 advancement of a young man, or which is more 
 engaging. 
 
 You read, I believe, a good deal; nothing 
 could be more acceptable to me, or more im- 
 proving to you, than making a part of your 
 letters to consist of your sentiments, and opinion 
 of the books you peruse ; you have no idea how 
 beneficial this would be to yoiu-self ; and that 
 you are able to do it I am certain. One of the 
 greatest impediments to good writing, is the 
 thinking too much before you note down. 
 This I think you are not entirely free from. 
 I hope that by always writing the first idea that 
 jiresents itself, you wUl soon conquer it. My 
 letters are always the rough first draft; of 
 course there are many alterations; these you 
 will excuse. 
 
 I have written most of my letters to you in 
 so negligent a manner, that if you will have the 
 goodness to return all you have preserved, 
 sealed, I will peruse them, and all sentences 
 worth preserving I will extract, and return. 
 
 You observe, in your last, that yoftr letters 
 are read with contempt. Do you speak as you 
 think? 
 
 You had better write again to Mr. . 
 
 Between friends, the common forms of the 
 world, in writing letter for letter, need not be 
 
 observed ; but never write three without re- 
 ceiving one in return, because in that case they 
 must be thought unworthy of answer. 
 
 We have been so busy lately I could not 
 answer yours sooner. Once a month suppose 
 we write to each other. If you ever find that 
 my corresiDondence is not worth the trouble of 
 carrying on, inform me of it, and it shall 
 cease. 
 
 P.S. — If any expression in this be too harsh, 
 excuse it. I am not in an ill humour, re- 
 collect. 
 
 TO MR. E. A . 
 
 N'ottingham, May 7, 1804. 
 
 Dear Egbert, — You don't know how I long 
 to hear how your declamation was received, and 
 ' all about it,' as we say in these parts. I hope 
 to see it, when I see its author and pronouncer. 
 Themistocles, no doubt, received due praise 
 from you for his valour and subtlety ; but I 
 trust you poured down a torrent of eloquent 
 indignation upon the ruling ijrinciples of his 
 actions and the motive of his conduct, while 
 you exalted the mild and unassuming virtues of 
 his more amiable rival. The object of Themis- 
 tocles was the aggrandizement of himself, that 
 of Aristides the welfare and prosperity of the 
 state. The one endeavoured to swell the glory 
 of his country ; the other to promote its 
 security, external and internal, foreign and 
 domestic. AYhile you estimated the services 
 which Themistocles rendered to the state, in 
 opposition to those of Aristides, you of course 
 remembered that the former had the largest 
 scope for action, and that he influenced his 
 countrymen to fall into all his plans, while they 
 banished his competitor, not by his superior 
 wisdom and goodness, but by those intrigues 
 and factious artifices which Aristides would 
 have disdained. Themistocles certainly did use 
 had means to a desirable end ; and if we may 
 assume it as an axiom, that Providence will 
 forward the designs of a good sooner than those 
 of a bad man, whatever inequality of abilities 
 there may be between the two characters, it 
 will follow that had Athens remained under the 
 guidance of Aristides, it would have been better 
 for her. The difference between Themistocles 
 and Aristides seems to me to be this : That the 
 former was a wise and a fortunate man ; and 
 that the latter, though he had equal wisdom, 
 had not equal good fortune. We may admire 
 the heroic qualities and the crafty policy of the 
 one, but to the temperate and disinterested 
 patriotism, the good and virtuous dispositions 
 of the other, we can alone give the meed of 
 heartfelt praise. 
 
 I only mean by this, that we must not infer 
 
256 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Themistocles to have been the better or the 
 greater man, because he rendered more essential 
 services to the state than Aristides, nor even 
 that his system was the most judicious, but 
 only that, by decision of character and by 
 good fortune, his measures succeeded best. 
 
 The rules of composition are, in my opinion, 
 very fev/. If we have a mature acquaintance 
 with our subject, there is little fear of our ex- 
 pressing it as we ought, provided we have had 
 some little experience in writing. The first 
 thing to be aimed at is perspicuity. That is 
 the great point, which, once attained, will 
 make all other obstacles smooth to us. In 
 order to write perspicuously, we should have a 
 2)erfect knowledge of the topic on which we are 
 about to treat, in all its bearings and depend- 
 encies. We should think well beforehand 
 what will be the clearest method of conveying the 
 drf'xt of our design. This is similar to what the 
 painters call the massing, or getting the effect 
 of the more prominent lights and shades by 
 broad dashes of the pencil. When our thesis is 
 well arranged in our mind, and we have pre- 
 disposed our arguments, reasonings, and illustra- 
 tions, so as they shall conduce to the object in 
 view, in regular sequence and gradation, we 
 may sit down and express our ideas in as clear 
 a manner as we can, always using such words 
 as are most suited to our purpose; and when 
 two modes of expression, equally luminous, 
 present themselves, selecting that which is the 
 most harmonious and elegant. 
 
 It sometimes happens that writers, in aiming 
 at persi^icuity, overreach themselves, by em- 
 ploying too many words, and perplex the mind 
 by a multiplicity of illustrations. This is a 
 very fatal error. Circumlocution seldom con- 
 duces to j)lainness ; and you may take it as 
 a maxim, that when once an idea is clearly 
 expressed, every additional stroke will only 
 confuse the mind and diminish the effect. 
 
 When you have once learned to express 
 yourself with clearness and propriety, you will 
 soon arrive at elegance. Everything else, in 
 fact, will follow as of course. But I warn you 
 not to invert the order of things, and be paying 
 your addresses to the graces, when you ought 
 to be studying perspicuity. Young writers, in 
 general, are too solicitous to round off their 
 periods, and regulate the cadences of their style. 
 Hence the feeble pleonasms and idle repetitions 
 which deform their pages. If you would have 
 your compositions vigorous, and masculine in 
 their tone, let every wokd tell ; and when you 
 detect yourself polishing off a sentence with 
 expletives, regard yourself in exactly the same 
 predicament with a poet who should eke out the 
 measure of his verses with ' titum, titom, tee,sir.' 
 
 So much for style. . . . 
 
 TO MB. B. MADDOCK. 
 
 Winteriwjham, March 1, 1805. 
 
 My dear Ben, — I hope and trust that you 
 have at length arrived at that happy tempera- 
 ment of disposition, that although you have 
 much cause of sadness within, you are yet 
 willing to be amused with the variegated scenes 
 around you, and to join, when occasions present 
 themselves, in innocent mirth. Thus, in the 
 course of your ijeregrinations, occurrences must 
 continually arise, which, to a mind willing to 
 make the best of everything, will afford amuse- 
 ment of the chastest kind. Men and manners 
 are a never-failing source of wonder and sur- 
 prise, as they present themselves in their 
 various i^hases. We may very innocently laugh 
 at the brogue of a Somerset peasant, and I 
 should think that person both cynical and 
 surly, who would pass by a group of laughing 
 children, without participating in their delight, 
 and joining in their laugh. It is a truth most 
 undeniable, and most melancholy, that there is 
 too much in human life which extorts tears and 
 groans, rather than smiles. This, however, is 
 equally certain, that our giving way to unre- 
 mitting sadness on these accounts, so far from 
 ameliorating the condition of mortality, only 
 adds to the aggregate of human misery, and 
 throws a gloom over those moments when a ray 
 of light is permitted to visit the dark valley of 
 light, and the heart ought to be making the 
 best of its fleeting happiness. Landscape, too, 
 ought to be a source of delight to you ; fine 
 buildings, objects of nature, and a thousand 
 things which it would be tedious to name. I 
 should call the man, who could survey such 
 things as these without being affected with 
 pleasure, either a very weak-minded and foolish 
 person, or one of no mind at all. To be always 
 sad, and always pondering on internal griefs, is 
 what I call utter selfishness ; I would not give 
 tvi^opence for a being who is locked up in his 
 own sufferings, and whose heart cannot respond 
 to the exhilarating cry of nature, or rejoice 
 because he sees others rejoice. The loud and 
 unanimous chirping of the birds on a fine sunny 
 morning pleases me, because I see they are 
 happy ; and I should be very selfish did I not 
 participate in their seeming joy. Do not, how- 
 ever, suppose that I mean to exclude a man's 
 own sorrows from his thoughts, since that is an 
 impossibility, and, were it possible, would be 
 prejudicial to the human heart. I only mean 
 that the whole mind is not to be incessantly 
 engrossed with cares, but with cheerful elasticity 
 to bend itself occasionally to circumstances, and 
 give way without hesitation to pleasing emo- 
 tions. To be pleased with little is one of the 
 greatest blessings. 
 
 Sadness is itself sometimes infinitely more 
 pleasing than joy; but this sadness must be 
 of the expansive and generous kind, rather 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 257 
 
 ferring to mankind at large, than the indi- 
 idual; and this is a feeling not incompatible 
 nth cheerfulness and a contented spirit. There 
 - a diflBculty, however, in setting bounds to a 
 ensive disposition; I have felt it, and I have 
 ■4t that I am not always adequate to the task. 
 I sailed from Hull to Barton the day before 
 yesterday, on a rough and windy day, in a 
 vessel filled with a marching regiment of 
 soldiers; the band played finely, and I was 
 enjoying the many pleasing emotions which 
 the water, sky, winds, and musical instruments 
 excited, when my thoughts were suddenly called 
 away to more melancholy subjects. A girl, 
 genteelly dressed, and with a countenance 
 which, for its loveliness, a painter might have 
 copied for Hebe, with a loud laugh seized me 
 by the greatcoat, and asked me to lend it her ; 
 she was one of those unhaj^py creatures who 
 depend on the brutal and licentious for a bitter 
 livelihood, and was now following in the train 
 of one of the officers. I was greatly affected 
 by her appearance and situation, and more so 
 by that of another female who was with her, 
 and who, with less beauty, had a wild sorrow- 
 fulness in her face, which showed she knew her 
 situation. This incident, apparently trifling, 
 induced a train of reflections which occupied 
 me fully during a walk of six or seven miles to 
 our parsonage. At first I wished that I had 
 fortune to erect an asylum for all the miserable 
 and destitute : — and there was a soldier's wife 
 with a wan and haggard face, and a little infant 
 in her arms, whom I would also have wished 
 to place in it : — I then grew out of humour 
 with the world, because it was so unfeeling 
 and so miserable, and because there was no 
 cure for its miseries ; and I wished for a lodging 
 in the wilderness, where I might hear no more 
 of wrongs, affliction, or vice ; but, after all my 
 speculations, I found there was a reason for 
 these things in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and 
 that to those who sought it there was also a 
 cure. So I banished my vain meditations, and 
 knowing that God's providence is better able to 
 direct the affairs of men than our wisdom, I 
 leave them in His hands. 
 
 TO ME. JOHN CHARLESWOKTH. 
 
 St. John's, Sept. 22, 180G. 
 
 My dear Chaelesworth,— Thank you for 
 taking the blame of our neglected correspond- 
 ence on your own shoulders. I thought it 
 rested elsewhere. Thrice have I begun to 
 write to you — once in Latin, and twice in 
 English ; and each time have the fates opposed 
 themselves to the completion of my design. 
 But, however, pax sit rebus, we are naturally 
 disposed to forgive, because we are, as far as 
 intention goes, mutual offenders. 
 
 I thank you for your invitation to Clapham, 
 
 which came at a fortunate juncture, since I had 
 just settled with my tutor that I should pay a 
 visit to my brother in London this week. I shall 
 of course see you, and shall be happy to spend 
 a few days with you at Clapham, and to rhapso- 
 dize on your common. It gives me pleasure to 
 hear you are settled, and I give you many hearty 
 good wishes for practice and prosperity. I hope 
 you will soon find that a wife is a very neces- 
 sary article of enjoyment in a domesticated 
 state ; for how indeed should it be otherwise ? 
 A man cannot cook his dinner while he is 
 employed in earning it. Housekeepers are 
 complete helluones rei familiaris, and not only 
 pick your pockets, but abuse you into the 
 bargain ; while a wife, on the contrary, both 
 cooks your dinner, and enlivens it with her 
 society ; receives you after the toils of the day 
 with cheerfulness and smiles ; and is not only 
 the faithful guardian of your treasury, but the 
 soother of your cares and the alleviator of your 
 calamities. Now, am I not very poetical? 
 But on such a subject who would not be poetical? 
 A wife ! — a domestic fireside ; — the cheerful 
 assiduities of love and tenderness ! It would 
 inspire a Dutch burgomaster ! and if, with all 
 this in your grasp, you shall still choose the 
 pulsare terrain pede lihero, still avoid the 
 irrupta copula, still deem it a matter of light 
 regard to be an object of affection and fondness 
 to an amiable and sensible woman, why then 
 you deserve to be fellow of a college all your 
 days ; to be kicked about in your last illness by 
 a saucy and careless bed-maker ; and lastly, to 
 be put in the ground in your college chapel, 
 followed only by the man who is to be your 
 successor. ^VTiy, man, I dare no more dream 
 that I shall ever have it in my power to have a 
 wife, than that I shall be Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury and Primate of all England. A sviite of 
 rooms in a still, quiet corner of old St. John's, 
 which was once occupied by a crazy monk, or 
 by one of the translators of the Bible in the 
 days of good King James, must form the 
 boundary of my ambition. I must be content 
 to inhabit walls which never echoed with a 
 female voice, to be buried in glooms which were 
 never cheered with a female smile. It is said, 
 indeed, that women were sometimes permitted 
 to visit St. John's, when it was a monastery of 
 White-Friars, in order to be present at particular 
 religious ceremonies ; but the good monks were 
 careful to sprinkle holy water wherever their 
 profane footsteps had carried contagion and 
 pollution. 
 
 It is well that you are free from the restric- 
 tions of monastic austerity, and that, while I 
 sleep under the shadow of towers and lofty 
 walls, and the safeguard of a vigilant porter, 
 you are permitted to inhabit your own cottage, 
 under your own guardianship, and to listen to 
 the sweet accents of domestic affection. 
 
 Yes, my very Platonic, or rather Stoical 
 
258 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 friend, I must see you safely bound in the 
 matrimonial noose, and then, like a confirmed 
 bachelor, ten years hence I shall have the 
 satisfaction of pretending to laugh at, while, in 
 my heart, I envy you. So much for rhapsody. 
 I am coming to London for relaxation's sake, 
 and shall take it pretty freely ; that is, I shall 
 seek after fine sights — stare at fine people — be 
 cheerful with the gay — foolish with the simple 
 — and leave as little room to suspect as possible 
 that I am (anything of) a philosopher and 
 mathematician. I shall probably talk a little 
 Greek, but it will be by stealth, in oi'der to 
 excite no suspicion. 
 
 I shall be in town Friday or Saturday. I am 
 in a very idle mood, and have written you a 
 very idle letter, for which I entreat your 
 pardon: and I am, dear C, very sincerely 
 yours, H. K. White. 
 
 [George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in 
 Holies Street, London, on 22d January 
 1788. His father was Captain John Byron, 
 of the Guards, and his mother Catherine 
 Gordon, who came of an Aberdeenshire 
 family. His father speedily dissipated his 
 mother's fortune, when she returned to 
 Aberdeen to bring up her only son on a 
 narrow income. Young Byron succeeded 
 his grand-uncle in his title and to Newstead 
 Abbey, and afterwards went to Dulwich 
 and Harrow to continue his education. At 
 the age of fifteen he became enamoured of 
 Mary Chaworth, but she became betrothed 
 to another; Byron has recorded this 
 passion in his poem, 'The Dream.' After 
 this time he went to Cambridge, where his 
 studies were jmrsued in a desultory 
 manner. His first volume of poetry. Hours 
 of Idleness, appeared in 1807, and was 
 sharply noticed in the Edinhurgh Review, 
 which roused Byron's spirit to the famous 
 rejoinder, English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers. One of these letters is an 
 apology to Scott for this youthful perform- 
 ance. After two years of foreign travel, 
 during which he visited Greece and Turkey, 
 he issued the two first cantos of Childe 
 Harold in 1812, when 'he awoke one 
 morning and fotmd himself famous.' Work 
 after work now flowed from his pen, and 
 his fame was at its height; he went a 
 round of fashionable dissipation, married 
 the daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, and 
 separated from her after the union had 
 
 lasted a twelvemonth. One daughter, 
 afterwards Countess of Lovelace, was the 
 fruit of this marriage. Byron left his 
 native land once more, reckless and 
 miserable, yet conscious of his great 
 powers; visited France and Brussels, and 
 pursued the course of the Ehine to Geneva. 
 He went to Italy, where he remained till 
 1823, plunged in a course of dissipation at 
 Venice, when he left for Greece to assist in 
 the struggle for independence. He arrived 
 at Missolonghi, and his influence was just 
 making itself felt in the cause he had most 
 at heart, when he died from fever, on 19th 
 April 1824. A statue was erected to the 
 poet at Missolonghi in 1881. Besides his 
 dramas, Don Juan was his most important 
 poem written abroad. See Moore's Life 
 of Byron, and Byron, by John Nichol, in 
 ' English Men of Letters ' series. Byron is 
 a great letter- writer; his letters are always 
 pointed and pithy, full of dash and fire, 
 and their meaning is unmistakeable. The 
 poet is more fully represented as a letter- 
 writer in the next section of the book.] 
 
 LORD BYRON TO SIB WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 An Apology for his * English Bards and Scotch 
 Revietvers.'' 
 
 St. James's Street, July 6, 1812. 
 Sir, — I have just been honoured with your 
 letter. I feel sorry that you should have 
 thought it worth while to notice the 'evil 
 works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed 
 voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind 
 not to give me pain. The Satire was written 
 when I was very young and very angry, and 
 fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, 
 and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my 
 wholesale assertions. I cannot suflSiciently 
 thank you for your praise ; and now, waiving 
 myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. 
 He ordered me to be jDresented to him at a ball ; 
 and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from 
 royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to 
 me of you and your immortalities : he preferred 
 you to every bard past and present, and asked 
 which of your works pleased me most. It was 
 a difficult question. I answered, I thought the 
 Lay. He said his own opinion was nearly 
 similar. In speaking of the others, I told him 
 that I thought you more particularly the poet 
 of princes, as they never appeared more 
 fascinating than in Marmion and the Lady of 
 the LaliC. He was pleased to coincide, and to 
 dwell on the description of your J ameses as no 
 less royal than poetical. He spoke alternately 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 259 
 
 of Homer and yourself, and seemed well 
 acquainted with both; so that (with the 
 exception of the Turks and your humble 
 servant) you were in very good company. I 
 defy Murray to have exaggerated his Eoyal 
 Highness 's oiunion of your powers, nor can I 
 l^retend to enumerate all he said on the subject ; 
 but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was 
 conveyed in language which would only suffer 
 by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a 
 tone and taste which gave me a very high idea 
 of his abilities and accompKshments, which I 
 had hitherto considered as confined to manners 
 certainly superior to those of any living gentle- 
 man. 
 
 The interview was accidental. I never went 
 to the levee; for having seen the courts of 
 Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curi- 
 osity was sufficiently allayed ; and my politics 
 being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, 
 no business there. To be thus praised by your 
 sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if 
 that gratification is not alloyed by the com- 
 munication being made through me, the bearer 
 of it will consider himself very fortunately and 
 sincerely your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 Byron. 
 
 P.S. — Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a 
 great hurry, and just after a journey. 
 
 TO THOMAS MOOEE, 
 
 Announcing his approaching Marriage. 
 
 Neiostead Ahhey, September 20, 1814. 
 
 Here's to her who long 
 Hath waked the poet's sigh ! 
 
 The girl who gave to song 
 What gold could never buy. 
 
 My dear BIoore, — I am going to be married 
 —that is, I am accepted, and one usually hopes 
 the rest will follow. My mother of the Gracchi 
 (that are to be) you think too strait-laced for 
 me, although the paragon of only children, and 
 invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of 
 men,' and full of 'most blest conditions' as 
 Desdemona herself. Miss Milbanke is the lady, 
 and I have her father's invitation to proceed 
 there in my elect capacity, — which, however, I 
 cannot do till I have settled some business in 
 London and got a blue coat. 
 
 She is said to be an heiress, but of that I 
 really know nothing certainly, and shall not 
 inquire. But I do know that she has talents and 
 excellent qualities ; and you will not deny her 
 judgment, after having refused six suitors and 
 taken me. 
 
 Now, if you have anything to say against 
 this, pray do ; my mind's made up, positively 
 fixed, determined, and therefore I will listen to 
 reason, because now it can do no harm. Things 
 
 may occur to break it off, but I will hope not. 
 In the meantime, I tell you (a secret, by the 
 bye, — at least, till I know she wishes it to be 
 public) that I have proposed and am accepted. 
 You need not be in a hurry to wish me joy, for 
 one mayn't be married for months. I am going 
 to town to-morrow ; but expect to be here, on 
 my way there, within a fortnight. 
 
 If this had not happened, I should have gone 
 to Italy. In my way down, perhaps, you will 
 meet me at Nottingham, and come over with 
 me here. I need not say that nothing wiU give 
 me greater pleasure. I must, of course, reform 
 thoroughly ; and seriously, if I can contribute 
 to her happiness, I shall secure my own. She 
 is so good a person, that — that — in short, I wish 
 I was a better. Ever, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 The Merits of Pope as a Poet. 
 
 Ravenna, May 3, 1821. 
 
 Though I wrote to you on the 28th ultimo, I 
 must acknowledge yours of this day, with the 
 lines. They are sublime, as well as beautiful, 
 and in your very best mood and manner. They 
 are also but too true. 
 
 However, do not confound the scoundrels 
 at the heel of the boot with their betters at 
 the top of it. I assure you that there are some 
 loftier spirits. 
 
 Nothing, however, can be better than your 
 poem, or more deserved by the Lazzaroni. They 
 are now abhorred and disclaimed nowhere more 
 than here. 
 
 We will talk over these things (if we meet) 
 some day, and I will recount my own adven- 
 tures, some of which have been a little hazar- 
 dous, perhaps. 
 
 So, you have got the Letter on Bowles? I 
 do not recollect to have said anything of 
 
 you that could offend , certainly nothing 
 
 intentionally. As for , I meant him a 
 
 compliment. I wrote the whole off-hand, 
 without copy or correction, and expecting then 
 every day to be called into the field. What 
 have I said of you ? I am sure I forget. It 
 must be something of regret for your approbation 
 of Bowles. And did you not approve, as he 
 says ? Would I had known that before ! I 
 would have given him some more gruel. My 
 intention was to make fun of all these fellows ; 
 but how I svicceeded, I don't know. 
 
 As to Pope, I have always regarded him as 
 the greatest name in our jooetry. Depend upon 
 it, the rest are barbarians. He is a Greek 
 temple, with a Gothic cathedral on one hand, 
 and a Turkish mosque and all sorts of fantastic 
 pagodas and conventicles about him. You may 
 call Shakespeare and Milton pyramids, if you 
 please, but I prefer the Temple of Theseus or 
 
26o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the Parthenon to a mountain of burnt brick- 
 work. 
 
 The Murray has written to me but once, the 
 day of its publication, when it seemed pro- 
 sperous. But I liave heard of late from 
 England but rarely. Of Murray's other publi- 
 cations (of mine) I know nothing, nor whether 
 he has published. He was to have done so a 
 month ago. I wish you would do something, 
 or that we were together. Ever yours and 
 i affectionately, B. 
 
 [George Peabody, the well-known American 
 philanthropist, was born at Dan vers, 
 Massachusetts, in 1795, and died in 
 London, 4th November 1869. He pro- 
 spered in America in a large dry goods 
 business, and afterwards settled in London 
 as a merchant and money-broker. Amongst 
 many acts of munificence was his gift of 
 half a million of money in four instalments 
 (1862-69), to be used for the benefit of the 
 poor of London. In acknowledgment he 
 received an autograph letter from the 
 Queen, and this is his reply. From the 
 Keport for 1881 by the Trustees of the 
 Peabody Fund, we learn that the nett 
 gains from rents and interest for that year 
 wei-e close upon £30,000. Mr. Peabody's 
 gift of £500,000 has, says the Christian 
 World, under the good management of 
 the trustees, increased until it now stands 
 at over ,£780,000. The fund had provided, 
 up to the end of 1881, accommodation for 
 no less than 11,459 persons. The average 
 rent of each room is 2s. a week, and of 
 each dwelling 4s. 5|d. a week. This 
 extremely moderate rent includes the free 
 use of water, laundries, sculleries, and 
 bath-rooms, and it is not surprising that 
 there is a rush for these dwellings as fast 
 as they can be provided. The trustees 
 state that for the 432 new dwellings pro- 
 vided last year they received more than 
 3000 applications. The Report further 
 completely disposes of the allegation which 
 has sometimes been made, 'that the 
 trustees, in following the system on 
 which they have now acted for nearly 
 twenty years, have departed from the 
 expressed intentions of the founder, and 
 that the benefits of the fund are enjoyed 
 by a class for which they were not originally 
 designed.' Mr. Peabody's wisely-planned 
 
 and munificent gift is undoubtedly fulfilling 
 his intention, and conferring a great and 
 lasting benefit on the working classes in 
 London. A bronze statue of Mr. Peabody 
 was erected near the Royal Exchange, 
 London, a short time previous to his death.] 
 
 GEORGE peabody's REPLY TO THE QUEEN. 
 
 The Palace Hotel, Buckingham Gate, 
 London, April 3, 1868. 
 
 Madame,— I feel sensibly my inability to 
 express in adequate terms the gratification 
 with which I have read the letter which your 
 Majesty has done me the high honour of trans- 
 mitting by the hands of Earl Russell. 
 
 On the occasion which has attracted your 
 Majesty's attention of setting apart a portion 
 of my i^roperty to ameliorate the condition and 
 augment the comforts of the poor of London, I 
 have been actuated by a deep sense of gratitude 
 to God, who has blessed me with prosperity, 
 and of attachment to this great country, where, 
 under your Majesty's benign rule, I have 
 received so much personal kindness, and enjoyed 
 so many years of happiness. 
 
 Next to the approval of my own conscience, 
 I shall always prize the assurance which your 
 Majesty's letter conveys to me of the approba- 
 tion of the Queen of England, whose whole 
 life has attested that her exalted station has 
 in no degree diminished her sympathy with 
 the humblest of her subjects. 
 
 The portrait which your Majesty is graciously 
 pleased to bestow on me I shall value as the 
 most precious heirloom that I can leave in the 
 land of my birth, where, together with the 
 letter which your Majesty has addressed to 
 me, it will ever be regarded as an evidence of 
 the kindly feeling of the Queen of the United 
 Kingdom towards a citizen of the United 
 States. 
 
 I have the honour to be your Majesty's most 
 obedient servant, GEORGE PeaboDY. 
 
 To Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 [Thomas Carlyle, one of the most original of 
 recent writers and thinkers, was born at 
 Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, on the 
 4th December 1795. He attended first 
 the parish school of Ecclefechan, and 
 afterwards that of Annan, in 1806. In 
 1809 he came to study at the Edinburgh 
 University. His habits at this time were 
 lonely and contemplative, and his read- 
 ing in all kinds of literature assiduous 
 and extensive. In 1818 he returned to 
 Edinburgh, took pupils there, and became a 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 261 
 
 contributor to the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, 
 and also made a translation of Legendre's 
 Gcometinf. In 1822 he acted as tutor to 
 Charles Buller. He published a translation 
 of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister in 1824, and 
 his other great works followed in succession. 
 From the year of his marriage with a 
 daughter of Dr. Welsh of Haddington in 
 1826, till 1834, he resided at Craigenputtock, 
 a retired farm-house about fifteen miles from 
 Dumfries. In 1834 he removed to London, 
 settling at Chelsea, where he resided until 
 his death in February 1881. In 1837 he 
 delivered a course of lectures on ' German 
 Literature,' in "Willis's Eooms, London ; 
 in 1839 he lectured on the ' Kevolutions of 
 Modern Europe,' and in 1840 on 'Hero- 
 Worship.' This was his last i^ublic appear- 
 ance in this capacity, with the exception 
 of his rectorial address to the Edinburgh 
 students in 1866. It was on this occasion 
 that he was the guest of his friend Mr. 
 Erskine of Linlathen, to whom these 
 letters are addressed. Before he had time 
 to return to England, a great sorrow fell 
 upon him in the death of his wife. Shortly 
 after his death, Mr. Froude issued his 
 Reminiscences in 2 vols. , which was followed 
 by a biography, also in 2 vols., in 1882. Mr. 
 W. H. "VVylie, one of his biographers, has 
 justly said, that a collection of his letters 
 would make a book greater, ' both as to its 
 literary interest and its enduring value, 
 than even the poetic romance of Sartor, or 
 the greatest of his histories. '] 
 
 THOMAS CAELTLE TO THOMAS ERSKINE OF 
 LINLATHEN. 
 
 Upon the Death of a Sister. 
 
 Chelsea, April 1, 1867. 
 
 Dear Mr. Erskine,— Your mournful tidings, 
 not unanticipated, were abundantly sad to us 
 here ; and have been painfully present ever 
 since, though till now I have written nothing. 
 Alas ! what can writing do in such a case ? 
 The inexorable stroke has fallen ; the sore 
 heart has to carry on its own unfathomable 
 dialogue with the Eternities and their gloomy 
 Fact ; all speech in it, from the friendliest 
 sympathiser, is apt to be vain, or worse. 
 Under your quiet words in that little note, 
 there is legible to me a depth of violent grief 
 and bereavement, which seems to enjoin silence 
 rather. We knew the beautiful soul that has 
 departed, the love that had united you and 
 Her from the beginnings of existence, — and 
 
 how desolate and sad the scene now is for 
 him who is left solitary. Ah me ! ah me ! 
 
 Yesterday gone a twelvemonth (31st March 
 1866, Saturday by the day of the week) was 
 the day I arrived at your door in Edinburgh, 
 and was met by that friendliest of hostesses 
 and you ; three days before, I had left at the 
 door of this room one dearer and kinder than 
 all the earth to me, whom I was not to behold 
 again : what a change for you since then, what 
 a change for me ! Change after change follow- 
 ing upon both of us, — upon you especially ! 
 
 It is the saddest feature of old age, that the 
 old man has to see himself daily grow more 
 lonely ; reduced to commune vsdth the in- 
 articulate Eternities, and the Loved Ones now 
 unresi^onsive who have preceded him thither. 
 Well, well ; there is a blessedness in this too, 
 if we take it well. There is a grandeur in it, 
 if also an extent of sombre sadness, which is 
 new to one ; nor is hope quite wanting, — nor 
 the clear conviction that those whom we would 
 most screen from sore pain and misery are now 
 safe and at rest. It lifts one to real kingship 
 withal, real for the first time in this scene of 
 things. Courage, my friend ; let us endure 
 patiently and act piously to the end. 
 
 Shakespeare sings pathetically somewhere : | 
 
 ' Fear no more the heat of the sun, 
 Nor the fnrioiis winter's rages ; 
 Thou thy weary task hast clone, 
 Home hast gone, and ta'en thy wages ; ' 
 
 — inexpugnable and well art thou ! These tones 
 go tinkling through me, sometimes, like the 
 pious chime of far-off church bells. 
 
 Adieu, my friend. I must come to Scotland 
 again at least once, if I live ; and while you 
 are there it is not quite a solitary country to 
 me. — Yours ever truly, 
 
 T. Caelyle. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Chelsea, January 23, 1868. 
 Dear Mr, Erskine, — The sight of your 
 handwriting is itself welcome and cheering 
 to me at all times. And I owe you inany 
 thanks this time for that pious little visit you 
 have made to Greenend and poor Betty. ^ 
 Often had I thought of asking you to do such 
 a thing for me by some opi)ortunity, but in 
 the new, sad circumstances, never had the 
 face. Now that the ice is bi'oken, let me 
 hope you will from time to time continue, and, 
 on the whole, keep yourself and me in some 
 kind of mutual visibility with poor Betty, so 
 long as we are all spared to continue here. 
 The world has not many shrines to a devout 
 man at present, and perhaps in our own section 
 of it there are few objects holding more authen- 
 tically of Heaven and an unseen ' better world ' 
 
 1 Mrs. Braid, an old nurse of Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
2.62 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 than the pious, loving soul and patient, heavy- 
 laden life of this poor old venerable woman. 
 The love of human creatures one to another, 
 where it is true and unchangeable, often strikes 
 me as a strange fact in their poor history, a 
 kind of perpetual Gospel, revealing itself in 
 them ; sad, solemn, beautiful, the heart and 
 mother of all that can, in any way, ennoble 
 their otherwise mean and contemptible existence 
 in this world. 
 
 I am very idle here, very solitary, which I 
 find to be oftenest less miserable to me than 
 the common society that offers. Excepting 
 Froude almost alone, whom I see once a week, 
 there is hardly anybody whose talk, always 
 polite, clear, sharp, and sincere, does me any 
 considerable good. He has an excellent article 
 in the last Fraser''s Magazine, on ' Protestantism,' 
 which I think you, if you have not already read 
 it, would read with sympathy. 
 
 It is a great evil to me that now I have no 
 work, none worth calling by the name ; that I 
 am too weak, too languid, too sad of heart, to 
 be fit for any work, in fact to care sufficiently 
 for any object left me in the world, to think 
 of grappling round it and coercing it by work. 
 A most sorry dog-kennel it oftenest all seems 
 to me, and wise words, if one even had them, 
 to be only thrown away on it. Basta-basta, I 
 for most part say of it, and look with longings 
 towards the still country where at last we and 
 our loved ones shall be together again. Amen, 
 amen. 
 
 A sister of mine is with me here for these 
 two months, to help us through the dark 
 hollow of the year ; it is the one you saw in 
 Edinburgh, as she right well remembers, I 
 can see. Lady Ashburton is again in Mentone 
 with her child. Adieu, dear friend. — Yours 
 ever, T. Carlyle. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Chelsea, Feb. 12, 1869. 
 Dear Mr. Erskine,— I was most agreeably 
 surprised by the sight of your handwriting 
 again, so kind, so welcome ! The letters are 
 as firm and honestly distinct as ever; — the 
 mind, too, in spite of its frail environments, as 
 clear, plumb-up, calmly expectant, as in the 
 best days : right so ; so be it with us all, till 
 we quit this dim sojourn, now grown so lonely 
 to us, and our change come ! ' Our Father 
 which art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name, 
 Thy will be done ; ' — what else can we say ? 
 The other night, in my sleepless tossings about, 
 which were growing more and more miserable, 
 these words, that brief and grand Prayer, came 
 strangely into my mind, with an altogether new 
 emphasis ; as if written, and shining for me in 
 mild, imre splendour on the black bosom of the 
 Night there ; when I, as it were, read them 
 word by word, — with a sudden check to my 
 
 imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness 
 of composure which was much unexpected. 
 Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I 
 once formally repeated that Prayer; — nay, I 
 never felt before how intensely the voice of 
 Man's soul it is ; the inmost aspiration of all 
 that is high and pious in poor Human Nature ; 
 right worthy to be recommended with an 
 'After this manner j^ray ye.' 
 
 I am very thankful that you went to see poor 
 Betty ; she is one of the most venerable human 
 figures now known to me in the world. I 
 called there, the first thing after my bit of 
 surgery in the neighbourhood, end of July 
 last ; I seemed to have only one other visit to 
 make in all Scotland, — and I made only (me. 
 The sight of poor Betty, mournful as it is, 
 and full of mournfullest memories to me, 
 always does me good. So far as I could any 
 way learn, she is well enough in her humble, 
 thrifty economics, etc. : if otherwise at any 
 time, I believe you understand that help from 
 this quarter would be a sacred duty to me. 
 
 I am still able to walk, though I do it on 
 compulsion merely, and without i^leasure except 
 as in work done. It is a great sorrow that you 
 now get fatigued so soon, and have not your 
 old privilege in this respect ; — I only hope you 
 perhaps do not quite so indispensably need it 
 as I; with me it is the key to sleep, and in 
 fact the one medicine (often ineffectual, and 
 now gradually oftener) that I ever could dis- 
 cover for this poor clay tabernacle of mine. I 
 still keep working, after a weak sort ; but can 
 now do little, often almost nothing ; — all my 
 little ' work' is henceforthjpriz/'ot^e (as I calculate) ; 
 a setting of my poor house in order ; which I 
 would fain finish in time, and occasionally fear 
 I shan't. Dear Mr. Erskine, good be ever with 
 you. Were my hand as little shaky as it is 
 to-day, I would write to you oftener. A word 
 from you will ever be welcome here ! — Yours 
 sincerely and much, T. Carlyle. 
 
 [Carlyle, having heard that James Dodds, one 
 of his correspondents, and afterwards a 
 well-known parliamentary solicitor and 
 lecturer, intended to proceed m due time 
 to London, to prosecute his adopted career 
 as a lawyer, thus addressed him :] 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE TO JAMES DODDS. 
 
 Chelsea, July 11, 1844. 
 My DEAR Sir,— You are probably right in your 
 determination towards London ; at least I will by 
 no means say you are wrong. Your description of 
 Edinburgh life has much in it that agrees with 
 my own experience and observation there ; and 
 certainly the patience with which you have 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 263 
 
 seen and admitted all that, and silently gone 
 on -with it, and are still ready to go on with it, 
 in manful diligence under such conditions as 
 there may be, is of good augury for you here or 
 elsewhere. Go where we will, we find ourselves 
 again in a conditional world. 
 
 Of law in London I know nothing practical. 
 I see some few lawyers in society at times, a 
 tough, withered, wiry sort of men ; but they 
 hide their law-economies, even when I question 
 them, very much under lock and key. I have 
 understood that the labour is enormous in their 
 profession, and the reward likewise ; the suc- 
 cessful lawyer amasses hundreds of thousands, 
 and actually converts himself into what we 
 might call a 'spiritual speldrin,' no very blessed 
 bargain ! On the whole, I would not prophesy 
 for you the first prizes in such a course, nor 
 like you the worse that you v/ent -without prize 
 at all in it. But there is miich here besides 
 law ; law is a small item here. 
 
 The great question is : Dare you, must you ? 
 It is an awful enterprise that of London, but 
 also full of generous results if you have strength 
 — strength to look chaos and hell in the face ; to 
 struggle through them toward the Adamantine 
 Isles ! For a literary lawyer, I should say 
 Edinburgh was far preferable. Success in law 
 here is totally incompatible with literature. 
 This you should reflect on before starting. 
 
 On the whole, if you have the offer of a 
 clerkship that will secure you subsistence, there 
 can be no harm in coming up to take a view of 
 us, and to try what kind of chaos Ave are. 
 There is much here to interest a brave young 
 Scotsman, to expand him, to repress him, and 
 in many ways instruct him, if he have strength 
 to learn. If he will not learn, they will kill 
 him here in one way or other. 
 
 You may depend veiy certainly on my 
 omitting no opportunity that may arise to 
 further you in this matter. If my power 
 equalled my inclination, you were very safe in 
 it. If your present half -certain outlook end in 
 nothing, pray apprise me of that, and I will 
 at least speak to some persons about it. 
 
 And so I will wish you a wise resolution, wise 
 and genuine as in the sight of God your Maker, 
 which indeed is wishing you all. The heedless 
 clamour and babble of our fellow-creatures do 
 but bewilder us, ' Thou must be a great man,' 
 they cry, * or we will not be flunkies to thee ! ' 
 * AVho wants you for flunkies? I will be a small 
 man !' Believe me, yours very sincerely, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 nearly seven hundred perished in Dumfries 
 and suburbs. Carlyle wrote this letter, 
 which breathes a strong practical piety, to 
 a brother of his mother's resident in the 
 town at the time.] 
 
 CARLYLE TO MR. JOHN AITKEN, MASON, FRIAES' 
 VENNEL, DUMFRIES. 
 
 Craigenputtocli, October 16, 1832. 
 Mr DEAR Uncle, — Judge if I am anxious to 
 hear from you! Except the silence of the 
 newspapers, I have no evidence that you are 
 still spared. The disease, I see, has been in 
 your street ; in Shaw's ; in Jamie Aitken's ; it 
 has killed your friend Thomson : who knows 
 what farther was its appointed work ! You I 
 strive to figure in the meanwhile as looking at 
 it, in the universal terror, with some calmness, 
 as knowing and practically believing that your 
 days, and the days of those dear to you, were 
 now, as before and always, in the hand of God 
 only ; from whom it is in vain to fly ; towards 
 whom lies the only refuge of man. Death's 
 thousand doors have ever stood open ; this 
 indeed is a wide one, yet it leads no farther 
 than they all lead. Our boy was in the town 
 a fortnight ago (for I believe by experience 
 the infectious influence to be trifling, and quite 
 inscrutable to man ; therefore go and send 
 whithersoever I have business, in spite of 
 cholera); but I had forgot that he would not 
 naturally see Shaw or some of you, and gave 
 him no letter ; so got no tidings. He will call 
 on you to-morrow, and in any case bring a 
 verbal message. If you are too hurried to 
 write in time for him, send a letter next day 
 to the care of Mrs. Welsh, his mother-in-law, 
 Templand, Thornhill ; tell me only that you 
 are all spared alive ! We are for Annandale, 
 after Thornhill, and may possibly enough 
 return by Dvxmfries. I do not participate in 
 the panic. We were close beside cholera for 
 many weeks in London ; every ball has its 
 billet. I hear the disease is fast abating; it 
 is likely enough to come and go among us ; to 
 take up his dwelling with us among our other 
 maladies. The sooner we grow to compose 
 ourselves beside it the wiser for us. Man who 
 has reconciled himself to die need not go dis- 
 tracted at the manner of his death. God 
 make us all ready ; and be His time ours ! No 
 more to-night. Ever your affectionate 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 [During the visitation of cholera in 1832, Dum- 
 fries suffered terribly, as many as forty- 
 four deaths taking place in one day. About 
 one thousand persons were attacked, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 264 
 
 [That Mrs. Carlyle was worthy of the noble 
 stock from which she came, and that she 
 possessed not a little of the ready wit of 
 brave Mrs. AVelsh of Ayr, has been attested 
 by all who knew her. Among her other 
 gifts was that of writing a letter in no 
 wise inferior to the choicest productions of 
 her husband in the epistolary line. Of 
 this we find an example in a i^layful 
 communication to Sir George Sinclair, 
 written in 1860, shortly after her husband 
 had gone north on a visit to the baronet 
 at Thurso Castle.— "VV. H. Wylie's Thomas 
 Carlyle, the Man and his Books (1881).] 
 
 JANE WELSH CAKLYLE TO SIR GEORGE SINCLAIR. 
 
 5 Gheyne Row, Chelsea. 
 
 My DEAR Sir, — Decidedly you are more 
 thoughtful for me than the man who is bound 
 by vow to * love and cherish ' me ; not a line 
 have I received from him to announce his safe 
 arrival in yovir dominions. 
 
 The more shameful on his part, that, as it 
 appears by your note, he had such good accounts 
 to give of himself, and was perfectly up to 
 giving them. 
 
 Well ! now that you have relieved me from 
 all anxiety about the effects of the journey on 
 him, he may write at his own ' reasonably good 
 leisure.' Only I told him I should not write 
 until I heard of his arrival from himself ; and 
 he knows whether or no I am in the habit of 
 keeping my word to the letter. 
 
 A thousand thanks for the primrose roots, 
 which I shall plant so soon as it fairs ! To-day 
 we have again a deluge, adding a deeper shade of 
 horror to certain household operations going on 
 under my inspection (by way of ' improving the 
 occasion' of his absence) ! One bedroom has got 
 all the feathers of its bed and pillows airing 
 themselves out on the floor ! creating an 
 atmosphere of down in the house more choking 
 even than cotton-fuzz. In another, upholsterers 
 and painters are plashing away for their life ; 
 and a couple of bricklayers are tearing up flags 
 in the kitchen to seek 'the solution' of a non- 
 acting drain ! All this on the one hand ; and 
 on the other, visits from my doctor, resulting in 
 ever new 'composing draughts,' and charges 
 to 'keep my mind perfectly tranquil.' You 
 will admit that one could easily conceive 
 situations more ideal. Pray do keep him as 
 long as you like ! To hear of him ' in high spirits' 
 and 'looking remarkably well' is more composing 
 for me than any amount of 'composing 
 draughts,' or of insistence on the benefits of 
 'keeping myself perfectly tranquil.' It is so 
 very different a state of things with him from 
 that in which I have seen him for a long time 
 back 1 
 
 Oh ! I must not forget to give you the ' kind 
 remembrance' of a very charming woman, whom 
 any man may be pleased to be remembered by 
 as kindly as she evidently remembered you ! I 
 speak of Lady William Russell. ^ She knew you 
 in Germany, 'a young student,' she told me, 
 when she was Bessy Rawdon, She ' had a great 
 affection for you, and had often thought of you 
 since.' You were ' very romantic in those days ; 
 oh, very romantic and sentimental,^ she could 
 assure me ! Pray send me back a pretty 
 message for her, she will like so much to 
 know that she has not remembered you ' with 
 the reciprocity all on one side. ' I don't even 
 send my regards to Mr. C., but affection- 
 ately yours, Jane W. Carlyle. 
 
 [The publication in 1877 of the Letters of 
 Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, under the 
 editorial care of the Rev. William Hanna, 
 D.D., revealed to the general public a 
 nature of great originality, depth, and 
 spirituality. His letters, whatever their 
 main subject may be, or to whomsoever 
 addressed, invariably lead up to some 
 spiritual truth, which is expressed with 
 gi-eat clearness and simplicity. The style 
 of his letters may be gathered from these 
 specimens ; he ranked amongst his corre- 
 spondents, Thomas Carlyle, Lady Augusta 
 Stanley, the Rev. J. Macleod Campbell of 
 Row, and many others. We are indebted 
 to the courtesy of the editor of these letters, 
 and to Mr. Erskine of Linlathen, for our 
 present instalment, and also for those 
 previously given, which were addressed to 
 him by Thomas Carlyle.] 
 
 THOMAS erskine TO MISS WEDGWOOD. 
 
 Folloc House, Glasgow, May 18, 1865. 
 Beloved Snow,— I have read over your 
 letter more than once with deep sympathy. I 
 wish I could say anything that might help you. 
 At all events, I know you are in the hands of 
 One who can help you, and who not only sees 
 these dark gropings in you, but who in a 
 certain sense put them there. My own feelings 
 of love and justice give me an assurance that 
 He has them, that He is loving and just, and 
 I am sure that love and justice must seek to 
 communicate themselves. When I am per- 
 suaded that a thing ought to be, I feel certain 
 that it will be sooner or later— not that it will 
 
 1 The mother of the present Duke of Bedford, a 
 lady of rare gifts. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 265 
 
 come of itself, but that God will not cease to 
 press it until it is accomplished. I am sure 
 that all the good which I feel the want of is in 
 God, and that He makes me feel the want of it 
 that I may look to Him for it with a confident 
 expectation. I feel that we are created to be 
 educated into a perfect sympathy with God, 
 with the living personal Fountain of all good- 
 ness. Understand what I mean, that our 
 education is not into absolute or independent 
 goodness, but a goodness continually to be 
 received through sympathy — fresh every 
 moment — a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life, so that we may not only have 
 the blessedness of the goodness, but also of that 
 loving sympathy which is continually supplying 
 it. 
 
 The evidence of a spiritual state which con- 
 tinually forces itself \ipon me, is the demand 
 which my conscience makes on me for qualities 
 and feelings which would not be at all 
 necessary if this outward social order were 
 all. To do actions beneficial to society, and 
 to abstain from actions hurtful to society, 
 would be enough ; but love and holiness, and 
 trust in an unseen, are demanded by my 
 conscience, and are necessary for my peace, 
 still more than any outward actions whatevex', 
 and I cannot meet these demands without 
 knowing something of the natvire of that 
 spiritual world of which they are the natural 
 laws. My whole being is a contradiction if 
 there be not a spiritual world, and if I do not 
 belong to it. But it is impossible that my 
 being should be a contradiction. I feel that 
 goodness and truth and righteousness are 
 realities, eternal realities, and that they cannot 
 be abstractions or vapours floating in a spiritual 
 atmosphere, but that they necessarily imply 
 a living personal will, a good, loving, righteous 
 God, in whose hands we are perfectly safe, 
 and who is guiding us by unfailing wisdom. 
 I have known in my life two or three persons 
 who, I knew, honestly and earnestly and 
 unceasingly endeavoured to help me to be a 
 right man ; and now, in looking back on these 
 persons, I feel what a deep confidence this 
 purpose of theirs inspired me with, and I am 
 conscious of having a similar confidence in God 
 through all varieties in His treatment of me, 
 because I have in my conscience the continual 
 l^roof that He never for a moment relaxes His 
 earnest purpose that I should be right. 
 
 Dear friend, I write these fragmentary 
 sentences from the hope that you may catch 
 hold of something in them which may help you 
 to take hold of God. There is nothing else 
 which can do us any good. If I believe in 
 God, in a Being who made me, and fashioned 
 me, and knows my wants and capacities and 
 necessities, because He gave them to me, and 
 who is perfectly good and loving, righteous, 
 and perfectly wise and powerful, whatever my 
 
 circumstances, inward or outward, may be, 
 however thick the darkness which encompasses 
 me, I yet can trust, yea, be assured, that all 
 will be well, that He can draw light out of 
 darkness, and make crooked things straight. 
 Without such a thought of God, the conscious- 
 ness of being embarked in an unending 
 existence, out of which we cannot extricate 
 oui-selves, would be a horror insupportable ; but 
 I know that He can make it not only support- 
 able, but a real and continual joy, and a 
 reason for continual thankfulness. 
 
 Que mon dme vive qu'elle te loue. Dear 
 Madame de Broglie used to repeat that verse 
 the last year of her life as the chief expression 
 of her feeling. 
 
 Yes, beloved Snow, we shall yet see a moral 
 law of gTavitation doing in the world of spirits 
 that which the material law of gravitation does 
 in this visible system of things ; we yet shall 
 see the infinite righteous love of God attracting 
 all hearts, and tmiting them to Himself and to 
 each other, and filling them all out of His 
 fulness. 
 
 Farewell. I may be here for a few days 
 longer, but Linlathen will be my proper 
 address through the summer. Ever yours 
 very aflPectionately, T. Erskine. 
 
 I am iu.st looking at some beautiful fragrant 
 flowers, and they seem to me to say so much 
 of the gentleness and tenderness of their 
 Creator. What do they represent? Can we 
 say when they are before us that we have no 
 evidence of the love and righteousness of God ? 
 But still the demand of righteousness within 
 us is the chiefest evidence, — an evidence which 
 the dismal condition of the human race does 
 not seem to me at all to shake. God is in no 
 hurry, and man requires a long and varied 
 process. 
 
 TO BISHOP EWING. 
 
 Education not Probation. 
 
 Linlathen, August 17, 1864;. 
 Vescovo carissimo, — ... It is as clearas 
 day, that however true a truth may be, it can 
 never have its full legitimate influence over me 
 and value to me, until I discern the truthfulness 
 of it ; but I require to be gradually educated 
 into the discernment of its truthfulness ; and 
 authority is an indispensable element in this 
 education. A child must begin in its knowledge 
 of numbers by believing on the authority of 
 its teacher that twice two is four, yet no one 
 even supposes that the child has really learned 
 the truth on this matter, until it is in a 
 condition to reject any authority that would 
 try to give it the idea that twice two was five. 
 Even so in religious truth we must begin with 
 
266 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 .authority : the child is to be educated into the 
 discernment of truth, and we know that in 
 regard to much in this department of thought, 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every 
 thousand remain children to the end of their 
 lives. At the same time, the object of the 
 true teacher will always be to help the child 
 (whether he be young or old) to discern the 
 truthfulness of the truth, and this is to be 
 done by helping it from a lower step to a 
 higher, by letting it perceive the connection 
 between them ; just as a child, after it has 
 perceived that twice two is four, may be helped 
 to see that twice four is eight. Thus a child 
 may soon understand that God wishes it to be 
 good, if it has the good fortune to have a father 
 or mother who it feels wishes it to be good ; 
 and when it has got the knowledge in this way, 
 it has hold of the truth, not on authority, but 
 really. In the same way it may learn that 
 God's purpose in punishing it, is to make it 
 good, and that the meaning of God's goodness 
 in relation to it is, that He will use the fittest 
 treatment (whether pain or pleasure) to make 
 it good. It may then go on to learn that 
 real trust in God means a confidence that His 
 jiurpose in all that He does is to make it good. 
 It is quite evident that the duty of faith in 
 God might be taught as a dogma resting on 
 the authority of Catechism or Scripture for 
 a hundred j^ears without the slightest good, 
 because the old child has never discerned the 
 truthfulness of the truth. Now, as I believe 
 that all the dogmas of Kevelation are connected 
 with that primal truth, their truthfulness must 
 be discerned in the light of that truth before 
 they can do the work they are intended for. 
 The true teaching of Christianity is helj^ing 
 men to see that the work of Christ is simply 
 the declaration of and carrying out of this 
 primal truth, that God's jDuri^ose is to make 
 men good. For my own part, I feel that I 
 believe the Bible because of the things that I 
 find in it, rather than that I believe them 
 because they are in the Bible. 
 
 I believe that if it were generally adopted as 
 a fundamental truth that man was created not 
 to be tried but to be educated, it would heli^ to 
 clear the way both of teachers and of learners 
 very much. The idea that we are in a state of 
 trial or i)robation necessarily forces us to look 
 on God as a judge, and forces us also to be 
 more occupied with the forgiveness of sins, 
 than with a deliverance from sinfulness. It 
 is this idea which has given its character of 
 substitution to the life and death of Christ, 
 representing it as the ground on which God is 
 justified in forgiving men, rather than as the 
 actings of the root of the human tree, by 
 which the sap is i)repared for and propelled 
 into the branches. It seems to me also, that 
 it is this idea which has made eternal punish- 
 ment to be received as a principle in God's 
 
 government. If it were believed that God had 
 created us for education, and that not one in 
 a thousand had really received any education, 
 it would generally be accepted without 
 hesitation that the education must necessarily 
 proceed in the next world. 
 
 I hope the Great Physician's treatment may 
 be profitable both for your soul and body.— 
 Yours veiy truly, T. Erskine. 
 
 TO MRS. BATTEN. 
 
 Sudden Conversions. 
 
 Linlathen, August 17, 1859. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Batten,— The information con- 
 tained in your own letter, and in Mr. Brendon's, 
 and the other, about the conversions taking 
 place in your neighbourhood and elsewhere, is 
 very remarkable and very interesting. 
 
 I do not pretend to judge them. I am sure 
 the Lord desires the conversion of all, and 
 that His Spirit is striving with all, whether 
 they yield to the sacred influence or resist it. 
 
 A conversion, that is to say a true con- 
 version, implies a knowledge of God, and of the 
 relation in which we stand to Him in His 
 Son. It implies a knowledge of God as a 
 holy, loving Father, who desires for us that we 
 should be partakers of His own holiness and 
 His own blessedness. But a man may be 
 awakened without being converted ; he may 
 discern that it is a fearful thing to be o^jposed 
 to the God who holds him and all things in 
 His hands. He may discern that the words 
 which he has been in the habit of using about 
 God and sin are the representatives of tre- 
 mendous realities ; but until he knows that 
 this God is his own loving Father, he can never 
 turn to Him truly. I would say that God lives 
 by and in His own Will, that Will is the 
 eternal life of God, and when a created spirit 
 receives God's Will into its will, it becomes 
 partaker of the eternal life. This I conceive is 
 salvation ; I don't understand any other mean- 
 ing of salvation. This is what I believe man 
 was made for ; his danger, his temptation, is 
 self-will, — making himself his centre. This 
 is sin, that which separates a man from God 
 and his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Jesus came to save men from sin, from this 
 sin, which is the root and summing-up of all 
 sin. This, then, is the salvation of Christ : I 
 don't believe that He came to deliver men from 
 any penalty. I believe that every penalty 
 which God has inflicted on men has been for 
 good, so that deliverance from it would be an 
 evil. I cannot sec any distinction between 
 salvation and the conformity of the will to 
 God. 
 
 I agi-ee with Mr. Brenton that I should 
 expect more lasting results from a silent 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 267 
 
 conversion than from a more excited one, still 
 it is the actual tiirnmg to God which is the 
 important matter. 
 
 In this country we are all brought up from 
 childhood with the great words of Christianity 
 sounding in our ears, but they have no 
 meaning to us until we hear them in the 
 Spirit. 
 
 This discovery of the truth does not make 
 God our Father. He always was and is so ; 
 He is the Father of the prodigal whilst eating 
 the husks with the swine ; but until he knows 
 His Father's love, he shuts out the eternal life, 
 because he cannot trust his Father. He cannot 
 open his will to let in and embrace his Father's 
 "Will, for that seems to threaten him with 
 destruction ; but when he discovers that that 
 "Will seeks only to deliver him from the dis- 
 order and confusion and misery which his 
 blinded self-seeking has produced, then he 
 can and will say, ' Search me, 0 God, and 
 know my heart ; try me, and know my 
 thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way 
 in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.' 
 He now sees that what God desires for him is 
 the very thing which he desires for himself, 
 but which he can only get through a partici- 
 pation in God's Spirit, and through yielding 
 himself to all God's training. 
 
 ' Open Thou mine eyes, that I may see 
 wondrous things out of Thy law.' God is my 
 Father, Christ is my head, and the Spirit 
 proceeding from the Father and the Son is 
 breathing into my conscience. 
 
 This is all true, whether I believe it or not. 
 My faith cannot make it, but until I know 
 Him whose voice it is, until I know whence 
 that voice cometh, and whither it would lead 
 me, I am not, and cannot be, born of it ; for 
 this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast 
 sent ; and the birth of the Spirit, the birth 
 from above, is just to receive the eternal life, 
 to receive the will of God, instead of the will 
 of the flesh, or of self-will. 
 
 One man may teach another words, but he 
 cannot even give him thought, much less can 
 he give him a realizing apprehension of the 
 realities of the unseen world. 
 
 I think that there is a great deal of wisdom 
 in ]\Ir. Brendon's observation, that in the case 
 of these sudden conversions there is always the 
 danger of the person trusting in the conversion, 
 instead of trusting in God. In fact there is 
 a continual temptation to escape difficulties 
 by substituting a sham for a reality. I may 
 have eternal life for ten minutes, but I must 
 abide in it by a sustained faith in God, and by 
 the continual action of ray will, if I would 
 keep the blessing. I must fight the good fight 
 of faith, not merely to get hold of eternal life, 
 but to keep hold of it, and to make progress 
 in it. 
 
 Man was created perfect, that is, merely 
 without the wrong bias ; and he was placed 
 where he was, that he might learn the super- 
 iority of God's Will to his own, and practically 
 to acknowledge that suj)eriority. He had the 
 self-will in him which he was to keep in 
 subjection to the will of God. This he could 
 only do by continual trust and continual 
 watchfulness ; but he seems to have forgotten 
 that he was placed there to learn to fight, and 
 thought only of enjoying, and thus the first 
 temptation overcame him. And are we to 
 think ourselves secure because we have tasted 
 of the love of God ? 
 
 I don't believe that a man is or can ever be 
 stereotyped either in good or evil. To suppose 
 that God is good by necessity and not by His 
 own will, would be to degrade Him ; and it 
 must be the same with the creatures made in 
 His image. Moral good always implies choice, 
 so man can neither be made good nor upheld in 
 good by a mere act of power. And yet neither 
 conversion nor perseverance in good is man's 
 own act. They are the voluntary yieldings of 
 man to the actings of God. "We are the 
 branches of the Vine, whether we receive the 
 sap or not ; our will cannot make the saj), or 
 be a substitute for it. The voice of conscience 
 is the efi^ort of the sap to enter into the 
 branch ; that effort gives us the power to 
 receive. Man is made to be a continual 
 receiver, and in order to this he must be in a 
 continual state of trustful dependence. We 
 are to be fellow-workers with God, I suppose 
 and believe, for ever. 
 
 I believe that the baptism of an infant means 
 simply to declare God's fatherly love and 
 relation to the child, and His purpose to 
 educate it for Himself, — this I believe to be 
 true of every child born into this world. 
 Baptism declares the truth, it does not make 
 it. The child must afterwards learn to yield 
 its will. 
 
 I believe also that the forgiveness to be 
 preached through Christ is the same thing 
 which is declared in baptism. 
 
 It is not withdrawing any j)enality, it is 
 the declaration of God's fatherly love and 
 relationship to every human being, and His 
 unchanged and unchangeable i)urj)ose to train 
 him into conformity with the Divine Will, 
 which will be carried forward on the other side 
 of the grave as well as on this. — I am, etc., 
 T. Erskine. 
 
268 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [Sara Coleridge, daughter of S. T. Coleridge, 
 the poet, was born at Greta Hall, near 
 Keswick, December 22, 1802. Her father, 
 who was absent in Germany at the time, 
 on his return wrote thus to a friend : — ' My 
 sweet little Sara is a remarkably interesting 
 baby, with the finest possible skin, and 
 large blue eyes ; and she smiles as if she 
 were basking in a sunshine as mild as 
 moonlight in her own haj)piness.' She 
 was married to her first cousin, Henry 
 Nelson Coleridge, and settled at Hamp- 
 stead. Her husband died in 1843. Her 
 OAvn death took place on May 3, 1852, 
 when in her forty-ninth year. Her I'emains 
 rest in the family burying-ground in the 
 old churchyard of Highgate. In the literary 
 work she accomplished she is said to have 
 displayed ' powers of critical analysis, and 
 of doctrinal, political, and historical re- 
 search, of no mean order.' Her life and 
 letters, edited by her daughter, when 
 published in 1873, charmed a wide circle 
 of admirers. We quote one specimen 
 from this book, through the courtesy of 
 the publishers, Messrs. C. K. Paul, Trench, 
 &Co.] 
 
 SARA COLERIDGE TO MISS E. TREVENEN. 
 
 Hampstead, August 1834. 
 Mary Howitt's book^ is a perfect love as to 
 its external part ; the prints are really exquisite. 
 The poems I have not read through, but what 
 I have read confirm me in my previous opinion, 
 that she has a genuine vein of poetry, though 
 not, I think, a very affluent one. Some of 
 the puffs (one of them at least) said that she 
 had even surpassed the authoresses ^ of the 
 Original Poems in hitting off something truly 
 poetical, yet intelligible to children^ in verse. 
 To this particular theme of praise I cannot 
 subscribe. I think Mary Howitt's verses do 
 not contain what all children must enter into, 
 in the same degree that the Original Poems 
 do ; but in this respect I think them preferable 
 even as regards fitness for youthful (I mean for 
 childish) minds, that they represent scarcely 
 anything but what is bright and joyous. 
 Children should dwell apart from the hard 
 and ugly realities of life as long as possible. 
 The OrigiTial Poems give too many revolting 
 pictures of mental depravity, bodily torture, 
 and of adult sorrows; and I think the senti- 
 
 1 SJcctches of Natural History. 
 
 '■i Ann and Jane Taylor, daughters of Isaac Taylor 
 of On^'ar, and sisters of the popular author of the 
 Natural History of Enthusiasm. 
 
 ments (the tirades against hunting, fishing, 
 shooting, etc., for instance) are morbid, and 
 partially false. 
 
 When I say that Mary Howitt's vein is not 
 afl&uent, I mean that she is given to beat out 
 one fancy as a gold-beater does a bit of gold, — 
 that the self-same imagination is reproduced, 
 with a little change of attire, in one poem 
 after another. 
 
 You speak of Mrs. Hannah More. I have 
 seen abundant extracts from her Bemains, and 
 I think I could not read them through if I 
 were to meet with them. I fear you will think 
 I want a duly disciplined mind, when I confess 
 that her writings are not to my taste. I 
 remember once disputing on this subject with 
 a young chaplain, who affirmed that Mrs. 
 Hannah More was the greatest female writer 
 of the age. 'Whom,' he asked, 'did I think 
 superior ? ' I mentioned a score of authoresses 
 whose names my opponent had never even 
 heard before. I should not now dispute 
 doggedly with a divine in a stage-coach ; but 
 years of discretion have not made me alter 
 the opinion I then not very discreetly expressed, 
 of the disproportion between Mrs. More's cele- 
 brity and her literary genius, as compared with 
 that of many other female writers whose fame 
 has not extended to the Asiatic Islands. I 
 cannot see in her productions aught comparable 
 to the imaginative vigour of Mrs. J. Baillie, 
 the eloquence and (for a woman) the pro- 
 fundity of Madame de Stael, the brilliancy 
 of Mrs. Hemans (though I think her over-rated), 
 the pleasant broad comedy of Miss Burney and 
 Miss Ferrier, the melancholy tenderness of 
 Miss Bowles, the pathos of Inchbald and Opie, 
 the masterly sketching of Miss Edgeworth (who, 
 like Hogarth, paints manners as they grow out 
 of morals, and not merely as they are modified 
 and tinctured by fashion) ; the strong and 
 touching, but sometimes coarse pictures of 
 Miss Martineau, who has some highly interest- 
 ing sketches of childhood in humble life ; and 
 last, not least, the delicate mirth, the gently- 
 hinted satire, the feminine decorous humour 
 of Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest, is 
 surely the most faultless of female novelists. 
 My uncle Southey and my father had an 
 equally high opinion of her merits, but Mr. 
 Wordsworth used to say that though he 
 admitted that her novels were an admirable 
 copy of life, he could not be interested in 
 productions of that kind ; unless the truth of 
 nature were j)resented to him clarified, as it 
 were, by the pervading light of imagination, 
 it had scarce any attractions in his eyes; and 
 for this reason, he took little pleasure in the 
 writings of Crabbe. My uncle Southey often 
 spoke in high terms of Castle Rackrent; he 
 thought it a work of true genius. Miss 
 Austen's works are essentially feminine, but 
 the best part of Miss Edgeworth's seem as if 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 269 
 
 they had been written by a man. Castle Rack- 
 rent contains genuine humour, a thing very 
 rare in the writings of women, and not much 
 relished by our sex in general. Belinda con- 
 tains much that is powerful, interspersed, like 
 the fine parts of Scotland, with tracts of dreary 
 insipidity ; and what is good in this work I 
 cannot think of so high an order as the good 
 things in Castle Rackrent and Emma. I have 
 been led to think that the exhibition of disease 
 and bodily torture is but a coarse art to ' freeze 
 the blood.' Indeed, you will acquit me of any 
 affected pretence to originality of criticism, 
 when you recollect how early my mind was 
 biassed by the strong talkers I was in the habit 
 of listening to. The spirit of what I sport 
 on critical matters, though not always the 
 application, is generally derived from the 
 sources that you wot of. Yet I know well 
 that we should not go by authority without 
 finding out a reason for our faith ; and unless 
 we test the opinions learned from others with 
 those of the world in general, we are apt to 
 hold them in an incorrect, and, at the same 
 time, a more strong and unqualified way than 
 than those do from whom we have derived 
 them. 
 
 Though I think with the Spectator, etc., that 
 Mrs. Blore's very great notoriety was more the 
 work of circumstances, and the popular turn 
 of her mind, than owing to a strong original 
 genius, I am far from thinking her an ordinary 
 woman. She must have had great energy of 
 character, and a sprightly versatile mind, 
 which did not originate much, but which 
 readily caught the spirit of the day, and 
 reflected all the phases of opinion in the pious 
 and well-disposed portion of society in a clear 
 and lively manner. To read Mrs. More's new 
 book was a sort of good work, which made the 
 reader feel satisfied with him or her self when 
 performed ; and it is agreeable to have one's 
 very own opinions presented to one in handsome 
 language, and placed in a highly respectable 
 point of view. Then Mrs. More entered the 
 field when there were few to make a figure 
 there beside, and she was set agoing by Garrick 
 and Johnson. Garrick, who pleased all the 
 world, said that the world ought to be pleased 
 with her; and Johnson, the Great Mogul of 
 literature, was gracious to a pretender whose 
 highest ambition was to follow him at a humble 
 distance. He would have sneered to death a 
 writer of far subtler intellect, and more excur- 
 sive imagination, who dared to deviate from 
 the track to which he pronounced good sense 
 to be confined. He even sneered a little at his 
 dear pet, Fanny Burney ; she had set up shop 
 for herself, to use a vulgarism ; she had ventured 
 to be original. I must add that Mrs. More's 
 steady devotion to the cause of piety and good 
 morals added the stamp of respectability to 
 her works, which was a deserved passport to 
 
 their reception ; though such a passport cannot 
 enable any production to keep its hold on the 
 general mind if it is not characterized by power 
 as well as good intention. 
 
 I admired some of Walpole's Letters in this 
 publication, and I read a flattering one from 
 Mrs. Barbauld, who was a very acute-minded 
 woman herself. Some of her Essays are very 
 clever indeed. I like Mrs. More's style, — so 
 neat and sprightly. The Letters seem to con- 
 tain a great deal of anecdote, the rage of the 
 reading public, but that is an article which I 
 am not particularly fond of. 
 
 [Thomas Babington Macaulay (Lord Macaulay) 
 was born at Rothley Temple, Leicester- 
 shire, October 25, 1800. Young Macaulay 
 graduated at Cambridge, was the author of 
 two ijrize poems, was elected to the Craven 
 scholarship in 1821, and became a fellow of 
 Trinity College in 1822. In February 1826 
 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. 
 In the same year he commenced his brilliant 
 career as an essayist by the publication of 
 the paper on Milton in the Edinburgh 
 Review, written when twenty-five years of 
 age. He was next appointed Commissioner 
 of Bankruptcy, and was returned as 
 Member of Parliament for Calne in 1830. 
 In 1834 he visited India, as a member and 
 legal adviser of the Supreme Council, to 
 draw up a new code of Indian law, and as 
 one of the results of this visit, afterwards 
 contributed his two famous essays to the 
 Edinburgh Revietu on Lord Clive and 
 Warren Hastings. In 1839 he was made 
 Secretaiy of War, and in 1840 he was 
 elected M.P. for Edinburgh. In 1857 he 
 was raised to the peerage under the title of 
 Baron Macaulay of Eothley. The state of 
 his health forbidding his taking part in the 
 public business in the House of Lords, his 
 time was mainly devoted to the writing of 
 his History of England. Four volumes of 
 his exceedingly j)opular History appeared 
 during his lifetime ; the fifth, which had 
 not received his final revision, was published 
 after his death, which took place at Holly 
 Lodge, in his sixtieth year, December 28, 
 1859. The Life and Letters of this great 
 historian and brilliant essayist, by his 
 nephew, G. Otto Trevelyan, M.P., was 
 published in March 1876, and is one of the 
 
270 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 best and most interesting of modern 
 biographies. "We quote two specimens of 
 Macaulay's letters from this book with 
 the sanction of the author.] 
 
 MACAULAT TO ELLIS. 
 
 London, March 30, 1831. 
 
 Dear Ellis, — I have little news for you, 
 except what you will learn from the papers as 
 well as from me. It is clear that the Reform 
 Bill must i)ass, either in this or in another 
 Parliament. The majority of one does not 
 appear to me, as it does to you, by any means 
 inauspicious. We should, perhaps, have had a 
 better plea for a dissolution if the majority had 
 been the other way. But surely a dissolution 
 under such circumstances would have been a 
 most alarming thing. If there should be a 
 dissolution now, there will not be that ferocity 
 in the public mind which there would have 
 been if the House of Commons had refused to 
 entertain the bill at all. I confess that, till 
 we had a majority, I was half inclined to 
 tremble at the storm which we had raised. At 
 present I think that we are absolutely certain 
 of victory, and of victory without commotion. 
 
 Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I 
 never saw, and never expect to see again. If I 
 should live fifty years, the impression of it will 
 be as fresh and sharp in my mind as if it had 
 just taken place. It was like seeing Caesar 
 stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver 
 taking the mace from the table ; a sight to be 
 seen only once, and never to be forgotten. The 
 crowd overflowed the House in every j)art. 
 When the strangers were cleared out, and the 
 doors locked, we had six hundred and eight 
 members present, — more by fifty-five than ever 
 were in a division before. The ayes and noes 
 were like two volleys of cannon from opposite 
 sides of a field of battle. When the Opposition 
 went out into the lobby, an operation which 
 took up twenty minutes or more, we spread 
 ourselves over the benches on both sides of the 
 House, for there were many of us who had not 
 been able to find a seat during the evening. 
 When the doors were shut we began to specu- 
 late on our numbers. Everybody was despond- 
 ing. 'We have lost it. We are only two 
 hundred and eighty at most. I do not think we 
 are two hundred and fifty. They are three 
 hundred. Alderman Thompson has counted 
 them. He says they are two hundred and 
 ninety-nine.' This was the talk on our benches. 
 I wonder that men who have been long in 
 Parliament do not acquire a better coup deceit 
 for numbers. The House, when only the ayes 
 were in it, looked to me a very fair House, — 
 much fuller than it generally is even on debates 
 of considerable interest. I had no hope, how- 
 ever, of three hundred. As the tellers passed 
 along our lowest row on the left-hand side, the 
 
 interest was insupportable, — two hundred and 
 ninety-one, — two hundred and ninety-two, — we 
 were all standing up and stretching forward, 
 telling with the tellers. At three hundred 
 there was a short cry of joy,— at three hundred 
 and two another, — suppressed, however, in a 
 moment ; for we did not yet know what the 
 hostile force might be. We knew, however, 
 that we could not be severely beaten. The 
 doors were thrown open, and in they came. 
 Each of them, as he entered, brought some 
 different report of their numbers. It must 
 have been impossible, as you may conceive, in 
 the lobby, crowded as they were, to form any 
 exact estimate. First we heard that they were 
 three hundred and three ; then that number 
 rose to three hundred and ten ; then went down 
 to three hundred and seven. Alexander Barry 
 told me that he had counted, and that they 
 were three hundred and four. We were all 
 breathless with anxiety, when Charles AVood, 
 who stood near the door, jumped up on a bench 
 and cried out, ' They are only three hundred 
 and one.' We set up a shout that you might 
 have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, 
 stamping against the floor, and clapping our 
 hands. The tellers scarcely got through the 
 crowd : for the House was thronged up to the 
 table, and all the floor was fluctuating with 
 heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might 
 have heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the 
 numbers. Then again the shouts broke out, 
 and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely 
 refrain. And the jaw of Peel fell ; and the 
 face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul ; 
 and Herries looked like Judas taking his neck- 
 tie off for the last operation. We shook hands, 
 and clapj)ed each other on the back, and went 
 out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the 
 lobby. And no sooner were the outer doors 
 opened than another shout answered that 
 within the House, All the passages and the 
 stairs into the waiting-rooms were thronged 
 by people who had waited till four in the 
 morning to know the issue. We passed through 
 a narrow lane between two thick masses of 
 them ; and all the way down they were shouting 
 and waving their hats, till we got into the open 
 air. I called a cabriolet, and the first thing the 
 driver asked was, ' Is the bill carried ? ' ' Yes, 
 by one.' ' Thank God for it, sir.' And away I 
 rode to Gray's Inn, — and so ended a scene which 
 will probably never be equalled till the reformed 
 Parliament wants reforming ; and that I hope 
 Avill not be till the days of our grandchildren — 
 till that truly orthodox and apostolical person, 
 Dr. Francis Ellis, is an archbishop of eighty. 
 
 As for me, I am for the present a sort of lion. 
 My speech has set me in the front rank, if I 
 can keep there ; and it has not been my luck 
 hitherto to lose ground when I have once got it. 
 Shell and I are on very civil terms. He talks 
 largely concerning Demosthenes and Buike. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 271 
 
 He made, I must say, an excellent speech ; too 
 florid and queer, but decidedly successful. 
 
 Why did not Price speak? If he was afraid, 
 it was not without reason ; for a more terrible 
 audience there is not in the world. I wish that 
 Praed had known to whom he was speaking. 
 But, with all his talent, he has no tact, and he 
 has fared accordingly. Tierney used to say that 
 he never rose in the House without feeling his 
 knees tremble under him ; and I am sure that 
 no man who has not some of that feeling will 
 ever succeed there. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 T. B. jMacaulay. 
 
 TO HAXXAH MOKE MACAULAY. 
 
 London, June 1, 1S31. 
 My dear Sistee, — My last letter was a dull 
 one. I mean this to be very amusing. My 
 last was about Basinghall Street, attorneys, 
 and bankrupts. But for this — take it dramati- 
 cally in the German style. 
 
 Fin£ morning. Scene, the great entrance of 
 Holland House. 
 
 Enter Macaulay, and Two Footmen in livery. 
 
 First Footman — Sir, may I venture to 
 
 demand your name ? 
 Macaulay — Macaulay, and thereto I add 
 
 M.P. 
 
 And that addition, even in these proud halls, 
 jlay well ensure the bearer some respect. 
 Second Footman — And art thou come to 
 
 breakfast with our lord ? 
 Macatday — I am : for so his hospitable will. 
 And hers — the peerless dame ye serve — hath 
 bade. 
 
 First Footman— Ascend the stair, and thou 
 above shalt find, 
 On snow-white linen spread, the luscious meal. 
 {Exit Macaulay upstairs.) 
 
 In plain English prose, I went this morning 
 to breakfast at Holland House. The day was 
 fine, and I arrived at twenty minutes after ten. 
 After I had lounged a short time in the dining- 
 room, I heard a gruff, good - natured voice 
 asking, * Where is Mr. Macaulay ? "Where have 
 you put him?' and in his arm-chair Lord 
 Holland was wheeled in. He took me round 
 the apartments, he riding and I walking. He 
 gave me the history of the most remarkable 
 portraits in the library, where there is, by the 
 bye, one of the few bad pieces of Lawrence that 
 I have seen — a head of Charles James Fox, an 
 ignominious failure. Lord Holland said that it 
 was the worst ever painted of so eminent a man 
 by so eminent an artist. There is a very fine 
 head of Machiavelli, and another of Earl Grey, 
 a very different sort of man. I observed a 
 portrait of Lady Holland painted some thirty 
 
 years ago. I could have cried to see the change. 
 She must have been a most beautiful woman. 
 She still looks, however, as if she had been 
 handsome, and shows in one respect great taste 
 and sense. She does not rouge at all ; ' and her 
 costume is not youthful, so that she looks as 
 well in the morning as in the evening. We 
 came back to the dining-room. Our breakfast 
 liarty consisted of my lord and lady, myself, 
 Lord Russell, and Luttrell. You must have 
 heard of Luttrell. I met him once at Eogers's ; 
 and I have seen him, I think, in other places. 
 He is a famous wit,— the most popular, I think, 
 of all the professed wits, — a man who has lived 
 in the highest ckcles, a scholar, and no con- 
 temptible -poet. He wrote a little volume of 
 verse, entitled. Advice to Julia, — not first-rate, 
 but neat, lively, piquant, and showing the 
 most consummate knowledge of fashionable 
 life. 
 
 We breakfasted on very good coffee, and very 
 good tea, and very good eggs, butter kept in the 
 midst of ice, and hot rolls. Lady Holland told 
 us her dreams ; how she had dreamed that a 
 mad dog bit her foot, and how she set off to 
 Brodie, and lost her way in St. Martin's Lane, 
 and could not find him. She hoped, she said, 
 the dream would not come true. I said that I 
 had had a dream which admitted of no such 
 hope ; for I had dreamed that I heard Pollock 
 speak in the House of Commons, that the 
 speech was very long, and that he was coughed 
 down. This dream of mine diverted them 
 much. 
 
 After breakfast Lady Holland offered to con- 
 duct me to her own drawing-room, or, rather, 
 commanded my attendance. A very beautiful 
 room it is, 0]pening on a terrace, and wainscotted 
 with miniature paintings interesting from their 
 merit, and interesting from their history. 
 Among them I remarked a great many — thirty, 
 I should think — which even I, who am no 
 great connoisseur, saw at once could come from 
 no hand but Stothard's. They were all on 
 subjects from Lord Byron's poems. 'Yes,' 
 said she ; ' poor Lord Byron sent them to me a 
 short time before the separation. I sent them 
 back, and told him that, if he gave them away, 
 he ought to give them to Lady Byron. But he 
 said that he would not, and that, if I did not 
 take them, the bailiffs would, and that they 
 would be lost in the wreck.' Her ladyship then 
 honoured me so far as to conduct me through 
 her dressing-room into the great family bed- 
 chamber, to shovi me a very fine picture by 
 Reynolds of Fox, when a boy, bird - nesting. 
 She then consigned me to Luttrell, asking him 
 to show me the grounds. 
 
 Through the grounds we went, and very 
 pretty I thought them. In the Dutch garden 
 is a fine bronze bust of Napoleon, which Lord 
 Holland put up in 1817, while Napoleon was a 
 prisoner at St. Helena. The inscription was 
 
2/2 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 selected by his lordship, and is remarkably 
 happy. It is from Homer's Odyssey. I will 
 translate it, as well as I can extempore, into a 
 measure which gives a better idea of Homer's 
 manner than Pope's sing-song couplet : 
 
 For not, be sure, within the grave 
 Is hid that prince, the wise, the brave ; 
 But in an islet's narrow bound, 
 With the great ocean roaring round, 
 The captive of a foeinan base, 
 He pines to view his native place. 
 
 There is a seat near the spot which is called 
 Rogers's seat. The poet loves, it seems, to sit 
 there. A very elegant inscription by Lord 
 Holland is placed over it : 
 
 ' Here Rogers sate ; and here for ever dwell 
 "With me those pleasures which he sang so well.' 
 
 Very neat and condensed, I think. Another 
 inscription by Luttrell hangs there. Luttrell 
 adjured me with mock pathos to spare his 
 blushes ; but I am author enough to know what 
 the blushes of authors mean. So I read the 
 lines, and very pretty and polished they were, 
 but too many to be remembered from one 
 reading. 
 
 Having gone round the grounds I took my 
 leave, very much j)leased with the place. Lord 
 Holland is extremely kind. But that is of 
 course ; for he is kindness itself. Her ladyship 
 too, which is by no means of course, is all 
 graciousness and civility. But, for all this, I 
 would much rather be quietly walking with 
 you ; and the great use of going to these fine 
 places is to learn how happy it is possible to be 
 withoiit them. Indeed, I care so little for 
 them, that I certainly should not have gone 
 to-day, but that I thought that I should be 
 able to find materials for a letter which you 
 might like. 
 
 Farewell, 
 
 T. B. Macaulat. 
 
 [Hugh Miller, one of the most remarkable of 
 our self-taught writers, and popular illus- 
 trators of geology, was a native of Cromarty, 
 born October 10, 1802. His family were 
 seafaring men, his own father being 
 drowned at sea in a storm, 1807. He re- 
 ceived a common school education, through 
 the interest of two maternal uncles, and 
 thereafter at his own request was appren- 
 ticed as a stonemason. In the Cromarty 
 quarries he began that habit of keen 
 observation, and virtuous self-denial, the 
 first of which placed him in the front rank 
 as a scientific and descriptive writer, and 
 the latter kept him safe in his often hard 
 
 and rough surroundings. His first attempt 
 in the field of literature was the publication 
 of a volume of poems. Some letters 
 written to the Inverness Courier, on the 
 Herring Fishing, drew the attention of the 
 editor towards him, and paved the way for 
 the publication in 1834 of Scenes and Le- 
 gends in the North of Scotland. When a 
 bank accountant in Cromarty, he married 
 Lydia Falconer Fraser, to whom one of these 
 letters is addressed. A chapter in 3ly 
 Schools and Schoolmasters is devoted to 
 their romantic courtship. In 1840 he was 
 called to Edinburgh as editor of the Witness 
 newspaper, which appeared twice a week, 
 for which post he had previously shown 
 great capacity. He continued its editor- 
 ship till his self-inflicted death at Porto- 
 bello on the 24th of December 1856. He 
 was the victim of an overtasked brain, and 
 while suffering in both mind and body, 
 shot himself in the heart, and almost 
 instantly expired. During the last fifteen 
 years of his life Miller wrote The Old Bed 
 Sandstone, 1841 ; First Impressions of Eng- 
 land, 1847 ; Footprints of the Creator, 1850 ; 
 3Iy Schools and Schoolmasters, an auto- 
 biography, 1854 ; The Testimony of the 
 Rocks, a work which he left finished, but 
 which was not published till after his death. 
 Two other works were also published after 
 his death, The Cruise of the Betsey, and 
 Sketch-Book of Popular Geology. Mrs. 
 Miller, who also possessed good literary 
 taste, and wrote some minor works in 
 Natural History, survived him twenty years, 
 and died at the house of a son-in-law in 
 Sutherlandshire, March 11, 1876, and on the 
 20th of the same month was buried beside 
 her husband in the Grange Cemetery, Edin- 
 burgh. A daughter, Mrs. Harriet Miller 
 Davidson, has shown no mean power as a 
 novelist. Miller's Schools and Schoolmasters 
 closes with his entrance upon the editor- 
 ship of the Witness, but an elaborate Life 
 and Letters, edited by Dr. Peter Bayne, 
 appeared in 1871, which gives a full account 
 of his career. This book should be read by 
 every one who wishes to gain a complete 
 idea of the man and his work j it contains 
 some excellent letters. Those we quote are 
 given with Dr. Bayne's sanction, and also 
 that of Mr. Strahan, who originally pub- 
 lished the work. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 273 
 
 "WTien Miss Fraser taught him to under- 
 stand the love-poetry of Burns, as he ex- 
 pressly says she did, he bade adieu for ever, 
 though not without a sigh, to the tranquil 
 hopes which had hitherto inspired him. 
 He told Miss Fraser that she had spoiled 
 a good philosopher, and it was with no 
 exultation, though with calm and fixed 
 resolution, that he felt the spirit of the 
 philosophic recluse die within him and the 
 spirit of the man arise. The classic fable 
 was reversed. Daphne overtook and dis- 
 enchanted her lover. Miller awoke from 
 the dream which was stealing over him ; 
 the roots which had already struck deep 
 into his native soil, and which promised to 
 bind him down to a mild tree-like existence 
 on the hill of Cromarty, were snapped 
 asunder; a stronger circulation swept in 
 fierce thrills along his veins ; and with new 
 hope, new ambition, new aspiration, he 
 girded up his loins for the race of life. 
 Hitherto, ' he professed just what he felt, 
 to be content with a table, a chair, and a 
 pot, with a little fire in his grate and a 
 little meat to cook on it.' He professed 
 such contentment no longer; for himself 
 he could have lived and died a working 
 man, but he could not endure the idea of 
 his wife being in any rank save that of a 
 lady. Habitually self-conscious, observant 
 of every event in his mental history, Miller 
 did not fail to mark the change which had 
 passed over him. In a letter written in 
 the summer of 1834 he describes it, with 
 grace, naivete, and lightness of touch, to 
 her who was its cause. The first part of 
 the letter is unimportant, but it may as 
 well be inserted for the illustration it 
 affords of his simple and pleasurable mode 
 of life in Cromarty at this period. — Bayne,'\ 
 
 HUGH MILLER TO MISS FRASER. 
 
 Cromarty, Wednesday, 12 o'clock. 
 I am afraid you are still unwell. Your 
 window was shut till near ten this morning, 
 and as I saw no light from it last evening, I 
 must conclude you went early to bed. How 
 
 very inefficient, my L , are the friendships 
 
 of earth ! My heart is bound uj) in you, 
 and yet I can only wish and regret, and — yes, 
 pray. Well, that is something. I cannot regu- 
 late your pulses, nor dissipate your pains, nor 
 give elasticity to your spirits ; but I can implore 
 on your behalf the great Being who can. 
 
 "Would that both for your sake and my own my 
 prayers had the efficacy of those described by 
 simple-hearted James ! ^ They are sincere, my 
 
 L , when you form the burden of them, but 
 
 they are not the prayers of the righteous. . . . 
 
 My mother, as you are aware, has a very 
 small garden behind her house. It has produced 
 this season one of the most gigantic thistles of 
 the kind which gardeners term the Scotch, that 
 I ever yet saw. The height is fully nine feet, 
 the average breadth nearly five. Some eight 
 years ago I intended building a little house for 
 myself in this garden. I was to cover it out- 
 side with ivy, and to line it inside with books ; 
 and here was I to read and write and think all 
 my life long— not altogether so independent of 
 the world as Diogenes in his tub, or the savage 
 in the recesses of the forest, but quite as much 
 as is possible for man in his social state. Here 
 was I to attain to wealth not by increasing my 
 goods, but by moderating my desires. Of the 
 thirst after wealth I had none, — I could live on 
 half-a-crown per week and be content ; nor yet 
 was I desirous of power, — I sought not to be 
 any man's master, and I had spirit enough to 
 preserve me from being any man's slave. I had 
 no heart to oppress ; —why wish, then, for the 
 seat or the power of the oppressor ? —I had no 
 dread of being subjected to oppression ; — did 
 the proudest or the loftiest dare infringe on my 
 rights as a man, there might be disclosed to 
 him, perchance, 
 
 ' Through peril and alarm, 
 The might that slumber'd in a peasant's arm.' 
 
 Even for fame itseK I had no very exciting 
 desire. If I met with it in quest of amusement, 
 well ; if not, I could be happy enough without 
 it. So much for the great disturbers of human 
 life — avarice and ambition, and the thirst of 
 praise. My desires were not tall enough to 
 penetrate into those upper regions which they 
 haunt ; — I was too low for them, and for the 
 inferior petty disturbers of men's happiness I 
 was as certainly too high. Love, for instance, 
 I could have nothing to fear from. I knew 
 myself to be naturally of a cool temperament ; 
 —and, then, were not my attachments to my 
 friends so many safety-valves? Besides, no 
 woman of taste could ever love me, for I was 
 ugly and awkward ; and as I could love only a 
 woman of taste, and could never submit to woo 
 one to whom I was indifferent, my being ugly 
 and awkward was as an iron wall to me. No, 
 no, I had nothing to fear from love. My own 
 
 dear L , only see how much good philosophy 
 
 you have spoiled. I am not now indifferent to 
 wealth or pov/er or i)lace in the world's eye. I 
 would fain be rich, that I might render you 
 comfortable ; powerful, that I might raise you to 
 those high i^laces of society which you are so 
 
 1 'The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man 
 availeth much.' — James v. 16. 
 
274 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 fitted to adorn ; celebrated, that the world might 
 justify your choice. I never think now of build- 
 ing the little house or of being happiest in soli- 
 tude; and if my life is to be one of celibacy, 
 it must be one of sorrow also, — of heart-wasting 
 sorrow for — but I must not think of that. 
 
 TO MKS. FRASEK. 
 
 Cromarty, Nov. 2, 1833. 
 
 My deae Madam,— I trust ingratitude is not 
 among the number of my faults. But how 
 render apparent the sense I entertain of your 
 kindness in so warmly interesting yourself in 
 my welfare? Just by laying my whole mind 
 open before you. Two years ago there was not 
 a less ambitious or more contented sort of 
 person than myself in the whole kingdom. I 
 knew hapj)iness to be altogether independent of 
 external circumstances ; I more than knew it, — 
 I felt it. My days passed on in a quiet, even 
 tenor ; and though poor, and little known, and 
 bound down to a life of labour, I could yet 
 anticipate, without one sad feeling, that in all 
 these respects my future life was to resemble 
 the past. Why should I regret my poverty ? I 
 was independent, in debt to no one, and in 
 possession of all I had been accustomed to 
 regard as the necessaries of life. AVliy sigh 
 over my obscurity? My lot was that of the 
 thousands around me ; and, besides, was I not 
 born to an immortality too sublime to borrow 
 any of its grandeur or imj)ortance from the 
 mock immortality of fame? "Why repine 
 because my life was to be one of continual 
 labour ? I had acquired habits of industry, and 
 had learned from expeiience that, if labour be 
 indeed a curse, the curse of indolence is by far 
 the weightier of the two. It wiU not surprise 
 you, my dear madam, that, entertaining such 
 sentiments, I should have used no exertions, 
 and expressed no wish, to quit my obscure 
 sphere of life for a higher. Why should I ? I 
 carried my happiness about with me, and was 
 independent of every external circumstance, 
 
 I shall not say that I still continue to think 
 and feel after this manner, for, though quite 
 the same sort of man at present that I was then, 
 I have, perhaps, ascertained that my happiness 
 does not now centre so exclusively in myself. 
 To you, I dare say, I need not be more explicit. 
 But though, in consequence of this discovery, I 
 have become somewhat solicitous, perhaps, of 
 rising a step or two higher in the scale of 
 society, I find it is one thing to wish and quite 
 another to attempt. I find, too, that habits 
 long indulged in, and formed under the influ- 
 ence of sentiments such as I describe, must 
 militate so powerfully against me, if that 
 attempt be made, as to leave little chance of 
 success. My lack of a classical education has 
 barred against me all the liberal professions : I 
 have no turn for business matters ; and the 
 
 experience of about twelve years has taught me 
 that, as an architect or contractor (professions 
 which, during at least that space of time, have 
 been the least fortunate in this part of the 
 kingdom of all others), I can indulge no 
 rational hope of realizing what I desire. There 
 is one little plan, however, which is rather 
 more a favourite with me than any of the others. 
 I think I have seen men not much more clever 
 than myself, and possessed of not much greater 
 command of the pen, occuj)ying respectable 
 places in the ephemeral literature of the day 
 as editors of magazines and newspapers, and 
 deriving from their labours incomes of from one 
 to three hundred pounds i)er annum, A very 
 little application, if I do not overrate my 
 abilities, natural and acquired, might fit me for 
 occupying a similar place, and of course deriv- 
 ing a corresponding remuneration. But how 
 push myself forward ? Simply in this mannei'. 
 I have lately written, as I dare say you arc 
 aware, a small traditional work, which I sub- 
 mitted to the consideration of some of the 
 literati of Edinburgh, and of which they have 
 signified their approval, in a style of commen- 
 dation far surpassing my fondest anticipations. 
 I shall try and get it published. If it succeed 
 in attracting any general notice, I shall consider 
 my literary abilities, such as they are, fairly in 
 the market ; if (what is more probable) it fail, 
 I shall just strive to forget the last two years 
 of my life, and try whether I cannot bring a 
 very dear friend to forget them too. God has 
 not suffered me in the past to be either unhapi>y 
 myself, or a cause of unhappiness to those whom 
 I love, and I can trust that He will deal with 
 me after the same fashion in the future. I 
 need not say, my dear madam, that I write in 
 confidence, and for your own eye alone. If I 
 fail in my little scheme, I shall bear my dis- 
 appointment all the better if it be not known 
 that I built much upon it, or looked much 
 beyond it. In such an event, the pity of people 
 who, in the main, are less happy than myself 
 (and the great bulk of mankind are certainly 
 not happier) shall, I trust, never be solicited by, 
 My dear madam, etc. 
 
 [The two letters addressed to Mr. William 
 Smith, Forres, are without question among 
 the most important Miller ever wrote. 
 They form a supplement to that portion of 
 his spiritual history which embraced his 
 period of indifference and semi-scepticism, 
 and contain not only an explicit confession 
 of faith, but a statement of that intellectual 
 basis on which it was for him a necessity 
 that his faith should rest. Eeticent as he 
 was in all that related to his soul's 
 condition, — sensitively averse to the un- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 275 
 
 veiling to human eyes of his spiritual 
 experience, — he would probably never have 
 written such letters had not an occasion 
 occurred which constrained him to over- 
 come every scruple. A friend lay ill, 
 perhaps unto death ; it seemed possible to 
 Hugh that he might minister to his spirit's 
 health and his eternal salvation; and he 
 yielded to the impulse of affection and the 
 mandate of duty. The scheme of religion 
 which he unfolds in the letters is that of 
 simple acceptance of Christ for salvation, 
 as He is offered in the gospel, acceptance 
 with the heart as well as the head, accept- 
 ance with clear consciousness that the 
 difficulties of the intellect cannot be wholly 
 removed. The religion of Miller was to 
 cling close to Christ, to die witli Christ, to 
 rise with Christ, to wear with Him the 
 crown of thorns, and to receive from Him 
 the crown of glory. The idea formerly 
 thrown out by Miller, that Christianity 
 suggests objections so many and so obvious 
 that common sense would not have per- 
 mitted its invention by man, receives in 
 these letters its balance and counterpart 
 in the hypothesis that the adaptation of 
 Christianity to man's wants is so exquisite, 
 and its evidence so strong, that its obvious 
 offences to mere human reason tend to 
 prove that it is divine. From a biographic 
 point of view, the letters have a special 
 interest as showing the tenacity with which 
 Miller retained thoughts which had once 
 been deliberately accepted into his intel- 
 lectual system. The illustration of the 
 working of the atonement of Christ, given 
 long subsequently in the Schools and 
 Schoolmasters, is but a slight expansion of 
 that which he here lays before his friend ; 
 and the thesis maintained, that man can 
 apprehend facts and results in God's 
 universe, whether physical or spiritual, but 
 not the constructive principles and processes 
 by which they are brought about, is worked 
 out in a chapter on the Discoverable and 
 the Revealed in the Testimony of the Rocks, 
 which is perhaps the most valuable that 
 Hugh Miller ever penned. — Bayne.] 
 
 TO ME. SMITH, FORRES. 
 
 Cromartff, August 5, 1835. 
 My dear "William,— I need not tell you how 
 famous Cromarty is for its hasty reports, or on 
 
 how slender a foundation the imagination of 
 the to"wnsfolks sometimes contrives to build. I 
 must needs tell you, however, for the circum- 
 stance forms my only apology for now writing 
 you, that the last story current among us 
 affected me more deeply than any of its class 
 ever did before. On your late severe attack, 
 j-our brother, the doctor, Avas called hastily to 
 Forres, and the story went that you were dead. 
 I never before knew how much I valued and 
 esteemed you ; — the thought too that one with 
 whom I had so often conversed, and with whose 
 mind I was so thoroughly acquainted, had 
 l^assed the dark bourne which sei")arates this 
 world from the other, had something inexpress- 
 ibly solemn and melancholy in it. I felt for 
 the time that, disguise the fact as we may, the 
 main bi;siness of this life consists in preparing 
 for another, and conscience was not quite silent 
 when I remembered that, though you and I had 
 beaten together over many an interesting topic, 
 the most interesting of all had been omitted. 
 You remember the fable of the wise men who 
 were permitted to make a three days' visit to 
 the moon that they might report to our lower 
 world regarding its plants and animals, and 
 who on theii" return had to confess that they 
 had squandered their time in drinking with gay 
 young men, and dancing with beautiful women, 
 and had only remarked that the trees and sky 
 of the planet, when seen casually through a 
 window, very much resembled those of our own. 
 Alas for the application of this ingenious story. 
 
 There are few men who do not at some time 
 or other think seriously of the future state, or 
 who have not formed some at least theoretic 
 set of notions regarding the best mode of 
 l^reparing for it. Man was born to anticipate a 
 hereafter, — he is a religious animal by the very 
 constitution of his nature, and the thousand 
 forms of superstition which still overspread the 
 world and darken every page of its history are 
 just so many proofs of this. It has often struck 
 me that the infidel, when in his assaults on 
 revelation he draws largely from this store of 
 delusion, sadly mistakes his argument ; — every 
 false religion which has sprung out of the 
 nature of man shows us — not surely that there 
 is no true religion, but that we stand in need 
 of a true one ; — every mythologic folly and 
 absurdity should convince us that we need an 
 infallible guide. Regarded in this light, the 
 Shaster and the Koran are substantial proofs of 
 how ill we could do without the Bible; and 
 Paganism and Mahometanism powerfully recom- 
 mend Christianity. You, my dear William, to 
 whom it has been given to possess an inquiring 
 and reflecting mind, must have often thought 
 of the final destinies of man; I myself have 
 observed in you much of that respect for sacred 
 things which is one of the characteristics of an 
 ingenuous nature ; but there is perhaps danger 
 that your very ingenuity and acuteness might 
 
276 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 have led you into error. Christianity is 
 emphatically termed the wisdom of God, but it 
 is not on a first examination that a reasoning 
 mind can arrive at the evidence of its being 
 such ; on the contrary, some of its main 
 doctrines seem opposed to the more obvious 
 principles of common sense ; and this quite in 
 the same way that, before the days of Newton, 
 it would have seemed contrary to these 
 principles to allege that the whiteness of light 
 was occasioned by a combination of the most 
 vivid colours, or that the planets were held in 
 their orbits by the law which impelled a falling 
 stone towards the ground. Now this is exactly 
 what we might expect of the true religion. A 
 religion made by rational men — many Deists, 
 you know, were eminently such, and we may 
 instance theirs — will be, like themselves, 
 rational and easily understood; but this very 
 facility is a conclusive proof that it had its 
 origin in the mind of man. It is like all his 
 other works — like the clocks and watches and 
 steam engines of his construction — easily under- 
 stood, and easily imitated ; but it is not thus 
 with Christianity, nor is it thus with the great 
 machine of the universe. Let us, my dear 
 ■William, take a brief survey of some of the 
 main doctrines of this religion ; they concern us 
 so nearly that it may be fatal to misunderstand 
 them. 
 
 The invariable reply of the apostles of our 
 Saviour to that most important of all queries, 
 ' What shall I do to be saved ? ' was, ' Believe 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ.' Belief seems to be, 
 if I may so speak, the main condition of man's 
 acceptance, but belief in what or whom? in a 
 person who is at once God and Man, and who 
 thus, to the perfection of a divine nature, adds 
 the feelings of a human heart. Now there is 
 something amazing in this, something which, 
 for its exquisite fitness to our moral and 
 sentient constitution, is worthy the conception 
 of a God. Observe, my dear AVilliam, the 
 false religions of the world, and you will find 
 that they run into two opposite extremes. In 
 the artificial religions which have been formed 
 by the intellect of man, God is represented as a 
 mere abstraction of wisdom and power. He is 
 the Great First Cause of the philosopher, and it 
 is scarcely more possible for the human heart to 
 love Him as such, than it is for Him to love 
 any of the great second causes, such as the sun 
 with its light and heat, or the law of gravitation. 
 And hence the coldness and utter inefficacy of 
 all such religions, whether known under the 
 name of iDhilosophical Deism or Socinian 
 Christianity ; — they are totally unfitted to the 
 nature of man. The religions of the other class 
 are rather the offspring of passion than intel- 
 lect; they arise in those obscure and remote 
 ages when unenlightened man created his gods 
 in his own image. AYhat was Jupiter or his 
 son Hercules, or what their companions in the 
 
 court of Olympus, the Dianas, Venuses, or 
 Minervas with which the old i)oets have brought 
 us acquainted, but human creatures bearing the 
 very mould and impression of their worshippers? 
 And such deities could be loved and feared just 
 in the way one human creature can love or fear 
 another; the belief in them powerfully influ- 
 enced the conduct, but their worship, as it 
 originated in the darkened human heart, was 
 a worship of impurity. Observe with what a 
 truly God-like wisdom Christianity is formed 
 to avoid the opposite extremes of these two 
 classes, and how it yet embraces more than the 
 philosophy of the one and more than the 
 warmth of the other : the object of our worship 
 is at once God the First Great Cause, and the 
 man Jesus Christ our brother. 
 
 But not merely must we believe in Christ as 
 God, but also as our Saviour ; as the restoi'er 
 of our moral nature, and our sacrifice or 
 atonement. There are wonderful Janus-like 
 mysteries here, — inexplicable in their one 
 aspect as they regard God, though simple and 
 easy in the other as they regard man. Perhaps 
 an illustration from the human frame may 
 serve to explain my meaning. Need I remind 
 you, who are an anatomist, and acquainted 
 with Paley to boot, of the admirable adaptation 
 of the human frame to the various ends for 
 which it was created, or how easy it is for a 
 person of even ordinary capacity to be made to 
 perceive this adaptation ? Almost any one can 
 see how fairly and beautifully the machine 
 works,— but who, on the other hand, can 
 conceive of the higher principles on which it is 
 constructed ? Who can know anything of the 
 workings of the brain as the organ of thought, 
 or of the operations of the nerves as the seats 
 of feeling, — of how the chyle is chosen by its 
 thousand blind mouths, and every other fluid 
 rejected, — of how one gland should secrete a 
 liquor so unlike that secreted by another, — of, 
 in short, any of the thousand phenomena of our 
 animal nature when we trace them towards 
 their first cause ? The working of the machine 
 is simple, its construction we find to be 
 inexplicably mysterious. Now it is thus Avith 
 Christianity. No one can understand how the 
 sufferings of the Saviour satisfy the justice of 
 God, — that regards, if I may so speak, the 
 construction of the scheme ; but every one who 
 examines may see how wonderfully these 
 vicarious sufferings are suited to the nature and 
 the wants of man, — for that regards its working. 
 But it is not in the limits of so brief a com- 
 position as a letter that such a subject can be 
 discussed. 
 
 May I recommend to you, my dear William, 
 to lay hold on this Saviour as the way, and the 
 truth, and the life ? He is willing and able to 
 save to the uttermost all who trust in Him. 
 You suffer from pain and dejection; He 
 suffered from pain and dejection also, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 277 
 
 hence His wonderful fitness to be the God and 
 Saviour of a race born to anguish and sorrow. 
 Not only does He know our weaknesses as God, 
 but He sympathizes in them as man. Forgive 
 me the freedom -svith which I write you ; — it is 
 as a friend, — as one foolish and careless, and 
 often so wrapped up in the dreams of life as to 
 forget its real businesses, but also as one 
 convinced that the Saviour can through His 
 Spirit make wise unto salvation, and that to 
 secure an interest in Him is to possess a 
 righteousness that is perfect, and to have every 
 sin forgiven through an atonement that is 
 complete. May I ask, my dear William, that 
 when you address yoiirself to Him, — and oh, 
 He is willing to hear and ready to help, — you 
 will put up one petition for your affectionate 
 friend, Hugh Miller. 
 
 ["When Thackeray was delivering his lectures 
 in America upon the ' English Humorists,' 
 in 1853, he made the acquaintance of the 
 Hon. H^ B. Keed, to whom the first letter 
 is here addressed, and who afterwards 
 published a brief memorial of the great 
 novelist, under the title of Haud Immanor 
 — Thackeray in America. Keed was for 
 a time United States Minister to China, 
 and printed a private edition of his mono- 
 graph, which was written in IMay 1864. 
 A copy found its way to England, and was 
 reproduced in BlackicoocVs Magazine, June 
 1872. On the back of the note on which the 
 first of these letters was written was a pen- 
 and-ink sketch, evidently one of the illus- 
 trations to his fairy tale, Tlce Rose and the 
 iZingr, to which he alludes as ' the rubbishing 
 picture which I didn't see.' A fac-simile of 
 this letter appears in Anecdote Biographies 
 of Thackeray and Dickens, by R. H. 
 Stoddard (New York : Scribner, 1877). It 
 contains a reprint of Reed's monograph 
 on Thackeray, also articles by Dickens, 
 Dr. John Brown, James Hannay, etc., 
 reprinted from British periodicals, and in 
 the absence of any authorized memoir, is 
 the most authentic and complete account 
 of the author of Pendennis which has yet 
 appeared.] 
 
 ■WILLIAM M. THACKERAY TO THE HON. W. B. REED. 
 
 Neufchatel, Switzerland, July 21, 1853. 
 My dear Reed, — Though I am rather slow 
 in paying the tailor, I always j^ay him ; and 
 as with tailors, so with men j I pay my debts 
 
 to my friends, only at rather a long day. 
 Thank you for writing to me so kindly, you 
 who have so much to do. I have only begun 
 to work ten days since, and now, in consequence, 
 have little leisure. Before, since my return 
 from the West, it was flying from London to 
 Paris, and vice t'ma— dinners right and left — 
 parties eveiy night. If I had been in Phila- 
 delphia, I could scarcely have been more 
 feasted. Oh, you unhappy Reed ! I see you 
 (after that little supper with M'Michael) on 
 Sunday, at your own table, when we had that 
 good sherry-madeira, turning aside from the 
 wine cup with your pale face ! That cup has 
 gone down this well so often, that I wonder 
 the cup isn't broken, and the well as well as it 
 is. Three weeks of London were more than 
 enough for me, and I feel as if I had had 
 enough of it and of pleasure. Then I remained 
 a month with my parents ; then I brought my 
 girls on a little pleasuring tour. We spent ten 
 days at Baden, when I set intrepidly to work 
 again ; and have been five days in Switzerland 
 now, not bent on going up mountains, but on 
 taking things easily. How beautiful it is ! 
 How pleasant ! How great and affable, too, 
 the landscape is ! It's delightful to be in the 
 midst of such scenes — the ideas get generous 
 reflections from them. I don't mean to say 
 my thoughts grow mountainous and enormous 
 like the Alpine chain yonder — but, in fine, it 
 is good to be in the presence of this noble 
 nature. It is keeping good company ; keeping 
 away mean thoughts. I see in the papers now 
 and again accounts of fine parties in London. 
 Bo7i Dieu ! Is it possible any one ever wanted 
 to go to fine London parties, and are there 
 now people sweating in May-fair routs ? 
 
 The European continent swarms with your 
 people. They are not all as polished as 
 Chesterfield. I wish some of them spoke 
 French a little better. I saw five of them at 
 sujiper, at Basle, the other night, with their 
 knives down their throats. It was awful. 
 My daughter saw it, and I was obliged to say : 
 'My dear, your great-great grandmother, one 
 of the finest ladies of the old school I ever saw, 
 always api)lied cold steel to her victuals. It's 
 no crime to eat with a knife,' which is all very 
 well, but I wish five of 'em at a time wouldn't. 
 
 Will you please beg M'Michael, when Mrs. 
 Glyn, the English tragic actress, comes to read 
 Shakespeare in your city, to call on her — do 
 the act of kindness to her, and help her with 
 his valuable editorial aid? I wish we were 
 going to have another night soon, and that I 
 was going this very evening to set yovi up with 
 a headache against to-morrow morning. By 
 Jove, how kind you all were to me ! How I 
 like people, and want to see 'em again ! You 
 are more tender-hearted, romantic, sentimental, 
 than we are. I keep on telling this to our fine 
 Ijcople here, and have so belaboured your — 
 
•278 
 
 (Here the paper on being tvirned revealed a 
 pen-and-ink caricature. At the top is written, 
 ' Pardon this rubbisliing picture : but I didn't 
 see, and can't afford to write page 3 over again ') 
 — your country with praise in private that I 
 sometimes think I go too far, I keep back 
 some of the truth ; but the great point to try 
 and ding into the ears of the great, stupid, 
 virtue-proud English is, that there are folks as 
 good as they in America. That's where Mrs. 
 Stowe's book has done harm, by inflaming us 
 with an idea of our own superior virtu.e in 
 freeing our blacks, whereas you keep yours. 
 Comparisons are always odorous, as Mrs. 
 Malaprop says. 
 
 I am about a new story, but don't know as 
 yet if it will be any good. It seems to me 
 I am too old for story-telling; but I want 
 money, and shall get 20,000 dollars for this, 
 of which (Z). V.) I'll keep fifteen. I wish this 
 rubbish (the sketch) were away ; I might put 
 written rubbish in its stead. Not that I have 
 anything to say, but that I always remember 
 you and yours, and honest Mac, and Wharton, 
 and Lewis, and kind felloAvs who have been 
 kind to me, and I hope will be kind to me 
 again. 
 
 Good-bye, my dear Reed, and believe me, 
 ever sincerely yours, W. M. Thackeeay. 
 
 TO . 
 
 Written partly on hoard the ' Canada,'' and 
 partly after he had reached London. 
 
 On hoard, last day — May 7, 1856. 
 
 My dear old , — I tell you that writing 
 
 is just as dismal and disgusting as saying good- 
 bye. I hate it, and but for a sense of duty I 
 wouldn't write at all — confound me if I would. 
 But you know, after a fellow has been so 
 uncommonly hospitable and kind, and that 
 sort of thing, a fellow ought, you see, to write 
 and tell a fellow that a fellow is very much 
 obliged ; and, in a word, you understand. So 
 you made me happy when I was with you, 
 you made me sorry to come away, and you 
 make me happy now when I think what a 
 kind, generous, friendly AV. B. R. you are. 
 
 You have back in the Bower of Virtue — 
 
 you'll fill that jug when {sic) one day and drink 
 my health, won't you ; and when you come to 
 Europe, you'll come to me, etc. — and my girls, 
 mind, and we'll see if there is not some good 
 claret at 36 Onslow Square. . . . We have had 
 a dreary rough passage— yesterday the hardest 
 blow of all. I have been ill with one of my 
 old intermittent attacks, after which my 
 mouth broke out with an unvisually brilliant 
 erui)tion, and I am going to Liverpool with a 
 beard eight days long. It is not becoming in 
 its present stage. I have not been sea-sick j 
 
 but haven't been well a single day. Wine is 
 ojus to me, segars create loathing; couldn't I 
 write something funnier and more cheerful? 
 Perhaps I may when we are fairly into Liver- 
 pool; ]perhaps we may be there to-night, 
 perhaps not till to-morrow morning, for it 
 blew a hurricane in our face last night, and the 
 odds are we shall not have water enough to pass 
 the bar. Home (viz. 36 Onslow Square, 
 Brompton, London), May 9. We did pass the 
 bar, and didn't I have a good dinner at the 
 Adelphi, and wasn't I glad to get back to town 
 yesterday, and wasn't there a great dinner at 
 the Garrick Club (the annual Shakespeare 
 dinner, which ought to have come off on the 
 23d ult., but was put off on account of a naval 
 review), and didn't I make a Yankee speech, 
 and O Lor'— haven't I got a headache this 
 morning? I'm ashamed to ask for a sober- 
 water, that's the fact. And so here the old 
 house, the old room, the old teapot by my 
 bedside — the old trees nodding in at the 
 window— it looks as if I'd never been away— 
 and that it's a dream I have been making. 
 Well, in my dream I dreamed that there was 
 an uncommonly good fellow by name W. B, R., 
 and I dreamed that he treated me with all 
 sorts of kindness, and I sent him and J. C. B. P. 
 and D. D. (and what's his name down-stairs ?) 
 my heartiest regai'ds ; and when my young 
 women come home, I shall tell them what a 
 deal of kindness their papa had across the 
 
 water — so good-bye my dear , and believe 
 
 me, always gratefully yours, 
 
 W. M. Thackeeay. 
 
 [Charles Dickens, one of England's most popular 
 novelists, also excelled as a letter-writer, 
 and certainly wrote out of the abundance 
 of his heart, as each letter is a picture of 
 his mood of mind when written. Dickens 
 was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on the 
 7th February 1812, and educated first at 
 a private school at Chatham, and after- 
 wards at a good school in or near London. 
 His father sent him to the office of a 
 solicitor. He soon afterwards acted as 
 reporter for some time for a publication 
 entitled the Mirror of Parliament, and 
 afterwards obtained a situation as reporter 
 for the Morning Chronicle. Messrs. Chap- 
 man & Hall engaged him to write a story 
 in monthly parts. The result was the 
 popular and well-known Pickwicic Papers, 
 which had an enormous sale. Work after 
 work flowed from his pen, with no diminu- » 
 tion but rather increase to his popularity. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 He also appeared as a public reader of 
 liis own works in America, also in London, 
 Edinbm-gh, Glasgow, and many important 
 provincial towns. He had commenced a 
 new novel, Tlie Mystery of Edwin Drood, 
 but death found him busy at his task. 
 
 and called him away ere the mystery for 
 the public was solved. He died at his 
 residence, Gad's Hill, of effusion of blood 
 on the brain, brought on by over-work, 
 9th June 1870, and was buried in 
 "Westminster Abbey, 14th June. His 
 Letters, which are as characteristic as 
 anything he ever wrote, place him in the 
 front rank of modern letter- writers. The 
 two series were edited by his eldest daughter 
 and sister-in-law, to whom we are indebted 
 for permission to include the following 
 specimens.] 
 
 DICKENS TO CATTERSrOLE. 
 
 Illustrations for Barnahy Eudge. 
 
 Devonshire Terrace, Tuesday, 
 February 9, 1841. 
 My dear George, — My notes tread upon 
 each other's heels. In my last I quite forgpt 
 business. 
 
 "Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's 
 house, which was described in No. 48 ? I mean 
 the outside. If you can, without hurting the 
 effect, shut up the shop as though it were 
 night, so much the better. Should you want 
 a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his 
 box, very sleepy, will be just the thing for me. 
 
 I have written to Chapman and requested 
 him to send you a block of a long shape, so 
 that the house may come upright, as it were. 
 
 Faithfully ever. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Old Ship Hotel, Brighton, 
 Feb. 2G, 1341. 
 
 My DEAR KiTTENMOLES, — I passed your house 
 on Wednesday, being then atoj) of the Brighton 
 Era ; but there was nobody at the door, saving 
 a solitary poulterer, and all my warm-hearted 
 aspirations lodged in the goods he was delivering. 
 No doubt you observed a peculiar relish in your 
 dinner. That was the cause. 
 
 I send you the MS. I fear you will have to 
 read all the five slips ; but the subject I think 
 of is at the top of the last, when the guest, 
 with his back towards the si^ectator, is looking 
 out of window. I think, in your hands, it will 
 be a very pretty one. 
 
 Then, my boy, when you have done it, turn 
 your thoughts (as soon as other engagements 
 
 will allow) first to the outside of the Warren — 
 see No. 1 ; secondly, to tlie outside of the 
 locksmith's house, by night — see No. 3. Put a 
 penny pistol to Chapman's head and demand 
 the blocks of him. 
 
 I have addled my head with writing all day, 
 and have barely wit enough left to send my 
 love to my cousin, and — there's a genealogical 
 l)oser — what relation of mine may the dear 
 little child be? At present, I desire to be 
 commended to her clear blvie eyes. Always, 
 my dear George, faithfully yoiirs, 
 
 Boz. 
 
 TO CLAEKSON STANFIELD. 
 
 Devonshire Terrace, Blarch 6, 1846. 
 My dear Stanny, — In reference to the 
 damage of the candlesticks, I beg to quote 
 (from The Cricket on the Hearth, by the highly 
 popular and deservedly so Dick) this reply : 
 ' I'll damage you if you inquire.' 
 Ever yours. 
 
 My block-reeving, 
 Main-brace splicing, 
 Lead-heaving, 
 Ship-conning, 
 Stun' sail-bending, 
 Deck-swabbing 
 Son of a sea-cook, 
 
 Henry Bluff, 
 
 H.M.S. Timber. 
 
 TO MARK LEJION. 
 
 H. W. Office, July 2, 1856. 
 My dear BIark, — I am concerned to hear 
 that you are ill, that you sit down before fires 
 and shiver, and that you have stated times for 
 doing so, like the demons in the melodramas, 
 and that you mean to take a week to get well 
 in. 
 
 Make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and 
 keep up your spirits, because I have made a 
 bargain with Stanny and Webster that they 
 shall come to Boulogne to-morrow week, 
 Thursday the 10th, and stay a week. And 
 you know how much pleasure we shall all miss 
 if you are not among us — at least for some part 
 of the time. 
 
 If you find any unusually light appearance 
 in the air at Brighton, it is a distant refraction 
 (I have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining 
 surface of Tavistock House, now transcendently 
 painted. The theatre partition is put up, and 
 is a work of such terrific solidity, that I suppose 
 it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins 
 of London, by that Australian of Macaulay'a 
 who is to be impressed by its ashes. I have 
 wandered through the spectral halls of the 
 
28o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Tavistock mansion two nights, witli feelings of 
 the profoundest depression. I have breakfasted 
 there, like a criminal in Pentonville (only not 
 so well). It is more like Westminster Abbey 
 by midnight than the lowest-spirited man — say 
 you at present, for example — can well imagine. 
 
 There has been a wonderful robbery at 
 Folkestone, by the new manager of the Pavilion, 
 who succeeded Giovannini. He had in keeping 
 £1G,000 of a foreigner's, and bolted with it, as 
 he supposed, but in reality with only £1400 of 
 it. The Frenchman had previously bolted with 
 the whole, which was the property of his 
 mother, "With him to England the Frenchman 
 brought a 'lady,' who was, all the time and at 
 the same time, endeavouring to steal all the 
 money from him and bolt with it herself. The 
 details are amazing, and all the money (a few 
 pounds excepted) has been got back. 
 
 They will be full of sympathy and talk about 
 you when I get home, and I shall tell them that 
 I send their loves beforehand. They are all 
 enclosed. The moment you feel hearty, just 
 write me that word by post. I shall be so 
 delighted to receive it. Ever, my dear boy, 
 your affectionate friend. 
 
 [Rev. Norman Macleod, D.D,, was born at 
 Campbeltown, Argyleshire, June 3, 1812, 
 and studied at Edinburgh and Glasgow, 
 and for some time acted as a private tutor. 
 He was ordained pastor of the parish of 
 Loudoun, Ayrshire, in 1838. He removed to 
 Dalkeith in 1843, and was translated to the 
 Barony parish, Glasgow, in 1851. There he 
 worked earnestly and unweariedly for the 
 elevation of the people of his parish, taking 
 a deei> interest in both home and foreign 
 missions. In 1854 he preached before the 
 Queen at Crathie. In 1860, at the request of 
 Mr. Alexander Strahan, the well-known pub- 
 lisher, he undertook the editorship of Good 
 Words, and some of his most popular works 
 appeared in its pages. It carried his name 
 wherever the English language is spoken. 
 In 1867 he visited India as a deputation 
 from the Church of Scotland, ostensibly to 
 give a new impetus to mission work in 
 India. On his return he delivered his 
 memorable address on missions before the 
 General Assembly. He died at his resid- 
 ence in Glasgow, on Sunday, June 16, 1872, 
 universally regretted by all classes of the 
 community. His biography, written by 
 his brother Donald, was issued in 1876, and 
 more fully revealed his earnestness and 
 
 large-heartedness. Many of his letters— 
 the first we quote is a specimen — were full 
 of fun and rollicking humour, such as we 
 are hardly accustomed to find in religious 
 biographies. These specimens are given 
 with the assent of the publisher of the 
 Memoir of Norman Macleod.] 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD TO SIR J. CAMPBELL 
 OF KILDALLOIG. 
 
 On the Birth of a Son and Heir. 
 
 Officer of the Watch. The commodore is sig- 
 nalling, sir. 
 
 Captain. What has she got up ? 
 
 Officer. No. 1, sir. 'An heir apparent is 
 born.' 
 
 Captain. Glorious news ! All hands on deck. 
 Bend on your flags. Stand by your halyards. 
 Load your guns ! All ready fore and aft ? 
 
 All ready, sir. 
 
 Hoist and fire away ! 
 
 Three cheers ! ! ! 
 
 Load. Fire ! Three cheers ! ! ! 
 
 Load again. Fire ! 
 
 Three tremendous cheers ! I ! 
 
 For the Laird of Kildalloig ! 
 
 It is impossible to do justice to the sensation 
 which was created on every part of the ship. 
 The vessel herself made one of her best bows, 
 and for once ceased to look stern. The sails, 
 though suffering much from the bight of a rope, 
 for which the doctor had stuck on them a num- 
 ber of leeches and recommended wet sheets, 
 nevertheless 'looked swell' and much pleased 
 as the toj) gallants said sweet things into their 
 lee earing. The royals, though rather high and 
 complaining of the truck system, waved their 
 caps. The chain-cable sung ' Old King Coil,^ 
 while the best-bower cried encore/ (anchor). 
 The capstan began to make love to the ivind- 
 lass, who was thought to be a great catch, but 
 who preferred the caboose on account of his 
 coppers. The boatswain took the ship round 
 the waist, but got it pitched into him for his 
 impertinence. He said it was all friendship. 
 The binnacle was out of his wits with joy — quite 
 non-compass. The wheel never spoke; he had 
 more conning than any in the ship, and v/as 
 afraid of being put doum, or getting hard up. 
 The cuddy gave a fearful bray. The cat-of -nine- 
 tails gave a mew which was heard a mile off, 
 and scampered off to the best-bower, which was 
 embracing the cat head and sharing its stock 
 with it. The life-buoy roused up the dead lights, 
 who rushed and wakened the dead eyes, who 
 began to weep tears of joy. The shrouds 
 changed into wedding garments. The two 
 davits said they would, out of compliment to 
 the laird, call themselves after the two Johns. 
 The companion got so in love with marriage, 
 
r 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 281 
 
 that lie swore he would not be cheated by a 
 mere name, but get another companion as soon 
 as possible. The long-boat sighed for a punt, 
 and began to pay his addresses to the cutter. 
 The launch got so jealous that he kicked the 
 bucket ; while the sicab declared he would turn 
 cleanly, and try and earn a good character, so 
 as to get spliced to a holy-stone. The guns 
 offered their services to all hands, and pro- j 
 mised that they would marry all and sundry 
 can[n)onically, and each gave a lall on the 
 occasion. The block-heads alone were confused, 
 but even they said they would contribute their 
 sheaves. The very man-holes spoke lovingly of 
 the fair sex ; and the false keel for once spoke 
 truth, saying he never saw such fun, but that 
 he would be at the bottom of all this mystery. 
 
 AVhat the effects of all this might have been 
 no one can tell, if all the above marriages had 
 taken place ; but just as all parties were ready 
 for being spliced (the marling-spikes acting as 
 curates), it was found every gun was deep in 
 poH. But in the meantime the captain sum- 
 moned all on deck, and gave the following short 
 but neat speech : — 
 
 ' My men, — Fill your glasses ! Drink a bum- 
 per to the health of the young Laird of Kildal- 
 loig. May he swim for many a long year over 
 the stormy ocean on which he has been launched. 
 May neither his provisions nor cloth ever fail 
 him. May he ever be steered by the helm of 
 conscience, and go by the chart of duty and the 
 compass of truth ; and may every breeze that 
 blows and every sea that dashes carry him 
 nearer a good haven ! ' 
 
 Hurrah ! 
 
 [At the end of May 1862, accompanied by Mrs. 
 Macleod and his brother Donald, he took 
 a six weeks' tour in Italy, crossing Mont 
 Cenis to Turin, and thence by Genoa and 
 the Kiviera to Florence, Bologna, Venice, 
 Milan, and the Italian lakes, and returning 
 home by Courmayeur, the Great St. Ber- 
 nard, and Basle. His impressions of Italy 
 were afterwards recorded in Good Words.] 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD TO A. STEAHAN. 
 
 Monastery of the Great St. Bernard, 
 June 21, 1862. 
 Ere I bid farewell to the world, I wish to bid 
 farewell to thee. I have resolved to join the 
 Brothers of St. Bernard. All is arranged. I 
 find that they never heard of Presbyterianism, 
 Free, or U.P. Kirk ; know nothing even of Dr. 
 
 or Dr. , and have kept up service here, 
 
 helping the poor and needy, for 800 years. I 
 find I can live here for nothing, never preach, 
 but only chant Latin prayers ; that they never 
 
 attend public meetings, never go to Exeter 
 Hall nor to a General Assembly, but attend to 
 the big dogs and the travellers of all nations. 
 In short, it is the very place for me, and I have 
 craved admission, and hope to be received to- 
 night. I shall be known henceforth as Frater 
 Flemingus. (I think I owe it to the Captain to 
 adopt his name.) My ^vife goes to a nunnery; 
 I leave my children to your care — 3^ to you and 
 3^ to Isbister. Farewell, best of men and of 
 publishers ! Farewell, Isbister, best of men 
 and of smokers ! Farewell, Good Words ! 
 
 Farewell, the world and all its vanities ! 
 
 I was interrupted at this point by a procession 
 of monks, who came to strip me of my worldly 
 garments, and to prescribe the vows. Before 
 changing garments, I inquired about the vows. 
 Judge of my amazement in finding I must 
 renounce cigars for ever ! I pause 
 
 P.S. — 2 A.M., 22c?. — The monks won't give 
 in. The weather is fearfu.lly cold. No fires in 
 the cells. The dogs are mangy. 
 
 3 A.M. — I am half -dead mth cold. I shan't 
 lie in the morgue. I repent ! 
 
 6 A.M.— Off for London ! Hurrah 
 
 [No portion of the earth's surface has recently 
 received more attention by the missionary, 
 traveller, and commercial adventurer, than 
 Africa. This applies more particularly to 
 the region lying south of the equator. 
 There has been an extraordinary influx of 
 population to the diamond fields consequent 
 upon the discovery of diamonds in Griqua- 
 land "West. But two of the strongest links 
 in the chain of circumstances which have 
 kept the country before the eyes of the 
 public, and helped to bring this about, 
 are the lives and labours of Dr. Moffat 
 and his son-in-law, David Livingstone. 
 Moffat by his example and his missionary 
 labours, and Livingstone by his unparalleled 
 journeys and discoveries, have both done 
 much to draw the attention of the civilised 
 world towards what has long been termed 
 the Dark Continent, now less dark than 
 ever. The publication of his missionary 
 travels marked the era of a new departure 
 in African discover}'', which was only 
 deepened by his subsequent wanderings 
 and lonely death at Ilala on Lake Bemba. 
 His letters came from time to time to 
 England as the voice of one crying in the 
 wilderness. He did not only describe what 
 he saw and experienced, but his whole soul 
 was stirred within him at the evils of the 
 
282 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 accursed slave traffic. The reports by- 
 Dutch missionaries, on the east coast, of 
 the existence of a large inland lake in the 
 southern equatorial regions of Africa, was 
 the means of attracting the attention of 
 tte Geographical Society to the subject. 
 Burton and Speke were despatched to South 
 Africa, and subsequently discovered Lake 
 Tanganyika; on the return journey to 
 Zanzibar from the interior, Speke left 
 Burton at the village of Kazeh, and 
 journeying northwards, caught a glimpse 
 of the southern end of the Victoria N'yanza. 
 Speke subsequently returned to the scene 
 of his discovery, accompanied by Captain 
 Grant, and confirmed the fact of the 
 existence of the great lake, which has since 
 been more fully made known by its circum- 
 navigation by H. M. Stanley in 1876. 
 Livingstone, attracted to the mission-field 
 in South Africa partly by the presence and 
 example of Moffat, whose daughter Mary 
 he afterwards married, was not long in 
 discovering where his real strength lay. 
 This was in missionary exploration. In the 
 remarkable journeys which he performed, 
 he discovered lakes Bangweolo, N'gami, 
 N'yassa ; explored the Zambesi and its 
 tributaries ; crossed the continent from St. 
 Paul de Loanda to Quillimane on the east 
 coast ; surveyed Tanganyika, and laid open 
 a vast field for possible exploration and 
 missionary labour. The reported death of 
 Livingstone, with his long silence on his 
 third and final journey, led to two great 
 expeditions, all tending to make the country 
 and people better known. Lieutenant Young 
 made a journey to N'yassa, and proved the 
 falsity of Livingstone's reported death ; 
 and H. M. Stanley, a young journalist on 
 the staff of the New York Herald, at the 
 instigation of Mr. Bennett, the proprietor 
 of that newspai^er, undertook a journey, 
 satisfying the civilised world that the great 
 explorer was still alive, and succeeded in 
 succouring him when help was greatly 
 needed. This exploit of Stanley's doubtless 
 paved the way for his more remarkable 
 journey across Africa from Zanzibar, by 
 way of the Victoria N'yanza, Tanganyika, 
 and the Congo, to the west coast, in which 
 several geographical problems were solved. 
 Other explorers have been more recently 
 
 at work, notably Lieutenant Cameron, who 
 crossed the continent, and Major Serpa 
 Pinto, who has crossed from Benguela on 
 the west coast to Natal on the east ; also 
 Mr. Joseph Thomson, who has more fully 
 explored the districts lying between the 
 great lakes N'yassa and Tanganyika, and 
 many others. But the most gratifying 
 result of the labours of Livingstone and 
 others, has been the decided attempts to 
 evangelize the Dark Continent, making the 
 Great Lakes the basis of oi)erations. 
 Mission stations, for the founding of which 
 all the Scotch churches have co-operated, 
 exist at the southern end of N'yassa, which 
 is now comparatively easy of access from 
 the coast, on Tanganyika, and on Lake 
 Victoria N'yanza. The annexation of 
 Basutoland and Griqualand, and the placing 
 of large tracts of country in South Africa 
 under British conti'ol, has led to troublesome 
 wars with the Boers, Basutos, and Zulus ; 
 although remote, in many cases, from the 
 field of missionary operations, this has had 
 a retarding influence ; but the good work 
 goes on, the existence of much of which 
 is due to the labours of Livingstone and 
 Moffat. As our second extract shows, 
 Livingstone was proud of the pluck and 
 spirit displayed by his daughter.] 
 
 DB. LIVINGSTONE TO HIS DAUGHTEE AGNES. 
 
 Preparations for the Last Journey. 
 
 Bomhay, Sejptemhcr 20, 18G5. 
 ... By advice of the Governor, I went up to 
 Nassick, to see if the Africans there under 
 Government instruction would suit my purpose 
 as members of the expedition. I was present 
 at the examination of a large school, under 
 Mr. Price, by the Bishop of Bombay. It is 
 partly supported by Government. The pupils 
 (108) are not exclusively African, but all showed 
 very great proficiencies. They excelled in 
 music. I found some of the Africans to have 
 come from parts I know, — one from Ndonde on 
 the Rovuma, — and all had learned some handi- 
 craft, besides reading, writing, etc., and it is 
 probable that some of them will go back to their 
 own country with me. Eight have since 
 volunteered to go. Besides these I am to get 
 some men from the 'Marine Battalion' who 
 have been accustomed to rough it in various 
 ways, and their pensions will be given to their 
 widows if they should die. The Governor (Sir 
 Bartle Frere) is going to do what he can for my 
 success. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 2S3 
 
 After going back to Bombay I came up to 
 near Poonah, and am now at Government House, 
 the guest of the Governor. 
 
 Society here consists mainly of officers and 
 their wives. . . . Miss Frere, in the absence 
 of Lady Frere, does the honours of the establish- 
 ment, and very nicely she does it. She is very 
 clever, and quite unaffected — very like her 
 father. . . . Christianity is gradually diffusing 
 itself, leavening as it were in various ways the 
 whole mass. "When a man becomes a professor 
 of Christianity, he is at present cast out, 
 abandoned by all his relations, even by his wife 
 and children. This state of things makes some 
 who don't care about Christian j^rogress say 
 that all Christian servants are useless. They 
 are degraded by their own countrymen, and 
 despised by others, but time will work changes. 
 Mr. Maine, who came out here with us, intends 
 to introduce a law whereby a convert deserted 
 by his wife may many again. It is in accordance 
 with the text in Corinthians : If an unbelieving 
 wife depart, let her depart. People will 
 gradually show more sympathy with the poor 
 fellows who come out of heathenism, and 
 discriminate between the worthy and unworthy. 
 You should read Lady Duff Gordon's Letters 
 from Egypt. They show a nice sympathizing 
 heart, and are otherwise very interesting. She 
 saw the people as they are. Most people see 
 only the outside of things. 
 
 Avoid all nasty French novels. They are 
 very injurious, and effect a lasting injury on 
 the mind and heart. I go up to Government 
 House again three days hence, and am to 
 deliver two lectures,— one at Poonah, and one 
 at Bombay. 
 
 [Probably no human being v/as ever in circum- 
 stances parallel to those in which Livingstone 
 now stood. Years had passed since he had 
 heard from home. The sound of his mother- 
 tongue came to him only in the broken sen- 
 tences of Chuma or Susi or his attendants, 
 or in the echoes of his own voice as he poured 
 it out in prayer, or in some cry of home- 
 sickness that could not be kept in. In long 
 pain and sickness there had been neither 
 wife nor child nor brother to cheer him 
 with sympathy, or lighten his dull hut 
 with a smile. He had been baffled and 
 tantalized beyond description in his efforts 
 to complete the little bit of exploration 
 which was yet necessary to finish his task. 
 His soul was vexed for the frightful 
 exhibitions of wickedness around him, 
 where ' man to man,' instead of brothers, 
 were worse than wolves and tigers to each 
 
 other. During all his past life he had 
 been sowing his seed weeping, but so far 
 was he from bringing back his sheaves 
 rejoicing, that the longer he lived the more 
 cause there seemed for his tears. He had 
 not yet seen of the travail of his soul — 
 Blaikie's Life of Livingstone.] 
 
 DK. LIVINGSTONE TO HIS DAUGHTER AGNES. 
 
 I commit myself to the Almighty Disposer of 
 events, and if I fall, will do so doing my duty, 
 like one of His stout-hearted servants. I am 
 delighted to hear you say that, much as you 
 ■wish me home, you would rather hear of my 
 finishing my work to my own satisfaction, than 
 come merely to gratify you. That is a noble 
 sentence, and I felt all along sure that all my 
 friends would wish me to make a complete work 
 of it, and in that wish, in spite of every difficulty, 
 I cordially joined. I hope to present to my 
 young countrymen an example of , manly 
 perseverance. I shall not hide from you that I 
 am made by it very old and shaky, my cheeks 
 fallen in, space round the eyes ditto; mouth 
 almost toothless, — a few teeth that remain out 
 of their line, so that a smile is that of a he-hippo- 
 potamus, — a dreadful old fogie ; and you must 
 tell Sir Eoderick that it is an utter impossibility 
 for me to appear in public till I get new teeth, 
 and even then the less I am seen the better. 
 
 [Livingstone reached Ujiji on the 23d of October 
 1871, and on the 28th Mr. H. M. Stanley 
 arrived to succour him. 'The great 
 traveller,' says Mr. Stanley, 'was reduced 
 to a skeleton by illness and fatigue ; he was 
 sick, destitute, and forlorn. All his men 
 excei^t four had either deserted or had died, 
 and there seemed to be no hope for him. 
 His piteous appeals for help to his friends 
 at Zanzibar were either neglected or his 
 letters were lost. There was no prospect 
 but that of lingering illness and death 
 before him. Under the influence, however, 
 of good cheer and nourishing food, and, 
 perhaps, social fellowship with another of 
 his race, be speedily recovered, and in six 
 or seven days after his rescue was enabled 
 to accompany a portion of the American 
 Expedition in a boat to the north end of 
 Lake Tanganyika, where both Livingstone 
 and the author saw a river running through 
 a broad gorge enclosed by lofty mountains 
 into the lake, Avith no possible outlet v.'hat- 
 ever at any part in the firmly connected 
 mountain-walls which surround the entire 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 284 
 
 northern half of the Tanganyika. After a 
 journey of 750 miles, and a residence of 
 over four months together, Livingstone and 
 the American Expedition became parted 
 for ever atUnyanyembe on March 14, 1872.'] 
 
 A LETTER OF THANKS TO ME. JAMES GORDON 
 BENNETT OF THE ' NEW YORK HERALD. ' 
 
 If I explain the forlorn condition in which he 
 [Stanley] found me, you will easily perceive 
 that I have good reason to use very strong 
 expressions of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a 
 tramp of between 400 and 500 miles beneath 
 a blazing vertical sun, having been baffled, 
 worried, defeated, and forced to return, when 
 almost in sight of the end of the geographical 
 part of my mission, by a number of half-caste 
 Moslem slaves sent to me from Zanzibar instead 
 of men. The sore heart, made still sorer by 
 the truly woful sights I liad seen of 'man's 
 inhumanity to man,' reacted on the bodily 
 frame, and depressed it beyond measure. I 
 thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not 
 too much to say, that almost every step of the 
 weary sultry way I was in pain, and I reached 
 Ujiji a mere ruckle of bones. Here I found 
 that some £500 worth of goods I had ordered 
 from Zanzibar had unaccountably been intrusted 
 to a drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, 
 after squandering them for sixteen months on 
 the way to Ujiji, finished up by selling off all 
 that remained for slaves and ivory for himself. 
 He had divined on the Koran, and found that 
 I was dead. He had also written to the 
 governor of Unyanyembe that he had sent 
 slaves after me to Manyema, who returned and 
 reported my decease, and begged permission to 
 sell off the few goods that his drunken appetite 
 had spared. He, however, knew perfectly well 
 from men who had seen me that I was alive, 
 and waiting for the goods and men ; but as for 
 morality, he is evidently an idiot ; and there 
 being no law here except that of the dagger or 
 musket, I had to sit down in great weakness, 
 destitute of everything save a few barter cloths 
 and beads I had taken the precaution to leave 
 here in case of extreme need. The near 
 prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me 
 miserable. I could not despair, because I 
 laughed so much at a friend, who, on reaching 
 the mouth of the Zambesi, said ' that he was 
 tempted to despair on breaking the photograph 
 of his wife : we could have no success after 
 that.' After that, the idea of despair has to 
 me such a strong smack of the ludicrous, it is 
 out of the question. 
 
 Well, when I had got to about the lowest 
 verge, vague rumours of an English visitor 
 reached me. I thought of myself as the man 
 who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; 
 but neither priest, Levite, nor Samaritan could 
 
 possibly pass my way. Yet the good Samaritan 
 was close at hand, and one of my people rushed 
 up at the top of his speed, and in great excite- 
 ment gasped out, ' An Englishman coming ! I 
 see him !' And off he darted to meet him. 
 An American flag, the first ever seen in these 
 parts, at the head of a caravan, told me the 
 nationality of the stranger. I am as cold and 
 non-demonstrative as we islanders are usually 
 rej)uted to be, but your kindness made my 
 frame thrill. It was indeed overwhelming, and 
 I said in my soul, 'Let the richest blessings 
 descend from the Highest on you and yours.' 
 
 The news Mr. Stanley had to tell me was 
 thrilling : the mighty political changes on the 
 Continent, the success of the Atlantic cables, 
 the election of General Grant, and many topics 
 riveted my attention for days together, and had 
 an immediate and beneficial effect on my 
 health. I had been without news from home 
 for years, save what I could glean from a few 
 Saturday Reviews and copies of Punch for 1868. 
 The appetite revived, and in a week I began to 
 feel strong again. Mr. Stanley brought a most 
 kind and encouraging despatch from Lord 
 Clarendon, whose loss I sincerely deplore, — the 
 first I have received from the Foreign Office 
 since 1866, — and information that Her Majesty's 
 Government had kindly sent £1000 to my aid. 
 Up to his arrival I was not aware of any 
 pecuniary aid. I came unsalaried, but this 
 want is now happily repaired ; and I am anxious 
 that you and all my friends should know that, 
 though uncheered by letters, I have stuck to 
 the task which my friend Sir Roderick 
 Murchison set me, with John-Bullish tenacity, 
 believing that all will come right at last. 
 
 [Probably few beyond his own personal friends 
 would have heard of Thomas Davidson, had 
 not the Rev. James Brown, D.D., collected 
 his scattered poems and letters, and en- 
 shrined them in an interesting memoir of 
 this promising but not very fortunate 
 student. Thomas Davidson was born at 
 Oxnam Row, near Jedburgh, in 1838, and 
 died of consumption at the latter town in 
 1870. His father, Jonah Davidson, was 
 a decent. God-fearing Border shepherd, 
 latterly an elder in a United Presbyterian 
 Church, Jedburgh, who died in 1881. 
 Young Davidson was intended for the 
 ministry of the United Presbyterian 
 Church, but he never got farther than the 
 probationary stage, and died without a 
 church. It was the moving to and fro 
 from place to place in the country, on 
 various preaching expeditions, that gave 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 him food and play for his vein of kindly 
 humour, seen in the two letters which he 
 wrot^ from Sixtowns and Cullybackey in 
 Ireland. His poems are full of promise, and 
 have been likened to flowers or to a bird's 
 song. While attending Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity, he gained the second prize in the 
 class of Ehetoric and Belles Lettres for a 
 poem, the subject being Ariadne at Naxos. 
 An enthusiastic fellow-student sent on 
 this poem, unknown to the author, to "W. 
 M. Thackeray, then editor of the newly- 
 started Comhill Magazine. Much to the 
 delight and astonishment of Davidson, it 
 received a place of honour in the magazine, 
 with an illustration, while the author re- 
 ceived a welcome remittance of ten guineas 
 for his contribution. His letters are emi- 
 nently suggestive, free and spontaneous, 
 and always the utterance of the heart. We 
 quote these specimens with the sanction of 
 3Ir. Maclehose, the publisher of the Life of 
 a Scottish Probationer.] 
 
 DAVIDSON TO . 
 
 Cullyhackey, January 4, 1865. 
 ... I meant to devote last night, or at least a 
 bit of it, to writing to you ; but Mr. Knowles, 
 knowing my fondness for Scotch music, had 
 gone and invited down specially an Irish fiddler 
 who lives not a great way off, to treat me to a 
 quantity. The fiddler made his appearance, 
 fiddle and all, about six o'clock, and barring 
 the time we took to tea and several intermissions 
 for smoking purposes, which Mr. Knowles 
 himself turned to good use in singing Irish 
 melodies, Mr. Larry M'Kie's 'elbo jinked and 
 diddled' till past eleven o'clock. Larry has 
 been in Australia, where he learned a great 
 many Scotch airs from the Scotch gold-diggers, 
 and now he is settled down comfortably to 
 cultivate music and potatoes, for Mr. M'Kie is 
 both a fiddler and a farmer. Also, he sings 
 remarkably well, and the humour with which 
 he renders Sam Lover's Irish songs is quite 
 overpowering, I assure you. Larry has got the 
 Irish susceptibility as well as the Irish humovir, 
 and when I touched the strings of his violin 
 in succession downwards, he begged me: 'fur 
 goodness sake not to do that same ; it was so 
 murnfull and melancholy-like it wud make him 
 cry, and,' he added, 'that's jist as sure as my 
 neem's Larry M'Kie.' He is as fond of his 
 fiddle as an ordinary mortal is of his sweetheart. 
 The evening was damp when he came down, 
 and, to i)revent her from 'ketching harm,' he 
 had her secured in the never-failing green bag, 
 then this was swathed in a fine Paisley shawl, 
 
 2S5 
 
 then he put the ' darlint ' under his greatcoat, 
 surmounting the whole with a cotton umbrella as 
 big as a Lammas-fair tent ; and even on his 
 arrival the first thing he did with her was to disen- 
 tangle and disengage her from all these securities, 
 and warm her tenderly at the fire. Larry is not 
 good at a slow tune, or chune as he calls it, but 
 he comes out strong in 'jigs, strathspeys, and 
 reels,' and he 'whacked off' ' TuUochgorum,' 
 ' Killiecrankie,' and 'The Braes of Tullymet 
 and Mar,' not to mention 'Ganyowen' and 
 ' The Pradhestan Bhoys,' and ' Saint Pathrick's 
 Day' and 'Boyne "Water,' with inconceivable 
 vim and vigour. Altogether, I liked Lariy 
 very much indeed ; and Larry took so kindly to 
 me that he begged me to settle down here and 
 he would himself take a seat in the church ! I 
 thanked him heartily, and assured him that I 
 didn't think the place would just exactly suit 
 me, and that, moreover, I didn't think that 
 I would exactly suit the place. Larry then 
 assured me in turn that it wasn't just such an 
 ' abshcure pleece as most people took it to be, 
 for shure,' he added, 'ye mushn't have heard the 
 song about it that I sung meself twelve times 
 over the night before I left Geelong, and not 
 a sowl there but was weepin' like a Donegal 
 summer, though their bairds were as long as 
 the Apostle Aaron's.' I desired him to sing it, 
 which he did with great pathos, and a very 
 nice little song it is, and Larry is going to write 
 down for me both the words and the music. 
 So you see I continue to extract no small 
 amusement and enjoyment out of my quarters 
 in Ireland. Don't believe half the stories they 
 tell you about it, they're all blarney ; in fact, 
 there is very little difference between this and 
 Scotland. At the same time, I am beginning to 
 weary slightly to get across the Channel again. 
 However, I haven't very long to wait ; I shall 
 be at liberty in about ten days : on Monday 
 week I hope to be in Glasgow. ... I had 
 just finished dinner, and had taken my two 
 young friends Lizzie and Willie on my knee to 
 sing them a song, when a deputation of the 
 elders came in to pay me my fee, and also to 
 pay Mrs. Knowles for the lodgings. They paid 
 me much in the usual kind of coin, but Mis. 
 Knowles, to whom they gave twenty-five 
 shillings, found it to consist of so many coins 
 that she couldn't count it, and was forced to 
 call in my assistance. With some difficulty I 
 succeeded. There were, I think, five fourpenny 
 pieces, nine threepennies, and I don't know how 
 many pennies and halfpennies. This, of course, 
 was done after they went away. You never 
 saw such a droll-looking session in your life. 
 All their hats put together woixldn't have 
 fetched sixpence in an old clothes shop. The 
 principal spokesman was clothed in coi'duroy 
 breeks, red with a year's draining in heavy 
 clayey soil, a black surtout coat, a red cotton 
 neckerchief, and a pair of clogs. Saving the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 286 
 
 coatj which I believe he must have donned for 
 the sake of upholding his dignity as chief 
 speaker, the rest were arrayed in very much 
 the same style. They asked me sundry questions, 
 as, How did I like Cullybackey ? How long had 
 I been ovil Did I find the church very damp 
 and awfully cold? — which questions Mrs. 
 Knowles interpreted to me after the three 
 worthies had taken their departure. It seems 
 that this is a sly style of fishing which they 
 employ in order to expiscate (I always like to 
 carry out a metaphor) the man's sentiments as 
 to accepting or declining if they should happen 
 to give him a call. As soon as they had learned 
 that I hadn't been a year out, they looked at 
 each other, scratched their heads, rubbed their 
 beards, or at least their jaws, for they are all 
 close shaven, and finally took their pocket- 
 handkerchiefs out of their hats, and, having 
 blown their noses, said that they would have 
 to be going, which they accordingly proceeded 
 to do. 
 
 Cullybackey is, however, a rather pleasant 
 little place. There are plenty of roads and 
 walks about it, some of them going through 
 woods and avenues, some of them merely 
 through long tracts of fields with lots of houses, 
 all farm-houses, for eveiybody is a farmer here, 
 with a little wee farraie that just keeps the 
 family jogging and eating, and not what might 
 be called downright scarecrows. On Sundays 
 they look very respectable, saving their hats. 
 Ireland is a great field for the study of the 
 human hat, as you may see in poor Leech's 
 Irish sketches. I have often stood an hour at 
 the hotel window in Dublin watching the hats, 
 and never failing to be thoroughly interested 
 and amused. But, to return, I feel it very 
 pleasant to walk along one of these roads here, 
 especially after dark, as the candles are all 
 lighted up, and the whole country - side is 
 a-twinkle with them, here and there and yonder, 
 and through on the other side, and up the hill 
 behind you there, in the joUiest disorder and 
 prettiest confusion. I often think that you 
 would enjoy an hour's walk with all those tiny- 
 lights blinking and winking and flitting about, 
 and going out of a sudden, and then of a sudden 
 jumping in again. You see I can enjoy almost 
 any place. The church here is a very j)oor one ; 
 the congregation very thin (just now) ; the 
 I)ulpit not in good repair ; the floor an earthen 
 one, and not a living soul able to keep his feet 
 still for five minutes. Moreover, it stands low, 
 though it does stand very prettily too, fast by 
 the river Maine, which passes on its way to 
 Lough Neagh. There is a church-yard beside 
 the church too — a queer-looking, unsymmetrical 
 place, shapen like a bit of i)aper which one 
 would tear off the corner and along the side of 
 the daily Scotsman to light his pipe with. 
 Trees fringe this on all sides round ; but through 
 them you can easily count the graves as you go 
 
 along the public road to Kilrea, which passes 
 behind. There are a good many of them, some 
 close to the river's brink, others out on the 
 green, and others, again, lying up the hill, at 
 an angle of forty-five degrees, basking, as it 
 were, with their faces turned to the south. 
 The people, of course I mean the living, are 
 very old-fashioned. They don't sing para- 
 phrases, as Mr. assured me before the 
 
 whole congregation, when I had just given 
 them out the 46th, and they read the line 
 always, which has a very strange effect to one 
 who is unaccustomed to it. However, they 
 have not acquired the good old time-honoured 
 Scotch custom of sleeping during the sermon — 
 they listen (I must say it, for I have no better 
 simile at hand) 'like swine at a yett.' 
 
 I have had some little difficulty in sliding 
 into the thread of my discourse again at that 
 last 'however,' for my good friend Larry again 
 made his appearance, and entertained me for 
 several hours with a new batch of songs and 
 airs of all descriptions. He seems pei-fecfcly 
 inexhaustible, does Larry. He came down to- 
 night to settle about an excursion we are going 
 to make to-morrow— Mr. Knowles, Larry, and 
 myself — to a place called Bellaghy. This I take 
 to be rather a plenteous place, for I learn that the 
 host (intended) is much troubled with gout. I 
 expect, therefore, to find myself in clover for a 
 day, not that I don't find myself in clover where 
 I am, and good broad-leaved, red-and-white- 
 flowered clover, too ; but then, you knov/, 
 'one star differeth from another star,' albeit 
 they both be stars. . . . 
 
 I have had a letter and a great many papers 
 from Bruce here, for which I am very grateful, 
 for in the present aspect of the American AYar 
 I devour all discussions of the question and 
 news of the state of affairs with even greater 
 avidity than usual. I am much obliged for 
 your papers too. My sister Frank also sent me 
 a whole bundle of Scotsmans (is that the plural?), 
 which took four postage stamps to carry them. 
 The royal mail (or the royal female rather, for 
 our letters are carried by a woman) has never 
 been v/ell since ! Having got to the end of that 
 sentence, let me apologize for the pun — do you 
 see it ? I didn't want to cumber the sentence 
 with more parentheses than one, else I should 
 have marrow-boned immediately after it was 
 down. But really it was such an obvious one — 
 'humblest capacity,' you know — and then I'm 
 in Ireland, and I defy any man to be in Ireland 
 and not joke. Why, I wrote an indignant 
 letter to Mr. MacGill the other day, and I joked 
 all the way through it ! 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Sixtoions, January 13, 1865. 
 This is a most entertaining place, rendered 
 so by the amusing petty wants and laughable 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 2S7 
 
 hardships to which the dwellers in it are 
 subjected. ... As you know, I am living at 
 the house of INIr. Kennedy, who, ^vith his own 
 unaided and unassisted energies, discharges the 
 threefold duties of schoolmaster, precentor, and 
 hairdresser. The other night we had a number 
 of the ' boys '—so called here because they are 
 not boys but men — for the last-mentioned trade 
 to be exercised upon. They submitted their 
 polls successively to the scissors. Mr. Kennedy 
 followed up the pruning operations with a few 
 ' chunes ' on the fiddle. He plays pretty toler- 
 ably on an instrument 0/ Ms own maJdng, which 
 underlined bit of information reminds me of the 
 fact that to all his other trades he adds the ele- 
 ments of cabinet-making and playing. . . . The 
 house is a new one (and it answers for church too). 
 It is the dreadf ullest house for smoke I ever lived 
 in. Mr. Kennedy smokes, I smoke, and so does 
 every chimney in the place. Indeed, we have 
 had to sit with the front door half-open, with 
 a ' great muckle stane ' at the back of it to keep 
 it from opening too far, ever since I came — the 
 wind happening to be in the worst direction. 
 If we close it for a moment, there is an imme- 
 diate strike among the chimneys. Now, it 
 happens just to open at the back of my own 
 door, consequently a wind sweeps across the 
 
 floor of my room and up the chimney like the 
 great Euroclydon. It is as much as I can do to 
 keep my slippers from going up with it ! To 
 supplement this little laughing ZephjT, there 
 are two panes out of the window, their place 
 being but somewhat insufficiently supplied by 
 a curious and ingenious combination of news- 
 papers and pot-lids, between whose multitudin- 
 ous interstices the wind plays pibrochs from 
 morning to night, and then again from night to 
 morning. Occasionally it takes a momentary 
 capricious fit and goes backwards, in which case 
 a perfectly volcanic eruption takes place, clouds 
 and volumes of half -burned peats, and whitey- 
 brown scoriae, come belching into the room, and, 
 remembering the terrible fate of Pliny, I rush 
 precipitately to the farthest corner, from which, 
 when all is over again, I cautiously emerge, and 
 brush my garments. By good luck, when I was 
 in Dublin, my sister Frank sent me a smoking- 
 cap, which I am obliged here to wear constantly 
 to prevent my hair from getting dishevelled and 
 powdered with peat ashes. Thus fortified with 
 my cap and my philosophy, I thoroughly enjoy 
 the humour of the situation ; and I am sure if 
 Mr. Kennedy were to hear my cachinnations 
 (especially during the erui^tions), he would have 
 serious doubts of my sanity. 
 
HISTORICAL, LITERAEY, AND DESCRIPTIVE 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 [Among the voyagers and naval heroes flourish- 
 ing in the times of Queen Elizabeth, a high 
 place must be given to Sir Francis Drake 
 for his courage and persevering bravery, 
 displayed in almost every enterprise, 
 successful or unsuccessful, with which he 
 was identified. Drake was born about 
 1539 or 1541, and died while upon an 
 expedition against the Spanish colonies in 
 1596. The last paragraph of Drake's letter, 
 written to Lord Walsingham during the 
 heat of the pursuit after the Invincible 
 Armada, with little verbal alteration resolves 
 itself into blank verse. It may be taken 
 as an example of a great mind when under 
 strong emotion expressing itself poetically : 
 
 'We have the army of Spain before us, 
 And by God's grace shall wrestle a pull with him. 
 Never was anything pleased me better 
 Than seeing the enemy flying 
 With a southerly wind to the northwards. 
 God grant you have a good eye on Parma. 
 By God's grace, if we live, we'U so handle 
 This Duke of Sidonia, he'll wish himself back 
 To St. Mary's, safe 'mid his orange trees.' 
 
 A childish rhyme of the period, which has 
 thus been translated, testifies how far the 
 dislike and terror of his name had entered 
 into the Spanish mind : 
 
 ' My brother Don John 
 To England is gone. 
 To kill the Drake, 
 And the Queen to take, 
 And the heretics all to destroy.' 
 
 This dislike attended even on his memory, 
 for it is said when the news of his death 
 reached Panama, two days of religious festi- 
 vities were celebrated in honour of his 
 death and damnation. In Stowe's Annals 
 he is described as ' low of stature, of strong 
 
 limbs, broad breasted, rounde headed, 
 broune hayre, full bearded ; his eyes round, 
 large, and clear, well favoured, fayre, and 
 of a cheerfuU countenance. His name was 
 a terror to the French, Spaniard, Portugal, 
 and Indians. Many princess of Italy, 
 Germany, and other, as well enemies as 
 friends, in his lifetime desired his picture. 
 He was the second that ever went through 
 the Straights of Magellanes, and the first 
 that ever went rounde aboute the worlde.' 
 A monument to Drake has been proposed 
 to be set up at Plymouth.] 
 
 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE TO LORD WALSINGHAM. 
 
 Juhj 31, 1588. 
 
 Most Honorable, — I am comauuded to send 
 these prisoners ashore by my Lord Admerall, 
 which had, ere this, byne long done, but that I 
 thought ther being here myght have done some- 
 thing which is not thought meet now. 
 
 Lett me beseche your Honor that they may 
 be presented unto her Majestie, either by your 
 honor, or my honorable good lord, my Lord 
 Chancellor, or both of you. The one, Don 
 Pedro, is a man of great estymacyon with the 
 King of Spayne, and thowght next in this armye 
 to the Duke of Sedonya. If they shoulde be 
 geven from me unto any other, it would be som 
 gref to my friends. Yf her Majestie will have 
 them, God defend but I shoulde thinck it 
 happye. 
 
 We have the armey of Spayne before us, and 
 mynd with the grace of God to wressell a pouU 
 with him. 
 
 Ther was never anything pleased me better 
 than the seeing the enemy flying with a Sothorly 
 wynd to the Northwards. God grant you have 
 a good eye to the Duke of Parma, for with the 
 grace of God, yf we live, I doubt it not, but ere 
 it be long so to handell the matter with the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Duke of Sedonya, as he shall wish hymselff at 
 Saint Marie Port among his orynge trees. God 
 gyve us grace to depend upon Him, so shall 
 we not doubt victory; for our cawse is good. 
 Humbly taking my leave this last of July 15S8, 
 your Honor's fajrthfuUy to be commanded ever, 
 Fea. Drake. 
 
 DE. SHARP TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 With Queen Elizabeth's Speech to her Army at 
 Tilbury Fort, 1588. 
 
 I remember in eighty-eight waiting upon the 
 Earl of Leicester at Tilbury Camp, and in 
 eighty-nine going into Portugal with my noble 
 master, the Earl of Essex, I learned somewhat 
 fit to be imparted to your grace. 
 
 The Queen lying in the camp one night, 
 guarded with her army, the old Lord Treasurer, 
 Burleigh, came thither, and delivered to the 
 earl the examination of Don Pedro, who was 
 taken and brought in by Su' Francis Drake, 
 which examination the Earl of Leicester de- 
 livered unto me to publish to the army in my 
 next sermon. The sum of it was this : — 
 
 Don Pedro being asked what was the intent 
 of their coming, stoutly answered the lords, 
 AVhat but to subdue your nation, and root it 
 out. 
 
 Good, said the lords ; and what meant you 
 then to do with the Catholics ? He answered, 
 'We meant to send them (good men) directly 
 unto heaven, as all you that are heretics to hell. 
 Yea, but said the lords, what meant you to do 
 with your whips of cord and wire (whereof 
 they had great store in their ships)? "NMiat? 
 said he, we meant to whip you heretics to 
 death that have assisted my master's rebels, 
 and done such dishonours to our Catholic king 
 and people. Yea, but what would you have 
 done, said they, with their young children? 
 They, said he, which were above seven years 
 old should have gone the way their fathers 
 went, the rest should have lived, branded in 
 the forehead with the letter L for Lutheran, to 
 peri)etual bondage. 
 
 This, I take God to witness, I received of 
 those great lords upon examination taken by 
 the council, and by commandment delivered it 
 to the army. 
 
 The Queen the next morning rode through all 
 the squadrons of her armie, as armed Pallas, 
 attended by noble footmen, Leicester, Essex, 
 and Norris, then Lord Marshal, and divers other 
 great lords, where she made an excellent ora- 
 tion to her army, which the next day after her 
 departure I was commanded to re-deliver to all 
 the army together, to keep a public fast. Her 
 words were these : — 
 
 ' i\Iy loving people, we have been persuaded 
 by some, that are careful of our safety, to take 
 
 289 
 
 heed how we commit ourself to armed multi- 
 tudes for fear of treachery : but, I assure you, 
 I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful 
 and loving people. Let tyrants fear ; I have 
 always so behaved myself that, under God, I 
 have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard 
 in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects. 
 And therefore I am come amongst you, as you 
 see, at this time, not for my recreation and 
 disport, but being resolved in the midst and 
 heat of the battle to live or die amongst you 
 all, to lay down for my God, and for my king- 
 dom, and for my i^eople, my honour and my 
 blood, even in the dust. I know I have the 
 body but of a Aveak and feeble woman, but I 
 have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a 
 king of England too ; and think foul scorn that 
 Parma, or Sj)ain, or any prince of Europe, 
 should dare to invade the borders of my realm ; 
 to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow 
 by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself 
 will be your general, judge, and rewarder of 
 every one of your virtues in the field. I know 
 already, for your forwardness, you have de- 
 served rewards and crowns ; and we do assure 
 you, in the word of a i^rince, they shall be duly 
 I)aid you. In the meantime, my lieutenant- 
 general shall be in my stead, than whom never 
 prince commanded a more noble or worthy sub- 
 ject ; not doubting but by your obedience to my 
 general, by your concord in the camp, and your 
 valour in the field, we shall shortly have a 
 famous victory over those enemies of my God, 
 of my kingdoms, and of my people.' 
 
 This I thought would delight your grace, and 
 no man hath it but yourself and such as I have 
 given it to, and therefore I make bold to send 
 it unto you, if you have it not already. 
 
 [Thomas Egerton was Lord Chancellor in tlie 
 reign of James I. ; he was in succession 
 Attorney-General, Master of the Eolls, and 
 then Lord Keeper. He was appointed Lord 
 Chancellor, with the title of Baron Elles- 
 mere, in 1603. This seasonable advice was 
 addressed to Essex when in disgrace at the 
 court of Elizabeth, and dismissed from her 
 presence.] 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR EGERTON TO THE 
 EARL OF ESSEX. 
 
 A Letter of Advice. 
 
 My very GOOD Lord,— It is often seen, that 
 he that stands by seeth more than he that 
 playeth the game; and for the most part, 
 every one in his own cause standeth in his own 
 light, and seeth not so clearly as he should. 
 Your lordship hath dealt in other men's causes, 
 and in great and weighty affairs, with great 
 
290 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 wisdom and judgment ; now your own is in 
 hand, you are not to contemn or refuse the 
 advice of any that love you, how simple soever. 
 In this order I rank myself among others that 
 love you, none more simple, and none that love 
 you with more true and honest affection, which 
 shall plead my excuse if you shall either mis- 
 take or mistrust my words or meaning. But, 
 in your lordship's honourable wisdom, I neither 
 doubt nor susi^ect the one nor the otlier. I will 
 not presume to advise you, but shoot my bolt, 
 and tell you what I think. The beginning and 
 long continuance of this so unseasonable dis- 
 contentment you have seen and proved, by 
 which you aim at the end. If you hold still 
 this course, which hitherto you find to be worse 
 and worse (and the longer you go the farther 
 you go out of the way), there is little hope or 
 likelihood the end will be better. You are not 
 yet gone so far but that you may well return : 
 the return is safe, but the jirogress is dangerous 
 and desiderate in this course you hold. If you 
 have any enemies, you do that for tbem which 
 they could never do for themselves. Your 
 friends you leave to scorn and contempt ; you 
 forsake yourself, and overthrow your fortunes, 
 and ruinate your honour and reputation ; you 
 give that comfort and courage to the foreign 
 enemies, as greater they cannot have, for what 
 can be more welcome and pleasing news than 
 to hear that her Majesty and the realm are 
 maimed of so worthy a member, who hath so 
 often and so valiantly quailed and daunted 
 them ? You forsake your country when it hath 
 most need of your counsel and aid ; and, lastly, 
 you fail in your indissoluble duty which you 
 owe unto your most gracious sovereign, — a duty 
 " imposed upon you not by nature and policy 
 only, but by the religious and sacred bond 
 wherein the divine majesty of Almighty God 
 hath by the rule of Christianity obliged you. 
 
 For the four first, your constant resolution 
 may perhaps move you to esteem them as light ; 
 but, being well weighed, they are not light, nor 
 lightly to be regarded. And for the four last, 
 it may be that the clearness of your own con- 
 science may seem to content yourself, but that 
 is not enough; for these duties stand not 
 only in contemplation or inward meditation, 
 and cannot be performed but by external actions, 
 and where that faileth, the substance also fail- 
 eth. This being your present state and condi- 
 tion, what is to be done ? What is the remedy, 
 my good lord ? I lack judgment and wisdom to 
 advise you, but I will never want an honest true 
 heart to wish you well ; nor, being warranted 
 by a good conscience, will fear to speak that I 
 think. I have begun plainly, be not offended 
 if I proceed so. Bene, credit qui cedit tempori; 
 and Seneca saith, Ccdendum est fortunce. The 
 medicine and remedy is not to contend and 
 strive, but humbly to yield and submit. Have 
 you given cause, and yet take a scandal unto 
 
 you ? then all you can do is too little to make 
 satisfaction. Is cause of scandal given unto 
 you? Yet policy, duty, and religion enforce 
 you to sue, yield, and submit to our sovereign, 
 between whom and you there can be no equal 
 proportion of duty. Where G-od requires it as a 
 principal duty and care to Himself, and when it 
 is evident that great good may ensue of it to 
 your friends, yourself, your country, and your 
 sovereign, and extreme harm by the contrary, 
 there can be no dishonour to yield ; but in 
 denying, dishonour and impiety. The difficulty, 
 my good lord, is to conquer yourself, which is 
 the height of true valour and fortitude, wherc- 
 unto all your honourable actions have tended. 
 Do it in this and God will be pleased, her 
 Majesty, no doubt, well satisfied, your country 
 will take good, and your friends comfort by it ; 
 and yourself (I mention you last, for that of all 
 these you esteem yourself least) shall receive 
 honour; and your enemies (if you have any) 
 shall be disappointed of their bitter sweet hope. 
 
 I have delivered what I think simply and 
 plainly : I leave you to determine according to 
 your own wisdom ; if I have erred, it is error 
 amoris and not amor erroris. Construe and 
 accept it, I beseech you, as I meant it : not as 
 an advice, but as an opinion to be allowed or 
 cancelled at your pleasure. If I might conveni- 
 ently have conferred with yourself in person, I 
 would not have troubled you with so many 
 idle blots. Whatsoever you judge of this my 
 opinion, yet be assured my desire is to further 
 all good means that may tend to your lordship's 
 good. And so wishing you all happiness and 
 honour, I cease. — Your lordship's most ready 
 and faithful, though unable, poor friend, 
 
 Tho. Egerton. 
 
 THE earl's answer. 
 
 My very good Lord,— Though there is not 
 that man this day living whom I would sooner 
 make judge of any question that might concern 
 me than yourself, yet you must give me leave 
 to tell you, that in some cases I must appeal 
 from all earthly judges, and if in any, then 
 surely in this, when the highest judge on earth 
 hath imposed upon me the heaviest punishment 
 without trial or hearing. Since, then, I must 
 either answer your lordship's arguments, or else 
 forsake mine own just defence, I will force mine 
 aching head to do me service for an hour. I 
 must first deny my discontentment (which was 
 forced) to be an humorous discontent ; and in 
 that it was unseasonable, or is so long con- 
 tinuing, your lordship should rather condole 
 with me than expostulate : natural seasons arc 
 expected here below, but violent and unseason- 
 able storms come from above. There is no 
 tempest to the passionate indignation of a 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 291 
 
 prince, nor yet at any time so unseasonable as 
 when it lighteth on those that might expect a 
 harvest of their careful and painful labours. 
 He that is once wounded must needs feel smart 
 till his hurt be cured, or the part hurt become 
 senseless. iBut cure I expect none, her Majesty's 
 heart being obdurate ; and be without sense I 
 cannot, being of flesh and blood. But, you may 
 say, I aim at the end : I do more than aim, for 
 I see an end of all my fortunes, I have set an 
 end to all my desires. In this coui'se do I any- 
 thing for mine enemies ? "When I was i)resent 
 I found them absolute, and therefore I had 
 rather they should triumph alone, than have 
 me attendant upon their chariots. Or do I 
 leave my friends? "When I was a courtier I 
 could sell them no fruit of my love, and now 
 that I am an hermit, they shall bear no envy 
 for their love to me. Or do I forsake myself 
 because I do not enjoy myself ? Or do I over- 
 throw my fortunes because I build not a fortune 
 of paper walls, which every puff of wind bloweth 
 down ? Or do I ruinate mine honour because I 
 leave following the pursuit, or wearing the false 
 mark or the shadow of honour? Do I give 
 courage or comfort to the enemies, because I 
 neglect myself to encounter them, or because I 
 keep my heart from business, though I cannot 
 keep my fortune from declining ? No, no ; I 
 give every one of those considerations his due 
 right, and the more I weigh them the more I 
 find myself justified from offending in any of 
 them. As for the two last objections, that I 
 forsake my country when it hath most need of 
 me, and fail in that indissoluble duty which 
 I owe to my sovereign, I answer. That if my 
 country had at this time any need of my public 
 service, her Majesty, that governeth it, would 
 not have driven me to a private life. I am tied 
 to my country by two bonds : one public, to 
 discharge carefully and industriously that trust 
 which is committed to me ; the other j^rivate, 
 to sacrifice for it my life and carcase, which 
 hath been nourished in it. Of the first I am 
 free, being dismissed by her Majesty ; of the 
 other nothing can free me but death, and there- 
 fore no occasion of performance shall sooner offer 
 itself but I will meet it half way. The indis- 
 soluble duty I owe unto her Majesty, the service 
 of an earl and of a marshal of England, and I 
 have been content to do her the service of a 
 clerk ; but I can never serve her as a villain or 
 a slave. But you say I must give way to time. 
 So I do ; for now that I see the storm come, I 
 have put myself into harbour. Seneca saith, 
 we must give way to fortune. I know that for- 
 tune is both blind and strong, and therefore I 
 go as far as I can out of the way. You say the 
 remedy is not to strive : I neither strive nor 
 seek for remedy. But you say I must yield and 
 submit : I can neither yield myself to be guilty, 
 nor this my imprisonment lately laid upon me 
 to be just ; I owe so much to the Author of 
 
 truth, as I can never yield truth to be false- 
 hood, nor falsehood to be truth. Have I given 
 cause, you ask, and yet take a scandal ? No, I 
 gave no cause to take up so much as Fimbria 
 his complaint : for I did totum telum corporc 
 accipere ; I patiently bear and sensibly feel all 
 that I then received when this scandal was 
 given me. Nay, when the vilest of all indig- 
 nities are done unto me, doth religion enforce 
 me to sue ? doth God require it ? is it impiety 
 not to do it ? why ? cannot princes err ? cannot 
 subjects receive wrong? is an earthly power 
 infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my lord, I 
 can never subscribe to these principles. Let 
 Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken ; let 
 those that mean to make their profit of princes 
 show to have no sense of princes' injuries ; let 
 them acknowledge an infinite absoluteness on 
 earth that do not believe an absolute infinite- 
 ness in heaven. As for me, I have received 
 wrong, I feel it ; my cause is good, I know it ; 
 and whatsoever comes, all the powers on earth 
 can never show more strength or constancy in 
 oppressing, than I can show in suffering whatso- 
 ever can or shall be imposed ui^on me. Your 
 lordship, in the beginning of your letter, makes 
 me a player and yourself a looker on ; and me 
 a player of my own game, so you may see more 
 than I ; but give me leave to tell you, that since 
 you do but see, and I do suffer, I must of neces- 
 sity feel more than you. I must crave your 
 lordship's patience to give him that hath a 
 crabbed fortune leave to use a crooked stile. 
 But whatsoever my stile is, there is no heart 
 more humble, nor more affected towards your 
 lordship, than that of your lordship's poor 
 friend, ESSEX. 
 
 The meshes of the net were rapidly closing 
 around Queen Mary when this appeal was 
 penned to Queen Elizabeth. After her 
 escape from Lochleven, the battle of 
 Langside had proved fatal to Mary's cause 
 in Scotland ; she rapidly changed her 
 plans, pushed across the Solway in a boat, 
 and reached Carlisle Castle, where this 
 letter was written. As a result of the 
 decisions of the English Privy Council, 
 she was afterwards conducted, in spite of 
 remonstrances and complaints, to Bolton, 
 a castle of Lord Scroop's on the borders 
 of Yorkshire. There her prospect of 
 escape seemed small, while correspondence 
 with Scotland was rendered more and 
 more difficult. The letter closes with a 
 pathetic appeal to the tender mercies of 
 Elizabeth.] 
 
292 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 QUEEN MARY TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. 
 
 Madam, — Although the necessity of my cause 
 (which maketh me to be importunate to you) do 
 make you to judge that I am out of the way, 
 yet such as have not my passion, nor the respects 
 whereof are persuaded, will think that I do as 
 my cause doth require. Madam, I have not 
 accused you, neither in words, nor in thought, 
 to have used yourself evil towards me. And I 
 believe that you have no want of good under- 
 standing to keep you from persuasion against 
 your natural good inclination. But in the 
 meantime I cannot choose (having my senses) 
 but perceive very evil furtherance in my 
 matters since my coming hither. I thought 
 that I had sufficiently discoursed unto you the 
 discommodities which this delay bringeth unto 
 me. And especially that they think in this 
 next month of August to hold a parliament 
 against me and all my servants. And in the 
 meantime I am stayed here, and yet will you, 
 that I should put myself farther into your 
 country (without seeing you), and remove me 
 farther from mine ; and there do me this 
 dishonour at the request of my rebels, as to 
 send commissioners to hear them against me, 
 as you would do to a mere subject, and not 
 hear me by mouth. Now, madam, I have 
 promised you to come to you, and having thei-e 
 made my moan and complaint of these rebels, 
 and they coming thither, not as possessors, but 
 as subjects to answer, I would have besought you 
 to hear my justification of that which they have 
 falsely set forth against me, and if I could not 
 purge myself thereof, you might then discharge 
 yovir hands of my causes, and let me go for 
 such as I am. But to do as you say, if I v/ere 
 culpable I would be better advised ; but being 
 not so, I can't accept this dishonour at their 
 hands, that being in possession they will come 
 and accuse me before your commissioners, 
 whereof I can't like. And seeing you think it 
 to be against your honour and consignage to do 
 otherwise, I beseech you that you will not be 
 mine enemy until you can see how I can 
 discharge myself every way, and to suffer me to 
 go into France, where I have a dowry to 
 maintain me, or at least to go into Scotland, 
 with assurance that if there come any strangers 
 thither, I will bind myself for their return 
 without any prejudice to you ; or if it please you 
 not to do thus, I protest I will not impute it to 
 falsehood if I receive strangers in my country 
 without making you any other discharge for it. 
 Do with my body what you will, the honour or 
 blame shall be yours, for I had rather die here, 
 and that my faithful servants may be succoured 
 (though you would not so) by strangers, than 
 to suffer them to be utterly undone, upon hope 
 to receive, in time to come, particular com- 
 modity. There be many things to move me to 
 fear that I shall have to do, in this country. 
 
 with others than with you. But forasmuch 
 as nothing hath followed upon my last moan, I 
 hold my peace, happen what may hap, I liave 
 as lief to endure (abide) my fortune as to seek 
 it, and not find it. Further it pleased you to 
 give licence to my subjects to go and come. 
 This has been refused by my Lord Scroop and 
 Mr. Knoils (as they say) by your command- 
 ment, because I would not depart hence to 
 your charge, until I had answer of this letter, 
 though I showed them that you required my 
 answer upon the two points contained in your 
 letter. 
 
 The one is to let you briefly understand, I 
 am come to you to make my moan to you, the 
 which being heard, I would declare unto you 
 mine innocency, and then require your aid, 
 and for lack thereof, I can't but make my 
 moan and complaint to God, that I am not 
 heard in my just quarrel, and to appeal to 
 other princes to have respect thereunto, as my 
 case requireth ; and to you, madam, first of all 
 when you shall have examined your conscience 
 before him, and have him for witness. And 
 the other, which is to come farther into your 
 country, and not to come to your presence, 
 I will esteem that as no favour, but will take 
 it for the contrary, obeying it as a thing forced. 
 In meantime, I beseech you, to return to me 
 my Lord Herries, for I can't be without him, 
 having none of my counsel here, and also to 
 suffer me, if it i^lease you, without further 
 delay to dejiart hence whithersoever it be out of 
 this country. I am sure you will not deny me 
 this simple request for your honour's sake, 
 seeing it doth not jjlease jou to use your 
 natural goodness to me otherwise, and seeing 
 that of mine own accord I am come hither, let 
 me depart again with yours. And if God 
 permit my cause to succeed well, I shall be 
 bound to you for it, and happening otherwise 
 yet I cannot blame you. As for my Lord 
 Fleeming, seeing that upon my credit you 
 suffered him to go home to his house, I warrant 
 you he shall pass no further, but shall return 
 when it shall please you. In that you trust 
 me, I will not (to die for it) deceive you. But 
 from^ Dumbarton I answer not, when my 
 Lord Fleeming shall be in the Tower. For 
 they which are within it will not forbear 
 to receive succour, if I don't assure them of 
 yours, no, though you would charge me withal, 
 for I have left them in charge, to have more 
 respect to my servants and to my estate than 
 to my life. Good sister, be of another mind, 
 win the heart, and all shall be yours and at 
 your commandment. I thought to satisfy you 
 wholly if I might have seen you. Alas ! do 
 not as the serpent that stoppeth his hearing, 
 for I am no enchanter, but your sister, a natural 
 cousin. If Coesar had not disdained to hear or 
 
 1 Perhaps /or. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 read the complaint of an advertiser, he had not 
 so died ; why should princes' ears be stopped, 
 seeing that they are painted so long ? meaning 
 that they should hear all and be well advised 
 before they answer. I am not of the nature of 
 the basilisk, and less of the chameleon, to turn 
 you to my likeness ; and though I should be so 
 dangerous and cursed as men say, you are 
 sufficiently armed with constancy and with 
 justice, which I require of God, who give you 
 grace to use it well with long and happy life. 
 From Carlisle, bth of July 1568. 
 
 [Sir "Walter Raleigh, bom in 1552, was descended 
 from an old Devonshire family, and edu- 
 cated at a common school, and at Oriel 
 College, Oxford. The three years which 
 he spent at the University were well 
 employed, although he left without a 
 degree. "We find him among the select troop 
 of volunteers who went to France to assist 
 the Protestants. Here he remained for 
 six years, employed in studying the art of 
 war, and the language and manners of the 
 countrj'. In 1575 he was engaged in the 
 wars in the Low Countries, and was with 
 the Prince of Orange when engaged against 
 the Spaniards. An unsuccessful expedi- 
 tion to Newfoundland was undertaken in 
 1579, and for two years afterwards he 
 was engaged in the Irish Rebellion ; on his 
 return he was introduced at court, and 
 became a favourite with Queen Elizabeth 
 until her death. The other events in 
 Raleigh's life were the discovery of Vir- 
 ginia in 1584, his gallant conduct in the 
 destruction of the Spanish Armada, and 
 his subsequent operations against the 
 Spaniards at Panama, and the taking of 
 Cadiz. He undertook expeditions towards 
 Newfoundland, Florida, the search for the 
 North-west Passage, and voyaged to Virginia 
 and Guiana. His name stands identified 
 with the introduction of tobacco and the 
 potato to the Old World. After the death 
 of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 his fortunes 
 waned ; he was accused of a plot against 
 James I., and tried and sentenced to death. 
 A reprieve came, and he lay for twelve 
 years in the Tower. The enforced leisure 
 of this imprisonment was utilized in reading, 
 writing, and in the composition of his 
 History of the World. On his release 
 
 he was engaged in an expedition to Guiana, 
 and thrown into prison on his return to 
 gratify the Spaniards, who were incensed 
 at him. The former sentence was revived 
 against him, and he was executed at 
 "Westminster in 1618. Raleigh wrote much, 
 if we consider how his life was occupied in 
 public affairs, on such subjects as history, 
 politics, geography, travel, and military 
 and naval matters. See also p. 19.] 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH TO JAMES I. 
 
 It is one part of the office of a just and 
 worthy prince, to hear the complaints of his 
 vassals, especially such as are in great misery. 
 I know not, amongst many other presumptions 
 gathered against me, how your Majesty hath 
 been persuaded that I was one of them who 
 were greatly discontented, and therefore the 
 more likely to prove disloyal. But the great 
 God so relieve me in both worlds as I was the 
 contrary : and I took as great comfort to behold 
 your Majesty, and always learning some good, 
 and bettering my knowledge by hearing your 
 Majesty's discourse. I do most humbly beseech 
 your sovereign Majesty not to believe any of 
 those in my particular, who under pretence of 
 offences to kings, do easily work their particular 
 revenge. I trust no man, under the colour of 
 making examples, should persuade your Majesty 
 to leave the word merciful out of your style ; 
 for it will be no less profit to your Majesty, and 
 become your greatness, than the word invincible. 
 It is true that the laws of England are no less 
 jealous of the kings than Caesar was of Pomiiey's 
 wife ; for notwithstanding she was cleared for 
 having company with Claudius, yet for being 
 suspected, he condemned her. For myself, I 
 protest before Almighty God, and I speak it to 
 my master and sovereign, that I never invented 
 treason against him ; and yet I know I shall fall in 
 manibus corum, a quibus non possum evadere, 
 unless by your Majesty's gracious compassion I 
 be sustained. Our law therefore, most merciful 
 prince, knowing her own cruelty, and knowing 
 that she is wont to compound treason out of 
 presumptions and circumstances, doth give this 
 charitable advice to the king her supreme, J^on 
 solum sapiens esse sed et misericors, etc. Cu7n 
 tutius sit reddere rationem misericordice quam 
 judicii. I do therefore on the knees of my 
 heart beseech your Majesty, from your own 
 sweet and comfortable disposition, to remember 
 that I have served your Majesty twenty years, 
 for which your Majesty hath yet given me no 
 reward ; and it is fitter I should be indebted 
 unto my sovereign lord, than the king to his 
 poor vassal. Save me, therefore, most merciful 
 prince, that I may owe your Majesty my life 
 itself, than which there cannot be a greater 
 
294 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 debt. Limit me at least, my sovereign lord, 
 that I may pay it for your service when your 
 Majesty shall please. If the law destroy me, 
 your Majesty shall put me out of your i)ower, 
 and I shall have none to fear but the King of 
 kings. Walter Raleigh. 
 
 TO SIR ROBERT CAR.^ 
 
 Sir, — After many losses, and many years' 
 sorrows, of both which I have cause to fear I 
 was mistaken in their ends, it is come to my 
 knowledge, that yourself (whom I know not but 
 by an honourable favour) hath been persuaded 
 to give me and mine my last fatal blow, by 
 obtaining from his Majesty the inheritance of 
 my children and nephews, lost in law for want 
 of a word. This done, there remaineth nothing 
 with me but the name of life. His INIajesty, 
 whom I never offended (for I hold it unnatural 
 and unmanlike to hate goodness), staid me at 
 the grave's brink ; not that I thought his 
 Majesty thought me worthy of many deaths, 
 and to behold mine cast out of the world with 
 myself, but as a king that knoweth the i)Oor in 
 truth, hath received a promise from God that 
 his throne shall be established. 
 
 And for you, sir, seeing your fair day is but 
 in the dawn, mine drawn to the setting, j'-our 
 own virtues and the king's grace assuring you 
 of many fortunes and much honour, I beseech 
 you begin not your first building upon the ruins 
 of the innocent, and let not mine and their 
 sorrows attend your first i^lantation. I have 
 ever been bound* to your nation, as well for 
 many other graces as for the true report of my 
 trial to the King's majesty ; against whom had 
 I been malignant, the hearing of my cause 
 would not have changed enemies into friends, 
 malice into compassion, and the minds of the 
 greatest number then j)resent into the com- 
 miseration of mine estate. It is not the nature 
 of foul treason to beget such fair passions ; 
 neither could it agree with the duty and love of 
 faithful subjects (esi)ecially of your nation) to 
 bewail his overthrow that had conspired against 
 their most natural and liberal lord. I therefore 
 trust that you will not be the first that shall 
 kill us outright, cut down the tree with the 
 fruit, and undergo the curse of them that enter 
 the fields of the fatherless : which, if it please 
 you to know the truth, is far less in value than 
 in fame. But that so worthy a gentleman as 
 yourself will rather bind us to you (being six 
 gentlemen not base in birth and alliance) which 
 have interest therein ; and myself with my utter- 
 most thankfulness will remain ready to obey your 
 commandments. "Walter Raleigh. 
 
 1 Earl of Somerset and favourite of James I., to 
 whom Raleigh's estates were given previous to his 
 first imprisonment. 
 
 TO TRINQE HENRY, SON OF JAMES I. 
 
 May IT PLEASE YOUR Highness,— The follow- 
 ing lines are addressed to your Highness, from a 
 man who values his liberty, and a very small 
 fortune in a remote part of this island, under 
 the present Constitution, above all the riches 
 and honours that he could anywhere enjoy 
 under any other Establishment. 
 
 You see, sir, the doctrines that are lately 
 come into the world, and how far the phrase 
 has obtained, of calling your royal father God's 
 vicegerent; while ill men have turned both to the 
 dishonour of God, and the impeachment of his 
 Majesty's goodness. They adjoin vicegerency 
 to the idea of being all-powerful, and not to 
 that of being all-good. His Majesty's wisdom, 
 it is to be hoped, will save him from the snare 
 that may lie under gross adulations ; but your 
 youth, and the thirst of praise, which I have 
 observed in you, may ijossibly mislead you. to 
 hearken to these charmers, who would conduct 
 your noble nature into tyranny. Be careful, O 
 my prince ! hear them not, fly fi'om their deceits; 
 you are in the succession to a throne, from 
 whence no evil can be imputed to you, but all 
 good must be conveyed from you. Your father 
 is called the vicegerent of heaven. While he is 
 good he is the vicegerent of heaven. Shall man 
 have authority from the Fountain of Good to do 
 evil ? No, my i^rince ; let mean and degenerate 
 si^irits, which want benevolence, suppose your 
 power impaired by a disability of doing injuries. 
 If want of power to do ill be an incapacity 
 in a prince, with reverence be it spoken, it is 
 an incapacity he has in common with the Deity. 
 Let me not doubt but all pleas, which do 
 not carry in them the mutual happiness 
 of prince and peoi^le, will appear as absurd to 
 your great understanding, as disagreeable to 
 your noble nature. Exert yourself, O generous 
 prince, against such sycophants, in the glorious 
 cause of liberty ; and assume such an ambition 
 worthy of you, to secure your fellow-creatures 
 from slavery ; from a condition as much below 
 that of brutes, as to act without reason is less 
 miserable than to act against it. Preserve to 
 your future subjects the divine right of being 
 free agents ; and to your own royal house the 
 divine right of being their benefactors. Believe 
 me, my j)rince, there is no other right can flow 
 from God. AYhile your Highness is forming 
 yourself for a throne, consider the laws as so 
 many commonplaces in your study of the 
 science of government ; when you mean nothing 
 but justice, they are an ease and help to you. 
 This way of thinking is what gave men the 
 glorious ai^pellations of deliverers and fathers 
 of their country ; this made the sight of them 
 rouse their beholders into acclamations, and 
 mankind incapable of bearing their very 
 appearance without applauding it as a benefit. 
 Consider the inexpressible advantages which 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 295 
 
 w-ill ever attend your Highness, while you make 
 the power of rendering men happy the measure 
 of your actions. While this is your impulse, 
 how easily will that power be extended ! The 
 glance of your eye will give gladness, and your 
 very sentence have a force of bounty. "WTiat- 
 ever some men would insinuate, you have lost 
 your subjects when you have lost their incli- 
 nations. You are to preside over the minds, 
 not the bodies of men ; the soul is the essence 
 of the man, and you cannot have the true man 
 against his inclinations. Choose therefore to 
 be the king or the conqueror of your i^eople ; it 
 may be submission, but it cannot be obedience 
 that is passive. I am, sir, your Highness' most 
 faithful servant, "Walter Kaleigh. 
 
 London, Aurjust 12, 1611. 
 
 [The most affecting eulogy upon the fallen 
 Chancellor was pronounced by his friend 
 Ben Jonson, in one of those majestic frag- 
 ments of prose upon which he bestowed 
 the name of Explorata, or Discoveries : — 'My 
 conceit of his person was never increased 
 towards him by his place, or honours ; but 
 I have, and do reverence him, for the 
 greatness that was only proper to himself, 
 in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, 
 one of the greatest men, and most worthy 
 of admiration, that had been in many ages. 
 In his adversity I ever prayed that God 
 would give him strength ; for greatness he 
 could not want.' Neither could I condole 
 in a word or syllable for him, as knowing 
 no accident could do harm to virtue, but 
 rather help to make it manifest.' The 
 Discoveries appeared in the folio of 1641. 
 Bacon died, April 9th, 1626, in the sixty- 
 sixth year of his age. The parliamentary 
 sentence, under which he had suffered 
 more than three years, was remitted in 
 the beginning of 1624, by the command of 
 James, who expired at Theobalds in the 
 spring of the following year. A very am^jle 
 and interesting narrative of the proceedings 
 against Lord Bacon, and of the evidence 
 adduced to support the charge of bribery", 
 may be seen in Basil Montagu's edition of 
 his works, vol. xvi. (Life).''- After his fall, 
 his annual income appears to have comprised 
 a pension from the ci'own of £1200, £600 
 from the Alienation Office, and £700 from 
 his own estate. The pension he retained 
 unto his death. From the King he probably 
 
 1 Now superseded by Spedding's Life. 
 
 derived pecuniary assistance ; and Bucking- 
 ham, in one of his letters, communicates 
 the consent of James 'to yield unto the 
 three years' advance.' But his disposition 
 was munificent, and his embarrassments 
 frequent. See also page 15. — WillmoU.'] 
 
 LORD BACON, AFTER HIS DISGRACE, TO JAMES I. 
 
 To THE King,— It may please your most 
 excellent Majesty, in the midst of my misery, 
 which is rather assuaged by remembrance 
 than by hope, my chiefest worldly comfort is 
 to think, that, since the time I had the first 
 vote of the Commons Hou.se of Parliament for 
 Commissioner of the Union, tmtil the time 
 that I was, by this last Parliament, chosen by 
 both Houses for their messenger to your Majesty 
 in the X'etition of religion (which two were my 
 first and last services), I was evermore so happy 
 as to have my poor services graciously accepted 
 by your Majesty, and likewise not to have had 
 any of them miscarry in my hands ; neither of 
 which points I can anywise take to myself, but 
 ascribe the former to your Majesty's goodness, 
 and the latter to your j)rudent directions, which 
 I was ever careful to have and keep. For, as 
 I have often said to your Majesty, I was towards 
 you but as a bucket and cistern, to draw forth 
 and conserve, whereas yourself was the fountain. 
 Unto this comfort of nineteen years' prosperity, 
 there succeeded a comfort even in my greatest 
 adversity, somewhat of the same nature, which 
 is that, in those offences wherewith I was 
 charged, there was not any one that had special 
 relation to your Majesty, or any your particular 
 commandments. For as towards Almighty 
 God there are offences against the first and 
 second table, and yet all against God ; so with 
 the servants of kings, there are offences more 
 immediate against the sovereign, although all 
 offences against law are also against the king. 
 Unto which comfort there is added this circum- 
 stance, that as my faiilts were not against your 
 Majesty, otherwise than as all faults are ; so my 
 fall was not your Majesty's act, otherwise than 
 as all acts of justice are yours. This I write 
 not to insinuate with your Majesty, but as a 
 most humble appeal to your Majesty's gracious 
 remembrance, how honest and direct you have 
 ever found me in your service, whereby I have an 
 assured belief that there is in your Majesty's 
 own princely thoughts a great deal of serenity 
 and clearness towards me, your Majesty's now 
 prostrate and cast-down servant. 
 
 Neither, my most gracious sovereign, do I, 
 by this mention of my former services, lay 
 claim to your princely graces and bounty, though 
 the privilege of calamity doth bear that form 
 of petition. I know well, had they been much 
 more, they had been but by bounden duty : nay, 
 I must also confess, that they were, from time 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 296 
 
 to time, far above my merit, over and super- 
 rewarded by your Majesty's benefits, which you 
 heaped upon me. Your Majesty was and is 
 that master to me that raised and advanced 
 me nine times, thrice in dignity, and six times 
 in offices. The places were indeed the painfullest 
 of all your services ; but then they had both 
 honour and profits ; and the then profits might 
 have maintained my now honours, if I had 
 been wise ; neither was your Majesty's immediate 
 liberality wanting towards me in some gifts, if 
 I may hold them. All this I do most thankfully 
 acknowledge ; and do herewith conclude, that 
 for anything arising from myself to move your 
 eye of pity towards me, there is much more in 
 my present misery than in my past services ; 
 save that the same, your Majesty's goodness, 
 that may give relief to the one, may give value 
 to the other. 
 
 And indeed, if it may please your Majesty, 
 this theme of my miseiy is so plentiful as it 
 need not be coupled with anything else. I have 
 been somebody by your Majesty's singular and 
 undeserved favour, even the prime officer of 
 your kingdom. Your Majesty's arm hath often 
 been laid over mine in council when you pre- 
 sided at the table ; so near was I ! I have borne 
 your Majesty's image in metal, much more in 
 my heart. I was never, in nineteen years' 
 service, chidden by your Majesty ; but, 
 contrariwise, often overjoyed when your Majesty 
 would sometimes say, I was a good husband 
 for you, though none for myself ; sometimes, 
 that I had a way to deal in business fauvibus 
 modis, which was the way which was most 
 according to your own heart ; and other most 
 gracious speeches of affection and trust, which 
 I feed on to this day. But why should I speak 
 of these things which are now vanished but 
 only the better to express my downfall ? 
 
 For now it is thus with me : I am a year 
 and a half ^ old in misery ; though, I must ever 
 acknowledge, not without some mixture of 
 your Majesty's gi'ace and mercy. For I do not 
 think it possible that any one, whom you once 
 loved, should be totally miserable. Mine own 
 means, through my own improvidence, are 
 l^oor and weak, little better than my father left 
 me. The poor things that I have had from 
 your Majesty are either in question or at 
 courtesy. My dignities remain marks of your 
 past favour, but burdens of my present fortune. 
 The poor remnants which I had of my former 
 fortunes, in plate or jewels, I have spread upon 
 l)oor men unto whom I owed, scarce leaving 
 myself a convenient subsistence ; so as to 
 conclude, I must pour out my misery before 
 your Majesty, so far as to say, Si tu dcferis, 
 perimus. 
 
 But as I can offer to your Majesty's compassion 
 
 1 Therefore this was written near the middle of the 
 year 1622. 
 
 little arising from myself to move you, except 
 it be my extreme misery, which I have truly 
 opened ; so looking up to your Majesty's own 
 self, I should think I committed Cain's fault if 
 I should despam Your Majesty is a king, 
 whose heart is as inscrutable for secret motions 
 of goodness as for dei3th of wisdom. You are. 
 Creator-like, factive, not destructive ; you are 
 the prince in whom hath ever been noted an 
 aversion against anything that savoured of an 
 hard heart ; as on the other side, your princely 
 eye was wont to meet with any motion that 
 was made on the relieving part. Therefore, as 
 one that hath had the happiness to know your 
 Majesty near-hand, I have, most gracious 
 sovereign, faith enough for a miracle, and much 
 more for a grace, that your Majesty will not 
 suffer your poor creature to be utterly defaced, 
 nor blot that name quite out of your book, 
 upon v/hich your sacred hand hath been so oft 
 for the giving him new ornaments and additions. 
 
 Unto this degree of compassion, I hope God 
 (of whose mercy towards me, both in my pro- 
 sperity and adversity, I have had great testi- 
 monies and pledges, though mine own manifold 
 and wretched unthankfuhiess might have 
 averted them) will dispose your princely heart, 
 already prepared to all piety you shalP do for 
 me. And as all commiserable persons (especially 
 such as find their hearts void of all malice) are 
 apt to think that all men pity them, so I assure 
 myself that the lords of your council, who, out 
 of their wisdom and nobleness, cannot but be 
 sensible of human events, will, in this way 
 which I go, for the relief of my estate, further 
 and advance your Majesty's goodness towards 
 me ; for there is, as I conceive, a kind of 
 fraternity between great men that are, and 
 those that have been, being but the several 
 tenses of one verb. Nay, I do further presume, 
 that both Houses of Parliament will love their 
 justice the better if it end not in my ruin ; for 
 I have been often told, by many of my lords, 
 as it were in the way of excusing the severity of 
 the sentence, that they knew they left me in 
 good hands. And your Majesty knoweth well 
 I have been all my life long acceptable to those 
 assemblies ; not by flattery, but by moderation, 
 and by honest expressing of a desire to have all 
 things go faii'Iy and well. 
 
 But if it may please your Majesty (for saints 
 I shall give them revex^ence, but no adoration ; 
 my address is to your Majesty, the fountain of 
 goodness), your Majesty shall, by the grace of 
 God, not feel that in gift, which I shall extreme- 
 ly feel in help ; for my desires are moderate, 
 and my courses measured to a life orderly and 
 reserved, hoping still to do your Majesty honour 
 in my way ; only I most humbly beseech your 
 Majesty to give me leave to conclude with these 
 words, which necessity speaketh. Help me, 
 
 1 Vouclisafe to express towards me. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 297 
 
 dear sovereign, lord and master, and pity so far, 
 as that I, that have borne a bag, be not now in 
 my age forced, in effect, to bear a wallet ; nor 
 that I, that desire to live to study, may not be 
 driven to study to live. I most humbly crave 
 pardon of a long letter, after a long silence. 
 God of heaven ever bless, preserve, and prosper 
 your Majesty. Your Majesty's poor ancient 
 servant and beadsman, Fr. Bacon. 
 
 lord bacon to james i. 
 
 It may please tour most excellent 
 IVIajestt, — I do many times with gladness, 
 and for a remedy of my other labours, revolve 
 in my mind the great happiness which God 
 (of His singular goodness) hath accumulated 
 iipon your Majesty every way ; and how com- 
 l^lete the same would be, if the state of your 
 means were once rectified and well ordered ; 
 your people military and obedient, fit for war, 
 used to peace ; your church enlightened with 
 good preachers, as an heaven of stars ; your 
 judges learned, and learning from you, just, 
 and just by your example ; your nobility in a 
 right distance between crown and people, no 
 oppressors of the people, no overshadowers 
 of the crown; your council full of tributes, of 
 care, faith, and freedom ; your gentlemen and 
 justices of peace willing to apply your royal 
 mandates to the nature of their several counties, 
 but ready to obey ; your servants in awe of 
 your wisdom, in hope of your goodness ; the 
 fields growing every day by the improvement 
 and recovery of grounds, from the desert to 
 the garden ; the city grown from wood to 
 brick ; your sea-walls, or pomerium of your 
 island surveyed, and in edifying ; your mer- 
 chants embracing the whole compass of the 
 world, east, west, north, and south ; the times 
 giving you peace, and yet offering you oppor- 
 tunities of action abroad ; and, lastly, your 
 excellent royal issue entailing these blessings 
 and favours of God, to descend to all posterity. 
 It resteth, therefore, that God having done so 
 great things for your Majesty, and you for 
 others, you would do so much for yourself 
 as to go through (according to your good 
 beginnings) with the rectifying and settling 
 of your estate and means, which only is 
 wanting. Hoc rebus defuit unum. I there- 
 fore, whom only love and duty to your Majesty, 
 and your royal line, hath made a financier, 
 do intend to present unto your Majesty a 
 perfect book of your estate, like a perspective- 
 glass, to draw your estate near to your sight ; 
 beseeching your Majesty to conceive, that if I 
 have not attained to do that, that I would 
 do in this which is not proper for me, nor in 
 my element, I shall make your Majesty amends 
 in some other thing in which I am better bred. 
 God ever preserve, etc. 
 
 [Sir Henry "Wotton was born in 1568 at Boughton 
 Hall, in Kent, and educated at AVestmin- 
 ster School, Oxford, and Queen's Colleges. 
 He spent several years in Germany; re- 
 turned and attached himself to the Earl 
 of Essex ; on the arrest of the latter for 
 treason, he escaped to France and Italy. 
 The Grand-Duke of Tuscany sent him on a 
 private message to James VI. , which he per- 
 formed so well as to gain the king's favour ; 
 and on his accession to the throne, Wotton 
 was sent on various missions to Italy and 
 Germany. He became provost of Eton 
 College in 1624, and died in 1639. The 
 little work from which we quote is entitled, 
 ' Letters of Sir Henry Wotton to Sir Edmund 
 Bacon. London : Printed by R. "VV. for 
 F. T. at the three Daggers in Fleet Street. 
 1661.'] 
 
 SIR HENRY wotton TO SIR EDMUND BACON. 
 
 3Iarch the last, 1613. 
 Sir, — I returned from Cambridge to London 
 some two hours after the King. The next day 
 was celebrated with twenty tilters, wherein 
 there entered four fraternities : the Earls 
 Pembroke and Montgomeiy, my Lord Walden, 
 Thomas and Henry Howards, the two Riches, 
 and the two Alexanders, as they are called 
 (though falsely), like many things else in a 
 court. The rest were Lenox, Arundel, Rut- 
 land, Dorcet, Shandowes, North, Hey, Dingwel, 
 Clifford, Sir Thomas Sommerset, and Sir John 
 Harrington. The day fell out wet, to the 
 disgrace of many fine plumes. Some caparisons 
 seen before, adventured to appear again on the 
 stage with a little disguisement, even on the 
 back of one of the most curious ; so frugal are 
 the times, or so indigent. The two Riches only 
 made a speech to the King, the rest were 
 contented with bare impress ; whereof some 
 were so dark that their meaning is not yet 
 understood, unless, perchance, that were their 
 meaning not to be xmderstood. The two best 
 to my fancy were those of the two Earls 
 Brothers ; the first a small exceeding white 
 Pearl, and the word, Solo candore valeo. The 
 other, a sun casting a glance on the side of a 
 pillar, and the beams reflecting, with this 
 motto, Splendente refulget. In which devices 
 there seemed an agreement ; xhe elder brother 
 to allude to his own nature, and the younger 
 to his fortune. The day was signalized with 
 no extraordinary accident, save only between 
 Sir Thomas Howard and Sir Thomas Sommer- 
 set, who, with a counter-buff, had almost set 
 himself out of the saddle, and made the other's 
 horse sink under him ; but they both came 
 fairly off without any further disgrace. Of 
 
298 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the merits of the rest I will say nothing, my 
 pen being very unfit to speak of lances. 
 
 To this solemnity of the public ambassadors, 
 only the arch-duke was invited, for the 
 healing of the distaste he had taken for the 
 preference of the Venetian at the marriage. 
 But I doubt the plaister be too narrow for the 
 sore ; which he seemed not much discontented 
 that men should note in his whole countenance 
 that day. Towards the evening a challenge 
 passed between Archie and a famous knight, 
 called Sir Thomas Parsons ; the one a fool by 
 election, and the other by necessity : which 
 was accordingly performed some two or three 
 days after, at tylt, tornie, and on foot, both 
 completely armed, and solemnly brought in 
 before their majesties, and almost as many 
 other meaner eyes as were at the former. 
 Which bred much sport for the present, and 
 afterwards, upon cooler consideration, much 
 censure and discourse, as the manner is. 
 
 The departure of the Count Palatine and my 
 Lady Elizabeth is put off from the Thursday 
 in the Easter week till the Tuesday following, 
 which day I think will hold. The commissioners 
 that accompany her, have the titles of ambassa- 
 dors, to give tliem precedency before Sir Ralph 
 Winwood at the Hague, and likewise in any 
 encounters with Almaigne princes. Sir Edward 
 Cecil goeth as treasurer to keep up that office 
 in the name, though it be otherwise perhaps 
 from a general, rather a fall than an ascent. 
 Before this journey there is a conceit, that the 
 Duke of Lenox will be naturalized a Peer of 
 our Parliament, and my Lord of Rochester be 
 created Earl of Devonshire. The foreign 
 matter is little increased since my last unto 
 you from Cambridge. The Savoy ambassador 
 not yet arrived. The Turks' designs hitherto 
 unknown, and marching slowly according to 
 the nature of huge armies ; in which suspense 
 the Venetians have augmented their guard in 
 the gulf, enough to confirm unto the world 
 that states must be conserved, even with 
 ridiculous fears. This is all that the week 
 yieldeth. My lord and lady have received 
 those letters and loving salutations which my 
 footman brought. And so with mine own 
 hearty prayers to God for you, and for that 
 most good niece, I commit you both to his 
 blessing and love. Your faithfullest of un- 
 profitable friends, Heney Wotton. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Sir, — In my last I told you that the am- 
 bassador of Savoy was to meet the Queen at 
 Windsor, which pains she hath spared him by 
 her own coming yesternight to Greenwich, 
 where I think she will settle herself a day or 
 two before she admit him. Now, seeing the 
 time of the commencement at Cambridge so 
 near as it is, and being able to determine of 
 
 this ambassador's departure within that space, 
 I have resolved to take those philosophical 
 exercises in my way to you, hoping in the 
 meantime to sec Albertus admitted by oath to 
 a clerkship of the council, or at least to the 
 next vacancy, for he is now sti'ong enough 
 again to swear. 
 
 Sir Robert Mansfeld and Mr. Whitlock were, 
 on Saturday last, called to a very honourable 
 hearing in the Queen's Presence Chamber at 
 Whitehall before the Lords of the Council, 
 with intervention of my Lord Cook, the Lord 
 Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Master of 
 the Rolls, the Lord Chief-Justice being kept at 
 home with some infirmity. There the Attorney 
 and Solicitor first undertook Mr. Whitlock, J 
 and the Recorder (as the King's Sergeant) 
 Sir Robert Mansfeld; charging the one as a 
 counsellor, the other as a questioner in matter j 
 of the King's prei-ogative and sovereignty, upon 
 occasion of a commission intended for a research ; 
 into the administration of the Admiralty, ; 
 against which the said Sir Robert Mansfeld , 
 (being himself so principal an officer therein) J 
 had sought some provision of advice, and ? 
 this was the sum of the charge, which was 
 diversely amplified. 'Whitlock in his answer ' 
 spake more confusedly than was expected from ^ 
 a lawyer, and the knight more temperately ■ 
 than was expected from a soldier. There was 
 likewise some difference noted, not only in the •: 
 manner, but in the substance between them. 
 For Whitlock ended his speech with an absolute ; 
 confession of his own offence, and with a pro- \ 
 mise of employing himself hereafter in defence | 
 of the King's prerogative, f Sir Robert Mansfeld, \ 
 on the other side, laboured to distinguish between < 
 the error of his acts and the integrity of his ■ 
 zeal and affection towards the King his master ; ,^ 
 protesting he should hold it the greatest glory ' 
 under heaven to die at his feet, and that no 
 man living should go before him, if there were 
 occasion to advance his dominions, with some 
 other such martial strains which became him 
 well. The conclusion of his speech had some- 
 what of the courtier beseeching the lords, if 
 the restraint he had endured were not in their 
 judgments a sufficient punishment of his error, 
 that then they would continue it as long as it 
 should please them, and add unto it any other 
 affliction of pain or shame whatsoever ; provided 
 that afterwards he might be restored again into 
 his Majesty's favour and their good opinions. 
 To tell you Avhat they all severally said that 
 day, were to rob from the liberty of our 
 discourse when we shall meet. In this they , 
 generally agreed, both counsellors and judges, 
 to represent the humiliation of both the 
 prisoners unto the King in lieu of innocency, 
 and to intercede for his gracious pardon ; which , 
 was done, and accordingly the next day they 
 were enlarged upon a submission under writing. 
 This is the end of that business, at which were 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 299 
 
 present as many as the room could contain, 
 and men of the best quality, whom the King 
 •was desirous to satisfy, not only about the 
 point in hand, but in some other things that 
 were occasionally awaked ; which I likewise 
 reserve to our private freedom. 
 
 The King's officers are returned from my Lady 
 Elizabeth, whom they left at Goltzheime the 
 last of May, where his Majesty's expense did 
 cease. This j)lace was chosen for her consign- 
 ment, instead of Bacherach, suspected of 
 contagion. She was at Andernach feasted by the 
 Elector of Cullen ; at Confluence, or Cobolentz 
 (as they call it), by the other of Trier ; and at 
 Mentz by the third of those ecclesiastic poten- 
 tates very royally and kindly, and (which was 
 less expected) very handsomely. The Count 
 Maurice and his brother, with troops of horse 
 and a guard of foot, accompanied her to Cullen, 
 and entered themselves into that city with her 
 (I need not teU you, that though themselves 
 were within, the horse and most of the foot 
 were without the walls), which is here (by the 
 wiser sort of interpreters) thought as hazardous 
 an act as either of them both had done in the 
 heat of war, and indeed in no way justifiable in 
 foro sapienticc. And therefore such adventures 
 as these must appeal ad forum Providentice ; 
 where we are all covered by His vigilant mercy 
 and love, to which I commit you and my sweet 
 niece in my hearty prayers. Your faitMul 
 poor friend, uncle, and servant, 
 
 Henry Wotton. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 From St. Martins by the Fields, 
 Api'il 18, 1633. 
 
 SiK, — By beginning first with philosophy, I 
 will discover the method of my nature, pre- 
 ferring it before the speculations of State. 
 
 Take any vegetable whatsoever (none excepted 
 in the effect, though some difference in the 
 degree), express the juice, put that in any 
 vessel of wood or stone with a narrow neck 
 and mouth, not closed at the top, but covered 
 with anything, so as it may work out above ; 
 set it afterwards in some cold hole in a cellar, 
 let it stand there some three weeks or a month, 
 till by fermentation it have both purged itself 
 upwards, and by sediment downwards. Then 
 decant from it the clear juice, and put that in 
 a limbeck in balneo maris, or in balneo roris. 
 The first that riseth will be aqua ardens, useful 
 perchance according to the quality of the plant ; 
 as of wormwood for the stomach, of succory 
 or any of those Incubce for the liver. And on 
 the sides of the limbeck will hang a salt ; this 
 is the extracting of salt without calcination, 
 which otherwise certainly must needs consume 
 all the active powers of any vegetable, and 
 leave nothing but a plastic and passive virtue. 
 
 For the point of preserving that salt after- 
 
 wards from resolution by air into water, I 
 hold it impossible, notwithstanding the proper 
 examples that you allege, which yet must of 
 necessity yield to it. For as your excellent 
 uncle says, and says well, in not the least of 
 his works (though born after him), of his 
 experiments : air is predatory. 
 
 I have forgotten (for mcmoria primo senescit) 
 whether I told you in my last a pretty late 
 experiment in arthritical pains. It is cheap 
 enough. Take a roasted turnip (for if you 
 boil it, it will open the pores, and draw too 
 much), apply that in a poultice to the part 
 affected, with change once in an hour or two, 
 as you find it dried by the heat of the flesh, 
 and it will in little time allay the pain. 
 
 Thus much in our private way, wherein I 
 dare swear, if our medicines were as strong as 
 our wishes, they would work extremely. 
 
 Now for the public, where peradventure 
 now and then there are distempers as well 
 as in natural bodies. 
 
 The Earl of Holland was on Saturday last 
 (the day after your post's departure) very 
 solemnly restored at Council Table (the King 
 present) from a kind of eclipse, wherein he 
 had stood since the Thursday fortnight before. 
 All considered, the obscuration was long, and 
 bred both various and doubtful discourse ; but 
 it ended well. All the cause yet known was 
 a verbal challenge sent from him by Mr. Henry 
 Germain in this form : To the now Lord 
 Weston newly returned from his foreign 
 employments. That since he had already 
 given the King an account of his embassage, 
 he did now expect from him an account of a 
 letter of his which he had opened in Paris, 
 and he did expect it at such a time, even in 
 the Spring Garden (close under his father's 
 window) with his sword by his side. 
 
 It is said (I go no farther in such tender 
 points) that my Lord Weston sent him by 
 Mr. Henry Percy (between whom and the said 
 Lord Weston had in the late journey, as it 
 seems, been contracted such friendship as 
 overcame the memory that he was cousin- 
 german to my Lord of Holland), a very fair 
 and discreet.answer : That if he could challenge 
 him for any injury done him before or after 
 his embassage, he would meet him as a gentle- 
 man with his sword by his side where he 
 should appoint. But for anything that had 
 been done in the time of his embassage, he 
 had already given the King an account thereof, 
 and thought himself not accountable to any 
 other. This published on Tliui-sday was fort- 
 night, the Earl of Holland was confined to his 
 chamber in court, and the next day morning 
 to his house at Kensington, where he remained 
 without any further circumstance of restraint 
 or displeasure Saturday and Sundaj^ ; on which 
 days being much visited, it was thought fit 
 on Monday to appoint Mr. Dickenson, one of 
 
300 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the clerks of the Council, to be his guardian 
 thus far, that none without his presence should 
 accost him. This made the vulgar judgments 
 run high, or rather indeed run low. That he 
 was a lost and discarded man, judging as of 
 patients in fevers, by the exasperation of the 
 fits. But the Queen, who was a little obliquely- 
 interested in this business, for in my Lord of 
 Holland's letter, which was opened, she had 
 one that was not opened, nor so much (as they 
 say) as sviperscribed, and both the Queen's and 
 my Lord of Holland's were enclosed in one 
 from Mr. Walter Mountague (whereof I shall 
 tell you more hereafter). The Queen, I say, 
 stood nobly by him, and as it seems pressed 
 her own affront. It is too intricately involved 
 for me so much as to guess at any particulars. 
 I hear generally discoursed that the opened 
 despatch was only in favour (if it might be 
 obtained) of Monsieur de Chateau Neuf, and 
 the Chevalier de Farr (who had both been 
 here) ; but written with caution (and surely 
 not without the King's knowledge) to be 
 delivered, if there were hope of any good 
 effect, and perchance not without order from 
 his IMajesty to my Lord Weston ; afterwards 
 to stop the said letters, upon advertisement 
 that both Chateau Neuf and de Farr were 
 already in the Bastile. But this I leave at 
 large, as not knowing the depth of the business. 
 
 Upon Monday was seven night fell out 
 another quarrel, nobly carried (branching from 
 the former) between my Lord Fielding and M. 
 Goring, son and heir to the lord of that name. 
 They had been the night before at supper, I 
 know not where, together ; where M. Goring 
 spake something in diminution of my Lord 
 Weston, which my Lord Fielding told him, it 
 could not become him to suffer, lying by the 
 side of his sister. Thereui^on, these hot hearts 
 appoint a meeting next day morning, them- 
 selves alone, each upon his horse. They pass 
 by Hyde Park, as a place where they might 
 be parted too soon, and turn into a lane by 
 Knight's Bridge, where, having tied up their 
 horses at a hedge or gate, they got over into 
 a close ; there stripped into their shirts, with 
 single rapiers, they fell to an eager duel, till 
 they were severed by the host and his servants 
 of the inn of the Pi-ince of Orange, who, by 
 mere chance, had taken some notice of them. 
 In this noble encounter, wherein blood was 
 spent, though (by God's providence) not much, 
 on either side, there passed between them a 
 very memorable interchange of a piece of 
 courtesy, if that word may have room in this 
 place : says my Lord Fielding, M. Goring, 
 if you leave me here, let me advise you not 
 to go back by Piccadillia Hall, lest if mischance 
 befall me, and be suddenly noised (as it falleth 
 out in these occasions now between us), yow 
 might receive some harm by some of my friends 
 that lodge thereabouts. 
 
 My lord (replies Goring), I have no way but 
 one to answer this courtesy : I have here by 
 chance in my pocket a warrant to pass the 
 ports of England without a name (gotten I 
 suppose upon some other occasion before) ; 
 if you leave me here, take it for your use, 
 and put in your own name. This is a passage 
 much commended between them, as proceeding 
 both from sweetness and stoutness of spirit, 
 which are very compatible. On the solemn 
 day of Saturday last, both this difference and 
 the original between the Earl of Holland and 
 the Lord Weston, were fairly reconciled and 
 forgiven by the King, with shaking of hands, 
 and such symbols of agreement. And likewise 
 Sir Maurice Dromand, who had before, upon 
 an uncivil rupture on his i^art between him 
 and my Lord of Carlisle, been committed to 
 the Tower, was then delivered at the same 
 time ; and so it all ended, as a merry fellow- 
 said, in a Maurice. But whether these be perfect 
 cures, or but skinnings over and palliations of 
 court, will appear hereafter. Nay, some say 
 very quickly, for my Lord Weston's lady being 
 since brought to bed of a daughter, men stand 
 in a kind of suspense, whether the Queen will 
 be the godmother after so crude a reconcilement, 
 which, by the King's inestimable goodness, I 
 think may pass in this forgiving week. 
 
 For foreign matter, there is so little and so 
 doubtful, as it were a misery to trouble you 
 with it. The States' confuted Treaty is put 
 to the stock; and the Prince of Orange (by 
 account) gone to the field two days since, 
 having broken the business (as they say) by 
 three demands ; the resignment of Breda and 
 Guelder, the dismantling of Rheynberg, and 
 the equality of free exercise of religion on 
 either side. The States are strong in arms, 
 weak in money, owing above six hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling in bare intei-est, be- 
 sides the capital. The enemy hath neither 
 money, nor men, nor agreement. Arena sine 
 calce, yet I hear (and ex bonis codicibus) that 
 the States are absolutely resolved to besiege 
 no town this year, unless it be some such place 
 as may haply fall gently into their lap. They 
 will range with divided troops. 
 
 I will have a care in my letters to the King's 
 only sister (for that is now her published style 
 even in sermons), so to commend your frank 
 unto her (whom she was wont to call, when he 
 went first over, her little Pig) that he may 
 speedily have a captain's place. 
 
 God bless him, and bless your whole name, 
 to which I am so much tied, both by the 
 alliance of the sweetest niece that ever man 
 had, and by your own kindness since her 
 departure to heaven. And so I rest your 
 indissoluble servant, Henry Wotton. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 301 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON TO LORD BACON. 
 
 Thanking him for his ^ Novum Organum.' 
 
 Eight honourable, and my very good 
 Lord, — I have your lordship's letters dated the 
 20th of October, and I have withal by the care 
 of my cousin, Mr. Thomas Meawtis, and by 
 your own special favour, three copies of that 
 work, wherewith your lordship hath done a 
 great and ever-living benefit to all the children 
 of Nature ; and to Nature herself, in her utter- 
 most extent and latitude: who never before 
 had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I 
 am ready to style your lordship) never so 
 inward a secretary of her cabinet. But of 
 your said work (which came but this week to 
 my hands) I shall find occasion to speak more 
 hereafter ; having yet read only the first book 
 thereof, and a few aphorisms of the second. 
 For it is not a banquet, that men may super- 
 ficially taste, and put uj) the rest in their 
 pockets ; but, in truth, a solid feast, which 
 requireth due mastication. Therefore when I 
 have once myself perused the whole, I deter- 
 mine to have it read piece by piece at certain 
 hours in my domestic college, as an ancient 
 author : for I have learned thus much by it 
 already, that we are extremely mistaken in the 
 computation of antiquity, by searching it back- 
 wards, because indeed the first times were the 
 youngest ; especially in points of natural 
 discovery and experience. For though I grant, 
 that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and 
 Solomon of all plants, not only more than any, 
 but more than all since their time ; yet that 
 was by divine infusion, and therefore they did 
 not need any such Organum as your lordship 
 hath now delivered to the world; nor we 
 neither, if they had left us the memories of 
 their wisdom. But I am gone further than I 
 meant in speaking of this excellent labour, 
 Avhile the delight yet I feel, and even the pride 
 that I take in a certain congeniality (as I may 
 term it) with your lordship's studies, will scant 
 let me cease. And, indeed, I owe your lordship 
 even by promise (which you are pleased to 
 remember, thereby doubly binding me) some 
 trouble this way ; I mean, by the commerce of 
 philosoi^hical experiments, which surely of all 
 others is the most ingenuous traffic. Therefore, 
 for a beginning, let me tell your lordship a 
 pretty thing which I saw coming down the 
 Danube, though more remarkable for the 
 application than for the theory. I lay a night 
 at Lintz, the metropolis of the higher Austria, 
 but then in very low estate, having been newly 
 taken by the Duke of Bavaria ; who, Uandiente 
 fortund, was gone on to the late effects. There 
 I found Kepler, a man famous in the sciences, 
 as your lordship knows, to whom I purpose to 
 convey from hence one of your books, that he 
 may see we have some of our own that can 
 honour our king, as well as he hath done with 
 
 his Harmonice.'^ In this man's study I was 
 much taken with the draught of a landscape on 
 a piece of paper, methoughts masterly done : 
 whereof inquiring the author, he bewrayed with 
 a smile, it was himself ; adding, he had done it, 
 Nan tanquam Pictor, sed tanquam Mathe- 
 maticus." This set me on fire ; at last he told 
 me how. He hath a little black tent (of what 
 stuff is not much importing) which he can 
 suddenly set up where he will in a field, and it 
 is convertible (like a windmill) to all quarters 
 at i^leasure, capable of not much more than one 
 man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no great 
 ease ; exactly close and dark, save at one hole, 
 about an inch and a half in the diameter, to 
 which he applies a long perspective trunk, with 
 a convex glass fitted to the said hole, and the 
 concave taken out at the other end, which 
 extendeth to about the middle of this erected 
 tent, through which the visible radiations of all 
 the objects without are intromitted, falling 
 upon a paper, which is accommodated to receive 
 them, and so he traceth them with his pen in 
 their natural appearance, turning his little tent 
 round by degrees till he hath designed the 
 whole aspect of the field. This I have described 
 to your lordship, because I think there might 
 be good use made of it for chorography : for 
 otherwise, to make landscapes by it were il- 
 liberal ; though surely no painter can do them 
 so precisely. Now from these artificial and 
 natural curiosities, let me a little direct your 
 lordship to the contemplation of fortune. 
 
 [The reader who has compared the structure 
 
 * Johann Kepler, born 1571, died 1630. 
 2 Not as Painter, but as Matlieuiatician. 
 
 and the pauses of Jonson's blank verse 
 with those of Milton, will not be surprised 
 to discover in the noble dedication to The 
 Fox, the peculiar characteristics of Milton's 
 prose. The relationshij) between the 
 dramatist and the epic poet may be traced 
 not only in their intellectual, but in their 
 moral features. They were equally 
 learned ; equally confident in their own 
 powers ; equally regardless of the acquire- 
 ments of others. Both delighted in Attic 
 and Latin idioms, and both occasionally 
 rose into the loftiest flights of eloquence 
 and passion. The following composition of 
 Jonson is not inappropriately included in 
 a volume of letters. It belongs to a species 
 of writing, which a revolution of taste has 
 banished from our literature. To the 
 IDractice of addressing the i^owerful and 
 opulent in a laudatory epistle, we owe 
 
302 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 some of the most beautiful passages of 
 Taylor, of Hall, and of De Foe ; and the 
 earliest specimens of English criticism are 
 contained in the eloquent adulation of 
 Dryden. Each of the three divisions of 
 Taylor's Great Exemplar is inscribed to 
 a separate individual ; an engine of harm- 
 less flattery, which, in the words of his 
 biographei-, 'he was too grateful, or too 
 poor, to omit any opportunity of employ- 
 ing.' The comedy of Tlie Fox, to which 
 this dedicatory epistle is prefixed, was 
 represented at the Globe Theatre in 1605, 
 and printed in 1607, having been previously 
 represented before the universities with 
 great applause. It has been considered 
 the masterpiece of Jonson ; and Cumber- 
 land pronounced his portrait of Mosca, the 
 Ijarasite of Volpone, to be equal to the 
 ha^jpiest delineation of antiquity. Mr. 
 Gifford, however, preferred the Alchemist, 
 whose plot, in the opinion of Coleridge, 
 was absolutely perfect; he coupled it, in 
 this particular, with the Tom Jones of 
 Fielding, and the CEdipus Tyrannus of 
 Sophocles. — Willmott.} 
 
 BEN JONSON TO THE TWO UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 Never, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit 
 so presently excellent, as that it could raise 
 itself, but there must come both matter, 
 occasion, commenders, and favourers to it. If 
 this be true, and that the fortune of all writers 
 doth daily ijrove it, it behoves the careful to 
 provide well towards these accidents ; and, 
 having acquired them, to preserve that part of 
 reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit 
 of a friend is also defended. Hence is it, that 
 I now render myself grateful, and am studious 
 to justify the bounty of your act ; to which, 
 though your mere authority were satisfying, 
 yet it being an age wherein poetry and the 
 professors of it hear so ill on all sides, there 
 will a reason be looked for in the subject. It is 
 certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, 
 that the too much licence of poetasters in this 
 time hath much deformed their mistress ; that, 
 every day, their manifold and manifest ignor- 
 ance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her ; 
 but for their pctulancy, it were an act of the 
 greatest injustice, either to let the learned 
 sufferer, or so divine a skill (which indeed 
 should not be attempted with unclean hands), 
 to fall into the least contempt. For if men 
 will impartially, and not asquint, look toward 
 the offices and function of a j)oet, they will 
 easily conclude to themselves the impossibility 
 of any man's being a good poet, without first 
 
 being a good man. He that is said to be able 
 to inform young men to all good disciplines, | 
 inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep ; 
 old men in their best and supreme state, or, as 
 they decline to childhood, recover them to their 
 first strength ; that comes forth the interpreter i 
 and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things : 
 divine, no less than human, a master in \ 
 manners ; and can alone, or with a few, effect 
 the business of mankind ; this, I take him, is i 
 no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise 
 their railing rhetoric upon. But it will here be ; 
 hastily answered, that the writers of these days 
 are other things ; that not only their manners, 
 but their natures, are inverted, and nothing 
 remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but . 
 the abused name, which every scribe usurps ; — 
 that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they 
 term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, 
 profanation, blasphemy, all licence of offence to 
 God and man, is practised. I dare not deny a 
 great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, 
 because in some men's short abortive features 
 (and would they had never boasted the light) ; 
 it is over-true ; but that all are embarked in -. 1 
 this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharit- 
 able thought, and, uttered, a more malicious I 
 slander. For my particular, I can, and from a | 
 most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever 
 trembled to think towards the least profane- 
 ness; have loathed the use of such foul and 
 unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of 
 the scene; and, howsoever I cannot escape 
 from some the imputation of sharpness, but 
 that they will say, I have taken a pride or lust , 
 to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but' j 
 hath come into the world with all his teeth ; I \ 
 would ask of these supercilious politics, what \ 
 nation, society, or general order or state, I f 
 have provoked ? what public person ? whether I 
 have not in all these i^reserved their dignity, as 
 mine own person, safe? My works are read, 
 allowed (I speak of those that are entirely 
 mine), look into them ; what broad reproofs 
 have I vised? where have I been particular? 
 where personal ? except to a mimic, cheater, or 
 buffoon, creatures for their insolencies worthy 
 to be taxed. Yet to which of these so point- 
 ingly as he might not either ingenuously have 
 confest or wisely dissembled his disease ? But 
 it is not rumour can make men guilty, much 
 less entitle me to other men's crimes. I know 
 that nothing can be so innocently writ or 
 carried, but may be made obnoxious to con- 
 struction ; marry, whilst I bear mine own 
 innocence about me, I fear it not. Application 
 is now grown a trade with many; and there 
 are that profess to have a key for the decipher- 
 ing of everything : but let wise and noble 
 persons take heed how they be too credulous, or 
 give leave to these invading interpreters to be 
 over-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, 
 and often, utter their own vii'ulent malice 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 303 
 
 under other men's simplest meaning. As for 
 those that will (by faults which charity hath 
 raked up, or common honesty concealed) make 
 themselves a name with the multitude, or, to 
 draw their rude and beastly claps, care not 
 whose living faces they intrench with their 
 petulant styles, may they do it without a rival 
 for me ! I choose rather to live graved in 
 obscurity, than share with them in so prepos- 
 terous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of 
 those severe and wise patriots, who, providing 
 the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a 
 State, desire rather to see fools and devils, and 
 those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, 
 with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, 
 than behold the wounds of private men, of 
 princes, and nations ; for, as Horace makes 
 Trebatius speak among these : 
 
 'Sibi quisque timet, quamquam est hitactus, et oclit.' 
 
 And men may justly impute such rages, if 
 continued, to the writer, as his sports. The 
 increase of which lust in liberty, together with 
 the present trade of the stage, in all their 
 miscelline interludes, what learned or liberal 
 soul doth not already abhor ? AVhere nothing 
 but the filth of the time is uttered, and with 
 such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of 
 solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold pro- 
 lepses, so racked metaphors, with brotherly, 
 able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blas- 
 phemy, to turn the blood of a Christian to 
 water. I cannot but be serious in a cause of 
 this nature, wherein my fame, and the reputa- 
 tion of divers honest and learned, are the 
 question ; when a name so full of authority, 
 antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their 
 insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age ; 
 and those men subject to the petulancy of every 
 vemaculous orator, that were wont to be the 
 care of kings and happiest monarchs. This it 
 is that hath not only rapt me to present 
 indignation, but made me studious heretofore, 
 and by all my actions, to stand off from them ; 
 which may most appear in this my latest work, 
 which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, 
 judged, and to my renown approved ; wherein 
 I have laboured for their instruction and 
 amendment, to reduce not only the ancient 
 forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, 
 the propriety, the innocence, and last, the 
 doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to 
 inform men in the best reason of living. And 
 though my catastrophe may, in the strict 
 rigour of comic law, meet with censure, as 
 turning back to my promise, I desire the 
 learned and charitable critic to have so much 
 faith in me, to think it was done of industry : 
 for, with what ease I could have varied it 
 nearer his scale (but that I fear to boast my 
 own faculty) I could here insert. But my 
 special aim being to put the snaffle in their 
 mouths that cry out, We never punish vice in 
 
 our interludes, etc., I took the more liberty, 
 though not without some lines of examjile, 
 drawn even in the ancients themselves, the 
 goings out of whose comedies are not always 
 joyful, but ofttimes the servants, the rivals, 
 yea, and the masters are mulcted; and fitly, 
 it being the office of a comic poet to imitate 
 justice, and instruct to life, as well as purity of 
 language, or stir up gentle affections : to which 
 I shall take the occasion elsewhere to speak. 
 
 For the present, most reverenced Sisters, as I 
 have cared to be thankful for your affections 
 past, and have made the understanding 
 acquainted with some ground of your favours, 
 let me not despair their continuance, to the 
 maturing of some worthier fruits ; wherein, if 
 my muses be true to me, I shall raise the 
 despised head of poetry again, and stripping 
 her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith 
 the times have adulterated her form, restore her 
 to her iirimitive habit, feature, and majesty, 
 and render her worthy to be embraced and kist 
 of all the great and master-spirits of our world. 
 As for the vile and slothful, who never affected 
 an act worthy of celebration, or are so inward 
 with their own vicious natures, as they worthily 
 fear her, and think it a high point of policy to 
 keep her in contempt, with their declamatory 
 and windy invectives ; she shall out of just 
 rage incite her servants (who are genus irritabile) 
 to spout ink in their faces, that shall eat farther 
 than their marrow into their fames ; and not 
 Cinnamus, the barber, with his art, shall be 
 able to take out the brands ; but they shall live, 
 and be read, till the wretches die, as things 
 worst deserving of themselves in chief, and 
 then of all mankind. 
 
 From my house in the Black-Friars, this 
 nth day of Fehriiary, 1G07. 
 
 [Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, the 
 great minister of Charles I., was born at 
 London in 1593. He was educated at 
 Cambridge, and in 1611 was knighted, and 
 travelled on the Continent. He entered 
 Parliament as member for Yorkshire in 
 1614, and sat in several parliaments as 
 member for the same county. In 1628 he 
 sided with the King, and was created Baron 
 Wentworth, then Viscount, Lord President 
 of the Council of the North, and a Privy 
 Councillor in 1629. He was made Lord 
 Deputy of Ireland in 1633. The despotic 
 nature of his government is supposed to 
 have led to the rebellion of 1641. He 
 helped, however, to encourage the intro- 
 duction of the growth of flax, and the 
 establishment of linen manufactures. He 
 
304 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 was created Earl of Strafford in 1G39, 
 receiving the title of Lord-Lieutenant of 
 Ireland. On taking his seat in the House 
 of Lords in November 1640, he was 
 impeached for high treason. His trial 
 caused the greatest excitement all over the 
 country ; the whole House of Commons 
 was present, along with commissioners 
 from Scotland and Ireland, eighty peers as 
 judges, and with the King and Queen as 
 lookers-on. Unaided against thirteen 
 accusers, he argued the charges which they 
 brought forward for seventeen days. The 
 impeachment was at one time likely to fail, 
 when, the King at last giving his assent to 
 the attainder, he was beheaded on Tower 
 Hill, May 12, 1641. The year 1637 was 
 marked by the constitutional struggle of 
 the people against the odious tax 'ship 
 money,' levied by the ministers of Charles 
 I. to enrich the royal coffers. Laud, and 
 Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, were 
 the two most strenuous supporters of the 
 policy of the King. ' I am for thorough,' 
 Strafford wrote to Laud. Wentworth 
 in this first letter strives to answer the 
 popular clamour which was rising against 
 his selfish and tyrannical policy. See also 
 I)age 30.] 
 
 LORD WENTWORTH TO ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 
 
 Mat IT PLEASE YOUR Grace, — No sooner am 
 I got home, but the gont hath laid fast hold on 
 me, yet gives me leave to think the more, as it 
 renders me able to do the less ; and in taking 
 the view of my buildings, as I came along, they 
 j)ut me in mind of some things, which have run 
 in my thoughts ever since, so as I shall crave 
 your leave to count them over with your grace. 
 And as I shall deal most ingenuously with you 
 as my ghostly father, so do I beseech and 
 promise vmto myself your advice and counsel. 
 
 I have good advertisement that some, who 
 sure find I serve the crown too entirely for their 
 purpose, do yet endeavour to persuade his 
 Majesty that I serve myself too well in this 
 X)lace, so to bring me into suspicion with my 
 master, and through that open a way to my 
 prejudice. 
 
 To evince this belief from his Majesty, they 
 fetch their calumnies on every side. 
 
 Their first charge is, that I have two or three 
 and twenty thousand pounds a year coming in. 
 And should it be forty, were I to be condemned 
 for that, more than themselves, that compara- 
 tively have forty times as much as other men, 
 that for anything I know, may deserve as much 
 better than they, as they themselves deserve 
 
 better than I? It is very true, I have, under 
 the blessing of Almighty God, and the pro- 
 tection of his Majesty, six thousand pounds a 
 year good land, which I brought with me into 
 his service ; I have a share for a short term in 
 these customs, which, whilst his Majesty's 
 revenue is there increased more than twenty 
 thousand pounds by year, proves nevertheless 
 a greater profit to me than ever I dreamt of. 
 Besides, ,1 have nothing but those gracious 
 entertainments, which others before had, and 
 those which succeed me must have, saving only 
 that my troop consists of a hundred horse, 
 where theirs were but forty. Yet let them 
 take this truth along, my hundred hath stood 
 me in gathering, furnishing, and maintaining, 
 some thousands more, than ever I must see 
 again forth of his Majesty's pay ; where other 
 former deputies have known how, out of the 
 pay of their forty, to clear into their own imrse 
 above five hundred pounds yearly ; nor is this 
 a riddle, lest it be I will expound it : they kept 
 in their stable half a dozen hackneys ; I a 
 hundred horse, in every resj)ect able and fitted 
 for his Majesty's service. 
 
 Next they say, I build up to the sky. I ac- 
 knowledge that were myself only considered in 
 what I build, it were not only to excess, but 
 even to folly, having already houses moderate 
 for my condition in Yorkshire ; but his Majesty 
 will justify me, that at my last being in Eng- 
 land, I acquainted him with a purpose I had to 
 build him a house at the Naas, it being un- 
 comely his Majesty should not have one here of 
 his own, capable to lodge him with moderate 
 conveniency (which in truth as yet he hath not) 
 in case he might be pleased sometimes here- 
 after to look upon this kingdom ; and that it 
 was necessary in a manner for the dignity of 
 this place, and the health of his deputy and 
 family, that there should be one removing 
 house of fresh air, for want whereof I assure 
 your lordship, I have felt no small incon- 
 venience since my coming hither ; that when 
 it was built, if liked by his Majesty, it should 
 be his, paying me as it cost ; if disliked, a suo 
 damno, I was content to keep it, and smart for 
 my folly. His Majesty seemed to be pleased 
 with all, whereupon I proceeded, and have in a 
 manner finished it, and so contrived it for the 
 rooms of state and other accommodations which I 
 have observed in his Majesty's houses, as I had 
 been indeed stark mad ever to have cast it so 
 for a private family. Another frame of wood I 
 have given order to set up in a j)ark I have in 
 the county of "VYicklow. And gnash the tooth 
 of these gallants never so hard, I will by God's 
 leave go on with it, that so I may have a place 
 to take my recreation for a month or two in a 
 year, were it for no other reason than to dis- ^ 
 please them, by keeping myself, if so please 
 God, a little longer in health. 
 
 Yet lest these magnificent structures might 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 305 
 
 be thought those of Nebuchadnezzar, the plain 
 truth is, that at the Naas with the most may 
 stand in six thousand pounds, that in the park 
 at twelve hundred ; faith, at worst methinks, 
 they should not judge it very much for a 
 person of my great Hazienda to cast away 
 twelve hundred pounds upon his own fancy; 
 and yet to profess a truth to your grace, but 
 that I did consider his Majesty might judge it 
 hereafter for his service to visit this kingdom, 
 in that case foresaw no pai-t able to give him 
 the i^leasure of his summer hunting like that 
 park and country adjacent; and lastly, that 
 then at least I would provide a lodge, that 
 might house him dry from the injuries of the 
 weather, I protest there had not been one 
 timber of it fastened to another. In the mean- 
 time my confidence is my comfort, that if I be 
 made so happy as to see his Majesty on this 
 side, he will give me thanks for them both, and 
 then am I at the height of my ambition, and 
 these my well-wishers fairly bounded upon the 
 very place to accuse me, if anything they have 
 to say unto me. 
 
 The third is, that I purchase all before me. 
 In tnith they are mistaken, I have not yet 
 quantum milvus oberret : confess all I will to 
 your grace, indeed give them no account at all ; 
 I have as much land here in Ireland as stands 
 me in twelve or thirteen thousand pounds. I 
 tnist in time to make it worth me a thousand 
 pounds a year, but as yet it is well short ; but 
 to put water in my wine, in the word of 
 honesty and truth, I owe at least seven thou- 
 sand pounds more than I did when I came into 
 Ireland. Yet I must needs say they have 
 some colour to fasten this slander upon me ; 
 for I understanding by my Lady of Carlile, 
 when I was last in England, that her ladyship 
 would be unwilling to part with the impost 
 upon wines, unless I would endeavour other- 
 wise to bestow the money to raise a present 
 equal revenue to support her charge, and being 
 desirous to fetch this grant back to the crown, 
 as also to serve her ladyship, I promised to do 
 the best I could, and have since in both these 
 respects used all diligence to inquire and find 
 where I might place her ladyship's money to 
 most advantage. This pursuit hath raised one 
 great dust about me. The other is, that the 
 contract made for my Lord of CarlUe's interest 
 in the Birnes, is believed here to be for me, but 
 in truth (I dare impart it to your grace) his 
 Majesty full well knows it is for himself : it is 
 to cost fifteen thousand pounds, and I do not 
 doubt to make it in present into the Exchequer 
 five and twenty hundred pounds a j'ear, and 
 will be double as much after the leases we shall 
 now make be expired. The bargain is worth 
 twenty thousand pounds. Now let them set 
 beside me first one of themselves, that hath 
 turned from himself to the advantage of the 
 crown a bargain of so mighty a i^rofit, which 
 
 honourably and justly he might have brought 
 to the help of his own private fortune, as I 
 might have done this, and then at after, let 
 them burthen me with my greediness of pur- 
 chasing. In the mean space, let them for 
 shame hold their tongues, however the 
 malignity of their eye pursue me still, I am 
 content ; if I grow not the richer, I trust to 
 grow the better, living thus under their disci- 
 pline. 
 
 The fourth is, that I grow monstrous rich. 
 Have I in the least falsified or neglected the 
 trusts of my most gracious master? Have I 
 corruptly or oppressively taken from his people ? 
 Have I been a burthen to his coffers more 
 than for those his princely entertainments which 
 others have before had, and others must again 
 have after me in these places ? Have I lived 
 meanly, below that which I owe to the honour 
 of his Majesty, and dignity of the place I 
 exercise? If so, let them show wherein. I 
 defy them, every mother's son. Howbeit, I 
 am none of those insolent servants neither, that 
 shall strictly call upon myself my master's 
 justice, without any grain of his favour ; to 
 him with all reverence and humility I seek 
 for his remission, his compassion of all my 
 defects, all my infirmities, in the pursuit, in 
 the fulfilling of his good pleasures, the rather 
 in regard of the uprightness, however, of my 
 heart to his person, to his affairs. But I will 
 break to fitters, die, before I take from any so 
 affected towards me a better being, nay, indeed, 
 any being at all. 
 
 Well then, thus I am become rich, able, I 
 hope, in some reasonable time (I praise God 
 and his Majesty), to pay eveiy man his own. 
 Was I not in some measure so before I had the 
 honour to serve his Majesty? Or shall that 
 be a crime in me, which they so heartily desire 
 themselves, nay, perchance in their grudging 
 souls, lay it already as a great and grievous 
 fault upon his Majesty, that he hath not 
 made them so likewise? Or can it be other 
 than pleasing to any gracious, noble, or generous 
 master, that his honest and faithful servant 
 grows rich xmder him ? I confess I am so great 
 a lover myself to have my servants thrive, as 
 I believe all others like minded ; and yet not 
 to make it more than there is cause, I vow 
 to you in all truth, that to the best of my 
 understanding, I am not thirteen thousand 
 pounds bettered in my estate since I first 
 received my master's pay, being now become 
 near nine years; which, considering sLx thou- 
 sand pounds a year good land I brought along 
 with me, is, in my weak opinion, no prodigious 
 getting, or convincing argument of my covetous- 
 ness. Yet is it such as I am fully contented 
 withal, it is sufficient, and I acknowledge from 
 my very soul to have received more of his 
 Majesty than I shall ever be able to deserve. 
 Howbeit, there are some of them, perchance, 
 
3o6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 that open their mouths thus wide, raise this 
 hideous cry after me, that in proportion have | 
 received forty times as much forth of his 
 immediate coffers as ever I did ; and yet, let it 
 be spoken vvith modesty, because I believe it 
 truth, I have done (without charge to the King 
 more than my ordinary) the crown forty times 
 as much service, whether you look upon my 
 labour, expense, and hazard, or the profit, 
 the weight, and difficulty of the services 
 themselves. 
 
 Lastly, there is one Mr, Barre, a Scotchman 
 by nation, whose person your grace once saw 
 before you at the committee for Irish affairs, 
 at my last being in England. This gentleman 
 that pretends to be a merchant, but indeed is 
 scarce so good as a petty chapman, hath pro- 
 cured a special licence, under the signet and 
 signature royal, of going and coming over with- 
 out my comptrol, under which he magnifies 
 himself extremely, as exempt, if not above, 
 any power of mine ; and thus leaping like a 
 jackanapes betwixt two stools, holds on this 
 side very inward intelligence with some here 
 which wish me ill, blown up by them boldly to 
 calumniate me there, whilst they know my 
 actions here over well ever to dare to appear in 
 my contrary. Then on that side he procures, 
 by some very near his Majesty, access to the 
 King, there whispering continually something 
 or another to my prejudice ; boasts familiarly 
 how freely he speaks with his Majesty, what 
 he saith concerning me, and nou'ant pleese 
 your Mejesty, ea werde mare anent your debuty 
 of YrlaTid, with many such like botadoes stuffed 
 with a mighty deal of untruths and follies 
 amongst. Far be the insolency from me in any 
 case to measure out for my master, with whom, 
 or what to speak, I more revere his wisdom, 
 better understand myself ; besides, the more of 
 truth he inquires and hears of me, I am most 
 assured the more it must be to my advantage ; 
 but to have such a broken pedlar, a man of 
 no credit or parts, to be brought to the King, 
 and countenanced by some (that have cause to 
 wish me well, however I have reason to believe 
 I shall not find it so), only to fill his Majesty's 
 ears with untruths concerning me, and that 
 the whilst his foul mouth should not either 
 be closed, or else publicly brought to justify 
 what he informs, and so the one of us to 
 public punishment ; to have such a companion 
 famed as sent comptrol and superintendent over 
 me, I must confess, as in regard to myself it 
 moves me not much, yet as the King's deputy, 
 it grieves and disdains me exceedingly. Alas ! 
 if his Majesty have any suspicion I am not to 
 his service as I ought, let there be commissaries 
 of honour and wisdom set upon me, let them 
 publicly examine all I have done, let me be 
 j heard, and after covered with shame if I have 
 ) deserved it. This is gracious, I accept it, 
 magnify his Majesty for his justice, but let not 
 
 the depvity be profaned in my person, under 
 the administration of such a petty fellow as 
 this, unto whom, believe me, very few that 
 know him will lend five pounds, being as 
 needy in his fortune as shifting in his habita- 
 tion, and that for none of his good qualities 
 neither. 
 
 Nor have I unfolded all which lies upon 
 my stomach, but how to digest it, how to t\irn 
 it to good nourishment, to my health, there is 
 the difla.culty ; the humour which offends me 
 is not so much anger as scorn, and desire to 
 wrest out from amongst them my charge ; foi', 
 as they say, if I might come to fight for my 
 life, it would never trouble me, indeed I should 
 then weigh them all very light, and be safe 
 under the goodness, wisdom, and justice of my 
 master. Again, howbeit, I am resolved of the 
 truth of all this, yet to accuse myself is very 
 uncomely. I love not to put on my armour 
 before there be cause, in regard I never do so, 
 but I find myself the wearier and sorer for it 
 the next morning. 
 
 Therefore altogether to seek in myself what 
 to do, I have here opened my grief, and do 
 most humbly beseech of your advice and 
 counsel, what were best to be done by your 
 grace's most humbly to be commanded, 
 
 Wentwoeth. 
 
 Dublin, this 27th of September 1637. 
 
 LORD WENTWORTH TO THE EARL OF PORTLAND. 
 
 May it please your Lordship,— Since I had 
 the honour to serve his Majesty, calumny and 
 misreport have been my portions, which for 
 the most part were passed over in silence and 
 disdain ; but when they dare attempt your 
 lordship to my prejudice, then I confess they 
 touch me very nearly, considering that if I 
 commit any wilful crime here, where I have 
 received, and to whom I profess so much, I 
 must even acknowledge myself incaijable any 
 longer of trust or friendship amongst men. 
 
 Pardon me therefore, I beseech your lordship, 
 if I be as far from digesting this wrong as 1 
 shall be ever found innocent from the guilt. 
 
 I understand some shameless person or other 
 hath insinuated with your lordship, as if I went 
 about to be treasurer, and lays for a ground of 
 that opinion my forwardness in his Majesty's 
 service. This I have cursorily and slightly in a 
 letter from my cousin Wandesford ; but with 
 me it imprints, sinks, strikes deeper than to 
 pass along so easily from me. Lord ! with 
 what shadows would they have overcast my 
 negligence, with what darkness have benighted 
 the least commission, that can fetch this con- 
 clusion out of those premises ? 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 307 
 
 I will not deny, it is a full truth indeed, 
 that there inhabits with me an infinite zeal 
 and vigUance to serve my master, the most 
 accepted way I can devise ; nor shall any 
 private ease or profit cool or lessen it, or any 
 endeavour from abroad make me understand it 
 as a fault to do so. Yet, my lord, I do not 
 greedUy serve to repair a broken fortune, much 
 less out of any ambitious desu-es, which (if any 
 ever in me) were long agone laid to rest upon my 
 receiving this place from his Majesty, through 
 the means of my friends, I confess (being then 
 altogether a stranger to the King in service and 
 person), and of them, your lordship the very 
 principal. 
 
 No, no, my lord, they are those sovereign and 
 great duties I owe his Majesty and your lord- 
 ship, which thus provoke me beyond my own 
 nature, rather to leave those cooler shades, 
 wherein I took choicest pleasure, and thus put 
 myself with you into the heat of the day, than 
 poorly and meanly to start aside from my 
 obligations, convinced in myself of the most 
 wretched ingratitude in the whole world. 
 
 God knows how little delight I take in the 
 outwards of this life, how infinitely ill-satisfied 
 I am with myself, to find daily those calm and 
 quiet retirements, wl^erein to contemj)late some 
 things more divine and sacred than this 
 world can afford us, at every moment inter- 
 rupted through the importunity of the affairs 
 I have already. To heaven and earth I protest 
 it, it grieves my very soul, and that it is 
 nothing but love (if I may be admitted a word 
 of so near a distance, and of so little courtship) 
 to the persons of his Majesty and yourself, that 
 could make me take up this yoke and follow ; 
 no other affection or passion could effect it. 
 
 So, my lord, once for all, let me find belief 
 with you ; if I obtain it not from you, with the 
 greatest sereneness possible (pardon me for 
 saying so), you do that friendship and confi- 
 dence, which ought to pass between men of 
 honour, infinite wrong, and render yourself the 
 most inexcusable man towards me that lives. 
 
 Let shame and confusion then cover me, if I 
 do not abhor the intolerable anxiety I well 
 understand to wait inseparably upon that staff, 
 if I should not take a serpent as soon into my 
 bosom, and if I once find so mean a thought 
 of me can enter into your heart, as that to 
 compass whatever I could take most delight in, 
 I should go about beguilefuUy to supplant any 
 ordinary man (how much more then impotently 
 to catch at such a staff and from my Lord 
 Treasurer), if I leave not the court instantly, 
 betake myself to my private fortune, reposedly 
 seek my contentment and quiet within my own 
 doors, and follow the dictamen of my own 
 
 I reason and conscience, more according to 
 
 I nature and liberty, than in those gyves which 
 
 1 now pinch and hang upon me. 
 
 ! Thus you see how easily you may be rid of 
 
 me when you list, and in good faith with a 
 thousand thanks ; yet be pleased not to judge 
 this proceeds out of any wayward, weary 
 humour in me neither ; for my endeavours are 
 as vigorous and as cheerful to serve the crown 
 and you as ever they were, nor shall you ever 
 find them to faint or flaskuer. I am none of 
 those soft - tempered spirits ; but I cannot 
 endure to be mistaken, or suffer my jmrer and 
 more entire affections to be soiled, or in the 
 least degree prejudiced, with the loathsome and 
 odious attributes of covetousness and ambitious 
 falsehood. Do me but right in this, judge my 
 watches to issue (as in faith they do) from 
 those clearer cisterns. I lay my hand under 
 j^our foot, I despise danger, I laugh at labour. 
 Command me in all difl&culties, in all con- 
 fidence, in all readiness, j'our lordship's ever 
 most faithful friend., and most humble servant, 
 Wentworth. 
 
 York, October 21, 1632. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP LAUD TO LOED WENTWOETH. 
 
 My very GOOD LoED, — It seems by your late 
 letters which I have received, that you have 
 taken your leave of Fulham ; the bishop you 
 say is gone, and I believe that's true. God 
 speed him as well where he now is, as he did 
 there. As for your letters (and yourself, when 
 you come), they shall be as welcome to Lambeth 
 as they were to Fulham. And since you have 
 learnt the way to be a little merry, I would you 
 and your Cousin Sibbs had been the other day 
 at the council table, where I never heard, you 
 know whom, in a better mood verily. 
 
 I am very glad to read your lordship so 
 resolute, and more, to hear you affirm, that the 
 footing of them, which go thorough for our 
 master's service, is not now upon fee as it hath 
 been. But you are withal upon so many ifs, 
 that by their help you may preserve any man 
 upon ice, be it never so slippery. At first, if 
 the common lawyers may be contained within 
 their ancient and sober bounds ; if the word 
 thorough be not left out (as I am certain it is); 
 if we grow not faint ; if we ourselves be not in 
 fault ; if it come not to a Peccatuwi ex te Israel; 
 if others will do their parts as thoroughly as 
 you promise for yourself, and justly conceive 
 of me. Now I pray, with so many and such ifs 
 as these, what may not be done, and in a brave 
 and noble way ? But can you tell when these 
 ifs will meet, or be brought together? How- 
 soever, I am resolved to go on steadily in the 
 way which you have formerly seen me go, so 
 that (to put in one if too) if anything fail of my 
 hearty desires for the King and the Church's 
 service, the fault shall not be mine. 
 
 The indisposition, of which I wrote unto 
 
3o8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 your lordship, I thank God, passed over 
 quickly, though I find that I cannot follow your 
 counsel ; for Croydon is to go often to it, and 
 my leisure here hath hitherto been extremely 
 little, I may truly call it none. Besides, the 
 Lady Davis hath prophesied against me, that I 
 shall not many days outlive the 5th of Novem- 
 ber, and then to what end should I trouble 
 myself with exercise or the like ? 
 
 My lord, I thank you, that you are pleased 
 so kindly and so nobly to take that which I 
 writ unto you about the Archbishop of Dublin, 
 and his taking upon him, together with the 
 rest of the Popish clergy, to meddle with the 
 civil government, of which I doubt not but 
 your lordship will be very careful, as of all 
 things else that may weaken the power of that 
 party in that kingdom. But I had not ventured 
 to write anything to you in this business, if your 
 lordship had not required it of me. 
 
 But your lordship doth very prudently in 
 bearing with them till the parliament be over, 
 that there you may make use of them for the 
 King's, service. And that contention between 
 the regulars and the seculars is grown so 
 general and so warm, that you may easily hold 
 up Harris, if no decision come to the contrary ; 
 and a brave service it will be, if you can settle 
 the revenues of that kingdom. 
 
 I perceive you mean to build, but as yet your 
 materials are not come in ; but if that work do 
 come to me before Christmas, as you promise it 
 shall, I will rifle every corner in it ; and you 
 know, my good lord, after all your bragging, 
 how I served you at York, and your church- 
 work there ; especially I pray provide a good 
 riding-house, if there be ever a decayed body of 
 a church to make it in, and then you shall be 
 well fitted ; for you know one is made your 
 stable already, if you have not reformed it, 
 of which I did look for an account, according 
 to my remembrances, before this time. 
 
 I find your lordship hath a good opinion of 
 my lord primate's learning and honesty, and I 
 verily think he will not deceive your expecta- 
 tion in either ; but you are pleased to ask me 
 a question, whether that be all that goes to 
 a good bishop and a good governor? I must 
 needs answer, no ; but if that which is further 
 I'equired be wanting in him, I am the more 
 sorry ; but I will tell you, my lord, I pray God 
 all be well in his and the other bishops' appre- 
 hensions concerning your lordship and your 
 government there. For, before you went, I 
 writ, as I thought, and think still, very largely 
 in your commendation, how thorough you would 
 be for the King and the Church ; it may be they 
 understood this otherwise than I could mean 
 it, or your lordship perform it, and did not look 
 with such a prudent eye as they should upon 
 the necessities of that iilace ; and methinks it 
 may stand for an observation, that I who had 
 frequent letters before from my lord primate, 
 
 have not received any one that I remember 
 since your lordship went thither. 
 
 My lord, I did not take you to be so good a 
 physician before as now I see you are ; for the 
 truth is, a great many church-cormorants have 
 fed so fullupon it, that they are fallen into a 
 fever ; and for that no physic is better than a 
 vomit, if it be given in time ; and therefore you 
 have taken a very judicious course to administer 
 one so early to my Lord of Cork. I hope it will 
 do him good, though perchance he thinks not so ; 
 for if the fever hang long about him, or the rest, 
 it will certainly shake either them or their 
 estates in pieces. Go on, my lord; I must 
 needs say this is thorough indeed, and so is 
 your physic too ; for a vomit never ends kindly 
 that doth not work both ways, and that is 
 thorough. Nor can I answer, what became of 
 the primate and the rest of the bishops, while 
 the poor inferior clergy were thus oppressed, 
 more than this, that I ever thought it was not 
 in their power to help it. But if any of them 
 be as bad for oppression of the church as any 
 layman, that I am sure is unanswerable; and 
 if it appear so to you, great pity it is, but some 
 one or other of the chief offenders should be 
 made a public example, and turned out of his 
 bishopric. And I believe such a course once 
 held would do more good in Ireland than any- 
 thing that hath been there this forty years. 
 
 Now for your question, what my Lord of 
 Cork will say ? I cannot tell ; but sure I am, so 
 many of the fraternity as think it Popery to set 
 the communion-table at the end of the chancel, 
 and for the prebends to come in their for- 
 malities to church, are either ignorant or factious 
 fools. But I warrant you the poor vicar thinks 
 very well of you, and so doth the King, to whom 
 I have told what physic you have given the 
 Earl of Cork. 
 
 But, I warrant you, I am thought as odd an 
 archbishop as you can be a deputy; for my 
 Lady Davies she prophecies against me that I 
 shall not many days outlive the 5th of November. 
 And I think I sent your lordship word before of 
 one Bowyer, a rogue that broke prison, but 
 said he came newly from beyond the seas, and 
 went up and down the country railing against 
 me, and making me no less than a traitor ; but 
 he was brought to the Star Chamber the 13th 
 of November, and there soundly censured ; the 
 rogue confessed all, and all by the devil, but 
 would acknowledge no confederates. And now 
 there is another fellow half mad, that comes 
 into the court with a great sword by his side, 
 and rails upon the archbishop, God knows for 
 what, and says he will have justice of the 
 King against him, or take another course for it 
 himself. Would not this encourage any man to 
 do service ? , 
 
 One thing more and then I have done ; you 
 will herein find an enclosed paper, it came from 
 my lord the Bishop of Durham, and by it you 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 309 
 
 may see the effects of your composition in the 
 north ; do not you think this may make a fine 
 noise in time ? I hope you will hear of this the 
 next parliament, as well as others have done for 
 less matters. Well, it is time to make an end ; 
 and so I leave you to the grace of God, ever 
 resting your lordship's poor loving friend to 
 serve you, W. Cant. 
 
 Lambeth, Nov. 15, 1633. 
 
 KING CHARLES I. TO LORD WENTWORTH. 
 
 Wentworth, — The accounts that you give 
 me are so good, that if I should answer them 
 particularly, my letters would rather seem 
 panegyrics than despatches ; so leaving them, 
 I come to those things wherein you require 
 directions. And although I shall refer myself 
 to Secretary Coke for answer of those things 
 that are in the public despatches, yet concerning 
 two of them I must express my own sense, to 
 wit, the not continuing of the parliament, and 
 the guard of the coast. For the first, my 
 reasons are grounded upon my experience of 
 them here ; they are of the nature of cats, they 
 ever gi-ow CTirst with age, so that if ye will 
 have good of them, put them off handsomely 
 when they come to any age ; for young ones 
 are ever most tractable, and in earnest you 
 will find that nothing can more conduce to the 
 beginning of a new, than the well ending of the 
 former parliament, wherefore now that we are 
 well, let us content ourselves therewith. Your 
 most assured friend, CHARLES Rex. 
 
 London. Jan. 22, 1634. 
 
 LORD WENTWORTH TO ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 
 
 IVlAT IT PLEASE YOUR Grace,— I am gotten 
 hither to a poor house I have, having been this 
 last week almost feasted to death at York. In 
 truth, for anything I can find, they were not 
 ill pleased to see me. Sure I am, it much con- 
 tented me to be amongst my old acquaintance, 
 which I would not leave for any other affection 
 I have, but to that which I both profess and 
 owe to the person of his sacred Majesty. Lord ! 
 with what quietness in myself could I live here 
 in comparison of that noise and labour I met 
 with elsewhere ; and I protest put vip more 
 crowns in my purse at the year's end too. But 
 we'll let that pass, for I am not like to enjoy 
 that blessed condition upon earth. And there- 
 fore my resolution is set, to endure and struggle 
 with it so long as this crazy body will bear it ; 
 and finally drop into the silent grave, where 
 both all these (which I now could, as I think, 
 innocently delight myself in) and myself are to 
 be forgotten ; and fare them well. I persuade 
 
 myself exuto lepido I am able to lay them down 
 very quietly, and yet leave behind me, as a 
 truth not to be forgotten, a perfect and full 
 remembrance of my being your grace's most 
 humbly to be commanded, 
 
 "Wentworth. 
 Gaicthorp, this 17th of A ug. 1036. 
 
 lord WENTWORTH TO KING CHARLES I. 
 
 May it please your sacred Majesty,— In 
 pursuit of the command received at Rufford, 
 I have effectually, both in public and private, 
 recommended the justice and necessity of the 
 shipping-business, and so clearly shown it to be 
 not only for the honour of the kingdom in 
 general, but for every man's particular safety, 
 as I am most confident the assessment this next 
 year will be universally and cheerfully answered 
 through this whole jurisdiction. And whereas 
 I then truly informed your Majesty that ui>on 
 a difference betwixt the county at large, and 
 the county of the city of York, there was some 
 thirty pounds yet behind, I have set a course 
 for the present payment of that small remainder, 
 and so quieted the controversy, as no disturbance 
 can thereby happen to the service hereafter. 
 
 My Lord Marshall left a letter for me before 
 his departure ; howbeit of very late came to my 
 hand, by which I find his lordship much un- 
 satisfied concerning some stay of that other pro- 
 cured by him from your Majesty under the 
 signet. I am bold to enclose a duplicate of my 
 answer, and thereby represent a true state of 
 the business, and of my carriage therein, with- 
 out easing myself any way upon your Majesty's 
 commands, or being beaten, I trust, from the 
 grounds I must proceed upon in this business. 
 Besides, your Majesty will not be the worse 
 prepared to receive any suit his lordship may 
 further make, or to give answer thereunto, 
 such as shall seem good unto your wisdom. 
 
 If this were the only displeasure I had con- 
 tracted in serving faithfully (as I shall ever do) 
 it might be borne more easily and silently ; but 
 it is much otherwise with me, as I have heard 
 since I attended your Majesty. My carriage 
 on this side hath been towards all so circum- 
 spect and observant, as I well trusted there had 
 not been the least offence or scandal given 
 or taken : yet it seems I have left some great 
 and powerful persons in such a distemper 
 towards me and themselves, as, in a manner, 
 everywhere to avow a resolution set for my 
 ruin. 
 
 It is likewise discoursed much to my prejudice, 
 as they think, that my return must be without 
 any mark of your IMajesty's favour, whereby 
 my innocency and just acquittal might be de- 
 clared to the hearing of others, or myself 
 strengthened or graced in the course of my 
 
310 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Bervice ; albeit, they say, I had been defamed 
 for barbarous and cruel usage of the late Earl of 
 St. Albans, and the Lord Mountnorris ; slanted 
 upon by Sir James Gallway and Mr. Barr, in 
 their i^roposition to your Majesty, as a cozener 
 and impostor in the Customs, under a pretence 
 of doing great service ; charged by Sir Piers 
 Crosby with a horrid murder, the silly man 
 daily countenanced and fomented by some at 
 court in his senseless calumnies ; and in a word 
 reported to all the world rather for a bassaw of 
 Buda, than the minister of a pious and Christian 
 king. 
 
 Little do I find myself moved with any or all 
 of these; I can smile at their vanity, that 
 glorify themselves in being reported the con- 
 trivers and procurers of this imputed coldness 
 and disregard, nay, esteem them as little 
 powerful as they would be thought almighty in 
 such a case ; and, which is far above all the 
 rest, securely repose myself, and humbly wait 
 upon your Majesty's gracious promise, that I 
 shall receive such a mark of your favour as will 
 silence these spirits, and set me right again, as 
 well in the oj)inion of others as for your own 
 service. 
 
 Yet where the storm sets so dark upon me, 
 and my absence likely to be of some continuance, 
 I cannot conceal that there are many things 
 upon this occasion which I desire to offer ; 
 some for the prosperity of your affairs, some for 
 my own defence and safety, and all of them 
 fitter to be discoursed than written. So as if it 
 be possible, and that your Majesty will admit 
 me thereunto, I propose to wait at court a day 
 or two in my passage towards the charge your 
 Majesty intrustetli me with in Ireland, and 
 there attend your future commands, with and 
 through all the expressions of your Majesty's 
 most faithful and most humble subject and 
 servant, Wentworth. 
 Wenhuorth-Woodhouse, Aug, 23, 1636. 
 
 CHARLES I. TO LORD WENTWORTH. 
 
 Wentworth,— Certainly I should be much 
 to blame not to admit so good a servant as you 
 are, to speak with me, since I deny it to none 
 that there is not a just exception against ; yet 
 I must freely tell you, that the cause of this 
 desire of yours, if it be known, will rather 
 hearten than discourage your enemies ; for, if 
 they can once find that you apprehend the 
 dark setting of a storm when I say no, they 
 will make you leave to care for anything in a 
 short while but for your fears. And, believe 
 it, the marks of my favours that stop malicious 
 tongues are neither places nor titles, but the 
 little welcome I give to accusers, and the 
 willing ear I give to my servants : tliis is not 
 to disparage those favours (for envy flies most 
 
 at the fairest mark) but to show their use ; to 
 wit, not to quell envy, but to reward service ; 
 it being truly so, when the master without the 
 servant's importunity does it, otherwise men 
 judge it more to proceed from the servant's wit, 
 than the master's favour. I will end with a 
 rule that may serve for a statesman, a courtier, 
 or a lover: never make a defence or apology 
 before you be accused. And so I rest your 
 assured friend, Charles E. 
 
 Lhidhurst, Sept. 3, 1636. 
 
 For my Lord Marshall, as you have armed me, 
 so I warrant you. 
 
 lord wentworth to CHARLES I. 
 
 May it please your sacred Majesty,— The 
 letter vouchsafed me from Lindhurst, the third 
 of this present, awakens me with your gracious 
 favour to express myself farther, in some few 
 particulars, lest perchance my desires and the 
 grounds of them might be conceived otherwise 
 than I meant. 
 
 The dark setting of a storm was not with the 
 least apprehension that your Majesty's gracious 
 and cheerful favours were either lessened or 
 languishing towards me, but had relation 
 merely to some near your Majesty, who 
 publicly profess my ruin. 
 
 Nor was, or ever can, this or any other the 
 like storm be able to affright or shake me from 
 the duties of faith I owe unto your Majesty's 
 commands, I trust such a poverty of spirit 
 shall not be imputed unto a mind long since 
 resolved freely to sacrifice a life, as often as 
 required, for the least of your good pleasures. 
 It is indeed altogether impossible I should 
 begin to care less for your service, meanly or 
 at all to weigh my own greatest dangers, where 
 your Majesty's smallest interests are concerned; 
 much less under favour to care for nothing but 
 my own fears. And yet (I find it) this immove- 
 able purpose doth consist well enough with a 
 moderate foresight, so to provide for a safety, 
 as it may be without your trouble, judging 
 otherwise my being or well-being less in value 
 than that it shoiTld cost your Majesty so much 
 as a dispute to preserve me. 
 
 Whatever your Majesty appoints shall please 
 me most, it being certainly best for me rather 
 really to live in your gracious good oi^inion 
 than only to be thought so by others ; yet 
 better for your affairs in Ireland, I might seem 
 and appear so to them on that side. So then, 
 whilst I did most confidently trust through 
 your Majesty's goodness that I had the best 
 for myself, it will be, I hope, very pardonable 
 if I did desire to better my condition also, aa 
 I stood in relation to those affairs, and the , 
 greatness of the service now in view amongst 
 them. 
 
 As for wit, or importunity; in the former. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 I did never affect other tUau a single ijlainness, 
 nor is my nature possibly to be hardened into 
 the latter. Besides, I too well know and more 
 reverence your Majesty's wisdom and courage 
 than (had I been that way inclined) to attempt 
 you by either. And I do most earnestly 
 beseech you, sir, be assured I never went 
 disguisedly forward with you in all my life, 
 nor could I ever yet so far value anything as to 
 prostitute modesty for it. 
 
 And therefore, considering nothing can 
 more comfort me, or be more for my advan- 
 tage, than to be rightly understood by your 
 Majesty, I do most humbly acknowledge your 
 favour in admitting my attendance at court 
 for a few days in my passage for Ireland, 
 where I shall not only set my OAvn thoughts again 
 at ease and liberty, but withal settle some of 
 your business, which otherwise, myself at 
 Dublin, may not chance to find any other 
 solicitor that can attend upon them, undis- 
 tracted by other your Majesty's affairs. 
 
 In the business of Galloway, I have fully 
 imparted my sense to Mr. Secretary Coke, from 
 which I find no reason to depart in any circum- 
 stance. Howbeit, I hear my Lord of Holland, 
 forth of his lordship's tender regard for the 
 peace of that kingdom, apprehends that my 
 severity may disaffect that people, and dispose 
 them to call the Irish regiments forth of 
 Flanders to their assistance. 
 
 The best of his lordship's insight in those 
 particulars is, as I conceive, through the sugges- 
 tions and problems of my Lord St. Albans, 
 Mr. d'Arcy, and Sir Piers Crosby, persons 
 j)romoting either their own interests or 
 passions ; and had they obtained belief with 
 your Majesty's Ministers on the other side, 
 we must neither have planted nor yet found 
 your Majesty's title in Connaught. 
 
 All the answer I can give is, that if taking 
 of an half move that country to enter into 
 open rebellion, the taking of a third, or a 
 fourth, methinks, should hardly secure the 
 crown of their allegiance. Then be it granted, 
 that they are thus unsound and rotten at the 
 heart, wisdom adviseth so to weaken them, 
 and line them thoroughly with English and 
 Protestants, as that they shall not (by the 
 help of God) be able to disquiet anything if 
 they would. Besides, if Sir Piers Crosby, 
 according to his undertaking, persuade those 
 regiments into the pay of the French, that 
 door will be shut upon them likewise. So as 
 in good faith every way I judge all most safe, 
 it neither being in their power to hurt, or in 
 their purpose, I persuade myself, to betake 
 themselves to any such desperate counsels. 
 
 I forgot in my last humbly to offer my 
 opinion, that in case your Majesty find or 
 apprehend any backwardness in the south, 
 it were good the next year's writs for the 
 shipping-assessment were hastened first down 
 
 into these jjarts where they are sure to find 
 no opposition or unwillingness, which example 
 may rather further than hinder in the right 
 way, which others ought to follow elsewhere. 
 God long preserve your Majesty. Your 
 Majesty's most faithful and most humble 
 subject and servant, Wentworth. 
 Wentworth, Sept. 10, 1G36. 
 
 [Sir Thomas Roe was an able statesman and 
 diplomatist, born about 1580, who, after 
 travelling in America, was despatched on 
 an embassy to the Great Mogul, Shah 
 Jehan, at whose court he remained three 
 years. He went in 1621 to the court of 
 the Grand Seignior, and lived under three 
 different Sultans. Roe collected a number 
 of valuable manuscripts during his residence 
 abroad, which he presented on his return 
 to the Bodleian Library. He also brought 
 over as a present to Charles I. from Cyril, 
 the patriarch of Constantinople, the 
 Alexandrian M.S. of the Greek Bible.] 
 
 SIR THOMAS ROE TO SECRETARY CALVERT. 
 
 Right Honourable,— About ten days before 
 the date of this, I despatched a gentleman, my 
 kinsman, express to his Majesty, with letters 
 from the Grand Signer Sultan Osman; and 
 gave large advice to your honour, and to the 
 lords, as well of the public occurrences as of 
 mine own success in other business ; wherein 
 you shall find, whensoever they arrive, that I 
 had settled all things given me in commission, 
 both from his Majesty and the Company, and 
 obtained new and large privileges ; recovered, 
 by warrant, money extorted, though yet unpaid ; 
 procured such commands and letters for Tunis 
 and Algiers, sent exj)ressly by the emperor, 
 that I might have boasted of a prosperous 
 industry, as you will see by copies already sent 
 you. And therein your honour will find, that 
 I prophesied of these things that are now come 
 upon us, foreseeing that which I could not 
 prevent. 
 
 On "Wednesday last, the 7th present, the 
 Sultan, according to his obstinate purpose, 
 sending over his pavilions, the soldiers rose, 
 both janizaries and spahees, and first staid the 
 tents, and then brake into the courts of the 
 Seraglio with infinite tumult, demanding of the 
 emperor not to proceed, and to deliver the 
 great Vizier Delauir Bassa, and the Hoia the 
 tutor, the caslariaga, the chief eunuch-keeper 
 of the women, the tefterdar, the treasurer, and 
 some others, as privy and consenting to this 
 voyage, which would (as they pretended) 
 destroy the empire. The king promised, but 
 delayed, and attempted to convey them, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 some treasure, to Asia side ; but they prevented 
 him, and kept guard all that day, only sacking 
 the house of the Hoia. The king, in the mean- 
 time, made some show of defending his palace. 
 The next morning, the fury increasing, they 
 demanded those officers, or else they would 
 carve their own justice, so that he for the 
 present was forced to hide himself ; and then 
 taking oath among themselves not to rifle the 
 king's house, they entered in, and by menaces 
 found the vizier and caslariaga hidden, whom 
 they presently cut in pieces ; and so seeking 
 the emperor, not able to find him, nor force 
 any to tell where he had conveyed himself, 
 they cried out, tliey must have a king ; and 
 then demanded for Sultan Mustafa, uncle to 
 Osman, by him deposed, being a soft-spirited 
 man, and to speak modestly, of no great wit ; 
 who being found in a vault (where the king had 
 put him since the beginning of the rebellion) 
 half-starved, they took up, and set him on the 
 throne, and proclaimed him emperor, taking 
 him out of that Seraglio, and carrying him to 
 another. Osman, amazed with these news, first 
 practised the Woemen, whither he was conveyed, 
 to murder him, and here began in the night a 
 new uproar. The soldiers rescued him, and 
 took him to their own college half dead. Thus 
 a man despised, naked, taken from a pit, at 
 first only begging a little water, was in a 
 moment made one of the greatest monarchs in 
 the world. The deposed, not yet in despera- 
 tion, the same night dealt with the aga of the 
 janizaries, and one Huzein Bassa, vizier in the 
 wars of Poland, to assist him, promising the 
 soldiers great benevolence. They counsel him, 
 in this extremity, to go out to the mutinied 
 troops to offer his largess, and to see if he could 
 move them to any compassion ; which he did, 
 with them, and few others accompanied. 
 A\Tien he came so unlocked for, they laid hold 
 on him as he was pleading his own cause. 
 The aga of the janizaries, and Huzein Bassa, 
 but seeming to persuade for him, were instantly 
 cut in pieces. Then the poor Osman took a 
 cloth, and covered his face, expecting death ; 
 but they set him upon a horse, and sent him 
 instantly to the seven towers under good guard, 
 and ever since have been employed in the sack 
 of those houses with whose masters they had 
 any quarrel as ill ministers, and have touched 
 nothing else. At this instant I am advised, 
 that the new great Vizier Daout Bassa, by the 
 command of the new emperor, hath strangled 
 Osman, sent to prison but four hours ago : the 
 first emperor that ever they laid violent hands 
 on, a fatal sign, I think, of their declination. 
 
 I cannot discourse at this present, having but 
 one hour allowed me to write by the Venetian 
 baile, and all not yet appeased. But I would 
 not his Majesty should receive it from another 
 hand ; therefore you will be pleased to present, 
 and to accept rts yestus in this hurly-burly. I 
 
 have knowledge of all the ground of this 
 business, and the practice of the great vizier, 
 now slain, to alter the whole frame of govern- 
 ment of this empire ; a brave and wise plot, if 
 it hath taken effect ; which had either made 
 him monarch of the world, or wholly torn and 
 dissolved it. But God hath His hand and 
 power in these things above our reach; and I 
 will send your honour the story of this, wherein 
 you shall see strange things proposed and now 
 confounded. And this is the third day since 
 these troubles began, and I hope will be the 
 last, though I suspect a war to ensue, of which 
 I will advise your honour in time. 
 Constantinople, May 10, 1622. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Right Honourable,— The former is a copy of 
 mine, sent you the last week, written in haste, 
 and while we were unquiet, and not free from 
 fear ; for the substance, it is all true, only 
 some difference in the manner of no moment, 
 which I must then take as I could get it from 
 report. But I will in few days trouble you 
 with the whole and large discourse, which I 
 think is one of the rarest and strangest stories, 
 both for the design and confusion thereof, and 
 for the great alterations following, and ways 
 opened to greater, that this age or many former 
 have produced. In the meanwhile, to give your 
 honour a longing to know more, I will for this 
 time touch the project, and some few observa- 
 tions upon it, and then conclude with mine own 
 business. First, your honour must know, that 
 this last emperor, Osman, was a youth of a 
 great and haughty spirit, very courageous, and 
 a mortal hater of the Christians ; envious of 
 the glory of his ancestors, having designed great 
 things, and ambitious to advance his name 
 higher than any of theirs. His first enterprise 
 was that of Poland, which he undertook of his 
 own head, against the liking both of viziers 
 and soldiers, who in a monarchy grown to 
 riches and height, declined from her ancient 
 discipline by ease and wealth, and perhaps 
 longa dominatiom inertes, are ever corrupt and 
 lazy. This action he thought so easy, as that 
 he had disposed of the distribution of his 
 conquest, and divided the live lion's skin. 
 Being met upon the borders with a poor army, 
 in comparison, he was first (as I informed you) 
 worsted at Chotyn, so that he was fain to leave 
 it untaken. Then, when he would have forced 
 the trenches of the chancellor, to have advanced 
 into a plain country, he could never procure his 
 janizaries to fight, though engaging his j)erson, 
 once or twice, beyond the regard of his quality ; 
 and in conclusion was compelled to rise shame- 
 fully, and to treat upon easy conditions ; and, 
 to save his honour, was very glad, by my 
 coming, of that pretence to make a peace 
 (which yet depends) until he had executed his 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 313 
 
 I deep conceived counsels. For this disgrace, he 
 I took so rooted an indignation against the 
 I janizaries, and so justly, that he often com- 
 j ijlained, he was no king that was subject to the 
 insolency of his own slaves, upon whom he 
 I spent his treasures ; and yet they would neither 
 fight in war nor be content in peace without 
 exacting bounties. Delauir Bassa Vizier, a 
 man of great wit and courage, and called from 
 the eastern parts to this action, who came in a 
 brave and soldierly equipage above all his 
 captains, was suddenly made a great vizier, the 
 former being in the same disgrace common 
 with the soldiers, though not in the fault. 
 This man was never bred here, but had lived in 
 action for many years, and so had no faction 
 nor dependence in court, but stood upon him- 
 self ; and being now, unlooked for, advanced to 
 this high dignity, he wrought upon the king's 
 discontent, and nourished it ; and in conclusion 
 told him, it was true, he was no emperor, nor 
 could be, while the janizaries had the power 
 which they had lately usurped ; that they 
 were corrupted from their ancient institution, 
 and were lazy cowards, unworthy of bread. 
 But if he would follow his advice, he could 
 provide him a new soldiery about Damascus, 
 and from the Coords, of men ever bred in the 
 frontier war, and of great courage ; and that 
 of them he should erect a new militia, that 
 should wholly depend of him only, entertaining 
 forty thousand in pay, which should always 
 be his guard. That every beglerbegh in his 
 government should train some of the inhabit- 
 ants, who on all occasions of making a great 
 army should be in readiness ; and hereby he 
 should spare infinite treasure, and secure his 
 estate, eaten and in danger by these drones, 
 and be able, with men of new spirits, to do 
 greater matters than any of his ancestors. 
 The king, pleased with this counsel, gave all to 
 the vizier's direction, who was a true soldier, 
 and a very wise man, able, by his credit in Asia, 
 to perform this and more ; for he was exceed- 
 ingly beloved in those parts, very rich, and had 
 kept Damascus for himself in the last rebellion. 
 Upon this conclusion between them, he sent his 
 letters to his friends, and provided ten thousand 
 thereabouts, and ten thousand from the Coords, 
 all upon pretence of invading Persia ; and had 
 caused the Emir de Saida to raise twenty 
 thousand, which was called a revolt, but was 
 indeed in aid of the king's purposes, who 
 pretended to go privately to Mecha ; but his 
 end was to meet those soldiers, and to stay a 
 year at Damascus, until he had regulated his 
 new army, and then to return to Constantinople, 
 and root out and dissolve all the chambers of 
 the janizaries, and cast the spahees and 
 timariotts, and to exauctorate all their 
 captains, who eat up his countrj'. And having 
 thus settled all things here, he then resolved, 
 with his new soldiers, to attempt the recovery 
 
 of his honour in Christendom ; in the mean- 
 time to hold all good friendship and correspond- 
 ence there in all parts. Certainly this was a 
 brave and well-grounded design, and of great 
 consequence for the renewing of this decayed 
 empire, if God had not destroyed it ; for it is 
 very true, the Turkish emperor is now but the 
 janizaries' treasurer. If this project had taken 
 place, God knows what events it might have 
 produced by a civil war ; for doubtless the 
 soldiery here would have set up a new king, 
 and maintained him as they could, and this 
 European part had been torn away by the 
 division ; besides Delauir Bassa, having the 
 king in his possession, and the treasure and 
 his own authority so great, and his inclination 
 velle imperare, once discovered, it may well be 
 thought that he would have shared some part 
 of this great estate. If, on the other side, the 
 king had prevailed, and the vizier proved 
 faithful, I am persuaded they would have made 
 such a reformation, and erected such a new 
 order for the war and treasure, that he would 
 have troubled all Christendom ; but, ubi 
 disquisitor sceculi huius ? Nonne infatuavit dens 
 sapientiam mundi huius ? Perdam sapientiam 
 sapientum, et vanam reddam intelligentiam 
 intelUgentium. I know not v/hether I ought to 
 wish that these counsels had succeeded or not; 
 now I am sure we are here governed by a poor 
 and silly man ; or rather, here is no govern- 
 ment, where slaves, that in a few hours could 
 change the greatest monarch, are become so 
 insolent that yet there is no open divan or 
 council, until they have received a donative 
 for guerdon of their iniquity. Your honour 
 wiU give me leave to make short observations. 
 First, that the treasury, by the three changes 
 in four years (for every janizary in the empire, 
 whether absent or present, hath twenty-five 
 checquins gold, besides the spahees and other 
 orders), and by the late war, is very much 
 exhausted, and these fellows all living that 
 have had the milk, and now inured to prosper- 
 ous mutinies, they have taken such head as 
 cannot be suffered, nor safely taken off ; and I 
 do not think that all is quiet, though it appears 
 so ; but that we shall have new troubles from 
 those prepared in Asia, who will attempt a 
 revenge for the death of a king that was their 
 martyr ; et hinc ruince. Secondly, in the 
 degrees of the uproar itself, that the soldiers 
 had no intention at first either to depose or 
 hurt their emperor, but only to stay him, and 
 to cut off the counsellors of his journey, whom 
 the next day, dead and buried, they bitterly 
 lamented, knowing they had rashly set \ip one 
 whom they must change for disability. Thirdly, 
 at the order ; that these mutineers, having no 
 head or direction, kept that reglement, that 
 they took oath in their fury in the king's yard, 
 not to spoil nor sack the imperial throne, as 
 their own dishonour, and neither committed 
 
314 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 nor suffered any insolence nor violence in the 
 city ; and, which is strange, I think there hath 
 not been done, in the three days and three 
 nights, one thousand checquins damage to 
 the neutrals, nor to any but to those obnoxious 
 for some former quarrel ; and six of them 
 meeting with £100 of mine in the streets, in 
 the hands of a poor man, they first took it away; 
 but he pleading it was mine, they returned it ; 
 so that I may wonder at such orderly disorder. 
 This plot was discovered to the soldiers, by 
 words of disdain let fall from the king, by 
 removing all his treasure, puUitig down the 
 riches of his house, melting furniture and 
 saddles, and whatsoever could be converted 
 into bullion. Thus your honour hath a model 
 of troubles and my contemplations, which time 
 may enlarge. For our own business, they will 
 now do anything I shall propound for Poland, 
 having sent offers thither, and will send into 
 England ; but whether it were well done now 
 to assist to any peace, I know not, yet will follow 
 my instructions. Within four days after this, 
 I procured to be renewed all my commands and 
 letters for Tunis and Algiers, in this emperor's 
 name, and have dispeeded them away, according 
 to my advices sent your honour by my cousin, 
 Robert Roe ; so that I think I shall rather 
 fortify than weaken that design. The letter 
 written to his Majesty by the last emperor 
 shall be confirmed, and we are just in pristino 
 statu. I beseech your honour, read part of this 
 my letter to his Majesty, and mediate for me, 
 that it may absolve me, until I can put it in 
 better form, being scarce allowed time to tran- 
 scribe this that you may read it, Et ah his 
 incendiarijs, libera nos, domine. Your honour's 
 affectionate servant. 
 
 Constantinople, May 16, 1G22. 
 
 JAMES HOWELL TO SIR S. C . 
 
 Holhorn, March 17, 1639. 
 Sir, — I was upon the point of going abroad to 
 steal a solitary walk, when yours of the 12th 
 current came to hand. The high researches 
 and choice abstracted notions I found therein, 
 seemed to heighten my spirits, and make my 
 fancy fitter for my intended retirement and 
 meditation : add hereunto, that the counte- 
 nance of the weather invited me ; for it was a 
 still evening, it was also a clear open sky, not a 
 speck or the least wrinkle appeared in the 
 whole face of heaven, it was such a pure deej) 
 azure all the hemisi)here over, that I wondered 
 what was become of the three regions of the 
 air with their meteors. So having got into a 
 cloye field, I cast my face upwards, and fell to 
 consider what a rare i)rerogative the optic 
 virtue of the eye hath, much more the intui- 
 tive virtue in the thought, that the one in a 
 moment can reach heaven, and the other go 
 
 beyond it; therefore sure that a philosopher 
 was but a kind of frantic fool, that would have 
 plucked out both his eyes, because they were 
 a hindrance to his speculations. Moreover, I 
 began to contemplate, as I was in this posture, 
 the vast magnitude of the universe, and what 
 proportion this poor globe of earth might bear 
 with it ; for if those numberless bodies which 
 stick in the vast roof of heaven, though they 
 appear to us but as spangles, be some of them 
 thousands of times bigger than the earth, take 
 the sea with it to boot, for they both make but 
 one sphere, surely the astronomers had reason 
 to term this sphere an indivisible point, and a 
 thing of no dimension at all, being compared to 
 the whole world. I fell then to think, that at 
 the second general destruction, it is no more for 
 God Almighty to fire this earth, than for us to 
 blow up a small squib, or rather one small grain 
 of gunpowder. As I was musing thus, I spied 
 a swarm of gnats waving up and down the air 
 about me, which I knew to be part of the 
 universe as well as I ; and methought it was a 
 strange opinion of our Aristotle to hold, that 
 the least of those small insected ephemerans 
 should be more noble than the sun, because it 
 had a sensitive soul in it. I fell to think that 
 in the same proportion which those animalillioy 
 bore with me in point of bigness, the same I 
 held with those glorious spirits which are near 
 the throne of the Almighty. What then 
 should we think of the magnitude of the 
 Creator Himself ! Doubtless, it is beyond the 
 reach of any human imagination to conceive it : 
 in my private devotions I i^resume to compare 
 Him to a great mountain of light, and my soul 
 seems to discern some glorious form therein ; 
 but suddenly as she would fix her eyes upon 
 the object, her sight is presently dazzled and 
 disgregated with the refulgency and corus- 
 cations thereof. 
 
 Walking a little farther, I spied a young 
 boisterous bull breaking over hedge and ditch 
 to a herd of kine in the next pasture ; which 
 made me think, that if that fierce, strong 
 animal, with others of that kind, knew their 
 own strength, they would never suffer man to 
 be their master. Then looking upon them 
 quietly grazing up and down, I fell to consider 
 that the flesh which is daily dished upon our 
 tables is but concocted grass, which is recar- 
 nified in our stomachs, and transmuted to 
 another flesh. I fell also to think, what 
 advantage those innocent animals had of man, 
 who as soon as nature cast them into the world, 
 find their meat dressed, the cloth laid, and the 
 table covered; they find their drink brewed, 
 and the buttery open, their beds made, and 
 their clothes ready ; and though man hath the 
 faculty of reason to make him a compensation 
 for the want of those advantages, yet this 
 reason brings with it a thousand perturbations 
 of mind and perplexities of spirit, griping cares 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and anguishes of thought, which those harmless 
 silly creatures were exempted from. Going on, 
 I came to repose myself upon the trunk of a 
 tree, and I fell to consider further what advan- 
 tage that dull vegetable had of those feeding 
 animals, as not to be so troublesome and 
 beholden to nature, nor to be subject to 
 starving, to diseases, to the inclemency of the 
 weather, and to be far longer-lived. Then I 
 spied a great stone, and sitting awhile upon it, 
 I fell to weigh in my thoughts that that stone 
 was in a happier condition in some respects 
 than either of those sensitive creatures or 
 vegetables I saw before ; in regard that that 
 stone which propagates by assimilation, as the 
 philosophers say, needed neither grass nor hay, 
 or any aliment for restoration of nature, nor 
 water to refresh its roots, or the heat of the sun 
 to attract the moisture upwards, to increase 
 gi'owth, as the other did. As I directed my 
 pace homeward, I spied a kite soaring high in 
 the air, and gently gliding up and down the 
 clear region so far above my head, that I fell to 
 envy the bird extremely, and repine at his 
 happiness, that he should have a privilege to 
 make a nearer approach to heaven than I. 
 
 Excuse me that I trouble you thus with these 
 rambling meditations, they are to correspond 
 with you in some part for those accurate fancies 
 of yours lately sent me. So I rest your entire 
 and true servitor. 
 
 TO THE INCOMPARABLE LADY, THE LADY 
 M. GARY. 
 
 Madam, — I have discovered so much of 
 divinity in you, that he who would find your 
 equal must seek one in the other world. I might 
 play the oracle, and more truly pronounce you 
 the wisest of women, than he did Pythagoras 
 the wisest of men, for questionless, that he or 
 thee are the wisest of all human creatures, who 
 are careful of preserving the noblest part of 
 them, I mean the soul. They who prink and 
 pamper the body, and neglect the soul, are like 
 one who, having a nightingale in his house, is 
 more fond of the wicker cage than of the bird ; 
 or rather like one who hath a pearl of an 
 invaluable price, and esteems the poor box that 
 holds it more than the jewel. The rational soul 
 is the breath of God Almighty, she is His very 
 image, therefore who taints his soul may be 
 said to throw dirt in God's face, and make his 
 breath stink. The soul is a spark of immortality ; 
 she is a divine light, and the body is but a 
 socket of clay that holds it. In some this light 
 goes out with an ill-favoured stench, but others 
 have a save -all to preserve it from making any 
 snuff at all. Of this number, madam, you are 
 one that shines clearest in this horizon, which 
 makes me so much your La. truly devoted 
 servant, J. H. 
 
 [Howell was born in 1594, and from the free 
 school of Hereford was sent to Jesus 
 College, Oxford, from whence, in 1613, he 
 came to London, as Wood says, with his 
 fortune to make. In 1629, he visited the 
 Continent, in the capacity of agent to a glass 
 manufactory. His route lay through 
 France, Italy, Spain, Holland, and the 
 Netherlands. 'Thank God,' he used to 
 say, I have this fruit of my travels, that I 
 can pray to Him every day of the week 
 in separate languages, and upon Sunday 
 in seven ! ' After a life of chequered 
 fortunes, Howell found himself in the 
 Fleet prison. Having at length obtained 
 his release, he was appointed to the office 
 of historiographer to Charles the Second. 
 He did not, however, long enjoy his 
 appointment ; he died in 1666, and was 
 buried in the Temple church. Howell, 
 during many years of his life, was an 
 author by profession, and numerou.s works, 
 chiefly upon temporary topics, show that 
 he only wrote to live. His Familiar Letters 
 are alone remembered. Thomas Warton 
 considered them, after Bishop Hall, the 
 second published correspondence in the 
 language ; discovering a variety of litera- 
 ture, and abounding with agreeable and 
 instructive information. Respecting Felton, 
 Mr. D'Israeli has communicated some in- 
 teresting particulars. He says that his 
 passage to London, after the assassination 
 of the duke, resembled a triumph ; women 
 held up their children to behold him ; and 
 one old woman exclaimed, ' God bless thee, 
 little David.'— Trt7;?/io«.] 
 
 JAMES HOWELL TO TPIE RIGHT HON. LADY 
 SCROOP, COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND. 
 
 Stamford, August 5, 1628. 
 
 Madam, — I lay yesternight at the post-house 
 at Stilton, and this morning betimes the post- 
 master came to my bed's head, and told me the 
 Duke of Buckingham was slain. 
 
 My faith was not then strong enough to 
 believe it, till an hour ago I met in the way 
 with my Lord of Rutland (your brother) riding 
 post towards London ; it pleased him to alight, 
 and show me a letter, wherein there was an 
 exact relation of all the circumstances of this 
 sad tragedy. 
 
 Upon Saturday last, which was but next 
 before yesterday, being Bartholomew eve, the 
 duke did rise up in a well-disposed humom: out 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 316 
 
 of his bed, and cut a caper or two, and being 
 ready, and having been under the barber's 
 hand (where the murderer had thought to have 
 done the deed, for he was leaning upon the 
 window all the while), he went to breakfast, 
 attended by a great company of commandei's, 
 where Monsieur Subize came to him, and 
 whispered him in the ear that Rochelle was 
 relieved ; the duke seemed to slight the news, 
 which made some think that Subize went away 
 discontented. 
 
 After breakfast the duke going out. Colonel 
 Fryer stepped before him, and stopped him 
 npon some business, and Lieutenant Felton, 
 being behind, made a tlirust with a common 
 tenpenny knife over Fryer's arm at the duke, 
 which lighted so fatally that he slit his heart in 
 two, leaving the knife sticking in the body. 
 The duke took out the knife and threw it 
 away; and laying his hand on his sword, and 
 drawing it half out, said, 'The villain hath 
 killed me ' (meaning, as some think, Colonel 
 Fryer), for there had been some difference 
 betwixt them ; so reeling against a chimney, he 
 fell down dead. The duchess being with child, 
 hearing the noise below, came in her night-gears 
 from her bed-chamber, which was in an upper 
 room, to a kind of rail, and thence beheld him 
 weltering in his own blood. Felton had lost 
 his hat in the crowd, wherein there was a 
 paper sewed, wherein he declared that the 
 reason which moved him to this act was no 
 grudge of his own, though he had been far 
 behind for his pay, and had been piit by his 
 captain's place twice, but in regard he thought 
 the duke an enemy to the State, because he 
 was branded in parliament ; therefore what he 
 did was for the public good of his country. 
 Yet he got clearly down, and so might have 
 gone to his horse, which was tied to a hedge 
 hard by ; but he was so amazed that he missed 
 his way, and so struck into the pastry, where, 
 although the cry went that some Frenchman 
 had done it, he, thinking the word was Felton, 
 boldly confessed it was he that had done the 
 deed, and so he was in their hands. 
 
 Jack Stamford wovild have run at him, but 
 he was kept off by Mr. Nicholas ; so being 
 carried up to a tower. Captain Mince tore off 
 his spurs, and asking how he durst attempt 
 such an act, making him believe the duke was not 
 dead, he answered boldly, that he knew he was 
 despatched, for it was not he, but the hand of 
 Heaven that gave the stroke ; and though his 
 whole body had been covered over with armour 
 of proof, he could not have avoided it. Captain 
 Charles Price went post presently to the king, 
 four miles off, who being at prayers on his 
 knees when it was told him, yet never stirred, 
 nor was he disturbed a whit till all divine 
 service was done. This was the relation, as far 
 as my memory could bear, in my Lord of 
 Rutland's letter, who willed mc to remember 
 
 him to your ladyship, and tell you that he was 
 going to comfort your niece (the duchess) as 
 far as he could. And so I have sent the truth 
 of this sad story to your ladyship, as fast as I 
 could by this post, because I cannot make that 
 speed myself, in regard of some business I have 
 to despatch for my lord in the way ; so I humbly 
 take my leave, and rest your ladyship's most 
 dutiful servant. 
 
 [The warmth which Admiral Montague 
 expressed in the discharge of his command, 
 did not hinder the admiral from perceiving 
 the great prejudice done to our trade by 
 the carrying on the Spanish war, of which 
 he gives a fair and clear account in one of 
 his despatches to the Secretary, wherein 
 he complains that he saw the Dutch, 
 Hamburghers, and Genoese carrying on 
 a mighty trade with Spain, which, as he 
 observes, it was impossible for them to 
 hinder without engaging the state in a war 
 with all the world, and therefore proposed 
 that a squadron of light frigates only 
 might be kept in those seas, and that the 
 fleet should be employed somewhere else to 
 more advantage. However, the Protector's 
 orders being positive, they returned to- 
 wards autumn into the road of Cadiz, 
 where, in September following. Captain 
 Stayner made prize of the galleons. A full 
 account of their strength, and the money 
 on board them. Admiral Montague sent 
 into England as soon as they were taken ; 
 and, when he afterwards received directions 
 to convoy the prizes home, he sent another 
 account of the silver on board them, desir- 
 ing at the same time that some persons 
 might be sent down to meet the fleet at 
 Portsmouth, in order to take charge of the 
 silver, and to make a farther search into 
 the contents of the galleons. The money 
 thus taken from the Spaniards was, though 
 undeservedly, the most popular act in all 
 Cromwell's administration, and therefore 
 the utmost pains were taken to give the 
 populace a very high idea of this advantage. 
 The silver was carried in open carts and 
 ammunition waggons through Southwark 
 to the Tower of London ; and to make a 
 show of entire confidence in the people, 
 these waggons had no greater guard than 
 ten soldiers. As for Admiral Montague, he 
 had all the compliments paid him, upon 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 this occasion, that it was possible for him 
 to desire ; the Protector caressed him 
 exceedingly ; the Parliament returned him 
 thanks by their Speaker, and some other 
 honom-s he had received, if with industry 
 he had not declined them.— CampteZZ's 
 * Lives of the Admirals.^] 
 
 CAPTAIN RICHARD STATNER TO THE GENERALS 
 OF THE FLEET. 
 
 Eight Honourable,— After my service pre- 
 sented to your honours, these are to acquaint 
 you, that upon the 8th instant at night it blew 
 hard westwardly, by means whereof we with 
 our squadron (only the Providence, she being 
 gone to water) weighed out of the bay of Cadiz, 
 and plyed to sea. In the evening we espied 
 eight sail, some five or six leagues to the west- 
 ward of Cadiz, we using the best means that 
 we could, to meet with them the next day, 
 which we did, it being little wind at N.E. It 
 was nine of the clock before we came xnp with 
 them ; but having a fresh gale in the night, all 
 but we and the Bridgwater were to the leeward, 
 and could not come up to us. But when we 
 came to the fleet, it proved to be the Spanish 
 fleet come from the West Indies, which were 
 four of the king of Spain's, three merchant- 
 men, and one prize, which they had taken by 
 way of the Western Islands, being a Portuguese, 
 which were eight in all. We engaged the 
 fleet, but being within four leagues of Cadiz, 
 could not stay for our ships ; but we, the 
 Bridgwater and Plymouth, engaged them, and 
 had a sharp dispute some of us; but the 
 Admiral being the smallest ship, we slighted 
 her, for we conceived there was some policy 
 used in the flag, by which means the Admiral 
 and the Portugal prize got into Cadiz. The 
 Vice-Admiral, and one more, we sunk, and 
 burnt two ; we took one. The captain of her, 
 which we have on board, saith she hath in her 
 two millions of silver. The Vice-Admiral had 
 as much, I do believe. The Plymouth chased 
 another, who came ashore near St. Peter's and 
 Cape Degar, but it seems, by the prisoners' 
 information, they had no silver in her. The 
 ship we took is as good as all the fleet besides. 
 The other that Captain Harman hath taken is 
 very rich ; but little silver in her. Both the 
 prize and our ship are sorely wounded both in 
 masts and hull. The commanders advise me 
 not to take the silver out of her. I do intend 
 to take further advice about it. There is no 
 news, only I believe the fleet will follow us; 
 the galleys came out. Because of the riches 
 and disability of our ship, we will come towards 
 you, except your honours send further orders, 
 for we are in no capacity to stay here. I shall 
 leave two or three of the best sailing ships off 
 the Cape, and I and the rest will come to 
 
 Lisbon, where I hope to find your honours. 
 There is the Nova Spaniola fleet at the 
 Havanna, but when they will come home is not 
 known. This is all, only there is loss of men 
 in some ships, the number I know not. I am 
 your honours' humble servant, 
 
 Ric. Stayner. 
 From on hoard the * Speaker,'' in Jiaste, 
 this 9th of Sept. 1656. 
 
 general MOUNTAGU to SECRETARY THURLOE. 
 
 Sir, — Since I dispatcht my packuet to you, I 
 have had almost a whole afternoon's discourse 
 with Don Francisco de Lopez, the now Mar- 
 quesse of Baydex, who is a most ingenious and 
 intelligent youth, about 16 years of age, born in 
 Lima. He hath given mee very much light 
 concerning the Western Indies ; and I thought 
 it not amiss to trouble you with some of it : if 
 it be of no use, it is but my labour lost in 
 writinge. He saith, that about five moenths 
 since, presently after his father and family 
 departed out of Lima in Peru, there happened 
 the fearfuUest earthquake, and raininge of fire 
 from heaven, in Peru, that has beene heard off 
 in the world, insomuch that the whole cittye of 
 Lima is swallowed up, and also the island of 
 Calloa, in which places there perished about 
 11,000 Spaniards, and not above 100 Indians 
 with them. In that cittye alsoe tlie king of 
 Spaine hath lost by the earthquake 50,000 
 millions of barrs of silver ready wrought up. 
 The famous mines and mountains of Potosi are 
 destroyed, soe that there is noe more hills to be 
 seene, all a plaine, nor any further possibilitye 
 of having silver or gold in Peru.^ The king 
 hath had noe knowledge hereof until now, 
 by the shipps that escaped of this company. 
 It is too large to repeat all that he hath told 
 mee of the monstrous cruelty of the Spaniards 
 to the poor Indians, even those of them that 
 are counted freemen, and profess the Roman 
 Catholique religion ; insomuch that they cry to 
 heaven against them, and are beyond measu.re 
 greeved with theire sufferings. 
 
 He tells mee assuredly, that the island of 
 Hispaniola is abundantly rich in mines of gold 
 and silver, and that the only reason why they 
 have not hithertoo beene wrought, hath beene 
 the king's edict, which he hath read, severely 
 prohibitinge the digginge or transportation of 
 any thence ; intendinge that as a reserve, in 
 case warrs should grow upon him, that might 
 cause a greater expense of monye, or the mines 
 in Peru faile ; and he sales, undoubtedly now 
 that this fatality is come upon Peru, the next 
 order from the kinge of Spaine will be, to open 
 
 1 This, of course, is a gross exaggeration, the mines 
 of Potosi between 1545 and 1789 yielded at least 
 £200,000,000 in silver ; the annual yield still is over 
 £400,000. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the mines of Hispaniola. He saies, that scince 
 our attempt there, Santa Domingo is mightily 
 fortified and i^rovided in all points for defence, 
 both v.dth men, and arms, and provisions. 
 
 He saith also, that the Mexican fleet is now in 
 the Havana ; that there are 10 shipps of them, 
 the Admirall and Vice-Admirall only gallions 
 for burthen, and they have in them seven 
 millions of plate ; the other 8 are gallions only 
 fitted with ordinance and soldiers for warr. 
 They will arrive in Europe (probably) about 
 the latter end of November, or rather in 
 December, as he thinkes. They alwaies make 
 the Canaries in theire returne, and they there 
 receive advice from Spaine, whether to betake 
 themselves ; and 'tis possible that they may be 
 directed for Gallicia, if they soc will in Spain, 
 as these ships wee have taken would have done, 
 if their Portugall j^rise had not lied to them 
 and betrayed them. 
 
 He saith, the Havana is a place almost 
 impregnable; Cartagena easye to be had by 
 starvinge, and that way only : it is a peninsula, 
 and may easily be deprived of commerce and 
 assistance. The people upon the maine are 
 generally very fearfuU of attempts from the 
 English, and their unaccustomednesse to warr 
 is the cause thereof, though otherwise naturally 
 they are a people bold enough, and shew it in 
 l^rivate and particular quarrells. 
 
 He saith, if the English be able to mayntaine 
 a fleete at Jamaica, the Spaniard can trade noe 
 more in the Indies but with great fleets; for 
 already, he saith, the Spanish merchants give 
 over, and will noe more venture theire estates, 
 unlesse the king j)rovide sufl&ciently for theire 
 l^rotection. He saith also, he heard before they 
 came out of the Havana, that some of our fleete 
 of Jamaica had taken some Spanish shipps 
 laden with negroes, but none of silver. He also 
 saies, there was a report that 9 shipps were 
 sent by Sedgewicke to England, and that he 
 demands supply of all things from England, 
 viz. Victualls and Woemen, etc., if it is 
 expected he should continue there. And he 
 saies, the natives and negroes of Jamaica infest 
 them sorely, whensoever they adventure out of 
 their fortifications for cattle or the like. 
 
 He saith, that though the natives upon the 
 maine be readye to receive libertye from the 
 hands of any people, by reason of theire op- 
 pressions unheard of almost (as before is said), 
 yet the Spaniards are exceedingly loyall ; which 
 appeared not long since by a proffer, which the 
 Dutch and French made to them at Lima in 
 Peru, that they would engage to come yearely 
 to them with a certain number of shipps, and 
 bring them commodittyes at a far cheaper rate 
 then they have from Spayne, and trade with 
 them upon their own account, which the 
 Spaniard refused totally. 
 
 He saies, the Inquisition is most severe and 
 cruell in the Indies; but the inquisitors are 
 
 universally hated to such a degree, that aa 
 Inquisitor dares not stir out of his own house, 
 not so much as to see a friend, for fear of 
 violence from the people. 
 
 This is as much as is materiall to write 
 hereoff at present. I am, your very humble 
 servant, E. Mountagu. 
 
 Sept. 20, 1656. * Naseby' in the Bay of Wyers. 
 
 [A treaty was made with France in 1657, 
 containing a provision that the English 
 troops should unite with the French in 
 attacking certain coast towns. When the 
 Protector heard that it was possible the 
 English troops would be diverted to 
 another purpose, this letter, and another 
 which he sent, brought the king and 
 Cardinal Mazarin to their senses. Lock- 
 hart was one of the ablest and best 
 ambassadors Cromwell had, and was married 
 to his niece, Eobina Sewster. He came 
 from the family of Lockhart of Lee, in 
 Lanarkshire.] 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL TO LOCKHART, HIS 
 AMBASSADOR AT PARIS, 
 
 Sir, — I have seene your last letter to Mr. 
 Secretary, as alsoe divers others ; and although 
 I have noe doubt either of your diligence or 
 ability to serve us in soe great a business, yet I 
 am deeply sensible that the French are very 
 much short with us in ingenuity and perform- 
 ance. And that which increaseth our sense is, 
 the resolution we had rather to overdoe than 
 to be behinde hand in anythinge of our 
 treatye. And although wee never were soe 
 foolish to apprehend, that the French and 
 their interests were the same with ours in all 
 things, yet as to the Spanyard, who hath beene 
 knowne in all ages to be the most implacable 
 enemie that France hath, we never could doubt, 
 before we made our treatye, that goinge upon 
 such grounds wee should have beene fayled as 
 wee are. To talke of giveinge us garrisons, 
 which are inland, as caution for future action ; 
 to talke of what wil be done next campaine, are 
 but parcells of words for children. If they will 
 give us garrisons, let them give us Calais, 
 Dieppe, and Boullogne; which I thinke they 
 will doe as soon as be honest in their words, in 
 giveing us any one Spanish garrison upon the 
 coast into our hands. I positively thinke, 
 which I say to you, they are afrayde we should 
 have any footinge on that side, though Spanish. 
 I pray you tell the Cardinall from me, that 
 I thinke, if France desires to mainteyne his 
 ground, much more to get ground upon the 
 Spanyard, the performance of his treatye with 
 us will better doe it than anythinge appears 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 yet to me of any design hee hath. Though wee 
 cannot soe well pretend to souldiery as those 
 who are with him, yet wee tliinke that wee, 
 being able by sea to strengthen and secure his 
 seidge, and reinforce it as wee please by sea, 
 and the enemie in a capacity to doe nothinge 
 to relieve it ; that the best time to besiedge 
 that place will be now, especially if we 
 consider, that the French horse \vill be abk oe 
 to mine Flanders as that noe succour can .je 
 brought to relieve the place ; and that the 
 French army and our owne will have constant 
 relief, as farr as England and France can give 
 it, without any manner of impediment, 
 ospecially consideringe the Dutch are now 
 engaged soe much to the southward as they are. 
 I desire you to let him knowe, that Englishmen 
 have soe good experience of winter-expeditions, 
 that they are confident, that if the Spanyard 
 shall keepe the field, as he cannot impede this 
 worke, soe neither will he be able to attaque any- 
 thinge towards France with a possibility of 
 retreate. And what doth all delayes signifie, 
 but the giveinge the Spanyard opportunitie so 
 much the more to reinforce himself, and to the 
 Iceepinge our men another summer to serve the 
 French, without any colour of a reciprocall, or 
 any advantage to ourselves. And therefore, if 
 this will not be listened unto, I desire that 
 thinges may be considered of, to give us satis- 
 faction for the great expense wee have been at 
 with our navall forces, and otherwise ; which, 
 out of an honourable and honest ayme on our 
 part, hath been done, that we might answere 
 our engagements. And that consideration may 
 be had, how our men may be put into a posture 
 to be returned to us; which wee hope wee 
 shall employ to a better purpose than to have 
 them to continue where they are. I desire wee 
 may know what France saith and will doe upon 
 this point. "Wee shall be ready stUl, as the 
 Lord shall assist us, to performe what can be 
 reasonablie expected on our parte. And you 
 may alsoe let the Cardinall knowe further, that 
 our intentions, as they have beene, soe they 
 will be, to do all the good offices wee can to 
 promote the interest thereof. Apprehendinge 
 it is of moment that this business should come 
 to you with speed and suretie, wee have sent it 
 by an expresse. Your very lovinge friend, 
 
 0. P. 
 
 Whitehall, Aug. 31, 1657. 
 
 HENRY CROMWELL, VICEROY OF IRELAND, TO 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 
 
 May it please your Highness,— Having by 
 your highness's favour been admitted governor 
 here, your highness might expect by the return 
 of the messenger, who brought me your com- 
 mission, to receive from me nothing but thanks ; 
 
 or, as some may think, nothing but expressions 
 of joy for so great an honour and preferment. 
 Nevertheless (though without the least deroga- 
 tion from what I owe your highness) I am forced 
 to mingle with those duties some addresses of 
 another nature also. That which I am to 
 trouble your highness with at this time is, -want 
 of monies to discharge so great an arrear to 
 your army, as of late hath scarce been h^ard of 
 within the three nations. I have received lately 
 a letter from my brother Fleetwood, so full of 
 discouragements as to this matter, that did I 
 not know our condition to be lamentable and 
 dangerous, I should have little hope to speed in 
 this attempt. I have several times hinted our 
 wants to your highness, Mr. Secretary, and 
 others ; but being then subordinate, I thought 
 it fit to be urgent chiefly with my immediate 
 superior, trusting that he, being upon the place 
 of relief, and having himself left me in this 
 entangled condition, would use all fit remedies. 
 But hitherto finding no effectual answer to all 
 former intimations, and having some reason to 
 think that some make it too much their work 
 to frustrate my endeavours therein, the care of 
 this business being now wholly mine, and that 
 all miscarriages must be charged upon my single 
 account, I must now humbly tell your highness 
 that had not this country been in an ill condi- 
 tion by reason of the three months' vacancy of 
 government, I should even have deferred open- 
 ing my commission until by supply of monies 
 I might have seen it possible for me to discharge 
 the trust thereby committed to me, and not 
 have given ground for all men to think that 
 my greediness of honour and power is such as 
 to make me admit of any absurdity, to venture 
 upon any impossibility, and to take upon me 
 such things as must hereafter end in your 
 highness's disservice, and my own reproach. 
 May it please your highness, this arrear of our 
 army is of eight months' growth ; about half of it 
 being contracted before the disbanding in Sep- 
 tember 1655, and the rest, by paying off that 
 great number of horse and foot then disbanded, 
 with the growing pay of the then remaining 
 army, who got no pay till near three months 
 after that reducement. I shall not here trouble 
 your highness with a more particular account 
 of this matter, having entrusted my Lord 
 Broghill with a large state thereof to be pre- 
 sented to your highness, as it was drawn up by 
 the treasurer and auditors of the Exchequer 
 here. In the next place, I humbly mind your 
 highness, that although I was left under this 
 debt, yet at the time of that reducement, the 
 allowance from England was lessened from 24m. 
 to 17m. pounds per mensem, and no care taken 
 how to pay off that debt. And that there hath 
 been no assignment made of that our allowance 
 since the 24th of June last, which comes to 
 near £100,000, and which, with what is yet not 
 sent to us of our former assignments, makes up 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 320 
 
 about the £180,000, which, by my letter to your 
 highness of the 15th of July last, I humbly 
 intimated was wanting to clear our engagements 
 here. We are sollicitous to think upon wliat 
 reason our allowance of £17,000 'per mensem is 
 withheld from us since June last ; but hope 
 that it was not because Ireland's share of 
 £1,900,000 per ann. will not extend so far ; 
 for in that case care ought to have been taken 
 for lessening the charge of Ireland accordingly, 
 which (foreseeing the streights we were running 
 into) I have several times pressed ; and that in 
 my letter of the 15th of July, did offer my 
 thoughts as to the manner and hast of doing it. 
 Your highness seeing in what condition I am, 
 and how I came into it; I humbly beg your 
 liighness to consider, what ill uses of several 
 kinds my enemies have made of this disadvan- 
 j tnge ; some perswading the army that I was 
 negligent of their concernments, hoping thereby 
 to aleniate the affections of the soldiery from 
 me ; others telling them my interest in England 
 was very small, that I could not procure 
 supplyes as others, my predecessors, had done ; 
 others taking occasion to advise that the said 
 arrear might be wholly struck off, and never 
 paid at all, perhaps thereby to bring the odium 
 of so ill an office upon me. Your highness may 
 easily conceive what I have been forced to do 
 to keep down mutinous dispositions among 
 ! them ; and that it will be very difficult hence- 
 ! forward to keep the army quiet, and in their 
 j due obedience, with words and promises only. 
 1 The truth is, that to have borne delays from 
 I time to time for above these two years did 
 j argue a good temjDer and inclination towards 
 ! your highness. 
 
 If they have no relief from me now, when 
 they see me in as much visible power as they 
 can expect, and when I want those gi'ounds of 
 excuse which formerly I had, I shall be much 
 to seek how to carry it towards them for the 
 future ; for upon my being vested in the 
 government, they seeming to expect some ad- 
 vantage, may think it very hard not to receive 
 their bare dues after so long expectation. 
 Besides, this want of pay concurring at this 
 juncture with the extreme trouble and con- 
 fusion about Spanish and bad coins, the soldiers 
 are apt to grow too licentious in abusing the 
 country, when they levy their contribution, 
 refusing to take such money as probably is good 
 enough, thereby to extort some unwarrantable 
 advantage from the people ; all which they 
 take occasion to do, partly out of necessity, and 
 Ijartly presuming 'twill seem unreasonable to 
 punish severely and pay negligently. 
 
 Moreover, if your highness thinks fit shortly 
 to lessen the charge, I suppose it will appear 
 very hard now, after all their patient forbear- 
 iance, to dismiss them without their due. And 
 if we put off those who are now to be disbanded, 
 ■with the growing pay of the rest who are to 
 
 stand, we shall then relapse into the same error 
 we committed in 1G55, upon the like occasion ; 
 and so growing still into a worse and worse 
 condition, must at last fall into such a state as 
 I cannot promise myself able to wade through, 
 I humbly beg your highness to weigh these 
 truths, and not to kee^j me for ever engaged in 
 conflicts and difficultys more and greater than 
 any other man in my way doth or hath suffered. 
 Your highness knows how hard 'tis to keep 
 things right without money. The ill con- 
 sequences of these wants may be hereafter re- 
 presented as my errors and miscarriages ; and 
 it will be better for me never to have been 
 advanced to this place of trust, than to be left 
 without means to manage it ; without which it 
 must prove but an empty and dangerous title 
 only. I hope your highness will think well of 
 some, perhaps not so fit, expressions, which I 
 used in giving you my apprehensions of the 
 army. I am not willing to suggest causeless 
 fears, nor would I speak at this rate to any 
 other: I judge it my duty to deal faithfully 
 upon these occasions. Eight months' arrear is 
 so great a matter that I hope your highness 
 will not think me fro ward if I insist upon the 
 paying it off, as believing no prudent man would 
 or ever did embarque on a charge of this 
 moment, without being first set on clear board. 
 I have several other things of moment where- 
 with to trouble your highness, as that of the 
 reducement, and of your highness's leave for 
 me to come to England for a small time at a 
 convenient season ; but I shall at present only 
 beg your highness's attention to this of sending 
 us over the above-mentioned £180,000, it being 
 no more than what will appear to be justly due 
 as the arrear of our allowance from England. 
 I say, I shall press this one thing of money 
 only; and therefore hope your highness will 
 mind it with effect on our behalfs. The Lord 
 bless your highness, and direct you in that 
 great affair of the other House, and in what 
 else may make for the glory of His name, and 
 good of His people committed to your care ; and 
 enable me in the faithful discharge of my trust, 
 and that I may in all things approve myself 
 your highness's most obedient sonn, 
 
 H. C. 
 
 Dublin, Dec. 2, 1657. 
 
 HENRY CROMWELL TO LORD FAUCONBERG. 
 
 February 10, 1657. 
 My Lord,— As Ireland (like all other reviv- 
 ing plantations) receives many imported goods, 
 but exports little, so I cannot repay your 
 lordship's news with news, but must only 
 I give your lordship my humble thanks for 
 those your free and useful communications, 
 as the interest of your lordship's debt upon 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 321 
 
 Die. Besides, as Ireland sends forth nothing 
 but hides, tallow, pipe-staves, and other coarse 
 commodities, in exchange of the delicacies of 
 art and nature ; so, my lord, your lordship 
 must not expect anything from me bearing 
 other proportion to what I receive from your 
 lordship. "Wherefore it's something that I 
 see in your letters, not in my own, which 
 makes me confident to draw you on to this 
 trouble of a correspondence with me. Although 
 the want of Mr. Secretary's intelligence leaves 
 a great dimness upon my sight of aiTaii-s, yet 
 I may tell your lordship, without flattery to 
 yourself, or disparagement to him, that the 
 addition of your lordship's observations will 
 so brighten the objects I look upon, as to make 
 his prospective the more useful to me. Besides, 
 my lord, as several plants contract their several 
 and contrary substances from the same common 
 earth, so certainly out of the same general 
 mass of human affairs, men of several minds 
 and inclinations will remark and be affected 
 with several and very different ijarticulars. 
 From whence concluding that your lordship 
 may shine upon me as clear from your own 
 orb, as I\Ir. Secretary from his, I again beg the 
 continuance of your lordship's favours ; I say 
 I beg, or at least would borrow them, for I 
 told your lordship you must not expect pay- 
 ment from me at present. 
 
 I was quite mistaken in my last, when I 
 feared as if the new-begotten house would lie 
 cross in the womb that conceived it ; whereas 
 now I see the unnatural mother uses means to 
 procure the abortion of her own issue. But it 
 may be, it is only the worms or vipers (you 
 named) lying in the guts of the Common- 
 wealth, which have caused the frettings and 
 gnawings you mention ; and this I rather 
 believe, because of the 500 maggots, which 
 you say are now again busily crawling out of 
 the ... of Mr. Peak's corrupted church. 
 But to be serious, my lord, it is a sad thing 
 when men of so many different ways (for such 
 are or have been many of those you mention) 
 should all conspire for unsettlement, seeking 
 vain occasions to quarrel. But it is his 
 Highness' happiness that they find nothing but 
 words and names to snap and snarl at. 
 
 I hear that Harrison, Carey, Okey, etc., 
 liave done some new feats. I hope God will 
 infatuate these men in their further endeavours 
 i to disturb the peace of these nations, as they 
 I seem already to be by those their follies, which 
 i do sufficiently show them to have been but 
 mere pretenders to, and abusers of religion, 
 and such whose hypocrisy the Lord will avenge 
 in his due time. Our want of money and 
 engagements abroad will be an encouragement 
 to these incendiaries, which are certainly very 
 dangerous, and of an inveterate temper, when 
 nothing will suppress their fury even for a 
 while. I hope his Highness will have an eye 
 
 to the army, that those who have a mind to 
 scold may not be suftered to fight too. The 
 people of these nations have been too well 
 experienced by their past sufferings to engage 
 their blood in so particular and unchristian 
 animosities, as these contentions now on the 
 stage seem to be. The Lord direct his High- 
 ness, and dispose his friends to pray for his 
 life, on which thi-ead a great weight hangs. 
 
 My dear lord, you see I have no matter, only 
 words to return for your things. Wherefore 
 I will abruptly subscribe myself, yours, etc. 
 
 [Oliver Cromwell, worn out with care and 
 anxieties, and overwhelmed at the death 
 of his daughter. Lady Claypole, fell sick 
 and died September 3, 1658.] 
 
 HENRY CEOMWELL TO SECRETARY THUELOE. 
 
 Buhlin, Sept. 11, 1658. 
 Sir,— Yesterday, in the forenoon, the mes- 
 singer arrived with the sad tidings of his 
 Highness' death. In the afternoon my brother 
 was proclaimed his successor. I send you 
 herewith the proclamation, subscribed by my- 
 selfe, and the councell, and such of the 
 nobility, judges, officers of the army, and 
 gentlemen of quality as were in the town, and 
 present when it was produced for signing. 
 You may guess at my condition, and how hard 
 a thing it was within an hower to put off my 
 greife for my dear father, to give directions 
 for a matter of solemnity ; but the peace of 
 the nation, my love and tenderness to my 
 deare brother, I should now say my duty to 
 the cheife magistrate, made me cast myselfe 
 before the Lord, and begg earnestly for a 
 support, and God heard my prayer. I went 
 in person to make the proclamation, and 
 therefore am able to assure you that it was 
 performed, not only with the greatest solemnity 
 this place could afford, but with very great 
 shouts and acclamations of joy, which I am 
 perswaded came from the hearts of the people. 
 This morning I caused the officers of the army 
 to attend me, and having at large acquainted 
 them with the state of our affaires, and their 
 duty, left them together to consider of what 
 I had said, and to offer me their thoughts. 
 They returned an unanimous desire to me that 
 I would assure his Highness of their cheerful 
 obedience and faithfullness to his Highness to 
 the uttermost ; and that they would suddainly 
 give more testimony of it by their acting in 
 their severall places. Indeed their temper 
 seems to me at this time better than what I 
 could have expected. I have commanded them 
 all to their respective charges, to preserve 
 things the surer, and to see the proclamation 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 (which are ulso printed, and this evening sent 
 through the nation) published with the more 
 solemnity, and the acclamations of the soldiers. 
 I intend this evening a dispatch to General 
 Monke, to acquaint him with our unanimity 
 to strenthen his hands, if he be in any streight. 
 Pray present my humble duty to his Highness, 
 and acquaint him with this. I hope God will 
 enable him to beare his greife. If he sinke 
 under it, wee perish ; for how can the sheep be 
 safe, unless the sheapheard watch ? 
 
 Let her Highness, my deare mother, know 
 that my affliction is dubled, when I thinke of 
 her condition. Pray God comfort her. I doe 
 pray for her, and I shall not cease, but shall con- 
 tinue her obedient and affectionate son whilst 
 I live. I shall not tell you how unexpressible 
 my greife is. God knows what is in the 
 womb of this severe stroke. I am loath to 
 give way to my own fears. It is from His 
 hand, and wee must submit. The Lord help 
 us ! I rest your affectionat friend and humble 
 servant, H. Ceomwell. 
 
 SECEETAEY THUELOE TO HENEY CEOMWELL. 
 
 Detailing the Last Illness of Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 May it please youe Excellencye,— I gave 
 you some account by Doctor Worth of his 
 Highness' condition as it then was ; but least 
 he should delay his journey, or miscarry in it, 
 I thought it necessary to send this expresse, to 
 the end your excellencye may fully understand 
 how it is with his Highnesse, This is the 13th 
 day since his ague took him, haveinge beene sick 
 a fortnight before of a generall distemper of 
 body. It continued a good while to be a 
 tertian ague, and the burninge fitts very violent. 
 Upon Saterday it fell to a double tertian, 
 haveinge 2 fitts in 24 hours, one upon the heeles 
 of another, which doe extreamely weaken hym, 
 and endaunger his life. And truly since 
 Saterday morninge he hath scarce beene 
 perfectly out of his fitts. The doctors are yet 
 hoj)efull that he may struggle through it, 
 though their hopes are mingled with much 
 feare. But truly wee have cause to put our 
 hope in the Lord, and to expect mercy from 
 Hym in this case. He haveinge stirred up the 
 saints to pray for hym in all places. Never 
 was there a greater stocke of prayers goinge for 
 any man then is now goinge for him ; and truly 
 there is a generall consternation upon the 
 spirits of all men, good and bad, feareinge what 
 may be the event of it, should it please God to 
 take his Highnesse at this tyme ; and God 
 havinge prepared the heart to pray, I trust He 
 will enclyne His eare to heare. And that which 
 is some grounde of hope is, that the Lord, as in 
 some former occasions, hath given to himselfe 
 
 a particular assurance that he shall yet live to 
 serve Hym, and to cany on the worke He hath 
 put into his hands. 
 
 I doe not yet find there are any great stir- 
 ringes yet upon this occasion; though the 
 cavaliers doe begin to listen after it, and hope 
 their day is comeinge, or indeed come, if his 
 Highnesse dye. And truly, my lord, wee have 
 cause to feare that it may goe very ill with us, 
 if the Lord should take away his Highnesse in 
 this conjuncture ; not that I thinke Charles 
 Stewart's interest is soe great, or his partie soe 
 powerfull in themselves ; but I fear our owne 
 divisions, which may be great enough, if his 
 Highnesse should not settle and fix his successor 
 before he dies, which truely I beleeve he hath 
 not yet done. He did by himself declare one 
 in a paper before he was installed by the 
 parliament, and sealed it up in the forme of a 
 letter, directing it to me, but kept both the 
 name of the person and the paper to himself. 
 After he fell sicke at Hampton Court, he sent 
 Mr. J ohn Barrington to London for it, tellinge 
 hym it lay upon his study table at "Whitehall ; 
 but it was not to be found there, nor elsewhere, 
 though it hath beene very narrowly looked for. 
 And in this condition matters stand, his High- 
 nesse having beene too ill to be troubled with a 
 buissines of this importance. This day he hath 
 had some discourse about it, but his illnes dis- 
 enabled him to conclude it fully; and if it 
 should x)lease the Lord not to give hym tyme 
 to settle his succession before his death, the 
 judgment would be the soarei', and our condition 
 the more dangerous ; but I trust he will have 
 compassion on us, and not leave us as a prey to 
 our enemies, or to one another. All persons 
 here are very reserved as to what they will doe, 
 in case his Highnesse should not declare his 
 successor before he dyes, not beinge willinge to 
 enterteyne any discourse of it, either because it 
 is a matter too grevious to be thought of, or 
 because they would not discover any opinion 
 which might crosse his Highnesse thoughts in 
 his lifetyme. And this, my lord, is the whole 
 account I am able to give your lordship of this 
 sadd buissines, which I am sure will occasion 
 much trouble and sorrow to you ; but I could 
 not omit my duty, judgeing it absolutely 
 necessary that your excellency should under- 
 stand all that passes or falls out upon this 
 subject, that you may the better knowe how to 
 direct your prayers and counsells, and stirre up 
 others alsoe to pray for his Highnesse and 3 
 nations in this day of distresse. And as any- 
 thinge further occurs (which I beseech the 
 Lord may be for good) I shall suddeinly dispatch 
 it away to you, and be ready to answer such 
 commands as your excellency shall lay upon 
 me, beinge, your excellencye's most humble, 
 faithfull, and obedient servant, 
 
 Jo. Thueloe. 
 
 Whitehall, 30 Awj. 1658, 9 o'clock at niyht. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 323 
 
 SECRETARY THUELOE TO HENRY CROMWELL. 
 
 Announcing the Death of Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 JMAY it PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCYE,— I did by 
 
 an expresse upon Munday give your excellencye 
 an account of his Highness' sicknes, and the 
 danger he was in. Since that it has pleased 
 God to put an end to his days. He died 
 yesterday about four of the clock in the after- 
 noone. I am not able to speake or write ; this 
 stroke is soe scare. Soe unexpected, the 
 providence of God in it soe stupendious, 
 consideringe the person that is fallen, the tyme 
 and season wherein God tooke hym away, with 
 other circumstances, I can doe nothinge but 
 put my mouthe in the dust, and say, it is the 
 Lord ; and though His wayes be not alwayes 
 knowne, yet they are alwayes righteous, and 
 wee must sub mitt to His will, and resigne up 
 ourselves to Him with all our concernements. 
 
 His Highnesse was pleased before his death 
 to declare my Lord Richard successor. He 
 did it upon JMunday ; and the Lord hath soe 
 ordered it, that the Councell and army hath 
 receiv'd him with all manner of affection. He 
 is this day proclaymed; and hitherto there 
 seems a great face of peace ; the Lord continue 
 it! 
 
 It is not to be sayd, what affection the army 
 and all people shew to his late Highnesse ; his 
 name is already precious. Never was there any 
 man soe pray'd for, as he was dureinge his 
 sicknes, solemne assemblie meetinge every day, 
 to beseech the Lord for the continuance of 
 his life ; soe that he is gone to heaven, 
 embalmed with the teares of his people, and 
 upon the winges of the prayers of the saints. 
 He lived desired, and dyed lamented, every 
 body bemoaning themselves, and sayeinge, a 
 great man is fallen in Israel ! The Lord double 
 His spii'it upon his successor and upon your 
 excellencye, that you both may be famous in 
 your generation, and be helped by God with 
 one heart and shoulder to carry on that worke, 
 the foundation whereof your most renowned 
 father layed, for which posterity will blesse 
 hym ! The councell hath given your excellencye 
 an account of what is done as to the proclay- 
 minge his Highnesse your brother. I only 
 herewith send the voet of the councell ; and 
 though I know not what will be my portion or 
 condition here, yet I shall alwayes be your 
 excellencye's most humble and obedient servant, 
 Jo. Thurloe. 
 
 September 4, 1658. 
 
 His Highnesse intends to send a gentleman 
 to your excellencye in the beginninge of the 
 next weeke to let you understand fully the 
 state of all things here, and of your family ; 
 and commanded me to desire you to excuse his 
 not writeinge by this messenger. The truth is, 
 his Highnesse death is soe soare a stroake unto 
 him, and he is soe sensible of it, that he is in 
 
 noe condition to write or doe yet. Here is a 
 sadd family on all hands ; the Lord support 
 them ! 
 
 There is a proclamation actually past for 
 keepeinge on foot all commissions, which will 
 be sent by the next ; there need be noe scruple 
 in the meantyme. 
 
 [Henry Cromwell retired into private life, and 
 died in 1674, Richard, the eldest son of 
 the Protector, and api)ointed to succeed 
 him, did not long hold the reins of govern- 
 ment, but being compelled to abdicate in 
 1659, retired to Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, 
 where he died in 1712.] 
 
 HENRY CROMWELL TO RICHARD CROMWELL, 
 PROTECTOR. 
 
 Sept. 28, 1658. 
 JMay IT PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS,— I received 
 a letter from your Highness by Mr. Underwood, 
 who, according to your comands, hath given me 
 a particular account of the sickness and death 
 of his late Highness my dear father, which was 
 such an amazing stroke that it did deeply 
 affect the heart of every man ; much more may 
 it doe those of a nearer relation. And indeed, 
 for my own part, I am so astonish'd at it, that 
 I know not what to say or write upon this so- 
 sad and grievous occasion. I know it is our 
 duties upon all accounts to give submission to 
 the will of God, and to be awakened by this 
 mighty noise from the Lord to look into our 
 ovm hearts and wayes, and to put our mouths 
 in the dust, acknowledging our own vileness 
 and sinfulness before Him ; that so, if possible, 
 we may thereby yet obtain mercy from Him for 
 ourselves and these poor nations. As this 
 stroke was very stupendous, so the happy news 
 of his late Highness leaving us so hopeful! a 
 foundation for our future peace, in appointing 
 your Highness his successoi', coming along with 
 it to us, did not a little allay the other. For 
 my i)art, I can truly say, I was relieved by it, 
 not only upon the public consideration, but 
 even upon the account of the goodness of God 
 to our poor family, who hath preserved us from 
 the contempt of our enemy. I gave a late 
 account to Mr. Secretary Thurloe of what 
 passed about the iDroclaiming your Highness 
 here, which, I may say withou.t vanity, was with 
 as great joy and general satisfaction as (I believe) 
 in the best affected places in England. I doubt 
 not but to give your Highness as good an 
 account of the rest of the j^laces in Ireland, so 
 soon as the proclamations are returned. I did 
 also give some account of the speedy compliance 
 of the army, whose obedience your Highness 
 
324 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 may jvistly require at my hands. Now, that 
 the God and Father of your late father and 
 mme, and your Highness' predecessor, would 
 support you, and by pouring down a double 
 l)ortion of the same spirit which was so emin- 
 ently upon him, would enable you to walk in 
 his steps, and to do worthily for his name, 
 cause, and people, and continually preserve 
 you in so doing, is and shall be the fervent and 
 dayly prayer of yours, etc. 
 
 JOHN BAEWICK TO CHARLES II. 
 
 I am too short-sighted to write of State 
 affaires, and yet, having this opportunity, I 
 think it my duty to give your Majesty some 
 account of what I conceive the present con- 
 dition of affaires are. About a week before 
 Cromwell's death, he made his son Eichard 
 generalissimo of all the forces both by sea and 
 land ; but it was not till the very day before he 
 dyed that he nominated him his successor, 
 and that so sleightly, as some doubt whether 
 he did it at all. It was justly expected by all 
 men, that a matter of such Aveight should not 
 be done without a formal instrument under 
 hand and seal before the counsell, etc., but 
 those that speak the highest of this, say it was 
 only verball, before Thurloe and one of the 
 commissioners of the great seall ; and those 
 that duly ponder the proclamation, will have 
 cause to think the penner of it did not believe 
 so much. And though hitherto things pass 
 with some smoothness in the former channel, 
 yet there is some underhand muttering already 
 
 j upon this poynt of his succession, which makes 
 them dread the very name of a parliament, and 
 yet they are upon the very poynt of being 
 forced to call one for want of money. Their 
 debts are great, and no other visible way 
 of raysing any competent summe. Whether 
 this be the cause, or his so tamely parting with 
 the generalship of England, at least to Fleet- 
 wood, or both, of young Cromwell's melan- 
 cholic, I know not ; but sure it is, most men 
 say he is sick ; and yet those that are likest to 
 know the disease, say it is chiefly to give way 
 
 I to his counsell to doe what they please, which 
 some of them like well enough. There was 
 some confusion at Whitehall the night before 
 Cromwell's death, though closely conveyed. 
 Some of the grandees, distrusting the place, 
 removed their trunks out of the house. At 
 least six bowers before his death, the fifth- 
 monarchie-mcn sent out their emissaries post 
 into most parts of England, having notice how 
 desperate his condition was. They speak their 
 minds freely already, and have something a 
 brewing in all likelyhood. They have pitched 
 upon Lambert for their general, and Harrison 
 is content with the next command under 
 him. Ever since old Cromwell had his 
 
 eye upon the crown, he hath courted Lambert 
 very much. One office he had was restored, 
 with £2000 arrears, and his estate was promised 
 to be doubled from £3000 per annum to six ; 
 and still they carry fair with him, and have 
 sent him mourning against the funerall. The 
 want of money makes them fall short of their 
 first designe of the funerall pageantrie. At 
 first they proposed to themselves the funerall 
 of K. James for their pattern, and intended to 
 go beyond it ; but second thoughts are wiser. 
 If a parliament come, the fifth-monarchie-men 
 Avill cut them out worke both in the house and 
 field. They hope Fleetwood will be no bitter 
 enemy ; and give out, as if they had Monck's 
 army sure on their side, though not his person. 
 If they have not learned the ... of bragging, 
 there may be some cause of fear, least they 
 get . . . the saddle, and ride us all ; yet 
 some of them say your Majesty wiU need no 
 other sword but their own to make way to your 
 throne, in case they clash in earnest ; for the 
 weaker party will espouse your Majestie's case, 
 and that upon your owne termes, rather than 
 yield to the other. I wish they may be true 
 prophets. And I humbly crave leave to add, that 
 some i?ersons here of good repute for wisdome 
 and fidelity to your Majesty think this will be 
 more sensible, if your ov/n party be not too 
 forward to engage on either side ; and seeing 
 your Majesty having now no visible force on 
 foot, will make them more secure, and conse- 
 quently the more likely to quarrell among 
 themselves. I beseech your Majestic pardon 
 this boldness. I was never cut out for a 
 statesman. If there be anything in it of 
 moment, your Majestie's wisdome may make 
 use of it ; if nothing, I hope your clemency 
 will pardon it. That God would direct your 
 Majestie's counsells, i)rotect your person, and 
 prosper your designes, is a part of the dnyly 
 l^rayer of your Majestie's obscure but most 
 loyall and faithful servant, J. B. 
 
 [Charles Fleetwood, son of Sir William Fleet- 
 wood, a Parliamentary general, was allied 
 to the family of the Cromwells by marrying 
 the daughter of the Protector after the 
 decease of her first husband, Iretonj he 
 was sent as lord-deputy to Ireland, but 
 after Cromwell's death he sided with those 
 who were in favour of his son Eichard's 
 abdication.] 
 
 HENRY CROMWELL TO FLEETWOOD. 
 
 Dear Brother,— I received the account you 
 give of the petition of your officers, for which 
 I give you thanks, and especially for your 
 caution, that I should not believe anything 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 concerning you, till I had heard you. Truly it 
 was seasonable advice ; for I am told strange 
 things ; and pray give me leave to expostulate 
 with you. How came these two or three 
 hundred officers together? If they came of 
 their own heads, the being absent from their 
 charge without licence would have flown in 
 their face, when they petitioned for a due 
 observance of martiall discipline. If they were 
 called together, were they not also taught what 
 to say and do? If they were called, was it 
 with his Highness's privity ? If they met with- 
 out leave in so great a number, were they told 
 their error? I shall not meddle with the 
 matter of their petition, though some things in 
 it do unhandsomely reflect, not only upon his 
 present, but his late Highness. I wish with all 
 my heart you were commander-in-chief of all 
 the forces in the three nations ; but I had 
 rather have it done by his Highness's especial 
 grace and meer motion, than put upon you in 
 a tumultuary, unsoldierly way. But, dear 
 brother, I must tell you (and I cannot do it 
 without tears) I hear, that dirt was thrown 
 uiDon his late Highness at that great meeting. 
 They were exhorted to stand up for that good 
 old cause, which had long lain asleep, etc. I 
 thought my dear father had pursued it to the 
 last. He dyed like a servant of God, and 
 prayed for those that desired to trample upon his 
 dust, for they were also God's people. O dear 
 brother ! let us not render evil for good ; let us 
 not make his memory stink before he is under 
 ground; let us remember his last legacy, and 
 even for his sake render his successor consider- 
 able, and not make him vile, a thing of nought, 
 and a by-word. Oh, whither do these things 
 tend ! Surely God hath a controversy with us. 
 What a hurly-burly is there made ! a hundred 
 Independent ministers called together ! a coun- 
 cill, as you call it, of two or three hundred 
 officers of a judgment ! Eemember what has 
 always befallen imposing spiritts. Will not 
 the loins of an imposing Independent or Ana- 
 baptist be as heavy as the loins of an imposing 
 Prelate or Presbyter? And is it a dangerous 
 error, that dominion is founded in grace, when 
 it is held by the Church of Rome, and a sound 
 principle when it is held by the fifth monarchy? 
 Dear brother, let us not fall into the sins of 
 other men, lest we partake of their plagues. 
 Let it be so carryed, that all the people of God, 
 though under different forms, yea, even those 
 whom you count without, may enjoy their 
 birthright and civil liberty, and that no one 
 party may tread upon the neck of another. It 
 doth not become the magistrate to descend into 
 parties ; but can the things you do tend to 
 this end ? Can those things be done, and the 
 world not think his Highness a knave or a fool, 
 or oppressed with mutinous spirits? O dear 
 brother, my spirit is sorely oppressed with the 
 consideration of the miserable estate of the 
 
 innocent people of these three poor nations ! 
 What have these sheei? done, that their blood 
 should be the price of our lust and ambition ? 
 Let me beg of you to remember how his late 
 Highness loved you, how he honoured you with 
 the highest trust in the world by leaving the 
 sword in your hand which must defend or 
 destroy us ; and his declaring his Highness his 
 successor shews that he left it there to preserve 
 him and his reputation. O brother, use it to 
 curb extravagant spirits and busybodys; but 
 let not the nations be governed by it. Let us 
 take heed of arbitrary power. Let us be 
 governed by the known laws of the land, and 
 let all things be kept in their proper channels ; 
 and let the army be so governed, that the 
 world may never hear of them, unless there be 
 occasion to fight. And truly, brother, you 
 must pardon me, if I say, God and man may 
 require this duty at your hand, and lay all 
 miscarriages in the army, in point of discipline, 
 at your door. You see I deal freely and 
 plainly Avith you, as becomes your friend and 
 a good subject. And the great God, in whose 
 presence I speak this, He knows that I do it 
 not to reproach you, but out of my tender 
 affection and faithf ullness to you ; and you 
 may rest assured, that you shall always find me 
 your true friend and loving brother, 
 
 H. Crojiwell. n 
 
 Oct. 20, 1658. 
 
 [In this indignant protest Derby refused to 
 acknowledge the authority of General 
 Henry Ireton, son-in-laAv of Cromwell, as 
 representing the Commonwealth. Derby 
 was beheaded in 1650 at Bolton-le-Moors, 
 when the island was delivered up to 
 General Fairfax, who held it nine years. 
 The House of Derby again regained posses- 
 sion of the island at the restoration of the 
 Stuarts. The lordship of the island passed 
 to the Atholl family in 1736 ; the privileges 
 of the ducal family were finally purchased 
 by the Imperial government in 1S29 for 
 £416,000.] 
 
 JAMES, EARL OF DERBY, TO COMMISSARY- 
 GENERAL IRETON. 
 
 In ansiver to the Summons to deliver tip the 
 Isle of Man. 
 
 Sir, — I have received your letter with 
 indignation, and with scorn return you this 
 answer, that I cannot but wonder whence 
 you should gather any hopes that I should 
 prove like you, treacherous to my sovereign ; 
 since you cannot be ignorant of the manifest 
 
326 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 candour of my former actings in his late Majesty's 
 service, from which principles of loyalty 1 am 
 not a whit departed. I scorn your proffer ; I 
 disdain your favour ; I abhor your treason ; 
 and am so far from delivering up this island to 
 your advantage, that I shall keep it to the 
 utmost of my power, and, I hope, to your 
 destruction. Take this for your final answer, 
 and forbear any further solicitations ; for if you 
 trouble me with any more messages of this 
 nature, I will burn your paper, and hang up 
 your messenger. This is the immutable resolu- 
 tion, and shall be the undoubted practice, of 
 him who accounts it his chiefest glory to 
 be his Majesty's most loyal and obedient 
 subject, 
 
 Derby, 
 
 From CastLc-Town, this 12th of July 1049. 
 
 CHARLES II. TO THE DUKE OF YORK. 
 
 Cologne, Nov. 10, 1G54. 
 
 Dear Brother, — I have received yours 
 without a date, in which you mention that 
 Mr. Montague has endeavoured to pervert you 
 in your religion. I do not doubt but you 
 remember very well the commands I left mth 
 you at my going away concerning that point, 
 and am confident you will observe them. Yet 
 the letters that come from Paris say, that it 
 is the queen's purpose to doe all she can to 
 change your religion, which, if you hearken to 
 her, or anybody else in that matter, you must 
 never thinke to see England or me again ; and 
 whatsoever mischiefe shall fall on me or my 
 affairs from this time, I mvist lay all upon you 
 as being the only cause of it. Therefore, con- 
 sider well what it is, not only to be the cause 
 of ruineing a brother that loves you so well, 
 but also of your king and cou.ntry. Doe not 
 let them perswade you either by force or faire 
 promises ; for the first they neither dare, nor 
 will use ; and for the second, as soon as they 
 have i:)erverted you, they will have their end, 
 and will care no more for you. 
 
 I am also informed that there is a purport 
 to put you in the Jesuits' CoUedge, which I 
 command you upon the same grounds never to 
 consent unto. And whensoever anybody shall 
 goe to dispute with you in religion, • doe not 
 answer them at all ; for though you have the 
 reason on your side, yet they being i^repared, 
 will have the advantage of anybody that is 
 not upon the same security that they are. 
 If you do not consider what I say to you, 
 remember the last words of your dead father, 
 which were, to be constant to your religion, 
 and never to be shaken in it. Which if you 
 doe not observe, this shall be the last time 
 you will ever hear from, dear brotlier, your 
 most affectionate brother, Charles E. 
 
 len Johnson claimed for Temple the merit 
 of being the first writer who gave a cadence 
 to English prose, he showed a forgetful- 
 ness of our elder literature, of which the 
 only parallel is aflforded by his criticism 
 of Waller. Hume, with greater justice, 
 commends the agreeableness of his manner ; 
 and Mackintosh, its modern air. The 
 first, however, admits his negligence, and 
 the second his foreign idioms. Of all his 
 productions, the Essay on Poetry is the 
 best known, and most deserving of perusal. 
 The thoughts are frequently beautiful, 
 and the style is easy and harmonious, A 
 passage in this treatise has been pointed 
 out as the probable origin of one of the 
 most exquisite images in the poetry of 
 Gray— 
 
 ' Yet oft before his infant eyes would run 
 Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray, 
 Witli orient hues unborrow'd of the sun. 
 
 ' There must be a sprightly imagination 
 or fancy ranging over infinite ground, 
 piercing into every corner, and by the 
 light of that true poetical fire, discovering 
 a thousand little bodies or images in the 
 mind, and similitudes among them, unseen 
 to common eyes, and which could not be 
 discovered without the rays of that sun,' 
 
 Evelyn mentions Temple's residence at 
 Sheen with great praise in his Diary: — 
 ' 27th Aug. (1678).— I took leave of the 
 duke, and dined at Mr. Hen. Brouncker's, 
 at the Abbey of Sheen, formerly a monas- 
 tery of Carthusians, there yet remaining 
 some of their solitary cells, with a cross. 
 Within this ample enclosure are several 
 pretty villas and fine gardens of the most 
 excellent fruits, especially Sir W. Temj)le's 
 (lately ambassador into Holland), and the 
 Lord Lisle's, son to the Earl of Leicester, 
 who has divers rare pictures ; above all, 
 that of Sir Brien Tuke's, by Holbein.' 
 And again, March 29, 1687 : * After dinner 
 we went to see Sir Wm. Temple's near to 
 it, where the most remarkable things are his 
 orangery and gardens, where the wall-fruit 
 trees are most exquisitely nailed and trained, 
 far better than I ever noted.' — Willmott.] 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE TO SIR JOHN TEMPLE. 
 
 Sir,— After so hard and so long a journey, 
 I thought you would be glad to knoAV I was 
 well again in my former station, and what was 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the occasion of my leaving it so suddenly and 
 
 0 privately, that I could not acquaint any of 
 y friends with it before I went, which now 
 am at liberty to entertain you with. 
 
 This winter has passed with much noise, 
 ..ride by the Bishop of Munster in his enterprise 
 ^ainst Holland, with some attempts, but little 
 xcess. The fault he has laid in some degree 
 V>on the marquis here, for refusing to suffer 
 e Duke of Bornoville to go and command his 
 oops, which he durst not consent to, for fear 
 giving too much offence to the French and 
 .e Dutch, at a time when the Spaniards here 
 . e in ill condition for a quarrel ; but the bishop's 
 -:ief complaints have been want of those sums of 
 cney, stipulated by his Majesty to be furnished 
 .im both before and after his taking the field, 
 ar excuses upon the loss of the ships with 
 in before Ostend, though they may serve to 
 ; ; ep us in countenance, yet they will not pay 
 forces in the field, which he has often threatened 
 these three months past must break tip without 
 speedy supi)lies. In the meantime, his neigh- 
 bouring i:)rinces of the empire, especially the 
 electors of Ments and Brandenburg, with the 
 Duke of Nieuburgh, seeing a flame broke out, 
 which must draw foreign armies into the 
 empire, both French and Dutch, have used 
 first all offices they could to prevail with the 
 bishop to make his peace with Holland, engaged 
 the emperor himself in the same endeavours, 
 and finding him steady to his treaty with the 
 King, at last the Duke of Brandenburg drew 
 his forces into the field, resolved to compel 
 him by joining with the Dutch, if he could not 
 persuade him to make the peace, and the Duke 
 of Nieuburgh prepared to second him in this 
 design ; the French were not wanting in their 
 offices to the same ends ; so that a private 
 agreement was made about the beginning of 
 this month, for the French, Dutch, and Munster 
 envoys to meet at Cleve, and there treat the 
 peace under the mediation of the Elector of 
 Brandenburg. 
 
 As soon as the King received this alarm, he 
 sent an express immediately to command me 
 away the instant I received it, with a com- 
 mission to the Bishop of Munster, and with 
 instructions to do all I could possibly to hinder 
 the peace, and with bills of exchange to 
 revive his payments which had been long 
 intermitted, and promise of more to be 
 remitted every post, which I was to order into 
 his agent's hands here in my absence. 
 
 I went accordingly, acquainting none with 
 my going but the marquis here, who gave me 
 twenty of his own guards, with command to 
 follow absolutely all orders I should give them. 
 
 1 was to pass through a great deal of the 
 Spanish country, much infested with Dutch 
 parties, more of the Duke of Nieuburgh's, and 
 more yet of the Brandenburgers, who I know 
 were all enemies to the affair I went upon. 
 
 and therefore thought it best to pass for a 
 Spanish envoy sent from the Marquess Castel 
 Eodrigo to the Emperor, and charged my small 
 guard and cornet that commanded them to 
 keep true to this note. And some of my ser- 
 vants, as most of the guards speaking Spanish, 
 I spoke nothing else unless in private, or when 
 I was forced out of it by some incident. 
 
 In this guise I came to Duseldorp, where the 
 Duke of Nieuburgh happened to be (contrary 
 to what I had been informed) ; as soon as I 
 was in my inn, one of his officers came to know 
 who I was, and whither I was going, and would 
 not be satisfied by the common answer from 
 my servants and guards, but would receive it 
 from me ; when he came uj), tho' with much 
 civility, yet he prest me so far, that I found 
 there was no feigning with him, and so bid him 
 tell the duke, that within an hour I would 
 come and give him an account both of myself 
 and my journey. I remembered the great 
 kindness that had ever interceded between 
 his Majesty and this prince ; and tho' I went 
 upon an errand that I knew was disagreeable 
 to him, yet I thought he would be less likely 
 to cross me, if I acquainted him frankly with 
 it, than if I disguised scurvily as I was likely 
 to do, being the thing of the world I could do 
 the most uneasily. 
 
 I had a letter of credence, which I brought 
 out of England at my first coming over, for 
 this prince; but passing another way to 
 Munster, I had not used it, and so resolved 
 to do it now ; I did so, gave it him, told him 
 my errand, how much his Majesty reckoned 
 upon his friendshij), and desired his good 
 offices to the Bishop of Blunster in the design 
 I went upon, of keeping him firm to his treaties 
 with the King my master. 
 
 This duke is in my opinion the finest gentle- 
 man of any German I have seen, and deserves 
 much better fortune than he is in ; being small, 
 very much broken, and charged with a very 
 numerous issue ; he seems about fifty years 
 old, tall, lean, very good mien, but more like 
 an Italian than a German. All he says is civil, 
 well-bred, honneste, plain, easy, and has an 
 air of truth and honour. He made great pro- 
 fessions of kindness and respect to the King, 
 was sorry he could not serve him in this 
 affair, his engagements were already taken 
 with the emperor and his neighbour princes 
 for making the Munster peace, and by that 
 means keeping war out of the empire. He 
 doubted I could not serve his Majesty \ipon 
 this errand neither ; for, he first believed I 
 could not get safe to Munster, the ways being 
 all full of Dutch and Brandenburg parties, who 
 had notice of the King's intention to send away 
 to the bishop upon this occasion ; and if I 
 should arrive, he believed however I should 
 find the peace signed before I came. 
 
 My answer was short, for I was very weary ; 
 
328 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 that go I would, however I succeeded ; that for 
 the danger of the journey I kncAV no providing 
 against it, but a very good guide who might 
 lead me through ways the most unfrequented ; 
 that I would desire his Highness to give me 
 one of his own guards to conduct me, because 
 none would expect a person going upon my 
 design would have one in his livery for a 
 guide ; and I desired he would let me pass as 
 I had done hitherto in a journey for a Spanish 
 envoy. The duke, after some diflficulties at 
 first (which we turned into pleasantries) com- 
 plyed with me in all. I took my leave, and 
 went away early next morning. 
 
 I never travelled a more savage country, over 
 cruel hills, through many great and thick 
 woods, stony and rapid streams, never hardly 
 in any highway, and very few villages, till I 
 came near Dortmund, a city of the emj)ire, and 
 within a day's journey, or something more, of 
 Munster. The night I came to Dortmund was 
 so advanced when I arrived, that the gates were 
 shut ; and with all our eloquence, which was as 
 moving as we could, we were not able to pre- 
 vail to have them opened : they advised us to 
 go to a village about a league distant, where, 
 they said, we might have lodging. When we 
 came there, we found it all taken up with a 
 troop of Brandenburg horse, so as the poor 
 Spanish envoy was fain to eat what he could 
 get in a barn, and to sleep upon a heap of 
 straw, and lay my head upon my page instead 
 of a pillow. The best of it was, that he, under- 
 standing Dutch, heard one of the Brandenburg 
 ! soldiers coming into the barn examine some of 
 my guards about me and my journey, which 
 when he was satisfied of, he asked if he had 
 heard nothing upon the way of an English 
 envoy that was expected ; the fellow said, he 
 was upon the way, and might be at Dortmund 
 within a day or two, with which he was 
 satisfied, and I slept as well as I could. 
 
 The next morning I went into Dortmund, 
 and hearing there that, for five or six leagues 
 round, all was full of Brandenburg troops, I 
 dispatch'd away a German gentleman I had in 
 my train with a letter to the Bishop of Munster, 
 to let him know the i^lace and condition I was 
 in, and desire he would send me guards imme- 
 diately, and strong enough to convoy me. The 
 night following my messenger returned, and 
 brought me word that by eight o'clock the 
 morning after a commander of the bishop's 
 would come in sight of the town, at the head 
 of twelve hundred horse, and desired I would 
 come and join them so soon as they appeared : 
 I did so ; and after an easie march till four 
 o'clock, I came to a castle of the bishop's, where 
 I was received by Lieutenant-General Gorgas, 
 a Scotchman in that service, who omitted 
 nothing of honour or entertainment that could 
 be given me. There was nothing here remark- 
 able, but the most episcopal way of drinking 
 
 that could be invented. As soon as we came in 
 the great hall, where stood many flaggons ready 
 charged, the general called for wine to drink 
 the King's health ; they brought him a formal 
 bell of silver gilt, that might hold about two 
 quarts or more : he took it empty, pulled out 
 the clapper, and gave it me who he intended to 
 drink to ; then had the bell filled, drank it off 
 to his Majesty's health, then asked me for the 
 clapper, put it in, turned down the bell, and 
 rung it out to show he had play'd fair, and left 
 nothing in it ; took out the clapper, desired me 
 to give it to whom I pleased ; then gave his 
 bell to be filled again, and brought it to me. I 
 that never used to drink, and seldom would 
 try, had commonly some gentlemen with me 
 that served for that purpose when 'twas neces- 
 sary : and so I had the entertainment of seeing 
 this health go current through about a dozen 
 hands, with no more share in it than just what 
 I pleased. 
 
 The next day after noon, about a league 
 from Munster, the bishop met me at the head 
 of four thousand horse, and, in appearance, 
 brave troops. Before his coach, that drove 
 very fast, came a guard of a hundred Heydukes, 
 that he had brought from the last campaign in 
 Hungary : they were in short coats and caps, 
 all of a broAvn colour, every man carrying a 
 sabre by his side, a short pole-ax before him, 
 and a skrewed gun hanging at his back by a 
 leather belt that went cross his shoulder. In 
 this posture they run almost full speed, and in 
 excellent order, and were said to shoot two 
 hundred yards v/ith their skrew'd gun, and a 
 bullet of the bigness of a large pea, into the 
 breadth of a dollar or crown-jiiece. When the 
 coach came within forty yards of me, it stopt ; 
 I saw the bishop and his general, the Prince 
 d'Homberg, come out ; upon which I alighted 
 so as to meet him between my horses and his 
 coach : after compliments, he would have me 
 go into his coach, and sit alone at the back end, 
 reserving the t'other to himself and his general: 
 I excused it, saying, I came without character ; 
 but he replied, that his agent had writ him 
 word, I brought a commission, which stiled me 
 oratorem nostrum (as was true), and that he 
 knew what was due to that stile from a great 
 king. I never was nice in taking any honour 
 that was offered to the King's character, and 
 so easily took this ; but from it, and a reception 
 so extraordinary, began immediately to make 
 an ill presage of my business, and to think of 
 the Spanish proverb : 
 
 ' Quien te hase mas Corte que no suele hazer 
 Ote ha d'engaiinar etc ha uienester.' 
 
 And with these thoughts, and in this posture, 
 I entered Munster, and was conducted by the 
 bishop to a lodging prepared for me in one of 
 the canons' houses. 
 
 The bishop would have left me immediately 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 329 
 
 rafter he brought me to my chamber ; but I told 
 him I could not let him go without asking an 
 hour of audience that very evening : he would 
 have excused it upon respect and weariness, 
 and much compliment; but I persisted in it, 
 unless he would chuse to sit down where we 
 Avere, and enter upon affairs without ceremony. 
 He was at last contented; and I said all I 
 could towards my end of keeping him to the 
 faith of his treaty with the King, to the pursuit 
 of the war till both consented to the peace, and 
 to the expectations of the money that was due : 
 he answered me, with the necessities had forced 
 him to treat, from the failing of his payments, 
 the violences of his neighbour princes, and the 
 last instances of the emperor; but that he 
 would, upon my coming, dispatch one imme- 
 diately to Cleve, to command his ministers to 
 make a stop in their treaty till they received 
 further orders, which I should be master of. 
 
 I went to supper after he left me, but was 
 told enough privately to spoil it before I sat 
 down, which was that the treaty was signed at 
 Cleve, tho' I took no notice of it, because I 
 knew if it were so, being angry would hurt 
 nobody but my master or myself. 
 
 Next day the bishop made me a mighty feast 
 among all his chief officers, where we sat for 
 four hours, and in bravery I drank fair like all 
 the rest ; and observed that my Spanish cornet 
 and I that never used it, yet came off in better 
 order than any of the company. I was very 
 sick after I came to my lodging ; but he got a 
 horseback on purpose to show himself about the 
 town, while the rest of the company were out 
 of sight all the afternoon. The day after was 
 agreed to give me an account of the affair of 
 Cleve, upon the return of the bishop's express 
 after my arrival ; and at an audience in the 
 evening, with great pretence of trouble and 
 grief he confest the treaty was signed, and so 
 , past remedy, and that it had been so before his 
 ' express arrived, tho' much against his expecta- 
 I tion, as he profest ; I am sure 'twas not against 
 mine ; for I left Brussels in the belief that I 
 should certainly find all concluded ; which 
 made my journey much harder than it could 
 have been with any hopes of succeeding. 
 
 I told him, when I found all ended, and no 
 hopes of retrieving it, that I would be gone 
 i within a day or two, and would take my leave 
 \ of him that night, being not well, and needing 
 some rest before I began my journey. He said 
 and did all that could be to persuade my stay 
 till I had represented his reasons to the King, 
 and received an answer ; and I found his design 
 was to keep me as long as he could, while his 
 agent at Brussels received bills of exchange 
 from England that were ordered him in my 
 absence ; so that I knew not how much every 
 day's stay would cost the King, and that no 
 other service was to be done his Majesty in this 
 affair, besides saving as much of his money as I 
 
 could. The bishop finding me immoveable, 
 advised me, however, in pretended kindness, to 
 go by Collen, which, though four or five days 
 about, would be the only way that was left for 
 me with any safety, the Dutch and Branden- 
 burgers having posted themselves on purpose 
 to attend my return upon all the other roads ; 
 and he offered me Colonel Ossory, an Irish 
 gentleman in his service, to conduct me : I seemed 
 to accept all, and to be obliged by his care, but 
 wished myself well out of it, and took my leave, 
 though he pretended to see me again next day. 
 
 I Avent home, and instead of going to bed, as 
 I gave out, I laid my journey so as to be on 
 horseback next morning betAveen three and four 
 o'clock, ui)on Good Friday, which I thought 
 might help to make my journey less suspected : 
 I fee'd the officer that opened the gates for me, 
 to keep them shut two hours longer than usual 
 that morning (which I hear was performed), and 
 so committed myself to the conduct of the 
 Duke of Nieiiburg's guide, to lead me the 
 shortest way he could into some place belonging 
 to his master. I rode hard, and without any 
 stop, to a village eight leagues from IMunster, 
 and just upon the borders of the Brandenburg 
 country : there I baited, and pretended to go to 
 bed and stay all night ; but in an hour's time 
 having got fresh horses ready for foiu- men that 
 I pretended to send before me, I put on a 
 cassaque of one of the Marquis's guards, and 
 with my page, the Duke of Nieuburg's guard, and 
 Colonel Masjette, a Flemish officer in the Munster 
 service, I took horse at the back door of my inn, 
 while the rest of my company thought me in bed, 
 and resolved to ride as far as I could the rest 
 of that day, leaving my steward to follow me 
 the next with the rest of my train and guards. 
 
 I rode till eight at night, through the wildest 
 country and most unfrequented ways that ever 
 I saw, but being then quite spent, and ready to 
 fall from my horse, I was forced to stop and lay 
 me down upon the ground, till my guard went 
 to a peasant's house in sight, to find if there 
 were any lodging for me ; he brought me word 
 there was none, nor any provisions in the house, 
 nor could find anything but a little bottle of 
 juniper water, which is the common cordial in 
 that country ; I drunk a good deal, and with it 
 found my spirits so revived, that I resolved to 
 venture upon the three leagues that remained 
 of my journey, so as to get into the territories 
 of Nieuburg, having passed all the way since I 
 left my train through those of Bi-andenburg, 
 whose engagements with the Dutch left me no 
 safety while I was there. About midnight I 
 came to my lodging, which was so miserable 
 that I lay upon straw, got on horseback by 
 break of day, and to Duseldorj) by noon ; 
 where, being able to ride no further, I went to 
 bed for an hour, sent to make my excuses to 
 the Duke of Nieuburg upon my haste and 
 weariness, and to borrow his coach to carry me 
 
330 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 to Ruremonde, wliich was a long clay's journey. 
 This prince sent me his coach and his com- 
 pliments, with all the civility in the world : I 
 went away that afternoon, got to Ruremonde 
 the next, and from thence hither, not without 
 great danger of the Dutch parties even in the 
 Spanish country : and so have ended the hard- 
 est journey that ever I made in my life, or ever 
 shall ; for such another I do not think I could 
 ever bear with a body no stronger than mine. 
 
 At my return, I have had the fortune to stop 
 several bills of exchange, that would otherwise 
 have fallen into the hands of the bishop's agent 
 here, and to forbid the x>fiyn"ient of the rest he 
 received in my absence, wliich though accepted 
 by the merchants at Antwerp, yet were not 
 satisfied, the time having not expired at which 
 they were payable. And this service to the 
 King is all the satisfaction I have by this 
 adventure, which has ended the whole affair of 
 Munster, that has of late made so much noise, 
 and raised so much expectation in the world. — 
 I am, sir, your, etc. 
 
 Brussels, May 10, S.N. IGGG. 
 
 TO- THE SAME. 
 
 Sir, — Though I doubt our late motions may 
 have lost or delay'd some of your letters, which 
 we have now been some time in want of ; yet I 
 presume ours have had their constant course to 
 you, though from several parts ; and though mine 
 have not been frequent, ujion the permission 
 you give me to spare my own eyes and time, 
 when they are otherwise taken up, and trust 
 to my sister's entertaining you ; yet, upon my 
 return home, after three years' absence, I 
 could not but give you some account of my 
 coming and stay here ; and of what I can fore- 
 see is like to follow it, both as to my own 
 particular, and to the public affairs, in which 
 that seems at present to be so much involved. 
 
 After the conclusion of the triple alliance, 
 and the peace of Aix, I was at an end of my 
 ambition ; having seen Flanders saved as if it 
 had been by one of the miracles the house of 
 Austria has, they say, been used to ; and the 
 general interests of Christendom secured against 
 the power and attempts of France ; and at the 
 same time the consideration and honour of his 
 Majesty and his crown abroad, raised to a 
 degree it had not been in for some ages past, 
 and we had no reason to expect should be in 
 some ages to come, upon the decline it felt after 
 the business of Chatham, and the peace of 
 Breda that succeeded it. I returned from Aix 
 to Brussels without other thoughts than of 
 continuing in that station till I grew wearier 
 of it than I was like to do very suddenly, of a 
 place I confess I love ; but immediately upon 
 my arrival there, I met with letters from my 
 Lord Arlington, which brought me the King's 
 orders to continue the equipage of an ambassa- 
 
 dor that I was in upon my Aix journey, in 
 order to my serving his Majesty in the same 
 character at the Hague, whither he was resolved 
 to send me, and to renew ujion occasion of our 
 late alliances a character which the crown of 
 England had discontinued in that country 
 since King James' time. In order hereunto I 
 was left at liberty to take my leave of the 
 Marquis, and to return into England as soon 
 as I pleased, which I did by the way of Holland, 
 and left most of my servants and horses at 
 Utrecht. 
 
 Upon my arrival here I was received both by 
 the King and court a great deal better than I 
 could deserve or pretend ; but j)eople seem 
 generally pleased Avith the councils and negotia- 
 tions, in which I have had so much part since 
 Christmas last ; and I understand not courts 
 so ill (how little soever I have been used to 
 them) as not to know that one ought not to 
 lose the advantage of common opinion of some 
 merits or good hitts at one's back, if one's 
 business be de 2Jousser sa fortune, and I am 
 put enough in mind of it upon this occasion, 
 by several of those many hew friends one would 
 think I had at this time of day, as well as by 
 some of my old ones; but I cannot imagine 
 why I should pretend to have deserved more 
 than my pay of the King, for which I served 
 him in my late employments ; and if I got 
 honour by them, 'twas so much more than I 
 had to reckon upon. Besides, I should be soiTy 
 to ask money of him at a time when, for aught 
 I can judge by the cry of the court, he wants 
 it more than I do. The Spanish ambassador 
 and Baron d'Isola, as well as others of my 
 friends, would needs be asking a title for me, 
 and 'tis with difficulty enough that I have 
 prevented it ; but 'tis that I am sure I never 
 can have a mind to, and if it should ever be 
 offered me, I resolve it shall either begin with 
 you, if you desire it, if not, with my son, 
 which I had much rather. But I suppose, 
 nothing of this can happen in our court with- 
 out pursuit, and so I reckon myself in all these 
 points just where I was about six months ago, 
 but only designed for another embassy, and no 
 man knows how that will end. I am very 
 much press'd to dispatch my preparations for 
 it, by my Lord Keeper and Lox'd Arlington, 
 who are extream kind to me, as well as to the 
 measures lately taken by their ministry, and 
 seem to value themselves a great deal upon 
 them. They say, all the business the King now 
 has, both at home and abroad, will turn upon 
 my hand in Holland, by keeping the French 
 from breaking in upon our late alliances, and 
 the confidence between us ; and by drawing the 
 Emperor and the princes of the empire into a 
 common guaranty of a peace ; and thereupon 
 they are mighty earnest with me to hasten 
 away. On t'other side, the Commissioners of 
 the Treasury seem to have more mind to my 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 company liere than I could expect ; for after 
 some of them had tried to hinder the King's 
 resolution, of sending either an ambassador at 
 all into Holland (ui^on ijretence of so long disuse 
 of that character) or me in particular; when 
 that could not be carried, they prepared my 
 vay by entering upon new regulations in the 
 exchequer, among which, those concerning 
 foreign employments, brought down the equi- 
 page money of ambassadors from three thousand 
 pounds, as it has been since the King came in, 
 to fifteen hundred pounds in France and Spain, 
 and to one thousand pounds in all other courts ; 
 and their allowance from one hundred pounds a 
 week to ten pounds a day in France and Spain, 
 and to seven in other places. Though this be 
 pretended by the commissioners as only a piece 
 of a general scheme of parsimony, they find 
 necessary in the present condition of the 
 revenue, yet I understand it as calculated 
 just at this time particularly for me ; and my 
 Lord Arlington confesses he thinks it so too, 
 and takes part in it as a piece of envy or 
 malice to himself as well as to me, from some 
 who are spited at all that has lately passed 
 between us and Holland, and at the persons 
 who have been at the head of those councils. 
 For rny part, I resent it not only as a thing I have 
 not deserved, upon an employment cast wholly 
 upon me by the King's choice, and, as he seems 
 to think, by the necessity, of his affairs ; but as 
 that which I find plainly, by the short exper- 
 ience of my last embassy, will not defray the 
 expence of another, with any honour to the 
 King or myself abroad ; and though I do not 
 pretend to make my fortune by these employ- 
 ments, yet I confess I do not pretend to ruin 
 it neither. I have therefore been resolved 
 several times absolutely to refuse this embassy, 
 unless it be upon the terms all others have had ; 
 but my Lord Arlington puts so much weight 
 upon my going, that he will not hear of it ; he 
 says, 'tis that our good friends would have, and 
 intend by this usage ; and that I can no way 
 disappoint them so much as by going, and that 
 this rule will be broken in three months' time ; 
 that I should not consider small matters of 
 money in the course of my fortune, and that 
 the King cannot fail of making mine at a lump 
 one time or other ; that there is nothing I may 
 not expect from him upon my return from this 
 embassy ; and that if his Majesty had not 
 thought me of absolute necessity to him in 
 Holland upon this conjuncture, he had brought 
 -me now into Secretaiy Morris's place, which 
 upon my going abroad is designed for Sir John 
 Trevor. My Lord Keeper is of the same mind, 
 to have me by no means refuse it (as he says) 
 neither for the King's sake nor my own ; and your 
 old friend Sir Kobert Long agrees with them 
 both ; and says, after a year or two of this em- 
 bassy, I cannot fail of being either Secretary of 
 State, or sent ambassador into Spain, which are 
 
 both certain ways of making any man's fortune. 
 "\Tith all this, I confess I find it not very easy 
 to resolve, and very much desire yours and 
 my brother's opinion upon it ; and that you 
 may the better give it me, I shall tell you one 
 circumstance which weighs a little with me, 
 though not at all with my friends here. They 
 are all of opinion, the measures the King has 
 lately taken cannot be broken nor altered, 
 however they may be snarled at by some 
 persons, upon particular envy or interest ; but 
 I see plainly there are others of another mind. 
 Sir Thomas Clifford said to a friend of mine in 
 confidence, upon all the joy that was here at 
 the conclusion of the Triple Alliance, ' "Well, 
 for all this noise, we must have yet another 
 war with the Dutch before it be long.' And I 
 see plainly already, that he and Sir George 
 Downing are endeavouring with all the industry 
 that can be, to engage the East India Company 
 here in such demands and i:)retensions upon the 
 Dutch, as Avill never be yielded to on that side, 
 and will increase a jealousy they will ever 
 have of our unsteady councils, and of our 
 leaving still a door open for some new offences 
 Avhen we shall have a mind to take them. On 
 t'other side, the French wall leave no stone 
 unturned to break this confidence between us 
 and Holland, which spoils all their measures, 
 and without which tliey had the world before 
 them. If they can, they will undermine it in 
 Holland by jealousies of the Prince of Orange, 
 or any other artifice, and will spare neither 
 l^romises nor threats. If I should be able to 
 keej) that side staunch, they will spare none of 
 the same endeavours here, and will have some 
 good helps that I see already, and may have 
 others that do not yet appear. If by any of 
 these ways, or other accidents, our present 
 measures come to chaiige, I am left in Holland 
 to a certain loss, upon the terms they would 
 send me, though I should be jjaid, but to a 
 certain ruin if I should not ; which I may well 
 expect from the good quarter I may reckon 
 upon from some in the Treasury ; and when my 
 embassy ends, I may find a new world here, and 
 all the fine things I am told 6f may prove 
 castles in the air. There is, I know, a great 
 deal to be said for my going, but on t'other 
 side, I am well as I am, and cannot be ruined 
 but by such an adventure as this. I beg of you 
 to let me know your opinion upon the whole ; 
 and if I could have the confidence, I should beg 
 a great deal more earnestly that I might see 
 you here, since I cannot get loose to wait on 
 you there. Till I hear from you, I shall let the 
 talk and the forms of my embassy go on, and 
 am confident, however they presume, yet I can 
 spin out the time of my going till about the end 
 of August, in hopes of seeing you here ; which 
 will be, I am sure, the greatest satisfaction that 
 can befall, sir, yours, etc. 
 Shcm, July 22, 1668. 
 
332 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 LORD LISLE TO SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 
 
 Sir, — Since I had your last letter, I have 
 made you no acknowledgment of it ; a retire- 
 ment is in several respects like the night of 
 one's life, in the obscurity and darkness, and in 
 the sleepiness and dosedness ; which I mention 
 to put you in mind that I am only by my 
 posture of life apt to be failing towards you. 
 
 What is of court or assemblies near us is at 
 my Lord Crofts's. Sir Thomas Ingram this 
 summer hath made no noise at all. Old Lady 
 Devonshire keeps up her feasts still ; and that 
 hath been of late Mi'. "Waller's chief theatre ; 
 the assembly of wits at Mr. Comptroller's will 
 scarce let him in ; and poor Sir John Denham 
 is fallen to the ladies also ; he is at many of the 
 meetings at dinners, talks more than ever he 
 did, and is extremely pleased with those that 
 seem willing to hear him ; and from that 
 obligation exceedingly praises the Duchess of 
 ]Monmouth and my Lady Cavendish ; if he had 
 not the name of being mad, I believe in most 
 companies he would be thought wittier than 
 ever he was ; he seems to have few extrava- 
 gancies, besides that of telling stories of himself, 
 which he is always inclin'd to ; some of his 
 acquaintance say that extream vanity was a 
 cause of his madness as well as it is an effect. 
 
 All persons of note hereabouts are going to 
 their winter quarters at London. The burning 
 of the city begins to be talk'd of as a story like 
 that of the burning of Troy. At Sheen we are 
 like to be bare : Lady Luddal seems uncertain 
 in her stay ; and we hear that when Sir James 
 Sheen and his lady were ready to come from 
 Ireland, great cramps took my lady in her 
 limbs ; and Sir James' servants doubt whether 
 we shall see him this winter. 
 
 I desire, sir, your leave to kiss my Lady 
 Temi)le's hands, and my Lady Giffard's hands 
 by your letter. My daughter and I were in 
 dispute which of us two should write this time 
 to Brussels ; and because I was judged to have 
 more leisure it fell to me, and my Lady Temple 
 is to have the next from her. 
 
 I wish you, sir, all good successes in your 
 businesses, and am, your very affectionate 
 servant, LiSLE. 
 
 September 2G, 1667. 
 
 THE EARL OF ROCHESTER TO THE HONOURABLE 
 HENRY SAVILLE. 
 
 Dear Saville,— 'Tis neither pride or neglect 
 (for I am not of the new council, and I love 
 you sincerely), but idleness on one side, and not 
 knowing what to say on the other, has hindered 
 me from writing to you, after so kind a letter 
 and the present you sent me, for which I 
 return you at last my humble thanks. Changes 
 in this place are so frequent that F himself 
 
 can now no longer give an account why this 
 was done to-day, or what will ensue to-morrow ; 
 and accidents are so extravagant that my Lord 
 
 W intending to lie, has, with a prophetick 
 
 spirit, once told truth. Every man in this 
 court thinks he stands fair for minister ; some 
 give it to Shaftsbury, others to Hallifax ; but 
 
 Mr. Waller says S does all ; I am sure my 
 
 Lord A does little, which your Excellence 
 
 will easily believe. And now the war in Scot- 
 land takes up all the discourse of politick 
 persons. His Grace of Lauderdale values 
 himself uiDon the rebellion, and tells the King 
 it is very auspicious and advantageous to the 
 drift of the present councils ; the rest of the 
 Scots, and especially D. H , are very in- 
 quisitive after news fi-om Scotland, and really 
 make a handsome figure in this conjuncture at 
 London. What the D. of Monmouth will 
 effect is now the general expectation, who 
 took i3ost unexpectedly, left all that had 
 offered their service in this expedition in the 
 lurch, and, being attended only by Sir Thomas 
 
 Armstrong and Mr. C , will, without 
 
 question, have the full glory as well of the 
 prudential as the military part of this action 
 intire to himself. The most profound poli- 
 ticians have weighty brows and careful aspects 
 at present, upon a report crept abroad that 
 Mr. Langhorn, to save his life, offers a dis- 
 coveiy of priests' and Jesuits' lands, to the 
 value of fourscore and ten thousand pounds a 
 year ; which being accepted, it is feared 
 partisans and undertakers will be found out to 
 advance a considerable sum of money upon this 
 fund, to the utter interruption of parliaments, 
 and the destruction of many hopeful designs. 
 This, I must call God to witness, was never 
 
 hinted to me in the least by Mr. P , to 
 
 whom I beg you will give me your hearty 
 recommendations. Thus much to afford you a 
 taste of my serious abilities, and to let you 
 know I have a great goggle-eye to business ; and 
 now I cannot deny you a share in the high 
 satisfaction I have received at the account 
 which flourishes here of your high protestancy 
 at Paris ; Charenton was never so honoured, as 
 since your residence and ministry in France, to 
 that degree, that it is not doubted if the parlia- 
 ment be sitting at your return, or otherwise the 
 mayor and common council will petition the 
 King you may be dignified with the title of 
 that place, by way of earldom or dukedom, as 
 his Majesty shall think most proper to give, or 
 you accept. 
 
 I thank God there is yet a Harry Saville in 
 England, with whom I drank your health last 
 week at Sir William Coventry's, and who in 
 features, proportion, and pledging, gives me 
 so lively an idea of yourself, that I am resolved < 
 to retire into Oxfordshire, and enjoy him till 
 Shiloe come, or you from France. 
 
 EOCHESIER. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 333 
 
 [Etheredge, in a notice of his life, is said to 
 have painted his own portrait in Sir 
 Fopling Flutter, and that of his friend 
 Eochester in Dorimant ; but Lockyer, dean 
 of Peterborough, an excellent story-teller, 
 and who noted down everything he heard, 
 considered the poet to have designed 
 Doriraant for his own picture. The comedy 
 was condemned by Steele in the Spectator, 
 where it was pronounced to be 'nature, 
 but nature ia its utmost corruption and 
 degradation.' By his contemporaries he 
 was styled 'gentle George,' and the' refined 
 Etheredge.' His gay and playful humour 
 shines most agreeably in this letter, written 
 from Eatisbon, where he had been 
 appointed envoy to the Duke of Bucking- 
 iL ham. The play of his friend Sir Charles 
 B Sedley, which he mentions with such 
 V commendation, had nearly caused the death 
 
 ■ of its author. During the performance of 
 I Bellamira, we are told, 'the roof of the 
 I theatre fell in, which produced considerable 
 
 ■ alarm in the house ;' but fortunately 
 
 ■ Sedley, who was slightly bruised, was the 
 L only person who suffered any injury from 
 \ the accident. This circumstance drew 
 r from his merry friend, Sir Fleetwood 
 
 Shepherd, the observation that there was 
 so much fire in his play that it blew up 
 the poet, play-house, and all. ' No, no,' 
 replied Sedley, ' the play was so heavy that 
 
 ^ it broke down the house, and buried the 
 poet in the ruins.' The praise of Sedley 
 was a welcome topic to Buckingham, who 
 
 ^ had often been delighted by his festive wit 
 and conversational brilliancy, in which, 
 according to Shadwell, he was unrivalled. 
 — Willmott.'] 
 
 SIR GEORGE ETHEREDGE TO THE DUKE OF 
 BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 My Lord, — I received the news of your 
 grace's retiring into Yorkshire, and leading a 
 sedate, contemplative life there, with no less 
 astonishment than I should hear his Christian 
 Majesty's turning Benedictine monk, or the 
 pope's wearing a long perriwig, and setting up 
 for a flaming beau in the seventy-fourth year of 
 his age. "VVe have a picture here in our town- 
 hall, which I never look upon but it makes me 
 think on your grace ; and I dare swear, you 
 will say there is no dishonour done you when 
 you hear whose it is. In short, it is that of the 
 famous Charles v., who among all the magnifi- 
 
 cence which this foolish world affords, amidst 
 all his African lawrels and Gallic triumphs, 
 freely divested himself of the empire of Europe, 
 and his hereditary kingdoms, to pass the 
 remainder of his life in solitude and retirement. 
 
 Is it i)Ossible that your grace (who has seen 
 ten times more luxury than that emperor ever 
 knew, possessed as much too of the true real 
 greatness of the world as ever he enjoyed) 
 should, in an age still capable of i^leasure, and 
 under a fortune whose very ruins would make 
 up a comfortable electorate here in Germany — 
 is it possible, I say, that your grace shoidd 
 leave the play at the beginning of the fourth 
 act, when all the spectators are in pain to know 
 what will become of the hero, and what mighty 
 matters he is reserved for, that set out so 
 advantageously in the first ? That a person of 
 your exquisite taste, that has breathed the air of a 
 court even from your infancy, should be content, 
 in that part of your life which is most difficult 
 to be i^leased, and most easy to be disgusted, to 
 take up with the conversation of country 
 parsons (a set of peoi)le whom, to my know- 
 ledge, your grace never much admired), and do 
 penance in the nauseous company of lawyers, 
 whom I am certain you abominate ? 
 
 To raise our astonishment higher, who could 
 ever have prophesied, though he had a double 
 gift of Nostradamus's s^jirit, that the Duke of 
 Buckingham would ever condescend to sigh 
 and languish for the heiress-apparent of some 
 thatch'd cottage, in a straw hat, flannel 
 petticoat, stockings of as gross a thrum as the 
 blew-coat boys' caps at the hospital, and a 
 smock of as coarse a canvas as ever served 
 an apprentice to a mackerel-boat ? Who could 
 believe, till matter of fact had confirmed the 
 belief of it (and your grace knows that matter 
 of fact is not to be disputed), that the most 
 polished, refined epicure of his age, that had 
 regaled himself in the most exquisite wines of 
 Italy, Greece, and Spain, would, in the last 
 scenes of his life, debauch his constitution in 
 execrable Yorkshire ale ! And that he, who 
 all his lifetime had either seen princes his 
 play-fellows or companions, would submit to 
 the nonsensical chat and barbarous language of 
 farmers and higlers ! 
 
 This, I confess, so much shocks me, that I 
 cannot tell what to make on it ; and unless the 
 news came to me confirmed from so many au- 
 thentic hands, that I have no room to suspect 
 the veracity of it, I should still look upon it to 
 be apocryphal. Is your grace then in earnest, 
 and really jjleased with so prodigious an alter- 
 ation of persons and things ? For my part, I 
 believe it ; for I am certain that your grace 
 can act any person better than that of a 
 hypocrite. 
 
 But I humbly ask your grace's pardon for this 
 familiarity I have taken with you ; give me 
 leave therefore, if you please, to tell you some- 
 
334 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 thing of myself. I presume that an account of 
 what passes in this busy part of the world will 
 not come unacceptable to you, since all my corre- 
 spondents from England assure me, that your 
 grace does me the honour to inquire often after me, 
 and has expressed some sort of a desire to know 
 how my new character sits upon me. 
 
 Ten years ago I as little thought that my 
 stars designed to make a jiolitician of me, and 
 that it would come to my share to debate in 
 public assemblies, as the Grand Signior dreamed 
 of losing Hungary ; but my royal master, having 
 the charity to believe me master of some qua- 
 lities, of which I never suspected myself, I find 
 that the zeal and alacrity I discover in myself 
 to support a dignity which he has thought fit 
 to confer upon me, has supplied all other 
 defects, and given me a talent for which, till 
 now, I justly fancied myself uncapable. 
 
 I live in one of the finest and best-manner'd 
 cities in Germany, where, it is true, we have 
 not pleasure in that perfection as we see it in 
 London and Paris ; yet, to make us amends, we 
 enjoy a noble serene air, that makes us as 
 hungry as hawks. And though business, and 
 even the worst sort of business, wicked politics, 
 is the distinguishing commodity of the jjlace, 
 yet I will say that for the Germans, that they 
 manage it the best of any people in the world ; 
 they cut off and retrench all those idle pre- 
 liminaries and useless ceremonies that clog the 
 wheels of it everywhere else ; and I find that, 
 to this day, make good the observation that 
 Tacitus made of their ancestors, I mean, that 
 their affairs (let them be never so serious and 
 pressing) never put a stop to good eating and 
 drinking, and that they debate their weightiest 
 negociations over their cups. 
 
 'Tis true, they carry this humour by much too 
 far for one of my complexion, for which reason 
 I decline appearing among them, but when my 
 master's concerns make it necessary for me to 
 come to their assemblies. They are indeed a 
 free-hearted, open sort of gentlemen that com- 
 pose the diet, without reserve, affectation, and 
 artifice ; but they are such unmerciful pliers of 
 the bottle, so wholly given up to what our sots 
 call good fellowship, that it is as great a con- 
 straint upon my nature to sit out a night's enter- 
 tainment with them, as it would be to hear half a 
 score of long-winded Presbyterian divines cant 
 successively one after another. . . . 
 
 Thus I have given your grace a short system 
 of my morals, and belief in these affairs ; but 
 the gentlemen of this country go upon a quite 
 different scheme of pleasure ; the best furniture 
 of their parlours (instead of innocent china) are 
 tall, overgrown rvimmcrs ; and they take more 
 care to enlarge their cellars than their patri- 
 monial estates : in short, drinking is the 
 hereditary sin of this country ; and that hero 
 of a deputy here, that can demolish, at one 
 sitting, the rest of his brother envoys, is 
 
 mentioned with as much applause as the Duke 
 of Lorrain for his noble exploits against the 
 Turks, and may claim a statue, erected at the 
 public expence, in any town in German}'. 
 
 Judge then, my lord, whether a person of my 
 sober principles, and one that only uses wine 
 (as the wiser sort of Roman Catholics do images) 
 to raise up my imagination to something more 
 exalted, and not to terminate my worship upon 
 it, must not be reduced to very mortifying 
 circumstances in this place, where I cannot 
 pretend to enjoy conversation, without practis- 
 ing that vice that directly ruins me. 
 
 Could a man find out the secret to take a 
 lease for his life, as Methuselah and the rest of 
 the antediluvian gentlemen, who were three 
 hundred years growing up to the perfection of 
 vigour, enjoyed it the same number, and were 
 as long a decaying, something might be said for 
 the two crying sins of both sexes here ; I mean 
 drunkenness in the men, and rcservedness in 
 the ladies. 
 
 But, my lord, I forget, that while I take 
 upon me to play the moralist, and to enlarge 
 so rhetorically upon the preciousness of time, 
 I have already made bold with too much of 
 your grace's, for which reason I here put a 
 stoj) to my discourse; and will endeavour, 
 the next packet that goes from this place, to 
 entertain you with something more agreeable. 
 I am, my lord, your grace's most obedient 
 servant, G. Etheeege. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 My Lord, — I never enjoy myself so much as 
 when I can steal a few moments from the hurry 
 of public business to write to my friends in 
 England ; and as thei'e is none to whom- 1 pay a 
 prof o under respect than to your grace, wonder 
 not if I afford myself the satisfaction of con- 
 versing with you by the way of letter, the only 
 relief I have left me to support your absence at 
 this distance, as often as I can find an opi^or- 
 tunity. You may guess, by my last, whether I 
 do not pass my time very comfortably here; 
 forced as I am, by my character, to spend the 
 better part of my time in squabbling and deliber- 
 ating with persons of beard and gravity, how to 
 IDreserve the balance of Christendom, which 
 would go well enough of itself, if the divines 
 and ministers of princes would let it alone ; and 
 when I come home, spent and weary from the 
 
 diet, I have no Lord D t's, or Sir Charles 
 
 S y's, to sport away the evening with ; no 
 
 Madam I , or my Lady A s ; so that, not 
 
 to magnify my sufferings to your grace, they 
 really want a gi-eater stock of Christian patience 
 to support them than I can pretend to be 
 master of. 
 
 I have been long enough in this town, one' 
 would think, to have made acquaintance enough 
 with persons of both sexes, so as never to bo at 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 335 
 
 a loss how to pass tlie few vacant hours I can 
 allow myself; but the terrible drinking that 
 accompanies all visits, hinders me from con- 
 versing with the men so often as I would other- 
 wise do. 
 
 So that, to deal freely with your grace, among 
 so many noble and wealthy families as we have 
 in this town, I can only pretend to be truly 
 acquainted but with one ; the gentleman's name 
 was Monsieur Hoffman, a frank, hearty, jolly 
 companion. His father, one of the most emi- 
 nent wine merchants in the city, left him a 
 considerable fortune, which he improved by 
 marrying a French jeweller's daughter of Lions. 
 To give you his character in short, he was a 
 sensible, ingenious man, and had none of his 
 country's vices, which I impute to his having 
 travelled abroad, and seen Italy, France, and 
 England. His lady is a most accomplished, 
 ingenious person ; and notwithstanding he is 
 come into a place where so much formality and 
 stiffness is practised, keeps uj) all the vivacity, 
 air, and good-humour of France. 
 
 I had been happy in my acquaintance with 
 this family some months, when an ill-favoured 
 action robbed me of the greatest happiness I had 
 hitherto enjoyed in Germany, the loss of which 
 I can never sufficiently regret. Monsieur Hoff- 
 man, about three weeks ago, going to make 
 merry with some friends, at a village some three 
 leagues from this place, upon the Danube, by 
 the unskilfulness or negligence of the water- 
 men, the boat wherein he was unfortunately 
 chanced to overset, and of some twenty persons, 
 not one escaped to bring home the news, but a 
 boy that miraculously saved himself by holding 
 fast to the rudder, and so by the rapidity of the 
 current was cast upon the other shore. 
 
 I was sensibly afflicted at the destiny of my 
 worthy friend, and so indeed were all that had 
 the honour of knowing him ; but his wife took 
 on so extravagantly, that she, in a short time, 
 was the only talk of city and country : she re- 
 fused to admit any visits from her nearest 
 relations ; her chamber, her antichamber and 
 pro-antich amber were hung with black ; nay, 
 the very candles, her fans, and tea-table wore 
 the livery of grief ; she refused all manner of 
 sustenance, and was so averse to the thoughts 
 of living, that she talked of nothing but death ; 
 in short, you may tell your ingenious friend 
 Monsieiir de St. Evremont, that Petronius's 
 Ephesian matron, to whose story he has done so 
 much justice in his noble translation, was only a 
 type of our more obstinate, as well as unhajipy 
 German widow. 
 
 About a fortnight after this cruel loss (for I 
 thought it would be labour lost to attack her 
 grief in its first vehemence) I thought myself 
 obliged in point of honour and gratitude to 
 the memory of my deceased friend to make 
 her a small visit, and condole her ladyship 
 upon this unhappy occasion ; and though I had 
 
 been told that she refused to see several persons 
 who had gone to wait on her with the same 
 errand, yet I presumed so much upon the 
 friendship her late husband had always ex- 
 pressed for me (not to mention the particular 
 civilities I had received from her) as to think 
 I should be admitted to have a sight of her : 
 accordingly I came to her house, sent up my 
 name, and word was immediately brought 
 me, that if I pleased I might go up to her. 
 
 "When I came into the room, I fancied my- 
 self in the territories of death, everything 
 looked so gloomy, so dismal, and so melancholy. 
 There was a grave Lutheran minister with her, 
 that omitted no arguments to bring her to a 
 more comx^osed and more Christian disposition 
 of mind. Madam, says he, you don't consider 
 that by abandoning yourself thus to despair, 
 you actu.ally rebel against Providence. I can't 
 help it, says she ; Providence may even thank 
 itself for laying so insupportable a load upon me. 
 Oh fie, madam, cries the other, this is downright 
 impiety : what would you say now, if Heaven 
 should punish it by some more exemplary visita- 
 tion? That is impossible, replies the lady, 
 sighing ; and since it has robbed me of the only 
 delight I had in this world, the only favour it 
 can do is to level a thunderbolt at my head, 
 and put an end to all my sufferings. The 
 parson finding her in this extravagant strain, 
 and seeing no likelihood of persuading her to 
 come to a better temper, got uj) from his seat, 
 and took his leave of her. 
 
 It came to my turn now to try whether I 
 was not capable of comforting her ; and being 
 convinced by so late an instance, that argu- 
 ments brought from religion were not like to 
 work any extraordinary effects upon her, I 
 resolved to attack her ladyship in a more 
 sensible i)art, and represent to her the great 
 inconveniencies (not which her soul) but her 
 body received from this inordinate sorrow. 
 
 Madam, says I to her, next to my concern for 
 your worthy husband's untimely death, I am 
 grieved to see what an alteration the bemoan- 
 ing his loss has occasioned in you. These words 
 raising her curiosity to know what this altera- 
 tion was, I thus continued mj' discourse ; in 
 endeavouring, madam, to extinguish, or at least 
 to alleviate your grief, than which nothing 
 can be more prejudicial to a beautiful woman, 
 I intend a public benefit ; for if the public is 
 interested, as most certainly it is, in the pre- 
 serving a beautiful face, that man does the 
 public no little service who contributes most 
 to its preservation. 
 
 This odd beginning operated so wonderfully 
 upon her, that she desired me to leave this 
 general road of compliments, and exi^lain my- 
 self more particularly to her. UiJon this 
 (delivering myself with an unusual air of 
 gravity, which your grace knows I seldom 
 carry about me in the comi^any of ladies) I told 
 
33^ 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 her tliat grief ruins the finest faces sooner than 
 anything whatever ; and that as envy itself 
 could not deny her face to be the most charm- 
 ing in the universe, so if she did not suffer 
 herself to be comforted, she must soon expect 
 to take her farewell of it. I confirmed this 
 assertion by telling her of one of the finest 
 women we ever had in England, who did 
 herself more injury in a fortnight's time by 
 lamenting her only brother's death, than ten 
 years could possibly have done; that I had 
 heard an eminent physician at Leyden say 
 that tears (having abundance of saline i^articles 
 in them) not only spoiled the complexion, but 
 hastened wrinkles. But, madam, concluded I, 
 why should I give myself the trouble to confirm 
 this by foreign instances, and by the testimonies 
 of our most knowing doctors, when, alas ! 
 your own face so fully justifies the truth of 
 what I have said to you ? 
 
 How ! reply'd our disconsolate widow, with 
 a sigh that came from the bottom of her heart ; 
 and is it possible that my just concern for my 
 dear husband has wrought so cruel an effect 
 upon me in so short a time ? With that she 
 ordered her gentlewoman to bring the looking- 
 glass to her, and having surveyed herself a few 
 minutes in it, she told me she was perfectly 
 convinced that my notions were true ; but, cries 
 she, what would you have us poor women to do 
 in these cases ? For something, continued she, 
 we owe to the memory of the deceased, and 
 something to the world ; which expects, at 
 least, the common appearance of grief from us. 
 
 By your leave, madam, says I, all this is a 
 mistake, and no better ; you owe nothing to 
 your husband, since he is dead, and knows 
 nothing of your lamentation. Besides, could 
 you shed an ocean of tears upon his hearse, it 
 would not do him the least service ; much less 
 do you lie under any such obligations to the 
 world as to spoil a good face, only to comply 
 with its tyrannic customs ; no, madam, take 
 care to jDreserve your beauty, and then let the 
 world say what it j)leases ; your ladyship may 
 be revenged of the world whenever you see fit. 
 I am resolved, answers she, to be intirely 
 governed by you, therefore tell me frankly 
 what sort of course you'd have me steer. Why, 
 madam, says I, in the first place, forget the 
 defunct, and in order to bring that about, 
 relieve nature, to which you have been so long 
 unmerciful, with the most exquisite meats and 
 the most generous wines. 
 
 Upon condition you will suj) with me, cries 
 our afflicted lady, I will submit to your prescrij)- 
 tion. But why should I trouble your grace 
 with a narration in every particular? we had 
 a noble regale ; and our good widow push'd 
 the glass so strenuously about that her com- 
 forter (meaning myself) could hardly find the 
 way to his coach. To conclude this farce 
 (which I am afraid begins now to be too tedious 
 
 to your grace), this Phenix of her sex, this 
 pattern of conjugal fidelity, two mornings ago 
 was married to a smooth-chin'd ensign of Coimt 
 Tranmendorf's regiment, that has not a far- 
 thing in the world but his pay to depend on : 
 I assisted at the ceremony, though I little 
 imagined the lady would take the matrimonial 
 receipt so soon. 
 
 I was the easier i^ersuaded to give your grace 
 a large account of this tragi-comedy, not only 
 because I wanted better matter to entertain 
 you withal at this lazy conjuncture, but also to 
 show your grace that not only Ephesus in 
 ancient and England in later times have 
 afforded such fantastical widows, but even 
 Germany itself ; where if the ladies have not 
 more virtue than those of their sex in other 
 countries, yet they pretend, at least, a greater 
 management of the outside of it. 
 
 By my last packet from England, among a 
 heai) of nauseous trash, I received the Three. 
 Dukes of Dunstable, which is really so mon- 
 strous and insipid, that I am sorry Lapland or 
 Livonia had not the honour of producing it ; 
 but if I did penance in reading it, I rejoiced to' 
 hear that it was so solemnly interred to the 
 tune of Catcalls ; the Squire of Alsatia, how- 
 ever, which came by the following post, made 
 me some amends for the cursed impertinence of 
 the Three Dukes. And my witty friend Sir 
 
 C S y's Bellamira gave me that entire 
 
 satisfaction that I cannot read it over too 
 often. 
 
 They tell me my old acquaintance, Mr. Dry- 
 den, has left off the theatre, and wholly applies 
 himself to the study of the controversies 
 between the two churches ; pray Heaven, this 
 strange alteration in him portends nothing 
 disastrous to the State ; but I have all along 
 observed that poets do religion as little service 
 by drawing their pens for it, as the divines do 
 poetry by pretending to versification. 
 
 But I forget how troublesome I have been to 
 your grace ; I shall therefore conclude with 
 assuring you, that I am, and at the last moment 
 of my life shall be, ambitious of being, my 
 lord, your grace's most obedient and most 
 obliged servant, Geoege Ethekege. 
 
 [Philip, Duke of ^\Tiarton, was born in 1G9S, 
 and early evinced brilliant talent ; he 
 received the title of duke from the Pre- 
 tender when on the Continent, but on his 
 return to England supported the Govern- 
 ment. The present letter gives a picture 
 of the straits to which he reduced himself 
 by his follies and extravagances. He died 
 in poverty, in Spain, in 1731.] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 FROM A GENTLEMAN WHO ATTENDED THE DUKE 
 OP WHAKTON xVBRO.n). 
 
 Dear Sir,— I am just returned from the gates 
 of death, to return you thanks for your last kind 
 letter of accusations, which I am persuaded was 
 intended as a seasonable help to my recollection, 
 at a time when it was necessary for me to send 
 an inquisitor-general into my conscience, to 
 examine and settle all the abuses that ever 
 were committed in that little court of equity. 
 But I assure you, your long letter did not lay 
 so much my faults as my misfortunes before 
 
 me, which, believe me, dear , have fallen 
 
 as heavy and as thick as the shower of hail 
 
 upon us two in E forest, and has left me as 
 
 much at a loss which way to turn myself. The 
 pilot of the ship I embarked in, who indus- 
 triously ran upon every rock, has at last split 
 the vessel ; and so much of a sudden, that the 
 whole crew, I mean his domestics, are all left 
 to swim for their lives, without one friendly 
 plank to assist them to shore. In short, he left 
 me sick, in debt, and without a penny ; but, as 
 I begin to recover, and have a little time to 
 think, I can't help considering myself as one 
 whisked up behind a witch upon a broomstick, 
 and hurried over mountains and dales, through 
 confused woods and thorny thickets, and when 
 the charm is ended, and the poor wretch 
 droi^ped in a desert, he can give no other 
 account of his enchanted travels, but that he is 
 much fatigued in body and mind, his clothes 
 torn, and worse in all other circumstances, 
 without being of the least service to himself or 
 anybody else ; but I will follow your advice, 
 with an active resolution to retrieve my bad 
 fortune, and almost a year miserably misspent. 
 
 But notwthstanding what I have suffered, 
 and what my brother madman had done to 
 undo himself, and everybody who was so 
 unlucky as to have the least concern with him, 
 I could not but be movingly touched at so 
 extraordinary vicissitude of fortune, to see a 
 great man fallen from that shining light, in 
 which I beheld him in the House of Lords, to 
 such a degree of obscurity, that I have observed 
 the meanest commoner here decline, and the 
 few he would sometimes fasten on, to be tired 
 of his com]pany ; for yoii know he is but a bad 
 orator in his cups, and of late has been but 
 seldom sober. 
 
 A week befoi-e he left Paris he was so 
 reduced that he had not one single crown at 
 command, and was forced to thrust in with any 
 acquaintance for a lodging. Walsh and I have 
 had him by turns, all to avoid a crowd of duns, 
 which he had of sizes from fourteen hundred 
 livres to four, who hunted him so close that he 
 was forced to retire to some of the neighbouring 
 villages for safety. I, sick as I was, hurried 
 about Paris to raise money, and to St. Germains 
 to get him linen. I brought him one shirt and 
 
 337 
 
 a cravat, with which, and five hundred livres, 
 his whole stock, he and his duchess, attended 
 by one servant, set out for Spain. All the 
 news that I have heard of them since, is that, a 
 day or two after, he sent for Capt. Brierly, and 
 two or three of his domestics, to follow ; but 
 none but the captain obeyed the summons. 
 Where they are now I can't tell ; but fear they 
 must be in great distress by this time, if he 
 has had no other sui)plies. And so ends my 
 melancholy story. I am, etc. 
 
 [Matthew Pilkington, according to his own 
 account, was clerk for eleven days to Lord 
 Carteret (1690-1763), viceroy of Ireland, 
 and this letter affords a specimen of his 
 feelings, given in a humorous vein, when 
 rewarded for his services.] 
 
 MR. PILKINGTON TO DR. DELANY. 
 
 Dear Doctor, — Though you expected to see 
 me the happiest man in the world, by the 
 extraordinary honours which I received from 
 his excellency, yet I cannot forbear acquainting 
 you, you are greatly disappointed in that 
 respect. 
 
 Before I received his bounty (which far sur- 
 passed my hopes, and was more the effect of 
 his generosity than any merit of mine), I 
 thought riches were so necessary an ingredient 
 in human life, that it was scarce possible to 
 attain any degree of happiness without them. 
 
 I imagined, that if I had but a competent 
 sum, I should have no care, no trouble to 
 discompose my thoughts, nothing to withdraw 
 my mind from virtue and the Muses ; but that, 
 if possible, I should enjoy a more exalted 
 degree of content and delight than I had 
 hitherto ; but now I perceive these kind of 
 notions to have been the pure genuine effect of 
 a very empty purse. 
 
 My hopes are vanished at the increase of my 
 fortune ; my opinion of things is of a sudden so 
 altered, that I am taught to pity none so much 
 as the rich, who, by my computation (after 
 three tedious weeks' experience), must of neces- 
 sity have an income of plagues proportioned to 
 their fortunes. 
 
 I know this declaration surprises you ; but in 
 order to convince you, I will, as exactly as 
 possible, set down, by v/ay of diary, the 
 different emotions of mind which I laboured i 
 under during the first three weeks' guardianship 
 (for I can hardly call it a possession) of that 
 same unfortunate, care-bringing fifty pounds ; 
 and have not the least doubt but you will 
 believe my assertions to be true. 
 
 Mondaxj, Fth. 16. 
 Received this morning the agreeable news of 
 being ordered to wait on his excellency the 
 
338 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Lord Carteret, but suffered a great deal of 
 perplexity about appearing before one in so 
 eminent a station, and more admired and 
 eminent for learning, and every otter perfection 
 of the mind ; went, however, to the castle — met 
 with a very gracious reception — had full proof 
 of that affability, wisdom, and generosity for 
 which his excellency is so peculiarly dis- 
 tinguished, and which I knew before only by 
 the testimonies of others— was ordered to go to 
 
 Mr. T , to receive the premium appointed 
 
 by my lord. 
 
 Memorandum, I imagined my stature greatly 
 increased, and walked more erect than usual — 
 went in high spirits to the Secretary's — but, as 
 a drawback to my happiness, received the 
 dispiriting account of his being confined to his 
 chamber — denied admittance. 
 
 Memorandum, his excellency easier of access 
 than his officer. 
 
 Tuesday, 17. 
 The Secretary still sick — paid a visit to his 
 street-door about twelve — returned melancholy. 
 Wednesday, . . ditto. 
 Thursday, . . ditto. 
 
 Friday, . . ditto. 
 
 Saturday, . . ditto. 
 
 Sunday, . . ditto. 
 
 Oh, 'twas a dreadful interval of time ! 
 
 Monday, 23. 
 
 Ordered to wait again on Mr. T ; but 
 
 happening to be over eager to receive the sum, 
 I hastened away too unseasonably, about half an 
 hour after twelve, and found him asleep. 
 
 Blemorandum, admitted this morning to 
 stand in the hall, and not at the door as hath 
 been slanderously and maliciously reported ; I 
 presume because it happened so at other times. 
 
 Walked in the piazzas till after one, rumi- 
 nating on the various hopes and fears with which 
 my mind has been tormented this week past — 
 could not forbear repeating aloud the two lines 
 of the libel which accidentally are not more 
 true of Mr. Addison than this friend, 
 
 ' Who, grown a Minister of State, 
 Sees poets at his levee wait.' 
 
 Memorandum, not under any apprehension of 
 being understood by any persons walking there, 
 which were only a few lawyers and a parson or 
 two — 
 
 Saunter again to the Secretary's — out of hope 
 — permitted now to go into a wide unfurnished 
 apartment — in half-an-hour's time admitted to 
 his presence — received a bill of fifty pounds — 
 returned with great delight. 
 
 I now imagined that nothing was wanting to 
 make me really happy ; I pleased myself also 
 with the thought of communicating happiness 
 j to my friends who would share in my success, 
 and particularly to you, who are unwearied in 
 endeavouring to promote the felicity of others. 
 
 How far I was disappointed will appear by the 
 sequel — so to proceed with my diary. 
 
 I wrapt up my bill very carefully — yet could 
 not bear looking at it sometimes, though not 
 oftener than at every street's length — But mark 
 the instability of all human affairs ! — As I was 
 very attentively reading it, a pert swaggering 
 fellow rushes by me — I immediately suspected 
 an attempt upon my treasure — looked as 
 earnestly as I dared in the fellow's face, and 
 thought I read robbery in the lines of his 
 countenance — so hastily slipt my bill into my 
 pocket without its cover — met a friend, told him 
 of my success — and the generosity of his excel- 
 lency — but pulling out the bank note hastily, 
 tore it in the middle— dismally frightened— 
 came home— showed it to my wife— was more 
 terrified at hearing that it would now be of 
 no value — received several compliments from 
 her for my care of it — and that I was likely to 
 be rich, since I took such pains to preserve 
 what I got — and the like — went direct in a fit 
 of anger and vexation to Henry's bank — smiled 
 a little, and spoke submissively to the clerk — 
 obtained a new bill — returned again in great 
 joy — all things settled amicably between us. 
 
 Memorandum, Found upon inquiry that the 
 ill-favoured gentleman above mentioned was 
 
 one Mr. what d'ye call him ? — the attorney, 
 
 of whom I need not have been in such terror, 
 since he was never known to be guilty of such 
 an action in a public way. 
 
 Monday night, 12 o^clocJc. 
 "Went to bed as usual — but found myself 
 violently pulled till I awoke — seized with a 
 very great trembling, when I heard a voice 
 crying — Take care of the bill — found im- 
 mediately it proceeded from the concern of my 
 bedfellow, who it seems was as ill formed to 
 possess great riches as myself — pitied her — 
 told her it was safe — fell asleep soon, but was 
 in less than two hours roused again with her 
 crying — ' My dear — my dear — are you sui'e it is 
 safe? — don't you hear some noise there? — I'll 
 lay my life there's robbers in the room ! — Lord 
 have mercy upon us — what a hideous fellow I 
 just now saw by my bedside with a drawn 
 sword — or did I dream it?' — trembled a little 
 at her suspicions — slumbered — but was awaked 
 a third time in the same manner — rose about 
 six, much discomposed — received a very solemn 
 charge to be watchful against accidents — ' and 
 let me beg of you, my dear, to have a great 
 care of the bill.' 
 
 Tuesday, 24. 
 
 Become extremely impatient to have this 
 tormenting bill changed into money, out of a be- 
 lief that it would be then less liable to accidents, 
 breaking of bankers, etc. — went to one bank 
 and was refused — yet was ashamed to go to 
 Henry's so soon— contrived, however, to get it 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 339 
 
 excliauged after a great variety of schemes and 
 journeys to several places — came home — si:)read 
 it upon a table to see the utmost bounds and 
 extent of my riches — all the rest of the day 
 sat contriving where to lay it— what part of 
 the house would be most secure — what place 
 would be least suspected by thieves, if any 
 should come — perceived my mind more dis- 
 turbed with having so much money in my 
 custody than I was before. 
 
 Tuesday night, 11 o^clocl: 
 "Went round my house to inspect my doors, 
 whether they were all safe — perceived a great 
 deficiency of bars, bolts, locks, latches, door- 
 chains, window-shuts, fire-arms, etc., which I 
 never had taken the least notice of before — 
 peeped with great circumspection under the 
 beds — resolved to watch this night, and prepare 
 expedients for my security next morning — 
 watched accordingly — 
 
 Wednesday, 25. 
 Extremely fatigued with last night's watch- 
 ing—consulted several hours about preserving 
 my wealth, believed it most safe in bills ; after 
 mature deliberation hurried away to the bank 
 and took a bill for it— came away with an 
 easier mind — walked about two streets' length 
 cheerfully — but began to reflect that if my 
 load was lighter, yet on the other hand the 
 bill might again be torn, be dropt, be mislaid 
 — went back in haste — once more received it in 
 money — brought it home — looked frequently 
 behind me as I walked — hid it— resolved to lay 
 out the greatest part of it in plate — bespoke it 
 accordingly — prepared my fire-arms — went to 
 bed — not one wink of sleep all this night. — 
 
 Thursday, 26. 
 
 Looked a little paler to-day than usual — but 
 not much concerned at that, since it was 
 misinterpreted by my friends for the effects of 
 hard study — invited abroad to dinner — went — 
 sat down to table, but in that dreadful moment 
 recollected that my closet, where my whole 
 treasure was deposited, was left open— was 
 observed to change colour and looked terrified 
 — not Macbeth so startled when he saw the 
 ghost of murdered Banquo at the feast. 
 
 Money a perpetual apparition to the covetous 
 mind. 
 
 Ban directly home — found all safe, but 
 returned too late for dinner — fasted — fretted — 
 Avell saith St. Paul — Money is the root of all 
 evil. 
 
 Thursday night, 12 o'clock. 
 Hired a watchman to guard my doors — went 
 to bed — but no sleep — the same mind-plaguing 
 riches floated uppermost in my thoughts — me- 
 thinks they cried — Sleep no more ! — Wealth 
 has murdered sleep ! — slumbered, however, a 
 little towards morning— dreamt of nothing but 
 
 robbers, assassins, spectres, flames, hurricanes, 
 — waked in great terror. 
 
 Dear doctor, it would be too tedious to pur- 
 sue the dreadful narration any farther ; every 
 day administered new cause of uneasiness, nor 
 did my concern forsake me even in the midst 
 of company and wine. 
 
 Till I had the plate sent home I was uneasy, 
 lest after I had ordered it to be made I should 
 be robbed of my money, and then not be able 
 to pay for it, and when I had it once in my 
 possession, I trembled every instant for fear of 
 losing it for ever. 
 
 AVhen at home I was afraid of being mur- 
 dered for my substance, and when abroad I was 
 much terrified with the aj^prehension that 
 either my servants might possibly be dishonest, 
 and so contrive to deprive me of it while I was 
 guarding it, or else that by carelessness they 
 might set fire to my house, and destroy it all 
 at once. 
 
 Every bell I heard ringing I immediately 
 imagined to be a fire-bell ; and every fire-bell 
 alarmed me with a belief that my own house 
 was in a blaze ; so that I was plagued -without 
 interruption. 
 
 Since I have recovered myself a little, I have 
 made an exact calculation of the quantity of 
 pleasure and pain which I endured, and I shall 
 show you the just balance, the more fully to 
 convince you. 
 
 A faithful account of the happiness and misery 
 of Matthew Pilkington, clerk, for the space 
 of eleven days, on receiving fifty pounds from 
 his Excellency the Lord Carteret. 
 
 HAPPY. Days Hours Min. 
 
 During the whole time of being \ 
 
 with my lord, and till I > 
 
 went to the Secretary's ) 
 By telling my'success to several \ 
 
 friends, and describing his I 
 
 excellency's person and per- | 
 
 fections ^ 
 By receiving the sum from Mr. qq qq 
 
 T j 
 
 By obtaining the new bill for"^ 
 
 that which was torn, and>- 00 03 00 
 
 pacifying my wife ) 
 
 00 01 00 
 
 00 03 01 
 
 Total of happiness 
 
 MISERABLE. 
 
 All the remainder 
 
 00 07 04 
 
 Days Hours Min. 
 10 16 56 
 
 To conclude all, to keep my mind as calm 
 and quiet as it was in the days of poverty, I 
 have expended thirty-two pounds in plate, to 
 be a monument of his excellency's generosity to 
 me ; and that plate I have lodged at a rich 
 neighbour's house for its security. About ten 
 
340 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 pounds I have expended in fortifying my house 
 against the next money misfortune may happen 
 to me, of which, however, at present there 
 appears no great danger ; and if providentially 
 my fortune be advanced, I hope to bear it with 
 greater resolution, and to be in a better con- 
 dition to ijreserve it. I am, dear doctor, your 
 affectionate friend and servant. 
 
 Mat. Pilkington. 
 
 [The character of Boyle presents the beautiful 
 union of philosophy with religion ; of the 
 profoundest research with the lowliest de- 
 pendence upon the mercy and providence 
 of God. His memory is alike dear to 
 science and to virtue. Evelyn's eulogy of 
 him — the tribute of a familiar intimacy of 
 forty years — requires no illustration; but 
 his allusion to the charity of Boyle is 
 amply confirmed by Bishop Burnet. ' Even 
 those,' says he, ' who knew all his other 
 concerns, could never find out what he did 
 in that way ; and, indeed, he was so strict 
 to our Saviour's precept, that, except the 
 persons themselves, or some one whom he 
 trusted to convey it to them, nobody ever 
 knew how that great share of his estate 
 which went away invisibly was dis- 
 tributed ; even he himself kept no account 
 of it, for that, he thought, might fall into 
 other hands.' Burnet spoke with authority 
 on the subject, having been the frequent 
 instrument of Boyle's benevolence, and 
 having himself received his aid in the 
 X)ublication of the History of the Beforma- 
 tion.—-WiUmott.] 
 
 EVELYN TO WOTTON. 
 
 Sir, — I most heartily beg your pardon for 
 detaining your books so unreasonably long after 
 I had read them, which I did with great satis- 
 faction, especially the life of Descartes. The 
 truth is, I had some hopes of seeing you here 
 again, for meth ought (or at least I flattered 
 myself with it) you said at parting you would 
 do us that favour before my going to London, 
 whither I am, God willing, setting out to- 
 morrow or next day, for some time ; not with- 
 out regret, unless I receive your commands, if I 
 may be anyways serviceable to you, in order to 
 that noble undertaking you lately mentioned 
 to me : I mean your generous offer and inclina- 
 tion to write the life of our late illustrious 
 pmlosopher, Mr. Boyle, and to honour the 
 memory of a gentleman of that singular worth 
 and virtue. I am sure if you persist in that 
 
 design, England shall never envy France, or 
 need a Gassendus or a Baillct to perpetuate and 
 transmit the memory of one not only equalling, 
 but, in many things, transcending either of 
 those excellent and, indeed, extraordinary 
 persons, whom their pens have rendered im- 
 mortal. I wish myself was furnished to afford 
 you any considerable supplies (as you desired), 
 after my so long acqiiaintance with Mr. Boyle, 
 who had honoured me with his particular 
 esteem, now very near forty years ; as I might 
 have done by more duly cultivating the fre- 
 quent opportunities he was pleased to allow 
 me. But so it is, that his life and virtues have 
 been so conspicuous, as you'll need no other 
 light to direct you, or subject matter to work 
 on, than what is so universally known, and by 
 vv^liat he has done and published in his books. 
 You may, perhaps, need some particulars as to 
 his birth, family, education, and other less 
 necessary circumstances for introduction ; and 
 such other passages of his life as are not so 
 distinctly known but by his own relations. In 
 this, if I can serve you, I shall do it with great' 
 readiness, and I hope success, having some 
 pretence by my wife, in whose grandfather's 
 house (which is now mine, at Deptford) the 
 father of this gentleman was so conversant, 
 that contracting an affinity there, he left his 
 (then) eldest son with him, whilst himself went 
 into Ireland, who in his absence dying, lies in 
 our parish church, under a remarkable monu- 
 ment. 
 
 It is now, as I said, almost forty years since I 
 first had the honour of being acquainted with 
 Mr. Boyle ; both of us newly returned from 
 abroad, though, I know not how, never meeting 
 there. Whether he travelled more in France 
 than Italy, I cannot say ; but he had so uni- 
 versal an esteem in foreign parts, that not any 
 stranger of note or quality, learned or curious, 
 coming into England, but used to visit hiin 
 with the greatest respect and satisfaction imag- 
 inable. Now as he had' an early inclination to 
 learning (so especially to that part of philosophy 
 he so happily succeeded in), he often honoured 
 Oxford, and those gentlemen there, with his 
 company, who more peculiarly applied them- 
 selves to the examination of the so long 
 domineering methods and jargon of the schools. 
 You have the names of this learned junto, 
 most of them since deservedly dignified in that 
 elegant History of the Koyal Society, which 
 must ever own its rise from that assembly, as 
 does the preservation of that famous university 
 from the fanatic rage and avarice of those melan- 
 choly times. These, with some othei-s (whereof 
 Mr. Boyle, the Lord Viscount Brouncker, Sir 
 llobert Morray, were the most active), spirited 
 with the same zeal, and under a more pro- 
 pitious influence, were the persons to whom the 
 world stands obliged for the promoting of that 
 generous and real knowledge, which gave the 
 
 I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ferment that lias ever since obtained, and 
 surmounted all those many discouragements 
 ■which it at first encountered. But by no man 
 have the territories of the most useful knowledge 
 been more enlarged than by our hero, to whom 
 there are many trophies due. And accordingly 
 his fame was quickly sj^read, not only among 
 us here in England, but through all the learned 
 world besides. It must be confessed that he 
 had a marvellous sagacity in finding out many 
 useful and noble experiments. Never did 
 stubborn matter come under his inquisition, 
 but he extorted a confession of all that lay in 
 her most intimate recesses, and what he dis- 
 covered he as faithfully registered, and frankly 
 communicated; in this exceeding my Lord 
 Terulam, who (though never to be mentioned 
 without honour and admiration) was used to 
 tell all that came to hand mthout much ex- 
 amination. His was probability ; I>Ir. Boyle's, 
 suspicion of success. Sir, you will here find 
 ample field, and infinitely gratify the curious 
 with a glorious and fresh survey of the progress 
 he has made in these discoveries. Freed from 
 those incumbrances which now and then render 
 the way a little tedious, 'tis abundantly re- 
 compensing the pursuit ; especially those noble 
 achievements of his, made in the spring and 
 weight of the two most necessary elements of 
 life, AIE and watek, and their effects. The 
 origin of forms, qualities, and principles of 
 matter : histories of cold, light, colour, gems, 
 efBu\4as and other his works so firmly established 
 on experiments, polychrests, and of universal 
 use to real philosophy ; besides other beneficial 
 inventions peculiarly his ; such as the dulcify- 
 ing sea-water with that ease and plenty, to- 
 gether with many medicinal remedies, cautions, 
 directions, curiosities, and arcana, which owe 
 their birth or illustration to his indefatigable 
 recherches. He brought the phosphorus and 
 anteluca to the clearest light that ever any did, 
 after innumerable attempts. It were needless 
 to insist on particulars to one who knows them 
 better than myself. You will not, hov,^ever, 
 omit those many other treatises relating to 
 religion, which, indeed, runs through all his 
 writings upon occasion, and show how unjustly 
 that aspersion has been cast on philosophy, that 
 it disposes men to atheism. Neither did his 
 severer studies yet sour his conversation in the 
 least. He was the farthest from it in the 
 world, and I question whether ever any man 
 has produced more experiments to establish his 
 opinions without dogmatizing. He was a 
 Corpuscularian without Epicurus ; a great and 
 happy analyzer, addicted to no particular sect, 
 but, as became a generous and free philosopher, 
 preferring tkuth above all ; in a word, a person 
 of that singular candour and worth, that to 
 draw a just character of him, one must run 
 through all the virtues, as well as through the 
 sciences ; and though he took the greatest care 
 
 imaginable to conceal the most illustrious of 
 them, his charities, and the many good works 
 he so continually did, could not be hid. It is 
 well known how large his bounty was upon all 
 occasions ; witness the Irish, Indian, Lithuanian 
 Bibles, ujion the translating, printing, publish- 
 ing of which he laid out considerable sums ; the 
 Catechism and Principles of the Cliristian 
 Faith, which I think he caused to be put into 
 Turkish, and dispersed amongst those infidels. 
 And here you will take notice of the lecture 
 he has endowed, and so seasonably provided 
 for. 
 
 As to his relations (as far as I have heard), 
 his father, Eichard Boyle, was fciher fortunoi, a 
 person of wonderful sagacity in affairs, and no 
 less j)robity, by which he compassed a vast 
 estate and great honours to his posterity, which 
 was very numerous, and so prosperous, as has 
 given to the public both divines and philosophers, 
 soldiers, politicians, statesmen, and sj^i-ead its 
 branches among the most illustrious and opulent 
 of our nobility. Mr. Eobert Boyle, born, I think, 
 in Ireland, was the youngest, to whom yet he 
 left a fair estate ; to which was added, an 
 honorary pay of a troop of horse, if I mistake 
 not. And now, though amongst all his experi- 
 ments he never made that of the married life, 
 yet I have been told he courted a beautiful and 
 ingenious daughter of Carew, Earl of Monmouth, 
 to which is owing the birth of his Seraphic 
 Love ; and the first of his productions. Des- 
 cartes was not so innocent. In the meantime 
 he was the most facetious and agreeable con- 
 versation in the world among the ladies, when 
 ever he happened to be engaged ; and yet so 
 very serious, composed, and contemplative at 
 all other times ; though far from moroseness, 
 for, indeed, he was affable and civil rather to 
 excess, yet without formality. 
 
 As to his opinion in religious matters and 
 discipline, I could not but discover in him the 
 same free thoughts which he had of philosophy ; 
 not in notion only, but strictly as to practice, 
 an excellent Christian, and the great duties of 
 that profession, without noise, dispute, or de- 
 termining ; owning no master but the divine 
 Author of it, no religion but primitive, no rule 
 but Scripture, no law but right reason. For 
 the rest, always comformable to the jjresent 
 settlement, without any sort of singularity. 
 The mornings, after his private devotions, he 
 usually spent in philosophical studies, and in 
 his laboratory, sometimes extending them to 
 night ; but he told me he had quite given over 
 reading by candle-light, as injurious to his eyes. 
 This was supplied by his amanuensis, who some- 
 times read to him, and wrote out such passages 
 as he noted, and that so often in loose papers, 
 packed up without method, as made him some- 
 times to seek upon occasions, as himself con- 
 fesses in divers of his works. Glasses, pots, 
 chemical and mathematical instruments, books. 
 
342 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and bundles of papers, did so fill and crowd his 
 bedchamber, that there was just room for a few 
 chairs : so as his whole equipage was very 
 philosophical without formality. There were 
 yet other rooms, and a small library (and so, 
 you know, had Descartes), as learning more 
 from men, real experiments, and in his labora- 
 tory (which was ample and well furnished), 
 than from books. 
 
 I have said nothing of his style, which those 
 who are better judges think he was not alto- 
 gether so happy in, as in his experiments. I do 
 not call it affected, but doubtless not answerable 
 to the rest of his great and shining parts ; and 
 yet, to do him right, it was much improved in 
 his Theodora^ and latter writings. 
 
 In his diet (as in habit) he was extremely 
 temperate and plain ; nor could I ever discern 
 in him the least passion, transport, or censori- 
 ousness, whatever discourse the times suggested. 
 All was tranquil, easy, serious, discreet, and 
 profitable ; so as, besides Mr. Hobbes, whose 
 hand was against everybody, and who admired 
 nothing but his own, Francis Linus excepted 
 (who, yet with much civility, wrote against 
 him), I do not remember he had the least 
 antagonist. In the afternoons he was seldom 
 without company, which was sometimes so in- 
 commodious, that he now and then repaired to 
 a private lodging in another quarter of the 
 town, and at other times (as the season in- 
 vited) diverted himself in the country among 
 his noble relations. 
 
 He was rather tall and slender of stature, for 
 most part valetudinary, pale, and much emaci- 
 ated ; not unlike his picture in Gresham 
 College, which, with an almost impudent im- 
 portunity, was, at the request of the society, 
 hardly extorted, or rather stolen, from this 
 modest gentleman, by Sir Edmund King, after 
 he had refused it to his nearest relations. 
 
 In his first addresses, being to speak or 
 answer, he did sometimes a little hesitate, 
 rather than stammer, or repeat the same word ; 
 imputable to an infirmity, which, since my 
 remembrance, he had exceedingly overcome. 
 This, as it made him somewhat slow and 
 deliberate, so, after the first effort, he proceeded 
 without the least interruption in his discourse. 
 And I impute this imjjediment much to the 
 frequent attacks of palsy, contracted, I fear, 
 not a little by his often attendance on chemical 
 operations. It has jilainly astonished me to 
 have seen him so pften recover, when he has 
 not been able to move, or bring his hand to his 
 mouth ; and, indeed, the contexture of his 
 body, during the best of his health, appeared 
 to me so delicate, that I have frequently com- 
 pared him to a crystal or Venice glass, which, 
 though wrought never so thin and fine, being 
 carefully set up, would outlast the hardier 
 metals of daily use ; and he was withal as 
 clear and candid ; not a blemish or spot to 
 
 tarnish his reputation ; and he lasted accord- 
 ingly, though not to a great, yet competent 
 age— threescore years, I think; and to many 
 more he might, I am persuaded, have arrived, 
 had not his beloved sister, the lady Viscountess 
 Eanelagh, with whom he lived, a person of ex- 
 traordinary talent, and suitable to his religious 
 and philosophical temper, died before him. 
 But it was then he began evidently to droop 
 apace ; nor did he, I think, survive her above 
 a fortnight. But of this last scene I can say 
 little, being unfortunately absent, and not 
 knowing of the danger till he was past re- 
 covery. 
 
 His funeral (at which I was present) was 
 decent; and though without the least pomp, 
 yet accompanied with a great appearance of 
 persons of the best and noble quality, besides 
 his own relations. 
 
 He lies interred (near his sister) in the 
 chancel of St, Martin's church, the Lord 
 Bishop of Salisbury preaching the funeral 
 sermon, with that eloquence natural to him 
 on such and all other occasions. The sermon, 
 you know, is printed, with the panegyric so 
 justly due to his memory. ^Vhether there 
 have been since any other monument erected 
 on him I do not know, nor is it material. His 
 name (like that of Joseph Scaliger) were alone 
 a glorious epitaph. 
 
 And now, sir, I am again to implore your 
 pardon for giving you this interruption with 
 things so confusedly huddled up, this very 
 afternoon, as they crowded into my thoughts. 
 The subject, you see, is fruitful, and almost 
 inexhaustible. Argument fit for no man's pen 
 but Mr. "Wotton's. Oblige, then, all the world, 
 and with it, sir, your, etc. 
 
 Woiton, Marcli 30, 169G. 
 
 EAKL OF BRISTOL TO CHARLES II. 
 
 May it please your Majesty,— During the 
 seven months' sufferance under the misfortune 
 of your Majesty's heavy displeasure, banished 
 from your presence, and deprived of the fruits 
 of your former bounty, branded by proclamation 
 as guilty of high crimes against your person and 
 government, and lastly, prosecuted to such 
 extremes for my religion, I have chosen to live 
 most of the time a closer prisoner than, I dare 
 say, your clemency would have me. And to 
 undergo all with submission and silence, rather 
 than seek advantages from my enemies, by 
 exposing to censure anything (how irregular 
 soever) wherein your Majesty's name hath been 
 used ; and should have continued to do so still, 
 accepting (with an entire resignation to your 
 will and pleasure) your Majesty's own time for 
 grace and favour, did not the approaching 
 session of parliament impose upon me this 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 343 
 
 address by way of duty to your service ; since 
 it appears to me impossible that the privilege 
 of peers in parliament can suffer one of their 
 own members to lie under an imputation of 
 crimes, without either being jjardoned, pun- 
 ished, or vindicated. 
 
 This it is which makes me presume at this 
 time to cast myself at your Majesty's feet, and 
 most humbly to beg your pardon for my rash 
 and indiscreet behaviour, in being more earnest 
 than became me, when I had last the honour to 
 wait ujDon you in your closet ; such as I must 
 confess, might very justly move your indigna- 
 tion against me, since no provocation, nor 
 excess of zeal whatever, can justify such a 
 freedom from a subject to a sovereign. And if 
 my sufferings and submissions have not yet 
 been sufficient to expiate that indiscretion, I 
 am ready to undergo whatever yoxir Majesty 
 shall further think fit to inflict upon me, by 
 way of displeasure ; so that it draw along with 
 it no imputation of crime : for as to that, I must 
 ever crave leave to defend my innocence against 
 all the world ; since this truth I must justify 
 to my latest breath, that neither then, nor at 
 any other time, hath my heart ever been 
 susceptible of a thought either to disserve or 
 displease you. 
 
 But as God Himself, whose vicegerent you 
 are, doth, in the judging of sin, admit of exten- 
 uation from high temptations of frailty, so I 
 hope your Majesty will be pleased to consider 
 how far the nature of so faithful and passionate 
 a servant of yours, as I am, could bear that 
 provocation, of finding his master not only so 
 incensed against him by his enemies, but con- 
 tinued still in the danger of being betrayed, by 
 their unfaithfulness, in the highest interests of 
 his estate and person. Eeflecting upon this, I 
 beseech you, sir, what honest man (loving you 
 as I do) might not have been transported even 
 to frenzy and madness? As for my charging 
 your Lord Chancellor in the House of Peers, I 
 must confess to have done it without leave was 
 a failure, since no man ought to think that he 
 is abetter judge of his master's highest concern- 
 ment than himself. I do therefore, in all 
 humility, beg your pardon for any the least 
 appearance of such presumi^tion. But that 
 done, I most humbly beseech you to weigh in 
 your princely thoughts, from what other motive 
 it could possibly proceed but from m.y zeal to 
 your service. From particular spleen your 
 !!Majesty cannot think it, since you have so often 
 vouchsafed me the character of a very unvin- 
 dictive man ; and know so well with what 
 patience I have borne all his malicious practices 
 against me, without falling upon him publicly, 
 till I thought it could be no longer forborne, 
 without imminent hazard to your service and 
 safety : from interest much less, since it is 
 evident that by forbearing to do it, I might 
 have enjoyed plenty and quiet, with marks of 
 
 your favour ; and that by doing it, I hazarded 
 and ruined my fortune, then upon the point of 
 settlement, and reduced myself either to be a 
 prisoner or a vagabond. Nor do I think that 
 anybody will say, that finding myself lost with 
 you, I made my court by it to the next in 
 power. 
 
 Lastly, be pleased to vouchsafe me one 
 moment of reflection back upon the whole 
 tenor of my life in your royal father's service, 
 and in yours ; and if in the entire progress of it, 
 your princely heart can accuse me of the least 
 failure in true zeal for the interest and glory of 
 your crown, or in affection for the honour and 
 happiness of your person, I am so far from 
 desiring your pardon, that I desire not to live ; 
 but if, on the contrary, your excellent judgment, 
 as well as nature, shall bear me the testimony, 
 within yourself, of a constant fervour and faith- 
 fulness in them both, I hope that with so 
 gi'acious a master, I shall not be ruined for one 
 transportment of love beyond the bounds of 
 discretion. You know, as well as Solomon, 
 that love covers a multitude of faults : it is 
 that which I cannot but promise myself, from 
 your incomparable goodness, whom I beseech 
 God to bless and direct to what may be most 
 for the honour and prosperity of your affairs, 
 though it were to be with the certain destruction 
 of yovir Majesty's humble servant, 
 
 Bristol. 
 
 SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO RICHARD BENTLEY. 
 
 Cambridge, February 11, 1693. 
 Sir, — The hypothesis of deriving the frame 
 of the world by mechanical principles from 
 matter evenly spread through the heavens being 
 inconsistent with my system, I had considered 
 it very little before your letters put me upon it, 
 and therefore trouble you with a line or two 
 more, if this come not too late for your use. 
 In my former I represented that the diurnal 
 rotations of the planets could not be derived 
 from gravity, but required a divine power to 
 impress them. And though gravity might give 
 the planets a motion of descent towards the 
 sun, either directly or with some little 
 obliquity, yet the transverse motions by which 
 they revolve in their several orbs required the 
 Divine Arm to impress them according to the 
 tangents of their orbs. I would now add, that 
 the hypothesis of matter being at first evenly 
 spread through the heavens is, in my opinion, 
 inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate 
 gravity without a supernatural power to 
 reconcile them, and therefore it infers a Deity. 
 For if there be innate gravity, it's impossible 
 now for the matter of the earth and all the 
 planets and stars to fly up from them, and 
 become evenly spread throughout the heavens. 
 
344 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 without a supernatural power ; and certainly 
 that which can never be hereafter without a 
 supernatural power could never be heretofore 
 without the same i^ower. 
 
 You queried whether matter evenly spread 
 throughout a finite space, of some other figiire 
 tlian spherical, would not, in falling down 
 towards a central body, cause that body to be of 
 the same figure with the whole space ; and I 
 answered. Yes. But in my answer it is to be 
 supposed that the matter descends directly 
 downwards to that body, and that that body 
 has no diurnal rotation. This, sir, is all that I 
 would add to my former letters. 
 
 I am, your most humble servant, 
 
 Is. Newton. 
 
 [It was certainly a very extraordinary under- 
 taking in all respects, the giving of Lieu- 
 tenant- General Admiral Herbert the 
 command of the fleet, and will appear so, 
 if we reflect that a great army was to be 
 embarked ; that seven hundred transports 
 were to be prepared for that embarkation ; 
 that provisions, ammunition, and every- 
 thing requisite for the service, as well of 
 the army as of the fleet, was to be jorocured 
 in a short time, and with the utmost 
 secrecy ; all which was actually done by 
 the indefatigable diligence of four com- 
 missioners, viz. Bentinck, Dykvelt, Van 
 Hulst, and Herbert : it is plain, therefore, 
 that his skill in directing what was requisite 
 for the fleet was entirely relied on, that 
 nothing broke out all that time. After 
 such an instance of his capacity and inde- 
 fatigable care, they might well expect that 
 the rest of his conduct would be of a piece. 
 But what seems further to explain the real 
 intention of the States and the Prince of 
 Orange in trusting Vice-Admiral Herbert, 
 though a stranger, with so high a command, 
 was the i^ublishing his letter to the 
 commanders of the English fleet at the 
 very same time with the Prince of Orange's 
 declaration ; for, if they had not placed 
 very strong hopes upon that, without 
 question it had never been published at all, 
 and, if they had such hopes, this alone will 
 sufficiently account for the giving him the 
 chief command under the Prince of Orange, 
 to whom, by the nature of his commission, 
 he was Lieutenant-General by sea. Neither 
 were these hopes of influencing the English 
 seamen slightly grounded, since the pamph- 
 
 lets written in those times universally agree, 
 that the seamen had a very general and 
 warm aversion to Popery, disliked and 
 despised such of their officers as had em- 
 braced that religion, and were very prone 
 in their cups to drink Admiral Herbert's 
 health ; so that these were very strong 
 indications of their ill-will on one side, and 
 their good-will on the other. — Campbell's 
 Live^ of the Admirals. 1 
 
 ADMIRAL HEKBERT TO THE COMMANDERS 
 OF THE FLEET. 
 
 Gentlemen,— I have little to add to what 
 his Highness has expressed in general terms, 
 besides laying before you the dangerous way 
 you are at present in, where ruin or infamy 
 must inevitably attend you, if you do not join 
 with the Prince in the common cause for the 
 defence of your religion and liberties ; for 
 should it please God, for the sins of the English 
 nation, to suffer your arms 'to prevail, to what 
 end can your victory serve you, but to enslave 
 you deeper, and overthrow the true religion in 
 which you have lived, and your fathers died, of 
 which I beg you as a friend to consider the 
 consequences, and to reflect on the blot and 
 infamy it will bring on you, not only now, but 
 in all after-ages, that by your means the 
 Protestant religion was destroyed, and your 
 country deprived of its ancient liberties ; and 
 if it pleases God to bless the Prince's endeavours 
 with success, as I do not doubt but He will, 
 consider then what their condition will be that 
 oppose him in this so good a design, where the 
 greatest favour they can hope for their 
 being suffered to end their days in misery and 
 want, detested and despised by all good men. 
 
 It is, therefore, for these and for many other 
 reasons, too long to insert here, that I, as a 
 true Englishman, and your friend, exhort you 
 to join your arms to the Prince for the defence 
 of the common cause, the Protestant religion, 
 and the liberties of your country. 
 
 It is what I am well assured the major and 
 best part of the army, as well as the nation, 
 will do as soon as convenience is offered. Pre- 
 vent them in so good an action while it is in 
 your power, and make it appear, that as the 
 kingdom has always depended on the navy for 
 its defence, so you will yet go farther, by making 
 it as much as in you lies the protection of her 
 religion and liberties ; and then you may assure 
 yourselves of all marks of favour and honour, 
 suitable to the merits of so glorious an action. 
 After this I ought not to add so inconsiderable 
 a thing, as that it will for ever engage me to be 
 in a most particular manner, your faithful 
 friend, and humble servant, 
 
 Ar. Herbert. 
 
 Aboard the ' Le>/den,' in the Gore. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 345 
 
 ["William TVycherley, dramatist and man of 
 fashion in the reign of Charles II., in this 
 and the following letter is comparing notes 
 Avith his brother dramatist and critic John 
 Dennis, -who occupies a conspicuous place 
 in Pope's Dunciad, and whose life was 
 frequently embittered by literary quarrels 
 ^th his contemporaries.] 
 
 WYCHEELET TO DEXXIS. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You have found a way to make 
 me satisfied with my absence from London ; 
 nay, what is more, with the distance which is 
 now betwixt you and me. That, indeed, uses 
 to lessen friendship, but gives me the greater 
 mark of yours, by your kind letter, which I had 
 missed if I had been nearer to you : so that I, 
 who receive no rents here, yet must own, if I 
 did, I could not receive greater satisfaction 
 than I had from yoxirs, worth even a letter of 
 exchange, or letters patent ; for I value your 
 friendship more than money, and am prouder 
 of your approbation than I should be of titles : 
 for the having a good opinion of one who knows 
 mankind so well, argues some merit in me, 
 upon which every man ought to consider 
 himself more than upon the goods of fortune. 
 I had rather be thought your friend in proof of 
 niy judgment and good sense, than a friend to 
 the Muses ; and had rather have you than them 
 thought mine. If I am, as you say, at once 
 proud and humble, 'tis since I have known I 
 have had the honour to please you ; though your 
 praise rather humbles than makes me (though 
 
 a poet) more vain : for it is so great, 
 
 that it rather seems the raillery of a witty man 
 than the sincerity of a friend ; and rather 
 proves the copiousness *of your own invention 
 than justifies the fertility of mine. But I fear 
 I am forfeiting the character of the i^lain- 
 dealer with you ; and seem, like vain women or 
 vainer men, to refuse i^raise but to get more ; 
 and so by returning your compliments, show 
 myself grateful out of interest, as knaves are 
 punctual in some payments but to augment 
 their credit. And for your praise of my 
 humility (the only mark of my knowledge, 
 since it is a mark of my knowing myself), you 
 have praised that to its destruction, and have 
 given me so much, you have left me none ; like 
 those admirers, who praise a young maid's 
 modesty till they deprive her of it. But let me 
 tell you, 'tis not to my humility that you owe 
 my friendship, but to my ambition, since I can 
 have no greater than to be esteemed by you, 
 and the v/orld, your friend, and to be known 
 to all mankind for, dear sir, your humble 
 servant, W. Wtcherley. 
 
 DENNIS TO WTCHERLEY. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Not long after I writ my last to 
 you, I was hurried up to town by a kind of a 
 cholic, which was ended in a defluxion upon 
 one of my feet. You know, sir, a defluxion is 
 a general name which some pleasant Frenchmen 
 have given an infant gout too young to be yet 
 baptized. But though the distemper raged in 
 each hand, I would in spite of it answer your 
 admirable letter ; a letter which I had certainly 
 known to be yours, though it had been sent me 
 without a name, nay, and transcribed by a 
 chancery-clerk in his own hideous manner of 
 copying. But I must confess I was surprised to 
 hear you say in it, that you took the sincerity 
 of a man who so much esteems you for raillery ; 
 yet though you declare it, you can never believe 
 it. I am willing to believe you exceeding 
 humble ; but you can never be humble to that 
 degree, unless your mind, which resembles 
 your eye in its clearness, its liveliness, and in its 
 piercing views, should be also like it in this, 
 that plainly discerning all things else, it wants 
 a sight of itself : but in this it does not resemble 
 it ; for it beholds itself by reflections, and, like 
 a lovely maid at her glass, is charmed with the 
 sight of its own beauty. This is a sight in 
 which you take pride as well as pleasure ; but 
 yours, I mu.st confess, is a guiltless i^ride, it 
 being nothing but first motion, which it is 
 impossible for man to avoid. You have both 
 the force to subdue it immediately, and the art 
 and goodness to conceal it from us. That it 
 plainly appears from what T have said, that you 
 do not believe I had any design to rally you, I 
 am confident, that through all my letter there 
 appears an air of sincerity. But that is a virtue 
 which has been so long and so peculiarly yours, 
 that you may perhaps be jealous of it in your 
 friends, and disclaim some virtues which they 
 commend in you, only to monopolize that. 
 You had given me at least an occasion to think 
 so, if the raillery in yours had not been so very 
 apparent, that even I had eyes to discern that 
 you have been to blame in it, though I am doubly 
 blinded with love of you and myself. Yet if 
 you writ it with a design to mortify me, assure 
 yourself, that I shall fortify my vanity with 
 that very artillery with which you have begun 
 to attack it. If Mr. Wycherley rallies me, it is 
 certain that I have my defects ; but it is full 
 as certain, that he would never condescend to 
 abuse me at such a distance if he wholly 
 despised me. Thus, sir, you see I am as 
 reasonable with my friend as a Russian spousa 
 is with her husband, and take his very raillery 
 for a mark of esteem, as she does a beating for 
 a proof of affection. The very worst of your 
 qualities gain our affections : even your jealousy 
 is very obliging, which it could never be unless 
 it were very groundless. But since your veiy 
 suspicion is obliging, what influence must your 
 
34^ 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 kindness have on our souls ? The wish that I 
 were with you in some retirement, is engaging 
 to that degree that I almost repent that I so 
 eagerly desired your conversation before ; for if 
 it were possible, I would augment that desire 
 as a grateful return to yours. To be with you 
 in solitude would make me happy. Though it 
 were in the Orcades, I v/ould not wish myself 
 removed to any happier climate ; no, not even 
 to that which contained my absent mistress : all 
 that I could do for her on that occasion, would 
 be to wish her with me. In that retirement 
 what should I not enjoy? where I should be 
 admirably instructed . without trouble, and 
 infinitely delighted without vice ; where I ' 
 should be glorious at once with envy and quiet ; 
 for what could be more glorious than to be the 
 companion of your retreat ? My very ambition 
 instructs me to love such solitude ; though, 
 properly speaking, there can be no solitude 
 where you reside ; immortal company still 
 attend you ; and the virtues, the graces, and 
 the charming Nine who love the groves, and are 
 fond of you, follow you to remotest retirements. 
 The comic muse is more particularly yours ; 
 and it is your peculiar praise to allure the most 
 ravishing of all the sisters after you into 
 retirement : to make that goddess forsake the 
 crowd with you, who loves it most of the Nine : 
 you have been constantly her darling, her best 
 beloved. Thus in retirement with her and you, 
 I should have the conversation of mankind ; I 
 should enjoy it with all its advantages, without 
 its least inconveniences. In the i^hilosophy of 
 your actions and words, I should see the wise, 
 the good, and the truly great ; in your obser- 
 vations and in your raillery, the men of sense 
 and the men of wit ; and in your satire, severely 
 pleasant, the fools and rascals exposed by it. 
 In the postscript to my last, I made an apology 
 for usurping a style so foi-eign from this way of 
 writing. I have once more run into the same 
 fault in this ; but the very thought of Mr. 
 Wycherley spreads a generous warmth through 
 me, and raises my soul to rajpture ; and when a 
 man writes, his soul and his style of necessity 
 rise together. In my next, I have something 
 with which I must trouble you, that will 
 require another manner of writing. 
 
 I am, sir, etc. 
 
 WYCHERLEY TO DENNIS. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have received yours of the 20th 
 of November, and am glad to find by it that 
 however your friends are losers by your absence 
 from the town, you are a gainer by it, of your 
 health, which eveiy one you have left behind 
 you (but Ch — ) may be thought a friend to ; 
 and the more each man is your friend, the more 
 he is satisfied with your absence, which, though 
 it makes us ill for want of you, makes you well 
 
 for want of us ; your taking no leave of me 
 (which you would excuse) I take to be one of 
 the greatest kindnesses you ever showed me ; 
 for I could no more see a departing friend from 
 the town than a departing friend from this 
 life ; and sure 'tis as much kindness and good 
 breeding to steal from our friends' society, 
 unknown to them (when we must leave them 
 to their trouble), as it is to steal out of a room, 
 after a ceremonial visit, to prevent trouble to 
 him whom we would oblige and respect ; so 
 that your last fault (as you call it) is like the 
 rest of your faults, rather an obligation than an 
 offence ; though the greatest injury indeed you 
 can do your friends, is to leave them against 
 their will, which you must needs do. You tell 
 me you converse with me in my writings; I 
 must confess, then, you suffer a great deal for 
 me in my absence, which (though I would have 
 you love me) I would not have you do ; but for 
 your truer diversion, pray change my country 
 wife for a better of your own in the country, 
 and exercise your own plain-dealing there ; then" 
 you will make your country squire better com- 
 pany, and your parson more sincere in your 
 comjpany than in his pulpit, or in his cups : but 
 when you talk of store of delights you find in 
 my plain-dealer, you cease to be one ; and 
 when you commend my country wife, you never 
 were more a courtier ; and I doubt not but you 
 will like your next neighbour's country wife 
 better than you do mine, that you may pass 
 your time better than you can do with my 
 country wife. I was sorry to find by you that 
 yo\ir head ached while you writ me your letter ; 
 since I fear 'twas from reading my works (as 
 you call them), not from your own writing, 
 which never gave you pain, though it would to 
 others to imitate it. I have given your service 
 to your friends at the Rose, who, since yovu- 
 absence, own they ought not to go for the 
 Witty Club; nor is Will's the Wits' Coffee- 
 house any more, since you left it ; whose 
 society, for want of yours, is grown as melan- 
 choly, that is, as dull as when you left them a 
 nights to their own mother-wit, their puns, 
 couplets, or quibbles ; therefore expect not a 
 witty letter from any of them, no more than 
 from me, since they nor I have conversed with 
 you these three weeks. I have no news worth 
 sending you, but my next shall bring you what 
 we have. In the meantime, let me tell you 
 (what I hope is no news to you) that your 
 absence is more tedious to me than a quibbler's 
 company to you ; so that I being sick yesterday, 
 as I thought without any cause, reflected you 
 were forty or fifty miles off, and then found the 
 reason of my disposition, for I cannot be well 
 so far from you, who am, dear Mr. Dennis, your 
 obliged, humble servant, 
 
 W. Wycherley. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 347 
 
 •UEEN ANNE TO THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, 
 AFTER THE VICTORY OF OUDENARDE, 1708.1 
 
 I want words to exiJress the joy I have that 
 you are well after your glorious success, for 
 which, next to Almighty God, my thanks are 
 due to you. And indeed I can never say 
 enough for all the great and faithful services 
 you have ever done me. But be so just as to 
 beKeve, I am as truly sensible of them as a 
 grateful heart can be, and shall be ready to 
 show it upon all occasions. I hope you cannot 
 doubt of my esteem and friendship for you ; nor 
 think, because I differ with you in some things, 
 it is for want of either : no, I do assure you. If 
 you were here, I am sure you would not think 
 me so much in the wrong in some things as I 
 fear you do now. I am afraid my letter should 
 come too late to London ; and therefore dare 
 say no more, but that I i)ray God Almighty to 
 continue His protection over you, and send you 
 safe home again : and be assured I shall ever be 
 sincerely, etc. 
 
 DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH TO QUEEN ANNE. 
 
 Madam, — I have the honour of your Majesty's 
 letter of the 6th, and am very thankful for all 
 your goodness to me ; and I am sure it will 
 always be my intention as well as duty, to be 
 ready to venture my life for your service. 
 
 As I have formerly told your Majesty, that I 
 am desirous to serve you in the army, but not 
 as a minister, I am every day more and more 
 confirmed in that oj)inion. And I think myself 
 obliged upon all accounts on this occasion to 
 speak my mind freely to you. The circum- 
 stances in this last battle, I think, show the 
 hand of God ; for Ave were obliged, not only to 
 march five leagues that moi'ning, but to pass a 
 river before the enemy, and to engage them 
 before the whole army was jjassed, which was a 
 visible mark of the favour of Heaven to you and 
 your arms. 
 
 Your Majesty shall be convinced from this 
 time, that I have no ambition nor anything to 
 ask for myself or family ; but I will end the 
 few years which I have to live, in endeavouring 
 to serve you, and to give God Almighty thanks 
 for His infinite goodness to me. But as I have 
 taken this resolution to myself, give me leave 
 to say, that I think you are obliged in con- 
 science, and as a good Christian, to forgive, and 
 to have no more resentments to any particular 
 person or party, but to make use of such as will 
 carry on this just war with vigour, which is the 
 only way to preserve our religion and liberties. 
 
 1 The victory over the forces led by the Duke 
 of Vendome in Flanders, in 1708. 
 
 and the crown on your head. Which, that you 
 may long enjoy, and be a blessing to your 
 people, shall be the constant wish and prayer of 
 him, that is with the greatest truth and duty, 
 madam, etc. 
 July 23, 1708. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Madam, — By what I hear from London, I 
 find your Majesty is pleased to think, that 
 when I have reflected, I must be of opinion 
 that you are in the right in giving Mr. Hill the 
 Earl of Essex's regiment. I beg your Majesty 
 will be so just to me, as not to think I can be 
 so unreasonable as to be mortified to the degree 
 that I am, if it pi'oceeded only from this one 
 thing ; for I shall always be ready and glad to 
 do everything that is agreeable to you, after I 
 have represented what may be a prejudice to 
 your service. But this is only one of a great 
 many mortifications that I have met with. 
 And as I may not have many opportunities of 
 writing to you, let me beg of your Majesty to 
 reflect what your own people and the rest of 
 the world must think, who have been witnesses 
 of the love, zeal, and duty with which I have 
 served you, when they shall see that after all 
 I have done, it has not been able to protect me 
 against the malice of a bed-chamber woman. 
 Your Majesty will allow me on this occasion 
 to remind you of what I writ to you the last 
 campaign, of the certain knowledge I had of 
 Blrs. Masham's having assured Mr. Harley 
 that I should receive such constant mortifica- 
 tions as should make it impossible for me to 
 continue in your service. God Almighty and 
 the whole world are my witnesses, with what 
 care and pains I have served you more than 
 twenty years, and I was resolved, if possible, to 
 have struggled with difficulties to the end of 
 the war. But the many instances I have had 
 of your Majesty's great change to me, has so 
 broke my spirits, that I must beg as the greatest 
 and last favour that you will approve of my 
 retiring, so that I may employ the little time 
 I have to live, in making my just acknowledg- 
 ments to God for the protection He has been 
 pleased to give me. And your Majesty may be 
 assured that my zeal for you and my country is 
 so great, than in my retirement I shall daily 
 pray for your prosperity, and that those who 
 shall serve you as faithfully as I have done, 
 may never feel the hard return that I have 
 met with. 
 
 [Godolphin was a supi^orter of Marlborough's 
 l^olicy, but gradually passed from tlie Tory 
 party to that of the Whigs. In 1710 he 
 was dismissed from office by Queen Anne.] 
 
34S 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 LOED TEEASUEER GODOLPIIIN TO QUEEN A^"NE. 
 
 I have the honour of yonr M;ijest.y's letter of 
 the loth, by which I have the grief to find 
 that what you are pleased to call spleen in my 
 former letter, was only a true imj)ulse and 
 conviction of mind, that your Majesty is suf- 
 fering yourself to be guided to your own ruin 
 and destruction as fast as it is i^ossible for them 
 to compass it, to whom you seem so much to 
 hearken. 
 
 I am not therefore so much surprised as con- 
 cerned at the resolution which your Majesty 
 says you have taken, of bringing in the Duke 
 of Shrewsbury. For when people began to be 
 sensible it would be difficult to persuade your 
 Majesty to dissolve a parliament which, for two 
 winters together, had given you above six 
 millions a year for the support of a war upon 
 which your croAvn depends ; even while that 
 war is still subsisting, they have had the cun- 
 ning to contrive this proposal to your Majesty, 
 which in its consequence will certainly put you 
 under a necessity of breaking the parliament, 
 though contrary (I yet believe) to your mind 
 and intention. 
 
 I beg your Majesty to be persuaded I do not 
 say this out of the least prejudice to the Duke 
 of Shrewsbury. There is no man of whose 
 capacity I have had a better impression, nor 
 with whom I have lived more easily and freely 
 for above twenty years. Your Majesty may 
 please to remember, that at your first coming to 
 the crown, I was desirous lie should have had 
 one of the chief posts in your service ; and it 
 would have been happy for your Majesty and 
 the kingdom if he had accepted that offer ; but 
 he thought fit to decline it, and the reasons 
 generally given at that time for his doing so, 
 do not much recommend him to your Majesty's 
 service. But I must endeavour to let your 
 Majesty see things as they really are. And to 
 bring him into your service and into your 
 business at this time, just after his being in a 
 public open conjunction in eveiy vote with the 
 whole body of the Tories, and in a private, 
 constant correspondence and caballing with 
 Mr. Harley in everything ; what consequence 
 can this possibly have, but to make every man 
 that is now in your cabinet council, except 
 
 , to run from it as they would 
 from the plague? And I leave it to your 
 Majesty to judge, what effect this entire change 
 of your ministers will have among your allies 
 abroad, and how well this war is like to be 
 carried on, in their opinion, by those who have 
 all along opposed and obstructed it, and who 
 will like any peace the better, the moi'e it 
 leaves France at liberty to take their time of 
 imposing the Pretender upon this country. 
 
 These considerations must certainly make 
 Holland run immediately into a separate peace 
 with France, and make your Majesty lose all 
 
 the honour and all the reputation your arms 
 had acquired by the war ; and make the king- 
 dom lose all the fruits of that vast expense 
 which they have been at in this war, as well as 
 all the advantage and safety which they had so 
 much need of and had so fair a prospect of 
 obtaining by it. And can anybody imagine 
 that after so great a disappointment of the 
 kingdom, there will not be an inquiry into the 
 causes of it ; and who have been the occasion 
 of so great a change in your Majesty's measures 
 and councils, which had been so long successful, 
 and gotten you so great a name in the world ? 
 I am very much afraid your Majesty will find, 
 when it is too late, that it will be a pretty 
 difficult task for anybody to stand against such 
 an inquiry. I am sure if I did not think all 
 these consequences inevitable, I would never 
 give your Majesty the trouble and uneasiness 
 of laying them before you. But persuaded as 
 I am that your Majesty will find them so, it is 
 my indispensable duty to do it out of pure 
 faithfulness and zeal for your Majesty's service 
 and honour. Your Majesty having taken a 
 resolution of so much consequence to all your 
 affairs both at home and abroad, without 
 acquainting the Duke of Marlborough or me 
 with it, till after you had taken it, is the least 
 part of my mortification in this whole affair. 
 Though perhaps the world may think the long 
 and faithful services we have constantly and 
 zealously endeavoured to do your Majesty, 
 might have deserved a little more consider- 
 ation. However, for my own part, I most 
 humbly beg leave to assure your Majesty, I 
 will never give the least obstruction to your 
 measures, or to any ministers you shall please 
 to employ. And I must beg further to 
 make two humble requests to your Majesty, — , 
 the one, that you will allow me to pass the 
 remainder of life always out of London, 
 where I may find most ease and quiet ; the 
 other, that you would keep this letter and read 
 it again about next Christmas, and then be 
 pleased to make your own judgment, who hath 
 given you the best and most faithful advice. 
 I am, etc. 
 Newmarket, April 15, 1710. 
 
 DUKE OF MAELBOEOUGH TO QUEEN ANNE.^ 
 
 Madam, — I am very sensible of the honour 
 your Majesty does me in dismissing me from 
 your service by a letter of your own hand, 
 though I find by it that my enemies have been 
 able to prevail with your Majesty to do it in 
 the manner that is most injurious to me. And 
 if their malice and inveteracy against me had , 
 not been more powerful with them than the 
 consideration of your Majesty's honour and 
 
 I See page 65. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 349 
 
 justice, they would not have influenced you to 
 impute the occasion of my dismission to a 
 false and malicious insinuation, contrived by 
 themselves, and made public, when there was 
 no opportunity for me to give in my answer ; 
 which they must needs be conscious would 
 fully detect the falsehood and malice of their 
 aspersions, and not leave them that handle for 
 bringing your Majesty to such extremities 
 against me. 
 
 But I am much more concerned at an expres- 
 sion in your Majesty's letter which seems to 
 complain of the treatment you had met with. 
 I know not how to understand that word, nor 
 what construction to make of it. I know I 
 have always endeavoured to serve your Majesty 
 faithfully and zealously, through a great many 
 undeserved mortifications. But if your Majesty 
 does intend by that expression to find fault 
 with my not coming to the Cabinet Council, I 
 am very free to acknowledge that my duty 
 to your Majesty and my country would not 
 give me leave to join in the counsel of a man, 
 who, in my opinion, puts your Majesty upon 
 all manner of extremities. And it is not my 
 opinion only, but the opinion of all mankind, 
 that the friendship of France must needs be 
 destructive to your Majesty ; there being in 
 that court a root of enmity irreconcilable to 
 your Majesty's Government, and the religion of 
 these kingdoms. I wish your Majesty may 
 never find the want of so faithful a servant as 
 I have always endeavoured to approve myself 
 to you. I am with the greatest duty and sub- 
 mission, Madam, your Majesty's most dutiful 
 and obedient subject, 
 
 Marlbokough. 
 
 [Prior, who was at this period ambassador at 
 Paris, belonged to a club of sixteen who 
 dined every week in rotation at each 
 others' houses. Of this society Swift was 
 a member. They were distinguished by 
 the title of Brothers.] 
 
 MATTHEW PRIOR TO SWIFT. 
 
 A Letter upon Nothing. 
 
 Paris, August IG, 1713. 
 As I did not expect, my good friend Jonathan, 
 to have received a letter from you at Dublin, so 
 I am sure I did not intend to write one thither 
 to you ; but Mr. Rosingrave^ thinks it may do 
 him service, in recommending him to you. If 
 so, I am very glad of it ; for it can be of no 
 other use imaginable : I have writ letters now 
 above twenty-two years. I have taken towns, 
 destroyed fleets, made treaties, and settled 
 
 commerce in letters. And what of all this? 
 why nothing, but that I have had some subject 
 to write upon. But to write a letter, only 
 because Mr. Rosingrave has a mind to carry one 
 in his pocket ; to tell you that you are sure of 
 a friendship which can never do you threepence 
 worth of good ; and to wish you well in 
 England very soon, when I do not know when I 
 am likely to be there myself ; — all this, I say, 
 is very absurd for a letter, especially when I 
 have this day written a dozen much more to 
 the purpose. If I had seen your manuscript^ — 
 if I had received Dr. Parnell's poem — if I had 
 any news of Lenden being taken — why, well and 
 good. But as I know no more than that the 
 Duke of Shrewsbury designs for England within 
 three weeks, that I must stay here till some- 
 body else comes, and then brings me necessarily 
 to say, good Mi\ Dean, that I am like the fellow 
 in the Rehearsal, who did not know if he was 
 to be merry or serious, or in what way or mood 
 to act his part. One thing only I am assiired 
 of, that I love you very well, and most 
 sincerely and faithfully. Dear sir, your servant 
 and brother, M. Prior. 
 
 [This letter contains the views of an eminent 
 and successful English dramatist upon 
 humour. With all their wit and spirit, 
 Congreve's own dramas are too gross for the 
 stage of the present day.] 
 
 WILLIAM CONGREVE (1670-1729) TO DENNIS. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You write to me, that you have 
 entertained yourself two or three days with 
 reading several comedies of several authors ; 
 and your observation is, that there is more of 
 humour in our English writers than in any of 
 the other comic poets, ancient or modern. You 
 desire to know my opinion, and at the same 
 time my thought of that which is generally 
 called humour in comedy. 
 
 I agree with you in an impartial preference 
 of our English writers in that particular. But 
 if I tell you my thoughts of humour, I must at 
 the same time confess that what I take for true 
 humour has not been so often written even by 
 them as is generally believed, and some v/ho 
 have valued themselves, and have been es- 
 teemed by others for that kind of writing, have 
 seldom touched upon it. To make this appear 
 to the world would require a long and laboured 
 discourse, and such as I neither am able nor 
 willing to undertake. But such little remarks 
 as may be contained within the compass of a 
 letter, and such unpremeditated thoughts as 
 may be commimicated between friend and 
 friend, without incurring the censure of tlie 
 
 1 A celebrated musical performer. 
 
 1 Of the History of the Peace of Uti edit. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 world, or setting up for a dictator, you shall 
 have from me, since you have enjoined it. 
 
 To define humour, perhaps, were as difficult 
 as to define wit ; for, like that, it is of infinite 
 variety. To enumerate the several humours of 
 men, were a work as endless as to sum up their 
 several opinions. And in my mind the Quot 
 liomines tot sententice might have been more 
 properly interpreted of humour; since there 
 are many men of the same opinion in many 
 things, who are yet quite different in humours. 
 But though we cannot certainly tell what wit 
 is, or what humour is, yet we may go near to 
 show something which is not wit, or not 
 humour, and yet often mistaken for both. And 
 since I have mentioned wit and humour 
 together, let me make the first distinction 
 between them, and observe to you that wit is 
 often mistaken for humour. 
 
 I have observed, that when a few things have 
 been wittily and pleasantly spoken by any 
 character in a comedy, it has been very usual 
 for those who make their remarks on a play 
 while it is acting, to say, Such a thing is very 
 hvimorously spoken ; there is a great deal of 
 humour in that part. Thus the character of 
 the i^erson speaking, may be surprisingly and 
 l^leasantly, is mistaken for a character of 
 humour, which, indeed, is a character of wit ; 
 but there is a gi-eat difference between a 
 comedy wherein there are many things humor- 
 ously, as they call it, which is pleasantly 
 si^oken, and one where there are several 
 characters of humour, distinguished by the 
 particular and different humours appropriated 
 to the several persons represented, and which 
 naturally arise from the different constitutions, 
 complexions, and dispositions of men. The 
 saying of humorous things does not distinguish 
 characters ; for every person in a comedy may 
 be allowed to speak them. From a witty man 
 they are expected, and even a fool may be per- 
 mitted to stumble on them by chance. Though 
 I make a difference betwixt wit and humour, 
 yet I do not think that humorous characters 
 exclude wit : no, but the manner of wit should 
 be adajDted to the luimour. As for instance, a 
 character of a splenetic and peevish humour 
 should have a satirical wit ; a jolly and 
 sanguine humour, should have a facetious wit : 
 the former should speak i^ositively, the latter 
 carelessly ; for the former observes and shows 
 things as they are ; the latter rather overlooks 
 nature, and speaks things as he would have 
 them ; and his wit and humour have both of 
 them a less alloy of judgment than the others. 
 
 As wit, so its opposite, folly, is sometimes 
 mistaken for humour. 
 
 When a poet brings a character on the stage, 
 committing a thousand absurdities, and talking 
 impertinencies, roaring aloud, and laughing 
 immoderately, on every, or rather upon no 
 occasion ; this is a character of humour. 
 
 Is anything more common than to have a 
 pretended comedy stuffed with such grotesque 
 figures and farce-fools ? Things that either are 
 not in natvire, or if they are, are monsters, and 
 births of mischance ; and consequently, as such, 
 should be stifled, and huddled out of the way, 
 like Sooterkins, that mankind may not be 
 shocked with an appearing possibility of the 
 degeneration of a God-like species. For my 
 part, I am as willing to laugh as anybody, and 
 as easily diverted with an object truly ridiculous ; 
 but at the same time, I can never care for 
 seeing things that force me to entertain low 
 thoughts of my nature. I don't know how it is 
 with others, but I confess freely to you, I could 
 never look long upon a monkey without very 
 mortifying reflections ; thougli I never heard 
 anything to the contrary why that creature is 
 not originally of a distinct species. As I don't 
 think humour exclusive of wit, neither do I 
 think it inconsistent with folly ; but I think 
 the follies should be only such as men's humours 
 may incline them to, and not follies entirely 
 abstracted from both humour and nature. 
 
 Sometimes personal defects are misrepre- 
 sented for humours. 
 
 I mean, sometimes characters are barbarously 
 exposed on the stage, ridiculing natural 
 deformities, casual defects in the senses, and 
 infirmities of age. Sure the poet must both be 
 very ill-natured himself, and think his audience 
 so, when he proposes, by showing a man 
 deformed, or deaf, or blind, to give them an 
 agreeable entertainment ; and hopes to raise 
 their mirth by what is truly an object of 
 compassion. But much need not be said upon 
 this head to anybody, especially to you, who in 
 one of your letters to me concerning Mr. 
 Jonson's Fox, have justly excepted against this 
 immoral part of ridicule in Corbaccio's cha- 
 racter ; and there I must agree with you to 
 blame him, whom otherwise I cannot enough 
 admire, for his gTeat mastery in true humour in 
 comedy. 
 
 External habit of body is often mistaken for 
 humour. 
 
 By external habit, I do not mean the ridicu- 
 lous dress or clothing of a character, though 
 that goes a good way in some received 
 characters (but undoubtedly a man's humour 
 may incline him to dress differently from 
 other people) ; but I mean a singularity of 
 manners, speech, and behaviour, peculiar to all 
 or most of the same country, trade, jDrofession, 
 or education. I cannot think that a humour 
 which is only a habit or disposition contracted 
 by use or custom ; for by a disuse or compliance 
 with other customs, it may be worn off, or 
 diversified. 
 
 Affectation is generally mistaken for humour. 
 
 These are indeed so much alike, that, at a 
 distance, they may be mistaken one for the 
 other; for what is humour in one may be 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 affectation in another ; and nothing is more 
 common than for some to affect particular ways 
 of saying and doing things peculiar to others, 
 whom they admire and would imitate. Humour 
 is the life, affectation the picture. He that 
 draws a character of affectation, shows humour 
 at the second-hand ; he at best but publishes a 
 translation, and his pictui'es are but copies. 
 
 But as these two last distinctions are the 
 nicest, so it may be most proper to explain them 
 by particular instances from some author of 
 reputation. Humour I take either to be born 
 with us, and so of a natui-al growth ; or else to 
 be grafted into us by some accidental change in 
 the constitution, or revolution of the internal 
 habit of body, by which it becomes, if I may 
 so call it, naturalized. 
 
 Humour is from nature, habit from custom, 
 and affectation from industry. 
 
 Humour shows us as we are. 
 
 Habit shows us as we appear under a forcible 
 impression. 
 
 Affectation shows what we would be under a 
 voluntary disguise. 
 
 Though here I would observe by the way, 
 that a continued affectation may in time become 
 a habit. 
 
 The character of Morose in the Silent 
 Woman, I take to be a character of humour. 
 And I choose to instance this character to you, 
 from many others of the same author, because 
 I know it has been condemned by many as 
 unnatural and farce ; and you have yourself 
 hinted some dislike of it, for the same reason, 
 in a letter to me concerning some of Jonson's 
 plays. 
 
 Let us suppose Morose to be a man naturally 
 splenetic and melancholy : is there anything 
 more offensive to one of such a disposition, than 
 noise and clamour ? Let any man that has the 
 spleen (and there are enough in England) be 
 judge. We see common examples of this 
 humour in little every day. 'Tis ten to one 
 but three parts in four of the company that you 
 dine with are discomposed and startled at the 
 cutting of a cork, or scratching a plate with a 
 knife. It is a proportion of the same humour, 
 that makes such or any other noise offensive to 
 the person that hears it ; for there are others 
 who will not be disturbed at all by it. Well ; 
 but Morose, you will say, is so extravagant, he 
 cannot bear any discourse or conversation above 
 a whisper. Why, it is his excess of this 
 humour that makes him become ridiculous, and 
 qualifies his character for comedy. If the poet 
 had given him but a moderate propoi-tion of 
 that humour, 'tis odds but half the audience 
 would have sided with the character, and have 
 condemned the author for exposing a humour 
 which was neither remarkable nor ridiculous. 
 Besides, the distance of the stage requires the 
 figure represented to be something larger than 
 the life ; and sure a picture may have features 
 
 larger in proportion, and yet be very like the 
 original. If this exactness of quantity were to 
 be observed in wit, as some would have it in 
 humour, what would become of those characters 
 that are designed for men of wit ? I believe if 
 a poet should steal a dialogue of any length 
 from the extempore discourse of the two 
 wittiest men upon earth, he would find the 
 scene but coldly received by the town. But to 
 the purpose : 
 
 The character of Sir John Daw in the same 
 play is a character of affectation. He every- • 
 where discovers an affectation of learning ; 
 when he is not only conscious to himself, but 
 the audience also plainly jierceives, that he is 
 ignorant. Of this kind are the characters of 
 Thraso in the Eunuch of Terence, and Pyrgopo- 
 linices in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus : they 
 affect to be thought valiant, when both them- 
 selves and the au.dience know they are not. 
 Now such a boasting of valour in men who 
 were really valiant, would undoubtedly be a 
 humour ; for a fiery disposition might naturally 
 throw a man into the same extravagance, 
 which is only affected in the characters I have 
 mentioned. 
 
 The character of Cob in Every Man in his 
 Humour, and most of the under characters in 
 Bartholomeio Fair, discover only a singularity 
 of manners appropriated to the several educa- 
 tions and professions of the persons rejiresented. 
 They are not humours, but habits contracted by 
 custom. Under this head may be ranged all 
 country clowns, sailors, tradesmen, jockeys, 
 gamesters, and such like, who make use of cants 
 or peculiar dialects in their several arts and 
 vocations. One may almost give a receipt for 
 the composition of such a character ; for the 
 poet has nothing to do but to collect a few 
 proper phrases and terms of art, and to make 
 the person apply them by ridiculous metaphors 
 in his conversation with characters of different 
 natures. Son»e late charactei-s of this kind have 
 been very successful ; but in my mind they may 
 be painted without much art or labour, since 
 they require little more than a good memory 
 and superficial observation. But true humour 
 cannot be shown without a dissection of nature, 
 and a narrow search to discover the first seeds 
 from whence it has its root and growth. 
 
 If I were to write to the world I should be 
 obliged to dwell longer upon each of these 
 distinctions and examples ; for I know that they 
 would not be plain enough to all readers : but a 
 bare hint is sufficient to inform you of the 
 notions which I have on the subject ; and I hope 
 by this time you are of my ojiinion, that humour 
 is neither wit nor folly, nor j^ersonal defect, nor 
 affectation, nor habit; and yet that each and 
 all of these have been both written and re- 
 ceived for humour. 
 
 I should be unwilling to venture even on a 
 bare description of humour, much more to 
 
352 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 make a definition of it ; but now my hand is in, 
 I'll tell you what serves me instead of cither : 
 I take it to be, a singular and unavoidable 
 manner of doing or saying anything, peculiar 
 and natural to one man only, by which his 
 speech and actions are distinguished from those 
 of other men. 
 
 Our humour has relation to us, and to what 
 proceeds from us, as the accidents have to a 
 substance : it is a colour, taste, and smell, dif- 
 fused through all ; though our actions are never 
 so many, and different in form, they are all 
 splinters of the same wood, and have naturally 
 one complexion ; which though it may be dignified 
 by art, yet cannot be wholly changed ; we may 
 paint it with other colours, but we cannot 
 change the grain. So the natural sound of an in- 
 strument will be distinguished, though the notes 
 expressed by it are never so various, and the 
 diversions never so many. Dissimulation may 
 by degrees become more easy to our practice ; 
 bvit it can never absolutely transubstantiate us 
 into what we would seem : it will always be in 
 some proportion a violence upon nature. 
 
 A man may change his opinion, but I believe 
 he will find it a difficulty to part with his 
 humour ; and there is nothing more provoking 
 than the being made sensible of that difficulty. 
 Sometimes one shall meet with those who, 
 perhaps innocently enough, but at the same 
 time impertinently, will ask the question, "Why 
 are you not merry? Why are you not gay, 
 l'<leasant, and cheerful? Then, instead of an- 
 swering, could I ask such one, "Wliy are you not 
 handsome ? Why have you not black eyes, and a 
 better complexion ? Nature abhors to be forced. 
 
 The two famous x^hilosophers of Ephesus and 
 Abdera have their different sects at this day ; 
 some weep, and others laugh, at one and the 
 same thing. 
 
 I don't doubt but you have observed several 
 men laugli when they are angry ; others who 
 are silent ; some that are loud : yet I cannot 
 supj)Ose that it is the passion of anger which is 
 in itself different, or more or less in one than 
 t'other ; but that it is the humour of the man 
 that is predominant, and urges him to express 
 it in that manner. Demonstrations of i^leasure 
 are as various : one man has a humour of 
 retiring from all comi^any, when anything has 
 liaijpened to please him beyond expectation ; he 
 hugs himself alone, and thinks it an addition 
 to the pleasure to keep it secret. Another is 
 upon thorns till he has made proclamation of 
 it ; and must make other jDeople sensible of liis 
 happiness, before he can be so himself. So it is 
 in grief and other passions. Demonstrations of 
 love, and the effects of that passion upon 
 several humours, are infinitely different : but 
 here the ladies, who abound in servants, are the 
 best judges. Talking of the ladies, methinks 
 something should be observed of the humour of 
 tlie fair sex, since they ai'e sometimes so kind 
 
 as to furnish out a character for comedy. But 
 I must confess, I have never made any observa- 
 tion of what I apprehend to be true humour in 
 women. Perhaps passions are too powerful in 
 that sex to let humour have its course, or may- 
 be, by reason of their natural coldness, humour 
 cannot exert itself to that extravagant degree 
 which it often does in the male sex : for if ever 
 anything does appear comical or ridiculous in a 
 woman, I think it is little more than an acquired 
 folly or an affectation. We may call them the 
 weaker sex ; but I think the true reason is, 
 because our follies are stronger, and our faults 
 are more prevailing. 
 
 One might think that the diversity of humour, 
 which must be allowed to be diffused through- 
 out mankind, might afford endless matter for 
 the support of comedies. But when we come 
 closely to consider that point, and nicely to 
 distinguish the difference of humours, I believe 
 we shall find the contrary. For though we allow 
 every man something of his own, and a peculiar 
 humour, yet every man has it not in (quantity 
 to become remarkable by it ; or, if many do 
 become remarkable by their humours, yet all 
 those humours may not be diverting. Nor is it 
 only requisite to distinguish what humour will 
 be diverting, but also how much of it, what 
 part of it to show in light, and what to cast in 
 shades ; how to set it off in jjreparatory scenes, 
 and by opposing other humours to it in the 
 same scene. Through a wrong judgment, 
 sometimes, men's humours may bo opposed when 
 there is really no specific difference between 
 them, only a greater proportion of the same 
 in one than t'other, occasioned by having 
 more phlegm or choler, or whatever the con- 
 stitution is from whence their humours derive 
 their source. 
 
 There is infinitely more to be said on this 
 subject, tho' perhaps I have already said too 
 much ; but I have said it to a friend, who I am 
 sure will not expose it if he does not approve of 
 it. I believe the subject is entirely new, and 
 was never touched upon before ; and if I would 
 have any one to see this private essay, it should 
 be some one who might be provoked by my 
 errors in it to publish a more judicious treatise 
 on the subject. Indeed I wish it were done, 
 that the world being a little acquainted with 
 the scarcity of true humour, and the difficulty 
 of finding and showing it, might look a little 
 more favourably on the labours of them who 
 endeavour to search into nature for it, and lay 
 it open to the public view. 
 
 I don't say but that very entertaining and 
 useful characters, and proper for comedy, may 
 be drawn from affectations, and those other 
 qualities which I have endeavoured to distinguish 
 from humour ; but I would not have such im- 
 posed on the world for humour, nor esteemed of 
 equal value with it. It were perhaps the work 
 of a long life to make one comedy true in all 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 353 
 
 its i^^arts, and to give every character in it a 
 true and distinct humour. Therefore every 
 poet must be beholden to other helps, to make 
 out his number of ridiculous characters. But 
 I think such a one deserves to be broke who 
 makes all false musters ; who does not show one 
 true humour in a comedy, but entertains his 
 audience to the end of the play with everything 
 out of nature. 
 
 I will make but one observation to you more, 
 and I have done ; and that is grounded upon an 
 observation of your o%vn, and which I mentioned 
 at the beginning of my letter, y\z. that there 
 is more of humour in our English comic writers 
 than in any othei-s. I do not at all wonder at 
 it, for I look upon humour to be almost of 
 English growth ; at least it does not seem to 
 have found such increase on any other soil ; and 
 what appears to me to be the reason of it, is 
 the great freedom, privilege, and liberty which 
 the common people of England enjoy. Any 
 man that has a humour, is under no restraint 
 or fear of giving it vent : they have a i)roverb 
 among them, which maybe will show the 
 bertt and genius of the i^eople as well as a 
 longer discourse : he that will have a May-pole 
 shall have a May-pole. This is a maxim with 
 them, and their practice is agreeable to it. I 
 believe something considerable too may be as- 
 cribed to their feeding so much on flesh, and the 
 grossness of their diet in general. But I have 
 done, let the physicians agree that. Thus you 
 have my thoughts of humour, to my power of 
 expressing them in so little time and compass. 
 You will be kind to show me wherein I have 
 erred ; and as you are very capable of giving me 
 instruction, so I think I have a very just title to 
 demand it from you ; being, without reserve, 
 your real friend and humble servant, 
 
 W. CONGREVE. 
 
 MR. TO CONGREVE. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I came home from the Land's 
 End yesterday, where I found three letters 
 from Mr. Dennis, and one from you, with a 
 humorous description of John Abassus.i Since 
 the dubbing of Don Quixote, and the coronation 
 of Petrarch in the capitol, there has not been so 
 great a solemnity as the consecration of John 
 Abassus. In all the pagan ritual, I never met 
 with the form of poetical orders ; but I believe 
 the ceremony of consecrating a man to Apollo 
 is the same with devoting a man to the Dii 
 Manes, for both are martyrs to fame. I believe 
 not a man of the Grave Club durst assist at 
 this ridiculous scene for fear of laughing out- 
 right. W. was in his kingdom, and for my 
 part, I would have rather sat there than in the 
 
 1 A country poet. 
 
 House of Commons. Would to God I could 
 laugh with you for one hour or two at all the 
 ridiculous things that have happened at Will's 
 Coffee-house since I left it; 'tis the men-iest 
 place in the world : like Africa, every day 
 jjroduces a monster 5 and they are got there 
 just as Pliny says they are in Africa : beasts of 
 different kinds come to drink, mingle with one 
 another, and beget monsters. Present my 
 humble duty to my new lord, and tell him 
 that I am preparing an address to congi-atulate 
 his accession to the throne of the Babble. Tell 
 the lady, who was the author of the hue and 
 cry after me, she might have sent out a hun- 
 dred hues and cries before she would ha,ve 
 found a poet. I took an effectual course not 
 to be apprehended for a poet ; for I went down 
 clad like a soldier, with a new suit of clothes 
 on, and I think there could not have been a 
 better disguise for a poet, unless I had stolen 
 
 Dr. B 's coat. Dir. Dennis sent me down 
 
 P M 's i^arocly. I can say very little of 
 
 the poem ; but as for the dialogue, I think 'twas 
 
 the first time that INI suffered anybody to talk 
 
 with him, though indeed here he interrui')ts 
 Mr. Boileau in the midst of the first word. INIy 
 humble service to Mr. "Wycherley. I desire you 
 would write me some news of the stage, and 
 what i")rogress you have made in your tragedy. 
 I am your most affectionate friend and servant. 
 
 congeeve's answer. 
 
 Dear Sir,— I can't but think that a letter 
 
 from me in London to you in C is like 
 
 some ancient correspondence between an inhabi- 
 tant of Rome and a Cimmerian. Maybe my 
 way of writing may not be so modestly com- 
 pared with Eoman epistles ; but the resemblance 
 of the place will justify the other part of the 
 parallel : the subterraneous habitations of the 
 miners, and the proximity of the Bajee, help a 
 
 little ; and while you are at B , let B be 
 
 Cunce, and do you supply the place of Sibylla. 
 You may look on this as raillery ; but I can 
 assure you, nothing less than oracles are 
 expected from you in the next parliament, if 
 you succeed in your election, as we are pretty 
 well assured you will. You wish yourself with 
 us at Will's Coffee-house ; all here wish for you, 
 from the Grave Club to the most puny member 
 of the Rabble : they who can think, think of 
 you, and the rest talk of you. There is no such 
 monster in this Africa that is not sensible of 
 your absence ; even the worst natured people, 
 and those of least wit, lament it ; I mean half 
 critics and quibblers. To tell you all that want 
 you, I should name all the creatures of Covent 
 Garden, which, like those of Eden Garden, 
 would want some Adam to be a godfather, and 
 give them names, I can't tell whether I may 
 
354 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 justly compare our Co vent Garden to that of 
 Eden or no ; for though. I believe we may have 
 variety of strange animals equal to Paradise, 
 yet I fear we have not amongst us the Tree of 
 Knowledge, It had been much to the disad- 
 vantage of Pliny, had the Coffee-house been in 
 his days ; for sure he would have described 
 some who frequent it, which would have given 
 him the reputation of a more fabulous writer 
 than he has now. But being in our age, it does 
 him a service ; for we who know it can give 
 faith to all his monsters. You who took care to 
 go down into the country unlike a poet, I hope 
 Avill take care not to come up again like a 
 politician; for then you will add a new 
 monster to the Coffee-house that was never 
 seen there before. So you may come back 
 again in your soldier's coat, for in that you 
 will no more be suspected for a politician than 
 a poet. Pray come upon any terms, for you 
 are wished for by everybody ; but most wanted 
 by your affectionate friend and servant, 
 
 AV. COKGREVE. 
 
 TO CONGREVE AT TUNBRIDGE. 
 
 Dear Sir, — My business and my thanks for 
 your kindness you will find in the enclosed, 
 which I had sent by the last post had not an 
 accident hindered it. All the return that I can 
 make you at present is, to acquaint you with 
 
 such news as we have. Our friend Mr. 
 
 went last Friday to the Bath : he promised to 
 write to me from that i)lace, but it would be 
 
 unreasonable indeed to expect it ; for W 
 
 takes up his afternoons, and his mornings, I 
 suppose, are spent in contemplation at the 
 Cross-Bath. Most of your friends at the Coffee- 
 house are dispersed; some are retreated into 
 the country, in hopes of some favours which 
 they expect from the Muses ; two or three of 
 them are retired in town, to ruminate on some 
 favours which they have received from their 
 mistresses. 
 
 So that the Coffee-house is like to grow into 
 reputation again. For if any one gives it the 
 scandalous denomination of the Wits' Coffee- 
 house, he must call it so by antiphrasis, because 
 there comes no wit there. Here are two or 
 three indeed, who set up for wits at home, and 
 endeavour to pass for wise at the Coffee-house ; 
 for they hold their tongues there. Indeed the 
 Coffee-house is generally the exchange for wit, 
 where the merchants meet without bi'inging the 
 commodity with them, which they leave at 
 home in their warehouses, alias their closets, 
 while they go abroad to take a prudent care for 
 the vending it. But you are of the number of 
 those happy few, who so abound in hereditary 
 possessions, and in rich returns from Greece 
 and from Italy, that you always carry some of 
 
 it about you, to be liberal to your friends of 
 
 that which you sell to strangers. Mr. 
 
 babbles eternally according to his old rate, and 
 as extravagantly as if he talked to himself; 
 which he certainly does, if nobody minds him any 
 more than I do. He has been just now inquir- 
 ing what sort of distemper the spleen is, an 
 infallible sign that he is the only man in 
 Covent Garden who does not know that he is an 
 ass. To make him sensible what the spleen is, 
 I could find in my heart to show him himself, 
 and give it him. If anything restrains me from 
 being revenged of his impertinence this way, 'tis 
 the consideration that will make him wiser. 
 This coxcomb naturally puts me in mind of the 
 stage, where they have lately acted some new 
 IDlays ; but had there been more of them, I 
 would not scruple to afl&rm that the stage is at 
 present a desert and a barren place, as some 
 part of Africa is said to be though it abounds iii 
 monsters. And yet those prodigious things 
 have met with success ; for a fool is naturally 
 fond of a monster, because he is incapable of 
 knowing a man. While you drink steel for 
 your spleen at Tunbridge, I partake of the 
 benefit of the course ; for the gaiety of your 
 letters relieves me considerably: then what 
 must your conversation do? Come up and 
 make the experiment, and impart that vigour 
 to me which Tunbridge has restored to you. 
 I am your most humble servant, 
 
 John Dennis. 
 
 [It was a saying of Swift, that he sometimes 
 read a book with pleasure, although he 
 detested the author ; and the reader of Gay 
 will often feel an interest in the writer, 
 while he disapproves of his principles. 
 Johnson portrays him the favourite of an 
 association of wits, who regarded him as 
 a play-fellow rather than a partner. He 
 certainly possessed none of the qualities of 
 a dictator ; and if he had the affection of 
 his friends, cared nothing for their vene- 
 ration. Pope always mentioned him with 
 the warmest regard. * Would to God,' be 
 wrote to Swift, * the man we have lost had 
 not been so amiable, nor so good ; but that 
 is a wish for our own sake, not for his.' 
 And more tenderly still in another letter 
 to the Dean, ' I wished vehemently to have 
 seen him in a condition of living independ- 
 ent, and to have lived in perfect indolence 
 the rest of our days together, the two most 
 idle, most innocent, most undesigning 
 poets of our age.' Swift's friendship for 
 Gay glows through his misanthropy. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 355 
 
 "When he wished to paint the misery of his 
 residence in Ireland, he called it a banish- 
 ment from ' St. John, Pope, and Gay ; ' 
 and upon the letter in which Pope 
 communicated to him the death of their 
 gentle companion, he inscribed a most 
 affecting memorandum. Gay was too lazy 
 to be a voluminous correspondent, but his 
 style is easy, natural, and amusing. He 
 had accompanied Pope to the seat of Lord 
 Harcourt in Oxfordshire, and during his visit 
 the accident occurred which suggested this 
 beautiful and affecting letter. — Willmott.'\ 
 
 GAT TO . 
 
 A Thunder-storm in Autumn. 
 
 Stanton Harcourt, Aug. 19, 1718. 
 The only news that you can expect to have 
 from me here, is news from heaven, for I am 
 quite out of the world; and there is scarce 
 anything can reach me except the voice of 
 thunder, which undoubtedly you have heard 
 too. "VYe have read in old authors of high 
 towers levelled by it to the grouAd, while the 
 humbler valleys have escaped : the only thing 
 that is proof against it is the laurel, which, 
 however, I take to be no great security to the 
 brains of modern authors. But to let you see 
 that the contrary to this often happens, I must 
 acquaint you, that the highest and most 
 extravagant heaj) of towers in the universe 
 which is in this neighbourhood, stand still 
 undefaced, while a cock of barley in our next 
 field has been consumed to ashes. Would to 
 God that this heap of barley had been all that 
 perished ! for, unhappily, beneath this little 
 shelter sat two much more constant lovers than 
 ever were found in romance under the shade of 
 a beech-tree. John Hewet was a well-set man, 
 of about five-and-twenty ; Sarah Drew might 
 be rather called comely than beautiful, and was 
 about the same age. They had passed through 
 the various labours of the year together with 
 the greatest satisfaction : if she milked, it was 
 his morning and evening care to bring the cows 
 to her hand ; it was but last fair that he bought 
 her a present of green silk for her straw-hat ; 
 and the posie on her silver ring was of his 
 choosing. Their love was the talk of the whole 
 neighbourhood ; for scandal never affirmed that 
 they had any other views than the lawful 
 possession of each other in marriage. It was 
 that very morning that he had obtained the 
 consent of her parents ; and it was but till the 
 next Aveek that they were to wait to be happy. 
 Perhaps, in the intervals of their work, they 
 were now talking of the wedding-clothes ; and 
 John was suiting several sorts of poppies and 
 field-flowers to her comjilexion, to choose her a 
 
 knot for the wedding day. While they were 
 thus busied (it was on the last of July, between 
 two and three in the afternoon) the clouds 
 grew black, and such a storm of thunder and 
 lightning ensued, that all the labourers made 
 the best of their way to what shelter the trees 
 and hedges afforded. Sarah was frightened, 
 and fell down in a swoon on a heap of barley. 
 John, who never sei)arated from her, sat down 
 by her side, having raked together two or three 
 heaps, the better to secure her from the storm. 
 Immediately there was heard so loud a crack, 
 as if heaven had split asunder : every one was 
 now solicitous for the safety of his neighbour, 
 and called to one another throughout the field. 
 No answer being returned to those who called 
 to our lovers, they stepped to the i^lace where 
 they lay; they perceived the barley all in a 
 smoke, and then si^ied this faithful iiair : John 
 with one arm about Sarah's neck, and the other 
 held over her, as to screen her from the 
 lightning. They were struck dead, and 
 stiffened in this tender posture. Sarah's left 
 eye-brow was singed, and there appeared a 
 black spot on her breast ; her lover was all over 
 black, but not the least signs of life were found 
 in either. Attended by their melancholy 
 companions, they were conveyed to the town, 
 and the next day were interred in Stanton 
 Harcourt churchyard. My Lord Harcourt, at 
 Mr. Pope's and my request, has caused a stone 
 to be placed over them, upon condition that we 
 furnished the epitaph, which is as follows : — 
 
 ' When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire, 
 On the same pile the faithful pair expire : 
 Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found, 
 And blasted both that it might neither wound. 
 Hearts so sincere, the Almighty saw well pleased, 
 Sent his own lightning, and the victim seized.' 
 
 But my lord is apprehensive the country 
 people will not understand this ; and Mr. Pope 
 says he'll make one with something of Scripture 
 in it, and with as little of poetry as Hopkins 
 and Sternhold. Youx's, etc. 
 
 [Parr was heard to declare, in the presence of 
 an accomplished English writer, that the 
 fame of Warburton rested upon the 'two 
 pillars of his and Johnson's commendation.' 
 This was said of an author of whom Pope 
 had affirmed, that he possessed a genius 
 equal to his fancy, and a taste equal to his 
 learning. But the polemical fervour, 
 which broke out in the gravest disquisitions 
 of Warburton, is abundantly visible in his 
 correspondence. You see the flashing 
 steel, and hear the sounding bow of the 
 eager disputant. His letters have been 
 
356 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 analyzed by the ingenious author of the 
 Diary of a Lover of Literature : — ' Hume is 
 consigned to the pillory in his first curious 
 notice of him (Lett. G, 1749), and after- 
 wards (Lett. 100, 1757), he is described as 
 possessing a more cruel heart than he ever 
 met with. Johnson's remarks on his com- 
 mentaries upon Shakespeare (Lett. 175) 
 are full of insolent and malignant 
 reflections. Priestley (Lett. 220) is that 
 wretched fellow. The gloomy and malig- 
 nant Jortin (Lett. 227) dies of eating his 
 own heart. Evanson (235) is a convicted 
 innovator. Walpole, an insufferable cox- 
 comb. Spence, a poor creature ; and 
 dunces and blockheads thunder through his 
 epistles without number,' — These are the 
 characteristic faults of the writer, for 
 which the fertility of his invention, the 
 affluence of his erudition, and the purity of 
 his intentions make ample amends. His 
 letters have been justly characterized ' as 
 replete with bold and original thoughts, 
 acute criticism, profound reflections, daring 
 jjaradoxes, boastful exultations, ingenious 
 and frank avowals, fervent demonstrations 
 of friendly regard, strains of manly and 
 indignant eloquence, strokes of true and 
 genuine humour, coarse and contemptuous 
 invectives on his enemies.' The following 
 humorous account of a voyage round the 
 Park is pronounced a fine letter by Hurd, 
 who acknowledges to have made use of it 
 in the Dialogues on Foreign Travel. — 
 Willmott.'] 
 
 WAEBUETON TO HUED. 
 
 I agree with you that our friend is a little 
 whimsical, as a philosopher or a poet, in his 
 project of improving himself in men or 
 manners ; though as a fine gentleman, ex- 
 tremely fashionable in his scheme. But, as I 
 dare say this is a character he is above, tell him 
 I would recommend him now and then, with 
 me, a voyage round the Park, of ten times more 
 ease, and ten thousand times more profit than 
 making the grand tour ; whether he chooses to 
 consider it in a philosophico-poetical or in an 
 ecclesiastico-political light. Let us suppose his 
 mind bent on improvements in poetry. What 
 can afford nobler hints for pastoral than the 
 cows and the milk-women at your entrance 
 from Spring Gardens. As you advance, you 
 have nobler subjects for comedy and farce, 
 from one end of the Mall to the other ; not to 
 say satire, to which our worthy friend has a 
 kind of propensity ; as you turn to the left, you 
 
 soon arrive at Rosamond's Pond, long con- 
 secrated to disastrous love and elegiac poetry. 
 The Bird-cage Walk, which you enter next, 
 speaks its own influence, and inspires you with 
 the gentle spirit of madrigal and sonnet. "SYlien 
 we come to Duck Island, we have a double 
 chance for success in the Georgic, or didactic 
 poetry, as the governor of it, Stephen Duck, 
 can both instruct our friend in the breed of his 
 wild fowl, and lend him of his genius to sing of 
 their generations. But now, in finishing our 
 tour, we come to a place indeed,— the reed-plot 
 of Dettingen and Fontenoy,— the place of 
 trumpets and kettle-drums, of horse and foot 
 guards, the Parade, — the place of heroes and 
 demigods, the eternal source of the Greek 
 poetry, from whence springs that acme of 
 human things, an epic poem, to which our 
 friend has consecrated all his happier hours. 
 But suppose his visions for the bays be now 
 changed for the brighter visions of the mitre, 
 here still must be his circle ; which on one side 
 presents him with those august lovers of St. 
 James's, which, though neither seemly nor 
 sublime, yet ornament that place where the 
 balances are i^reserved, which weigh out liberty 
 and property to the nations all abroad ; and on 
 the other, with that sacred, venerable dome of 
 St. Peter, which, though its head rises and 
 remains in the clouds, yet carries in its bowels 
 the very flower and quintessence of ecclesias- 
 tical policy. 
 
 This is enough for any one who only v/ants to 
 study them for his use. But if our aspiring 
 friend would go higher, and study human 
 nature in and for itself, he must take a much 
 larger tour than that of Europe. He must 
 first go and catch her undressed, nay, quite 
 naked, in North America and at the Cape of 
 Good Hope. He may then examine how she 
 appears crampt, contracted, and buttoned close 
 up in the straight tunic of law and custom, as 
 in China and Japan, or spread out and enlarged 
 above her common size, in the long and flowing 
 robe of enthusiasm, amongst the Arabs and 
 Saracens ; or lastly, as she flutters in the old 
 rags of worn-out policy and civil government, 
 and almost ready to run back to the deserts, as 
 on the Mediterranean coast of Africa. These, 
 tell him, are the grand scenes for the true 
 l>hilosopher, the citizen of the world, to con- 
 template. The tour of Europe is like the 
 entertainment that Plutarch speaks of, which 
 Pompey's host of Epirus gave him. There were 
 many dishes, and they had a seeming variety ; 
 but when he came to examine them narrowly, 
 he found them all made out of one hog, and 
 indeed nothing but pork differently disguised. 
 
 This is enough for our friend. But to you 
 who have, as Mr. Locke expresses it, 'large, 
 sound, and round-about sense,' I have some- 
 thing more to say. Though, indeed, I perfectly 
 agree with you, that a scholar by profession, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 357 
 
 who knows how to employ his time in his study 
 for the benefit of mankind, would be more than 
 fantastical, he would be mad, to go rambling 
 round Europe, though his fortune would permit 
 him. For to travel with profit must be when 
 his faculties are at their height, his studies 
 matured, yet all his reading fresh in his head. 
 But to waste a considerable space of time, at 
 such a period of life, is more than suicide ; yet, 
 for all this, the knowledge of human nature 
 (the only knowledge, in the largest sense of it, 
 worth a wise man's concern or care) can never 
 be well acquired without seeing it under all its 
 disguises and distortions, arising from absurd 
 governments and monstrous religions, in every 
 quarter of the globe. Therefore, I think a 
 collection of the best voyagers no despicable 
 part of a philosopher's library. Perhaps there 
 will be found more dross in this sort of liter- 
 ature, even when selected most carefully, than 
 in any other. But no matter for that. Such 
 a collection will contain a great and solid 
 treasury. The report you speak of is partly 
 false, with a mixture of truth, and is a thing 
 that touches me so little, that I never mentioned 
 it to any of my friends, who did not chance to 
 ask about it. I have no secrets that I would 
 have such to you. I would have it so to others, 
 merely because it is an impertinent thing that 
 concerns nobody ; and its being in common 
 report, which nobody gives credit to, covers the 
 secret the better, instead of divulging it. The 
 simple fact is only this, that not long since the 
 D. N. sent word by a noble person to Mr. 
 Allen, that he had a purpose of asking the K. 
 for the Deanery of Bristol for me, if it should 
 become vacant while he is in credit, as a thing 
 which, he supposed, would not be unacceptable 
 to me, on account of its neighbourhood to this 
 place. And now, my dear friend, you have the 
 whole secret, and a very foolish one it is. Ij it 
 comes, as Falstaff says of honour, it comes 
 unlooked for, and there's an end. But he had a 
 good chance, because he did not deserve what 
 he was so indifferent about. What my chance 
 is by this scale I leave to be adjusted between 
 my friends and enemies. 
 
 It gives me, my dear friend, a sincere pleasure 
 to hear that your health seems to be re-estab- 
 lished ; and that the good couple tied together 
 for life, the mind and body, are at peace with 
 one another. As for spirits, it is like love in 
 marriage, it will come after. Should we have 
 the i)leasure of seeing you at Christmas, you 
 would likely meet the good company you met 
 last Christmas, I mean Mr. Yorke's. You 
 know, I hope, the true esteem Mr. Allen has 
 for you, and the sincere pleasure your company 
 gives him. 
 
 [Mary Delany, the daughter of Barnard Gran- 
 ville, and niece of George, afterwards Lord 
 Granville, was born at Coulton, Wiltshire, 
 May 14, 1700. When only seventeen years 
 of age she was married to Alexander 
 Pendarves, and was a widow in 1724. 
 Between 1730 and 1736, she coi'responded 
 with Swift, and in 1743 was married to 
 Dr. Delany, who regarded her with strong 
 affection. She was patronized by the 
 Duchess of Portland and George III. The 
 latter assigned for her a summer residence 
 near Windsor Castle, and a pension of 
 £300 per annum. She died in 1788. 
 Her private character is thus given 
 by her friend Mr. Keate : — ' She had 
 every virtue that could adorn the human 
 heart, with a mind so pure, and so uncon- 
 taminated by the world, that it was 
 matter of astonishment how she could have 
 lived in its more splendid scenes, withovit 
 being tainted with one single atom of its 
 folly or indiscretion. The strength of her 
 understanding received, in the fullest de- 
 gree, its polish, but its weakness never 
 reached her. Her life was conducted by 
 the sentiments of true piety; her way of 
 thinking, on every occasion, was upright 
 and just ; her conversation was lively, 
 pleasant, and instructive. She was warm, 
 delicate, and sincere in her friendships ; 
 full of philanthropy and benevolence, and 
 loved and respected by every person who 
 had the happiness to know her. That 
 sunshine and serenity of mind which the 
 good only can enjoy, and which had thrown 
 so much attraction on her life, remained 
 without a shadow to the last ; not less 
 bright in its setting than in its meridian 
 lustre. That form which m youth had 
 claimed admiration, in age challenged 
 respect. It presented a noble ruin, be- 
 come venerable by the decay of time. 
 Her faculties remained unimpaired to the 
 last ; and she quitted this mortal state to 
 receive, in a better world, the crown of a 
 well-spent life.' Mrs. Delany was buried 
 in a vault belonging to St. James's Church ; 
 and on one of its columns a stone is erected 
 to her memory, with an inscription, which, 
 after reciting her name, descent, marriages, 
 age, etc., concludes as follows: — 'She was 
 a lady of singular ingenuity and politeness, 
 and of unaffected piety. These qualities 
 
358 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 had endeared her through life to many 
 nohle and excellent persons, and made the 
 close of it illustrious, by i^rocuring for her 
 many signs of g and favour from their 
 Majesties.' — From the general Biographical 
 Dictionary, by Alexander Chalmers, vol. xi. 
 pp. 415 to 419.] 
 
 MKS. DELANY TO THE HON. MRS. HAMILTON-^ 
 
 Bulstrode, June 28, 1779. 
 
 What a task you have set me, my dear friend ; 
 I can no more tell you the particulars of all the 
 honours I received last autumn from the King 
 and Queen and eight of their royal progeny, 
 than I can remember last year's clouds, — a 
 simile, by the bye, ill adapted to the grace and 
 benignity of their manners, that gave a lustre 
 even to Bulstrode, superior as it is to most 
 I)laces. I had formed to myself a very different 
 idea of such visitors, and wished the day over ; 
 but their affability and good humour left no 
 room for anything but admiration and respect ; 
 for, with the most obliging condescension, 
 there was no want of proper dignity to keep 
 the balance even. They were delighted with 
 the j)lace, but above all with the mistress - of it, 
 whose sweetness of manners, and knowledge of 
 propriety, engage all ranks. To give you a 
 just notion of the entertainment, you. should 
 have a plan of the house, that I might lead you 
 through the apartments ; but imagine every- 
 thing that is elegant and delightful, and you 
 will do more justice to the place and entertain- 
 ment than I can by my description. 
 
 The royal family (ten in all) came at twelve 
 o'clock. The King drove the Queen in an open 
 chaise, with a pair of white horses. The 
 Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick rode on 
 horseback, all with proper attendants, but no 
 guards. Princess Eoyal and Lady Weymouth,^ 
 in a post-chaise ; Princess Augusta, Princess 
 Elizabeth, Prince Adolphus (about seven years 
 old), and Lady Charlotte Finch, ^ in a coach ; 
 Prince William, Prince Edward, Duke of 
 Montague,^ and Bishop of Lichfield, in a 
 coach : another coach, full of attendant gentle- 
 men ; amongst the number, Mr. Smelt, ^ whose 
 character sets him above most men, and does 
 great honour to the King, who calls him his 
 
 1 Dorothea, daiiglitcr of James Forth, Esq. of 
 Redwood, and widow of tlie Hon. and Rev. Francis 
 Hamilton, son of James, Earl of Abercorn. 
 
 2 Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess 
 Dowager of Portland. 
 
 3 The Lady Elizabeth Cavendish Bentinck, eldest 
 daughter of the Duchess Dowager of Portland. 
 
 4 Daughter of Daniel, seventh Earl of Winchilsea. 
 
 • 5 George, last Duke of Montague ; he died in 1790. 
 
 6 Formerly sub-governor to H.R.H. the Prince of 
 Wales, from which situation he retired on a pension 
 in the year 1771. 
 
 friend, and has drawn him out of his solitude 
 (the life he had chosen) to enjoy his conver- 
 sation every leisure moment. These, with all 
 their attendants in rank and file, made a 
 splendid figure as they drove through the park 
 and round the court up to the house. The 
 day was as brilliant as could be wished, tlie 
 12th of August, the Prince of Wales' birthday. 
 The Queen was in a hat, and an Italian jiight- 
 goAvn of purple lustring, trimmed with silver 
 gauze. She is graceful and genteel ; the 
 dignity and sweetness of her manner, the 
 perfect propi-iety of everything she says or 
 does, satisfies everybody she honours with her 
 distinction so much, that beauty is by no 
 means wanting to make her perfectly agreeable ; 
 and though age and long retirement from court 
 made me feel timid on my being called to 
 make my appearance, I soon found myself 
 perfectly at ease ; for the King's condescension 
 and good humour took off all awe but what 
 one must have for so respectable a character 
 (severely tried by his enemies at home, as well 
 as abroad). The three i)rincesses were all in 
 frocks ; the King and all the men were in a 
 uniform, blue and gold. They walked through 
 the great apartments, which are in a line, and 
 attentively observed everything ; the pictures 
 in particular. I kept back in the drawing- 
 room, and took that opportunity of sitting 
 down ; when the Princess Eoyal returned to me, 
 and said the Queen missed me in the train : 
 I immediately obeyed the summons with my 
 best alacrity. Her Majesty met me half-way, 
 and seeing me hasten my steps, called out to 
 me, ' Though I desired you to come, I did not 
 desire you to run and fatigue yourself.' They 
 all returned to the great drawing-room, where 
 there were only two armed chairs placed in the 
 middle of the room for the King and Queen. 
 The King placed the Duchess Dowager of 
 Portland in his chair, and walked about 
 admiring the beauties of the place. Breakfast 
 was offered — all prepared in a long galleiy that 
 runs the length of the great apartments (a suite 
 of eight rooms and three closets). The King 
 and all his royal children, and the rest of the 
 train, chose to go to the gallery, where the 
 well-furnished tables were set : one with tea, 
 coffee, and chocolate ; another with their proper 
 accompaniments of eatables, rolls, cakes, etc. ; 
 another table with fruits and ices in the utmost 
 perfection : which with a magical touch had 
 succeeded a cold repast. The Queen remained 
 in the drawing-room ; I stood at the back of 
 her chair, which happening to be one of my 
 working, gave the Queen an opportunity of 
 saying many flattering and obliging things. 
 The Duchess Dowager of Portland brought her 
 Majesty a dish of tea on a waiter, with biscuits, 
 which was what she chose ; after she had 
 drank her tea, she would not return the cup to 
 the Duchess, but got up and would carry it 
 
I 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 359 
 
 into the gallery herself, and was much pleased 
 to see with what elegance everything was 
 prepared ; no servants bvit those out of livery 
 made their appearance. The gay and pleasant 
 appearance they all made, and the satisfaction 
 all expressed, rewarded the attention and 
 politeness of the Duchess of Portland, who is 
 never so happy as when she gratifies those she 
 esteems worthy of her attention and favours. 
 The young royals seemed quite happy, from 
 the eldest to the youngest, and to inherit the 
 gracious manners of their parents. I cannot 
 enter upon their particular address to me, 
 which not only did me honour, but showed 
 their humane and benevolent respect for old 
 age. 
 
 The King desired me to show the Queen one 
 of my books of plants ; she seated herself in 
 the gallery ; a table and the book lay before 
 her, I kept my distance till she called me to 
 ask some questions about the mosaic jDaper 
 work ; and as I stood before her Majesty, the 
 King set a chair behind me. I turned with 
 some confusion and hesitation on receiving 
 so great an honour, when the Queen said, 'Mrs. 
 Delany, sit down, sit down : it is not every 
 lady that, has a chair brought her by a king,' 
 so I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, 
 the Queen asked me why I was not with the 
 Duchess when she came ; for I might be sure 
 she would ask for me. I was flattered, though 
 I knew to whom I was obliged for the distinc- 
 tion (and doubly flattered by that). I acknow- 
 ledged it in as few words as possible, and said 
 I wis particularly happy at that time to pay 
 my duty to her Majesty, as it ^^ave me an 
 opportunity of seeing so many of the royal 
 family, which age and obscurity had deprived 
 me of. * Oh, but,' says her Majesty, ' you have 
 not seen all my children yet,' upon which the 
 King came up and asked what we were talking 
 about ; which was repeated, and the King 
 replied to the Queen, ' You may put Mrs. 
 Delany into the way of doing that, by naming 
 a day for her to drink tea at Windsor Castle. ' 
 The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and 
 the next day fixed upon, as the Duchess had 
 appointed the end of the week for going to 
 "Weymouth. "We went at the hour appointed, 
 seven o'clock, and were received in the lower 
 l)rivate ajmrtment at the castle ; went through 
 a large room with great bay windows, where 
 were all the princesses and youngest princes, 
 with their attendant ladies and gentlemen. We 
 passed on to the bed-chamber, where the Queen 
 stood in the middle of the room, with Lady 
 Weymouth and Lady Charlotte Finch. (The 
 King and the eldest princes had walked out.) 
 When the Queen took her seat, and the ladies 
 their i^laces, she ordered a chair to be set for 
 me opposite to where vslie sat, and asked me if 
 I felt any wind from the door or window ? — It 
 was indeed a sultry day. 
 
 At eight the King, etc. came into the room, 
 with so much cheerfulness and good humour 
 that it was impossible to feel any i^ainful 
 restraint. It was the hour of the King and 
 Queen and eleven of the princes and princesses 
 walking on the terrace. They apologized for 
 going, but said the crowd expected them^ ; but 
 they left Lady Weymouth and the Bishop of 
 Lichfield to entertain us in their absence ; we 
 sat in the bay-window, well j)leased with our 
 companions, and the brilliant show on the 
 terrace, on which we looked ; the band of 
 music Inlaying all the time under the window. 
 When they returned we were summoned into 
 the next room to tea, and the royals began a 
 ball, and danced two country dances, to the 
 music of French horns, bassoons, and hautboys, 
 which were the same that played on the terrace. 
 The King came up to the Prince of Wales and 
 said he was sure, when he considered how 
 great an effort it must be to play that kind of 
 music so long a time together, that he vrould 
 not continue their dancing there, but that 
 the Queen and the rest of the company were 
 going to the Queen's House, and they should 
 renew their dancing there, and have proper 
 music. 
 
 I can say no more : I cannot describe the gay, 
 the polished appearance of the Queen's House, 
 furnished with English manufacture. The 
 Prince of Wales dances a minuet better than 
 any one I have seen for many years ; but what 
 would please you more, could I do it justice, is 
 the good sense and engaging address of one and 
 all. I think I have great courage in having 
 gone so far on this subject, knowing how you 
 hate vanity and ostentation ; and I fear I have 
 been guilty of both : but recollect how you 
 pressed me to it, and let the tempter pardon 
 the frailty she has encouraged ; and also the 
 awkward half -sheet that begins this unreason- 
 able narration. I have obeyed your commands, 
 and am now only able to say, that I, and all 
 belonging to me, are pretty well. The Duchess 
 Dowager of Portland desires her best compli- 
 ments ; mine to all friends. Ever yours, 
 
 M. Delany. 
 
 The Duchess of Portland bids me add, that 
 she insisted on my sending you this letter ; for 
 a qualm seized me, and I would have sunk it. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 BvMrode, October 10, 1783. 
 My dear Friend, — I am very much obliged 
 to you for the satisfactory account you have 
 given me of your present situation, and well 
 pleased at your cultivating an intimacy with 
 your worthy and amiable relations ; when they 
 are so, our natural connections are to be 
 preferred to all others, and I am sure your own 
 
36o 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 good qualities and friendly disposition must 
 secure you their love and esteem. ... I wish 
 I could answer your kind solicitude about my 
 health entirely to your satisfaction. A return 
 of the epidemic disorder soon after I came to 
 Bulstrode has left me a great languor behind it ; 
 but, I thank God, I am now gaining strength 
 again, and only feel that gentle decay natural 
 to my years, and what I ought to be very 
 thankful for as well as my friends. The daily 
 tender attention I received from my noble one 
 here is a constant reviving cordial; — she has 
 not been well, but is better, and desires me to 
 add her best wishes and compliments to you 
 and Mrs. Anne Hamilton, and thinks herself 
 much obliged to you both for the satisfaction 
 you express at my being here ; and now I will 
 add, for your amusement, the way of life we 
 have led since we left town. We have had 
 many visitors for two or three days in succes- 
 sion ; and when health has permitted us, have 
 enjoyed this delightful place ; but, as I know 
 you interest yourself in all the honours I 
 receive, I must now tell you of our royal 
 visitors. In a few days after our arrival here, 
 the Duchess of Portland and I were sitting in 
 the long gallery, very busy with our different 
 employments, when, without any ceremony, 
 his Majesty walked up to our table unperceived 
 and unknown, till he came quite up to us. 
 You may believe we were at first a little 
 fluttered with his royal presence ; but his 
 courteous and affable manner soon made him 
 a welcome guest. He came to inform the 
 Duchess of Portland of the Queen's perfect 
 recovery after her lying-in, which made him 
 doubly welcome. 
 
 Breakfast was called for, and after a visit of 
 two hours, the King left us. About a week 
 after this, the King and Queen came together, 
 only accompanied by Lady Courtown. They 
 breakfasted and stayed much about the same 
 time. The etiquette is, that the person on 
 whom such an honour is conferred, goes the 
 next day to inquire after their Majesties ; but 
 the Queen waived that ceremony, and desired 
 the Duchess not to come till she received a 
 summons, as they were going to St. James's for 
 some days. Last Thursday, 2d of October, a 
 little before twelve o'clock, word was brought 
 that the royal family were coming up the park ; 
 and immediately after, two coaches-and-six, 
 with the King on horseback, and a great 
 retinue, came up to the hall door. The com- 
 pany v/ere the King and Queen, Princess Royal, 
 Princess Augusta, Princess Elizabeth, Princess 
 Mary, and Princess Sophia,— a lovely group, 
 all dressed in white muslin polonaises, white 
 chip hats with white feathers, except the 
 Queen, who had on a black hat and cloak ; — the 
 King dressed in his Windsor uniform of blue 
 and gold ; the Queen attended by the Duchess 
 of Ancaster, who is Mistress of the Robes, and 
 
 Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave,^ who attends the 
 two eldest princesses, and Mrs. Goldsworthy, 
 who is sub-governess to the three younger 
 princesses. The King had no attendants but 
 the equerries. Major Digby and Major Price. 
 They were in the drawing-room before I was 
 sent for, where I found the King and Queen 
 and Duchess of Portland seated at a table in 
 the middle of the room. The King, with his 
 usual graciousness, came up to me, and brought 
 me forward, and I found the Queen very busy 
 in showing a very elegant machine to the 
 Duchess of Portland, which was a frame for 
 weaving of fringe, of a new and most delicate 
 structure, and would take up as much paper as 
 has already been written upon to describe it 
 minutely, yet it is of such simplicity as to be 
 very useful. You will easQy imagine the grate- 
 ful feeling I had when the Queen presented 
 it to me, to make up some knotted fringe which 
 she saw me about. The King, at the same 
 time, said he must contribute something to my 
 work, and presented me with a gold knotting 
 shuttle, of most exquisite workmanship and 
 taste ; and I am at this time, while I am 
 dictating the letter, knotting white silk, to 
 fringe the bag which is to contain it. 
 
 On the Monday after, we were appointed to 
 go to the lodge at Windsor at two o'clock. 
 We were first taken into the Duchess of 
 Ancaster's dressing-room ; in a quarter of an 
 hour after, to the King and Queen in the 
 drawing-room, who had nobody with them but 
 Prince Alverstaden, the Hanoverian minister, 
 which gave me an opportunity of hearing the 
 Queen speak German ; and I may say, it was 
 the first time I had received pleasure from 
 what I did not understand ; but there was such 
 a fluency and sweetness in her manner of speak- 
 ing it, that it sounded as gentle as Italian. 
 
 There were two chairs brought in for the 
 Duchess of Portland and myself to sit on (by 
 order of their Majesties), which were easier 
 than these belonging to the room. We were 
 seated near the door that opened into the 
 concert-room. The King directed them to 
 play Handel and Geminiani's music, which he 
 was graciously pleased to say was to gratify me. 
 These are flattering honours. I should not 
 indulge so much upon this subject, but that I 
 depend upon your considering it proceeding 
 more from gratitude than vanity. The three 
 eldest princesses came into the room in about 
 half an hour after we were seated. All the 
 royal family were dressed in a uniform for the 
 demi-saison, of a violet-blue armozine, gauze 
 aprons, etc. etc.; the Queen had the addition 
 of a great many fine pearls. 
 
 1 Elizabeth Laura, daughter of James, second Earl 
 Waldegrave, by Maria (daughter of Sir Edward 
 Walpole), afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, married, 
 lier first cousin, George, fourth Earl of Waldegrave. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 361 
 
 When the concert of music was over, the 
 young Princess Amelia, nine weeks old, was 
 sent for, and brought in by her nurse and at- 
 tendants. The King took her in his arms, and 
 presented her to the Duchess of Portland and 
 to me. Your alBfectionate heart would have 
 been delighted with the royal domestic scene ; 
 an example worthy of imitation by all ranks, 
 and indeed adding dignity to their high 
 station. "We were at Bulstrode before five, 
 and very well after our expedition. I am 
 afraid you will be much more tired than we 
 were, in travelling through this long narration. 
 If it affords any amusement to our dear friend, 
 Mrs. Anne Hamilton,^ as well as to yourself, it 
 will give much satisfaction to my dear Mrs. F. 
 Hamilton's most affectionate and obliged friend, 
 
 M. Delany. 
 
 Continue your kind oflBces to the friends I 
 must always esteem in Ireland. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 St. Allan's Street, Windsor, Sept. 20, 1785. 
 
 The hurry that I have been in since my 
 arrival at this place has prevented the intelli- 
 gence that I am sure my dear friend would like 
 to receive, and, indeed, I hardly know how to 
 recollect the many honours and kindnesses I 
 hourly receive in my present situation. On 
 Saturday the 3d of this month, one of the 
 Queen's messengers came and brought me the 
 following letter from her Majesty, written with 
 her own hand : — 
 
 ' My dear Mrs. Delany will be glad to hear 
 that I am charged by the King to summon 
 her to her new abode at Windsor for Tuesday 
 next, where she will find all the most essen- 
 tial parts of the house ready, excepting some 
 little trifles, which it will be better for Mrs. 
 Delany to direct herself in person, or by her 
 little deputy. Miss Port. I need not, I hope, 
 add, that I shall be extremely glad and happy 
 to see so amiable an inhabitant in this our 
 sweet retreat ; and wish, very sincerely, that 
 my dear Mrs. Delany may enjoy every blessing 
 amongst us that her merits deserve. That we 
 may long enjoy her amiable company, Amen ! 
 These are the true sentiments of my dear Mrs. 
 Delany's very affectionate Queen, 
 
 ' Charlotte. 
 ' QueerCs Lodge, Windsor, Sept. 3, 1785. 
 
 * P.S. — I must also beg that Mrs. Delany will 
 choose her own time of coming as will best suit 
 her own convenience.' 
 
 MY ANSWER. 
 ' It is impossible to express how I am over- 
 
 1 Eldest daughter of the Hon. Henry Hamilton, 
 sou of Gustavus, first Viscount Boyne. 
 
 whelmed with your Majesty's excess of good- 
 ness to me. I shall, with the warmest duty 
 and most humble respect, obey a command 
 that bestows such honour and happiness on 
 your Majesty's most dutiful and most obedient 
 humble servant and subject, 
 
 ' Mary Delany.' 
 
 I received the Queen's letter at dinner, and 
 was obliged to answer it instantly, with my 
 own hand, without seeing a letter I wrote. I 
 thank God I had strength enough to obey the 
 gracious summons on the day appointed. I 
 arrived here about eight o'clock in the evening, 
 and found his Majesty in the house ready to 
 receive me. I threw myself at his feet, indeed 
 unable to utter a word ; he raised and saluted 
 me, and said he meant not to stay longer than 
 to desire I would order everything that could 
 make the house comfortable and agreeable to 
 me, and then retired. 
 
 Truly I found nothing wanting, as it is ass 
 pleasant and commodious as I could wish it to 
 be, with a very pretty garden, which joins to 
 that of the Queen's Lodge. The next morning 
 her Majesty sent one of her ladies to know 
 how I had rested, and how I was in health, and 
 whether her coming would not be troublesome ? 
 You may be sure I accepted the honour, and 
 she came about two o'clock. I was lame, and 
 could not go down, as I ought to have done, to 
 the door ; but her Majesty came up-stairs, and 
 I received her on my knees. Our meeting was 
 mutually affecting ; she well knew the value of 
 what I had lost, and it was some time after we 
 were seated (for she always makes me sit down) 
 before we could either of us speak. It is im- 
 possible for me to do justice to her great con- 
 descension and tenderness, which were almost 
 equal to what I had lost. She repeated, in the 
 strongest terms, her wish, and the King's, that 
 I should be as easy and as haijpy as they could 
 possibly make me ; and they waived all cere- 
 mony, and desired to come to me like friends. 
 The Queen delivered me a paper from the 
 King, which contained the first quarter of 
 £300 per annum, which his Majesty allows me 
 out of his privy purse. Their Majesties have 
 drank tea with me five times, and the princesses 
 three. They generally stay two hours, or 
 longer. In short, I have either seen or heard 
 from them every day. I have not yet been at 
 the Queen's Lodge, though they have expressed 
 an impatience for me to come ; but I have still 
 so sad a drawback upon my spirits, that I must 
 decline the honour till I am better able to 
 enjoy it : as they have the goodness not to press 
 me. Their visits here are paid in the most 
 quiet, private manner, like those of the most 
 consoling and interested friends ; so that I 
 may truly say, they are a royal cordial ; and I 
 see very few people besides. They are very 
 condescending in their notice of my niece, and 
 
362 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 think her a fine girl. She is delighted, as is 
 very natural, with all the joys of the place. I 
 have been three times at the King's private 
 chapel at early prayers, eight o'clock, where the 
 royal family constantly attend ; and they 
 walk home to breakfast afterwards, whilst I am 
 conveyed in a very elegant new chair home, 
 wtiich the King has made me a present of for 
 that purpose. As to my health, it is surpris- 
 ingly good, considering the sufferings of my 
 agitated spirits, and that I was hardly re- 
 covered, when I came, of a putrid sore throat 
 and fever. How thankful ought I to be to 
 Providence for the wonderful blessings I have 
 received ! How ungTateful must I be, not to 
 endeavour to resign those withdrawn from me 
 as I ought to do ! It is a cordial comfort to 
 me to receive a good account from you of your 
 health and prosperity, and the rest of my dear 
 friends who have so kindly felt for me. 1 
 cannot dictate a word more, but believe me, 
 unalterably and affectionately, yours, 
 
 M. Delany. 
 
 P.S. — I sincerely rejoice at Mr. Sackville 
 Hamilton's 1 present situation; indeed, I do 
 not know any distinction that he is not worthy 
 of, and the world agree with me. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 >S'^. Alhan's Street, Windsor, Nov. 9, 1785. 
 I have not, lately, been very well, which 
 prevented my answering my dear friend's two 
 kind letters sooner. I thank God, I am at 
 present tolerably well in health, and am sur- 
 rounded with so many comfoi-ts, and such 
 uncommon friends, that great must be my 
 reproach if they do not in some degree dissi- 
 pate that gloom that at times overwhelms me. 
 You give me such good reasons for the request 
 you make of communicating some parts of my 
 letters to your particular friends, that it is 
 impossible for me to refuse what you say will 
 give you satisfaction, and I know I can trust 
 your discretion : the daily marks of royaV 
 favour (which, indeed, should rather be termed 
 friendly) cannot be arranged in a sheet of 
 paper ; they are bestowed most graciously, 
 and received most gratefully, and with such 
 consideration as to banish that awe which 
 otherwise would be painful to me ; and my 
 sensations, when I am in their company, are 
 respect, admiration, and affection. I have 
 been several evenings at the Queen's Lodge, 
 with no other company but their own most 
 lovely family. They sit round a large table, 
 on which are books, work, pencils, and paper. 
 The Queen has the goodness to make me sit 
 down next to her ; and delights me with her 
 conversation, which is informing, elegant, and 
 
 1 The Right Hon. Sackville Hamilton. 
 
 pleasing beyond description, whilst the younger 
 part of the family are drawing and working, 
 etc. etc., the beautiful babe. Princess Amelia, 
 bearing her part in the entertainment ; some- 
 times in one of her sisters' laps ; sometimes 
 playing with the King on the carpet; which, 
 altogether, exhibits such a delightful scene as 
 would require an Addison's pen, or a Vandyke's 
 pencil, to do justice to. In the next room is 
 the band of music, who play from eight o'clock 
 till ten. The King generally directs them 
 what pieces of music to play, chiefly Handel's. 
 Here I must stop, and return to my own house. 
 Mr. Dewes, from Wellsbourn, came here on 
 the 25th of October; on the 28th their 
 Majesties, five princesses, and the youngest 
 princes came at seven o'clock in the evening 
 to drink tea with me. All the princesses and 
 princes had a commerce table. Miss Emily 
 Clayton, daughter to Lady Louisa Clayton, and 
 Miss Portj did the honours of it. It gave me a 
 pleasing opi^ortunity of introducing Mr. Dewes 
 to their Majesties ; the King took gracious 
 notice of him ; and having heard that his 
 youngest brother, Mr. John Dewes, wished to 
 take the name of Granville, said to Mr. Dewes 
 that he desired he might, from that time, be 
 called by that name, and gave orders that his 
 sign manual should be prepared for that 
 purpose, which has accordingly been done. 
 The want of franks cuts me short : do me 
 justice as usual to all dear friends, and believe 
 me ever affectionately yours, 
 
 M. Delany. 
 
 I hear Mr. Edward Hamilton is in England. 
 I hope, if he makes a visit to his friend Lord 
 Har court, I may have a chance of seeing him. 
 
 Miss Port is very well and very happy, and 
 I am much flattered by the apj)robation she 
 meets with. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Windsor, Jidy 3, 1786. 
 
 I will not make any apology for a silence 
 that I hope has appeared too long for you as 
 well as myself ; nor can I at this time find your 
 last letter, to answer regularly, as I ought to 
 do, all your kind intelligence of yourself and 
 friends. My health in the main holds out 
 wonderfully in the midst of many trying 
 circumstances ; but I endeavour to look forward 
 with hope and comfort to that place where 
 ' the weary will be at rest,' — enjoy the many 
 undeserved blessings still held out to me, and 
 l^raying for assistance to support me under those 
 trials Providence thinks fit to lay upon me. 
 
 I must waive what has passed during the 
 greatest part of my silence, as my memory will 
 not serve me to recollect, or my head able to 
 dictate, as circumstantially as formerly. Dur- 
 ing my short stay in London in the winter, 
 many alterations were made in my house here. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 363 
 
 which my great benefactors thought would 
 make it more commodious to me ; and indeed 
 it is now a most complete, elegant, comfortable 
 dwelling ; and I am hourly receiving marks of 
 attention and kindness that cannot be expressed. 
 The constant course of my living at present, 
 from which I vary very little, is as follows : 
 I seldom miss going to early prayers at the 
 King's chapel, at eight o'clock, where I never 
 fail of seeing their Majesties and all the royal 
 family. The common way of going up to 
 :-3 chapel is through the great entrance into 
 l.e castle, which is a large room with stone 
 pillars, at the corner of which is a narrow 
 winding staircase, which leads to the chapel; 
 but their Majesties, with their usual goodness 
 and indulgence, have ordered that I should be 
 admitted through the great staircase, which is 
 a very easy ascent. "When chapel is over, all 
 the congregation make a line in the great 
 portico till their Majesties have passed ; for 
 they always walk to chapel and back again, 
 and si)eak to everybody of consequence as they 
 pass ; indeed it is a delightful sight to see 
 so much beauty, dignity, and condescension 
 imited as they are in the royal family. I 
 come home to breakfast generally about nine 
 o'clock ; if I and the weather are well enough, 
 I take the air for two hours. The rest of the 
 morning is devoted to business, and the com- 
 pany of my particular friends. I admit no 
 formal visitors, as I really have not time or 
 spirits for it, and everybody here is very civil 
 . and very considerate. My afternoons I keep 
 I entirely to myself, that I may have no inter- 
 ruption whenever my royal neighbours conde- 
 scend to visit me : their usual time of coming is 
 between six and seven o'clock, and generally 
 stay till between eight and nine. They always 
 drink tea here, and my niece has the honour of 
 dealing it about to all the royal family, as they 
 will not suffer me to do it (though it is my 
 place) ; the Queen always placing me upon the 
 sofa by her, and the King when he sits down, 
 which is seldom, sits next the sofa. Indeed 
 their visits are not limited to the afternoons, 
 for their Majesties often call on me in a morn- 
 ing, and take me as they find me, not suffering 
 anybody to give me notice of their being come. 
 ' Great as my awe is, their Majesties have such 
 sweetness of manners that it takes off painful 
 sensation. 
 
 I went to town at the anniversary of the 
 Abbey music ; the King gave me and Miss 
 Port tickets to go. Though I suspected my own 
 ability in being able to make use of them, I 
 could not deprive Miss Port of the opportunity 
 of going, but she was (I may say, happily) 
 prevented, by falling ill of the measles, which, 
 I thank God, she has passed through as well as 
 can be wished. I enjoyed one performance of the 
 music, and we returned to Windsor on the 16th 
 of June. 
 
 An event has taken place lately which gives 
 me great satisfaction ; I am sure you are 
 acquainted with the novel entitled Cecilia, 
 much admired for its good sense, variety of 
 character, delicacy of sentiment, etc. etc. 
 There is nothing good, and amiable, and 
 agreeable mentioned in the book that is not 
 possessed by the author of it. Miss Burney : I 
 have been acquainted with her now three years ; 
 her extreme diffidence of herself, notwithstand- 
 ing her great genius, and the applause she has 
 met with, adds lustre to all her excellences, 
 and all improve on acquaintance. In the course 
 of this last year, she has been so good as to pass 
 a few weeks with me at Windsor, which gave 
 the Queen an opportunity of seeing and talking 
 with her, which her Majesty was so gracious to 
 admit of. One of the principal ladies that 
 attend the Queen's person as dresser is going to 
 retire into her own country, being in too bad a 
 state of health to continue her honourable and 
 delightful employment, for such it must be 
 near such a Queen ; and Miss Burney is to be the 
 happy successor, chosen by the Queen without 
 any particular recommendation from anybody. 
 I believe she comes into waiting next week. 
 
 I had the pleasure, before I came out of 
 town, of seeing Governor Hamilton in good 
 health and spirits. He and my young niece 
 hold a droll correspondence ; he and I some- 
 times quarrel about his talking of her beauty to 
 her face. She is really pretty, and I trust will 
 be good and agreeable. The way to have her 
 so, is to keej) her out of the line of vanity. I 
 think I have got H. H. in pretty good order 
 now. Contirue your usual good offices between 
 me and your good friends in Ireland, and 
 believe me, ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 M. Delany. 
 
 Mrs. Sandford and her sons are very well. 
 I have hopes of her making me a visit for some 
 days. 
 
 TO THE SABIE. 
 
 London, Sept. 13, 1787. 
 I will not delay giving you the pleasure I 
 know you must receive, my good friend, from 
 hearing such an account of Mrs. Delany as I 
 can truly give you, from having spent two 
 hovirs with her this morning, and will not put 
 off writing even for a day, as fresh intelligence 
 on so very interesting a subject must be most 
 acceptable. I shall name np other, and be as 
 particular as ray time and paper will allow. 
 I was with her at nine tliis morning, and heard 
 (with no small agitation) her well-known foot 
 hastening down to meet me. For a few minutes 
 our meeting was silent ; as many circumstances 
 rushed into our minds very affecting to us both. 
 I dreaded seeing the alteration in her that was 
 naturally to be expected from twenty years' 
 absence, from the period in her life of from 
 
3^4 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 sixty-seven to eighty-seven ; but I was soon set 
 at ease, by seeing the same apprehension, cheer- 
 fulness, attention, benevolence, and comfortable 
 enjoyment of every pleasant circumstance in 
 her situation, that you remember in her. Her 
 inquiries, her remarks, her whole conversation, 
 full of life and ingenuity, and that kind heart, 
 and manner of expressing its feelings, as warm 
 as ever. She is as upright, and walks as alertly, 
 as when you saw her. In short, I could have 
 had no idea of her being as I saw her in every 
 way. She lets me know when her only spare 
 bed is at liberty, as she insists on having licr 
 child (as she honoured me by naming me) again 
 in her own house ; and I shall instantly obey 
 her summons, with the pleasure you can 
 suppose, but I could not express. Miss Port is 
 a most pleasing girl, with the manners you may 
 supjjose Mrs. Delany's eUve would have, and 
 seems high in favour, and to be extremely 
 attentive and proper towards her aunt. The 
 King and Queen, and all the younger branches, 
 increase in affection and respect to Mrs. D. 
 She breakfasted with them yesterday, and the 
 King always makes her lean on his arm. Her 
 house is cheerful, and filled with her own 
 charming works. No pictures have held their 
 colours so well. I had time to look over near 
 a volume of her flowers, which are, I think, as 
 exact representations of nature as those you 
 are acquainted with ; she has finished 980 
 sheets, and regrets that the thousand she 
 intended wants twenty of its full number. 
 Her inquiries and all she said of you, would 
 have gratified you highly from her lips ; but 
 you would think them a little too flattering 
 from my pen. Now, my good friend, repay me 
 for sitting up after a fatiguing day, to com- 
 municate this pleasing intelligence to you, by 
 telling me your schemes. . . . Farewell, and 
 believe me, my good friend, yours very truly, 
 M. Pkeston. 
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD BURT TO A FRIEND IN 
 LONDON. 1 
 
 About a twelvemonth after I first came to 
 this town, and had been twice to Edinburgh by 
 the way of the hills, I received a letter from an 
 old acquaintance, desiring me to give him an 
 account of my first journey hither, the same to 
 commence from the borders of Scotland. 
 
 1 From Letters from a Gentleman in the North of 
 Scotland to his Friend in London, first published in 
 two volumes in 1754. The original editor remarks 
 that ' there is one portion of these volumes to which 
 a peculiar interest belongs ; it is that which relates to 
 the feudal manners formerly prevailing over the whole 
 of Europe, and of which familiar accounts by eye- 
 witnesses are extremely rare. This mode of life 
 existed in the Highlands to so late a period as the 
 year 1745, when the rebellion was finally extin- 
 guished ; when the legislature interposed to annul 
 
 I could not, you may imagine, conceive the 
 meaning of a request so extraordinary ; but, 
 however, I complied implicitly. Some time 
 afterwards, by a letter of thanks, I was given 
 to understand it was an expedient agreed upon 
 between him and another whereby to decide a 
 dispute. 
 
 Now all this preface is only to introduce my 
 request to you, that you will absolve me from 
 the promise I made you last week, and in lieu 
 of what you might demand, accept of a copy of 
 that letter. 
 
 I should not have waived my promised design 
 but for an affair which something related to 
 myself, and required my attention, and therefore 
 I could not find time to tack together so many 
 memorandums, as such letters as I intend to 
 send you require ; for if they are not ijretty 
 long, I shall be self -condemned, since you know 
 
 I used to say, by way of complaint against , 
 
 that letters from one friend to another should 
 be of a length proportioned to the distance 
 between them. 
 
 After some compliments, my letter was as 
 follows : — ' According to your desire, I shall 
 begin my account with the entertainment I met 
 with after passing the Tweed at Kelso, but 
 shall not trouble you with the exaction and in- 
 tolerable insolence of the ferrymen, because I 
 think you can match their impudence at our 
 own horse-ferry : I shall only say, that I could 
 obtain no redress, although I complained of 
 them to the principal magistrate of the town. 
 
 * Having done with them, my horses were 
 led to the stable, and myself conducted up one 
 pair of stairs, where I was soon attended by a 
 handsome genteel man, well dressed, who gave 
 me a kindly welcome to the house. 
 
 'This induced me to ask him what I could 
 have to eat : to which he civilly answered, The 
 good wife will be careful nothing shall be 
 wanting ; but that he never concerned himself 
 about anything relating to the public (as he 
 called it) : that is, he would have me know he 
 was a gentleman, and did not employ himself in 
 anything so low as attendance, but left it to 
 his wife. Thus he took his leave of me ; and 
 soon after came up my landlady, whose dress 
 and appearance seemed to me to be so unfit for 
 the wife of that gentleman, that I could hardly 
 believe she was any other than a servant ; but 
 she soon took care, in her turn, by some airs 
 
 hereditary jurisdictions, the distinctions of dress 
 and the carrying of arms; and when that state of 
 vassalage and barbarism yielded to the wholesome 
 restraints of civil law and well-regulated authority. 
 It is on this style of life that the exquisite 
 productions of Mr. Scott have thrown a chivalric 
 splendour; and indeed it is no mean stamp on the 
 validity of this work, that a gentleman of his superior 
 and extensive acquirements should have repeatedly 
 quoted these Curious Letters" (to use his own words) 
 for the sake of the descriptions they contain." 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 she gave herself, to let me know she was 
 mistress of the house. 
 
 ' I asked what was to be had, and she told me 
 potted pigeons ; and nothing, I thought, could 
 be more agreeable, as requiring no waiting, after 
 a fatiguing day's journey in which I had eaten 
 nothing. 
 
 ' The cloth was laid, but I was too unwilling 
 to grease my fingers to touch it ; and presently 
 after, the pot of pigeons was set on the table. 
 
 '"When I came to examine my cates, there 
 were two or three of the pigeons lay mangled 
 in the pot, and behind were the fun-ows, in the 
 1 'itter, of those fingers that had raked them out 
 it, and the butter itself needed no close 
 application to discover its quality. 
 
 'My disgust at this sight was so great, and 
 being a brand-new traveller in this country, I 
 ate a crust of bread and drank about a pint of 
 £ood claret; and although the night was 
 
 proaching, I called for my horses, and 
 - - u-ched off, thinking to meet with something 
 l etter; but I was benighted on a rough moor, 
 and met with yet worse entertainment at a 
 little house wliich was my next quarters. 
 
 ' At my first entrance I perceived some things 
 like shadows moving about before the fire, 
 which was made with peats ; and going nearer 
 to them, I could just discern, and that was all, 
 two small children in motion, stark naked, and 
 a very old man sitting by the fireside. 
 
 ' I soon went out, under pretence of care for 
 my horses, but in reality to relieve my lungs 
 and eyes of the smoke. At my return I could 
 perceive the old man's fingers to be in a very 
 I bad condition, and immediately I was seized 
 with an apprehension that I should be put into 
 Lis bed. 
 
 'Here I was told I might have a breast of 
 mutton done upon the hrander (or gridiron) ; 
 but when it was brought me, it appeared to 
 have been smoked and dried in the chimney- 
 corner ; and it looked like the glue that hangs 
 up in an ironmonger's shop : this, you may 
 believe, was very disgusting to the eye ; and 
 for the smell, it had no other, that I could per- 
 ceive, than that of the butter wherewith it was 
 j greased in the dressing; but, for my relief, 
 I there were some new-laid eggs, which were my 
 1 regale. And now methinks I hear one of this 
 
 I country say, a true Englishman ! he is 
 
 already talking of eating. 
 
 ' WTien I had been conducted to my lodging- 
 room, I found the curtains of my bed were very 
 ; foul by being handled by the dirty wenches ; 
 , and the old man's fingers being present with 
 me, I sat down by the fire, and asked myself, 
 for which of my sins I was sent into this 
 country ; but I have been something reconciled 
 to it since then, for we have here our pleasures 
 and diversions, though not in such plenty and 
 variety as you have in London. 
 
 ' But to proceed : Being tired and sleepy, at 
 
 last I came to a resolution to see how my bed 
 looked within side, and to my joy I found 
 exceeding good linen, white, well aired, and 
 hardened, and I think as good as in our best 
 inns in England ; so I slept very comfortably. 
 
 ' And here I must take notice of what I have 
 since found almost everywhere, but chiefly in 
 the Low-country, that is, good linen; for the 
 spinning descends from mother to daughter by 
 succession, till the stock becomes considerable ; 
 insomuch that even the ordinary people are 
 generally much better furnished in that par- 
 ticular than those of the same rank in England 
 — I am speaking chiefly of sheeting and table- 
 linen. 
 
 'There happened nothing extraordinary be- 
 tween this place and Edinburgh, where I made 
 no long stay. 
 
 ' When I first came into the High Street of 
 that city, I thought I had not seen anything of 
 the kind more magnificent : the extreme height 
 of the houses, which are, for the most part, 
 built with stone, and well sashed ; the breadth 
 and length of the street, and (it being dry 
 weather) a cleanness made by the high winds. 
 I was extremely i)leased to find everything look 
 so unlike the descriptions of that town which 
 had been given me by some of my countrymen. 
 
 ' Being a stranger, I was invited to suji at a 
 tavern. The cook was too filthy an object to 
 be described ; only another English gentleman 
 whispered to me and said, he believed, if the 
 fellow Avas to be thrown against the wall, he 
 would stick to it. 
 
 ' Twisting round and round his hand a greasy 
 towel, he stood waiting to know what we would 
 have for supper, and mentioned several things 
 himself, among the rest, a duke, a fool, or a 
 meer-fool. This was nearly according to his 
 pronunciation ; but he meant a duck, a fowl, or 
 a moor-fowl or grouse. 
 
 ' We supped very plentifully, and drank good 
 French claret, and were very merry till the 
 clock struck ten, the hour when everybody is at 
 liberty, by beat of the city drum, to throw 
 their filth out at the windows. Then the 
 company began to light pieces of paper, and 
 throw them upon the table to smoke the room, 
 and, as I thought, to mix one bad smell with 
 another. 
 
 ' Being in my retreat to pass through a long 
 narrow wymde or alley, to go to my new lodgings, 
 a guide was assigned me, who went before me 
 to prevent my disgrace, crying out all the way, 
 with a loud voice, "Hud your haunde." The 
 throwing up of a sash, or otherwise opening a 
 window, made me tremble, while behind and 
 before me, at some little distance, fell the 
 terrible shower. 
 
 ' Well, I escaped all the danger, and arrived, 
 not only safe and sound, but sweet and clean, 
 at my new quarters ; but when I was in bed 
 I was forced to hide my head between the 
 
366 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 sheets ; for the smell of the filth, thrown out 
 by the neighbours on the back side of the house, 
 came jDouring into the room to such a degree, 
 I was almost poisoned with the stench.' 
 
 I shall here add to my letter, as I am making 
 a copy of it, a few observations. 
 
 When I was last in Edinburgh I set myself to 
 consider of this great annoyance, and, in con- 
 clusion, found it remediless. 
 
 ' The city, it seems, was built upon that rock 
 for protection, by the castle, in dangerous times ; 
 but the space was too narrow to contain a 
 sufiicient number of inhabitants, otherwise than 
 by very high buildings crowded close together, 
 insomuch that there are hardly any back yards. 
 
 'Eight, ten, and even twelve storeys have 
 each a particular family, and perhaps a separate 
 proprietor ; and therefore anything so expensive 
 as a conveyance down from the uppermost floor 
 could never be agreed on ; nor could there be 
 made, within the building, any receiver suitable 
 to such numbers of people. 
 
 ' There is indeed between the city and the 
 sea a large flat space of land, with a rivulet 
 running through it, which would be very com- 
 modious for a city : but great part of it has 
 been made the property of the corporation ; and 
 the magistrates for the time being will not 
 suffer any houses to be built on it ; for if they 
 did, the old city would soon be deserted, which 
 would bring a very great loss upon some, and 
 total ruin upon others, of the proprietors in 
 those buildings.' 
 
 I have said thus much upon this uncleanly 
 subject, only, as you may have heard some 
 maliciously, or at best inconsiderately, say, that 
 this evil proceeds from (what one would think 
 nobody could believe) a love of nastiness, and 
 not necessity. I shall only add, as it falls in 
 my way, that the main street is cleaned by 
 scavengers every morning early, except Sun- 
 day, which, therefore, is the most uncleanly 
 day. 
 
 But to return : — Having occasion the next 
 morning after my arrival to inquire for a person 
 with whom I had some concerns, I was amazed 
 at the length and gibberish of a direction given 
 me where to find him. 
 
 I was told that I must go down the street, 
 and on the north side, over against such a place, 
 turn down such a loynde ; and, on the west 
 side of the wynde, inquire for such a launde (or 
 building) where the gentleman stayd, at the 
 third stair, that is, three storeys high. 
 
 This direction in a language I hardly under- 
 stood, and by points of the compass which I 
 then knew nothing of, as they related to the 
 town, put me to a good deal of difficulty. 
 
 At length I found out the subject of my 
 inquiry, who was greatly diverted when I told 
 him (with as much humour as I was master of) 
 what had been my perplexity. Yet in my 
 narration I concealed the nauseous incon- 
 
 venience of going down the steep narrow v.-ijndey 
 and ascending to his lodging. 
 
 I then had no knowledge of the cawdys, a 
 very useful blackguard, who attend the coffee- 
 houses and public places to go of errands ; and 
 though they are wretches, that in rags lie upon 
 the staii's and in the streets at night, yet are 
 they often considerably trusted, and, as I have 
 been told, have seldom or never proved 
 unfaithful. 
 
 These boys know everybody in the town who 
 is of any kind of note, so that one of them 
 would have been a ready guide to the place I 
 wanted to find; and I afterwards wondered 
 that one of them was not recommended to me 
 by my new landlady. 
 
 This corps has a kind of captain or magistrate 
 presiding over them, whom they call the 
 Constable of the cawdys, and in case of neglect 
 or other misdemeanour he punishes the delin- 
 quents, mostly by fines of ale and brandy, but 
 soinetimes corporally. 
 
 They have for the most part an uncommon 
 acuteness, arc very ready at proper answers, 
 and execute suddenly and well whatever em- 
 X)loyment is assigned them. 
 
 Whether it be true or not I cannot say, but 
 I have been told by several, that one of the 
 judges formerly abandoned two of his sons for 
 a time to this way of life, as believing it would 
 create in them a sharpness which might be of 
 use to them in the future course of their lives. 
 
 This is all that I knew of Edinburgh at that 
 time, by reason of the shortness of my stay. 
 The day following, my affairs called me to begin 
 my journey to Glasgow. 
 
 Glasgow is, to outward appearance, the 
 prettiest and most uniform town that I ever 
 saw; and I believe there is nothing like it in 
 Britain. 
 
 It has a spacious carrifour, where stands the 
 cross ; and going round it, you have, by turns, 
 the view of four streets, that in regular angles 
 proceed from thence. The houses of these 
 streets are faced with ashlar stone, they are 
 well sashed, all of one model, and piazzas run 
 through them on either side, which give a good 
 air to the buildings. 
 
 There are some other handsome streets, but 
 the extreme i^arts of the town are m^n and 
 disagreeable to the eye. 
 
 There was nothing remarkable in my way to 
 Glasgow that I took notice of, being in haste, 
 but the church at Linlithgow, a noble old Gothic 
 building, formerly a cathedral, now much in 
 ruins, chiefly from the usual rage that attends 
 refornuvtion. 
 
 It is really provoking to see how the populace 
 have broke and defaced the statues and other 
 ornaments, under the notion of their being 
 relics of Popery. 
 
 As this town was our baiting-place, a gentle- 
 man (the son of a celebrated Scots bishop) who 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 367 
 
 was with me, proposed, that while dinner was 
 getting ready we should go and view the inside 
 of the structure ; and as we took notice that 
 great part of the floor was broken up, and that 
 the pews were immoderately dusty, the 'pre- 
 centm; or clerk, who attended iis, took occasion 
 to say, he did not apprehend that cleanliness 
 was essential to devotion ; upon which my 
 friend turned hastily upon him, and said very 
 angrily, 
 
 ' "WTiat ! this church was never intended for 
 your slovenly worship.' This epithet, pro- 
 nounced with so much ardom-, immediately 
 after his censure of the Presbyterian zeal, was 
 to me some matter of speculation. 
 
 My stay at Glasgow was very short, as it had 
 been at Edinburgh, to which last, in five days, 
 I returned, in order to proceed to this town. 
 
 Upon consulting some gentlemen which of 
 the two ways was most eligible for me to take, 
 i.e. whether through the Highlands or by the 
 sea-coast, I found they were divided ; one giving 
 a dreadful account of the roughness and danger 
 of the . mountains, another commending the 
 shortness of the cut over the hills. One told 
 me it was a hundred and fifty miles by the 
 coast, another that it was but ninety miles the 
 other way : but I decided the matter myself 
 upon the strength of the old proverb — 'That 
 the farthest way about is the nearest way home.' 
 Not but that I sometimes met with roads which, 
 at that time, I thought pretty rough ; but after 
 passing through the Highlands, they were all 
 smoothed, in my imagination, into bowling- 
 greens. 
 
 As the country near the coast has, here and 
 there, little rising hills which overlook the sea, 
 and discover towns at a considerable distance, I 
 was well enough diverted with various prospects 
 in my journey, and wanted nothing but trees, 
 enclosures, and smoother roads, to make it 
 very agreeable. 
 
 The Lowlands, between the sea and the high 
 country, to the left, are generally narrow ; and 
 the rugged, romantic appearance of the moun- 
 tains was to me, at that time, no bad prospect ; 
 but since that, I have been taught to think 
 otherwise by the sufferings I have met with 
 among them. 
 
 I had little reason to complain of my enter- 
 tainment at the several houses where I set up, 
 because I never wanted what was proper for 
 the support of life, either for jnyself or my 
 horses : I mention them, because, in a journey, 
 they are as it were a part of oneself. The 
 worst of all was the cookery. 
 
 One thing I observed of almost all the towns 
 that I saw at a distance, which was, that they 
 seemed to be very large, and made a handsome 
 appearance ; but when I passed through them, 
 there appeared a meanness which discovered 
 the condition of the inhabitants ; and all the 
 outskirts, which served to increase the extent 
 
 of them at a distance, were nothing but the 
 ruins of little houses, and those in pretty great 
 numbers. 
 
 Of this I asked the reason, and was told 
 that when one of those houses was grown old 
 and decayed, they often did not repair it, but, 
 taking out the timber, they let the walls stand 
 as a fit enclosure for a caleyard, i.e. a little 
 garden for coleworts, and that they built anew 
 upon another spot. By this you may conclude 
 that stone and ground-rents in those tomis are 
 not very valuable. But the little fishing-tovAais 
 were generally disagreeable to pass, from the 
 strong smell of the haddocks and whitings that 
 were hung up to dry on lines along the sides of 
 the houses from one end of the village to the 
 other : and such numbers of half-naked children, 
 but fresh-coloured, strong, and healthy, I think 
 are not to be met with in the inland towns. 
 Some will have their numbers and strength to 
 be the effects of shell-fish. 
 
 I have one thing more to observe to you, 
 which is, that still as I went northwaid the 
 cattle and the carts grew less and less. The 
 sheep likewise diminished in their size by 
 degrees as I advanced ; and their wool grew 
 coarser, till at length, upon a transient view, 
 they seemed to be clothed with hair. This I 
 think proceeds less from the quality of the soil 
 than the excessive cold of the hills in the winter 
 season, because the mutton is exceedingly good. 
 
 Thus I have acquainted you how I came 
 hither, and I hope it will not now be very long 
 before I have a greater pleasure in telling you, 
 by word of mouth, in what manner I got home ; 
 yet must I soon return. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I almost long for the time when I may 
 expect your thoughts of my letters relating to 
 this country, and should not at all be surprised 
 to find you say, as they do after ten o'clock at 
 night in the wyndes and closes of Edinburgh, 
 ' Hud your haunde.' 
 
 But if that should be the case, I can plead 
 your injunction and the nature of the subject. 
 
 Upon second thoughts, I take it, we are just 
 even with one another ; for you cannot com- 
 plain that these letters are not satisfactory, 
 because I have been only doing the duty of a 
 friend, by endeavouring to gratify your curiosity ; 
 nor can I find any cause of blame in you, since 
 you could not possibly conceive the consequence 
 of the task you enjoined me. But, according 
 to my promise, to continue my account of our 
 Highland fair. 
 
 If you would conceive rightly of it, you must 
 imagine you see two or three hundred half- 
 naked, half- starved creatures of both sexes, 
 without so mi:ch as a smile or any cheerfulness 
 among them, stalking about with goods, such 
 as I have described, up to thek ancles in dirt ; 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 368 
 
 and at night numbers of them lying together in 
 stables, or other outhouse hovels that are hardly 
 any defence against the weather. I am speak- 
 ing of a winter fair, for in summer the greatest 
 part of them lie about in the open country. 
 
 The gentlemen, magistrates, merchants, and 
 shopkeepers are dressed after the English 
 manner, and make a good appearance enough, 
 according to their several ranks, and the work- 
 ing tradesmen are not very ill-clothed ; and 
 now and then, to relieve your eyes yet more 
 from these frequent scenes of misery, you see 
 some of tlieir women of fashion : I say some- 
 times, for they go seldom abroad, but when 
 they appear, they are generally well dressed in 
 the English mode. 
 
 As I have touched upon the dress of the men, 
 I shall give you a notable instance of precaution 
 used by some of them against the tailor's 
 purloining. 
 
 This is to buy everything that goes to the 
 making of a suit of clothes, even to the stay- 
 tape and thread; and when they are to be 
 delivered out, they are, all together, weighed 
 before the tailor's face. 
 
 And when he brings home the suit, it is 
 again put into the scale with the shreds of 
 every sort, and it is expected the whole shall 
 answer the original weight. But I was told in 
 Edinburgh of the same kind of circumspection, 
 but not as a common practice. 
 
 Tlie Inlaid is the undress of the ladies ; and 
 to a genteel woman, who adjusts it with a good 
 au', is a becoming veil. But as I am pretty 
 sure you never saw one of them in England, I 
 shall employ a few words to describe it to you. 
 It is made of silk or fine worsted, chequered 
 with various lively colours, two breadths wide, 
 and three yards in length ; it is brought over 
 the head, and may hide or discover the face, 
 according to the wearer's fancy or occasion : it 
 reaches to the waist behind ; one corner falls as 
 low as the ankle on one side, and the other 
 I)art, in folds, hangs down from the opposite 
 arm. 
 
 I have been told in Edinburgh that the ladies 
 distinguish their political principles, whether 
 Whig or Tory, by the manner of wearing their 
 plaids ; that is, one of the parties reverses the 
 old fashion, but which of them it is I do not 
 remember, nor is it material. 
 
 I do assure you we have here, among the 
 better sort, a full proj)ortion of pretty women, 
 as indeed there is all over Scotland. But pray 
 remember, I now anticipate the jest, 'That 
 Tvomen grow handsomer and handsomer the 
 longer one continues from home.' 
 
 The men have more regard to the comeliness 
 of their posterity than in those countries where 
 a large fortune serves to soften the hardest 
 features, and even to make the crooked straight ; 
 and indeed their definition of a fine woman 
 seems chiefly to be directed to that purpose ; 
 
 for after speaking of her face, they say, * She's 
 a fine, healthy, straight, strong, strapping 
 lassie.' 
 
 I fancy now I hear one of our delicate ladies 
 say, * 'Tis just so they would describe a Flanders 
 mare. ' I am not for confounding the characters 
 of the two sexes one with another ; but I should 
 not care to have my son a valetudinary being, 
 partaking of his mother's nice constitution. 
 
 I was once commending, to a lady of fortune 
 in London, the upright, firm, yet easy manner 
 of the ladies walking in Edinburgh. And when 
 I had done, she fluttered her fan, and with a 
 kind of disdain, mixed with jealousy to hear 
 
 them commended, she said, 'Mr. , I do 
 
 not at all wonder at that, they are used to 
 walk.^ 
 
 My next subject is to be the servants. I 
 know little remarkable of the men, only that 
 they are generally great lovers of ale ; but my 
 poor maids, if I may judge of others by what 
 passes in my own quarters, have not had the 
 best of chances when their lots fell to be born 
 in this country. It is true they have not a 
 great deal of household work to do ; but when 
 that little is done, they are kept to spinning, 
 by which some of their mistresses are chiefly 
 maintained. Sometimes there are two or three 
 of them in a house of no greater numl^er of 
 rooms, at the wages of three half-crowns a year 
 each, a peck of oatmeal for a week's diet ; and 
 happy she that can get the skimming of a pot 
 to mix with her oatmeal for better commons. 
 
 To this allowance is added a pair of shoes or 
 two, for Sundays, when they go to kirk. 
 
 These are such as are kept at board-wages. 
 In larger families, I suppose, their standing 
 wages is not much more, because they make no 
 better appearance than the others. But if any 
 one of them happens, by the encouragement of 
 some English family, or one more reasonable 
 than ordinary among the natives, to get clothes 
 something better than the rest, it is ten to one 
 but envy excites them to tell her to her face, 
 
 'she must have been , or she cou'd ne'er 
 
 ha gotten sic bonny r/eer.'' 
 
 All these generally lie in the kitchen, a very 
 improper place one would think for a lodging, 
 especially of such who have not wherewithal to 
 keep themselves clean. 
 
 They do several sorts of work with their feet. 
 I have already mentioned their washing at the 
 river. "^Ylien they wash a room, which the 
 English lodgers require to be sometimes done, 
 they Hkewise do it with then- feet. 
 
 First, they spread a wet cloth upon part of 
 the floor; then, with their coats tucked up, 
 they stand upon the cloth and shuffle it back- 
 ward and forward with their feet ; then they go 
 to another part and do the same, till they have 
 gone all over the room. After this, they wash 
 tlie cloth, spread it again, and draw it along in 
 all places, by turns, till the whole work ia 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 369 
 
 - -isheJ. This last operation draws away all 
 e remaining foul water. I have seen this 
 -.ewise done at my lodgings within a quarter 
 I of a mile of Edinburgh. 
 
 "NVhen I first saw it, I ordered a mop to be 
 made, and the girls to be shown the use of it ; 
 but, as it is said of the Spaniards, there was no 
 persuading them to change their old method. 
 
 I have seen women by the river's side washing 
 parsnips, turnips, and herbs, in tubs with their 
 feet. An English lieutenant-colonel told me 
 that about a mile from the town he saw, at 
 some little distance, a wench turning and 
 twisting herself about as she stood in a little 
 tub ; and as he could perceive, being on horse- 
 back, that there was no water in it, he rode up 
 close to her, and found she was grinding off the 
 beards and hulls of barley with her naked feet, 
 which barley, she said, was to make broth 
 withal; and since that, upon inquiry, I have 
 been told it is a common thing. 
 
 They hardly ever wear shoes, as I said before, 
 but on a Sunday ; and then, being unused to 
 them, when they go to church they walk very 
 awkwardly, or, as we say, like a cat shod with 
 v/alnut-shells. 
 
 I have seen some of them come out of doors, 
 early in a morning, with their legs covered 
 up to the calf with dried dirt, the remains of 
 what they contracted in the streets the day 
 before : in short, a stranger might think there 
 was but little occasion for strict laws against 
 indecency. 
 
 "When they go abroad, they wear a blanket 
 over their heads, as the poor women do, some- 
 thing like the pictures you may have seen of 
 some bare-footed order among the Romish 
 priests. 
 
 And the same blanket that serves them for 
 a mantle by day, is made a part of their bedding 
 at night, which is generally spread upon the 
 floor : this I think they call a shakedouni. 
 
 I make no doubt you are, long before this, 
 fully satisfied of the truth of my prediction in 
 the first letter; for, to make you thoroughly 
 acquainted with these remote parts, you see I 
 have been reduced to tittle-tattle as low as that 
 of a gossiping woman. However, as I am in 
 iwH, I must now proceed. 
 
 Let those who deride the dirtiness and 
 idleness of these poor creatures, which my 
 countrymen are too apt to do, as I observed 
 before, — let them, I say, consider what inclina- 
 tion they can have to recommend themselves. 
 What emulation can there proceed from mere 
 despair ? Cleanliness is too expensive for their 
 small wages ; and what inducement can they 
 have, in such a station, to be diligent and 
 obliging to those who use them more like 
 negroes than natives of Britain ? Besides, it is 
 not anything in nature that renders them more 
 idle and uncleanly than others, as some would 
 inconsiderately suggest ; because many of them, 
 
 when they happen to be transplanted into a 
 richer soil, grow as good servants as any what- 
 ever, and this I have known by experience. 
 
 It is a happiness to infancy, especially here, 
 that it cannot reflect and make comparisons of 
 its condition ; otherwise how miserable would 
 be the children of the poor that one >6ees con- 
 tinually in the streets ! Their wretched food 
 makes them look pot-bellied; they are seldom 
 washed ; and many of them have their hair 
 clipped, all but a lock that hangs down over 
 the forehead, like the representation of old 
 Time in a picture : the boys have nothing but 
 a coarse kind of vest, buttoned down the back, 
 as if they were idiots, and that their coats were 
 so made to prevent their often stripping them- 
 selves quite naked. 
 
 The girls have a piece of a blanket wrapped 
 about their shoulders, and are bare-headed like 
 the boys; and both without stockings and 
 shoes in the hardest of seasons. But what 
 seems to me the worst of all is, they are over- 
 run with the itch, which continues upon them 
 from year to year, without any care taken to 
 free them from that loathsome distemper. Nor 
 indeed is it possible to keep them long from it, 
 except all could agree, it is so universal among 
 them. And as the children of people in better 
 circumstances are not nice in the choice of 
 their companions and play-fellows, they are 
 most of them likewise infected with this disease, 
 insomuch that ui)on entering a room, where 
 there was a XDretty boy or girl that I should 
 have been pleased to have caressed and played 
 mth (besides the compliment of it to the father 
 and mother), it has been a great disappointment 
 to me to discover it could not be done witli 
 safety to myself. And though the children of 
 the upper classes wear shoes and stockings in 
 winter-time, yet nothing is more common than 
 to see them bare-foot in the summer. 
 
 I have often been a witness, that when the 
 father or mother of the lesser children has 
 ordered their shoes and stockings to be put on, 
 as soon as ever they had an opiJortunity they 
 have pulled them off, which I suppose was done 
 to set their feet at liberty. 
 
 From the sight of these children in the streets, 
 I have heard some reflect, that many a gay 
 equipage, in other countries, has sprung from 
 a bonnet and bare feet ; but for my own part, 
 I think, a fortune, obtained by worthy actions 
 or honest industry, does real honour to the 
 possessor ; yet the generality are so far misled 
 by customary notions, as to call the founder of 
 an honourable family an upstart ; and a very 
 unworthy descendant is honoured with that 
 esteem which was withheld from his ancestor. 
 But what is yet more extraordinary is, that 
 every successor grows more honourable with 
 time, though it be but barely on that account ; 
 as if it were an accepted principle, that a stream 
 must needs run the clearer the farther it is 
 
 2A 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 removed from the fountain-head. But antiquity 
 gives a sanction to anything. 
 
 I have little conversation with the inhabitants 
 of this town, except some few, who are not 
 comprehended in anything I have said, or will 
 be in anything I am about to say of the gene- 
 rality. The coldness between the magistrates 
 and merchants and myself has arisen from a 
 shyness in them towards me, and my disinclina- 
 tion to any kind of intimacy with them. And 
 therefore I think I may freely mention the 
 narrow way they are in, without the imputation 
 of a spy, as some of them foolishly gave out I 
 was in my absence when last in London. 
 
 If I had had any inclination to expose their 
 proceedings in another place (for they were 
 public enough here), I might have done it long 
 ago, perhaps to my advantage ; but those 
 deceitful boggy ways lie quite out of my road 
 to profit or preferment. 
 
 Upon my return, I asked some of them how 
 such a scandalous thought could ever enter into 
 their heads, since they knew I had little con- 
 versation with them ; and that on the contrary, 
 if I resided here in that infamous capacity, I 
 should have endeavoured to insinuate myself 
 into their confidence, and put them upon such 
 subjects as would enable me to perform my 
 treacherous office ; but that I never so much as 
 heard there was any concern about them ; for 
 they were so obscure, I did not remember ever 
 to have heard of Inverness till it was my lot to 
 know it so well as I did. And besides, that 
 nothing could be more public than the reason 
 of my continuance among them. This produced 
 a denial of the fact from some, and in others 
 a mortification, whether real or feigned is not 
 much my concern. 
 
 I shall here take notice, that there is hardly 
 any circumstance or description I have given 
 you, but what is known to some one officer or 
 more of every regiment in Britain, as they have 
 been quartered here by rotation. And if there 
 were occasion, I might appeal to them for a 
 justification (the interested excepted) that I 
 have exaggerated nothing; and I promise you 
 I shall pursue the same route throughout all 
 my progress. 
 
 I wish I could say more to the integrity of 
 our own lower order of shopkeepers than truth 
 and justice will allow me to do ; but these, I 
 think, are sharper (to use no worse an expres- 
 sion) in proportion as their temptations are 
 stronger. 
 
 Having occasion for some Holland cloth, I 
 sent to one of these merchants, who brought 
 me two or three pieces, which I jusb looked 
 upon, and told him that as I neither understood 
 the quality nor knew the price of that sort of 
 goods, I would make him, as we say, both seller 
 and buyer, reserving to himself the same profit 
 as he would take from others. At first he 
 started at the proposal ; and having recollected 
 
 himself, he said, ' I cannot deal in that manner.' 
 I asked him why, but I could get nothing more 
 from him but that it was not their way of 
 dealing. 
 
 Upon this, I told him it was apparently his 
 design to have over-reached me, but that he 
 had some probity left, which he did not seem 
 to know of, by refusing my offer, because it 
 carried with it a trust and confidence in his 
 honesty, and thereupon we i^arted. 
 
 Since that, I made the same proposal to a 
 mercer in Edinburgh, and was fairly and 
 honestly dealt with. 
 
 But the instances some of these people give 
 of their distrust one of another, in matters of 
 a most trifling value, would fill any stranger 
 with notions very disadvantageous to the credit 
 of the generality. 
 
 I sent one day to a merchant's hard by for 
 some little thing I wanted, which being brought 
 me by my servant, he laughed and told me, 
 that while he was in the shop there came in 
 the maid-servant of another merchant with a 
 message from her master, which was to borrow 
 an ell to measure a piece of cloth, and to 
 signify that he had sent a napkin, that is, a 
 handkerchief, as a pledge for its being returned : 
 — that the maid took the ell, and was going 
 away with it, without leaving the security; 
 upon which the merchant's wife called out 
 hastily and earnestly to her for the pawn ; and 
 then the wench pulled it out of her bosom and 
 gave it to her, not without some seeming shame 
 for her attempt to go away with it. 
 
 Speaking of an ell measure brings to my mind 
 a thing that passed a few weeks ago when I was 
 present. 
 
 An English gentleman sent for a wright, or 
 cai-penter, to make him an ell ; but before the 
 workman came, he had borrowed one, and 
 offered it as a pattern. * No, sir,' says the man, 
 ' it must not be made by this ; for yours, I 
 suppose, is to be for buying, and this is to 
 sell by.' 
 
 I have not myself entirely escaped suspicions 
 of my honesty ; for sending one day to a shop 
 for some twopenny business, a groat was 
 demanded for it ; the twojDence was taken, the 
 thing was sent, but my boy's cap was detained 
 for the remaining half of that considerable 
 sum. 
 
 It is a common observation with the English, 
 that when several of these people are in com- 
 petition for some profitable business or bargain, 
 each of them speaks to the disadvantage of his 
 competitors. 
 
 Some time ago there was occasion to hire 
 ovens wherewith to bake bread for the soldiery 
 then encamped near the town. The officer who 
 had the care of providing those ovens thought 
 fit, as the first step towards his agreements, to 
 talk with several of the candidates separately, 
 at their own houses, and to see what con- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 veniency tiiey had "wherewith to iJerform a 
 contract of that nature. In the course of this 
 inquiry, he found that every one of them was 
 speaking not much to the advantage of the rest, 
 and, in the conclusion, he cried out, 'Every 
 one of these men tells me the others are rogues, 
 and,' added with an oath, 'I believe them all.' 
 
 But, on the other hand, if "we ask of almost 
 any one of them, who is quite disinterested, the 
 character of some working tradesman, though 
 the latter be not at all beholden to fame, the 
 answer to our inquiry will be — 'There is not 
 an honester lad in all Britain. ' 
 
 This is done in order to secure the jDrofit to 
 their own countrymen ; for the soldiers rival 
 them in many things, especially in handicraft 
 trades. I take this last to be upon the principle 
 (for certainly it is one with them) that every 
 gain they make of the English is an acquisition 
 to their country. 
 
 But I desu'e I may not be understood to 
 speak of aU in general, for there are several 
 ?..mong them, whom, I believe, in spite of 
 education, to be very worthy, honest men ; — I 
 say against education, because I have often 
 observed, by childi-en of seven or eight years 
 old, that when they have been asked a question, 
 they have either given an indirect answer at 
 first, or considered for a time what answer was 
 fittest for them to make. And this was not 
 my observation alone, but that of several 
 others, upon trial, which made us conclude that 
 such precaution, at such an age, could not be 
 other than the effect of precept. 
 
 P.S.—l have sevei-al times been told, by 
 gentlemen of this country with whom I have 
 contracted acquaintance and friendship, that 
 others have said it would have been but just 
 that some native had had my appointment ; 
 and once it was hinted to me directly. This 
 induced me to say (for I could not help it) I 
 should readily agree to it, and cheerfully resign, 
 and would further take upon me to answer for 
 all my countrymen, that they should do the 
 same, provided no Scotsman had any government 
 employment be-south the Tweed; and then I 
 doubted not but there would be ample room 
 at home for us all. This I should not have 
 chosen to say, but it was begged, and I gave it. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I am now to acquaint you that I have not at 
 this time sufficient provision for your usual 
 repast. But, by the way, I cannot help 
 accusing myself of some arrogance in using 
 such a metaphor; because your ordinary fare 
 has been little else beside brochan, cale, stir- 
 about, soioings, etc. (oatmeal varied in several 
 ehapes); but that you may be provided with 
 something, I am now about to give you a 
 haggass, which would be yet less agreeable, 
 were it not to be a little seasoned with variety. 
 
 The day before yesterday, an occasion called 
 me to make a progress of about six or seven 
 mUes among the mountains ; but before I set 
 out, I was told the way was dangerous to 
 strangers, who might lose themselves in the 
 hUls if they had not a conductor. For this 
 reason, about two miles from hence I hired a 
 guide, and agreed with him for sixpence to 
 attend me the whole day. This poor man 
 went barefoot, sometimes by my horse's side, 
 and in dangerous jjlaces leading him by the 
 bridle, winding about from side to side among 
 the rocks, to such gaps where the horses could 
 raise their feet high enough to mount the stones, 
 or stride over them. 
 
 In this tedious j)assage, in order to divert 
 myself (having an interpreter with me), I asked 
 my guide a great many questions relating to 
 the Highlands, all which he answered very 
 properly. 
 
 In his turn, he told me, by way of question, 
 to hear what I would say, that he believed 
 there would be no war; but I did not under- 
 stand his meaning till I was told. By war 
 he meant rebellion; and then, with a dismal 
 countenance, he said he was by trade a weaver, 
 and that in the year 1715 the sidier roy, or red 
 soldiers, as they call them (to distinguish them 
 from the Highland companies, whom they call 
 sidier dou, or the black soldiers) — I say he told 
 me, that they burnt his house and his loom, 
 and he had never been in condition since that 
 time to purchase materials for his work, other- 
 wise he had not needed to be a guide ; and he 
 thought his case very hard, because he had not 
 been in the affair, or the scrape, as they call it 
 all over Scotland, being cautious of using the 
 word rebellion. But this last declaration of 
 his I did not so much depend on. 
 
 When he had finished his story, which, by 
 interpreting, took up a good deal of time, I 
 recounted to him the fable of the pigeon's fate 
 that happened to be among the jackdaws, at 
 which he laughed heartily, notwithstanding his 
 late grief for his loss ; and doubtless the fable 
 was to him entirely new. 
 
 I then asked his reason why he thought 
 there would not be another war (as he called 
 it) ; and his answer was, he believed the English 
 did not expect one, because they were fooling 
 away their money, in removing great stones 
 and blowing uj) of rocks. 
 
 Here he spoke his grievance as a guide ; and, 
 indeed, when the roads are finished according 
 to the plan proposed, there will be but little 
 occasion for those peoi^le, except such as can 
 speak English, and may by some be thought 
 necessary for interpreters in their journeys : I 
 say they will be useless as guides alone, reckon- 
 ing from the south of Scotland to this town the 
 mountain way (for along the coast hither the 
 road can hardly be mistaken), and counting 
 again from the Lowlands to the west end of 
 
372 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the opening among the mountains that run 
 from hence quite across the island. 
 
 But all the Highlands be-north this town and 
 the said opening will remain as rugged and 
 dangerous as ever. 
 
 At length I arrived at the spot of which I was 
 to take a view, and found it most horrible ; but 
 in the way that I went, being the shortest cut 
 going southward, it is not to be avoided. 
 
 This is a deep, narrow hollow, between very 
 steep mountains, whereinto huge parts of rocks 
 have fallen. It is a terrifying sight to those 
 who are not accustomed to such views ; and at 
 bottom is a small but dangerous burn, running 
 wildly among the rocks, especially in times of 
 rain. You descend by a declivity in the face 
 of the mountain, from whence the rocks have 
 parted (for they have visibly their decay), and 
 the rivulet is i^articularly dangerous, when the 
 passenger is going along with the stream, and 
 pursued by the torrent. But you have not far 
 to go in this bottom, before you leave the 
 current, which pursues its way, in continued 
 windings, among the feet of the mountains ; 
 and soon after you ascend by a steep and rocky 
 hill, and when the height is attained, you 
 would think the most rugged ways you could 
 possibly conceive of to be a happy variety. 
 
 When I was returned to the hut where I took 
 my guide, being pleased with the fellow's 
 good-humour and frankness in answering my 
 questions, instead of sixpence I gave him a 
 shilling. At first he could not trust his own 
 eyes, or thought I was mistaken ; but being 
 told what it was, and that it was all his own, 
 he fell on his knees and cried out, he never, in 
 all his life before, knew anybody give him more 
 than they bargained for. This done, he ran 
 into his hut, and brought out four children 
 almost naked, to show them to me, with a 
 prayer for the English. Thus I had, for so 
 small a price as one sixpence, the exquisite 
 pleasure of making a jDoor creature happy for a 
 time. 
 
 Upon my Highlander's lamentation of his 
 loss and present bad circumstances, I could not 
 forbear to reflect and moralize a little, con- 
 cluding, that ruin is ruin, as much to the poor 
 as to those that had been rich. 
 
 Here's a poor Highlandman (whose house, 
 loom, and all his other effects were, it is likely, 
 not worth thirty shillings) as effectually un- 
 done, by the loss he sustained, as one that had 
 been in the possession of thousands ; and the 
 burning of one of their huts, which does not 
 cost fifteen shillings in building, is much worse 
 to them than the loss of a palace by fire is to 
 the owner. And were it not for their fond 
 attachment to their chiefs, and the advantage 
 those gentlemen take of their slave-like notions 
 of patriarchal power, I verily believe there are 
 but few among them that would engage in an 
 enterprise so dangerous to them as rebellion ; 
 
 and as some proof of this, I have been told by 
 several people of this town, that in the year 
 1715, the then Earl of Mar continued here for 
 near two months together before he could 
 muster two hundred Highlanders, so unwilling 
 were these poor people to leave their little 
 houses and their families to go a king-making. 
 
 But when a number sufficient for his present 
 purpose had been corrupted by rewards and 
 promises, he sent them out in parties from hut 
 to hut, threatening destruction to such as 
 refused to join with them. 
 
 But it may be necessary to let you know that 
 these men, of whom I have been speaking, were 
 not such as were immediately under the eye of 
 their respective chiefs, but scattered in little 
 dwellings about the skirts of the mountains. 
 
 [Here follows the copy of a Highlander's letter, 
 which has been lately handed about this 
 town as a kind of curiosity.] 
 
 "When I first saw it, I suspected it to be 
 supposititious, and calculated as a lure^ whereby 
 to entice some Highlanders to the colony from 
 whence it was supposed to be written; but I 
 was afterwards assured, by a very credible 
 person, that he knew it to be genuine. 
 
 Endorsed. — Letter from Donald M'Pherson, 
 a young Highland lad, who was sent to Virginia 
 with Captain Toline, and was born near the 
 house of Culloden, where his father lives. 
 
 Portohago in Marilante, 
 June 2, 17—. 
 
 Teer lofen kynt Fater,— Dis is te lat ye 
 ken, dat I am in quid healt, plessed be Got for 
 dat, houpin te here de lyk frae yu, as I am yer 
 nane sin, I wad a bine ill leart gin I had na 
 latten yu ken tis, be kaptin Rogirs skep dat 
 geangs te Innernes, per cunnan I dinna ket sika 
 anither apertunti dis towmen agen. De skep 
 dat I kam in was a lang tym o de see cumin oure 
 heir, but plissit pi Got for a ting wi a kepit our 
 heels unco weel, pat Shonie Magwillivray dat 
 hat ay a sair heet. Dere was saxty o's k kame 
 inte te quintry hel a lit an lim an nane o's a 
 dyit pat Shonie Magwillivray an an otter Ross 
 lad dat kam oure wi's an mai pi dem twa wad 
 a dyit gin tey hed bitten at hame. 
 
 Pi mi fait I kanna komplin for kumin te dis 
 quintry, for mestir Nicols, Lort pliss hem, pat 
 mi till a pra mestir, dey ca him Shone Bayne, 
 an hi lifes in Marylant in te rifer Potomak, he 
 nifer gart mi wark ony ting pat fat I lykit mi 
 sel : de meast o a mi wark is waterin a pra 
 stennt hors, an pringin wyn an pread ut o de 
 seller te mi mestir's tebil. 
 
 Sin efer I kam til him I nefer wantit a pottle 
 o petter ele nor is in k Shon Glass hous, for I 
 ay set toun wi de pairns te dennir. 
 
 Mi mestir seys til mi, fan I kon speek lyk de 
 fouk heir dat I sanna pe pidden di nating pat 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 373 
 
 gar his plackimors wurk, for de fytfouk dinna 
 ise te wurk pat te first yeer aftir dey kum in te 
 quintry. Tey speek a lyk de sogers in Inerness. 
 
 Lofen fater, fan de servants heir he deen wi 
 der mestirs, dey grou unco rich, an its ne 
 wonter, for day mak a hantil o tombako; an 
 des sivites an apels an de sheries an de pires grou 
 in de wuds "wantin tyks apout dem. De swynes 
 te ducks an durkies geangs en te wuds wantin 
 mestirs. 
 
 De tombako grous shust lyk de dockins en de 
 bak o de lairts yart an de skeps dey kum fra 
 ilka place an bys dem an gies a hantel o silder 
 an gier for dem. 
 
 Mi nane mestir kam til de quintry a sarfant, 
 an weLl I wot hi's nou wort mony a susan punt. 
 Fait ye mey pelive mi de pirest plantir hire lifes 
 amost as weU as de lairt o Collottin. Mai pi 
 fan mi tim is ut I wel kom hem an sie yu pat 
 not for de furst nor de neest yeir til I gater 
 somting o mi nane, for fan I ha dun wi mi 
 mestir, hi maun gi mi a plantashon te set mi 
 up, its de quistium heir in dis quintry ; an syn 
 I houp te gar yu trink wyn insteat o tippeni in 
 Innerness. 
 
 I wis I hat kum our heir twa or tri yeirs 
 seener nor I dit, syn I wad ha kum de seener 
 harae, pat Got bi tanket dat I kam sa seen as I 
 dit. 
 
 Gin yu koud sen mi owr be ony o yur Inner- 
 ness skeps, ony ting te mi, an it war as muckle 
 clays as mak a quelt it wad, mey pi, gar mi 
 meister tink te mere o mi. It's trw I ket clays 
 eneu fe him, bat ony ting fe yu wad luck weel 
 an pony, an ant plese Got gin I life, I sal pey 
 yu pack agen. 
 
 Lofen fater, de man dat vryts dis leiter for 
 mi is van Shams Macheyne, he lifes shust a 
 myl fe mi, hi hes pin unko kyn te mi sin efer 
 I kam te de quintrie. Hi wes pom en Petic an 
 kam our a sarfant fe Klesgou an hes peen hes 
 nane man twa yeirs, and has sax plackimors 
 wurkin til hem alrety makin tombako ilka tay. 
 Hen win hem, shortly an a te geir dat he hes 
 wun heir an py a lerts kip at hem. Luck dat 
 yu duina forket te vryt til mi ay, fan yu ket 
 ony occashion. 
 
 God Almiclite pliss yu Fater an k de leve o 
 de hous, for I hana forkoten nane o yu, nor 
 dinna yu forket mi, for plise God I sal kum 
 hem wi gier eneuch te di yu a an mi nane sel 
 guid. 
 
 I weit you will be veri vokie, fan you sii yur 
 nane sins fesh agen, for I heive leirt a hantle 
 hevens sin I sau yu an I am unco bmck leii't. 
 
 A tis is fe yur lofen an Opetient Sin, 
 
 Tonal Mackaferson. 
 
 Directed. — For Shames Mackaferson neir te 
 Lairt o Collottin's hous, neir Innerness en de 
 Nort o Skotlan. 
 
 This letter is a notable instance of those 
 extravagant hopes that often attend a new 
 
 condition. Yet Donald, notwithstanding all 
 his happiness, desires his father to send him 
 some clothes ; not that he wants, or shall want 
 them, but that they would look honny, and ' 
 recommend him to his master. But I shall not 
 further anticipate that difficulty, which I know 
 will not be unpleasing to you. 
 
 If you should think poor Donald's sentiments 
 of his change to be worth your notice, and at 
 the same time find yourself at a loss to make 
 out any part of his letter, your friend Sir 
 Alexander, who is very commtmicative, will be 
 pleased with the office of your interpreter. 
 
 There is one thing I should have told you at 
 first, which is, that where I have marked the 
 single (a) thus (a), it must be pronounced (au) 
 which signifies (all). 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 But the rancour of some of those iDeople in 
 anotlier case was yet more extraordinary than 
 the instance previously given, as the objects of 
 their malice could not seem, even to the utmost 
 cowardice, to be in any manner of condition to 
 annoy them. This was after the battle of Glen- 
 shiels, in the rebellion of 1719, before mentioned. 
 
 As the troops were marching from the field of 
 action to a place of encampment, some of the 
 men who were dangerously wounded, after 
 their being carried some little way on horse- 
 back, complained they could no longer bear 
 that uneasy carriage, and begged they might be 
 left behind till some more gentle conveyance 
 could be provided. 
 
 In about three or four hours (the little army 
 being encamped) parties were sent to them with 
 hurdles that had been made to serve as a kind 
 of litters ; but whan they arrived, they found 
 to their astonishment that those poor miser- 
 able creatures had been stabbed with dirks in 
 twenty places of their legs and arms as well as 
 their bodies, and even those that were dead had 
 been used in the same savage manner. This I 
 have been assured of by several officers who 
 were in the battle, Scots as well as English. 
 
 I make no manner of doubt you will take 
 what is to follow to be an odd transition, i.e. 
 from the cruelty of the ordinary Highlanders 
 to dialect and orthography, although you have 
 met with some others not more consistent : but 
 then you will recollect what I said in my first 
 epistle, that I should not confine myself to 
 method, but give you my account just as the 
 several parts of the subject should occur from 
 my memorandums and memory. 
 
 Strange encomiums I have heard from the 
 natives upon the language of their country, 
 although it be but a corruption of the Irish 
 tongue ; and if you could believe some of them, 
 it is so expressive, that it wants only to be 
 better known to become universal. But as for 
 myself, who can only judge of it by the ear, it 
 
374 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 seems to me to be very harsli in sound, like the 
 Welsh, and altogether as guttural, which last, 
 you know, is a quality long since banished all 
 the polite languages in Europe. 
 
 It likewise seems to me, as if the natives 
 affected to call it Erst, as though it were a 
 language peculiar to their country ; but an 
 Irish gentleman who never before was in Scot- 
 land, and made with me a Highland tour, was 
 perfectly understood even by the common 
 people ; and several of the lairds took me aside 
 to ask me who he was, for that they never 
 heard their language spoken in such purity 
 before. This gentleman told me that he found 
 the dialect to vary as much in different parts 
 of the country as in any two counties of 
 England. 
 
 In writing English they seem to have no rule 
 of orthography, and they profess they think 
 good spelling of no great use ; but if they read 
 English authors, I wonder their memory does 
 not retain the figures or forms of common 
 words, especially monosyllables ; but it may, 
 for aught I know, be affectation. 
 
 I have frequently received letters from 
 ministers and lay gentlemen, both esteemed for 
 their learning in dead languages, that have 
 been so ill spelt, I thought I might have 
 expected better from an ordinary woman in 
 England. As for one single example : for heirs 
 (of Latin derivation), airs, repeated several 
 times in the same letter ; and further, one 
 word was often variously spelt in the same 
 page. 
 
 The Highland dress consists of a bonnet made 
 of thrum without a brim, a short coat, a waist- 
 coat longer by five or six inches, short stockings, 
 and brogues or pumps without heels. By the 
 way, they cut holes in their brogues, though 
 new made, to let out the water when they 
 have far to go and rivers to pass : this they do 
 to preserve their feet from galling. 
 
 Few besides gentlemen wear the trozcze, that 
 is, the breeches and stockings all of one piece 
 and drawn on together ; over this habit they 
 wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long 
 and two breadths wide, and the whole garb is 
 made of chequered tartan or plaiding ; this, 
 with the sv/ord and pistol, is called a, full dress, 
 and to a well-proportioned man with any 
 tolerable air, it makes an agreeable figure ; but 
 this you have seen in London, and it is chiefly 
 their mode of dressing when they are in the 
 Lowlands, or when they make a neighbouring 
 visit, or go anywhere on horseback ; but when 
 those among them who travel on foot, and have 
 not attendants to carry them over the waters, 
 they vary it into the rpielt (kilt), which is a 
 manner I am about to describe. 
 
 The common habit of the ordinary High- 
 landers is far from being acceptable to the eye : 
 with them a small part of the plaid, which is 
 not so large as the former, is set in folds and 
 
 girt round the waist to make of it a short petti- 
 coat that reaches half-way down the thigh, and 
 the rest is brought over the shoulders, and 
 then fastened before, below the neck, often 
 with a fork, and sometimes -with a bodkin, or 
 sharpened piece of stick, so that they make 
 pretty near the appearance of the poor women 
 in London when they bring their gowns over 
 their heads to shelter them from the rain. In 
 this way of wearing the plaid, they have some- 
 times nothing else to cover them, and are often 
 barefoot ; but some I have seen shod with a 
 kind of pumps made out of a raw cowhide with 
 the hair turned outward, which being ill made, 
 the wearer's feet looked something like those of 
 a rough-footed hen or pigeon : these are called 
 qnarrants, and are not onlj' offensive to the 
 sight, but intolerable to the smell of those who 
 are near them. The stocking rises no higher 
 than the thick of the calf, and from the middle 
 of the thigh to the middle of the leg is a naked 
 space, which being exposed to all weathers, 
 becomes tanned and freckled ; and the joint 
 being mostly infected with the country dis- 
 temjier, the whole is very disagreeable to the 
 eye. 
 
 This dress is called the qiielt {Icilt) • and for the 
 most part they wear the petticoat so very short, 
 that in a windy day, going uj) a hill, or stooping, 
 the indecency of it is plainly discovered. 
 
 A Highland gentleman told me one day 
 merrily, as we were speaking of a dangerous 
 precipice we had passed over together, that a 
 lady of a noble family had complained to him 
 very seriously, that as she was going over the 
 same place with a gilly, who was upon an upper 
 path leading her horse with a long string, she 
 was so terrified with the sight of the abyss, 
 that, to avoid it, she was forced to keep her 
 eyes fixed upon the Highlander all the way long. 
 
 I have observed before, that the plaid serves 
 the ordinary people for a cloak by day and 
 bedding at night : by the latter it imbibes so 
 much perspiration, that no one day can free it 
 from the filthy smell ; and even some of better 
 than ordinary appearance, when the plaid falls 
 from the shoulder, or otherwise requires to be 
 re-adjusted, while you are talking with them, 
 toss it over again, as some people do the knots 
 of their wigs, which conveys the offence in 
 whiffs that are intolerable : of this they seem 
 not to be sensible, for it is often done only to 
 give themselves airs. 
 
 Various reasons are given both for and 
 against the Highland dress. It is urged against 
 it, that it distinguishes the natives as a body of 
 people distinct and separate from the rest of 
 the subjects of Great Britain, and thereby is 
 one cause of their narrow adherence among 
 themselves to the exclusion of all the rest of 
 the kingdom ; but the part of the habit chiefly 
 objected to is the plaid (or mantle), which, they 
 say, is calculated for the encouragement of an 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 375 
 
 idle life in lying about upon the heath in the 
 daytime, instead of following some lawful 
 employment ; that it serves to cover them in 
 the night when they lie in wait among the 
 mountains to commit their robberies and de- 
 predations, and is composed of such colours as 
 altogether in the mass so nearly resemble the 
 heath on which they lie, that it is hardly to be 
 distinguished from it until one is so near them 
 as to be within their power if they have any 
 evil iatention. 
 
 That it renders them ready at a moment's 
 warning to join in any rebellion, as they carry 
 continually their tents about them. 
 
 And lastly, it was thought necessary in 
 Ireland to suppress that habit by Act of Parlia- 
 ment for the above reasons, and no complaint 
 for the want of it now remains among the 
 mountaineers of that country. 
 
 On the other hand it is alleged, the dress is 
 most convenient to those who, with no ill 
 design, are obliged to travel from one part to 
 another upon their lawful occasions, viz. : 
 
 That they would not be so free to skip over 
 the rocks and bogs with breeches, as they are 
 in the short petticoat. 
 
 That it would be greatly incommodious to 
 those who are frequently to wade through 
 waters, to wear breeches, which must be taken 
 off upon every such occurrence, or would not 
 only gall the wearer, but render it very un- 
 healthful and dangerous to their limbs to be 
 constantly wet in that part of the body, especi- 
 ally in winter-time, when they might be frozen. 
 
 And with respect to the plaid iu particular, 
 the distance between one place of shelter and 
 another is often too great to be reached before 
 night comes on; and being intercepted by 
 sudden floods, or hindered by other impedi- 
 ments, they are frequently obliged to lie all 
 night in the hills, in which case they must 
 perish were it not for the covering they caiTy 
 with them. 
 
 That even if they should be so fortunate as 
 to reach some hospitable hut, they must lie 
 upon the ground uncovered, there being nothing 
 to be spared from the family for that purpose. 
 
 And to conclude, a few shillings will buy 
 this dress for an ordinary Highlander, who 
 very probably might hardly ever be in condition 
 to purchase a Lowland suit, though of the 
 coarsest cloth or stuff, fit to keep him warm in 
 tliat cold climate. 
 
 I shall determine nothing in this dispute, but 
 leave you to judge which of these two reason- 
 ings is the most cogent. 
 
 The whole people are fond and tenacious of 
 the Highland clothing, as you may believe by 
 what is here to follow. 
 
 Being in a wet season upon one of my pere- 
 grinations, accompanied by a Highland gentle- 
 man, who was one of the clan through wliich I 
 ■was paasmg, I observed the women to be in 
 
 great anger with him about something that I 
 did not understand : at length I asked him 
 wherein he had offended them. Upon this 
 question he laughed, and told me his great-coat 
 was the cause of their wrath ; and that their 
 reproach was, that he could not be contented 
 with the garb of his ancestors, but was degener- 
 ated into a Lowlander, and condescended to 
 follow their unmanly fashions. 
 
 The wretched appearance of the poor High- 
 land women that come to this town has been 
 mentioned ; and here I shall step out of the 
 way to give you a notable instance of frugality 
 in one of a higher rank. 
 
 There is a laird's lady, about a mile from one 
 of the Highland garrisons, who is often seen 
 from the ramparts on Sunday mornings coming 
 barefoot to the kirk, with her maid carrying 
 the stockings and shoes after her. She stops 
 at the foot of a certain rock, that serves her 
 for a seat, not far from the hovel they call a 
 church, and there she puts them on ; and in her 
 return to the same place, she prepares to go 
 home barefoot as she came, thus reversing the 
 old Mosaic precept. What English squire was 
 ever blessed with such a housewife ? 
 
 But this instance, though true to my know- 
 ledge, I have thought something extraordinary, 
 because the Highlanders are shy of exposing 
 their condition to strangers, especially the 
 English, and more particularly to a number of 
 oflScers, to whom they are generally desirous to 
 make their best appearance. But in my jour- 
 neys, when they did not expect to be observed 
 by any but their own country people, I have 
 twice surprised the laird and his lady without 
 shoes or stockings, a good Avay from home, in 
 cold weather. The kirk above mentioned 
 brings to my memory a curiosity of the same 
 kind. 
 
 At a place in Badenoch, called Han Dou, as 
 I passed by a hut of turf something larger than 
 ordinary, but taking little notice of it, I was 
 called upon by one of the company to stop and 
 observe its figure, which proved to be the form 
 of a cross : this occasioned several jokes from a 
 libertine and a Presbyterian upon the Highland 
 cathedral and the Non- jurors, in all which they 
 perfectly agreed. 
 
 The ordinary girls wear nothing upon their 
 heads until they are married or have a child, 
 except sometimes a fillet of red or blue coarse 
 cloth, of which they are very proud ; but often 
 their hair hangs down over the forehead like 
 that of a wild colt. 
 
 If they wear stockings, which is very rare, 
 they lay them in plaits one above another from 
 the ancle up to the calf, to make their legs 
 appear as near as they can in the form of a 
 cylinder; but I think I have seen something 
 like this among the poor German refugee 
 women and the Moorish men in London. By 
 the way, these girls, if they have no pretensions 
 
37^ 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 to family (as many of them have, though in 
 rags), they are vain of the attentions of a 
 gentleman ; and when he makes love to one of 
 them, she will plead her excuse in saying he 
 undervalues himself, and that she is a poor 
 girl not worth his attention, or something to 
 that purpose. 
 
 This conduct proceeds chiefly from a kind 
 of ambition established by opinion and custom ; 
 for as gentility is of all things esteemed the 
 most valuable in the notion of those people, 
 so any mark of attention renders the poor 
 plebeian girl, in some measure, superior to her 
 former equals. 
 
 From thenceforward she becomes proud, and 
 they grow envious of her being singled out 
 from among them to receive the honour of a 
 gentleman's particular notice ; but otherwise 
 they are generally far from being immodest ; 
 and as modesty is the capital feminine virtue, 
 in that they may be a reproach to some in 
 higher circumstances who have lost that decent 
 and endearing quality. 
 
 You know I should not venture to talk in 
 
 this manner at , where modesty would be 
 
 decried as impolite and troublesome, and I and 
 my slender party ridiculed and borne down by 
 a vast majority. I shall here give you a sample 
 of the wretchedness of some of them. 
 
 In one of my northern journeys, where I 
 travelled in a good deal of company, there was 
 among the rest a Scots baronet, who is a captain 
 in the army, and does not seem (at least to me) 
 to affect concealment of his country's disadvan- 
 tage. This gentleman, at our inn, when none 
 but he and I were together, examined the maid- 
 servant about her way of living ; and she told 
 him (as he interpreted it to me) that she never 
 was in a bed in her life, or ever took off her 
 clothes while they would hang together ; but in 
 this last, I thmk, she was too general, for I am 
 IDretty sure she was forced to pull them off now 
 and then for her own quiet. But I must go a 
 little farther. 
 
 One half of the hut, by partition, was taken 
 up with the field-bed of the principal person 
 among us, and therefore the man and his wife 
 very courteously offered to sit up and leave 
 their bed to the baronet and me (for the rest of 
 the company were dispersed about in barns); 
 but we could not resolve to accept the favour 
 for certain reasons, but chose rather to lie upon 
 the benches with our saddles for pillows. 
 
 Being in a high part of the country, the night 
 was excessive cold, with some snow upon the 
 mountains, though in August, and the next day 
 was the hottest that I think I ever felt in my 
 life. 
 
 The violent heat of the sun among the rocks 
 made my new companions (natives of the hovel) 
 such voracious cannibals that I was obliged to 
 lag behind, and set my servant to take venge- 
 ance on them for the plentiful repast they were 
 
 making at my expense, and without my consent, 
 and by which I was told they were become as 
 red as blood. But I should have let you know, 
 that when the table over-night was spread with 
 such provisions as we carried with us, our chief 
 man would needs have the lady of the house to 
 grace the board ; and it fell to my lot to sit 
 next to her till I had loaded her plate, and bid 
 her go and sup with her husband, for I foresaw 
 the consequence of our conjunction. 
 
 The young children of the ordinary High- 
 landers are miserable objects indeed, and are 
 mostly overrun with that distemper which 
 some of the old men are hardly ever freed of 
 from their infancy. I have often seen them 
 come out from the huts early in a cold morning 
 stark naked, and squat themselves down (if I 
 might decently use the comparison) like dogs 
 on a dunghill, upon a certain occasion after 
 confinement. And at other times they have 
 but little to defend them from the inclemencies 
 of the weather in so cold a climate : nor are 
 the children of some gentlemen in much better 
 condition, being strangely neglected till they 
 are six or seven years old : this one might know 
 by a saying I have often heard, viz. ' That a 
 gentleman's bairns are to be distinguished by 
 their sj)eaking English.' 
 
 I was invited one day to dine with a laird, not 
 very far within the hills ; and observing about 
 the house an English soldier, whom I had often 
 seen before in this town, I took an opportunity 
 to ask him several questions. This man was a 
 bird-catcher, and employed by the laird to 
 provide him with small birds for the exercise of 
 his hawks. 
 
 Among other things he told me, that for 
 three or four days after his first coming, he had 
 observed in the kitchen (an out-house hovel) a 
 parcel of dirty children half naked, whom he 
 took to belong to some poor tenant, till at last 
 he found they were a part of the family ; but 
 although these were so little regarded, the 
 young laird, about the age of fourteen, was 
 going to the university ; and the eldest daughter, 
 about sixteen, sat with us at table, clean and 
 genteelly dressed. 
 
 But perhaps it may seem, that in this and 
 other observations of the like kind, whenever I 
 have met with one particular fact, I would 
 make it thought to be general. I do assure you 
 it is not so : but when I have known anything 
 to be common, I have endeavoured to illustrate 
 it by some particular example. Indeed, there 
 is hardly anything of this sort that I have 
 mentioned can be so general as to be free from 
 all exception ; it is justification enough to me if 
 the matter be generally known to answer my 
 description, or what I have related of it. But 
 I think an apology of this nature to you is 
 needless. 
 
 It is impossible for me, from my own know- 
 ledge, to give you an account of the ordinary 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 way of living of those gentlemen, because 
 ■when any of us (the English) are invited to 
 their houses, there is always an appearance of 
 plenty to excess; and it has been often said 
 they will ransack all their tenants rather than 
 we should think meanly of their house-keeping ; 
 but I have heard it from many whom they 
 have employed, and perhaps had little regard 
 to their observations as inferior people, that 
 although they have been attended at dinner by 
 five or six servants, yet, with aU that state, 
 they have often dined upon oatmeal varied 
 several ways, pickled herrings, or other such 
 cheap and indifferent diet ; but though I could 
 not personally know their ordinary bill of fare, 
 yet I have had occasion to observe they do not 
 live in the cleanest manner, though some of 
 them, when in England, affect the utmost 
 nicety in that particular. 
 
 A friend of mine told me some time ago, that 
 in his journey hither he stopped to bait at the 
 Bull Inn at Stamford, which, I think, is one 
 among the best in England. He soon received 
 a message by the landlord from two gentlemen 
 in the next room, who were going from these 
 parts to London, proposing they might all dine 
 together ; this he readily consented to, as 
 being more agreeable to him than dining 
 alone. 
 
 As they sat at table waiting for dinner, one 
 of them found fault with the table-cloth, and 
 said it was not clean : there was, it seems, a 
 spot or two upon it, which he told them was 
 only the stain of claret, that could not at once 
 be perfectly washed out ; then they wiped their 
 knives, forks, and plates with the napkins ; and, 
 in short, nothing was clean enough for them, 
 and this to a gentleman who is himself ex- 
 tremely nice in everything of that nature. At 
 last says my friend, vexed at the impertinent 
 farce, as he called it, ' Gentlemen, I am vastly 
 pleased at your dislikes, as I am now upon my 
 journey to Scotland (where I have never yet 
 been), because I must infer I shall there find 
 these things in better condition.' * Troth,' says 
 one of them, *ye canno want it.' 
 
 I am sorry for such instances, whereby a fop, 
 conscious of the fallacy, exposes his country, 
 and brings ridicule upon other gentlemen of 
 modesty and gooa sense, to serve a momentary 
 vanity, if not to give affronts by such gross 
 impositions. 
 
 I know very well what my friend thinks of 
 them now, and perhaps by their means of many 
 others who do not deserve it. 
 
 There is one gasconade of the people here- 
 abouts which is extraordinary : they are often 
 boasting of the great hospitality of the High- 
 landers to strangers ; for my own part, I do 
 not remember to have received one invitation 
 from them but when it was with an apparent 
 view to their own interest ; on the contrary, I 
 have several times been unasked to eat, though 
 
 377 
 
 there was nothing to be purchased within many 
 miles of the place. 
 
 But one particular instance was most inhos- 
 pitable. 
 
 Being benighted, soon after it was dark, I 
 made up to the house of one to whom I was well 
 known ; and though I had five or six mUes to 
 travel over a dangerous ragged way, wherein 
 there was no other shelter to be expected, yet, 
 upon the trampling of my horses before the 
 house, the lights went out in the twinkling of 
 an eye, and deafness at once seized the whole 
 family. 
 
 The latter part of what I have writ of this 
 letter relates chiefly to gentlemen who inhabit 
 the hills not far from the borders of the Low- 
 lands, or not very far from the sea, or com- 
 munication with it by lakes, as indeed most 
 part of the houses of the chiefs of clans are in 
 one or other of these situations. 
 
 These are sometimes built with stone and 
 lime, and though not large, except some few, 
 are pretty commodious, at least with compari- 
 son to these that are built in the manner of the 
 huts, of which, if any one has a room above, it 
 is, by way of eminence, called a lojted house ; 
 but in the inner part of the mountains there 
 are no stone buildings that I know of, except 
 the barracks ; and one may go a hundred miles 
 on end without seeing any other buildings than 
 the common huts of turf. 
 
 I have, indeed, heard of one that was 
 intended to be built with stone in a remote 
 part of the Highlands, from whence the laird 
 sent a number of Highlanders with horses to 
 fetch a quantity of lime from the borders ; but 
 on their way home there happened to fall 
 a good deal of rain, and the lime began to 
 crackle and smoke : the Highlanders not think- 
 ing, of all things, water woiild occasion fire, 
 threw it all into a shallow rivulet in order to 
 quench it, before they proceeded farther home- 
 ward ; and this, they say, put an end to the 
 project. 
 
 But I take this to be a Lowland sneer upon 
 the Highlanders, though not improbable. 
 
 I have mentioned above, among other situa- 
 tions of stone-built houses, some that are near 
 to lakes which have a communication with the 
 sea. 
 
 There are, in several parts of the Highlands, 
 winding hollows between the foot of the moun- 
 tains whereinto the sea flows, which hollows 
 are navigable for ships of burthen for ten or 
 twenty miles together inland : those the 
 natives call lochs or lakes, although they are 
 salt, and have a flux and reflux, and therefore, 
 more properly, should be called ai-ms of the 
 sea. 
 
 I could not but think this explanation neces- 
 sary to distinguish those waters from the 
 standing fresh-water lakes. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 3.78 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 When a young couple are married, for the 
 first night the company keep possession of the 
 dwelling-house or hut, and send the bridegroom 
 and bride to a barn or out-house, giving them 
 straw, heath, or fern for a bed, with blankets 
 for their covering, and then they make merry, 
 and dance to the piper all the night long. 
 
 Soon after the wedding-day, the new-married 
 w^oman sets herself about spinning her winding- 
 sheet, and a husband that should sell or pawn 
 it is esteemed, among all men, one of the most 
 profligate. 
 
 At a young Highlander's first setting up for 
 himself, if he be of any consideration, he goes 
 about among his near relations and friends ; 
 and from one he begs a cow, from another a 
 sheep, a third gives him seed to sow his land, 
 and so on, till he has procured for himself a 
 tolerable stock for a beginner. This they call 
 tldgging. 
 
 xifter the death of any one, not in the lowest 
 circumstances, the friends and acquaintance of 
 the deceased assemble to keep the near relations 
 company the first night ; and they dance, as if 
 it were at a wedding, till the next morning, 
 though all the time the corpse lies before them 
 in the same room. If the deceased be a woman, 
 the widower leads up the first dance ; if a man, 
 the widow. But this Highland custom I knew, 
 to my disturbance, within less than a quarter 
 of a mile of Edinbiu-gh, before I had been 
 among the mountains. It was upon the death 
 of a smith, next door to my lodgings, who was 
 a Highlander. 
 
 The upper class hire women to moan and 
 lament at the funeral of their nearest relations. 
 These women cover their heads with a small 
 piece of cloth, mostly green, and every now and 
 then break out into a hideous howl and ho-bo- 
 bo-bo-boo, as I have often heard is done in 
 some parts of Ireland. 
 
 This part of the ceremony is called a coronocJi, 
 and, generally speaking, is the cause of much 
 drunkenness, attended with its concomitants, 
 mischievous rencounters and bloody broils ; for 
 all that have arms in their possession accoutre 
 themselves with them upon those occasions. 
 
 I have made mention of their funeral piles in 
 a former letter; but I had once occasion to 
 take particular notice of a heap of stones near 
 the middle of a small piece of arable land. The 
 I)lough was carefully guided as near to it as 
 possible : and the pile, being like others I had 
 seen upon the moors, I asked, by an intei'preter, 
 whether there was a rock beneath it ; but being 
 answered in the negative, I further inquired 
 the reasons why they lost so much ground, and 
 did not remove the heap. To this I had for 
 answer, it was a burial place, and they deemed 
 it a kind of sacrilege to remove one single 
 stone ; and that the children, from their 
 
 infancy, were taught the same veneration for 
 it. Thus a parcel of loose stones are more 
 religiously preserved among them, than, with 
 us, the costly monuments in "Westminster 
 Abbey ; and thence I could not but conclude, 
 that the inclination to preserve the remains 
 and memoi-y of the dead is greater with those 
 people than it is among us. The Highlanders, 
 even here in this town, cannot forego the 
 practice of the hills, in raising heaps of stones 
 over such as have lost their lives by some 
 misfortune ; for in Oliver's Fort, no sooner was 
 the body of an officer removed from the place 
 where he fell in a duel, than they set about the 
 raising such a heap of stones upon the spot 
 where he had lain. So much for mountain 
 monuments. 
 
 Those who are said to have the second sight, 
 deal chiefly in deaths, and it is often said to be 
 a gift peculiar to some families ; that is, the 
 cheat has, with some, been handed down from 
 father to son. Yet I must confess they seldom 
 fail to be right when they reveal their pre- 
 dictions ; for they take the surest method to 
 l^rophetisc, which is to divulge the oracle after 
 the fact. Of this I had once an opportunity to 
 convince a Highland gentleman, from whom I 
 thought might have been expected more reason 
 and less prejudice than to be gulled by such 
 impostors. 
 
 The matter was this : — A poor Highlander 
 was drowned in wading a ford, and his body 
 afterwards put into a small barn. Not many 
 days after, the laird endeavouring to jpass the 
 same water, which was hard by his own house, 
 his horse gave way, and he was likewise 
 drowned, and carried into the same hut. Soon 
 after, a story began to i^ass for current, that 
 such a one the second- sighted foretold, when 
 the body of the poor man lay exposed to view, 
 that it would not be long before a greater man 
 than he should lie in the same place. This was 
 all that was i^retended, and that too was 
 afterwards found to be an invention arising 
 from the circumstance of two iDersons, at a 
 little distance of time, being drowned in the 
 same ford, and both their bodies carried to one 
 hovel, which indeed stood singly, near the 
 place where they were both stopped by the 
 rocks. 
 
 "Witches and goblins are likewise pretty 
 common among the Highlanders, and they have 
 several old prophecies handed down to them 
 by tradition, among which this is one, — 
 that the time shall come when they shall 
 measure out the cloth of London with a long 
 pole. 
 
 As the little manufacture they had was cloth, 
 so at the time when this pretended prophecy 
 was broached, they esteemed that the only 
 riches, and did not know of the treasure of 
 Lombard Street ; like the country boy, that fed 
 poorly and worked hard, who said, if he were a 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 3/9 
 
 gentleman he ■would eat fat bacon, and swing 
 all day long upon Gaffer Such-a-one's vatc. 
 A certain laird is frequently heard to affirm, 
 1 that at the instant he was born, a number of 
 swords that hung up in the hall of the mansion- 
 [ house leaped of themselves out of the scabbards, 
 j in token, I suppose, that he was to be a 
 I mighty man in arms, and this vain romance 
 r seems to be believed by the lower order of 
 his followers ; and I believe there are many 
 that laugh at it in secret who dare not publicly 
 declare their disbelief. But because the miracle 
 has hitherto only portended the command of 
 I his clan and an independent company, he has 
 I endeavoured to supply the defeat of the presage 
 I by his own epitaph, altogether as romantic, 
 \ in his own kirk, which he still lives to read 
 whenever he pleases to gratify his vanity with 
 the sight of it. 
 
 They have an odd notion relating to dead 
 bodies that are to be transported over rivers, 
 lakes, or arms of the sea. Before it is put on 
 board, they appraise and ascertain the value of 
 the boat or vessel, believing, if that be ne- 
 glected, some accident will happen to endanger 
 the lives of those who are embarked in it ; but 
 upon recollection, I think some of our seamen 
 entertain this idle fancy in some measure. For 
 I have heard they do not care for a voyage 
 with a corpse on board, as though it would be 
 the occasion of tempestuous weather, 
 i And lastly (for I shall not trouble you longer 
 I with things of this kind, which are without 
 number), the Highlanders are of opinion that 
 it is in the power of certain enchantresses 
 to make them childless ; but I am rather 
 inclined to believe it was originally a male 
 artifice among them to serve as an excuse in 
 cases where they have no family. 
 
 The marriages of the chiefs and chieftains are 
 for the most part confined to the circuit of the 
 Highlands, and they generally endeavour to 
 strengthen their clan by what they call powerful 
 alliances. But I must not be understood to 
 include any of the prime nobility of Scotland, 
 of whom there are some chiefs of clans. Their 
 dignity places them quite out of the reach of 
 anything I have said, or have to say, in relation 
 to the heads of Highland families, who reside 
 constantly with them, and govern them in 
 person. As to the lower class of gentry and the 
 ordinary jjeople, they generally marry in the 
 clan whereto they appertain. 
 
 All this may be political enough, i.e. the 
 chief to have regard to the Highlands in 
 general, and his followers to their own par- 
 ticular tribe or family, in order to preserve 
 themselves a distinct people ; but this continues 
 ' them in a narrow way of thinking with respect 
 to the rest of mankind, and also prevents that 
 : addition to the circumstances of the whole, or a 
 ! part of the Highlands, which might be made by 
 ' marriages of women of fortune in the Lowlands. 
 
 This in time might have a good effect, by 
 producing a union instead of that coldness, to 
 say no more, which subsists at present between 
 the natives of those two parts of Scotland, as if 
 they bore no relation one to another, considered 
 as men and subjects of the same kingdom, and 
 even the same part of it. Yet I must here (and 
 by the bye) take notice of one thing, wherein 
 they perfectly agree, which experience has 
 taught me to know perfectly well, and that is, 
 to grudge and envy those of the south i^art of 
 the island any profitable employment among 
 them, although they themselves are well 
 received, and equally encouraged and employed 
 with the natives in that part of the Idngdom. 
 And I think further, they have sometimes more 
 than their share, if they must needs keep up 
 such a partial and invidious distinction. 
 
 But to return to the marriages of the High- 
 landers. Perhaps, after what has been said of 
 the country, it may be asked what Lowland 
 woman Avould care to lead a life attended with 
 so many inconveniences? Doubtless there are 
 those who would be as fond of sharing the 
 clannish state and power with a husband, as 
 some others are of a name, when they sell 
 themselves for a title ; for each of these kinds 
 of vanity is very flattering. Besides, there are 
 many of the Lowland women who seem to have 
 a great liking to the Highland men, which they 
 cannot forbear to insinuate in their ordinary 
 conversation. 
 
 But such marriages are very rare ; and I 
 know but one instance of them, which I must 
 confess wiU not much recommend the union of 
 which I have been speaking ; but then it is but 
 one, and cannot be the cause of any general 
 inference. 
 
 A certain chieftain took to wife the daughter 
 of an Edinburgh goldsmith ; but this Lowland 
 match was the cause of much discontent in the 
 tribe, as being not only a diminution of the 
 honour of the hovise, but, in their opinion, an 
 ill precedent besides ; and nothing was more 
 common among the people of that branch of the 
 clan, than to ask among themselves, Were 
 there not smiths enough in the clan that had 
 daughters ? Hov^ comes ovir chief then to have 
 married the d;vughter of a Lowland smith ? — 
 making no distinction between an Edinburgh 
 goldsmith and a Highland blacksmith. 
 
 They thought it was a disgrace of which 
 every one i^artook, that he should match 
 himself with a tradesman's daughter, a Lowland 
 woman, and no way derived from the tribe. 
 
 This proved in the end to be a fatal marriage ; 
 but as it is uncertain, and therefore would be 
 unjust for me to determine in a matter whereof 
 I have not a perfect knowledge, I cannot 
 conclude which of the two, the husband or the 
 wife, was the occasion of the sad catastrophe. 
 I shall only say what I know, viz. that an old 
 rough Highlander, of sixty at least, was 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 imprisoned at one of the barracks while I was 
 there for accepting favours from the lady. 
 She was to be sent to Edinburgh to answer the 
 accusation ; and while she was preparing to go, 
 and the messenger waiting without doors to 
 conduct her thither, s/ie died. 
 
 The clan whereto the above-mentioned tribe 
 belongs, is the only one I have heard of which 
 is without a chief ; that is, being divided into 
 families under several chieftains, without any 
 particular patriarch of the whole name. And 
 this is a great rej)roacli, as may appear from an 
 affair that fell out at my table in the Highlands 
 between one of that name and a Cameron. 
 The provocation given by the latter was, Name 
 your chief. The return to it, at once, was. You 
 are a fool. They went out the next morning ; 
 but having early notice of it, I sent a small 
 party of soldiers after them, which in all 
 jirobability prevented some barbarous mischief 
 that might have ensued. For the chiefless 
 Highlander, who is himself a petty chieftain, 
 was going to the place appointed with a small- 
 sword and pistol ; whereas the Cameron (an old 
 man) took with him only his broad-sword, 
 according to agreement. 
 
 "When all was over, and I had at least 
 seemingly reconciled them, I was told the 
 words, of which I seemed to think but slightly, 
 were to one of that clan the greatest of all 
 provocations. 
 
 In a bargain between two Highlanders, each 
 of them wets the ball of his thumb with his 
 mouth, and then joining them together, it is 
 esteemed a very binding act ; but in more 
 solemn engagements they take an oath in a 
 manner which I shall describe in some suc- 
 ceeding letter. 
 
 "Wlien any one of them is armed at all points, 
 he is loaded with a target, a firelock, a heavy 
 broad-sword, a pistol-stock, and lock of iron, a 
 dirk ; and besides all these, some of them carry 
 a sort of knife, which they call a sJceen-ocles, 
 from its being concealed in the sleeve near the 
 arm-pit. 
 
 This last is more peculiar to the robbers, who 
 have done mischief with it when they were 
 thought to have been effectually disarmed. 
 
 To see a Highlander thus furnished out, 
 might put one in mind of Merry Andrew, when 
 he comes from behind the curtain in a warlike 
 manner to dispute the doctor's right to his 
 stage. He is then in his own individual person 
 a whole company of foot, being loaded with one 
 of every species of the arms and trophies of a 
 regiment ; viz. a pike, halbert, firelock, sword, 
 bayonet, colours, and drum. 
 
 Sometimes, when a company of them have 
 previously resolved and agreed to be peaceably 
 and friendly over their usky, they have drawn 
 their dirks and stuck them all into the table 
 before them ; as who should say. Nothing but 
 peace at this meeting, no private stabbing to- 
 
 night. But in promiscuous companies, at great 
 assemblies, such as fairs, burials, etc. where 
 much drunkenness prevails, there scarcely ever 
 fails to be great riots and much mischief done 
 among them. 
 
 To shoot at a mark, they lay themselves all 
 along behind some stone or hillock, on which 
 they rest their piece, and are a long while 
 taking their aim; by which means they can 
 destroy any one unseen, on whom they would 
 wreak their malice or revenge. 
 
 When in sight of the enemy, they endeavour 
 to possess themselves of the higher ground, as 
 knowing they give their fire more effectually by 
 their situation one above another, being without 
 discipline; and also that they afterwards 
 descend on the enemy with greater force, 
 having in some measure put it out of their 
 power to recede in the first onset. 
 
 After their first fire (I need not have said 
 their first, for they rarely stand a second) they 
 throw away their fire-arms and plaids which 
 encumber them, and make their attack with 
 their swords ; but if repulsed, they seldom or 
 never rally, but return to their habitations. 
 
 If they happen to engage in a plain, when 
 they expect the enemy's fire they throw them- 
 selves down on the ground. They had ever a 
 dread of the cavalry, and did not care to engage 
 them, though but few in number. 
 
 I chanced to be in company one time with an 
 old Highlander, as I passed over the plain of 
 KiUiecrankie, where the battle wks fought 
 between King William's troops commanded by 
 General IMackay, and the rebel Highlanders 
 under the Earl of Dundee. 
 
 When we came to the great stone that is 
 raised about the middle of the flat, upon the 
 spot where Dundee fell, we stopped ; and there 
 he described to me, in his manner, the order 
 and end of the battle, of which I shall now give 
 you the substance only, for he was long in 
 telling his story. 
 
 He told me that Mackay extended his line, 
 which was only two deep, the whole length of 
 the plain, designing, as he supposed, to sur- 
 round the Highlanders, if they should descend 
 from the side of an opposite hill where they 
 were posted. 
 
 That after the first firing, the rebels came 
 down six or seven deep, to attack the King's 
 troops ; and their rear pushing on their front, 
 they by their weight charged through and 
 through those feeble files, and having broke 
 them, made with their broad-swords a most 
 cruel carnage ; and many others who expected 
 no quarter, in order to escape the Highland 
 fury, threw themselves into that rapid river 
 (the Tay), and were drowned. But he said 
 there was an English regiment who kept them- 
 selves entire (the only one that was there), 
 whom the Highlanders did not care to attack ; 
 and after the slaughter was over and the enemy 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 381 
 
 retired, that single corps marched from the field 
 in good order. 
 
 He ftirther told me, there were some few- 
 horse badly mounted, who by the strength and 
 weight of the Highland files were pushed into 
 the river, which was close in their rear. 
 
 On any sudden alarm and danger of distress 
 to the chief, he gives notice of it throughout 
 his own clan, and to such others as are in 
 alliance with him. This is done by sending a 
 signal, which they call the ^er?/-cross, being two 
 sticks tied together transversely, and burnt at 
 the ends ; with this, he sends directions in 
 writing, to signify the place of rendezvous. 
 And when the principal person of any place has 
 received this token, he dismisses the messenger, 
 and sends it forward to another, and so on, till 
 all have received the intelligence. 
 
 Upon the receipt of this signal, all that are 
 near immediately leave their habitations, and 
 repair to the place appointed, with their arms, 
 and oatmeal for their provision. This they 
 mingle with the water of the next river or 
 bum they come to, when hunger calls for a 
 supply ; and often, for want of a proper vessel, 
 sup the raw mixture out of the palms of their 
 hands. 
 
 They have been used to impose a tax upon 
 the inhabitants of the Low-country, near the 
 borders of the Highlands, called hlack mail (or 
 rent), and le%'y it upon them by force ; and 
 sometimes upon the weaker clans among them- 
 selves. But as it was made equally criminal, 
 by several Acts of Parliament, to comply with 
 this exaction and to extoi-t it, the people, to 
 avoid the penalty, came to agreement with the 
 robbers, or some of their correspondents in the 
 Lowlands, to protect their houses and cattle. 
 And as long as this payment was punctually 
 made, the depredations ceased, or otherwise the 
 collector of this imposition was by contract 
 obliged to make good the loss, which he seldom 
 failed to do. 
 
 These collectors gave regular receipts, as for 
 safe-guard money ; and those who refused to 
 pay it were sure to be plundered, except they 
 kept a continual guard of their own well armed, 
 which would have been a yet more expensive 
 way of securing their property. 
 
 And notwithstanding the guard of the 
 independent Highland companies, which were 
 raised chiefly to prevent thefts and impositions 
 of this nature, yet I have been certainly 
 informed that this hlack mail, or evasive safe- 
 guard money, has been very lately paid in a 
 disarmed part of the northern Highlands, and 
 I make no doubt in other iDlaces besides, 
 though it has not yet come to my knowledge. 
 
 The gathering-in of rents is called uplifting 
 them, and the stealing of cows they call lifting, 
 a softening word for theft, as if it were only 
 collecting their dues. This I have often heard ; 
 but it has as often occurred to me, that we have 
 
 the word shop-lifting in the sense of stealing, 
 which I take to be an old English compound 
 word. But as to the etymology of it, I leave 
 that to those who are fond of such unprofitable 
 disquisitions, though I think this is pretty 
 evident. 
 
 "When a design is formed for this purpose, 
 they go out in parties from ten to thirty men, 
 and traverse large tracts of mountains, till they 
 arrive at the place where they intend to commit 
 their depredations, and that they choose to do 
 as distant as they can from their own dwellings. 
 
 The principal time for this wicked practice is, 
 the Michaelmas moon, when the cattle are in 
 condition fit for markets held on the borders of 
 the Lowlands. They drive the stolen cows in 
 the night-time, and by day they lie concealed 
 with them in by-places among the mountains, 
 where hardly any others come ; or in woods, if 
 any such are to be found in their way. 
 
 I must here ask leave to digress a little, and 
 take notice that I have several times used the 
 word coios for a drove of cattle. This is 
 according to the Highland style ; for they say, 
 a drove of cows, when there are bulls and oxen 
 among them, as we say, a flock of geese, though 
 there be in it many ganders. And having just 
 now mentioned the time of lifting, it revived in 
 my memoiy a malicious saying of the Low- 
 landers, viz. that the Highland lairds tell out 
 their daughters' tochers by the light of the 
 Michaelmas moon. But to return. 
 
 Sometimes one band of these robbers has 
 agreed with another to exchange the stolen 
 cattle ; and in this case they used to commit 
 their robberies nearer home ; and by appointing 
 a place of rendezvous, those that lifted in the 
 north-east (for the purpose) have exchanged 
 with others towards the west, and each have 
 sold them not many miles from home, which 
 was commonly at a very great distance frona 
 the place where they were stolen. Nay 
 further, as I have been well informed, in 
 making this contract of exchange, they have by 
 correspondence, long before they went out, 
 described to each other the colour and marks 
 of the cows destined to be stolen and ex- 
 changed. 
 
 I remember a story concerning a Highland 
 woman, who, begging a charity of a Lowland 
 laird's lady, was asked several questions ; and 
 among the rest, how many husbands she had 
 had. To which she answered, three. And 
 being further questioned if her husbands had 
 been kind to her, she said the two first were 
 honest men, and very careful of their family, 
 for they both died for the law, that is, were 
 hanged for theft. ' Well, but as to the last ? ' 
 ' Hout ! ' says she, ' a fulthy peast ! he died at 
 hame, lik an auld dug, on a. puckle o' strae.' 
 
 Those that have lost their cattle sometimes 
 pursue them by the track, and recover them 
 from the thieves. Or if in the pursuit they are 
 
382 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 hounded (as they phrase it) into the bounds of 
 any other chief, wlioso followers were not con- 
 cerned in the robbery, and the track is there 
 lost, he is obliged by law to trace them out of 
 his territory, or make them good to the owner. 
 
 By the way, the heath or heather, being 
 pressed by the foot, retains the impression, or 
 at least some remains of it, for a long while 
 before it rises again effectually ; and besides, 
 you know, there are other visible marks left 
 behind by the cattle. But even a single 
 Highlander has been found by the track of his 
 foot when he took to hills out of the common 
 ways for his greater safety in his flight, as 
 thinking he could not so well be discovered 
 from hill to hill every now and then as he 
 often might be in the road (as they call it) 
 between the mountains. 
 
 If the pursuers overtake the robbers, and 
 find them inferior in number, and happen to 
 seize any of them, they are seldom prosecuted, 
 there being but few who are in circumstances 
 lit to support the expense of a prosecution ; or 
 if they were, they would be liable to have their 
 houses burnt, their cattle hocked, and their 
 lives put in danger from some of the clan to 
 which the banditti belonged. 
 
 But with the richer sort, the chief or chieftain 
 generally makes a composition, when it comes 
 to be well known the thieves belonged to his 
 tribe, which he willingly pays to save the lives 
 of some of his clan ; and this is repaid him by 
 '<\ contribution among the robbers, who never 
 refuse to do their utmost to save those of their 
 fraternity. But it has been said this payment 
 has been sometimes made in cows stolen from 
 the opposite side of the country, or paid out of 
 the i^roduce of them when sold at the market. 
 
 It is certain some of the Highlanders think of 
 this kind of dejiredation as our deer-stealers 
 do of their park and forest enterprises ; that is, 
 to be a small crime or none at all. And as the 
 latter would think it a scandalous reproach 
 to be charged with robbing a hen-roost, so the 
 Highlander thinks it less shameful to stea], a 
 hundred cows than one single sheep ; for a 
 sheep-stealer is infamous even among them. 
 
 If I am mistaken in that part of my account 
 of the lifting of cattle, which is beyond my own 
 knowledge, you may lay the blame to those 
 gentlemen who gave me the information. 
 
 But there is no more wonder that men of 
 honesty and probity should disclose with 
 abhorrence the evil practices of the vile part of 
 their countrymeii than that I should confess 
 to them, we have among us a number of 
 villains that cannot plead the least shadow of 
 an excuse for their thievings and highway 
 robberies, unless they could make a pretence 
 of their idleness and luxury. 
 
 "WTien I first came into these parts, a High- 
 land gentleman, in order to give me a notion of 
 the ignorance of some of the ordinary High- 
 
 landers, and their contempt of the Lowland 
 laws (as they call them), gave me an account, 
 as we were walking together, of the behaviour of 
 a common Highlandman at his trial before the 
 Lords of Justiciary in the Low-country. By the 
 way, the appearance of those gentlemen upon the 
 bench is not unlike that of our judges in England. 
 
 I shall repeat the fellow's words as near as I 
 can, by writing in the same broken accent as my 
 Highland friend used in mimicking the criminal. 
 
 This man was accused of stealing, with others 
 his accomplices, a good number of cattle. And 
 while his indictment was in reading, setting 
 forth that he, as a common thief, had lain in 
 wait, etc., the Highlander lost all patience, 
 and interrupting, cried out, ' Common tief, 
 common tief ! steal ane cow, twa cow, dat be 
 common tief : lift hundred cow, dat be 
 shentilmans trovers.' After the court was 
 again silent, and some little progress had been 
 made in the particulars of the accusation, he 
 again cried out, ' Ah hone ! dat such fine shen- 
 tilmans should sit dere wid der fine cowns on te 
 mak' a parshel o' lees on a peur, honesht mon.' 
 
 But in conclusion, when he was , told what 
 was to be his fate, he roared out most out- 
 rageously, and fiercely pointing at the judges, 
 he cried out, ' Ah for a proad sword an a tirk, 
 to rid de hoose o' tose foul peastes.' 
 
 Personal robberies are seldom heard of 
 among them. For my own part, I have several 
 times, -with a single servant, passed the moun- 
 tain way from hence to Edinburgh, with four 
 or five hundred guineas in my portmanteau, 
 without any apprehension of robbers by the 
 way, or danger in my lodgings by night, though 
 in my sleep any one with ease might have 
 thrust a sword from the outside, through the 
 wall of the hut and my body together. I wish 
 we could say as much of our own country, 
 civilised as it is said to be, though one cannot 
 be safe in going from London to Highgate. 
 
 Indeed in trifling matters, as a knife, or some 
 such thing, which they have occasion for, and 
 think it will cause no very strict inquiry, they 
 are, some of them, apt to pilfer ; while a silver 
 spoon or a watch might lie in safety, because 
 they have no means to dispose of either, and 
 to make use of them would soon discover their 
 theft. But I cannot approve the Lowland 
 saying, viz. ' Show me a Highlander, and I will 
 show you a thief. ' 
 
 Yet after all I cannot forbear doing justice 
 upon a certain laird, whose lady keeps a change 
 far in the Highlands, west of this town. 
 
 This gentleman one day, opportunity tempt- 
 ing, took a fancy to the lock of an officer's 
 pistol ; another time he fell in love (like many 
 other men) with a fair but deceitful outside, 
 in taking the boss of a bridle silvered over to 
 be all of that valuable metal. 'Tis true, I 
 never lost anything at his hut ; but the proverb 
 made me watchful — I need not repeat it. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 3S3 
 
 But let this account of him be of no conse- 
 quence ; for I do assure you I never knew any 
 one of his rank do anything like it in all the 
 Highlands. 
 
 And for my own part, I do not remember 
 that ever I lost anything among them, but a 
 pair of new doe-skin gloves ; and at another 
 time a horse-cloth made of plaiding, which was 
 taken away while my hoi-ses were swimming 
 across a river, and that was sent me the next 
 day to Fort-William, to which place I was 
 going, when it was taken from the rest of my 
 baggage, as it lay upon the ground. I say 
 nothing in this place of another robbery, be- 
 cause I know the motive to it was purely 
 revenge. 
 
 I thought I had done with this part of my 
 subject ; but there is just now come to my 
 remembrance a passage between an ordinary 
 Highlandman and an ofl&cer in half-pay who 
 lives in this town, and is himself of Highland 
 extraction. 
 
 He told me a long while ago, that on a 
 certain time, he was going on foot, and un- 
 attended, upon a visit to a laird, about seven 
 or eight miles among the hills ; and being clad 
 in a new glossy summer suit (instead of his 
 Highland dress, which he usually wore upon 
 such occasions), there overtook him in his way 
 an ordinary fellow, who forced himself upon 
 him as a companion. 
 
 "When they had gone together about a mile 
 his new fellow-traveller said to him,— 'Troth, 
 ye ha gotten bra clais,' of which the officer 
 took little notice ; but some time after the 
 feUow began to look sour, and to snort (as they 
 do when they are angry), ' Ah ! 'tis ponny geer|; 
 what an I shou'd tak 'em frae ye noo? ' Upon 
 this, the officer drew a pistol from his breast, 
 and said, ' What do you think of this ? ' 
 
 But at sight of the pistol the fellow fell on 
 his knees, and squalled out, ' Ah hone ! ah 
 hone ! she was but shokin.' 
 
 It is true this dialogue passed in Irish, but this 
 is the language in which I was told the story. 
 
 But I have known several instances of 
 common Highlanders, who, finding themselves 
 like to be worsted, have crouched and howled 
 like a beaten spaniel, so suddenly has their inso- 
 lence been turned into fawning. But you know 
 we have both of us seen in our own country 
 a change in higher life not less rmmanly. 
 
 [Captain Burt is far from complimentary in 
 his remarks upon the Highlanders of Scotland, 
 but we cannot say he is not telling the truth in 
 these very matter-of-fact letters. We quote 
 freely from them, less for their style, which is 
 their smallest recommendation, than to show 
 the impression made upon an Englishman by 
 Scotland of a past age.] 
 
 [William Melmoth, son of the author of one 
 of the most popular religious works to 
 which the eighteenth century gave birth, 
 was born in 1710, and about 1742 published 
 some original letters under the name of 
 Fitzosborne, which are remarkable for the 
 laboured elegance of their style, the just- 
 ness of their sentiments, and the accuracy 
 of their criticism. His translation of 
 Pliny's Letters, in 1747, obtained for him j 
 the reputation of a refined and accomplished 
 scholar. He died at a very advanced age, 
 in 1799.— TFi??wo«.] 
 
 MELMOTH TO A FRIEND. 
 
 I esteem your letters in the number of my 
 most valuable j)ossessions, and preserve them 
 as so many prophetical leaves upon which the 
 state of our distracted nation is inscribed. But 
 in exchange for the maxims of a jDatriot, I can 
 only send you the reveries of a recluse, and 
 give you the stones of the brook for the gold of 
 Ophir. Never, indeed, Palemon, was there a 
 commerce more unequal than that wherein you 
 are contented to engage with me, and I could 
 scarce answer it to my conscience to continue a 
 traffic where the whole benefit accrues singly to 
 myself, did I not know that to confer, without 
 the possibility of an advantage, is the most 
 pleasing exercise of generosity. I -will venture, 
 then, to make use of a privilege which I have 
 long enjoyed ; as I well know you love to mix j 
 the meditations of the philosopher with the | 
 reflections of the statesman, and can turn with 
 equal relish from the politics of Tacitus to the 
 morals of Seneca. I was in my garden this 
 morning somewhat earlier than usual, when the 
 sun, as Milton describes him, 
 
 '"With wheels yet hov'ring o'er the ocean brim, 
 Shot parallel to th' earth his dewy ray.' 
 
 There is something in the opening of the dawn 
 at this season of the year that enlivens the 
 mind with a sort of cheerful seriousness, and 
 fills it with a certain calm rapture in the con- 
 sciousness of its existence. For my own part, 
 at least, the rising of the sun has the same 
 effect on me as it is said to have had on the j 
 celebrated statue of Memnon ; and I never 
 observe that glorious luminary breaking out 
 upon me, that I do not find myself harmonized 
 for the whole day. While I was enjoying the 
 freshness and tranquillity of this early season, 
 and considering the many reasons I had to join 
 in offering up that * morning incense,' which 
 the poet I just now mentioned represents as 
 particularly arising at this hour 'from the 
 earth's great altar,' I could not but esteem it 
 as a principal blessing that I was entering 
 
384 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ■upon a new day with health and spirits. To 
 awake with recruited vigour for the trans- 
 actions of life, is a mercy so generally dispensed, 
 that it passes, like the other ordinary bounties 
 of Providence, without making its due im- 
 pression. Yet, were one never to rise under 
 these happy circumstances, without reflecting 
 what numbers there are, who (to use the 
 language of the most i^athetic of authors) 
 when they said, ' My bed shall comfort me, my 
 couch shall ease my complaint,' were, like him, 
 ' full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of 
 the day,' or ' scared with dreams and terrified 
 through visions ; ' wei*e one to consider, I say, 
 how many pass their nights in all the horrors 
 of a disturbed imagination, or all the wakeful- 
 ness of real pains, one could not find oneself 
 exempt from such uneasy slumbers, or such 
 I terrible vigils, without double satisfaction and 
 gratitude. There is nothing, indeed, contributes 
 more to render a man contented with that 
 draught of life which is poured out to himself, 
 than thus to reflect on those more bitter in- 
 gredients which are sometimes mingled in the 
 cup of others. 
 
 In pursuing the same vein of thought, I 
 could not but congratulate myself that I had 
 no part in that turbulent drama which was 
 going to be reacted upon the great stage of the 
 world, and rejoiced that it was my fortune to 
 stand a distant and unengaged spectator of 
 those several characters that would shortly fill 
 the scene. This suggested to my remembrance 
 a passage in the Roman tragic poet, where he 
 describes the various ijursuits of the busy and 
 ambitious world in very just and lively 
 colours : — 
 
 • Ille superbos aditus regum 
 Durasque fores, expers sonini, 
 Colit : hie nuUo fine beatus 
 Componit opes, gazis inliians, 
 Et congesto pauper in auro est. 
 Ilium populi favor attonitum, 
 Fluctuque magis mobile vulgus, 
 Aura tumidum tollit inani. 
 Hie clamosi rabiosa fori 
 Jurgia vendens improbus, iras 
 Et verba locat.' 
 
 And I could not forbear saying to myself, in 
 the language of the same author : 
 
 ' Me mea tellus 
 
 Lare secreto tutoque tegat ! ' 
 
 Yet this circumstance, which your friend con- 
 siders so valuable a privilege, has been esteemed 
 by others as the most severe of afflictions. The 
 celebrated Count de Bussy Rabutin has written 
 a little treatise, wherein, after having shown 
 that the greatest of men upon the stage of the 
 world are generally the most unhappy, he closes 
 the account by producing himself as an instance 
 of the truth of what he has been advancing. 
 But can you guess, Palemon, what this terrible 
 disaster was, which entitled him to rank in the 
 
 number of these unfortunate heroes ? He had 
 composed, it seems, certain satirical pieces, 
 which gave great offence to Louis XIV. ; for 
 which reason that monarch banished him from 
 the slavery and dependence of a court, to live 
 in ease and freedom at his country house. But 
 the world had taken too strong possession of 
 his heart, to suffer him to leave even the worst 
 part of it without reluctance ; and, like the 
 patriarch's wife, he looked back with regret 
 upon the scene from which he was kindly 
 driven, though there was nothing in the prospect 
 but flames. Adieu ! 
 
 [Hume had been the means of securing a hospit- 
 able asylum for Rousseau in England, and 
 a pension ; but the latter, whose mind was 
 morbid and full of suspicions against all his 
 friends, returned again to France after a 
 stay of sixteen months.] 
 
 DAVID HUME TO DR. BLAIR. 
 
 July 15, 1766. 
 Dear Doctor, — I go in a few hours to 
 Woburn, so can only give you the outline of 
 my history. Through many difficulties I 
 obtained a pension for Rousseau. The appli- 
 cation was made with his own consent and 
 knowledge. I write him that all is happily 
 completed, and he need only draw for the 
 money. He answers me that I am a rogue and 
 a rascal, and have brought him into England 
 merely to dishonour him. I demand the reason 
 of this strange language, and Mr. Davenport, 
 the gentleman with whom he lives, tells him 
 that he must necessarily satisfy me. To-day I 
 received a letter from him, which is perfect 
 frenzy. It would make a good eighteenpenny 
 pamphlet, and I fancy he intends to jmblish 
 it. He there tells me that D'Alembert, Horace 
 Walpole, and I, had from the first entered into 
 a combination to ruin him, and had ruined hini. 
 That the first suspicion of my treachery arose 
 in him while we lay together in the same room 
 of an inn in France. I there spoke in my sleep, 
 and betrayed my intention of ruining him. 
 That young Tronchin lodged in the same house 
 with me at London ; and Annie Elliot looked 
 very coldly at him as he went by her in the 
 passage. That I am also in a close confederacy 
 with Lord Lyttelton, who, he hears, is his 
 mortal enemy. That the English nation were 
 very fond of him on his first arrival ; but that 
 Horace Walpole and I had totally alienated 
 them from him. He owns, however, that his 
 belief of my treachery went no higher than 
 suspicion while he was in London, but it rose 
 to certainty after he arrived in the country ; for 
 that there were several publications in the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 385 
 
 papers against him, which could have proceeded 
 from nobody but me or my confederate, Horace 
 "Walpole. The rest is all of a like strain, 
 intermixed with many lies and much malice. I 
 own that I was very anxious about this affair, 
 but this letter has totally relieved me. I write 
 in a hurry, merely to satisfy your curiosity. I 
 hope soon to see you, and am, etc. 
 
 [The reader is recommended to compare with 
 the vivid painting of Gray, the account 
 given of these famous trials by Horace 
 Walpole, in a letter to H. Mann, August 1, 
 1746. In the Gentleman's Magazine 
 appeared an account of Lord Lovat's 
 execution, bearing, in Mr. Croker's opinion, 
 strong internal evidence of having been 
 written by Johnson, to whom Mr. Mitford, 
 without sufficient authority, has attributed 
 the severe verses upon Lord Lovat which 
 were published in the same number. Bos- 
 well, indeed, had heard him repeat them 
 with great energy. They have the anti- 
 thesis, without the finish of his style. — 
 Willmott] 
 
 GRAY TO WHARTON. 
 
 My dear Wharton, — I am just returned 
 hither from town, where I have passed better than 
 a fortnight (including an excursion that I made 
 to Hampton Court, Richmond, Greenwich, and 
 other places), and am happily met by a letter 
 from you, one from Tuthill, and another from 
 TroUope. As I only run over Dr. Andrew's 
 answers hastily in a coffee-house, all I could 
 judge was, that they seemed very unfavourable 
 on the whole to our cause, and threw every- 
 thing into the hands of a visitor, for which 
 reason I thought they might have been concealed 
 till the Attorney-General's opinion arrived, 
 which will perhaps raise the spirits of such as 
 the other may have damped a little, or leave 
 room at least to doubt whether the matter be 
 so clear on the master's side as Andrew would 
 have it. You can't suppose that I was in the 
 least uneasy about IMr. Brown's fortitude, who 
 wants nothing but a foot in height and his own 
 hair to make him a little old Roman : with two 
 dozen such I should not hesitate to face an army 
 of heads, though they were all as tall as Dr. 
 Adams. I only wish everybody may continue 
 in as good a disposition as they were ; and 
 imagine, if possible, Roger will be fool enough 
 to keep them so. I saw TroUope for about an 
 hour in London ; and imagining he could not 
 be left in the dark as to your consultations, I 
 mentioned that I had cast an eye over Andrew's 
 
 j papers, and that it was not so favourable as we 
 hoped. He spoke, however, with horror of going 
 to law ; with great passion of the master ; and 
 with great pleasure of himself for quitting a 
 place where he had not found a minute's ease 
 
 ' in I know not how long : yet I perceive his 
 thoughts run on nothing else ; he trembled 
 while he spoke ; he writes to me here on the 
 same subject ; and after abusing Roger, he adds, 
 Whartoni rubro hcec subscribe libello. 
 
 jNIy evenings have been chiefly spent at Rane 
 lagh and Yauxhall ; several of my mornings, or 
 rather noons, in Arlington Street ; and the rest 
 at the trial of the lords. The first day I was 
 not there, and only saw the Lord High Steward's 
 parade in going ; the second and third . . . 
 peers were all in their robes ... by their 
 wearing bag- wigs and hats, instead of coronets. 
 The Lord High Steward was the least part of the 
 show, as he wore only his baron's robe, and was 
 always asking the heralds what he should do 
 next, and bowing or smiling about to his 
 acquaintance. As to his speech, you see it ; 
 people hold it very cheap, though several in- 
 correctnesses have been altered in the printed 
 copy. Kilmarnock sjioke in mitigation of his 
 crime near half an hour, with a decent courage, 
 and in a strong but pathetic voice. His figure 
 would prejudice people in his favour, being tall 
 and genteel ; he is upwards of forty, but to the 
 eye not above thirty-five years of age. What 
 he said appears to less advantage when read. 
 Cromartie (who is about the same age, a man 
 of lower stature, but much like a gentleman) 
 was sinking into the earth with grief and 
 dejection ; with eyes cast down, and a voice so 
 ow that no one heard a syllable that did not 
 sit close to the bar, he made a short speech to 
 raise compassion. It is now, I see, printed, and 
 is reckoned extremely fine. I believe you will 
 think it touching, and well expressed : if there 
 be any meanness in it, it is lost in that sorrow 
 he gives us for so numerous and hel^jless a 
 family. Lady Cromartie (who is said to have 
 drawn her husband into these circumstances) 
 was at Leicester House on Wednesday, with 
 four of her children. The Princess saw her, 
 and made no other answer than by bringing in 
 her own children and placing them by her ; 
 which (if true) is one of the prettiest things I 
 ever heard. She was also at the Duke's, who 
 refused to admit her ; but she waited till ho 
 came to his coach, and threw herself at his 
 knees, while her children hung upon him, till 
 he promised her all his interest could do ; and 
 before, on several occasions, he had been heard 
 to speak very mildly of Cromartie, and very 
 severely of Kilmarnock ; so if any be spared, it 
 will f)robably be the former, though he had a 
 pension of £600 a year from the Government, 
 and the order for giving quarter to no English- 
 man was found in his pocket. As to Balmerino, 
 he never had any hopes from the beginning. 
 
385 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 He is an old, soldier-like man, of a vulgar 
 manner and aspect, speaks the broadest Scotch, 
 and shows an intrepidity that some ascribe to 
 real courage, and some to brandy. You have 
 heard, perhaps, that the first day (while the 
 peers were adjourned to consider of his plea, 
 and he left alone for an hour and a half in the 
 bar) he diverted himself with the axe that 
 stood by him, played with its tassels, and tried 
 the edge with his finger ; and some lord, as he 
 j)assed by him, saying he was surprised to hear 
 him allege anything so frivolous, and that 
 could not possibly do him the least service, he 
 answered, 'that as there were so many ladies 
 present, he thought it would be uncivil to give 
 them no amusement.' The Duke of Argyle 
 telling him how sorry and how astonished he 
 was to see him engaged in such a cause : ' My 
 lord ' (says he), ' for the two kings and their 
 rights, I cared not a farthing which prevailed ; 
 but I was starving ; and by God, if Mahomet 
 had set up his standard in the Highlands, I had 
 been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck 
 close to the party, for I must eat.' The 
 Solicitor-General came up to speak to him too, 
 and he turns about to old Williamson. ' Who is 
 that lawyer that talks to me ? ' ' My lord, it 
 is Mr. Murray.' 'Ha! Mr. Murray, my good 
 friend ' (says he, and shook him by the hand), 
 ' and how does your good mother ? oh ! slie 
 was of admirable service to us ; we should have 
 done nothing without her in Perthshire. He 
 recommends (he says) his Peggy ('tis uncertain 
 . . . the favour of the Government, for she 
 has . . . 
 
 I have been diverted with an account of Lord 
 Lovat in his confinement at Edinburgh. There 
 was a Captain Maggett, that is obliged to lie in 
 the room every night with him. When first he 
 was introduced to him, he made him come to 
 his bedside, where he lay in a hundred flannel 
 waistcoats, and a furred night-gown, took him 
 in his arms, and gave him a long embrace, that 
 absolutely suffocated him. He will speak 
 nothing but French ; insists upon it that Mag- 
 gett is a Frenchman, and calls him ' mon cher 
 Capitaine Magot' (you know magot is a 
 monkey). At his head lie two Highland 
 women, at his feet two Highland men. He is 
 to be impeached by the House of Commons, 
 because not being actually in arms, it would 
 otherwise be necessary that the jury of Inver- 
 ness should find a bill of indictment against 
 him, which it is very sure they would not do. 
 When the duke returned to Edinburgh, they 
 refused to admit Kingston's Light Horse, and 
 talked of their privileges ; but they came in 
 sword in hand, and replied, that when the 
 Pretender was at their gates they had said 
 nothing of their jmvileges. The duke rested 
 some hours there, but refused to see the magis- 
 tracy. I believe you may think it full time 
 that I close my budget of stories ; Mr. Walpole 
 
 I have seen a good deal, and shall do a good 
 deal more, I suppose, for he is looking for a 
 house somewhere about Windsor during the 
 summer. All is mighty free, and even friendly, 
 more than one could expect. You remember a 
 paper in the Museum on Message Cards, which 
 he told me was Fielding's, and asked my oinnion 
 about ; it was his own, and so was the Adver- 
 tisement on Good Breeding, that made us laugh 
 so. Mr. Ashton I have had several conver- 
 sations with, and do really believe he shows 
 himself to me such as he really is : I don't tell 
 you I like him ever the better for it ; but that 
 may be my fault, not his. The Pelhams lie 
 very hard at his stomach ; he is not forty yet, 
 but he is thirty-one, he says, and thinks it his 
 duty to be married. One thing of that kind is 
 just broke off ; she had £12,000 in her own 
 hands. This is a i>rofound secret, but I, not 
 conceiving that he told me it as such, happened 
 to tell it to Stonhewer, who told it to Lyne, 
 who told it to Ashton agflin, all in the space of 
 tliree hours, whereby I incurred a scolding ; so 
 pray don't let me fall under a second, and lose 
 all my hopes of rising in the Church. 
 
 The Muse, I dou.bt, is gone, and has left me 
 in far worse company ; if she returns you will 
 hear of her. You see I have left no room for 
 a catalogue, which is a sort of policy, for it's 
 hardly possible my memory should supply one : 
 I will try by next time, which will be soon, if I 
 hear from you. If your curiosity require any 
 more circumstances of these trials . . . will 
 see . . . find some . . . My best compliments 
 to the little man of the world. Adieu, my dear 
 Wharton. Believe me very truly yours, 
 
 T. Gray 
 
 Stoke^ Sunday, August 13, 1746. 
 
 [Dr. Wharton, who had intended to accompany 
 Gray to Keswick, w\as seized at Brough 
 with a violent fit of his asthma, which 
 obliged him to return home. This was the 
 reason that Mr. Gray undertook to write 
 the following journal of his tour for his 
 friend's amusement. He sent it under 
 different covers. I give it here in continua- 
 tion. It may not be amiss, however, to hint 
 to the reader, that if he expects to find 
 elaborate and nicely- turned periods in this 
 narration, he will be greatly disajipointed. 
 When Mr. Gray described places, he aimed 
 only to be exact, clear, and intelligible ; to 
 convey peculiar, not general ideas, and to 
 paint bj- the eye, not the fancy. Tliere 
 have been many accounts of the Westmore- 
 land and Cumberland lakes, both before 
 and since this was written, and all of them 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 better calculated to please readers who 
 are fond of what they call fine writing : 
 yet those who can content themselves 
 with an elegant simjjlicity of narrative will, 
 I flatter myself, find this to their taste ; 
 they will perceive it was written with a 
 view rather to inform than surprise ; and 
 if they make it their companion when they 
 take the same tour, it will enhance their 
 opinion of its intrinsic excellence ; in this 
 way I tried it myself before I resolved to 
 print it.— TT. ilTason.] 
 
 MR. GEAY TO DR. WHARTON. 
 
 Aston, Oct. 18, 1769. 
 I hope you got safe and well home after that 
 troublesome night. I long to hear you say so. 
 For me, I have continued well, been so 
 favoured by the weather, that my walks have 
 never once been hindered till yesterday (that is 
 a fortnight and three or four days, and a journey 
 of more than 300 miles). I am now at Aston 
 for two days. To-morrow I go to Cambridge. 
 3Iason is not here, but Mr. Alderson receives 
 me. According to my promise, I send you the 
 first sheet of my journal, to be continued v/ith- 
 out end. 
 
 Sept. 30.— A mile and a half from Erougu, 
 where we parted, on a hill lay a great army 
 encamped : to the left opened a fine valley with 
 green meadows and hedge-rows, a gentleman's 
 house peeping forth from a grove of old trees. 
 On a nearer approach appeared myriads of 
 cattle and horses in the road itself, and in all 
 the fields round me a brisk stream hurrying 
 cross the way, thousands of clean, healthy 
 people in their best parti-coloured apparel : 
 farmers and their famiUes, esquires and their 
 daughters, hastening up from the dales and 
 down the fells from every quarter, glittering 
 in the sun, and pressing forward to join the 
 throng. While the dark hills, on whose tops 
 the mists were yet hanging, served as a con- 
 trast to this gay and moving scene, which 
 continued for near two miles more along the 
 road, and the crowd (coming towards it) reached 
 on as far as Appleby. On the ascent of the 
 hill above Appleby the thick hanging wood, 
 and the long reaches of the Eden, clear, rapid, 
 and full as ever, winding below, with views of 
 the castle and town, gave much employment to 
 the mirror : but now the sun was wanting, 
 and the sky overcast. Oats and barley cut 
 everywhere, but not carried in. Passed Kirby- 
 thore, Sir William Dalston's house at Acorn 
 Bank, Whinfield Park, Harthorn Oaks, 
 Countess Pillar, Brougham Castle, Mr. Brown's 
 large new house ; crossed the Eden and the 
 Eimot (pronounce Eeman) with its green vale, 
 and dined at three o'clock with Mrs. Buchanan 
 
 at Penrith, on trout and partridge. In the 
 afternoon walked up Beacon Hill, a mile to the 
 top, and could see Ulswater through an oldening 
 in the bosom of that cluster of broken moun- 
 tains, which the doctor well remembers, 
 AVhinfield and Lowther Parks, etc., and the 
 craggy tops of a hundred nameless hills : these 
 lie to west and south. To the north a great 
 extent of black and dreary plains. To the 
 east. Cross Fell, just visible through mists and 
 vapours hovering round it. 
 
 Oct. 1, 1769. — A grey autumnal day, the air 
 perfectly calm and mild ; went to see Ulswater, 
 five miles distant ; soon left the Keswick road, 
 and turned to the left through shady lanes 
 along the vale of Eeman, which runs rapidly on 
 near the way, ripi^ling over the stones ; to the 
 right is Delmaine, a large fabric of i)ale red 
 stone, with nine windows in front and seven on 
 the side, built by Mr. Hassle ; behind it a fine 
 lawn surrounded by woods, and a long rocky 
 eminence rising over them : a clear and brisk 
 rivulet runs by the house to join the Eeman, 
 whose course is in sight and at a small distance. 
 Farther on appears Hatton St. John, a castle- 
 like old mansion of Mr. Haddleston. Apj)roached 
 Dunmallert, a fine pointed hill covered with 
 wood, planted by old Mr. Hassle before 
 mentioned, who lives always at home, and 
 delights in planting. Walked over a spongy 
 meadow or two, and began to mount the hill 
 through a broad straight green-alley among the 
 trees, and with some toil gained the summit. 
 From hence saw a lake opening directly at my 
 feet, majestic in its calmness, clear and smooth 
 as a blue mirror, with winding shores and low 
 points of land covered with green enclosures, 
 white farm-houses looking out among the trees, 
 and cattle feeding. The water is almost every- 
 where bordered with cultivated lands, gently 
 sloping upwards from a mile to a quarter of a 
 mile in breadth, till they reach the foot of the 
 mountains, which rise very rude and awful 
 with their broken toi^s on either hand. Directly 
 in front, at better than three miles distance. 
 Place Fell, one of the bravest among them, 
 pushes its bold, broad breast into the midst of 
 the lake, and forces it to alter its course, form- 
 ing first a large bay to the left, and then 
 bending to the right. I descended Dunmallert 
 again by a side avenue, that was only not per- 
 pendicular, and came to Bartonbridge over the 
 Eeman; then walking through a path in a 
 wood round the botton of the hill, came forth 
 where the Eeman issues out of the lake, and 
 continued my way along its western shore close 
 to the water, and generally on a level with it. 
 Saw a cormorant flying over it and fishing. 
 The figure of the lake nothing resembles that 
 laid down in our maps : it is nine miles long, 
 and at widest under a mile in breadth. After 
 extending itself three miles and a half in a 
 line to the south-west, it turns at the foot of 
 
388 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Place Fell almost due west, and is here not 
 twice the breadth of the Thames at London. 
 It is soon again interrupted by the root of 
 Helvellyn, a lofty and very rugged mountain, 
 and spreading again turns off to south-east, and 
 is lost among the deep recesses of the hills. To 
 this second turning I pursued my way about 
 four miles along its borders beyond a village 
 scattered among trees, and called Water 
 Mallock, in a pleasant, grave day, perfectly 
 calm and warm, but without a gleam of sun- 
 shine ; then the sky seeming to thicken, and 
 the valley to grow more desolate, and evening 
 drawing on, I returned by the way I came to 
 Penrith. 
 
 Oct. 2. — I set out at ten for Keswick by the 
 road we went in 17G7 ; saw Greystock town 
 and castle to the right, which lie about three 
 miles from Ulswater over the fells ; passed 
 thi'ough Penradoch and Threlcot at the foot of 
 Saddleback, whose furrowed sides were gilt by 
 the noon-day sun, whilst its brow appeared of a 
 sad purple from the shadow of the clouds as 
 they sailed slowly by it. The broad and green 
 valley of Gardies and Lowside, with a swift stream 
 glittering among the cottages and meadows, 
 lay to the left, and the much finer but narrower 
 valley of St. John's opening into it ; Hill Top, 
 the large though low mansion of the Gaskarths, 
 now a farm-house, seated on an eminence 
 among woods, under a steep fell, was what 
 appeared the most conspicuous, and beside it a 
 great rock, like some ancient tower nodding to 
 its fall. Passed by the side of Skiddaw and its 
 cub called Latter Rig ; and saw from an emin- 
 ence, at two miles distance, the vale of Elysium 
 in all its verdure, the sun then playing on the 
 bosom of the lake, and lighting up all the 
 mountains with its lustre. Dined by two 
 o'clock at the Queen's Head, and then straggled 
 out alone to the parsonage, where I saw the 
 sun set in all its glory. 
 
 Oct. 3. — A heavenly day ; rose at seven, and 
 walked out under the conduct of my landlord 
 to Borrowdale; the grass was covered with a 
 hoar-frost, which soon melted and exhaled in 
 a thin bluish smoke ; crossed the meadows, 
 obliquely catching a diversity of views among 
 the hills over the lake and islands, and chang- 
 ing prospect at every ten paces. Left Cock- 
 shut (which we formerly mounted) and Castle 
 Hill, a loftier and more rugged hill behind 
 me, and drew near the foot of Walla Crag, 
 whose bare and rocky brow, cut perpendicularly 
 down above 400 feet (as I guess, though the 
 I)eople call it much more), awfully overlooks 
 the way. Our path here tends to the left, and 
 the ground gently rising and covered with a 
 glade of scattering trees and bushes on the very 
 margin of the water, opens both ways the 
 most delicious view that my eyes ever beheld ; 
 opposite are the thick woods of Lord Egremont 
 and Newland Valley, with green and smiling 
 
 fields embosomed in the dark cliffs ; to the left 
 the jaws of Borrowdale, with that turbulent 
 chaos of mountain behind mountain, rolled in 
 confusion ; beneath you, and stretching far 
 away to the right, the shining jiurity of the 
 lake, reflecting rocks, woods, fields, and inverted 
 tops of hills, just ruffled by the breeze, enough 
 to show it is alive, with the white buildings of 
 Keswick, Crosthw^aite church, and Skiddaw for 
 a background at a distance. Behind you the 
 magnificent heights of Walla Crag ; here the 
 glass played its part divinely ; the i)lace is 
 called Carf Close Reeds ; and I choose to set 
 down these barbarous names, that anybody 
 may inquire on the place, and easily find the 
 particular station that I mean. This scene 
 continues to Borrow Gate ; and a little farther, 
 passing a brook called Barrow Beck, we entered 
 Borrowdale : the crags named Lawdoor Banks 
 begin now to impend terribly over your way, 
 and more terribly when you hear that three 
 years since an immense mass of rock tumbled 
 at once from the brow, and barred all access to 
 the dale (for this is the only road) till they 
 could work their way through it. Luckily no 
 one was passing at the time of this fall; but 
 down the side of the mountain, and far into 
 the lake, lie dispersed the huge fragments of 
 this ruin in all shajDes and in all directions : 
 something farther we turned aside into a 
 coppice, ascending a little in front of Lawdoor 
 waterfall ; the height appeared to be about 
 200 feet, the quantity of water not great, 
 though (these three days excepted) it had 
 rained daily in the hills for near two months 
 before ; but then the stream was nobly broken, 
 leaping from rock to rock, and foaming with 
 fury. On one side a towering crag that spired 
 up to equal, if not overtop, the neighbouring 
 cliffs (this lay all in shade and darkness): on 
 the other hand a rounder, broader projecting 
 hill, shagged with wood, and illuminated by the 
 sun, which glanced sideways on the upper part 
 of the catai"act. The force of the water wearing 
 a deep channel in the ground, hurries away to 
 join the lake. We descended again, and passed 
 the stream over a rude bridge. Soon after we 
 came vmder Cowdar Crag, a hill more formidable 
 to the eye and to the apprehension than that 
 of Lawdoor ; the rocks at top deep-cloven 
 perpendicularly by the rains, hanging loose 
 and nodding forwards, seem just starting from 
 their base in shivers. The whole way down, 
 and the road on both sides, is strewed with piles 
 of the fragments strangely thrown across each 
 other, and of a dreadful bulk. The place 
 reminds me of those passes in the Alps, where 
 the guides tell you to move on with speed 
 and say nothing, lest the agitation of the au- 
 should loosen the snows above, and bring down 
 a mass that would overwhelm a caravan. I 
 took their counsel here, and hastened on in 
 silence. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 389 
 
 ' Xon ragioniam di lor, nia guarda, e passa 1 ' 
 
 The hills here are clothed all up their steep 
 sides with oak, ash, birch, holly, etc. ; some of 
 it has been cut forty years ago, some within 
 these eight years ; yet all is sprung again, green, 
 flourishing, and tall for its age, in a place 
 where no soil appears but the staring rock, and 
 where a man could scarce stand upright : here 
 we meet a ci%dl young farmer overseeing his 
 reapers (for it is now oat-harvest) who con- 
 ducted us to a neat white house in the village 
 of Grange, which is built on a rising ground in 
 the midst of a valley ; round it the mountains 
 form an awful amphitheatre, and through it 
 obliquely runs the Dcrwent, clear as glass, and 
 showing under its bridge every trout that 
 passes. Beside the village rises a round emin- 
 ence of rock covered entirely with old trees, 
 and over that more proudly towers Castle Crag, 
 invested also with wood on its sides, and bearing 
 on its naked top some traces of a fort, said to be 
 Roman. By the side of this hill, which almost 
 blocks up the way, the valley turns to the left, 
 and contracts its dimensions till there is hardly 
 any road but the rocky bed of the river. The 
 wood of the mountains increases, and their 
 summits grow loftier to the eye, and of more 
 fantastic forms ; among them appear Eagle's 
 Cliff, Dove's Nest, Whitedale Pike, etc., cele- 
 brated names in the annals of Keswick. The 
 dale opens about foiir miles higher till you 
 come to Seawhaite (where lies the way mount- 
 ing the hills to the right that leads to the 
 Wadd-mines); all farther access is hero barred 
 to prying mortals, only there is a little path 
 winding over the fells, and for some weeks in the 
 year passable to the dalesmen; but the mountains 
 know well that these innocent people will not 
 reveal the mysteries of their ancient kingdom, 
 ' the reign of Chaos and Old Night :' only I 
 learned that this dreadful road, dividing again, 
 leads one branch to Ravenglas, and the other 
 to Hawkshead. 
 
 For me I went no farther than the farmer's 
 (better than four miles from Keswick) at 
 Grange ; his mother and he brought us butter 
 that Siserah would have jumiDed at, though not 
 in a lordly dish, bowls of milk, thin oaten cakes, 
 and ale ; and we had carried a cold tongue 
 thither with us. Our farmer was himself the 
 man that last year plundered the eagle's eyrie ; 
 all the dale are up in arms on such an occasion, 
 for they lose abundance of lambs yearly, not to 
 mention hares, partridges, grouse, etc. He was 
 let down from the cliff in ropes to the shelf of 
 the rock on which the nest was built, the 
 people above shouting and holloing to fright 
 the old birds, which flew screaming round, but 
 did not dare to attack him. He brought off 
 the eaglet (for there is rarely more than one) 
 and an addle egg. The nest was roundish, and 
 more than a yard over, made of twigs twisted 
 
 together. Seldom a year passes but they take 
 the brood or eggs, and sometimes they shoot 
 one, sometimes the other, parent ; but the 
 survivor has always found a mate (probably in 
 Ireland), and they breed near the old jjlace. 
 By his description, I learn that this species is 
 the Erne, the vulture Albicilla of Linnaeus in 
 his last edition (but in yours Falco Albicilla), 
 so consult him and Pennant about it. 
 
 ■\Ve returned leisurely home the way we 
 came, but saw a new landscape ; the features 
 indeed were the same in part, but many new 
 ones were disclosed by the mid-day sun, and 
 the tints were entirely changed : take notice 
 this was the best, or perhaps the only day for 
 going up Skiddaw, but I thought it better j 
 employed ; it was perfectly serene, and hot as 
 midsummer. 
 
 In the evening I walked alone down to the 
 lake by the side of Crow Park after sunset, and 
 saw the solemn colouring of night draw on, the 
 last gleam of sunshine fading away on the hill- 
 tops, the deej) serene of the waters, and the 
 long shadows of the mountains thrown across 
 them, till they nearly touched the hithermost 
 shore. At a distance were heard the murmurs 
 of many waterfalls, not audible in the day- 
 time ; I wished for the moon, but she was 
 da7'7c to me and silent, 
 
 ' Hid in her vacant interhmar cave.' 
 
 Oct. 4. — I walked to Crow Park, now a rough 
 pasture, once a glade of ancient oaks, whose 
 large roots still remain on the ground, but 
 nothing had sprung from them. If one single 
 tree had remained, this would have been an 
 unpai-alleled spot ; and Smith judged right 
 when he took his print of the lake from hence, 
 for it is a gentle eminence, not too high, on the 
 very margin of the water, and commanding it 
 from end to end, looking full into the gorge of 
 Borrowdale. I prefer it even to Cockshut Hill, 
 which lies beside it, and to which I walked in 
 the afternoon ; it is covered with young trees 
 both sown and planted, oak, spruce, Scotch fir, 
 etc., all which thrive wonderfully. There is an 
 easy ascent to the top, and the view far prefer- 
 able to that on Castle Hill (which you remember), 
 because this is lower and nearer to the lake ; for 
 I find all points that are much elevated spoil 
 the beauty of the valley, and make its parts, 
 which are not large, look poor and diminutive. 
 While I was here a little shower fell, red clouds 
 came marching up the hills from the east, and 
 part of a bright rainbow seemed to rise along 
 the side of Castle Hill. 
 
 From hence I got to the parsonage a little 
 before sunset, and saw in my glass a picture 
 that if I could transmit to yon, and fix it in all 
 the softness of its living colours, would fairly 
 sell for a thousand pounds. This is the 
 sweetest scene I can yet discover in point of 
 pastoral beauty ; the rest are in a sublimer style, 
 
390 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Oct. 5. — I walked through the meadows and 
 corn-fields to the Derwent, and crossing it went 
 up Howhill ; it looks along Bassingthwaite 
 Water, and sees at the same time the course of 
 the river, and a part of the upper lake, with a 
 full view of Skiddaw; then I took my way- 
 through Portingskall village to the park, a hill 
 so called, covered entirely with wood ; it is all 
 a mass of crumbling slate. Passed round its 
 foot between the trees and the edge of the 
 water, and came to a peninsula that juts out 
 into the lake, and looks along it both ways ; in 
 front rises Walla Crag and Castle Hill, the town, 
 the road to Penrith, Skiddaw, and Saddleback. 
 Eetuniing, met a brisk and cold north-eastern 
 blast that ruffled all the surface of the lake, 
 and made it rise in little waves that broke at 
 the foot of the wood. After dinner walked up 
 the Penrith road two miles, or more, and turning 
 into a corn-field to the right, called Castlerig, 
 saw a Druid-cii'cle of large stones, 108 feet in 
 diameter, the biggest not eight feet high, but 
 most of them still erect ; they are fifty in 
 number. The valley of St. John's appeared in 
 sight, and the summits of Catchidecam (called 
 by Camden, Casticand) and Helvellyn, said to 
 be as high as Skiddaw, and to rise from a much 
 higher base. 
 
 Oct. 6. — Went in a chaise eight miles along 
 the east side of Bassingthwaite Water to Ouse 
 Bridge (pronounced Ews-bridge) ; the road in 
 some part made and very good, the rest slippery 
 and dangerous cart-road, or narrow rugged 
 lanes, but no precipices ; it runs directly along 
 the foot of Skiddaw ; opposite to Widhopebrows, 
 clothed to the toj) with wood, a very beautiful 
 view opens down to the lake, which is narrower 
 and longer than that of Keswick, less broken 
 into bays, and without islands.. At the foot of 
 it, a few j)aces from the brink, gently sloping 
 upwards, stands Ai-mathwaite in a thick grove 
 of Scotch firs, commanding a noble view directly 
 up the lake : at a small distance behind the 
 house is a large extent of wood, and still 
 behind this a ridge of cultivated hills, on which, 
 according to the Keswick i^roverb, the sun 
 always shines. The inhabitants here, on the 
 contrary, call the vale of Derwent AVater the 
 deviVs chamber-pot, and i)ronounce the name of 
 Skiddaw Fell, which terminates here, with a 
 sort of terror and aversion. Armathwaite house 
 is a modern fabric, not large, and built of dark- 
 red stone, belonging to Mr. Spedding, whose 
 grandfather was steward to old Sir James 
 Lowther, and bought this estate of the Himers. 
 The sky was overcast and the wind cool ; so, 
 after dining at a i^ublic-house, which stands 
 here near the bridge (that crosses the Derwent 
 just where it issues from the lake), and saun- 
 tering a little by the water-side, I came home 
 again. The turnpike is finished from Cocker- 
 mouth hither, five miles, and is carrying on to 
 Penrith ; several little showers to-day. A man 
 
 came in, who said there was snow on Cross Fell 
 this morning. 
 
 Oct. 7. — I walked in the morning to Crow 
 Park, and in the evening up Penrith road. The 
 clouds came rolling up the mountains all round 
 very dark, yet the moon shone at intervals. It 
 was too damp to go towards the lake. To- 
 morrow I mean to bid farewell to Keswick. 
 
 Botany might be studied here to great 
 advantage at another season, because of the 
 great variety of soils and elevations, all lying 
 within a small compass. I observed nothing 
 but several curious lichens and plenty of gale 
 or Dutch myrtle perfuming the borders of the 
 lake. This year the Wadd Mine had been 
 opened, which is done once in five years ; it is 
 taken out in lumps sometimes as big as a man's 
 fist, and will undergo no preparation by fire, 
 not being fusible ; when it is pure, soft, black, 
 and close grained, it is worth sometimes thirty 
 shillings a pound. There are no char ever 
 taken in these lakes, but plenty in Buttermere 
 Water, which lies a little way north of Borrow- 
 dale, about Martinmas, Avhich are potted here. 
 They sow chiefly oats and bigg here, which are 
 now cutting and still on the ground ; the rains 
 have done much Imrt : yet observe, the soil is 
 so thin and light, that no day has passed in 
 which I could not walk out with ease, and you 
 know I am no lover of dirt. Fell mutton is 
 now in season for about six weeks ; it grows fat 
 on the mountains, and nearly resembles venison. 
 Excellent pike and perch, here called bass ; 
 trout is out of season ; partridge in great 
 plenty. 
 
 Oct. 8, — I left Keswick and took the Amble- 
 side road in a gloomy morning ; and about tv/o 
 miles from the town mounted an eminence 
 called Castlerigg, and the sun breaking out, 
 discovered the most enchanting view I have yet 
 seen of the whole valley behind me, the two 
 lakes, the river, the mountains, all in their 
 glory ; so that I had almost a mind to have 
 gone back again. The road in some few parts 
 is not completed, yet good country road, 
 through sound but narrow and stony lanes, 
 very safe m broad daylight. This is the case 
 about Causewayfoot, and among Naddlefells to 
 Lancwaite. The vale you go in has little 
 breadth; the mountains are vast and rocky, 
 the fields little and poor, and the inhabitants 
 are now making hay, and see not the sun by 
 two hours in a day so long as at Keswick. 
 Came to the foot of Helvellyn, along which 
 runs an excellent road, looking down from a 
 little height on Lee's Water (called also Thirl- 
 meer, or Wiborn Water), and soon descending on 
 its margin. The lake looks black from its 
 depth, and from the gloom of the vast crags 
 that scowl over it, though really clear as glass ; 
 it is narrow, and about three miles long, 
 resembling a river in its course ; little shining 
 torrents hurry down the rocks to join it, but 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 not a bush to overshadow them, or cover their 
 march ; all is rock and loose stones up to the 
 very brow, which lies so near your way that 
 not above half the height of Helvellyn can be 
 seen. 
 
 Next I passed by the little chapel of "Wiborn, 
 out of which the Sunday congi-egation were then 
 issuing ; soon after a beck near Dunmeil Raise, 
 when I entered Westmoreland a second time ; 
 and now began to see Holm Crag, distinguished 
 from its rugged neighbours, not so much by its 
 height as by the strange, broken outlines of its 
 top, like some gigantic building demolished, 
 and the stones that composed it flung across 
 each other in v/ild confusion. Just beyond it 
 opens one of the sweetest landscapes that art 
 ever attempted to imitate. The bosom of the 
 mountains spreading here into a broad basin 
 discovers in the midst Grasmere "Water ; its 
 margin is hollowed into small bays, with bold 
 eminences : some of rock, some of soft turf, 
 that half conceal and vary the figure of the 
 little lake they command : from the shore, a 
 low x^romontory pushes itself far into the water, 
 and on it stands a white village with the parish 
 church rising in the midst of it : hanging 
 enclosures, corn-fields, and meadows green as 
 an emerald, with their trees and hedges, and 
 cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of 
 the water ; and just opposite to you is a large 
 farm-house at the bottom of a steep smooth 
 lawn, embosomed in old woods, which climb 
 half-way up the mountain's side, and discover 
 above them a broken line of crags that crown 
 the scene. Not a single red tile, no flaring 
 gentlemen's houses, or garden walls, break in 
 upon the repose of this little unsuspected 
 paradise ; but all is peace, rusticity, and haj)py 
 poverty in its neatest, most becoming attire. 
 
 The road winds here over Grasmere Hill, 
 whose rocks soon conceal the water from your 
 sight ; yet it is continued along behind them, 
 and contracting itself to the river, communi- 
 cates with Ridale Water, another small lake, 
 but of inferior size and beavity; it seems 
 shallow too, for large patches of reeds appear 
 pretty far within it. Into this vale the road 
 descends. On the opposite banks large and 
 ancient woods mount up the hills ; and just to 
 the left of our way stands Eidale Hall, the 
 family-seat of Sir JNIichael Fleming, a large, 
 old-fashioned fabric, surrounded with wood. 
 Sir Michael is now on his travels, and all this 
 timber, far and wide, belongs to him. Near 
 the house rises a huge crag, called Ridale Head, 
 which is said to command a full view of 
 Wynander Mere, and I doubt it not ; for within 
 a mile that great lake is visible, even from the 
 road ; as to going up the crag, one might as 
 well go up Skiddaw. 
 
 I now reached Ambleside, eighteen miles 
 from Keswick, meaning to lie there ; but on 
 looking into the best bed-chamber, dark and 
 
 damp as a cellar, grew delicate, gave up 
 Wynander Mere in despair, and resolved I 
 would go on to Kendal directly, fourteen miles 
 farther. The road in general fine turnpike, 
 but some parts (about three miles in all) not 
 made, yet without danger. 
 
 For this determination I was unexpectedly 
 well rewarded : for the afternoon was fine, and 
 the road, for the space of full five miles, ran 
 along the side of Wynander Mere, with delicious 
 views across it, and almost from one end to the 
 other. It is ten miles in length, and at most a 
 mile over, resembling the course of some vast 
 and magnificent river ; but no flat marshy 
 grounds, , no osier-beds or patches of scrubby 
 plantations on its banks ; at the head two 
 valleys open among the mountains ; one, that 
 by which we came down ; the other Langsle- 
 dale, in which Wrynose andHardknot, two great 
 mountains, rise above the rest : from thence 
 the fells visibly sink, and soften along its sides ; 
 sometimes they I'un into it (but with a gentle 
 declivity) in their own dark and natural com- 
 plexion ; oftener they are green and cultivated, 
 with farms interspersed, and round eminences, 
 on the border covered with trees : towards the 
 south it seemed to break into larger bays, with 
 several islands and a wider extent of cultivation. 
 The way rises continually, till at a place called 
 Orrestliead it turns south-east, losing sight of 
 the watei*. 
 
 Passed by Ing's Chapel and Staveley ; but I 
 can say no fai'ther, for the dusk of evening 
 coming on, I entered Kendal almost in the 
 dark, and could distinguish only a shadow of 
 the castle on the hill, and tenter-grounds spread 
 far and wide round the town, which I mistook 
 for houses. My inn promised sadly, having two 
 wooden galleries, like Scotland, in front of it : 
 it was indeed an old, ill-contrived house, but 
 kept by civil, sensible people ; so I stayed two 
 nights with them, and fared and slept very 
 comfortably. 
 
 Oct. 9. — The air mild as summer, all corn off 
 the ground, and the sky-larks singing aloud (by 
 the way, I saw not one at Keswick, perhaps 
 because the i)lace abounds in birds of prey). I 
 went up the Castle Hill; the town consists chiefly 
 of three nearly parallel streets, almost a mile 
 long ; except these, all the other houses seem 
 as if they had been dancing a country-dance, 
 and were out : there they stand back to back, 
 corner to corner, some ^^p hill, some down, 
 without intent or meaning. Along by their side 
 runs a fine brisk stream, over which ai-e three 
 stone bridges : the buildings (a few comfortable 
 houses excepted) are mean, of stone, and 
 covered with a bad rough-cast. Near the end 
 of the town stands a handsome house of Col. 
 Wilson's, and adjoining to it the church, a very 
 large gothic fabric, with a sqviare tower; it 
 has no particular ornaments but double aisles, 
 and at the east end four chaiiels or choirs ; one 
 
392 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of the Parrs, another of the Stricklands ; the 
 third is the proper choir of the church, and the 
 fourth of the Bellinghams, a family now extinct. 
 There is an altar-tomb of one of them dated 
 1577, with a flat brass, arms, and quarterings ; 
 and in the window their arms alone, arg. a 
 hunting-horn, sab, strung gules. In the Strick- 
 lands' chapel several modern monuments, and 
 another old altar-tomb, not belonging to the 
 family ; on the side of it a fess dancetty between 
 ten billets, Deincourt. In the Parrs' chapel is 
 a third altar-tomb in the corner, no figure or 
 iuscription, but on the side, cut in stone, an 
 escutcheon of Ross of Kendal (three water- 
 budgets), quartering Parr (two bars in a bordure 
 engrailed); secondly, an escutcheon, vaire, a fess 
 for Marmion ; thirdly, an escutcheon, three 
 I chevronels braced, and a chief (which I take 
 I for Fitzhugh) : at the foot is an escutcheon, 
 I surrounded with the garter, bearing Roos and 
 Parr quarterly, quartering the other two before- 
 mentioned. I have no books to look in, there- 
 fore cannot say whether this is the Lord Parr 
 of Kendal, Queen Catharine's father, or her 
 brother the Marquis of Northampton ; perhai)s 
 it is a cenotaph for the latter, who was buried 
 at Warwick in 1571. The remains of the castle 
 are seated on a fine hill on the side of the river 
 opposite the town ; almost the whole enclosure 
 of the walls remains, with four towers, two 
 square and two round, but their upper part and 
 embattlements are demolished : it is of rougli 
 stone and cement, without any ornament or 
 arms, round, enclosing a court of like form, and 
 surrounded by a moat ; nor ever could it have 
 been larger than it is, for there are no traces of 
 outworks. There is a good view of the town 
 and river, with a fertile open valley through 
 which it winds. 
 
 After dinner I went along the Milthrop turn- 
 pike, four miles, to see the falls, or force, of the 
 river Kent ; came to Sizergh (pronounced Sizer), 
 and turned down a lane to the left. This seat 
 of the Stricklands, an old Catholic family, is an 
 ancient hall-house, with a very large tower 
 embattled ; the rest of the buildings added to 
 it are of later date, but all is white, and seen 
 to advantage on a background of old trees ; 
 there is a small park also, well wooded. 
 Opposite to this, turning to the left, I soon 
 came to the river ; it works its way in a narrow 
 and deep rocky channel overhung with trees. 
 The calmness and brightness of the evening, 
 the roar of the waters, and the thumping of 
 huge hammers at an iron forge not far distant, 
 made it a singular walk ; but as to the falls (for 
 there arc. two), they are not four feet high. I 
 went on, down to the forge, and saw the 
 demons at work by the light of their own fires : 
 the iron is brought in pigs to Milthrop by sea 
 from Scotland, etc., and is here beat into bars 
 and plates. Two miles farther, at Levens, is 
 the scat of Lord Suffolk, where he sometimes 
 
 passes the summer : it was a favourite place of 
 his late countess ; but this I did not see. 
 
 Oct. 10. — I proceeded by Burton to Lan- 
 caster, twenty-two miles; very good country, 
 well enclosed and wooded, with some common 
 interspersed. Passed at the foot of Farlton- 
 knot, a high fell four miles north of Lancaster ; 
 on a rising ground called Boulton (pronounced 
 Bouton) we had a full view of Cartmell Sands, 
 with here and there a passenger riding over 
 them (it being low water), the points of 
 Furness shooting far into the sea, and lofty 
 mountains, partly covered with clouds, extend- 
 ing north of them. Lancaster also appeared 
 very conspicuous and fine ; for its most dis- 
 tinguished features, the castle and church, 
 mounted on a green eminence, were all that 
 could be seen. Woe is me ! when I got thither, 
 it was the second day of their fair; the inn, in 
 the principal street, was a great old gloomy 
 house full of people ; but I found tolerable 
 quarters, and even slept two nights in peace. 
 
 In a fine afternoon I ascended the Castle Hill ; 
 it takes up the higher top of the eminence on 
 which it stands, and is irregularly round, 
 encompassed with a deep moat : in front, to- 
 wards the town, is a magnificent gothic gateway, 
 lofty and huge ; the overhanging battlements 
 are supported by a triple range of corbels, the 
 intervals pierced through, and showing the day 
 from above. On its top rise light watch-towers 
 of small height. It opens below with a grand 
 pointed arch : over this is a wrought tabernacle, 
 doubtless once containing its founder's figure ; 
 on one side a shield of France semi-quartered 
 with England ; on the other the same, with a 
 label, ermine, for John of Gaunt, Duke of 
 Lancaster. This opens to a court within, 
 which I did not much care to enter, being the 
 county-gaol, and fuU of prisoners, both criminals 
 and debtors. From this gateway the walls 
 continue and join it to a vast square tower of 
 great height, the lower part at least of remote 
 antiquity ; for it has small round-headed lights 
 with plain short pillars on each side of them : 
 there is a third tower, also square and of less 
 dimensions. This is all the castle. Near it, 
 and but little lower, stands the church, a large 
 and plain gothic fabric ; the high square tower 
 at the west end has been rebuilt of late years, 
 but nearly in the same style : there are no 
 ornaments of arms, etc., anywhere to be seen : 
 within, it is lightsome and spacious, but not 
 one monument of antiquity, or i)iece of painted 
 glass, is left. From the churchyard there is an 
 extensive sea-view (for now the tide had almost 
 covered the sands, and filled the river), and 
 besides the greatest part of Furness, I could 
 distinguish Peel Castle on the isle of Fowdrey, 
 which lies off its southern extremity. The 
 town is built on the slope, and at the foot of the 
 Castle Hill, more than twice the bigness of 
 Aukland, with many neat buildings of white 
 
393 
 
 stone, but a little disorderly in their position, 
 and ad libitum, like Kendal: many also 
 extend below on the quays by the river-side, 
 where a number of ships were moored, some of 
 them three-masted vessels decked out with 
 their colours in honour of the fair. Here is a 
 good bridge of four arches over the Lune, that 
 runs, when the tide is out, in two streams 
 divided by a bed of gravel, which is not covered 
 but in spring-tides ; below the town it widens 
 to near the breadth of the Thames at London, 
 and meets the sea at five or six miles distance to 
 south-west. 
 
 Oct. 11. — I crossed the river and walked over a 
 peninsula, three miles, to the village of Pooton, 
 which stands on the beach. An old fisherman 
 mending his nets (while I inquired about the 
 danger of passing those sands) told me, in his 
 dialect, a moving story ; how a brother of the 
 trade, a cockier, as he styled him, driving a 
 little cart with two daughters (women grown) 
 in it, and his wife on horseback following, set 
 out one day to pass the seven-mile sands, as 
 they had frequently been used to do (for 
 nobody in the village knew them better than 
 the old man did) ; when they were about half- 
 way over, a thick fog rose, and as they advanced 
 they found the water much deeper than they 
 expected : the old man was puzzled ; he 
 stopped, and said he would go a little way to 
 find some mark he was acquainted with ; they 
 staid awhile for him, but in vain ; they called 
 aloud, but no reply : at last the young women 
 pressed their mother to think where they were 
 and go on ; she would not leave the place ; she 
 wandered about forlorn and amazed ; she would 
 not quit her horse and get into the cart with them : 
 they determined, after much time wasted, to 
 turn back, and give themselves up to the 
 guidance of their horses. The old woman was 
 soon washed off, and perished ; the poor girls 
 clung close to their cart, and the horse, some- 
 times wading and sometimes swimming, brought 
 them back to land alive, but senseless with 
 terror and distress, and unable for many days 
 to give any account of themselves. The bodies 
 of their parents were found next ebb, that of 
 the father a very few paces distant from the 
 spot where he had left them. 
 
 In the afternoon I wandered about the town, 
 and by the quay, till it grew dark. 
 
 Oct. 12. — I set out for Settle by a fine turn- 
 pike-road, twenty-nine miles, through a rich 
 and beautiful enclosed country, diversified with 
 frequent villages and churches, very unequal 
 ground ; and on the left the river Lune winding 
 in a deep valley, its hanging banks clothed with 
 fine woods, through which you catch long 
 reaches of the water, as the road winds about 
 at a considerable height above it. In the most 
 picturesque part of the way, I passed the park 
 belonging to the Hon. Mr. Clifford, a Catholic. 
 The grounds between him and the river are 
 
 indeed charming ; the house is ordinaiy, and 
 the park nothing but a rocky fell scattered over 
 with ancient hawthorns. Next I came to 
 Hornby, a little town on the river Wanning, 
 over which a handsome bridge is now building ; 
 the castle, in a lordly situation, attracted me, 
 so I walked up the hill to it : first presents 
 itself a large white ordinary sashed gentleman's 
 house, and behind it rises the ancient keep, 
 built by Edward Stanley, Lord Monteagle. He 
 died about 1529, in King Henry the Eighth's 
 time. It is now only a shell ; the rafters are 
 laid within it as for flooring. I went up a 
 winding stone staircase in one corner to the 
 leads, and at the angle in a single hexagon 
 watch-tower, rising some feet higher, fitted up 
 in the taste of a modern summer-hotise, with 
 sash-windows in gilt frames, a stucco cupola, 
 and on the top a vast gilt eagle, built by Mr. 
 Charteris, the present possessor. He is the 
 second son of the Earl of Wemyss, brother to 
 the Lord Elcho, and grandson to Col. Charteris, 
 whose name he bears. 
 
 From the leads of the tower there is a fine 
 view of the country round, and much wood 
 near the castle. Ingleborough, which I had 
 seen before distinctly at Lancaster to north- 
 east, was now completely wrapped in clouds, 
 all but its summit, which might have been 
 easily mistaken for a long black cloud too, 
 fraught with an approaching storm. Now our 
 road began gradually to mount towards the 
 Apennine, the trees growing less and thinner of 
 leaves, till we came to Ingleton, eighteen miles; 
 it is a pretty village, situated very high, and 
 yet in a valley at the foot of that huge monster 
 of nature, Ingleborough : two torrents cross it, 
 with great stones rolled along their beds instead 
 of water ; and over them are flung two hand- 
 some arches. The nipping air, though the 
 afternoon v/as growing very bright, now taught 
 us we were in Craven ; the road was all up and 
 down, though nowhere very steep ; to the left 
 were mountain tops, to the right a wide valley, 
 all enclosed ground, and beyond it high hills 
 again. In approaching Settle, the crags on the 
 left drew nearer to our way, till we descended 
 Brunton Brow into a cheerful valley (though 
 thin of trees) to Giggleswick, a village with a 
 small piece of water by its side, covered over 
 with coots ; near it a church, which belongs 
 also to Settle ; and half a mile farther, having 
 passed the Kibble over a bridge, I arrived there ; 
 it is a small market-town standing directly 
 under a rocky fell : there are not in it above half- 
 a-dozen good-looking hou.ses, the rest are old and 
 low, with little wooden j)orticoes in front. My 
 inn pleased me much (though small) for the 
 neatness and civility of the good woman that 
 kept it ; so I lay there two nights, and went — 
 
 Oct. 13 — To visit Gordale Scar, which lay six 
 miles from Settle ; but that way was directly over 
 a fell, and as the weather was not to be depended 
 
394 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 on, I went round in a chaise, the only way one 
 could get near it in a carriage, which made it 
 full thirteen miles, half of it such a road ! But I 
 got safe over it, so there's an end, and came to 
 Malham (pronounced Maum), a village in the 
 bosom of the mountains,' seated in a wild and 
 dreary valley. From thence I was to walk a 
 mile over very rough ground, a torrent rattling 
 along on the left hand ; on the cliffs above 
 hung a few goats ; one of them danced and 
 scratched an ear with its hind foot in a place 
 where I Avould not have stood stock-still 
 
 ' For all beneath the moon.' 
 
 As I advanced, the crags seemed to close in, 
 but discovered a narrow entrance turning to the 
 left between them : I followed my guide a few 
 paces, and the hills opened again into no large 
 space ; and then all farther way is barred by a 
 stream that, at the height of about fifty feet, 
 gushes from a hole in the rock, and spreading 
 in large sheets over its broken front, dashes 
 from steep to steep, and then rattles away in a 
 torrent down the valley : the rock on the left 
 rises perpendicular, with stubbed yew trees and 
 shrubs staring from its side, to the height of at 
 least 300 feet ; but tliese are not the thing : it 
 is the rock to the right, under which you stand 
 to see the fall, that forms the principal horror 
 of the i^lace. From its very base it begins to 
 slojDe forwards over you in one block or solid 
 mass without any crevice in its surface, and 
 overshadows half the area below with its 
 dreadful canopy ; when I stood at (I believe) 
 fotir yards distance from its foot, the drops, 
 which perpetually distil from its brow, fell on 
 my head ; and in one part of its top, more 
 exposed to the weather, there are loose stones 
 that hang in air, and threaten visibly some idle 
 spectator with instant destruction ; it is safer 
 to shelter yourself close to its bottom, and trust 
 to the mercy of that enormous mass which 
 nothing but an earthquake can stir. The 
 gloomy, \incomfortable day well suited the 
 savage aspect of the place, and made it still 
 more formidable. I stayed there, not without 
 shuddering, a quarter of an hour, and thought 
 my trouble richly paid ; for the impression will 
 last for life. At the alehouse where I dined in 
 Malham, Vivares, the landscape-painter, had 
 lodged for a week or more ; Smith and Sellers 
 had also been there, and two prints of Gordale 
 have been engraved by them. 
 
 Oct. 14. — Leaving my comfortable inn, to 
 which I had returned from Gordale, I set out 
 for Skipton, sixteen miles. From several parts 
 of the road, and in many places about Settle, I 
 saw at once the three famous hills of this 
 country, Ingleborough, Penigent, and Pendle '■> 
 the first is esteemed the highest, and their 
 features not to be described but by the pencil. 
 
 Craven, after all, is an unpleasing country 
 when seen from a height ; its valleys are chiefly 
 
 wide, and either marshy or enclosed pasture, 
 with a few trees. Numbers of black cattle are 
 fatted here, both of the Scotch breed and a 
 larger sort of oxen with great horns. There is 
 little cultivated ground, except a few oats. 
 
 Skipton, to which I went through Long Preston 
 and Gargrave, is a pretty large market town, in 
 a valley, with one very broad street gently 
 slojiing downwards from the castle, which 
 stands at the head of it. This is one of our 
 good countess's buildings, but on old founda- 
 tions ; it is not very large, but of a handsome 
 antique appearance, with round towers, a grand 
 gateway, bridge, and moat, suiTounded by 
 many old trees. It is in good repair, and kept 
 u.p as a habitation of the Earl of Thanet, though 
 he rarely comes thither ; what with the sleet, 
 and a foolish dispute about chaises, that delayed 
 me, I did not see the inside of it, but went on, 
 fifteen miles, to Otley ; first up Shode Bank, 
 the steepest hill I ever saw a road carried over 
 in England, for it mounts in a straight line 
 (without any other repose for the horses than 
 by placing stones every now and then behind 
 the wheels) for a full mile ; then the road goes 
 on a level along the brow of this high hill over 
 Rumbald Moor, till it gently descends into 
 AVharldale, — so they call the vale of the "\yiiarr, 
 and a beautiful vale it is, well-wooded, well- 
 cultivated, well-inhabited, but with high crags 
 at a distance, that border the green country on 
 either hand ; through the midst of it, deep, 
 clear, full to the brink, and of no inconsider- 
 able breadth, runs in long windings the river. 
 How it comes to pass that it shoiald be so fine 
 and copious a stream here, and at Tadcaster (so 
 much lower) should have nothing but a wide 
 stony channel without water, I cannot tell 
 you. I passed through Long Addingham, 
 Ilkeley (pronounced Eecly), distinguished by a 
 lofty brow of loose rocks to the right ; Burley, 
 a neat and pretty village, among trees ; on the 
 opposite side of the river lay Middleton Lodge, 
 belonging to a Catholic gentleman of that name; 
 Weston, a venerable stone fabric, with large 
 offices, of Mr. Vavasour, the meadows in front 
 gently descending to the water, and behind 
 a great and shady wood ; Farnley (Mr. 
 Fawkes's), a place like the last, but larger and 
 rising higher on the side of the hill. Otley is a 
 large airy town, with clean but low rustic 
 buildings, and a bridge over the "Wharf : I went 
 into its spacioxis Gothic church, which has been 
 new-roofed, with a flat stucco ceiling ; in a 
 corner of it is the monument of Thomas Lord 
 Fairfax, and Helen Aske, his lady, descended 
 from the Cliffords and Latimers, as her ejutaph 
 says ; the figures, not ill-cut (particularly his in 
 armour, but bare-headed), lie on the tomb. I 
 take them to be the parents of the famous Sir 
 Thomas Fairfax. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 395 
 
 ['Gilbert AYliite was the eldest son of Jolin 
 White of Selbome, Esq., and of Anne, the 
 daughter of Thomas Holt, rector of Strath- 
 eam, in Surrey. He was born at Selbome 
 on July 18, 1720, and received his school 
 education at Basingstoke, under the Eev. 
 Thomas Warton, vicar of that jDlace. . . . 
 He was admitted at Oriel College, Oxford, 
 in December 1739, and took his degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts in June 1743. In March 
 1744, he was elected fellow of his college. 
 He became Master of Arts in October 
 1746, and was admitted as one of the 
 senior proctors of the university in Aj^ril 
 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, 
 and strongly attached to the charms of 
 rural scenery, he early fixed his residence 
 in his native village, where he spent the 
 greater part of his life in literary occupa- 
 tions, and especially in the study of nature. 
 This he followed with a patient assiduity, 
 and a mind ever open to the lessons of 
 piety and benevolence, which such a study 
 is so well calculated to alford. Though 
 several occasions offered of settling upon 
 a college living, he could never persuade 
 himself to quit the beloved spot, which 
 was indeed a peculiarly happy situation for 
 an observer. He was much esteemed by 
 a select society of intelligent and worthy 
 friends, to whom he paid occasional visits. 
 Thus his days passed tranquil and serene, 
 with scarcely any other vicissitudes than 
 those of the seasons, till they closed at a 
 mature age on June 26th, 1793. '—Zi/i?, by 
 his brother J ohn 'V\Tiite. The letters which 
 compose his Natural History, were origi- 
 nally addressed to Thomas Pennant, the 
 well-known naturalist and antiquarj-, and 
 the Hon. Daines Barrington. "VVliite's 
 style is simple, accurate, and full of quiet 
 enthusiasm ; he saw clearly, and expresses 
 himself simply. The house in which White 
 lived, long occupied by Professor Thomas 
 Bell, who issued an edition of his Natural 
 Historij, changed hands at the death of the 
 latter. Frank Buckland also edited an 
 edition of this charming work. White's MS. 
 journal, letters, and poems were discovered 
 in 1880, in the hands of the Rev. George 
 Taylor, Pulborough, Sussex. Tliey occupy 
 six volumes, and have never been pub- 
 lished.] 
 
 GILBEKT WHITE TO THOMAS PENNANT. 
 
 The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme 
 eastern corner of the county of Hampshire 
 bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far 
 from the county of Surrey ; is about fifty miles 
 south-west of London, in latitude fifty-one, and 
 near mid-way between the towns of Alton and 
 Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it 
 abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in 
 Sussex, viz. Trotton and Eogate. If you begin 
 from the south and proceed westward, the 
 adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton, Valence, 
 Farringdon, Harteley Mauduit, Great Ward le 
 ham, Kingsley, Hadleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, 
 Eogate, Lyffe, and Greatham. The soils of 
 this district are almost as various and diver- 
 sified as the views and aspects. The high part 
 of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, 
 rising three hundred feet above the village, and 
 is divided into a sheep-down, the high wood 
 and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger. 
 The covert of this eminence is altogether heccli, 
 the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we 
 consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foli- 
 age, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, 
 or sheepwalk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of 
 about one mile by half that space, jutting out 
 on the verge of the hill-country, where it 
 begins to break down into the plains, and 
 commanding a very engaging view, being an 
 assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, 
 and water. The prospect is bounded to the 
 south-east and east by the vast range of 
 mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild- 
 down near Guildford, and by the Downs round 
 Dorking, and Eyegate in Surrey, to the north- 
 east, which altogether, with the country be- 
 yond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and 
 extensive outline. 
 
 At the foot of this hill, one stage or step 
 from the uplands, lies the village, which con- 
 sists of one single straggling street, three- 
 quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered 
 vale, and running parallel v/ith The Hanger. 
 The houses are divided from the hill by a vein 
 of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a 
 rock of white stone, little in appearance re- 
 moved from chalk ; but seems so far from being 
 calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet 
 that the freestone still preserves somewhat that 
 is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches 
 which descend as low as those rocks extend, 
 and no farther, and thrive as well on them, 
 where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. 
 
 The cart-way of the village divides, in a re- 
 markable manner, two very incongruous soils. 
 To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires 
 the labour of years to render it mellow ; while 
 the gardens to the north-east, and small en- 
 closures behind, consist of a warm, forward, 
 crumbling mould, called black malm, which 
 seems highly saturated with vegetable and 
 
39^ 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 animal manure ; and these may perhaps have 
 been the original site of the town ; while the 
 woods and coverts might extend down to the 
 opposite bank. 
 
 At each end of the village, which runs from 
 south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet : 
 that at the north-west end frequently fails; 
 but the other is a fine perennial spring, little 
 influenced by drought or wet seasons, called 
 Well Head. This breaks out of some high 
 grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk 
 promontory, remarkable for sending forth two 
 streams into two different seas. The one to 
 the south becomes a branch of the Arun, 
 running to Arundel, and so sailing into the 
 British Channel : the other to the north. The 
 Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey ; 
 and, meeting the Blackdown stream at Hed- 
 leigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at 
 Tilford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, 
 navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes 
 to Guildford, and so into the Thames at 
 "Weybridge ; and thus at the Nore into the 
 German Ocean. 
 
 Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty- 
 three feet, and when sunk to that depth seldom 
 fail, but produce a fine limpid water, soft to 
 the taste, and much commended by those who 
 drink the pure element, but which does not 
 lather well with soap. 
 
 To the north-west, north and east of the 
 village, is a range of fair enclosures, consisting 
 of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten 
 or rubble stone, which, Avhen turned up to the 
 frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes 
 manure to itself. 
 
 Still on to the north-east, and a step loAver, 
 is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, 
 neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet 
 kindly for hops, which root deep in the free- 
 stone, and have their poles and wood for 
 charcoal growing just at hand. The white soil 
 produces the brightest hops. 
 
 As the parish still inclines down towards 
 Wolmer-forest, at the juncture of the clays and 
 sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, re- 
 markable for timber, and infamous for roads. 
 The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high 
 in the estimation of purveyors, and have fur- 
 nished much naval timber ; while the trees on 
 the freestone grow large, but are what work- 
 men call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall 
 to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam 
 the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it 
 mingles with the forest ; and will produce little 
 without the assistance of lime and turnii^s. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768. 
 Sir, — As in one of your former letters you 
 expi-essed the more satisfaction from my cor- 
 respondence on account of my living in the 
 
 most southerly county, so now I may return 
 the compliment, and expect to have my cl^ri- 
 osity gratified by your living much more to the i 
 north. I 
 For many years past I have observed that \ 
 towards Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches i ■ 
 have appeared in the fields, many more, I used ; 
 to think, than could be hatched in any one f 
 neighbourhood. But when I came to observe T 
 them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that 
 they seemed to me to be almost all hens. I . 
 communicated my suspicions to some intelligent ! \. 
 neighbours, who, after taking pains about the | 
 matter, declared that they also thought them 
 mostly females, — at least fifty to one. This 
 extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind 
 the remark of Linnseus, that * before winter all ' ; : 
 their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland ; 
 into Italy.' Now I want to know, from some ; 
 curious person in the north, whether there are 
 any large flocks of these finches with them in • [ 
 the winter, and of which sex they mostly 
 consist ? For from such intelligence one might 
 be able to judge whether our female flocks 
 migrate from the other end of the island, or 
 whether they come over to us from the Con- 
 tinent. 
 
 "VVe have, in the winter, vast flocks of the ' : 
 common linnets ; more, I think, than can be \ 
 bred in any one district. These, I observe, , 
 when the spring advances, assemble on some ' 
 tree in the sunshine, and join all in a gentle 
 sort of chirping, as if they were about to break 
 up their winter quarters and betake themselves ^ 
 to their i^roper summer homes. It is well ; 
 known, at least, that the swallows and the - 1, 
 fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering , 
 before they make their respective departure. \ 
 
 You may depend on it that the bunting, • ' 
 Emheriza miliaria, does not leave this country ' 
 in the winter. In January 1767 I saw several ] 
 dozen of them, in the midst of a severe frost, jR 
 among the bushes on the downs near Andover : : ; 
 in our woodland enclosed district it is a rare J ; 
 bird. ; 
 
 Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us [" 
 all the winter. Quails crowd to our southern , 
 coast, and are often killed in numbers by people 
 that go on purpose. i 
 
 Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that 'if 
 the wheatear (osnanthe) does not quit England, 
 it certainly shifts places ; for about harvest 
 they are not to be found, where there Avas 
 before great plenty of them.' This well accounts 
 for the vast quantities that are caught about 
 that time on the south downs near Lewes, 
 where they are esteemed a delicacy. There 
 have been shepherds, I have been credibly 
 informed, that have made many pounds in a 
 season by catching them in traps. And though 
 such multitudes are taken, I never saw (and I 
 am well acquainted with those parts) above two 
 or three at a time, for they are never gregarious. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 397 
 
 They may perhaps migrate in general ; and, for 
 that purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex 
 in autumn ; but that they do not all withdraw 
 I am sure, because I see a few stragglers in 
 many counties, at aU times of the year, especi- 
 ally about warrens and stone quarries. 
 
 I have no acquaintance, at present, among 
 the gentlemen of the navy ; but have written 
 to a friend, who was a sea chaplain in the late 
 war, desiring him to look into his minutes, with 
 respect to birds that settled on their rigging 
 during their voyage up or down the Channel. 
 "SMiat Hasselquist says on that subject is re- 
 markable ; there were little short-winged birds 
 frequently coming on board his ship all the way 
 from our Channel quite up to the Levant, 
 esjiecially before squally weather. 
 
 '\Miat you suggest with regard to Spain is 
 highly probable. The winters of Andalusia are 
 so mild, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed 
 birds that leave us at that season may find 
 insects sufficient to sui^port them there. 
 
 Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, 
 and leisure, should make an autumnal voyage 
 into that kingdom ; and should spend a year 
 there, investigating the natural history of that 
 vast countiy. Mr. "VYillughby passed through 
 that kingdom on such an errand ; but he seems 
 to have skirted along in a superficial manner 
 and an ill-humour, being much disgusted at the 
 rude, dissolute manners of the people. 
 
 I have no friend left no w at Sunbury to apply 
 to about the swallows roosting on the aits of 
 the Thames ; nor can I hear any more about 
 those birds which I suspected were Merulce 
 torquatce. 
 
 As to the small mice, I have further to re- 
 mark, that though they hang their nests for 
 breeding up amidst the straws of the standing 
 corn, above the ground, yet I find that, in the 
 winter, they burrow deep in the earth, and 
 make warm beds of grass : but their grand 
 rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which 
 they are carried at harvest. A neighbouj- 
 housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of 
 which were assembled nearly a hundred, most 
 of which were taken, and some I saw. I 
 measured them ; and found that, from nose to 
 tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, 
 and their tails just two inches long. Two of 
 them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper 
 halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce 
 avoirdupois : so that I suppose they are the 
 smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full- 
 grown Mus raedius domesticus weighs, I find, 
 one ounce lumping weight, which is more than 
 six times as much as the mouse above; and 
 measures from nose to rump four inches and a 
 quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had 
 a very severe frost and deep snow this month. 
 My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees 
 and a half below the freezing-point within 
 doors. The tender evergreens were injured 
 
 pretty much. It was very providential that 
 the air was still, and the ground well covered 
 with snow, else vegetation in general must have 
 suffered iirodigiously. There is reason to be- 
 lieve that some days were more severe than any 
 since the year 1739-40. I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selhorne, May 29, 17G9. 
 
 Dear Sir, — The scardbceus Julio I know very 
 well, having seen it in collections ; but have 
 never been able to discover one wild in its 
 natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought 
 it might be found on the sea coast. 
 
 On the 13th April I went to the sheep- down, 
 wliere the ring-ousels have been observed to 
 make their appearance at spring and fall, in 
 their way perhaps to the north or south, and 
 was much pleased to see these birds about the 
 usual spot. We shot a cock and a hen ; they 
 were plump and in high condition. The hen 
 had but very small rudiments of eggs within 
 her, which proves they are late breeders ; 
 whereas those species of the thrush kind that 
 remain with us the whole year have fledged 
 young before that time. In their crops was 
 nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat 
 that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly 
 digested. In autumn they feed on haws and 
 yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries. 
 I dressed one of these birds, and found it juicy 
 and well-flavoured. It is remarkable that they 
 make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, 
 but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas. These 
 birds, from the observations of three springs 
 and two autumns, are most punctual in their 
 return ; and exhibit a new migration unnoticed 
 by the writers, who supposed they never were 
 to be seen in any southern countries. 
 
 One of my neighbours lately brought me a 
 new salicaria, which at first I suspected might 
 have proved your willow-lark, but on a nicer 
 examination it answered much better to the 
 description of that species which you shot at 
 Revesby, in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe 
 thus : ' It is a size less than the grasshopi^er- 
 lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings, 
 of a dusky brown, without those dark spots of 
 the grasshopper-lark ; over each eye is a milk- 
 white stroke ; the chin and throat are white, 
 and the under parts of a yellowish white ; the 
 rump is tawny, and the feathers of the tail 
 sharp-pointed ; the bill is dusky and sharp, 
 and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 
 and crooked.' The person that shot it says that 
 it sung so like a reed-sparrow that he took it 
 for one ; and that it sings all night : but this 
 account merits further inquiry. For my part, 
 I suspect it is a second sort of locustela, hinted 
 at by Dr. Derham in Bay's Letters, see p. 108. 
 He also procured me a grasshopper-lark. 
 
 The question that you put with regard io 
 
39S 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 those genera of animals that are peculiar to 
 America, viz. how they came there, and whence? 
 is too puzzling for me to answer, and yet so obvi- 
 ous as often to have struck me with wonder. If 
 one looks into the writers on that subject little 
 satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will 
 readily advance plausible arguments to support 
 whatever theory they shall choose to maintain ; 
 but then the misfortune is, every one's hypo- 
 thesis is each as good as another's, since they 
 are all founded on conjecture. The late writers 
 of this sort, in whom may be seen all the argu- 
 ments of those that have gone before, as I re- 
 member, stock America from the western coast 
 of Africa and the south of Europe ; and then 
 break down the isthmus that bridged over the 
 Atlantic. But this is making use of a violent 
 piece of machinery ; it is a difficulty worthy of 
 the interposition of a god ! ' Incredulus odV 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774. 
 
 Dear Sie, — Before your letter arrived, and 
 of my own accord, I had been remarking and 
 comparing the tails of the male and female 
 swallow, and this ere any young broods ap- 
 peared, so that there was no danger of con- 
 founding the dams with their puUi ; and besides, 
 as they were then always in pairs, and busied in 
 the employ of nidifi cation, there could be no 
 room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals 
 of different chimneys the one for the other. 
 From all my observations, it constantly appeared 
 that each sex has the long feathers in its tail 
 that give it that forked shape, with this dif- 
 ference, that they are longer in the tail of the 
 male than in that of the female. 
 
 Nightingales, when their young first come 
 abroad, and are helpless, make a plaintive and 
 a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, 
 pursuing people along the hedges as they walk : 
 these last sounds seem intended for menace and 
 defiance. 
 
 The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the 
 height of summer. 
 
 Swans turn white the second year, and breed 
 the third. 
 
 "Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their 
 being sometimes caught in mole-traps. 
 
 Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' 
 nests, and the kestril in churches and ruins. 
 
 There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in 
 the island of Ely. The threads sometimes dis- 
 covered in eels are perhaps their young : the 
 generation of eels is very dark and mysterious. 
 
 Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem 
 never to settle on trees. 
 
 When redstars shake their tails they move 
 them horizontally, as dogs do when they fawn ; 
 the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up 
 and down like that of a jaded horse. 
 
 Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with 
 their wings in breeding-time : as soon as frosty 
 mornings come they make a very piping lilaintive 
 noise. 
 
 Many birds which become silent about mid- 
 summer reassume their notes again in Sep- 
 tember; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, 
 willow-wren, etc. ; hence August is by much 
 the most mute month the spring, summer, and 
 autumn through. Are birds induced to sing 
 again because the temperament of autumn 
 resembles that of spring ? 
 
 Linnaeus ranges plants geographically ; palms 
 inhabit the tropics, grasses the temperate zones, 
 and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no 
 doubt animals may be classed in the same 
 manner with propriety. 
 
 House-sparrows build under eaves in the 
 spring; as the weather becomes hotter they 
 get out for coolness, and nest in plum trees and 
 apple trees. These birds have been known 
 sometimes to build in rooks' nests, and some- 
 times in the forks of boughs under rooks' 
 nests. 
 
 As my neighbour was housing a rick he 
 observed that his dogs devoured all the little 
 red mice that they could catch, but rejected the 
 common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 
 mice, refusing the red. 
 
 Ked- breasts sing all through the spring, 
 summer, and autumn. The reason that they 
 are called autumn songsters is, because in the 
 two first seasons their voices are drowned and 
 lost in the general chorus ; in the latter their 
 song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters 
 of the autumn seem to be the young cock red- 
 breasts of that year : notwithstanding the 
 prejudices in their favour, they do much 
 mischief in gardens to the summer fruits. 
 
 The titmouse, which early in February begins 
 to make two quaint notes, like the whetting of 
 a saw, is the marsh titmouse : the great tit- 
 mouse sings with three cheerful joyous notes, 
 and begins about the same time. 
 
 Wrens sing all the winter through, frost 
 excepted. 
 
 House-martins came remarkably late this year 
 both in Hampshire and Devonshire : is this 
 circumstance for or against either hiding or 
 migration ? 
 
 Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but 
 pigeons take a long continued draught, like 
 quadrupeds. 
 
 Notwithstanding what I have said in a former 
 letter, no grey crows were ever known to breed 
 on Dartmoor ; it was my mistake. 
 
 The appearance and flying of the Scarabaus 
 solstitialis, or fern-chafer, commence with the 
 month of July, and cease about the end of it. 
 These scarabs are the constant food of Gapri- 
 mulgi, or fern owls, through that period. They 
 abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy 
 districts, but not in the clays. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 399 
 
 In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the 
 town of Beading, is a stream or canal running 
 under the stables and out into the fields on the 
 other side of the road : in this water are many- 
 carps, which lie rolling about in sight, being fed 
 by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing 
 them bread ; but as soon as the weather grows 
 at all severe, these fishes are no longer seen, 
 because they retire under the stables, where 
 they remain till the return of spring. Do they 
 lie in a torpid state ? If they do not, how are 
 they supported ? 
 
 The note of the white-throat, which is con- 
 tinually repeated, and often attended with odd 
 gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and dis- 
 pleasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious 
 disposition ; for they sing with an erected crest 
 and attitudes of rivalry and defiance ; are shy 
 and wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbour- 
 hoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons ; 
 nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, 
 where there are bushes and covert ; but in .July 
 and August they bring their broods into gardens 
 and orchards, and make great havoc among the 
 summer fruits. 
 
 The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, 
 deep, loud, and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of 
 short continuance, and his motions are desul- 
 tory ; but when that bird sits calmly and engages 
 in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, 
 but inward melody, and expresses great variety 
 of soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps 
 to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale 
 excepted. 
 
 Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gar- 
 dens; while they warble their throats are 
 wonderfully distended. 
 
 The song of the redstart is superior, though 
 somewhat like that of the white-throat ; some 
 birds have a few more notes than others. 
 Sitting very placidly on the top of a tall tree in 
 a village, the cock sings from morning to night : 
 he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, 
 and loves to build in orchards and about houses ; 
 with us he pei'ches on the vane of a tall may- 
 pole. 
 
 The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the 
 most mute and the most familiar ; it also 
 appears the last of any. It builds in a vine, or 
 a sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in 
 the hole of a wall, or on the end of a beam or 
 plate, and often close to the post of a door 
 where people are going in and out all day long. 
 This bird does not make the least jDretension to 
 song, but uses a little inward wailing note when 
 it thinks its young in danger from cats or other 
 annoyances ; it breeds but once, and retires 
 early. 
 
 Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited 
 at times more than half the birds that are ever 
 seen in all Sweden ; the former has produced 
 more than one hundred and twenty species, the 
 latter only two hundred and twenty-one. Let 
 
 me add also that it has shown near half the 
 species that were ever known in Great Britain. 
 
 On a retrospect, I observe that my long 
 letter carries with it a quaint and magisterial 
 air, and is very sententious ; but when I re- 
 collect that you requested stricture and anecdote, 
 I hoi^e you will pardon the didactic manner for 
 the sake of the information it may happen to 
 contain. 
 
 GILBERT WHITE TO THE HON. DAINES 
 BARRINGTON. 
 
 Sdhorne, July 8, 1773. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Some young men went down 
 lately to a pond on the verge of TVolmer Forest 
 to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of 
 which they caught, and, among the rest, some 
 very minute yet well-fledged .vild-fowls alive, 
 which upon examination I found to be teals. 
 I did not know till then that teals ever bred in 
 the south of England, and was much pleased 
 with the discovery : this I look upon as a 
 great stroke in natural history. 
 
 "VYe have had, ever since I can remember, a 
 pair of white owls that constantly breed under 
 the eaves of this church. As I have paid good 
 attention to the manner of life of these birds 
 during their season of breeding, which lasts the 
 summer through, the following remarks may 
 not perhaps be unacceptable : — About an hour 
 before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) 
 they sally forth in quest of prey, and hunt all 
 round the hedges of meadows and small en- 
 closures for them, which seem to be their only 
 food. In this irregular country we can stand 
 on an eminence and see them beat the fields 
 over like a setting-dog, and often drop down in 
 the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds 
 with my watch for an hour together, and have 
 found that they return to their nest, the one or 
 the other of them, about once in five minutes ; 
 reflecting at the same time on the adroitness 
 that every animal is i^ossessed of as far as 
 regards the well-being of itself and offspring. 
 But a piece of address, which they show when 
 they return loaded, should not, I think, be 
 passed over in silence. As they take their prey 
 with their claws, so they carry it in their claws 
 to their nest ; but as the feet are necessary in 
 their ascent under the tiles, they constantly 
 perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift 
 the mouse from their claws to their bill, that 
 their feet may be at liberty to take hold of the 
 plate on the wall as they are rising under the 
 eaves. 
 
 White owls seem not (but in this I am not 
 positive) to hoot at all ; all that clamorous 
 hooting appears to me to come from the wood 
 kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and 
 hiss in a tremendous, manner; and these 
 
400 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 menaces well answer the intention of intimi- 
 dating ; for I have known a whole village up in 
 arms on such an occasion, imagining the church- 
 yard to be full of goblins and spectres. White 
 owls also often scream horribly as they fly 
 along ; from this screaming probably arose the 
 common people's imaginary species of screech- 
 owl, which they superstitiously think attends 
 the windows of dying persons. The plumage of 
 the remiges of the wings of every species of owl 
 that I have yet examined is remarkably soft 
 and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessaiy that 
 the wings of these birds should not make much 
 resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled 
 to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble 
 and watchful quarry. 
 
 While I am talking of owls, it may not be 
 improper to mention what I was told by a 
 gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they 
 were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that 
 had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he 
 discovered at the bottom a mass of matter that 
 at first he could not account for. After some 
 examination he found that it was a congeries of 
 the bones of mice (and perhaps of birds and 
 bats) that had been heaping together for ages, 
 being cast up in pellets out of the crops of 
 many generations of inhabitants. For owls 
 cast uj) the bones, fur, and feathers of what 
 they devour, after the manner of hawks. He 
 believes, he told me, that there were bushels of 
 this kind of substance. 
 
 When brown owls hoot, their throats swell as 
 big as a hen's egg. I have known an owl of 
 this species live a full year without any water. 
 Perhaps the case may be the same with all birds 
 of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their 
 legs behind them as a balance to their large 
 heavy heads, for as most nocturnal birds have 
 large eyes and eai-s they must have large heads 
 to contain them. Large eyes I presume are 
 necessary to collect every ray of light, and 
 large concave ears to command the smallest 
 degree of sound or noise. 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Ringmer, near Leives, Dec. 9, 1773. 
 
 Deak Sir, — I received your last favour just 
 as I was setting out for this place ; and am 
 pleased to find that my monography met with 
 your approbation. My remarks are the result 
 of many years' observation ; and are, I trust, 
 true in the whole, though I do not pretend to 
 say that they are perfectly void of mistake, or 
 that a more nice observer might not make many 
 additions, since subjects of this kind are in- 
 exhaustible. 
 
 If you think my letter worthy the notice of 
 your respectable society, you are at liberty to 
 lay it before them ; and they will consider it, I 
 hojje, as it was intended, as a humble attempt 
 
 to promote a more minute inquiiy into natural 
 history; into the life and conversation of 
 animals. Perhaps, hereafter, I may be induced 
 to take the house-swallow under consideration, 
 and from that proceed to the rest of the British 
 hirundines. 
 
 Though I have now travelled the Sussex 
 Downs upwards of thirty years, yet I still 
 investigate that chain of majestic mountains 
 with fresh admiration year by year; and I 
 think I see new beauties every time I traverse 
 it. This range, which runs from Chichester 
 eastward as far as East Bourn, is about sixty 
 miles in length, and is called the South Downs, 
 properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you 
 pass along you command a noble view of the 
 wild, or weald, on one hand, and the broad 
 downs and sea on the other. Mr. Kay used to 
 visit a family just at the foot of these hills, and 
 was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton 
 Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes 
 in his Wisdom of God in the. Woi'ks of the 
 Creation with the utmost satisfaction, and 
 thinks them equal to anything he had seen in 
 the finest parts of Europe. 
 
 For my own part, I think there is somewhat 
 peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely- 
 figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to 
 those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, 
 and shapeless. 
 
 Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, 
 and not so happy as to convey to you the same 
 idea ; but I never contemplate these mountains 
 without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous 
 to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth 
 fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, 
 and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at 
 once the air of vegetative dilation and expan- 
 sion. . . . 
 
 ... Or was there ever a time when these 
 immense masses of calcareous matter were 
 thrown into fermentation by some adventitious 
 moisture ; were raised and leavened into such 
 shapes by some plastic power ; and so made to 
 swell and heave their broad backs into the sky 
 so much above the less animated clay of the 
 wild below ? 
 
 By what I can guess from the admeasure- 
 ments of the hills that have been taken round 
 my house, I should suppose that these hills 
 surmount the wild at an average at about the 
 rate of five hundred feet. 
 
 One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : 
 from the westward till you get to the river 
 Adur all the flocks have horns, and smooth 
 white faces, and white legs, and a hornless sheep 
 is rarely to be seen ; but as soon as you pass 
 that river eastward, and movint Beeding Hill, 
 all the flocks at once become hornless, or as 
 they call them, poll-sheep ; and have, moreover, 
 black faces with a white tuft of wool on their 
 foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs, so 
 that you would think that the flocks of Labau 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 401 
 
 were pasturing on one side of the stream, and 
 the variegated breed of his son-in-law Jacob 
 were cantoned along on the other. And this 
 diversity holds good respectively on each side 
 from the valley of Bramber and Seeding to the 
 eastward, and westward all the whole length 
 of the downs. If you talk with the shepherds 
 on this subject, they tell you that the case has 
 been so from time immemorial ; and smUe at 
 your simplicity if you ask them whether the 
 situation of these two different breeds might 
 not be reversed? However, an intelligent 
 friend of mine near Chichester is determined 
 to try the exi^eriment ; and has this autumn, 
 at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced a 
 parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his 
 horned western ewes. The black-faced poll- 
 sheep have the shortest legs and the finest 
 wool. 
 
 As I had hardly ever before travelled these 
 downs at so late a season of the year, I was 
 determined to keep as sharp a look-out as 
 possible so near the southern coast, with respect 
 to the summer short-winged birds of passage. 
 We make great inquiries concerning the with- 
 drawing of the swallow kind, without examining 
 enough into the causes why this tribe is never 
 to be seen in winter ; for, entrc nous, the dis- 
 appearing of the latter is more marvellous than 
 that of the foi-mer, and much more unaccount- 
 able. Tlie hirundines, if they please, are 
 certainly capable of migration, and yet no 
 doubt are often found in a torpid state ; but 
 redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black- 
 caps, etc. are very ill provided for long flights ; 
 have never been once found, as I ever heard of, 
 in a torpid state ; and yet can never be supposed, 
 in such troops, from year to year to dodge and 
 elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, 
 which from day to day discern the other small 
 birds that are known to abide our winters. But 
 notwitlistanding all my care, I saw nothing like 
 a summer bird of passage ; and what is more 
 strange, not one wheat-ear, though they abound 
 so in the autumn as to be a considerable per- 
 quisite to the shepherds that take them ; and 
 though many are to be seen to my knowledge all 
 the winter through in many parts of the south 
 of England. The most intelligent shepherds 
 tell me that some few of these birds appear on 
 the downs in March, and then withdraw to 
 breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries : 
 now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow 
 on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought 
 a rarity. At the time of wheat-harvest they 
 begin to be taken in great numbers ; are sent 
 for sale in vast quantities to Brightelmstone 
 and Tunbridge ; and appear at the tables of all 
 the gentry that entertain with any degree of 
 elegance. About IVIichaelmas they retire and 
 are seen no more till March. Though these 
 birds are, when in season, in great plenty on the 
 south downs round Lewes, yet at East Bourn, 
 
 which is the eastern extremity of those downs, 
 they abound much more. One thing is very 
 remarkable, that though in the height of the 
 season so many hundreds of dozens are taken, 
 yet they never are seen to flock ; and it is a 
 rare thing to see more than three or four at a 
 time ; so that there must be a perpetual flitting 
 and constant progressive succession. It does 
 not appear that any wheat-ears are taken to the 
 westward of Houghton Bridge, which stands on 
 the river Arun. 
 
 I did not fail to look particularly after my 
 new migration of ring-ousels ; and to take notice 
 whether they continued on the downs to this 
 season of the year ; as I had formerly remarked 
 them in the month of October all the way from 
 Chichester to Lewes wherever there were any 
 shrubs and covert : but not one bird of this sort 
 came within my observation. I only saw a few 
 larks and whin-chats, some rooks, and several 
 kites and buzzards. 
 
 About midsummer a flight of cross-bills comes 
 to the pine-groves about this house, but never 
 makes any long stay. 
 
 The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a 
 former letter, still continues in this garden ; and 
 retired under ground about the 20th November, 
 and came out again for one day on the 30th : it 
 lies now buried in a wet swampy border under 
 a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at 
 present in mud and mire ! 
 
 Here is a large rookery round this house, the 
 inhabitants of which seem to get their livelihood 
 very easily ; for they spend the greatest part of 
 the day on their nest-trees when the weather is 
 mild. These rooks retire every evening all the 
 winter from this rookery, where they only call 
 by the way, as they are going to roost in deep 
 woods ; at the dawn of day they always revisit 
 their nest-trees, and are preceded a few minutes 
 by a flight of daws, that act, as it were, as their 
 harbingers. I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Sclborne, Sept. 28, 1774. 
 Dear Sir, — As the swift or black-martin is 
 the largest of the British hirundines, so it is 
 undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember 
 but one instance of its appearing before the last 
 week in April ; and in some of our late frosty, 
 harsh springs, it has not been seen till the be- 
 ginning of May. This species usually arrives in 
 pairs. 
 
 The swift, like the sand-martin, is very de- 
 fective in architecture, making no crust, or 
 shell, for its nest ; but forming it of dry grasses 
 and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put 
 together. With all my attention to these birds 
 I have never been able once to discover one in 
 the act of collecting or carrying in materials ; 
 so that I have suspected (since their nests are 
 exactly the same) that they sometimes usurp 
 
402 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, as 
 sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; well 
 remembering that I have seen them squabbling 
 together at the entrance of their holes, and the 
 sparrows up in arms, and much disconcerted at 
 these intruders. And yet I am assured, by a 
 nice observer in such matters, that they do 
 collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia, and 
 that he has shot them with such materials in 
 their mouths. 
 
 Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the busi- 
 ness of nidification quite in the dark, in crannies 
 of castles, and towers, and steeples, and upon 
 the tops of the walls of churches under the roof ; 
 and therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as 
 those species that build more openly ; but, from 
 what I could ever observe, they begin nesting 
 about the middle of May ; and I have remarked, 
 from eggs taken, that they have sat hard by the 
 9th June, In general they haunt tall buildings, 
 ■ churches, and steeples, and breed only in such ; 
 yet in this village some i^airs frequent the 
 lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their 
 young under those thatched roofs. We re- 
 member but one instance where they breed out 
 of buildings, and that is in the sides of a deep 
 chalk-pit near the town of Odiham, in this 
 county, where we have seen many pairs entering 
 the crevices, and skimming and squeaking round 
 the precipices. 
 
 As I have regarded these amusive birds with 
 no small attention, if I should advance some- 
 thing new and peculiar with respect to them, 
 and different from all other birds, I might 
 perhaps be credited ; especially as my assertion 
 is the result of many years' exact observation. 
 The fact that I would advance is, that swifts 
 tread, or copulate, on the wing; and I would 
 wish any nice observer, that is startled at this 
 supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he 
 will soon be convinced. In another class of 
 animals, \dz. the insect, nothing is so common 
 as to see the different species of many genera in 
 conjunction as they fly. The swift is almost 
 continually on the wing ; and as it never settles 
 on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom 
 find opportunity for amorous rites, was it not 
 enabled to indulge them in the air. If any 
 person would watch these birds of a fine 
 morning in May, as they are sailing round at a 
 great height from the ground, he would see, 
 every now and then, one drop on the back of 
 another, and both of them sink down together 
 for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. 
 This I take to be the juncture when the business 
 of generation is carrying on. 
 
 As the swift eats, drinks, collects materials 
 for its nest, and, as it seems, propagates on the 
 wing, it appears to live more in the air than any 
 other bird, and to perform all functions there 
 j save those of sleeping and incubation. 
 
 This hirundo differs widely from its congeners 
 in laying invariably but two eggs at a time, 
 
 which are milk-white, long, and peaked at the 
 small end ; whereas the other species lay at 
 each brood from four to six. It is a most alert 
 bird, rising very early, and retiring to roost 
 veiy late ; and is on the wing in the height of 
 summer at least sixteen hours. In the longest 
 days it does not withdraw to rest till a quarter 
 before nine in the evening, being the latest of 
 all day-birds. Just before they retire whole 
 groups of them assemble high in the air, and 
 squeak, and shoot about with wonderful rapidity. 
 But this bird is never so much alive as in sultry 
 thundery weather, when it expresses great 
 alacrity, and calls forth all its powers. In hot 
 mornings several, getting together in little 
 parties, dash round the steeples and churches, 
 squeaking as they go in a very clamorous 
 manner ; these, by nice observers, are supposed 
 to be males serenading their sitting hens ; and 
 not without reason, since they seldom squeak 
 till they come close to the walls or eaves, and 
 since those within utter at the same time a little 
 inward note of complacency. 
 
 Wlien the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes 
 forth just as it is almost dark, and stretches and 
 relieves her weary limbs, and snatches a scanty 
 meal for a few minutes, and then returns to her 
 duty of incubation. Swifts, when wantonly 
 and cruelly shot while they have young, dis- 
 cover a little lump of insects in their mouths 
 which they pouch and hold under their tongue. 
 In general they feed in a much higher district 
 than the other species ; a proof that gnats and 
 other insects do also abound to a considerable 
 height in the air ; they also range to vast dis- 
 tances, since locomotion is no labour to them 
 who are endowed with such wonderful powers 
 of wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion 
 to their levers ; and their wings are longer in 
 proportion than those of almost any other 
 bird. AVhen they mute, or case themselves in 
 flight, they raise their wings, and make them 
 meet over their backs. 
 
 At some certain times in the summer I had 
 remarked that swifts were hawking very low 
 for hours together over pools and streams ; and 
 could not help inquiring into the object of 
 their pursuit that induced them to descend so 
 much below their usual range. After some 
 trouble, I found that they were taking pliry- 
 ganecc, ephemerce, aud libellulce (cadew-flies, 
 may-flies, and dragon-flies), that were just 
 emerged out of their aurelia state. I then no 
 longer wondered that they should be so willing 
 to stoop for a prey that afforded them such 
 plentifu:l and succulent nourishment. 
 
 They bring out their young about the middle 
 or latter end of July ; but as these never be- 
 come perchers, nor, that ever I could discern, 
 are fed on the wing by their dams, the coming 
 forth of the young is not so notorious as in the 
 other species. 
 
 On the 30th of last June, I untiled the eaves 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 403 
 
 of a house where many pairs biiild, and found | 
 in each nest only two squab, naked pulU ; on 
 the 8th July I repeated the same inquiry, and 
 found that they had made very little progress 
 towards a fledge state, but were still naked and 
 helpless. From whence we may conclude that 
 bii-ds whose way of life keeps them perpetually 
 on the wing would not be able to quit their 
 nest till the end of the month. Swallows and 
 martins, that have numerous families, are con- 
 tinually feeding them every two or three 
 minutes ; while swifts, that have but two 
 young to maintain, are much at then- leisure, 
 and do not attend on their nest for hours to- 
 gether. 
 
 Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks 
 that come in their way; but not with that 
 vehemence and fury that swallows express on 
 the same occasion. They are out all day long 
 in wet days, feeding about, and disregarding 
 still rain : from whence two things may be 
 gathered ; first, that many insects abide high in 
 the air, even in rain ; and next, that the 
 feathers of these birds must be well preened to 
 resist so much wet. Windy, and particularlj' 
 -vvindy weather, with heavy showers, they dis- 
 like ; and on such days withdraw, and are scarce 
 ever seen. 
 
 There is a circumstance respecting the coloirr 
 of swifts, which seems not to be unworthy of 
 our attention. "When they arrive in the spring, 
 they are all over of a glossy, dark soot-coloui', 
 except their chins, which are white ; but, by 
 being all day long in the sun and air, they become 
 quite weather-beaten and bleached before they 
 depart, and yet they return glossy again in the 
 spring. Now, if they pursue the sun into 
 lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to 
 enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not 
 return bleached ? Do they not rather perhaps 
 retire to rest for a season, and at that juncture 
 moult and change their feathers, since all other 
 birds are known to moult soon after the season 
 of breeding ? 
 
 Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, 
 dissenting from all their congeners not only in 
 the number of their youog, but in breeding 
 but once in a summer ; whereas all the other 
 British hirundines breed invariably tv/ice. It 
 is past all doubt that swifts can breed but once, 
 since they withdraw in a short time after the 
 flight of their young, and some time before their 
 congeners bring out their second broods. "We 
 may here remark, that, as swifts breed but once 
 in a summer, and only two at a time, and the 
 other hirundines twice, the latter, who lay 
 from four to six eggs, increase at an average five 
 times as fast as the former. 
 
 But in nothing are swifts more singular than 
 in their early retreat. They retire, as to the 
 main body of them, by the 10th August, and 
 sometimes a few days sooner, and every 
 straggler invariably withdraws by the 20th ; 
 
 while their congeners, all of them, stay till the 
 beginning of October, many of them all through 
 that month, and some occasionally to the 
 beginning of November. This early retreat 
 is mysterious and wonderful, since that time 
 is often the sweetest season in the year. But 
 what is more extraordinary, they begin to retire 
 still earlier in the most southerly i)arts of 
 Andalusia, where they can be in no ways 
 influenced by any defect of heat ; or, as one 
 might suppose, failure of food. Are they 
 regulated in their motions with us by a defect 
 of food, or by a i^ropensity to moulting, or by a 
 disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by 
 what ? This is one of those incidents in natural 
 history that not only baffles our searches, but 
 almost eludes our guesses ! 
 
 These hirundines never perch on trees or 
 roofs, and so never congregate with their con- 
 geners. They are fearless while haunting their 
 nesting-places, and are not to be scared with a 
 gun ; and are often beaten down with poles and 
 cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. 
 Swifts are much infested with those pests to the 
 genus called hippohoscce hirundinis ; and often 
 wriggle and scratch themselves in their flight to 
 get rid of that clinging annoyance. 
 
 Swifts are no songsters, and have only one 
 harsh screaming note ; yet there are ears to 
 which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable 
 association of ideas, since that note never 
 occurs but in the most lovely summer weather. 
 
 They never can settle on the ground but 
 through accident ; and when down, can hardly 
 rise, on account of the shortness of their legs 
 and the length of their wings ; neither can they 
 walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong 
 grasp with their feet, by which they cling to 
 walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter a 
 very narrow crevice ; and where they cannot 
 pass on their bellies they will turn up edge- 
 wise. 
 
 The particular formation of the foot dis- 
 criminates the swift from all the British hirun- 
 dines ; and indeed from all other known birds, 
 the hirundo melha, or great white-bellied swift 
 of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so disposed as 
 to carry * omnes quatuor digitos anticos ' — all its 
 four toes forward ; besides, the least toe, which 
 should be the back toe, consists of one bone 
 alone, and the other three only of two apiece, — 
 a construction most rare and peculiar, but 
 nicely adapted to the purposes in whicli their 
 feet ai'e employed. This, and some peculiarities 
 attending the nostrils and under mandible, have 
 induced a discerning naturalist to suppose that 
 this species might constitute a genus per se. 
 
 In London a party of swifts frequents the 
 Tower, playing and feeding over the river just 
 below the bridge ; others haunt some of the 
 churches of the Borough, next the fields, but do 
 not venture, like the house-mai-tin, into the 
 close, crowded part of the town. 
 
404 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent 
 name on this swallow, calling it 'ring swala,' 
 from the perpetual rings or circles that it takes 
 round the scene of its nidification. 
 
 Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles 
 with hard cases over their wings, as well as on 
 the softer insects ; but it does not appear how 
 they can procure gravel to grind their food, as 
 swallows do, since they never settle on the 
 ground. Young ones, over-run with hippohoscce, 
 are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen 
 to the ground ; the number of vermin rendering 
 their abode insupportable any longer. They 
 frequent in this village several abject cottages ; 
 yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely 
 roofs, — a good proof this that the same birds 
 return to the same spots. As they must stoop 
 very low to get up under these humble eaves, 
 cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on 
 the wing. 
 
 On July 5th, 1775, I again untiled part of a 
 roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in 
 the nest ; but so strongly was she affected by 
 natural a-re^yfi for her brood, which she supposed 
 to be in danger, that, regardless of her own 
 safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by 
 them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. 
 The squab young we brought down and placed 
 on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, 
 and were as helpless as a new-born child. 
 While we contemplated their naked bodies, 
 their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and 
 their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, 
 ■we could not but wonder when we reflected that 
 these shiftless beings in a little more than a 
 fortnight would be able to dash through the air 
 almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a 
 meteor ; and perhaps in their emigration must 
 traverse vast continents and oceans as distant 
 as the equator. So soon does nature advance 
 small birds to their vi>>txi», or state of iDcrfection ; 
 while the progressive growth of men and large 
 quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, June 8, 1775. 
 Dear Sir,— On September 21st, 1741, being 
 then on a visit, and intent on field-diversions, I 
 rose before daybreak : when I came into the 
 enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover- 
 grounds matted all over with a thick coat of 
 cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and 
 heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole 
 face of the country seemed, as it were, covered 
 with two or three setting-nets drawn one over 
 another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, 
 their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that 
 they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie 
 down and scrape the incumbrances from their 
 faces with their fore-feet, so that, finding my 
 sport interrupted, I returned home musing in 
 my mind on the oddness of the occurrence. 
 
 As the morning advanced the sun became 
 bright and warm, and the day turned out one 
 of those most lovely ones which no season but 
 the autumn produces ; cloudless, calm, serene, 
 and worthy of the South of France itself. 
 
 About nine an appearance very unusual began 
 to demand our attention, a shower of cobwebs 
 falling from very elevated regions, and continu- 
 ing, without any interruption, till the close of 
 the day. These webs were not single filmy 
 threads, floating in the air in all directions, but 
 perfect flakes or rags ; some near an inch 
 broad, and five or six long, which fell with a 
 degree of velocity that showed they were con- 
 siderably heavier than the atmosphere. 
 
 On every side as the observer turned his eyes 
 might he behold a continual succession of fresh 
 flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like 
 stars as they turned their sides towards the 
 sun. 
 
 How far this wonderful shower extended 
 would be difficult to say ; but we know that it 
 reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, three 
 places which lie in a sort of a triangle, the 
 shortest of whose sides is about eight miles in 
 extent. 
 
 At the second of those places there was a 
 gentleman (for whose veracity and intelligent 
 turn we have the greatest veneration) who 
 observed it the moment he got abroad ; but 
 concluded that, as soon as he came upon the 
 hill above his house, where he took his morning 
 rides, he should be higher than this meteor, 
 which he imagined might have been blown, like 
 thistle-down, from the common above ; but to 
 his great astonishment, when he rode to the 
 most elevated part of the down, three hundred 
 feet above his fields, he found the webs in 
 appearance still as much above him as before ; 
 still descending into sight in a constant succes- 
 sion, and twinkling in the sun, so as to draw 
 the attention of the most incurious. 
 
 Neither before nor after was any such fall 
 observed; but on this day the flakes hung in 
 the trees and hedges so thick that a diligent 
 person sent out might have gathered baskets 
 full. 
 
 The remark that I shall make on these cob- 
 web-like appearances, called gossamer, is, that, 
 strange and superstitious as the notions about 
 them were formerly, nobody in these days 
 doubts but that they are the real production of 
 small spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine 
 weather in autumn, and have a power of shoot- 
 ing out webs from their tails so as to render 
 themselves buoyant, and lighter than air. But 
 why these apterous insects should that day take 
 such a wonderful aerial excursion, and why 
 their webs should at once become so gross and 
 material as to be considerably more weighty 
 than air, and to descend with precipitation, is 
 a matter beyond my skill. If I might be 
 allowed to hazard a supposition, I should 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 imagine that those filmy threads, when first 
 shot, might be entangled in the rising dew, and 
 so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk evapo- 
 ration, into the regions where clouds are 
 formed ; and if the spidei-s have a power of 
 coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as 
 Dr. Lister says they have (see his Letters 
 to Mr. Ray), then, when they were become 
 heavier than the air, they must fall. 
 
 Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, 
 do I see those spiders shooting out their webs 
 and mounting aloft : they will go off from your 
 finger if you will take them into your hand. 
 Last summer one alighted on my book as I was 
 reading in the parlour, and running to the top 
 of the page, and shooting out a web, took its 
 departure from thence. But what I most 
 wondered at was, that it went off with consider- 
 able velocity in a place where no air was 
 stirring, and I am sure that I did not assist it 
 with my breath. So that these little crawlers 
 seem to have, while mounting, some locomotive 
 power without the use of wings, and to move 
 in the air faster than the air itself. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selhorne, October 2, 1775. 
 
 Dear Sir, — We have two gangs or hordes of 
 gipsies which infest the south and west of 
 England, and come round in their circuit two 
 or three times in the year. One of these tribes 
 calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of 
 which I have nothing ijarticular to say ; but 
 the other is distinguished by an appellative 
 somewhat remarkable. As far as their harsh 
 gibberish can be understood, they seem to say 
 that the name of their clan is Curleoj)le ; now 
 the termination of this word is apparently 
 Grecian, and as Mezeray and the gravest 
 historians all agree that these vagrants did 
 certainly migrate from Egypt and the East, two 
 or three centuries ago, and so spread by degrees 
 over Europe, may not this family name, a little 
 corrupted, be the very name they brought with 
 them from the Levant ? It would be matter of 
 some curiosity, could one meet with an intelli- 
 gent person among them, to inquire whether, 
 in their jargon, they still retain any Greek 
 words ; the Greek radicals will appear in hand, 
 foot, head, water, earth, etc. It is possible 
 that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect 
 many mutilated remains of their native lan- 
 guage might still be discovered. 
 
 AVith regard to those peculiar people, the 
 gipsies, one thing is very remarkable, and 
 especially as they come from warmer climates ; 
 and that is, that while other beggars lodge in 
 bams, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdy 
 savages seem to i)ride themselves in 
 braving the severities of winter, and in living 
 sab dio the whole year round. Last September 
 was as wet a month as ever was known ; and 
 
 405 
 
 yet during those deluges did a young gipsy girl 
 lie in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on 
 the cold gi-ound, with nothing over her but a 
 piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel-rods 
 bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at 
 each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow 
 in the same condition ; yet within this garden 
 there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers 
 of which she might have retired, had she 
 thought shelter an object worthy her attention. 
 
 Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to 
 the rovings of these vagabonds ; for Mr. Bell, 
 in his return from Peking, met a gang of those 
 people on the confines of Tartary, who were 
 endeavouring to penetrate those deserts, and 
 try their fortune in China. 
 
 Gipsies are called in French, Bohemians ; in 
 Italian and modern Greek, Zingari. 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775. 
 
 ' Hie . . . taedee pingues, hie plurimus ignis 
 Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri.' 
 
 Dear Sir, — I shall make no apology for 
 troubling you with the detail of a very simple 
 piece of domestic economy, being satisfied that 
 you think nothing beneath your attention that 
 tends to utility ; the matter alluded to is the 
 use of rushes instead of candles, which I am 
 well aware prevails in many districts besides 
 this ; bu.t as I know there are countries also 
 where it does not obtain, and as I have con- 
 sidered the subject with some degree of exact- 
 ness, I shall proceed in my humble story, and 
 leave you to judge of the expediency. 
 
 The proper species of rush for this purpose 
 seems to be the juncus effusus, or common soft 
 rush, which is to be found in most moist pastures, 
 by the sides of streams and under hedges. 
 
 These rushes are in best condition in the 
 height of summer ; but may be gathered, so as 
 to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. 
 It would be needless to add that the largest and 
 longest are best. Decayed labourers, women, 
 and children make it their business to procure 
 and prepare them. As soon as they are cut, 
 they must be flung into water, and kept there, 
 for otherwise tliey will dry and shrink, and the 
 peel will not run. At first a person would fijid. 
 it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel or 
 rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even 
 rib from top to bottom that may support the 
 pich ; but this, like other feats, soon becomes 
 familiar even to children ; and we have seen an 
 old woman, stone blind, performing this business 
 with great despatch, and seldom failing to strip 
 them with the nicest regularity. When these 
 junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out 
 on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for 
 some nights, and afterwards be dried in the sun. 
 
4o6 
 
 Some address is required in dipping these 
 rushes in the scalding fat or grease ; but this 
 knack also is to be attained by practice. The 
 careful wife of an industrious Hampshire 
 labourer obtains all her fat for nothing ; for 
 she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for 
 this use ; and if the grease abounds with salt, 
 she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, 
 by setting the scummings in a warm oven. 
 Where hogs are not much in use, and especially 
 by the sea-side, the coarser animal-oils will 
 come very cheaj). A iiound of common grease 
 may be j)rocured for fouri^ence, and about six 
 pounds of grease will dip a jiound of rushes, 
 and one pound of rushes may be bought for one 
 shilling ; so that a pound of rushes, medicated 
 and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If 
 men that keep bees will mix a little wax with 
 the grease, it will give it a consistency, and 
 render it more cleanly, and make the rushes 
 burn longer J mutton-suet would have the same 
 elfect. 
 
 A good rush, which measured in length two 
 feet four inches and a half, being minuted, 
 burnt only three minutes short of an hour ; and 
 a rush of still greater length has been known to 
 burn one hour and a quarter. 
 
 These rushes give a good clear light. Watch- 
 lights (coated with tallow), it is true, shed a 
 dismal one, ' darkness visible ; ' but then the 
 wick of those have two ribs of the rind, or peel, 
 to support the pith, while the wick of the 
 dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are 
 intended to impede the progress of the flame 
 and make the candle last. 
 
 In a pound of dry rushes avoirdupois, which I 
 caused to be weighed and numbered, we found 
 upwards of one thousand six hundred indi- 
 viduals. Now suppose each of these burns, one 
 with another, only half an hour, then a poor 
 man will purchase eight hundred hours of light, 
 a time exceeding thirty-three entire days, for 
 three shillings. According to this account each 
 rush, before dipping, costs j'g- of a farthing, and 
 ^ afterwards. Thus a poor family ^vill enjoy 
 five and a half hours of comfortable light for a 
 farthing. An experienced old housekeeper 
 assures me that one pound and a half of rushes 
 comi)letely supplies his family the year round, 
 since working people burn no candles in the 
 long days, because they rise and go to bed by 
 daylight. 
 
 Little farmers use rushes much in the short 
 days, both morning and evening, in the dairy 
 and kitchen ; but the very poor, who are always 
 the worst economists, and therefore must con- 
 tinue very pom-, buy a halfpenny candle every 
 evening, which in their blowing open rooms, 
 does not burn much more than two hours. 
 Thus have they only two hours' light for their 
 money instead of eleven. 
 
 While on the subject of rural economy, it may 
 not be improper to mention a pretty implement 
 
 of housewifery that we have seen nowhere else ; 
 that is, little neat besoms which our foresters 
 make from the stalks of the polytricum com- 
 mune, or great golden maiden-hair, which they 
 call silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs. 
 When this moss is well combed and dressed, and 
 divested of its outer skin, it becomes of a 
 beautiful bright-chestnut colour ; and, being soft 
 and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of 
 beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, etc. If these 
 besoms were known to the brushmakers in tov/n, 
 it is probable they might come much in use for 
 the purpose above mentioned. I am, etc. 
 
 [This letter was written after Wilkes' release 
 from the Tower on the ground of privilege 
 as a member of Parliament. He had been 
 imprisoned for an attack on the ministry 
 in the North Briton, and as his papers 
 were confiscated also, in demanding them 
 back he had been snubbed. This is his 
 reply to the official note which he had 
 received.] 
 
 JOHN WILKES TO LORDS EGEEMONT AND 
 HALIFAX. 
 
 Great George Street, May 29, 1763. 
 
 My Loeds, — Little did I expect, when I was 
 requiring from your lordships what an English- 
 man has a right to, — his property taken from 
 him (and said to be in your lordships' 
 possession), — that I should have received in 
 answer, from i^ersons in your high station, the 
 expressions of 'indecent and scurrilous' applied 
 to my legal demands. 
 
 The respect I bear to his Majesty, whose ser- 
 vants, it seems, you still are (though you stand 
 legally convicted of having in me violated, in 
 the highest and most offensive manner, the 
 liberties of all the commons in England), 
 prevents my returning you an answer in the 
 same Billingsgate language. If I considered 
 you only in your private capacities, I should 
 treat you both according to your deserts ; but 
 where is the wonder that men who have 
 attacked the sacred liberty of the subject, and 
 have issued an illegal warrant to seize his 
 l^roperty, should proceed to such libellous 
 expressions ? You say, ' that such of my pajjers 
 shall be restored to me as do not lead to a 
 proof of my guilt.' I owe this to your appre- 
 hension of an action, not to your love of justice ; 
 and in that light, if I can believe your lordships' 
 assurances, the whole will be returned to me. | 
 I fear neither your prosecution nor your • 
 persecution ; and I will assert the security of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 407 
 
 my own house, the liberty of my person, and 
 every right of the people, not so much for my 
 own sake, as for the sake of every one of my 
 English fellow-subjects. I am, my lords, your 
 humble servant, John Wilkes. 
 
 [The Peace of 1763, negotiated by the Duke of 
 Bedford, occasioned much popular dis- 
 pleasure, which in several instances broke 
 out into acts of open insurrection. The 
 rumour was promulgated, and for some 
 time credited, that the Peace had been 
 purchased by the liberal distribution of 
 bribes, on the part of France, among 
 several distinguished individuals. Upon 
 the death of Lord Egremont, Lord Bute, 
 notwithstanding their previous disagree- 
 ment, found it expedient to obtain the 
 interest and support of the Duke of 
 Bedford ; who, it is said, ' conscious of his 
 importance, exacted not only from Lord 
 Bute, but from the King himself, a 
 submission to whatever terms' he deter- 
 mined to impose. Among his other 
 demands, was the dismissal from ofl&ce of 
 Lord Bute's brother, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie. 
 Impatient of this tyranny, the King applied 
 to the Duke of Newcastle and Lord 
 Rockingham. But the relief was only 
 temporary. The Chatham ministry beheld 
 the introduction into the cabinet of the 
 Dukes of Bedford and Grafton, who 
 remained after the resignation of their 
 chief. In this crisis of the public affairs, 
 Junius, who commenced his political 
 crusade in the January of 1769, addressed 
 his famous letter to the Duke of Bedford. 
 ■—WiUmoU.^ 
 
 JUNIUS TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 
 
 September 19, 1769. 
 My Lord, — You are so little accustomed to 
 receive any remarks of respect or esteem from 
 the ijublic, that if, in the following lines, a 
 compliment or expression of applause should 
 escape me, I fear you would consider it as a 
 mockery of your established character, and 
 perhaps an insult to your understanding. You 
 have nice feelings, my lord, if we may judge 
 from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of 
 giving offence, where you have so little deserved 
 it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues 
 to other hands. Your friends have a privilege 
 to play upon the easiness of your temper, or 
 
 possibly they are better acquainted with your 
 good qualities than I am. You have done good 
 by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have 
 still left ample room for speculation, when 
 panegyric is exhausted. 
 
 You are, indeed, a very considerable man. 
 The highest rank ; a splendid fortune ; and a 
 name, glorious till it was yours, were sufficient 
 to have supported you with meaner abilities 
 than I think you possess. From the first, you 
 derived a constitutional claim to respect ; from 
 the second, a natural extensive authority ; the 
 last excited a partial expectation of hereditary 
 virtues. The use you have made of these 
 uncommon advantages might have been more 
 honourable to yourself, but could not be more 
 instructive to mankind. We may trace it in 
 the veneration of your country, the choice of 
 your friends, and in the accomplishment of 
 every sanguine hope, which the public might 
 have conceived from the illustrious name of 
 Russell. 
 
 The eminence of your station gave you a 
 commanding prosj)ect of your duty. The road 
 which led to honour was open to your view. 
 You could not lose it by mistake, and you had 
 no temptation to depart from it by design. 
 Compare the natural dignity and importance 
 of the richest peer in England ; the noble 
 independence which he might have maintained 
 in parliament, and the real interest and respect 
 which he might have acquired, not only in 
 parliament, but through the whole kingdom ; 
 compare these glorious distinctions with the 
 ambition of holding a share in government, the 
 emoluments of a place, the sale of a borough, 
 or the purchase of a corporation ; and though 
 you may not regret the virtues, which create 
 respect, you may see with anguish, how much 
 real importance and autliority j'ou have lost. 
 Consider the character of an independent, 
 virtuous Duke of Bedford ; imagine what he 
 might be in this country — then reflect for one 
 moment upon what you. are. If it be jjossible 
 for me to withdraw my attention from the fact, 
 I will tell you in theory what such a man 
 might be. 
 
 Conscious of his own weight and importance, 
 his conduct in parliament would be directed by 
 nothing but the constitutional duty of a peer. 
 He would consider himself as the guardian of 
 the laws. Willing to support the just measures 
 of government, but determined to observe the 
 conduct of the minister with suspicion, he 
 would oppose the violence of faction with as 
 much firmness as the encroachments of pre- 
 rogative. He would be as little capable of 
 bargaining with the minister for places for 
 himself, or his dependents, as of descending to 
 mix himself with the intrigues of opposition. 
 Whenever an important question called for his 
 opinion in parliament, he would be heard, by 
 the most profligate minister, with deference 
 
408 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 and respect. His authority would either 
 sanctify or disgrace the measures of govern- 
 ment. The people would look up to him as to 
 their protector, and a virtuous prince would 
 have one honest man in his dominions, in whose 
 integrity and judgment he might safely confide. 
 If it should be the will of Providence to afflict 
 him with a domestic misfortune, he would 
 submit to the shock with feeling, but not 
 without dignity. He would consider the people 
 as his children, and receive a generous, heart- 
 felt consolation in the sympathizing tears and 
 blessings of his country. 
 
 Your grace may probably discover something 
 more intelligible in the negative part of this 
 illustrious character. The man I have de- 
 scribed would never prostitute his dignity in 
 parliament by an indecent violence either in 
 opposing or defending a minister. He would 
 not at one moment rancorously persecute, and 
 at another basely cringe to the favourite of his 
 sovereign. After outraging the royal dignity 
 with peremptory conditions, little short of 
 menace and hostility, he would never descend 
 to the humility of soliciting an interview with 
 the favourite, and of offering to recover, at 
 any price, the honour of his friendship. 
 Though deceived, perhaps, in his youth, he 
 would not, through the course of a long life, 
 have invariably chosen his friends from among 
 the most profligate of mankind. His ov/n 
 honour would have forbidden him from mixing 
 his private pleasures or conversation with 
 jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or 
 buffoons. He would then have never felt, 
 much less would he have submitted to the 
 humiliating, dishonest necessity of engaging in 
 the interests and intrigues of his dependents, of 
 supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary, 
 at the expense of his country. He would not 
 have betrayed such ignorance, or such contempt 
 of the constitution, as ojienly to avow, in a 
 court of justice, the purchase and sale of a 
 borough. He would not have thought it con- 
 sistent with his rank in the State, or even with 
 his personal importance, to be the little tyrant 
 of a little corporation. He would never have 
 been insulted with virtues which he had 
 laboured to extinguish, nor suffered the 
 disgrace of a mortifying defeat, which has 
 made him ridiculous and contemptible, even to 
 the few by whom he was not detested. I 
 reverence the afiiictions of a good man; his 
 sorrows are sacred. But how can we take part 
 in the distresses of a man whom we can neither 
 love nor esteem ; or feel for a calamity of 
 which he himself is insensible? Where was 
 the father's heart, when he could look for or 
 find an immediate consolation for the loss of an 
 only son, in consultations and bargains for a 
 place at court, and even in the misery of 
 balloting at the India House ? 
 
 Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or 
 
 deserted those honourable principles, which 
 ought to have directed your conduct ; admitting 
 that you have as little claim to private affection 
 as to public esteem, let us see with what 
 abilities, with what degree of judgment, you 
 have carried your own system into execution. 
 A great man in the success, and even in the 
 magnitude of his crimes, finds a rescue from 
 contempt. 
 
 Your grace is every way unfortunate. Yet 
 I will not look back to those ridiculous scenes, 
 by which, in your earlier days, you thought it 
 an honour to be distinguished ; — the recorded 
 stripes, the public infamy, your own sufferings, 
 or Mr. Rigby's fortitude. These events un- 
 doubtedly left an impression, though not upon 
 your mind. To such a mind, it may perhaps 
 be a pleasure to reflect, that there is hardly a 
 corner of any of his Majesty's kingdoms, except 
 France, in which, at one time or other, your 
 valuable life has not been in danger. Amiable 
 man ! — we see and acknowledge the protection 
 of Providence, by which you have so often 
 escaped the personal detestation of your fellow- 
 subjects, and are still reserved for the public 
 justice of your country. Your history begins 
 to be important at that auspicious period at 
 which you were deputed to represent the Earl 
 of Bute at the Court of Versailles. It was an 
 honoiirable office, and executed with the same 
 spirit with which it was accepted. Your 
 patrons wanted an ambassador who would 
 submit to make concessions, without daring to 
 insist upon any honourable condition for his 
 sovereign. Their business required a man who 
 had as little feeling for his own dignity as for 
 the welfare of his country ; and they found him 
 in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, 
 Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, the 
 Fishery, and the Havanna, are glorious monu- 
 ments of your grace's talents for negotiation. 
 My lord, we are too well acquainted with your 
 pecuniary character to think it possible that so 
 many public sacrifices should have been made 
 without some private compensations. Your 
 conduct carries with it an internal evidence, 
 beyond all the legal proofs of a court of justice. 
 Even the callous pride of Lord Egremont was 
 alarmed. He saw and felt his own dishonour 
 in corresponding with you ; and there certainly 
 was a moment at which he meant to have 
 resisted, had not a fatal lethargy prevailed over 
 his faculties, and carried all sense and memory 
 away with it. I will not pretend to specify the 
 secret terms on which you were invited to 
 support an administration which Lord Bute 
 pretended to leave in full possession of their 
 ministerial authority, and perfectly masters of 
 themselves. He was not of a temper to 
 relinquish power, though he retired from 
 employment. Stipulations were certainly made 
 between your grace and him, and certainly 
 violated. After two years' submission, you 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 409 
 
 thought you had collected a strength sufficient 
 to control his influence, and that it was your 
 txim to be a tyrant, because you had been a 
 slave. "WTien you found yourself mistaken in 
 your opinion of your gracious Master's firmness, 
 disappointment got the better of all your 
 humble discretion, and carried you to an excess 
 of outrage to his person, as distant from true 
 spirit as from all decency and respect. After 
 robbing him of the rights of a king, you would 
 not permit him to preserve the honour of a 
 gentleman. It was then Lord "Weymouth was 
 nominated to Ireland, and despatched (we well 
 remember with what indecent hurry) to plunder 
 the treasury of the first-fruits of an employ- 
 ment which you well knew he was never to 
 execute. This sudden declaration of war 
 against the favourite might have given yovi a 
 momentary merit with the public, if it had 
 either been adopted upon principle, or main- 
 tained with resolution. Without looking back 
 to aU. your former servility, we need only 
 observe your subsequent conduct, to see upon 
 what motives you acted. Apparently united 
 with Lord Grenville, you waited until Lord 
 Eockingham's feeble administration should 
 (lissolve in its own weakness. The moment 
 their dismission was suspected — the moment 
 you perceived that another system was adopted 
 in the closet, you thought it no disgrace to 
 return to your former dependence, and solicit 
 once more the fi-iendship of Lord Bute. You 
 begged an interview, at which he had spirit 
 enough to treat you with contempt. 
 
 It would now be of little use to point out by 
 what a train of weak, injudicious measures it 
 became necessary, or was thought so, to call 
 you back to a share in the administration. The 
 friends, whom you did not in the last instance 
 desert, were not of a character to add strength 
 or credit to government ; and at that time yoxir 
 alliance with the Duke of Grafton was, I 
 presume, hardly foreseen. We must look for 
 other stipulations, to account for that sudden 
 resolution of the closet, by which three of your 
 dependents (whose characters, I think, cannot 
 be less respected than they are) were advanced 
 to offices, through which you might again 
 control the minister, and probably engross the 
 whole direction of affairs. 
 
 The possession of the absolute power is now 
 once more within your reach. The measures 
 you have taken to obtain and confirm it are too 
 gross to escape the eyes of a discerning and 
 judicious prince. His palace is besieged ; lines 
 of circumvallation are drawing round him ; and 
 unless he finds a resource in his own activity, 
 or in the attachment of the real friends of his 
 family, the best of princes must submit to the 
 confinement of a state prisoner, until your 
 grace's death, or some less fortunate event 
 shall raise the siege. For the present, you may 
 resume that style of insult and menace, which 
 
 even a private gentleman cannot submit to 
 hear without being contemptible. Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie's history is not yet forgotten, and you 
 may find precedents enough of the mode in 
 which an imperious subject may signify his 
 pleasure to his sovereign. Where mil our 
 gracious monarch look for assistance, when the 
 wetched Grafton could forget his obligations 
 to his master, and desert him for a hollov/ 
 alliance with such a man as the Duke of 
 Bedford ! 
 
 Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the 
 summit of worldly greatness ; let us suppose 
 that all your plans of avarice and ambition are 
 accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes 
 gratified in the fear as Avell as the hatred of 
 the people : can age itself forget that you are 
 now in the last act of life ? Can grey hairs 
 make folly venerable ? and is there no period to 
 be reserved for meditation and retirement? 
 For shame ! my lord ; let it not be recorded of 
 you, that the latest moments of your life were 
 dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the 
 same busy agitations in which your youth and 
 manhood were exhausted. Consider, that 
 although you cannot disgrace your former life, 
 you are violating the character of age, and 
 exposing the impotent imbecility after you 
 have lost the vigour of the passions. 
 
 Your friends will ask, perhaps — whither shall 
 this unhappy old man retire ? Can he remain 
 in the metropolis, where his life has been so 
 often threatened, and his palace so often 
 attacked? If he returns to Wooburn, scorn 
 and mockery await him : he must create a 
 solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the 
 face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, 
 his destruction would be more than probable, 
 at Exeter inevitable; no honest Englishman 
 will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest 
 Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. 
 At every town he enters, he must change his 
 liveries and his name. Whichever way he 
 flies, the hue and cry of the country pursues 
 him. 
 
 In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of 
 his administration have been more sensibly 
 felt ; his virtues better understood ; or at 
 worst, they will not, for him alone, forget their 
 hospitality. As well might Verres have 
 returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, 
 my lord ; beware of a third experiment. The 
 indignation of a whole people, plundered, 
 insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, will 
 not always be disappointed. 
 
 It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. 
 You can no more fly from your enemies than 
 from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look 
 into your own heart for consolation, and find 
 nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my 
 lord, you may quit the field of business, though 
 not the field of danger ; and though you cannot 
 be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear 
 
410 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 you have listened too long to the advice of 
 those pernicious friends, with whose interests 
 you have sordidly united your own ; and for 
 whom you have sacrificed everything that 
 ought to be dear to a man of honour. They 
 are still base enough to encourage the follies of 
 your age, as they once did the vices of your 
 youth. As little acquainted -with the rules of 
 decorum as with the laws of morality, they 
 will not suffer you to i^rofit by experience, nor 
 even to consult the jn-opriety of a bad character. 
 Even now they tell you that life is no more 
 than a dramatic scene, in which the hero 
 should preserve his consistency to the last, and 
 that as you lived without virtue, you should 
 die without repentance. Junius. 
 
 [Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on Jan- 
 uary 12, 1730. His education was com- 
 pleted at Trinity College. He went to 
 London about 1750, and commenced 
 miscellaneous literary work. He first 
 projected the Annual Register, and wrote 
 the whole of it himself for some years. 
 His first connection with politics was his 
 employment as private secretary to the 
 Marquis of Rockingham in 1765, and his 
 first speech in the House of Commons was 
 on the Stamj) Act, which Lord Rockingham 
 had brought in a bill to repeal. Burke's 
 influence was fully exemplified in British 
 politics from 1765 to 1797. His views on 
 domestic i)olitics are contained in his 
 Thoxigld?, on the Cause of the Present Discon- 
 tent, 1770, and from two speeches delivered 
 at Bristol, 1774 and 1780. The two of his 
 greatest speeches are those on 'American 
 Taxation,' 1774, and on ' Conciliation with 
 America,' 1775. Sir Samuel Romilly con- 
 sidered his speech at Bristol previous to 
 the election as the best luece of oratory in 
 the language. Burke also delivered some 
 great speeches on the government of India, 
 of which the best known are ' Mr. Fox's 
 East India Bill,' 1783, on the 'Nabob of 
 Arcot's Debts,' 1785 (this latter Lord 
 Brougham considered his greatest oration), 
 and the several speeches in the impeach- 
 ment of Warren Hastings. His celebrated 
 Bejlections on the French Revolution were 
 published in 1790, which occasioned the 
 strictures that caused Burke's reply to the 
 member of the National Assembly which 
 we quote. Burke died in 1797, at 
 
 Beaconsfield, broken-hearted at his son's 
 death. 'The peculiar effect of Burke,* 
 says ]Mr. Payne, * is to enlarge, strengthen, 
 liberalize, and ennoble the understanding.'] 
 
 EURKE TO ROBERTSON. 
 
 I AM perfectly sensible of the very flattering 
 distinction I received, in your thinking me 
 worthy of so noble a present as that of your 
 History of America. I have, however, suffered 
 my gratitude to lie under some suspicion, by 
 delaying my acknowledgment of so great a 
 favour. But my delay was only to render my 
 obligation to you more complete, and my thanks, 
 if possible, more merited. The close of the 
 session brought a great deal of very troublesome 
 business on me at once. I could not get through 
 your work at one breath at that time, though I 
 have done it since, I am now enabled to thank 
 you not only for the honour you have done me, 
 but for the great satisfaction and the infinite 
 variety and compass of instruction I have 
 received from your incomparable work. 
 Everything has been done which was so natur- 
 ally to be expected from the author of the 
 History of Scotland, and of the Age of Charles 
 the Fifth. I believe few books have done more 
 than this towards clearing up dark points, 
 correcting errors, and removing prejudices. 
 You have, too, the pure secret of rekindling an 
 interest on subjects that had so often been 
 treated, and in which everything which could 
 feed a vital flame appeared to have been 
 consumed. I am sure I read many parts of 
 your Histor-y with that fresh concern and 
 anxiety which attend those who are not previ- 
 ously apprized of the event. You have, besides, 
 thrown quite a new light on the present state 
 of the Spanish provinces, and furnished both 
 materials and hints for a rational theory of 
 what may be expected from them in future. 
 
 The part which I read with the gi-eatest 
 lileasure, is the discussion on the manners and 
 character of the inhabitants of the New World. 
 I have always thought with you, that we pos- 
 sess at this time very great advantages towards 
 the knowledge of human nature. We need no 
 longer go to history to trace it in all stages and 
 periods. History, from its comparative youth, 
 is but a poor instructor. When the Egyptians 
 called the Greeks children in antiquities, we 
 may well call them children ; and so we may 
 call all those nations which were able to trace 
 the progress of society only within their own 
 limits. But now the great map of mankind 
 is unrolled at once, and there is no state or 
 gradation of barbarism, and no mode of refine- 
 ment, which we have not at the same moment 
 under view : the very different civility of 
 Europe and of China, the barbarism of Persia 
 and of Abyssinia, the erratic manners of Tartary 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 411 
 
 and of Arabia, the savage state of North 
 \ America and of New Zealand. Indeed, you 
 j have made a noble use of the advantages you 
 I have had. You have employed philosophy to 
 i judge on manners, and from manners you have 
 \ drawn new resources for philosophy. I only 
 think that in one or two points you have 
 hardly done Justice to the savage character. 
 
 There remains before you a great field. Per- 
 iculoscc pknum opus alece tractas, ct incedis per 
 ignes suppositos cineri doloso. 
 
 "Wlien even those ashes will be spread over 
 the present fire, God knows. I am heartily 
 sorry that we are now supplying you with that 
 [ kind of dignity and concern which is purchased 
 to history at the expense of mankind. I had 
 I rather by far that Dr. Eobertson's pen were 
 I only employed in delineating the humble scenes 
 of political economy than the great events of a 
 civil war. However, if our statesmen had read 
 the book of human nature instead of the 
 journals of the House of Commons, and history 
 instead of Acts of Parliament, we should not 
 by the latter have furnished out so ample a 
 page for the former. For my part, I have not 
 been, nor am I, very forward in my speculations 
 ' on this subject. All that I have ventured to 
 make, have hitherto proved fallacious. I con- 
 fess I thought the colonies left to themselves 
 could not have made anything like the jDresent 
 resistance to the whole power of this country 
 ' and its allies. I did not think it could have 
 I been done without the declared interference of 
 the house of Bourbon. But I looked on it as 
 I very probable that France and Spain would 
 I before this time have taken a decided jiart. In 
 both these conjectures I have judged amiss. 
 You will smile when I send you a trifling tem- 
 porary production, made for the occasion of a 
 day, and to perish with it, in return for your 
 immortal work. But our exchange resembles 
 the politics of the times. You send out solid 
 wealth — the accumulation of ages ; and in 
 return you get a few flying leaves of poor 
 American paper. However, you have the mer- 
 cantile comfort of finding the balance of trade 
 infinitely in your favour ; and I console myself 
 with the snug consideration of uninformed 
 , natural acuteness, that I have my warehouse 
 full of goods at another's expense. 
 
 Adieu, sir, continue to instruct the world ; 
 and whilst we carry on a jjoor unequal conflict 
 with the passions and prejudices of our day, 
 perhaps with no better weapons than other 
 passions and prejudices of our own, convey 
 wisdom at our expense to future generations. 
 
 EDMUND BUEKE TO A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL 
 ASSEMBLY. 
 
 On the French Revolution. 
 
 SiE, — I had the honour to receive your letter 
 of the 17th of November last, in which, with 
 some exceptions, you are pleased to consider 
 favourably the letter I have written on the 
 affairs of France. I shall ever accept any mark 
 of approbation attended with instruction, with 
 more pleasure than general and unqualified 
 praises. The latter can serve only to flatter 
 our vanity ; the former, Avhilst it encourages us 
 to proceed, may help to improve us in our 
 progress. 
 
 Some of the errors you point out to me in my 
 printed letter are really such. One only I find 
 to be material. It is corrected in the edition 
 which I take the liberty of sending to you. As 
 to the cavils which may be made on some part 
 of my remarks, with regard to the gradations 
 in your new constitution, you observe justly, 
 that they do not affect the substance of my 
 objections. Whether tliei'e be a round more or 
 less in the ladder of representation, by which 
 your workmen ascend from their parochial 
 tyranny to their federal anarchy, when the 
 whole scale is false, appears to me of little or 
 no importance. 
 
 I published my thoughts on that constitution 
 that my countrymen might be enabled to 
 estimate the wisdom of the plans which were 
 held out to their imitation. I conceived that 
 the true character of those plans would be best 
 collected from the comn}iLLee appointed to 
 prepare them. I thought that the scheme of 
 their building would be better comj)rehended in 
 the design of the architects than in the execu- 
 tion of the masons. It was not worth my 
 reader's while to occupy himself with the altera- 
 tions by which bungling practice corrects absurd 
 theory. Such an investigation would be endless, 
 because every doy's past experience of imprac- 
 ticability has driven, and every day's future 
 experience will drive, those men to new devices 
 as exceptionable as the old ; and which are no 
 otherwise worthy of observation than as they 
 give a daily proof of the delusion of their 
 promises, and the falsehood of their professions. 
 Had I followed all these changes, my letter 
 would have been only a gazette of their wander- 
 ings ; a journal of their march from error to 
 error, through a dry, dreary desert, unguided 
 by the lights of heaven, or by the contrivance 
 which wisdom has invented to supply their 
 place. 
 
 I am unalterably persuaded that the attempt 
 to oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate, and 
 extinguish the original gentlemen and landed 
 property of an old nation, cannot be justified 
 under any form it may assume. I am satisfied 
 beyond a doubt that the project of turning a 
 great empire into a vestry, or into a collection 
 
412 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 of vestries, and of governing it in the spirit of a 
 parochial administration, is senseless and absurd 
 in any mode, or with any qualifications. I can 
 never be convinced that the scheme of placing 
 the highest powers of the state in churchwardens 
 and constables, and other such officers, guided 
 by the prudence of litigious attorneys and J ew 
 brokers, and set in action by shameless women 
 of the lowest condition, by keepers of hotels, 
 taverns, and brothels, by pert apprentices, by 
 clerks, shop-boys, hairdressers, fiddlers, and 
 dancers on the stage (who, in such a common- 
 wealth as yours, will in future overbear, as 
 already they have overborne, the sober in- 
 capacity of dull, uninstructed men, of useful 
 but laborious occupations), can ever be put into 
 any shape that must not be both disgraceful 
 and destructive. The whole of this project, 
 even if it were what it pretends to be, and was 
 not in reality the dominion, through that dis- 
 graceful medium, of half-a-dozen, or perhaps 
 fewer, intriguing politicians, is so mean, so low- 
 minded, so stupid a contrivance in point of 
 wisdom, as well as so perfectly detestable for 
 its wickedness, that I must always consider the 
 correctives which might make it in any degree 
 practicable, to be so many new objections to 
 it. 
 
 In that wretched state of things some are 
 afraid that the avithors of your miseries may be 
 led to precipitate their further designs by the 
 hints they may receive from the very arguments 
 used to expose the absurdity of their system, to 
 mark the incongruity of its parts, and its 
 inconsistency with their own principles ; and 
 that your masters may be led to render their 
 schemes more consistent by rendering them 
 more mischievous. Excuse the liberty which 
 your indulgence authorizes me to take when I 
 observe to you that such apprehensions as these 
 would prevent all exertion of our faculties in 
 this great cause of mankind. 
 
 A rash recourse to force is not to be justified 
 in a state of real weakness. Such attempts 
 bring on disgrace ; and, in their failure, dis- 
 countenance and discourage more rational 
 endeavours. But reason is to be hazarded, 
 though it may be perverted by craft and 
 sophistry; for reason can suffer no loss nor 
 shame, nor can it impede any useful plan of 
 future policy. In the unavoidable uncertainty 
 as to the effect which attends on every measure 
 of human prudence, nothing seems a surer 
 antidote to the i)oison of fraud than its detec- 
 tion. It is true the fraud may be swallowed 
 after this discovery, and perhaps even swallowed 
 the more greedily for being a detected fraud. 
 Men sometimes make a point of honour not to 
 be disabused, and they had rather fall into an 
 hundred errors than confess one. But after 
 all, — when neither our principles nor our 
 dispositions, nor perhaps our talents, enable 
 ua to encounter delusion with delusion,— we 
 
 must use our best reason to those that ought 
 to be reasonable creatures, and take our chance 
 for the event. We cannot act on these anom- 
 alies in the minds of men. I do not conceive 
 that the persons who have contrived these 
 things can be made much the better or the 
 worse for anything which can be said to them. 
 They are reason proof. Here and there, some 
 men who were at first carried away by wild 
 good intentions, may be led, when their first 
 fervours are abated, to join in a sober survey 
 of the schemes into which they have been 
 deluded. To those only (and I am sorry to 
 say they are not likely to make a large descrip- 
 tion) we apply with any hope. I may speak 
 it upon an assurance almost aj)proaching to 
 absolute knowledge, that nothing has been 
 done that has not been contrived from the 
 beginning, even before the states had assembled. 
 Nulla nova miki res inopinate surgit.^ They 
 are the same men and the same designs that 
 they were from the first, though varied in 
 their appearance. It was the very same 
 animal that at first crawled about in the shape 
 of a caterpillar that you now see rise into the 
 air and expand its wings to the sun. 
 
 Proceeding, therefore, as we are obliged to, 
 proceed, that is upon an hypothesis that we 
 address rational men, can false political prin- 
 ciples be more effectually exposed than by 
 demonstrating that they lead to consequences 
 directly inconsistent with and subversive of 
 the arrangements grounded upon them? If 
 this kind of demonstration is not permitted, 
 the process of reasoning called deductio ad 
 ahsurdum, which even the severity of geometry 
 does not reject, could not be employed at all 
 in legislative discussions. One of our strongest 
 weapons against folly acting with authority 
 would be lost. 
 
 You know, sir, that even the virtuous efforts 
 of you patriots to prevent the ruin of your 
 country have had this very turn given to 
 them. It has been said here, and in France 
 too, that the reigning usurpers would not have 
 carried their tyranny to such destructive lengths 
 if they had not been stimulated and provoked 
 to it by the acrimony of your opposition. 
 There is a dilemma to which every opposition 
 to successful iniquity must, in the nature of 
 things, be liable. If you lie still, you are 
 considered as an accomplice in the measures in 
 which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, 
 you are accu.sed of provoking irritable power 
 to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party 
 never appears right ; at least it never can 
 possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom 
 to vulgar judgments— success. 
 
 The indulgence of a sort of undefined hope, 
 an obscure confidence, that some lurking 
 
 1 'No new thing rises upon me unexpectedly.'— 
 CicKRO, Tusc, Quoest. 13k. iii. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 413 
 
 remains of virtue, some degree of shame, 
 might exist in the breasts of the oppressors of 
 France, has been among the causes which 
 liave helped to bring on the common ruin of 
 king and people. There is no safety for 
 honest men, but by believing all possible evil 
 of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, 
 decision, and steadiness on that belief. I well 
 remember, at every epocha of this wonder- 
 ful history, in every scene of this tragic busi- 
 ness, that when your sophistic usurpers were 
 laying down mischievous i)rinciples, and even 
 applying them in direct resolutions, it was 
 the fashion to say that they never intended to 
 execute those declarations in theii* rigour. This 
 made men cautious in their opposition, and 
 remiss in early precaution. By holding out 
 this fallacious hope the impostors deluded 
 sometimes one description of men and some- 
 times another, so that no means of resistance 
 were provided against them when they came to 
 execute in cruelty what they had planned in 
 fraud. 
 
 There are cases in which a man would be 
 ashamed not to have been imposed on. There 
 is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, 
 and without which men are often more injured 
 by their own suspicions than they could be by 
 the perfidy of others. But when men whom 
 we kmxo to be wicked impose upon us, we are 
 something worse than dupes. When we know 
 them, their fair pretences become new motives 
 for distrust. There is one case, indeed, in 
 which it would be madness not to give the 
 fullest credit to the most deceitful of men, that 
 is, when they make declarations of hostility 
 against us. 
 
 I find that some persons entertain other 
 hopes, which I confess ai?pear more specious 
 than those by which at first so many were 
 deluded and disarmed. They flatter themselves 
 that the extreme misery brought upon the 
 people by their folly will at last open the eyes 
 of the multitude, if not of their leaders. Much 
 the contrary, I fear. As to the leaders in this 
 system of imposture, you know that cheats and 
 deceivers never can repent. The fraudulent 
 have no resource but in fraud. They have no 
 other goods in their magazine. They have no 
 virtue or wisdom in their minds to which, in a 
 disappointment concerning the profitable effects 
 of fraud and cunning, they can retreat. The 
 wearing out of an old, serves only to put them 
 upon the invention of a new, delusion. Un- 
 luckily, too, the credulity of dupes is as 
 inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. They 
 never give people possession; but they always 
 keep them in hope. Your state doctors do not 
 so much as pretend that any good whatsoever 
 has hitherto been derived from their operations, 
 or that the public has prospered in any one 
 instance under their management. The nation 
 is sick, very sick, by their medicines. But the 
 
 charlatan tells them that what is passed cannot 
 be helped ; they have taken the draught, and 
 they must wait its operation with patience ; 
 that the first effects, indeed, are unpleasant, 
 but that the very sickness is a proof that the 
 dose is of no sluggish operation ; that sickness 
 is inevitable in all constitutional revolutions ; 
 that the body must pass through pain to ease ; 
 that the prescriber is not an empiric who 
 proceeds by vulgar experience, but one who 
 grounds his practice on the sure rules of art, 
 which cannot possibly fail. You have read, 
 sir, the last Manifesto, or Mountebank's Bill, 
 of the National Assembly. You see their 
 presumption in their promises is not lessened 
 by all their failures in the performance. Com- 
 pare this last address of the Assembly, and the 
 present state of your affairs, with the early 
 engagements of that body — engagements which, 
 not content with declaring, they solemnly 
 deposed upon oath, swearing lustily that if 
 they were supported they would make their 
 country glorious and happy ; and then judge 
 whether those who can write such things, or 
 those who can bear to read them, are of them- 
 selves to be brought to any reasonable course of 
 thought or action. 
 
 As to the j)eople at large, when once these 
 miserable sheep have broken the fold, and have 
 got themselves loose, not from the restraint, 
 but from the protection of all the principles 
 of natural authority and legitimate subordina- 
 tion, they become the natural prey of impostors. 
 When they have once tasted of the flattery of 
 knaves, they can no longer endure reason, 
 which appears to them only in the form of 
 censure and reproach. Great distress has 
 never hitherto taught, and whilst the world 
 lasts it never will teach, wise lessons to any 
 l^art of mankind. Men are as much blinded 
 by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of 
 prosperity. Desperate situations produce des- 
 perate counsels and desperate measures. The 
 people of France, almost generally, have been 
 taught to look for other resources than those 
 which can be derived from order, frugality, 
 and industry. They are generally armed, and 
 they are made to expect much from the use of 
 arms. Nihil non arrogaiit armis.^ Besides 
 this, the retrograde order of society has 
 something flattering to the dispositions of 
 mankind. The life of adventurers, gamesters, 
 gipsies, beggars, and robbers is not unpleasant. 
 It requires restraint to keep men from falling 
 into that habit. The shifting tides of fear and 
 hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and 
 escape, the alternate famine and feast of the 
 savage and the thief, after a time, render all 
 course of slow, steady, progressive, imvaried 
 occupation, and the prospect only of a limited 
 
 1 Horace, Ars Poet. 1. 1-22.—' There is nothing 
 they do not rashly ascribe to arms.' 
 
414 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 mediocrity at the end of long labour, to the 
 last degree tame, languid, and insipid. Those 
 who have been once intoxicated with power, 
 and have derived any kind of emolument from 
 it, even though but for one year, never can 
 willingly abandon it. They may be distressed 
 in the midst of all their power, but they will 
 never look to anything but power for their 
 relief. When did distress ever oblige a i^rince 
 to abdicate his authority? And what effect 
 will it have ui)on those who are made to believe 
 themselves a people of princes ? 
 
 The more active and stirring part of the 
 lower orders having got government, and the 
 distribution of plunder, into their hands, they 
 will use its resources in each municipality to 
 foi*m a body of adherents. These rulers, and 
 their adherents, will be strong enough to 
 overpower the discontents of those who have 
 not been able to assert their share of the spoil. 
 The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating 
 lottery of plunder will probably be the least 
 sagacious or the most inactive and irresolute of 
 the gang. If, on disappointment, they should 
 dare to stir, they will soon be suppressed as 
 rebels and mutineers by their brother rebels. 
 Scantily fed for awhile with the offal of 
 plunder, they will drop off by degrees ; they 
 will be driven out of the fight, and out of 
 thought ; and they will be left to perish 
 obscurely, like rats, in holes and corners. 
 
 From the forced repentance of invalid 
 mvitineers and disbanded thieves, you can 
 hope for no resource. Government itself, 
 which ought to constrain the more bold and 
 dexterous of these robbers, is their accomplice. 
 Its arms, its treasures, its all, are in their 
 hands. Judicature, which above all things 
 should awe them, is their creature and their 
 instrument. Nothing seems to me to render 
 your internal situation more desperate than 
 this one circumstance of the state of your 
 judicature. Many days are not passed since 
 v/e have seen a set of men brought forth by 
 your rulers for a most critical function. Your 
 rulers brought forth a set of men, steaming 
 from the sweat and drudgery, and all black 
 with the smoke and soot of the forge of con- 
 fiscation and robbery — ardentis massce fuligine 
 Uppos;^ a set of men brought forth from the 
 trade of hamm.ering arms of j)roof, offensive 
 and defensive, in aid of the enterprises, and 
 for the subsequent protection of housebreakers, 
 murderers, traitors, malefactors ; men who 
 had their minds seasoned with theories per- 
 fectly conformable to their practice, and- who 
 had always laughed at possession and ijrescrip- 
 tion, and defied all the fundamental maxims of 
 jurisprudence. To the horror and stupefaction 
 of all the honest part of this nation, and, 
 
 1 Juvenal, x. 130.— ' Half blind with the smoke of 
 the burning mass.' 
 
 indeed, of all nations who are spectators, -we 
 have seen, on the credit of those very practices 
 and principles, and to carry them further into i 
 effect, these very men placed on the sacred' 
 seat of justice in the capital city of your late 
 kingdom. We see that in future you are to 
 be destroyed with more form and regularity. 
 This is not peace ; it is only the introduction i 
 of a sort of discipline in their hostility. Their 
 tyranny is complete in their justice ; and 
 their lantern is not half so dreadful as their 
 court. 
 
 One would think that out of common decency 
 they would have given you men who had not 
 been in the habit of trampling upon law and 
 justice in the Assembly ; neutral men, or men 
 apparently neutral, for judges, who arc to 
 dispose of your lives and fortunes. 
 
 Cromwell, when he attempted to legalize his' 
 power, and to settle his conquered country in, 
 a state of order, did not look for his dispensers 
 of justice in the instruments of his usurpation.' 
 Quite the contrary. He sought out with great ' 
 solicitude and selection, and even from the 
 party most opposite to his designs, men of' 
 weight and decorum of character; men un- 
 stained with the violence of the times, and 
 with hands not fouled with confiscation and 
 sacrilege ; for he chose an Hales for his chief 
 justice, though he absolutely refused to take 
 his civic oaths, or to make any acknowledgment 
 whatsoever of the legality of his government. : 
 Cromwell told this great lawyer that, since he 
 did not approve his title, all he required of him , 
 was to administer, in a ma:iner agreeable to 
 his pure sentiments and unspotted character, 
 that justice without which human society 
 cannot subsist ; that it was not his particular 
 government, but civil order itself, which as a 
 judge he wished him to sui)i)ort. Cromwell 
 knew how to separate the institutions expedient 
 to his usurpation from the administration of the 
 public justice of his countiy. For Cromwell 
 was a man in whom ambition had not wholly 
 suppressed, but only suspended, the sentiments 
 of religion, and the love (as far as could consist 
 with his designs) of fair and honourable reputa- 
 tion. Accordingly, we are indebted to this act 
 of his for the preservation of our laws, which 
 some senseless assertors of the rights of men 
 were then on the iDoint of entirely erasing as 
 relics of feudality and barbarism. Besides, he 
 gave in the appointment of that man to that 
 age, and to all posterity, the most brilliant 
 example of sincere and fervent piety, exact 
 justice, and profound jurisprudence. But 
 these are not the things in which your philo- 
 sophic usurpers choose to follow Cromwell. ' 
 
 One would think that after an honest and 
 necessary revolution (if they had a mind that 
 theirs should pass for such), your masters would 
 have imitated the virtuous policy of those who 
 have been at the head of revolutions of that, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 glorious character. Burnet tells us that nothing 
 tended to reconcile the English nation to the 
 government of King William so much as the 
 care he took to fill the vacant bishoprics with 
 men who had attracted the public esteem by 
 their learning, eloquence, and piety, and above 
 all, by their known moderation in the State. 
 With you, in your purifying Revolution, whom 
 have you chosen to regulate the Church ? IMr. 
 Mirabeau is a fine speaker — and a fine writer 
 — and a fine — a very fine man ; — but really 
 nothing gave more surprise to everybody here 
 than to find him the supreme head of your 
 ecclesiastical afi'airs. The rest is of course. 
 Your Assembly addresses a manifesto to France 
 in which they tell the peoi)le, with an insulting 
 irony, that they have brought the Church to 
 its primitive condition. In one respect their 
 declaration is undoubtedly true, for they have 
 brought it to a state of poverty and persecution. 
 What can be hoped^ for after this ? Have not 
 men (if they deserve the name), under this new 
 hope and head of the Church, been made bishops 
 for no other merit than having acted as instru- 
 ments of atheists ; for no other merit than 
 having thrown the children's bread to dogs ; 
 and in order to gorge the whole gang of usurers, 
 pedlars, and itinerant Jew discounters at the 
 corners of 'streets, starved the poor of their 
 Christian flocks, and their own brother pastors? 
 Have not such men been made bishops to 
 administer in temples in which (if t]ie patriotic 
 donations have not already stri^iped them of 
 their vessels) the churchwardens ought to take 
 security for the altar plate, and not so much as 
 to trust the chalice in their sacrilegious hands, 
 so long as Jews have assign ats on ecclesiastic 
 plunder to exchange for the silver stolen from 
 churches ? 
 
 I am told that the very sons of such Jew- 
 jobbers have been made bishops ; persons not to 
 be suspected of any sort of Christian supersti- 
 tion, fit colleagues to the holy prelate of Autun, 
 and bred at the feet of that Gamaliel. We 
 know who it was that drove the money-changers 
 out of the temple. We see, too, who it is that 
 brings them in again. We have in London very 
 respectable persons of the Jewish nation whom 
 we will keep ; but we have of the same tribe 
 others of a very different description — house- 
 breakers, and receivers of stolen 'goods, and 
 forgers of paper currency, more than we can 
 conveniently hang. These we can spare to 
 France to fill the new episcopal thrones ; men 
 well versed in swearing, and who will scruj)le 
 no oath which the fertile genius of any of your 
 reformers can devise. 
 
 In matters so ridiculous it is hard to be grave. 
 On a view of their consequences it is almost 
 inhuman to treat them lightly. To what a 
 state of savage, stupid, servile insensibility 
 must your people be reduced who can endure 
 auch proceedings in their Church, their State, 
 
 and their judicature, even for a moment. But 
 the delvided peoi:)le of France are like other 
 madmen, who, to a miracle, bear hunger, and 
 thirst, and cold, and confinement, and the 
 chains and lash of their keeper, whilst all the 
 while they support themselves by the imagina- 
 tion that they are generals of armies, j)rophets, 
 kings, and emperors. As to a change of mind 
 in these men, who consider infamy as honour, 
 degradation as preferment, bondage to low 
 tyrants as liberty, and the practical scorn and 
 contumely of their upstart masters as marks of 
 resjDect and homage, I look upon it as absolutely 
 impracticable. These madmen, to be cured, 
 must first, like other madmen, be subdued. 
 The sound part of the comanunity, which I 
 believe to be large, but by no means the largest 
 part, has been taken by surprise, and is dis- 
 jointed, terrified, and disarmed. That sound 
 part of the community must first be put into a 
 better condition before it can do anything in 
 the way of deliberation or persuasion. This 
 must be an act of power as well as of wisdom ; 
 of power, in the hands of firm, determined 
 l>atriots who can distinguish the misled from 
 traitors, who will regulate the State (if such 
 should be their fortune) with a discriminating, 
 manly, and j^rovident mercy ; men who are 
 purged of the surfeit and indigestion of systems, 
 if ever they have been admitted into the habit 
 of their minds ; men who will lay the founda- 
 tion of a real reform in effacing every vestige of 
 that philosophy which i)retends to have made 
 discoveries in the terra australis of morality ; 
 men who will fix the State upon these bases of 
 morals and i^olitics, which are our old, and 
 immemorial, and, I hope, will be our eternal 
 possession. 
 
 This power to such men must come from 
 without. It may be given to you in pity, for 
 surely no nation ever called so pathetically on 
 the compassion of all its neighbours. It may 
 be given by those neighbours on motives of 
 safety to themselves. Never shall I think any 
 country in Europe to be secure, whilst there is 
 established in the very centre of it a State (if 
 so it may be called) founded on j)rinciples of 
 anarchy, and which is in reality a college of 
 armed fanatics for the jDropagation of the 
 principles of assassination, robbery, rebellion, 
 fraud, faction, oppression, and impiety. Ma- 
 hornet, hid, as for a time he was, in the bottom 
 of the sands of Arabia, had his spirit and 
 character been discovered, would have been an 
 object of precaution to provident minds, A^T^iat 
 if he had erected his fanatic standard for the 
 destruction of the Christian religion in luce 
 Asia',^ in the midst of the noon-day splendour 
 of the then civilised world? The princes of 
 Europe in the beginning of this century did well 
 
 I'ln the light of Asia.'— Cicero to his brother 
 Quinctus, Ep. 1. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 not to suffer the monarchy of France to swallow 
 up the others. They ought not now, in my 
 opinion, to suffer all the monarchies and 
 commonwealths to be swallowed up in the gulf 
 of this polluted anarchy. They may be tolerably 
 safe at present because the comparative power 
 of France for the present is little. But times 
 and occasions make dangers. Intestine troubles 
 may arise in other countries. There is a power 
 always on the watch, qualified and disposed to 
 profit of every conjuncture, to establish its own 
 principles and modes of mischief, wherever it 
 can hope for success. What mercy would these 
 usurpers have on other sovereigns and on other 
 nations when they treat their own king with 
 such unparalleled indignities, and so cruelly 
 oppress their own countrymen ? 
 
 The King of Prussia, in concurrence with us, 
 nobly interfered to save Holland from con- 
 fusion. The same power, joined with the 
 rescued Holland and with Great Britain, has 
 put the Emi)eror in the possession of the 
 Netherlands, and secured under that prince, 
 from all arbitrary innovation, the ancient 
 hereditary constitution of those provinces. The 
 Chamber of Wetzlar has restored the Bishop of 
 Liege, unjustly dispossessed by the rebellion of 
 his subjects. The King of Prussia was bound 
 by no treaty nor alliance of blood, nor had any 
 particular reasons for thinking the Emperor's 
 government would be more mischievous or 
 more oppressive to human nature than that of 
 the Turk ; yet on mere motives of policy that 
 prince has interposed with the threat of all 
 his force to snatch even the Turk from the 
 pounces of the imperial eagle. If this is done 
 in favour of a barbarous nation with a barbarous 
 neglect of police fatal to the human race ; in 
 favour of a nation by principle in eternal 
 enmity with the Christian name : a nation 
 which will not so much as give the salutation of 
 l^eace (Salem) to any of us, nor make any pact 
 with any Christian nation beyond a truce ; — if 
 this be done in favour of the Turk, shall it be 
 thought either impolitic, or unjust, or un- 
 charitable to emjiloy the same power to rescue 
 from captivity a virtuous monarch (by the 
 courtesy of Europe considered as Most 
 Christian) who, after an intermission of 175 
 years, had called together the states of his 
 kingdom to reform abuses, to establish a free 
 government, and to strengthen his throne ; 
 a monarch who, at the very outset, without 
 force, even without solicitation, had given to 
 his people such a Magna Charta of privileges as 
 never was given by any king to any subjects ? — 
 Is it to be tamely borne by kings who love their 
 subjects, or by subjects who love their kings, 
 that this monarch, in the midst of these gracious 
 acts, was insolently and cruelly torn from his 
 palace by a gang of traitors and assassins, and 
 kept in close prison to this very hour, whilst 
 Ills royal name and sacred character were used 
 
 for the total ruin of those whom the laws had 
 appointed him to protect ? 
 
 The only offence of this unhappy monarch 
 towards his people was his attempt under a 
 monarchy to give them a free constitution. 
 For this, by an example hitherto unheard of 
 in the world, he has been deposed. It might 
 well disgrace sovereigns to take part with a 
 deposed tyrant. It would suppose in them a 
 vicious sympathy. But not to make a common 
 cause with a just prince, dethroned by traitors 
 and rebels, who pi'oscribe, plunder, confiscate, 
 and in every way cruelly oppress their fellow- 
 citizens, in my opinion is to forget what is 
 due to the honour and to the rights of all 
 virtuous and legal government. I think the 
 King of France to be as much an object both 
 of policy and compassion as the Grand Seignor 
 or his states. I do not conceive that the total 
 annihilation of France (if that could be effected) 
 is a desirable thing to Euroiie or even to this 
 its rival nation. Provident patriots did not 
 think it good for Kome that even Carthage 
 should be quite destroyed ; and he was a wise 
 Greek, wise for the general Grecian interests, 
 as well as a brave Lacedemonian enemy and 
 generous conqueror, who did not wish, by the 
 destruction of Athens, to pluck out the other 
 eye of Greece. 
 
 However, sir, what I have here said of the 
 interference of foreign princes is only the 
 opinion of a private individual, who is neither 
 the representative of any state nor the organ 
 of any party, but who thinks himself bound to 
 express his own sentiments with freedom and 
 energy in a crisis of such importance to the 
 whole human race. 
 
 I am not apprehensive that in speaking freely 
 on the subject of the king and queen of France 
 I shall accelerate (as you fear) the execution of 
 traitorous designs against them. You are of 
 opinion, sir, that the usurpers may, and that 
 they will, gladly lay hold of any pretext to 
 throw off the very name of a king ; — assuredly 
 I do not wish ill to your king ; — but better for 
 him not to live (he does not reign), than to live 
 the passive instrument of tyranny and usurpa- 
 tion. 
 
 I certainly meant to show, to the best of my 
 power, that the existence of such an executive 
 officer in such a system of republic as theirs, is 
 absurd in the highest degree. But in demon- 
 strating this, to them, at least, I can have 
 made no discovery. They only held out the 
 royal name to catch those Frenchmen to whom 
 the name of king is still venerable. They 
 calculate the duration of that sentiment ; and 
 when they find it nearly expiring, they will not 
 trouble themselves with excuses for extinguish- 
 ing the name, as they have the thing. They 
 used it as a sort of navel-string to nourish their 
 unnatural offspring from the bowels of royalty 
 itself. Now that the monster can purvey for 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 its own subsistence, it will only carry the mark 
 about it as a token of its having torn the womb 
 it came from. Tyrants seldom want pretexts. 
 Fraud is the ready minister of injustice; and 
 whilst the currency of false pretence and 
 sophistic reasoning was expedient to their 
 designs, they were under no necessity of 
 drawing upon me to furnish them with that 
 coin. But pretexts and sophisms have had 
 their day, and have done their work. The 
 usuriDation no longer seeks plausibility. It 
 trusts to power. 
 
 Nothing that I can say, or that you can say, 
 will hasten them by a single hour in the 
 execution of a design which they have long 
 since entertained. In spite of their solemn 
 declarations, their soothing addresses, and the 
 multiplied oaths which they have taken, and 
 forced others to take, they will assassinate the 
 king when his name will no longer be necessary 
 to their designs ; but not a moment sooner. 
 They will probably first assassinate the qixeen, 
 whenever the renewed menace of such an 
 assassination loses its effect upon the anxious 
 mind of an affectionate husband. At present, 
 the advantage which they derive from the 
 daily threats against her life is her only 
 security for preserving it. They keep their 
 sovereign alive for the purpose of exhibiting 
 him, like some wild beast at a fair ; as if they 
 had a Bajazet in a cage. They choose to make 
 monarchy contemptible by exposing it to derision 
 in the person of the most benevolent of their 
 kings. 
 
 In my opinion, their insolence appears more 
 odious even than their crimes. The horrors of 
 the 5th and 6th of October were less detestable 
 than the festival of the 14th of July. There 
 are situations (God forbid I should think that 
 of the 5th and 6th of October one of them ! ) in 
 which the best men may be confounded with 
 the worst ; and in the darkness and confusion, 
 in the press and medley of such extremities, it 
 may not be so easy to discriminate the one from 
 the other. The necessities created, even by 
 ill designs, have their excuse. They may be 
 forgotten by others when the guilty themselves 
 \ do not choose to cherish their recollection, and 
 j by ruminating their offences, nourish themselves 
 j through the example of their past to the 
 perpetration of future crimes. It is in the 
 relaxation of security, it is in the expansion of 
 prosperity, it is in the hour of dilatation of the 
 I heart, and of its softening into festivity and 
 I pleasure, that the real character of men is 
 |i discerned. If there is any good in them, it 
 I appears then or never. Even wolves and 
 \ tigers, when gorged with their prey, are safe 
 >i and gentle. It is at such times that noble 
 ^j minds give all the reins to their good-nature, 
 j They indulge their genius even to intemperance, 
 in kindness to the afflicted, in generosity to the 
 1 conquered ; forbearing insults, forgiving injuries, 
 
 overpaying benefits. Full of dignity themselves, 
 they respect dignity in all, but they feel it sacred 
 in the unhappy. But it is then, and basking in 
 the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, 
 sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with 
 their hoarded poisons ; it is then that they 
 display their odious splendour, and shine out 
 in the full lustre of their native villainy and 
 baseness. It is in that season that no man of 
 sense or honour can be mistaken for one of 
 them. It was in such a season — for them of 
 political ease and security, though their people 
 were but just emerged from actual famine, and 
 were ready to be plunged into a gulf of penury 
 and beggary — that your philosophic lords chose, 
 with an ostentatious pomp and luxury, to feast 
 an incredible number of idle and thoughtless 
 people, collected with art and pains from all 
 quarters of the world. They constructed a 
 vast amphitheatre in which they raised a species 
 of pillory. On this pillory they set their lawful 
 king and queen, with an insulting figure over 
 their heads. There they exposed these objects 
 of pity and respect to all good minds, to the 
 derision of an unthinking and unprincipled 
 multitude, degenerated even from the versatile 
 tenderness which marks the irregular and cap 
 ricious feelings of the populace. That their 
 cruel insult might have nothing wanting to 
 complete it, they chose the anniversary of that 
 day in which they exposed the life of their 
 j)rince to the most imminent dangers, and the 
 vilest indignities, just following the instant 
 when the assassins, whom they had hired with- 
 out owning, first openly took up arms against 
 their king, coiTupted his guards, surprised his 
 castle, butchered some of the poor invalids of 
 his garrison, murdered his governor, and, like 
 wild beasts, tore to pieces the chief magistrate 
 of his capital city, on account of his fidelity to 
 his service. 
 
 Till the justice of the world is awakened, 
 such as these will go on, without admonition 
 and without provocation, to every extremity. 
 Those who have made the exhibition of the 14th 
 of July are capable of every evil. They do not 
 commit crimes for their designs, but they form 
 designs that they may commit crimes. It is 
 not their necessity but their nature that impels 
 them. They are modern philosophers, which 
 when you say of them, you express everything 
 that is ignoble, savage, and hard-hearted. 
 
 Besides the sure tokens which are given by j 
 the spirit of their particular arrangements, j 
 there are some characteristic lineaments in the | 
 general policy of your tumultuous despotism, 
 which, in my opinion, indicate beyond a doubt 
 that no revolution whatsoever in their disposi- 
 tion is to be expected. I mean their scheme of 
 educating the rising generation, the principles 
 which they intend to instil, and the sympathies 
 which they wish to form in the mind, at the 
 season in which it is the most susceptible. 
 
4i8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Instead of forming their young minds to that 
 docility, to that modesty, which are the grace 
 and charm of youth, to an admiration of famous 
 examples, and to an averseness to anything 
 which approaches to pride, petulance, and self- 
 conceit (distempers to which that time of life 
 is of itself sufficiently liable), they artificially 
 foment these evil dispositions, and even form 
 them into springs of action. Nothing ought to 
 be more weighed than the nature of books 
 recommended by imblic authority. So recom- 
 mended, they soon form the character of the 
 age. Uncertain, indeed, is the efficacy ; limited, 
 indeed, is the extent of a virtuous institution. 
 But if education takes in vice as any part of its 
 system, there is no doubt but that it will 
 operate with abundant energy, and to an extent 
 indefinite. The magistrate who, in favour of 
 freedom, thinks himself obliged to suffer all 
 sorts of publications, is under a stricter duty 
 than any other, well to consider what sort of 
 writers he shall authorize, and shall recommend 
 by the strongest of all sanctions — that is, by 
 public honours and rewards. He ought to be 
 cautious how he recommends authors of mixed 
 or ambiguous morality. He ought to be fearful 
 of putting into the hands of youth writers 
 indulgent to the peculiarities of their own com- 
 plexion, lest they should teach the humours of 
 the professor rather than the principles of the 
 science. He ought, above all, to be cautious in 
 recommending any writer who has carried 
 marks of a deranged understanding ; for where 
 there is no sound reason, there can be no real 
 virtue ; and madness is ever vicious and 
 malignant. 
 
 The National Assembly proceeds on maxims 
 the very reverse of these. The Assembly 
 recommends to its youth a study of the bold 
 experimenters in morality. Everybody knows 
 that there is a great dispute amongst their 
 leaders, which of them is the best resemblance 
 to Eousseau. In truth, they all resemble him. 
 His blood they transfuse into their minds and 
 into their manners. Him they study, him 
 they meditate, him they turn over in all the 
 time they can spare from the laborious mischief 
 of the day, or the debauches of the night. 
 Rousseau is their canon of holy writ ; in his 
 life he is their canon of Polycletus; he is their 
 standard figure of perfection. To this man and 
 this writer, as a pattern to authors and to 
 Frenchmen, the foundries of Paris are now 
 running for statues, with the kettles of their 
 poor and the bells of their churches. If an 
 author had written like a great genius on 
 geometry, though his practical and speculative 
 morals were vicious in the extreme, it might 
 appear that in voting the statue, they honoured 
 only the geometrician. But Rousseau is a 
 moralist or he is nothing. It is impossible, 
 therefore, putting the circumstances together, 
 to mistake their desire in choosing the author, 
 
 with whom they have begun to recommend a 
 course of studies. 
 
 Their great problem is to find a substitute for 
 all the principles which hitherto have been 
 employed to regulate the human will and action. 
 They find dispositions in the mind of such 
 force and quality as may fit men, far better 
 than the old morality, for the purposes of such 
 a state as theirs, and may go much farther in 
 supporting their power and destroying their 
 enemies. They have, therefore, chosen a selfish, 
 flattering, seductive, ostentatious vice in the 
 place of plain duty. True humility, the basis 
 of the Christian system, is the low, but deep 
 and firm, foundation of all real virtue. But 
 this, as very painful in the practice and little 
 imposing in the appearance, they have totally 
 discarded. Their object is to merge all natural 
 and all social sentiment in inordinate vanity. 
 In a small degree, and conversant in little 
 things, vanity is of little moment. When full 
 groAvn it is the worst of vices, and the occasional 
 mimic of them all. It makes the whole man 
 false. It leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy 
 about him. His best qualities are jsoisoned 
 and perverted by it, and operate exactly as the 
 worst. "When your lords had many writers as 
 immoral as the object of their statue (such as 
 Voltaire and others) they chose Rousseau ; 
 because in him that peculiar vice which they 
 wished to erect into a ruling virtue was by far 
 the most conspicuous. 
 
 We have had the great professor and founder 
 of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I 
 had good opportunities of knowing his pro- 
 ceedings almost from day to day, he left no 
 doubt in my mind that he entertained no 
 principle either to influence his heart, or to 
 guide his understanding, but vanity. With , 
 this vice he was possessed to a degree little 
 short of madness. It is from the same deranged 
 eccentric vanity, that this, the insane Socrates 
 of the National Assembly, was impelled to 
 publish a mad confession of his mad faults, and 
 to attempt a new sort of glory, from bringing 
 hardily to light the obscure and vulgar vices \ 
 which we know may sometimes be blended 
 with eminent talents. He has not observed on 
 the nature of vanity, who does not know that it 
 is omnivorous ; that it has no choice in its 
 food ; that it is fond to talk even of its own 
 faults and vices, as what will excite surprise 
 and draw attention, and what will pass at 
 worst for openness and candour. It was this 
 abuse and perversion which vanity makes even 
 of hypocrisy which has driven Rousseau to 
 record a life not so much as chequered, or 
 spotted here and there with vu'tues, or even i 
 distinguished by a single good action. It is 
 such a life he chooses to offer to the attention 
 of mankind. It is such a life that with a wild 
 defiance he flings in the face of his Creator, 
 Avhom he acknowledges only to brave. Your 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Assembly, knowing how much more powerful 
 example is found than precept, has chosen this 
 man (by his own account without a single 
 virtue) for a model. To him they erect their 
 first statue. From him they commence their 
 series of honours and distinctions. 
 
 It is that new-invented virtue which your 
 masters canonize that led their moral hero 
 constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful 
 rhetoric in the expression of universal bene- 
 volence; whilst his heart was incapable of 
 harbouring one spark of common parental 
 affection. Benevolence to the whole species, 
 and want of feeling for every individual with 
 whom the professors come in contact, form the 
 character of the new philosophy. Setting up 
 for an unsocial independence, this their hero 
 of vanity refuses the just price of common 
 labour, as well as the tribute which opulence 
 owes to genius, and which^ when paid, honours 
 the giver and the receiver ; and then he pleads 
 his beggary as an excuse for his crimes. He 
 melts with tenderness for those only who touch 
 him by the remotest relation, and then, without 
 one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of offal 
 and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful 
 amours, and sends his children to the hospital 
 of foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms 
 her young, but bears are not philosophers. 
 Vanity, however, finds its account in reversing 
 the train of our natural feelings. Thousands 
 admire the sentimental writer ; the affectionate 
 father is hardly known in his parish. 
 
 Under this philosophic instructor in the ethics 
 of vanity they have attempted in France a 
 regeneration of the moral constitution of man. 
 Statesmen, like your present rulers, exist by 
 everything which is spurious, fictitious, and 
 false ; by everything which takes the man from 
 his house and sets him on a stage, which makes 
 him up an artificial creature, with painted 
 theatric sentiments, fit to be seen by the glare 
 of candle-light, and formed to be contemplated 
 at a due distance. Vanity is too apt to prevail 
 in all of us and in all countries. To the im- 
 provement of Frenchmen it seems n9t absolutely 
 necessary that it should be taught upon system. 
 But it is xdain that the present rebellion was 
 its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by 
 that rebellion with a daily dole. 
 
 If the system of institution, recommended by 
 the Assembly, is false and theatric, it is because 
 their system of government is of the same 
 character. To that, and to that alone, it is 
 strictly conformable. To understand either 
 we must connect the morals with the politics 
 of the legislators. Your practical philosophers, 
 systematic in everything, have wisely begun at 
 the source. As the relation between parents 
 and children is the first among the elements of 
 vulgar, natural morality, they erect statues to 
 a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-hearted 
 father, of fine general feelings j a lover of his 
 
 419 
 
 kind, but a hater of his kindred. Your masters 
 reject the duties of this vulgar relation as 
 contrary to liberty; as not founded in the 
 social compact ; and not binding according to 
 the rights of men ; because the relation is not, 
 of course, the result of free election ; never so 
 on the side of the children, not always on the 
 part of the parents. 
 
 The next relation which they regenerate by 
 their statues to Rousseau, is that which is next 
 in sanctity to that of a father. They differ 
 from those old-fashioned thinkers, who con- 
 sidered pedagogues as sober and venerable 
 characters, and allied to the parental. The 
 moralists of the dark times, preceptorem sancti 
 voluere parentis esse loco.^ In this age of light 
 they teach the people that preceptors ought to 
 be in the place of gallants. They systematically 
 corrupt a very corruptible race (for some time 
 a growing nuisance amongst you), a set of pert, 
 petulant literators, to whom, instead of their 
 proper but severe unostentatious duties, they 
 assign the brilliant part of men of wit and 
 pleasure, of gay young military sparks, and 
 danglers at toilets. They call on the rising 
 i generation in France to take a sympathy in 
 the adventures and fortunes, and they endea- 
 vour to engage their sensibility on the side of 
 pedagogues who betray the most awful family 
 trusts, and vitiate their female pupils. They 
 teach the people that the debauchers of virgins, 
 almost in the arms of their parents, may be 
 safe inmates in their house, and even fit 
 guardians of the honour of those husbands who 
 succeed legally to the office which the young 
 literators had preoccupied, without asking 
 leave of law or conscience. 
 
 Thus they dispose of all the family relations 
 of parents and children, husbands and wives. 
 Through this same instructor, by whom they 
 corrupt the morals, they corrupt the taste. 
 Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned 
 only among the smaller and secondary morals, 
 yet are of no mean importance in the regulation 
 of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn 
 vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue 
 with something like the blandishments of 
 pleasure ; and it infinitely abates the evils of 
 vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and 
 vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any 
 sense of the word. Your masters, who are his 
 scholars, conceive that all refinement has an 
 aristocratic character. The last age had ex- 
 hausted all its powers in giving a grace and 
 nobleness to our natural appetites, and in 
 raising them into higher class and order than 
 seemed justly to belong to them. Through 
 Rousseau your masters are resolved to destroy 
 these aristocratic prejudices. The passion 
 called love has so general and powerful an 
 
 1 'Wished the teacher to be in the place of the 
 sacred parent.'— Juvenal, vii. 209. 
 
420 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 influence, it makes so much of the entertain- 
 ment, and indeed so much the occupation, of 
 that part of life which decides the character 
 for ever, that the mode and the principles on 
 which it engages the sympathy, and strikes 
 the imagination, become of the utmost import- 
 ance to the morals and manners of every society. 
 Your rulers were well aware of this, and in 
 their system of changing your manners to 
 accommodate them to their politics they found 
 nothing so convenient as Rousseau. Through 
 him they teach men to love after the fashion 
 of philosophers ; that is, they teach to men, 
 to Frenchmen, a love without gallantry — a 
 love without anything of that fine flower of 
 youthfulness and gentility which places it, if 
 not among the virtues, among the ornaments 
 of life. Instead of this passion, naturally allied 
 to grace and manners, they infuse into their 
 youth an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, 
 ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness, of 
 metaphysical speculations blended with the 
 coarsest sensuality. Such is the general 
 morality of the passions to be found in their 
 famous philosopher, in his famous work of 
 philosophic gallantry, the Nouvelle Eloise. 
 
 "When the fence from the gallantry of pre- 
 ceptors is broken down, and your families are 
 no longer protected by decent i^ride and salutary 
 domestic prejudice, there is but one step to a 
 frightful corruption. The rulers in the National 
 Assembly are in good hopes that the females 
 of the first families in France may become an 
 easy jirey to dancing-masters, fiddlers, pattern- 
 drawers, friseurs, and valets de chambre, and 
 other active citizens of that description, who, 
 having the entry into your houses, and being 
 half-domesticated by their situation, may be 
 blended with you by regular and irregular 
 relations. By a law they have made these 
 people your equals. By adopting the senti- 
 ments of Rousseau they have made them your 
 rivals. In this manner these great legislators 
 complete their plan of levelling, and establish 
 their rights of men on a sure foundation. 
 
 I am certain that the writings of Rousseau 
 lead directly to this kind of shameful evil. I 
 have often wondered how he comes to be so 
 much more admired and followed on the Con- 
 tinent than he is here. Perhaps a secret charm 
 in the language may have its share in this 
 extraordinary difference. We certainly per- 
 ceive, and to a degree we feel, in this writer, 
 a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic, at the 
 same time that we find it lax, diffuse, and 
 not in the best taste of composition ; all the 
 members of the piece being pretty equally 
 laboured and expanded, without any due selec- 
 tion or subordination of parts. He is generally 
 too much on the stretch, and his manner has 
 little variety. We cannot rest upon any of 
 his works, though they contain observations 
 which occasionally discover a considerable 
 
 insight into human nature. But his doctrines, 
 on the whole, are so inapplicable to real life 
 and manners, that we never dream of drawing 
 from them any rule for laws or conduct, or for 
 fortifying or illustrating anything by a reference 
 to his opinions. They have with us the fate of 
 older paradoxes, 
 ' Cum ventum ad verum est sensus Moresque repugnant, 
 Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et aequi.' i 
 Perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable, 
 because more new to you than to us, who have 
 been long since satiated with them. We con- 
 tinue, as in the two last ages, to read more 
 generally, than I believe is now done on the 
 Continent, the authors of sound antiquity. 
 These occupy our minds. They give us another 
 taste and turn, and will not suffer us to be 
 more than transiently amused with paradoxical 
 morality. It is not that I consider this writer 
 as wholly destitute of just notions. Amongst 
 his irregularities it must be reckoned that he is 
 sometimes moral, and moral in a very sublime 
 strain. But the general spirit and tendency of 
 his works is mischievous, and the more mis- 
 chievous for this mixture : For perfect depravity 
 of sentiment is not reconcilable with eloquence ; 
 and the mind (though corruptible, not com- 
 plexionally vicious) would reject and throw off 
 with disgust a lesson of pure and unmixed evil. 
 These writers make even virtue a pander to vice. 
 
 However, I less consider the author than the 
 system of the Assembly in perverting morality 
 through his means. This I confess makes me 
 despair of any attempt upon the minds of their 
 followers through reason, honour, or conscience. 
 The great object of your tyrants is to destroy 
 the gentlemen of France ; and for that purpose 
 they destroy, to the best of their power, all the 
 effect of those relations which may render 
 considerable men powerful or even safe. To 
 destroy that order, they vitiate the whole 
 community. That no means may exist of 
 confederating against their tyranny, by the 
 false sympathies of this JVouvelle Eloise, they 
 endeavour to subvert those jirinciples of domes- 
 tic trust and fidelity which form the discipline 
 of social life. They propagate principles by 
 which every servant may think it, if not his 
 duty, at least his privilege, to betray his 
 master. By those principles every considerable 
 father of a family loses the sanctuary of his 
 house. Debet sua cuique domus esse perfugiiim 
 tutissimum,'^ says the law, which your legislators 
 have taken so much pains first to decry, then 
 to repeal. They destroy all the tranquillity and 
 security of domestic life, turning the asylum 
 
 1 Horace, Sat. I. iii. 97, 98. In Creech's transla- 
 tion :— 
 
 ' Wlien leaving Sophistry, they come to th' Test, - 
 This Fancy doth with Law and Cust( m figh", 
 And Interest too, that spring of Just ana Uight,' 
 
 2 ' His own house ought to be to every man the 
 .safest shelter.' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 421 
 
 of the house into a gloomy prison, where the 
 father of the family must drag out a miserable 
 existence, endangered in proportion to the 
 apparent means of his safety ; where he is 
 worse than solitary in a crowd of domestics, 
 and more api^rehensive from his servants and 
 inmates than from the hired bloodthirsty mob 
 without doors, who are ready to pull hirn to 
 the lantern. 
 
 It is thus, and for the same end, that they 
 endeavour to destroy that tribunal of conscience 
 which exists independently of edicts and decrees. 
 Your despots govern by terror. They know that 
 he who fears God fears nothing else, and there- 
 fore they eradicate from the mind, through 
 their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of 
 that infamous gang, that only sort of fear 
 which generates true courage. Their object is 
 that their fellow-citizens may be under the 
 dominion of no awe but that of their committee 
 of research and of their lantern. 
 
 Having found the advantage of assassination 
 in the formation of their tyranny, it is the 
 grand resource in which they trust for the 
 support of it. Whoever opposes any of their 
 proceedings, or is suspected of a design to 
 oppose them, is to answer it with his life or 
 the lives of his wife and children. This in- 
 famous, cruel, and cowardly practice of assassi- 
 nation they have the impu.dence to call merciful. 
 They boast that they have operated their 
 usurpation rather by terror than by force, and 
 that a few seasonable murders have prevented 
 the bloodshed of many battles. There is no 
 doubt they will extend these acts of mercy 
 whenever they see an occasion. Dreadful, 
 however, will be the consequences of their 
 attempt to avoid the evils of war by the 
 merciful policy of murder. If by effectual 
 punishment of the guilty they do not wholly 
 disavow that practice, and the threat of it, 
 too, as any part of their policy, if ever a 
 foreign prince enters into France, he must 
 enter it as into a country of assassins. The 
 mode of civilised war will not be practised ; 
 nor are the French who act on the present 
 system entitled to expect it. They whose 
 knoAvn policy it is to assassinate every citizen 
 whom they suspect to be discontented by their 
 tyranny, and to corrupt the soldiery of every 
 open enemy, must look for no modified hostility. 
 All war which is not battle, will be military 
 execution. This will beget acts of retaliation 
 from you ; and every retaliation will beget a 
 new revenge. The hell-hounds of war, on all 
 sides, will be uncoupled and unmuzzled. The 
 new school of murder and barbarism, set up 
 in Paris, having destroyed (so far as in it lies) 
 aU the other manners and princijiles which 
 have hitherto civilised Europe, will destroy 
 also the mode of civilised war, which, more than 
 anything else, has distinguished the Christian 
 world. Such is the approaching golden age 
 
 which the Virgil of your Assembly has sung to 
 his PoUios ! 
 
 In such a situation of your political, your 
 civil, and your social morals and manners, how 
 can yoii be hurt by the freedom of any discus- 
 sion ? Caution is for those who have something 
 to lose. Wliat I have said to justify myself in 
 not apprehending any ill consequence from a 
 free discussion of the absurd consequences which 
 flow from the relation of the lawful king to the 
 usurped constitution, will apjjly to ray vindica- 
 tion with regard to the exposure I have made 
 of the state of the army under the same 
 sophistic usurpation. The present tyrants want 
 no arguments to prove, what they must daily 
 feel, that no good army can exist on their 
 principles. They are in no want of a monitor 
 to suggest to them the policy of getting rid of 
 the army, as well as of the king, whenever 
 they are in a condition to effect that measure. 
 What hopes may be entertained of your army 
 for the restoration of your liberties, I know not. 
 At present, yielding obedience to the pretended 
 orders of a king, who, they are perfectly 
 apprised, has no Avill, and who never can 
 issue a mandate which is not intended in the 
 first operation, or in its certain consequences, 
 for his own destruction, your army seems to 
 make one of the principal links in the chain of 
 that servitude of anarchy by which a cruel 
 usurpation holds an undone people at once in 
 bondage and confusion. 
 
 You ask me what I think of the conduct of 
 General Monk. How this affects your case I 
 cannot tell. I doubt whether you possess in 
 France any persons of a capacity to serve the 
 French monarchy in the same manner in which 
 Monk served the monarchy of England. The 
 army which Monk commanded had been formed 
 by Cromwell to a perfection of discipline which 
 perhaps has never been exceeded. That army 
 was besides of an excellent composition. The 
 soldiers were men of an extraordinary piety 
 after their mode, of the greatest regularity, 
 and even severity of manners ; brave in the 
 field, but modest, quiet, and orderly in their 
 quarters ; men who abhorred the idea of 
 assassinating their officers or any other persons, 
 and who (they at least who served in this island) 
 were firmly attached to those generals, by whom 
 they were well treated and ably commanded. 
 Such an army, once gained, might be depended 
 on. I doubt much, if you could now find a 
 Monk, whether a Monk could find in France 
 such an army. 
 
 I certainly agree with you, that in all proba- 
 bility we oAve our whole constitution to the 
 restoration of the English monarchy. The 
 state of things from which Monk relieved 
 England was, however, by no means at that 
 time so deplorable in any sense as yours is 
 now, and under the present sway is likely to 
 continue. Cromwell had delivered England 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 422 
 
 from anarchy. His government, thougli mili- 
 tary and despotic, had been regular and orderly. 
 Under the iron and vinder the yoke the soil 
 yielded its produce. After his death the evils 
 of anarchy were rather dreaded than felt. 
 Every man was yet safe in his house and in his 
 property. But it must be admitted that Monk 
 freed this nation from great and just apprehen- 
 sions both of future anarchy and of j)robable 
 tyranny in some form or other. The king 
 whom he gave us was indeed the very reverse 
 of your benignant sovereign, who in reward for 
 his attempt to bestow liberty on his subjects, 
 languishes himself in prison. The person 
 given to us by Monk was a man without any 
 sense of his duty as a j)rince ; without any 
 regard to the dignity of his crown ; without 
 any love to his people ; dissolute, false, venal, 
 and destitute of any positive good quality 
 whatsoever, except a pleasant temper and the 
 manners of a gentleman. Yet the restoration 
 of our monarchy, even in the liei'son of such 
 a prince, was everything to us ; for without 
 monarchy in England, most certainly we never 
 can enjoy either peace or liberty. It was under 
 this conviction that the very first regular step 
 which we took on the Eevolution of 1688 was 
 to fill the throne with a real king ; and even 
 before it could be done in due form, the chiefs 
 of the nation did not attemj)t themselves to 
 exercise authority so much as by interim. 
 They instantly requested the Prince of Orange 
 to take the government on himself. The throne 
 was not effectively vacant for an hour. 
 
 Your fundamental laws, as well as ours, 
 suppose a monarchy. Your zeal, sir, in stand- 
 ing so firmly for it as you have done, shows, 
 not only a sacred resjDect for your honour and 
 fidelity, but a well-informed attachment to the 
 real welfare and true liberties of your country. 
 I have expressed myself ill if I have given you 
 cause to imagine that I prefer the conduct of 
 those who have retired from this warfare to 
 your behaviour, who, with a courage and con- 
 stancy almost supernatural, have struggled 
 against tyranny, and kept the field to the last. 
 You see I have corrected the exceptionable 
 part in the edition which I now send you. 
 Indeed, in such terrible extremities as yours, 
 it is not easy to say, in a political view, what 
 line of conduct is the most advisable. In that 
 state of things I cannot bring myself severely 
 to condenm jiersons who are wholly unable to 
 bear so much as the sight of those men in the 
 throne of legislation who are only fit to be 
 the objects of criminal justice. If fatigue, if 
 disgust, if unsurmountable nausea drive them 
 away with such spectacles, ubi miserarium 
 pars non mjjnima crat, videre et asjnci,^ I can- 
 
 1 ' Where it was not the least parL of the miseries 
 to see and to be seen.'— Tacitus (of life under Donii- 
 tian), Agric. 45. 
 
 not blame them. He must have a heart of 
 adamant who could hear a set of traitors, puffed 
 up with unexpected and undeserved power, 
 obtained by an ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious 
 rebellion, treating their honest fellow-citizens 
 as rebels, because they refused to bind them- 
 selves through their conscience against the 
 dictates of conscience itself, and had declined 
 to swear an active compliance with their own 
 ruin. How could a man of common flesh and 
 blood endure that those who but the other day 
 had skulked unobserved in their antechambers, 
 scornfully insulting men illustrious in their 
 rank, sacred in their function, and venerable 
 in their character, now in decline of life, and 
 swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes, that 
 those miscreants should tell such men scornfully 
 and outrageously, after they had robbed them 
 of all their property, that it is more than 
 enough if they are allowed what will keep 
 them from absolute famine, and that for the 
 rest they must let their grey hairs fall over 
 the plough to make out a scanty subsistence' 
 with the labour of their hands ! Last, and 
 worst, who could endure to hear this unnatural, 
 insolent, and savage despotism called liberty? 
 If, at this distance, sitting quietly by my fire, 
 I cannot read their decrees and speeches with- 
 out indignation, shall I condemn those who 
 have fled fi'om the actual sight and hearing of 
 all these horrors ? No, no ! mankind has no 
 title to demand that we should be slaves to 
 their guilt and insolence ; or that we should 
 serve them in spite of themselves. Minds, 
 sore with the poignant sense of insulted virtue, 
 filled with high disdain against the pride of 
 triumphant baseness, often have it not in their 
 choice to stand their ground. Their complexion 
 (which might defy the rack) cannot go through 
 such a trial. Something very high must fortify 
 men to that proof. But, when I am driven to 
 comparison, surely I cannot hesitate for a 
 moment to prefer to such men as are common, 
 those heroes who, in the midst of despair, 
 perform all the tasks of hope ; who subdue 
 their feelings to their duties ; who, in the 
 cause of humanity, liberty, and honour, aban- 
 don all the satisfactions of life, and every day 
 incur a fresh risk of life itself. Do me the 
 justice to believe that I never can prefer any 
 fastidious virtue (virtue still) to the unconquered 
 perseverance, to the affectionate patience of 
 those who watch day and night by the bedside 
 of their delirious country ; who, for their love 
 to that dear and venerable name, bear all the 
 disgusts and all the buffets they receive from 
 their frantic mother. Sir, I do look on you as 
 true martyrs ; I regard you as soldiers who act 
 far more in the spirit of ovir Commander-in- 
 chief, and the Captain of our salvation, than 
 those who have left you, though I must first 
 bolt myself very thoroughly, and know that I 
 could do better before I can censure them. I 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 assure you, sir, that when I consider your 
 unconquerable fidelity to your sovereign and 
 to your country, the courage, fortitude, magna- 
 nimity, and long-suffering of yourself, and the 
 Abbe Maury, and of Mr. Cazales, and of many 
 worthy persons of all orders, in your Assembly, 
 I forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, 
 that on your side has been displayed an elo- 
 quence so rational, manly, and convincing, that 
 no time or country, perhaps, has ever excelled. 
 But your talents disappear in my admiration of 
 your virtues. 
 
 As to Mr, INIounier and INIr. Lally, I have 
 always wished to do justice to their parts, and 
 their eloquence, and the general purity of their 
 motives. Indeed I saw very well from the 
 beginning the mischiefs which, with all these 
 talents and good intentions, they would do to 
 their country through their confidence in 
 systems. But their distemper was an epidemic 
 malady. They were young and inexperienced, 
 and when will young and inexperienced men 
 learn caution and distrust of themselves ? And 
 when will men, young or old, if suddenly raised 
 to far higher power than that which absolute 
 kings and emperors commonly enjoy, learn any- 
 thing like moderation? Monarchs in general 
 respect some settled order of things, which 
 they find it difficult to remove from its basis, 
 and to which they are obliged to conform even 
 when there are no positive limitations to their 
 power. These gentlemen conceived that they 
 were chosen to new model the State, and even 
 the whole order of civil society itself. No 
 wonder that they entertained dangerous visions 
 when the king's ministers, trustees for the 
 sacred deposit of the monarchy, were so in- 
 fected with the contagion of project and system 
 (I can hardly think it black, premeditated 
 treachery) that they publicly advertised for 
 plans and schemes of government, as if they 
 were to provide for the re-building of an 
 hospital that had been burned down. What 
 was this but to unchain the fury of rash 
 speculation amongst a people of itself but too 
 apt to be guided by a heated imagination spirit 
 of adventure ? The fault of Mr. Mounier and 
 Mr. Lally was very great, but it was very 
 general. If those gentlemen stopped when 
 they came to the brink of the gulf of guilt 
 and public misery, that yawned before them 
 in the abyss of these dark and bottomless 
 speculations, I forgive their first error, in 
 that they were involved with many. Their 
 repentance was their own. 
 
 They who consider Mounier and Lally as 
 deserters must regard themselves as murderers 
 and as traitors ; for from what else than 
 murder and treason did they desert ? For my 
 part, I honour them for not having carried 
 mistake into crime. If, indeed, I thought that 
 they were not cured by experience, that they 
 Were not made sensible that those who would 
 
 reform a State ought to assume some actual 
 constitution of government which is to be 
 reformed ; if they are not at length satisfied 
 that it is become a necessary preliminary to 
 liberty in France, to commence by the re- 
 establishment of order and property of every 
 kind, through the re-establishment of their 
 monarchy, of every one of the old habitual 
 distinctions and classes of the State ; if they 
 do not see that these classes are not to be 
 confounded in order to be afterwards revived 
 and separated ; if they are not convinced that 
 the scheme of parochial and club governments 
 takes uj) the State at the wrong end, and is a 
 low and senseless contrivance (as making the 
 sole constitution of a supreme power), I should 
 then allow that their early rashness ought to ! 
 be remembered to the last moment of their 
 lives. 
 
 You gently reprehend me, because in holding 
 out the picture of your disastrous situation, 
 I suggest no jdan for a remedy. Alas ! sir, 
 the proposition of plans without an attention 
 to circumstances, is the very cause of all your 
 misfortunes ; and never shall you find me 
 aggravating by the infusion of any speculations 
 of mine, the evils which have arisen from the 
 speculations of others. Your malady, in this 
 respect, is a disorder of repletion. You seem 
 to think that my keeping back my poor ideas 
 may arise from an indifference to the welfare 
 of a sovereign, and sometimes a hostile nation. 
 No, sir, I faithfully assure you, my reserve is 
 owing to no such causes. Is this letter, swelled 
 to a second book, a mark of national antipathy, 
 or even of natural indifference ? I should act 
 altogether in the spirit of the same caution in 
 a similar state of our own domestic affairs. If 
 I were to venture any advice in any case, it 
 would be my best. The sacred duty of an 
 adviser (one of the most inviolable that exists) 
 would lead me towards a real enemy to act as 
 if my best friend were the party concerned. 
 But I dare not risk a speculation with no better 
 view of your affairs than at present I can com- 
 mand ; my caution is not from disregard, but 
 from solicitude for your welfare. It is suggested 
 solely from my dread of becoming the author of 
 inconsiderate counsel. 
 
 It is not, that as this strange series of actions 
 has passed before my eyes, I have not indulged 
 my mind in a great variety of jiolitical specula- 
 tions concerning them. But compelled by no 
 such positive duty as does not permit me to 
 evade an opinion ; called ujion by no ruling 
 power, without authority, as I am, and without 
 confidence, I should ill answer my own ideas 
 of what would become myself, or what would 
 be serviceable to others, if I were, as a volun- 
 teer, to obtrude any project of mine upon a 
 nation to whose circumstances I could not be 
 sure it might be applicable. 
 
 Permit me to say, that if I were as confident 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 as I ought to be diffident in my own loose, 
 general ideas, I never should venture to broach 
 them, if but at twenty leagues distance from 
 the centre of your affairs. I must see with 
 my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with 
 my own hands, not only the fixed, but the 
 momentary circumstances, before I could ven- 
 ture to suggest any political project whatsoever. 
 I must know the power and disposition to accept, 
 to execute, to persevere. I must see all the 
 aids and all the obstacles. I must see the 
 means of correcting the plan where correctives 
 would be wanted. I must see the things ; I 
 must see the men. Without a concurrence 
 and adaptation of these to the design, the 
 very best speculative projects might become 
 not only useless but mischievous. Plans must 
 be made for men. We cannot think of making 
 men and binding nature to our designs. People 
 at a distance must judge ill of men. They do 
 not always answer to their reputation when you 
 aj)proach them. Nay, the perspective varies, 
 and shows them quite otherwise than you 
 thought them. At a distance, if we judge 
 uncertainly of men, we miist judge worse of 
 opportimities, which continually vary their 
 shapes and colours and pass away like clouds. 
 The Eastern politicians never do anything 
 without the opinion of the astrologers on the 
 fortunate moment. They are in the right, if 
 they can do no better; for the opinion of 
 fortune is something towards commanding it. 
 Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look 
 for the fortunate moment too, but they seek 
 it, not in the conjunctions and oppositions of 
 planets, but in the conjunctions and opposi- 
 tions of men and things. These form their 
 almanack. 
 
 To illvistrate the mischief of a wise plan 
 without any attention to means and circum- 
 stances, it is not necessary to go farther than 
 to your recent history. In the condition in 
 which France was found three years, ago what 
 better system could be proposed, what less 
 even savouring of wild theory, what fitter to 
 provide for all the exigencies whilst it reformed 
 all the abuses of government, than the conven- 
 tion of the States General? I think nothing 
 better could be imagined. But I have censured, 
 and do still presume to censure your Parliament 
 of Paris for not having suggested to the king 
 that this proper measure was of all measures 
 the most critical and arduous ; one in which 
 the utmost ciixumspection and the greatest 
 number of precautions were the most absolutely 
 necessary. The very confession that a govern- 
 ment wants either amendment in its conforma- 
 tion, or relief to great distress, causes it to lose 
 half its reputation, and as great a proportion 
 of its strength as depends upon that reputation. 
 It was therefore necessary first to put govern- 
 ment out of danger, whilst at its own desire it 
 Butfered such an operation as a general reform 
 
 at the hands of those who were much more 
 filled with a sense of the disease than provided 
 with rational means of a cure. 
 
 It may be said that this care and these 
 precautions were more naturally the duty of 
 the king's ministers than that of the Parlia- 
 ment. They were so ; but every man must 
 answer in his estimation for the advice he 
 gives when he puts the conduct of his measure 
 into hands who he does not know will execute 
 his plans according to his ideas. Three or four 
 ministers were not to be trusted with the being 
 of the French monarchy, of all the orders, and 
 of all the distinctions, and all the property of 
 the kingdom. AVhat must be the prudence of 
 those who could think, in the then known 
 temper of the people of Paris, of assemb- 
 ling the states at a place situated at Ver- 
 sailles? 
 
 The Parliament of Paris did worse than to 
 inspire this blind confidence into the king. 
 For, as if names were things, they took no 
 notice of (indeed, they rather countenanced) 
 the deviations which were manifest in the 
 execution, from the true ancient principles of 
 the plan which they recommended. These 
 deviations (as guardians of the ancient laws, 
 usages, and constitution of the kingdom) the 
 Parliament of Paris ought not to have suffered 
 without the strongest remonstrances to the 
 throne. It ought to have sounded the alarm 
 to the whole nation, as it had often done on 
 things of infinitely less importance. Under 
 pretence of resuscitating the ancient constitu- 
 tion, the Parliament saw one of the strongest 
 acts of innovation, and the most leading in 
 its consequences, carried into effect before their 
 eyes ; and an innovation through the medium 
 of despotism — that is, they suffered the king's 
 ministers to new model the whole representation 
 of the Tiers Mat, and, in a great measure, that 
 of the clergy too, and to destroy the ancient 
 proportions of the orders. These changes un- 
 questionably the king had no right to make ; 
 and here the Parliaments failed in their duty, 
 and, along with their country, have perished 
 by this failure. 
 
 What a number of faults have led to this 
 multitude of misfortunes, and almost all from 
 this one source, that of considering certain 
 general maxims without attending to circum- 
 stances, to times, to places, to conjunctures, and 
 to actors ! If we do not attend scrup\ilously 
 to all these, the medicine of to-day becomes 
 the poison of to-morrow. If any measure was 
 in the abstract better than another, it was to 
 call the states — ea visa salus morientibus ttna.'^ 
 Certainly it had the appearance. But see the 
 consequences of not attending to critical 
 moments, of not regarding the symiitoms which 
 
 1 'Tliat seemed the only way of health to the 
 dying.' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 425 
 
 discriminate diseases, and which distinguish 
 constitutions, complexions, and humours. 
 
 — ' Mox fuerat hoc ipsum exitio ; furiisque refecti, 
 Ardebant ; ipsique sues, jam morte sub segra, 
 Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus.' 
 
 Thus the potion which was given to strengthen 
 the constitution, to heal divisions, and to 
 compose the minds of men, became the source 
 of debility, frenzy, discord, and utter dissolution. 
 
 In this, perhaps, I have answered, I think, 
 another of your questions — "Whether the British 
 constitution is adapted to your circumstances ? 
 When ! praised the British constitution, and 
 wished it to be well studied, I did not mean 
 that its exterior form and positive arrangement 
 should become a model for you, or for any 
 people servilely to copy. I meant to recom- 
 mend the principles from which it has grown, 
 and the policy on which it has-been progressively 
 improved out of elements common to you and 
 to us. I am sure it is no visionary theory of 
 mine. It is not an advice that subjects you to 
 the hazard of any experiment. I believe the 
 ancient principles to be wise in all cases of a 
 large empire that would be free. I thought 
 you possessed our principles in your old forms 
 in as great a perfection as we did originally. 
 If your states agreed (as I think they did) with 
 your circumstances, they were best for you. 
 As you had a constitution formed upon prin- 
 ciples similar to ours, my idea was, that you 
 might have improved them as we have done, 
 conforming them to the state and exigencies of 
 the times, and the condition of property in 
 your country, having the conservation of that 
 property, and the substantial basis of your 
 monarchy, as principal objects of all your 
 reforms. 
 
 I do not advise a House of Lords to you. 
 Your ancient course by representatives of the 
 noblesse (in your circumstances) appears to me 
 rather a better institution. I know that with 
 you a set of men of rank have betrayed their 
 constituents, their honour, their trust, their 
 king, and their country, and levelled them- 
 selves with their footmen, that through this 
 degradation they might afterwards put them- 
 selves above their natural equals. Some of 
 these persons have entertained a project that, 
 in reward of this their black perfidy and cor- 
 ruption, they may be chosen to give rise to a 
 new order and to establish themselves into a 
 House of Lords. Do you think that, under the 
 name of a British constitution, I mean to 
 recommend to you such lords made of such 
 kind of stuff? I do not, however, include in 
 this description all of those who are fond of 
 this scheme. 
 
 If you were now to form such a House of Peers, 
 it would bear, in my opinion, but little resem- 
 blance to ours in its origin, character, or the 
 purposes which it might answer, at the same 
 
 time that it would destroy your true natural 
 nobility. But if you are not in a condition to 
 frame a House of Lords, still less are you 
 capable, in my opinion, of framing anything 
 which virtually and substantially could be 
 answerable (for the purposes of a stable, regular 
 government) to our House of Commons. That 
 House is within itself a much more subtle and 
 artificial combination of parts and powers than 
 people are generally aware of. What knits it 
 to the other members of the constitution, what 
 fits it to be at once the great support and the 
 great control of government, what makes it of 
 such admirable service to that monarchy which, 
 if it limits, it secures and strengthens, would 
 require a long discourse belonging to the leisure 
 of a contemplative man, not to one whose 
 duty it is to join in communicating practically 
 to the people the blessings of such a constitution. 
 
 Your Tiers Etat was not in effect and sub- 
 stance a House of Commons. You stood in 
 absolute need of something else to supply the 
 manifest defects in such a body as your Tiers 
 Etat. On a sober and dispassionate view of 
 your old constitution, as connected with all 
 the present circumstances, I was fully per- 
 suaded that the crown, standing as things 
 have stood (and are likely to stand if you are 
 to have any monarchy at all), was and is 
 incapable, alone and by itself, of holding a just 
 balance between the two orders, and at the 
 same time of effecting the interior and exterior 
 purposes of a i^rotecting government. I, whose 
 leading principle it is in a reformation of the 
 State to make use of existing materials, am of 
 opinion that the representation of the clergy, 
 as a separate order, was an institution which 
 touched all the orders more nearly than any of 
 them touched the other ; that it was well fitted 
 to connect them, and to hold a place in any 
 wise monarchical commonwealth. If I refer 
 you to your original constitution, and think it, 
 as I do, substantially a good one, I do not 
 amuse you in this more than in other things 
 with any inventions of mine. A certain in- 
 temperance of intellect is the disease of the 
 time, and the source of all its other diseases. 
 I will keep myself as untainted by it as I can. 
 Your architects build without a foundation, 
 I would readily lend a helj)ing hand to any 
 superstructure, when once this is effectually 
 secured — but first I would say los -xov <rai. 
 
 You think, sir, and you may think rightly, 
 upon the first view of the theory, that to 
 provide for the exigencies of an empire so 
 situated and so related as that of France, its 
 king ought to be invested with powers very 
 much superior to those which the king of 
 England possesses under the letter of our 
 constitution. Every degree of power necessary 
 to the State, and not destructive to the rational 
 and moral freedom of individuals, to that 
 personal liberty and jjersonal security which 
 
426 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 contribute so much to the vigour, the pro- 
 sperity, the happiness, and the dignity of a 
 nation — every degree of power which does not 
 su.ppose the total absence of all control and all 
 responsibility on the part of ministers — a king 
 of France, in common sense, ought to possess. 
 But whether the exact measure of authority 
 assigned by the letter of the law to the king of 
 Great Britain can answer to the exterior or 
 interior purposes of the French monarchy, is 
 a point which I cannot venture to judge upon. 
 Here, both in the power given and its limita- 
 tions, we have always cautiously felt our way. 
 The parts of our constitution have gradually 
 and almost insensibly, in a long course of time, 
 accommodated themselves to each other, and 
 to their common, as well as to their separate, 
 purposes. But this adaptation of contending 
 parts, as it has not been in ours, so it can 
 never be in yours, or in any country, the effect 
 of a single instantaneous regulation, and no 
 sound heads could ever think of doing it in 
 that manner. 
 
 I believe, sir, that many on the Continent 
 altogether mistake the condition of a king of 
 Great Britain. He is a real king, and not an 
 executive ofScer. If he will not trouble him- 
 self with contemptible details, nor wish to 
 degrade himself by becoming a party in little 
 squabbles, I am far from sure that a king of 
 Great Britain, in whatever concerns him as a 
 king, or, indeed, as a rational man, who com- 
 bines his iDublic interest with his personal 
 satisfaction, does not possess a more real, solid, 
 extensive power than the king of France was 
 l)ossessed of before this miserable revolution. 
 The direct power of the king of England is 
 considerable. His indirect, and far more 
 certain power, is great indeed. He stands in 
 need of nothing towards dignity, of nothing 
 towards splendou.r, of nothing towards author- 
 ity, of nothing at all towards consideration 
 abroad. When was it that a king of England 
 wanted wherewithal to make him respected, 
 courted, or perhaps even feared in every State 
 in Europe ? 
 
 I am constantly of opinion that your states, 
 in three orders, on the footing on which they 
 stood in 1614, were capable of being brought 
 into a proper and harmonious combination with 
 royal authority. This constitution by Estates 
 was the natural and only just representation of 
 France. It grew out of the habitual conditions, 
 relations, and recii)rocal claims of men. It grew 
 out of the circumstances of the country, and out 
 of the state of property. The wretclied scheme 
 of your present masters is not to fit the consti- 
 tution to the people, but wholly to destroy 
 conditions, to dissolve relations, to change the 
 state of the nation, and to subvert poverty, in 
 order to fit their country to their theory of a 
 constitution. 
 
 Until you could make out practically that 
 
 great work, a combination of opposing forces, 
 'a work of labour long, and endless praise,' 
 the utmost caution ought to have been used 
 in the reduction of the royal power, which alone 
 was capable of holding together the compara- 
 tively heterogeneous mass of your states. But 
 at this day all these considerations are unsea- 
 sonable. To what end should we discuss the 
 limitations of royal power? Your king is in 
 prison. Why speculate on the measure and 
 standard of liberty ? I doubt much, very much 
 indeed, whether France is at all ripe for liberty 
 on any standard. Men are qualified for civil 
 liberty in exact proportion to their disposition 
 to put moral chains upon their own appetites ; 
 in proportion as their love to justice is above 
 their rapacity ; in proportion as their soundness 
 and sobriety of understanding is above their 
 vanity and presumption ; in proportion as they 
 are more disposed to listen to the counsels of 
 the wise and good in preference to the flattery 
 of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a con- 
 trolling power upon will and appetite be placed 
 somewhere, and the less of it there is within, 
 the more there must be mthout. It is ordained 
 in the eternal constitution of things that men 
 of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their 
 j)assions forge their fetters. 
 
 This sentence the prevalent part of your 
 countrymen execute on themselves. They 
 possessed not long since what Avas next to 
 freedom, a mild, paternal monarchy. They 
 despised it for its weakness. They were offered 
 a well-poised free constitution. It did not suit 
 their taste or their temper. They carved for 
 themselves ; they flew out, murdered, robbed, 
 and rebelled. They have succeeded, and put 
 over their country an insolent tyranny, made 
 up of cruel and inexorable masters, and that 
 too of a description hitherto not known in the 
 world. The powers and policies by which they 
 have succeeded are not those of great statesmen 
 or great military commanders, but the pi-ac- 
 ticcs of incendiaries, assassins, housebreakers, 
 robbers, si)readers of false news, forgers of false 
 orders from authority, and other delinquencies 
 of which ordinary justice takes cognisance. 
 Accordingly the spirit of their rule is exactly 
 correspondent to the means by which they 
 obtained it. They act more in the manner of 
 thieves who have got possession of a house than 
 of conquerors who have subdued a nation. 
 
 Opposed to these in appearance, but in 
 a])pearance only, is another band who call 
 themselves the moderate. These, if I conceive 
 rightly of their conduct, are a set of men who 
 approve heartily of tlic whole new constitution, 
 but wish to lay heavy on the most atrocious of 
 those crimes by which this fine constitution of 
 theirs has been obtained. They are a sort of 
 people who affect to proceed as if they thought 
 that men may deceive without fraud, rob 
 without injustice, and overturn everything 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 A27 
 
 without violence. They are men who would 
 usurp the government of their country with 
 decency and moderation. In fact, they are 
 nothing more or better than men engaged in 
 desperate designs with feeble minds. They 
 are not honest, they are only ineffectual and 
 unsystematic in their iniquity. They are per- 
 sons who want not the dispositions, but the 
 energy and vigour that is necessary for great 
 evil machinations. They find that in such 
 designs they fall at best into a secondary rank, 
 and others take the place and lead in usuri)a- 
 tion, which they are not qualified to obtain or 
 to hold. They envy to their companions the 
 natural fruit of their crimes ; they join to run 
 them down with the hue and cry of m.ankind, 
 which pursues their common offences, and then 
 hope to mount into their places on the credit 
 of the sobriety with which they show them- 
 selves disposed to carry on what may seem 
 most plausible in the mischievous projects they 
 pursue in common. But these men naturally 
 are despised by those who have heads to know 
 and hearts that are able to go through the 
 necessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. 
 They are naturally classed below the latter 
 description, and will be used by them as inferior 
 instruments. They will be only the Fairfaxes 
 of your Cromwells. If they mean honestly, 
 why do they not strengthen the arms of honest 
 men, to support their ancient, legal, wise, and 
 free government, given to them in the spring 
 of 1788, against the inventions of craft, and 
 the theories of ignorance and folly? If they 
 do not, they must continue the scorn of both 
 parties ; sometimes the tool, sometimes the 
 incumbrance of that whose views they ap- 
 prove, whose conduct they decry. These 
 people are only made to be the sports of 
 tyrants. They never can obtain or communi- 
 cate freedom. 
 
 You ask me, too, whether we have a com- 
 mittee of research. No, sir ; God forbid ! It 
 is the necessary instrument of tyranny and 
 usurpation ; and, therefore, I do not wonder 
 that it has had an early establishment under 
 your present lords. We do not want it. 
 
 Excuse my length. I have been somewhat 
 occupied since I was honoured with yowv letter ; 
 and I should not have been able to answer it 
 at all but for the holidays, which have given me 
 means of enjoying the leisure of the country, 
 I am called to duties which I am neither able 
 nor willing to evade, I must soon return to 
 my old conflict with the corruptions and 
 oppressions which have prevailed in our Eastern 
 dominions. I must turn myself wholly from 
 those of France, 
 
 In England we cannot work so hard as 
 Frenchmen. Frequent relaxation is necessary 
 to us. You are naturally more intense in your 
 application. I did not know this part of your 
 national character, until I went into France in 
 
 1773. At present this your disposition to 
 labour is rather increased than lessened. In 
 your Assembly you do not allow yourself a 
 recess even on Sundays. We have two days in 
 the week, besides the festivals; and besides 
 five or six months of the summer and axitumn. 
 This continued unremitted effort of the members 
 of your Assembly I take to be one among the 
 causes of the mischief they have done. They 
 who always labour can have no true judgment. 
 You never give yourselves time to cool. You 
 can never survey from its proper point of sight 
 the work you have finished before you decree 
 its final execution. You can never plan the 
 future by the past. You never go into the 
 country soberly and dispassionately to observe 
 the effect of your measures on their objects. 
 You cannot feel distinctly how far the people 
 are rendered better and improved, or more 
 miserable and depraved, by what you have 
 done. You cannot see with your OAvn eyes the 
 sufferings and afflictions you cause. You know 
 them but at a distance, on the statements of 
 those who always flatter the reigning i)ower, 
 and who, amidst their representations of the 
 grievances, inflame your minds against those 
 who are oppressed. These are amongst the 
 effects of unremitted labour, when men exhaust 
 their attention, burn out their candles, and are 
 left in the dark. — Malo meoruin negligentiam, 
 quam istorum obscuram diligentiam^ I have 
 the honour, etc., 
 
 (Signed) Edmto'D Bukke. 
 Beaconsfield, January/ 19, 1791. 
 
 [No person has written of Beattie with a 
 
 I 
 
 1 ' I prefer the negligence of my own people to the 
 Ignoble diligence of these fellows.'— Terence, Andria, 
 Prol. 21. 
 
 sincerer interest, or with a fresher glow of 
 sympathy, than Cowper. In a letter to 
 his friend Mr. Unwin, he says, 'Beattie, 
 the most agreeable and amiable man I ever 
 met with ; the only author I have seen, 
 whose critical and philosophical researches 
 are diversified and embellished by a poetical 
 imagination that makes even the driest 
 subjects and the leanest a feast for an 
 epicure in books. He is so much at his 
 ease, too, that his character appears in 
 every page ; and, which is very rare, we 
 see, not only the writer, but the man ; and 
 that man so gentle, so well-tempered, so 
 happy in his religion, and so humane in his 
 philosophy, that it is necessary to love him, 
 if one has any sense of what is lovely.' 
 This is, indeed, a very beautiful portrait, 
 
428 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 which could have been painted only by one 
 of similar taste and disposition. He who 
 delights in the Ta&k, will be equally at- 
 tached to the Minstrel; for both poems 
 speak to the heart, and all its tenderest 
 affections. Cowper, musing along the lanes 
 of Weston, might well recall the young 
 enthusiast sitting among the tombs of 
 Laurencekirk, or waiting upon the uplands 
 for the dawn of day. The exquisite picture 
 which Beattie gives of himself in the 
 Minstrel, has all the life and beauty of 
 Cowper — 
 
 ' And oft he traced the uplands, to survey, 
 When o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, 
 The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain gi'ey, 
 And lake, dim gleaming on the smoky lawn. 
 Far to the west the long, long vale withdrawn, 
 Where twilight loves to linger for a while ; 
 And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn, 
 
 And villager abroad at early toil. 
 
 But, lo ! the sun aiipears ! and heaven, earth, 
 ocean, smile.' 
 
 The Minstrel was the favourite com- 
 panion, in his walks, of AVilberforce when 
 a child ; and Southey has noticed the 
 affection existing for Beattie among a 
 certain class, and during a certain period 
 of life ; that class, he says, a high one, 
 and that stage, perhaps, the most delightful 
 in their pilgrimage. Mr. Boyd (we are 
 informed by Sir William Forbes), the 
 second son of the unfortunate Earl of 
 Kilmarnock, was a very accomplished 
 scholar, possessing considerable humour, 
 and writing verses with facility. His 
 friendship and correspondence with Beattie 
 continued till his death, in the August of 
 im.—Willmott.l 
 
 BEATTIE TO THE HON. CHARLES BOYD. 
 
 Aberdeen, November 19, 1766. 
 Of all the chagrins with which my present 
 infirm state of health is attended, none afflicts 
 me more than my inability to perform the 
 duties of friendship. The offer which you were 
 generously pleased to make me of your corre- 
 spondence flatters me extremely ; but, alas ! 
 I have not as yet been able to avail myself of 
 it. While the good weather continued, I 
 strolled about the country, and made many 
 strenuous attempts to run away from tliis 
 odious giddiness ; but the more I struggled, the 
 more closely it seemed to stick by me. About 
 a fortnight ago the huriy of my winter business 
 began ; and, at the same time, my malady 
 recurred with more violence than ever, render- 
 
 ing me at once incapable of reading, writing, 
 and thinking. Luckily, I am now a little better, 
 so as to be able to read a page, and write a 
 sentence or two, without stopping, which, I 
 assure you, is a very great matter. My hopes 
 and my spirits begin to revive once more. I 
 flatter myself I shall even get rid of this in- 
 firmity ; nay, that I shall ere long be in the 
 way of becoming a great man. For, have I 
 not headaches like Pope ? vertigo, like Swift ? 
 grey hau's, like Homer? Do I not wear large 
 shoes (for fear of corns), like Virgil? and some- 
 times complain of sore eyes (though not of 
 lippitude), like Horace? Am I not, at this 
 present writing, invested with a garment not 
 less ragged than that of Socrates ? Like Joseph 
 the patriarch, I am a mighty dreamer of 
 dreams ; like Nimrod the hunter, I am an 
 eminent builder of castles (in the air). I pro- 
 crastinate, like Julius Caesar ; and very lately, 
 in imitation of Don Quixote, I rode a horse, 
 lean, old, and lazy, like Rozinante. Sometimes, 
 like Cicero, I write bad verses ; and sometimes' 
 bad prose, lilce Virgil. This last instance I 
 have on the authority of Seneca. I am of small 
 stature, like Alexander the Great ; I am some- 
 what inclinable to fatness, like Dr. Arbuthnot 
 and Aristotle ; and I drink brandy and water, 
 like Mr. Boyd. I might compare myself, in 
 relation to many other infirmities, to many 
 other great men; but if Fortune is not in- 
 fluenced in my favour by the particulars 
 already enumerated, I shall despair of ever 
 recommending myself to her good graces. I 
 once had some thought of soliciting her patronage 
 on the score of my resembling great men in 
 their good qualities ; but I had so little to say 
 on that subject, that I could not for my life 
 furnish matter for one well-rounded period ; 
 and you know a short, ill-turned speech is very 
 improper to be used in an address to a female 
 deity. 
 
 Do not you think there is a sort of antipathy 
 between philosophical and poetical genius? I 
 question whether any one person was ever 
 eminent for both. Lucretius lays aside the 
 poet when he assumes the philosopher, and the 
 philosopher when he assumes the poet. In the 
 one character he is truly excellent, in the other 
 he is absolutely nonsensical. Hobbes was a 
 tolerable metaphysician, but his poetry is the 
 worst that ever was. Pope's Essai/ on Man is 
 the finest philosophical poem in the world ; but 
 it seems to me to do more honour to the 
 imagination than to the understanding of its 
 author : I mean, its sentiments are noble and 
 affecting, its images and allusions apposite, 
 beautiful, and new ; its wit transcendently 
 excellent ; but the scientific part of it is very 
 exceptionable. Whatever Pope borrows from 
 Leibnitz, like most otlier metaphysical theories, 
 is frivolous and unsatisfying ; what Pope givea 
 us of his own, is energetic, irresistible, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 429 
 
 div-ine. The incompatibility of philosophical 
 and poetical genius is, I think, no unaccount- 
 able thing. Poetry exhibits the general qualities 
 of a species ; philosophy, the particular qualities 
 of individuals. This forms its conclusions from 
 a painful and minute examination of single 
 instances ; that decides instantaneously, either 
 from its own instinctive sagacity, or from a 
 singular and unaccountable penetration, which 
 at one glance sees all the instances where the 
 philosopher must leisurely and progressively 
 scrutinize, one by one. This persuades you 
 gradually, and by detail ; the other overpowers 
 you in an instant by a single effort. Observe 
 the effect of argumentation in poetry ; we have 
 too many instances of it in Milton ; it transforms 
 the noblest thoughts into drawling inferences, 
 and the most beautiful language into prose ; it 
 checks the tide of passion, by giving the mind 
 a different employment, in the comparison of 
 ideas. A little philosophical acquaintance with 
 the most beautiful parts of nature, both in the 
 material and immaterial system, is of use to a 
 poet, and gives grace and solidity to poetry, as 
 may be seen in the Georgics, the Seasons, and 
 the Pleas wes of Tmagitiation : but this ac- 
 quaintance, if it is anything more than super- 
 ficial, will do a poet rather harm than good; 
 and will give his mind that turn for minute 
 observation which enfeebles the fancy, by 
 restraining it, and counteracts the native 
 energy of judgment, by rendering it fearful 
 and suspicious. 
 
 [These ships that Captain Walton thrust into 
 his margin would have furnished matter 
 for some pages in a French relation ; for, 
 from the account they referred to, it 
 appeared that he had taken four Spanish 
 men-of-war— one of sixty guns, commanded 
 by Eear-Admiral Mari, one of fifty-four, one 
 of forty, and one of twenty-four guns, with 
 a bomb- vessel and a ship laden with arms ; 
 and burnt four men-of-war — one of fifty-four 
 guns, two of forty, and one of thirty guns, 
 with a fire ship and a bomb-vessel. Such 
 is the account given of this famous action 
 by our admiral : the Spaniards published 
 likewise an account on their side, which 
 was printed in Holland, and circulated with 
 great industry throughout all Europe, in 
 order to make such impressions as might 
 serve their purpose, and incline the world 
 to believe that their fleet had not been 
 attacked and beaten fairly, but had been 
 surprised and destroyed without that kind 
 
 of notice which the laws of nature and 
 nations require, to distinguish force of 
 arms from im-atical violence. — Campbell's 
 Lives of the BHtish Admirals.} 
 
 CAPTAIN WALTON TO SIR GEORGE BYNG. 
 
 Sir, — ^We have taken and destroyed all the 
 Spanish ships and vessels which were upon the 
 coast, the number as per margin. — I am, etc. 
 
 G. Walton. 
 
 ' Canterbury,^ of Syracusa, 
 Aug. 16, 1718. 
 
 [Mr. Creech was well fitted to adorn society. 
 With a mind highly gifted and improved, 
 he possessed the most pleasing manners, 
 and that habitual cheerfulness and playful- 
 ness of fancy which rendered his company 
 so fascinating. He was an excellent and 
 an elegant scholar ; and although, from the 
 extent of his business as one of the most 
 eminent booksellers of his day, and his 
 many social engagements, he had little 
 leisure to direct his mind to any deliberate 
 literary work, yet the frequent light pieces 
 and essays which came from his pen, 
 evinced the elegance of his taste, his know- 
 ledge of character, and his capability of a 
 higher attainment in composition, had he 
 chosen to aim at it. Several of these 
 essays, we believe, were afterwards col- 
 lected into a small volume, entitled, 
 Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces. Mr, Creech 
 was one of the original founders of the 
 Speculative Society of Edinburgh, It has 
 perhaps fallen to the lot of few men to 
 have enjoyed more than Mr. Creech did 
 the correspondence and confidence of most 
 of the great literary characters who 
 flourished in Scotland from about the 
 middle to the end of the last centuiy. 
 With ; Lord Karnes, Dr. Eobertson, Dr. 
 Blair, Dr. George Campbell, Dr. Adam 
 Smith, Lord Hailes, Lord Woodhouselee, 
 Dr. Beattie, [Robert Burns,] and many other 
 illustrious authors, he was in the habits of 
 constant intimacy; — and of many other 
 eminent men of the same class, whom we 
 still have the happiness to retain among us, 
 Professor Dugald Stewart, Mr. Mackenzie, 
 Lord Meadowbank, Dr. Gregory, etc, hs 
 possessed till his death the warmest friend- 
 ship and esteem. Mr. Creech was the son 
 of a most respectable clergyman, the 
 
430 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 minister of Newbattle. After a very 
 complete classical education, he was, in 
 early life, at different times on the Con- 
 tinent, and succeeded, in the year 1771, to 
 that part of the business of his friend and 
 patron, Mr. Kincaid, at that time his 
 Majesty's j^rinter for Scotland, which was 
 not connected with the patent of King's 
 printer. He continued in this business for 
 the long period of forty-four years, and 
 was concerned in all the principal pub- 
 lications during that time. He was 
 frequently in the magistracy of this city, 
 and was solicited, in the year 1811, to 
 accept the office of Lord Provost, which, 
 we believe, he did with reluctance, and 
 against the advice of his private friends, 
 as, both from his habits and advanced time 
 of life, he felt himself then unsuited for so 
 public a situation. But he yielded to the 
 wishes of his friends in the Town Council. 
 About a year ago, Mr. Creech was seized 
 with an illness, which gradually increased, 
 and has at last proved fatal. In losing 
 him, the city has certainly lost one of its 
 ornaments. But it was not in public so 
 much as in private life that he shone 
 chiefly conspicuous. His conversational 
 talents, whether the subject was gay, or 
 serious, or learned; his universal good- 
 humour and pleasantry ; and his unrivalled 
 talent in desci-ibing to a social party the 
 peculiarities of eccentric character, will be 
 long remembered by the numerous circles 
 to whom his many pleasing qualities so 
 much endeared him, and who now so sin- 
 cerely regret that he is lost to them for ever. 
 — Edinburgh Courant, 19th January 1815.] 
 
 WILLIAM CREECH^ TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 
 •Tempera mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.' 
 Sir,— I have often thought, that it might not 
 
 1 YromEdinbiirgh Fugitive Piecesj-vfitlx Letters, con- 
 taining a Comparative View of the Modes of Living, 
 Arts, Commerce, Literature, Manners, etc. of Edin- 
 burgli, at difl'crcnt Periods. By the late William 
 Creech, Esq., F.R.S., Edinburgh. To which is pre- 
 fixed an Account of his Life. Edinburgh: 1815. 
 In later times we have examplcn of printers and 
 ]iiiblishers who have acted as Lord Provost in 
 Edinburgh; notably Dr. William Chambers, whose 
 name stands associated with the improvement of the 
 overcrowded portions of the Old Town of Edinburgli, 
 and the restoration of St. Giles' Cathedral ; and also 
 8ir Tliomas Jamieson Boyd, who took a leading i>art in 
 founding the new Royal Infirmary. The notes which 
 follow are quoted from Creech's volume. 
 
 only be entertaining, but useful, to remark, 
 from time to time, the vicissitudes in civilised 
 society, and the progress of its manners ; and, 
 by comparing the present with the past, to 
 examine whether, as individuals, or as iieople, 
 we were improving or declining. 
 
 It is frequently difficult to assign a reason for 
 the revolutions which take place in the circum- 
 stances and manners of a country, or to trace 
 the causes that have occasioned a change ; but 
 it is evident that the first step towards 
 investigating the cause is to state the facts. A 
 plan of this kind, frequently repeated, might 
 be of great utility, by leading to cultivation 
 and improvement in some things, and to 
 correction or prohibition in others ; while it 
 would, at the same time, afford a valuable fund 
 of facts for the annalist, the philosopher, and 
 the historian. 
 
 Every person, whose recollection extends but 
 to a few years past, must be sensible of a very 
 striking difference in the external api^earance 
 of Edinburgh, and also in the mode of living, 
 trade, and manners of the people. 
 
 Let us state a comparison, for instance, no 
 farther back than between the year 1763 and 
 the year 1783, and from thence to 1793, and 
 many features of the present time will probably 
 appear prominent and striking, which, in the 
 gradual progress of society, have passed alto- 
 gether unnoticed, or have been but faintly 
 perceived. So remarkable a change is not 
 perhaxjs to be equalled, in so short a period, in 
 any city of Europe ; nor in the same city for two 
 centuries, taking all the alterations together. 
 AVhen the plans at present in contemplation | 
 are completed, Edinburgh will be the most j 
 beautiful and picturesque city in the world. 
 
 In 1763 Edinburgh was almost entirely 
 confined within the city walls. The suburbs 
 were of small extent. Xicolson's Street and 
 Square, Chapel Street, the greater part of 
 Bristo Street, Crichton Street, George's 
 Square,^ Teviot Eow, Buccleuch Sti'eet, St. 
 Patrick's Square, etc. etc. to the south, were 
 fields and orchards. To the north, there was 
 no bridge ; and (till of late) the New Town, 
 with all its elegant and magnificent buildings, 
 squares, rows, courts, etc., extending upwards 
 of a mile in length, and near half a mile in 
 breadth, did not exist." It may with truth be 
 said, that there is not now in Europe a more 
 
 1 What is now George's Square was in 1763 Ross 
 Park. It was purchased for £1200 ; and the ground 
 soon yielded above £1000 per annum to the pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 - The North Bridge was nearly completed in 1769, 
 when one arch, and the abutments to the south, fell 
 suddenly on the 8th of August of that year, and 
 buried nine people in the ruins. Three or four 
 scattered houses were then built in the New Town. 
 It was several years after the bridge was rebuilt 
 before people began to erect houses in the New Town. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 431 
 
 beautiful teiTace than Princes Street, nor a 
 more elegant street than George Street. The 
 views from Queen Street, to the north, exhibit 
 a scene of grandeur and beauty unparalleled in 
 any city. 
 
 It is a moderate calculation to say, that three 
 millions sterling have been expended on 
 building and public imi)rovements in and 
 about the city of Edinburgh since 1763 ; the 
 environs of which cannot be surpassed in views 
 of the sublime, the picturesque, and the 
 beautiful. 
 
 In 1763, people of quality and fashion lived 
 in houses which, in 1783, were inhabited by 
 tradesmen, or by people in humble and ordinary 
 life. The Lord Justice-Clerk Tinwald's house 
 was possessed by a French teacher. Lord Presi- 
 dent Craigie's house by a rouping-wife or 
 saleswoman of old furniture, and Lord 
 Drummore's house was left by a chairman for 
 want of accommodation.^ 
 
 In 1786 a bridge to the south, over the 
 Cowgate Street, was built, and the areas for 
 building shops and houses on the east and west 
 side of it sold higher than perhaps ever was 
 known in any city (even in Eome during the 
 most flourishing times of the republic or the 
 empire), to wit, at the rate of no less than 
 £96,000 per statute acre ; and some areas 
 at the rate of £109,000 per acre :— and in 
 1790, the area at the east end of Milne's 
 Square sold for above £151,000 per acre. 
 
 In March 1792 the ground for nine houses 
 on the north of Charlotte's Square sold for 
 £2480, or £9 per foot in front, besides ££ yearly 
 for every 42 feet in front. 
 
 The foundation-stone of the South Bridge 
 over the street of the Cowgate was laid on the 
 1st of August 1785.2 The bridge, consisting of 
 22 arches, was built — the old houses were 
 removed — elegant new houses on both sides 
 were finished — the shops occupied — and the 
 street opened for carriages in March 1788 — an 
 
 operation of astonishing celerity ! By this 
 
 change, Niddry's, Merlin's, and Peebles' "VVynds 
 (or lanes) were annihilated; and the oldest 
 stone building in Edinburgh was pulled down, 
 wliere Queen Mary lodged the night after the 
 battle of Carberry Hill.^ It was then the house 
 
 1 The house of the Duke of Douglas at the Union 
 is now possessed by a wheel-wright. Oliver Cromwell 
 once lived in the late gloomy chambers of the Sheriff- 
 Clerk. The great Marquis of Argyll's house, in the 
 Castlehill, was possessed by a hosier, at £12 per 
 annum. The house of President Dundas, who died 
 in Dec. 1787, was aftenvards possessed by an iron- 
 monger as his dwelling-house and ware-room. A 
 house inhabited by one of the Lords of Session was 
 afterwards possessed by a tailor, 
 
 2 On digging the foundation, which was no less 
 than 22 feet deep, many coins of Edward I., II., and 
 III. were found. 
 
 3 See an account and plate of this house in the 
 Gentleman's Marjcmne. 
 
 of Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar, Lord 
 Provost of Edinburgh, 1567. 
 
 In 1783 a communication (towards the 
 Castle) between the old and the new city was 
 begun by means of an immense mound of earth, 
 above 800 feet in length, across a deep morass, 
 and made passable for carriages in three years 
 Whilst the mound was forming, it sunk at 
 different periods above 80 feet on the west 
 side, and was again filled Tip. Eighteen 
 hundred cart-loads of earth, from the foun- 
 dations of the houses then digging in the New 
 Town, were (upon an average) laid upon this 
 mound every day. This is a work unrivalled 
 by any but Alexander the Great's at Tyre.^ 
 
 The extent of Edinburgh at present is as 
 follows : — From the west end of Fountain- 
 bridge to the east end of Abbey Hill is above 
 two English miles. From Broughton on the 
 north to the Grange toll-bar on the south, is 
 abou.t two English miles. The circumference, 
 by the report of a gentleman who walked round 
 it with a view to ascertain this point, is, as 
 nearly as he could estimate, seven English 
 miles. 
 
 In 1786 the valued rents of houses in 
 Edinburgh, which pay cess or land-tax, were 
 more than double what they were in 1763, and 
 in 1791 they were more than triple.^ 
 
 In 1763 the revenue of the Post Office of 
 Edinburgh was £11,942 per annum. 
 
 1 The height of this mound, from the surface of th.e 
 ground, wliich was formerly a lake, is at the soutli 
 end 92 feet and at the north end 58 feet. The 
 quantity of earth that appears at present above tiie 
 surface measures 290,167 cubical yards ; and it is 
 moderate to say, that half as much is below the 
 surface. This makes the mound, as it stands at 
 present, 435,250 cubical yards of travelled or carried 
 earth. Then, allowing three cart-loads to each cubical 
 yard of earth, there must be 1,305,750 cart-loads in 
 this mound ! It began by the magistrates accommo- 
 dating the builders in the New Town with a place 
 to lay the rubbish; and this noble and useful 
 communication cost the city only the expense of 
 spreading the earth. Had the city paid for digging 
 and driving the earth, it would have cost them 
 £32,643, 153. sterling, supposing the digging, carting, 
 and driving as low as 6d. per cart-load. 
 
 2 In 1635 the rents within the city were 
 
 £19,211 10 0 
 
 InieSS „ „ „ 24,353 6 8 
 
 In 1751 „ ,, „ 31,497 0 0 
 
 In 1783 „ 54,371 0 0 
 
 In 1786 -the valued rents were above 66,000 0 0 
 In 1792 „ „ „ 68,997 10 0 
 
 In 1791, with Leith and Canongate, 103,922 0 0 
 In 1792, do. 106,602 0 0 
 
 One-fifth is deducted from the real rent in 
 stating the cess. Leith and Canongate are not 
 included in the above (except in the two last articles), 
 though now one city with Edinburgh. The valuation 
 is confined to the royalty only. Arnot thinks tlie real 
 rent is half more than the valued rent. See his Hiit. 
 p. 339. 
 
432 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 In 1783 the same revenue was upwards of 
 £40,000, and is since much increased.^ 
 
 In 1763 there were two stage coaches, with 
 three horses, a coachman, and postillion to each 
 coach, which went to the port of Leith (a mile 
 and a half distant) every hour from eight in the 
 morning till eight at night, and consumed a full 
 hour upon the road. There were no other 
 stage-coaches in Scotland, except one, which 
 set out once a month for London, and it was 
 from twelve to sixteen days upon the journey. 
 
 In 1783 there were five or six stage-coaches 
 to Leith every half-hour, which ran it in fifteen 
 minutes. Dunn, who oldened the magnificent 
 hotels in the New Town, was the first person 
 who attempted a stage-coach to Dalkeith, a 
 village six miles distant. There are now 
 stage-coaches, flies, and diligences to every 
 considerable town in Scotland, and to many of 
 them two, three, four, and five. To London 
 there were no less than sixty stage-coaches 
 monthly, or fifteen every week, and they 
 reached the capital in four days. And in 
 1786 two of these stage-coaches (which set out 
 daily) reached London in sixty hours by the 
 same road that required twelve or sixteen days 
 for the established coach in 1763.- 
 
 In 1763 the hackney-coaches in Edinburgh 
 were few in number, and perhaj)s the worst of 
 the kind in Britain. 
 
 In 1783 the number of hackney-coaches was 
 more than tripled, and they were the hand- 
 somest carriages, and had the best horses for 
 the purpose, of any without exception in 
 Europe. In 1790 many elegant hackney- 
 chariots were added. There are no other of 
 the kind in Britain that ply the streets. ^ 
 
 In 1783 triple the number of merchants, 
 physicians, surgeons, etc. kept their own 
 carriages that ever did in any former period, 
 and the number is since increased. 
 
 In 1783 several Presbyterian ministers in 
 Edinburgh, and Professors in the University, 
 
 1 In 1698, Sir Robert Sinclair of Stevenson had a 
 grant from King William of the whole revenue of the 
 Post Office of Scotland, with a pension of £300 per 
 annum, to keep up the post. Sir Robert, after 
 deliberation, gave up the grant, as thinking it disad- 
 vantageous. A curious fact may also be here inserted. 
 In 1G34, Charles I. gave a grant to Messrs. Dalmahoy 
 and Davidson, for the exclusive sale of tobacco in the 
 kingdom of Scotland, for the space of seven years, 
 upon their paying into the Exchequer £100 per 
 annum. From 1790 to 1791, the revenue arising from 
 tobacco (Customs and Excise) was £02,211, 6s. 
 
 2 A person may (1792) set out on Sunday afternoon, 
 after divine service, from Edinburgh to London ; may 
 stay a whole day in ^jondon, and be again in 
 Edinburgh on Saturday at six in the morning! The 
 distance from Edinburgh to Loudon is 400 miles. 
 Forty years ago, it was common for people to make 
 their will before setting out on a London journey. 
 
 One hackney-coach (1792) cost a hundred guineas, 
 and the two horses eighty guineas. 
 
 kept their own carriages, a circumstance which, 
 in a circumscribed walk of life as to income, 
 does honour to the literary abilities of many of 
 them, and is unequalled in any former period 
 of the history of the Church or of the Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 In 1763 literary property, or authors 
 acquiring money by their writings, was hardly 
 known in Scotland : David Hume and Dr. 
 Robertson had indeed, a very few years before, 
 sold some of their works; the one, a part of 
 the History of Britain, for £200 ; the other, the 
 History of Scotland, for £600 — each 2 vols, in 
 quarto. 
 
 In 1783 the value of literary property was 
 carried higher by the Scots than ever was 
 known among any people. David Hume 
 received £5000 for the remainder of his Histo7'y 
 of Britain ; and Dr. Robertson, for his second 
 work, received £4500. In sermon-writing the 
 Scots have also excelled ; and although, in 1763, 
 they were reckoned remarkably deficient in this 
 species of composition, yet, in 1783, a minister 
 of Edinburgh wrote the most admired sermons 
 that ever were published, and obtained the 
 highest price that ever was given for any work 
 of the kind. 
 
 iV.jB. — The merit of these sermons obtained 
 for Dr. Blair a pension of £200 per annum. 
 
 Previous to 1763 the Scots had made no very 
 distinguished figure in literature as writers, 
 particularly in the departments of history and 
 belles lettres. Lord Kames had, in the year 
 before (in 1762), published his Elements of 
 Criticism ; Hume and Robertson had made 
 their first essays in the line of history a short 
 time before, as mentioned above. 
 
 In 1783 the Scots had distinguished them- 
 selves in a remarkable manner in many 
 departments of literature ; and, within the 
 short period of twenty years, Hume, Robertson, 
 Kames, Orme, Dalrymples (Sir David and Sir 
 John), Henry, Tytlers (father and son), 
 Watson, Reid, Beattie, Oswald, Ferguson, 
 Smith, Monboddo (Burnet), Gregories (father 
 and son), CuUen, Homes (poet and physician), 
 Monros (father and son). Black, Duncan, 
 Hunter, Stewart (father and son), Stuart (Dr. 
 Gilbert), Blair, Mackenzie, Campbell, Gerard, 
 Miller, Macpherson, Brydone, Moore, Smellie, 
 Mickle, Gillies, Adam, Sinclair, and many other 
 eminent writers, too numerous to mention, 
 have appeared. 
 
 In 1764 a riding school was built by sub- 
 scription, 124 feet long by 42 broad. This 
 institution afterwards received a royal charter, 
 with a salary of £200 per annum to the master. 
 
 In 1664 the first academy in the kingdom 
 for teaching language and science to the deaf 
 and dumb was begun. 
 
 In 1764 the Speculative Society was insti- 
 tuted by six students then at the University, 
 for improvement in composition and public 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 433 
 
 speaking. This Society afterwards built a hall 
 within the University, and furnished a library 
 for the use of the members. The institution 
 has been highly useful. It can now boast of 
 eminent members in the senate, in the puljjit, 
 in i)rofessors' chairs in the universities, at the 
 bar, in medicine, and in various departments of 
 Hfe. 
 
 In 1783 the Society of Antiquaries was con- 
 stituted by royal charter, and in 1792 published 
 the first volume of their transactions. 
 
 In 1783 the Royal Society of Edinburgh was 
 constituted by royal charter, and published the 
 fii'st volume of their transactions in March 1788, 
 and a second in 1790. 
 
 From 1780 to 1786 Edinburgh produced two 
 periodical papers, the Mirror and the 
 Lounger, which have met with much public 
 approbation. No other periodical paper of note 
 has appeared in Britain since the World and 
 the Connoisseur, in 1753 and 1754. 
 
 In 1786 a Chamber of Commerce was con- 
 stituted by royal charter, for protecting and 
 encouraging the commercial and manufacturing 
 interests of the country. This institution has 
 led the public attention to many useful objects, 
 and has obtained many salutary regulations and 
 laws respecting the general commerce of the 
 country. 
 
 There was no law in Scotland making the 
 v/ilful sinking of ships a capital crime, till 
 obtained by means of this chamber. 
 
 The minutes of the proceedings of the 
 Chamber are printed every year, and distributed 
 to the members on the third "Wednesday of 
 January. 
 
 In 1790 a society for the improvement of 
 wool was instituted by Sir John Sinclair. This 
 institution has had the effect of rousing 
 attention to this valuable article of manu- 
 facture, and has excited much emulation 
 among the farmers and gentlemen. Much 
 labour and expense has been bestowed in 
 collecting the best breeds of sheep, foreign and 
 domestic, and spreading them over the country. 
 
 In 1791 a society was instituted by a few lay 
 sons of clergymen, for the benefit of the 
 children of the clergy of the Established Church 
 of Scotland ; and in 1792 the subscribers to 
 this laudable purpose were so considerable, 
 that they obtained a royal charter of incorpo- 
 ration. 
 
 The stipends of the clergy, it must be 
 allowed, have not kept pace with the increasing 
 progress and commerce of the country. It is of 
 gi'eat importance to society that some means 
 should be devised to make the situation of their 
 families as comfortable as possible. 
 
 In 1763 the stock of the Society for Pro- 
 pagating Christian Knowledge amounted to 
 £30,000. 
 
 In 1792 the same stock amounted to about 
 £100,000. This fund, it is believed, is most 
 
 faithfully apjilied to the object of the 
 institution. A hundred and sixty thousand 
 children have been educated by this society, 
 and there are ten thousand in their schools this 
 year, 1792. 
 
 The fund established in 1744 for the 
 ministers' widows had been calculated on such 
 just principles, that in 1792 the stock was 
 above £90,000. This stock is lent out at 
 present on heritable security, at 4^ per 
 cent. 
 
 In 1789 the foundation of a magnificent new 
 college was laid on the 16th of November, the 
 old college having become ruinous, and the 
 class-rooms being unfit to contain the number 
 of students who resorted to this celebrated 
 school of science and literature. So popular 
 was this measui'e, that in five months the 
 voluntary subscriptions amounted to £16,869, 
 and they are now £31,600. The estimate for 
 completing the whole is about £63,000. The 
 six columns in the front of this elegant new 
 building are not to be equalled in Britain. The 
 shaft of each is 23 feet high, and three feet 
 diameter, of one entire stone. 
 
 In 1763 the number of students at the 
 college of Edinburgh was about 500. 
 
 In 1791 the number of students entered in 
 the college books was 1255, and in 1792 the 
 number was 1306. 
 
 In 1777 a new, elegant, and commodious 
 edifice for a grammar school was built by 
 voluntary subscription. This school-house cost 
 £4000. It consists of one great hall, five 
 teaching rooms, and a library, with smaller 
 apartments. 
 
 In 1763 the number of boys at the grammar 
 school was not more than 200. 
 
 In 1783 the number of boys at the grammar 
 school was 500. It is believed the most 
 numerous school in Britain. 
 
 In 1788 a magnificent pile of building was 
 finished, for keei;)ing the public records and 
 papers of Scotland, called the Register Office. 
 It had been about eighteen years in its progress 
 from the time of laying the foundation-stone. 
 It has cost £36,000. 
 
 In 1788 a large and expensive building was 
 erected by subscription, called the Circus, for 
 the purpose of exhibiting feats of horsemanship, 
 and i^antomime entertainments. The money 
 received the first four months of this exhibition 
 was £3000. 
 
 In 1792 the Circus was converted into a play- 
 house, and Edinburgh has now two regular I 
 theatres. 
 
 In 1763 there were two newspapers, printed 
 in very small folio, and the advertisements in 
 each were from ten to twenty. 
 
 In 1783 the half of an Edinburgh newspaper, 
 which was bought, in 1740, for £30, was sold 
 for £1300. 
 
 In 1790 there were four established news- 
 
 2E 
 
434 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 papers, and in 1792 six newspapers. ^ The 
 size of the paper is as large as any of the kind 
 in Britain, and the advertisements in some of 
 them are from 60 to 100, sometimes more, 
 notwithstanding a heavy and increased duty 
 both on the paper and advertisements. 
 
 In 1780 a regiment (the 80th) of 1000 men 
 was raised by the voluntary contributions of the 
 citizens in two months. 
 
 In 1763 there were 396 four-wheeled carriages 
 entered to pay duty, and 462 two- wheeled 
 carriages. 
 
 In 1790 there were 1427 four-wheeled 
 carriages entered to pay duty, and 462 two- 
 wheeled. And of wains and carts 6450. Till 
 of late, the wains and carts could not be 
 ascertained. 
 
 In 1763 few coaches or chaises were made 
 in Edinburgh. The nobility and gentry, in 
 general, brought their carriages from London ; 
 and Paris was reckoned the place in Europe 
 where the most elegant carriages were con- 
 structed. 
 
 In 1783 coaches and chaises were constructed 
 as elegantly in Edinburgh as anywhere in 
 'Europe, and, it may be added, stronger and 
 cheaper. Many were yearly exported to 
 Petersburgh, and the cities on the Baltic ; and 
 there was in 1783 an order from Paris to a 
 coachmaker in Edinburgh for one thousand 
 crane-necked carriages, to be executed in three 
 years. This trade has since greatly increased. 
 
 In 1763 there was no such profession known 
 as a haberdasher. 
 
 In 1783 the profession of a haberdasher 
 (which includes many trades, the mercer, the 
 milliner, the linen-draper, the hatter, the 
 hosier, the glover, and many others) was nearly 
 the most common in town, and they have since 
 multiplied greatly. 
 
 In 1763 there was no such profession known 
 as a perfumer : barbers and wigmakers were 
 numerous, and v/ere in the order of decent 
 burgesses ! Hairdressers were few, and hardly 
 permitted to dress hair on Sundays, and many 
 of them voluntarily declined it. 
 
 In 1783 perfumers had splendid shops in 
 every jirincipal street : some of them adver- 
 tised the keeping of bears, to kill occasionally, 
 for greasing ladies' and gentlemen's hair, as 
 superior to any other animal fat. Hairdressers 
 were more than tripled in number, and their 
 busiest day was Sunday. There was a professor 
 who advertised a Hairdressing Academy, and 
 gave lectures on that noble and useful art. 
 
 In 1763 there were no iron foundries near 
 Edinburgh. The Carron Company's work was 
 the only one of the kind in Scotland, and it had 
 been established but a few years. 
 
 1 The newspapers printed in Edinburgh, December 
 1792, are 1st, the Courant; Sd, the Mercury; 3d, 
 the Advertiser; 4th, the Herald; 5th, the Caledo- 
 nian Chronicle ; Gth, the Gazetteer. 
 
 In 1792 there were many extensive iron 
 foundries in Scotland, and several in the 
 neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Cast-iron, which 
 was formerly imported, is now exported in 
 great quantities. 
 
 In 1792 there are several button manufac- 
 tories lately established in the neighbourhood 
 of Edinburgh, which were unknown in any 
 former period. 
 
 In 1792 manufactories of shawls and cassi- 
 meres have been lately established and brought 
 to wonderful perfection. 
 
 It is estimated that the consumpt of coals in 
 Edinburgh (on an average) amounts to 500 tons 
 per day. 
 
 In 1763 the starch manufacture was little 
 known or practised, and only about 37,000 
 pounds weight were manufactured. 
 
 In 1790 there were several starch manufac- 
 tories. The quantity entered was about 
 745,000 pounds weight. The increase, 713,000 
 lib. 
 
 If.B. — A very great proportion of this is used 
 for hair powder ; but the quantity cannot be 
 ascertained, as the whole is entered under the 
 denomination starch. One starch manufac- 
 turer has paid at the rate of £700 of duty 
 every six weeks. 
 
 In 1763 the revenue arising from the 
 distillery in Scotland amounted to £4739, 18s. 
 lOd. 
 
 In 1783 the revenue arising from the 
 distillery amounted to £192,000 ; consequently 
 600,000 gallons of spirits must at least have 
 been distilled. ^ Since July 1786, the duty has 
 been levied by licence on the contents of the 
 stills. The quantity that might reasonably be 
 expected from the number of stills entered 
 should be thus : 
 
 In the Lowlands, 1,000,000 
 
 In the Highlands, 696,000 
 
 Total, 1,696,000 gallons of spirits. 
 
 iV.jB. — The legislature would surely act 
 wisely by lowering the duty on malt liquor, 
 and increasing it on spirits. Ardent spirits, so 
 easily obtained, are hurtftil to the health, 
 industry, and morals of the people. 
 
 In 1763 the gross revenue of the excise was 
 about £130,200. 
 
 In 1790 the gross revenue of the excise was 
 about £500,COO. 
 
 At the time of the Union there were no 
 stamp duties in Scotland. 
 
 In 1790 the revenue on stamps was above 
 £80,000 per annum. 
 
 In 1763 there was one glass-house at Leith, 
 for the manufacture of green bottles. 
 
 1 In 1708, the year of the Union, the quantity of 
 spirits distilled from malted corn was 50,844^ gallons. 
 In 1760, 145,460 gaUons. 
 In 1784, 268,503 gallons. 
 In 1791, 1,696,000! as above. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 435 
 
 In 1783 there were three glass-houses, in 
 1790 there wei-e six ; and as fine crystal and 
 Avindow glass is made at Leith as anywhere in 
 Europe, 
 
 In 1763 the quantity of glass manufactured 
 in Scotland amounted to 1,769,712 pounds 
 weight. 
 
 In 1790 the quantity of glass manufactured 
 amounted to 9,059,904 pounds weight ; increase, 
 7,290,192. 
 
 In 1763 there were three paper mills in the 
 neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1790 there were twelve paper mills in the 
 neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; and a vast 
 quantity of printing paper was sent to London, 
 from whence it used formerly to be brought. 
 Some of these paper mills are upon a more 
 extensive scale than any in Britain. 
 
 In 1763 the quantity of paper manufactured 
 was 6400 reams. 
 
 In 1791 the quantity of paper manufactured 
 was upwards of 100,000 reams ; increase, 
 93,600 reams. 
 
 N.B. — Notwithstanding the astonishing 
 increase of stamp-duty, and of paper manufac- 
 tured, yet Scotland must bring all her stamped 
 paper from London. The very carriage of the 
 stamped paper to Edinburgh, it is believed, 
 costs Government £700 per annum, when it 
 could be stamped at Edinburgh for a trifle, and 
 the manufacture of paper thereby greatly 
 encouraged. The present mode appears to be 
 neither just nor politic. By the articles of the 
 Union, Scotland is entitled to have a board of 
 stamps. 
 
 In 1763 there were six printing-houses in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1790 there were sixteen printing-houses in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1763 the printed cottons manufactured 
 amounted to 150,000 yards. 
 
 In 1790 the i)rinted cottons manufactured 
 amounted to 4,500,000 yards; increase, 
 4,335,000 yards. 
 
 In 1763 the Royal Bank stock sold at the 
 rate of £160 per cent. In 1791 Royal Bank 
 new stock sold at £240 per cent. 
 
 N.B. — It would be too tedious to enter into a 
 detail of the history and progress of the bank. 
 The capital at present is above £600,000 ; and 
 the liberal suj^port it has given to the landed, 
 commercial, and manufacturing interests of 
 Scotland has added greatly to the prosperity 
 of the countiy. 
 
 The original shares of the Bank of Scotland, 
 or Old Bank, of £83, 6s. 8d., sold, in 1763, at 
 £119, and in 1791 at £180. 
 
 N.B. — This bank has lately obtained an act 
 of Parliament for doubling its capital, or to 
 raise it from £300,000 to £600,000. 
 
 The British Linen Company's stock, in 1763, 
 and for many years later, sold at £40 per cent, 
 bolovr par. 
 
 In 1792, £336 of the stock of this company 
 sold for £545, that is £162, 4s. l^d. per cent. 
 
 In the year 1769 the Douglas and Company 
 Bank was instituted, and the stock subscribed 
 amounted to £150,000. In a few years after 
 this bank, by mismanagement, failed ; and it is 
 said this failure occasioned land to be brought 
 into the market to the value of £750,000. 
 
 Although this loss was hurtful to many 
 individuals, the country was highly benefited ; 
 for the money having been bestowed principally 
 on the improvement of the soil, the gain was 
 lasting and general. 
 
 'In 1763 Heriot's Hospital, which holds a 
 great deal of land in the vicinity of Edinburgh, 
 gave feus^ of their ground at the rate of from 
 3 to 4 bolls of barley per acre per annum. 
 
 In 1790 Heriot's Hospital feued their land 
 at the rate of from 8 to 10 bolls per acre 
 yearly. 
 
 N.B. — George Heriot, who founded this 
 hospital for the education of boys, was jeweller 
 to James VI. of Scotland and I. of England. 
 
 He furnished jewels to Prince Charles, 
 afterwards King Charles I., when he went to 
 the court of Spain, 1623, 
 
 These jewels were never paid for by James ; 
 but when Charles I, came to the throne, the 
 debt to Heriot was allowed to his trustees, in 
 part of their purchase of the barony of Brough- 
 ton, then crown lands in the neighbourhood of 
 Edinburgh. These lands are now a part of the 
 foundation of this hospital, the revenue of 
 which is at present between £3000 and £4000 
 per annum. 
 
 The sum that now produces this revenue 
 was, in 1627, £29,325, 10s. l|d., which was lent 
 out for many years at interest. The building 
 of the hospital (from a plan by Inigo Jones) 
 cost £27,000, Interest of money then was 10 
 per cent. There are 125 boys in the hospital, 
 who are maintained and educated from 7 to 14 
 years. 
 
 The Trinity Hospital is a charitable foun- 
 dation for decayed burgesses, or their widows 
 and daughters, not under 50 years of age. The 
 revenue in land, houses, and interest of money 
 is about £1100 per annum. There are 54 old 
 men and women in the hospital, viz. 14 men 
 and 40 women. 
 
 The Merchant Maiden Hospital is a charitable 
 foundation for the education and maintenance 
 of daughters of merchant burgesses of Edin- 
 burgh, from 8 years of age to 15, The revenue 
 is about £1400 per annum. There are 80 girls 
 in this hospital at present. 
 
 The Trades' Maiden Hospital is a charitable 
 foundation for the daughters of decayed trades- 
 men, members of the fourteen incorporations. 
 They are educated from 8 years of age to 15. 
 
 1 A feu means a perpetual grant, on pajTuent of a 
 certain sum or ackuowledgment yearly, as may be 
 agreed upon. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 The revenue is about £650 per annum. There 
 are 60 girls in the hospital. 
 
 Watson's Hospital is a charitable foundation 
 for the education of boys, the sons or grandsons 
 of decayed merchants, members of the 
 Merchant Company. The sum mortified for 
 this purpose by George Watson, a merchant, 
 in 1727, was £12,000. The revenue of this 
 hospital is now nearly £2000 per annum. The 
 boys are maintained and educated from eight 
 to fifteen years of age. When put out appren- 
 tices, an aj)prentice-fee of £25 is allowed ; and 
 if they have behaved well during their 
 apprenticeshii?, they are allowed £50 to begin 
 the world. There are 70 boys in this hospital. 
 
 The Orjihan Hospital is a charitable foun- 
 dation for maintaining and educating orphans 
 (boys and girls) from any quarter of the 
 kingdom. They are received at 7, and remain 
 till 13 or 14 years of age. They are taught 
 various trades. They make all their own 
 clothes, shoes, bind their own books, etc. 
 There are 160 boys and girls in this hospital. 
 
 The stock of the Eoyal Infirmary, which in 
 1750 was £5000, in 1790 was £36,000. This 
 infirmary admits above 2000 patients annually ; 
 and, on an average, 1 only in 25 dies. This, 
 on comijarison with other hospitals, is not to be 
 equalled in Europe. An account of the most 
 celebrated hospitals in Europe has been 
 published ; and in some 1 in 11 dies, in 
 others 1 in 13, and 1 in 16. It is daily 
 attended by three physicians; and the 
 members of the Eoyal College of Surgeons 
 attend monthly in their turns. During the 
 sitting of the college (from October to May), 
 two of the professors of medicine give clinical 
 lectures on the cases of a selected number of 
 l^atients. 
 
 In 1763 one hundred students attended the 
 Infirmary. 
 
 In 1791 three hundred and twenty-three 
 students attended the Infirmary. 
 
 In 1776 a public dispensary was built by 
 subscription, and supported by voluntary con- 
 tributions. This charity is for patients afflicted 
 with chronic diseases, or such as render 
 admission to an hospital improper or 
 unnecessary. They receive advice and medi- 
 cine gratis ; and in the year 1791 no less than 
 15,450 patients had been relieved. 
 
 The first spring water bi'ought to supply 
 Edinburgh was in 1681. A leaden pipe of 
 three inches bore was then laid from Comiston, 
 about three miles and a half south-west of the 
 city, by one Bruschi, a German engineer, and 
 there was no other i)ipe completed till about 
 the year 1772, when one four inches and a half 
 was laid. These in time were found insufficient 
 for supplying the inhabitants, and in 1787 an 
 iron i)ipe of five inches diameter was added. 
 A second iron pipe of seven inches diameter 
 was laid in 1700 ; and additional springs, three 
 
 miles farther south than the former, were 
 taken in. These pipes have cost the city of 
 Edinburgh an immense sum of money, the last 
 one having cost about £20,000. The reservoir 
 on the Castle Hill contains about 300 tons, and 
 the new one at Heriot's Hospital contains 
 nearly the same quantity. Edinburgh is amply 
 supplied with as fine spring water as any in 
 Europe, and Leith now partakes of the same 
 advantage. On the 10th of May 1792, after 
 three weeks of drought, these springs, at the 
 fountain-head, yielded 1060 Scots pints (or 4240 
 English) per minute, or 3000 tons in 24 hours. 
 After supplying all the inhabitants, a large 
 stream of limpid water runs down the streets 
 for many hours day and night. The like is not 
 to be equalled, it is believed, in Europe, except 
 at Berne in Switzerland.^ 
 
 In 1763 the shore-dues at Leith (a small tax 
 paid to the city of Edinburgh on landing goods 
 at the quays) amounted to £580. 
 
 In 1783 the shore-dues at Leith were upwards 
 of £4000. 
 
 N.B. — There was a considerable importation of 
 grain to the port of Leith in 1783, not less than 
 
 1 The increase of inhabitants may, in some measure, 
 be judged of from the above circumstance. Before 
 the above period they must have been supplied witli 
 water from pit wells, of which great numbers were on 
 the south of the Cowgate Street. The increase of 
 inhabitants also appears from a list of families taken 
 anno 1687, in the six parishes of which the old town 
 of Edinburgh then consisted. The number was as 
 follows : — 
 
 In the North-west parish, or Tolbooth Kirk — 
 
 Families, 513 
 
 North parish, or High Kirk „ 389 
 
 North parish, or College Kirk 470 
 South-Avest parish, or Old Greyfriars „ 672 
 South parish, or Old Kirk „ 625 
 
 South-east parish, or Tron Kirk ,, 604 
 
 Total Families, 3333 
 At an average of six to each family, the number of 
 inhabitants would have been at that time 19,998 
 v/ithin the walls of the city. Like London, the 
 suburbs are now more extensive than the city. 
 In 1775 the number of families in Edinburgh, Leith, 
 and the suburbs, as far as could be ascertained by a 
 survey for road-money (many industriously avoiding 
 the survey), amounted to 13,806; this, at the same 
 rate of six to a family (which is held to be a propc? 
 ground of calculation in EdinbiTrgh), makes the 
 number of inhabitants 82,836. Besides, this number 
 is exclusive of the Castle, all the hospitals, poor- 
 houses, infirmary, dispensaiy, etc. Amot, upon the 
 same data, says 80,836; but this is a typographical 
 error. Since 1775 the city and suburbs have been 
 nuich extended, and the inhabitants must also have 
 greatly increased. 
 
 'H.B.—lt is a striking fact, that either the former 
 poinilation of Edinburgh has been very erroneously 
 represented, or the luxury of the present inhabitants 
 has increased in a very xmcommon degree ; because, 
 without much apparent increase of population, the 
 valued rent of the city and suburbs, according to the 
 cess-books, has been more than doubled. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 437 
 
 £800,000 sterling having gone out of Scotland 
 foi' this year's deficiency of grain. But the 
 shore dues are often above £3500 per annum, 
 independent of any extraordinary importation. 
 From November 1788 to November 1789, they 
 were £3455, 14s. 4d. This revenue, from its 
 nature, must be fluctuating. 
 
 In 1763, and for some years after, there vi'as 
 one ship that made an annual voyage to Peters- 
 burgh ; and never brought tallow, if any other 
 cargo offered. Three tons of tallow were 
 imported into Leith in 1763, which came from 
 Newcastle. 
 
 In 1783 the ships from Leith and the Firth of 
 Forth to the Baltic amounted to some hun- 
 dreds. They make two voyages in the year, 
 and sometimes three. In 1786, above 2500 tons 
 of tallow were imported directly from the 
 Baltic into Leith. The importation of Baltic 
 goods into Leith is surpassed by only one, or at 
 most two ports in Britain. 
 
 In 1763 every shij) from London or Peters- 
 burgh to Leith brought part of her cargo in 
 soap. 
 
 In 1783 every ship that went from Leith to 
 London carried away part of her cargo in soap. 
 
 In 1763 the quantity of soap manufactured 
 was half a million of pounds weight. 
 
 In 1790 the quantity of soap manufactured 
 was six millions of pounds. Increase, five 
 millions and a half. 
 
 In 1763 the quantity of candles that were 
 entered amounted to 1,400,000 lbs. 
 
 In 1780 the quantity was 2,200,000. 
 
 In 1791 the quantity was 3,000,000 lbs. The 
 increase of this article shows the progress of 
 manufactures, for it is believed few candles are 
 either imported or exported. 
 
 In 1783 the increase of tonnage in shipping 
 belonging to the port of Leith, since 1763, was 
 42,234 tons ; and since that period has so 
 greatly increased, that magnificent plans have 
 been formed for enlarging the present harbour, 
 which is found too small for the number of 
 ships resorting to it. In 1791 the registered 
 tonnage at Leith was 130,000 tons. 
 
 In 1763 there was no such thing known, or 
 used, as an umbrella ; but an eminent surgeon, 
 who had occasion to walk a great deal in the 
 course of his business, used one about the year 
 1780 ; and in 1783 umbrellas were much used, 
 and continue to be so, and many umbrella ware- 
 houses are opened, and a considerable trade 
 carried on in this article. The fashion is spread 
 through Scotland. 
 
 In 1763 the wages to maid-servants were 
 generally from £3 to £4 a year. They dressed 
 decently in blue or red cloaks, or in plaids, 
 suitable to their stations. 
 
 In 1783 the wages are nearly the same ; but 
 their dress and appearance are greatly altered, 
 the maid-servants dressing almost as fine as 
 their mistresses did in 1763. 
 
 In 1763 few families had men-servants. The 
 wages were from £6 to £10 per annum. 
 
 In 1783 and 1791 almost every genteel family 
 had a man-servant ; and the wages were from 
 £10 to £20 a year. 
 
 In 1763 a stranger coming to Edinburgh was 
 obliged to put u]} at a dirty, uncomfortable inn, 
 or to remove to private lodgings. There was no 
 such place as a hotel; the word, indeed, was 
 not known, or was only intelligible to persons 
 acquainted with the French. 
 
 In 1783 a stranger might have been accom- 
 modated, not only comfortably, but most 
 elegantly, at many public hotels ; and the 
 person who, in 1763, was obliged to put up 
 with accommodation little better than that of a 
 waggoner or carrier, may now be lodged like a 
 prince, and command every luxury of life. His 
 guinea, it must be acknowledged, v/ill not go 
 quite so far as it did in 1763. 
 
 The quantity of wheat made into flour at the 
 Water of Leith mills, belonging to the Incor- 
 poration of Bakers, was as follows : — • 
 
 MID-LOTHIx\N BOLLS.l 
 
 In 1750 .... 22,762 
 1760 .... 33,887 
 1770 .... 42,895 
 1791 .... 48,257 
 This gives the i^roportional increase at these 
 mills only ; for besides these, there are Bell's 
 Mills, Silver Mills, Canon Mills, Leith Mills, 
 etc. that grind flour for the city, all of which 
 have increased their quantities in proportion. 
 The bakers of Dalkeith, Musselburgh, and Lass- 
 wade also send flour and bread to the Edinburgh 
 market. There must now be above 150,000 
 bolls of wheat annually consumed in this metro- 
 polis. 
 
 The quantity of butcher-meat can only be 
 ascertained by the number of hides ; and for 
 that reason, no account can be obtained of the 
 quantity brought to the Edinburgh market by 
 the country butchers, who bring a great deal 
 thrice every week throughout the year. 
 
 The number killed in Edinburgh is as follows : 
 
 In 1775, 8354 oxen, 6792 calves, 39,370 sheep, 
 47,360 lambs. 
 
 In 1766, Edinburgh and Leith included, 
 10,091 oxen, 8305 calves, 49,212 sheep, 78,076 
 lambs. 
 
 In 1790, Edinburgh only, 11,792 oxen, 4500 
 calves, 37,390 sheep, and 49,200 lambs. 
 
 JV.B. — The number of hogs and pigs cannot 
 be ascertained. 
 
 In 1778 there were 8400 barrels of oysters 
 exported from the city's fishing-grounds. This 
 trade was increasing so much as to threaten 
 the total destruction of the oyster-beds. The 
 magistrates have therefore prohibited the expor- 
 
 1 Two bolls are nearly equal to an English quarter, 
 or equal to about half a peck. 
 
43S 
 
 tation, and even the fishing of oysters under 
 a cei'tain size. 
 
 There are immense quantities of strawberries 
 sold in the Edinburgh market during the short 
 period that they continue. They are sold, upon 
 an average, at 6d. the Scots pint, equal to four 
 English pints, and without any stem or husk, as 
 in other i)laces. It is estimated that 100,000 
 Scots, or 400,000 English pints, are annually 
 sold in favourable seasons, in the city and 
 suburbs, value £2500. It is impossible to 
 estimate the quantity consumed at the pleasure- 
 gardens and places of entertainment in the 
 neighboiirhood of the city. It is known that 
 an acre of strawberries has produced above 
 £50. 
 
 It is estimated that £1000 a year is paid in 
 Edinburgh during the months of June, July, 
 August, and September, for butter milk, or sour 
 milk, as it is called ; it is sold at one penny the 
 Scotch j)int, or four English pints. 
 
 In 1763 Edinburgh was chiefly supplied with 
 vegetables and garden stuff from IMusselburgh 
 and the neighbourhood, which were called, 
 through the streets by women with creels or 
 baskets on their backs : any sudden increase of 
 people would have raised all the markets. A 
 small camp at Musselburgh, a few years before, 
 had this effect. 
 
 In 1783 the markets of Edinburgh were as 
 amply supplied with' vegetables, and every 
 necessary of life, as any in Europe. In 1781, 
 Admiral Parker's fleet and a Jamaica fleet, 
 consisting together of 15 sail of the line, 9 
 frigates, and about 600 merchantmen, lay near 
 two months in Leith Eoads, were fully supplied 
 with every kind of provisions, and the markets 
 were not raised one farthing, although there 
 could not be less than an addition of 20,000 men 
 for seven weeks. 
 
 The crews of the Jamaica fleet, who were 
 dreadfully afflicted with scurvj', were soon 
 restored to health by the plentiful supplies of 
 strawberries, and fresh vegetables and pro- 
 visions, which they received. Some merchants 
 in London, who, either from motives of human- 
 ity, or esteeming it a profitable adventure, had 
 sent four transports with fresh provisions to 
 the fleet, had them returned without breaking 
 bulk. It is believed that there is scarcely a 
 port in Great Britain, London alone excepted, 
 where such a body of people, unexpectedly 
 arriving, could have been so plentifully supplied, 
 without increasing the price of provisions con- 
 siderably to the inhabitants. 
 
 I shall now conclude this long letter. The 
 subject of which it treats is curious, but, from 
 the mutable nature of human society, it must 
 be continually varying. 
 
 It may, however, be entertaining, and perhaps 
 useful, to have marked a train of facts respecting 
 our own short period of observation ; althougli 
 a few years hence, a contrast equally astonish- 
 
 ing and interesting may be afforded. No history 
 of the time could have given such a detail. The 
 rise and fall of nations, and the progress of 
 human society, as connected with these changes, 
 are subjects highly interesting to every con- 
 temj)lative mind. In my next, I shall give you 
 some observations on manners during the same 
 period. — I am, with much esteem, sir, your 
 most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 William Ckeecii. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 ' ^Tltas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
 Nos nequiores, mox daturos 
 Progeniem vitiosiorem. 
 
 ' Quid tristes querimoniae, 
 Si uou supplicio culpa reciditur 1 
 Quid leges sine moribus 
 Vanse proficiunt f'— Hor. 
 
 Sir, — I shall now transmit to you a few facts 
 respecting Edinburgh, during the periods men- 
 tioned in my former letter, which have a more 
 immediate connection with manners. 
 
 A great city in modern Europe has been de- 
 scribed to be 'a huge, dissipated, gluttonous, 
 collected mass of folly and wickedness.' Per- 
 haps this description is applicable, more or less, 
 to every city, as wealth and luxury increase ; 
 for it seems to be a fact established by the 
 history of mankind, that, as opulence increases, 
 virtue subsides. Yet, one should not imagine, 
 a priori, that this would always be the case. 
 But it strongly confirms the judicious observa- 
 tion of Horace : 
 
 ' Est modus in rebus ; sunt certi denique fir.cs 
 Quos ultra, cdtraque nequit consistere rectum.' 
 
 All nations are at first poor, and their 
 manners simple. As they advance to industry 
 and commerce, to a certain degree they become 
 improved and enlightened ; but opulence 
 introduces indolence, sensuality, vice, and 
 corruption, and they then hasten to decay. In 
 all matters of public or private life, the proper 
 modus in rebus is the distinguishing test of 
 good sense. 
 
 The prosperity and happiness of every indi- 
 vidual must, in general, depend on his virtue, 
 as must that of the nation which is composed 
 of these individuals. A corrupted empire must 
 therefore tend fast to ruin ; witness the 
 example of France, where all religion had long 
 been a farce, and morals of consequence 
 depraved. 
 
 Hence arises the necessity of watching over 
 the manners as well as the morals of the 
 people, and particularly of the higher ranks, 
 whose example is often pernicious. 
 
 But let us see, in a society comparatively 
 small to many others, the effect of the increase 
 of wealth upon manners, whether as tending to 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 439 
 
 improvement or otherwise. Many changes, 
 however, may be totally unconnected with this 
 cause. 
 
 In 1763 people of fashion dined at two o'clock, 
 or a little after it ; business was attended to 
 in the afternoon. It was a common practice to 
 lock the shops at one o'clock, and to open them 
 after dinner at two. 
 
 In 1783 people of fashion, and of the middle 
 rank, dined at four or five o'clock ; no business 
 was done in the afternoon, dinner of itself 
 having become a very serious business. 
 
 In 1763 wine was seldom seen, or in a small 
 quantity, at the tables of the middle rank of 
 people. 
 
 In 1791 every tradesman in decent circum- 
 stances presents wine after dinner, and many 
 in plenty and variety.^ 
 
 In 1763 it was the fashion for gentlemen to 
 attend the drawing-rooms of the ladies in the 
 afternoons, to drink tea, and to mix in the 
 society and conversation of the women. 
 
 In 1783 the drawing-rooms were totally 
 deserted ; invitations to tea in the afternoon 
 were given ui) ; and the only opportunity 
 gentlemen had of being in ladies' company was 
 when they happened to mess together at dinner 
 or supper; and even then, an impatience was 
 sometimes shown till the ladies retired. Card 
 parties after a long dinner, and after a late 
 supper, were frequent. 
 
 In 1763 it was fashionable to go to church, 
 and people were interested about religion. Sun- 
 day was strictly observed by all ranks as a day 
 of devotion ; and it was disgraceful to be seen 
 on the« streets during the time of public wor- 
 ship. Families attended church with their 
 children and servants ; and family worship was 
 frequent. The collections at the church doors, 
 for the poor, amounted yearly to £1500 and 
 upwards. 
 
 In 1783 attendance on church was greatly 
 neglected, and particularly by the men. Sun- 
 day was by many made a day of relaxation ; 
 and young people were allowed to stroll about 
 at all hours. Families thought it ungenteel to 
 take their domestics to church with them. 
 The streets were far from being void of i^eople 
 in the time of public worship ; and in the 
 evenings were frequently loose and riotous, 
 particularly owing to bands of apprentice boys 
 and young lads. Family worship was almost 
 disused. The collections at the church doors 
 for the poor had fallen to £1000. 
 
 In 1791 the collections at the church doors 
 had risen to £1200.2 
 
 1 In 1708, the year of the Union, 288,336 Larrels of 
 twopenny ale paid duty. In 1720, 520,478=} barrels 
 paid duty. In 1784, 97,577^ barrels paid duty. This 
 is a striking proof of the decrease of inalt liquor, 
 and of the consequent increase of the use of wine 
 and spirituous liquors. 
 
 2 It may be mentioned here, as a curious fact, that 
 
 iV.J?.— The collections above mentioned re- 
 spect the Established churches of the city only. 
 There are many chapels and meetings of differ- 
 ent persuasions not included. 
 
 In no respect were the manners of 1763 and 
 1783 more remarkable than in the decency, dig- 
 nity, and delicacy of the one period, compared 
 with the looseness, dissipation, and licentious- 
 ness of the other. Many people ceased to blush 
 at what would formerly have been reckoned a 
 crime. 
 
 In 1763 masters took charge of their appren- 
 tices, and kept them under their eye in their 
 OAvn houses. 
 
 In 1783 few masters would receive api^ren- 
 tices to stay in their houses, and yet from them 
 an important part of succeeding society is to be 
 formed. If they attended their hours of busi- 
 ness, masters took no farther charge. The rest 
 of their time might be passed (as too frequently 
 happens) in vice and debauchery; hence they 
 become idle, insolent, and dishonest. In 1791 
 the practice had become still more prevalent. 
 Reformation of manners mvist begin in families, 
 to be general or effectual. 
 
 In 1791 the wages to journeymen in every 
 profession were greatly raised since 1763, and 
 disturbances frequently happened for a still 
 farther increase. Yet many of them riot on 
 Sunday, are idle all Monday, and can afford to 
 do this on five days' labour. 
 
 In 1763 the clergy visited, catechised, and 
 instructed the families v/itlun their respective 
 parishes, in the princii)les of morality, Chris- 
 tianity, and the relative duties of life. 
 
 In 1783 visiting and catechising were disused 
 (except by very few), and since continue to be 
 so. Nor, perhaps, would the clergy now be 
 received with welcome on such an occasion. If 
 people do not choose to go to church, they may 
 remain as ignorant as Hottentots, and the Ten 
 Commandments be as little known as obsolete 
 Acts of Parliament. Religion is the only tie 
 that can restrain, in any degree, the licentious- 
 
 for more than half of this century, one of the smallest 
 churches in Edinburgh [the Tolbooth Church] has 
 collected more money for the poor, at the time of 
 dispensing the sacrament, than eight other chui'ches 
 did upon the same occasion in 1783. 
 
 With the best intention, a Sunday evening's sermon 
 (by the ministers of Edinburgh in rotation) was 
 instituted for the instruction of servants, who might 
 have been detained from public worship during the 
 day ; but this, it is said, has been perverted by many 
 to bad purposes, and made an excuse for idleness 
 and vice. 
 
 There is another evening sermon, for the common 
 people, supported by private subscriptions, which, it 
 is said, has been attended with beneficial effects, 
 owing to the care and attention of the managers. 
 
 There are two other Sunday evening lectures— one 
 in the Chapel of Ease, and one in the Gaelic Cliapel ; 
 in this last the service is in the Erse language, for 
 Highlanders. 
 
440 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 ness either of the rich, or of the lower ranks ; 
 when that is lost, ferocity of manners, and 
 every breach of morality may be expected. 
 ' Hoc f onte derivata, clades 
 In patriam populumqiie fluxit.' 
 
 In 1763 the breach of the Seventh Command- 
 ment was punished by fine and church censure. 
 Any instance of conjugal infidelity in a woman 
 would have banished her irretrievably from 
 society, and her. company would have been 
 rejected even by men who paid any regard to 
 their character. 
 
 In 1783, although the law punishing adultery 
 with death was unrepealed, yet church censure 
 was disused, and separations and divorces were 
 become frequent, and have since increased. ^ 
 Women who had been rendered infamous by 
 public divorce, had been, by some people of 
 fashion, again received into societj'-, notwith- 
 standing the endeavours of our worthy Queen 
 to check such a violation of morality, decency, 
 the laws of the country, and the rights of the 
 virtuous. This, however, has not been recently 
 attempted. 
 
 In 1763 the fines collected by the kirk 
 treasurer for bastard children amounted to 
 £154, and upon an average of ten succeeding 
 years they were £190. 
 
 In 1783 the fines for bastard children 
 amounted to £600, and have since greatly 
 increased. 
 
 In 1748 the first correction house for disor- 
 derly females was built, and it cost £198, Os. 4jd. 
 
 N.B. — This is the only one Edinburgh yet has. 
 
 In 1791 manners had been for some years so 
 loose, and crimes so frequent, that the foun- 
 dation of a large new House of Correction, or 
 Bridewell, was laid on the 30th of November, 
 which, on the lowest calculation, will cost 
 £12,000 ; and this plan is on a reduced scale of 
 what was at first thought absolutely necessary. 
 
 In 1763, that is from June 1763 to June 1764, 
 the expense of the Correction House amounted 
 to £27, 16s. lid. 
 
 In 1791, and some years previous to it, the 
 expense of the Correction House had risen to 
 near £300, ten times what it had been in the 
 former period ; and there is not room for con- 
 taining the half of those that ought to be 
 confined to hard labour. . . . 
 
 In 1763 house-breaking and robbery were 
 extremely rare. Many people thought it un- 
 necessary to lock their doors at night. 
 
 In 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1787 house- 
 breaking, theft, and robbery were astonishingly 
 frequent, and many of these crimes were com- 
 mitted by boys, whose age prevented them 
 from being objects of capital punishment. The 
 culprits were uniformly apprehended in houses 
 of bad fame, in which they were protected and 
 encouraged in their depredations on the public. 
 
 1 Records of the Commissary Coui't. 
 
 During the winter, 1787, many daring robberies 
 and shop-breakings were committed by means 
 before unthought of ; but the gang were dis- 
 covered by one of them becoming evidence 
 against the rest, and the others suffered capital 
 punishment.^ 
 
 In no respect was the sobriety and decorum 
 of the lower ranks in 1763 more remarkable 
 than by contrasting them with the riot and 
 licentiousness of 1783, particularly on Sundays 
 and holidays. The king's birthday, and the 
 last night of the year, were, in 1783, devoted to 
 drunkenness, folly, and riot, which in 1763 
 were attended with peace and harmony.^ 
 
 In 1763, and many years preceding and 
 following, the execution of criminals was rare ; 
 three annually were reckoned the average for 
 the whole kingdom of Scotland. There were 
 three succeeding ydars (1774, 1775, 1776) in 
 which there was not an execution in Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1783 there were six criminals under sen- 
 tence of death in Edinburgh jail in one week ; 
 and ujion the autumn circuit no less than 
 thirty-seven capital indictments were issued. 
 
 During the winter 1791-2 there was not a 
 robbery, house-breaking, shop-breaking, nor a 
 theft publicly known, to the amount of forty 
 shillings, within the city of Edinburgh; not a 
 person accused of a capital crime ; and in the 
 jail only twenty for petty offences, and nine- 
 teen confined for small debts.*^ 
 
 In 1789 a society was instituted for promot- 
 ing religious knowledge among the poor or the 
 ignorant and indigent members of the com- 
 munity. No society is more likely to be of 
 benefit. They print books of moral and 
 religious instruction, which are diffused among 
 the lower ranks. This was a favourite scheme 
 of the late Lord Kames, but it was never 
 carried into execution in his time. A worthy 
 lady left, in 1792, £700 to promote the object 
 of this institution. 
 
 In 1763 there was no such diversion as 
 public cock-fighting in Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1783 there were many f)ublic cock-fighting 
 matches, or mains, as they are technically 
 termed ; and a regular cockpit was built for the 
 accommodation of this school of gambling and 
 cruelty, where every distinction of rank and 
 character is levelled. 
 
 In 1790 the cockpit continued to be fre- 
 quented. 
 
 Before 1790 there never was such a thing 
 known as professed bruisers. But in the course 
 
 1 See Brodie's Trial. 
 
 2 From 17SS to 1792 this folly had much abated by 
 the attention of the magistrates to strict police. 
 
 3 To contrast this with London, there were, April 
 20th, 1792, in Newgate, 406 prisoners, of whom 1S5 
 were debtors, 15 under sentence of death, 19 respited 
 during his Majesty's pleasure, SO transports, SO under 
 orders of imprisonment for certain determinate 
 periods, and 27 for trial. This is the account of one 
 prison only in London. 
 
r 
 I 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 441 
 
 of that year a person from England opened a 
 public school for teaching boxing, or pugilism, 
 as it is termed ; and he had several public 
 exhibitions at his school, but few pupils. This 
 branch of education does not correspond with 
 the mild genius of Christianity which we pro- 
 fess, and it can be looked on only with pity 
 even when j)ractised among savages and bar- 
 barians. 
 
 In 1792 this folly, which had been borrowed 
 from the south, was totally given up. 
 
 In 1763 a young man was termed a fine felloiv, 
 who, to a well-informed and an accomplished 
 mind, added elegance of manners, and a con- 
 duct guided by principle ; one who would not 
 have injured the rights of the meanest indi- 
 vidual, who contracted no debts that he could 
 not pay, and thought every breach of morality 
 unbecoming the character of a gentleman ; who 
 studied to be useful to society so far as his 
 opportunity or abilities enabled him. 
 
 In 1783 the term fine felloio was applied to 
 one who could drink three bottles ; who dis- 
 charged all debts of honour (or game debts and 
 tavern bills), and evaded payment of every 
 other; who swore immoderately, and before 
 ladies, and talked of his word of honour ; who 
 ridiculed rehgion and morality as folly and 
 hypocrisy (but without argument) ; who was 
 very jolly at the table of his friend, and would 
 lose no opportunity of seducing his wife, or of 
 debauching his daughter, if she was handsome ; 
 but, on the mention of such a thing being 
 attempted to his own connections, would have 
 cut the throat or blown out the brains of his 
 dearest companion offering such an insult ; 
 who was forward in all the fashionable follies 
 of the time ; who disregarded the interests of 
 society, or the good of mankind, if they inter- 
 fered with his own vicious, selfish pursuits and 
 pleasures. 
 
 In 1790 among the lower orders swearing had 
 increased greatly. And on trials in the courts 
 of law, perjury had also increased. 
 
 In 1791 immoderate drinking, or pushing the 
 bottle, as it is called, was rather out of fashion 
 among genteel people. Every one was allowed 
 to do as he pleased in filling or drinking his 
 glass. The means of hospitality, and the fre- 
 quency of showing it, had increased, and 
 excess on such occasions had decreased. 
 
 In 1763 in the best families in town, the 
 education of daughters was fitted, not only to 
 embellish and improve their minds, but to 
 accomplish them in the useful and necessary 
 arts of domestic economy. The sewing-school, 
 the pastry-school, were then essential branches 
 of female education ; nor was a young lady of 
 the best family ashamed to go to market with 
 her mother. 
 
 In 1783 the daughters of many tradesmen con- 
 sumed the mornings at the toilet, or in strolling 
 from shop to shop, etc. Many of them would 
 
 have blushed to have been seen in a market. 
 The cares of the family were devolved upon a 
 housekeeper ; and the young lady employed 
 those heavy hours when she was disengaged 
 from public or private amusements, in improving 
 her mind from the precious stores of a circulat- 
 ing library ; and all, whether they had taste for 
 it or not, were taught music at a great expense. 
 
 In 1791 there is little alteration. Every rank 
 is eager to copy the manners and fashion of 
 their superiors ; and this has in all ages been 
 the case. Of what importance, then, is correct 
 and exemplary manners in the higher ranks to 
 the good order of society ! 
 
 In 1763 young ladies (even by themselves) 
 might have walked through the streets of the 
 city in perfect security at any hour. No person 
 would have interrupted or spoken to them. 
 
 In 1783 the mistresses of boarding-schools 
 found it necessary to advertise that their young 
 ladies were not permitted to go abroad without 
 proper attendants. 
 
 In 1791 boys, from bad example at home, and 
 worse abroad, had become forward and insolent. 
 They early frequented taverns, and were soon 
 initiated in folly and vice, without any religious 
 principle to restrain them. It has been an 
 error of twenty years, to precipitate the 
 education of boys, and make them too soon 
 men. 
 
 In 1763 the weekly concert of music began at 
 six o'clock. 
 
 In 1783 the concert began at seven o'clock ; 
 but it was not in general so much attended as 
 such an elegant entertainment should have 
 been, and which was given at the sole expense 
 of the subscribers. 
 
 In 1791-2 the fashion changed, and the 
 concert became the most crowded place of 
 amusement. 
 
 The barbarous custom of savinr/ the ladies 
 (as it was called), after St. Cecilia's concert, by 
 gentlemen drinking immoderately to save a 
 favourite lady, as his toast, has been for some 
 years given up. Indeed they got no thanks for 
 their absurdity. 
 
 In 1763 the question respecting the morality 
 of stage-plays was much agitated. A clergy- 
 man, a few years before, had been brought 
 before the General Assembly of the Church, and 
 suspended from his office, for having written a 
 tragedy, unquestionably one of the most chaste 
 and interesting in the English language. ^ By 
 those who attended the theatre, even without 
 scruple, Saturday night was thought the most 
 improper in the week for going to the play. 
 Any clergyman who had been known to have 
 gone to the playhouse would have incurred 
 church censure. 
 
 In 1783 the morality of stage-plays, or their 
 
 1 The tragedy of Douglas, by Mr. Home, then a 
 clergjnnan. 
 
442 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 effects on society, were not thought of. The 
 most crowded houses were always on Saturday 
 night. The boxes for the Saturday night's play 
 were generally taken for the season, so that 
 strangers often on that night could not get a 
 l)lace. The custom of taking a box for the 
 Saturday night through the season was much 
 practised by boarding mistresses, so that there 
 could be no choice of the play, but the young 
 ladies could only take what was set before them 
 by the manager. Impudent buffoons took 
 liberties with authors, and with the audience, 
 in their acting, that would not have been 
 suffered formerly. 
 
 The galleries never failed to applaud what 
 they formerly would have hissed as improper 
 in sentiment or decorum. 
 
 In 17G3 there was one dancing assembly room, 
 the profits of which went to the support of the 
 Charity "Workhouse. Minuets were danced by 
 each set previous to the country-dances. Strict 
 regularity with respect to dress and decorum, 
 and great dignity of manners, were observed. 
 
 In 1786 the old Assembly Koom was used for 
 the accommodation of the City Guard. There 
 were three new elegant assembly rooms at 
 Edinburgh, besides one at Leith ; but the 
 Charity Workhouse was unprovided for to tlie 
 extent of its necessities. Minuets were given 
 up, and country-dances only used, which had 
 often a nearer resemblance to a game of romps 
 than to elegant and graceful dancing. Dress, 
 Ijarticularly by the men, was much neglected ; 
 and many of them reeled from the tavern, 
 flustered with wine, to an assembly of as 
 elegant and beautiful women as any in 
 Europe. 
 
 In 1763 the company at the public assemblies 
 met at five o'clock in the afternoon, and the 
 dancing began at six, and ended at eleven, by 
 public orders of the manager, which were never 
 transgressed. 
 
 In 1783 the public assemblies met at eight 
 and nine o'clock, and the lady directress 
 sometimes did not make her appearance till 
 ten.i The young masters and misses, who 
 would have been mortified not to have seen out 
 the ball, thus returned home at three or four in 
 the morning, and yawned and gaped and com- 
 plained of headaches all the next day. 
 
 In 1790 and 1791 the j)ubiic assemblies were 
 little frequented. Private balls were much in 
 fashion, with elegant suppers after them, and 
 the companies seldom parted till three, four, or 
 five in the morning. 
 
 In 1783 the funds of the Charity Workhouse 
 were insufficient to maintain the poor of the 
 community entitled by law to public charity. 
 The courts of law, however, and all who call 
 themselves members of those courts, pay no 
 
 1 A new institution, that of a master of ceremonies 
 or the city assemblies, took place in 17S7. 
 
 poor's money, nor lamp or guard money, 
 although the most opulent part of the com- 
 munity ; whilst they send, at the same time, a 
 very great proportion of managers to dispose of 
 funds to which they do not . contribute, and 
 crowd the house with their poor, to whose 
 support they do not pay. This privilege is 
 pleaded on old Acts of Parliament, at a period 
 when the courts were ambulatory. But now 
 that they have been stationary for near two 
 centuries, it is full time it were given up. 
 There is no such privilege existing anywhere 
 else in Britain. The courts of law in London 
 claim no such exemption ; nor would it be 
 allowed if they did. The regulations and 
 customs of Henry VIII. would ill accord with 
 the present state of England. 
 
 Many of the facts, with which I have now 
 furnished you, are curious. 
 
 They point out the gradual progress of com- 
 merce and luxury, and the corresponding effect 
 upon manners, and show by what imperceptible 
 degrees society may advance to refinement, and 
 in some points to corruption, whilst matters of 
 real utility may be neglected. 
 
 Observations similar to the preceding may 
 perhaps be made in every capital town or city 
 in Great Britain ; and, if the example I have 
 now given is followed, much useful information 
 may be gained respecting trade, manners, and 
 police. This is the more to be wished for, as 
 the prosperity and happiness of every nation 
 must depend upon its virtue, and on the wisdom 
 and due execution of its laws. 
 
 The information I have given is only an out- 
 line. It would have required a volume to have 
 gone minutely into particulars. 
 
 Your zeal and public spirit have stimulated 
 a research which never was equalled in any 
 country, and it may prove highly beneficial to 
 mankind in general. Every good citizen of the 
 state is bound to wish well to the undertaking, 
 and, according to his opportunities, to promote 
 its success. My best exertions, on every occasion 
 of such a nature, you may always depend on. — 
 I remain, with much esteem, sir, your most 
 obedient, humble servant, 
 
 William Ckeech. 
 
 Edinburgh, Dec. 1792. 
 
 [Burns alludes here to his racy poetical epistle 
 to Creech, written at the time and place 
 mentioned, and of which two verses are 
 quoted.] 
 
 ROBERT BURNS TO WILLIAM CREECH, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Selkirk, May 13, 1787. 
 My honoured Friend, — The enclosed I have 
 just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn 
 in Selkirk, after a miserable wet day's riding. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 443 
 
 I have been over most of East Lothian, Berwick, 
 Roxburgh, and Selkirk shires ; and next week 
 I begin a tour through the north of England. 
 Yesterday I dined with Lady Harriet, sister to 
 my noble patron,^ Quem Deus conservet! I 
 would write till I would tire you as much with 
 dull prose as I daresay by this time you are 
 with wretched verse, but I am jaded to death ; 
 so, with a grateful farewell, I have the honour 
 to be, good sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 R. B. 
 
 Auld chuckie-Reekie's 2 sair distrest, 
 Down droops her ance weel burnish'd crest ; 
 Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest 
 
 Can yield ava ; 
 Her darling bird that she lo'es best — 
 
 Willie's awa. 
 
 Nae mair we see his levee door 
 Philosophers and poets pour, 
 An' toothy critics by the score, 
 
 lu bloody raw ! 
 The adjutant o' a' the core — 
 
 Willie's awa. 
 
 [The name of this authoress, Anna Seward, is 
 now comparatively forgotten. She was the 
 daughter of the Rev. Thomas Seward, 
 bom at Eyam, Derbyshire, 1747, and early 
 showed considerable poetical taste. She 
 published Louisa, a poetical romance, and 
 A Life of Dr. Darwin. An edition of her 
 works was introduced to the public by 
 Scott with a biographical preface, and 
 her letters, of which we present specimens, 
 when collected and published filled six 
 volumes.] 
 
 illSS SEWARD TO SCOTT. 
 
 Lichfield, April 29, 1802. 
 Accept my warmest thanks for the so far 
 overpaying bounty of your literary present. In 
 speaking of its contents, I shall demonstrate 
 that my sincerity may be trusted, whatever 
 cause I may give you to distrust my judgment. 
 In saying that you dare not hope your Avorks 
 will entertain me, you evince the existence of a 
 deep preconceived distrust of the latter faculty 
 in my mind. That distrust is not, I flatter 
 myself, entirely founded, at least if I may so 
 gather from the delight with which I pei'use all 
 that is yours, whether jirose or verse, in these 
 volumes. 
 
 Your dissertations place us in Scotland in 
 the midst of the feudal period. They throw 
 the strongest light on a part of history indis- 
 tinctly sketched, and partially mentioned by 
 the English historians, and which, till now, 
 has not been sufficiently elucidated, and rescued 
 
 1 James Earl of Glencairn. 
 - Edinburgh. 
 
 by those of your country from the imputed 
 guilt of unxirovoked depredation on the part of 
 the Scots. 
 
 The old Border ballads of your first volume 
 are so far interesting, as they corroborate yowx 
 historic essays ; so far valuable, as that they 
 form the basis of them. Poetically considered, 
 little surely is their worth ; and I must think 
 it more to the credit of Mrs. Brown's memory 
 than of her taste, that she could take pains to 
 commit to remembrance, and to retain there, 
 such a quantity of uncouth rhymes, almost 
 totally destitute of all which gives metre a 
 right to the name of poetry. 
 
 Poetry is like i)ersonal beauty ; the homeliest 
 and roughest language cannot conceal the first, 
 any more than can coarse and mean apparel the 
 second. But grovelling, colloquial iihrase, in 
 numbers inharmonious,— verse that gives no 
 picture to the reader's eye, no light to his 
 understanding, no magnet to his affections, — is, 
 as composition, no more deserving his praise 
 than coarse forms and features in a beggar's 
 raiment are worth his attention. Yet are 
 there critics who seem to mistake the squalid 
 dress of language for poetic excellence, provided 
 the verse and its mean garb be ancient. 
 
 Of that number seems Mr. Pinkerton, in 
 some of his notes to those old Scottish ballads 
 which he published in 1781 ; and the late Mr. 
 Headly more than so seems in that collection 
 of ancient English ballads, which he soon after 
 gave to the press. We find there an idiot- 
 preference or the rude and, in itself, valueless 
 foundation on which Prior raised one of the 
 loveliest poetic edifices in our language, the 
 Henry and Emma. With equal insolence and 
 stupidity, ]\Ir. Headly terms it ' Matt's Ver- 
 sification Piece,' extolling the imputed superi- 
 ority of the worthless model. It is preferring 
 a barber's block to the head of Antinous. 
 
 Mr. Pinkerton, in his note to the eldest 
 'Flowers of the Forest,' calls it very justly an 
 exquisite poetic dirge ; but, unfortunately for 
 his decisions in praise of ancient above modern 
 Scottish verse, he adds : * The inimitable 
 beauty of the original induced a variety of 
 versifiers to mingle stanzas of their own com- 
 position ; but it is the painful, though necessary 
 duty of an editor, by the touchstone of truth, 
 to discriminate such dross from the gold of 
 antiquity ; ' and, in the note to that pathetic 
 and truly beautiful elegy, 'Lady Both well's 
 Lament,' he says the four stanzas he has given 
 appear to be all that are genuine. It has since, 
 as you observe, been proved that both the 
 Flodden dirges, even as he has given them, are 
 modern. Their beauty was a touchstone, as he 
 expresses it, which might have shown their 
 younger birth to any critic, whose taste had 
 not received the broad impression of that 
 torpedo, antiquarianism. 
 
 You, with all your strength, originality, and 
 
444 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 richness of imagination, liad a slight touch of 
 that torpedo when you observed that the 
 manner of the ancient minstrels is so happily- 
 imitated in the first 'Flowers of the Forest,' 
 that it required the strongest jjositive evidence to 
 convince you that the song was of modern date. 
 The phraseology, indeed, is of their texture, 
 but comparing it with the Border ballads in 
 your first volume, I should have pronounced it 
 modern, from its so much more touching regrets, 
 so much more lively pictures. 
 
 Permit me too to confess, that I can discover 
 very little of all which constitutes poetry in 
 the first old tale, which you call beautifixl, 
 excepting the second stanza, which gives the 
 unicorns at the gate, and the portraits, ' with 
 holly aboon their brie.' To give them, no 
 gTeat reach of fancy was requisite ; but still 
 they are picture, and as such, poetry. 
 
 * Lord Maxwell's Good Night' is but a sort of 
 inventory in rhyme of his property, interspersed 
 with some portion of tenderness for his wife, 
 and some expressions of regard for his friends ; 
 but the first has no picture, and the latter 
 little pathos. That ballad induced me, by 
 xvhat appeared its deficiencies, to attempt a 
 somewhat more poetic leave-taking of house, 
 land, and live-stock. My ballad does not 
 attempt the pathetic, and you will smile at my 
 glossary Scotch. 
 
 Mr. Erskine's supplemental stanzas to the 
 poem, asserted to have been wi'itten by Collins 
 on the Highland superstitions, have great merit, 
 and no inferiority to those whose manner they 
 assume. 
 
 In the Border ballads, the first strong rays 
 from the Delphic orb illuminate ' Jellom Grame ' 
 in the 4th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 20th stanzas. 
 There is a good corpse-picture in' Clerk Saunders,' 
 the rude original, as you observe, of a ballad in 
 Percy, which I have thought furnished Burger 
 with the hint for his Leonore. How little 
 delicate touches have improved this verse in 
 Percy's imitation ! 
 
 ' Oh ! if I come within thy bower, 
 
 I am no mortal man ! 
 
 And if I kiss thy rosy lip, 
 
 Thy days will not be long.' 
 
 And now, in these Border ballads, the dawn 
 of poesy, which broke over 'Jellom Grame,' 
 strengthens on its progress. ' Lord Thomas and 
 Fair Annie ' has more beauty than Percy's ballad 
 of that title. It seems injudiciously altered 
 from this in your collection ; but the 'Binnorie,' 
 of endless repetition, has nothing truly pathetic ; 
 and the ludicrous use made of the drowned 
 sister's body, by the harper making a harp of it, 
 to which he sung her dirge in her father's hall, 
 is contemptible. 
 
 Your dissertation preceding 'Tam Lane,' in 
 the second volUme, is a little mine of mytho- 
 logic information and ingenious conjecture, 
 however melancholy the proofs it gives of dark 
 
 and cruel superstition. Always partial to the 
 fairies, I am charmed to learn that Shakespeare 
 civilised the elfins, and, so doing, endeared 
 their memory on English ground. It is curious 
 to find the Grecian Orpheus metamorphosed 
 into a king of Winchelsea. 
 
 The terrible graces look through a couple of 
 stanzas in the first part of Thomas the Khymer. 
 ' Oil they rade on,' etc., also, ' It was mirk, mirk 
 night ;' and potent are the poetic charms of 
 the second part of this oracular ballad, which 
 you confess to have been modernized ; yet more 
 potent in the third. Both of them exhibit tender 
 touches of sentiment, vivid pictures, landscapes 
 from nature, not from books, and all of them 
 worthy the author of ' Glenfinlas.' 
 
 ' Oh tell me how to woo thee' is a pretty ballad 
 of those times, in which it was the fashion for 
 lovers to worship their mistresses, and when 
 ballads, as you beautifully observe, reflected 
 the setting rays of chivalry. Mr. Leyden's 
 ' Cout Keelder ' pleases me much. The first is a 
 sublime stanza, and sweet are the landscape 
 touches in the 3d, 10th, and 11th, and striking 
 the winter simile in the 9th. The picture of the 
 fern is new in poetry, and to the eye, thus : 
 ' The next blast that young Keelder blew, 
 
 The wind grew deadly still ; 
 Yet the sleek fern, with fmgery leaves, 
 
 Waved wildly o'er the hill.' 
 
 The ' wee Demon' is admirably imagined. 
 
 And now the poetic day, which had gradually 
 risen into beauty and strength through this 
 second volume, sets nobly amidst the sombre, 
 yet often-illuminated grandeur of ' Glenfinlas.' 
 
 Permit me to add one observation to this 
 already long epistle. The battle of Flodden- 
 field, so disastrous to Scotland, has been, by 
 two poetic females, beautifully mourned ; but 
 your boasted James the Fourth deserved his 
 fate, from the ungenerous advantage he sought 
 to take of Henry the Eighth, by breaking the 
 peace, without i)rovocation, when that monarch 
 was engaged in a war with France. So deserve 
 all the rulers of nations, who, unstimulated 
 by recent injuries, thus unclasp ' the purple 
 testament of bleeding war.' 
 
 Perhaps this voluminous intrusion on your 
 time will be thought merciless ; but it seemed 
 to me that barren thanks, and indiscriminate 
 praise, was an unworthy acknowledgment of 
 the honour conferred upon me by the gift of 
 these highly curious and ingenious books. 
 
 A bright luminary in this neighbourhood 
 recently shot from its sphere, with awful and 
 deplored suddenness. Dr. Darwin, on whose 
 philosophical talents and dissertations, so 
 ingeniously conjectural, the adejits in tliat 
 science looked with admiring, if not always 
 acquiescent respect ; in whose creative, gay, 
 luxuriant, and polished imagination, and har- 
 monious numbers, the votaries of poetry basked 
 delighted; and on whose discernment into 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 445 
 
 the cause of diseases, and skill in curing 
 them, his own and the neighbouring counties 
 reposed. He was born to confute, by his 
 example, a frequent assertion, that the poetic 
 fancy loses its fine efflorescence after middle 
 life. The Botanic Garden, one of the most 
 highly-imaginative poem.s in our language, was 
 begun after its author had passed his forty- 
 sixth year. 
 I have the honour to remain, sir, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 A THOUSAND thanks for the third volume of 
 the Border Minstrelsy, and for your letter 
 which succeeded in a few days. I am charmed 
 with the extract this packet contains from your 
 yet unpublished poem, now on the anvil. The 
 first sixteen lines of that extract glow with 
 your softest tints of portrait and of landscape. 
 The questions in the next eight lines have a 
 fine effect ; the fourth reminds me of this noble 
 passage in Paradise Lost : 
 
 ' So Satan stood, and like a comet burned, 
 That fires the length of Ophiucus huge 
 In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
 Shakes pestilence and war.' 
 
 The different nature of the objects considered, 
 your passage has no inferiority ; the epithet 
 wavering has the most marked appropriation to 
 the beacon's light. You are the first poet who, 
 here and in your Eve of St. John, has done 
 ample justice to the melancholy and ominous 
 flame. Nor less do I admire the ensuing 
 passage ; it finely contrasts the quiet graces of 
 that -part of this extract. The disorder of the 
 armour, which the lady sees from the castle- 
 turret, so hastily brought into the area below, 
 on the discovery of the distant beacon ; the 
 simile for the shaken spears, — 'like reeds 
 beside a frozen brook,' — all is in the first rank 
 of poetic writing. 
 
 A protest of mine against the frequent and 
 licentious change of measure, which Southey 
 adopts in his Thalaba, and systematically 
 defends, is printed at the close of the first 
 volume of the Poetical Register, which came 
 out in 1802. Its effect did not please me in 
 Thalaba; and I think the practice opens a door 
 to much revel-rout and confusion in poetry, 
 blending its various orders till all distinction 
 amongst them is lost. Yet I feel that the 
 sudden introduction of irregular measure, 
 succeeding to the gentler trochaic couplets in 
 this extract, produces great picturesque effect. 
 The numerous fires, successively, yet almost 
 instantaneously, kindling on all the hills, rival, 
 in poetic effect, your preceding picture of the 
 first solitary and warning beacon. 
 
 You possess the rare art, belonging only to 
 great and original poets, that of being able so 
 to present an impressive object, that, though 
 
 you may have repeatedly described it, still it 
 shall be new ; and that, from varied situation, 
 varied accompaniments, and varied epithets, 
 climatic in their strength. 
 
 It is well, for it is needfvil, that you are 
 preparing in Edinburgh to present to our mighty 
 and incensed foes the stoutest front of defensive 
 battle. It is now fruitless to reproach that 
 miserable nine years' system of British politics, 
 which brought upon this country the jDerils of 
 this hour. Of those indirect and crooked paths, 
 which involved our violated faith to Ireland, 
 see the consequence so inevitably resulting ! 
 If honour, if justice, if the sacred faith of 
 treaties were considered as nothing, self-pre- 
 servation might have operated to restrain their 
 violation. Was the dangerous epoch of the 
 republic's growing power a season in which to 
 crush the national pride of Ireland, and to 
 wrench away the self-legislation which we had 
 so solemnly pledged to her? The rebellious 
 spirit which has again broken out, and which 
 there is so much reason to fear will be universal 
 in the island, was the sure consequence of that 
 infatuated innovation. It is a hydra-headed 
 monster, whose efforts, I fear, will not cease 
 till the yoke of England becomes exchanged for 
 that of France — a heavier probably ; but the 
 burning sense of perfidy willingly hazards 
 incurring increased evils for gratified revenge. 
 This is nature ; and v/hat wise man dreams 
 that he can control her operations ! 
 
 You must not consider my little work as a 
 life of Darwi\i ; it neither assumes or merits a 
 title so responsible. I have not science, I have 
 not sufficient knowledge of his philosophical 
 correspondence, to make any such pretension ; 
 and of his literary life, since he left this city 
 in 1781, I know nothing, except through the 
 medium of his publications. To present a 
 faithful portrait of his disposition, his manners, 
 his heart ; to draw aside the domestic curtain; 
 to delineate the connubial and parental conduct 
 of his youth ; the Petrarchan attachment of his 
 middle life ; its resemblance to that of the bard 
 of Vaucluse, but its better fate ; to analyze his 
 poetic claims ; and to jiresent singular instances 
 of philosophical love in the eventful history of 
 one of his distinguished friends ; — these, and 
 these only, mvist you expect from my feminine 
 Darwiniana. Johnson has had the manuscript 
 on a high price purchase these three months. 
 Why he delays to produce it I know not. He 
 is a very laconic personage, and has upon him 
 the penphobia. 
 
 And now for the treasures of this third 
 volume of the Border Minstrelsy. There, as in 
 its two predecessors, you hang elegant prose 
 raiments upon its old wooden posts of verse. 
 There is but one gleam of poetry in the first 
 ancient ballad, ' Auld Maitland,' thus : 
 
 * They rade their horse, they ran their horse, 
 They hovered o'er the lea. 
 
446 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 That is to the eye, and consequently it is poetry. 
 The story of * Sir Hugh Bland' resembles that 
 of Lucretia, only that the Scotch lady was 
 wiser than the Roman matron, by making other 
 blood rather than her own the test of her 
 chastity ; but Lucrece had a patriotic view in 
 her suicide. After your prose prelude, Sir 
 Hugh and his lady lose interest and beauty by 
 the rhymes, as David does by those of Stern- 
 hold and Hopkins. This ballad is entirely in 
 the mirk and muddy morning of Caledonian 
 verse, ere its long bright day arose. 
 
 Your prelude to the ' Lament of the Border 
 Widow' delights me. Description from your 
 pen is the ring of Fortunatus, and instantly 
 places VIS in the midst of the scene it so vividly 
 delineates. In the old ditty itself there is, 
 rare to say, poetry, thovigh quaint and uncouth. 
 The last stanza but one is pathetic, yes, 
 extremely. It should have been final, since 
 that which is final has a quaint conceit, weak- 
 ening the strong impression its mournful 
 predecessor had made. 
 
 Without one gleam of genius, 'Christie's Will' 
 is a humorous, amusing ballad. After wading 
 through so many bald and tuneless rhymes, 
 what an eflfect does their contrast obtain for 
 the lovely lines of Langhorne, which precede 
 your next interesting prose tract, prefixed to 
 the rude ' March of Lesley ' ! That morsel of 
 genuine poesy appears to us, after the old 
 jjoems, as a bust of Roubilliac wovild do when 
 v/e had been looking at a barber's block. 
 How strongly does all the modern i)oetry of 
 these volumes demonstrate the stupid infat- 
 uation concerning the decline of poetic genius 
 in this period ! but it has been the cant of 
 the critics in all ages. Genius ever has, and 
 ever must have, to contend with the dulness 
 of i^edantry, and with the envy of inferior 
 rhymists. 
 
 I confess myself right glad to leave the sterile 
 land of rude, unornamented, traditionary verse, 
 for the fair, fertile regions of genuine i^oetry. 
 
 First steps forward the Ovid of your frater- 
 nity, the melodioiis, the fanciful Leyden. Ovid, 
 however, has nothing which, through the 
 medium of translation, has half the charms for 
 me as Leyden's 'Mermaid.' The former vol- 
 umes of Border Minstrelsy contain delightful 
 effluences from the same clear fountain ; but 
 the ' Mermaid ' is the brightest of its streams. It 
 opens with a new poetic notice, tliat of the 
 murmuring sea-shell, amongst the sounds con- 
 genial to the thoughts of parting lovers, thus : 
 
 * On Jura's shore how sweetly swell 
 The murmurs of the mountain bcc ! 
 How softly mourns the wreathed shell 
 Of Jura's shore, its parent sea !' 
 
 The alliteration of the above stanza has a very 
 picturesque effect. The lavish recurrence of 
 the letter s finely imitates the hushy sound (if 
 
 I may be allowed to coin that epithet) ot ^he 
 sea-shore, and the hissing effect is softened 
 away by the number of intermixed vowels, and 
 by the frequency of the sonorous consonant m. 
 These are little circumstances to which no poet 
 should be inattentive who wishes to unite the 
 graces of picture and of melody. 
 
 Nor less happy in this j)oem is the deprecation 
 concerning the sea-snake, and its ensuing 
 description, and the oceanic scenery, page 309. 
 The portrait of the sea-nymph ; the helpless 
 sinking of the hero into the deep within her 
 grasp ; its simile to the lead-like dropping of a 
 corpse into the water; the well-imagined 
 description of the coral cave ; the second 
 l^ortrait of the mermaid in that cave ; the 
 reassumption of her monster form, — all are fresh 
 from the plastic hand of true genius. 
 
 Your prelude to this poem, with the fabulous 
 legends you cite there, is very amusing. 
 
 How rich is Scotland at this period in poets ! 
 Mr. Sharp is a fine one ; witness his ' Tower of 
 Rej)entance.' The 2d and the 3d stanzas are 
 admirable, so is the whole of the ensuing poem, 
 'The Murder of Caerlaveroc' It contains an 
 original poetic picture of the extremes^ beauty — 
 a lady asleep : 
 
 ' Unclosed her mouth of rosy hue, 
 
 Whence Issued fragrant air, 
 That gentle, in soft motion, blev/ 
 Stray ringlets of her hair.' 
 
 Then how natural is the ensuing dream (when 
 wet, as she slumbers, by the blood of her bride- 
 groom) that the waters of the Forth flowed 
 over her ! The musical locality of the last 
 stanza but one is striking. 
 
 Your epic ballad, ' Cadzow Castle,' is all over 
 excellence, nothing but excellence, and every 
 species of excellence, harmonic, picturesque, 
 characteristic. It satisfies to luxury the whole 
 soul of my imagination. 
 
 The gay festivity of modern life, with which 
 it opens, and the quiet graces of a cultivated 
 landscape, in the blessedness of national peace, 
 which forms the close, have the finest possible 
 effect, as preceding and succeeding the spirited 
 and sublime story of Regent Moray's assassina- 
 tion. The lifted pall of oblivion discloses that 
 scene in all the interesting customs and manners 
 of the feudal times. Then the interspersed 
 landscapes ! You Salvator ! you Claude ! — 
 what a night scene ! — what an animated descrip- 
 tion of the onset of the morning chase ! Your 
 bull ! — what a sublime creature ! — and oh ! the 
 soft, sweet picture of Margaret — pale, yet 
 beauteous, convalescent from her maternal 
 throes ! It rivals the Alcmena of Pindar in his 
 first Nemean ode. 
 
 The Homeric pages have nothing grander 
 than your Bothwellhaugh returning to the 
 chase from the deed of revenge he had com- 
 mitted on the Regent. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 447 
 
 ' But who o'er 'bush, o'er stream, and rock, 
 
 Eides headlong with resistless speed? 
 Whose bloody poinard's frantic stroke 
 Drives to the leap his jaded steed? 
 
 ' Whose cheek is pale, whose eye-balls glare. 
 As one some horrid sight that saw? 
 Whose hands are bloodj', loose his hair ? — 
 'Tis he ! 'tis he ! 'tis Bothwellhaugh ! 
 
 ' From gory selle, and reeling steed, 
 
 Sprung the fierce horseman with a bound. 
 And reeking from the recent deed 
 He dash'd his carbine on the ground.' 
 
 I read this poem last week to a young soldier of 
 genius, Captain Oliver, nephew to the Duchess 
 of Ancaster. His kindling countenance always, 
 and often his exclainaing voice, marked every 
 beauty as I proceeded. Above all was he im- 
 pressed with the picture of the Regent and his 
 train, and every strilring feature there given of 
 a crowded march. 
 
 To observe the first effect of noble poetry 
 upon a mind alive to its graces, has ever been 
 to me a gratification on which my whole soul 
 luxuriates. Adieu ! 
 
 MISS SEWAED TO WM. HAYLET. 
 
 My dear Sir, — You have sent me an estimable 
 and very costly present, in addition to a number 
 of past and similar obligations. I thank you 
 with a deep and almost painful sense of 
 gratitude. This duty had been earlier paid, if 
 I could have obtained leisure for that attentive 
 perusal of this interesting biography, which I 
 determined should precede my acknowledg- 
 ments, that I might not intrude two letters 
 upon your attention. 
 
 Partial as you seem to your unhappy friend, 
 these volumes induce me to believe him much 
 more kind-hearted and amiable than the gener- 
 ally severe, and, in some instances, illiberal spirit 
 which appears in his so infinitely best work, 
 the Task, had led me to imagine. 
 
 Cowper's letters, of which those volumes so 
 largely consist, have finally left this impression 
 on my mind, that he had naturally a mild, 
 compassionate, pious, charitable, and, respecting 
 pecuniary considerations, liberal and inde- 
 pendent spirit. AVhether from the narrow and 
 miserable principles of Calvinism, with which 
 he was so deadly tinctured, and which led 
 either to presumptuous trust of acceptance, or 
 to terrors of divine power, utterly unworthy of 
 its mercy ; or whether from a native taint of 
 insanity, I know not, but I see him, with all 
 his inherent good projierties, a vapourish egotist. 
 However, after emerging from the mystical 
 and dull jargon of his letters to Mrs. Cowper, 
 
 he amusingly describes the peculiarities which 
 shut him up within himself. 
 
 For absorbed in himself, he appears to have 
 been ignobly inattentive to the works of poetic 
 genius which have adorned his country from 
 Milton's time to the present. A note in the 
 first edition of his Homer, the only one I have 
 seen, apologizes for his supposed coinage of the 
 word purpureal, though Akenside says in his 
 Pleasures of Imagination, 
 
 ' Amid purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene ; ' 
 
 and though from the time of that j)ublication 
 the word has been in poetic use. This proves 
 that Cowi)er had not read, or read without 
 attention, a justly celebrated work, which 
 stands, at least, on as high poetic ground as his 
 own best work, though, together with the still 
 greater Paradise Lost, it is, for obvious reasons, 
 less popular than the Task. 
 
 That Cowper also had paid no attention to 
 Chatterton's writings, ' of which all Britain rang 
 from side to side,' appears from his assertion 
 that Burns, whose beautiful compositions seem 
 to have been forced upon his notice, was the 
 only poet since Prior's time whose compositions 
 stand in no need of allowance from the 
 recollected obscurity of birth and education. 
 He must have heard of Chatterton ; and if he 
 wanted all generous curiosity to look into his 
 verse, he had no right to make such an assertion, 
 disgraceful to himself, and unjvist to the greatest 
 genius, his early extinction considered, which 
 j)erhaps the world ever produced. 
 
 For you he expresses much personal affection, 
 but it seems to have been because yoii sought 
 and so highly gratified his self-love, without 
 any mixed consideration of your distinguished 
 talents. Not once does he address you as a 
 poet of eminence, who had diffused the lustre 
 of his genius over the late and present period of 
 English literature. 
 
 He often mentions you affectionately in his 
 letters to Lady Hesketh ; but no person, who 
 did not otherwise know it, would ever dream 
 from them that you. had so brilliantly iireceded 
 him in the race of fame, or indeed had published 
 anything besides the Life of Milton. Upon 
 that subject he could not avoid speaking to you, 
 since it was connected with his own design, to 
 which you generously offered to relinquish it, 
 though on so advanced a progress. 
 
 Now you forgive Cowper for this negative 
 injustice to yourself and others. I own I can- 
 not ; and that, as a literary character, it costs 
 him my esteem. His own works are his eternal 
 and nearly exclusive subject. He confesses his 
 earnest desire of irablic praise, yet satirizes, in 
 the Task, its administration to others, even to 
 the memory of Shakespeare and Handel. Well 
 might that unworthy grudging awaken the 
 disdain of the poetic lady to whom you allude ! 
 
 Certainly Cowper's letters are those of a 
 
448 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 mind not ordinarily gifted ; yet if I could forget 
 that they proceeded from a pen which had 
 produced one great original work, they would 
 by no means show me an understanding 
 responsible for such a production. For the 
 impartially ingenious surely they do not possess 
 the literary usefulness of Pope's letters ; the 
 wit and imagination of Gray's ; the strength 
 and humour of Dr. Johnson's ; or the brilliance, 
 the grace, the play of fancy, which, in former 
 years, rendered your letters to me equal to the 
 best of Madame Sevigne's, whose domestic 
 beauties seem to me to throw those of Cowper 
 into shade. I mean the generality of his 
 epistles. Some few of them are very interesting 
 egotism, /or all is egotism ; such of them as 
 describe his home, his daily haunts, and the 
 habits of his life. Neither can a feeling heart 
 ; contemplate undelighted the effusions of his 
 personal tenderness for his friends, inconsistent 
 as they were with the apathy and neglect 
 towards his poetic contemporaries. 
 
 You seem in your preface to confine the 
 excellence of letters to one style, whose style 
 may surely be various as that of conversation, 
 which accomplished people do not limit to 
 mere tea-table talk. The epistolary and collo- 
 quial excellences must result from the style 
 being adapted to the subject, and thus becoming 
 in turn grave and gay, eloquent and inves- 
 tigating. 
 
 Allow me to express my surprise, that you 
 slightly and obscurely mention Cowper's love 
 attachment, which you seem to think the primal 
 source of his long and fatally increasing discon- 
 tent. General curiosity must be excited on the 
 subject, and will think it has a claim upon his 
 biographer for gratification. Then the well- 
 known circvimstance of his purposed suicide, 
 and the accidental one which induced him to 
 forego that design, are material traits in his 
 character and destiny; and their suppression 
 has a tendency to weaken public confidence in 
 the fidelity of representation. 
 
 Since the juvenile attachment is only hinted, 
 and the resolve of despair wholly omitted, I 
 wonder those deplorable letters to Mrs. Cowper, 
 of which the world would have known nothing, 
 were not also withheld. They weaken our 
 deference for the understanding of Cowper, and 
 cannot promote rational piety, since events 
 prove that his religion was not that whose ways 
 are i^leasantness and whose paths are peace. 
 
 The Bishop of Peterborough spoke to me of 
 his extreme attachment to Mrs. Unwin as the 
 strangest thing imaginable ; and that fr-om the 
 utter absence of everything attractive in her 
 person and manners, and of all intellectual 
 fitness for a companion to Cowper in retirement. 
 If I remember right, he said Lady Hesketh's 
 opinion of her was similar to his own. 
 
 I once heard Mr. Newton preach a violently 
 Mcthodistical, and consequently absurd and 
 
 dangerous sermon. Miss H. More and her 
 sisters had requested for him the pulpit of the 
 late pious and excellent Mr. Inman, their 
 neighbour : Mr. and Mrs. Whalley were his 
 parishioners, and I was then their guest in 1791. 
 When church was over Mr. Inman expressed 
 deep regret for having, however reluctantly, . 
 granted Miss More's request. Now, said he, has 
 this man, in one hour perhaps, rendered fruit- 
 less my labour of many years to keep my 
 parishioners free from those wild, deceiving 
 principles which have turned the heads of half 
 the poor people in this county. The result to 
 poor Cowper of making Newton his comfortless 
 conscience-keeper, ought to warn people of 
 strong imagination how they listen to religious 
 fanatics, presumptuously calling themselves 
 evangelical preachers. 
 
 No wonder of mine is excited by the reviewer 
 who, on the testimony of all Cowper's publica- 
 tions prior to the Task, denied him a claim to 
 true poetic genius. If a man exhibits only 
 Scotch pebbles to sale, no person is bound to 
 know that he has diamonds. Cowper's poems 
 in rhyme do not place him above the level of 
 our minor poets. Strong sense may be found 
 in them, but they want the poetic constituents, 
 imagery, landscape, invention, and harmonious 
 numbers. They have a stiJffness and hitch in 
 their metre. He was in the habit of rhyming 
 with mean words, as, so, go, here, there, and the 
 whole tribe of insignificants ; yet does not seem 
 to have been led into those inharmonious and 
 nerveless terminations by any unlucky i)rejudice 
 against the use of what are termed imperfect 
 rhymes, with which Milton, Dryden, Pope, 
 Mason, and Gray occasionally relieved the ear 
 of the reader from the luscious sameness of 
 complete chime, and inspirited their verse. In 
 one of the best rhyme compositions I ever saw 
 of Cowper's, on the twelfth page of your first 
 volume, the opening rhymes are waste, pasty 
 most, lost ; and further on, done, unknown, flow, 
 hroio ; and all these in a copy of verses con- 
 taining only twenty-two lines. To my ear, 
 however, far from injuring the harmony, they 
 increase it by variety of sound. 
 
 The Task, however desultory, however totally 
 planless, is a noble poem, and has, as you well 
 observe, an unperishable constitution. It is more 
 pleasing, of much more general interest, than the 
 Night Thoughts, because its themes are various ; 
 because the piety is but occasional, though 
 frequent, and has therefore more impressive 
 power when it occurs, than where, as in the 
 Night Thoughts, it forms the chief and exclusive 
 subject ; yet surely we must deeply feel that 
 the genius of Dr. Young was of a higher order 
 than that of Cowper ; the sublime passages are 
 of much greater strength, of much more frequent 
 occurrence. 
 
 The Night Thoughts must be forgotten when 
 Cowper is held up as the leading instance of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 449 
 
 Ohristian devotion, united, with fine effect, to 
 the poetic effervescence of the human mind ; 
 and surely Mr. Hayley lost sight of all the 
 great English poets, with Shakespeare and 
 Milton at the head of them, when he calls the 
 Muse of Cowper jjre-eminent, incomparable, 
 transcendent, unrivalled, unequalled— epithets 
 which are profusely lavished upon her througli 
 the course of these volumes — epithets which 
 ■can only be applied with truth to three men or 
 genius in the known world — to Shakespeare, as 
 a dramatic poet ; Newton, as a philosopher ; and 
 Handel, as a musician ; not to Homer, not to 
 Milton, because they stand abreast with each 
 other and divide the epic palm. Let not applause 
 of distinguished talents be stinted, but let it not 
 be unjust to superior, or ej^en to equal powers, 
 by assertion that the subject of its descant has 
 approachless excellence. 
 
 The universal popularity of the Task i^ 
 accountable from other causes than its imaginary 
 pre-eminence over all other contemporary poetry. 
 Its beauties are unquestionably sufficient to 
 give it considerable rank in the estimation of 
 those who look with ardent yet impartial eyes 
 on the respective claims of the bards, past and 
 present ; while it possesses the power to please 
 and instruct the whole race of common readers, 
 who cannot perhaps comprehend, in any degree 
 which can render them charming, the Paradise 
 Lost, or Comus ; Akenside's compositions, or 
 Gray's, except the ' Churchyard very little of 
 Mason's, or of yours, except the common-life 
 parts of the exquisite Triumphs of Temper ; nor 
 yet of the sublimely fanciful Botanic Garden. 
 
 Then the Task, besides it being level to the 
 most ordinary capacity, gratifies two of the 
 most prevailing dispositions of the general mind ; 
 its religious zeal, which exists in countless hearts 
 whose practice it does not govern, and also its 
 strange delight to see human nature represented 
 in the darkest point of view ; in whatevei 
 expresses disdain of it on earth, and menaces it 
 with punishment and misery hereafter. 
 
 I am glad to learn, from your volumes, that 
 Co\vper's first edition of Homer has undergone, 
 from his own hand, that corrective discipline of 
 which it stood so much in need. In that first 
 edition I have read it in close comparison with 
 Pope's. 
 
 "When I had the happiness of being your 
 guest at Eartham, in 1782, I remember main- 
 taining, against your opinion, the possibility, 
 charming as Pope's Homer is, that we might 
 see a still superior translation in blank verse, 
 if ever a man of eminent genius should under- 
 take the work ; since rhyme does not, from the 
 nature of the Iliad, seem the best mode of 
 rendering it into English, notwithstanding the 
 assertion of three of my former learned and 
 poetic friends, that Pope's translation makes a 
 finer poem than the original, when the superior 
 harmony of the Greek language is jiut out of 
 
 the question ; that it contains more poetic 
 matter ; that the beauty of the Homeric 
 pictures and the grandeur of the sentiments 
 are heightened, while a rich veil is thrown over 
 all the coarseness of the old bard. I did not 
 believe them at the time, but the avowed 
 fidelity of Cowper's translation has established 
 ray present faith in their opinion. Waiving 
 that imputed superiority, Cowper's measures 
 and expression, so free and generally graceful 
 in the Task, are, in his Homer, stiff and 
 inharmonious ; his style loaded with Grecisms, 
 which our language will not bear, and with low 
 and vulgar terms, from which good taste recoils; 
 with strange epithets, which add neither force, 
 nor grace, nor character to the name, as 
 Priamean Hector, crest-tossing Hector, huge 
 Hector ; and with the awkward double negative 
 in perpetual recurrence, as 
 
 ' He spake ; nor -vvhite-armed Juno not coniplied.' 
 
 ' He spake ; nor Agamemnon not complied.' 
 
 ' She spake ; nor did Minerva not comply.' 
 
 ' Nor Juno him not understood.' 
 
 There is also a disgusting frequency of what 
 ought never to be found in verse, either blank 
 or rhyme, viz. lines closing with an adjective, I 
 whose substantive begins the next line, thus 
 disjoining what the Muses decree should, in no 
 instance, be pu.t asunder ; instances : 
 
 ' As when tlie Spring's fair daughter, rosy-palmed 
 Aurora ' 
 
 ' The brazen wheels, and joined them to the smooth 
 
 Steel axle ' 
 
 ' Achilles, after loss of the bright-haiie I 
 
 Bwseis ' 
 
 Seldom looking into reviews, I never have 
 read one of their stiictures on Cowper's Homer. 
 Some noble passages met my eye on its pages — 
 passages upon which not even yourself can set 
 a higher value. I am fully sensible of their 
 superiority to their parallels in Pope. The 
 most striking of these instances is the picture 
 of Achilles' horse in the close of the 19th book, 
 just before he speaks to his master. Poetry 
 has nothing finer. Neither Pindar's nor Gray's 
 Eagle excel it ; but mstances of Cowper's tran- 
 scending Pope are rare ; the reverse instances 
 are countless and incessant. 
 
 It appears to me that the lady who purloined 
 your friend's song, 'The Rose,' had as little good 
 taste as honesty. A quaint affection of ideas, 
 and unscholarlike awkwardness of expression, 
 disgrace it : 
 
 'A rose had been washed, just washed by a shower, 
 
 Which Mary to Anna conveyed.' 
 
 According to grammar construction the word 
 vjhich belongs to the shower, and not to the rose. 
 Mr. Cary, Saville, and myself used to laugh at 
 it as a disagreeable quiz of a ballad when we 
 believed it a lady's composition. Since Cary 
 has known it to be Cowper's, he told me he had 
 persuaded himself to like it. Such is prejudice. 
 Another proof how little your friend Icnew 
 
 2F 
 
450 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of the poetic literature of England as it rose 
 and bloomed around him ; he says he was the 
 first poet who publicly stigmatized our slave 
 trade. Mr, Day's admirable poem, The Dying 
 Negro, which, in the strongest colours, paints 
 the guilt and misery of that traffic, appeared 
 in the year 1770, years before Cowper published 
 at all, and it was generally read and admired. 
 Conscious as Cowj)er must have been how little 
 he knew of the writings of his contemporaries, 
 he should have avoided making such claims for 
 himself, even in a private letter. 
 
 The avowed estimation in which he held 
 Hervey's Meditations, and the compositions of 
 Hurdis, gives me little confidence in his power 
 to appreciate genius. It proves, at least, that 
 fanaticism and i^artiality warped his decisions. 
 The literary world has long pronounced Hervey, 
 as he was, a pompous enthusiast, dressing up 
 trite ideas in the flowery nothingness of ex- 
 ternal exclamation. 
 
 Detach a few good passages from Hurdis's 
 writings, and he remains a servile imitator of 
 Cowper. Gisborne, too, imitates Cowper, but 
 with better effect. The Village Curate is a 
 disagreeable poem, the Forest Walks a very 
 pleasing work. One of the most disgusting 
 compositions I ever read is a poem of Hurdis 
 on the death of his sister. 
 
 My work on Darwin is likely to displease, for 
 a period, numbers, perhaps, for one that will 
 approve it. The world of letters seem divided 
 in two wide extremes,— one half considering 
 him as infinitely the first genius of his age, 
 both as to poetic system and execution ; the 
 other half affecting to hold similar opinions of 
 his writings with those so injuriously avowed 
 in the pursuits of literature. I accidentally 
 took up a Critical Revieio last winter, which 
 says of some writer, in derision — ' he professes 
 to like Gibbon's prose and Darwin's poetry.' 
 All who implicitly enlist themselves in either 
 of these divisions will dislike my work, and 
 perhaps publicly abuse it. 
 
 The same extremes, of opinion prevail amongst 
 his acquaintance respecting his moral charac- 
 ter, — either exalt him as having been almost 
 superior to human frailty, and exclaim with Sir 
 Brooke Boothby — ' Darwin was one of the best 
 men I have ever known or stigmatize him 
 as an empiric in medicine, a Jacobin in politics, 
 deceitful to those who trusted him, covetous of 
 gain, and an alien to his God. What can I 
 hoi^e for, who spoke of him as he was ? 
 
 And now, my dear bard, can you persuade 
 yourself to forgive this merciless intrusion on 
 your time ? I hope you will read my letter as 
 I wrote it, at snatches of leisure, and take at 
 least a fortnight to its pei-usal. I do not ask 
 you to pardon my ingenuousness, since, pre- 
 suming to speak to you of your work, I could not 
 deserve your esteem had I not sj)oken honestly. 
 
 I am sure you will be glad to learn that your 
 
 affectionate admirer, Saville, is in existence 
 and iu better health this than in the preceding 
 winter, which was nearly fatal to him. He 
 desires his cordial and grateful remembrances. 
 
 Yourself and the world have lost poor Eom- 
 ney, that soul of genius, honesty, generosity, 
 and petulance — and you, yes, you have left 
 Eartham ! your once darling Eartham ! but my 
 imagination obstinately refuses to separate 
 your image from that dear lovely scene. Adieu! 
 Adieu ! 
 
 [Every Harrovian points with pride to the 
 name of Sheridan, cut in the old hall of 
 that venerable School. Nor is he undeserv- 
 ing of the distinction. Byron said that 
 whatever he did (or chose to do) was 
 always the best of its kind : he wi'ote the 
 best comedy, the School for Scandal; the 
 best opera, the Duenna; the best farce, 
 the Critic ; and delivered the most famous 
 oration of modern times. No history ever 
 contained a more touching moral than the 
 narrative of the actions and the misfortvmes 
 of Sheridan. With talents that might 
 have dignified the highest station, he 
 nevertheless sank into the most harassing 
 difficulties ; and with a disposition naturally 
 generous and affectionate, he was continu- 
 ally outraging every principle of justice and 
 of truth. He livedin the blaze of society, and 
 died in the solitude of neglect. — Willmott.]^ 
 
 DK. PARE TO MOORE. 
 
 The Boyhood of Sheridan. 
 
 Hatton, Aug. 3, 1818. 
 Dear Sir, — With the aid of a scribe, I sit 
 down to fulfil my promise about Mr. Sheridan. 
 There was little in his boyhood worth com- 
 municating. He was inferior to many of his 
 schoolfellows in the ordinary business of a 
 school ; and I do not remember any one instance 
 in which he distinguished himself by Latin 
 or English composition, in prose or verse. 
 Nathaniel Halhed, one of his schoolfellows, 
 wrote well in Latin and Greek. Kichard 
 Archdall, another schoolfellow, excelled in 
 English verse. Kichard Sheridan aspired to 
 no rivalry with either of them. He was at the 
 uppermost i>art of the fifth form, but he never 
 reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had 
 no opportunity of attending the most difficult 
 and the most honourable part of school business, 
 when the Greek plays were taught, — and it \\ :is 
 the custom at Harrow to teach these at least 
 every year. He went through his lessons in 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Horace, and Vix-gil, and Homer well enough 
 for a time. But, in the absence of the upper 
 master, Dr. Sumner, it once fell in my way to 
 instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling 
 up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly 
 in construing, but unusually defective in his 
 Greek grammar. Knowing him to be a clever 
 fellow, I did not fail to probe and tease him. I 
 stated his case with great good-humour to the 
 upper master, who was one of the best-tempered 
 men in the world ; and it was agreed between 
 us that Richard should be called oftener, and 
 worked more severely. The varlet was not 
 suffered to stand up in his place, but was 
 summoned to take his station near the master's 
 table, where the voice of no prompter could 
 reach him ; and in this defenceless condition 
 he was so harassed, that he at last gathered up 
 some grammatical rules, and prepared himself 
 for his lessons. While this tormenting process 
 was inflicted upon him, I now and then vip- 
 braided him. But you will take notice, that he 
 did not incur any corporal punishment for his 
 idleness ; his industry was just sufficient to 
 protect him from disgrace ; all the while 
 Sumner and I saw in him vestiges of superior 
 intellect. His eye, his countenance, his general 
 manner, were striking. His answers to any 
 common question were prompt and acute. "VVe 
 knew the esteem, and even admiration, which, 
 somehow or other, all his schoolfellows felt for 
 him. He was mischievous enough, but his 
 pranks were accompanied by a sort of vivacity 
 and cheerfulness which delighted Sumner and 
 myself ; I had much talk with him about his 
 apple-loft, for the supply of which all the 
 gardens in the neighbourhood were taxed, and 
 some of the lower boys were employed to 
 furnish it. I threatened, but without asperity, 
 to trace the depredators, through his associates, 
 up to their leader. He, with perfect good 
 humour, set me at defiance, and I never could 
 bring the charge home to him. All boys and 
 all masters were pleased with him. I often 
 praised him as a lad of great talents, — often 
 exhorted him to use them well; but my ex- 
 hortations were fruitless. I take for granted 
 that his taste was silently improved, and that 
 he knew well the little which he did know. He 
 was removed from school too soon by his father, 
 who was the intimate friend of Sumner, and 
 whom I often met at his house. Sumner had a 
 fine voice, fine ear, fine taste, and therefore 
 pronunciation was frequently the favourite 
 subject between him and Tom Sheridan. I 
 v/as present at many of their discussions and 
 disputes, and sometimes took a very active part 
 in them, but Richard was not present. The 
 father, you know, was a wrong-headed, whim- 
 sical man, and perhaps his scanty circumstances 
 were one of the reasons which prevented him 
 from sending Richard to the University. He 
 must have been aware, as Sumner and I were, 
 
 that Richard's mind was not cast in any ordinary 
 mould. I ought to have told you that Richard, 
 when a boy, was a great reader of English 
 poetry; but his exercises afforded no pi-oof of 
 his proficiency. In truth, he, as a boy, was 
 quite careless about literary fame. I should 
 suppose that his father, without any regular 
 system, polished his taste, and suj^plied his 
 memory -with anecdotes about our best writers 
 in our Augustan age. The grandfsKther, you 
 know, lived familiarly with Swift. I have heard 
 of him as an excellent scholar. His boys in 
 Ireland once performed a Greek play, and when 
 Sir William Jones and I were talking over this 
 event, I determined to make the experiment in 
 England. I selected some of my best boys, and 
 they i^erformed the (Edipm Tyrannus and the 
 Trachinians of Sophocles. I wrote some Greek 
 Iambics to vindicate myself from the imputation 
 of singularity, and grieved I am that I did not 
 keep a copy of them. Milton, you. may re- 
 member, recommends what I attempted. 
 
 I saw much of Sheridan's father after the 
 death of Sumner, and after my own removal 
 from Harrow to Stanmore. I respected him — 
 he really liked me, and did me some important 
 services, but I never met him and Richard 
 together. I often inquired about Richard, and 
 from the father's answers found they were not 
 upon good terms ; but neither he nor I ever 
 spoke of his sou's talents but in terms of the 
 highest praise. 
 
 [It is unnecessary to give an account of this 
 eminent i^rinter and politician ; his name 
 is in all the Biographical Dictionaries ; and 
 those who are versed in Boswell's Johnson, 
 and the other memoirs of the politics and 
 literature of the last century, will know 
 more of the man himself than the Biogra- 
 phical Dictionaries can teach them. The 
 most valuable part of his letters is that 
 which forms a sort of occasional political 
 journal. To the historical critic it will be 
 useful, as confirming or contradicting the 
 previous authorities on the subject. Most 
 ordinary readers are acquainted with the 
 common sources of information on the pro- 
 ceedings of Parliament during the jperiod 
 embraced by Strahan's letters ; and these 
 materials, to which, however, the publi- 
 cation of Walpole's Memoirs of George 
 III. has made a considerable addition, 
 will be found very fully embodied in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth volumes 
 of the Parliamentary History. — John Hill 
 Burton.] 
 
452 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 WILLIAM STKAHAN TO DAVID HUME. 
 
 London, July 10, 1764. 
 Deae Sir, — I received yours of April 18th, 
 and, since that, all Madame Eiccoboni's book, 
 which is now almost translated and printed. It 
 is not easy to say how many presses there are 
 in London ; but as near as I can guess they 
 are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred. 
 One hundred and fifty is pretty near the truth : 
 I mean such as are constantly emijloyed. The 
 medicines for the Dutch ambassador, I hope, 
 came safe to hand. Any other commands you 
 may have in this place shall be punctually 
 executed. 
 
 I am very glad the accounts I sent you were 
 so agreeable to you. You may depend upon 
 their accuracy as far as they went ; for I was, 
 myself, an ear-witness of what I relate, and 
 you may rely on hearing from me again when- 
 ever anything material occurs. At present, 
 and, indeed, ever since Wilkes' affair was 
 finished, we have been in a state of profound 
 tranquillity. The names of Pitt and Wilkea, 
 and liberty and privilege, we hear no more. 
 During the recess of Parliament, you know, no 
 business of consequence is agitated. The dis- 
 mission of General Conway made a little noise 
 some time ago ; but as he acted the part of a 
 leader in the Opposition (I write with the 
 utmost freedom to you of everything, as I 
 suppose you would choose I should), it was 
 equally thought the King could not avoid dis- 
 charging him from his service. He had a hint, 
 I am credibly informed, to quit his place at 
 court ; and, in that case, might have held his 
 regiment. But as he did not choose to take it, 
 he was deprived of both. Lord Bute still holds 
 his usual influence at court, and is very likely 
 to do so long ; for the King (if I may use the 
 expression) doats upon him. Certain it is, he 
 does nothing without his advice and approba- 
 tion. It was said, a while ago, that he was to 
 take the i)lace of Lord Chamberlain, which is 
 the lowest ofiSce he can hold to be a cabinet 
 councillor ; and it was said, by his friends, that 
 he was desirous of filling this j)lace, that he 
 might have an opportunity, upon every j)roper 
 occasion, to avow, publicly, any counsel he 
 might give the King. But there is now no more 
 talk of this. Meanwhile the Opposition is 
 apparently upon the decline ; nor is there the 
 least likelihood of their making any figure next 
 winter, unless, perhaps, Lord Bute should 
 openly take the lead in the administration. In 
 that case it is hard to say what national pre- 
 judice, fomented by a disappointed faction, 
 may effectuate. My opinion of that nobleman 
 is the same it ever was. I believe him sincere 
 and honest, and that his views regarding this 
 country are altogether honourable ; but then he 
 is too timid and irresolute, and knows little or 
 nothing of men. Had he kept the high station 
 
 in the State he once assumed, nothing could 
 have hurt him; but his resignation indicated 
 a deficiency in point of courage, of which his 
 enemies (that is, the Opposition for the time 
 being) will never fail to avail themselves, and 
 will for ever prevent him from rendering that 
 service to his country which, I am firmly 
 persuaded, his honest and generous heart 
 inclines to perform. 
 
 You would see in the papers, lately, that Mr. 
 Pitt was at court. This was no other than a 
 visit of form, having been prevented, by the 
 gout, from paying his court on the birthday. 
 The King spoke a little to him ; but he had no 
 conference with him, or with Lord Bute, as was 
 reported. I was told, indeed, by a person of 
 some consequence, on whose information I have 
 some dependence, that he then advised falling 
 upon the Spaniards without loss of time, on 
 account of their late behaviour to our logwood 
 cutters in the Bay of Campeachy; but I can 
 hardly believe it. The truth is, these logwood 
 cutters are a set of sad rascals, upon whose 
 information alone it would be absurd to con- 
 chide anything. There is certainly some mistake 
 in the matter, for the Spaniards cannot possibly 
 mean to break with us yet. They are no way 
 prepared for it. Besides, what is very remark- 
 able, and what I believe has not hitherto been 
 much attended to, the possession of Florida 
 gives us the absolute command of that very 
 passage which formerly rendered the Havannah 
 of so much importance to them ; so that when- 
 ever they are at war %vith us they lie at our 
 mercy, and can get no treasure home without 
 our permission. This is one of the many 
 advantages the late peace has procured us, 
 which I am humbly of ojiinion will appear every 
 day more and more a very seasonable and great 
 blessing to this nation. 
 
 Our national debt is, indeed, become a very 
 serious matter, and must become much more so 
 in the event of another war. This I look upon 
 as the great mill-stone which hangs about the 
 neck of this country, and is likely to sink it at 
 last. But even in this we are on a par with our 
 neighbours. In all other respects we are in a 
 most respectable situation. 'Tis time. The 
 state of our domestic politics, from the nature 
 of our constitution, can never be very per- 
 manent ; but, as the one-half of our great men 
 are happily a check to the ambition and sinister 
 views of the other half, it necessarily follows 
 that, as we are not likely to continue m the 
 right way for any length of time, so neither can 
 we persist long in a wrong direction. Upon the 
 whole, therefore, I am inclined to think we 
 have little to fear at present. We have a good 
 and virtuous prince upon the throne; the 
 nature of our government leaves every indi- 
 vidual as free as his own happiness and security 
 will admit of ; our dominions are rich and 
 extensive ; our commerce great and increasing ; 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 453 
 
 and we want nothing but a little strong and 
 active virtue in those at the helm, to render all 
 those blessings as permanent as the nature of 
 human affairs will admit of. 
 
 Lord Clive is lately embarked for the East 
 Indies, invested with full and ample (I wish 
 they may not prove dangerous) powers to settle 
 all om- important concerns in that quarter of 
 the v/orld. He carries with him a greater force 
 of Europeans than that country ever saw before : 
 enough, indeed (but that we have taught the 
 natives the art of war), to make an entire 
 conquest of the Mogul's empire. There were 
 great divisions, you might perceive, among the 
 East India proprietors upon this occasion ; but 
 I could not find that anything but power was 
 aimed at by either side. Sullivan had long 
 taken the lead in that company ; Sullivan was 
 in an opposite interest to Clive ; the struggle 
 was hard ; but Clive at length prevailed, and 
 goes out on his own terms. 
 
 Dr. Eobertson brings up his pupil, Lord 
 Grenville, in August or September ; and I hear 
 his History of Clmrles V. is finished; but this 
 I have not from himself, ■\^^aat pity it is that 
 you will not think of continuing your History. 
 I do not pretend to have any influence with you 
 in the matter, otherwise I would most certainly 
 exert it all. And yet I sometimes imagine, if 
 you knew how universally esteemed it is by the 
 very best judges, and, indeed, by all those 
 whose approbation is real fame ; and were you 
 witness to the just praises I often hear bestowed 
 upon it, you would be strongly excited to finish 
 that noble work, which, I will venture to say, 
 will remain a monument of the author's candour 
 and ability to the latest posterity. — I am, dear 
 sir, your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 William Strahan. 
 
 ["William Bowyer, the eminent printer (1699- 
 1777), printed the first edition of Warbur- 
 ton's Doctrine of Grace. The work sold 
 rapidly ; but Mr. Bowyer not having been 
 entrusted with the care of a new edition, he 
 thought it necessary to vindicate himself 
 from reflections that might arise on this 
 apparent change in his patron's sentiments. 
 ' On this subject, however,' says Mr, Nichols, 
 'it is not necessary to enlarge, as I can assert, 
 on the authority of another right reverend 
 prelate, that notwithstanding any little 
 altercations which had happened. Bishop 
 Warburton always continued to retain a 
 sincere regard for Mr. Bowyer.' The 
 sincerity of such regard might have been 
 questionable, if, contrary to what ]\Ir. 
 
 Nichols also informs us, this, and other two 
 letters of Mr. Bowyer upon the same sub- 
 ject, had ever leen sent to the Bishop.] 
 
 ME. W. BOWYER TO DR. WARBURTON. 
 
 My Lord, — "When I understood that you had 
 
 appointed Mr. to print the second edition 
 
 of your book on Grace, I was tempted to cry out 
 with your lordship, ' In what light must you 
 stand with honest and CANDID men, if, when I 
 had gone through the trouble of the first edition, 
 the second is ordered away to another printer, 
 even against the recommendation of your book- 
 seller?' But as the honest and candid will 
 little trouble themselves Avith any difference 
 between your lordship and me, I will appeal to 
 the judge within your own breast : 
 
 ' Pulsa dignoscere cautus 
 
 Quid solidum crepet, et pictte tectoria linguse.' 
 
 Your lordship will say, you removed your 
 book to another printer because I had printed 
 the first edition of it very incorrectly. I answer, 
 my lord, that you saw every proof-sheet your- 
 self, and ought to share with me at least in the 
 imimtation of incorrectness. You said, indeed, 
 at first setting out, that you woidd not be my 
 corrector ; but then, my lord, you should not be 
 your own. When sheets are hurried away to 
 an impatient author late at night by the post, 
 the printer is precluded from reviewing them 
 with that accuracy he otherwise should bestow 
 upon them. In the cancelled leaves which your 
 lordship comj)lains of, there were no less than 
 six faults in one page, viz. p. 151 ; only one of 
 which, upon the return of the sheet, was cor- 
 rected by your lordship, the others being left 
 for me to discover ; and when I had done so, I 
 naturally cried. How does this man seek an 
 occasion of quarrel against me! Prophetic I 
 was ; for, instead of receiving thanks from you 
 for my care, I am condemned for passing over two 
 others, jointly with your lordship, in the follow- 
 ing terms : ' Show him what an admirable 
 corrector he is, and in a reprinted page too. 
 He has suffered opposite, against all sense, to go 
 for apposite ; and in the note, ohscurani, against 
 all grammar, for ohscuriorem.^ Under favour, 
 my lord, not against sense or grammar ; for I 
 had reduced obscurem to both, by making it 
 ohscuram, which was as far as a sudden con- 
 jecture without the copy could go. Theo- 
 logiam invenit — ipsis Pythdgoricis numeris et 
 Hcracliti notis ohscuram. As for opposite com- 
 parison, I will not defend it ; but a reader, not 
 wholly inattentive, might be misled to reflect, 
 that comparisons which are odious (and such, 
 my lord, you and I could make) must needs be 
 opposite too. I would further observe, my lord, 
 that this error might be the more easily i?ar- 
 doned, because the very same word has unluckily 
 (or luckily, shall I say ?) escaped your lordshii^ 
 
454 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 in a work of your younger years, if tlie world is 
 right in ascribing it to you. In p. 95, I find 
 this passage : ' But I chose this instance of our 
 author's knowledge of nature, not so much for 
 its greatness, as for its oppositeness to our 
 subject.' — Critical and Philosophical Enquiry 
 into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles. Lond. 
 1717. In short, my lord, you have prescribed a 
 law to me, by which no other printer will ever 
 be bound, viz. that I should suffer for every 
 error of the press which you leave uncorrected. 
 I am singled out from the flock for mudding 
 the sti'eam below, which your lordship drinks 
 of at the fountain-head. But, my lord, vanity 
 or partiality leads me to think some other 
 motive, besides incorrectness, has carried you 
 over to another printer. For why, of all men, 
 
 to Mr. , who, in the last book he had 
 
 jirinted for you, viz. the second part of the 
 Divine Legation, a.d. 1758, so incensed your 
 lordship, that you declared he never should 
 print for you another sheet ? If solicitation, or 
 the prevailing fashion of the times, have changed 
 your mind, I blame you not. Every one is to 
 follow his pleasure or interest, as his inclination 
 leads him. I only beg that we may be dropped 
 with decency, and that contumely may not give 
 an edge to our disgrace. As your lordship has 
 
 been pleased to go from me to Mr. , from 
 
 Mr. to me, and to Mr. again, I might 
 
 hope another successful wind would blow you 
 back again. My lord, if I cannot, like a 
 courtier, have the credit of resigning my place, 
 I will be still greater, and hereby promise not 
 to accept it again. And to keep u.^) the cha- 
 racter of an old fallen minister, I will make 
 bold to lay before you what I have suffered, 
 and what I have done, in your lordship's 
 service ; and then we will draw to the tables, 
 and balance the obligations, which your lordship 
 has greatly lessened by ui^braiding me with 
 them, at a very unbecoming juncture, as will 
 hereafter appear. The liberty I take you will 
 impute to that period of life to which I am 
 arrived, — the grand climacteric, which, as it 
 levels all honours, so it mitigates all disgraces. 
 You must not wonder if I take courage the 
 nearer I approach my home, even that home 
 which is a refuge against all complaints, and 
 where the brambled turf over my grave shall 
 preach as effectually as the lettered marble 
 over your lordship's. AVith this contemplation 
 I take my leave for the present ; and am, my 
 lord, your lordship's most obedient, humble 
 servant, "W. E. 
 
 [The following letter is interesting as recording 
 Cowper's opinion of the style best adapted 
 to a translation of Homer.] 
 
 WILLIAM COWPEE TO LADY HESKETH. 
 
 The Lodge, March 22, 1790. 
 I EEJOICE, my dearest cousin, that my mss. 
 have roamed the earth so successfully, and have 
 met with no disaster. The single book excepted, 
 that went to the bottom of the Thames, and 
 rose again, they have been fortunate without 
 exception. I am not superstitious, but have 
 nevertheless as good a right to believe that 
 adventure an omen, and a favourable one, as 
 Swift had to interpret as he did the loss of a 
 fine fisli, which he had no sooner laid on the 
 bank than it flounced into the water again. 
 This, he tells us himself, he always considered 
 as a type of his future disappointments ; and 
 why may not I as well consider the marvellous 
 recovery of my lost book from the bottom of 
 tlie Thames as typical of its future prosperity ? 
 To say the truth, I have no fears now about the 
 success of my translation, though in time past 
 I have had many. I knew there was a style 
 somewhere, could I but find it, in which Homer 
 ought to be rendered, and which alone would 
 suit him. Long time I blundered about it, ere 
 I could attain to any decided judgment on the 
 matter ; at first, I was betrayed by a desire of 
 accommodating my language to the simplicity 
 of his into much of the quaintness that belonged 
 to our writers of the fifteenth century. In 
 the course of many revisals I have delivered 
 myself from this evil, I believe, entirely ; but I 
 have done it slowly, and as a man separates 
 himself from his mistress when he is going to 
 marry. I had so strong a predilection in fa- 
 vour of this style at first, that I was crazed to 
 find that others were not as much enamoured 
 with it as myself. At every passage of that 
 sort which I obliterated, I groaned bitterly, 
 and said to myself, I am spoiling my work to 
 please those who have no taste for the simple 
 graces of antiquity. But, in measure as I 
 adopted a more modern phraseology, I became 
 a convert to their opinion, and, in the last 
 revisal, which I am now making, am not sensible 
 of having spared a single expression of the 
 obsolete kind. I see my work so much improved 
 by this alteration, that I am filled with wonder 
 at my own backwardness to assent to the 
 necessity of it, and the more when I consider 
 that Milton, with whose manner I account 
 myself intimately acquainted, is never quaint, 
 never twangs through the nose, but is every- 
 where grand and elegant, without resorting to 
 musty antiquity for his beauties. On the 
 contrary, he took a long stride forward, left the 
 language of his own day far behind him, and 
 anticipated the expressions of a centuiy yet to 
 come. 
 
r 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 455 
 
 I have now, as I said, no longer any doubt of 
 the event, but I will give thee a shilling if thou 
 wilt tell me what I shall say in my Preface. It 
 is an affair of much delicacy, and I have as 
 many opinions about it as there are whims in a 
 weathercock. 
 
 Send my MSS. and thine when thou wilt. 
 In a day or two I shall enter on the last Iliad ; 
 when I have finished it I shall give the Odyssey 
 one more reading, and shall therefore shortly 
 have occasion for the copy in thy possession, 
 but you see that there is no need to hurry. 
 
 I leave the little space for Mrs. Unwin's use, 
 who means, I believe, to occupy it, 
 
 And am evermore thine most truly, 
 
 William Cowpek. 
 
 Postscript, in the hand of Mrs. Umvin. 
 
 You cannot imagine how much your ladyship 
 would oblige your unworthy servant, if you 
 would be so good to let me know in what point 
 I differ from you. All that at present I can say 
 is, that I will readily sacrifice my own opinion, 
 unless I can give you a substantial reason for 
 adhering to it. 
 
 TO JOHN JOHXSTOX. 
 
 Weston, March 23, 1790. 
 YoUE MSS. arrived safe in New Norfolk 
 Street, and I am much obliged to you for your 
 labours. Were you now at "Weston, I could 
 furnish you with employment for some weeks, 
 and shall perhaps be equally able to do it in 
 summer, for I have lost my best amanuensis in 
 this place, Mr. G. Throckmorton, who is gone 
 to Bath. 
 
 You are a man to be envied, who have never 
 read the Odyssey, which is one of the most 
 amusing story-books in the world. There is 
 also much of the finest poetry in the world to 
 be found in it, notwithstanding all that Longinus 
 has insinuated to the contrary. His compari- 
 .son of the Iliad and Odyssey to the meridian 
 and to the declining sun is pretty, but, I am 
 l^ersuaded, not just. The prettiness of it 
 seduced him ; he was otherwise too judicious a 
 reader of Homer to have made it. I can find in 
 the latter no symptoms of impaired ability, none 
 of the effects of age ; on the contrary, it seems 
 to me a certainty, that Homer, had he written 
 the Odyssey in his youth, could not have 
 written it better ; and if the Iliad in his old age, 
 that he would have written it just as well. A 
 critic would tell me that, instead of xvritten, I 
 j should have said composed. Very likely — but 
 I am not writing to one of that snarling 
 generation. 
 
 My boy, I long to see thee again. It has 
 happened some way or other, that Mrs. Unwin 
 and I have conceived a great affection for thee. 
 That I should is the less to be wondered at 
 
 (because thou art a shred of my own mother) ; 
 neither is the wonder great that she should fall 
 into the same j)redicament, for she loves every- 
 thing that I love. You will observe that your 
 own personal right to be beloved makes no part 
 of the consideration. There is nothing that I 
 touch with so much tenderness as the vanity of 
 a young man ; because, I know how extremely 
 susceptible he is of impressions that might hurt 
 him in that particular part of his composition. 
 If you should ever prove a coxcomb, from which 
 character you stand just now at a greater 
 distance than any young man I know, it shall 
 never be said that I have made you one ; no, 
 you will gain nothing by me but the honour of 
 being much valued by a poor poet, who can do 
 you no good while he lives, and has nothing to 
 leave you when he dies. If you can be con- 
 tented to be dear to me on these conditions, so 
 you shall ; but other terms more advantageous 
 than these, or more inviting, none have I to 
 propose. 
 
 Farewell. Puzzle not yourself about a sub- 
 ject when you write to either of us : every- 
 thing is subject enough from those we love. 
 
 ^Y. c. 
 
 TO THE KEY. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 18, 1782. 
 My deak William,— On the part of the 
 poor, and on our pai't, be pleased to make 
 acknowledgments, such as the occasion calls for, 
 
 to our beneficent friend, Mr. ■. I call him 
 
 ours, because, having experienced his kind- 
 ness to myself in a former instance, and in the 
 present his disinterested readiness to succour 
 the distressed, my ambition will be satisfied 
 Nvith nothing less. He may depend upon the 
 strictest secrecy ; no creature shall hear him 
 mentioned, either now or hereafter, as the 
 person from whom we have received this 
 bounty. But when I speak of him, or hear 
 him spoken of by others, which sometimes 
 happens, I shall not forget what is due to so 
 rare a character. I wish, and your mother 
 wishes too, that he could sometimes take us 
 
 in his way to : he will find us happy to 
 
 receive a person whom we must needs account 
 it an honour to know. We shall exercise our 
 best discretion in tile disposal of the money ; 
 but in this town, where the gosi")el has been 
 preached so many years, where the people 
 have been favoured so long with laborious and 
 conscientious ministers, it is not an easy thing 
 to find those who m^ake no profession of religion 
 at all, and are yet proper objects of charity. 
 The profane are so profane, so drunken, dis- 
 solute, and in every respect worthless, that to 
 make them jDartakers of his bounty wovdd be to 
 abuse it. We promise, however, that none 
 shall touch it but such as are miserably poor. 
 
456 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 yet at the same time industrious and honest, 
 two characters frequently united here, where 
 the most watchful and unremitting labour will 
 hardly procure them bread. We make none 
 but the cheapest laces, and the price of them 
 is fallen almost to nothing. Thanks are due 
 to yourself likewise, and are hereby accordingly 
 rendered, for waiving your claim in behalf of 
 your own parishioners. You are always with 
 them, and they are always, at least some of 
 them, the better for your residence among 
 them. Olney is a populous place, inhabited 
 chiefly by the half-starved and the ragged of 
 the earth, and it is not possible for our small 
 party and small ability to extend their opera- 
 tions so far as to be much felt among such 
 numbers. Accept, therefore, your share of 
 their gratitude, and be convinced that, when 
 they pray for a blessing upon those who re- 
 lieved their wants. He that answers tha,t prayer, 
 and when He answers it, will remember His 
 servant at Stock. 
 
 I little thought when I was writing the his- 
 tory of John Gilpin, that he would appear in 
 print. I intended to laugh, and to make two 
 or three others laugh, of whom you were one ; 
 but now all the world laugh, at least if they 
 have the same relish for a tale ridiculous in 
 itself, and quaintly told, as we have. Well, 
 they do not always laugh so innocently, and at 
 so small an expense ; for, in a world like this, 
 abounding with subjects for satire, and with 
 satirical wits to mark them, a laugh that hurts 
 nobody has at least the grace of novelty to re- 
 commend it. Swift's darling motto was, Vive 
 la 'bagatelle! a good wish for a philosopher of 
 his complexion, the greater part of whose wis- 
 dom, whencesoever it came, most certainly 
 came not from above. La hagatelle has no 
 enemy in me, though it has neither so warm a 
 friend nor so able a one as it had in him. If 
 I trifle, and merely trifle, it is because I am 
 reduced to it by necessity — a melancholy that 
 nothing else so effectually disperses engages 
 me sometimes in the arduous task of being 
 merry by force. And, strange as it may seem, 
 the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have 
 been written in the saddest mood, and but for 
 that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been 
 written at all. 
 
 I hear from Mrs. Newton that some great 
 persons have spoken with great approbation of 
 a certain book ; who they are, and what they 
 have said, I am to be told in a future letter. 
 The Monthly Keviewers, in the meantime, 
 have satisfied me well enough. — Yours, my 
 dear William, W. C. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Olney, May 2G, 1779. 
 I All obliged to you for the poets, and, 
 though I little thought that I was translating 
 
 so much money out of your pocket into the 
 bookseller's, when I turned Prior's poem into 
 Latin, yet I must needs say that, if you think 
 it worth while to purchase the English Classics 
 at all, you cannot possess yourself of them upon 
 better terms. I have looked into some of the 
 volumes, but, not having yet finished the 
 register, have merely looked into them. A few 
 things I have met with, which, if they had 
 been burned the moment they were written, it 
 would have been better for the author, and at 
 least as well for his readers. There is not 
 much of this, but a little is too much. I think 
 it a pity the editor admitted any ; the English 
 muse would have lost no credit by the omission 
 of such trash. Some of them, again, seem to 
 me to have but a very disputable right to a 
 place among the Classics, and I am quite at a 
 loss, when I see them in such company, to con- 
 jecture what is Dr. Johnson's idea or definition 
 of classical merit. But, if he inserts the poems 
 of some who can hardly be said to deserve such 
 an honour, the purchaser may comfort himself 
 with the hope that he will exclude none that 
 do. W. C. 
 
 [Nelson here refers to the wounds received and 
 the loss of an eye at the siege of Calvi.] 
 
 HOEATIO NELSON TO MRS. NELSON. 
 
 Off Leghorn, August 18, 1794. 
 I LEFT Calvi on the 15th, and hope never to 
 be in it again. I was yesterday in St. Fiorenzo, 
 and to-day shall be safe moored, I expect, in 
 Leghorn ; since the ship has been commissioned, 
 this will be the first resting time we have had» 
 As it is all past, I may now tell you, that on 
 the 10th of July a shot having hit our battery, 
 the splinters and stones from it struck me with 
 great violence in the face and breast. Although 
 the blow was so severe as to occasion a great 
 flow of blood from my head, yet I, most fortu- 
 nately, escaped, having only my right eye 
 nearly deprived of its sight ; it was cut down, 
 but it is so far recovered as for me to be able 
 to distinguish light from darkness. As to all 
 the purposes of use, it is gone ; however, the 
 blemish is nothing, not to be perceived, unless, 
 told. The pupil is nearly the size of the blue 
 part, I don't know the name. At Bastia, I got 
 a shari) cut in the back. You must not think 
 that my hurts confined mc ; no, nothing but 
 the loss of a limb would have kept me from my 
 duty, and I believe my exertions conduced to 
 preserve me in this general mortality. I am 
 fearful that Mrs. Moutray's son, who was on 
 shore with us, will fall a sacrifice to the climate ; 
 he is a lieutenant of the Victory, a very fine 
 young man, for whom I have a great regard. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Lord Hood is quite distressed about him. Poor 
 little Hoste is also extremely ill, and I have 
 great fears about him. One hundred and fifty 
 of my people are in their beds ; of two thousand 
 men I am the most healthy. Josiah is very 
 well, and a clever, smart young man, for so I 
 must call him, his sense demands it. — Yours, etc. 
 
 Horatio Nelson. 
 
 [Xelson lost an arm in the unsuccessful attack 
 on Santa Cruz, TenerifiEe, July 24, 1797 ; 
 but he made no mention of his own wound 
 in the oflacial despatches. Honours enough 
 awaited him in England, however ; the 
 freedom of the cities of Bristol and London 
 was conferred upon him, he was invested 
 with the Order of the Bath, and received a 
 pension of £1000 a year.] 
 
 EEAR-ADMIRAL SIR HORATIO NELSON, K.B.,1 
 TO ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JERVIS, K.B. 
 
 • Theseus,' July 27, 1797. 
 My dear Sir,— I am become a burthen to my 
 friends, and useless to my country ; but by 
 my letter wrote the 24th, you will perceive my 
 anxiety for the promotion of my son-in-law, 
 Josiah Nisbet. "When I leave your command, 
 I become dead to the world ; I go hence and 
 am no more seen. If from poor Bowen's loss, 
 you think it proper to oblige me, I rest con- 
 fident you will do it; the boy is under 
 obligations to me, but he repaid me by bringing 
 me from the mole of Santa Cruz. I hope you 
 will be able to give me a frigate to convey the 
 remains of my carcase to England. God bless 
 you, my dear sir, and believe me, your most 
 obliged and f aithfiil 
 
 Horatio Nelson. 
 
 You will excuse my scrawl, considering it is 
 my first attempt. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 ' Theseus; August 16, 1797. 
 ]\Iy dear Sir, — I rejoice once more in sight 
 of your flag, and with your permission wiU 
 come on board the Ville de Paris, and pay you 
 my respects. If the Emerald has joined, you 
 know my wishes. A left-handed admiral will 
 never again be considered as useful, therefore 
 the sooner I get to a very humble cottage the 
 better, and make room for a better man to 
 serve the State ; but whatever be my lot, be- 
 lieve me, with the most sincere affection, ever 
 your most faithful Horatio Nelson. 
 
 1 Nelson appointed a Knight of the Bath, March 1797. 
 
 457 
 
 TO LADY nelson. 
 
 ' Theseus,'' August 1797. 
 My dearest Fanny,— I am so confident of 
 your affection, that I feel the pleasure you will 
 receive will be equal, whether my letter is 
 wrote by my right hand or left. It was the 
 chance of war, and I have great reason to be 
 tha,nkf ul ; and I know that it will add much to 
 your pleasure in finding that Josiah, under 
 God's providence, was principally instrumental 
 in saving my life. As to my health, it never 
 was better ; and now I hope soon to return to 
 you; and my country, I trust, will not allow 
 me any longer to linger in want of that 
 pecuniary assistance which I have been fighting 
 the whole war to preserve to her. But I shall 
 not be surprised to be neglected and forgot, as 
 probably I shall no longer be considered as 
 useful. However, I shall feel rich if I continue 
 to enjoy your affection. The cottage is now 
 more necessary than ever. You will see by the 
 papers, Lieutenant Weatherhead is gone. Poor 
 fellow ! he lived four days after he was shot. 
 I shall not close this letter till I join the fleet, 
 which seems distant, for it's been calm these 
 three days past. I am fortunate in having a 
 good surgeon on board ; in short, I am much 
 more recovered than I could have expected. I 
 beg neither you or my father will think much 
 of this mishap ; my mind has long been made 
 uj) to such an event. God bless you, and 
 believe me your most affectionate husband, 
 Horatio Nelson. 
 
 [Long before the publication of the letters from 
 Italy, many gleams of exquisite description 
 derived from them had delighted the 
 reader in the pages of one or two living 
 poets. They were written, as the author 
 observes, in the bloom and heyday of 
 youthful spirits and youthful confidence, 
 and contain some of the most beautiful 
 pictures of scenery, and som-e of the liveliest 
 traits of character, to be found in our 
 literature. Lord Byron's remark upon 
 Moore's Eastern poetry, * that he had lived 
 in the rainbow, and caught its hues,' may 
 be applied to the description of the author 
 of Vathelc. Whether he lets in the ruby 
 light through the stained windows upon the 
 white garments of a monk ; or opens the 
 latticed casement of his apartment upon a 
 boundless vineyard in all the luxuriance of 
 foliage ; or displays before us the wondrous 
 kitchen of the monastery of Alcobaca, — he 
 is at all times equally vivacious, equally 
 graceful, and equally oviginal.— WiUmott.] 
 
458 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 BECKFOED TO . 
 
 October 19, 1787. 
 My health improves every day. The clear 
 exhilarating weather we now enjoy, calls forth 
 the liveliest sense of existence. I ride, walk, 
 and climb as long as I please, without fatiguing 
 myself. The valley of Collares affords me a 
 source of perpetual amusement. I have dis- 
 covered a variety of i^aths which lead through 
 chestnut copses and orchards to ix-regular green 
 spots, where self-sown bays and citron bushes 
 hang wild over the rocky margin of a little 
 river, and drop their fruit and blossoms into 
 the stream. You may ride for miles along the 
 banks of this delightful water, catching endless 
 perspectives of flowery thickets between the 
 stems of poplar and walnut. The scenery is 
 truly Elysian, and exactly such as ^loets assign 
 for the resort of happy spirits. The mossy 
 fragments of rocks, grotesque pollards, and 
 rustic bridges, you meet with at every step, 
 recall Savoy and Switzerland to the imagination ; 
 but the exotic cast of the vegetation, the vivid 
 green of the citron, the golden fruitage of the 
 orange, the blossoming myrtle, and the rich 
 fragrance of a turf embroidered with the 
 brightest-coloured and most aromatic flowers, 
 allow me, without a violent stretch of fancy, to 
 believe myself in the garden of the Hesperides, 
 and to expect the dragon under every tree. I 
 by no means like the thought of abandoning 
 these smiling regions, and have been twenty 
 times on the point, this very day, of revoking 
 the orders I have given for my journey. "What- 
 ever objections I may have had to Portugal, 
 seem to vanish since I have determined to leave 
 it ; for such is the perversity of human nature, 
 that objects appear the most estimable precisely 
 at the moment when we are going to lose 
 them. 
 
 There was this morning a mild radiance in 
 the sunbeams, and a balsamic serenity in the 
 air, which infused that voluptuous listlessness 
 — that desire of remaining imparadised in one 
 delightful spot, which, in classical fictions, was 
 siipposed to render those who had tasted of the 
 lotus forgetful of country, of friends, and of 
 eveiy tie. My feelings were not dissimilar ; I 
 loathed the idea of moving away. 
 
 Though I had entered these beautiful orchards 
 soon after sunrise, the clocks of some distant 
 conventual churches had chimed hour after 
 hour, before I could prevail upon myself to quit 
 the spreading odoriferous bay-trees under which 
 I had been lying. If shades so cool and fragrant 
 invited to repose, I must observe, that never 
 were i)aths better calculated to temjit the laziest 
 of beings to a walk, than those that opened on 
 all sides, and are formed of a smooth dry sand, 
 bound firmly together, composing a surface as 
 hard as gravel. These level paths whid about 
 amongst a labyrinth of light and elegant fruit- 
 
 trees— almond, plum, and cherry, sometliing 
 like the groves of Tonga-taboo, as represented 
 in Cook's voyages ; and to increase the re- 
 semblance, neat cane fences and low open sheds, 
 thatched with reeds, appear at intervals, break- 
 ing the horizontal line of the perspective. I 
 had now lingered and loitered away i^retty 
 nearly the whole morning, and though, as far 
 as scenery could authorize, and climate inspire, 
 I might fancy myself an inhabitant of Elysium, 
 I could not iDretend to be sufiiciently ethereal 
 to exist without nourishment. In plain English, 
 I was extremely hungry. The pears, quinces, 
 and oranges, which dangled above my head, 
 although fair to the eye, were neither so juicy 
 nor gratifying to the palate as might have 
 been expected from their promising appearance. 
 Being considerably 
 
 ' More than a mile immersed witliin the wood,' 
 
 and not recollecting by which clue of a path I 
 could get out of it, I remained at least half an 
 hour deliberating which way to turn myself. 
 The sheds and enclosures I have mentioned 
 were put together with care, and even nicety, 
 it is true, but seemed to have no other in- 
 habitants than flocks of bantams, strutting 
 about, and destroying the eggs and hopes of 
 many an insect family. These glistening fowls, 
 like their brethren described in Anson's voyages 
 as animating the profound solitudes of the 
 island of Tinian, appeared to have no master. 
 At length, just as I was beginning to wish my- 
 self very heartily in a less romantic region, I 
 heard the loud, though not unmusical, tones of 
 a powerful female voice, echoing through the 
 arched green avenues : presently a stout, ruddy 
 young peasant, very picturesquely attired in 
 brown and scarlet, came hoydening along, 
 driving a mule before her, laden with two 
 enormous panniers of grapes. To ask for a 
 share of this luxuriant load, and to compliment 
 the fair driver, was instantaneous on my part, 
 but to no purpose. I was answered by a sly 
 wink, 'We all belong to Senhor Jose Dias, 
 whose corral or farm-yard is half a league 
 distant. There, senhor, if you follow that 
 road, and don't puzzle yourself by straying to 
 the right or left, you will soon reach it, and the 
 bailiff, I dare say, will be i^roud to give you as 
 many grai)es as you please. Good morning, 
 happy days to you ! I must mind my 
 business.' 
 
 Seating herself between the tantalizing pan- 
 niers, she was gone in an instant, and I had the 
 good luck to arrive at the wicket of a rude 
 dry wall, winding up several bushy slopes in a 
 wild, irregular manner. If the outside of this 
 enclosure was rough and uni^romising, the 
 interior presented a most cheerful scene of rural 
 opulence. Droves of cows and goats milking ; 
 ovens, out of which huge cakes of savoury bread 
 had just been taken; ranges of bee-hives, and 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 459 
 
 ng pillared sheds, entirely taj^estried with 
 
 -irple and yellow muscadine grapes, half 
 mdied, whicli were hung up to dry. A very 
 - ood-natured, classical-loolring magister pecorum, 
 followed by two well- disciplined, though savage- 
 tyed, dogs, whom the least glance of their 
 master prevented from barking, gave me a 
 liearty welcome, and with genuine hospitality 
 ot only allowed me the free range of his 
 domain, but set whatever it produced in the 
 greatest perfection before me. A contest took 
 place between two or three curly-haired, chubby- 
 faced children, who should be first to bring me 
 walnuts fresh from the shell, bowls of milk, 
 and cream-cheeses, made after the best of 
 fashions, that of the province of Alemtejo. 
 
 I found myself so abstracted from the world 
 in this retirement, so perfectly transported back 
 into primitive patriarchal times, that I don't 
 recollect having ever enjoyed a few hours of 
 more delightful calm. 'Here,' did I say to 
 myself, ' am I out of the way of courts, and 
 ceremonies, and commonplace visitations, or 
 salutations, or gossip.' But, alas ! how vain is 
 all one thinks or says to oneself nineteen times 
 out of twenty. "Whilst I was blessing my stars 
 for this truce to the irksome bustle of the life 
 I had led since her Majesty's arrival at Cintra, 
 a loud hallooing, the cracking of whips, and 
 the trampling of horses made me start up from 
 the snug comer in which I had soothed myself, 
 and dispelled all my delightful visions. Luis 
 de Miranda, the colonel of the Cascais regiment, 
 an intimate confidant and favourite of the 
 Prince of Brazil, broke in upon me with a 
 thousand (as he thought) obliging reproaches, 
 for ha\ing deserted Kamalhao the very morning 
 he had come on purpose to dine with me, and 
 to propose a ride after dinner to a jiarticular 
 point of the Cintra mountains, which com- 
 mands, he assured me, such a prospect as I had 
 not yet been blessed with in Portugal. 'It is 
 not, even now,' said he, 'too late. I have 
 brought your horses along with me, whom I 
 found fretting and stami)ing under a great tree 
 at the entrance of these foolish lanes. Come, 
 get into your stirrups for God's sake, and I will 
 answer for your thinking yourself well repaid 
 by the scene I shall disclose to you.' 
 
 As I was doomed to be disturbed and talked 
 out of the elysium in which I had been wrapj)ed 
 for these last seven or eight houi^s, it was no 
 matter in what position, whether on foot or on 
 horseback ; I therefore complied, and away wo 
 galloped. The horses were remarkably sure- 
 footed, or else, I think, we must have rolled 
 down the precipices ; for our road, 
 
 ' If road it could be called, where road was noae,' 
 
 led us by zigzags and short cuts, over steeps 
 and acclivities, about three or four leagues, till 
 reaching a heathy desert, where a solitary cross, 
 starting out of a few weather-beaten bushes. 
 
 marked the highest point of this wild eminence, 
 one of the most expansive prospects of sea, and 
 plain, and distant mountains I ever beheld, 
 burst suddenly upon me, — rendered still more 
 vast, aerial, and indefinite, by the visionary, 
 magic vapour of the evening sun. 
 
 After enjoying a moment or two the general 
 effect, I began tracing out the principal objects 
 in the view, as far, that is to say, as they could 
 be traced through the medium of the intense, 
 glowing haze. I followed the course of the 
 Tagus, from its entrance till it was lost in the 
 low estuaries beyond Lisbon. Cascais appeared, 
 with its long reaches of wall and bomb-proof 
 casements, like a Moorish town ; and by tlie 
 help of a glass, I distinguished a tall palm lifting 
 itself up above a cluster of white buildings. 
 '"Well,' said I to my conductor, 'this prospect 
 has certainly charms worth seeing ; but not 
 sufficient to make me forget that it is high time 
 to get home and refresh ourselves.' 'Not so 
 fast,' was the answer, 'we have still a great 
 deal more to see.' 
 
 Having acquired, I can hardly tell why or 
 wherefore, a sheep-like habit of following wher- 
 ever he led, I spurred after him down a rough 
 declivity, thick strewn with rolling stones and 
 pebbles. At the bottom of this descent, a 
 dreary sunburnt plain extended itself far and 
 wide. "Whilst we dismounted and halted a few 
 minutes to give our horses breath, I could not 
 help observing that the view we were contem- 
 plating but ill rewarded the risk of breaking 
 our necks in riding down such rapid declivities. 
 He smiled, and asked me whether I saw nothing 
 at all interesting in the i^rospect. 'Yes,' said 
 I, 'a sort of caravan I perceive about a quarter 
 of a mile off is by no means uninteresting; 
 that confused group of people in scarlet, with 
 gleaming arms, and sumpter-mules, and those 
 striped awnings stretched from ruined walls, 
 present exactly that kind of scenery I should 
 expect to meet with in the neighbourhood of 
 Grand Cairo.' 'Come, then,' said he, 'it is 
 time to clear up this mystery, and tell you for 
 what purpose we have taken such a long and 
 fatiguing ride. The caravan which strikes you 
 as being so very picturesque, is composed of the 
 attendants of the Prince of Brazil, Avho has 
 been passing the whole day upon a shooting 
 party, and is just at this moment taking a little 
 repose beneath yonder awnings. It was by his 
 desire I brought you here, for I have his com- 
 mands to exjDress his wishes of having half an 
 hour's conversation with you, unobserved, and 
 in perfect incognito. "Walk on, as if you were 
 collecting plants, or taking sketches ; I will 
 apprize his Eoyal Highness, and you will meet, 
 as it were, by chance, and without any form. ' 
 
460 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [When Sir James Mackintosh said that pos- 
 terity would place the name of Hall by the 
 side of Paley, he scarcely assigned to him 
 his proper situation in theological literature. 
 Hall, indeed, possessed many of the most 
 valuable qualities of Paley ; but Paley 
 wanted the vivacious and illuminating 
 fancy of Hall. In his correspondence, how- 
 ever, we find no other characteristics of his 
 mind than simplicity and truth. — Willmott.] 
 
 E. HALL TO ME. H. FYSH, 
 
 Shelford, March 11, 1804. 
 My DEAe Feiend, — I deeply sympathize Avith 
 you in the great loss you have sustained by the 
 decease of your most excellent wife. It is a 
 stroke which will be long felt by all her 
 surviving friends : how much more by a person 
 with whom she was so long and so happily 
 united ! There are many considerations, how- 
 ever, which must occur to your mind in allevia- 
 tion of your distress. The dear deceased had 
 long been rendered incapable, by the severity 
 of her affliction, of enjoying life ; and a further 
 extension of it would have been but a prolonga- 
 tion of woe. Much as her friends must regret 
 her loss, to have been eagerly solicitous for her 
 continuance here would have been a refined 
 selfishness rather than true friendship. She 
 was spared for the kindest purposes, to exem- 
 plify the power of religion in producing a cheer- 
 ful resignation to the will of God, through a long 
 series of suffering, to a degree which I never 
 saw equalled in any other instance. There was 
 the faith and patience of the saints. Her graces 
 were most severely tried, and surely never did 
 any shine brighter. The most active and 
 zealous services in religion could not have 
 yielded more glory to God than the dignified 
 composure, the unruflSed tranquillity, and the 
 unaltered sweetness she maintained amidst 
 her trials. Oh, my dear friend, let the image of 
 her virtues be ever impressed on your heart, 
 and ever improved as an incentive to that close 
 v/alk with God which laid the foundation of all 
 her excellence. To have had an opportunity of 
 contemplating the influence of genuine religion 
 so intimately, and under so interesting a form, 
 is a privilege which falls to the lot of few, and 
 is surely one of the most inestimable advantages 
 we can possess. That she was spared to you so 
 long ; that her patience continued unexhausted 
 amidst so severe a pressure ; and, above all, 
 that you have so well-grounded an assurance of 
 her happiness, must fill you with a grateful 
 sense of the divine goodness. This state is 
 designed to be a mingled scene, in which joy 
 and sorrow, and serenity and storms, take their 
 turns. A perpetuity of either would be unsuit- 
 able to us ; an uninterrupted series of prosperity 
 
 would fill us with worldly passions ; an un- 
 broken continuity of adversity would unfit us 
 for exertion. The spirit would fail before Him^ 
 and the souls which He hath made. Pain and 
 pleasure, scenes of satisfaction and sorrow, are 
 admirably attempered with each other, so as to 
 give us constant room for thankfulness, and 
 yet to remind us that this is not our rest. Our 
 dear and invaluable friend has entered into the 
 world of perfect spirits, to which she made so 
 near an approach during her continuance here. 
 To a mind so refined, and exercised in the 
 school of affliction, so resigned to the divine 
 will, and so replete with devotion and benevo- 
 lence, how easy and delightful was the transi- 
 tion ! To her to live was Giirist, hut to die was 
 gain. Let us improve this dispensation of 
 Providence, by imitating her example : let us 
 cherish her memory with reverential tenderness ; 
 and consider it as an additional call to all we 
 have received before, to seek the things that are 
 above. 
 
 I confess, the thought of so dear a friend 
 having left this world makes an abatement of 
 its value in my estimation, as I doubt not it 
 will still more in yours. The thought of my 
 journey to London gives me little or no 
 pleasure ; for I shall hear the accents of that 
 sweet voice which so naturally exi^ressed the 
 animation of benevolence — I shall behold that 
 countenance which displayed so many amiable 
 sentiments — no more. But can we wish her 
 back? Can we wish to recall her from that 
 blissful society which she has joined, and where 
 she is singing a new song ? No, my dear friend \ 
 you will not be so selfish. You will, I trust, 
 aspire with greater ardour than ever after the 
 heavenly world, and be daily imploring fresh 
 supplies of that grace which will fit you for an 
 everlasting union with our deceased friend, I 
 hope her amiable nieces will profit by this 
 expressive event. And as they have (blessed 
 be God for it) begun to seek after Sion with their 
 faces thitherward, that they will walk forward 
 with additional firmness and alacrity. I shall 
 make little or no stay in London on my first 
 journey ; but, as I long to see you, will spend 
 the 11th instant (that is, the evening preceding 
 my engagement to preach) at your house, if 
 agreeable. I shall be glad to see Mr. Dove, 
 but pray do not ask strangers. — I am your 
 sympathizing friend, 
 
 RoBEET Hall. 
 
 [Colonel Wellesley landed in India in the 
 February of 1797, and was soon engaged in 
 the war with the famous Tippoo Sultaun, 
 and at the assault and capture of Seringa- 
 patam. May 4, 1799, he commanded the 
 reserve in the trenches. In 1800, the tran- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 quillity of Mysore was disturbed by the 
 reappearance, at the head of a numeroua 
 army, of a Marhatta freebooter, named 
 Dhoondiah Waugh. Colonel Wellesley, 
 who knew him, though a despicable, to bo 
 a very formidable enemy, proceeded against 
 him in person, 'with detachments of the 
 army of Mysore.' Dhoondiah had pre- 
 viously eluded the pursuit of two officers 
 who had endeavoured to intercept him in 
 his flight into the Marhatta country. 
 * Dhoondiah,' says Colonel Gurwood, ' had 
 formerly committed various depredations 
 on the territories of Tippoo Sultaun, who, 
 having secured his person, compelled him 
 to conform to the Mahometan faith, and 
 afterwards employed him in military ser- 
 vice ; ' subsequently, however, he confined 
 him in irons in Seringapatam. Having been 
 released after the capture of that fortress 
 by the English troops, he fled to Bednore, 
 and 'laid that rich country under severe 
 contributions, which he exacted with un- 
 relenting cruelty, perpetrating throughout 
 the province the most atrocious acts of 
 rapine and murder.' — WillmotL] 
 
 TK£ DUKE OF WELLINGTON TO LIEUTENANT- 
 COLONEL CLOSE. 
 
 I Camp, right of the Malpoorha, opposite 
 
 Manowly, July 31, 1800. 
 Dear Colonel, — I have the pleasure to in- 
 form you that I have struck a blow against 
 Dhoondiah, which he will feel severely. After 
 the fall of Dummul and Gudduck, I heard that 
 Dhoondiah was encamped near Soondootty, 
 west of the Pursghur hill, and that his object 
 was to cover the passage of his baggage over 
 the Malpoorba at Manowly. I then determined 
 upon a plan to attack both him and his baggage 
 at the same time, in co-operation with Bowser, 
 whose detachment, however, did not arrive at 
 Dummul till the 28th, and was two marches in 
 my rear ; but I thought it most important that 
 I should approach Dhoondiah's army at all 
 events, and take advantage of any movement 
 which he might make. I accordingly moved 
 on, and arrived on the 29th at Allagawaddy, 
 which is fifteen miles from Soondootty, and 
 
 ' tv/enty-six from this place. I intended to halt 
 at Allagawaddy till the 31st, on which day I 
 expected Colonel Bowser at Nurgoond ; but 
 Dhoondiah broke up from Soondootty as soon 
 as he heard of my arrival at Allagawaddy, sent 
 part of his army to Doodwaur, part towards 
 Jellahaul, and part with the baggage to this 
 place. I then marched on the morning of the 
 
 461 
 
 30th to Hoogurgoor, which is east of the 
 Pursghur Hill, where I learned that Dhoondiah 
 was here with his baggage. I determined to 
 move on and attack him. I surprised his camp 
 at three o'clock in the evening with the cavalry ; 
 and we drove into the river or destroyed every- 
 body that was in it, took an elephant, several 
 camels, bullocks, horses, and innumerable 
 families, women, and children. The guns were 
 gone over, and we made an attempt to dismount 
 them by a fire from this side ; but it was 
 getting dark, and my infantry was fatigued by 
 the length of the march ; we lost a man or two, 
 and I saw plainly that we should not succeed ; 
 I therefore withdrew my guns to my camp. I 
 do not know whether Dhoondiah was with this 
 part of the army, but I mther believe not. 
 Bubber Jung was in the camp, put on his 
 armour to fight, mounted his horse, and rode 
 him into the river, where he was drowned. 
 Numbers met with the same fate. One tandah 
 of brinjarries, in this neighbourhood, has sent 
 to me for cowle, and I have got the family of a 
 head brinjarry among those of several others. 
 I have detained them ; but have sent cowle to 
 the brinjarry. I hear that everybody is desert- 
 ing Dhoondiah; and I believe it, as my Mar- 
 hattas are going out this night to attack one of 
 his parties gone towards Darwar. They were 
 before very partial to my camp. I have a plan 
 for crossing some Europeans over the river to 
 destroy the guns, which I am afraid I cannot 
 bring off, and then I think I shall have done 
 this business completely. I am not quite 
 certain of success, however, as the river is broad 
 and rapid. — Believe me, etc. 
 
 Aethur Welleslet. 
 
 [No circumstance in the despatches of the Duke 
 of Wellington awakens a livelier feeling of 
 pleasure and surprise in the mind of tlie 
 reader, than the simple, natural, yet touch- 
 ing and consolatory manner in which that 
 illustrious commander communicates the 
 death or the sufferings of his officers to 
 their relatives and friends. Avoiding all 
 the common topics of condolence, he places 
 before the bereaved mother or father every 
 consideration likely to reconcile them to 
 the loss they have experienced in the cause 
 of their country. To these letters the 
 Epitaph of Collins might have been affixed 
 for a motto. — Willmott.'\ 
 
 TO LADY SARAH NAPIER. 
 
 Gallegos, January 29, 1812. 
 My dear Madam, — I am sorry to tell you 
 that your son George was again wounded in the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 462 
 
 right arm so badly last night, in the storm of 
 Ciudad Eodrigo, that it was necessary to ampu- 
 tate it above the elbow. He, however, bore 
 the operation remarkably well, and I have seen 
 him this morning free from pain and fever, and 
 enjoying highly his success before he had re- 
 ceived his wound. "NYlien he did receive it, he 
 only desired that I might be informed that he 
 had led his men to the top of the breach before 
 he had fallen. 
 
 Having such sons, I am aware that you expect 
 to hear of those misfortunes, which I have more 
 than once had to communicate to you ; and 
 notwithstanding your affection for them, you 
 have so just a notion of the value of the dis- 
 tinction they are daily acquiring for themselves, 
 by their gallantry and good conduct, that their 
 misfortunes do not make so great an impression 
 upon you. Under such circumstances, I perform 
 the task which I have taken uijon myself with 
 less reluctance, hoping at the same time that 
 this will be the last occasion on which I shall 
 have to address you upon such a subject, and 
 that your brave sons will be spared to you. 
 Although the last was the most serious, it was 
 not the only wound which George received 
 during the siege of Ciudad Eodrigo ; he was hit 
 by the splinter of a shell in the shoulder on the 
 16th. — Believe me, etc. 
 
 TO LORD SOMERS. 
 
 Villa- Toro, Octoler 11, 1812. 
 
 My Lord, — As I have before had the honour 
 of writing to you respecting your son, I cannot 
 allow my despatch to go to England, with the 
 melancholy account of the loss which you have 
 sustained, without addressing a few lines to you. 
 
 Your son fell as he had lived, in the zealous 
 and gallant discharge of his duty. He had 
 already distinguished himself in the course of 
 the operations of the attack on the Castle of 
 Burgos to such a degree as to induce me to 
 recommend him for promotion ; and I assure 
 your lordship, that if Providence had spared 
 him to yovi, he possessed acquirements and was 
 endowed with qualities to become one of the 
 greatest ornaments of his profession, and to 
 continue an honour to his family and an advan- 
 tage to his country. I have no hope that what 
 I have above stated to your lordship will at 
 all tend to alleviate your affliction on this 
 melancholy occasion ; but I could not deny 
 myself the satisfaction of assuring you, that I 
 was highly sensible of the merits of your son, 
 and that I most sincerely lament his loss. — I 
 have the honour to be, etc. 
 
 [Among the political oppt^nents who had de- 
 preciated, with all the virulence of party, 
 the early campaigns of Wellington, Mr. 
 Whitbread had distinguished himself by 
 the vehemence of his hostility. But he 
 was a generous, though a prejudiced an- 
 tagonist, and having been convinced of the 
 injustice of his censures, not only acknow- 
 ledged his error in Parliament, but addressed 
 a letter to Lord Wellington in the same 
 pacific spirit. — Wilbnott.] 
 
 TO SAMUEL WHITBREAD, ESQ. 
 
 Elvas, May 23, 1811. 
 My dear Sir,— I am most highly gratified by 
 your letter of the 29th April, which I received 
 last night ; and I beg leave to return my thanks 
 for the mode in which you have taken the 
 trouble of informing me of the favourable 
 change of your opinion respecting affairs in this 
 country. I acknowledge that I was much con- 
 cerned to find that persons, for whom I enter- 
 tained the highest respect, and whose opinions 
 were likely to have great weight in England, 
 and throughout Europe, had delivered erroneous 
 opinions, as I thought, respecting affairs in this 
 country ; and I prized their judgments so highly, 
 at the same time that I was certain of the error 
 of the opinion which they had delivered, that 
 I was induced to attribute their conduct to the 
 excess of the spirit of party. I assure you that, 
 highly as I am gratified and flattered by the 
 
 a^Dprobation of and yourself and others, 
 
 that which gives me most pleasure in the account 
 which I received last night from England, is to 
 be convinced that such men could not be unjust 
 towards an officer in the service of the countiy 
 abroad ; and that the opinions which they had 
 delivered, however unfavourable to him, were 
 the real dictates of their judgments, upon a fair 
 view of all the circumstances which had come 
 to their knowledge. To the gratification arising 
 from this conviction, to one who appears 
 destined to pass his life in the harness, you 
 have added that which I have received from 
 your obliging letter, and I assure you that I 
 am very sensible of the kindness towards me 
 which induced you to write to me. 
 
 TO A CORRESPONDENT. 
 
 Paris, August 17, 1815. 
 ]My DEAR Sir, — I have received your letter 
 of the 11th, and regret much I have not been 
 able to prevail upon you to relinquish your 
 plan. You may depend upon it you will never 
 make it a satisfactory work. I will get you a 
 list of the French army, generals, etc. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 463 
 
 Jvist to show you how little reliance can be 
 placed even on what are supposed the best 
 accounts of a battle, I mention that there are 
 
 some circumstances mentioned in General 's 
 
 account, which did not occur as he relates 
 them. He was not on the field during the 
 whole battle, particularly not during the latter 
 part of it. The battle began, I believe, at 
 eleven o'clock. It is impossible to say when 
 each important occurrence took place, nor in 
 what order. We were attacked first with in- 
 fantry only, then with cavalry only ; lastly and 
 principally, with cavalry and infantry mixed. 
 No houses were possessed by the enemy in Mont 
 St. Jean, excepting the farm in front of the 
 left of our centre, on the road to Gemappe, can 
 be called one. This they got, I think, at about 
 two o'clock, and got it from a circumstance 
 which is to be attributed to the neglect of the 
 officer commanding on the spot. 
 
 The French cavalry were on the plateau in 
 the centre, between the two high roads, for 
 nearly three-quarters of an hour, riding about 
 among our squares of infantry, all firing having 
 ceased on both sides. I moved our squares 
 forward to the guns ; and our cavalry, which 
 had been detached by Lord Uxbridge to the 
 flanks, was brought back to the centre. The 
 French cavalry were then driven off. After 
 that circumstance, repeated attacks were made 
 along the whole front of the centre of the 
 position, by cavalry and infantry, till seven at 
 night ; how many I cannot tell. When the 
 enemy attacked Sir Thomas Picton, I was there, 
 and they got as far as the hedge on the cross- 
 road, behind which the cavalry had been formed. 
 The latter had run away, and our troops were 
 on our side of the hedge. The French were 
 driven off with immense loss. This was the 
 first principal attack. At about two o'clock in 
 the afternoon, as I have above said, they got 
 possession of the farm-house on the high road, 
 which defended this part of the position ; and 
 they then took possession of a small mound on 
 the left of the high road going from Bruxelles, 
 imijaediately opposite the gate of the farm ; and 
 they were never removed from thence till I 
 commenced the attack in the evening ; but they 
 never advanced farther on that side. 
 
 These are answers to all your queries ; but, 
 remember, I recommend to you to leave the 
 battle of Waterloo as it is. 
 
 Wellington. 
 
 TO LORD BERESFORD. 
 
 Go7iesse, July 2, 1815. 
 My dear Beresford, — I have received your 
 letter of the 9th of June. You should recom- 
 mend for the Spanish medal for Albuera, 
 according to the rules laid down by the King of 
 
 Spain for the grant of it. I should think it 
 should be given only to those who were there 
 and actually engaged. I am, as soon as I shall 
 have a little time, going to recommend officers 
 for the Order of San Fernando, and will apply 
 to you for a Portuguese list. You will have 
 heard of our battle of the 18th. Never did I 
 see such a pounding match : both were what 
 the boxers call gluttons. Napoleon did not 
 manoeuvre at all ; he just moved forward in the 
 old style, in columns, and was driven off in the 
 old style ; the only difference was, that ho 
 mixed cavalry with his infantry, and supported 
 both with an enormous quantity of artillery. I 
 had the infantry for some time in squares, and 
 we had the French cavalry walking about us as 
 if they had been our own. I never saw the 
 British infantry behave so well. 
 
 Boney is now off, I believe, to Eochefort, to 
 go to America ; the army, about forty thousand 
 or fifty thousand, are in Paris ; Blucher on the 
 left of the Seine, and I with iny right in front 
 of St. Denis, and the left upon the Bois do 
 Bondy. They have fortified St. Denis and 
 Montmartre very strongly. The canal De 
 rOurcq is filled with water, and they have a 
 parapet and batteries on the bank, so that I do 
 not believe we can attack this line ; however, I 
 will see. — Believe me, etc. 
 
 Wellington. 
 
 [No person who has heard Mr. Wordsworth 
 dilate upon the classical school of English 
 poetry, from Pope to Campbell, will expect 
 to receive from his pen any enthusiastic 
 eulogy of Dryden. The author of Mac 
 Flecnoe could not have fou.nd a severei- 
 critic than the author of the Excursion. 
 The works of that illustrious poet, whom 
 Gray told Beattie not only to admire, but 
 to be blind to all his faults, have been for 
 some time passing into the study of the 
 scholar. No republication of any standard 
 English writer, addressed to the general 
 reader, obtains so moderate a circulation. 
 Even his fables have ceased to be a fireside 
 book. Mr. Wordsworth thinks the trans- 
 lations from Boccaccio the most poetical of 
 Dryden 's productions ; but the adaptation 
 of the Flower and the Leaf, from Chaucer, 
 possesses the most copious vein of fancy, 
 the most picturesque combination of cir- 
 cu,mstances, and the most easy music of 
 narration. A writer, not remarkable for 
 poetical enthusiasm, has expressed an 
 opinion that, ' regarded merely as an exhibi- 
 tion of a soothing and delicious luxuriance 
 
464 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of imagination, this poem deserves to be 
 classed with the greatest efforts of human 
 genius.' Neither these nor the following 
 remarks are made in any presumptuous 
 opposition to the opinion of the greatest 
 poet of the i^resent age, whose works have 
 diffused a purer strain of ph ilosophy than ever 
 flowed from the lips of Dryden. — Willmott.] 
 
 WOKDSWOKTH TO SCOTT. 
 
 Patttrdale, Nov. 7, 1805. 
 
 My dear Scott, — I was much pleased to hear 
 of your engagement with Dryden, not that he 
 is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine. I 
 admire his talents and genius highly ; but his 
 is not a poetical genius. The only qualities I 
 can find in Dryden that are essentially poetical, 
 are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, 
 with an excellent ear. It may seem strange 
 that I do not add to this, great command of 
 language : that he certainly has, and of such 
 language, too, as it is most desirable that a 
 poet should possess, or rather that he should 
 not be without. But it is not language that is, 
 in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being 
 neither of the imagination nor of the passions ; 
 I mean the amiable, the ennobling, or the in- 
 tense passions. I do not mean to say that there 
 is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I 
 think, as is possible, considering how much he 
 has written. You will easily understand my 
 meaning when I refer to his versification of 
 Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the 
 language of Chaucer. Dryden had neither a 
 tender heart, nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. 
 Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, 
 it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as 
 the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men 
 or of individuals. That his cannot be the 
 language of imagination, must have necessarily 
 followed from this — that there is not a single 
 image from nature in the whole body of his 
 works ; and in his translation from Virgil, 
 whenever Virgil can be fairly said to have had 
 his eye upon his ' object, Dryden always s^joils 
 the passage. 
 
 But too much of this ; I am glad that you 
 are to be his editor. His political and satirical 
 pieces may be greatly benefited by illustration, 
 and even absolutely require it. A correct text 
 is the first object of an editor ; then such notes 
 as explain difficult and obscure passages ; and 
 lastly, which is much less important, notes 
 pointing out authors to whom the i>oet has 
 been indebted, and not in the fiddling way of 
 phrase here and phrase there (which is detest- 
 able as a general practice), but where he has 
 had essential obligations, either as to matter or 
 manner. If I can be of any use to you, do not 
 fail to apply to me. One thing I may take the 
 liberty to suggest ; when you come to the 
 
 Fables, might it not be advisable to print the 
 whole of the Tales of Boccace in a smaller type 
 in the original language? If this should look 
 too much like swelling a book, I should certainly 
 make such extracts as would show where Dryden 
 has most strikingly improved upon, or fallen 
 below, his original. I think his translations 
 from Boccace are the best, at least the most 
 poetical, of his poems. It is many years since 
 I read Boccace, but I remember that Sigismunda 
 is not married by him to Guiscard (the names 
 are different in Boccace, in both tales, I believe, 
 certainly in Theodore, etc.). I think Dryden 
 has much injured the story of the marriage, 
 and degraded Sigismunda's character by it. He 
 has also, to the best of my remembrance, 
 degraded her still more by making her love 
 absolute sensuality. Dryden had no other 
 notion of the passion. With all these defects, 
 and they are very gross ones, it is a noble poem. 
 Guiscard's answer, when first reproached by 
 Tancred, is noble in Boccace : nothing but this : 
 Amor pub molto pui, che ne vol ne io possiamo. 
 This Dryden has spoiled. He says first very 
 well, ' The faults of love by love are justified ; ' 
 and then come four lines of miserable rant, 
 quite d la Maximin. Farewell, and believe me 
 ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 William Wokdswoeth. 
 
 [James Ballantyne, in his Memorandum, after 
 mentioning his ready acceptance of Scott's 
 proposal to print the Minstrelsy, adds — 'I 
 do not believe that, even at this time, he 
 seriously contemplated giving himself much 
 to literature.' I confess, however, that a 
 letter of his, addressed to Ballantyne in the 
 spring of 1800, inclines me to question the 
 accuracy of this impression. After alluding 
 to an intention which he had entertained, 
 in consequence of the delay of Lewis's 
 collection, to publish an edition of the 
 ballads contained in his own little volume, 
 entitled Apology for Tales of Terror, he 
 goes on to detail i)lans for the future 
 direction of his printer's career, which 
 were, no doubt, primarily suggested by the 
 friendly interest he took in Ballantyne 's 
 fortunes ; but there are some hints which, 
 considering what afterwards did take place, 
 lead me to suspect that even thus early the 
 wi-iter contemplated the possibility at least 
 of being himself very intimately connected 
 with the result of these air-drawn schemes. 
 — Lockhart's Life of Scott, from which the 
 remaining notes are drawn.] 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 465 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT TO MR. J. BALLANTYNE, 
 ' KELSO MAIL OFFICE,' KELSO. 
 
 Castle street, April 22, 1800. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have your favour, since the 
 receipt of which some things have occurred 
 ■which induce me to postpone my intention of 
 publishing my ballads, particularly a letter 
 from a friend, assuring me that the Tales of 
 Wonder are actually in the printer's hand. In 
 this situation I endeavour to strengthen my 
 small stock of patience, which has been nearly 
 exhausted by the delay of this work, to which 
 (though for that reason alone) I almost regret 
 having promised assistance. I am still resolved 
 to have recourse to your press for the Ballads 
 (if the Border, which are in some forwardness. 
 
 I have now to request your forgiveness for 
 mentioning a j)lan which your friend Gillon 
 and I have talked over together with a view as 
 well to the public advantage as to your indi- 
 vidual interest. It is nothing short of a 
 migration from Kelso to this place, which I 
 think might be effected upon a prospect of a 
 very flattering nature. 
 
 Three branches of printing are quite open in 
 Edinburgh, all of which I am well convinced 
 you have both the ability and inclination to 
 unite in your person. The first is that of an 
 editor of a newspaper which shall contain some- 
 thing of a uniform historical deduction of 
 events distinct from the farrago of detached 
 and unconnected plagiarisms from the London 
 paragraphs of The Sun. Perhaps it might be 
 possible (and Gillon has promised to make 
 inquiry about it) to treat with the proprietors 
 of some established paper, suppose the Cale- 
 donian Mercury, and we would all struggle to 
 obtain for it some celebrity. To this might be 
 added a Monthly Magazitie and Caledonian 
 Annual Register, if you will ; for both of which, 
 with the excellent literary assistance which 
 Edinburgh at present affords, there is a fair 
 opening. The next object would naturally be 
 the execution of session papers, the best paid 
 work which a printer undertakes, and of which, 
 I dare say, you would soon have a considerable 
 share ; for as you make it your business to 
 superintend the proofs yourself, your education 
 and abilities would ensure your employers 
 against the gross and provoking blunders which 
 the poor composers are often obliged to submit 
 to. The publication of works, either ancient or 
 modern, opens a third fair field for ambition. 
 The only gentleman who attempts anything in 
 that way is in very bad health, nor can I, at 
 any rate, compliment either the accuracy or the 
 execution of his press. I believe it is well 
 understood that with equal attention, an Edin- 
 burgh press would have superior advantages 
 even to those of the metropolis ; and though I 
 would not advise launching into that line at 
 once, yet it world be easy to feel your way by 
 
 occupying your press in this manner on vacant 
 days only. 
 
 It appears to me that such a plan, judiciously 
 adopted and diligently pursued, opens a fair 
 road to an ample fortune. In the meanwhile, 
 the Kelso Mail might be so arranged as to be 
 still a source of some advantage to you ; and I 
 dare say, if wanted, pecuniary assistance might 
 be procured to assist you at the outset, either 
 upon terms of a share or otherwise ; but I refer 
 you for particulars to Joseph, in whose room I 
 am now assuming the pen, for reasons too 
 distressing to be declared, but at which you 
 will readily guess. I hope, at all events, you 
 will impute my interference to anything 
 rather than an impertinent intermeddling with 
 your concerns on the part of, dear sir, your 
 obedient servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 [Of the letters which reached him in consequence 
 of the appearance of the Vision, he has 
 preserved several, which had no doubt 
 interested and gratified him at the time. 
 One of these was from Lady Wellington, 
 to v/hom he had never had the honour of 
 being presented, but who could not, as she 
 said, remain silent on the receipt of such a 
 tribute to the fame of ' the first and best of 
 men.' Ever afterwards she continued to 
 correspond with him, and indeed among 
 the very last letters which the Duchess of 
 Wellington appears to have written was a 
 most affecting one, bidding him farewell 
 and thanking him for the solace his works 
 had afl^orded her during her fatal illness. 
 Another was in these terms : — ] 
 
 GEO. canning to SCOTT. 
 
 Hinddey, Jidij 26, 1811. 
 My dear Sm,— I am very glad that you have 
 essayed a nev/ metre — new, I mean, for you to 
 use. That which you have chosen is perhaps at 
 once the most artificial and the most magnificent 
 that our language affords ; and your success in 
 it ought to encourage you to believe, that for 
 you, at least, the majestic march of Dryden 
 (to my ear the perfection of harmony) is not, 
 as you seem to pronounce it, irrecoverable. Am 
 I wrong in imagining that Spenser does not use 
 the plusquam- Alexandrine — the verse which is 
 as much longer than an Alexandrine as an 
 Alexandrine is longer than an ordinary heroic 
 measure? I have no books where I am to 
 which to refer. You use this— and in the first 
 stanza. 
 
 Your poem has been met on my part by an 
 exchange somewhat like that of Diomed's 
 
 2G 
 
466 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 armour against Glaucus's — brass for gold — a 
 heavy speech upon bullion. If you have never 
 thought upon the subject— as to my great 
 contentment I never had a twelvemonth ago — 
 let me counsel you to keep clear of it, and 
 forthwith put my speech into the fire, unread. 
 It has no one merit but that of sincerity. I 
 formed my opinion most reluctantly; having 
 formed it, I could not but maintain it ; having 
 maintained it in Parliament, I wished to record 
 it intelligibly. But it is one which, so far from 
 cherishing and wishing to make proselytes to, I 
 would much rather renounce, if I could find a 
 person to convince me that it is erroneous. 
 This is at least an unusual state of mind in 
 controversy. It is such as I do not generally 
 profess on all subjects — such as you will give 
 me credit for not being able to maintain, for 
 instance, when either the exploits which you 
 celebrate in your last poem, or your manner of 
 celebrating them, are disputed or disparaged. — 
 Believe me, with great regard and esteem, very 
 sincerely yours, George Canning. 
 
 [But of all letters addressed to the author of 
 the Vision of Don BodericJc, I am very sure 
 no one was so welcome as that which 
 reached him, some months after his poem 
 had ceased to be new in England, from a 
 dear friend of his earliest days, who, after 
 various chances and changes of life, was 
 then serving in Lord Wellington's army, 
 as a captain in the 58th regiment. I am 
 sure that Sir Adam Ferguson's good- nature 
 will pardon my inserting here some extracts 
 from a communication which his affection- 
 ate schoolfellow very often referred to in 
 after years with the highest appearance of 
 interest and pleastire.] . 
 
 ADAM FERGUSON TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ. 
 
 Lisbon, August 31, 1811. 
 My dear Walter,— After such a length of 
 silence between us, and, I grant on my part, 
 so unwarrantable, I think I see your face of 
 surprise on recognising this MS., and hear you 
 exclaim — What strange wind has blown a letter 
 from Linton ? I must say, that although both 
 
 you and my good friend Mrs. S must long 
 
 ago have set me down as a most indifferent, 
 not to say ungrateful sort of gentleman, far 
 otherwise has been the case, as in the course 
 of my wanderings through this country I have 
 often beguiled a long march, or watchful night's 
 duty, by thinking on the merry fireside in North 
 Castle Street. However, the irregular roving 
 life we lead always interfered with my resolves 
 of correspondence. 
 
 But now, quitting self, I need not tell you 
 how greatly I was delighted at the success of 
 the Ladif of the Lake. I daresay you are by 
 this time well tired of such greetings, so I 
 shall only say, that last spring I was so 
 fortunate as to get a reading of it when in the 
 lines of Torres Vedi-as, and thought I had no 
 inconsiderable right to enter into and judge of 
 its beauties, having made one of the ixarty on 
 your first visit to the Trossachs ; and you will 
 allow that a little vanity on my part on this 
 account (everything considered) was natural 
 enough. "^Vhile the book was in my possession, 
 I had nightly invitations to evening parties/ to 
 read and illustrate passages of it ; and I must 
 say that (though not conscious of much merit 
 in the way of recitation) my attempts to do 
 justice to the grand opening of the stag-hunt 
 were always followed with bursts of applause, 
 for this canto was the favourite among the 
 rough sons of the Fighting Third Division. At 
 that time supplies of various kinds, especially 
 anything in the way of delicacies, were very 
 scanty ; and, in gratitude, I am bound to 
 declare, that to the good offices of the lady I 
 owed many a nice slice of ham and rummer of 
 hot punch, which, I assure you, were amongst 
 the most welcome favours that one officer could 
 bestow on another during the long rainy nights 
 of last January and February. By desire of 
 my messmates of the Black -cuffs, I some time 
 ago sent a commission to London for a copy of 
 the music of the boat-song, ' Hail to the Chief, 
 as performed at Covent Garden, but have not 
 yet got it. If you can assist in this, I need 
 not say that on every performance a flowing 
 bumper will go round to the Bard. We have 
 lately been fortunate in getting a good master 
 to our band, who is curious in old Scotch and 
 Irish airs, and has harmonized 'Johnny Cope,' 
 etc. etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Lislon, October G. 
 I HAD written all the foregoing botlieration, 
 intending to send it by a wounded friend going 
 home to Scotland, when, to my no small joy, 
 your parcel, enclosing Don Rodcrich, reached 
 me. How kind I take it your remembering old 
 Linton in this way ! A day or two after I 
 received yours I was sent into the Alentejo, 
 where I remained a month, and only returned 
 a few days ago, much delighted with the trij). 
 You wish to know how I like the Vision ; but 
 as you can't look for any learned critique from 
 me, I shall only say that I fully entered into 
 the spirit and beauty of it, and that I relished 
 much the wild and fanciful opening of the 
 introductory part. Yet what particularly 
 delighted me were the stanzas announcing the 
 approach of the British fleets and armies to this 
 country, and tlie three delightful ones dcscrip- 
 
 - 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 467 
 
 tive of the different troops, Englisli, Scotch, 
 and Irish ; and I can assure you the Pats are, 
 to a man, enchanted with the jncture drawn of 
 their countrymen, and the mention of the great 
 man himself. Your swearing, in the true 
 character of a minstrel, ' shiver my harp and 
 burst its every cord,' amused me not a little. 
 From being well acquainted with a great many 
 of the situations described, they had of course 
 the more interest, and 'grim Busaco's iron 
 ridge ' most happily paints the appearance of 
 that memorable field. You must know that 
 we have got with us some bright geniuses, 
 natives of the d^ar couniry, and who go by the 
 name of 'the poets.' Of course a present of 
 this kind is not thrown away upon indifferent 
 subjects, but it is read and repeated with all 
 the enthusiasm your warmest wish could desire. 
 Should it be my fate to survive, I am resolved 
 to try my hand on a snug little farm either up 
 or down the Tweed, somewhere in your neigh- 
 bourhood, and on this dream many a delightful 
 castle do I build. 
 
 I am most happy to hear that the Club goes 
 on in the old smooth style. I am afraid, how- 
 over, that now . . . has become a judge, the 
 delights of Scro{ju7ii and The TaAlor will be lost, 
 till revived perhaps by the old croupier in the 
 shape of a battered half-pay officer. — Yours 
 affectionately, Adam Ferguson. 
 
 [How reluctantly Scott had made uj) his mind 
 to open such a negotiation with Constable 
 as involved a complete exposure of the 
 mismanagement of John Ballantyne's 
 business as a publisher, will appear from 
 a letter dated about the Christmas of 1812, 
 in which he says to James, who had pro- 
 posed asking Constable to take a share both 
 in Rokeby and in the Annual Register, 
 ' You must be aware, that in stating the 
 objections which occur to me in taking in 
 Constable, I think they ought to give way 
 either to absolute necessity, or to very 
 strong grounds of advantage. But I am 
 persuaded nothing ultimately good can be 
 expected from any connection with that 
 house, unless for those who have a mind to 
 be hewers of wood and drawers of water. 
 AVe will talk the matter coolly over, and 
 in the meanwhile, j)erhaps, you could see 
 W. Erskine, and learn what impression 
 this odd union is like to make among 
 your friends, Erskine is sound-headed, 
 and quite to be trusted with your whole 
 story. I must own I can hardly think 
 the purchase of the Register is equal to the 
 
 loss of credit and character which your 
 surrender will be conceived to infer.' At 
 the time when he wrote this, Scott no 
 doubt anticipated that Rokehy would have 
 success not less decisive than the Lady of 
 the Lalce ; but in this expectation — though 
 10,000 copies in three months would have 
 seemed to any other author a triumphant 
 sale — he had been disappointed. And 
 ■meanwhile the difficulties of the firm, 
 accumulating from week ,to week, had 
 reached by the middle of May a point 
 which rendered it absolutely necessary for 
 him to conquer all his scruples. BIr. 
 Cadell, then Constable's partner, says in 
 his Memoranda, ' Prior to this time the 
 reputation of John Eallantyne and Co. 
 had been decidedly on the decline. It was 
 notorious in the trade that their general 
 speculations had been unsuccessful ; they 
 were known to be grievously in want of 
 money. These rumours were realized to 
 the full by an application which Messrs. 
 E. made to Mr. Constable in May 1813 
 for pecuniary aid, accompanied' by an 
 offer of some of the books they had i^ub- 
 lished since 1809 as a purchase, along with 
 various shares in Mr. Scott's own i:)oems. 
 Their difficulties were admitted, and the 
 negotiation was pressed urgently ; so 
 much so that a pledge was given, that if 
 the terms asked were acceded to, John 
 Ballantyne and Co. would endeavour to 
 wind up their concerns, and cease as soon 
 as possible to be publishers.' Mr. Cadell 
 adds : ' I need hardly remind you that 
 this was a period of very great general 
 difficulty in the money market. It was 
 the crisis of the war. The public expen- 
 diture had reached an enormous height ; 
 and even the most prosperous mercantile 
 houses were often pinched to sustain their 
 credit. It may easily, therefore, be sup- 
 posed that the Messrs. Ballantyne had 
 during many months besieged every 
 banker's door in Edinburgh, and that their 
 agents had done the like in London.' The 
 most important of the requests which the 
 labouring house made to Constable was, 
 that he should forthwith take entirely to 
 himself the stock, copyright, and future 
 management of the Edinburgh Annual 
 Register. Upon examining the state of 
 this book, however, Constable found that 
 
468 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 tlie loss on it had never been less than 
 £1000 per annum, and he therefore declined 
 that matter for the present. He promised, 
 however, to consider seriously the means 
 he might have of ultimately relieving them 
 from the pressure of the Register, and in 
 the meantime offered to take 300 sets of 
 the stock on hand. The other purchases 
 he finally made on the 18th of May were 
 considerable portions of Weber's unhajipy 
 Beaumont and Fletcher ; of an edition of 
 Defoe's novels, in twelve volumes ; of a 
 collection entitled Tales of the East, in 
 three large volumes 8vo, double columned ; 
 and of another in one volume, called 
 Popular Tales; about 800 copies of the 
 Vision of Don Roderick ; and a fourth of 
 the remaining copyright of RoTcehy, price 
 £700. The immediate accommodation 
 thus received amounted to £2000 ; and 
 Scott, who had personally conducted the 
 latter part of the negotiation, writes thus 
 to his junior partner, who had gone a week 
 or two earlier to London in quest of some 
 similar assistance there : — ] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 Deak John, — After many offs and ons, and 
 as m^-ny projcts and contre-2orojets as the Treaty 
 of Amiens, I have at length concluded a treaty 
 with Constable, in which I am sensible he has 
 gained a great advantage ; but what could I 
 do amidst the disorder and pressure of so many 
 demands ? The arrival of your long-dated bills 
 decided my giving in, for v/hat could James or 
 I do with them ? I trust this sacrifice has 
 cleared our way, but many rubs remain ; nor 
 am I, after these hard skirmishes, so able to 
 meet them by my proper credit. Constable, 
 however, will be a zealous ally; and for the 
 first time these many weeks, I shall lay my 
 head on a quiet pillow, for now I do think that, 
 by our joint exertions, we shall get well through 
 the storm, save Beaumont from depreciation, 
 get a partner in our heavy concerns, reef our 
 topsails, and move on securely under an easy 
 sail. And if, on the one hand, I have sold my 
 gold too cheap, I have, on the other, turned 
 my lead to gold. Brewster and Singers are the 
 only heavy things to which I have not given a 
 blue eye. Had your news of Caddel's sale 
 reached us here, I could not have harpooned 
 my grampus as deeply as I have done, as 
 nothing but Rokeby would have barbed the 
 hook. 
 
 Adieu, my dear John. I have the most 
 .sincere regard for you, and you may depend on 
 iny considering your interest with quite as 
 
 much attention as my own.' If I have ever 
 expressed myself with irritation in speaking of 
 tliis business, you must impute it to the sudden, 
 extensive, and unexpected embarrassments in 
 which I found myself involved all at once. If 
 to your real goodness of heart and integrity, 
 and to the quickness and acuteness of your 
 talents, you added habits of more universal 
 circumspection, and above all, the courage to 
 tell disagreeable truths to those whom you 
 hold in regard, I pronounce that the world 
 never held such a man of business. These it 
 must be your study to add to your other 
 good qualities. Meantime, as some one says to 
 Swift, I love you with all your failings. Pray 
 make an effort, and love me with all mine. — 
 Yours truly, W. S. 
 
 [Three days afterwards, Scott resumes the 
 subject as follows : — ] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 Edinburgh, May 21, 1813. 
 
 Dear John, — Let it never escape your 
 recollection, that shutting your own eyes, or 
 blinding those of your friends, upon the actual 
 state of business, is the high road to ruin. 
 Meanwhile, we have recovered our legs for a 
 Aveek or two. Constable will, I think, come 
 in to the Register. He is most anxious to 
 maintain the i)rinting office ; he sees most 
 truly that the more we print the less we 
 publish ; and for the same reason he will, I 
 think, help us off with our heavy quire stock. 
 
 I was aware of the distinction between the 
 state and the calendar as to the latter including 
 the printing office bills, and I summed and 
 docked them (they are marked with red ink) ; 
 but there is still a difference of £2000 and 
 upwards on the calendar against the business. 
 I sometimes fear that, between the long dates 
 of your bills, and the tardy settlements of the 
 Edinburgh trade, some difficulties will occur 
 even in June ; and July I always regard with 
 deep anxiety. As for loss, if I get out without 
 public exposure, I shall not greatly regard the 
 rest. Eadcliffe the physician said, when he 
 lost £2000 on the South Sea scheme, it was 
 only going up 2000 pair of stairs ; I say, it is 
 only writing 2000 couplets, and the account is 
 balanced. . . . James has behaved very well 
 during this whole transaction, and has been 
 most steadily attentive to business. I am con- 
 vinced that the more he works the better his 
 health will be. One or other of you will need 
 to be constantly in the printing office hence* 
 forward — it is the sheet-anchor. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 469 
 
 {The allusion to James Ballantync's health re- 
 minds me that Scott's letters to himself 
 are full of hints on that subject, even from 
 a very early period of their connection, 
 and these hints are all to the same effect. 
 James was a man of lazy habits, and not 
 a little addicted to the more solid, and 
 perhaps more dangerous, part of the indul- 
 gences of the table. One letter (dated 
 Ashestiel, 1810) will be a sufficient speci- 
 men.] 
 
 SCOTT TO JAMES BALLANTYNE. 
 
 My dear Jaiies, — I am veiy sorry for the 
 state of your health, and should be still more 
 so, were I not certain that I can prescribe for 
 you as well as any physician in Edinburgh. 
 You have naturally an athletic constitution 
 and a hearty stomach, and these agree very ill 
 with a sedentary life, and the habits of indo- 
 lence which it brings on. Your stomach thus 
 gets weak, and from those complaints of all 
 others arise most certainly flatulence, hypo- 
 chondria, and all the train of unpleasant feel- 
 ings connected with indigestion. "We all know 
 the horrible sensation of nightmare arises from 
 the same cause which gives those waking night- 
 mares commonly called the blue devils. You 
 must positively put yourself on a regimen as to 
 eating, not for a month or two, but for a year 
 at least, and take regular exercise, and my life 
 for yours. I know this by myself, for if I 
 were to eat and drink in town as I do here, it 
 would soon finish me, and yet I am sensible I 
 live too genially in Edinburgh as it is. — Yours 
 very truly, "W. Scott. 
 
 [The difficulties of the Ballantynes were by 
 this time well known throughout the com- 
 mercial circles not only of Edinburgh, but 
 of London, and a report of their actual 
 bankruptcy, with the addition that Scott 
 was engaged as their surety to the extent 
 of j £20,000, found its way to Mr. Morritt 
 about the beginning of November. This 
 dear friend wrote to him, in the utmost 
 anxiety, and made liberal offers of assist- 
 ance in case the catastrophe might still be 
 averted ; but the term of Martinmas, 
 always a critical one in Scotland, had 
 passed before this letter reached Edin- 
 burgh, and Scott's answer will show 
 symijtoms of a clearing horizon. I think 
 also there is one expression in it which 
 
 could hardly have failed to convey to Mr. 
 Morritt that his friend was involved, more 
 deeply than he had ever acknowledged, in 
 the concern of the Messrs. Ballantyne.] 
 
 SCOTT TO J. B. S. MORRITT. 
 
 Edinburgh, Novemher 20, 1S13. 
 
 I DID not answer your very kind letter, my 
 dear Morritt, until I could put your friendly 
 heart to rest upon the rej^ort you have heard, 
 which I could not do entirely until this term 
 of Martinmas was passed. I have the pleasure 
 to say that there is no truth whatever in the 
 Ballantynes' reported bankruptcy. They have 
 had severe difficulties for the last four months 
 to make their resources balance the demands 
 upon them, and I, having the price of Pi-okeby 
 and other moneys in their hands, have had 
 considerable reason for apprehension, and no 
 slight degree of i^lague and trouble. They 
 have, however, been so well supported that I 
 have got out of hot water upon their account. 
 They arc winding up their bookselling concern 
 with great regularity, and are to abide here- 
 after by the printing office, which, with its 
 stock, etc., will revert to them fairly. 
 
 I have been able to redeem the offspring of 
 my brain, and they are like to pay me like 
 grateful children. This matter has set me 
 a thinking about money more seriou.sly than 
 ever I did in my life, and I have begun by 
 insuring my life for £4000, to secure some 
 ready cash to my family should I slip girths 
 suddenly. I think my other property, library, 
 etc. may be worth about £12,000, and I have 
 not much debt. 
 
 Upon the whole, I see no prospect of any loss 
 whatever. Although in the course of hum.an 
 events I may be disappointed, there certainly 
 can be none to vex your kind and affectionate 
 heart on my account. I am young, with a 
 large official income, and if I lose anything 
 now, I have gained a great deal in my day. I 
 cannot tell you, and will not attempt to tell 
 you, how much I was affected by your letter — 
 so much, indeed, that for several days I could 
 not make my mind up to express myself on the 
 subject. Thank God ! all real danger was 
 yesterday put over ; and I will write, in two 
 or three days, a funny letter, without any of 
 these vile cash matters, of which it may be said 
 there is no living with them nor without them, 
 — Ever yours most truly, 
 
 "Walter Scott. 
 
470 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [The two next letters will give us, in more 
 exact detail than the author's own recol- 
 lection could supply in 1^30, the history 
 of the completion of Waxcvlcy. It was 
 published on the 7th of July, and two 
 days afterwards he thus writes :— ] 
 
 SCOTT TO J, B, S. MORRITT. 
 
 Edinhurgh, July 9, 1814. 
 My dear Morritt, — I owe you many 
 apologies for not sooner answering your very 
 entertaining letter upon your Parisian journey. 
 I heartily wish I had been of your party, for 
 you have seen what I trust will not be seen 
 again in a hui'ry ; since, to enjoy the delight of 
 a restoration, there is a necessity for a previous 
 bouleversement of everything that is valuable in 
 morals and policy, which seems to have been 
 the case in France since 1790.^ The Duke of 
 Buccleuch told me yesterday of a very good 
 reply of Louis to some of his attendants, who 
 proposed shutting the doors of his apartments 
 to keep out the throng of people. ' Open the 
 door,' he said, 'to John Bull; he has suffered 
 a great deal in keeping the door open for me.' 
 
 Now, to go from one important subject to 
 another, I must account for my own laziness, 
 which I do by referring you to a small anony- 
 mous sort of a novel, in three volumes, 
 Waverley, which you will receive by the mail 
 of this day. It was a very old attempt of mine 
 to embody some traits of those characters and 
 manners peculiar to Scotland, the last remnants 
 of which vanished during my own youth, so that 
 ! few or no traces now remain. I had written 
 great part of the first volume, and sketched 
 other passages, when I mislaid the MS., and 
 only found it by the mei-est accident as I was 
 rummaging the drawers of an old cabinet ; and 
 I took the fancy of finishing it, which I did so 
 fast, that the last two volumes were written in 
 three weeks. I had a great deal of fun in the 
 accomplishment of this task, though I do not 
 expect that it will be popular in the south, as 
 much of the humour, if there be any, is local, 
 and some of it even professional. You, how- 
 ever, who arc an adopted Scotchman, will find 
 some amusement in it. It has made a very 
 strong impression here, and the good peoj)le of 
 Edinburgh are busied in tracing the author, 
 and in finding out originals for the portraits it 
 contains. In the first case, they will probably 
 find \t difficult to convict the guilty author, 
 although he is far from escaping suspicion. 
 Jeffrey has offered to make oath that it is 
 mine, and another great critic has tendered his 
 • affidavit ex contrario, so that these authorities 
 
 1 Mr. MoiTitt had, in the spring of tliis year, been 
 present at the first levee held at the Tnileries hy 
 Monsieur, afterwards Charles X. 
 
 have divided the Gude Town. However, the 
 thing has succeeded very well, and is thought 
 highly of. I don't know if it has got to London 
 yet. I intend to maintain my incognito. Let 
 me know your opinion about it. I should be 
 most happy if I could think it wou.ld amuse a 
 painful tliought at this anxious moment. I 
 was in hopes Mrs, Morritt was getting so much 
 better that this relapse affects me very much. 
 — Ever yours truly, W. Scott. 
 
 P.S. — As your conscience has very few things 
 to answer for, you must still burthen it with 
 the secret of the Bridal. It is spreading very 
 rapidly, and I have one or two fairy romances 
 which will make a second volume, and which 
 I would wish published, but not with my name. 
 The truth is that this sbrt of muddling work 
 amuses me, and I am something in the condition 
 of Joseph Surface, who was embarrassed by 
 getting himself too good a reputation; for 
 many things may please people well enough 
 anonymously, which, if they have me in the 
 title-page, would just give me that sort of ill 
 name which precedes hanging, and that would 
 be in many respects inconvenient if I thought 
 of again trying a grande opus. 
 
 [This statement of the foregoing letter (repeated 
 still more precisely in a following one), as 
 to the time occupied in the composition 
 of the second and third volumes of 
 Waverley, recalls to my memory a trifling [ 
 anecdote, which, as connected with a dear 
 friend of my youth, whom I have not seen 
 for many years, and may very probably 
 never see again in this world, I shall here 
 set down, in the hope of affording him a 
 momentary though not an unmixed 
 pleasure, when he may chance to read 
 this compilation on a distant shore, and 
 also in the hope that my humble record 
 may impart to some active mind in the 
 rising generation a shadow of the influence 
 which the reality certainly exerted upon 
 his. Happening to pass through Edin- 
 burgh in June, 1814, I dined one day 
 with the gentleman in question (now the 
 Honourable William Menzies, one of the 
 Supreme Judges at the Cape of Good 
 Hope), whose residence was then in George 
 Street, situated very near to, and at right 
 angles with, North Castle Street. It Avas 
 a party of very young persons, most of 
 them, like Menzies and myself, destined 
 for the bar of Scotland, all gay and 
 thoughtless, enjoying the first flush of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 manhood, with little remembrance of the 
 yesterday or care of the morrow. When 
 my companion's worthy father and uncle, 
 after seeing two or three bottles go round, 
 left the juveniles to themselves, the weather 
 being hot, we adjourned to a library which 
 had one large wuidow looking northwards. 
 After carousing here for an hour or more, 
 I observed that a shade had come over the 
 aspect of my friend, who happened to be 
 placed immediately opposite to myself, 
 and said something that intimated a fear 
 of his being unwell. 'No,' said he, *I 
 shall be well enough presently, if you will 
 only let me sit where you are, and take 
 my chair ; for there is a confounded hand 
 in sight of me here, which has often 
 bothered me before, and noAV it won't let 
 me fill my glass with a good will.' I rose 
 to change places with him accordingly, 
 and he pointed out this hand which, like 
 the writing on Belshazzar's wall, disturbed 
 his hour of hilarity. 'Since we sat down,' 
 he said, ' I have been watching it — it 
 fascinates my eye — it never stops — page 
 after page is finished and throvm on that 
 heap of MS., and still it goes' on unwearied 
 — and so it will be till candles are brought 
 in, and God knows how long after that. 
 It is the same every night — I can't stand 
 the sight of it when I am not at my books.' 
 'Some stupid, dogged engrossing clerk, 
 probably,' exclaimed myself, or some other 
 ^ddy youth in our society. 'No, boys,' 
 said our host, ' I well know what hand it 
 is — 'tis Walter Scott's.' This was the 
 hand that, in the evenings of thi-ee summer 
 weeks, wrote the two last volumes of 
 Waverlcy. Would that all who that night 
 watched it had profited by its example of 
 diligence as largely as William Menzies ! 
 In the next of these letters Scott enclosed 
 to Mr. Morritt the pros]Dectus of a new 
 edition of the old poems of Tlie Bruce and 
 The Wallace, undertaken by the learned 
 lexicographer, Dr. John Jamieson, and he 
 announces his departure on a sailing excur- 
 sion round the north of Scotland. It will 
 be observed that when Scott began his 
 letter, he had only had Mr. Morritt's 
 opinion of the first volume of Waverley, 
 and that before he closed it, he had 
 received his friend's honest criticism on 
 the work as a whole, with the expression 
 
 of an earnest hope that he would drop his 
 incognito on the title-page of a second 
 edition.] 
 
 SCOTT TO J. B. S. MORRITT. 
 
 Abbotsford, July 24, 1814. 
 My dear Morritt, — I am going to say my 
 vales to you for some weeks, having accepted 
 an invitation from a committee of Commis- 
 sioners for the Northern Lights (I don't mean 
 the Edinburgh Reviewers, but the bond fide com- 
 missioners for the beacons) to accompany them 
 upon a nautical tour round Scotland, visiting 
 all that is curious on continent and isle. The 
 party are three gentlemen with whom I am very 
 well acquainted, William Erskine being one. 
 We have a stout cutter, well fitted np and 
 manned for the service by Government, and 
 to make assurance double sure, the admiral 
 has sent a sloop of war to cruise in the 
 dangerous points of our tour, and sweep the 
 sea of the Yankee privateers which sometimes 
 annoy our northern latitudes. I shall visit the 
 Clephanes in their solitude, and let you know 
 all that I see that is rare and entertaining, 
 which, as we are masters of our time and 
 vessel, should add much to my stock of 
 knowledge. 
 
 As to Waverley, I will play Sir Fretful for 
 once, and assure you that I left the story to 
 flag in the first volume on j^urpose ; the second 
 and third have rather more bustle and interest. 
 I wished (with what success Heaven knows) 
 to avoid the ordinary error of novel-writers, 
 whose first volume is usually their best. But 
 since it has served to amuse Mrs. Morritt and 
 you usque ah initio, I have no doubt you will 
 tolerate it even unto the end. It may really 
 boast to be a tolerably faithful portrait of 
 Scottish manners, and has been recognised as 
 such in Edinburgh. The first edition of a 
 thousand instantly disappeared, and the book- 
 seller informs me that the second, of double 
 the quantity, will not supply the market for 
 long. As I shall be very anxious to know how 
 Mrs. Morritt is, I hope to have a few lines from 
 you on my return, which will be about the end 
 of August or beginning of September. I should 
 have mentioned that we have the celebrated 
 engineer, Stevenson, along with us. I delight 
 in these professional men of talent ; they 
 always give you some new lights by the 
 peculiarity of their habits and studies, so 
 different from the people who are rounded, 
 and smoothed, and ground down for conversa- 
 tion, and who can say all that every other 
 person says, and — nothing more. 
 
 What a miserable thing it is that our royal 
 family cannot be quiet and decent at least, if 
 not correct and moral in their deportment. 
 Old Farmer George's manly simplicity, modesty 
 
472 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of expense, and domestic virtue saved this 
 country at its most perilous crisis ; for it is 
 inconceivable the number of persons whom 
 these qualities united in his behalf, who would 
 have felt but feebly the abstract duty of sup- 
 porting a crown less worthily worn. 
 
 I had just proceeded thus far when your 
 kind favour of the 21st reached Abbotsford. 
 I am heartily glad you continued to like 
 Waverley to the end. The hero is a sneaking 
 piece of imbecility, and if he had married 
 Flora, she would have set him up upon the 
 chimneypiece, as Count Borowlaski's wife used 
 to do with him.^ I am a bad hand at depicting 
 a hero properly so called, and have an unfortu- 
 nate propensity for the dubious characters of 
 Bordei-ers, buccaneers. Highland robbers, and 
 all others of a Eobin Hood description. I do 
 not know why it should be, as I am myself, 
 like Hamlet, indifferent honest ; but I suppose 
 the blood of the old cattle-drivers of Teviotdale 
 continues to stir in my veins. 
 
 I shall i^ot own Waverley ; my chief reason 
 is, that it would prevent me of the pleasure 
 of writing again. David Hume, nephew of 
 the historian, says the author must be of a 
 Jacobite family and predilections, a yeoman- 
 cavalry man, and a Scottish lawyer, and desires 
 me to guess in whom these happy attributes 
 are united. I shall not plead guilty, however ; 
 and, as such seems to be the fashion of the 
 day, I hope charitable people will believe my 
 affidavit in contradiction to all other evidence. 
 The Edinburgh faith now is, that Waverley is 
 written by Jeffrey, having been composed to 
 lighten the tedium of his late Transatlantic 
 voyage. So you see the unknown infant is 
 like to come to preferment. In truth, I am 
 not sure it would be considered quite decorous 
 for me, as a Clerk of Session, to write novels. 
 Judges being monks, clerks are a sort of lay 
 brethren, from whom some solemnity of walk 
 and conduct may be expected. So, whatever 
 I may do of this kind, I shall whistle it down 
 the wind to prey on fortune. I will take care, 
 in the next edition, to make the corrections 
 you recommend. The second is, I believe, 
 nearly through the press. It will hardly be 
 printed faster than it was written ; for though 
 the first volume was begun long ago, and 
 actually lost for a time, yet the other two were 
 begun and finished between the 4th June and 
 
 1 Count Borovvlaski was a Polish dwarf, -who, after 
 realizing some money as an itinerant object of exhi- 
 bition, settled, married, and died at Durham. He 
 was a well-bred creature, and much noticed by the 
 clergy and other gentry of that city; Indeed, even 
 when travelling the country as a show, he had always 
 maintained a sort of dignity. I remember him as 
 going from house to house, when I was a child, in a 
 sedan chair, with a servant in livery following him, 
 who took the fee ; M. le Comte himself, dressed in 
 a scarlet coat and bag-wig, being ushered into the 
 room like any ordinary visitor.— Lock hart. 
 
 the 1st July, during all which I attended my 
 duty in court, and proceeded without loss of 
 time or hindrance of business. 
 
 I wish, for poor auld Scotland's sake, and 
 for the manes of Bruce and Wallace, and for 
 the living comfort of a very worthy and 
 ingenious dissenting clergyman, who has col- 
 lected a library and medals of some value, and 
 brought up, I believe, sixteen or seventeen 
 children (his wife's ambition extended to 
 twenty) upon about £150 a year, — I say I 
 wish, for all these reasons, you could get me 
 among your wealthy friends a name or two 
 for the enclosed proposals. The price is, I 
 think, too high; but the booksellers fixed it 
 two guineas above what I i^roposed. I trust 
 it will be yet lowered to five guineas, which is 
 a more comeatable sum than six. The poems 
 themselves are great curiosities, both to the 
 l^hilologist and antiquary, and that of Bruce 
 is invaluable — even to the historian. They 
 have been hitherto wretchedly edited. 
 
 I am glad you are not to pay for this scrawl. 
 Ever yours, Walter Scott. 
 
 P.S. — I do not see how my silence can be 
 considered as imposing on the public. If I 
 give my name to a book without writing it, 
 unquestionably that would be a trick. But, 
 unless in the case of his averring facts which 
 he may be called upon to defend or justify, I 
 think an author may use his own discretion 
 in giving or withholding his name. Harry 
 Mackenzie never put his name in a title-page 
 till the last edition of his works; and Swift 
 only owned one out of his thousand and one 
 publications. In ijoint of emolument, every- 
 body knows that I sacrifice much money by 
 withholding my name ; and what should I 
 gain by it, that any human being has a right 
 to consider as an unfair advantage? In fact, 
 only the freedom of writing trifles with less 
 personal responsibility, and perhaps more 
 frequently than I otherwise might do. 
 
 W. S. 
 
 am not able to give the exact date of the 
 following reply to one of John Ballantyne's 
 expostulations on the subject of the secret .] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 No, John, I will not own the book — 
 
 I won't, you Picaroon. 
 AVhen next I try St. Grubby's brook, 
 The A. of Wa— shall bait the hook— 
 
 And flat-fish bite as soon 
 As if before them they had got 
 The worn-out wriggler, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 473 
 
 [The Antiquary had been published by Con- 
 stable, but I presume that, in addition to 
 the usual stipulations, he had been again, 
 on that occasion, solicited to relieve John 
 Ballantyne and Co.'s stock to an extent 
 which he did not find quite convenient ; 
 and at all events he had, though I know 
 not on what grounds, shown a consider- 
 able reluctance of late to employ James 
 Ballantyne and Co. as i)rinters. One or 
 other of these impediments is alluded to in 
 a note of Scott's, which, though undated, 
 has been pasted into John Ballantyne's 
 private letter-book among the documents 
 of the period in question. It is in these 
 vrords :— ] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 Dear John, — I have seen the great swab, 
 who is as supple as a glove, and will do all, 
 which some interpret NOTHING. However, we 
 shall do well enough. W. S. 
 
 [It was resolved, accordingly, to offer the 
 risk and half profits of the first edition 
 of another new novel, — or rather collection 
 of novels, — not to Messrs. Constable, but 
 to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street, and 
 Mr. Blackwood, who was then Murray's 
 agent in Scotland ; but it was at the same 
 time resolved, partly because Scott wished 
 to try another experiment on the public 
 sagacity, but partly also, no question, 
 from the wish to spare Constable's feel- 
 ^ ings, that the title-page of the Talez of my 
 Landlord should not bear the magical 
 words * by the Author of Waverley.' The 
 facility with which both Murray and 
 Blackwood embraced such a proposal as 
 no untried novelist, feeing sane, could have 
 dreamt of hazarding, shows that neither 
 of them had any doubt as to the identity 
 of the author. They both considered the 
 withholding of the avowal on the forth- 
 coming title-page as likely to check very 
 much the first success of the book ; but 
 they were both eager to prevent Constable's 
 acquiring a sort of prescriptive right to 
 publish for the unrivalled novelist, and 
 willing to disturb his tenure at this 
 additional, and, as they thought it, wholly 
 
 unnecessary risk. How sharply the un- 
 seen parent watched this first negotiation 
 of his Jedediah Cleishlotham will appear 
 from one of his letters.] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 Dear John, — James has made one or two 
 imjiortant mistakes in the bai'gain with Murray 
 and Blackwood. Briefly as follows ; — 
 
 1st. Having only authority from me to 
 promise 6000 copies, he proposes they shall 
 have the copyright for ever, I will see their 
 noses cheese first. 
 
 2d. He proposes I shall have twelve months' 
 bills— I have always got six. However, I would 
 not stand on that. 
 
 3d. He talks of volumes being put into the 
 publishers' hands to consider and decide on. 
 No such thing; a bare perusal at St. John 
 Street ^ only. 
 
 Then for omissions. It is not stipulated 
 that we supply the paper and print of suc- 
 cessive editions. This must be nailed, and not 
 left to understanding. Secondly, I will have 
 London bills as well as Blackwood's. 
 
 If they agree to these conditions, good and 
 well. If they demur, Constable must be 
 instantly tried, giving half to the Longmans, 
 and we drawing on them for that moiety, or 
 Constable lodging their bill in our hands. You 
 will understand it as a four-volume touch — a 
 work totally different in style and structure 
 from the others — a new cast, in short, of the 
 net which has hitherto made miraculous 
 draughts. I do not limit you to terms, 
 because I think you will make them better 
 than I can do. But he must do more than 
 others, since he will not or cannot print with 
 us. For every point but that I would rather 
 deal with Constable than any one ; he has 
 always shown himself spirited, judicious, and 
 liberal. Blackwood must be brought to the 
 point instantly., and whenever lie demurs. Con- 
 stable must be treated with, for there is no 
 use in suffering the thing to be blown on. At 
 the same time, you need not conceal from him 
 that there were some proposals elsewhere, but 
 you may add, with truth, I would rather close 
 with him. 
 
 P.S. — I think Constable should jump at this 
 affair, for I believe the woj'k will be very 
 popular. 
 
 1 James Ballantyne's dwelling-house Avas in this 
 street, adjoining the Canongate of Edinburgh. 
 
474 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [Messrs. Murray and Blackwood agreed to all 
 the author's conditions here expressed. 
 They also relieved John Ballantyne and 
 Co. of stock to the value of £500 ; and at 
 least Mr. Murray must, moreover, have 
 subsequently consented to anticipate the 
 period of his payments. At all events, I 
 find in a letter of Scott's, dated in the 
 subsequent August, this new echo of the 
 old advice.] 
 
 SCOTT TO JOHN BALLANTYXE. 
 
 Dear John, — I have the pleasure to enclose 
 Murray's acceptances. I earnestly recommend 
 to you to push realizing as much as you can. 
 
 Consider weel, gude man, 
 We hae but borrowed gear ; 
 The horse that I ride on 
 It is J ohn Murray's mear. 
 
 Yours truly, W. Scott. 
 
 [That Scott should have been among the first 
 civilians who hurried over to see the field 
 of "Waterloo, and hear English bugles 
 sound about the walls of Paris, could have 
 surprised none who knew the lively con- 
 cern he had always taken in the military 
 efforts of his countrymen, and the career 
 of the illustrious captain who had taught 
 them to re-establish the renown of Agin- 
 court and Blenheim, — 
 
 'Victor of Assaye's Eastern plain, 
 Victor of all tlie fields of Spain .' 
 
 I had often heard him say, however, that 
 his determination was, if not fixed, much 
 quickened, by a letter of an old acquaint- 
 ance of his, who had, on the arrival of the 
 news of the 18th of June, instantly 
 repaired to Brussels, to tender his pro- 
 fessional skill in aid of the overburdened 
 medical staff of the conqueror's army. 
 When, therefore, I found the letter in 
 question preserved among Scott's jjapers, 
 I perused it with a peculiar interest ; and 
 I now venture, with the writer's permission, 
 to present it to the reader. It was 
 addressed by Sir Charles Bell to his 
 brother, an eminent barrister in Edinburgh, 
 who transmitted it to Scott. ' When I 
 read it,' said he, 'it set me on fire.' The 
 marriage of Miss Maclean Clcphane of 
 Torloisk with the Earl of Compton (now 
 Marquis of Northampton), which took 
 
 place on the 24th of July, was in fact the 
 only cause why he did not leave Scotland 
 instantly ; for that dear young friend had 
 chosen Scott for her guardian, and on him 
 accordingly devolved the chief care of the 
 arrangements on this occasion. The ex- 
 tract sent to him by Mr. Joseph Bell is as 
 follows : — ] 
 
 SIR CHARLES BELL TO JOSEPH BELL. 
 
 Brussels, July 2, 1815. 
 
 This country, the finest in the world, has 
 been of late quite out of our minds. I did not, 
 in any degree, anticipate the ijleasure I should 
 enjoy, the admiration forced from me, on 
 coming into one of these antique towns, or in 
 journeying through this rich garden. Can you 
 recollect the time when there were gentlemen 
 meeting at the Cross of Edinburgh, or those 
 whom we thought such? They are all collected 
 here. You see the very men, with their scraggy 
 necks sticking out of the collars of their 
 old-fashioned square-skirted coats — their canes 
 —their cocked hats ; and when they meet, the 
 formal bow, the hat off to the ground, and the 
 powder flying in the wind. I could divert you 
 with the odd resemblances of the Scottish faces 
 among the peasants too ; but I noted them at 
 the time with my pencil, and I write to you 
 only of things that you won't find in my 
 pocket-book. 
 
 I have just returned from seeing the French 
 wounded received in their hospital ; and could 
 you see them laid out naked, or almost so, — 100 
 in a row of low beds on the ground, — though 
 wounded, exhausted, beaten, you would still 
 conclude with me that these were men capable 
 of marching unopposed from the west of 
 Europe to the east of Asia. Strong, thick-set, 
 hardy veterans, brave spirits and unsubdued, 
 as they cast their wild glance upon you, — their 
 black eyes and brown cheeks finely contrasted 
 with the fresh sheets, — you would much admire 
 their capacity of adaptation. These fellows 
 are brought from tho field after lying many 
 days on the gi'ound ; many dying— many in 
 the agony — many miserably racked with pain 
 and spasms ; and the next mimics his fellow, 
 and gives it a tune, — Aha, vous chantez Men I 
 How they are wounded you will see in my 
 notes. But I must not have you to lose the 
 present impression on me of the formidable 
 nature of these fellows as exemplars of the 
 breed in France. It is a forced praise ; for 
 from all I have seen and all I have heard of 
 their fierceness, cruelty, and blood-thirstiness, 
 I cannot convey to you my detestation of this 
 race of trained banditti. By what means they 
 arc to be kept in subjection until other habits 
 come upon them, I know not ; but I am convinced 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 475 
 
 that these men cannot be left to the bent of 
 their propensities. 
 
 This superb city is now ornamented with the 
 finest groups of armed men that the most 
 romantic fancy could dream of. I was struck 
 with the words of a friend — E. : 'I saw,' said 
 he, ' tlmt man returning from the field on the 
 16th' (this was a Brunswicker of the Black 
 or Death Hussars) ; he was wounded, and had 
 had his arm amputated on the field. He was 
 among the first that came in. He rode straight 
 and stark upon his horse— the bloody clouts 
 about his stump — pale as death, but upright, 
 with a stern, fixed expression of feature, as if 
 loth to lose his revenge.' These troops are 
 very remarkable in their fine military appear- 
 ance ; their dark and ominous dress sets off to 
 advantage their strong, manly northern features 
 and white miistachios ; and there is something 
 more than commonly impressive about the 
 whole effect. 
 
 This is the second Sunday after the battle, 
 and many are not yet dressed. There are 
 20,000 wounded in this town, besides those in 
 the hospitals, and the many in the other towns; 
 only 3000 prisoners ; 80,000, they say, killed 
 and wounded on both sides. 
 
 [On the 1st of December the first series of the 
 Tales of my Landlord appeared, and not- 
 withstanding the silence of the title-page, 
 and the change of publishers,' and the 
 attempt which had certainly been made 
 to vary the style both of delineation and 
 of language, all doubts whether they were 
 or were not from the same hand with 
 Waverley had worn themselves out before 
 the lapse of a week. The enthusiasm of 
 their reception among the highest literaxy 
 circles of London may be gathered from 
 the following letter : — ] 
 
 JOHN MUKKAY TO SCOTT. 
 
 Albemarle Street, Deceniberli, 1816. 
 Dear Sib, — Although I dare not address 
 you as the author of certain Tales (which, 
 however, must be written either by Walter 
 Scott or the Devil), yet nothing can restrain 
 me from thinking it is to your influence with 
 j the author that I am indebted for the essential 
 j honour of being one of their publishers, and I 
 I must intrude upon you to offer my most hearty 
 thanks — not divided, but doubled— alike for 
 my worldly gain therein, and for the great 
 acquisition of professional reputation which 
 their publication has already procured me. I 
 believe I might, under any oath that could be 
 proposed, sv/ear that I never experienced such 
 
 unmixed pleasure as the reading of this exquisite 
 work has afforded me ; and if you could see me, 
 as the author's literary chamberlain, receiving 
 the unanimous and vehement x^raises of every 
 one who has read it, and the curses of those 
 whose needs my scanty supply could not satisfy, 
 you might judge of the sincerity v/ith which 
 I now entreat you to assure him of the most 
 complete success. Lord Holland said, when I 
 asked his opinion — * Opinion ! We did not one 
 of us go to bed last night — nothing slept but 
 my gout.' Frere, Hallam, Boswell,^ Lord 
 Glenbervie, William Lamb,^ all agree that it 
 sm-passes all the other novels. Gifford's esti- 
 mate is increased at every re-perusal. Heber 
 says there are only two men in the world — 
 Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Between you 
 you have given existence to a third. — Ever 
 your faithful servant, John Murray. 
 
 [To this cordial effusion Scott returned the 
 following answer. It was necessary, since 
 he had fairly resolved against compromis- 
 ing his incognito, that he should be pre- 
 pared not only to repel the imi3ertinent 
 curiosity of strangers, but to evade the 
 proffered congratulations of overflowing 
 kindness. He contrived, however, to do 
 so on this and all similar occasions, in a 
 style of equivoque which could never be 
 seriQusly misunderstood.] 
 
 SCOTT to JOHN MURRAY. 
 
 Edinburgh, December 18, 1816. 
 My dear Sir, — I give you heartily joy of the 
 success of the Tales, although I do not claim 
 that paternal interest in them which my friends 
 do me the credit to assign me. I assure yoa I 
 have never read a volume of them until they 
 were printed, and can only join with the rest 
 of the world in applauding the true and striking 
 portraits which they present of old Scottish 
 manners. I do not expect implicit reliance to 
 be placed on ray disavowal, because I know 
 very well that he who is disposed not to own 
 a work must necessarily deny it, and that 
 otherwise his secret would be at the mercy of 
 all who choose to ask the question, since 
 silence in such a case must always i^ass for 
 consent, or rather assent. But I have a mode 
 of convincing you that I am perfectly serious 
 in my denial,— pretty similar to that by which 
 Solomon distinguished the fictitious from the 
 
 1 James Boswell, Esq., of the Temple, second 
 son of Bozzy. 
 
 - The Honourable William Lamb, afterwards Lord 
 Melbourne, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 476 
 
 real mother, — and that is, by reviewing the 
 work, which I take to be an operation equal 
 to that of quartering the child. But this is 
 only on condition that I can have Mr. Erskine's 
 assistance, who admires the work greatly more 
 than I do, though I think the painting of the 
 second tale both true and powerful. I knew Old 
 Mortality very well ; his name was Paterson, 
 but few knew him otherwise than by his nick- 
 name. The first tale is not very original in 
 its concoction, and lame and imj)otent in its 
 conclusion. My love to GifPord. I have been 
 over head and ears in work this summer, or I 
 would have sent the Gipsies; indeed, I was 
 partly stopped by finding it impossible to 
 procure a few words of their language. 
 
 Constable wrote to me about two months 
 since, desirous of having a new edition of 
 Paul; but not hearing from you, I conclude 
 you are still on hand. Longman's people had 
 then only sixty copies. 
 
 Kind compliments to Heber, whom I expected 
 at Abbotsford this summer ; also to Mr. Croker 
 and all your four o'clock visitors. I am just 
 going to Abbotsford to make a small addition 
 to my i^remises there. I have now about 700 
 acres, thanks to the booksellers and the dis- 
 cerning public. — Yours truly, 
 
 Waltee Scott. 
 P.S. — I have much to ask about Lord Byron, 
 if I had time. The third canto of the Childe 
 is inimitable. Of the last poems, there are 
 one or two which indicate rather an irregular 
 play of imagination. 1 "What a pity that a man 
 of such exquisite genius will not be contented 
 to be happy on the ordinary terms ! I declare 
 my heart bleeds when I think of him, self- 
 banished from the country to which he is an 
 honour. 
 
 SCOTT TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH. 
 
 My DEAR LoKD DuKE,— I have the great 
 pleasure of enclosing the discharged bond 
 which your grace stood engaged for me, and on 
 my account. The accommodation was of the 
 greatest consequence to me, as it enabled me 
 to retain possession of some valuable literary 
 property, which I must otherwise have suffered 
 to be sold at a time when the booksellers had 
 no money to buy it. My dear lord, to wish 
 that all your numerous and extensive acts of 
 kindness may be attended with similar advan- 
 tages to the persons whom you oblige, is wish- 
 ing you what to your mind will be the best 
 recompense ; and to wish that they may be felt 
 by all as gratefully as by me, though you may 
 be careless to hear about the part of the story, 
 is only wishing what is creditable to human 
 nature. I have this moment your more than 
 
 1 Parisina, The. Dre/j.m, and the Domestic Fiecco 
 had been recently published. 
 
 kind letter, and congratulate your grace that, 
 in one sense of the word, you can be what you 
 never will be in any other, ambidexter. But I 
 am sorry you took so much trouble, and I 
 fear pains besides, to disi)]ay your new talent, 
 — Ever your grace's truly faithful 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 [The time now approached when a Commission 
 to examine the Crown-room in the Castle 
 of Edinburgh, which had sprung from one 
 of Scott's conversations with the Prince 
 Eegent in 1815, was at length to be acted 
 upon. The minstrel of the ' Eough Clan ' 
 had taken care that the name of his chief 
 should stand at the head of the document ; 
 but the Duke's now precarious health ulti- 
 mately prevented him from being present 
 at the discovery of the long-buried and 
 almost forgotten Kegalia of Scotland. The 
 Commissioners, who finally assembled on 
 the 4th of February, were, according to 
 the record — ' the Right Hon. Charles 
 Hope, Lord President of the Court of 
 Session ; the Eight Hon. David Boyle, 
 Lord Justice Clerk; the Eight Hon. 
 William Adam, Lord Chief Commissioner 
 of the Jury Court; Major-General John 
 Hope (commanding the Forces in Scot- 
 land) ; the Solicitor-General (James Wed- 
 derburn, Esq.) ; the Lord Provost of 
 Edinburgh (Kincaid Mackenzie, Esq.) ; 
 William Clerk, Esq., Principal Clei-k of 
 the Jury Court; Henry Jardine, Esq., 
 Deputy Eemembrancer in the Exchequer ; 
 Thomas Thompson, Esq., Deputy Clerk 
 Eegister of Scotland ; and Walter Scott, 
 Esq., one of the Principal Clerks of Session.' 
 Of the proceedings of this day the reader 
 has a full and particular account in an 
 Essay which Scott penned shortly after- 
 wards, and which is included in his Prose 
 Miscellanies {vol. vii.). But I must not 
 omit the contemporaneous letters in which 
 he announced the success of the quest to 
 his friend the Secretary of the Admiralty, 
 and through him to the Eegent,]" 
 
 SCOTT TO CROKER. 
 
 Edinburgh, Feb. 4, 1818. 
 My DEAR Croker,— I have the pleasure to 
 assure you the Eegalia of Scotland were this 
 day found in perfect preservation. The sword 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 477 
 
 of state and sceptre showed marks of hard 
 usage at some former period, but in all respects 
 agree ■with the description in Thomson's work.^ 
 I will send you a complete account of the 
 opening to-morrow, as the official account will 
 take some time to draw up. In the meantime 
 I hope you will remain as obstinate in your 
 unbelief as St. Thomas, because then you will 
 come down to satisfy yourself. I know nobody 
 entitled to earlier information, save ONE, to 
 whom you can perhaps find the means of 
 communicating the result of our researches. 
 The post is just going off.— Ever yours truly, 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 to the same. 
 
 Edinburgh, February 5, 1818. 
 ^Iy deae Crokeb, — I promised I would add 
 something to my report of yesterday, and yet 
 I find I have but little to say. The extreme 
 solemnity of opening sealed doors of oak and 
 iron, and finally breaking open a chest which 
 had been shut since 7th March 1707, about a 
 hundred and eleven years, gave a sort of 
 interest to our researches, which I can hardly 
 express to you ; and it would be very difficult 
 to describe the intense eagerness with which 
 we watched the rising of the lid of the chest, 
 and the progress of workmen in breaking it 
 open, which was neither an easy nor a speedy 
 task. It sounded very hollow when they 
 worked on it with their tools, and I began to 
 lean to your faction of the Little Faiths. 
 However, I never could assign any probable or 
 feasible reason for withdrawing these memorials 
 of ancient independence ; and my doubts rather 
 arose from the conviction that many absurd 
 things are done in public as well as in private 
 life merely out of a hasty impression of passion 
 or resentment. For it was evident the removal 
 of the Eegalia might have greatly irritated 
 people's minds here, and offered a fair pretext 
 of breaking the Union, which, for thirty years, 
 was the predominant wish of the Scottish 
 nation. 
 
 The discovery of the Eegalia has interested 
 people's minds much more strongly than I 
 expected, and is certainly calculated to make 
 a pleasant and favourable impression upon 
 them in respect to the kingly part of the 
 constitution. It would be of the utmost conse- 
 quence that they should be occasionally shown 
 to them, under proper regulations, and for a 
 small fee. The sword of state is a most beauti- 
 ful piece of workmanship, a present from Pope 
 Julius II. to James IV. The scabbard is richly 
 decorated with filigree work of silver, double 
 gilded, representing oak-leaves and acorns, 
 executed in a taste worthy that classical age 
 
 1 Collection of Inventories and other Records of the 
 £oyal Wardrobe and Jevjcl House. Edin. 1815. 4to. 
 
 in which the arts revived. A draughtsman 
 has been employed to make sketches of these 
 articles, in oi-der to be laid before his Royal 
 Highness. The fate of these Regalia, which 
 his Royal Highness' goodness has thus restored 
 to light and honour, has, on one or two 
 occasions, been singular enough. They were, 
 in 1652, lodged in the Castle of Dunnottar, the 
 seat of the Earl Marischal, by whom, according 
 to his ancient privilege, they were kept. The 
 I castle was defended by George Ogilvie of Barra, 
 who, apprehensive of the progress which the 
 English made in reducing the strong places in 
 Scotland, became anxious for the safety of 
 these valuable memorials. The ingenuity of 
 his lady had them conveyed out of the castle 
 in a bag on a woman's back, among some hards, 
 as they are called, of lint. They were carried 
 to the Kirk of Kinneff, and entrusted to the 
 care of the clergyman, named Grainger, and his 
 v/ife, and buried under the pulpit. The Castle 
 of Dunnottar, though very strong and faithfully 
 defended, was at length under necessity of 
 surrendering, being the last strong place in 
 Britain on which the royal flag floated in those 
 calamitous times. Ogilvie and his lady were 
 threatened with the utmost extremities by the 
 Republican General Morgan, unless they should 
 produce the Regalia. The Governor stuck to 
 it that he knew nothing of them, as in fact 
 they had been carried away without his know- 
 ledge. The lady maintained she had given 
 them to John Keith, second son of the Earl 
 Marischal, by whom, she said, they had been 
 carried to France. They suffered a long 
 imprisonment and much ill-usage. On the 
 Restoration, the old Countess Marischal, 
 founding upon the story Mrs. Ogilvie had told 
 to screen her husband, obtained for her own 
 son, John Keith, the earldom of Kintore, and 
 the post of Knight Marischal, with £400 a 
 year, as if he had been in truth the preserver 
 of the Regalia. It soon proved that this re- 
 ward had been too hastily given, for Ogilvie 
 of Barra produced the Regalia, the honest 
 clergyman refusing to deliver them to any 
 one but those from whom he received them. 
 Ogilvie was made a knight baronet, however, 
 and got a new charter of the lands acknowledg- 
 ing the good service. Thus it happened oddly 
 enough that Keith, who was abroad during the 
 transaction, and had nothing to do with it, got 
 the earldom, pension, etc., Ogilvie only inferior 
 honours, and the poor clergyman nothing what- 
 ever, or, as we say, the hare's foot to lick. As for 
 Ogilvie's lady, she died before the Restoration, 
 her health being ruined by the hardships she 
 endured from the Cromwellian satellites. She 
 was a Douglas, with all the high spirit of that 
 proud family. On her death-bed, and not till 
 then, she told her husband where the honours 
 were concealed, charging him to suffer death 
 rather than betray them. Popular tradition 
 
478 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 says, not very probably, that Grainger and his 
 wife were hooted (that is, tortured with the 
 engine called the boots). I think the Ivnight 
 Marischal's office rested in the Kintore family 
 until 1715, when it was resumed on account of 
 the Bearded Earl's accession to the insurrection 
 of that year. He escaped well, for they might 
 have taken his estate and his earldom. I must 
 save i)ost, however, and conclude abruptly. — 
 Yours ever, Walter Scott. 
 
 [The original manuscript of the following 
 hitherto unpublished letter of Sir "Walter 
 Scott's was presented to the Society of 
 Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. Thomas J. 
 Gellibrand, of London, The original was 
 addressed to Mr. Gellibrand's grandfather, 
 Sir Samuel Toller, Judge Advocate at 
 Madras in 1818, when Sir John Newboldt 
 was Governor, and Sir Thomas Strange, 
 Chief Justice. The matter to which the 
 letter refers is alluded to more briefly 
 by Sir AValter in a letter, published in 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott (vol. vi. p. 9, 
 edition 1848), addressed to his friend Mr. 
 Morritt, of Rokeby, in which it is mentioned 
 , that Mr. Charles Carpenter was Commercial 
 Resident at Salem, in the Madras establish- 
 ment. Mr. Lockhart says : ' The estimate 
 of Mr. Carpenter's property transmitted at 
 the time to England jiroved to have been 
 an exaggerated one ; as nearly as my 
 present information goes, the amount was 
 doubled.' — Scotsman.] 
 
 SCOTT TO SIR SAMUEL TOLLER. 
 
 {Private and Coniidential.) 
 
 Edinburgh, December 9, 1818, 
 Sir, — The assurances of my kind and much 
 respected friend the Lord Chief Commissioner 
 for the Court of Jury Trial in Scotland, induce 
 me to break through all the usual forms, and 
 charge you at once with a delicate, and perhaps 
 a troublesome, piece of business on the part of 
 a i)erfecb stranger. If, however, to be known 
 to the Strange family,— to bo very intimate with 
 Lord Melville, — to be acquainted with the 
 Mar([uis of Hastings, and some other persons 
 immediately connected with India, — could pro- 
 X)itiate you in my favour, I could have easily 
 obtained their sanction for my present applica- 
 tion. But those who know our kind and 
 mutual friend the Lord Chief Commissioner, 
 will scarce think any recommendation, however 
 respectable, will add weight to his. His letter 
 
 will explain why I have had the boldness to 
 send you a power of attorney to act as your 
 judgment may dictate on behalf of four young 
 persons, my children, who, under the will of 
 their uncle by the mother's side, Charles 
 Carpenter, Esq., late Commercial Resident at 
 Salem, are heirs to his fortune in Britain and 
 in India, after the death of his widow, to whom 
 he has (most properly) bequeathed the life-rent 
 of his i)roi)erty. 
 
 It becomes necessary, sir, that I should write 
 to a gentleman I have never seen with the full 
 confidence of an old and proved friend ; and 
 without hesitation I proceed to do so. 
 
 My wife is her brother's only surviving rela- 
 tion : they parted in early youth, never to meet 
 again. Their intercourse was, however, regular 
 and most affectionate on both parts. I never 
 saw my brother-in-law, but I have no reason to 
 suppose my alliance was disagreeable to him, 
 but much the contrary. I am a stranger to the 
 family into which he married, only I know they 
 are highly respectable. I enclose a copy of Mr. 
 Carpenter's will, naming his widow life-rentrix 
 and sole executrix, and settling his i)roi)erty on 
 my children in default of his own : he died 
 childless.^ 
 
 I enclose an extract of a letter from Mr. 
 Josiah Marshal Heath, who is married to a 
 sister of Mrs. CariDenter, and acts as her 
 attorney in these matters. I only say upon 
 this subject that his idea of the funds here is 
 exaggerated. By the report of Mrs. Carpenter's 
 confidential agent, Mr. Stephen Nicolson Barber, 
 the property now amounts to £24,844, 14s. 4d. 
 3 per cent. Consols, remitted by Mr. Carpenter 
 upon his marriage, and purchased for about 54 
 per cent. ; £13,881 4 per cent., arising chiefly 
 from dividends invested from time to time, 
 interest being added to principal — worth both 
 together about £30,000 as the funds are. Mr. 
 Carpenter does not appear to have made any 
 considerable addition to these European funds 
 by remittances from India, but on this point 
 my present information is general. 
 
 Mr. Heath writes me that the Indian funds 
 (all debts paid) may net £0000 or £7000 ; about 
 three weeks later he writes to Mr. Barber there 
 may be a balance of £8000 or £10,000 in favour 
 of the estate. I am aware my brother-in-law 
 practised hospitality in a great extent, and that 
 his family was very expensive. But I know he 
 wrote to me long since inquiring how £3000 a 
 year would answer in this country ; and I think 
 it strange that he should have toiled so very 
 long in a situation supposed to be lucrative, 
 without making more than from £7000 to 
 £10,000 in seven or eight years. He wrote to 
 his sister a letter received about two months 
 
 1 First printed in the Scotsman, April 11, 1SS2. Tliis 
 letter throws additional light on Scott's iiianiago 
 arrangements. See letters of Scott to Miss Carpenter, 
 p. 2iy. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 479 
 
 since, mentioning liis positive intention of 
 arranging his affairs and returning to Britain 
 for life. I am at a loss to tliink how he could 
 have proposed this on £2000 a year. I must 
 add that the report of gentlemen writing home 
 from India to their friends here, estimate his 
 fortune at about £70,000, and I have reason to 
 think that gentlemen in the Civil Ser\'ice in 
 India can form, with considerable accuracy, 
 something like a general guess at the fortunes 
 of each other. 
 
 These circumstances, sir, I state frankly, as 
 they weigh on my own mind. They are not, 
 however, such as ought to infer anything like 
 an unhandsome prejudice against my sister-in- 
 law or Mr. Heath ; and if either the letter to 
 me or that of a much later date to Mr. Barber 
 had given anything like a general view of the 
 funds in India, you would have been spared this 
 trouble. For I am aware that property in this 
 state is exaggerated by report, and that the 
 other circumstances I have mentioned may be 
 all capable of the most perfect explanation. 
 Mr. Carpenter, in speaking of £3000 a year, 
 may have announced his hopes rather than his 
 certainties. A man who lives expensively 
 cannot save much ; and one who winds up his 
 own extensive commerce may reasonably hope 
 to make more of it than a stranger. It is 
 possible, also, that as Mr. Heath's estimate has 
 risen from £0000 to £10,000, it may ascend 
 higher as he becomes more completely ac- 
 quainted with my brother's transactions. Still 
 it is my duty, as acting for my children, to 
 obtain the opinion of some impartial person on 
 a subject so important — it will free me to my 
 own mind, and ought to be (as doubtless it will 
 be) pleasant for Mr. Heath himself. I am sure 
 I should think so in his case. And apart from 
 all those circumstances, INIrs. Carpenter's health 
 is stated to be very delicate, v/hich makes it of 
 itself advisable that my children should have 
 an attorney in India, with full powers in case 
 of the executrix's inability to act, or her demise 
 before the affairs are wovmd up. 
 
 I must, however, add that I have not the 
 least wish to hurt Mrs. Caq3enter's feelings or 
 embarrass her management by any unnecessary 
 interference. I have written to Mr. Heath in 
 answer to a passage, in which he i^resumes it 
 will be unnecessary to precipitate the disposal 
 of the house, etc. while Mrs. Carpenter remains 
 in India ; that far from wishing this, my 
 children (who are, in j)oint of feeling, old 
 enough to think for themselves, and I hope 
 have, from nature and education, the disposi- 
 tion to think rightly) earnestly wish Mrs. 
 Carpenter's wishes and convenience to be 
 consulted as the primary object in all these 
 matters. 
 
 It is not their wish, or, God knows, mine, to 
 make the utmost i^enny of this large succession, 
 at the expense of what is better worth than the 
 
 whole of it is — I mean fair and liberal principle. 
 As their uncle has made them in place of his 
 children, they owe Mrs. Carpenter all the 
 deference and respectful attention that is due 
 to a mother. I said on their part that I hoped 
 she would retain without scrui>le such person- 
 alities as plate, books, and so forth, only begging 
 for my wife a seal or ring of her brother's, and 
 for myself his arms, if he had any, or any skins 
 or Indian curiosities which she might not 
 incline to keep, or give away to his friends. I 
 clogg'd my renunciation with these trifling re- 
 quests, only to show it was quite sincere, and 
 this commission with which you are like to 
 be burthened has no regard to such small 
 objects. 
 
 In regard to the management, I am aware it 
 is impossible to interfere very elfectually with-r 
 out having recourse to measures which I cannot 
 suppose necessary. But the opportunity of 
 inspection, and perhaps of advice, will not, I 
 am sure, be denied to a gentleman of your high 
 situation and character acting on the part of 
 minors. I have only to add that, any part of 
 the trouble which can be efficiently devolved 
 upon any official person I entreat you will 
 commit to the charge of whomsoever you may 
 approve, and act in the whole matter as your 
 experience and delicacy shall suggest. It is 
 little to say that every attendant exi)ense will 
 be cheerfully satisfied. I wish I could add that 
 anything was in my power that could mark my 
 feeling of the favour upon which I am very 
 boldly reckoning ; but I will eagerly embrace 
 any opportvinity that may occur to make 
 manifest at least my sense of the obliga- 
 tion. 
 
 I shall send a duplicate, perhaps even a 
 triplicate, of the power of attorney, with copies 
 of this letter, and that of the Lord Chief Com- 
 missioner, as well as of Mr. Heath's letters to 
 myself and Mr. Barber, and of Mr. Carpenter's 
 will ; for if this pi'ecaution is at all necessary, 
 the certainty of the power reaching you as early | 
 as possible is a jjoint to be insured. But I ex- 
 pect to hear, what will give me the most sincere 
 pleasure, that your inspection of these affairs 
 is no otherwise necessary than to obtain the 
 satisfactory testimony and sanction of an ex- 
 perienced and impartial person to the mode of 
 management adopted by Mr. Heath, under 
 authority of the executrix. In a trilling con- 
 cern it would not occur to me to take such 
 precautions ; but here the stake is very serious, 
 and the persons concerned those whose interest 
 ought to be dearer than my own, and who 
 cannot act for themselves. 
 
 I have written to Mr. Heath mentioning the 
 step I have taken with as much delicacy as 
 possible ; but as he may not receive it, I hope, | 
 so soon as the power of attorney reaches you, 
 you will have the kindness to act ixpon it as 
 your own prudence and delicacy will suggest. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 480 
 
 — I have the honour to subscribe myself, sir, 
 your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 I am happy to say that the health of our 
 mutual friend, the Lord Commissioner, which 
 v/as indifferent during the summer, is now 
 greatly xrestored. 
 
 [It appears that Nigel was published on the 
 30th of May 1822 ; and next day Constable 
 writes as follows from his temporary resi- 
 dence near London : — ] 
 
 A. CONSTABLE TO SCOTT. 
 
 Castlcheare Park, May 31, 1822. 
 Dear Sir Walter,— I have received the 
 highest gratification from the jjerusal of a 
 certain new work. I may indeed say new 
 work, for it is entirely so, and will, if that be 
 possible, eclipse in popularity all that has gone 
 before it. 
 
 The author will be blamed for one thing, 
 however unreasonably, and that is, for con- 
 cluding the story without giving his readers a 
 little more of it. We are a set of ungrateful 
 mortals. For one thing at least I trust I am 
 never to be found so, for I must ever most 
 duly appreciate the kind things intended to be 
 applied to me in the Introductory Epistle to 
 this work. I learn with astonishment, but not 
 less delight, that the press is at work again; 
 the title, which has been handed to me, is 
 quite excellent. 
 
 I am now so well as to find it compatible to 
 jmy my respects to some of my old haunts in 
 the metroi^olis, where I go occasionally. I was 
 in town yesterday, and so keenly were the 
 people devouring my friend Jingling Geordie, 
 that I actually saw them reading it in the 
 streets as they jiassed along. I assure you 
 there is no exaggeration in this. A new 
 novel from the author of Waverley puts aside, 
 in other words, puts down for the time, every 
 other literary performance. The smack Ocean, 
 by which the new work was shipped, arrived 
 at the wharf on Sunday ; the bales were got 
 out by one on Monday morning, and before 
 half -past ten o'clock 7000 copies had been dis- 
 persed from 90 Cheapside.^ I sent my secretary 
 on purpose to witness the activity with which 
 such things are conducted, and to bring me the 
 account, gratifying certainly, which I now give 
 you. 
 
 I went yesterday to the shop of a curious 
 ])erson— Mr. Swaby, in Warden Street— to look 
 at an old portrait which my son, when lately 
 
 1 Constable's London agents, Messrs. Hurst, Robin- 
 son, and Co., had then their premises in Clieapside. 
 
 here, mentioned to me. It is, I think, a 
 portrait of James the Fourth, and if not an 
 original, is doubtless a picture as early as his 
 reign. Our friend Mr. Thomson has seen it 
 and is of the same opinion ; but I i)urpose that 
 you should be called upon to decide this nice 
 point, and I have ordered it to be forwarded 
 to you, trusting that ere long I may see it in 
 the armoury at Abbotsford. 
 
 I found at the same place two large elbow 
 chairs, elaborately carved, in boxwood, with 
 figures, foliage, etc. perfectly entire. Mr. 
 Swaby, from whom I purchased them, assured 
 me that they came from the Borghese Palace 
 at Rome ; he possessed originally ten such 
 chairs, and had sold six of them to the Duke 
 of Rutland, for Belvoir Castle, where they will 
 be appropriate furniture ; the two which I 
 have obtained would, I think, not be less so in 
 the library of Abbotsford. 
 
 I have been so fortunate as to secure a still 
 more curious article : a slab of mosaic pave- 
 ment, quite entire and large enough to make 
 an outer hearthstone, which I also destined for 
 Abbotsford. It occurred to me that these three 
 articles might prove suitable to your taste, and 
 tmder that impression I am now induced to 
 take the liberty of requesting you to accept 
 them as a small but sincere pledge of grateful 
 feeling. Our literary connection is too import- 
 ant to make it necessary for your publishers to 
 trouble you about the pounds, shillings, and 
 pence of such things ; and I therefore trust you 
 will receive them on the footing I have thus 
 taken the liberty to name. I have been on the 
 outlook for antique carvings, and if I knew the 
 purposes for which you would want such, I 
 might probably be able to send you some. 
 
 I was truly happy to hear of Halidon Hill, 
 and of the satisfactory arrangements made for 
 its publication. I wish I had the power of 
 prevailing with you to give us a similar pro- 
 duction every three months ; and that our 
 ancient enemies on this side the Border might 
 not have too much their own way, perhaps 
 your next dramatic sketch might be Bannock- 
 burn.^ It would be presumptuous in me to 
 point out subjects, but you know my craving 
 to be great, and I cannot resist mentioning 
 here that I should like to see a Battle of 
 Hastings, a Cressy, a Bosworth Field, and 
 many more. 
 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence was so kind as to invite 
 me to see his pictures, — what an admirable 
 portrait he has commenced of you ! — he has 
 altogether hit a happy and interesting expres- 
 sion. I do not know whether you have heard 
 that there is an exhibition at Leeds this year. 
 I had an application for the use of Raeburn's 
 picture, which is now there ; and it stands 
 
 1 Had Mr. Constable quite forgotten the Lord 0/ 
 aie Isles? 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Ko. 1 in the catalogue, of which I enclose you 
 a copy. 
 
 You will receive with this a copy of the 
 Poetini, Original and Selected. I have, I fear, 
 overshot the mark by including the poetry of 
 The Pirate, a liberty for which I must hope 
 to be forgiven. The publication of the volume 
 will be delayed ten days, in case you should do 
 me the favour to suggest any alteration in the 
 advertisement, or other change.— I have the 
 honour to be, dear Sir "Walter, your faithful, 
 humble servant, 
 
 Archibald Constable. 
 
 [On the eve of the King's (George IV.) depart- 
 ure from Scotland he received the following 
 communication : — ] 
 
 SIR R. PEEL TO SCOTT. 
 
 Edinburgh, August 28, 1822, 
 
 I\lY DEAR Sir,— The King has commanded 
 ine to acquaint you that he cannot bid adieu 
 to Scotland without conveying to you individu- 
 ally his warm personal acknowledgments for 
 the deep interest you have taken in every 
 ceremony and arrangement connected with his 
 INIajesty's visit, and for your ample contributions 
 to their complete success. 
 
 His Majesty well knows how many difficulties 
 have been smoothed, and how much has been 
 effected by your unremitting activity, by your 
 knowledge of your countrymen, and by the 
 just estimation in which they hold you. 
 
 The King wishes to make you the channel of 
 conveying to the Highland chiefs and their 
 followers, who have given to the varied scene 
 which we have witnessed so peculiar and 
 romantic a character, his particular thanks 
 for their attendance, and his warm approbation 
 of their uniform deportment. He does justice 
 to the ardent spirit of loyalty by which they 
 are animated, and is convinced that he could 
 offer no recompense for their services so 
 gratifying to them as the assm-ance, which I 
 now convey, of the esteem and approbation of 
 their Sovereign. 
 
 I have the honour to be, my dear sir, Avith 
 great truth, most truly and faithfully yours, 
 EoBERT Peel. 
 
 [The letters of Peter Plymley, by Sydney 
 Smith, were the contributions of that witty 
 divine on the vexed subject of greater 
 concessions to the Roman Catholics ; but 
 although they helped forward the object 
 in view, it is generally allowed that he 
 offends here and there by overmuch free- 
 dom of language.] 
 
 peter plymley's letters on the subject of 
 
 the CATHOLICS. 
 
 Dear Abraham, — A worthier and better man 
 than yourself does not exist ; but I have always 
 told you, from the time of our boyhood, that 
 you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs 
 are governed with exemplary order and regu- 
 larity ; you are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. 
 Perceval is in the House of Commons, — and, I 
 must say, with much more, reason ; nor do I 
 know any church where the faces and smock- 
 frocks of the congregation are so clean, or their 
 eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher. 
 There is another point upon which I will do 
 you ample justice, and that is, that the eyes so 
 directed towards you are wide open ; for the 
 rustic has, in general, good principles, though 
 he cannot control his animal habits ; and how- 
 ever loud he may snore, his face is perpetually 
 turned towards the fountain of orthodoxy. 
 
 Having done you this act of justice, I shall 
 proceed, according to our ancient intimacy and 
 familiarity, to explain to you my opinions about 
 the Catholics, and to reply to yours. 
 
 In the first place, my sv/eet Abraham, the 
 Pope is not landed, nor are there any curates 
 sent out after him, nor has he been hid at St. 
 Alban's by the Dowager Lady Spencer, nor 
 dined privately at Holland House, nor been 
 seen near Dropmore. If these fears exist 
 (which I do not believe), they exist only in the 
 mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; they 
 emanate from his zeal for the Protestant interest; 
 and though they reflect the highest honour 
 upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must 
 certainly be considered as more ambiguous 
 proofs of the sanity and vigour of his under- 
 standing. By this time, however, the best- 
 informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the 
 metropolis are convinced that the rumour is 
 without foundation ; and though the Poj)e is 
 probably hovering about our coast in a fishing 
 smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to 
 the vigilance of our cruisers i and it is certain 
 he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of 
 our soil. 
 
 Exactly in the same manner, the story of the 
 wooden gods seized at Charing Cross, by an 
 order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be 
 without the shadow of a foundation : instead of 
 the angels and archangels mentioned by the 
 informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden 
 image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham 
 as a headi)iece for the Spanker gun-vessel : it 
 was an exact resemblance of his lordshij) in his 
 military uniform, and therefore as little like a 
 god as can well be imagined. 
 
 Having set your fears at rest as to the extent 
 of the consiiiracy formed against the Protestant 
 religion, I will now come to the argument itself. 
 
 You say these men interin-et the Scriptures 
 in an unorthodox manner, and that they eat 
 
 2H 
 
482 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 their god. Very likely. All tins may seem very 
 important to you, who live fourteen miles from 
 a market-town, and, from long residence upon 
 your living, are become a kind of holy vege- 
 table ; and, in a theological sense, it is highly 
 important. But I want soldiers and sailors for 
 the state ; I want to make a greater use than I 
 now can do of a poor country full of men ; I 
 want to render the military service popular 
 among the Irish ; to check the power of France; 
 to make every possible exertion for the safety 
 of Europe, which in twenty years' time will be 
 nothing but a mass of French slaves, and then 
 you, and ten thousand other such boobies as 
 you, call out— 'For God's sake, do not think of 
 raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland ! . . . 
 They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a 
 different manner from what we do ! . . . 
 They eat a bit of wafer every Sundaj'^, which 
 they call their God !'...! wish to my soul 
 they would eat you, and such reasoners as you 
 are. What when Turk, Jew, heretic, infidel, 
 Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against 
 this country ; when men of every religious per- 
 suasion and no religious persuasion ; when the 
 population of half the globe is up in arms against 
 us, — are we to stand examining our generals and 
 armies as a bishop examines a candidate for holy 
 orders ? and to suffer no one to bleed for England 
 who does not agree with you about the 2d of 
 Timothy ? You talk about the Catholics ! If you 
 and your brotherhood have been able to persuade 
 the country into a continuation of this grossest 
 of all absurdities, you have ten times the power 
 which the Catholic clergy ever had in their 
 best days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the 
 Edict of Nantes, never thought of preventing 
 the Protestants from fighting his battles, and 
 gained accordingly some of his most splendid 
 victories by the talents of his Protestant 
 generals. No power in Europe but yourselves 
 has ever thought, for these hundred years past, 
 of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or 
 Presbyterian, or Lutheran, but whether it is 
 sharp and well-tempered. A bigot delights in 
 public ridicule, for he begins to think he is a 
 martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment 
 of this pleasure from one extremity of Europe 
 to the other. 
 
 I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the 
 Roman Catholic religion as you can be ; and no 
 man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe 
 the product of the earth, nor meddle with the 
 ecclesiastical establishment in any shape ; but 
 what have I to do with the speculative nonsense 
 of his theology, when the object is to elect the 
 mayor of a county town, or to appoint a colonel 
 of a marching regiment ? Will a man discharge 
 the solemn impertinences of the one office with 
 less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of 
 the other with greater timidity, because the 
 blockhead believes in all the Catholic nonsense 
 of the Real Presence. I am sorry there should 
 
 be such impious folly in the world, but I should 
 be ten times a greater fool than he is, if 1 
 refused, in consequence of his folly, to lead him 
 out against the enemies of the State. Your 
 . whole argument is wrong ; the State has nothing 
 whatever to do with theological errors which do 
 not violate the common rules of morality, and 
 militate against the fair power of the ruler : it 
 leaves all these errors to you, and to such as 
 you. You have every tenth porker in your 
 parish for refuting them; and take care that 
 you are vigilant and logical in the task. 
 
 I love the Church as well as you do ; but you 
 totally mistake the nature of an establishment, 
 when you contend that it ought to be connected 
 with the military and civil career of every indi- 
 vidual in the State. It is quite right that 
 there should be one clergyman to every parish 
 interpreting the Scriptures after a particular 
 manner, ruled by a regular hierarchy, and paid 
 with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheat- 
 sheafs. When I have laid this foundation for 
 a national religion in the State, — when I have 
 placed ten thousand well - educated men in 
 different parts of the kingdom to preach it up, 
 and compelled everybody to pay them, whether 
 they hear them or not, — I have taken such 
 measures as I know must always procure an 
 immense majority in favour of the Established 
 Church ; but I can go no farther, I cannot set 
 up a civil inquisition, and say to one, you shall 
 not be a butcher because you are not orthodox ; 
 and prohibit another from brewing, and a third 
 from administering the law, and a fourth from 
 defending the country. If common justice did 
 not prohibit me from such a conduct, common 
 sense would. The advantage to be gained by 
 quitting the heresy would make it shameful to 
 abandon it ; and men who had once left the 
 Church would continue in such a state of alien- 
 ation from a point of honour, and transmit that 
 spirit to the latest posterity. This is just the 
 effect your disqualifying laws have i^roduced. 
 They have fed Dr. Rees and Dr. Kippis ; 
 crowded the congregation of the Old Jewry to 
 suffocation ; and enabled every sublapsarian, 
 and superlapsarian, and semi-pelagian clergy- 
 man, to build himself a neat brick chapel, and 
 live with some distant resemblance to the state 
 of a gentleman. 
 
 You say the King's coronation oath will not 
 allow him to consent to any relaxation of the 
 Catholic laws. Why not relax the Catholic 
 laws as well as the laws against Protestant 
 dissenters ? If one is contrary to his oath, the 
 other must be so too ; for the spirit of the oath 
 is, to defend the Church establishment, which 
 the Quaker and the Presbyterian differ from as 
 much or more than the Catholic ; and yet his 
 Majesty has repealed the Corporation and Test 
 Act in Ireland, and done more for the Catholics 
 of both kingdoms than had been done for them 
 since the Reformation. In 1778, the ministers 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 4S3 
 
 said nothing about the royal conscience ; in 1793 
 no conscience ; in 1804 no conscience ; the com- 
 mon feelings of humanity and justice then seem 
 to have had their fullest influence upon the 
 advisers of the Crown ; but in 1807 — a year, 
 I suppose, eminently fruitful in moral and 
 religious scruples (as some years are fruitful in 
 apples, some in hops) — it is contended by the 
 well-paid John Bowles, and by Mr. Perceval 
 (who tried to be well paid), that that is now 
 perjury which we had hitherto called policy and 
 benevolence ! Eeligious liberty has never made 
 such a stride as under the reign of his present 
 Majesty ; nor is there any instance in the annals 
 of our history where so many infamous and 
 damnable laws have been repealed as those 
 against the Catholics which had been put an 
 end to by him ; and then, at the close of his 
 useful policy, his advisers discover that the very 
 measures of concession and indulgence, or (to 
 use my own language) the measures of justice, 
 which he has been pursuing through the whole 
 of his reign, are contrary to the oath he takes at 
 its commencement ! That oath binds his Majesty 
 not to consent to any measure contrary to the 
 interest of the Established Church ; but who is 
 to judge of the tendency of each particular 
 measure ? Not the King alone ; it can never be 
 the intention of this law that the King, who 
 listens to the advice of his Parliament upon a 
 road bill, should reject it upon the most imi)ort- 
 ant of all measures. "Whatever be his own 
 private judgment of the tendency of any eccle- 
 siastical bill, he complies most strictly with his 
 oath, if he is guided in that particular point by 
 the advice of his Parliament, who may be pre- 
 sumed to understand its tendency better than 
 the King or any other individual. You say, if 
 Parliament had been unanimous in their opinion 
 of the absolute necessity for Lord Howick's bill, 
 and the King had thought it pernicious, he 
 would have been perjured if he had not rejected 
 it. I say, on the contrary, his Majesty would 
 have acted in the most conscientious manner, 
 and have complied most scrupulously with his 
 oath, if he had sacrificed his own opinion to the 
 oj)inion of the great council of the nation, be- 
 cause the probability was that such oi)inion was 
 better than his own ; and upon the same prin- 
 ciple, in common life, you give up your opinion 
 to you;: physician, your lawyer, and your 
 builder. 
 
 You admit this bill did not compel the King 
 to elect Catholic officers, but only gave him the 
 option of doing so if he pleased ; but you add 
 that the King was right in not trusting such 
 dangerous power to himself or his successors. 
 Now you are either to suppose that the King 
 for the time being has a zeal for the Catholic 
 establishment, or that he has not. If he has 
 not, where is the danger of giving such an 
 option ? If you suppose that he may be influ- 
 enced by such an admiration of the Catholic 
 
 religion, why did his present Majesty, in the 
 year 1804, consent to that bill which em- 
 powered the Crown to station ten thousand 
 Catholic soldiers in any part of the kindgom, 
 and placed them absolutely at the disposal of 
 the Crown ? If the King of England for the 
 time being is a good Protestant, there can be 
 no danger in making the Catholic eligible to 
 anything ; if he is not, no power can possibly 
 be so dangerous as that conveyed by the bill 
 last quoted, to which, in point of peril. 
 Lord Howick's bill is a mere joke. But the 
 real fact is, one bill opened a door to his 
 Majesty's advisers for trick, jobbing, and in- 
 trigue ; the other did not. 
 
 Besides, what folly to talk to me of an oath, 
 which, under all possible circumstances, is to 
 prevent the relaxation of the Catholi laws! for 
 such a solemn a^Dpeal to God setfi all condi- 
 tions and contingencies at defiance. Suppose 
 Buonai^arte was to retrieve the only very great 
 blunder he has made, and were to succeed, 
 after repeated trials, in making an impression 
 upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any- 
 thing of the impediment of a coronation oath ? 
 or would the spirit of this country tolerate for 
 an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of 
 nonsense, if the most distant prospect existed 
 of conciliating the Catholics by every species 
 even of the most abject concession ? And yet, 
 if your argument is good for anything, the 
 coronation oath ought to reject, at such a 
 moment, every tendency to conciliation, and to 
 bind Ireland for ever to the crown of France. 
 
 I found in your letter the usual remarks 
 about fire, fagot, and bloody Mary. Are you 
 aware, my dear priest, that there were as many 
 persons put to death for religious opinions 
 under the mild Elizabeth as vmder the bloody 
 Mary? The reign of the former was, to be 
 sure, ten times as long ; but I only mention the 
 fact, merely to show you that something de- 
 pends upon the age in which men live as well 
 as on their religious opinions. Three hundred 
 years ago men burnt and hanged each other for 
 these opinions. Time has softened Catholic 
 as well as Protestant : they both requu-ed it, 
 though each perceives only his own improve- 
 ment, and is blind to that of the other. We 
 are all the creatures of circumstances. I know 
 not a kinder and better man than yourself; but 
 you (if you had lived in those times) would 
 certainly have roasted your Catholic ; and I 
 promise you, if the first exciter of this religious 
 mob had been as powerful then as he is now, 
 you would soon have been elevated to the 
 mitre. I do not go the length of saying that 
 the world has suffered as much from Protestant 
 as from Catholic persecution, far from it ; but 
 you should remember the Catholics had all 
 the power, when the idea first started up in 
 the world that there could be two modes of 
 faith ; and that it was much more natural they j 
 
484 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 should attempt to crush this diversity of 
 opinion by great and cruel efforts, than that 
 the Protestants should rage against those who 
 differed from them, when the very basis of 
 their system was complete freedom in all 
 spiritual matters. 
 
 I cannot extend my letter any farther at 
 present, but you shall soon hear from me again. 
 You tell me I am a party man. I hope I shall 
 always be so when I see my country in the 
 hands of a pert London joker and a second-rate 
 lawyer. Of the first, no other good is known 
 than that he makes i^retty Latin verses ; the 
 second seems to me to have the head of a 
 country parson, and the tongue of an Old 
 Bailey lawyer. 
 
 If I could see good measures pursued, I care 
 not a farthing who is in power ; but I have a 
 passionate love for common justice and for 
 common sense, and I abhor and despise every 
 man who builds up his political fortune upon 
 their ruin. 
 
 God bless you, Reverend Abraham, and de- 
 fend you from the Pope, and all of us from 
 that administration who seek power by opj)OS- 
 ing a measure which Burke, Pitt, and Fox all 
 considered as absolutely necessary to the exist- 
 ence of the country. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Deak Abraham,— The Catholic not respect 
 an oath ! why not ? "What upon earth has 
 kept him out of Parliament, or excluded him 
 from all the offices whence he is excluded, but 
 his respect for oaths ? There is no law which 
 j)rohibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There 
 could be no such law, because it is impossible 
 to find out what passes in the interior of any 
 man's mind. Suppose it were in contemplation 
 to exclude all men from certain offices who 
 contended for the legality of taking tithes : the 
 only mode of discovering that fervid love of 
 decimation which I know you to possess would 
 be to tender you an oath ' against that damnable 
 doctrine, that it is lawful for a spiritual man to 
 take, abstract, appropriate, subduct, or lead 
 away the tenth calf, sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, 
 duck,' etc. etc. etc., and every other animal that 
 ever existed, which of course the lawyers would 
 take care to enumerate. Now this oath I am 
 sure you wovild rather die than take ; and so 
 the Catholic is excluded from Parliament be- 
 cause he will not swear that he disbelieves the 
 leading doctrines of his religion ! The Catholic 
 asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress 
 him ; your answer is, that he does not respect 
 oaths. Then why subject him to the test of 
 oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parlia- 
 ment ; why, then, he respects them. Turn 
 which way you will, either your laws are 
 nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious 
 obligations as you are ; but no eel in the wcll- 
 
 sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of 
 being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an 
 orthodox parson does when he is compelled by 
 the grip of reason to admit anything in favour 
 of a dissenter. 
 
 I will not dispute with you whether the Pope 
 be or be not the Scarlet Lady of Babylon. I 
 hope it is not so ; because I am afraid it will 
 induce his Majesty's Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer to introduce several severe bills against 
 Popery if that is the case ; and though he will 
 have the decency to appoint a previous com- 
 mittee of inquiry as to the fact, the committee 
 will be garbled, and the report inflammatory. 
 Leaving this to be settled as he pleases to 
 settle it, I wish to inform you that, previously 
 to the bill last passed in favour of the Catholics, 
 at the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, and for his satis- 
 faction, the opinions of six of the most cele- 
 brated of the foreign Catholic universities were 
 taken as to the right of the Pope to interfere 
 in the temporal concerns of any country. The 
 answer cannot possibly leave the shadow of a 
 doubt even in tlie mind of Baron Maseres ; 
 and Dr. Eennel would be compelled to admit 
 it, if three bishops lay dead at the very 
 moment the question were put to him. To 
 this answer might be added also the solemn 
 declaration and signature of all the Catholics in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 I should perfectly agree with you, if the 
 Catholics admitted such a dangerous dispensing 
 power in the hands of the Pope ; but they all 
 deny it, and laugh at it, and are ready to 
 abjure it in the most decided manner you can 
 devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual 
 head of their Church ; but are you really so 
 foolish as to be imi)osed upon by mere names ? 
 What matters it the seven-thousandth part 
 of a farthing who is the spii-itual head of any 
 Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce at the head of 
 the church of Clapham? Is not Dr. Letsom 
 at the head of the Quaker Church? Is not the 
 General Assembly at the head of the Church of 
 Scotland ? How is the Government disturbed 
 by these many-headed Churches ? or in what 
 way is the power of the Crown augmented by 
 this almost nominal dignity ? 
 
 The King appoints a fast-day once a year, 
 and he makes the bishops ; and if the Govern- 
 ment would take half the pains to keep the 
 Catholics out of the arms of France that it does 
 to widen Temple Bar, or improve Snow Hill, 
 the King would get into his hands the appoint- 
 ments of the titular Bishops of Ireland. Both 
 
 Mr. C 's sisters enjoy pensions more than 
 
 sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries 
 of the Irish Catholic Church entirely at the 
 disposal of the Crown. Everybody who knows 
 Ireland knows perfectly well that nothing 
 would be easier, with the expenditure of a 
 little money, than to preserve enough of the 
 ostensible appointment in the hands of the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Pope to satisfy the scruples of the Catholics, 
 while the real nomination remained with the 
 Crown. But, as I have before said, the 
 moment the very name of Ireland is men- 
 tioned, the English seem to bid adieu to com- 
 mon feeling, comm.on jH-udence, and to common 
 sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants 
 and the fatuity of idiots. 
 
 Whatever your opinion may be of the follies 
 of the Roman Catholic religion, remember they 
 are the follies of four millions of human beings, 
 increasing rapidly in numbers, wealth, and in- 
 telligence, who, if firmly united with this 
 country, would set at defiance the power of 
 France, and if once wrested from their alliance 
 with England, would in three years render its 
 existence as an independent nation absolutely 
 impossible. You speak of danger to the Estab- 
 lishment : I request to know when the Estab- 
 lishment was ever so much in danger as when 
 Hoche was in Bantry Bay, and whether all the 
 books of Bossuet, or the arts of the Jesuits, 
 were half so terrible ? Mr. Perceval and his 
 parsons forget all this, in their horror lest 
 twelve or fourteen old women may be con- 
 verted to holy water and Catholic nonsense. 
 They never see that, while they are saving 
 these venerable ladies from perdition, Ireland 
 may be lost, England broken down, and the 
 Protestant Church, Avith all its deans, preben- 
 daries, Percevals and Eennels, be swept into 
 the vortex of oblivion. 
 
 Do not, I beseech you, ever mention to me 
 again the name of Dr. Duigenan. I have been 
 in every corner of Ireland, and have studied its 
 present strength and condition with no common 
 labour. Be assured Ireland does not contain at 
 this moment less than five millions of people. 
 There were returned in the year 1791 to the 
 hearth tax 701,000 houses, and there is no kind 
 of question that there were about 50,000 houses 
 omitted in that return. Taking, however, only 
 the number returned for the tax, and allowing 
 the average of six to a house (a very small 
 average for a potato-fed people), this brings the 
 population to 4,200,000 people in the year 1791 ; 
 and it can be shown from the clearest evidence 
 (and Mr. Newenham in his book shows it), that 
 Ireland for the last fifty years has increased in 
 its population at the rate of 50,000 or 60,000 
 per annum ; which leaves the present poimlation 
 of Ireland at about five millions, after every 
 possible deduction for existing circumstances, 
 just and necessanj wars, monstrous and un- 
 natural rebellions, and all other sources of 
 human destruction. Of this population, two 
 out of ten are Protestants ; and the half of the 
 Protestant population are Dissenters, and as 
 inimical to the Church as to the Catholics them- 
 selves. In this state of things, thumb-screws 
 and whipping— admirable engines of policy as 
 they must be considered to be— will not ulti- 
 mately avail. The Catholics will hang over 
 
 485 
 
 you ; they will watch for the moment ; and 
 compel you hereafter to give them ten times 
 as much, against your will, as they would 
 now be contented with if it was voluntarily 
 surrendered. Eemember what happened in the 
 American war, when Ireland compelled you to 
 give her evei-y thing she asked, and to renounce, 
 in the most explicit manner, your claim of 
 sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the 
 folly of these present men may not bring on 
 such another crisis of public affairs ! 
 
 "What are your dangers which threaten the 
 Establishment ? Reduce this declamation to a 
 point, and let us understand what you mean. 
 The most ample allowance does not calculate 
 that there would be more than twenty members 
 who were Roman Catholics in one house, and 
 ten in the other, if the Catholic emancipation 
 were carried into effect. Do you mean that 
 these thirty members would bring in a bill to 
 take away the tithes from the Protestant, and 
 to pay them to the Catholic clergy? Do you 
 mean that a Catholic general would march his 
 army into the House of Commons and purge it 
 of Mr. Perceval and Mr. Duigenan? or that 
 the theological writers would become all of a 
 sudden more acute and more learned, if the } 
 present civil incapacities were removed? Do 
 you fear for your tithes, or your doctrines, or 
 your person, or the English Constitution? 
 Every fear, taken separately, is so glaringly 
 absurd, that no man has the folly or the bold- 
 ness to state it. Every one conceals his ignor- 
 ance, or \ivi baseness, in a stupid general panic, 
 which, when called on, he is utterly incapable 
 of explaining. Whatever you think of the 
 Catholics, there they are— you cannot get rid 
 of them ; your alternative is, to give them a 
 lawful place for stating their grievances, or an 
 unlawful one : if you do not admit them to the 
 House of Commons, they will hold their parlia- 
 ment in Potato Place, Dublin, and be ten times 
 as violent and inflammatory as they would 
 be in Westminster. Nothing would give me 
 such an idea of security, as to see twenty 
 or thirty Catholic gentlemen in Parliament, 
 looked upon by all the Catholics as the 
 fair and proper organ of their party. I 
 should have thought it the height of good 
 fortune that such a wish existed on their 
 part, and the very essence of madness and 
 ignorance to reject it. Can you murder the 
 Catholics ? Can you neglect them ? They are 
 too numerous for both these expedients. "What 
 remains to be done is obvioxis to every human 
 being but to that man who, instead of being a 
 Methodist preacher, is, for the curse of us and 
 our children, and for the ruin of Troy, and the 
 misery of good old Priam and his sons, become a 
 legislator and a politician. 
 
 A distinction, I perceive, is taken by one of 
 the most feeble noblemen in Great Britain, 
 between persecution and the deprivation of 
 
486 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 political x^ower, whereas there is no more dis- 
 tinction between these two things than there is 
 between him who makes the distinction and a 
 booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of 
 a Catholic and give him twenty stripes, ... I 
 persecute ; if I say everybody in the town 
 where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative 
 and honourable offices but you who are a 
 Catholic, ... I do not xDersecute ! "What bar- 
 barous nonsense is this ! as if degradation was 
 not as great an evil as bodily pain or as severe 
 poverty ; as if I could not be as great a tyrant 
 by saying, You shall not enjoy, as by saying, 
 You shall suffer. The English, I believe, are 
 as truly religious as any nation in Europe. I 
 know no greater blessing ; but it carries with it 
 this evil in its train, that any villain who will 
 bawl out, ' The Church is in danger-/ ' may get 
 a place and a good pension ; and that any 
 administration who will do the same thing may 
 bring a set of men into power, who, at a 
 moment of stationary and passive piety, would 
 be hooted by the very boys in the streets. But 
 it is not all religion ; it is, in great part, that 
 narrow and exclusive spirit which delights to 
 keep the common blessings of sun and air and 
 freedom from other human beings. 'Your 
 religion has always been degraded ; you are in 
 the dust, and I will take care you never rise 
 again. I should enjoy less the i^ossession of an 
 earthly good by every additional person to 
 whom it was extended.' You may not be 
 aware of it yourself, Most Reverend Abraham, 
 but you deny their freedom to the Catholics 
 upon the same principle that Sarah your wife 
 refuses to give the receij)t for a ham or a goose- 
 berry dumpling ; she values her receipts, not 
 because they secure to her a certain flavour, 
 but because they remind her that her neighbours 
 want it, — a feeling laughable in a priestess, 
 shameful in a j)riest ; venial when it withholds 
 the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable 
 when it narrows the boon of religious freedom. 
 
 You spend a great deal of ink about the 
 character of the i^resent prime minister. Grant 
 you all that you write ; I say I fear he will 
 ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy 
 destructive to the true interest of his country ; 
 and then you tell me, he is faithful to Mrs. 
 Perceval, and kind to the Master Percevals ! 
 These are, undoubtedly, the first qualifications 
 to be looked to in a time of the most serious 
 public danger ; but somehow or another (if 
 public and private virtues must always be 
 incompatible) I should i^rcfer that he destroyed 
 the domestic happiness of Wood or Cockell, 
 owed for the veal of the preceding year, whipped 
 his boys, and saved his country. 
 
 The late administration did not do right ; 
 they did not build their measures upon the 
 solid basis of facts. They should have caused 
 several Catholics to have been dissected after 
 death by surgeons of either religion ; and the 
 
 report to have been published with accom- 
 panying i>lates. If the viscera, and other 
 organs of life, had been found to be the same as 
 in Protestant bodies ; if the provisions of nerves, 
 arteries, cerebrum, and cerebellum, had been 
 the same as we are provided with, or as the 
 dissenters are now known to possess, — then, 
 indeed, they might have met Mr. Perceval 
 upon a i^roud eminence, and convinced the 
 country at large of the strong probability that 
 the Catholics are really human creatures, 
 endowed with the feelings of men, and entitled 
 to all their rights. But instead of this wise 
 and prudent measure. Lord Howick, with his 
 usual precipitation, brings forward a bill in 
 their favour, without offering the slightest 
 proof to the country that they v/ere anything 
 more than horses and oxen. The person who 
 shows the llama at the corner of Piccadilly has 
 the precaution to write up — Allowed by Sir 
 Joseph Banks to he a real quadruped : so his 
 lordship might have said — Allowed by the Bench 
 of Bishops to be real human creatures. ... I 
 could write you twenty letters upon this 
 subject, but I am tired, and so I suppose are 
 you. Our friendship is now of forty years' 
 standing ; you know me to be a truly religious 
 man ; but I shudder to see religion treated as 
 a cockade, or a pint of beer, and made the 
 instrument of a party. I love the King, but I 
 love the people as well as the King ; and if I 
 am sorry to see his old age molested, I am much 
 more sorry to see four millions of Catholics 
 bafiied in their just exjiectations. If I love Lord 
 Grenville and Lord Howick, it is because they 
 love their country ; if I abhor ... it is 
 because I know there is but one man among 
 them who is not laughing at the enormous folly 
 and credulity of the country, and that he is an 
 ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the 
 light and friv^olous jester, of whom it is your 
 misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear 
 Abraham, that this political Killigrew, just 
 before the breaking-up of the last administration, 
 was in actual treaty with them for a place ; and 
 if they had survived twenty-four hours longer, 
 he would have been now declaiming against the 
 cry of No Popery ! instead of inflaming it. 
 With this i^ractical comment on the baseness of 
 human nature, I bid you adieu 1 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 All that I have so often told you, Mr. 
 Abraham Plymley, is now come to pass. The 
 Scythians, in whom you and the neighbouring 
 coujjtry gentlemen placed such confidence, are 
 smitten hip and thigh ; their Benningsen put 
 to open shame ; their magazines of train oil 
 intercepted ; and we are waking from our dis- 
 graceful drunkenness to all the horrors of 
 Mr. Perceval and Mr. Canning. . . We 
 shall now see if a nation is to be saved by school- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 487 
 
 boy jokes and doggerel rhymes, by affronting 
 petulance, and by the tones and gesticu- 
 lations of Blr. Pitt. But these are not all the 
 auxiliaries on which we have to depend; to 
 these his colleague will add the strictest atten- 
 tion to the smaller parts of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment, to hassocks, to psalters, and to sur- 
 plices ; in the last agonies of England, he will 
 bring in a bill to regulate Easter-offerings ; 
 and he will adjust the stipends of curates when 
 the flag of France is unfurled on the hills of 
 Kent. Whatever can be done by very mistaken 
 notions of the piety of a Christian, and by very 
 wretched imitation of the eloquence of Mr. 
 Pitt, will be done by these two gentlemen. 
 After all, if they both really were what they 
 both either wish to be or wish to be thought ; 
 if the one were an enlightened Christian, who 
 drew from the gosi^elthe toleration, the charity, 
 and the sweetness which it contains ; and if the 
 other really possessed any portion of the great 
 understanding of his Nisus who guarded him 
 from the weapons of the Whigs, I should still 
 doubt if they could save us. But I am sure we 
 are not to be saved by religious hatred and by 
 religious trifling; by any psalmody, however 
 sweet ; or by any persecution, however sharj). 
 I am certain the soimds of Mr. Pitt's voice, and 
 the measure of his tones, and the movement of 
 his arms, will do nothing for us, when these 
 tones, and movements, and voice bring us 
 always declamation without sense or knowledge, 
 and ridicule without good-humour or concilia- 
 tion. Oh, Mr. Plymley, Mr. Plymley, this 
 never will do. Mrs. Abraham Plymley, my 
 sister, will be led away captive by an amorous 
 Gaul; and Joel Plymley, your first-born, will 
 be a French drummer. 
 
 Out of sight out of mind seems to be 
 a proverb which applies to enemies as well 
 as friends. Because the French army was no 
 longer seen from the cliffs of Dover; because 
 the sound of cannon was no longer heard by the 
 debauched London bathers on the Sussex coast ; 
 because the Morning Post no longer fixed the 
 invasion sometimes for Monday, sometimes for 
 Tuesday, sometimes (positively for the last 
 time of invading) on Saturday ; because all these 
 causes of terror were suspended, you conceived 
 the power of Buonaparte to be at an end, and 
 were setting off for Paris with Lord Hawkes- 
 bury the conqueror. This is precisely the 
 method in v/hich the English have acted during 
 the whole of the revolutionary war. If Austria 
 or Prussia armed, doctors of divinity immedi- 
 ately printed those passages out of Habakkuk 
 in which the destruction of the Usurper by 
 General Mack and the Duke of Brunswick are 
 so clearly predicted. If Buonaparte halted, there 
 was a mutiny or a dysentery. If any one of 
 his generals were eaten up by the light troops of 
 Eussia, and picked (as their manner is) to the 
 bone, the sanguine spirit of this country dis- 
 
 played itself in all its glory. What scenes of 
 infamy did the Society for the Suppression of 
 Vice lay open to our astonished eyes— trades- 
 men's daughters dancing ; pots of beer carried 
 out between the first and second lesson ; and 
 dark and distant rumours of indecent prints ! 
 Clouds of Mr. Canning's cousins arrived by the 
 waggon ; all the contractors left their cards 
 with Mr. Kose ; and every plunderer of the 
 public crawled out of his hole, like slugs and 
 grubs and worms after a shower of rain. 
 
 If my voice could have been heard at the late 
 changes, I should have said, ' Gently ; patience; 
 stop a little ; the time is not yet come ; the 
 mud of Poland Avill harden, and the bowels of 
 the French grenadiers will recover their tone. 
 ■When honesty, good sense, and liberality have 
 extricated you out of your present embarrass- 
 ment, then dismiss them as a matter of course ; 
 but you cannot spare them just now ; don't be 
 in too great a hurry, or there will be no monarch 
 to flatter, and no country to pillage ; only sub- 
 mit for a little time to be respected abroad ; 
 overlook the painful absence of the tax-gatherer 
 for a few years ; bear up nobly under the 
 increase of freedom and of liberal policy for a 
 little time, and I promise you, at the expiration 
 of that iDeriod, you shall be plundered, insulted, 
 disgraced, and restrained to your heart's con- 
 tent. Do not imagine I have any intention of 
 putting servility and canting hypocrisy per- 
 manently out of place, or of filling up with 
 courage and sense those offices which naturally 
 devolve upon decorous imbecility and flexible 
 cunning ; give us only a little time to keei) off 
 the hussars of France, and then the jobbers 
 and jesters shall i-eturn to their birthright, 
 and public virtue be called by its old name of 
 fanaticism.' Such is the advice I v/ould have 
 offered to my infatuated countrymen ; but it 
 rained very hard in, November, Brother 
 Abraham, and the bowels of our enemies were 
 loosened, and we put our trust in white fluxes 
 and wet mud ; and there is nothing now to 
 oppose to the conqueror of the world but a 
 small table Avit, and the sallow Surveyor of 
 the Meltings. 
 
 You ask rae if I think it possible for this 
 country to survive the recent misfortunes of 
 Europe? I answer you, without the slightest 
 degree of hesitation, that if Buonaparte Kves, i 
 and a great deal is not imm.ediately done for 
 the conciliation of the Catholics, it does seem 
 to me absolutely impossible but that we must 
 j)erish ; and take this with you, that we shall 
 perish without exciting the slightest feeling of 
 present or future compassion, but fall amidst 
 the hootings and revilings of Europe, as a nation 
 of blockheads, Methodists, and old women. If 
 there were any great scenery, any heroic 
 feelings, any blaze of ancient virtue, any 
 exalted death, any termination of England that i 
 would be ever remembered, ever honoured in 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 488 
 
 that western world, where liberty is now 
 retiring, conquest would be more tolerable, and 
 ruin more sweet ; but it is doubly miserable to 
 become slaves abroad, because we would be 
 tyrants at home ; to jjersecute, when we are 
 contending against persecution ; and to perish 
 because we have raised up worse enemies within, 
 from our own bigotry, than we are exposed to with- 
 out from the unprincipled ambition of France. 
 It is, indeed, a most silly and afflicting spectacle 
 to rage at such a moment against our own 
 kindred and our own blood ; to tell them they 
 cannot be honourable in war because they ai-e 
 conscientious in religion ; to stipulate (at the 
 very moment when we should buy their hearts 
 and swords at any price) that they must hold 
 up the right hand in prayer, and not the left ; 
 and adore one common God by turning to the 
 east rather than to the west. 
 
 "What is it the Catholics ask of you ? Do 
 not exclude us from the honours and emolu- 
 ments of the state, because we worship God in 
 one way and you worship Him in another. In 
 a period of the deepest peace, and the fattest 
 prosperity, this would be a fair request; it 
 should be granted, if Lord Hawkesbury had 
 reached Paris, if Mr. Banning's interpreter had 
 threatened the Senate in an opening speech, or 
 Mr. Perceval explained to them the improve- 
 ments he meant to introduce into the Catholic 
 religion ; but to deny the Irish this justice now, 
 in the present state of Europe, and in the 
 summer months, just as the season for destroy- 
 ing kingdoms is coming on, is (beloved Abraham), 
 whatever you may think of it, little short of 
 positive insanity. 
 
 Here is a frigate attacked by a corsair of 
 immense strength and size, rigging cut, masts 
 in danger of coming by the board, four feet 
 water in the hold, men dropping off very fast ; 
 in this dreadful situation how do you think the 
 captain acts (whose name shall be Perceval)? 
 He calls all hands upon deck ; talks to them of 
 king, country, glory, sweethearts, gin, French 
 prison, wooden shoes. Old England, and hearts 
 of oak : they give three cheers, rush to their 
 guns, and, after a tremendous conflict, succeed 
 in beating off the enemy. Not a syllable of all 
 this : this is not the manner in which the 
 honourable commander goes to work : the first 
 thing he does is to secure twenty or thirty of his 
 prime sailors who happen to be Catholics, to 
 clap them in irons, and set over them a guard 
 of as many Protestants ; having taken this 
 admirable method of defending himself against 
 his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, 
 reminds the sailors, in a verj' bitter harangue, 
 that they are of different religions ; exhorts 
 the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the 
 Presbyterian quartermaster ; issues positive 
 orders tliat the Catholics should be fired at 
 upon the first appearance of discontent ; rushes 
 through blood and brains, examining his men 
 
 in the Catechism and 39 Articles, and positively 
 forbids every one to spunge or ram who has not 
 taken the sacrament according to the Church 
 of England. Was it right to take out a captain 
 made of excellent British stuff, and to put in 
 such a man as this? Is not he more like a 
 parson, or a talking lawyer, than a thorough- 
 bred seaman ? And built as she is of heart of 
 oak, and admirably manned, is it possible 
 with such a captain to save this ship from going 
 to the bottom ? 
 
 You have an argument, I perceive, in common 
 with many others, against the Catholics, that 
 their demands complied with would only lead 
 to further exactions, and that it is better to 
 resist them now, before anything is conceded, 
 than hereafter, when it is found that all con- 
 cessions are in vain. I wish the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, who uses this reasoning to exclude 
 others from their just rights, had tried its 
 efficacy, not by his understanding, but by (what 
 are full of much better things) his pockets. 
 Suppose the person to whom he applied for the 
 Meltings had withstood every plea of wife and 
 fourteen children, no business, and good 
 character, and refused him this paltry little 
 office, because he might hereafter attempt to 
 get hold of the revenues of the Duchy of 
 Lancaster for life ; would not Mr. Perceval 
 have contended eagerly against the injustice of 
 refusing moderate requests, because immode- 
 rate ones may hereafter be made ? Would he 
 not have said (and said truly), leave such 
 exorbitant attempts as these to the general 
 indignation of the Commons, who will take 
 care to defeat them when they do occur ; but 
 do not refuse me the Irons and the Meltings 
 now, because I may totally lose sight of all 
 moderation hereafter ? Leave hereafter to the 
 spirit and the wisdom of hereafter ; and do not 
 be niggardly now, from the apprehension that 
 men as wise as you should be profuse in times 
 to come. 
 
 You forget. Brother Abraham, that it is a 
 vast art (where quarrels cannot be avoided) to 
 turn the public opinion in your favour and to the 
 prejudice of your enemy; a vast privilege to 
 feel that you are in the right, and to make him 
 feel that he is in the wrong — a privilege which 
 makes you more than a man, and your anta- 
 gonist less ; and often secures victory, by 
 convincing him who contends, that he must 
 submit to injustice if he submits to defeat. 
 Open every rank in the army and navy to the 
 Catholic ; let him purchase at the same price 
 as the Protestant (if either Catholic or 
 Protestant can purchase such refined pleasures) 
 the i^rivilege of hearing Lord Castlereagh speak 
 for three hours ; keep his clergy from starving ; 
 soften some of the most odious powers of the 
 tithing-man, and you will for ever lay this 
 formidable question to rest. But if I am 
 wrong, and you must quarrel at last, quarrel 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 489 
 
 upon just rather than unjust grounds ; divide 
 the Catholic and imite the Protestant ; be 
 i just, and your own exertions will be more 
 I formidable and their exertions less formidable ; 
 ■ be just, and you will take away from their 
 ijarty all the best and wisest understandings of 
 I oth persuasions, and knit them firmly to your 
 own cause. 'Thrice is he armed who has his 
 j quarrel just ; ' and ten times as much may he 
 j be taxed. In the beginning of any war, 
 however destitute of common sense, every mob 
 will roar, and every Lord of the Bedchamber 
 address ; but if you are engaged in a war that 
 is to last for years, and to require important 
 sacrifices, take care to make the justice of your 
 case so clear and so obvious, that it cannot be 
 mistaken by the most illiterate country gentle- 
 man who rides the earth. Nothing, in fact, 
 can be so grossly absurd as the argument which 
 says, I will deny justice to you now because I 
 suspect future injustice from you. At this 
 rate, you may lock a man up in your stable, 
 and refuse to let him out because you suspect 
 that he has an intention, at some future period, 
 of robbing your hen-roost. You may horsewhip 
 him at Lady-day, because you believe he will 
 affront you at Midsummer. You may commit 
 a greater evil, to guard against a less, Avhich is 
 merely contingent, and may never happen. 
 You may do what you have done a century ago 
 in Ireland, made the Catholics worse than 
 Helots, because you suspected that they might 
 hereafter aspire to be more than fellow- citizens ; 
 rendering their sufferings certain from your 
 jealousy, while yours were only doubtful from 
 their ambition — an ambition suie to be excited 
 by the very measures which are taken to 
 prevent it. 
 
 The physical strength of the Catholics will 
 not be greater because you give them a share 
 of political power. You may by these means 
 turn rebels into friends ; but I do not see how 
 you make rebels more formidable. If they 
 taste of the honey of lawful power, they will 
 love the hive from whence they procure it ; if 
 they will struggle with us like men in the 
 same state for civil influence, we are safe. All 
 that I dread is, the j^hysical strength of four 
 millions of men combined Avith an invading 
 French army. If you are to quarrel at last 
 with this enormous i^opulation, still put it off 
 as long as you can ; you must gain, and cannot 
 lose, by the delay. The state of Europe cannot 
 be worse; the conviction which the Catholics 
 entertain of your tyranny and injustice cannot 
 be more alarming, nor the opinions of your own 
 people more divided. Time, which produces 
 such effect upon brass and marble, may inspire 
 - one minister with modesty, and another with 
 compassion ; every circumstance may be better ; 
 fcome certainly will be so, none can be worse ; 
 and, after all, the evil may never happen. 
 You have got hold, I perceive, of all the 
 
 vulgar English stories respecting the hereditary 
 transmission of forfeited property, and seriously 
 believe that eveiy Catholic beggar Avears the 
 terriers of his father's land next his skin, and 
 is only waiting for better times to cut the 
 throat of the Protestant possessor, and get 
 drunk in the hall of his ancestors. There is 
 one irresistible answer to this mistake, and that 
 is, that the forfeited lands are purchased 
 indiscriminately by Catholic and Protestant, 
 and that the Catholic purchaser never objects 
 to such a title. Now the land (so purchased by 
 a Catholic) is either his own family estate, or 
 it is not. If it is, you suppose him so desirous 
 of coming into possession, that he resorts to the 
 double method of rebellion and purchase ; if it 
 is not his own family estate of which he 
 becomes the purchaser, you suppose him first 
 to purchase, then to rebel, in order to defeat 
 the purchase. These things may happen in 
 Ireland ; but it is totally impossible they can 
 happen anywhere else. In fact, what land can 
 any man of any sect purchase in Ireland but 
 forfeited property? In all other oppressed 
 countries which I have ever heard of, the 
 rapacity of the conquerer was bounded by the 
 temtorial limits in which the objects of his 
 avarice were contained; but Ireland has been 
 actually confiscated twice over, as a cat is twice 
 killed by a wicked parish-boy, 
 
 I admit there is a vast luxurj'- in selecting a 
 particular set of Christians, and in worrying 
 them as a boy wori'ies a puppy dog ; it is an 
 amusement in which all the young English are 
 brought up from their earliest days. I like the 
 idea of saying to men who use a different 
 hassock from me, that, till they change their 
 hassock, they shall never be colonels, aldermen, 
 or parliament-men. While I am gratifying my 
 personal insolence respecting religious forms, I 
 fondle myself into an idea that I am religious, 
 and that I am doing my duty in the most 
 exemplary (as I certainly am in the most easy) 
 way. But then, my good Abraham, this sport, 
 admirable as it is, is become, with respect to 
 the Catholics, a little dangerous ; and if we are 
 not extremely careful in taking the amusement, 
 we shall tumble into the holy water and be 
 drowned. As it seems necessary to your idea 
 of an established church to have somebody to 
 worry and torment, suppose Ave were to elect 
 for this purpose AVilliam AVilberforce, Esq., 
 aud the patent Christians of Clapham. "We 
 shall by this expedient enjoy the same oppor- 
 tunity for cruelty and injustice Avithout being 
 exposed to the same risks ; we Avill compel 
 them to abjure vital clergymen by a public test, 
 to deny that the said "William "Wilberforce has 
 any power of Avorking miracles, touching for 
 barrenness or any other infirmity, or that he is 
 endoAved Avith any preternatural gift whatever. 
 We will swear them to the doctrine of good 
 works, compel them to preach common sense, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS: 
 
 and to hear it; to frequent bisliops, deans, 
 and other High Churchmen ; and to appear 
 (once in the quarter at the least) at some 
 melcdrarae, opera, pantomime, or other light 
 scenical representation ; in short, we will gratify 
 the love of insolence and power : we will enjoy 
 the old orthodox sport of witnessing the 
 impotent anger of men compelled to submit to 
 civil degradation, or to sacrifice their notions of 
 truth to ours. And all this we may do without 
 the slightest risk, because their numbers are 
 (as yet) not very considerable. Cruelty and 
 injustice must, of course, exist; but why 
 connect them with danger? Why torture a 
 bull-dog, when you can get a frog or a rabbit ? 
 I am sure my proposal will meet with the most 
 universal approbation. Do not be apprehensive 
 of any opposition from ministers. If it is a case 
 of hatred, we are sure that one man will defend 
 it by the gospel ; if it abridges human freedom, 
 we know that another will find precedents for 
 it in the Ke volution. 
 
 In the name of heaven, what are we to gain 
 by suftering Ireland to be rode by that faction 
 which now predominates over it ? "Why are we 
 to endanger our own Church and State, not for 
 500,000 Episcopalians, but for ten or twelve 
 gTeat Orange families, who have been sucking 
 the blood of that country for these hundred 
 years last past ? And the folly of the Orangemen 
 in playing this game themselves is almost as 
 absurd as ours in playing it for them. They 
 ought to have the sense to see that their busi- 
 ness now is to keep quietly the lands and 
 beeves of which the fathers of the Catholics 
 were robbed in days of yore ; they must give to 
 their descendants the sop of political power; 
 by contending with them for names, they will 
 lose realities, and be compelled to beg their 
 l^otatoes in a foreign land, abhorred equally by 
 the English, who have witnessed their oppres- 
 sion, and by the Catholic Irish, who have 
 smarted under them. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Then comes Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown (the 
 gentleman who danced so badly at the Court of 
 Naples), and asks if it is not an anomaly to 
 educate men in another religion than your own ? 
 It certainly is our duty to get rid of error, and 
 above all of religious error ; but this is not to be 
 done J9cr saltum, or the measure will miscarry, 
 like the Queen. It may be very easy to dance 
 away the royal embryo of a great kingdom ; but 
 Mr. Hawkins Brown must look before he le?q)s 
 when his object is to crush an opposite sect in 
 religion ; false steps aid the one effect as much 
 as they are fatal to the other : it will require 
 not only the lapse of Mr. Hawkins Brown, but 
 the lapse of centuries, before the absurdities of 
 the Catholic religion are laughed at as much as 
 they deserve to be ; but surely, in the mean- 
 
 time, the Catholic religion is better than none ; 
 four millions of Catholics are better than four 
 millions of wild beasts ; two hundred priests 
 educated by our own Government are better 
 than the same number educated by the m.an 
 who means to destroy us. 
 
 The whole sum now appropriated by Govern- 
 ment to the religious education of four millions 
 of Christians is £13,000 — a sum about one 
 hundred times as large being appropriated in 
 the same country to about one-eighth part of 
 this number of Protestants. When it was 
 proposed to raise this grant from £8000 to 
 £13,000, its present amount, • this sum was 
 objected to by that most indulgent of Chris- 
 tians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, as enormous, he 
 himself having secured for his own eating and 
 drinking, and the eating and drinking of the 
 Master and Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum 
 of £21,000 a year of the public money, and 
 having just failed in a desperate and rapacious 
 attempt to secure to himself for life the 
 revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; and the 
 best of it is, that this minister, after abusing 
 his predecessors for their impious bounty to the 
 Catholics, has found himself compelled, from 
 the apprehension of immediate danger, to 
 grant the sum in question ; thus dissolving his 
 pearl in vinegar, and destroying all the value 
 of the gift by the virulence and reluctance 
 with which it was granted. 
 
 I hear from some persons in Parliament, and 
 from others in the sixpenny societies for debate, 
 a great deal about unalterable laws passed at 
 the Eevolution. When I hear any man talk 
 of an unalterable law, the only ejffect it produces 
 upon me is to convince me that he is an unalter- 
 able fool. A law passed when there was 
 Germany, Spain, Kussia, Sweden, Holland, 
 Portugal, and Turkey ; when there was a 
 disputed succession ; when four or five hundred 
 acres were won and lost after ten years' hard 
 fighting ; when armies were commanded by the 
 sons of kings, and campaigns passed in an inter- 
 change of civil letters and ripe fruit ; and for 
 these laws, when the whole state of the v/orld 
 is completely changed, we are now, according 
 to my Lord Hawkesbury, to hold ourselves 
 ready to perish. It is no mean misfortune, in 
 times like these, to be forced to say anything 
 about such men as Lord Hawkesbury, and to be 
 reminded that we are governed by them ; but 
 as I am driven to it, I must take the liberty of 
 observing, that the wisdom and liberality of 
 my Lord Hawkesbury are of that complexion 
 which always shrinks from the present exercise 
 of these virtues, by praising the splendid 
 examples of them in ages past. If he had 
 lived at such periods, he would have opposed 
 the Revolution by praising the Reformation, 
 and the Reformation by speaking handsomely 
 of the Crusades. He gratifies his natural 
 antipathy to great and courageous measures, by 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 491 
 
 playing off the wisdom and courage which have 
 ceased to influence human affairs against that 
 wisdom and courage which living men would 
 employ for present happiness. Besides, it 
 happens unfortunately for the Warden of the 
 Cinque Ports, that to the principal incapacities 
 under which the Irish suffer, they were sub- 
 jected after that great and glorious Revolution, 
 to which we are indebted for so many blessings, 
 and his lordship for the termination of so 
 many periods. The Catholics were not excluded 
 from the Irish House of Commons, or military 
 commands, before the 3d and 4fch of William 
 and Mary, and the 1st and 2d of Queen Anne. 
 
 If the great mass of the people, environed 
 as they are on every side with Jenkinsons, 
 Percevals, Melvilles, and other perils, were to 
 pray for divine illumination and aid, what 
 more could Providence in its mercy do than 
 send them the example of Scotland ? For what 
 a length of years was it attempted to compel 
 the Scotch to change their religion ; horse, foot, 
 artillery, and armed prebendaries were sent 
 out after the Presbyterian parsons and their 
 congregations. The Percevals of those days 
 called for blood : this call is never made in 
 vain, and blood was shed ; but, to the astonish- 
 ment and horror of the Percevals of those days, 
 they could not introduce the Book of Common 
 Prayer, nor prevent that metaphysical people 
 from going to heaven their true way, instead of 
 our true way. "With a little oatmeal for food, 
 and a little sulphur for friction, allaying 
 cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and 
 holding his Calvinistical creed in the other, 
 Sawney ran away to his flinty hills, sung his 
 psalm out of tune his own vfay, and listened to 
 his sermon of two hours long amid the rough 
 and imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles. 
 But Sawney brought up his unbreeched off- 
 spring in a cordial hatred of his oppressors ; 
 and Scotland was as much a part of the 
 weakness of England then as Ireland is at this 
 moment. The true and the only remedy was 
 applied ; the Scotch were suffered to worship 
 God after their own tiresome manner, without 
 pain, penalty, and privation. No lightnings 
 descended from heaven; the country was not 
 ruined ; the world is not yet come to an end ; 
 the dignitaries who foretold all these con- 
 sequences are utterly forgotten ; and Scotland 
 has ever since been an increasing source of 
 " strength to Great Britain. In the six hun- 
 dredth year of our empire over Ireland, we are 
 making laws to transport a man if he is found 
 out of his house after eight o'clock at night. 
 That this is necessary, I know too well; but 
 tell me why it is necessary ? It is not necessary 
 in Greece, where the Turks are masters. 
 
 Are you aware that there is at this moment 
 a universal clamour throughout the whole of 
 Ireland against the Union? It is now one 
 month since I returned from that country: I 
 
 have never seen so extraordinary, so alarming, 
 and so rapid a change in the sentiments of any 
 people. Those who disliked the Union before 
 are quite furious against it now; those who 
 doubted doubt no more ; those who were 
 friendly to it have exchanged that friendship 
 for the most rooted aversion. In the midst of 
 all this (which is by far the most alarming 
 symptom), there is the strongest disposition on 
 the part of the northern dissenters to unite 
 with the Catholics, irritated by the faithless 
 injustice with which they have been treated. 
 If this combination does take place (mark what 
 I say to you), you will have meetings all over 
 Ireland for the cry of No Union ; that cry will 
 spread like wild-fire, and blaze over every 
 opposition ; and if .this is the case, there is no 
 use in mincing the matter, Ireland is gone, and 
 the death-blow of England is struck ; and this 
 event may happen, instantly, before Isiv. Canning 
 and Sir, Hookham Frere have turned Lord 
 Howick's last speech into doggerel rhyme; 
 before ^the near and dear relations'' have 
 received another quarter of their pension, or 
 Mr. Perceval conducted the Curates' Salary 
 Bill safely to a third reading. If the mind of 
 the English people, cursed as they now are 
 with that madness of religious dissension v/hich 
 has been breathed into them for the purposes 
 of private ambition, can be alarmed by any 
 remembrances, and warned by any events, they 
 should never forget how nearly Ireland was 
 lost to this country during the American war ; 
 that it was saved merely by the jealou.sy of the 
 Protestant Irish towards the Catholics, then a 
 much more insignificant and powerless body 
 than they nov/ are. The Catholic and the 
 dissenter have since combined together against 
 you. Last Av^ar, the winds, those ancient and 
 unsubsidized allies of England — the winds, 
 upon which English ministers depend as much 
 for saving kingdoms as washerwomen do for 
 drying clothes — the winds stood your friends : 
 the French could only get into Ireland in small 
 numbers, and the rebels were defeated. Since 
 then, all the remaining kingdoms of Em-ope 
 have been destroyed ; and the Irish see that 
 their national independence is gone, without 
 having received any single one of those 
 advantages which they were taxight to expect 
 from the sacrifice. All good things were to 
 flow from the Union ; they have none of them ■ 
 gained anything. Every m.an's pride is 
 wounded by it ; no man's interest is promoted. 
 In the seventh year of that Union, four million 
 Catholics, lured by all kinds of promises to 
 yield up the separate dignity and sovereignty 
 of their country, are forced to squabble with 
 such a man as Mr. Spencer Perceval for five 
 thousand pounds Avith which to educate their 
 children in their own mode of worship ; he, 
 the same Mr. Spencer, having secured to his 
 own Protestant self a reversionary portion of 
 
492 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 the public money amounting to four times 
 that Bum. A senior Proctor of the University 
 of Oxford, the head of a house, or the examin- 
 ing chaplain to a bishop, may believe these 
 things can last ; but every man of the world, 
 whose understanding has been exercised in the 
 business of life, must see (and see with a 
 breaking heart) that they will soon come to a 
 fearful termination. 
 
 Our conduct to Ireland during the whole of 
 this war has been that of a man who subscribes 
 to hosi^itals, weeps at charity sermons, carries 
 out broth and blankets to beggars, and then 
 comes home and beats his wife and children. 
 We had compassion for the victims of all other 
 oppression and injustice except our own. If 
 Switzerland was threatened, away went a 
 Treasury Clerk with a hundred thousand 
 l)Ounds for Switzerland ; large bags of money 
 were kej)t constantly under sailing orders ; 
 upon the slightest demonstration towards 
 Kaples, down went Sir William Hamilton upon 
 his knees, and begged for the love of St. 
 Januarius they would help us off with a little 
 money ; all the arts of Machiavel were resorted 
 to, to persuade Europe to borrow ; troops were 
 sent off in all directions to save the Catholic 
 and Protestant world ; the Pope himself was 
 guarded by a regiment of English dragoons ; if 
 the Grand Lama had been at hand, he would 
 have had another ; every Catholic clergyman, 
 who had the good fortune to be neither English 
 nor Irish, was immediately provided with 
 lodging, soup, crucifix, missal, chapel-beads, 
 relics, and holy water ; if Turks had landed, 
 Turks would have received an order from the 
 Treasury for coffee, opium, Korans, and 
 seraglios. In the midst of all this fury of 
 saving and defending, this crusade for con- 
 science and Christianity, there was a universal 
 agreement among all descriptions of people to 
 continue every species of internal persecution ; 
 to deny at home every just right that had 
 been denied before ; to pummel poor Dr. 
 Abraham Rees and his dissenters ; and to treat 
 the unhappy Catholics of Ireland as if their 
 tongues were mute, their heels cloven, their 
 nature brutal, and designedly subjected by 
 Providence to their Orange masters. 
 
 How would my admirable brother, the Rev. 
 Abraham Plymley, like to be marched to a 
 Catholic chapel, to be sprinkled with the 
 sanctified contents of a pump, to hear a number 
 of false quantities in the Latin tongue, and to 
 see a number of persons occupied in making 
 right angles upon the breast and forehead? 
 And if all this would give you so much pain, 
 what right have you to march Catholic soldiers 
 to a place of worship where there is no asper- 
 sion, no rectangular gestures, and where they 
 understand every word they hear, having first, 
 in order to get him to enlist, made a solemn 
 promise to the contrary? Can you wonder, 
 
 after this, that the Catholic priest stops the 
 recruiting in Ireland as he is now doing to a 
 most alarming degree ? 
 
 The late question concerning military rank 
 did not individually affect the lowest persons of 
 the Catholic jjersuasion ; but do you imagine 
 they do not sympathize with the honour and j 
 disgrace of their superiors ? Do you think that 
 satisfaction and dissatisfaction do not travel 
 down from Lord Fingal to the most potatoless 
 Catholic in Ireland, and that the glory or shame 
 of the sect is not felt by many more than these 
 conditions personally and corporeally affect? 
 Do you suppose that the detection of Sir H. M. 
 and the disappointment of Mr. Perceval in the 
 matter of the Duchy of Lancaster did not 
 affect every dabbler in public property? 
 Depend upon it these things were felt through 
 all the gradations of small plunderers, down to 
 him who filches a pound of tobacco from the 
 King's warehouses ; while, on the contrary, the 
 acquittal of any noble and official thief would 
 not fail to diffuse the most heartfelt satisfaction 
 over the larcenous and burglarious world. 
 Observe, I do not say because the lower 
 Catholics are affected by what concerns their 
 superiors that they are not affected by what 
 concerns themselves. There is no disguising 
 the horrid truth ; there must be some relaxation 
 loith respect to tithe : this is the cruel and heart- 
 rending price which must be paid for national 
 preservation. I feel how little existence will 
 be worth having, if any alteration, however 
 slight, is made in the property of Irish rectors ; 
 I am conscious how much such changes must 
 affect the daily and hourly comforts of every 
 Englishman; I shall feel too happy if they 
 leave Europe untouched, and are not ultimately 
 fatal to the destinies of America; but I am 
 madly bent upon keeping foreign enemies out of 
 the British empire, and my limited understand- 
 ing presents me with no other means of effecting 
 my object. 
 
 You talk of waiting till another reign before 
 any alteration is made— a proposal full of good 
 sense and good nature, if the measure in ques- 
 tion were to pull down St. James's Palace, or to 
 alter Kew Gardens. Will Buonaparte agree to 
 put off his intrigues, and his invasion of Ire- 
 land? If so, I will overlook the question of 
 justice, and, finding the danger suspended, 
 agree to the delay. I sincerely hope this reign 
 may last many years, yet the delay of a single 
 session of Parliament may be fatal ; but if an- 
 other year elapses without some serious conces- 
 sion made to the Catholics, I believe, before 
 God, that all future pledges and concessions 
 will be made in vain. I do not think that peace 
 will do you any good under such circumstances. 
 If Buonaparte gives you a respite, it will only be to 
 get ready the gallows on which he means to hang 
 you. The Catholic and the dissenter can unite 
 in peace as well as war. If they do, the gallows 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 is ready ; and your executioner, in spite of the 
 most solemn promises, will turn you off the 
 next hour. 
 
 "With every disposition to please (where to 
 please within fair and rational limits is a high 
 duty), it is impossible for public men to be long 
 silent about the Catholics ; pressing evils are 
 not got rid of because they are not talked of. 
 A man may command his family to say nothing 
 more about the stone, and surgical operations ; 
 but the ponderous malice still lies upon the 
 nerve, and gets so big that the patient breaks 
 his own law of silence, clamours for the knife, 
 and expires under its late operation. Believe 
 me you talk folly when you talk of suppressing 
 the Catholic question. I wish to God the case 
 admitted of such a remedy ; bad as it is, it does 
 not admit of it. If the wants of the Catholics 
 are not heard in the manly tones of Lord Gren- 
 ville, or the servUe drawl of Lord Castlereagh, 
 they will be heard ere long in the madness of 
 mobs and the conflicts of armed men. 
 
 I observe, it is now universally the fashion 
 to speak of the first personage in the State as 
 the great obstacle to the measure. In the first 
 place, I am not bound to believe such rumours 
 because I hear them ; and in the next place, I 
 object to such language as vmconstitutional. 
 Whoever retains his situation in the ministry, 
 while the incapacities of the Catholics remain, 
 is the advocate for those incapacities ; and to 
 him, and to him only, am I to look for respon- 
 sibility. But waive this question of the Catho- 
 lics, and put a general case. How is a minister 
 of this country to act when the conscientious 
 scruples of his sovereign prevent the execution 
 of a measure deemed by him absolutely neces- 
 sary to the safety of the country ? His conduct 
 is quite clear — he should resign. But what is 
 his successor to do ? Resign. But is the King 
 to be left without ministers, and is he in this 
 manner to be compelled to act against his own 
 conscience ? Before I answer this, pray tell me 
 m my turn, what better defence is there against 
 the machinations of a wicked, or the errors of a 
 weak, monarch than the impossibility of finding 
 a minister who will lend himself to vice and 
 folly ? Every English monarch, in such a pre- 
 dicament, would sacrifice his opinions and views 
 to such a clear expression of the public will ; 
 and it is one method in which the constitution 
 aims at bringing about such a sacrifice. You 
 may say, if you please, the ruler of a state is 
 forced to give up his object when the natural 
 love of place and power will tempt no one to 
 assist him in its attainment. This may be 
 force ; but it is force without injury, and there- 
 fore without blame. I am not to be beat out of 
 these obvious reasonings and ancient constitu- 
 tional provisions by the term conscience. 
 There is no fantasy, however wild, tliat a man 
 may not persuade himself that he cherishes 
 from motives of conscience ; eternal war against 
 
 impious France, or rebellious America, or 
 Catholic Spain, may in times to come be 
 scruples of conscience. One English monarch 
 may, from scruples of conscience, wish to abolish 
 every trait of religious persecution ; another 
 monarch may deem it his absolute and indis- 
 pensable duty to make a slight provision for 
 dissenters out of the revenues of the Church of 
 England. So that you see, Brother Abraham, 
 there are cases where it would be the duty of 
 the best and most loyal subjects to oppose the 
 conscientious scruples of their sovereign, still 
 taking care that their actions were constitu- 
 tional, and their modes respectful. Then you 
 come upon me with personal questions, and say 
 that no such dangers are to be apprehended now 
 under our present gracious sovereign, of whose 
 good qualities we must be all so well convinced. 
 All these sort of discussions I beg leave to 
 decline ; what I have said upon constitutional 
 tojiics, I mean, of course, for general, not for 
 particular application. I agree with you in all 
 the good you have said of the powers that be, 
 and I avail myself of the opportunity of pointing 
 out general dangers to the Constitution, at a 
 moment when we are so completely exempted 
 from their present influence. I cannot finish 
 this letter without expressing my surprise and 
 pleasure at your abuse of the servile addresses 
 poured in upon the Throne ; nor can I conceive 
 a greater disgust to a monarch with a true 
 English heart, than to see such a question as 
 that of Catholic emancipation argued, not with 
 a reference to its justice or its importance, but 
 universally considered to be of no further conse- 
 quence than as it affects his own private feel- 
 ings. That these sentiments should be mine is 
 not wonderful ; but how they came to be yours, 
 does, I confess, fill me with surprise. Are you 
 moved by the arrival of the Irish Brigade at 
 Antwerp, and the amorous violence which 
 awaits Mrs. Plymley ? 
 
 [Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of a 
 numerous family, was born at Ottery St. 
 Mary, in Devonshire, on the 21st October 
 1772. He received his early education at 
 Christ's Hospital, where Charles Lamb was 
 one of his schoolfellows. His early love of 
 poetry was nursed and inspu-ed by a perusal 
 of the sonnets of W. L. Bowles. "When 
 nineteen years of age, on obtaining his 
 presentation from Chi-ist's Hospital, he 
 entered Jesus College, Cambridge, gaining 
 in classics a gold medal for a Greek ode. 
 About 1794 his acquaintance began with 
 Southey. Coleridge and Southey were 
 afterwards married on the same day to 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 494 
 
 sisters, and settled at Nether Stowey, in 
 Somersetshire, where they also joined 
 Wordsworth. Some of Coleridge's finest 
 pieces were written there, such as the 
 'Ancient Mariner,' the *Ode on the Depart- 
 ing Year,' and the first part of 'Christabel.' 
 Coleridge afterwards visited Germany 
 through the liberality of the Messrs. Wedg- 
 wood, the Staffordshire jjotters, and on 
 returning in 1800 went to reside with 
 Southey at Keswick. Wordsworth was 
 then residing at Grasmere. In 1804 he 
 went to Malta, as secretary to the governor, 
 but soon returned to England. In the latter 
 part of his life he resided with his friend 
 and medical adviser, Mr. Gillman, at High- 
 gate, delighting a large circle by his splendid 
 conversational powers. Here he died on 
 the 20th of July 1834, in the sixty-second 
 year of his age. The letters we quote 
 are from James Gillman's Memoir of 
 the Poet; only the first volume of his 
 book has, however, been published. 
 Thomas De Quincey, who first saw Cole- 
 ridge in 1807, wrote of him in 1834 as the 
 illustrious man who possessed the ' largest 
 and most spacious intellect, the subtlest 
 and most coraiDrehensive, in my judgment, 
 that has yet existed amongst men. ' Carlyle, 
 on the other hand, does not admit this. Un- 
 fortunately these great qualities were asso- 
 ciated with an infirm body and a weak will, 
 which prevented him ever doing justice to 
 his splendid powers. 'In the year 1807, he 
 (Coleridge) wrote those weekly Essays of 
 the Friend, which were published about 
 this time, and thus gave to the world some 
 of his rich intellectual stores. The follow- 
 ing letter, which he addressed to Mr. 
 Cottle, will show the progress of his mind 
 from Socinian to Trinitarian belief at that 
 period of his life ' (Gillman's Life of Cole- 
 ridge, vol. I).] 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO JOSEPH COTTLE. 
 
 Bristol, 1807. 
 Dear Cottle, — To pursue our last conversa- 
 tion. Christians expect no outward or sensible 
 miracles from prayer. Its effects and its 
 fruitions are spiritual, and accompanied, says 
 that true divine. Archbishop Leighton, ' not by 
 reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible 
 kind of evidence, which they only know who 
 have it. ' 
 
 To this I would add, that even those who, 
 
 like me, I fear, have not attained it, may yet 
 presume it. First, because reason itself, or 
 rather mere human nature, in any dispassionate 
 moment, feels the necessity of religion ; but if 
 this be not true there is no religion, no religa- 
 tion or binding over again, nothing added to 
 reason; and therefore Socinianism (misnamed 
 Unitarianism) is not only not Christianity, it is 
 not even religion, it does not religate, does not 
 bind anew. The first outward and sensible 
 result of pi-ayer is a penitent resolution, joined 
 with a consciousness of weakness in effecting it, 
 yea, even a dread, too well grounded, lest by 
 breaking and falsifying it the soul should add 
 guilt to guilt, by the very means it has taken 
 to escape from guilt ; so pitiable is the state of 
 unregenerate man. 
 
 Are you familiar with Leighton's Works? 
 He resigned his archbishopric, and retired to 
 voluntary poverty, on account of the persecu- 
 tion of the Presbyterians, saying, 'I should 
 not dare to introduce Christianity itself with 
 such cruelties, how much less for a surplice and 
 the name of a bishop ! ' If there could be an 
 intermediate space between inspired and unin- 
 spired writings, that space would be occupied 
 by Leighton. No show of learning, no appear- 
 ance or ostentatious display of eloquence, and 
 yet both may be shown in him conspicuously i 
 and holily. There is in him something that 
 must be felt, even as the Scriptures must be ; 
 felt. 
 
 You ask me my views of the Trinity. I '■ 
 accept the doctrine, not as deduced from human r 
 reason, in its grovelling capacity for compre- j'i 
 bending spiritual things, but as the clear reve- 
 lation of Scripture. But perhaps it may be 
 said the Socmians do not admit this doctrine 
 as being taught in the Bible. I know enough 
 of their shifts and quibbles, with their dexterity 
 at explaining away all they dislike (and that is 
 not a little) ; but though beguiled once by them, 
 I hai^pily, for my own peace of mind, escaped 
 from their sophistries, and now hesitate not to 
 affirm that Socinians would lose all character 
 for honesty if they were to explain their neigh- 
 bour's will with the same latitude of interpre- 
 tation which they do the Scriptures. 
 
 I have in my head some floating ideas on 
 the Logos, which I hope hereafter to mould into 
 a consistent form ; but it is a gross perversion 
 of the truth in Socmians to declare that we 
 believe in Three Gods, and they know it to be 
 false. They might with equal justice affirm 
 that we believe in th7xe suns. The meanest 
 peasant who has acquired the first rudiments of 
 Christianity would shrink back from a thought 
 so monstrous. Still the Trinity has its diffi- 
 culties. It would be strange if otherwise. A 
 Revelaiion that revealed nothing, not within 
 the grasp of human reason ! — no religation, no 
 binding over again, as before said: but these 
 difficulties are shadows, contrasted with the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 substantive and insurmountable obstacles with 
 which they contend who admit the Divine 
 aiithority of Scripture, with the superlative 
 excellence of Christ, and yet undertake to prove 
 that these Scriptures teach, and that Christ 
 taught, His ovmpure humanity f 
 
 If Jesus Christ was merely a man, — if He was 
 not God as well as man,— be it considered, He 
 could not have been even a good man. There 
 is no medium. The Saviour in that case was 
 absolutely a deceiver / one transcendently un- 
 righteous ! in advancing j)retensions to miracles, 
 by the 'finger of God,' which He never per- 
 formed; and by asserting claims (as a man) 
 in the most aggravated sense blasphemous ! 
 These consequences Socinians, to be consistent, 
 must allow, and which imijious arrogation of 
 divinity in Christ (according to their faith), as 
 well as His false assumption of a community of 
 'glory' v/ith the Father 'before the world 
 was,' even they will be necessitated to admit, 
 completely exonerated the Jews, according to 
 their law, in crucifying one who, ' being a man,' 
 ' made himself God ! ' But in the Christian, 
 rather than in the Socinian or Pharisaic view, 
 all these objections vanish, and harmony suc- 
 ceeds to inexplicable confusion. If Socinians 
 hesitate in ascribing unrighteousness to Christ, 
 the inevitable result of then- principles, they 
 tremble, as well they might, at their avowed 
 creed, and virtually renounce what they profess 
 to uphold. 
 
 The Trinity, as Bishop Leighton has well 
 remarked, is ' a doctrine of faith, not of demon- 
 stration,' except in a moral sense. If the New 
 Testament declare it, not in an insulated passage, 
 but through the whole breadth of its pages, 
 rendering, with any other admission, the Book, 
 which is the Christian's anchor-hold of hope, 
 dark and contradictory, then it is not to be 
 rejected, but on a penalty that reduces to an 
 atom all the sufferings this earth can inflict. 
 
 Let the grand question be determined. Is or 
 is not the Bible inspired? No one book has 
 ever been subjected to so rigid an investigation 
 as the Bible, by minds the most capacious, and, 
 in the result, which has so triumphantly repelled 
 all the assaults of infidels. In the extensive 
 intercourse which I have had with this class of 
 men, I have seen their prejudice surpassed only 
 by their ignorance. This I found conspicuously 
 the case in Dr. D. (vol. i. p. 167), the prince of 
 their fraternity. Without, therefore, stopping 
 to contend on what all dispassionate men must 
 deem undebateable ground, I may assume in- 
 spiration as admitted ; and, equally so, that it 
 would be an insult to man's understanding to 
 suppose any other revelation from God than 
 the Christian Scriptures. If these Sci'iptures, 
 impregnable in their strength, sustained in their 
 pretensions by undeniable prophecies and mira- 
 cles, and by the experience of the inner man, in 
 all ages, as well as by a concatenation of argu- 
 
 ments all bearing upon one point, and extending, 
 with miraculous consistency, through a series of 
 fifteen hundred years,— if all this combined 
 proof does not establish their validity, nothing 
 can be proved under the sun; but the world 
 and man mvist be abandoned, with all its conHc- 
 quences, to one universal scepticism ! Under 
 such sanctions, therefore, if these Scriptures, as 
 a fundamental truth, do inculcate the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, however sux'passing human 
 comprehension, then I say we are bound to 
 admit it on the strength of moral demomlration. 
 
 The supreme Governor of the world, and the 
 Father of our sjiirits, has seen fit to disclose to 
 us much of His will and the whole of His natural 
 and moral perfections. In some instances He 
 has given His %oord only, and demanded our 
 faith; while on other momentous subjects, 
 instead of bestowing a full revelation, like the 
 Via Lactea, He has furnished a glimpse orJy, 
 through either the medium of inspiration or by 
 the exercise of those rational faculties with 
 which He has endowed us. I consider the 
 Trinity as substantially resting on the first pro- 
 position, yet deriving support from the last. 
 
 I recollect when I stood on the summit of 
 Etna, and darted my gaze down the crater ; the 
 immediate vicinity was discernible, till, lower 
 down, obscurity gradually terminated in total 
 darkness. Such figures exemplify many truths 
 revealed in the Bible. We pursue them until, 
 from the imperfection of our faculties, we 
 are lost in impenetrable night. All truths, 
 however, that are essential to faith, honestly 
 interpreted, all that are important to human 
 conduct, under every diversity of circumstance, 
 are manifest as a blazing star. The pi'omises 
 also of felicity to the righteous in the future 
 world, though the precise nature of that felicity 
 may not be defined, are illustrated by every 
 image that can swell the imagination; while 
 the misery of the lost, in its unutterable inten- 
 sity, though the language that describes it is 
 all necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as 
 resulting chiefly, if not wholly, from the with- 
 drawment of the light of God's countenance, and 
 a banishment from His presence ! — best compre- 
 hended in this world by reflecting on the deso- 
 lations which would instantly follow the loss 
 of the sun's vivifying and universally-diffused 
 icarmth. 
 
 You, or rather all, should remember that 
 some truths, from their nature, suri^ass the 
 scope of man's limited powers, and stand as the 
 criteria of faith, determining, by their rejection 
 or admission, who among the sons of men can 
 confide in the veracity of Heaven. Those more 
 ethereal truths, of which the Trinity is conspi- 
 cuously the chief, without being circumstantially 
 explained, may be faintly illustrated by material 
 objects. The eye of man cannot discern the 
 satellites of Jupiter, nor become sensible of the 
 multitudinous stars, the rays of which have 
 
4Q5 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 never reached our planet, and consequently 
 garnisli not the canopy of night ; yet are they 
 the less real because their existence lies beyond 
 man's unassisted gaze ? The tube of the philo- 
 sopher, and the celestial telescope — the unclouded 
 visions of heaven — will confirm the one class of 
 truths and irradiate the other. 
 
 Tlie Trinity is a subject on which analogical 
 reasoning may advantageously be admitted as 
 furnishing at least a glimpse of light, and with 
 this, for the jDresent, we must be satisfied. In- 
 finite "Wisdom deemed clearer manifestations 
 inexpedient; and is man to dictate to his 
 Maker ? I may further remark, that where we 
 cannot behold a desii-able object distinctly, we 
 must take the best view we can ; and I think 
 you, and every candid and inquiring mind, may 
 derive assistance from such reflections as the 
 following : — 
 
 Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinoza 
 and Descartes, and other advocates of the Ma- 
 terial system (or, in more appropriate language, 
 the Atheistical system!), it is admitted by all 
 men not prejudiced, not biassed by sceptical 
 prepossessions, that mind is distinct from riiatter. 
 The mind of man, however, is involved in in- 
 scrutable darkness (as the profoundest meta- 
 physicians well know), and is to be estimated 
 (if at all) alone by an inductive process, that 
 is, by its effects. Without entering on the 
 question whether an extremely circumscribed 
 portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, 
 may or may not be extended to quadrupeds, 
 it is universally acknowledged that the mind of 
 man alone regulates all the voluntary actions 
 of his corporeal frame. Mind, therefore, may 
 be regarded as a distinct genus in the scale 
 ascending above brutes, and including the whole 
 of intellectual existences ; advancing from 
 thought (that mysterious thing !) in its lowest 
 form, through all the gradations of sentient and 
 rational beings, till it arrives at a Bacon, a 
 Newton, and then, when unencumbered by 
 matter, extending its illimitable sway through 
 seraph and archangel, till we are lost in the 
 Gkeat Infinite ! 
 
 Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial 
 subject of meditation, that our limbs, in all they 
 do or can accomjilish, implicitly obey the dicta- 
 tion of the mind? that this operating power, 
 whatever its name, under certain limitations, 
 exercises a sovereign dominion, not only over 
 our limbs, but over all our intellectual pursuits ? 
 The mind of every man is evidently the moving 
 force which alike regulates all his limbs and 
 actions, and in which example we find a strong 
 illustration of the subordinate nature of mere 
 matter. That alone which gives direction to 
 the organic parts of our nature is wholly mind ; 
 and one mind, if placed over a thousand limbs, 
 could with undiminished case control and regu- 
 late the whole. 
 
 This idea is advanced on the supposition that 
 
 one mind could command an unlimited direc- 
 tion over any given number of limbs, pro- 
 vided they were all connected by joint and 
 sineiv. But suppose, through some occult and 
 inconceivable means, these limbs were disas- 
 sociated as to all material connection ; suppose, 
 for instance, one mind, with unlimited autho- 
 rity, governed the operations of two separate 
 persons, would not this, substantially, be only 
 one person, seeing the directing principle was 
 one? If the truth here contended for be ad- 
 mitted, that ttvo persons, governed by one mind, 
 is incontestably one person, the same conclusion 
 would be arrived at, and the proposition equally 
 be justified, which aflSrmed that three, or 
 otherwise fou7\ persons, owning also necessary 
 and essential subjection to one mind, would 
 only be so many diversities or modifications of 
 that one mind, and therefore the component 
 I)arts virtually collapsing into one whole, the 
 person would be one. Let any man ask himself, 
 whose understanding can both reason and become 
 the depository of truth, v/hether, if one mind 
 thus regulated, with absolute authority, three, 
 or otherwise four, persons, with all their con- 
 geries of material parts, would not these parts, 
 inert in themselves, when subjected to one ' 
 predominant mind, be, in the most logical sense, 
 one person 1 Are ligament and exterior com- 
 bination indispensable j)re-requisites to the 
 sovereign influence of mind over mind, or mind 
 over matter ? \ 
 But perhaps it may be said we have no ^ 
 instance of one mind governing more than one | 
 body. This may be, but the argument remains I 
 the same. With a proud spirit, that forgets its \ 
 own contracted range of thought and circum- ' 
 scribed knowledge, who is to limit the sway of \ 
 Omnipotence? or presumptuously to deny the 
 possibility of that Being who called light out of 
 darkness, so to exalt the dominion of one mind 
 as to give it absolute sway over other dependent 
 minds, or (indiflterently) over detached or com- 
 bined portions of organized matter? But if 
 this superinduced quality be conferable on any 
 order of created beings, it is blasphemy to limit 
 the power of GOD, and to deny His capacity to 
 transfuse His ozm Spirit when and to whom Ee 
 will. 
 
 This reasoning may now be applied in illus- 
 tration of the Trinity. We are too much in the 
 habit of viewing our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 through the medium of His body. 'A body 
 was prepared for Him,' but this body was mere 
 matter, as insensible in itself as every human 
 frame when deserted by the soul. If, therefore, 
 the Spirit that was in Christ was the Spirit of 
 the Father; if no thought, no vibration, no 
 spiritual communication or miraculous display 
 existed in, or proceeded from Christ, not im- 
 mediately and consubstantially identified with 
 Jehovah, the great first cause ; — if all these M 
 operating principles were thus derived, in con- m 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 sistency alone with the conjoint divine attri- 
 butes; if this Spirit of the Father ruled and 
 reigned in Christ as His own manifestation, 
 then, in the strictest sense, Christ exhibited 
 * the Godhead bodily,' and was undeniably ' one 
 with the Father ; ' confirmatory of the Saviour's 
 words, ' Of myself (my body) ' I can do nothing, 
 the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the 
 works.' 
 
 But though I speak of the body as inert in 
 itself, and necessarily allied to matter, yet this 
 declaration must not be understood as militat- 
 ing against the Christian doctrine of the remr- 
 rection of the body. In its grosser form the 
 thought is not to be admitted, for 'flesh and 
 blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; ' but 
 that the body, -without losing its consciousness 
 and individuality, may be subjected, by the 
 illimitable power of Omnipotence, to a subli- 
 mating process, so as to be rendered compatible 
 with spiritual association, is not opposed to 
 reason in its severe abstract exercises, while in 
 attestation of this exhilarating belief there are 
 many remote analogies in nature exemplifying 
 the same truth, while it is in the strictest 
 accordance with that final dispensation which 
 must, as Christians, regulate all our sijecula- 
 tions. I proceed now to say, that 
 
 If the postulate be thus admitted, that one 
 mind influencing two bodies would only involve 
 a diversity of operations, but in reality be one 
 in essence ; or otherwise (as an hypothetical 
 argument illustrative of truth), if one pre- 
 eminent mind or spiritual subsistence, uncon- 
 nected with matter, possessed an undivided and 
 sovereign dominion over two or more disem- 
 bodied minds, so as to become the exclusive 
 source of all their subtlest volitions and exer- 
 cises, the unity, however complex the modus of 
 its manifestation, would be fully established ; 
 and this principle extends to Deity itself, and 
 shows the true sense, as I conceive, in which 
 Christ and the Father are one. 
 
 In continuation of this reasoning, if God who 
 is light, the Sun of the moral world, should in 
 His union of infinite wisdom, power, and good- 
 ness, and from all eternity, have ordained that 
 an emanation from Himself (for aught we know 
 an essential emanation, as light is inseparable 
 from the luminary of day) should not only 
 have existed in His Son, in the fulness of time 
 to be united to a mortal body, but that a like 
 emanation from Himself (also perhaps essential) 
 should have constituted the Holy Spirit, who, 
 without losing His ubiquity, was more especially 
 sent to this lower earth by the Son, at the im- 
 pulse of the Father, then, in the most compre- 
 hensive sense, God, and His Son Jesus Christ, 
 and the Holy Ghost, are one—' Three Persons 
 in One God,' and thus form the true Trinity in 
 Unity. 
 
 To suppose that more than one independent 
 power or governing mind exists in the whole 
 
 497 
 
 universe, is absolute polytheism, against which 
 the denunciations of all the Jewish and Chris- 
 tian canonical books were directed. And if 
 there be but one directing Mind, that Mind is 
 God !— operating, however, in Three Persons, 
 according to the direct and uniform declarations 
 of that inspiration which 'brought life and 
 immortality to light.' Yet this divine doctrine 
 of the Trinity is to be received, not because it 
 is or can be clear to finite apprehension, but 
 (in reiteration of the argument) because the 
 Scriptures, in their unsophisticated interpreta- 
 tion, expressly state it. The Trinity, therefore, 
 from its important aspects and biblical pro- 
 minence, is the grand article of faith, and the 
 foundation of the whole Christian system. 
 
 Who can say, as Christ and the Holy Ghost 
 proceeded from, and are still one with, the 
 Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive 
 their fulness from Him, and in spirit are 
 inviolately united to Him, as a branch is to the 
 vine,— who can say but that, in one view, what 
 was once mysteriously separated may as mys- 
 teriously be recombined, and (without interfering 
 with the everlasting Trinity and the individu- 
 ality of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the 
 Son, at the consummation of all things, deliver 
 up His mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and 
 God, in some peculiar and infinitely sublime 
 sense, become All in All ! God love you. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 [I had seen the writer of this letter, says 
 Gillman, but twice, and had no intention of 
 receiving an inmate into my house. I 
 determined on seeing Dr. Adams, for 
 whether the person referred to had taken 
 opium from choice or necessity, to me he 
 was equally an object of commiseration and 
 interest. Dr. Adams informed me that 
 the patient had been warned of the danger 
 of discontinuing opium by several eminent 
 medical men, who, at the same time, re- 
 presented the frightful consequences that 
 would most probably ensue. I had heard 
 of the failure of Mr. Wilberforce's case, 
 under an eminent iihysician at Bath, in 
 addition to which the doctor gave me an 
 account of several others -within his o^vn 
 knowledge. After some further conver- 
 sation it was agreed that Dr. Adams should 
 drive Coleridge to Highgate the following 
 evening. On the following evening came 
 Coleridge himself and alone. An old 
 gentleman, of more than ordinary acquire- 
 ments, was sitting by the fireside when he 
 entered. "We met, indeed, for the first 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 498 
 
 time, but as friends long since parted, and 
 who had now the happiness to see each 
 other again. Coleridge took his seat. His 
 manner, his appearance, and, above all, 
 his conversation were captivating. "We 
 listened with delight ; and upon the first 
 pause, when courtesy i)ermitted, my visitor 
 withdrew, saying in a low voice, * I see by 
 your manners an old friend has arrived, 
 and I shall therefore retire.' Coleridge 
 proposed to come the following evening, 
 but he first informed me of the painful 
 opinion which he had received concerning 
 his case, especially from one medical man 
 of celebrity. The tale was sad, and the 
 opinion given unprofessional and cruel — 
 sufl&cient to have deterred most men so 
 afflicted from making the attempt Coleridge 
 was contemplating, and in which his whole 
 soul was so deeply and so earnestly 
 engaged. In the course of our conver- 
 sation, he repeated some exquisite but 
 desponding lines of his own. It was an 
 evening of painful and pleasurable feeling 
 which I can never forget. We jiarted with 
 each other, understanding in a few minutes 
 what perhaps, under different circum- 
 stances, would have cost many hours to 
 arrange ; and I looked with impatience for 
 the morrow, still wondering at the apparent 
 chance that had brought him under my 
 roof. I felt indeed almost spell-bound, 
 without the desire of release. My situation 
 was new, and there was something affecting 
 in the thought that one of such amiable 
 manners, and at the same time so highly 
 gifted, should seek comfort and medical 
 aid in our quiet home. Deeply interested, 
 I began to reflect seriously on the duties 
 imposed upon me, and with anxiety to 
 expect the approaching day. It brought 
 me the following letter : — ] 
 
 COLERIDGE TO JAMES GILLMAN. 
 
 42 Norfolk Street, Strand, Saturday, noon, 
 April 13, 1816. 
 
 My dear Sir,— The first half -hour I was 
 with you convinced me that I should owe my 
 reception into your family exclusively to 
 motives not less flattering to me than honour- 
 able to yourself. I trust we shall ever in 
 matters of intellect be reciprocally serviceable 
 to each other. Men of sense generally come to 
 the same conclusions ; but they are likely to 
 contribute to each other's enlargement of view 
 
 in proportion to the distance or even opposition 
 of the i^oints from which they set out. Travel 
 and the strange variety of situations and 
 employments on which chance has thrown me, 
 in the course of my life, might have made me a 
 mere man of observation, if pain and sorrow and 
 self-mis-complacence had not forced my mind 
 in on itself, and so formed habits of meditation. 
 It is now as much my nature to evolve the fact 
 from the law, as that of a practical man to 
 deduce the law from the fact. 
 
 With respect to pecuniary remuneration, 
 allow me to say, I must not at least be suffered 
 to make any addition to your family expenses, 
 though I cannot offer anything that would 
 be in any way adequate to my sense of the 
 service; for that indeed there could not be a 
 compensation, as it must be returned in kind, 
 by esteem and grateful affection. 
 
 And now of myself. My ever wakeful reason, 
 and the keenness of my moral feelings, will 
 secure you from all unpleasant circumstances 
 connected with me save only one, viz. the 1 
 evasion of a specific madness. You will never | 
 hear anything but truth from me : prior habits 
 render it out of my power to tell an untruth, l 
 but unless carefully observed, I dare not 
 promise that I should not, with regard to this 
 detested poison, be capable of acting one. No 
 sixty hovirs have yet passed without my having 
 taken laudanum, though for the last week 
 comparatively trifling doses. I have full belief | 
 that your anxiety need not be extended beyond 
 the first week, and for the first week I shall 
 not, I must not, be permitted to leave your 
 house, unless with you. Delicately or indeli- 
 cately, this must be done, and both the servants 
 and the assistant must receive absolute 
 commands from you. The stimulus of conver- 
 sation suspends the terror that haunts my 
 mind ; but when I am alone, the horrors I have 
 suffered from laudanum, the degradation ^ the 
 blighted utility, almost overwhelm me. If (as 
 I feel for the first time a soothing confidence it 
 will prove) I should leave you restored to my 
 moral and bodily health, it is not myself only 
 that will love and honour you ; every friend I 
 have (and, thank God, in spite of this wretched 
 vice I have many and warm ones, who were 
 friends of my youth, and have never deserted 
 me) will thank you with reverence. I have 
 taken no notice of your kind apologies. If I 
 could not be comfortable in your house, and 
 with your family, I should deserve to be miser- 
 able. If you could make it convenient, I 
 should wish to be with you by IMonday evening, 
 as it would prevent the necessity of taking 
 fresh lodgings in town. 
 
 With respectful compliments to Mrs. Gillman 
 and her sister, I remain, dear sir, your much 
 obliged, S. T. Coleridge. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 499 
 
 [Coleridge not only expressed liis belief that 
 Davy might have been the first poet of our 
 time, if he had not been the first chemist, 
 but coupled him with Wordsworth, as the 
 two great men of the age ; and when 
 Southey went to Portugal, he entrusted to 
 L ivy the con-ection of Thalaha. His 
 biographer says that, like Pope, he lisped 
 in numbers, and that his best exercises were 
 translations from classical into English 
 verse. A poetical fancy colours all his 
 writings, and he seems to have wanted 
 nothing but the poet's art to obtain the 
 i:)oet's reputation. The following lines, 
 written at Eavenna, during the closing 
 days of his existence, will illustrate the 
 letter : — 
 
 * Oh ! could'st thou be with me, daughter of 
 heaven, 
 
 Urania ! I have now no other love ; 
 For time has withered all the beauteous flowers 
 That once adorned my youthful coronet. 
 With thee I still may live a little space, 
 And hope for better intellectual light ; 
 With thee I may e'en still, in vernal times. 
 Look upon Nature with a poet's eye, 
 Kursing those lofty thoughts that in the mind 
 Spontaneous rise, blending their sacred powers 
 With images from fountain and from flood : 
 From chestnut groves, amid the broken rocks. 
 Where tho blue Lina pours to meet the wave 
 Of foaming Serchio ; or 'midst the odorous 
 heath 
 
 And cistus flowers, that clothe the stream-worn 
 sides 
 
 Of the green hills, whence in their piuity 
 The virgin streams arise of Mountain Tiber.— 
 
 ' Or rest might find on that cloud-covered hill, 
 Whose noble rocks are clothed with brightest 
 green, 
 
 Where thousand flowers of unknown hues and 
 names 
 
 Scent the cool air, rarely by man inhaled. 
 But which the wild bee knows, and ever 
 haunts. 
 
 And whence descends the balmy influence 
 
 Of those high waters, tepid from the air 
 
 Of ancient Apennines, whose sacred source 
 
 Hygcia loves ; there my weary limbs 
 
 I might repose beneath the grateful shade 
 
 Of cliestnuts, whose worn trunks proclaim the 
 
 birth 
 Of other centuries.' 
 
 Davy believed himself to be endowed with 
 the faculty divine. ' From a conversation 
 I once had with Sir H. Davy at Al thorp,' 
 says Dr. Dibdin in his Reminiscences, 'in 
 consequence of a passage in Ovid's Meta- 
 morphoses, I felt quite persuaded that he 
 considered himself to be a poet as well as 
 a philosopher.' — WillmottJ] 
 
 DAVY TO POOLE. 
 
 Ravenna, March 14, 1827. 
 
 My dear Poole,— I should have answered 
 your letter immediately had it been possible; 
 but I was at the time I received it very ill, in 
 the crisis of the complaint under which I have 
 long suffered, and which turned out to be a 
 determination of blood to the brain ; and at last 
 producing the most alarming nervous symptoms, 
 and threatening the loss of power and of life. 
 Had I been in England, I should gladly have 
 promoted the election of your friend at the 
 Athenseum ; your certificate of character would 
 ahvays be enough for me ; for, like our angling, 
 evangelical Isaac Walton, I know you choose 
 for your friends only good men. 
 
 I am, thank God, better, but still very weak, 
 and wholly unfit for any kind of business and 
 study. I have, however, considerably recovered 
 the use of all the limbs that were affected; 
 and as my amendment has been slow and 
 gradual, I hope in time it may be complete ; 
 but I am leading the life of an anchorite, 
 obliged to abstain from flesh, wine, business, 
 study, experiments, and all things that I love ; 
 but this discipline is salutary, and for the sake 
 of being able to do something more for science, 
 and I hope for humanity, I submit to it, 
 believing that the great Source of Intellectual 
 Being so wills it for good. 
 
 I am here lodged in the Apostolical Palace, 
 by the kindness of the Yice-Legate of Ravenna, 
 a most amiable and enlightened prelate, who 
 has done everything for me that he could have 
 done for a brother. I have chosen this spot of 
 the declining empire of Rome as one of solitude 
 and repose, as out of the way of travellers, and 
 in a good climate ; and its monuments and 
 recollections are not ■without interest. Here 
 Dante composed his divine works. Here Byron 
 wrote some of his best and moral (if such a 
 name can be applied) poems; and here the 
 Roman power that began among the mountains 
 with Romulus, and migrated to the sea, found- 
 ing Asia and Europe under Constantine, made 
 its last stand, in the marshes formed by the 
 Eridanus, under Theodoric, whose tomb is 
 amongst the wonders of the place. After a 
 month's travel in the most severe weather I 
 ever experienced, I arrived here on the 20th of 
 February. The weather has since been fine. 
 My brother and friend, who is likewise my 
 physician, accompanied me ; but he is so satisfied 
 with my improvement, as to be able to leave 
 me for Corfu ; but he is within a week's call. 
 I have no society here, except that of the 
 amiable Vice-Legate, who is the Governor of 
 the province ; but this is enough for me, for as 
 yet I can bear but little conversation. I ride 
 in the pine forest, which is the most magnificent 
 in Europe, and w'hich I wish you could see. 
 You know the trees bj' Claude Lorraine's land- 
 
500 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 scapes ; imagine a circle of twenty miles of 
 these great fan-shaped pines, green sunny lawns, 
 and little knolls of underwood, with large 
 junipers of the Adriatic in front, and the Apen- 
 nines still covered with snow behind. The 
 pine-wood partly covers the spot where the 
 Koman fleet once rode ; — such is the change of 
 time ! 
 
 It is my intention to stay here till the be- 
 ginning of April, and then go to the Alps, for 
 I must avoid the extremes of heat and cold. 
 God bless you, my dear Poole, I am always your 
 old and sincere friend, 
 
 H. Davy. 
 
 [Anne M 'Vicar was born in Glasgow in 1755 ; 
 her early years were spent in America, 
 where her father held a commission in the 
 British army. Her father returned to this 
 country and became barrack-master at 
 Fort-Augustus. In 1778 she was married 
 to Rev. James Grant, chaplain to the 
 Fort, and afterwards of Laggan, Inverness. 
 About twenty years afterwards she was 
 left a widow with a large family dependent 
 upon her. A volume of poems which she 
 issued, was so well received that it was 
 followed by her well-known Letters from 
 the Mountains and other works. The latter 
 years of her life were spent in Edinburgh. 
 She died in 1838. Money was required for 
 the outfit of one of her sons, when she 
 thought of collecting and publishing her 
 scattered letters. Mrs. Grant hesitated 
 at first, but she was at length prevailed 
 upon to overcome her scruples and prepare 
 her letters with a view to publication, and 
 she thus tells the story of the success of 
 the venture : ' I was at the utmost loss, 
 knowing no bookseller, how to dispose of 
 my defective and ill-arranged manuscripts. 
 Happily I met with a Scotch friend, who 
 knew something of Messrs. Longman & 
 Rees, and promised to introduce me. I 
 went to them with no enviable feelings, 
 being fully as much ashamed of my shabby 
 manuscript as Falstaff was of his ragged 
 recruits. Mr. Longman, however, took it 
 graciously, submitted it to his invisible 
 critic, and in a few days I heard the glad 
 sound that it would do very well for 
 publication. I was told that it would be 
 set about immediately, and would be ready 
 in three or four months, it being arranged 
 that I should receive half of the profits, 
 
 the booksellers bearing the risk of printing. 
 This was in spring 1805. Summer and 
 autumn passed, winter came, spring 
 returned, still not a word of my book. I 
 thought my papers had been lost or thrown 
 aside as useless, and, occupied with a 
 thousand other cares, I had almost for- 
 gotten them, when I received at Woodend 
 a letter informing me that my book was 
 printed, and nothing was wanted but the 
 preface, which, it seems, was the last thing 
 required. Certainly never was preface 
 more expeditiously written. In half an 
 hour after the letter was received, the 
 preface was away to Stirling to overtake 
 the evening post. I had declined to give 
 my name to the public as the author of the 
 letters, and therefore could not be much 
 affected, further than a pecuniary disap- 
 pointment, by their being overlooked. 
 Yet I have been seldom so much surprised, 
 as when my kind neighbour. Lady Stewart, 
 casually mentioned her hearing from 
 London that a book, called Letters from the 
 Mountains, divided with some other new 
 publications the attention of readers that 
 summer. No person, I believe, was so 
 astonished at their success as myself. Sly 
 booksellers dealt liberally with me, and 
 many persons of distinguished worth 
 interested themselves in me, and sought 
 my acquaintance in consequence of perusing 
 those letters.' The following is the hurried 
 yet effective apology prefixed to the first 
 edition of Letters from the Mountains : — 
 ' Lest any of my readers should indulge the 
 expectation of meeting, in the ensuing 
 pages, either ingenious fiction or amusing 
 narrative, it is but candid to undeceive 
 them. The simple and careless letters here 
 offered to the public carry in themselves 
 the evidences of originality. They are 
 genuine but broken and interrupted 
 sketches of a life spent in the most remote 
 obscurity. Of the little interest such 
 sketches might possess, much is lost by the 
 necessity of withholding those parts which 
 contained most of narrative and anecdote. 
 AVhy letters should be published at all, 
 comprehending so little to excite interest 
 or gratify curiosity, is a question that 
 naturally suggests itself. It cannot be 
 truly said that the gratification of the 
 reader could form an adequate motive for 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 501 
 
 their publication ; and, from the nature 
 of them, it is obvious that the unknown 
 author could have no purpose of vanity to 
 answer by it. Yet may not a picture, 
 seldom drawn, peculiar in its shades and 
 scenery, true to nature, and chastely 
 coloured, — may not such a picture amuse, 
 for a while, the leisure of the idle and 
 contemplative ? And it is hoped that the 
 images here offered of untutored sentiment, 
 of the tastes, the feelings, and habits of 
 those who, in the secret shades of privacy, 
 cultivate the simple duties and kindly 
 affections of domestic life, may not be 
 without utility. The soul that rises above 
 its condition, and feels undefined and 
 painful aspirations after unattainable 
 elegance and refinement, may here find an 
 inducement to remain in safe obscurity, 
 contented with the love of truth, of nature, 
 and the 
 
 "Humanizing Muse ;" 
 while those distinguished beings, who are 
 at once the favourites of nature and of 
 fortune, may learn to look with compla- 
 cency on their fellow-minds in the vale of 
 life, and to know that they too have their 
 enjoyments. The hope of such a result 
 might, in some degree, console the writer 
 of Letters from, the Mountains for the 
 painful circumstance that has elicited 
 their publication.'] 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE MOUNTAINS^ BY MRS. GRANT 
 OF LAGGAN. 
 
 TO MISS HARRIET REID, OF GLASGOW. 
 
 Inveraray, April 28, 1773. 
 My dearest H.,— I have been seriously 
 thinking all the way to Luss, how little we 
 know ourselves, and what odd beings we are. 
 "We left Balclutha^ so mournful, ' thin darkness 
 covered our beauty, and we looked forth from 
 our hill like half-seen stars through the rainy 
 clouds of night. The sigh of the manly youths 
 awaited our departure, and we went away, 
 very sad indeed.' I am sure if St. Mungo's 
 spire were capable of gratitude, it owes me 
 some for the many sad looks I cast back at it. 
 I shall ever love my dear native Balclutha, not 
 
 1 Letters from the Mountains, being the Real 
 Correspondence of a Lady between the j-ears 1773 and 
 1807. Second Edition, 1807. A new edition, with 
 additions and numerous notes by J. P. Grant, was 
 issued in 1845. 
 
 2 Glasgow. 
 
 only for what I enjoyed, but for what I suffered 
 in it. What I have suffered was the common 
 lot of humanity ; what I have enjoyed was 
 much more, for who ever had such friends as 
 mine? But now to our recollections. Who 
 would have supposed, when we were at 
 Dumbarton, that ever we should have dried 
 our eyes ? Yet when we met in the great room, 
 when the sea-born swains from Greenock joined 
 us, when *the flame rose from the burning 
 oak,' we rose to serene, thence to cheerful, and 
 had we not been forced to part so soon, we 
 might have got up to hilarity. Then, when the 
 great struggle came, and we did really part, I 
 thought my heart would break ; and your last 
 words sounded in my ears like a kneU ; and I 
 thought I should not smile this whole summer. 
 I read the folded paper James Hall gave me to 
 amuse me when I stept into the carriage, about 
 which you were so curious ; it related to real 
 events, and was 
 
 'So sad, so tender, and so true.' 
 
 'Twas from a young man of merit and parts, 
 who, by a love marriage, had, alas ! condemned 
 himself to perpetual poverty. He had gone to 
 scramble among the wealth of England for a 
 subsistence. "Why should I tell of his sorrows 
 and disappointments? Finally, my sister, he 
 wrote this letter to a friend (probably James 
 Hall himself) under those impressions which 
 approaching death inspired. That princely 
 knight errant, Francis the First, wrote to his 
 mother from the field of a lost battle : 
 ' Madam, all is lost but honour ; ' good, but 
 this is better still. ' The result is, all is lost 
 but a sure confidence in the Divine mercy.' 
 And what else can a poor finite creature hold 
 to, when the world, and all that is dear and 
 lovely in it, fades from his sight? It was a 
 most affecting letter : ' I wept abimdant, and 
 I wept aloud.' Yet, alas ! I fear they were not 
 such generous tears as you might suppose. If I 
 had not been so very sorry myself, I should not 
 have been so easily melted. Well, now I was 
 very sure I would not smile this summer, nor 
 yet read any book but the Bible and the Night 
 Thoughts ; even the Odyssey was to be rejected. 
 And thus I travelled on, so serious and so sad. 
 I was got far beyond moralizing ; and then 
 came on such small, soft, melancholy rain, and 
 Ben Lomond's great head was wrapt in such a 
 veil of thick clouds, that the nearer we drew 
 the less we saw of it. And as to my three 
 friends, they showed as much sense and feeling 
 as Job's did at first, whose silence, on an 
 occasion which common minds would have 
 seized to say common things, I always admired. 
 In short, the whole party seemed lost in medi- 
 tation, till the sight of Loch Lomond roused us. 
 "NYhat a happy faculty is an active imagination 
 to combat the evils of sickly sensibility ! I 
 passed over all the beautiful groves and corn 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 502 
 
 fields that adorn the lower side, for I had seen 
 such things before, and they brought images of 
 happiness and tranquillity which my mind could 
 not relish in its depressed state. But the 
 solemn and melancholy grandeur of the lofty 
 dark mountains and abrupt rocks, tufted with 
 heath and juniper, that rose on the other side 
 of the lake, and seemed to close its upper end, 
 arrested my attentic n at once. I peoj)led their 
 narrow and gloomy glens with those vindictive 
 clans that used to make such fatal incursions 
 of old. I thought I saw Bruce and his faithful 
 few ascending them in his forced flight from 
 Bute. A train of departed heroes seemed to 
 pass on their clouds in long review, and do but 
 guess who closed the procession ; no other than 
 the notorious Eob Roy riding up the loch-side 
 with the lady he forced away, and the ' twenty 
 men in order,' who make such a figure in the 
 ballad. My mother knew the family, and tells 
 the whole history of the transaction. The lady, 
 it would appear, was too delicate a subject for 
 such a rough adventure, for she died of grief 
 very soon after. I saw M. M.'s dwelling 
 beneath romantic cliffs, and by a roaring 
 stream, but I was not near enough to trace her 
 stately steps. I made a happy transition from 
 Rob Roy, to think of her and her good books, 
 and her cheerful piety ; such an exami)le to us 
 all. Pray tell her I will never forget her. 
 
 All this brought us to Luss, which I am too 
 lazy to describe twice, so must refer you to 
 Bell. But I will tell you hoAV I took a pensive 
 walk to admire Inchmarron and the setting 
 sun Avhile dinner v/as preparing. There ' I 
 chewed the food of sweet and bitter fancy,' and 
 felt some of those painful twitches, or spasms 
 (are they not ?) in my breast, that remind one 
 hoAv much the soul is superior to the frame that 
 is thus influenced by it. Dinner brought us 
 together ; conversation grew insensibly cheerful ; 
 our Greenock friend amused us with amphibious 
 humour, such as all the west coast abounds in ; 
 and before tea, your friend, who was not to 
 relax a muscle this year, more than half smiled, 
 and by supper time laughed outright. But 
 truly might I say, that 'in the midst of 
 laughter the heart is sad.' Give me credit for 
 my honesty, imitate my sincerity, and tell me 
 when yoii laughed first. In the meantime I 
 will tell you something to laugh at. My 
 * three friends ' being engaged in a long 
 discourse, replete with Argyleshire genealogy, 
 I was for a while quite abstracted ; my Ossianic 
 mania returned with double force, where every 
 blast seemed to touch a viewless harp, and 
 every passing cloud, brightened with the beams 
 of the moon, appeared to my mind's eye a 
 vehicle for the shades of the lovely and the 
 brave, that live in the songs of other times. 
 How softly sweet, how sadly plaintive, were 
 the strains that now arrested my attention I 
 From the dark caverns of the kitchen they 
 
 proceeded, and, through the loose disjoint*>d 
 floor of our apartment, they 
 
 ' Rose like a stream of rich-distilled perfumes.' 
 
 This music was both vocal and instrumental ; 
 but no such voice, no such instrument, had I 
 ever heard. Could I sit still when curiosity 
 was so powerfully excited ? Believe I did not, 
 but, stealing down on tiptoe, beheld a great 
 dark-browed Highlander, sitting double over the 
 fire, and playing ' Macgregor na Ruara' on two 
 trumps at once, while a nymph, half hidden 
 amongst her heavy locks, was pacing backwards, 
 turning a great wheel, and keeping time with 
 voice and steps to his mournful tones. I 
 retired, not a little disconcerted, and dreamt 
 all night of you and Malvina by turns. Spring 
 appears here but in early infancy. Yet how 
 can I tell you how mildly beautiful the sun 
 arose over the distant hills of Morven ; or with 
 what secret veneration I traced the footsteps of 
 my fathers along their blue gleaming lakes, or 
 through their narrow vales ! I saw, in the 
 course of this morning's ride, Glenfalach, in a 
 secret nook at the end of Loch Loney, I think 
 it is called, a name signifying the hidden vale, 
 and hidden it certainly is. One would think it 
 a sad exile to live in one of these recesses ; yet, 
 by what I can gather from the conversation of 
 our friends, people somehow contrive to be both 
 gay and busy here. 
 
 We drew near Lochawe, and caught a glimpse 
 of Barabreack, familiar to me as the often- 
 described abode of my ancestors. Here we had 
 a long detail of their simple manner of life, 
 their humble virtues, and the affectionate 
 confidence that subsisted between them and 
 their copartners in the same possession. My 
 father delighted to show us the stream where 
 he first caught a trout, and the little island 
 which had Ijeen the object of his first excursion 
 in search of nuts and rasiDberries : and I 
 listened with delight to tales of other times, 
 told with so much animation. I felt as proud 
 of the genuine worth and unstained probity of 
 my ancestors as if they had been all that the 
 world admires and envies, and only wished 
 that I might not prove itnworthy of them. I 
 have already forgotten the name of the place 
 we breakfasted at ; but there our fellow- 
 traveller, or attendant rather, forsook us ; and 
 there we picked up an original of quite another 
 kind. The carriage was detained while one of 
 the horses was shod, and I took that oppor- 
 tunity of gathering some of the freshest 
 primroses I had ever seen from the roots of a 
 weeping birch, that actually 'wept odorous 
 dews' upon me as I sheltered under its 
 drooping branches. How do I love these 
 artless bowers, and how much I wish to have 
 you with me here, to tell you things that no 
 other mortal would understand or care for ! 
 My walk was stopped by streams, whose descent 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 into the lake was covered by thick shades of 
 alder and hazel, that reminded me of the creek 
 where Ulysses went on shore in Phreacia, and 
 then I wished I had my Odyssey out of the 
 chaise. But, alas ! no Odyssey was to be had. 
 Then I was called to breakfast in an upper 
 room, the floor of which was much worse than 
 that at Luss, and indeed pervious to every 
 sound. "We had taken possession of the only 
 tolerable room, and a newly-arrived traveller 
 was heard gi-owling for his breakfast below. 
 He did not swear, but was so fretful and 
 querulous, so displeased with everything that 
 was given or said to him, and his manner of 
 growling too was so amusing, — he showed so 
 much ingenuity in discovering faults in every- 
 thing, — that I burst out a-laughing, and said 
 we were certainly haunted by the ghost of 
 Smelfungus, of whom Sterne gives such an 
 amusing account. By the bye, we liad just 
 that morning passed, ' vjitli reverence ciice,' the 
 monument of the original Smelfungus, which 
 rises near his native spot, beside his favourite 
 lake, which he delights to describe in Humphrey 
 Clinker. Tea was prepared, but still thunder 
 muttered hoarse below. 
 
 My father, inquiring about the stranger, and 
 finding he was a gentleman's son of the country, 
 very good-naturedly sent him an invitation to 
 breakfast ; for he concluded the house (a very 
 poor one) could not furnish two breakfasts 
 with their apparatus (of equal elegance), and 
 that this occasioned the ill -humour by which we 
 were incommoded. He was a student^ travel- 
 ling home from college ; he left all his irritability 
 below, and came up with an air so manly, well- 
 bred, and accommodating, that, had we not 
 received some previous intelligence of his 
 character through the floor, we should have 
 thought highly of him ; yet, through the strong 
 lines of a marked and sensible countenance the 
 scowl of discontent was but too obvious. I, 
 who for my part detest every mode of selfish 
 luxury, could not endure to see a native 
 Highlander make his good-humour dependent 
 on a good breakfast, and was moreover disgusted 
 by certain learned strictures on new-laid eggs, 
 which I am sure made no part of his college 
 acquisitions. Then his appearance was so 
 manly that this puj^pyism was doubly 
 provoking. However, he sweetened by degrees 
 into an agreeable and intelligent fellow- 
 traveller. But oh ! not a single spark of 
 enthusiasm. Ossian himself was never blinder 
 than he is to the soul-moving beauties of that 
 bard. 
 
 Why, after tiring you and myself with such 
 a detail, should I tell you of the horrors of 
 Glencoe, through which we travelled in a 
 dismal rainy day ! In one particular, I dare 
 say, I agreed with the stranger, for I really 
 thought dinner the most interesting event of 
 this day's journey, not merely aa a repast, but 
 
 the manner of it was so novel. There was a 
 little inn, thatched, and humbler than any of 
 the former ; we came very cold to it ; wc found 
 a well- swept clay floor, and an enlivening blaze 
 of peats and brushwood, two windows looking 
 out upon the loch we were to crosfi, and a 
 primitive old couple, whose fresh complexion 
 made you wonder at their silver hairs. All the 
 apparatus of fishing and hunting were sus- 
 pended in the roof ; I thought myself in Ithaca, 
 though Homer does not speak of peats or trout, 
 and far less of grouse. The people showed an 
 alacrity in welcoming us, and a concern about 
 our being wet and cold, that could not have 
 been assumed. I never took such a sudden 
 liking to people so far out of ray own way. I 
 suppose we are charmed with cheerfulness and 
 sensibility in old people, because we don't 
 expect it, and with unservile courtesy in the 
 lower class for the same reason. 'How 
 populous, how vital is the grave ! ' says your 
 favourite Young ; ' how populous, how vital are 
 the glens ! ' I should be temi^ted to say here ; 
 but after the ' stupendous solitude ' through 
 which we had just passed, the blazing hearth 
 and kindly host had peculiar attractions. 
 
 Shall I tell you of our dinner ? Never before 
 did I blot paper with such a detail ; but it is 
 instructive to know how eheaply we may be 
 pleased. On a clean table of two fir deals we 
 had as clean a cloth, trout new from the lake, 
 eggs fresh as our student's heart could wish, 
 kippered salmon, fine new-made butter and 
 barley-cakes, which we preferred to the loaf we 
 had brought with us. Smelfungus began to 
 mutter about the cookery of our trouts ; I pro- 
 nounced them very well dressed, out of pure 
 spite ; for by this time I could not endiire him, 
 from the pains he took to mortify the good 
 people and to show us he had been used to 
 lodge and dine better. I feasted, and was 
 quite entranced, thinking how you would enjoy 
 all that I enjoyed. Dear Harriet, how my 
 heart longs for you when I think how yours is 
 made to share all my wild pleasures ! 
 
 The boat was crossing with other passengers 
 over the ferry, which is very wide. We were 
 forced to wait its arrival two hours, to me very 
 short ones ; one of them I have given to you, 
 for I could never tell you all this when the 
 warm feeling of the minute had worn off. I 
 have kept my promise of being minute most 
 religiously : there is merit in it. 
 
 For you I have forsaken Smelfungus, who is 
 yonder walking on the loch-side in all the 
 surly dignity of displeasure. I am going to tea, 
 and will put him in good - humour with 
 questions about his college. What a pleasant 
 tea-drinking ! The old man knew all my father's 
 uncles, and the good woman was so pleased 
 with my intei'est in her household economy ! 
 It produced a venison ham, sacred to favourites, 
 and every other good thing she had; every 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 504 
 
 one was pleased, and Smelfungus himself 
 became 
 
 'As mild and patient as the female dove, 
 When first her golden couplets are disclosed.' 
 
 And here I conclude this long lettei- to begin 
 another at Inveraray. Innocent, beloved, and 
 amiable, what more can I wish you, that will 
 not risk a share of your happiness ? 
 Adieu, beloved ! 
 
 TO MISS EWING, GLASOOW. 
 
 Blair-in-Athol, Tuesday morn, May 1777. 
 
 My dearest Bell Ewing,— Having written 
 to Jenny this morning about my setting out, I 
 must refer you to that letter for the motives of 
 my journey. I found an honest man, whom I 
 knew very well, from our place, driving an 
 empty carriage north. My Robin is driver in 
 ordinary to the Fort, and as wise and careful as 
 a patriarch. I have passed a most agreeable 
 day of solitary enjoyment. I travelled in silent 
 state, without meeting a creature to interrupt 
 my musings. I did not even read, but amused 
 myself with my knitting, in up-hill roads. I 
 did not speak a sentence till I had some 
 necessary communing with my landladies, 
 except getting the history of the famous battle 
 as I came through the pass of Killicrankie. My 
 Robin was very intelligent and distinct about 
 the antiquities of the road. The singular 
 beauty of the morning when I set out, and the 
 satisfaction of getting my mind free from many 
 doubts and fears that had hung upon me, with 
 the hourly change of charming scenes, raised 
 my late dejected spirts to a sweet serenity. I 
 looked forward with pleasure towards home, 
 the dear centre of all social and rational 
 happiness. The beloved friends I had left 
 behind rose in my mind, not with the pensive 
 parting look they usually wear to my imagi- 
 nation, but all cheerful and benignant, warm 
 with the hopes of that reunion in which I have 
 placed so much of my earthly happiness. The 
 day arose with increased beauty, the scenery 
 was enchanting, and all nature smiled around 
 me. My mind had over- wrought itself before, 
 and overflowed with pleasing reflections ; 
 gratitude to my friends, and gratitude for such 
 friends, inspiring a sublimer aspiration towards 
 the great original source of pure affections and 
 intellectual joys. 
 
 I shall not go into a minute description of 
 places you have heard so much of, but content 
 myself with saying that this day's ride afforded 
 more noble and pleasing objects than ever I 
 met with in the same space of time ; for you 
 must remember that I came southward through 
 Breadalbane, so all this is quite new to me. 
 The rich and variegated country you pass 
 
 through on leaving Perth, forms a fine contrast 
 with that gloomy barrenness, and those frown- 
 ing heights, that mark the entrance to the 
 Highlands, far more savage than the interior, 
 where the green wooded vales, which open 
 towards Dunkeld, relieve the eye, and the ear 
 is soothed with the deep distant sound of 
 streams, that ' wander not unseen ' through j 
 these dark retreats. Dunkeld has a singular 
 air of romantic grandeur, derived from its wild 
 situation, the remains of antiquity round it, 
 and the soothing gloom of its fine woods, which 
 abound in weeping birch, drooj^ing its pensile 
 branches, and sighing to every wind. These 
 are contrasted by large solemn firs, that stand 
 unmoved, in sullen dignity, amidst the fury of 
 contending elements. You will think me very 
 fanciful, investing plants with sentiment, but 
 you may trust me, when I assure you I don't 
 borrow from Harvey. The reverence I have 
 for his character and intentions has made me 
 often try to like his flowery style, but I never 
 could succeed. I hope your efforts too, like 
 mme, being, I am sure, equally sincere, may 
 prove more successful. From Dunkeld you 
 enter a wild, but not dreary country, in which 
 the sun, looking upon Fascally ' with farewell 
 sweets,' called my attention to * vales more soft 
 than Arcady of old.' The sweet winding 
 stream of Argentine brought poor Struan to my 
 recollection, with all his wanderings and 
 hidings. If he were not such a sot, I should 
 not think his life at all so unhappy as other 
 people do. Poets have skill to complain, and, 
 no doubt, feel acutely. But if their own 
 imprudence, and the cruelty of the world, did 
 not drive them into corners sometimes, they 
 would neither muse nor warble, nor taste the 
 sweets of nature, so peculiarly their own. And, 
 in the bustle of the world, they would run all [ 
 the risks other people do, without the common 
 defences of caution and suspicion. Now this 
 furnishes an excellent apology to the rich and | 
 powerful, for permitting the ingenious and 
 highly-gifted children of nature to languish in 
 obscurity ; and accounts for their letting them ' 
 starve in corners, while they themselves choose 
 their associates among those whom delicacy and 
 sensibility shrink from — the dull, the callous, 
 and the servile. I am growing ill-natured, and 
 should have been better employed in telling you 
 what a fine twilight scene this other princely 
 seat of the Athol family forms, at this moment, 
 ojoposite my window, — 
 
 ' But now the fairy valleys fade, 
 
 Dun night has veiled the solemn view ; 
 
 Yet once again, dear parted maid, 
 Meek Nature's child, again adieu 1' 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 TO MISS DUNBAR, BOATH. 
 
 Laggan, May — , 1803, 
 My dear Helen, — Very sick and very busy 
 as I am, I am so charmed with your goodness, 
 iu being so mindful of me under such a pressure, 
 that I lose no time in thanking you, and in 
 congratulating you on the recovery of a mother, 
 a friend, and an exemplary model of every 
 social and domestic virtue. Do me the justice 
 to believe, though urgently advised to take the 
 measure you mention when I was in England, 
 i:)ressed for money in a land of strangers, that 
 I not only rejected the proposal, but the rejec- 
 tion cost me so little effort that I never once 
 thought of telling you I had refused it. I 
 should consider it as a stain to the memory of 
 the most delicate and disinterested of human 
 beings, if I, walking so long in the pure light 
 of his sj^otless mind, should be induced to do 
 anything that could bear the construction of 
 disingenuity to benefit his family. By the 
 divine blessing, there is little danger of their 
 wanting what is necessary, and it is my duty 
 to endeavour to limit their wishes within 
 narrow bounds. I know you now pei-fectly, 
 in the simplicity and very similitude of A. O.'s 
 descrii)tion. Your patience in illness raises 
 you not a little with me. I can't bear the 
 tribe of croakers ; they are indeed 
 
 * Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace,' 
 
 no less a bird of omen than of prey ; for they 
 really prey on my comfort. I do not believe 
 these dismalites feel half what I do ; if they 
 did, they would be glad to seize a respite when 
 they could. I believe you very deserving, yet 
 if these clouds did not intervene, you would 
 have more than your share of those showers of 
 manna allotted to support us in our travels 
 through the wilderness. I do think you gather 
 more than a Homer, when I take brothers, and 
 music, and literature into the account. I have 
 my share too, though I am doomed to eat it, 
 like the paschal lamb, with bitter herbs. I 
 hope there will be no war, and that your 
 brother will take root and flourish in his native 
 soil. What a feast must rural and domestic 
 life be to an uncorrupted mind, after tossing 
 about in a profession where the mode of life is 
 so unnatural. I will give my opinion, such as 
 it will be after a hasty perusal, of the poem 
 you had the goodness to send me ; but you in 
 return must give me yours of Dr. Cowpei^'s 
 Malachi. I did not tell you how very ill I 
 have been of the Cowper-mania. I do not now 
 mean the Doctor, but the delightful author 
 of the Task. Read his letters and his life by 
 Hayley, as I did, and you will find them 
 
 ' Of power to take the captive soul, 
 And lap it in Elysium." 
 
 Your young cousin's 'Poem to Science' Ls a 
 
 wonderful proof of premature abilities. It 
 shows genius under the direction of wisdom, 
 and does equal honour to his judgment and hi.s 
 poetical faculties. No wonder those to whom 
 the culture of so fair a flower has devolved 
 should carefully attend to its unfolding. liut 
 if it were mine, I would not have it reared iu 
 England. Who will care for Scotland, after 
 being bred in so fine a country ? I would have 
 a son of the Muses be a patriot and a true-blue 
 Scot. John Bull is not so much alive, either 
 to the tender or ludicrous, as we are. And 
 why? he has too much ease, and too many 
 conveniences, which he cultivates to a degree 
 injurious to social life and social love, and 
 which will produce the same effect on us 
 whenever we attain, them. It is partly to this 
 apathy that irreligion, the source so fruitful 
 of every evil, is owing. AYe struggle by the 
 light that kindles darkness into day, through 
 hunger, poverty, and hardship ; our blest 
 enthusiasm lights up the dreariest prospects 
 with rays that stream from heaven. Earth- 
 born views are so bounded, that the soul 
 soon sickens with the reiteration of unvaried 
 comforts, and languishes amidst all its enjoy- 
 ments. There are, doubtless, ver-y many pious 
 people in England among the more enlightened 
 middle classes, but our 'virtuous jjopulace' is 
 our peculiar and invaluable blessing, I am 
 now speaking of devotion merely as an earthly 
 comfort. Did I tell you I read Campbell's 
 Pleasures of Hope at the Wells, and was 
 charmed and elevated beyond measure? Our 
 final day is the 11th June. Did I tell you of 
 the Marqixis's visit? AVas it not very con- 
 siderate and good ? Farewell. I am tired out 
 of measure, and will not bestow another word 
 on you or him, as well as I like you both. 
 Good-night. 
 
 [Sir Stamford Rafiles has been compared with 
 Bishop Heber; not, indeed, in brilliancy 
 of classical acquirement, for Raffles was of 
 lowly parentage ; nor in beauty and fresh- 
 ness of fancy, for Raffles had no poetic 
 feelings, except those which are common to 
 every amiable and cultivated mind : the 
 resemblance is to be traced in the moral, 
 not in the intellectual features ; in love of 
 home ; in fidelity of friendship ; in purity 
 of life and conversation. In all the love- 
 liest graces that adorn and sanctify the 
 human character, we discover a relationship 
 between the Christian statesman and the 
 Christian prelate ; and we may turn from 
 the Journal of Heber to the Correspondence 
 of Raffles, without interrupting the serenity 
 
5c6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of mind v/liicli that beautiful work always 
 produces. Among the precious collections 
 — the fruit of so many years of diligent 
 labour and inquiry — which were lost in the 
 homeward passage by the burning of the 
 vessel, were copious memoirs for a histoiy 
 of the island of Sumatra. — Willmott.'\ 
 
 EAFFLES TO SOMERSET. 
 
 Off Sumatra, Feb. 12, 1820. 
 
 You will perhaps have condemned me for 
 so long a silence, yet, when you know the 
 cause, I am satisfied you will cease to think 
 unkindly. I have been ill, very ill, so much so 
 that for the last month of my stay in Calcutta 
 I was confined to my bed, and forbidden to 
 write or even to think. I was removed from 
 my room to the ship with very little strength, 
 but I am hapj)y to say that I am already nearly 
 recovered ; the sight of Sumatra, and the 
 health-inspiring breezes of the Malayan Islands, 
 have efi'ccted a wonderful change ; and though 
 I still feel weak, and am as thin as a scarecrow, 
 I may fairly say that I am in good health and 
 spirits. I am beginning to turn my thoughts 
 homeward, and shall ask your advice on a 
 thousand i^ursuits. 
 
 I have just left Tappanoolj'-, situated in the 
 very heart of the Batta country, abounding in 
 camphor and benjamin, and full of interest for 
 the naturalist and the ijhilosopher. If you have 
 occasionally looked into Mr. Marsden's History 
 of Sumatra, you will recollect that the Battas 
 are cannibals. 
 
 Now do not be surprised at what I shall tell 
 you regarding them, for I tell the truth and 
 nothing but the truth. To prepare you a little, 
 I must premise that the Battas are an extensive 
 and populous nation of Sumatra, occupying the 
 whole of that part of the island lying between 
 Acheen and Menangkabu, reaching to both the 
 shores. The coast is but thinly inhabited, but 
 in the interior the people are said to be 'as 
 thick as the leaves of the forest ; ' perhaps the 
 whole nation may amount to between one and 
 two millions of souls. They have a regular 
 government, deliberate assemblies, and are 
 great orators ; nearly the whole of them write, 
 and they possess a language and written cha- 
 racter peculiar to themselves. In their language 
 and terms, as well as in some of their laws and 
 usages, the influence of Hinduism may be 
 traced ; but they have also a religion peculiar 
 to themselves ; they acknowledge the one and 
 only great God, under the title of Dibata Assi 
 Assi, and they have a trinity of great gods, 
 supposed to have been created by Him. They 
 are warlike, extremely fair, and honourable in 
 all their dealings, and most deliberate in all 
 their proceedings ; their country is highly 
 cultivated, and crimes arc few. The evidence 
 
 adduced by Mr. Marsden must have removed all 
 doubt from every unprejudiced mind, that, 
 notwithstanding all this in their favour, the 
 Battas are strictly cannibals ; but he has not 
 gone half far enough. He seems to consider 
 that it is only in cases of prisoners taken in war, 
 or in extreme cases of adultery, that the practice 
 of man-eating is resorted to, and then that it 
 is only in a fit of revenge. He tells us that, not 
 satisfied with cutting off pieces and eating them 
 raw, instances have been known where some 
 of the people have run up to the victim, and 
 actually torn the flesh from the bones with 
 their teeth. He also tells us, that one of our 
 residents found the remains of an English 
 soldier, who had been only half-eaten, and 
 afterwards discovered his finger sticking on a 
 fork, laid by, but first taken warm from the 
 fire; but I had rather refer your grace to the 
 book ; and if you have not got it, pray send for 
 it, and read all that is said about the Battas. 
 
 In a small pamiihlet, lately addressed to the 
 Court of Directors, respecting the coast, an 
 instance still more horrible than anything 
 related by Mr. Marsden is introduced ; and as 
 this pamphlet was written by a high authority, 
 and the fact is not disputed, there can be no 
 question as to its correctness ; it is nearly as 
 follows :— A few years ago, a man had been 
 found guilty of a very common crime, and was 
 sentenced to be eaten according to the law of 
 the land ; this took place close to Tappanooly ; 
 the Resident was invited to attend ; he declined, 
 but his assistant and a native officer were 
 present. As soon as they reached the spot, 
 they found a large assemblage of people, and 
 the criminal tied to a tree, with his hands 
 extended. The minister of justice, who was 
 himself a chief of some rank, then came forward 
 with a large knife in his hand, which he bran- 
 dished as he approached the victim. He was 
 followed by a man carrying a dish, in which was 
 a preparation, or condiment, composed of limes, 
 chillies, and salt, called by the Malays sanibuL 
 He then called aloud for the injured husband, 
 and demanded what part he chose ; he replied, 
 the right ear, which was immediately cut off 
 with one stroke, and delivered to the party, 
 who, turning round to the man behind, delibe- 
 rately dipped it into the samhul, and devoured 
 it ; the rest of the party then fell upon the 
 body, each taking and eating the part most 
 to his liking. After they had cut off a con- 
 siderable part of the flesh, one man stabbed 
 him to the heart ; but this was rather out of 
 comi)liment to the foreign visitors, as it is by 
 no means the custom to give the couj) de grace. 
 
 It was with a knowledge of all these facts 
 regarding the Battas that I paid a visit to 
 Tappanooly, with a determination to satisfy my 
 mind most fully on everything concerning can- 
 nibalism. I had previously set on foot extensive 
 inquiries, and so managed matters as to con- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 centrate the information, and to bring the 
 point within a narrow compass. You shall now 
 hear the result; but before I proceed, I must 
 beg of you to have a little more patience than 
 you had with jMr. Mariner. I recollect that, 
 when you came to the story of eating the au^nt, 
 you threw the book down. Now I can assure 
 your grace that I have ten times more to 
 report, and you must believe me. I have said 
 the Battas are not a bad people, and I still 
 think so, notwithstanding they eat one another, 
 and relish the flesh of a man better than that 
 of an ox or a pig. You must merely consider 
 that I am giving you an account of a novel 
 state of society. The Battas are not savages, 
 for they read and write, and think full as much, 
 and more, than those who are brought up at our 
 Lancasterian and National Schools. They have 
 also codes of laws of great antiquity ; and it is 
 from a regard for these laws and a veneration 
 for the institutions of their ancestors, that they 
 eat each other. The law declares that, for 
 certain crimes, four in number, the criminals 
 shall be eaten alive. The same law declares, 
 also, that in great wars, that is to say, one 
 district Avith another, it shall be lawful to eat 
 the prisoners, whether taken alive, dead, or in 
 their graves. In the four great cases of 
 crimes, the criminal is also duly tried and 
 condemned by a competent tribunal. When 
 the evidence is heard, sentence is pronounced, 
 when the chiefs drink a dram each, which last 
 ceremony is equivalent to signing and sealing 
 with us. Two or three days then elapse, to 
 give time for assembling the people; and in 
 cases of adultery it is not allowed to carry the 
 sentence into effect unless the relations of the 
 wife appear and partake of the feast. The 
 prisoner is then brought forward on the day 
 appointed, and fixed to a stake, with his hands 
 extended. The husband, or party injured, 
 comes up, and takes the first choice, generally 
 the ears. The rest then, according to their 
 rank, take the choice pieces, each helping him- 
 self according to his liking. After all have 
 partaken, the chief person goes up and cuts off 
 the head, which he carries home as a trophy. 
 The head is hung up in front of the house, and 
 the brains are carefully preserved in a bottle, 
 for the purposes of witchcraft, etc. In devour- 
 ing the flesh, it is sometimes eaten raw, and 
 sometimes grilled; but it must be eaten upon 
 the spot. Limes, salt, and pepper are always 
 in readiness, and they sometimes eat rice with 
 the flesh ; but they never drink toddy or spirits, 
 ]\Iany carry bamboos with thera, and, filling 
 them with blood, drink it off. The assembly 
 consists of men alone, as the flesh of man is 
 prohibited to the females ; it is said, however, 
 that they get a bit by stealth now and then. 
 I am assured, and really do believe, that many 
 of the people do prefer human flesh to any 
 other ; but notwithstanding this 'penchant, 
 
 507 
 
 they never indulge the appetite except on law- 
 ful occasions. The palms of the hands, and the 
 soles of the feet, are the delicacies of epicures ! 
 
 On expressing my surprise at the continuance 
 of such extraordinary practices, I was informcfl, 
 that formerly it was usual for people to eat 
 their parents when too old for v/ork. The old 
 l^eople selected the horizontal branch of a tree, 
 and quietly suspended themselves by their 
 hands, while their children and neighbours, 
 forming a circle, danced round them, cryinj; 
 out, ' AYhen the fruit is ripe, then it will fall. ' 
 This practice took place during the season of 
 limes, when salt and pepper were plenty, and 
 as soon as the victims became fatigued, and 
 could hold on no longer, they fell down, when i 
 all hands cut them up, and made a hearty mcrJ 
 of them. The jiractice, however, of eating the 
 old people has been abandoned, and thus a, 
 stej) in civilisation has been attained, and, 
 therefore, there are hopes of future improve 
 ment. This state of society you will admit 
 to be very peculiar, and it is calculated that 
 certainly not less than from sixty to one hundred 
 Battas are thus eaten in a year in times of 
 peace. I was going on to tell your grace much 
 about the treatment of the females and children, 
 but I find that I have already filled several 
 sheets, and that I am called away from the 
 cabin ; I will therefore conclude with entreat- 
 ing you not to think the worse of me for this 
 horrible relation. You know that I am far 
 from wishing to paint any of the Malay race 
 in the worst colours, but yet I must tell the 
 truth. Notwithstanding the practices I have 
 related, it is my determination to take Lady 
 Raffles into the interior, and to spend a month 
 or two in the midst of these Battas. Should 
 any accident occur to us, or should we never be 
 heard of more, you may conclude we have been 
 eaten. 
 
 I am half afraid to send this scrawl, and j'et 
 it may amuse you : if it does not, throw it into 
 the fire ; and still believe that, though half a 
 cannibal, and living among cannibals, I am not 
 less warm in heart and soul. In the deepest 
 recesses of the forest, and among the most 
 savage of all tribes, my heart still clings to 
 those far off, and I do believe, were I present 
 at a Batta feast, I should be thinking of kind 
 friends at Maiden Bradly. "What an association ! 
 God forgive me and bless you all. 
 
 I am forming a collection of skulls ; some 
 from bodies that have been eaten. Will your 
 grace allow them room among your curiosities ? 
 
5o8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 [In a review in the Quarterly of Babbage's 
 work, Reflections on the Decline of Science 
 in England, and on some of its Causes, Dr. 
 Brewster (afterwards Sir David) proposed 
 to remedy this by an ' Association of our 
 nobility, clergy, gentry, and i)hilosophers,' 
 which would serve to draw the attention 
 of the sovereign to this want in the public 
 life of the time. In the course of a few 
 months, Brewster's ])lan of a ' British 
 Association for the Advancement of 
 Science ' was matured, and the first meet- 
 ing was held at York, September 1831. 
 It lasted for a week, and proved a decided 
 success. "We quote Brewster's letter, de- 
 scriptive of the first meeting, from the 
 Home Life of Sir David Breu^ster, by his 
 daughtei-, M. M. Gordon, author of San- 
 beams in the Cottage, etc.] 
 
 DR. BREWSTER TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 Bishopthorpe, Sep)t. 30, 1831. 
 
 I SIT down at one o'clock in the morning to 
 write you a legible letter, which I fear the one 
 I wrote you yesterday covild scarcely be called. 
 I came here to-day to dinner, and was most 
 kindly received by the Archbishop, who made 
 me feel at once that I was at home. He and 
 the whole of the party here returned to York 
 to hear Mr. Scoresby's lecture on his new 
 magnetical discoveries. The assemblage of 
 beauty, fashion, and philosophy was really 
 splendid, and after eleven o'clock we returned 
 to the palace. To-morrow we again go to 
 York after breakfast, and after spending the 
 whole day in the arrangement for a ' General 
 British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science,^ and in hearing many scientific paj)ers, 
 we return to dinner as we have done to-day. 
 
 The success of the meeting has infinitely 
 surpassed all our most sanguine expectations. 
 No fewer than 325 members have enrolled 
 their names, and a zeal for science has been 
 excited which will not soon subside. The next 
 meeting is to be held at Oxford, in June, at 
 the time of the commemoration, and in the 
 Badcliffe Library or the Theatre. . . . The 
 Archbishop, after reading a letter from the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, remarked to me 
 that it was not yet known how the lords were 
 to act.i He added that the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury had not made up his own mind, 
 and that he held his proxy, so that it is clear 
 that tlie archbishops have not decided against 
 it. Lord Morpeth's letter stated that several 
 of the lords were not to vote at all, and it 
 seemed to be the opinion that the Reform Bill 
 
 would be carried by the neutrality of those 
 who might be expected to oppose it. What a 
 charming and princely spot this is, as much 
 from its ancient and splendid apartments as 
 from the richness and variety of the grounds ! 
 The Archbishop has invited fifty or sixty of the 
 philosophers to dine here to-morrow, among 
 whom are Sir T. Brisbane, Thos. Allan, and 
 the rest of our Scotch party. . . . Mr. Vernon 
 Harcourt, the soul of our meeting, and one of 
 the most amiable and learned of men, is the 
 eldest son of the Ai-chbishop. 
 
 [Charles Maclaren, an accomplished journalist 
 and writer on scientific subjects, was the 
 first editor of the Scotsman newspaper, 
 and a contributor to the EncyclopcBdia 
 Britannica. Sagacious and well-informed, 
 the Scotsman from its start in 1817 became 
 under his hand a political power and 
 influence. Not only did he forecast the 
 growing greatness of the American nation, 
 but he gave a forecast, in a series of articles 
 in 1824, of the triumphs of our present 
 railway system. In the intervals of a busy 
 life he also wrote upon astronomical and 
 geological subjects,] 
 
 CHARLES MACLAREN TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OP 
 WELLINGTON.! 
 
 May IT PLEASE YOUR Grace,— Napoleon, 
 
 conversing one day with Colonel at 
 
 Fontainebleau, after his deposition in 1814, said, 
 ' It is not the armies that have dethroned me, 
 nor the combined sovereigns, nor the extraor- 
 dinary efforts of England ; hut the progress of 
 liberal ideas, which if I had regarded four or 
 five years i)ast, I should have confirmed my 
 power for ever.' Such was the confession of a 
 man of stupendous talent, who played the game 
 of sovereign power with advantages which no 
 other individual ever possessed. He had a 
 government excellently organized, vast armies 
 admirably appointed ; a people obedient, if not 
 zealously attached to him ; he made and unmade 
 kings, and wielded a power which seemed to 
 be established on a rock. Yet he fell — fell 
 suddenly and irretrievably ; and he has himself 
 recorded the cause of his overthrow. His 
 power crumbled to dust, because he disregarded 
 the progress of liberal ideas. He did not attend 
 to the silent march of opinion, to the love of 
 knowledge and freedom, the hatred of tyranny, 
 the contempt for old prejudices and abuses, 
 which were gradually establishing themselves 
 iu the hearts of mankind. He lived to see his 
 
 1 This was the time of the first Reform LiU. 
 
 1 From the Scotsman of October 16, ISoO. 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 509 
 
 eiTor and to lament it ; and it is this which has 
 imjiressed his life with the character of a great 
 moral drama for the instruction of princes and 
 ministers, and the consolation of mankind. 
 
 The Bourbons were restored, but the example 
 was lost on that stupid, priest-ridden race. 
 Their gi-and aim was to bring back superstition 
 and arbitrary power ; to restore absurdities 
 which were held in contempt, and institutions 
 which the people had outgrown. Their rise 
 and fall were accomplished, like Napoleon's, 
 exactly in a period of fifteen years. They were 
 driven with disgrace from a throne which they 
 might have filled for ages ; and the cause of 
 their expulsion is written in characters of flame, 
 which the whole world may read. They fell 
 because they disrec/arded the progress of liberal 
 ideas. 
 
 At this moment, "William Frederick, an en- 
 lightened and estimable man, has lost three- 
 fifths of his dominions, because, though liberal 
 in his intentions, he did not adapt his govern- 
 ment to the state of opinion. He relied on 
 institutions which had lost the respect of the 
 people, and on an army which was not, as he 
 imagined, inaccessible to popular sympathy. 
 He, too, has been undone, because he disre- 
 garded the progress of liberal ideas ! 
 
 It is incontestable that the thrones of 
 Ferdinand and Miguel are at this moment 
 resting on a volcano. No man who can read 
 the signs of the times entertains a doubt that 
 within a short period, probably a few months, 
 both will be blown in the air, and present in 
 their wrecks another monument of the force of 
 that opinion which these two princes have so 
 long outraged. The seeds of revolution are 
 almost equally abundant in Italy j they are 
 fast ripening into a formidable strength in 
 Germany ; and they have taken root even in 
 benighted Russia. We now live, in short, in 
 the midst of an epoch of revolutions, of which 
 the great law is, that public ox>inion must be 
 satisfied. It requires from princes, aristocracies, 
 and privileged bodies, the surrender of irre- 
 sponsible power, in all its forms, under the 
 penalty of losing it by force if it is not conceded 
 •vvdth good will. The moral agent which over- 
 threw Napoleon is making the tour of Europe, 
 and levelling the thrones of those who have 
 been deaf to the warnings which his fate held 
 out. 
 
 Your grace now stands on the pinnacle of 
 earthly greatness. In warlike renown you are 
 without a rival among living men ; and the 
 world gives you credit for a clear and vigorous 
 understanding, which may greatly benefit your 
 country in its civil concerns. Permit me to 
 hope that you have studied Napoleon's eventfwl 
 history, and applied the moral which it affords ; 
 and that as a minister you are capable of rising 
 above those purblind slaves of routine who are 
 leading the Continental sovereigns to destruc- 
 
 tion. England needs a man at this moment at 
 the head of her councils who can look beneatli tho 
 surface, and see future events in their causes. 
 An ordinary minister, wedded to old systems 
 and opinions, would bring ruin upon us. Two 
 courses are open to you. You may choose the 
 beaten track, and by binding yourself to bad 
 institutions and old corruptions, earn the hatred 
 of your country, like Lord Castlcreagh, tarnish 
 the renown you have gained, and end, like 
 Napoleon, by falling a sacrifice to the tide of 
 liberal opinion which you have striven to arrest. 
 But a better and more magnanimous course is 
 open to you. Taking warning from the fate of 
 Napoleon, and instructed by the great events 
 now passing on the Continent, in which a wise 
 British minister would see *the hand-writing 
 on the wall,' you may become the guide and 
 leader of that spirit of political reform, whose 
 march, certain and irresistible, will sooner or 
 later overwhelm and crush all those who oppose 
 it. Like Napoleon, you have gained your 
 greatness by military achievements ; like him, 
 you may lose it by disregarding those moral 
 elements of power which sapped the foundations 
 of his empire ; and remember that, if you do, 
 your folly and guilt will be much greater than 
 his, because, in the present state of the world, 
 facts and events ought to speak a much more 
 intelligible language to you than they did to 
 him. 
 
 It is very well for fools and sycophants, and 
 traders in falsehood, to congratulate Britain on 
 her exemption from those cavses of trouble and 
 confusion which are convulsing all the Con- 
 tinental states. I say that Britain has her 
 share of the grievances and abuses which 
 generate discontent, and that without removing 
 these she cannot escape the evils which have 
 overtaken her neighbours. It is my solemn 
 belief that convulsion impends over this country, 
 if reasonable concessions are not made to 
 popular feeling. For my own jDart, knowing as 
 I do that the interests of mankind are best 
 promoted by gradual ameliorations, I deprecate 
 convulsions ; but I cannot shut my eyes to 
 obvious facts. I do not say that they will come 
 very soon, and, thanks to the schoolmaster, 
 they may not be so calamitous as some which 
 have been witnessed in other countries ; but 
 that they will arrive, unless averted by the 
 prudence of the Government, seems to me as 
 certain as that the sun rises and sets ; and in 
 the present state of Europe and of this country, . 
 I cannot but consider their advent as hastened 
 by every vote against a moderate and reasonable 
 reform. 
 
 I ask your grace to reflect on the usual 
 causes of public convulsions. You will find 
 they resolve themselves into two, — a government 
 out of harmony with public opinion, either in 
 its structure or its acts ; and the pressure of 
 actual suffering rendering multitudes desperate. 
 
510 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 I have too high an opinion of your grace's 
 understanding to enter into any argument to 
 show whether the crowd of English rotten 
 burghs, the miserable hovels which return 
 members while great towns are unrepresented, 
 the paper voters in Scotland, the distinction 
 between copyholders and freeholders in England, 
 and between freemen and unfreemen in burghs, 
 — all those contrivances by which the repre- 
 sentation has been rendered a profitable mono- 
 poly in the hands of a few, — are or are not in 
 harmony with enlightened opinions. All the 
 first names in the political annals of England 
 are ranged against these abuses, — Saville, 
 Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grattan, have 
 condemned them, — every liberal mind, not 
 fettered by interest or cowardice, abhors them 
 as ' the perennial spring,' to use Burke's Avords, 
 *of all prodigality, of all disorder, and which 
 loads us with more than millions of debt.' 
 This feeling never can be eradicated from the 
 minds of thinking men. It must grow as 
 knowledge advances and principle is better 
 understood ; and the discontent which it gene- 
 rates must gather strength with it. Your grace 
 must well remember the trou.bles of 1796, of 
 1800, of 1811, of 1817, of 1819, and of 1822. 
 Best assured that the conviction, the political 
 truth, which produced these troubles, still lurks 
 in the minds of the great mass of the population, 
 and may easily be awakened into life and vigour 
 by events or external excitement. Is it wise to 
 keep this mass of discontent continually fester- 
 ing within the vitals of the State, even though 
 nothing were likely to occur to render it 
 dangerously active ? But your grace sees that 
 external excitement is certain to arrive at one 
 season or another, and you are aware that the 
 stimulus of distress can never be expected to be 
 long absent. 
 
 The great im.xiediment to reform here has 
 been the timidity and selfishness of the middle 
 classes ; and the first French Revolution was 
 the bugbear by which they were induced to 
 stifle their convictions, and lend their strength 
 to prop a system they inwardly condemned. 
 Thanks to the noble-minded j)eople of Paris, 
 this delusion is now at an end. An uncontrolled 
 populace, inflamed by three days' fighting, has 
 exhibited a degree of moderation and forbear- 
 ance which ought to redden with shame the 
 faces of the Manchester Yeomanry, and of the 
 men who, acting with all the regular machinery 
 of Government behind them, sanctioned so 
 many acts of cruelty in Ireland in 1798. No 
 rational person will now believe that revolution 
 among an educated and intelligent people is 
 synonymous with massacre and pillage, or that 
 society is to be tumbled from its base by an 
 extension of suffrage, when even the lowest 
 classes give such proofs of a capacity to act a 
 dignified, rational, and virtuous part. The 
 words Jacobinism, Democracy, Revolution, 
 
 have lost their terrors, and must soon cease to 
 mislead men of sense. 
 
 But the events of the ' Great Week ' in Paris, 
 and the more recent events in Belgium, have 
 not only disarmed revolution of its terrors, — 
 they have taught the people the secret of their 
 strength. They have shown with what mar- 
 vellous ease a government may be overturned 
 when it is undermined in men's opinions and 
 affections ; and how little reliance can be placi'd 
 upon the soldiery when the people from whom 
 it is raised are cordially united among them- 
 selves. They have made it manifest that a 
 united people may find a fortress in every open 
 town, and are more powerful than numerous 
 armies. AYe are not stating this to encourage 
 a revolutionary feeling here ; we are merely 
 giving utterance to thoughts which must be 
 passing in the minds of thousands, and which 
 it behoves every wise government to be 
 acquainted with. 
 
 There is yet another lesson which the events 
 in France teach — that it requires no extraor- 
 dinary wisdom, prudence, or skill, to render a 
 revolution as advantageous in its consequences 
 as in some circumstances it is easy in its 
 accomplishment. By the expulsion of the 
 Bourbons, France has entered into the posses- 
 sion of unnumbered benefits. In the mere fact 
 of having arms put into the hands of the whole 
 people, the best of all guarantees is given for 
 the pure and faithful administration of the 
 government. France will now have a legislature 
 dependent on the people, but independent of 
 all other parties, and this single condition com- 
 prises almost every excellence. Her legislature 
 must, from its constitution and i^osition, en- 
 force economy, not in words, but in deeds, and 
 cut down monopolies and abuses, whether of 
 yesterday or as ancient as the Crusades ; it will 
 further the development of public oj)imon, 
 instead of making laws to coerce the people 
 into silence ; and it will labour to bring up all 
 institutions to the level of the age, instead of 
 protecting old absurdities through a blind 
 dread of innovation. France will now have the 
 inestimable blessing of a national system of 
 education, open to all sects, because not 
 prostituted to the purposes of any one. She 
 will have a pure and liberal system of municipal 
 and communal government, very different from 
 rotten town councils and close corporations. 
 This system, backed by the confidence, wealth, 
 and energy of the whole population, will 
 create and nourish that vivifying spirit of 
 improvement which has worked such wonders 
 in the United States. I admit that much of 
 this good is only in j)rospect ; but no rational 
 doubt can be entertained that it will be 
 realized, if external wars do not occur to 
 prevent it. 
 
 France must, from the nature of things, now 
 enjoy a popular government — a government 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 which must be the ' exjiress inuige of the 
 feelings of the people,' and the organ of their 
 wants and interests. ^Yhat this is, and what 
 its consequences are, is no longer a matter of 
 speculation. "We see it in North America. It 
 is a government without one sinecure, without 
 one rotten bui'gh, without one job, without 
 those remnants of feudal tyranny and manu- 
 factories of crime known by the name of game 
 laws ; it is a government under which corn 
 is cheap, wages high, and taxes light; a 
 government which does not draw money from 
 the pockets of the industrious to feed and 
 fatten the idle ; under which education is 
 patronized by the State, and knowledge is 
 untaxed, where a newspaper costs three-half- 
 pence, and law is within reach of the poor as 
 well as the rich. 
 
 Unless the Englishman's na,ture is entirely 
 changed, it is morally impossible that the 
 spectacle now exhibited in France should not 
 awaken a spirit of reform in this country. 
 It must make us feel our grievances doubly 
 grievousj and create an impatience under 
 those political evils which no man has the front 
 to defend. An Englishman will never admit 
 that he is unfit to enjoy rights which work well 
 in the hands of a Frenchman. He will not live 
 quietly under abuses which the less enlightened 
 people of the Continent are spurning from 
 them. Pride will come to the succour of 
 conviction ; the example of his neighbours will 
 shame him out of his apathy. Reason, argu- 
 ment, remonstrance, are the only weapons he 
 ought to use, and the only ones we shall ever 
 recommend to him ; but when an Englishman 
 has been long unjustly dealt with, and his 
 indignation is roused, who will answer for his 
 prudence ? 
 
 Thank Heaven, we need no revolution — no 
 change effected by violence — in this country. 
 The moment the middle and the lower classes 
 unite their voices in favour of reform, it will 
 be carried. That they will do this by and by 
 is almost certain ; but the greatest source of 
 danger is, that the latter may move without 
 the former, or may call for changes which the 
 former would not concur in. Though friendly 
 to a very extensive reform, I would strongly 
 recommend moderation in the first demands ; 
 because this is the only means of bringing 
 about that union of all parties without which 
 success must be very problematical. We should 
 remember, too, that moderate reform, as it 
 alarms nobody, and respects all existing inter- 
 ests, has a principle of growth and durability 
 within it. 
 
 But what I am most anxious for is, that your 
 grace should take the lead in this good work. 
 Early reforms, it has been said, are concessions 
 to a friend ; late ones are capitulations with a 
 victorious enemy. By imtting yourself at the 
 head of what is really the spirit of the age, you 
 
 are at once serving your country and doing 
 honour to yourself. You are acting the part 
 of an enlightened statesman by averting future 
 convulsions, and earning a title to immortality 
 which vidll outshine the fame of all your victories. 
 Do but make a beginning— only show the people 
 that there is an honest disposition in the Govern- 
 ment to rectify abuses, and they will be satisfied, 
 and leave the task entirely in your grace's hands. 
 Let reform be as small as you please in the first 
 instance, but let it be progressive. This is the 
 only wise course for a British minister at the 
 present day. 'To follow, not to force the 
 jiublic inclination ; to give a direction, a form, 
 a technical dress, and a specific sanction to the 
 general sense of the community, is the true end 
 of legislation' (Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs 
 of Bristol). — I am, your grace's very humble 
 servant, The Editor. 
 
 JANE TAYLOR (1783-1824) TO MR. J. C. 
 
 3Iarazion, September 23, 1814. 
 
 . . . Now that you are so much a man of 
 business I should really scruple to intrude upon 
 you with four pages of thoughts and reflections, 
 if I were not persuaded that there are frequent 
 moments when, in all respects essential to true 
 friendship and friendly intercourse, you are 
 what you were in times that are past. And as 
 I feel it to be pleasant and refreshing to sit 
 down and converse with you as we were Avont, 
 so I have no doubt you will still peruse the 
 somethings or nothings that may escape from 
 my pen with a kindred feeling. Months have 
 passed since I wrote to you ; and in the interval 
 I have travelled a hundred miles farther west, 
 and seen many new j^laces and faces ; but this 
 I can say (and I hope you will think it worth 
 sending three hundred miles to tell you), that 
 associating with strangers, so far from alienating 
 my thoughts and affections from those I have 
 long known and valued, attaches me still more 
 to them, I am surrounded with those who 
 know that I am — Miss Taylor; but know not 
 that I am — ' Jane ; ' and it sometimes makes me 
 sigh for a renewal of intercourse with those who, 
 for that simple reason, have yielded me an 
 unmerited share of their regard. The many 
 follies, infirmities, and deficiencies, which are 
 intimately known to them, may, it is true, be 
 partially and for a time concealed from strangers; 
 but yet I would rather be with those who, 
 * with all my faults, have loved me still.' 
 
 It is not from intention, but accident, that I 
 am writing to you on this ♦iay of the month. 
 You remember, I daresay, the advanced stage 
 at which I am arrived ; at five-and-twenty I 
 regretted the departure of youth, but now I 
 am quite reconciled to being as old as I am. In 
 looking back upon the jjast, nothing strikes me 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 512 
 
 so forcibly, for future benefit, as the different 
 sensations occasioned by a review of its mh- 
 fortunes and its faults. Upon seasons of care, 
 anxiety, and distress, of which (though they 
 have been comparatively few and light) I can 
 remember some, I can reflect without a feeling 
 of regret or uneasiness, — indeed there is a kind 
 of satisfaction and complacency in looking back 
 upon scenes of suffering; while the mistakes, 
 follies, and sins that have marked my life are 
 sources of present and perpetual uneasiness. Of 
 this, past experience and present feeling tend 
 increasingly to convince me, that, whatever 
 afflictions may be appointed for me in future, if, 
 in the course of the next ten or twenty years 
 (should I see so many), I shall attain more 
 holiness, I shall also enjoy more happiness than 
 1 in the years that are past. To do quietly the 
 j duties of to-day, without ambition and without 
 I anxiety, is to ensure comfort, — and comfort is 
 ! a word that suits better the present state than 
 I happiness, — and, in truth, it is all that would be 
 desired by us if our thoughts were familiar with 
 death and eternity, if we habitually remem- 
 i bered that the time is short, that all we are 
 i most interested about is passing away, and that 
 the flower we best love fadeth. 
 
 [About the middle of 1805, after an academic 
 career of almost unexampled brilliancy and 
 success, Heber left England, accompanied 
 by his early and attached friend, Mr. John 
 Thornton, on a tour through the northern 
 countries of Europe. During his travels, 
 he visited Eussia, Norway, Sweden, the 
 Crimea, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, and 
 Germany. Some of the most interesting 
 notes in Dr. Clarke's volumes were con- 
 tributed by Heber. He possessed, in an 
 eminent degree, many of the qualities of a 
 successful traveller. To the painter's eye 
 he united the poet's heart; and described 
 what he saw and what he felt with delight- 
 ful ease, vivacity, and elegance. Tender, 
 without the affectation of sentiment, and 
 learned, without the profusion of pedantry, 
 he is one of the most agreeable and instruc- 
 tive of tourists. The reader only regrets 
 that he has not written more. — Willmott.l 
 
 BISHOP HEBER TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 Moscow f Jan. 4, 1806. 
 My dear Mother,— Our journey has been 
 prosperous, and, after about ninety hours' con- 
 tinued jolting, we arrived safely at Moscow 
 about eight o'clock last night. Mr. Bayley 
 
 came with us, and we have found his knowledge 
 of the Russian language and manners of great 
 service to us on the road. Our method of 
 travelling deserves describing, both as being 
 comfortable in itself, and as being entirely 
 different too from anything in England. AVe 
 performed the journey in kibitkas, the carriages 
 usually employed by the Russians in their 
 winter journeys : they are nothing more than a 
 very large cradle, well covered with leather, 
 and placed on a sledge, with a leathern curtain 
 in front ; the luggage is packed at the bottom, 
 the portmanteaus serving for an occasional seat, 
 and the whole covered with a mattress, on 
 which one or more persons can lie at full length, 
 or sit, supported by pillows. In this attitude, 
 and well wrapped up in furs, one can scarcely 
 conceive a more luxurious mode of getting over 
 a country, when the roads are good, and the 
 weather not intense ; but in twenty-four or • 
 twenty-five degrees of frost, Reaumur, no 
 wrapping can keep you quite warm ; and in 
 bad roads, of which we have had some little 
 experience, the jolting is only equalled by the 
 motion of a ship in a storm. 
 
 In the weather we were very fortunate, 
 having a fine clear frost, about as mild as an 
 English Christmas. Our first forty hours were 
 spent in traversing an unfertile and unlovely 
 country, the most flat and uninteresting I ever 
 saw, with nothing but occasional patches of 
 cultivation, and formal fir woods, without a 
 single feature of art or nature which could j 
 attract attention. Once, indeed, from a little | 
 elevation, we saw the sun set to great advan- 
 tage ; it was singular to see it slowly sinking 
 beneath the black and perfectly level horizon 
 of the sea of land which surrounded us. The 
 night which followed was distinguished by 
 more jolting than usual ; and about sunrise, 
 Thornton drew the curtain, and cried out, 
 ' England ! ' I started up, and found we were 
 on the summit of a low range of stony hills, 
 with an enclosed and populous country before 
 us, and a large town, Valdai, which, with its 
 neighbourhood, had some little resemblance to 
 Oxford as seen from the Banbury road. This is, 
 in fact, the boundary of Ancient Russia ; all 
 beyond are the territories of Novogorod, Istria, 
 and other countries they have conquered. The 
 whole plain from Valdai to Moscow is very 
 level, entirely arable, generally common fields, 
 with some shabby enclosures, thickly set witli 
 villages and small coppices, in which the firs 
 begin to be relieved by birch, lime, ash, and 
 elm. Tver and Torshok are large towns, but 
 have nothing in them to detain a traveller. 
 During this journey, I was struck by observing 
 the very little dei^th of snow on the ground, 
 which was not more, nor so much, as we often 
 see in England, and nowhere prevented my 
 distinguishing the meadows from the stubble- 
 fields. :RIr. Bayley said he had often made the 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 same observation, and that it was not peculiar 
 to the present year. "We had our guns with us ; 
 and often left the Mhitka in pursuit of the 
 large black grouse, of which we saw several, — a 
 noble bird, as large as a turkey. They were, 
 however, so wild we could not get a fair shot. 
 "We had some hopes of killing a wolf, as one or 
 two ijassed the road duiing the first part of our 
 journey; but it was dviring the night, and 
 before we were fairly roused and could get our 
 guns ready, they were safe in the wood. In 
 severe winters" they are sometimes easily shot, 
 as they keep close to the road-side, and, when 
 very much famished, will even attack the horses 
 in a carriage : they are not considered danger- 
 ous to men, except in self-defence. Of the 
 people, we, of course, saw but little ; though 
 having so good an interpreter with us, we asked 
 many questions, and went into several of the 
 cottages, which we found much cleaner than we 
 expected, but so hot that we could not endure 
 to remain in them long. A Eussian cottage is 
 always built of logs, cemented with clay and 
 moss, and is generally larger than an English 
 one ; it has two storeys, one of which is half 
 sunk, and serves as a storehouse ; two-thirds 
 of the upper storey are taken uj) with the 
 principal room, where they sit and sleep ; and 
 the remainder is divided between a closet, 
 where they cook their victuals, and an immense 
 stove, not unlike an oven, which heats the 
 whole building, and the top of which (for the 
 chimney is only a small flue on the side) serves 
 as a favourite sitting and sleeping place, though 
 we could scarcely bear to lay our hands on it. 
 In the corner of the great room always stands 
 the bed of the master and mistress of the 
 family, generally very neat, and with curtains, 
 sometimes of English cotton : the other 
 branches of the family sleep on the stove or 
 the floor. In the post-houses, which differ in 
 no respect from this description, we always 
 found good coffee, tea, and cream. Nothing 
 else can be exi^ected, and we carried our other 
 provisions with us. 
 
 The country people are all alike dirty, good- 
 humoured fellows, in sheep-skin gowns, with 
 the wool inwards. The drivers crossed them- 
 selves devoutly before beginning each stage, 
 and sung the whole way, or else talked to their 
 horses. A Eussian seldom beats his horse, but 
 argues with him first, and at last goes no 
 farther than to abuse him, and call him wolf or 
 Jew, which last is the lowest pitch of their 
 contemptuous expressions. Their horses are 
 much larger and better fed than the Swedish, 
 and, when talked to secundum artem, trot very 
 fast. Nothing on our journey surprised us so 
 much as the crowds of single-horse sledges, 
 carrying provisions to Petersburg ; it would not 
 be exaggerating to say that we passed, in twenty- 
 four hours, about a thousand. Every article 
 of necessary consumption must, indeed, be 
 
 brought from a distance, as the neighbourhood 
 of Petersburg produces nothing to ' make trade,' 
 very little to 'make eat,' When I have seen 
 the fine fertile country, abounding in everything 
 good and desirable, which Peter deserted for 
 the bogs and inclement latitude of the Neva, I 
 wonder more and more at the boldness and 
 success of his project. It is as if the King of 
 England should move his capital from London 
 to Banff, and make a Windsor of Johnny 
 Groat's House. 
 
 We reached this vast overgrown village, for 
 I can compare it to nothing else, in the moon- 
 light, and consequently saw it to great advan- 
 tage; though as we passed along its broad 
 irregular streets, we could not but observe the 
 strange mixture of cottages, gardens, stables, 
 barracks, churches, and palaces. This morning 
 we have been much delighted with a more 
 accurate survey. Moscow is situated in "a fine 
 plain, with the river Moskva winding through 
 it ; the town is a vast oval, covering about as 
 much ground as London and Westminster. 
 The original city is much smaller ; it forms one 
 quarter of the town, under the name of Katai- 
 gorod, the city of Kathay ; it has preserved the 
 name from the time of the conquest of Eussia 
 by the Tartars, when they seized on the city, and 
 made the Eussians quit their houses, and build 
 without its walls, what is now called Biel-gorod, 
 or White Town, Katai-gorod is still surrounded 
 by its old Tartar wall, with high brick towers, 
 of a most singular construction ; the gates are 
 ornamented in the old oriental style, and 
 several of the older churches have been 
 originally mosques. But it is in the Kremlin, 
 or palace quarter, that the principal vestiges 
 of the Khans are displayed ; their palace still 
 exists entire, and is a most curious and interest- 
 ing piece of antiquity. As I walked up its 
 high staircase, and looked round on the terraces 
 and towers, and the crescents which yet remain 
 in their gilded spires, I could have fancied my- 
 self the hero of an eastern tale, and expected, 
 with some impatience, to see the talking-bird, 
 the singing-water, or the black slave with his 
 golden club. In this building, which is now 
 called the treasury, are preserved the crowns 
 of Kasan, Astracan, and Siberia, and of some 
 other petty Asiatic kingdoms. The present 
 imperial apartments are small and mean, and 
 are separated from the Tartar palace by a Little 
 court. The first entrance to the Kremlin, 
 after passing the great Saracenic gate, is 
 excessively striking, and the view of the town 
 and river would form a noble panorama, I 
 was, indeed, so well satisfied with what I saw 
 from the court-yard, which is very elevated, 
 that I was not a little unwilling to do what is 
 expected from all strangers, — to clamber up the 
 tower of St, Michael, to see a fine prospect 
 turned into a map. The tower stands in the 
 middle of the couit ; half-way up is the gallery 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 whence the ancient monarchs of Russia, down 
 to the time of Peter the Great, used to harangue 
 the assemblies of the people. Before it is a 
 deep pit, containing the remains of the famous 
 bell cast by the Empress Anne, and about three 
 times the size of the great bell at Christ Church. 
 It was originally suspended on a frame of wood, 
 which was accidentally burnt down, and the 
 weight of the bell forced it, like the helmet of 
 Otranto, through the pavement, into a cellar. 
 On each side of the Michael tower is a Chris- 
 tianized mosque, of most strange and barbarous 
 architecture, in one of which the sovereigns of 
 Russia are crowned, and in the other they are 
 buried. The rest of the Kremlin is taken up 
 by public offices, barracks, the archiepiscopal 
 palace, and two or three convents. An 
 immense ditch, with a Tartar wall, sm-rounds 
 it ; and it is approached by two gates, the 
 principal of which a Russian never passes with 
 his hat on. . . . The houses, with the ex- 
 ception of some vast palaces belonging to the 
 nobility, are meanness itself. The shops are 
 truly Asiatic, dark, small, and huddled together 
 in long vaulted bazaars, and the streets ill-paved 
 and|lighted. 
 
 January 10. — Of the society, we have seen 
 too little to form any judgment. We have 
 called on the governor, and some other persons 
 to whom we had letters of introduction, and 
 have been civilly received. "We have also been 
 at two private concerts, at one of which we 
 met Madame Mara, who is now here with 
 >Signor Florio, and who sung but very care- 
 lessly. Concerts are fashionable at Moscow ; 
 and cards, as may be expected in a society 
 which, though they will not allow it, is 
 certainly at present provincial, are much more 
 common than at Petersbu.rg. The society 
 consists, in a great measure, we are told, of 
 families of the old nobility, and superannuated 
 courtiers, who live in jDrodigious state, and, 
 from what we have seen, great and almost 
 cumbersome hospitality. Some of their 
 daughters seem tolerably accomplished, and 
 very good-natured, unaffected girls ; we have 
 seen nothing remarkably beautiful, though the 
 bloom and fresh complexions of Moscow are 
 often envied by the Petersburg belles. We 
 promise ourselves a great deal of amusement 
 and instruction from the number of old officers 
 and ministers who have figured in the revolu- 
 tion and the busy scenes of Catherine's time. 
 This being Christmas Day, according to the 
 Russian calendar, we are going to the grand 
 gala dinner of the governor's. It is necessary 
 for us to go in full uniform, which, indeed, we 
 must frequently do, as ' the old courtiers of 
 the queen, and the queen's old courtiers,' are 
 much more attentive to such distinctions than 
 j the circle we have left in Petersburg. The 
 English nation is said to be in high favour 
 here, and we were much gratified by the cordial 
 
 manner in which many persons expressed them- 
 selves towards us. We have been rather 
 fortunate in seeing a splendid Greek funeral, 
 attended by a tribe of priests, deacons, and 
 archimandrites, under the command of one 
 archbishop and two subalterns. The archbishop 
 was a Circassian, and one of the bishops a 
 Georgian. The ' Divine Plato ' is not now in 
 Moscow. I am eagerly expecting news from 
 you, which, with some regard to the news from 
 Germany, must decide our future tour. — Believe 
 me, dear mother, yours affectionately, 
 
 Reginald Hebek. 
 
 [' These letters are among the best in our lan- 
 guage. They are less affected than, those 
 of Pope and Walpole ; they have more 
 matter in them than those of Cowper. 
 Knowing that many of them were not 
 written merely for the gentlemen to whom 
 they were directed, but were general 
 epistles meant to be read by a large circle, 
 we expected to find them clever and 
 spirited, but deficient in ease. We have 
 been agreeably disappointed ; and we must 
 confess, that if the epistolary style of Lord 
 Byron was artificial, it was a rare and ad- 
 mirable instance of that highest art, which 
 cannot be distinguished from nature.' — 
 Edinburgh Rev. 1831 (Macaulay). 'Byron's 
 movements and occupations for the re- 
 mainder of this year will be best collected 
 from a series of his own letters, which I am 
 enabled, by the kindness of the lady to 
 whom they were addressed, to give. Though 
 these letters are boyishly written, and a 
 good deal of their pleasantry is of that con- 
 ventional kind which depends more vipon 
 phrase than thought, they will yet, I think, 
 be found curious and interesting, not only 
 as enabling us to track him through this 
 period of his life, but as throwing light 
 upon various little traits of character, and 
 laying open to us the first working of his 
 hopes and fears while waiting, in suspense, 
 the opinions that were to decide, as he 
 thought, his future fame. The first of the 
 series, which was without date, appears to 
 have been written before he had left South- 
 well.' — Mooee's Life of Brjron, from which 
 the other connecting notes are also drawn.] 
 
 FROM LOED BYRON TO MISS PIGOT. 
 
 June 11, 1807. 
 Dear Queen Be^s— Savage ought to be 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 immortal .—though not a thorour/hhred hull- 
 dog, he is the finest puppy I ever saw, and will 
 answer much better ; in his great and manifold 
 kindness he has abeady bitten my fingers, and 
 disturbed the gravity of old Boatswain, who is 
 grievously discomposed. I wish to be informed 
 what he costs, his expenses, etc. etc. , that I may 
 
 indemnify Mr. G . My thanks are all I can 
 
 give for the trouble he has taken, make a long 
 speech, and conclude it with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, G, 7. 
 I am out of practice, so deputizeyovL as a legate, 
 — ambassador would not do in a matter con- 
 cerning the Fope, which I presume this must, 
 as the vjhole turns upon a Lull. — Yours. 
 F.S. — I write in bed. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Camhridge, Jane SO, 1807. 
 'Better late than never. Pal,' is a saying of 
 which you know the origin, and as it is applic- 
 able on the present occasion, you will excuse its 
 conspicuous place in the front of my epistle. I 
 am almost superannuated here. My old friends 
 (with the exception of a very few) all departed, 
 and I am preparing to follow them, but remain 
 till Monday to be present at three Oratorios, 
 two Concerts, a Fair, and a Ball. I find I am 
 not only thinner but taller by an inch since my 
 last visit. I was obliged to tell everybody my 
 name, nobody having the least recollection of 
 my visage or person. Even the hero of 
 my Cornelian (who is now sitting vis-d-vis, 
 reading a volume of my Poetics) passed me in 
 Trinity walks without recognising me in the 
 least, and was thunderstruck at the alteration 
 which had taken place in my countenance, etc. 
 etc. Some say I look letter, others ^uorse, but 
 all agree I am tldnner, — more I do not require. 
 I have lost two jjounds in my Avcight since I 
 left your cursed, detestable, and abhorred abode 
 of scandal, where, excej^ting yourself and John 
 Becher, I care not if the whole race were con- 
 signed to the Pit of Acheron, which I would 
 visit in person rather than contaminate my 
 sandals with the polluted dust of Southwell. 
 Seriously, unless obliged by the emptiness of 
 my purse to revisit Mrs. B., you will see me no 
 more. 
 
 On Monday I depart for London. I quit 
 Cambridge with little regi-et, because our set 
 are vanished, and my musical protege before 
 mentioned has left the choir, and is stationed 
 in a mercantile house of considerable eminence 
 in the metropolis. You may have heard me 
 observe he is exactly to an hour two years 
 younger than myself. I found him grown con- 
 siderably, and as you will suppose, very glad to 
 see his former Patron. He is neai-ly my height, 
 very thin, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and 
 light locks. My opinion of his mind you already 
 know ; — I hope I shall never have occasion to 
 change it. Everybody here conceives me to bo 
 
 an invalid. The University at present is very 
 gay from the fetes of divers kinds. I supped 
 out last night, but eat (or ate) nothing, sipped 
 a bottle of claret, went to bed at two, and rose 
 at eight. I have commenced early rising, and 
 find it agrees with me. The Masters and the 
 Fellows all very j^oUte, but look a little askance 
 — don't much admire lampoons — truth always 
 disagreeable. 
 
 "Write, and tell mo how the inhabitants of 
 your Menagerie go on, and if my publication 
 goes q^' well : do the quadrupeds growl ? A 
 propos, my bull-dog is deceased — ' Flesh both 
 of cur and man is grass.' Address your answer 
 to Cambridge. If I am gone, it will be for- 
 warded. Sad news just arrived — Russians beat 
 — a bad set, eat nothing but oil, consequently 
 must melt .before a hard fire. I get awkward 
 in my academic habiliments for want of practice. 
 Got up in a window to hear the oratorio at St. 
 Mary's, popped down in the middle of the 
 Messiah, tore a looful rent in the back of my 
 best black silk gown, and damaged an egregious 
 pair of breeches. Mem. — Never tumbled from 
 a church window during service. Adieu, dear 
 
 ! do not remember me to anybody : — to 
 
 forget and be forgotten by the people of South- 
 well is all I aspire to. 
 
 [In a letter to his mother, he explains his plans 
 both with respect to Newstead and his 
 projected travels.] 
 
 TO MRS. BYRON. 
 
 Neiostead Abbey, November 2, 1808. 
 
 Dear Mother, — If you please, we will forget 
 the things you mention. I have no desire to 
 remember them. When my rooms are finished, 
 I shall be happy to see you ; as I tell but the 
 truth, you will not suspect me of evasion. I 
 am furnishing the house more for you than 
 myself, and I shall establish you in it before I 
 sail for India, which I expect to do in March, 
 if nothing particularly obstructive occurs. I 
 am now fitting up the green drawing-room ; 
 the red for a bed-roorn, and the rooms over 
 as sleeping-rooms. They will be soon com- 
 iileted ; — at least I hope so. 
 
 I wish you would inquire of Major "Watson 
 (who is an old Indian) what things would be 
 necessary to provide for my voyage. I have 
 already procured a friend to write to the Arabic 
 Professor at Cambridge for some information I 
 am anxious to procure. I can easily get letters 
 from Government to the ambassadors, consuls, 
 etc. , and also to the governors at Calcutta and 
 Madras. I shall place my property and my 
 will in the hands of trustees till my return, 
 
 and I mean to a^jpoint you one. From H 
 
 [Hanson] I have heard nothing; when I do, 
 you shall have the particulars. 
 
5i6 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 After all, you must own my project is not a 
 bad one. If I do not travel now, I never shall, 
 and all men should one day or other. I have 
 at present no connections to keep me at home ; 
 no wife, or unprovided sisters, brothers, etc. I 
 shall take care of you, and when I return I may 
 possibly become a politician. A few years' 
 knowledge of other countries than our own 
 will not incapacitate me for that part. If we 
 see no nation but our ov/n, we do not give 
 mankind a fair chance; it is from experience, 
 not books, we ought to judge of them. There 
 is nothing like inspection, and trusting to our 
 own senses.— Yours, etc. 
 
 [Among the passing events from which he now 
 caught illustrations for his poem ^ was the 
 melancholy death of Lord Falkland, a gal- 
 lant but dissix^ated naval officer, with whom 
 the habits of his town life had bi'ought him 
 acquainted, and who, abou.t the beginning 
 of March, was killed in a duel by Mr. 
 Powell. That this event affected Lord 
 Byron very deeply, the few touching sen- 
 tences devoted to it in his Satire jirove. 
 * On Sunday night (he says) I beheld Lord 
 Falkland presiding at his own table in all 
 the honest pride of hospitality ; on Wednes- 
 day morning at three o'clock I saw stretched 
 before me all that remained of courage, 
 feeling, and a host of passions.' But it 
 was not by words only that he gave proof 
 of sympathy on this occasion. The family 
 of the unfortunate nobleman were left 
 behind in circumstances which needed 
 something more than the mere expression 
 of compassion to alleviate them ; and Lord 
 Byron, notwithstanding the pressure of his 
 own difficulties at the time, found means, 
 seasonably and delicately, to assist the 
 widow and children of his friend. In 
 the following letter to Mrs. Byron, he 
 mentions this among other matters of 
 interest, and in a tone of unostentatious 
 sensibility highly honourable to him.] 
 
 TO MRS. BYRON. 
 
 8 St. James' Street, March 6, 1809. 
 Dear JIother,— My last letter was Avritten 
 tinder gi'eat depression of sj^irits from poor 
 Falkland's death, who has left without a shilling 
 four children and his wife. I have been en- 
 deavouring to assist them, which, God knows, 
 
 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 
 
 1 cannot do as I could wish; from my ov/n 
 embarrassments and the many claims upon me 
 from other quarters. 
 
 ■What you say is all very true ; come what 
 may, Newstead and I stand or fall together. 
 I have now lived on the spot, I have fixed my 
 heart upon it, and no j^ressure, present or 
 future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige 
 of our inheritance. I have that pride within 
 me which will enable me to support difficulties. 
 I can endure privations ; but could I obtain in 
 exchange for Newstead Abbey the fii'st fortune 
 in the country, I would reject the proposition. 
 
 Set your mind at ease on that score ; Mr. H. 
 
 [Hanson] talks like a man of business on the 
 subject,— I feel like a man of honour, and I 
 will not sell Newstead. 
 
 I shall get my seat on the return of the 
 affidavits from Carhais, in Cornwall, and will do 
 something in the House soon. I mush dash, or 
 it is all over. My Satire must be kept secret 
 for a month ; after that you may say what you 
 please on the subject. Lord Carlisle has used 
 me infamously, and refused to state any par- 
 ticulars of my family to the Chancellor. I 
 have lashed him in my rhymes, and perhaps his 
 lordship may regret not being more conciliatory. 
 They tell me it will have a sale ; I hope so, for 
 the bookseller has behaved well, as far as pub- 
 lishing well goes. — Believe me, etc. 
 
 P.S. — You shall have a mortgage on one of 
 the farms. 
 
 [On the 2d of July the packet sailed from 
 Falmouth, and after a favourable passage of 
 four days and a half, the voyagers reached 
 Lisbon, and took up their abode in that city. 
 The following letters from Lord Byron to 
 his friend Mr. Hodgson, though written in 
 his most light and schoolboy strain, will 
 give some idea of the first impressions that 
 his residence in Lisbon made upon him. 
 Such letters, too, contrasted with the noble 
 stanzas on Portugal in Childe Harold, will 
 show how various were the moods of his 
 versatile mind, and what different aspects 
 it coiild take when in repose or on the 
 wing.] 
 
 TO MR. HODGSON. 
 
 Lisbon., July 16, 1809. 
 Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen 
 all sorts of marvellous sights, j^alaces, convents, 
 etc.; — which, being to be heard in my friend 
 Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall 
 not anticipate by smuggling any account what- 
 soever to you in a private and clandestine 
 manner. I must just observe, that the village 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful, 
 perhaps, in the world. 
 
 I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, 
 and talk bad Latin to the monks, who under- 
 stand it, as it is like their own,— and I goes 
 into society (with my pocket-pistols), and I 
 swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides 
 on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, 
 and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the 
 mosquitoes. But what of that ? Comfort must 
 not be expected by folks that go a-pleasuring. 
 
 "\^lien the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say, 
 ^ Carracho I ' — the great oath of the grandees, 
 that very well supplies the place of 'Damme,' 
 — and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I 
 pronounce him ' Ambra di merdo.' "With these 
 two phrases, and a third, ' Avra bouro,' which 
 signifieth, ' Get an ass,' I am universally under- 
 stood to be a person of degree and a master of 
 languages. How merrily we lives that travellers 
 be I — if we had food and raiment. But, in 
 sober sadness, anything is better than England, 
 and I am infinitely amused with my pilgrimage 
 as far as it has gone. 
 
 To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 
 miles as far as Gibraltar, where we embark for 
 Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will 
 find me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. 
 Pray embrace the Drury and Dwyer, and all 
 the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing 
 with Butler's donative pencil, which makes my 
 bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility. 
 
 Hodgson ! send me the news, and the deaths 
 and defeats and capital crimes and the misfor- 
 tunes of one's friends ; and let us hear of 
 literary matters, and the controversies and the 
 criticisms. All this will be pleasant — ' Suave 
 mari magno,' etc. Talking of that, I have 
 been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. Adieu. 
 — Yours faithfully, etc. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Gibraltar, August 6, 1809. 
 
 I HAVE just arrived at this place after a jour- 
 ney through Portugal, and a part of Spain, of 
 nearly 500 miles. We left Lisbon and travelled 
 on horseback to Seville and Cadiz, and thence 
 in the Hyperion frigate to Gibraltar. The 
 horses are excellent — we rode seventy miles a 
 day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the 
 accommodation we found, and, in such torrid 
 weather, quite enough. My health is better 
 than in England. 
 
 Seville is a fine town, and the Sierra Morena, 
 part of which we crossed, a very sufficient 
 
 mountain ; but d description, it is always 
 
 disgusting. Cadiz, sweet Cadiz ! — it is the first 
 spot in tbe creation. The beauty of its streets 
 and mansions is only excelled by the lovehness 
 of its inhabitants. For, with all national preju- 
 dice, I must confess the women of Cadiz are as 
 far superior to the English women in beauty as 
 
 the Spaniards are inferior to the English in 
 every quality that dignifies the name of man. 
 Just as I began to know the principal persons of 
 the city, I was obliged to sail. 
 
 You will not expect a long letter, after my 
 riding so far 'on hollow pampered jades of 
 Asia.' Talking of Asia puts me in mind of 
 Africa, which is within five miles of my present 
 residence. I am going over before I go on to 
 Constantinople. 
 
 Cadiz is a complete Cythera. Many of the 
 grandees who have left Madrid during the 
 troubles reside there, and I do believe it is the 
 prettiest and cleanest town in Europe. London 
 is filthy in the comparison. The Spanish women 
 are all alike, their education the same. The 
 wife of a duke is, in information, as the wife of 
 a peasant, — the wife of peasant, in manner, 
 equal to a duchess. Certainly they are fasci- 
 nating ; but their minds have only one idea, 
 and the business of their lives is intrigue. 
 
 I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and 
 Cadiz, and, like Swift's barber, have been down 
 on my knees to beg he would not put me into 
 black and white. Pray remember me to the 
 Drurys and the Davies, and all of that stamp 
 who are yet extant. Send me a letter and 
 news to Malta. My next epistle shall be from 
 Mount Caucasus or Mount Sion. I shall return 
 to Spain before I see England, for I am enam- 
 oured of the country. Adieu, and believe me, 
 etc. 
 
 [The route which Lord Byron now took through 
 Albania, as well as those subsequent jour- 
 neys through other parts of Turkey, which 
 he performed in company with his friend 
 Mr. Hobhouse, may be traced, by such as 
 are desirous of details on the subject, in 
 the account which the latter gentleman has 
 given of his travels; an account which, 
 interesting from its own excellence in every 
 merit that should adorn such a work, be- 
 comes still more so from the feeling that 
 Lord Byron is, as it were, present through 
 its pages, and that we there follow his first 
 youthful footsteps into the land with whose 
 name he has intei-twined his own for ever. 
 As I am enabled, however, by the letters 
 of the noble poet to his mother, as well as 
 by others, still more cm-ious, which are now 
 for the first time published, to give his own 
 rapid and lively sketches of his wanderings, 
 I shall content myself, after this general 
 reference to the volume of Mr. Hobhouse, 
 with such occasional extracts from its pages 
 as may throw light upon the letters of his 
 friend.] 
 
5i8 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 TO MRS. BYRON. 
 
 Prevesa, November 12, 1809. 
 My dear Mother, — I have now been, some 
 time in Turkey. This i)lace is on the coast, but 
 I have traversed the interior of the province of 
 Albania on a visit to the Pacha. I left Malta 
 in the Spider, a brig of war, on the 21st of 
 September, and arrived in eight days at Pre- 
 vesa. I thence have been about 150 miles, as 
 far as Tepaleen his Highness' country i:)alace, 
 where I stayed three days. The name of the 
 Pacha is Ali, and he is considered a man of the 
 first abilities. He governs the Avhole of Albania 
 (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and i)art of 
 Macedonia. His son, Yely Pacha, to whom he 
 has given me letters, governs the Morea, and 
 has great influence in Egypt ; in short, he is 
 one of the most powerful men in the Ottoman 
 empire. When I reached Yanina, the capital, 
 after a journey of three days over the mountains, 
 through a country of the most picturesque 
 beauty, I found that Ali Pacha was with his 
 army in Illyricum, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in 
 the castle of Berat. He had heard that an 
 Englishman of rank was in his dominions, and 
 had left orders in Yanina with the commandant 
 to provide a house, and supply m.e with every 
 kind of necessary gratis; and, though I have 
 been allowed to make presents to the slaves, 
 etc., I have not been permitted to pay for a 
 single article of household consumption. 
 
 I rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw 
 the palaces of himself and grandsons ; they are 
 splendid, but too much ornamented vntYi silk 
 and gold. I then went over the mountains 
 through Zitza, a village with a Greek monastery 
 (where I slept on my return), in the most 
 beavitiful situation (always excepting Cintra, in 
 Portugal) I ever beheld. In nine days I reached 
 Tepaleen. Our journey was much prolonged 
 by the torrents that had fallen from the moun- 
 tains, and intersected the roads. I shall never 
 forget the singular scene on entering Tepaleen at 
 five in the afternoon, as the sun was going down. 
 It brought to my mind (with some change of 
 dress, however) Scott's description of Branksome 
 Castle in his Lay, and the feudal system. The 
 Albanians in their dresses (the most magnificent 
 in the world, consisting of a long white kilt, gold- 
 worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket 
 and waistcoat, silver -mounted pistols and 
 daggers), the Tartars with their high caps, the 
 Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans, the 
 j soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the 
 foi-mer in groups in an immense large open 
 gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed 
 in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred 
 steeds ready caparisoned to move in a moment, 
 couriers entering or passing out with the de- 
 spatches, the kettle-drums beating, boys calling 
 the hour from the minaret of the mosque, 
 altogether, with the singular appearance of the 
 
 building itself, formed a new and delightful 
 spectacle to a stranger. I was conducted to a 
 very handsome apartment, and my health in- 
 quired after by the vizier's secretary, ' a-la- 
 mode Turque ! ' 
 
 The next day I was introduced to Ali Pacha. 
 I was dressed in a full suit of staff uniform, 
 with a very magnificent sabre, etc. The vizier 
 received me in a large room paved with marble ; 
 a fountain was playing in the centre ; the 
 apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. 
 He received me standing, a wonderful compli- 
 ment from a Mussulman, and made me sit 
 down on his right hand. I have a Greek inter- 
 preter for general use, but a physician of All's 
 named Femlario, who understands Latin, acted 
 for me on this occasion. His first question 
 was, why, at so early an age, I left my country ? 
 (The Turks have no idea of travelling for 
 amusement.) He then said the English 
 minister. Captain Leake, had told him I was of 
 a great family, and desired his respects to my 
 mother ; which I now, in the name of Ali 
 Pacha, present to you. He said he was certain 
 I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, 
 curling hair, and little white hands, and ex- 
 pressed himself pleased with my appearance 
 and garb. He told me to consider him as a 
 father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he 
 looked on me as his son. Indeed, he treated 
 me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared 
 sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a 
 day. He begged me to visit him often, and at 
 night, when he was at leisure. I then, after 
 coffee and pipes, retired for the first time. I 
 saw him thrice afterwards. It is singular that 
 the Turks, who have no hereditary dignities, 
 and few great families, except the sultans, 
 pay so much respect to birth ; for I found my 
 pedigree more regarded than my title. 
 
 To-day I saw the remains of the town of 
 Actium, near which Antony lost the world, in 
 a small bay, where two frigates could hardly 
 manceuvre : a broken wall is the sole rem.nant. 
 On another part of the gulf stands the ruins of 
 Nicopolis, built by Augustus in honour of his 
 victory. Last night I was at a Greek marriage ;* 
 but this and a thousand things more I have 
 neither time nor space to describe. 
 
 I am going to-morrow, with a guard of fifty 
 men, to Patras in the Morea, and thence to 
 Athens, where I shall winter. Two days ago I 
 was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of wax-, owing 
 to the ignorance of the captain and crew, 
 though the storm was not violent. Fletcher 
 yelled after his wife, the Greeks called on all 
 the saints, the Mussulmans on Alia ; the captain 
 burst into tears, and ran below deck, telling us 
 to call on God ; the sails were split, the main- 
 yard shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the 
 night setting in, and all our chance was to 
 make Corfu, which is in possession of the 
 French, or (as Fletcher pathetically termed it) 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS, 
 
 ' a watery grave. ' I did what I could to con- 
 sole Fletcher, but finding him incorrigible, 
 wrai^ped myself up in my Albanian capote (an 
 immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait 
 the worst. I have learnt to philosophize in my 
 travels ; and if I had not, complaint was use- 
 less. Luckily the wind abated, and only drove 
 us on the coast of Suli, on the mainland, 
 where we landed, and i^roceeded, by the help 
 of the natives, to Prevesa again ; but I shall 
 not trust Turkish sailors in future, though the 
 Pacha had ordered one of his own galliots to 
 take me to Patras. I am therefore going as far 
 as Missolonghi by land, and there have only to 
 cross a small gulf to get to Patras. 
 
 Fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels. 
 We were one night lost for nine hours in the 
 mountains in a thunder-storm, and since nearly 
 wrecked. In both cases Fletcher was sorely 
 bewildered, from apprehensions of famine and 
 banditti in the first, and drowning in the second 
 instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the 
 lightning, or crying (I don't know which), but 
 are now recovered. "When you write, address 
 to me at Mr. Strane's, English consul, Patras, 
 Morea. 
 
 I could tell you I know not how many inci- 
 dents that I think would amuse you, but they 
 crowd on my mind as much as they would 
 swell my paper, and I can neither arrange them 
 in the one, nor put them down on the other, 
 except in the greatest confusion. I like the 
 Albanians much ; they are not all Turks ; some 
 tribes are Christians. But their religion makes 
 little difference in their manner or conduct. 
 They are esteemed the best troops in the Turk- 
 ish service. I lived on my route, two days at 
 once, and three days again, in a barrack at 
 Salora, and never found soldiers so tolerable, 
 though I have been in the garrisons of Gibraltar 
 and Malta, and seen Spanish, French, Sicilian, 
 and British troops in abundance. I have had 
 nothing stolen, and was always welcome to 
 their provision and milk. Not a week ago an 
 Albanian chief (every village has its chief, who 
 is called Primate), after helping us out of the 
 Turkish galley in her distress, feeding us, and 
 lodging my suite, consisting of Fletcher, a 
 Greek, two Athenians, a Greek priest, and my 
 companion, Mr. Hobhouse, refused any comiDcn- 
 sation but a written paper stating that I was 
 well received ; and when I pressed him to accept 
 a few sequins, ' No,' he replied, ' I wish you to 
 love me, not to pay me.' These are his words. 
 
 It is astonishing how far money goes in this 
 country. While I was in the capital I had 
 nothing to pay by the vizier's order ; but since, 
 though I have generally had sixteen horses, and 
 generally six or seven men, the expense has 
 not been lialf <is much as staying only three 
 weeks in Malta, though Sir A. Ball, tlie gover- 
 nor, gave me a house for nothing, and I had 
 only one servant. By the bye, I expect Hanson 
 
 to remit regularly ; for I am not about to stay 
 in this province for ever. Let him write to me 
 at Mr. Strane's, English consul, Patras. The 
 fact is, the fertility of the plains is wonderful, 
 and specie is scarce, which makes this remark- 
 able cheapness. I am going to Athens, to study 
 modern Greek, which differs much from the 
 ancient, though radically similar. I have no 
 desire to return to England, nor shall I, unless 
 compelled by absolute want, and Hanson's 
 neglect ; but I shall not enter into Asia for a 
 year or two, as I have much to see in Greece, 
 and I may perhaps cross into Africa, at least 
 the Egyptian part. Fletcher, like all English- 
 men, is very much dissatisfied, though a little 
 reconciled to the Tuiks by a present of eighty 
 piastres from the vizier, which, if you consider 
 everything, and the value of specie here, is 
 nearly worth ten guineas English. He has 
 suffered nothing but from cold, heat, and ver- 
 min, which those who lie in cottages and cross 
 mountains in a cold country must undergo, and 
 of which I have equally partaken with himself ; 
 but he is not valiant, and is afraid of robbers 
 and tempests. I have no j to be remembered 
 to in England, and wish to hear nothing from 
 it, but that you are well, and a letter or two on 
 business from Hanson, whom you may tell to 
 write. I will write when I can, and beg you 
 to believe me, your affectionate son, 
 
 Byron. 
 
 [As long as Shelley lived, the regard which 
 Lord Byron entertained for him extended 
 its influence also over his relations with his 
 friend ; the suavity and good breeding of 
 Shelley interposing a sort of softening 
 medium in the way of those unpleasant 
 collisions which afterwards took place, and 
 which, from what is known of both parties, 
 may be easily conceived to have been alike 
 trying to the patience of the patron and 
 the vanity of the dependent. That even, 
 however, during the lifetime of their com- 
 mon friend, there had occurred some of 
 those humiliating misunderstandings which 
 money engenders, — humiliating on both 
 sides, as if from the very nature of the 
 dross that gives rise to them, — will appear 
 from the following letter of Shelley's which 
 I find among the papers in my hands.] 
 
 SHELLEY TO LORD BYRON. ' 
 
 February 15, 1823. 
 My dear Lord Byron,— I enclose you a 
 letter from Hunt, which annoys me on more 
 than one account. You will observe the post- 
 
520 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 script, and you know me well enough to feel 
 how painful a task is set me in commenting 
 upon it. Hunt had urged me more than once 
 to ask you to lend him this money. My answer 
 consisted in sending him all I could spare, 
 which I have now literally done. Your kind- 
 ness in fitting up a part of your own house for 
 his accommodation I sensibly felt, and willingly 
 accepted from you on his part ; but, believe 
 me, without the slightest intention of imposing, 
 or, if I could help it, allowing to be imposed, 
 any heavier task on your purse. As it has 
 come to this in spite of my exertions, I will 
 not conceal from you the low ebb of my own 
 money affairs in the present moment, — that is, 
 my absolute incapacity of assisting Hunt 
 farther. 
 
 I do not think poor Hunt's promise to pay in 
 a given time is worth very much ; bvit mine is 
 less subject to uncertainty, and I should be 
 happy to be responsible for any engagement he 
 may have proposed to you. I am so much 
 annoyed by this subject that I hardly know 
 what to write, and much less what to say ; and 
 I have need of all your indulgence in judging 
 both my feelings and expressions. 
 
 I shall see you by and by. — Believe me, 
 I yours most faithfully and sincerely, 
 
 P, B. Shelley. 
 
 [John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law and 
 biographer of Sir Walter Scott, at the 
 beginning of an illustrious career of 
 authorship made an experiment with the 
 anonymous issue of Peter''s Letters to his 
 Kinsfolk (3 vols. 1819), under the assumed 
 name of Peter Morris, M.D., of Pensharpe 
 Hall, Aberystwith. It has been alleged 
 that as a ruse, no first edition was ever 
 issued, but that the first edition of the book 
 was marked second edition. However this 
 may be, the one quoted from is the third, 
 published by Blackwood in 1819. In 
 a passing allusion to this youthful book 
 in his biography of Scott, Lockhart admits 
 that it is not wholly by one hand ; his 
 coadjutor in all probability was his friend 
 Professor Wilson. Scott, in complimenting 
 Lockhart on his work, only regretted that 
 such a work had not been written which 
 should have comprehended twenty-five or 
 fifty j^ears previous to 1819. This clever 
 work has undeservedly fallen aside ; it con- 
 tains many spirited and original portraits of 
 men of that time who moved about in Edin- 
 burgh society, names which still by associa- 
 tion lend a lustre to Modern Athens.] 
 
 TO THE EEV. DAVID WILLIAMS. 
 
 I THINK you will allow me no inconsiderable 
 share of credit for the cordial manner in which 
 I have lauded the excellences of the Scottish 
 barristers, when I tell you that those whom I 
 have particularly described to you are each and 
 all of them Whigs — most of them fervent, nay, 
 bigoted WTiigs, or, as Dr. Parr would say, 
 XviyuTDtrot. Nor will it diminish the merits of 
 my liberality when I inform you that the friend 
 under whose auspices my inspection of Edin- 
 burgh has been chiefly conducted, so far from 
 regarding these eminent men with the same im- 
 partial eye of which I have made use, has well- 
 nigh persuaded himself into a thorough convic- 
 tion that their talents and attainments are most 
 extravagantly overrated in common opinion ; 
 and has, moreover, omitted no opportunity of 
 detracting from them in private when he may 
 have heard me expatiate upon their i^raises. 
 There are only two exceptions to this — Mr, 
 Cranstoun and Mr. Jeffrey. The former he 
 cannot helj) admiring and loving for the beauti- 
 fully classical style of his eloquence, and, 
 indeed, of all his attainments ; but I think it 
 forms no small ingredient both in his love and 
 admiration that Mr. Cranstoun happens to be 
 sprung from one of the greatest of the old 
 Border families, and so, it may be supposed, to 
 have been nourished in infancy with the same 
 milk of romantic and chivalrous tradition, of 
 which he himself imbibed so largely then, and 
 with the influences of which even now his whole 
 character and conversation are saturated and 
 overflowing ; for I have already said enough to 
 satisfy you that few men can quote the words 
 of the poet with more propriety than Mr. 
 Wastle :— 
 
 * The boy is father of the man, 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Linked each to each in natural piety.' 
 
 In regard to Jeffrey, his mode of thinking may 
 perhaps appear something still more peculiar. 
 In the first jilace, indeed, the talents of this 
 remarkable man are of such an order that it is 
 quite impossible a man of such talents as Mr. 
 Wastle should not admire them. The direction 
 which has been given to these great talents is 
 a thing which my friend contemplates, and has 
 long contemplated, * more in sorrow than in 
 anger.' While nobody can more abominate the 
 scope and tendency of the Edinburgh Review 
 than he does, he is very far from being one of 
 those who extend the feeling of aversion due to 
 the work from it to its principal conductor, or, 
 indeed, who feel any difficulty in sympathizing 
 with some part at least of those early feelings 
 and circumstances, to which, in all probability, 
 the worst tilings in the conduct of this cele- 
 brated Journal may be traced. He understands 
 too much of poor human nature to be an inexor- 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 521 
 
 able judge of the failings of a man, whose general 
 power of intellect and general rectitude of feel- 
 ing and principle he cannot but acknowledge. 
 At times, it is true, on some new piece of 
 provocation, his temper deserts him for a 
 moment ; but he soon recovers his tranquillity, 
 and, in common, the tone wherein he speaks 
 of Mr. Jeffrey is assuredly more nearly akin 
 to that of affectionate regret than to that of 
 impatient sx^leen, far less of settled aversion 
 and dislike. 
 
 In truth, my old friend's views of literature 
 are of so large a kind, and he has so much 
 accustomed himself to trace the connection 
 which subsists between the manifestations of 
 mind in one age, and those in ages preceding 
 and following, that it would be a very incon- 
 sistent thing were he to concentrate any over- 
 whelming portion of the wrath excited in his 
 breast by any particular direction of intellectual 
 forces upon the head of any individual author 
 whatever. Besides, were he inclined to heap 
 the coals of his vengeance upon any one head, 
 on account of the turn which literary and 
 political criticism has taken in our days, most 
 assuredly it would be on no living head that 
 he would think of laying such a burden. He 
 regards the Scotch philosophers of the present 
 
 i day, and among or above the rest Mr. Jeffrey 
 and the Edinburgh Eeviewers, as the legiti- 
 mate progeny of the sceptical philosophers of 
 the last age ; and although he is far from 
 having any sympathy with the feelings which 
 the whole style of that philosophy most emi- 
 nently and powerfully tends to nourish, he 
 
 \ cannot for a moment permit himself to lay at 
 the door of any one individual a larger share in 
 the common blame than in strict and yet in 
 comprehensive justice he thinks that individual 
 ought to sustain. There is only one point of 
 view in which Mr. Wastle is acctistomed to talk 
 of Mr. Jeffrey as having initiated a bad and de- 
 structive species of mental exertion among his 
 countrymen, or at least as having so far assisted 
 the natural tendency towards some such species 
 as to have merited in no inconsiderable measure 
 the dispraise, both present and future, with 
 which the initiator of any such species must of 
 necessity lay his account. 
 
 One of the greatest curses of a sceptical 
 philosophy is that by leaving no object upon 
 which the disinterested affections may exercise 
 themselves, it is apt to cause the minds of 
 mankind to be too exclusively taken up about 
 the paltry gratifications of the personal feel- 
 ings. "\Ylien the true ornaments of our nature 
 are forgotten. Pride and Vanity must become 
 the arbiters of human life. All those periods of 
 history which are looked back upon as the most 
 splendid, were times when men cared most 
 about principles and least about themselves ; 
 but when there are no longer any earnest notions 
 about what is to be loved or respected, even the 
 
 public themselves become infected with the 
 delirium of wishing to despise everything, and 
 literature is made to assume a tone of petul- 
 ance which corresponds with this absurd and 
 paltry passion exactly in the same proportion 
 in which it does violence to all the nobler 
 thoughts and more delightful feelings, for whose 
 nourishment the divine field of literature was 
 originally intended by the great Author of our 
 being. It is chiefly in having led the way in 
 giving this direction to the criticism, and 
 through that to the whole literature of our day, 
 that my friend feels himself constrained to re- 
 gard Mr. Jeffrey as having been the enemy of 
 his country, and as meriting, in all succeeding 
 generations, the displeasure of bigh-minded and 
 generous Englishmen. 
 
 A man of genius like Mr. Jeffrey must 
 indeed have found it an easy matter to succeed 
 in giving this turn to the public mind among a 
 people where all are readers and so few are 
 scholars, as is the case here in Scotland. En- 
 dowed by nature with a keen talent for sar- 
 casm, nothing could be more easy for him than 
 to fasten, with destructive effect of non- 
 chalance, upon a work which had perhaps 
 been composed with much earnestness of 
 thought on the part of the author, and with 
 a most sincere anxiety after abstract truth, 
 either of reasoning or of feeling. The object 
 of the critic, however, is by no means to assist 
 those who read his critical lucubrations to 
 enter with more facility, or with better pre- 
 paration, into the thoughts, or feelings, or 
 truths, which his author endeavours to incul- 
 cate or illustrate. His object is merely to make 
 the author look foolish ; and he prostitutes his 
 own fine talents to enable the common herd 
 of his readers to suppose themselves looking 
 down from the vantage-ground of superior 
 intellect upon the poor, blundering, deluded 
 poet or philosopher who is the subject of 
 review. It is a pitiable thing to contemplate 
 the extent to which these evil fashions have 
 been introduced among us, and I have no doubt 
 that their introduction has been far more owing 
 to the prostitution of the exquisite talents of 
 Mr. Jeffrey than to any one cause whatever. 
 Neither do I at all doubt, after what I have 
 seen of Scotland, that the power of the unholy 
 spells has been far greatest and far most 
 effectual in the immediate centre of their ring. 
 It is probable, I think, that if Mr. Jeffi-ey were 
 at last to throw aside his character of reviewer, 
 and come before the world in a volume filled 
 with continuous thoughts and continuous feel- 
 ings, originating in his own mind, he would 
 find that the public he has so well trained 
 would be very apt to tarn upon himself, and 
 think themselves called upon to laugh, more 
 solito, even at Mr. Jeffrey himself, when 
 det)rived of the blue and yellow panoply under 
 which they have for so many years been wont 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 522 
 
 to regard his blows as irresistible and himself 
 as invulnerable. 
 
 The most vulgar blockhead who takes up 
 and reads an article in the Edinburgh Revicio, 
 imagines for the time that lie himself is quizzing 
 the man of genius whose labours are there 
 sported with. His opaque features are illum- 
 inated with triumph, and, holding the journal 
 fast in his hand, he pursues his fantastic victory 
 to the last extremities. Month after month, or 
 quarter after quarter, this most airy species of 
 gratification is renewed, till, by long habit, our 
 blockhead at Isist X>ecomes'do7id fide satisfied and 
 convinced that he is quite superior to anything 
 the age can produce. Now and then, to be 
 sure, some passing event or circumstance may 
 dart a momentary disturbance into the sanctuary 
 of his self-complacency ; but this will only make 
 him long the'more fervently for the next number 
 of the Revieto, to convince him that he was all 
 in the right — to rekindle the fluttering lamp of 
 his vanity, and make the sanctum sanctorum of 
 his conceit as bright a thing as ever. In the 
 meantime, to talk in the plain way the subject 
 deserves, v/hatever share of understanding or 
 feeling has been allowed him by nature, remains 
 totally uncultivated in the mind of this reader 
 of Bevieios, and the faculties of his mind are 
 absolutely lost and sunk in one blind brute 
 wish to see everything levelled before his self- 
 love. Of all human passions, that of vulgar 
 and envious insolence is the one which least 
 requires to be pampered and stimulated. It 
 has been the moving principle in all the most 
 disgusting scenes recorded in history. Caligula 
 could not bear to see a man of a handsome 
 person, or with a fine head of hair, in the 
 cii'cus, or in the streets, and generally ordered 
 such persons to be taken away and disfigured. 
 During the direst periods of the French Revo- 
 lution, the self-love of the people had been 
 gratified with the downfall of so many kinds of 
 distinction, that at last it grew to be a blind, 
 infuriate, ungovernable impulse, which could 
 not remain quiet Avhile any individual yet 
 retained qualities which raised him above the 
 multitude. Every species of merit was sure 
 to be brought to the block, or hoisted up to 
 the lanterne in this night of frenzy. The mad 
 and ferocious scepticism also which then pre- 
 vailed, was only the principle of envy in 
 disguise. It was envy which sought to 
 extinguish every distinction between truth and 
 falsehood, for fear it should be proved that 
 any one thing was more excellent than any 
 other. All was to be reduced to one dead 
 level of uncertainty, and it was illiberal to 
 consider a Greenlander as a less elegant or 
 civilised person than a European. Such is 
 the enthusiasm of the principle of popular 
 self-love, when stlnulatcd by a long series of 
 indulgences, and pushed to the last cxtrenfity 
 of its slothful and unwieldy luxuriousness. 
 
 Tliat any man of genius should ever thought- 
 lessly or wantonly minister to it in literature, 
 must be a source of the utmost sorrow and 
 regret to every one who has a love, and a love 
 of intelligence, for those qualities which most 
 distinguish man from the brutes. Such a love 
 (in spite of all his many little prejudices and 
 peculiarities) glows nowhere with a more 
 fervent flame than in the breast of my friend, 
 and such are the sorrowful feelings with which 
 he is accustomed to contemplate the main sin 
 v/hich has disfigured and debased the splendid 
 literary career of Mr. Jefltrey. 
 
 That such, however, must inevitably be the 
 course and tendency of popular criticism among 
 a nation which had become at once very fond 
 of scepticism and very weary of learning, 
 might, I think, have been foreseen long ago 
 (I by no means think it might have been 
 efi'ectually guarded against). To despise all 
 the most divine emanations of which the 
 human mind can be made the vehicle was a 
 necessary appendage to that system which 
 despises the records of Divine Wisdom itself, 
 and which would erect in their stead a structure 
 built upon no more stable foundations than 
 those of the self-suflacing, self-satisfied sagacity 
 of the speculative intellect of man. It is a 
 very easy thing to deny that the doctrines of 
 religious scepticism have been ever openly and 
 broadly promulgated in the pages of the 
 Edinlurgh Review; but I think no candid 
 person can entertain the slightest doubt that 
 the tendency of the whole work has been 
 uniformly and essentially infidel. Unless it 
 had been so, it must have been continually at 
 variance with itself — it must have been but one 
 string of discords from beginning to end. The 
 whole tone of the jeering, sarcastic criticisms, 
 with which it has been accustomed to salute 
 the works of the more meditative and Christian 
 iiuthors of the time, would be enough to reveal 
 to us the true purpose it has in view, even 
 although it had never contained a single word 
 expressly and distinctly bearing upon the 
 subject of religion. The truth is, moreover, 
 that, in the present state of the world, all 
 Christians are well entitled to say that ' they 
 that are not with us are against us ; ' and the 
 coldness and silence of the Edinburgh Reviewers 
 would have been enough to satisfy any good 
 Christian what their tenets are, even although 
 they had never broken upon their general rule 
 of coldness and silence by one single audacious 
 whisper of mockery. The negative would have 
 been without the positive side of the proof ; 
 but, alas ! those who have eyes to see and 
 ears to hear can have little difficulty in ac- 
 knowledging that the Edinburgh Reviewers 
 liave furnished their adversaries abundantly 
 with both. 
 
 The system of political opinions inculcated 
 in the Edinhur(jh Review is, in like manner, 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 as I honestly think, admirably fitted to go 
 hand in hand with a system of scepticism, but 
 entirely irreconcilable with the notion of any 
 fervent love and attachment for a religion 
 which is, above all other things, the religion 
 of feeling. The politicians of this Rcvieio are 
 men of great shrewdness and sagacity, and 
 many of them are men of much honesty ; but 
 it is impossible to suppose for a moment that 
 they are men either of very high or of very 
 beautiful feeling. The whole of their views, in 
 regard to the most important series of political 
 convulsions which modern times have ever 
 witnessed, are at variance with deep or refined 
 feeling ; they appeal iiniformly and unhesitat- 
 ingly to ideas which stand exactly in the 
 opposite extremity from those which men 
 inspired with such feelings would have incul- 
 cated upon such occasions. To submit to 
 Buonaparte, for example, and to refuse aid to 
 the young patriotism of Spain — these Avere 
 advices which could only have been seriously 
 pressed upon the consideration of such a nation 
 as England by men who had banished from 
 their own minds a very great part of that 
 reverence for Feeling (as abstracted from mere 
 questions of immediate and obvious utility), 
 in the strength and nourishment of which the 
 true old character of England, and of English 
 politicians, grew. In a''word, it is sufiiciently 
 manifest that whatever faults the system of 
 these Reviewers may have had, or may still 
 have, it has at least had the merit of being a 
 system uniform and consistent in itself. To 
 destroy in men's minds the lingering vestiges 
 of love for a religion which is hated by self- 
 love, because its mysteries baflfiie and confound 
 the scrutiny of the self-complacent ; to reduce 
 the high feeling of patriotism to a principle 
 of arithmetical calculation of utility ; and to 
 counteract, by a continued series of sarcastic 
 and merry antidotes, the impression likely to 
 be produced by works appealing to the graver 
 and more mysterious feelings of the human 
 heart, — these are purposes which I would by 
 no means say the leaders of this celebrated 
 journal ever contemplated calmly and leisurely 
 as the prime objects of their endeavours ; but 
 they are purposes v/hich have been all alike 
 firmly, although sortije of them perhajDs un- 
 consciously, pursued by them ; and, indeed, 
 to speak the plain truth of the whole matter, 
 no one of which could liave been firmly or 
 effectually pursued without being pursued in 
 conjunction with the others. ' A house divided 
 against itself cannot stand.' 
 
 I am happy to say, however, that from all I 
 have now seen and heard of the state of 
 Scotland, this Revieiv, in spite of the fierce 
 popularity it for some years enjoyed, is by no 
 means likely to effect any such lasting, and, 
 of course, miserable change in the feelings and 
 character of the people of Scotland as might 
 
 have been at one time expected by the 
 Reviewers themselves, or dreaded by those 
 who held sacred a very different set of feelings 
 and principles, in all points, from those of 
 which they have been the champions. In spite 
 of the infidelity of the Edinburgh Revieio (for 
 I really feel no scruple in using the word 
 broadly), and, indeed, in spite of the sceptical 
 tendency of the whole body of Scotch philo- 
 sophy, the Scotch are still a religious people, 
 and likely, I trust, very long to continue so. 
 In spite of the mean views of general polity 
 illustrated and exemplified in the Edinburgh 
 Revieiu, and the still more offensive levity with 
 which things nearer home have sometimes been 
 treated by it, there is still an immense majority 
 of the people of Scotland who see things with 
 the eyes, I do not say of sincere (for of no one 
 do I question the sincerity), but of enlightened 
 patriots — men who understand the value of 
 national experience, and venerate those feelings 
 of loyalty and attachment to the more formal 
 and external parts of the English constitution, 
 with the general decay of which, I have very 
 little doubt, the whole fabric to which they 
 are fixed would be found to have lost many 
 of its firmest props as well as of its finest orna- 
 ments. 
 
 In regard to literature, I think the success of 
 the Edinburgh Revieio has been far more trium- 
 phant than in any other department of its 
 exertions. Here it had to encounter fewer 
 obstacles in the previous character and habits of 
 the Scottish x^eople ; for the influence of the 
 Sceptical Philosophy, introduced by the great 
 men of the last age, had very much removed all 
 feelings of intense admiration for any works 
 besides their own from among almost the only 
 class of people who in Scotland are much 
 interested about such subjects. The Scottish 
 education, too, as you have already seen in 
 part, is not such as to oppose any very formid- 
 able barrier of repugnant feelings against the 
 encroachment of the spirit of degrading 
 mockery. Ignorant in a great measure of the 
 mighty spirits of antiquity, the Scottish student 
 wants in truth the most powerful of all those 
 feelings which teach and prepare other men to 
 regard with an eye of humility, as well as of 
 admiration, those who in their own time seem 
 to revive the greatness of the departed, and 
 vindicate once more the innate greatness of our 
 nature. It is, indeed, no uncommon thing to 
 meet with men, calling themselves classical 
 scholars, who seem to think it a part of their 
 character as such to undervalue, on all occa- 
 sions, the exertions of contemporary genius. 
 But these are onlj'' your eaipty race of solemn 
 liretenders, who read particular books only 
 because few other people read them, and who, 
 unable themselves to i^roduce anything worthy 
 of the attention of their own age, are glad to 
 shelter their imbecility under the shadow of 
 
524 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 overstrained esclusive reverence for ages that 
 have gone by. It is not necessary to suppose 
 that liberal and enlightened scholarship has 
 anything in common with these reverend Tom 
 Folios. The just and geniTine effect of intimate 
 acquaintance with the gi-eat authors of 
 antiquity is to make men love and reverence 
 the great authors of their own time — the 
 intellectual kinsmen and heirs of those whom 
 they have so been wont to worship. 
 
 It is, indeed, a very deplorable thing to 
 observe in what an absurd state of ignorance 
 the majority of educated people in Scotland 
 have been persviaded to keep themselves con- 
 cerning much of the best and truest literature 
 cf their own age, as well as of the ages that 
 have gone by. Among the Whigs in Edinburgh, 
 above ail, a stranger from the south is every 
 day thunderstruck by some new mark of total 
 and inconceivable ignorance concerning men 
 and things, which, to every man of education 
 with whom he has conversed in any other town 
 of Britain, are 'familiar as household words.' 
 The degree to which the intellectual subjection 
 of these people has been carried, is a thing 
 of which I am quite sure you cannot possibly 
 have the smallest suspicion. The Edinburgh 
 Reviewers have not checked or imi^eded only 
 the influence of particular authors among their 
 countrymen ; they have entirely prevented 
 them from ever coming beyond the Tweed. 
 They have willed them to be unknown, abso- 
 lutely and literally unknown, and so are they 
 at this moment. I do not on my conscience 
 believe, that there is one Whig in Edinbvirgh to 
 whom the name of my friend Charles Lamb 
 would convey any distinct or definite idea. 
 His John Woodville was ridiculed in the 
 Edinburgh Review, and the effect of this paltry 
 ridicule has been not only to prevent the 
 Scotch from reading John Woodville (a tragedy 
 which, although every way worthy of Lamb's 
 exquisite genius, wants very many of the 
 popular charms in which some of his other 
 pieces are rich to overflowing), but almost to 
 prevent them from remembering that such a 
 person as Chaiies Lamb exists, at least to 
 prevent them most effectually from ever having 
 recourse for delight and instruction to volumes 
 wherein as much delight and instruction may 
 be found as in any of similar size which an 
 English library possesses. Even the command- 
 ing, majestic intellect of Wordsworth has not 
 been able to overcome the effect of the petty 
 warfare kept up against it by a set of wits, one 
 of whom only might have been expected to 
 enter with some portion of intelligence into the 
 spirit of so great and original a poet. To find 
 fault with particular parts of Mr. Wordsworth's 
 poems, or with particular points in the psycho- 
 logical system upon which the whole structure 
 of his poetry is built, might have been very 
 well either for the Eeviewers or the readers of 
 
 the Bevieio ; but the actual truth of the case 
 is something very different indeed from this. 
 The reading public of Edinburgh do not criticise 
 Mr. Wordsworth ; they think him below their 
 criticism ; they know nothing about what he 
 has done, or what he is likely to do. They 
 think him a mere old sequestered hermit, eaten 
 up with vanity and affectation, who publishes 
 every now and then some absurd poem about a 
 Washing-tub, or a Leech-gatherer, or a Little 
 Grey Cloak. They do not know even the names 
 of some of the finest poems our age has 
 produced. They never heard of * Ruth,' or 
 'Michael,' or the 'Brothers,' or 'Hart-Leap 
 Well,' or the ' Recollections of Infancy,' or the 
 ' Sonnets to Buonaparte. ' They do not know 
 that there is such a thing as a description of n 
 churchyard in the Excursion. Alas ! how 
 severely is their ignorance punished in itself ! 
 But after all, Mr. Wordsworth can have no 
 very great right to complain. The same people 
 who despise and are ignorant of him, despise 
 also and are ignorant of all the majestic poets 
 the world has ever produced, with no exceptions 
 beyond two or three great names, acquaintance 
 v.4th which has been forced upon them by 
 circumstances entirely out of their control. 
 The fate of Homer, of JEschylus, of Dante — 
 nay, of Milton — is his. 
 
 The spirit of this facetious and rejoicing 
 ignorance has become so habitual to the Scotch- 
 men of the present day, that even they who 
 have thrown off all allegiance to the Edinburgh 
 Review cannot divest themselves of its influence. 
 There is no work which has done so much to 
 weaken the authority of the Edinburgh Review 
 in such matters as Blackwood's Magazine ; and 
 yet I saw an article in that work the other day 
 in which it seemed to be made matter of con- 
 gratulatory reflection, that 'if Mr. Coleridge 
 should make his appearance suddenly among 
 any company of well-educated people on this 
 side the Tweed, he would meet with some 
 little difficulty in making them comprehend 
 who he was.' What a fine idea for a Scottish 
 critic to hug himself upon ! How great is the 
 blessing of a contented disposition ! 
 
 P. M. 
 
 [Mrs. Hemans was born at Liverpool, Sep- 
 tember 25, 1794, and her poetical taste 
 soon began to show itself in a passion for 
 Shakespeare, whom she delighted to read 
 among the boughs of an apple-tree in the 
 garden. The inscription on the tablet to 
 her memory records that ' her character is 
 best portrayed in her writings.' Her 
 talents ought not, perhaps, to be estimated 
 by those forced fruits which she scattered 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 with so much profusion over the periodical 
 press. Byron said that she was a poet, 
 but too stilted and apostrophic, and quite 
 -wrong — a harsh but an accurate criticism. 
 Her language is generally rich and musical, 
 and her sentiments are arrayed in oriental 
 splendour. Her pictures frequently contain 
 objects of beauty, but coloured up to the 
 exhibition-brilliancy. She loved "Words- 
 worth, but she imitated Darwin. Some of 
 her smaller poems, the 'Palm Tree,' for 
 example, are perfectly excellent, and 
 breathe the spirit of genuine poetry. Her 
 letters have the defects, without the 
 graces, of her verse ; but the following 
 account of a visit to the Poet of the Lakes 
 possesses an intrinsic and independent 
 interest,— WillmottP^ 
 
 MRS. HEMANS TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Eijdal Mount, June 22, 1830. 
 You were very kind in writing to me so soon, 
 and making the remembrance of my journey 
 with you one of unmingled pleasure, by your 
 assurance that all was well on your return. 
 For myself, I can truly say, that my enjoyment 
 of your society and kindness, and the lovely 
 scenery by which we were surrounded, made 
 those pleasant days seem as a little isle of sun- 
 shine in my life, to which I know that memory 
 will again and again return. I felt very forlorn 
 
 after you were gone from Ambleside : came 
 
 and went without exciting a smile, and my 
 nervous fear, at the idea of presenting myself 
 alone to Mr. Wordsworth, grew upon me so 
 rapidly that it was more than seven before I 
 took the courage to leave the inn. I had, 
 indeed, little cause for such trejDidation. I was 
 driven to a lovely cottage-like building, almost 
 hidden by a profusion of roses and ivy ; and a 
 most benignant-looking old man greeted me in 
 the porch : this was Mr. Wordsworth himself ; 
 and when I tell you that, having rather a 
 large party of visitors in the house, he led me 
 to a room apart from them, and brought in his 
 family by degrees, I am sure that little trait 
 will give you an idea of considerate kindness 
 which you will both like and appreciate. In 
 half an hour I felt myself as much at ease with 
 him as I had been with Sir Walter Scott in 
 half a day. I laughed to find myself saying on 
 the occasion of some little domestic occurrence, 
 ' Mr. Wordsworth, how could you be so giddy ? ' 
 He has, undeniably, a lurking love of mischief, 
 and would not, I think, be half so safely 
 entrusted with the tied-up bag of winds as 
 
 Mr. insisted that Dr. Channing might be. 
 
 There is almost a patriarchal simplicity, and an 
 absence of all pretension, about him, which I 
 
 know you would like : all is free, unstudied, 
 * the river winding at its own sweet will.' In 
 his manner and conversation there is more of 
 impulse than I had expected, but in other 
 respects I see much that I should look for in 
 the poet of meditative life ; frequently his 
 head droops, his eyes half close, and he seems 
 buried in great depths of thought. I have 
 passed a delightful morning to-day in walking 
 with him about his own richly-shaded grounds, 
 I and hearing him speak of the old English 
 writers, particularly Spenser, whom he loves, 
 as he himself expresses it, for his ' earnestness 
 and devotedness.' It is an immeasurable 
 
 transition from Spenser to ; but I have 
 
 been so much amused by Mr. Wordsworth's 
 characterizing her as ' a tumultuous young 
 woman,' that I cannot forbear transcribing the 
 expression for the use of my friends. I must 
 not forget to tell you that he not only admired 
 our exploit in crossing the Ulverston sands as a 
 deed of ' derring do,' but a decided proof of 
 taste ; the lake scenery, he says, is never seen 
 to such advantage as after the passage of what 
 he calls its majestic barrier. Let me write out 
 the passage from Haco before I quite exhaust 
 my paper ; this was certainly the meaning we 
 both agreed upon, though I did not recollect 
 your translation sufficiently well to arrange the 
 versification accordingly. 
 
 ' Where is the noble game that ■will not seek 
 A perilous covert, even from wildest rocks, 
 In his sore need, when first the hunters' train 
 Press on his panting flight.' 
 
 [In a change of Government caused by the re- 
 signation of Sir Robert Peel in November 
 1834, Mr. Disraeli put himself forward as the 
 Tory candidate for Taunton, in opposition 
 to Mr. Labouchere, the Liberal candidate. 
 In the course of his speech he made a 
 violent attack on Daniel O'Connell, the 
 Irish liberator. O'Connell had just been 
 reconciled to the "Whigs, and Disraeli was 
 disappointed in losing his support. At a 
 meeting of the Trades Unions, held in 
 Dublin, the latter took the opportunity of 
 replying to Mr. Disraeli's attack. The reply 
 is one of the bitterest and most memorable 
 in political history. ' He possesses,' said 
 O'Connell, alluding to his opponent, 'just 
 the qualities of the impenitent thief, whose 
 name, I verily believe, must have been 
 Disraeli. For aught I know, the present 
 Disraeli is descended from him ; and with 
 the inapression that he is, I now forgive the 
 
526 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who 
 died upon the cross.' O'Connell's speech 
 was copied into nearly every newspaper in 
 the kingdom, so that there could have been 
 no more terrible public ordeal. The follow- 
 ing is Disraeli's letter in reply to this 
 attack : — ] 
 
 MK. DISRAELI TO MR. DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P, 
 FOR DUBLIN. 
 
 London^ May 5, 1834. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell,— Although you have long 
 placed yourself out of the pale of civilisation, 
 still I am one who will not be insulted even by 
 a yahoo without chastising it. When I read 
 this morning in the same journals your virulent 
 attack upon myself, and that your son was at 
 the same moment paying the penalty of similar 
 virulence to another individual on whom you 
 had dropped your filth, I thought that the con- 
 sciousness that your opponents had at length 
 discovered a source of satisfaction might have 
 animated your insolence to unwonted energy, 
 q,nd I called upon your son to reassume his 
 vicarious office of yielding satisfaction for his 
 shrinking sire. But it seems that gentleman 
 declines the further exercise of the pleasing 
 duty of enduring the consequences of your 
 libertine harangues. 
 
 I have no other means, therefore, of noticing 
 your effusion but this public mode. Listen, 
 then, to me ! If it had been possible for you to 
 act like a gentleman, you would have hesitated 
 before you made your foul and insolent com- 
 ments upon a hasty and garbled report of a 
 speech, which scarcely contains a sentence or an 
 exjiression as they emanated from my mouth ; 
 but the truth is, you were glad to seize the fii'st 
 opportunity of pouring forth your venom against 
 a man whom it serves the interest of your party 
 to represent as a political apostate. In 1831, 
 when Mr. O'Connell expressed to the electors 
 of Wycombe his anxiety to assist me in my 
 election, I came forward as the opi)onent of the 
 party in power, and which I described in my 
 address as a rapacious, tyrannical, and incapable 
 faction — the English Whigs — who, in the 
 ensuing year, denounced you as a traitor from 
 the throne, and every one of whom, only a few 
 months back, you have anathematized with all 
 the peculiar grace of a tongue i)ractised in scur- 
 rility. You are the patron of these men now, 
 Mr. O'Connell ; you, forsooth, are ' devoted ' to 
 them. I am still their uncompromising oppo- 
 nent. Which of us is the most consistent? 
 You say that I was once a Radical, and that now 
 I am a Tory. My conscience acquits me of ever 
 having deserted a political friend, or ever having 
 changed a political opinion. I worked for a 
 great and an avowed end in 1831, and that was 
 the restoration of the balance of parties in the 
 
 State — a result which I believe to be necessary 
 to the honour of the realm and the happiness of 
 the i^eople. I never advocated a measure which 
 I did not believe tended to this result ; and if 
 there be any measure which I then urged, and 
 now am not disposed to press, it is because that 
 great result is obtained. In 1831, 1 should have 
 been very happy to have laboured for this object 
 with Mr. O'Connell, with whom I had no per- 
 sonal acquaintance, but who was a member 
 of the Legislature, remarkable for his political 
 influence, his versatile talents, and his intense 
 hatred and undisguised contempt of the "WTiigs. 
 Since 1831 we have met only once, but I have a 
 lively recollection of my interview with so dis- 
 tinguished a personage. Our conversation was 
 of great length. I had a very ami)le opportunity 
 of studying your character. I thought you a 
 very amusing, a very interesting, but a some- 
 what overrated man. I am sure on that occa- 
 sion I did not disguise from you my political 
 views. I spoke with a frankness which, I 
 believe, is characteristic of my disposition. I 
 told you I was not a sentimental but a practical 
 politician; that what I chiefly desired to see 
 was the formation of a strong but constitutional 
 government, that would maintain the empire, 
 and that I thought if the Whigs remained in 
 office they would shipwreck the State. I ob- 
 served then, as was my habit, that the Wliigs 
 must be got rid of at any price. It seemed to 
 me that you were much of the same opinion as 
 myself, but our conversation was very general. 
 We formed no political alliance, and for a 
 simple reason. I concealed neither from your- 
 self nor from your friends, the repeal of the Union 
 was an impassable gulf between us, and that I 
 could not comprehend, after the announceme:it 
 of such an intention, how any English part}-^ 
 could co-operate with you. Probably you then 
 thought that the English movement might con- 
 federate with you on a system of mutual assist- 
 ance, and that you might exchange and circulate 
 your accommodation measures of destruction. 
 But even Mr. O'Connell, mth his lively faith 
 in Whig feebleness and Whig dishonesty, could 
 scarcely have imagined that, in the course of 
 twelve months, his fellow conspirators were to 
 be my Lord Melbourne and the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne. I admire your scurrilous allusion 
 to my origin. It is clear that the ' hereditary 
 bondsman ' has already forgotten the clank of 
 his fetters. I know the tactics of your Church 
 — it clamours for toleration, and it labours for 
 supremacy. I see that you are quite prepared 
 to persecute. With regard to your taunts as to 
 my want of success in my election contests, per- 
 mit me to remind you that I had nothing to 
 appeal to but the good sense of the people. No 
 threatening skeletons canvassed for me. A 
 death's-head and cross-bones were not blazoned 
 on my banners. My pecuniary resources, too, 
 were limited. I am not one of those public 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. ' 527 
 
 has been the foe of freedom too, but in 
 Russia there is one exception— Russia has 
 been the friend of Slavonic freedom. But 
 Austria has never been the friend even of 
 Slavonic freedom. Austria trampled Italy 
 under foot ; Austria resisted the unity of 
 Germany ; Austria did all she could to 
 prevent the creation of Belgium ; Austria 
 never lifted a finger for the regeneration 
 and constitution of Greece.' — Gladstone's 
 3Iidlothian Speeches.} 
 
 beggars that we see swarming with their obtru- 
 sive boxes in the cha^iels of your creed ; nor am 
 I in possession of a princely revenue arising 
 from a starving race of fanatical slaves. Never- 
 theless, I have a deep conviction that the hour 
 is at hand when I shall be more successful, and 
 take my place in that proud assembly of which 
 Mr. O'Connell avows his wish to be no longer a 
 member. I expect to be a representative of the 
 people before the repeal of the Union. 
 
 We shall meet at Philippi ; and rest assured 
 that, confident in a good cause, and in some 
 energies which have been not altogether un- 
 improved, I will seize the first opportunity of 
 inflicting upon you a castigation, which will 
 make you at the same time remember and re- 
 pent the insults that you have lavished upon 
 Benjamin Diseaeli. 
 
 [' Did you read in the London papers within the 
 last few weeks an account of the energetic 
 support which they derive from the 
 Emperor of Austria ? Did you see that the 
 Emperor of Austria sent for the British 
 Ambassador, Sir Henry Elliot, and told 
 Sir Henry Elliot what a pestilent person he 
 considered a certain Mr. Gladstone, as a man 
 that did not approve of the foreign i>olicy of 
 Austria, and how anxious he was— so the 
 Emperor of Austria was condescendingly 
 j)leased to say for the guidance of the British 
 people, and of the electors of Midlothian — 
 how anxious he was, gentlemen, that you 
 should all of you give your votes in a way to 
 maintain the Ministry of Lord Beaconsfield? 
 "Well, if you approve of the foreign policy 
 of Austria, the foreign j)olicy that Austria 
 has usually pursued, I advise you to do 
 that very thing. If you want to have an 
 Austrian foreign policy dominant in the 
 councils of this country, give your votes 
 as the Emperor of Austria recommends. 
 What has that policy of Austria been ? I 
 do not say that Austria is incurable. I 
 hope some day or other it will be cured, 
 because it has got better institutions at 
 home ; and although its condition is one 
 of much difficulty and doubt, I heartily 
 wish it well in its attempts, if it makes 
 honest attempts, to confront its difficulties. 
 Yet I must look to what that policy has 
 been. Austria has been the steady, 
 unflinching foe of freedom of every country 
 in Europe. Russia, I am sorrj- to say, 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S LETTER TO COUNT KAEOLYI. 
 
 London, May 4, 1880. 
 
 Dear Count Kaeolyi,— I thank your Excel- 
 lency for your letter, which, uniting frankness 
 v/itli kindness, renders my task an easy one. 
 
 Without discussing the accuracy of certain 
 expressions in the report you have forwarded, 
 I proceed at once to the subject. At the 
 moment when I accepted from the Queen the 
 duty of forming an Administration, I forthwith 
 resolved that I would not, as a minister, either 
 repeat or even defend in argument polemical 
 language, in regard to more than one foreign 
 power, which I had used individually when in 
 a position of greater freedom and less responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 Two points have been raised by your Excel- 
 lency. I will dispose of the first by expressing 
 my regret that I should even have seemed to 
 impute to His Imperial Majesty language which 
 he did not use. 
 
 Your Excellency says that His Imperial 
 Majesty expressed, in conversation with Sir H. 
 Elliot, ' his deep regret at my hostile disposition 
 towards Austria.' Permit me to say I have no 
 such disposition towards any country whatever, 
 and that I at all times have particularly and 
 heartily wished well to Austria. In the per- 
 formance of the arduous task of consolidating 
 the empire, I feel a cordial respect for the 
 efforts of the Emperor, and I trust that their 
 complete success may honourably and nobly 
 mark his reign. 
 
 With respect to my animadversions on the 
 foreign policy of Austria in times when it was 
 active beyond the border, I will not conceal 
 from your Excellency that grave apprehensions 
 had been excited in my mind lest Austria 
 should play a part in the Balkan peninsula 
 hostile to the freedom of the emancipated 
 populations, and to the reasonable and warranted 
 hopes of the subjects of the Sultan. These 
 apprehensions were founded, it is true, upon 
 secondary evidence ; but it was not the evidence 
 of hostile witnesses, and it was the best at my 
 command. 
 
 Your Excellency is now good enough to 
 
528 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 assure me that your Government has no desire 
 whatever to extend or add to the rights it has 
 acquired under the ti-eaty of Berlin, and that 
 »ny such extension would be actually prejudicial 
 to Austria-Hungary. 
 
 Permit me at once to state to your Excellency 
 that had I been in possession of such an assur- 
 ance as I have now been able to receive, I never 
 would have uttered any one of the words which 
 your Excellency justly describes as of a painful 
 and wounding character. "Whether it was my 
 misfortune or my fault that I was not so 
 supplied, I will not now attempt to determine ; 
 but will at once express my serious concern 
 that I should, in default of it, have been led to 
 refer to transactions of an earlier period, or to 
 use terms of censure which I can now whoUy 
 banish from my mind. 
 
 I think that the exjilanation I now tender 
 should be made not less public than the speech 
 which has supplied the occasion for it ; and as 
 to the form of such publicity, I desire to accede 
 to whatever may be your Excellency's wish. I 
 have only to thank your Excellency alike for 
 the matter and the manner both of your oral 
 and of your written communications. — "With, 
 etc. (Signed) W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 [Mr. Ephraim Rigby of Drighlington, near 
 Leeds, received, in answer to a * few 
 questions on Free- trade versus Foreign 
 Tariffs,' the following characteristic letter 
 from the Eight Hon. John Bright, M.P. :— ] 
 
 ME. JOHN BRIGHT, M.P., AND FRENCH AND 
 AMEEICAN TAEIFFS. 
 
 London, March 29, 1881. 
 
 Deae SiE, — I have not time to answer your 
 letter at length. If you will read the little 
 book to which I referred in my letter on the 
 speech of the member for Preston, you may 
 learn much from it — more than I can tell you in 
 any letter I can write. 
 
 We all regret that France, the United States 
 of America, and other countries continue their 
 high tariffs ; it is, we believe, a misfortune to 
 them and injurious to us ; but we can only 
 legislate for our own country and not for them. 
 If you think that, not being able to sell freely, 
 we should mend ourselves by giving up the 
 2)ower to buy freely, I must leave you to that 
 opinion, only expressing my wonder at it. But 
 you will perhaps say that we can force other 
 nations to reduce their tariffs if we impose a 
 tariff against them. You forget probably that 
 we have tried this in past times, and that it has 
 wholly failed. Sir P»,obert Peel taught this 
 nearly 40 years ago, and he believed, as I believe, 
 that the best defence we can have against the 
 
 evils of foreign tariffs, is to have no tariff of 
 our own. 
 
 You speak of France. The French Senate is 
 in favour of more Protection. The Chamber of 
 Deputies is disposed to Free-trade and a more 
 liberal policy. The Free-trade party in France 
 is more powerful than in past times, and it is 
 not certain that the proposed treaty will be less 
 favourable to trade between the two countries. 
 As to America, how will you compel its govern- 
 ment to reduce their tariff ? By placing duties 
 on American exports to England ? If so, on 
 what exports ? On cotton for the mills of 
 Lancashire, or on corn for the food of all our 
 people ? The American protective tariff makes 
 it difficult or impossible for Americans to become 
 great exporters of manufactures. If you fight 
 them at the Custom Houses, you can only assail 
 them by duties on cotton or on corn, and this 
 surely will not benefit Lancashire or the West 
 Riding. AVhen the debt of the United States 
 is much reduced, when the revenue is in excess 
 of their wants, then their tariff will be reformed 
 and their import duties will be reduced. 
 
 If you doubt what Free-trade has done for 
 England, go back to your histories, and read 
 what was the condition of our working men and 
 their families for the first forty years of this 
 century, when everything was supposed to be 
 protected, and compare it with what it is now. 
 
 For some years past manufacturers and farmers 
 have suffered greatly, and workmen have suf- 
 fered much, but they have not seen one-tenth 
 part of the distress which afflicted them during 
 the forty years of the high duties from 1800 to 
 1840. The country suffers now, not from our 
 purified tariff, and not wholly, or in chief part, 
 from foreign tariffs. It suffers from want of sun- 
 shine—from the short harvests of several years ; 
 and till we have again good harvests, Ave must 
 suffer and endure. Parliament cannot give 
 sun and heat for our fields, and it will be no 
 compensation to reimpose import duties and 
 to deny us the right to purchase freely what we 
 need from foreign nations. — I am, very respect- 
 fully, yours, John Bright. 
 
 [For moral earnestness and beauty, and the 
 expression of great truths in noble and 
 burning language, Mr. Ruskin's letters 
 collected by an Oxford pupil in Arrows of 
 the Chace, or the numbers of Fors Clavigera, 
 are among the most notable of modern 
 times. As every utterance of the author 
 of Modern Painters is more or less cliarac- 
 teristic, we quote two upon current topics, 
 written since the issue of the above. The 
 following letter, announcing the acceptance 
 by 3Ir, Kuskin of the office of President of 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 529 
 
 the Associated Societies of Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity, and addressed to E. Monteith Mac- 
 phail, secretary of the Associated Societies, 
 is reprinted from the Scotzman.'\ 
 
 Brantivood, Coniston, Lancashire. 
 
 My dear Sir,— I very gratefully acknowledge 
 your favour of yesterday's date, and the 
 courtesy of its message, no less than its more 
 serious meaning. 
 
 The confidence placed in me by the youth of 
 ^Sir 'Walter's town — may I say my father's also, 
 and much more to me than mine — will, I hope, 
 give me the best encouragement possible in the 
 work which I am at present planning for years 
 to come, — if permitted to come,— and whatever I 
 can be to them, as a helper, I will be to the best 
 i of my power. I cannot, after reading your 
 message from them, doubt their acquitting me 
 of having i>aused at first in reply to their call, 
 either in disrespect to them or in aliectation. 
 My late illnesses have made it necessary for me, 
 if not to cease work, at least to waste none, and 
 I was entirely doubtful if any of my old-fashion- 
 ed principles could be, at pi-esent, spoken for 
 any good except in the form of quietly recorded 
 protest, which is not the duty of a 'president.' 
 However, if even it turn out eventually that I 
 cannot much help you, at least I will promise 
 not to hinder, and to remain in such ways as 
 you can show me always your Societies' re- 
 spectful and faithful servant, 
 
 John Euskin. 
 
 [Mr. Kuskin, a friend to both man and beast, 
 sent the following letter to the Mornin(j 
 Post in connection with the sale, by the 
 London Zoological Society, of the elephant 
 Jumbo to Mr. P. T. Barnum, the American 
 showman, in 1882. In spite of this and other 
 warm demonstrations of feeling on the part 
 of an excited British public, and the legal 
 measures which were taken to prevent it, 
 BIr. Barnum triumphed, and Jumbo was 
 transported across the Atlantic, where he 
 was welcomed and exhibited to thousands 
 on the American continent.] 
 
 MR. RUSKIX AND JUMBO. 
 
 Sir, — ^Permit me, as a life fellow of the Zoo- 
 logical Society, to contradict in the sternest and 
 most direct manner the statement made by its 
 secretary in your columns of to-day that ' it is 
 quite certain that the members of the Council 
 share in this regret' (at selling their old ele- 
 phant to a caravan) 'as much as any of the 
 fellows.' I, for one of the said fellows, ain not 
 
 in the habit of selling my old pets or parting 
 with my old servants because I find them sub- 
 ject occasionally, perhaps even 'periodically,' 
 to fits of ill-temper, and I not only ' regret ' the 
 proceedings of the Council, but disclaim them 
 utterly as disgraceful to the city of London and 
 dishonourable to common humanity. If the 
 Council want money, let them beg it ; if they 
 want a stronger elephant's house, let them build 
 it. There is brick and iron enough in London to 
 keep a single beast safe with, I suppose, and if 
 there are not children in London brave enough 
 to back him in his afternoon walk, let them look 
 at him and go to their rocking - horses. It 
 seemed to me, however, that Mr. Sclater's letter 
 is quite ground enough to justify the police in 
 preventing any further direct violence to the 
 animal, and while the Council and Mr. Bar- 
 num's agent are concocting new methods of 
 treachery to him, there is time for the children 
 to say their say, and pay their pence, and make 
 Jumbo their own for ever. Then, if there are 
 any other fellows of my mind, we'll find board 
 and lodgings for him and peace. — I am, sir, 
 your faithful servant, 
 
 John Euskin. 
 
 [The following letter from the Queen was 
 received by Secretary Sir William Vernon 
 Harcourt in connection with the demonstra- 
 tions of sympathy from her loyal subjects 
 from all parts of the kingdom, drawn forth 
 by the attempt to shoot Her Majesty while 
 leaving "Windsor Station on the 2d March 
 1882, by a half - witted person named 
 Eoderick Maclean.] 
 
 THE QUEEN AND HER SUBJECTS. 
 
 Windsor Castle, March 12, 1882. 
 
 The Queen wishes, before she leaves England 
 for a short while for some comparative rest and 
 quiet, to express from her heart how very 
 deeply touched she is by the outburst of 
 enthusiastic loyalty, affection, and devotion 
 which the painful event of the 2d inst. has 
 called forth from all classes and from all parts 
 of her vast empire, as well as by the universal 
 sympathy evinced by the sovereigns and peoi"»le 
 of other nations. The Queen cannot sufficiently 
 express how deeply gratified she is by these 
 demonstrations, and would wish to convey to 
 all, from the highest to the humblest, her 
 Avarmest and most heartfelt thanks. 
 
 It has ever been her greatest object to do all 
 she can for her subjects, and to uphold the 
 honour and glory of her dear country, as well 
 as to promote the j)rosj)erity and happiness of 
 those over whom she has reigned so long, anil 
 these efforts will be continued unceasingly to 
 the last hour of her life. The Queen tiianks 
 
530 
 
 THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 God that He spared her beloved child who is 
 her constant and devoted companion, and those 
 who were with her in the moment of danger, 
 as well as herself ; and she prays that He will 
 continue to protect her for her people's sake, as 
 He has hitherto so visibly done. 
 
 [On Saturday, 6th May 1882, Lord Frederick 
 Cavendish, second son of the Duke of 
 Devonshire, the newly appointed Secretary 
 to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and 
 Thomas H. Burke, permanent Under Secre- 
 tary at Dublin Castle, were foully mvirdered 
 wliile walking together in the Phoenix Park, 
 Dublin. This crime awoke a thrill of horror 
 throughout the land, and the following is the 
 kindly letter which the Queen sent to IMiss 
 Burke, sister of the Under Secretary : — ] 
 
 LETTER FROM THE QUEEN TO MISS BURKE. 
 
 Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1882. 
 
 Dear Miss Burke,— Though not personally 
 acquainted with you, I am anxious to express to 
 you again in writing how deep and sincere my 
 sympathy is with you in this hour of affliction 
 and bereavement, and how much I deplore the 
 loss of one who had devoted his life to the ser- 
 vice of his sovereign and country so loyally, 
 faithfully, and ably. 
 
 It is impossible to express the horror which, 
 in common with the world at large, I have 
 experienced at the dreadful event of last Satur- 
 day ; and Avhilst nothing can make up to you and 
 to poor Lady Cavendish for the loss of a beloved 
 brother and husband, the universal sympathy 
 which is felt for you may, I hope, be soothing 
 to you. Trusting that your health may, not 
 suffer, and praying that God may support you, 
 believe me, sincerely yours, 
 
 (Signed) VICTORIA. 
 
 [The Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 
 sent the following rejjly to the address 
 of condolence adopted by the Senate at the 
 congregation, in connection with the same 
 sad event as the foregoing.] 
 
 Chatswortk, Chesterfield, May 15, 1882. 
 To THE Vice-Chancellor and Senate of the 
 University op CAMBRinGE. 
 Gentlemen, — I thank you from my heart for 
 your address of condolence. I have derived a 
 melancholy satisfaction from its language ex- 
 pressive of your sympathy and of your feelings 
 of horror and detestation at the foul crime of 
 
 which my beloved and excellent son has been 
 the victim. 
 
 It has afforded me no small consolation to 
 remember that he has perished, as you remind 
 me, in the performance of his duty. He went 
 to Ireland, as I know from his own lips, in the 
 conviction that he ought not to shrink from the 
 acceptance of the post that was offered to him, 
 and in the earnest hope that he might be of 
 service to his country ; and now that he has 
 fallen, I pray that it may please Almighty 
 God to overrule this feai'ful calamity to the 
 restoration of peace and goodwill in Ireland. — 
 I am, gentlemen, your very faithful servant, 
 Devonshire. 
 
 [Isabella L. Bird (now Mrs. Bishop) has added 
 several charming and picturesque volumes 
 to the literature of modern travel. Her first 
 work was the Englishwoman in America, 
 issued anonymously ; then Hawaii, an ac- 
 count of a sojourn in the Sandwich Islands ; 
 next, Letters from the Rocky Mountains; 
 which was followed by Unheatcn Tracks in 
 Japan. The latter three volumes, for the 
 most part, are made up of letters sent 
 home to an invalid sister in Edinburgh, 
 now deceased. All these letters were 
 well worth reprinting. They are bright, 
 chatty, and agreeable ; the authoress has 
 very unusual descriptive power, which 
 helps the reader to realize in a more than 
 usually vivid manner the events, scenes, 
 and characters she may be describing. 
 Our extract is from Unbeaten Tracks in 
 Japan, by the kind permission of tho 
 autlior.] 
 
 the ainos of yezo. 
 
 Aino Hut, Biratori. 
 I AM in the lonely Aino land, and I think 
 that the most interesting of my travelling 
 experiences has been the living for three days 
 and two nights in an Aino hut, and seeing and 
 sharing the daily life of complete savages, who 
 go on with their ordinary occupations just as if 
 I were not among them. I found yesterday 
 a most fatiguing and over-exciting day, as 
 everything was new and interesting, even the 
 extracting from men who have few if any 
 ideas in common Avith me, all I could extract 
 concerning their religion and customs, and that 
 tlu'ough an interpreter. I got up at six this 
 morning to write out my notes, and have been 
 writing for five hours, and there is shortly the 
 prospect of another savage seance. The dis- 
 tractions, as you can imagine, are many. At 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 this moment a savage is taking a cup of saki:, 
 by the fire in the centre of the floor. He 
 salutes me by extending his hands and waving 
 them towards his face, and then dips a rod in 
 the saM, and makes six libations to the god — 
 an upright piece of wood with a fringe of 
 shavings planted in the floor of the room. 
 Then he waves the cup several times towards 
 himself, makes other libations to the fire, and 
 drinks. Ten other men and women are sitting 
 along each side of the fire-hole, the chief's wife 
 is cooking, the men are apathetically contem- 
 I)lating the preparation of their food ; and the 
 other women, who are never idle, are splitting 
 the bark of which they make their clothes. I 
 occupy the guest - seat — a raised platform at 
 one end of the fire, vdth the skin of a black 
 bear thrown over it. 
 
 I have reserved all I have to say about the 
 Ainos till I had been actually among them, 
 and I hope you will have patience to read to 
 the end. Ito is very greedy and self-indulgent, 
 and whimpered very much about coming to 
 Biratori at all — one would have thought he 
 was going to the stake. He actually borrowed 
 for himself a sleeping-mat and fatons, and has 
 brought a chicken, onions, potatoes, French 
 beans, Japanese sauce, tea, rice, a kettle, a 
 stew-pan, and a rice-pan, while I contented 
 myself with a cold fowl and potatoes. 
 
 AVe took three horses and a mounted Aino 
 guide, and found a beaten track the whole way. 
 It turns into the forest at once on leaving 
 Sarfuto, and goes through forest the entire 
 distance, with an abundance of reedy grass 
 higher than my hat on horseback along it, and 
 as it is only twelve inches broad and much 
 overgrown, the horses were constantly pushing 
 through leafage soaking from a night's rain, 
 and I was soon wet up to my shoulders. The 
 forest trees are almost solely the Ailanthus 
 f/landulosus and the Zelkowa kealci, often matted 
 together with a white-flowered trailer of the 
 Hydrangea genus. The undergrowth is simply 
 hideous, consisting mainly of coarse reedy grass, 
 monstrous docks, the large-leaved Polygonum 
 cuspidatum, several umbelliferous plants, and 
 a 'ragweed,' which, like most of its gawky 
 fellows, grows from five to six feet high. The 
 forest is dark and very silent, threaded by this 
 narrow path, and by others as narrov/, made 
 by the hunters in search of game. The ' main 
 road ' sometimes jDlunges into deep bogs, at 
 others is roughly corduroyed by the roots of 
 trees, and frequently hangs over the edge of 
 abrupt and much-worn declivities, in going up 
 one of which the baggage-horse rolled down a 
 bank fully thirty feet high, and nearly all the 
 tea was lost. At another the guide's pack- 
 saddle lost its balance, and man, horse, and 
 saddle went over the slope, pots, pans, and 
 packages flying after them. At another time 
 my horse sank up to his chest in a very bad 
 
 bog, and as he was totally unable to extricate 
 himself, I was obliged to scramble upon his 
 neck and jump to terra firma over his ears. 
 
 There is something very gloomy in the soli- 
 tude of this silent land, with its beast-haunted 
 forests, its great patches of pasture, the resort 
 of wild animals which haunt the lower regions 
 in search of food when the snow drives them 
 down from the mountains, and its narrow 
 track, indicating the single file in which the 
 savages of the interior walk with their bare, 
 noiseless feet. Reaching the Sarufutogawa, a 
 river with a treacherous bottom, in which Mr. 
 Von Siebold and his horse came to grief, I 
 hailed an Aino boy, who took me up the stream 
 in a ' dug-out,' and after that we passed through 
 Biroka, Saruba, and Mina, ail purely Aino 
 villages, situated among small patches of millet, 
 tobacco, and pumpkins, so choked with weeds 
 that it was doubtful whether they were crops. 
 I was much surprised with the extreme ;neat- 
 ness and cleanliness outside the houses ; ' model 
 villages' they are in these respects, with no 
 litter lying in sight anywhere, nothing indeed 
 but dog troughs, hollowed out of logs, like 
 ' dug-outs,' for the numerous yellow dogs, 
 which are a feature of Aino life. There are 
 neither puddles nor heaps, but the houses, all 
 trim and in good repair, rise clean out of the 
 sandy soil. 
 
 Biratori, the largest of the Aino settlements 
 in this region, is very prettily situated among 
 forests and mountains, on rising ground, with 
 a very sinuous river winding at its feet and a 
 wooded height above. A lonelier i)lace could 
 scarcely be found. As we passed among the 
 houses the yellow dogs barked, the women 
 looked shy and smiled, and the men made 
 their graceful salutation. We stopped at the 
 chief's house, where, of course, we were un- 
 expected guests ; but Shinondi, his nephew, 
 and two other men came out, saluted us, and 
 with most hospitable intent helped Ito to 
 unload the horses. Indeed their eager hospi- 
 tality created quite a commotion, one running I 
 hither and the other thither in their anxiety 
 to welcome a stranger. It is a large house, 
 the room being 35 by 25, and the roof 20 feet 
 high ; but you enter by an ante-chamber, in 
 which are kept the millet-mill and other 
 articles. There is a doorway in this, but the 
 inside is pretty dark, and Shinondi, taking my 
 hand, raised the reed curtain bound with hide, 
 which concealed the entrance into the actual 
 house, and leading me into it, retired a foot- 
 step, extended his arms, waved his hands 
 inwards three times, and then stroked his j 
 beard several times, after which he indicated 
 by a sweep of his hand and a beautiful smUe , 
 that the house and all it contained were mine. 
 An aged woman, the chief's mother, who was 
 splitting bark by the fire, waved her hands also. ■ 
 She is the queen-regnant of the house. 
 
THE ERITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 Again taking my hand, Shinondi led me to 
 the place of honour at the head of the fire, a 
 rude, moveable platform six feet long, by four 
 broad, and a foot high, on which he laid an 
 ornamental mat, apologizing for not having at 
 that moment a bearskin where-with to cover 
 it. The baggage was speedily brought in by 
 several willing pairs of hands ; some reed mats 
 fifteen feet long were laid down upon the very 
 coarse ones which covered the whole floor, and 
 Avhen they saw Ito putting up my stretcher 
 they hung a fine mat along the rough wall to 
 conceal it, and suspended another on the beams 
 of the roof for a canopy. The alacrity and 
 instinctive hospitality with which these men 
 rushed about to make things comfortable were 
 very fascinating, though comfort is a word 
 misapplied in an Aino hut. The women only 
 did what the men told them. 
 
 They offered food at once, but I told them 
 that I had brought my own, and would only 
 ask leave to cook it on their fire. I need not 
 have brought any cups, for they have many 
 lacquer bowls, and Shinondi brought me on a 
 lacquer tray a bowl full of water from one of 
 their four wells. They said that Benri, the 
 chief, would wish me to make his house my 
 own for as long as I cared to stay, and I must 
 excuse them in all things in which their ways 
 were different from my own. Shinondi and 
 four others in the village speak tolerable 
 Japanese, and this of course is the medium of 
 communication. Ito has exerted himself nobly 
 as an interpreter, and has entered into my 
 wishes with a cordiality and intelligence which 
 have been perfectly invaluable ; and though 
 he did growl at Mr. Yon Siebold's injunctions 
 regarding politeness, he has carried them out 
 to my satisfaction, and even admits that the 
 mountain Ainos are better than he expected ; 
 ' but,' he added, ' they have learned their 
 politeness from the Japanese ! ' They have 
 never seen a foreign woman, and only three 
 foreign men, but there is neither crowding nor 
 staring as among the Japanese, possibly in part 
 from apathy and want of intelligence. For 
 three days they have kept up their graceful 
 and kindly hospitality, going on with their 
 ordinary life and occupations, and though I 
 have lived among them in this room by day 
 and night, there has been nothing which in any 
 way could offend the most fastidious sense of 
 delicacy. 
 
 They said they would leave me to eat and 
 rest, and all retired but the chief's mother, a 
 weird, witch-like woman of eiglity, with shocks 
 of yellow- white hair, and a stern suspiciousness 
 ill her wrinkled face. I have come to feel as if 
 she had the evil eye, as she sits there watching, 
 watching always, and for ever knotting the bark 
 thread like one of the Fates, keeping a jealous 
 watch on her son's two wives, and on other 
 jouug women who come in to weave — neither 
 
 the dulness nor the repose of old age about her ; 
 and her eyes gleam with a greedy light when 
 she sees sake,, of which she drains a bowl 
 without taking breath. She alone is suspicions' 
 of strangers, and she thinks that my visit bodes 
 no good to her tribe. I see her eyes fixed upon 
 mo now, and they make me shudder. 
 
 I had a good meal seated in my chair on the 
 top of the guest-seat to avoid the fleas, which 
 are truly legion. At dusk Shinondi returned,, 
 and soon people began to drop in, till eighteen 
 were assembled, including the sub-chief, and 
 several very grand-looking old men, with fall, 
 grey, wavy beards. Age is held in much 
 reverence, and it is etiquette for these old men 
 to do honour to a guest in the chief's absence. 
 As each entered he saluted me several times, 
 and after sitting down turned towards me and 
 saluted again, going through the same ceremony 
 with every other person. They said they had 
 come 'to bid me welcome.' They took their 
 places in rigid order at each side of the fire- 
 place, which is six feet long, Benri's mother in 
 the jDlace of honour at the right, then Shinondi^ 
 then the sub-chief, and on the other side th& 
 old men. Besides these, seven women sat in a 
 row in the background splitting bark. A large 
 iron pan hung over the fire from a blackened 
 arrangement above, and Benri's principal wife 
 cut Avild roots, green beans, and seaweed, and 
 shred dried fish and venison among them, 
 adding millet, water, and some strong-smelling 
 fish-oil, and set the whole on to stew for three 
 hours, stirring the ' mess ' now and then with a 
 wooden spoon. 
 
 Several of the older people smoke, and I 
 handed round some mild tobacco, which they 
 received with waving hands. I told them that 
 I came from a land in the sea, very far away, 
 where they saw the sun go down, so very far 
 away that a horse would have to gallop day and 
 night for five weeks to reach it, and that I had 
 come a long journey to see them, and that I 
 wanted to ask them many questions, so that 
 when I went home I might tell my own people 
 something about them. Shinondi and another 
 man, who understood Japanese, bowed, and (as 
 on every occasion) translated what I said into 
 Aino for the venerable group opposite. Shin- 
 ondi then suid 'that he and Shinrichi, the 
 other Japanese speaker, would tell me all they 
 knew, but they were but young men, and only 
 knew what was told to them. They would 
 speak what they believed to be true, but the 
 chief knew more than they, and when he came 
 back he might tell me differently, and then I 
 should think that they had spoken lies.' I said 
 that no one who looked into their faces could 
 think that they ever told lies. They were very- 
 much pleased, and waved their hands and 
 stroked their beards repeatedly. Before they 
 told me anytliing, they begged and prayed that 
 I would not inform the Japanese Government 
 
THE BRITISH LETTER WRITERS. 
 
 533 
 
 that they had told me of their customs, or harm 
 might come to them ! 
 
 For the next two hours, and for two more 
 after supper, I asked them questions concerning 
 their religion and customs, and again yesterday 
 for a considerable time, and this morning, after 
 Benri's return, I went over the same subjects 
 with him, and have also employed a consider- 
 able time in getting about 300 words from 
 them, which I have spelt phonetically of course, 
 and intend to go over again when I visit the 
 coast Ainos. 
 
 The process was slow, as both question and 
 answer had to pass through three languages. 
 There was a very manifest desire to tell the 
 truth, and I think that their statements 
 concerning their few and simple customs may 
 be relied upon. I shall give what they told me 
 separately when I have time to write out my 
 notes in an orderly manner. I can only say that 
 I have seldom spent a more interesting evening. 
 
 About nine the stew was ready, and the 
 women ladled it into lacquer bowls with 
 wooden spoons. The men were served first, 
 but all ate together. Afterwards sa^e, their 
 curse, was poured into lacquer bowls, and 
 across each bowl a finely-carved *' saM-stkk ' was 
 laid. These sticks are very highly prized. 
 The bowls were waved several times with an 
 inward motion, then each man took his stick, 
 and, dipping it into the sake, made six libations 
 to the fire, and several to the ' god,' a wooden 
 post with a quantity of spiral white shavings 
 falling from near the top. The Ainos are not 
 affected by sake nearly so easily as the Japan- 
 ese. They took it cold, it is true, but each 
 drank about three times as much as would have 
 made a Japanese foolish, and it had no effect 
 upon them. After two hours more talk one 
 after another got up and went out, making 
 profuse salutations to me and to the others. 
 My candles had been forgotten, and our siance 
 was held by the fitful light of the big logs on 
 the fire, aided by a succession of chips of birch i 
 bark, with which a woman replenished a cleft | 
 stick that was stuck into the fire-hole. I never j 
 saw such a strangely picturesque sight as that j 
 group of magnificent savages with the fitful ! 
 firelight on their faces, and for adjuncts the 
 flare of the torch, the strong lights, the black- 
 ness of the recesses of the room and of the roof, 
 at one end of which the stars looked in, and 
 the row of savage women in the background — 
 
 Eastern savagery and Western civilisation met 
 in this hut, savagery giving, and civilisation 
 receiving, the yellow-skinned Ito the connect- 
 ing-link between the two, and the representative 
 of a civilisation to which our own is but an 
 * infant of days.' 
 
 I found it very exciting, and when all had 
 left crept out into the starlight. The lodges 
 were all dark and silent, and the dogs, mild 
 like their masters, took no notice of me. The 
 only sound was the rustle of a light breeze 
 through the surrounding forest. The verse 
 came into my mind, ' It is not the will of your 
 Father which is in heaven that one of these i 
 little ones should perish.' Surely these simple 
 savages are children, as children to be judged ; 
 may we not hope as children to be saved 
 through Him who came ' not to judge the 
 world, but to save the world ' ? 
 
 I crept back again and into my mosquito net, 
 and suffered not from fleas or mosquitoes, but 
 from severe cold. Shinondi conversed with Ito 
 for some time in a low musical voice, having 
 previously asked if it would keep me from 
 sleeping. No Japanese ever intermitted his 
 ceaseless chatter at any hour of the night for 
 a similar reason. Later, the chief's principal 
 wife, Noma, stuck a triply-cleft stick in the 
 fire-hole, j)ut a potsherd with a wick and some 
 fish-oil upon it, and by the dim light of this 
 rude lamp sewed until midnight at a garment 
 of bark cloth which she was ornamenting for 
 her lord with strips of blue cloth, and when I 
 opened my eyes the next morning she was at 
 the windoAV sewing by the earliest daylight. 
 She is the most intelligent-looking of all the 
 women, but looks sad and almost stern, and 
 speaks seldom. Although she is the principal 
 wife of the chief, she is not happy, for she is 
 childless, and I thought that her sad look 
 darkened into something evil as the other wife 
 caressed a fine baby boy. Benri seems to me 
 something of a brute, and the mother-in-law 
 obviously holds the reins of government pretty 
 tight. After sewing till midnight she swept 
 the mats with a bunch of twigs, and then crept 
 into her bed behind a hanging mat. For a 
 moment in the stillness I felt a feeling of panic, 
 as if I were incurring a risk by being alone 
 among savages, but I conquered it, and after 
 watching the fire till it went out, fell asleep till 
 I was awoke by the severe cold of the next 
 day's dawn. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, to Mr. Congveve, 86. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Chamtierlain Dashwood, 87. 
 
 Ascham, Roger, to his wife, 8. 
 Bacon, Sir Francis, to Sir George Villiers, 15. 
 
 ,, ,, Sir Edward Coke, 15, IG. 
 
 „ „ „ „ Sir Thomas Bodley, 19. 
 
 „ ,, „ ,, James L, 295, 297. 
 Earwick, John, to Charles II., 324. 
 liaxter, Richard, to the Rev. Richard AUcstrce, 40. 
 Beattie to the Hon. Charles Boyd, 42S. 
 
 Beckford to , 458. 
 
 Bell, Sir Charles, to Joseph Bell, 474. 
 Berkeley, Dean, to Pope, 88. 
 Bird, Isabella L., in Japan, 530. 
 BolejTa, Anne, to Henry VIII., 3. 
 Bolingl)roke, Lord, to Swift, 76, 77. 
 Eoswell, James, to David Garrick, 171. 
 Bowyer, Mr. W., to Dr. Warhurton, 453. 
 Brewster, Dr., to his Avife, 508. 
 Bright, John, to Mr. Ephraim Righy, 528. 
 Bristol, Earl of, to Charles II., 842. 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, to a friend, 56. 
 Browne, Tom, to a lady, 71. 
 Burke, Edmund, to the painter Barry, 157. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Robertson, 410. 
 
 ,, „ ,, a member of the National 
 
 Assembly, 411. 
 Burnet, Bishop, to Lady Russell, 63. 
 Burney, Miss F., to Mr. Crisp, 175. 
 Burns, Robert, to his father, 197. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mrs. Dunlop, 198. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Francis Grose, 198. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. John Murdoch, 200. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mr. James Smith, 201. 
 
 ,, Mr. Peter Hill, 202. 
 
 ,, ,, „ G. Thomson, 202. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, C'larinda, 204. 
 
 ,, „ ,, Creech, 442. 
 Burt, Captain Edward, to a friend, 304, 367, 371, 
 373. 
 
 Byron, Lord, to Sir Walter Scott, 258. 
 
 „ ,, ,, Thomas Moore, 258. 
 
 ,, „ ,, Miss Pigot, 514, 515. 
 
 „ „ „ Mrs. Byron, 515, 516. 
 
 „ „ Mr. Hodgson, 516, 517, 518. 
 Canning, Geo., to Sir W. Scott, 467. 
 Carlylc, Thomas, to Thomas Erskinc, 261, 262. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, James Dodds, 262. 
 
 ,, „ „ Mr. John Aitken, 263. 
 
 Carlyle, Jane Welsh, to Sir George Sinclair, 264. 
 Carpenter, Miss, to Walter Scott, 219, 220, 221. 
 Charles I. to Earl of Strafford, 30. 
 
 „ „ „ Lord Wcntworth, 309, 310. 
 Charles II. to tlie Duke of York, 326. 
 Chatham, Earl of, to Thomas Pitt, 116. 
 
 Chesterfield, Earl of, to his son, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 
 111. 
 
 Clarendon, Earl of, to the Duchess of York, 49. 
 Clere, Edmund, to John Paston, 1, 
 Cobbett, William, to his son, 217. 
 Cockburn, Mrs., to Dr. Douglas, 218. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, to Joseph Cottle, 494. 
 
 ,, „ „ ,, James Gillman, 498. 
 
 Coleridge, Sarah, to Miss E. Trevenen, 268. 
 Collingwood, Lord, to his daughter, 189. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lady Collingwood, 190. 
 
 Congreve, William, to Dennis, 349. 
 Constable, A., to Sir W. Scott, 4S0. 
 
 Cowley to Mr. S. L , 39. 
 
 Cowper, William, to Lady Hesketh, 454. 
 ,, ,, „ John Johnston, 455. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Rev. William Un win, 455, 456. 
 
 Crabbe to Burke, 178. 
 
 ,, „ Lord Shelburno, 179. 
 „ „ Sir W. Scott, 181. 
 Creech, William, to Sir John Sinclair, 430, 438. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, to his son, 31. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Colonel Hacker, 31. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lockhart, 318. 
 
 Cromwell, Henry, to Oliver Cromwell, 319. 
 
 „ ,, ,, Lord Fauconberg, 320. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Secretary Thurloe, 321. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Richard Cromwell, 323. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Fleetwood, 324. 
 
 Cromwell, Lady Mary, to Henry Cromwell, 32. 
 Curran, J. P., letter written on his arrival in Scot- 
 land, 209. 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir John, to Admiral Dalrymple, 211. 
 „ Sir Hew, to Sir Lawrence Dundas, 212. 
 
 Davidson, Thomas, to , 285, 286. 
 
 Davy to Poole, 499. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, to his son-in-law, 72. 
 
 „ „ the Earl of Halifax, 73. 
 Delany, Mrs., to the Hon. Mrs. Hamilton, 358, 359 
 
 361, 362, 363. 
 Dennis to Wyclierley, 345. 
 
 ,, Congreve, 354. 
 Derby, Earl of, to General Ireton, 325. 
 Devel-caux, Robert, to Queen Elizabeth, 14. 
 Devonshire, Duke of, to the Senate of Cambridge, 530. 
 Dickens, Charles, to Catt6rmole, 279. 
 
 ,, „ „ Clarkson Stanfield, 279. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Mark Lemon, 279. < 
 
 Dishington, Mr., to Sir John Sinclair, 213. 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, to O'Connell, 526. 
 Donne, Dr., to Sir Henry Goodere, 20, 21. 
 Drake, Sir Francis, to Lord Walsingham, 288. 
 Dryden, John, to John Dennis, 64. 
 Egerton, Lord Chancellor, to the Earl of Essex, 289. 
 P^liot, Sir John, to John Hampden, 28. 
 
 534 
 
INDEX. 
 
 535 
 
 Erskine, Hon. Andrew, to James Boswell, 213, 215. 
 Erskine, Thomas, to Miss Wedgwood, 264. 
 
 „ „ Bishop Ewing, 265. 
 
 „ „ „ Mrs. Batten, 266. 
 
 Essex, Earl of, to Lord Chancellor Egerton, 290. 
 Etheredge, Sir George, to the Duke of Buckingliam, 
 333, 334, 
 
 E-\-elyn, Mr., to Mr. Pepys, 45, 46. 
 
 „ ,, "Wotton, 340. 
 Exmoutli, Lord, to his brother, 194. 
 Ferguson, Adam, to Walter Scott, 467, 46S. 
 Fielding, Henry, to the Tnte Patriot, 113. 
 
 „ „ ,, Hon. Geo. Lyttleton, 115. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, to his mother, 206. 
 Fox, Charles James, to Gilbert Wakefield, 191. 
 
 „ Mr. Gray, 192. 
 
 Gay to , 355. 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., to Count Karolyi, 527. 
 Gibbon to Mrs. Porter, 164. 
 „ „ Mrs. Gibbon, 165. 
 „ „ Lady Sheffield, 166. 
 „ Lord Sheffield, 169. 
 Godolphin, Lord Treasurer, to Queen Anne, 348. 
 God^vin, William, to Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin, 
 195, 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, to Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, 149. 
 „ ,, ,, Kobert Bryanton, Esq., 150, 
 
 ,, ,, Eev. Thos. Contarine, 151. 
 „ ,, Kev, Henry Goldsmith, 153. 
 ,, ,, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 154, 
 ,, ,, ,, David Garrick, 155, 
 
 „ „ „ Mr, Griffith, 156. 
 
 „ ,, ,, Maurice Goldsmith, 156. 
 
 Grant, Mrs,, of Laggan, to Miss Hamet Reid, 501. 
 ,, ), )) Miss EA\ing, 504. 
 
 ,, „ ,, ,, ,, Miss Dunbar, 505. 
 Gray, Mr., to Mr. Walpole, 123. 
 „ „ ,, Mr. Mason, 124. 
 „ „ „ Dr. Wharton, 125. 
 „ ,, ,, jVIr. Nicholls, 127, 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, to his children, 33. 
 Hall, Bishop, to Lord Denny, 24. 
 Hall, R., to Mr. H. Fysh, 460. 
 Heber, Bishop, to his motlier, 512. 
 Hemans, Mrs., to a friend, 525. 
 Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, 2, 3. 
 Herbert, Admiral, to the Commanders of the Fleet, 
 344. 
 
 HeiTick, Robert, to his uncle, 24. 
 
 Hertford, Countess of, to Lady Luxborough, 193. 
 
 Heywood, Nessy, to her brother, 186. 
 
 Hogg, James, to his brother, 231. 
 
 ,, „ ,, Professor John Wilson, 231. 
 Howell, James, to Mr. J. Wilson, 22. 
 „ ,, „ Lord Clifford, 22. 
 
 „ Sir J. J , 23. 
 
 „ ,, Mr. E. P , 23. 
 
 „ Sir J. C , 314. 
 
 „ „ „ Lady M. Carj% 315. 
 ,, ,, ,, Right Hon. Lady Scroop, 315. 
 Hume, David, to Dr. Blair, 384. 
 Hyde, Edward, to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 49. 
 Ignatius Sancho to Mr. Sterne, 121. 
 Inchbald, Mrs., to Mr. Phillips, 194. 
 Jame^. to Prince Charles and the Duke of Bucking- 
 liam, 27, 
 
 Jeffrey, Lord, to Miss Crockett, 232. 
 
 „ „ „ Mr, R. Morehead, 232. 
 
 ,, ,, a grandchild, 233. 
 Johnson to Boswell, 118. 
 „ „ Mrs, Thrale, 119. 
 
 Johnson to Mrs. Lucy Porter, 120. 
 
 ,, ,, Captain Langton, 120. 
 Jones, Sir William, to the Countess of Spencer, 1S8. 
 Jonson, Ben, to the two Universities, 302. 
 Junius to the Duke of Bedford, 407. 
 
 King, Dr. William, to Mr. , 81. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, to Coleridge, 234, 235, 241. 
 „ Southey, 237. 
 
 ,, ,, Wordsworth, 238, 240, 243. 
 ,, ,, ,, Manning, 238, 239, 240. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Bernard Barton, 242. 
 
 Laud, Ai'chbishop, to Lord Wentworth, 307, 
 Leyden, John, arrival at Madras, 245. 
 
 „ to Mr. Constable, 24G. 
 ,, ,, ,, iMr. Ballantyne, 247. 
 ,, his father, 250, 
 Lisle, Lord, to Sir William Temple, 332. 
 Livingstone, Dr., to his daughter, 282, 283, 
 
 5, „ ,, Mr. James Gordon Bennett, 284. 
 
 Locke, Mr., to the Rev. Mr. King, 67, 68. 
 Lockhart, John Gibson, to the Rev. George Crabbe, 
 184. 
 
 „ ,, ,, Rev. D. Williams, 520. 
 
 Macaulay, T. B., to Ellis, 270. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Hannah More Macaulay, 271. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, to Robert Hall, 208. 
 Maclaren, Charles, to the Duke of Wellington, 508. 
 Macleod, Norman, to Sir J. Campbell, 280. 
 
 ,, „ ,, A. Strahan, 281. 
 Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, to her husband, 43. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, to Queen Anne, 347, 348. 
 Melmoth, William, to a friend, 383. 
 Miller, Hugh, to Miss Fraser, 273. 
 ,, ,, ,, Mrs. Fraser, 274, 
 „ „ „ Mr. Smith, 275. 
 Milton, John, to a friend, 26. 
 M'Lehose, Mrs., to Robert Burns, 203. 
 ]\Iontagu, Lady Mary Wortley, to E. W. Montagu, 97. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, the Countess of 
 , 98, 99. 
 
 „ ,, „ ,, ,, Mr. Pope, 100. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Princess of Wales, 
 
 102. 
 
 „ „ ,, ,, Abbot , 103. 
 
 Montagu, Mrs., to the Duchess of Portland, 146. 
 
 „ „ „ Gilbert West, 146, 147. 
 Moore, Thomas, to John Murray, 182. 
 Moi'e, Hannah, to Mrs. Gwatkiu, 171. 
 ,, ,, ,, her sister, 174. 
 
 ,, ,, Zachary Macaulay, 175. 
 More, Lady, to Mr. Secretary Cromwell, 5. 
 More, Miss Sally, to the family at home, 173. 
 More, Sir Thomas, to his wife, 4. 
 Mountagu, General, to Secretary Thurloe, 317. 
 Murray, John, to Sir Walter Scott, 475. 
 Nelson, Horatio, to Mrs. Nelson, 456, 457. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Admiral Sir John Jervis, 457. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, to Richard Bentley, 343. 
 Parr, Dr., to Moore, 450. 
 Paston, Agnes, to her son, 1. 
 Peel, Sir R., to Sir W. Scott, 481. 
 Penruddock, Mrs., to her husband, 42. 
 
 ,, Mr., to his wife, 42. 
 
 Pepys, Mr., to Mr. Evelyn, 46. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lady Carteret, 47. 
 Pilkington, Mr., to Dr. Delany, 337. 
 Pitt, William, to his wife, 117. 
 
 Plymley, Peter, on the subject of the Catholics, 4S1, 
 
 484, 486, 490. 
 Pope to Wycherley, 89. 
 ,, „ Steele, 89, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Pope to a friend, 90. 
 „ ,, Swift, 01, 93. 
 ,, „ Steele, 94. 
 
 ,, ,, Mrs. Arabella Former, 94. 
 ,, ,,■ the poet Gay, 94. 
 Princess Anne to Queen Mary, m. 
 Prior, ilatthew, to Swift, a49. 
 Queen Anne to the Duke of Marlborongli, .^47. 
 Queen Ehzabeth to James VI. of Scotland, 14. 
 Queen Mary to Princess Anne, 65, 66. 
 Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, 292. 
 Queen Victoria to her subjects, 529. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Miss Burke, 530. 
 
 Raffles, Sir Stamford, to Somerset, 506. 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, to his wife, 19. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, James I., 293. 
 
 „ Sir Robert Car, 294. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Prince Henry, 294. 
 Reynolds, Sir J oshua, to. Mr. Barry, 14S. 
 Richardson, Samuel, to Miss Mulso, 95. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Aaron Hill, 96. 
 
 Robertson, Dr. William, to Mr. Gibbon, 170. 
 Rochester, Earl of, to the Hon. Henry Sa^•ilIe, 35, 36. 
 Roe, Sir Tliomas, to Secretary Calvert, 311, 312. 
 
 Ruskiu, Jdlih, to , 529. 
 
 ,, ,, on Jumbo, 529. 
 ■ Russell, Lady, to the Bishop of Salisbury, 62. 
 ,, ,, ,, Lord Russell, 62. 
 ,, ,, ,, King Charles II., 63. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, to Crabbe, ISO, 181. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Miss Joanna Baillie, 221. 
 „ . „ ,, „ Mr. Terry, 223. 
 ,, ,, ,, his son Walter, 225. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Joanna Baillie, 226. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Miss Edgeworth, 227. 
 
 „ Mr. Morritt, 228. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Lockhart, 230. 
 
 „ Mr. J. Ballantyne, 466, 469, 470, 
 473, 474. 
 
 ,, • „ „ J. B. S. Morritt, 470, 471, 472. 
 ,, ,, ,, John Murray, 475. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Duke of Buccleuch, 476. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Croker, 476, 477. 
 ,, ,, ,, „ Sir Samuel Toller, 478. 
 Seward, Anna, to Scott, 443, 445. 
 
 „ ,, ,, William Hay ley, 447. 
 Sharp, Dr., to the Duke of Buckingham, 289. 
 Shelley, P. B., to Lord Byron, 519. 
 Shenstone, William, to Richard Jago, 122. 
 Sidney, Hon. Algernon, to his friends, 28. 
 Southey, Robert, to Joseph Cottle, 234. 
 Stayner, Captain Richard, to the Generals of the 
 
 Fleet, 317. 
 Steele, Richard, to Mary Scurlock, 78. 
 ,, ,, „ his wife, 78, 79, SO. 
 
 „ Pope, 80. 
 Sterne to Garrick, 12u. 
 
 Sterne to Ignatius Sancho, 122. 
 Strafford, Earl of, to his son, 30. 
 Strahan, William, to David Hume, 452. 
 Suckling, Sir John, to a nobleman, 21. 
 Swift to Gay, 73. 
 
 ,, ,, Lord Bolingbroke, 74. 
 Sydney, Sir Henry, to his son, S. 
 Sydney, Sir Philip, to Queen Elizabeth, 9, 10, 11, 12, 
 13. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, to John Evelyn, 44. 
 Taylor, Jane, to J. C, 511. 
 
 Temple, Sir William, to Dame Augustine Gary, 53. 
 
 „ M Sir John Temple, 53, 326, 330. 
 
 Thackeray, William, to the Hon. W. B. Reed, 277. 
 
 „ , 278. 
 
 Thomson to Mr. Paterson, 112. 
 Thomson, G., to Robert Burns, 202. 
 Thurloe, Secretary, to Henry Cromwell, 322, 323. 
 Tillotson, Dr., to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 48. 
 .Villiers, George, to the Duke of Shrewsbury, 30, 
 Waller, Mr., to Lady Lucy, 32. 
 Walpole, Hon. Horace, to Sir Horace Mann, 129, 133, 
 134, 136, 137, 140. 
 „ „ Mr, Gray, 130, 
 
 ,, the Earl of Strafford, 132. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, George Montagu, 142, 143, 
 144. 
 
 Walton, Captain, to the Hon. Charles Byng, 429. 
 Warburton to Hurd, 356. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, to Lieutenant-Colonel Close, 462. 
 ,, ,, ,, Lady Sarah Napier, 463. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lord Somer, 463. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Samuel Whitbread, 463. * 
 
 ,, ,, ,, a correspondent, 464. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Lord Beresford, 464. 
 
 Wentworth, Lord, to Archbishop Laud, 304. 
 ,t ' ,, ,, the Earl of Portland, 306. 
 ,, „ ,, Archbishop Laud, 309. 
 
 „ „ King Charles L, 309, 310. 
 White, Gilbert, to Hester Chapone, 144. 
 
 „ ,, „ Thomas Pennant, 395, 396, 397, 398. 
 ,, ,, ,, the Hon. Daines Barrington, 399, 
 400, 401, 404, 405. 
 White, Henry Kirke, to his brother, 254. 
 
 „Mr. R A , 255. 
 
 ,, Mr. B. Maddock, 256. 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Mr. John Charlesworth, 257. 
 Wilberforce, William, to his sister, 205. 
 AVilkes, John, to Lords Egremont and Halifax, 406. 
 Wilson, John, to James Hogg, 251. 
 
 „ „ „ his wife, 252, 253. 
 Wordsworth to Scott, 404. 
 
 Wotton, Sir Henry, to Sir Edmund Bacon, 297, 298, 299. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, ,, Lord Bacon, 301. 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, to his son, 5, 6. 
 Wycherley to Dennis, 345, 346. 
 York, Duchess of, \f> the Earl of Clarendon, 51. 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBE, EDINBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY 's STATIONERY OFFICE.