I 
 
 a 
 
 
 en
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 LORD LYTTLETON, 
 
 ONLY SON OF THE VENERABLE GEORGE, LORD LYT- 
 TLETON, AND CHIEF JUSTICE IN EYRE, &c. 
 
 COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 Cfte 3f it#t American ambition. 
 
 TO WHICH IS NOW ADDED, 
 
 A MEMOIR CONCERNING THE AUTHOR, INCLUDING 
 AN ACCOUNT OF SOME EXTRAORDINARY CIR- 
 CUMSTANCES ATTENDING" HIS DEATH. 
 
 TROY, N. Y. 
 
 PRINTED AND SOLD BY WRIGHT, GOODENOW, & STOCKWELL, 
 AT THE RENSSELAER BOOK-STORE. 
 
 1807.
 
 Black 
 nex 
 
 PREFACE ' 
 
 TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 IN presenting to the publick an edition 
 of these elegant letters, the publishers enter- 
 tain hopes of gratifying the admirers of fine 
 writing with an American copy more correct 
 than most of those hitherto imported, and in 
 a dress and form at least as suitable for a gen- 
 tleman's library. As the introduction to the 
 English edition is inserted in this, they will 
 not descant on the masterly style of these let- 
 ters, the motives and manner of their publi- 
 cation, &:c. further than to remark, that this 
 is a work which every scholar, ambitious of 
 acquiring the best language for writing and 
 conversation, and every lover of belles lettres, 
 should purchase and peruse. 
 
 But as some fastidious sectarian may deem 
 the work too gay for Christian readers, or too 
 profuse in free and open exposures of meretri- 
 cious character for the present laxity of morals, 
 the publishers cannot refrain from the declara- 
 tion of an opposite opinion. For, when a man, 
 surrounded with the trappings of nobility, the 
 patronage of courts, and the dignity of office and
 
 C iv 3 
 
 hereditary titles idolized by a powerful and 
 most respectable family flattered and caress- 
 ed by the political and literary world placed 
 at the head of gallantry and etiquette by the 
 fashionable circles of his country endowed 
 with strong and capacious natural powers of 
 mind, improved by a good education graced 
 with the manners of high life and the fasci- 
 nating suavity of a courtier sporting the 
 equipage of a nobleman, and loaded with the 
 treasures of a prince and blooming in youth 
 and vigour : when such a man starts on the 
 career of libertine pleasures and dissipation : 
 and when, with all these advantages and re- 
 commendations, and with all these means of 
 compassing his ends without fear of earthly 
 punishment, or hindrance in his progress ; he 
 fails ; he loathes the pleasures he ravished and 
 enjoyed ; he finds no lasting repose or satis- 
 faction ; he laments his irregular and licentious 
 conduct ; he declares it at all times and in all 
 circumstances dishonourable and distressing ; 
 he envies the chaste pleasures of the virtuous 
 and discreet ; he deprecates, in pathetick terms, 
 his own folly and wickedness ; and declares, 
 that no felicity or rewards can reach any but 
 pure, chaste, and upright minds when such 
 is discovered to be the inward situation of this
 
 C v] 
 
 man, who will dream of happiness in pur- 
 suits like these ? Or who will imbibe a bad 
 sentiment, or adopt an errour in principle, 
 from so odious an example ? 
 
 Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As to be hated needs but to be setn. 
 
 And thou, vain man, who sayest to thyself, 
 " I will riot on the bounty of creation, and 
 revel in the luxuriance of feeling and affection; 
 I will enjoy the pleasures of youth, beauty, 
 and sensibility, unrestrained by the shackles of 
 civil or religious rites and institutes, unawed 
 by the frowns of virtue, and undisturbed by 
 the anathemas of conscience, reason, and reli- 
 gion" pause for a moment, and reflect ! Are 
 thy prospects of satisfaction and delight in licen- 
 tious life so bright as were young Lyttleton's ? 
 And dost thou longer think of inward peace 
 here, or of justification hereafter ? Read, then, 
 and learn thy folly and weakness from the 
 confidential language of thy pampered and 
 ruined prototype. If thy mind be yet left nn- 
 corrupt enough to perceive one rhetorical beau- 
 ty in his style, thy heart cannot be too dull and 
 insensible to feel the point of the reproof and 
 warning his confessions speak. 
 
 TROY, N. Y. JUNE, 1807.
 
 THE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THERE is no species of publication which 
 seems to be more agreeably received than that 
 which illustrates the characters of men, distinguish- 
 ed for their abilities, venerable for their erudition, 
 and admired for their virtues. The political his- 
 tory of great men is useful and necessary to many ; 
 but the domestick history of all men is useful and 
 necessary to all. 
 
 Among the materials from whence the biogra- 
 pher forms the volume of domestick characters, 
 private letters are considered as the most valuable, 
 becaufe they are the most unequivocal authorities 
 of real sentiment and opinion. Conversation is 
 too fugitive to be remembered ; publick declara- 
 rations may be oftentimes suspected ; but the epis- 
 tolary communications of friendship may be de- 
 pended upon as faithful to the mind from whence 
 they arise. The following letters, therefore, as pro- 
 ceeding from a nobleman whose great talents prom-
 
 r vii ] 
 
 ised no small utility to his country, and whose 
 character has been the subject of such general spec- 
 ulation, will, without doubt, meet with a favour- 
 able reception. 
 
 That they were not written with the most dis- 
 tant idea of being offered to the world, will be 
 evident to every reader ; and, surely, no inconsid- 
 erable share of merit will be allowed them from 
 such a circumstance. They may want, perhaps, 
 the correctness and accuracy of prepared composi- 
 tions ; but they possess that easy sincerity, and 
 that open unbosoming of sentiments, which form 
 the charm of epistolary correspondence. 
 
 Some liberties have been taken with the letters 
 at large, by omitting such as alluded to transac- 
 tions which the world already too well knows, or 
 which it would be shameful to betray. But no 
 alteration has been made in any individual letrer, 
 except an occasional retrenchment of expressions, 
 which, however common in fashionable life, or 
 unobserved in fashionable conversation, would 
 not justify their being condensed into print, and 
 might give cause of offence to the scrupulous 
 reader. 
 
 There may be also some irregularity in the dis- 
 position of the letters : the thirteenth^ and the last^ 
 should have an earlier place ; but they were alrea- 
 dy numerically arranged and, as a precise order 
 does not seem to be material, no alteration of ihis 
 kind has been attempted, which, after all, mu^t 
 have been made upon conjecture.
 
 C viii ] 
 
 As these letters were, in general, without any 
 dates, and not one of them marked with that of 
 the year, it was thought proper to omit them 
 throughout. The thirtieth letter, which appears 
 to have been written the last of the collection, 
 bears, in the manuscript copy, a conjectural date 
 of the summer of 1775. As it was a matter of 
 particular request, it was thought prudent to sup- 
 press the names of those persons to whom these 
 letters were addressed : though it is rather natural 
 to suppose, that every reader, who has lived in 
 the world, will form very probable conjecture? of 
 them, without any great exercise of thought or 
 power of divination.
 
 Hettets 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LATE LORD LYTTLETON. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 YOU do me great injustice : I receive your 
 letters with the greatest pleasure; and I gave 
 your last the usual welcome, though every line 
 was big with reproaches to me. I feel myself 
 .greatly mortified that you should have a sus- 
 picion of any neglect on my part. When I 
 cease to answer your addresses, you will be 
 justified in supposing me careless about them : 
 till then, you will, I hope, do me the justice, 
 .as far at least as relates to yourself, to think 
 well of me. I very sensibly feel the advantage 
 of your good opinion, and the loss of it would 
 greatly affect me. You may be assured that 
 my insensibility to reputation is not such as 
 some part of my conduct may have given you 
 reason to believe : for, after all his blustering 
 
 and looking big, the heart of the worst man 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 cannot be at ease, when he forces a look of 
 contempt towards th ill opinion of mankind. 
 In spite of all his bravadoes, he is an hypocrite 
 twelve hours out of the four-and-twenty ; and 
 hypocrisy, as it is well said, is the homage 
 which Vice pays to Virtueunwillingly, I 
 confess ; but still she is forced to pay it. 
 
 I will most frankly acknowledge to you, that 
 I have been as well disposed to turn my back 
 upon the good opinion of the world as any one 
 in it ; and that I have sometimes accomplished 
 this important business without confusion of 
 face, but never without confusion of heart. 
 On a late very mortifying occasion, it was not 
 in my'pbwer to possess myself either with one 
 or the other. At a publick and very .nume- 
 toits meeting in .the County where my father 
 liv.s, where great part of his property lies, 
 Xvhere his influence is considerable and his 
 name respectable, I was not only deserted but 
 avoided : and the women could not have dis- 
 covered more horrour on my approaching 
 them, if I had been Tarqnin himself. I found 
 myself alone in the crowd, and, which is as 
 bad, ak>ne out -of the crowd. I passed the 
 evening without company ; and two or three 
 such evenings would either have driven me to 
 despair, or have reformed me. -I was then
 
 11 
 
 convinced, as I always am when I write to you, 
 that there is some particle of good still remain- 
 ing in me : but I flew from that solitary scene 
 which gave such a conviction, to renew that 
 dissolute intemperance which would destroy it. 
 It is a great misfortune, that vice, be it what 
 it may, will find some one or other to flatter it; 
 and that there should be assemblies of people, 
 where, when publick and honourable society 
 has hissed you from the stage, you may find, 
 not only reception, but applause little earth- 
 ly pandamoniumS) where you meet with every 
 means to hush the pains of reflection, and to 
 guard against the intrusions of conscience. It 
 requires a most gigantick resolution to suffer 
 pain, when passion quickens every sense, and 
 every enticing object beckons to enjoyment. I 
 was not born a Stoick, nor am I made to be a 
 martyr ! So much do I hate and detest pain, 
 that I think all good must be dear that is to be 
 purchased with it. Penitence is a rack, where 
 offences have been grievous. To sit alone and 
 court Reflection, which will come, perhaps, 
 every moment, with a swinging sin at her back, 
 and to be humble and patient beneath the 
 stripes of such a scourge by heavens, it is 
 not in human nature to bear it ! I am sure, at 
 least, it is not in mine. If I could go to con-
 
 12 
 
 fession, like a good papist, and have the score 
 wiped off at once, a la bonne heure ! But to 
 repent like a sobbing, paralytick Presbyterian, 
 will not do for me : I am not fat enough to re- 
 pent that way. George Bodens may be quali- 
 fied for such a system of contrition ; but my 
 skinny shape will not bear mortification : and, 
 if I were to attempt the subdual of my carnal 
 lust by fasting and prayer, I should be soon 
 fasted and prayed into the family vault, and 
 disappoint the worms of their meals. 
 
 I have had, as you well know, some serious 
 conversations with my father upon the subject ; 
 and one evening he concluded a Christian lec- 
 ture of a most unchristian length, by recom- 
 mending me to address Heaven to have mercy 
 upon me, and to join my prayers to his con- 
 stant and paternal ones for my reformation. 
 These expressions, with his preceding coun- 
 sels, and his affecting delivery of them, had 
 such an effect upon me, that, like the King in 
 Hamlet, I had bent the stubborn sinews of my 
 knees, when it occurred to me that my devo- 
 tions might be seen through the key-hole. 
 This drew me from my pious attitude ; and, 
 having secured this aperture, so unfriendly to 
 secret deeds, I thought would not be an use- 
 less precaution to let down the window-cur-
 
 13 
 
 tains also ; and during the performance of that 
 ceremony, some lively mu sick, which struck 
 up in the street, caught my attention, and gave 
 a sudden flirt to all my devout ideas : so I 
 girded on my sword, and went to the Little 
 Theatre in the Hay-market, where Mrs. Cole 
 and the Reverend Dr. Squintum soon put me 
 out of humour with praying, and into humour 
 with myself. 
 
 I really began this letter in very sober seri- 
 ousness ; and, though I have strayed from my 
 grave airs into something that wears a ludi- 
 crous appearance, I beg of you not to give up 
 all hopes of my amendment. If there were but 
 half a dozen people in the world, who would 
 afford me the kind encouragement I receive 
 from you, it would, I verily believe, work a 
 reformation in the prodigal : but the world has 
 marked me down for so much dissoluteness, as 
 to doubt, at all times, of the sincerity of my 
 
 repentance. has already told me, more 
 
 than once, that I am got so deep into the mud 
 as to make it highly improbable that I should 
 ever get out ; that I am too bad ever to be 
 good ; and that my future lot is either to be 
 an open villain or an undeceiving hypocrite. 
 Pretty encouragemenl^uly ! Lady Hunting- 
 don would tell me another story : but, howev-
 
 14 
 
 er that may be, I shall never give myself up 
 for lost, while I retain a sense of your merit 
 and a value for your friendship. With these 
 sentiments I take my leave, and beg of you to 
 be assured that I am most sincerely yours, 
 
 - 

 
 15 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 
 
 SO turns up his eyes, and sig- 
 nificantly shrugs his shoulders when my name 
 is mentioned ; and, to continue the farce, pre- 
 tends to lament me as a disgrace to his fami* 
 ly ! I am almost ashamed to acknowledge it, 
 but this idle history has given me more sting- 
 ing mortification than I almost ever felt. How 
 insignificant must he become, who is openly 
 despised by insignificance ; and how loud must 
 the hiss of the world be, when such a puny 
 whipster insults me ! If honourable men were 
 to speak of me with contempt, I should sub-- 
 mit without resentment ; for I have deserved 
 it. If they should bestow their pity upon me r 
 I should thank them for giving me more than 
 I deserve. If mankind despise, I have only 
 to resist or fly from the contempt. But to be 
 an object of supercilious airs, from one who, 
 two years ago, would have wiped the dust 
 from off my shoes, and who, perhaps, two 
 years hence, will be proud of the same office 
 a puny prattler who does not possess a snffi* 
 ciem degree of talent or importance to
 
 16 
 
 dignity either to virtue or crime : I say, to be 
 the butt of such a one, severely mortifies me. 
 Were I on the other side of the water, his 
 back-biting looks and shrugs should be chang- 
 ed in a moment to well-made bows and sup- 
 pliant postures. If I live, the scurvy knave 
 shall dp me homage ! It really frets me, that 
 I cannot, in four-and-twenty hours, meet him 
 face to face, and make his subservient atten- 
 tions give the lie to his humbling compassion, 
 in the presence of those before whom he has 
 traduced me. The day of my revenge will 
 come, when he shall open his mouth for me to 
 spit in it, as he was wont to do, and perform, 
 every dirty trick for which parasites were form- 
 ed. His genius is to fetch and carry a very 
 spaniel, made to fawn and eat your leavings ; 
 whose whole courage rises no higher than to 
 ape a snarl. If I live to outlive this snuffling 
 pedagogue, I shall see him make a foolish end 
 of it. Mark my words I am a very Shylock 
 I will have Revenge ! 
 
 The last word I have written puts me in 
 
 mind of telling you, that has been 
 
 with me for some time. The rascal, who is a 
 priest into the bargain, carried aquafortis in a 
 syringe for three months together, to squirt the 
 fiery liquor into the eyes of a fortunate rival.
 
 17 
 
 In this diabolical design he succeeded, and the 
 object of his malice was for ever deprived of 
 half his sight. I have conversed with him on 
 the horrours of this transaction ; but the Ital- 
 ian finds a consolation in his own infernal feel- 
 ings, and a justification in the dying command 
 of his father, whose last words composed this 
 emphatick sentence "Remember, my son, that 
 Revenge is sweet." 
 
 This man is capable of any villany, if 'mo- 
 ney is to be got by it ; and I doubt not but he 
 might be bribed to undertake/' without hesita- 
 tion, robbery, seduction, rape, and murder. 
 However, my superiour virtue for once over- 
 awed his villany: for he most certainly had it in 
 his power to have robbed me of a large sum of 
 money, without the possibility of a discovery; 
 and, if he thought it necessary, he might have 
 dispatched me with as little danger. I have 
 since asked him what strange fit of virtue, or 
 fear of the devil, came across him, when he 
 had such an opportunity to make his fortune. 
 The impudent rascal replied, at once, that he 
 had very powerful suggestions to send me to 
 the other world ; and that, if, fortunately for 
 him, I had possessed one single virtue, he 
 should, without ceremony, have dispatched me 
 
 to my reward. This event, I think, will make 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 a complete Mandivillean of me. You see, for 
 your encouragement, that a bad life is good for 
 something ; and for the good example which 
 the world will receive from me in times to 
 come, it will be indebted to the very bad one 
 I have already given it. After this signal and 
 providential preservation, I cannot but think 
 that Heaven has something particularly great 
 in store for me. 
 
 As I tell it you, this history has the air of a 
 badinage ; but you may be assured that it is a 
 real fact, and T am sorry that the circumstan- 
 ces of it are too long and various to be insert- 
 ed in a letter. I believe you know something 
 of the man ; but, if you repeat what I have 
 written to any one who is acquainted with him, 
 you will soon find that I have had a very nar- 
 row escape. I have bribed him to leave me, 
 and he is gone for England. The story of 
 Lewis the Fourteenth and his Barber is well 
 known ; and you may, if you please, apply it 
 to 
 
 Your affectionate, &c.
 
 19 
 
 LETTER IIL 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 YOUR letter, which I received no longer 
 ago than yesterday, would do honour to the 
 most celebrated name among the moral writers 
 of any period. It is the most sensible, easy, 
 and concise history of the Passions I have ever 
 read. Indeed, it has not been my lot to have 
 given any great portion of my time to such 
 studies. These powers have kept me too 
 much in the sphere of their own tumultuous 
 whirlwinds, to leave me the leisure of exam- 
 ining them. I have been, am, and I fear shall 
 be, their sport and their slave ; and when I 
 shall acquire that serenity of character which 
 will enable me to examine them with a philo- 
 sophical scrutiny, I cannot tell. My expecta- 
 tions are at such a distance upon this point, 
 that I am almost ashamed to mention my ap- 
 prehensions to you. It is, however, treating 
 you with that confidence you deserve, to tell 
 you, that from my soul I think the very source 
 of them must be dried up before they will lose
 
 20 
 
 their empire over me. In the lively expres- 
 sion of the poet, " they are the elements of 
 life," without which man would be a mass of 
 insensible and unintelligent matter. Now, it 
 is that happy compound of these elementary 
 particles of intellectual life, that you so well 
 describe, so thoroughly understand, and so 
 happily possess, which I despair of attaining. 
 I have the resolution to make resolutions, but 
 it extends no farther ; I cannot keep them : 
 and to escape from the misery brought on by 
 one passion, I have so habituated myself to 
 bathe in a branch of the same flood, that I 
 cannot look for any other relief. You very 
 naturally ask me where all this must end? I 
 know not ! and to similar interrogatories I 
 have sometimes madly replied, I care not ! 
 But I shall not offend you with such a decla- 
 tion ; and when I am writing to you, I do not 
 feel myself disposed to do it. In answering 
 you, therefore, I shall adopt the language of 
 the ruined gamester, who addressed his shad- 
 ow in the glass : " Je vous ai (lit et redit, Mal- 
 bcureux! quc, si vous continuiez afaire de par- 
 eils tour, vous iriez a Vhopital." 
 
 You lay great stress upon the powers of 
 Reason, and, in truly philosophical language, 
 heightened by the most proper and affecting
 
 imagery, present this sage directress of weak 
 mortals to my attention. I receive her at your 
 hand, respect her as your friend, and venerate 
 her as the cause of your superiority over me : 
 but whether she perceives that my respect is 
 insincere, or remembers how shamefully I 
 have neglected her ; so it is, that she slides in- 
 sensibly from me, and I see her no more. My 
 bark rides steady for a moment, but it is not 
 long ere it again becomes the sport of winds 
 and billows. But, after all, and without any 
 blasphemous arraignment of the order of Prov- 
 idence, permit me to ask you Why is this 
 principle, implanted in our natures for the 
 wise and happy regulation of them, so weak 
 in itself, so slow in its progress, and so late in 
 its maturity? If it is designed to controul our 
 Passions, why does it not keep pace with 
 them ? wherefore does it not grow with their 
 growth^ and strengthen with their strength ? 
 and what cause can be assigned that the one 
 are ripe for gratification before the other has 
 scarce bursted into blossom ? Let us, howev- 
 er, take a long stride from the imbecility of 
 youth to the firmness of mature age, and we 
 shall see that the Passions have only changed 
 their form ; that Reason still totters, is fre- 
 quently driven from her throne, and even de-
 
 22 
 
 serts those, who have most cultivated her friend- 
 ship, and acknowledged her power. The con- 
 test frequently continues through life, and the 
 superiority as often ends, where it always be- 
 gins, on the side of Passion. We may be said 
 even sometimes to outlive Reason ; while Pas- 
 sion of some kind, and, many times, of the 
 worst kind, will preserve its influence to the 
 last. To conclude the matter, how often does 
 the lamp of human reason become extinct, 
 yielding corporal nature a prey to Passion in 
 the extreme, whose tortures are rendered more 
 fierce by the iron restraints of necessary policy 
 and medical interposition ! 
 
 If it were possible to trace the course of Rea- 
 son in the mind of the best man that ever liv- 
 ed, from its first budding to a fulness of ma- 
 turity, what a mortifying scene would be un- 
 veiled ! What checks and delays, what tran- 
 quillity and tumult, what frequent extinction 
 and renovation, what rapid flights and sudden 
 downfals, what contest and submission, would 
 compose the operations of this rightful mistress 
 of human actions ! Men of cold tempers, and 
 habituated to reflection, may cry up this dis- 
 tinctive faculty of man ; they may chaunt its 
 apotheosis, and build temples to its honour : 
 such were Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Addi-
 
 23 
 
 son ; and they may be joined by those, whose 
 fortunate education and early connections have 
 given to their warmer dispositions the best ob- 
 jects. In that confined but happy society I must 
 place my friend, whose kind star preserved his 
 youth from temptation, and blest his bloom of 
 manhood with the ample and all-satisfying plea- 
 sures of virtuous love. You will not suspect 
 me of wishing to diminish the reality of that 
 merit which I so much admire, or of a desire 
 to damp the glow of that virtue -whose lustre 
 cannot be diminished by my envy, or height- 
 ened by my praise ; but, in the course of hu- 
 man affairs, time and chance have so much to 
 do, that I cannot suppose even your worth to 
 be without some obligations to them. 
 
 To conclude this very, very long letter, I 
 must beg leave to observe, that I do not un- 
 derstand why Reason, that divinity of philoso- 
 phers, should be cooped up in the confined re- 
 gion of the brain, while the Passions are per- 
 mitted to range at large, and without restraint, 
 through every other part of the body. I see 
 you smile but be assured that these two jar- 
 ring powers are, for a moment, both united in 
 me, to assure you that I am, with a real sin- 
 cerity, 
 
 Your's, <kc.
 
 24 
 
 I AVAIL myself, Madam, of the very 
 obliging offer you made me of suffering a small 
 parcel to occupy an useless pocket in your 
 coach. It is of some little importance ; but if 
 the Custom-house officers at Dover should 
 suspect you of being a smuggler of lace, as you 
 certainly are of other and better things, and in- 
 sist upon examining its contents, I beg you'will 
 indulge their curiosity without ceremony. On 
 your arrival in London , when any of your ser- 
 vants should be unemployed, I must desire the 
 additional favour of its being sent to the place 
 where it is addressed. 
 
 I feel myself extremely mortified, that a cold, 
 which forbids me to utter any thing more than 
 a whisper, should have prevented me from of- 
 fering you my personal wishes for your health 
 and happiness, an agreeable journey, and a 
 safe arrival in England, where your friends 
 will feel a delight in seeing you, which can be 
 only equalled by their regret whom you have 
 left behind. Among the number of them I am
 
 25 
 
 not the least sincere ; and, tho' I found your 
 gates but very seldom open for me, I am truly 
 grateful to you for the pleasure I received 
 whenever you indulged me with the honour of 
 an admittance. 
 
 Perhaps your caution, in this particular, pro- 
 ceeded from an ill opinion of me : you might 
 consider me as a person too dangerous to break 
 with openly, or too intruding to trust with fa- 
 miliarity. If so, you have done me wrong, 
 and, what is more, you have done injustice to 
 yourself. There is a dignity in .virtue like 
 your's, which commands respect from all ; and 
 the worst of men would be overawed in his 
 approaches to it. Perhaps, Madam, there was 
 also a little compassion mingled with your 
 reserve. You must be conscious of your 
 charms ; but, possessed of an heart which 
 would find no glory in coquettish triumphs, 
 you did not suffer me to approach you, lest I 
 should be scorched by the beams of that beau- 
 ty, which is sufficient to inflame all, and which 
 you preserve for one. If such humane con- 
 siderations governed the orders which were 
 given to your Swiss, it becomes me to express 
 my grateful sense of your kindness : but, if 
 you acted from motives not so favourable to 
 
 D
 
 26 
 
 ine, I must lament, as a tenfold misfortune, 
 that you should add another thong to the 
 scourge of Injustice. 
 
 I believe in my heart, that your society, and 
 such as I should have met with you, would 
 have been of great use and benefit to me ; and 
 that, in being so sparing of your welcomes, 
 you omitted doing a great good. The very 
 business of this letter has made a gloomy mind 
 less gloomy; and, if I had half a dozen letters 
 to write to half a dozen persons like yourself, 
 (if so many could be found in the world,) it 
 would make this day, in spite of every unpleas- 
 ant indisposition, one of the happiest and best 
 of my life. During the future part of it, what 
 of good or honour is destined for me, I can- 
 not tell ; but I shall ever consider it as a very 
 great and most flattering privilege, whenever 
 you will permit me, in any manner, to assure 
 you with what real respect 
 
 I am, &c. &c.
 
 27 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 OF all the birds in the air, who should 
 
 have been here but ! I met her in 
 
 the , where she could not well avoid me, 
 
 though I saw in her looks a wish to do 'it. 
 She received me, therefore, with great polite- 
 ness ; conversed with much ease and vivacity 
 during the walk ; and, when I requested per- 
 mission to wait on her, she granted it, in that 
 sort of manner, which told me, in as strong 
 terms as looks could give, " You are very im- 
 " prudent to risk such a request : but as an 
 " absolute refusal might raise conjectures in 
 " those about us unfavourable to you, I will 
 " not answer you with a denial ; and my gates 
 " shall not always be shut against you. But 
 " you will do well to proportion your visits to 
 " what you may naturally conceive to be my 
 " desire." And she has kept her word. Dur- 
 ing six weeks that she was here, I called ten 
 times, and was admitted only thrice, when 
 there was a great deal of company. This is 
 a very superiour woman ; for, while she coi>
 
 28 
 
 ducts herself in such a manner to me, as to 
 tell me plainly that the respect she has for my 
 family is the only inducement to give me the 
 reception she does ; there is not a single look 
 suffered to escape her, from which any person 
 might form the most distant suspicion of her 
 sentiments concerning me. It is my blab of a 
 conscience that does the business for me it 
 is that keen-sighted lynx, which sees things 
 impervious to every other eye : and thus I ex- 
 pose myself to myself, when I appear without 
 spot or blemish to the circle about me. 
 
 is a very fine woman, a very sen- 
 sible woman, and, what is more rare, a very 
 rational woman. The three qualities of beau- 
 ty, talents, and wisdom, which are generally 
 supposed to be incompatible in the same fe- 
 male character, are, however, united in her. 
 There is another circumstance which, though 
 a rake, I cannot but admire, and which the 
 most dissolute respect in others, though they 
 are strangers to it themselves I mean con- 
 stancy. From the united principles of duty 
 and affection, she is faithful to her husband, 
 who, to say the truth, highly deserves it. 
 Such a woman is capable of making the bad 
 good, the inconstant stable, and the giddy 
 wise ; and he, who would wish to see what is
 
 29 
 
 most perfect and respectable in the female 
 character, would do well to make a pilgrimage 
 to see and converse with her. I was so very 
 much afflicted with a cold, as not to be able to 
 go and hand her to the coach on her departure ; 
 which was a circumstance still more afflicting 
 than the cold : so I consoled myself by writing 
 her a letter, which was half serious, more than 
 half gallant, and almost sincere. 
 
 If you could, by any means, discover and 
 I should think it would be in your power to do 
 it without much trouble whether she has at 
 any time mentioned it, and, if so, in what man- 
 ner she expressed herself, you would very sen- 
 sibly gratify the curiosity of, 
 
 Your affectionate, Sec.
 
 50 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 IT is so long since I received your letter, 
 that I am almost ashamed to answer it ; and 
 be assured, that, in writing my apology, and 
 asking your pardon, I act with a degree of res- 
 olution that I have seldom experienced. I 
 hardly expect that you will receive the one or 
 grant the other : I do not deserve either, or in- 
 deed any kindness from you of any sort ; for I 
 have been very ungrateful. I am myself very 
 sensible of it, and very much apprehend that 
 you will be of the same opinion. I was never 
 more conscious of my follies than at this mo- 
 ment : and, if you should have withdrawn your- 
 self from the very few friends which are left 
 me, I shall not dare to complain ; for I deserve 
 the loss, and can only lament that another and 
 a deeper shade \vill be added to my life. The 
 very idea of such a misfortune is most griev- 
 ous ; and nothing can be more painful than the 
 reflection of suffering it from a fatal, ill-starred, 
 and abortive infatuation, which will prove my 
 bane. I have written letters, since I received
 
 31 
 
 your's, to many who have never done me any 
 kindness ; to some who have betrayed me ; and 
 to others whose correspondence administered 
 no one comfort to my heart, or honour to my 
 character ; and for them, at least engaged with 
 them, I have neglected you, to whose disinter- 
 ested friendship I am so much indebted, and 
 which is now become the only point whereon 
 to fix my anchor of hope. 
 
 But this is not all : if it were, I have some- 
 thing within me which would whisper your 
 forgiveness ; for you know of w r hat frail mate- 
 rials I am made, and have ventured, in the 
 face of the world's malice, to prognosticate fa- 
 vourably of my riper life. But I fear that you 
 will think meanness added to ingratitude, when 
 I tell you, that I am called back to acknowl- 
 edge your past goodness to me, and to ask a 
 repetition of it, not from any renewed senti- 
 ments of honour or gratitude, but by immedi- 
 ate and wringing distress. In such a situa- 
 tion your idea presented itself to me an idea 
 which was not encouraged in seasons of en- 
 joyment : it never wished to share my pleas- 
 ure, but, like the first-born of friendship, it 
 hastened to partake my pain. Though it came 
 in so lovely a form, I dared not bid it wel- 
 come ; and I started, as at the sight of one
 
 32 
 
 whom I had severely injured, whose neglect, 
 contempt, and revenge, I might justly dread, 
 while I did not possess the least means of re- 
 sistance, nor had a covert left where I might 
 fly for refuge ! 
 
 This is a- very painful confession, and will, 
 I hope, plead my cause in your bosom, and 
 win you to grant my request. I have written 
 
 to for some time past, and have never 
 
 been favoured with one line of reply. Indeed, 
 it has been hinted, that he refuses to read my 
 letters. However that may be, he most cer- 
 tainly does not answer them. In order, there- 
 fore, that I may know my fate and be certain 
 of my doom, I most earnestly and submissive- 
 ly intreat you to deliver the inclosed letter into 
 
 his hands. If I should be deserted by you 
 
 both, the consequences may be of such a na- 
 ture, as, in the most angry paroxysm, you 
 would neither of you wish to 
 
 Your most obliged, tc.
 
 33 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 MY DEAR , 
 
 I RETURN you all my thanks for the 
 endeavours you have made to satisfy the wish- 
 es of my last letter. I am very grateful to 
 you, though they have proved fruitless. I 
 suppose she destroyed the paper the moment 
 she had perused the contents of it. Perhaps 
 she did not even deign to read it, but deliver- 
 ed it immediately to the flames, as tainted and 
 infectious in coming from so unholy a person 
 as I am. The idea mortifies me. To be treat- 
 ed with contempt is always painful, and more 
 so to those who deserve it, as they have no 
 shelter in themselves to which they can fly for 
 protection: in their own hearts they will find 
 the echo of those sounds against which they 
 shut their ears ; while the good man possesses 
 a shield in his virtue, and returns compassion 
 for injustice. Contempt becomes still more 
 poignant, when it is conducted with a delicacy 
 which does not give you the most momentary 
 opportunity of returning it ; when it is so blend-
 
 34 
 
 ed with good-humour and external decorum as 
 to let no one see it but the conscious victim. 
 
 In this manner did the fair Lady manage the 
 matter with me : she honoured me with every 
 mark of exteriour respect ; she suffered no po- 
 lite attention or civility to escape her ; at the 
 same time, her conduct towards me was so 
 general and equally tempered, that she won 
 me, as it were by enchantment, into the same 
 mode, and precluded familiarity. I had indeed 
 brought myself to the resolution of making my 
 approaches more nearly, when she immediate- 
 ly discovered my design, and, by asking some 
 questions about my father, which were wholly 
 unexpected on my part, and connected with 
 some very stinging ideas, she threw me at once 
 to my former distance, dissipated in a moment 
 the impudence I had collected for the occasion, 
 and I have never seen her since. 
 
 You have some sportable fancies upon the 
 subject, and you are welcome to them: but 
 for once you are beside the mark ; and, though 
 your incredulity may oppose itself to my asser- 
 tion, believe me that I have an honest respect 
 for this woman, and it is on that account that 
 I am so severely wounded by her treatment of 
 me. The contempt of half mankind is not 
 Worth the smile it occasions : thev act from ca-
 
 35 
 
 price, folly, weakness, envy, or some base 
 motive ; they join the vulgar clamour they 
 know not why ; and their hiss, though loud, 
 gives not the pain of a moment : but the scorn 
 of good and honourable men is the fruit of con- 
 viction ; it springs from an aversion to what is 
 contrary to their own excellence, and cannot be 
 retorted. There is no other way of being re- 
 venged of them, but in giving the lie to their 
 unfavourable prognostications, by an immedi- 
 ate and complete reformation ; and this is a 
 difficulty, rny friend, of whose arduous nature 
 you are equally sensible with myself!- Facilis 
 descensus Avernised revocare gmdum, &c. 
 Sec. &c. . The road by contrition to amend- 
 ment is humiliating, painful, and difficult ; 
 and the greater part of guilty, mortals adopt 
 the sentiments of Macbeth :' 
 
 -" 1 am in blood 
 
 Slept in so far, that, should I wade no more, 
 
 . 
 Returning were as bad as to go o'er." 
 
 But to the purpose : I have another commis- 
 sion for you, in which I flatter myself you will 
 be more successful than in your last. You 
 must know, then, I am in a bad plight, and 
 there is no good ground of expectation that 
 matters will go better with me : on the contra- 
 ry, the prospect is a dark one, and the gloom 
 increases every step I take. To extricate my-
 
 36 
 
 self, if possible, I wrote to , who has 
 
 not answered my letters, and, I am disposed 
 to think, never opens them. I was, therefore, 
 under the necessity of addressing a very piti- 
 ful, penitential epistle to . I have used him 
 
 scurvily, and made such an ill return to all 
 his zeal to serve me, that I have too much rea- 
 son to apprehend his resentment. He passed 
 
 through about six weeks ago, without 
 
 inquiring after me. However, without ap- 
 pearing to know any thing of that circumstance, 
 I ventured to tell a miserable tale to him, and 
 to beseech his kindness would once more in- 
 terest itself in my behalf, by delivering a let- 
 ter into 's own hands. It would be 
 
 an easy matter, I should imagine, to discover 
 
 if he has complied with my request. T 
 
 will inform you if he has been lately, and 
 
 when, in street. Perhaps he may have 
 
 scented out something more ; and whatever you 
 discover, I should be glad to knov/ with 
 all possible dispatch. They will, probably, be 
 slow in their operations, whatever they may 
 be ; and your information will direct my hopes, 
 or confirm my fears will either give a sun- 
 shine to the present shade, or prepare me for 
 the worst. Adieu, and believe me 
 
 Ever your's, 8cc.
 
 37 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 YOU accuse me of neglect in not informing 
 you that I was in London. Believe me, I had 
 every disposition in the world to do it, but was 
 opposed by circumstances, which, among other 
 mortifications, prevented me from seeing you. 
 I came to England in so private a manner, that 
 I imagined no one would, or, indeed, could 
 know of my arrival ; but, by a combination of 
 unlucky circumstances, the secret was discov- 
 ered, and by those who were the most likely 
 to make a very unpleasant use of their know- 
 ledge. I was therefore obliged to shift my 
 
 plan, and to beg H to give me an 
 
 asylum in his house, where he very kindly re- 
 ceived and entertained me. My abode was not 
 suspected by any one ; and I remained there 
 till certain people were persuaded that I had 
 never left the Continent, or was again return- 
 ed to it ; and till the hell-hounds, who were 
 in pursuit of me, had relaxed their search. 
 
 You must, certainly, have heard me men- 
 tion something of my Host and Hostess :
 
 38 
 
 are the most original couple that ever 
 were paired together ; and their singularity 
 effected what, I believe, no other amusement 
 could have attained it made me forget the 
 disagreeableness of my situation. He pos- 
 sesses a strange, wild, rhapsodick genius, 
 which, however, is not uncultivated ; and, 
 amid a thousand odd, whimsical ideas, he 
 produces original bursts of poetry and under- 
 standing that are charming. She is a for- 
 eigner, assumes the title of Countess, and, 
 without knowing how to write or read, pos- 
 sesses, in the circumstance of dress, behavi- 
 our, &c. all her husband's dispositions. She is 
 fantastick, grotesque, outree, and wild ; never- 
 theless, at times, there are very pleasing 
 gleams of propriety in her manners and ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 I cannot describe so well as you may con- 
 ceive the striking and odd contrast of these 
 two characters : and what strange sparks are 
 produced by the collision of them. When 
 she imagines that Cytherea acknowledges her 
 divinity, and he grasps in his hand the lyre 
 of Apollo ; when the goddess unfolds herself 
 to view with imaginary millions at her feet, 
 and when the god chides the chairs and tables 
 for not being awakened into a cotillion by his
 
 39 
 
 strains ; in short, when the sublime fit of mad- 
 ness is on, it is an august scene : but if the 
 divinities should rival each other, heaven 
 changes instantly to hell, Venus becomes a 
 trull, and Phoebus a blind fiddler. It is im- 
 possible to describe the riot; not only re- 
 turns, but things of a more solid nature are 
 thrown at each other. Homer's genius is ab- 
 solutely necessary to paint celestial combats. 
 But it ends not here : the superb opera, which 
 was acted, at least, during my stay, three 
 times a week, and rehearsed generally every 
 day, for the most part, has an happy conclu- 
 sion. The contest requires the support of 
 nectar, which softens the edge of resentment, 
 puts the parties in good humour, and they are 
 soon disposed to acknowledge each other's 
 merit and station, with a zeal and fondness 
 superiour, if possible, to their late rage and 
 opposition. A number of collateral circum- 
 stances serve as interludes to the grand piece, 
 and, though less sublime, are not less enter- 
 taining. 
 
 You will now, probably be no longer dis- 
 pleased with me for making my hiding-place 
 a secret. One hour's attendance upon our 
 orgies would have done for you ; on the con- 
 trary, they suited me. I wanted something
 
 40 
 
 to hurry my spirits, to dissipate my thoughts, 
 and amuse my mind ; and I found it in this 
 retreat. You know enough of the parties to 
 enter into my description. I hope it will 
 make you laugh ; but, if my pen should fail, 
 I will promise to make your sides ach when 
 we meet again a pleasure which I look to 
 with a most sensible impatience. I remain, 
 
 Your's most truly,
 
 41 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 SINCE the little snatch of pleasure I en- 
 joyed with you, I have been again obliged to 
 make my retreat : I had made good my ground, 
 in my own opinion, but the devil that is in me 
 would not suffer me to maintain it. There is a 
 proverb of Zoroaster to the following effect 
 " That there are an hundred opportunities of 
 " doing ill every day, but that of doing well 
 " comes only once a year." There is some 
 wit and much truth in the observation. The 
 wise man was led to make it, I suppose, from 
 the circumstances of the times wherein he liv- 
 ed ; and, if it had been his lot to breathe in 
 these latter days, he would be equally justi- 
 fied in forming and applying such an opinion ; 
 and, perhaps, in every intervening period. In- 
 deed, if I may judge from my own experience, 
 matters are still growing worse ; for I never 
 fail to find the daily opportunities, but the an- 
 nual one has ever escaped me. 
 
 There is nothing so miserable, and, I may 
 add, so unfortunate, as to have nothing to do !
 
 42 
 
 The peripatetick principle, that Nature abhors 
 a vacuum, may be applied, with great proprie- 
 ty, to the human intellect, which will embrace 
 any thing, however criminal, rather than be 
 without an object. It is a matter of indubita- 
 ble certainty with me, that, if I had kept my 
 seat in Parliament, most of .the unpleasant 
 predicaments in which I have been involved 
 since that time would have been avoided. I 
 was disposed to application in the political 
 line, and was possessed of that ready faculty 
 of speech which would have enabled me to 
 make some little figure in the senate. I 
 should have had employment ; my passions 
 would have been influenced by a proper, an- 
 imating object, and my vanity would have 
 been sufficiently satisfied. During the short 
 time I sat in Parliament, I found myself in 
 the situation I have described : I was pleased 
 with the character ; I availed myself of its 
 privileges while I possessed them ; I mingled 
 in publick debate, and received the most flat- 
 tering testimonies of applause. If this scene 
 had continued, it would have been very for- 
 tunate for myself, and have saved my friends 
 great anxiety and many alarms : you, among 
 the rest, would have been spared the pain of 
 much unavailing counsel and disregarded 
 admonition.
 
 43 
 
 You know me well enough to; be certain 
 that I must have a particular and not a coirw 
 mon objecf to employ my attention : it must 
 be an object which inspires clesire, calls forth 
 activity, keeps hope upon the stretch, and has 
 some sort of high colouring about it. Power 
 and popular reputation are of this kind, and 
 would greatly have engrossed my thoughts 
 and wishes ; they would have kept under the 
 baser passions : 1 should have governed them 
 at least, and my slavery, if I was destined to 
 be a slave, would have been more honourable. 
 But, losing a situation so suitable to me, I fell 
 back a prey to that influence which had al- 
 ready proved so fatal, and yielded myself a 
 victim to an habitual dissoluteness which 
 formed my only pleasure. 
 
 I do not mean to write a disrespectable 
 thought of my father ; I would not offend you 
 by doing it ; but, surely, his ignorance of man- 
 kind is beyond all conception. It is hardly 
 credible that a man of his under standing and 
 knowledge, whose life has been ever in the 
 world and the most polished societies of it, 
 who writes well and ably on its manners, 
 should be so childish in its concerns as to de- 
 serve the coral that amused and the go-cart 
 that sustained him sixty years ago. I write in
 
 44 
 
 confidence ; and you know what I assert to be 
 true. Indeed, I might go further, and trace 
 the errours of my own life from the want of that 
 kind of paternal discernment which sees into 
 the character of his child, watches over its 
 growing dispositions, gently moulds them to 
 his will, and completes the whole by placing 
 him in a situation suitable to him. 
 
 I have been the victim of vanity ; and the 
 sacrifice of me was begun before I could form 
 a judgment of the passion. You will, proba- 
 bly, understand me ; but, if there should be 
 the least gloom in my allusions, I will, with 
 your leave, explain the matter more clearly in 
 some future letter. There is a great deal of 
 difference between a good man and a good fa- 
 ther : I have known bad men who excelled my 
 father as much in parental care as he was su- 
 periour to them in real virtue. But more of 
 this hereafter. In the mean time, and at all 
 times, 
 
 I am, &c.
 
 45 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 YOU have, certainly, given yourself ve- 
 ry unjustifiable airs upon my subject : neither 
 your talents, knowledge, figure, courage, or 
 virtue afford you the shadow of that superi- 
 ority over me, which, I understand, you affect 
 to maintain. However imprudent or bad my 
 conduct may have been, whatever vices I may 
 unfortunately possess, be assured I do not en- 
 vy you your sniveling virtues, which are worse 
 than the worst of vices, and give an example 
 of meanness and hypocrisy in the extreme. 
 Your letter is a farrago of them both ; and 
 since the receipt of it I despise you more than 
 ever. 
 
 What, Sir ! has my father got a cough, or 
 does he look thinner than usual and read his 
 Bible ? There must be some certain symptom 
 of his decay and dissolution that could induce 
 you to address yourself so kindly to one, who, 
 to use your own expression, is, as he ought to 
 be, abandoned by his family. You have dream- 
 ed of an hatchment upon house, and
 
 46 
 
 seen a visionary coronet suspended over my 
 brow. You are a simpleton and a parasite to 
 let such weak reasons guide you to wag your 
 tail and play the spaniel, and renew your of- 
 fers to fetch and carry. Be assured, for your 
 comfort, that, if ever you and I have any fu- 
 ture intercourse together, it will be upon such 
 terms, or worse. 
 
 I have heard it said, and I believe it to be 
 true, that you pretend to lament your poor 
 's fate, and, with a more than rueful vis- 
 age, prognosticate the breaking of his heart 
 from the wicked life of his graceless son. Now, 
 I will tell you a secret, that, supposing such 
 a canting prophecy should take place to-mor- 
 row, you would be the first to flatter the par- 
 ricide. I consider you with a mixture of scorn 
 and pity, when I see you so continually ham- 
 pered in difficulties from your regard to the 
 present and future Lord : though you order 
 your matters tolerably well ; for there is not 
 one of our family to whom your hypocritical 
 canting will not answer in some measure, but 
 to myself. I know you, and I declare you to 
 be incapable of any love or affection to any 
 one, even to a mother or a sister. You know 
 what I mean : but, to quit an idea abhorrent 
 to human nature, let me intrcat you, if it is in
 
 47 
 
 your power, to act with candour ; and, if you 
 must speak of me, tell your sentiments open- 
 ly, and not with those covert looks and affect- 
 ed shrugs, which convey so much more than 
 meets the ear and be so good, I pray you, as 
 to raise your merit upon your own mighty 
 stock of virtues, and not upon my vices. The 
 world will one day judge between us, and I 
 must desire you to Le content with the ac- 
 knowledged superiority you will receive from 
 the arbitration in your favour. 
 
 Oh, stnlfum oimis est, cum tu pravissima lenfes, 
 Alterius censor ut viiiosa notes! 
 
 
 I have not yet sung a requiem to my own 
 honour ; and, though you and some others of 
 my good friends may have chaunted a dirge 
 over the grave you have yourselves dug fcr 
 it, it does not rest without the hopes of a joyful 
 and speedy resurrection. To have done with 
 you for the present, I have only to desire you 
 to be an open enemy to me, or a real friend, 
 if you are capable of either : the halting be- 
 tween two opinions on the matter is both dis- 
 graceful and contemptible. Be assured that I 
 give you these counsels more for your own 
 ^ than for that of 
 
 Your humble servant, kc.
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 YOU wish that I should explain myself 
 at large with respect to that vanity, which I 
 accuse of having been the cause of every in- 
 convenience and misdoing of my past life, to 
 which I owe the disagreeable circumstances 
 of my present situation and shall be indebt- 
 ed, probably, for some future events which, I 
 fear, are in store for me. 
 
 You will, I believe, agree with me, that 
 vanity is the foible of my family : every indi- 
 vidual has a share of it for himself and for 
 the rest ; they are all equally vain of them- 
 selves, and of one another. It is not, how- 
 ever, an unamiable vanity: it makes them 
 happy, though it may sometimes render them 
 ridiculous ; and it never did an injury to any 
 one but to me. I have every reason to load it 
 with execration, and to curse the hour when 
 this passion was concentrated to myself. 
 
 Being the only boy and hopes of the fami-
 
 ly, and having such an hereditary and collat- 
 eral right to genius, talents, and virtue, (for 
 this was the language held by certain persons 
 at that time,) my earliest prattle was the sub- 
 ject of continual admiration. As I encreased 
 in years, I was encouraged in boldness, which 
 partial fancy called manly confidence ; while 
 sallies of impertinence, for which I should 
 have been scourged, were fondly considered 
 as marks of an astonishing prematurity of abil- 
 ities. As it happened, Nature had not been 
 a niggard to me ; it is true she has given me 
 talents, but accompanied them with disposi- 
 tions which demanded no common repressure 
 and restraint, instead of liberty and encour- 
 agement : but this vanity had blinded the eyes 
 not only of my relations, but also of their in- 
 timate connections ; and, I suppose, such an 
 hot-bed of flattery was never before used to 
 spoil a mind, and to choak it with bad quali- 
 ties, as was applied to mine. The late Lord 
 
 Bath, Mrs. , and many others have 
 
 been guilty of administering fuel to the flame, 
 and joined in the family incense to such an 
 idol as myself. Thus was I nursed into a very 
 early state of audacity ; and being able, almost 
 at all times, to get the laugh against a father, 
 or an uncle, <kc. I was not backward in giving 
 
 G
 
 50 
 
 such impertinent specimens of my ability. 
 This is the history of that impudence which 
 has been my bane, gave to my excesses such 
 peculiar accompaniments, and caused those, 
 who would not have hesitated to commit the 
 offence, loudly to condemn the mode of its 
 commission in me. 
 
 When I drew towards manhood, it will be 
 sufficient to say, that I began to have some 
 glimmering of the family weakness : howev- 
 er, I was still young ; dependence was a con- 
 siderable restraint ; and I had not acquired 
 that subsequent knowledge of the world 
 which changed my notions of paternal author- 
 ity. I was, therefore, without much difficul- 
 ty, brought to consent to the design of giving 
 solidity to my character, and preserving me 
 from publick contagion, by marriage. A rich 
 and amiable young lady was chosen to the hap- 
 py and honourable task of securing so much 
 virtue as mine, to correct the natural exuber- 
 ance of youthful inexperience, and to shape 
 me into that perfection of character which was 
 to verify the dreams of my visionary relations. 
 
 I must own that the lady was both amiable 
 and handsome, but cold as an anchorite ; and, 
 though formed to be the best wife in the world 
 to a good husband, was by no means calcu-
 
 51 
 
 lated to reclaim a bad one. But, to complete 
 the sensible and well-digested plan in which 
 so many wise heads were concerned, it was 
 determined for me to make the tour of Europe, 
 previous to my marriage, in order to perfec- 
 tionate my matrimonial qualifications ; and the 
 lovely idea of the fair maid I left behind, was 
 presented to me, as possessing a talismanict 
 power to preserve me from seduction. But 
 this was not all : for the better enabling me to 
 make a proper and becoming appearance, or, 
 in other words, to give me every means of 
 gratification, the family purse was lavishly 
 held forth ; I was left almost without controul 
 in point of expense, and every method pursu- 
 ed to make me return the very reverse of what 
 expectation had painted me. You know as 
 well as myself what happened during my trav- 
 els, as well as after my return ; and I trust 
 that you will impute my misconduct, in part,, 
 at least, to its primary cause. 
 
 In this short sketch of the matter, which 
 consists rather of hints than descriptions, you 
 will see the drift of my reasoning, and know 
 how to apply it to a thousand circumstances in 
 your remembrance. You were present at my 
 being received into the arms of my family with 
 a degree of warmth, delight, and triumph,
 
 52 
 
 which the brightest virtue could alone have 
 deserved ; and you recollect the cause of all 
 this rapturous forgiveness, which, I believe, 
 penitence itself would not, at that time, have 
 effected : it was my having made a speech in 
 Parliament, flowery, indeed, and bold, but ve- 
 ry little to the purpose ; and, at a time when, 
 as I was certain that I should lose my seat, it 
 would have been prudent in me to have remain- 
 ed silent however, Mr. Ellis thought proper 
 to compliment me upon the occasion, and to 
 observe that I spoke with hereditary abilities ; 
 and this circumstance instantly occasioned the 
 short-lived family truce that succeeded. 
 
 That my relations may have cause to com- 
 plain of me, I do not deny ; but this confession 
 is accompanied with an opinion, in which, I 
 doubt not of your acquiescence, that I, on my 
 side also, have no small cause of complaint : 
 and, however black the colour of my future 
 life may be, I shall ever consider that the dusky 
 scenes of it are occasioned by the vanity of my 
 family, and not by any obdurate or inflexible 
 dispositions inherent in my own character. I 
 am, with great regard, 
 
 Your's, &CQ.
 
 53 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 IF you had been at all explicit with me 
 about the Arabian Courser, he should, most 
 certainly, have been at your service. Not- 
 withstanding he was the gift of Hymen, to 
 whom I have so few -obligations, the animal 
 was a favourite, and I brought him to the con- 
 tinent with me, where he was very trouble- 
 some and very useless. But he troubles me 
 no more ; and a little ridiculous event, which 
 happened a few weeks ago, made me hate and 
 detest him. If there had been any laughers, 
 the laugh would have been very much against 
 me on the occasion : as it was, I felt and look- 
 ed so foolish, that I never afterwards could 
 turn a favourable eye upon the beast that was 
 the cause of my mortification. 
 
 I shall not give you an account of this little 
 history ; for, as I am the principal hero of it, I 
 shall not tell it well : so I resign the task to 
 p . When you see him, therefore, ques-
 
 54 
 
 tion him upon the subject, and he will do it 
 justice. He is a most lively, good-humoured, 
 and pleasant man, who bears the ills of life as 
 if they were blessings, and seems to take the 
 rough and the smooth with an equal counten- 
 ance. This sort of unbended philosophy is 
 the best gift that Nature can bestow on her 
 children ; it lightens the burden of care, and 
 turns every sable and ghastly hue of melan- 
 choly to bright and splendid colours. There 
 
 is no one I envy so much as I do P : a 
 
 cap and bells is a crown to him ; a tune upon 
 a flageolet is a concert if the sun shines, he 
 sports himself in its beams ; if the storm comes, 
 he skips gayly along, and when he is wet to 
 the skin, it only serves to make out a pleasant 
 story while he is drying himself at the fire. If 
 you are dull after dinner, he will get him up 
 and rehearse half a dozen scenes out of a play, 
 and do it well, and be as pleased with his per- 
 formance as you can be. With all these com- 
 panionable talents, he is neither forward, noisy, 
 or impertinent ; but, on the contrary, very con- 
 versable, and possesses as pleasant a kind of 
 good-breeding as any one I ever knew. 
 
 His company has been a great relief to me, 
 and I recommend you to cultivate his acquaint- 
 ance as an entertaining and agreeable compan-
 
 55 
 
 ion. You and I, my dear friend, are differ- 
 ently, and, I must add, less happily framed. 
 We are hurried about by every gust and whirl- 
 wind of passion ; and, though hope does throw 
 a pale gilding upon our disappointments, fear 
 never fails to interrupt our pleasures. I would 
 give more than half of what I shall ever be 
 
 worth, to be blessed with a moiety of P 's 
 
 temper and disposition. 
 
 I am,
 
 56 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I BEG your pardon, and plead guilty to 
 the crime laid'to my charge ! The Dialogues, 
 which you have seen, were written by me, on 
 hints given me by an infidel Frenchman at Tu- 
 rin.* That it was a folly, to say no worse, to 
 amuse myself with such compositions, I read- 
 ily acknowledge ; nor am I less disposed to 
 own that it was the weakest of all vanities to 
 disperse any copies of them. Your suspicion 
 of their having been composed in an evil hour, 
 as a ridicule upon those which have been 
 published by my father, is a natural one ; but, 
 believe me, it is not founded in fact. Bad as 
 they may be, they were not writ for so bad a 
 purpose ; and, if I had considered the possi- 
 bility of such an ide"a becoming prevalent, they 
 would never have been exposed to any inspec- 
 
 * These Dialogues are too irreverent and profane to justify a publication. 
 The personages of the first are the Saviour cf the World and Socratci ; and of 
 the second) King DaviJ and deiar Bsrgitt,
 
 57 
 
 tion. I wrote them originally in French, and 
 never, to my recollection, gave them an Eng- 
 lish dress, but when I read them accidentally 
 to some one who did not understand the form- 
 er language. I was flattered into the suffer- 
 ing of some copies to be taken by the declara- 
 tion of a respectable literary company, that 
 they were superiour to Voltaire's Tragedy of 
 Saul ; and these copies must have been greatly 
 multiplied to have made it possible that one of 
 them should have reached you. I am very 
 sorry for it ; for you have already more than 
 sufficient reason to fill your letters to me with 
 reproaches ; and I curse the chance that has 
 thrown another motive in your way to contin- 
 ue a train so disagreeable to us both. 
 
 It is true that my father is a Christian, and 
 has given an ample testimony of his faith to 
 the world by his writings : but it was long af- 
 ter he attained to my age that he became a con- 
 vert to that system which he has defended. 
 It is painful in me, and hardly fair in you, to 
 occasion our being brought together in the 
 same period : it takes from me the means of 
 justification where I could use them, and of 
 palliation where a complete defence might not 
 be practicable. As to my Right Reverend 
 uncle, I shall consider him with less ceremony. 
 
 H
 
 53. 
 
 He also may be a good Christian ; but I re- 
 collect to have heard him make a better dis- 
 course upon the outside ornaments of an old 
 Gothick pulpit, I think it was at JVolverhamp- 
 ton, than he ever delivered in one, through- 
 out the whok course of his evangelical la- 
 bours. He seems much more at home in a 
 little harangue on some doubtful remnant of 
 a Saxon tomb-stone, than in urging the per- 
 formance of Christian duties, or guarding, with 
 his lay-brother, the Christian fortress against 
 infidel invasion. I well remember also to have 
 heard his Right Reverence declare, that he 
 would willingly give one of his fingers, (that 
 was his expression,) to have a good natural 
 history of Worcestershire. What holy ardour 
 he may possess as an Antiquarian I cannot 
 tell ; but, in my conscience, I think he would 
 make a sorry figure as a Christian Martyr, and 
 that a zeal for our holy religion would not en- 
 flame him to risk the losing of a nail from his 
 finger. 
 
 I repeat to you, upon my honour, that I 
 did not wish these jeux d'esprit should have 
 gone beyond the limits I had prescribed for 
 them. The very few persons to whom I gave 
 them were bound, by a very solemn promise, 
 not to circulate their contents, or to name their
 
 59 
 
 author. If they have forfeited their word, I 
 am sorry for it ; but the failure of their en- 
 gagement cannot be imputed to me, and the 
 severest judge would not think me guilty of 
 more than chance-medley on the occasion. In 
 your breast, I hope, there is a complete and 
 full acquittal for 
 
 Your most sincere and obliged, &c.
 
 6Q 
 
 LETTER 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 I CANNOT bring it within the compass 
 of my belief, that H has escaped your re- 
 collection : however, I shall be able to restore 
 it to its proper tone in a moment, by mention- 
 ing an ode addressed by him to me on the sub- 
 ject of gaming. You admired it too much to 
 have forgot the author ; and it now occurs to 
 me, that you, or some one in the company, 
 rehearsed on the occasion a long string of 
 laughable Eton and Oxford anecdotes concern- 
 ing him : nay, the very last time we were to- 
 gether, you sarcastically repeated to me some 
 of his vaticinations on my impetuous attach- 
 ment to play, and kindly foretold the comple- 
 tion of them. After all, I believe you are 
 either laughing at me, or pretending ignorance 
 of my bard, in order to have an hash of the 
 same dish, which you are pleased to say de- 
 lighted you so much in my last letter.
 
 61 
 
 Was it not you (or do I dream) who was 
 so charmed with that part of his poem where 
 he describes my being so reduced by gaming 
 
 as to be abliged to sell H , and supposes 
 
 the estate to be bought by the descendant of 
 some felon who was reprieved from death to 
 transportation by my ancestor the yudge, whose 
 picture he tears down from the wall, as a sight 
 disgusting to him ? I am not certain as to the 
 correctness of my recollection, but the lines 
 are, I believe, to the following effect : 
 
 Shall some unfeeling stranger reign 
 
 Within that blest domain ? 
 
 Some convict's spawn, by thy forefathers breath, 
 
 Perchance, reprieved from death ? 
 
 Whilst thou, self-banished, self-enslaved, shall roam, 
 
 Without a friend or home ! 
 
 Still shall he tremble at the Judge's frown, 
 
 And, fraught with spite, tear down, 
 
 From the repining wall, his venerable shade, &c. 
 
 It is a composition of great merit ; and, if he 
 was so fortunate as to possess a sense of har- 
 mony, he would almost put an end to the pre- 
 sent vacation of poetry and poets. His thoughts 
 are original, bold, and nervous ; his images 
 apt, lively, and beautiful ; his language is nev- 
 er puerile, but sometimes low, and sometimes 
 inflated. If his taste was improved, and he 
 had an ear for versification, which I think he 
 has not, his compositions would be delightful.
 
 62 
 
 and, as I have already observed, place him 
 
 in the first rank of modern poets. P s, I 
 
 believe, sometimes visits him, and will most 
 willingly present you a Monsieur and Madame^ 
 if you make known your wishes to him. A 
 letter from me would shut his door against 
 you: my former favour was never equal to 
 my present disgrace ; and if you wish to be 
 well in that quarter, you must not acknowl- 
 edge the least regard for me. Indeed, you 
 would do well never to mention the name of 
 
 Your affectionate, &c.
 
 63 
 
 AND I awoke, and behold I was a Lord ! 
 It was no unpleasant transition, you will read- 
 ily believe, from infernal dreams and an un- 
 easy pillow, from insignificance and derelic- 
 tion, to be a Peer of Great Britain, with all 
 the privileges attendant upon that character, 
 and some little estate into the bargain. My 
 sensations are very different from any I have 
 experienced for some time past. My conse- 
 quence, both internal and external, is already 
 greatly elevated ; and the empressment of the 
 people about me is so suddenly encreased as 
 to be ridiculous. By heavens ! my dear 
 , we are a very contemptible set of beings ; 
 and so on. 
 
 Without meaning any thing so detestable as 
 a pun, I shall certainly lord it over a few of 
 those who have looked disdain at me. My 
 coronet shall glitter scorn at them, and insult 
 their low souls to the extreme of mortifica-
 
 64 
 
 tion. I have received a letter from , that 
 
 dirty parasite, full of condolence and congrat- 
 ulation, with a my Lord in every line, and your 
 Lordship in every period. I will make the 
 rascal lick the dust ; and, when he has flatter- 
 ed me till his tongue is parched with lies, I 
 will upbraid him with his treason, and turn my 
 back upon him for ever. There are a score 
 of bugs, or more, of the same character, whom 
 the beams of my prosperity will warm into 
 servility, and whose names will be left at my 
 door before I have been ten days in town ; but 
 may eternal ignominy overtake me, if I do not 
 make the tenderest vein in their hearts ach 
 with my reproach ! Whether the world will 
 be converted into respect towards me, I do 
 not pretend to determine ; its anger will, at all 
 events, be softened: but, be that as it may, 
 I can look it in the face with less fear than I 
 was wont to do, and make it smile upon my 
 political career, though it may still hold a 
 frowning aspect towards my moral character. 
 Permit me, however, to assure you, that 
 whatever change may appear in me towards 
 others, I shall ever be the same to you. The 
 acquisition of fortune, and an elevation to 
 honours, will not vary a line in my regard to 
 those whose friendship has been so faithful to
 
 65 
 
 me as your's has been ; nor shall you ever 
 have cause to repent of your assiduous kind- 
 ness to me. There is a balance in the human 
 passions, and the mind that is awake to a spir- 
 it of revenge is equally inspired by the senti- 
 ments of gratitude. There is a dirty crew who 
 shall experience the former, while you may 
 confide in my solemn assurance to you of a 
 most ample exertion of the latter. 
 
 A propos : I must beg of you to forward the 
 enclosed letter to . With much dif- 
 ficulty I persuaded her some time ago to re- 
 turn to England ; and I am apprehensive she 
 may be already in town, expecting my arrival. 
 If it be possible, contrive some means to free 
 me from her persecutions, both for her sake 
 and my own. Should she be come to London, 
 you will know where to find her : make any 
 promises you may think necessary in my name, 
 and use every reason your imagination can 
 suggest, to persuade her to return into the 
 country. You understand me. 
 
 and arc gone from hence 
 
 this morning, to indulge their fancies in the 
 business of cold iron and powder and ball. I 
 was very near being hampered in the affair ; 
 but my sable suit and funeral duties excused 
 me from the employment, and I suppose the
 
 0(5 
 
 first news I shall hear of the event will be in 
 England, where I hope shortly to see and em- 
 brace you. In the mean time, believe me 
 
 Most sincerely your's, &cc.
 
 67 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 YOUR letter reached me with a large 
 packet of others, which my father's death had 
 occasioned. How altered is the language of 
 them upon the occasion ! Your's, indeed, is 
 exactly the same, or, if any thing, bears the 
 tincture of more than usual severity. Flattery 
 is a strain altogether new to me, and by the 
 two last posts I have had enough to surfeit 
 the most arrant coquette upon earth. It is 
 true, I cannot compliment your letter with pos- 
 sessing an atom of adulation ; nevertheless, it 
 is the only one which has given me real pleas- 
 ure, because it is the only one which bears 
 the characters of real friendship. Though I 
 have acted in such a direct opposition to your 
 cautions and remonstrances, I am not the less 
 sensible to that generous passion, which pro- 
 duced them, and has now taken the first op- 
 portunity to give me the essence, as it were, 
 of all your former counsels, in thus calling
 
 68 
 
 my attention to real and permanent honour. 
 However I may offend you hereafter, you 
 shall never again have cause to reproach me 
 with a forfeiture of my word. I have, at pres- 
 ent, lost that confidence in myself, which 
 would justify me in offering assurances to 
 you : the hopes of regaining it, however, are 
 not entirely vanished, and when they are ful- 
 filled, which, I trust, they will one day be, 
 you shall receive the first fruits of my reno- 
 vation. 
 
 I understand the purpose of your observa- 
 tion, that the generality of men employ the 
 first part of life in making the remainder of it 
 miserable. . I feel its force, and consider it as 
 an indirect caution to me not to pursue a con- 
 duct which must be attended with such a la- 
 mentable consequence. But, alas ! credula 
 turbit sitmus ; though I have paid dearly for 
 my credulity, unless it should be immediately 
 .-.the fruits of an wholesome expc- 
 cc. We despise the world when we know 
 it thoroughly ; but we give ourselves up to it 
 before we know it, and the heart is frequent- 
 ly lost befpre it is illuminated by the irradia- 
 tions of reason. 
 
 I have now succeeded to the possession of 
 those privileges which arc a part, and perhaps
 
 69 
 
 the best part of my inheritance. Clouds and 
 darkness no longer rest upon me. My exteri- 
 our of things is totally changed ; and, howev- 
 er unmoved some men's minds may be by out- 
 ward circumstances, mine is not composed of 
 such cold materials as to be unaffected by 
 them. Such an active spirit as animates my 
 frame, must have objects important in their 
 nature, inviting in their appearance, and ani- 
 mating in their pursuit. No longer forced to 
 drown the sensibility to publick disgrace and 
 private inconvenience in Circean draughts, my 
 character, I trust, will unfold qualities which 
 it has not been thought to possess, and finally 
 dissipate the kind apprehensions of friendship. 
 My natural genius will now have a full 
 scope for exertion in the line of political duty ; 
 and I am disposed to natter myself, that the 
 application necessary to make a respectable 
 figure in that career, will leave me but little 
 time for those miserable pursuits, which, of 
 late, have been my only resource. But I 
 must desire you not to expect an instant con- 
 version : the sera of miracles is passed; and, 
 besides, the world would suspect its sincerity. 
 It is true, I am sinner sufficient to call down 
 the interposition of Heaven, but the present 
 age has no claim to such celestial notices.
 
 70 
 
 My amendment must be slow and progressive, 
 though, I trust, in the end, sincere and ef- 
 fectual. But be assured, that, however the 
 completion of your good wishes for me may 
 be deferred, I am perfectly sensible that there 
 is something necessary besides title, rank, and 
 fortune, to constitute true honour. With this 
 sentiment I take my leave of you, and am, 
 
 with real truth, 
 
 Your's,
 
 71 
 
 LETTER XFIL 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 I AM at an inn, and alone ; and, if you 
 were to guess for ten years, and had one of 
 Osborne's Catalogues to assist you, sure I am 
 that you would not divine the book which has 
 amused my evening, and given a subject to 
 this letter : nay, I may venture to tell you it 
 is poetical, and still bid defiance to your pen- 
 etration. 
 
 My two travelling volumes had been read 
 twice in the course of my journey, and, as it 
 would not be worth the trouble to unpack a 
 trunk for more, I desired the waiter to ask his 
 mistress to send me a book ; and in the inte- 
 rim I amused myself with fancying what kind 
 of publication would be brought me, resolv- 
 ing, however, if it should be the Pilgrim's 
 Progress, the Whole Duty of Man, or even 
 the Holy Bible, to make it the subject of my 
 evening's lucubrations. The waiter returned, 
 and desired to know if I chose prose or verse.
 
 This I thought looked well ; and my prefer- 
 ence being declared for the latter, I was, in a 
 few minutes, presented with a small volume, 
 which I found to be a Presbyterian hymn book, 
 entitled Horcc Lyrics, by a Dr. Watts. My 
 expectations were a little chagrined upon the 
 occasion : however, I turned over a few pages, 
 looking cursorily at the contents in my way, 
 when I dropped upon a little odd composition, 
 the subject of which w r as no less singular than 
 applicable to myself. The title of it was, Few 
 Happy Matches. From the character of the 
 author, who was a dissenting minister, I had 
 conceived that the reasons of matrimonial in- 
 felicity would be trite, whining, and scriptural, 
 and that I should find some bouncing. anathe- 
 mas against such offenders as your humble 
 servant : but it turned out quite otherwise ; 
 the idea is a fanciful one; and I dare affirm, 
 that, if Apollo and the Nine Muses had racked 
 their brains for a twelvemonth, they could not 
 have hit upon such a conceit. 
 
 The poet supposes that human souls come 
 forth in pairs of male and female from the 
 hands of the Creator, who gives them to the 
 winds of Heaven to bear them to our lower 
 world, where, if they arrive safe and meet 
 again, they instinctively impel the bodies they
 
 73 
 
 animate towards each other, so as to produce 
 an Hymeneal union, which, being originally 
 designed by their author, must be necessarily 
 happy ; but, as from the length of the way, 
 and the many storms, &c. that check and come 
 across it, they are generally separated before 
 they reach their destination, their re-union is 
 very rare ; and the forming an alliance with 
 any other but the original counterpart, being, 
 as it were, an extraneous connexion, must be 
 necessarily miserable, and will produce those 
 jarrings and contentions which so generally 
 disturb matrimonial life. This ingenious fan- 
 cy will make you smile ; nor would the ideas 
 which occur to me on the subject re-brace your 
 muscles, if I had paper or time to bear me out 
 in them. They must serve for another oppor- 
 tunity. Thus, according to my good Doctor 
 Watts, matches are made in heaven, but mar- 
 riages on earth. I should think some of them 
 have been fabricated in * 
 
 # * * * * * . * 
 
 ******* 
 ****#*.# 
 
 * but no more of that. 
 I really feel myself much indebted to this 
 Pindarick Presbyterian for setting my con- 
 science at rest, which, now and then, had a 
 
 K
 
 74 
 
 momentary qualm on a certain subject. The 
 unlucky counterpart, which accompanied my 
 soul from Heaven's gates, was tossed in some 
 whirlwind, driven by some lightning, or de- 
 tained by some aerial frost, and, at length, I 
 I suppose, cast ashore among the antipodes. 
 We are not destined, I believe, to meet again ; 
 and I fear, poor soul ! if I may judge from 
 myself, that her lot is a very lamentable one, 
 wherever it may be. 
 
 After all that sentimental talkers and senti- 
 mental writers may produce upon the subject, 
 marriage must be considered as a species of 
 traffick, and as much a matter of commerce 
 as any commodity that fills the ware-house of 
 the merchant. We exchange passion for pas- 
 sion, beauty, titles, &x. for money, youth for 
 age, and so on. The business may some- 
 times answer; but there are few examples, I 
 fear, when the profit and loss come to be stat- 
 ed, where the balance is considerable in fa- 
 vour of the former. Who, says the Spanish 
 proverb, has ever seen a marriage without 
 fraud, if beauty be a part of the portion ? This 
 idea will hold good in every other instance, 
 and corroborates my principle of its being a 
 matter of trade, which has its foundation in 
 fraud and tricking. One marries for connex-
 
 75 
 
 ions, another for wealth, a third from lust, a 
 fourth to have an heir, to oblige his parents, 
 and so on. Every one of your married friends 
 will come under these or similar descriptions, 
 
 except Lord C , who married his Lady, 
 
 as he buys his buckles, because she was the 
 Ton ; and I doubt not, but he was completely 
 miserable, that he could not change her, as 
 he does his buckles, for the fashion of the next 
 spring, or, perhaps, the next month. 
 
 Plato was at a loss under what class to rank 
 women, whether among brutes or rational 
 creatures : Doctor Watts's ideas are far more 
 favourable to the sex, for he has not hesitat- 
 ed to give them celestial natures. I must ac- 
 knowledge that I have my doubts upon the 
 subject. Mahometanism has, certainly, some 
 fine points about it : give him wine, and a 
 Turk's life is not a bad one. So good night 
 to you !
 
 76 
 
 LETTER 
 
 YOUR string of modern wits is not worth 
 a beadsman's rosary. The sera of wit is pass- 
 e'd. There are not half a score of men in the 
 kingdom who deserve that title ; and the ris- 
 ing world give no hopes of its restoration. 
 The tree that bears such fruit is blasted. Do 
 me the favour, I beseech you, to distinguish 
 between a man of wit, and one who makes 
 you laugh. The repetition of an old tale, a 
 grimace, a blunder, the act of laughter in an- 
 other, or even a serious look, may cause the 
 muscular convulsion ; but wit is not levelled 
 so much at the muscles as at the heart, and 
 the latter will sometimes smile when there is 
 not a single wrinkle upon the cheek. How it 
 could ever enter into your head to think Chase 
 Price a wit, puzzles and perplexes me. He 
 has no more pretensions to it than he has to 
 grace. He is a good-humoured, jolly buffoon, 
 that writes a bawdy song, and sings it ; says 
 things that nobody but himself would choose 
 to say ; and does things that nobody beside^
 
 77 
 
 would choose to do. Believe me, that CJiase's 
 forte is politicks ; not publick, but private pol- 
 iticks ; the science of which he understands 
 better, and practises with more success, than 
 any man in Great-Britain. He is never with- 
 out a point in view, or a game to play ; and 
 he never sings a song, or tells a smutty tale, 
 without some design. Mere amusement to 
 himself or others is not Mr. Price's plan : his 
 humour has been a good fortune to him ; and 
 he will contrive, I doubt not, to make it last 
 as long as himself. Do you think, when 
 Bolingbroke, Swift, ArbntJmot, Pope, &c. &c. 
 were assembled together, that the conversa- 
 tion of such a bright constellation of men was 
 like the ribaldry of Mr. Price ? Their wit did 
 not consist in roaring a bawdy catch, &c. it 
 was the feast of reason, and the flow of soul. 
 The flashes of imagination adorned and gave 
 brilliance to the high discourse : wisdom was 
 enlivened, and not wounded, by their wit ; 
 and, among them, the herd of laughter-loving 
 fools would not haVe found a single grin to 
 console them. If I were to sing one of Mr. 
 Price's ballads, or to repeat one of his stories, 
 you would receive, I fear, but little pleasure 
 from the exhibition, because I could not give 
 them the accompaniments of noise and grim-
 
 78 
 
 ace, which form their principal merit: and, 
 perhaps, besides my deficiency in acting my 
 part, I might produce the entertainment an 
 hour too soon. But wit may be repeated by 
 any one at any time, and, I believe, in almost 
 any language, with satisfaction and success : 
 time may drown it in oblivion, but cannot al- 
 ter its nature : as long as it is remembered it 
 will please while the facetious exhibitions of 
 a boon companion will scarce survive his fu- 
 neral. But to proceed in your catalogue. 
 
 Lord C e's wit, as well as that of his 
 
 friend, lies in his heels, and is so powerfully 
 exerted in producing entre-chats, as to be lan- 
 guid to every other purpose. A few school- 
 boy rhymes confer not the laurel of wit ; and 
 it was a great proof of an opposite character 
 in this Nobleman to give his compositions to 
 the world. He may understand French and 
 Italian, and, perhaps, speak both those lan- 
 guages tolerably well; it is probable, also, 
 that he may not have forgot every thing he 
 learned at school : but indeed, indeed, my 
 friend, he is no wit. 
 
 Charles Fox is highly gifted ; his talents are 
 of a very superiour nature : and, in my opin- 
 ion, Fitzpatrick is scarcely behind him. In 
 the article of colloquial merit, he is, at least.
 
 his equal : but they neither of them possess 
 that Attick character, which, while it corrects, 
 gives strength to imagination, and, while it 
 governs, gives dignity to wit. The late Earl 
 of Bath and Mr. Charles Towns/lend were 
 blessed with no inconsiderable share of it ; 
 and it is an intemperate vivacity of genius 
 which confounds it in Mr. Edmund Burke. 
 But the man who is in the most perfect pos- 
 session of it, has figured in so high a line of 
 publick life, as to prevent the attention of man- 
 kind from leaving his greater qualities to con- 
 sider his private and domestick character : I 
 mean Lord Chatham^ whose familiar conver- 
 sation is only to be excelled by his publick el- 
 oquence. Perhaps Lord Mansfield was born, 
 if I may use the expression, with every At- 
 tick disposition ; but the shackles of a law- 
 education and profession, and some other cir- 
 cumstances which I need not mention, have 
 formalized, and, in some degree, repressed 
 the brilliance of his genius. With respect to 
 this great man, I cannot but pathetically apos- 
 trophize with Pope, 
 
 " How sweet an Ovid -was in Murray lost !" 
 
 George Seluyn is very superiour to Chase 
 Price, but very inferiour to Charles Toivns- 
 against whom, however, he used, as I
 
 am told, continually to get the laugh : but this 
 proves nothing; for good-humoured George 
 Bodens would have gained the prize from them 
 both in the article of creating laughter. I may 
 be wrong, perhaps, but it has ever appeared 
 to me, that Mr. Selwyti's faculty of repartee is 
 mechanical, and arises more from habit than 
 from genius. It would be a miserable busi- 
 ness indeed, if a man, who had been playing 
 upon words for so many years, should not 
 have attained the faculty of commanding them 
 at his pleasure. 
 
 B converses with elegance ; L n 
 
 is an excellent critick ; and many others of the 
 same class may be found, who are well qual- 
 ified to be members of a literary club, but no 
 farther. Garrick is himself upon the stage, 
 and an actor every where else. Foote is a 
 mimick every where ; excellent, delightful, on 
 the theatre and in private society ; but still a 
 mimick. No one can take more pains than 
 
 Mrs. M to be surrounded with men 
 
 of wit ; she bribes, she pensions, she flatters, 
 gives excellent dinners, is herself a very sens- 
 ible woman, and of very pleasing manners ; 
 not young, indeed, but that is out of the ques- 
 tion : and, in spite of all these encourage- 
 ments, which, one would think, might make
 
 81 
 
 wits spring out of the ground, the conversa- 
 tions of her house are too often critical and 
 pedaritick, something between the dulness and 
 the pertness of learning. They are perfectly 
 chaste, and generally instructive ; but a cool 
 and quiet observer would sometimes laUgh to 
 see how difficult a matter it is for la belle Pres- 
 idente to give colour and life to her literary cir- 
 cles. It surprises me that you should leave 
 TFmdham out of your list, who (observe my 
 prophecy) will become one of the ablest men 
 and shining characters that the latter part of 
 this age will produce. I hazard little in such 
 a presentiment ; for his talents, judgment, and 
 attainments will verify it. 
 
 The gibes and jests, that are wont to set the 
 table in a roar, promote the chearful purposes 
 of convivial society, but they have nothing to 
 do with that Attick conversation which is the 
 highest enjoyment of the human intellect. 
 Wit, believe me, is almost extinct ; and I will 
 tell you, among other reasons, why I think 
 so : because no one seems to have any idea 
 of what wit is, or who deserves the title of it. 
 To think little, talk of every thing, and doubt 
 of nothing ; to use only the external parts of 
 the soul, and cultivate the surface, as it were, 
 of the judgment ; to be happy in expression, to
 
 82 
 
 have an agreeable fancy, an easy and refined 
 conversation, and to be able to please, without 
 acquiring esteem ; to be born with the equiv- 
 ocal talent of a ready apprehension, and, on 
 that account, to think one's self above reflec- 
 tion ; to fly from object to object, without gain- 
 ing a perfect knowledge of any ; to gather 
 hastily all the flowers, and never allow the 
 fruit time to arrive at maturity : all these, col- 
 lected together, form a faint picture of what 
 the generality of people, in this age, are pleas- 
 ed to honour with the name of wit. 
 
 You must not be angry with me for this 
 long letter, but rather be thankful that it is so 
 short, considering the subject you threw be- 
 fore me, and the desire I have to set you a 
 thinking on a subject of which you seem to 
 have formed very wrong notions. I again re- 
 peat, that true wit is expiring, and great tal- 
 ents also. My words are prophetick, and a 
 few years will determine the matter. It would 
 not be a difficulty to prove the why and the 
 wherefore ; but of all subjects these half-met- 
 aphysical ones are the most unpleasant to 
 
 Your's, &c.
 
 83 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 MY DEAR , 
 
 WITHOUT any violent exertions of my 
 natural vanity, I can easily imagine that the 
 eye of mankind looks towards my political ca- 
 reer; v and that, for want of a better subject, 
 there may be some among them who amuse 
 themselves with forming conjectures concern- 
 Ing it. The ministry have attempted to feel 
 my pulse upon the occasion, but without suc- 
 cess ; though I will tell you in confidence, that 
 they have nothing, at present, to fear from 
 me. In the great subject of this day's poli- 
 ticks, which seems to engulph every other, I 
 am with them. I shall never cease to con- 
 tend for the universality and unity of the Brit- 
 ish Empire over all its territories and depend- 
 encies, in every part of the globe. I have not 
 a doubt of the legislative supremacy of Par- 
 liament over every part of the British domin- 
 ions in America, the East and JFest-Indies, in 
 Africa, and over Ireland itself.
 
 84 
 
 I cannot separate the ideas of legislation 
 and taxation ; they seem to be more than 
 twins ; they were not only born but must co- 
 exist and die together. The question of right 
 is heard of no more ; it is now become a ques- 
 tion of power, and it appears to me that the 
 sword will determine the contest. The Colo- 
 nies pretend to be subject to the King alone ; 
 they deny subordination to the state, and, 
 upon this principle, have not only declared 
 against the authority of Parliament, but erect- 
 ed a government of their own, independent of 
 British legislation. To support a disobedi- 
 ence to rights which they once acknowledg- 
 ed, they have already formed associations, 
 armed and arrayed themselves, and are pre- 
 paring to bring the question to the issue of 
 battle. This being the case, it becomes high- 
 ly necessary for us to arm also ; we must pre- 
 pare to quench the evil in its infancy, and to 
 extinguish a flame which the natural enemies, 
 of England will not fail to feed with unremit- 
 ting fuel, in order to consume our commerce 
 and tarnish our glory. If wise measures are 
 taken, this business will be soon completed, 
 to the honour of the mother-country and the. 
 welfare of the Colonies, who, in spite of all 
 the assistance given them by the House of
 
 85 
 
 must-, tmless our government acts 
 like an idiot, be forced to submission. 
 
 For my own part, I have not that high opin- 
 ion of their Roman spirit, as to suppose that 
 it will influence them contentedly to submit to 
 all the horrours of war, or to resign every com- 
 fort in which they have been bred, to relin- 
 quish every hope with which they have been 
 flattered, and retire to the howling wilderness 
 for an habitation ; and all for a dream of lib- 
 erty, which, were they to possess to-morrow, 
 would not give them a privilege superiour to 
 those which they lately enjoyed, and might, 
 I fear, deprive them of many which they ex- 
 perienced beneath the clement legislation of 
 the British government. 
 
 I do not mean to enter at large into the sub- 
 ject ; but, if ministers know what they are a- 
 bout, the matter may be soon decided : and in 
 every measure which tends to promote such 
 a desirable end, they shall receive all the poor 
 helps I can give them I will neither sit silent, 
 nor remain inactive. But if, by neglect, igno- 
 rance, or an indecisive spirit (the latter of 
 which I rather suspect from them) they should 
 let the monster grow up into size and strength, 
 my support shall be changed into opposition, 
 and all my powers exerted to remove men
 
 86 
 
 from a station, to which they are unequal. 
 Remember this assertion preserve this letter 
 and let it appear in judgment against me, if 
 I err from my present declaration. 
 
 I remain your's, &c.
 
 87 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 IT was very natural, in such a Strephon 
 as you are, to imagine that I had hurried away 
 to court the nymphs; I mean the wood-nymphs 
 
 of H . Now, I have so little thought 
 
 about, or regard for, these ladies, that I had, 
 at one time, determined to despoil their shade, 
 and make a profitable use of the oaks which 
 shelter them. You will shriek at the idea, 
 like any Hamadryad ; but in spite of shrieks 
 or intreaties, I had it in contemplation to be 
 
 patriotick, and give the groves of H to 
 
 the service of my country. 
 
 The system of modern gardening, in spite 
 of fashion and Mr. Brown, is a very foolish 
 one. The huddling together every species of 
 building into a park or garden, is ridiculous. 
 The environs of a magnificent house should 
 partake, in some degree, of the necessary 
 formality of the building they surround. 
 This was Kent's opinion ; and, where his de- 
 si gas have escaped the destruction of modern
 
 88 
 
 refinement, there is an easy grandeur which 
 is at once striking and delightful. Fine woods 
 are beautiful objects, and their beauty ap- 
 proaches nearer to magnificence, as the mass 
 of foliage becomes more visible ; but to dot 
 them with little white edifices, infringes upon 
 their greatness, and, by such divisions and 
 subdivisions^ destroys their due effect. The 
 verdure of British swells was- not made for 
 Grecian temples : a flock of sheep and a shep- 
 herd's hut are better adapted to it. Our cli- 
 mate is not suited to the deities of Italy and 
 Greece, and in a hard winter I feel for the 
 shuddering divinities. At H - there is a 
 Temple of Theseus, commonly called by the 
 gardener the Temple of Perseus, which stares 
 you in the face wherever you go ; while the 
 Temple of God, commonly called by the gar- 
 dener the Parish Church, is so industriously 
 hid by trees from without, that the pious mat- 
 ron can hardly read her prayer-book within. 
 This was an evident preference of strange 
 gods, and, in my opinion, a very blasphem- 
 ous improvement. Where Nature is grand, 
 improve her grandeur, not by adding extrane- 
 ous decorations, but by removing obstruc- 
 tions. Where a scene is in itself lovely, very 
 little is necessary to give it all due advantage,
 
 89 
 
 especially if 'it be laid into park, which under- 
 goes no variety of cultivation. 
 
 Stow is, in my opinion, a most detestable 
 place ; and has in every part of it the air of a 
 Golgotha: a princely one -I must acknow- 
 ledge ; but in no part of it could I ever lose 
 that gloomy idea. My own park possesses 
 many and very rare beauties ; but, from the 
 design of making it classical, it has been 
 charged with many false and unsuitable orna- 
 ments. A classical park, or a classical gar- 
 den, is as ridiculous an expression as a clas- 
 sical plumb-pudding or a classical surloin of 
 beef. It is an unworthy action to strip the 
 classicks of their heroes, gods, and goddess- 
 es, to grow green amid the fogs of our un- 
 classical climate. But the affectation and non- 
 sense of little minds is beyond description. 
 How many are there, who, fearful that man- 
 kind will not discover their knowledge, are 
 continually hanging out the sign of hard words 
 and pedantick expressions, like the late Lord 
 Orrery, who, for some classical reason, had 
 given his dog a classical name ; it was no less 
 than Cfesar ! However, Ctesar, one day, giv- 
 ing his Lordship a most unclassical bite, he 
 seized a cane, and pursued him round the 
 room with great solemnity and this truly clas- 
 
 M
 
 90 
 
 sical menace" C<ssar ! C<esar ! if I could 
 " catch thee, Cxsar ! I would give thee as ma- 
 " ny wounds as JBmtus gave thy name-sake in 
 " the Capitol." This is the very froth of fol- 
 ly and affectation. 
 
 Adieu, &c.
 
 91 
 
 ... 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I OBEY your commands with some reluc- 
 tance, in relating the story of which you have 
 heard so much, and to which your curiosity 
 appears to be so broad awake. I do it unwil- 
 lingly, because such histories depend so much 
 upon the manner in which they are related ; 
 and this, which I have told with such success, 
 and to the midnight terrours of so many sim- 
 ple souls, will make but a sorry figure in a 
 written narration. However, you shall have it. 
 
 It was in the early part of 's life 
 
 that he attended an hunting club at their 
 sport, when a stranger, of a genteel appear- 
 ance, and well mounted, joined the chace, 
 and was observed to ride with a degree of 
 courage and address that called forth the ut- 
 most astonishment of every one present. The 
 beast he rode was of amazing powers ; no- 
 thing stopped them ; the hounds could never 
 escape them ; and the huntsman, who was
 
 92 
 
 left far behind, swore that the man and his 
 horse were both devils from hell. When the 
 sport was over, the company invited this extra- 
 ordinary person to dinner : he accepted the in- 
 vitation, and astonished the company as much 
 by the powers of his conversation and the 
 elegance of his manners, as by his equestrian 
 prowess. He was an orator, a poet, a paint- 
 er, a musician, a lawyer, a divine ; in short, 
 he was every thing, and the magick of his 
 discourse kept the drowsy sportsmen awake 
 long after their usual hour. At length, how- 
 ever, wearied nature could be charmed no 
 more ; and the company began to steal away 
 by degrees to their repose. On his observ- 
 ing the society diminish, he discovered mani- 
 fest signs of uneasiness : he therefore gave 
 new force to his spirits, and new charms to 
 his conversation, in order to detain the remain- 
 ing few some time longer. This had some lit- 
 tle effect ; but the period could not be long 
 delayed when he w T as to be conducted to his 
 chamber. The remains of the company re- 
 tired also ; but they had scarce closed their 
 eyes, when the house was alarmed by the most 
 terrible shrieks that were ever heard : several 
 persons were awakened by the noise ; but, its 
 continuance being short, they concluded it to
 
 93 
 
 proceed from a dog who might be accidentally 
 confined in some part of the house : they very 
 soon, therefore, composed themselves to sleep, 
 and were very soon awakened by shrieks and 
 cries of still greater terrour than the former. 
 Alarmed at what they heard, several of them 
 rung their bells, and, when the servants came, 
 they declared that the horrid sounds proceed- 
 ed from the stranger's chamber. Some of the 
 gentlemen immediately arose, to enquire in- 
 to this extraordinary disturbance ; and, while 
 they were dressing themselves for that pur- 
 pose, deeper groans of despair, and shriller 
 shrieks of agony, again astonished and terri- 
 fied them. After knocking some time at the 
 stranger's chamber-door, he answered them 
 as one awakened from sleep, declared he had 
 heard no noise, and, rather in an angry tone, 
 desired he might not be again disturbed. Up- 
 on this they returned to one of their chambers, 
 and had scarce begun to communicate their 
 sentiments to each other, when their conver- 
 sation was interrupted by a renewal of yells, 
 screams, and shrieks, which, from the hor- 
 rour of them, seemed to issue from the throats 
 of damned and tortured spirits. They imme- 
 diately followed the sounds, and traced them 
 to the stranger's chamber, the door of which
 
 94 
 
 they instantly burst open, and found him upon 
 his knees in bed, in the act of scourging him- 
 self with the most unrelenting severity, his 
 body streaming with blood. On their seizing 
 his hand to stop the strokes, he begged them, 
 in the most wringing tone of voice, as an act 
 of mercy, that they would retire, assuring 
 them that the cause of their disturbance was 
 over, and that in the morning he would ac- 
 quaint them with the reasons of the terrible 
 cries they had heard, and the melancholy sight 
 they saw. After a repetition of his entreaties, 
 they retired ; and in the morning some of them 
 went to his chamber, but he was not there ; 
 and, on examining the bed, they found it to 
 be one gore of blood. Upon further inquiry, 
 the groom said, that, as soon as it was light, 
 the gentleman came to the stable booted and 
 spurred, desired his horse might be immedi- 
 ately saddled, and appeared to be extremely 
 impatient till it was done ; when he vaulted in- 
 stantly into his saddle, and rode out of the 
 yard on full speed. Servants were immedi- 
 ately dispatched into every part of the sur- 
 rounding country, but not a single trace of 
 him could be found : such a person had not 
 been seen by any one, nor has he since been 
 heard of.
 
 The circumstances of this strange story 
 xvere immediately committed to writing, and 
 signed by every one who were witnesses to 
 them, that the future credibility of any one, 
 who should think proper to relate them, might 
 be duly supported. Among the subscribers 
 to the truth of this history are some of the first 
 
 names of this century. It would now, I be- 
 lieve, be impertinent to add any thing more, 
 
 than that I am, 
 
 Your's,
 
 96 
 
 LETTER XXIL 
 
 I THANK you most sincerely, my very 
 dear friend, for your obliging congratulations 
 on my late promotion ; and I have no better 
 way to answer the friendly counsels which ac- 
 company them, but by opening my heart to 
 you upon the occasion, and trusting its senti- 
 ments with you. 
 
 You knew my father, and I am sure you 
 will applaud me in declaring that his charac- 
 ter did real honour to his rank and his nature. 
 A grateful fame will wait upon his memory, 
 till, by some new change in human affairs, the 
 great and good men of this country and period 
 shall be lost to the knowledge of distant gene- 
 rations. In the republick of letters he rose to 
 a very considerable eminence ; his deep polit- 
 ical erudition is universally acknowledged ; 
 and, as a senator both of the lower and high- 
 er order, his name is honoured with distin- 
 guished veneration. In his private as well as 
 publick life, he was connected and in friend-
 
 97 
 
 ship with the first men of the time in which 
 he lived ; and, as a character of strict virtue 
 and true piety, he has been universally held 
 forth as the most striking example of this age. 
 The idea of uncommon merit accompanies all 
 opinion of him ; and to mention his name is to 
 awaken the most pleasing and amiable senti- 
 ments. As you read this short and imperfect 
 outline of his character, fill it up and do it 
 justice. Now, it will, perhaps, surprise you, 
 when you are informed, that the post in gov- 
 ernment which this great and good man most 
 desired, and could never obtain, was the Chief 
 Justiceship in Eyre, &c. &c. The reverse of 
 the picture is as follows : that your humble 
 servant, and his gracious son, whose charac- 
 ter you perfectly know, has been appointed to 
 this very post, in the infancy of his peerage, 
 without any previous service performed, hint 
 given, or requisition made on his part, and 
 without the proposition of, and conditions on 
 the part of, the Minister. When I was sur- 
 prised by the offer, I was surprised also by a 
 sudden and unusual suffusion on my cheeks* 
 at the contrast of mine and my father's char- 
 acter of mine and my father's lot. Indeed 
 so big was my heart on the occasion, tha , 
 when the ministerial ambassadour had left rcf 
 
 N
 
 the sentiments of it burst forth upon the first 
 person I saw, who happened not to be a very 
 proper receptacle for the reflections of virtue. 
 There is a very great encouragement in this 
 world to be wicked, and the Devil certainly 
 goes about in more pleasing shapes than that 
 of a roaring lion. In the name of fortune, my 
 dear friend, how and why are these things ? 
 Is it the increasing corruption of the times, 
 or the weakness of government, that gives to 
 dissolute men the meed of virtue ; or do min- 
 isters think it expedient to give a sop to the 
 mastiff whose growl might make them trem- 
 ble ? You, who have made men and manners 
 your study, who have looked so deeply into 
 the volume of the heart, and have acquired 
 such an happy art of reconciling the apparent 
 inconsistencies of human affairs, must instruct 
 me. I wish you could improve and convert 
 me ! I am not insensible to what is good ; nay, 
 there are moments when the full lustre of vir- 
 tue beams upon me. I try to seize it ; but the 
 gleam escapes me, and I am re -involved in 
 darkness. The conflict of reason and passion 
 is but the conflict of a moment ; and the latter 
 never fails to bear me oft" in triumph. 
 
 Video mciiora proboque, 
 
 Detcriora sequor. 
 
 I am your's most truly, &c.
 
 LETTER XXIIL 
 
 I WISH the Morning Post, and every 
 other Post that scatters such malignant, false, 
 and detestable histories, in the bottomless pit, 
 with its writers, printers, editors, publishers, 
 collectors, and purchasers. To be the sub- 
 ject of an occasional paragraph is not worth a 
 frown. It is a tax which every one in high 
 station must pay, be he good, or be he bad, 
 to that demon of calumny, who now has a 
 temple prepared for his service at every break- 
 fast-table in the metropolis. But to be the sole 
 theme of a scandalous chronicle, and to see it 
 not only saved from oblivion, but raised into 
 universal notice and reception, from its abu- 
 sive histories of me, is a circumstance big with 
 every pain and penalty of mortification. To 
 add to my distress, no means of satisfaction or 
 revenge are in my power; and, if resentment 
 were to weave a scourge, and I could use it 
 to my wishes, I should only give new materi- 
 als to prolong the tale. The business of silent
 
 100 
 
 contempt is above me ; and the mode of con- 
 duct you recommend is like St. Austin s reason 
 for belief, quid impossibile est. I cannot enter 
 an house where the page of my dishonour does 
 not lie upon the table. Every man who meets 
 me in the street, tells me by his very looks 
 that he has read it. I have overheard my 
 own servants observing upon it, and the very 
 chairmen can repeat its tales. I expect every 
 day that my horse, like Balaam's ass, will 
 neigh scandal at me ; not indeed from celes- 
 tial, but hellish intervention. 
 
 Some steps, however, must be taken, and 
 some method adopted to silence the cry. To 
 bribe the hounds, would produce a mortifica- 
 tion almost equal to what I now suffer; but 
 there is no divining how long the story may 
 last, and the tota cantabltur urbe is terrible. 
 Bear it I cannot, and revenge is not in my 
 power. The rascal keeps within the circle of 
 privilege ; and, if he should slip out of it, I 
 am afraid that it would not answer my pur- 
 pose to avail myself of his incaution. In 
 short, I don't know what to do. You will 
 oblige me more than ever, in forming some 
 wise resolutions for me, and in persuading 
 me to execute them. Adieu !
 
 101 
 
 LETTER 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 YOUR sensibility towards me during my 
 late persecution, is a flattering mark of that af- 
 fectionate esteem which you have ever borne 
 me. I most sincerely thank you for it ; and 
 have only to wish that the world knew I still 
 retain so warm a place in your heart. Such a 
 circumstance would serve as an antidote a- 
 gainst the poison which has been instilled in- 
 to the minds of mankind on my subject. The 
 batteries of scandal are at length turned from 
 me; and some new object of their rage will, 
 I hope, make their thundering attack upon me 
 to be quickly forgotten. 
 
 I love my country, its constitution, and its 
 privileges, too well to say, write, or even 
 think, any thing against that palladium of 
 British freedom, the liberty of the press, 
 though I have been such a sufferer by it. 
 While it remains, (and may it ever remain !) 
 the people of England will have a security 
 for those privileges which give them a supe-
 
 102 
 
 riority over every other nation. Perhaps the 
 enormities of private scandal should be check- 
 ed, at the same time that, I think, it would be 
 dangerous to suffer even an excrescence of 
 any staple privilege to be cut off. The track 
 of innovation widens every moment; and on 
 this example, if it was once opened, there is 
 no saying where it would end. 
 
 A priest, I think, is said to have invented 
 gun-powder; and a soldier has the credit of 
 first suggesting Tlie Art of Printing: and I 
 have heard wonderfully curious and profound 
 observations made upon the strange combina- 
 tion of the inventors and their inventions. 
 But, surely, it does not require a moment's 
 reflection to discover, that this improvement 
 in the business of war, as well as in the re- 
 publick.of letters, could not have proceeded 
 so naturally from any other -characters. It is, 
 I believe, universally allowed, that, since the 
 introduction of artillery and fire-arms, the 
 trade of war is become comparatively inno- 
 cent: slaughter no longer wades knee-deep 
 in blood; and her sword is now no sooner 
 drawn than it is satisfied. A discovery, there- 
 fore, which has lessened the carnage and hor- 
 rours of battle, was most naturally produced 
 by a minister of the gospel of peace. On the
 
 103 
 
 contrary, we have only to examine the history 
 of letters since the invention of printing, and 
 lo ! what an host of polemical writers appear, 
 armed with the most bitter spirit of malice 
 and resentment ! < What feuds, both national 
 and domestick, have arisen from it! What 
 rage has been inflamed ! How many wars 
 have been engendered ! What disgraceful, 
 inflammatory, and unchristian controversies 
 maintained ! How many scandals of every 
 kind have been propagated, and what pas- 
 sions have been incited by it ! &c. &c. so that 
 the most free governments have been obliged 
 to enact laws to restrain and controul it. Such 
 an invention, therefore, may be said to pro- 
 ceed, in its natural course, from one whose 
 profession is founded in the animosities, in- 
 justice, and malevolence of mankind. I doubt 
 not but you will now agree with me, that the 
 world is, as it ought to be, more indebted to 
 the priest than the soldier. You will tell me, 
 perhaps, that this argument arises from the 
 smarting of my wounds, which are not yet 
 skinned over : I feel myself of a contrary opin- 
 ion ; but I will quit the subject till not a scar 
 remains, when I shall take the opportunity of 
 some tranquil hour to bring the matter, by 
 your leave, into debate with you. 
 
 I remain, with great regard, Jkc.
 
 104 
 
 LETTER 
 
 MY DEAR , 
 
 I MUST acknowledge, notwithstanding 
 I am treated with some degree of civility in it, 
 that the dedication you mention is a wretched 
 business, and disgraces the volume to which 
 it is prefixed. You wonder I did not write a 
 better for him myself; and I would, most as- 
 suredly, have done it, but, among many ex- 
 cellent qualities which this dedicator possess- 
 es, he is a blab of the first deliver)-, and I 
 dared not venture to trust him. 
 
 The testamentary arrangement which ap- 
 pointed him to the honourable labours of an 
 editor, took its rise from three motives : first, 
 to mark a degree of parental resentment a- 
 gainst an ungracious son ; secondly, from an 
 opinion that a gracious nephew's well-timed 
 flatteries had created of his own understand- 
 ing; and, thirdly, from a design of bestow- 
 ing upon this self-same gracious nephew a le- 
 gacy of honour from the publication, and of
 
 profit from the sale of the volume. He is ai 
 proud of the business as a new-made knight 
 of his title, is never easy but when he is re- 
 ceiving incense from book-sellers and their 
 journeymen, and loves to be pointed at as a 
 child of science. I wish he may be content- 
 ed with his present celebrity; though, if I 
 know him aright, this editorial business will 
 awaken ideas of his having talents for a supe- 
 riour character, and that he is qualified to 
 publish his own works with as much eclat as 
 he has done those of another. If he attempts 
 io climb the ladder of ambition in any, but 
 particularly in a literary way, he must fall. 
 I have counselled him to be content ; and the 
 booby gives it out that I am envious of his 
 reputation. Poor, silly fool ! I only wish the 
 daw may keep the one poor feather he has 
 got ; for, if he attempts any addition to his 
 plumage, the vanity will draw him into a 
 scrape, in which he will be stripped as bare 
 as nature made him. 
 
 But, to change my subject to a coxcomb of 
 
 another sex : Mrs. has done what 
 
 she has no right to do, and has said what she 
 is not authorised to say. It is not in the pow- 
 er, even of so able and so respectable an ad- 
 vocate as yourself, to work up any thing that 
 
 o
 
 106 
 
 has the- semblance of a satisfactory justifica- 
 tion. Your arguments, which are so power- 
 ful in the cause of truth, are the slightest of 
 all cobwebs in support, or, I should rather 
 say, in palliation of falsehood. This, among 
 other things, is much to your honour, and I 
 congratulate your disqualification to plead a 
 bad cause. If you have been a volunteer on 
 the occasion, I compliment your gallantry : 
 if you have been influenced by the lady's re- 
 quest, I admire your ready friendship. You 
 have every merit with me ; and, to give you 
 the satisfaction you so well deserve, I cannot 
 but authorise you to set the dame at rest, and 
 to hush her every fear. This is no small sac- 
 rifice ; for I have the most ample means of 
 vengeance in my hands : and, if it will ad- 
 vance your interests at her court, you have 
 full permission to declare that my wrath has 
 been averted by your interposition. 
 
 -Nullum memorabile nom*n 
 
 FfiEmincl in pcen4 est, nee habet victoria laudem. 
 
 I remain, very truly, &c. 

 
 107 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 YOU have won both your wagers. In 
 speaking of the inhabitants of China, I ds 
 make use of the word Chineses ; and I borrow 
 the term from Milton* As to your -first bet, 
 that I used such an expression, your ears, 1 
 trust, will be grateful for the. confidence you 
 had in them. But your second wager, that, 
 if I did use it, I had a good authority, is very 
 flattering to myself; and I thank you for the 
 opinion you entertain of the accuracy^ of my 
 language. My memory will not, at this mo- 
 ment, direct you to the page ; but you will 
 readily find the word in the Index of Newton's 
 edition of Milton. 
 
 Of all the poets that have graced ancient 
 times, or delighted the latter ages, Milton is 
 my favourite ; I think him superiour to every 
 other, and the writer of all others best cal- 
 culated to elevate the mind, to form a noble- 
 ness of taste, and to teach a bold, command- 
 ing, energetick language. I read him with
 
 1OS 
 
 delight as soon as I could read him at all ; 
 and, I remember, in my father's words, I 
 gave the first token of premature abilities in 
 the perusal of the Paradise Lost. I was quite 
 a boy, when, in reading that poem, I was so 
 forcibly struck with a passage, that I laid 
 down the book with some violence on the ta- 
 ble, and took an hasty .turn to the other end 
 of the room. Upon explaining the cause of 
 this emotion to my father, he clasped me in 
 (his arms, smothered me with embraces, and 
 immediately wrote letters to all his family and 
 friends, to inform them of the wonderful fore- 
 boding I had given of future genius. Your 
 curiosity may naturally expect .to be gratified 
 with the passage in question ; I quote it, there- 
 fore, for your reflection and amusement : 
 
 He spate ; and, to confirm his word*, out flew 
 Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 
 Of mighty Cherubim : the sudden bliza 
 Far round illumin'd Hell ! 
 
 The two principal orators of the present age 
 (and one of them, perhaps, a greater than has 
 been produced in any age) are the Earls of 
 Mansfield and Chatham. The former is a 
 great man; Ciceronian, but, I should think, 
 inferiour to Cicero. The latter is a greater 
 man ; Demosthenian, but superiour to Demos- 
 thenes. The first formed himself on the mod-
 
 109 
 
 el of the great Roman orator ; he studied, 
 translated, rehearsed, and acted his orations : 
 the second disdained imitation, and was him- 
 self a model of eloquence, of which no idea 
 can be formed but by those who have seen 
 and heard him. His words have sometimes 
 frozen my young blood into stagnation, and 
 sometimes made it pace in such an hurry 
 through my veins, that I could scarce sup- 
 port it. He however, embellished his ideas 
 by classical amusements, and occasionally 
 read the sermons of Barrow^ wjiich he con- 
 sidered as a mine of .nervous expressions : 
 but, not content to correct and instruct his 
 imagination by the works of mortal men, he 
 borrowed his noblest images from the lanr 
 guage of inspiration. Mr. Edmund Burke al- 
 so gives an happy dignity to parts of his 
 speeches (a want of which is, in .general, then- 
 only defect) by the application of scriptural 
 expressions. 
 
 Though I have such bright and venerable 
 examples before my eyes, I pursue a some- 
 what different, but not an opposite track ; for 
 Milton, from the excellence and form of his 
 works, has every claim to the title of a das- 
 sick : from the nature also of his principal 
 subjects, which are 4raw,n from scripture, we
 
 110 
 
 may be said, in some degree, to read the sac- 
 red writings when his great poetical comment- 
 ary of them (for so I shall call his Paradise 
 Lost and Regained) is the object of our stvu 
 dies. The orations of Cicero, notwithstand- 
 ing their character in the world, please, but 
 do not inflame me. We are at top great a dis- 
 tance from the period, and have not a suffi- 
 cient idea of the manner of their delivery, to 
 be affected by them. They are very fine com- 
 positions ; and it is the evidence of their be- 
 ing compositions that is their chief fault : and 
 if Lord Mansfield were to pronounce the best 
 of them, in his best manner, I doubt much ( of 
 their supposed effect. They chill the warmth 
 of my feelings ; and I have often essayed, 
 but in vain, to work up in me an elevation of 
 mind and spirits from a repetition of the Ro- 
 man orations. I must acknowledge that Lord 
 Bolingbroke, a great and splendid authority, is 
 against me, who, in language more animating 
 than I could ever find in Tultys eloquence, 
 declares that no man who has a soul can read 
 his orations, after the revolutions of so many 
 ages, after the extinction of the governments 
 and of the people for whom they were com- 
 posed, without feeling at this hour the pas- 
 sions they were designed to move, and the
 
 Ill 
 
 spirit they were designed to raise. If this be 
 true, in his Lordship's sense of the expres- 
 sion, I have no soul : but I suspect the truth 
 of this assertion, as I well know that he 
 would, at any time, sacrifice a just criticism 
 to a brilliant passage. His character and gen- 
 ius were both intemperate ; and, when his 
 tongue or his pen were pleased with their sub- 
 jects, he was borne rapidly on by the stream 
 of eloquence, not considering or caring whith- 
 er he went. When his imagination was once 
 kindled, it was an equal chance whether he 
 obscured virtue, or dignified vice. The source 
 of his delusive writings was an head-strong, 
 vivid fancy, which practised as great deceits 
 upon himself, as he had ever done upon man- 
 kind. But to return to my subject 
 
 For the life of me, I cannot read sermons 
 even with Lord Chatham ; and my hands are 
 too tmhallowed to unfold the sacred volume : 
 but I find in Milton's poems every thing that 
 is sublime in thought, beautiful in imagery, 
 and energetick in language and expression. 
 To attain a reputation for eloquence is my 
 aim and my ambition; and, if I should ac- 
 quire the art of clothing my thoughts in 
 happy language, adorning them with striking 
 images, or enforcing them by commanding
 
 words, I shall be indebted for such advan- 
 tages to the study of our great British clas* 
 sick. 
 
 I know you would not recommend my 
 friends, the poets, to take a leading part in 
 the study of eloquence. You may, probably, 
 apprehend that poetical pursuits would be apt 
 to give too poetical a turn to discourse as well 
 as writing ; and to beget a greater attention to 
 sound than to sense. Such an idea is certain- 
 ly founded in truth ; and your objections are 
 perfectly sensible, when an application to the 
 poets is not conducted with judgment, and 
 moderated by prosaick reading and exercises. 
 A little circumstance in point, which just oc- 
 curs to me, will make you smile : when my 
 father completed the first copy of his history, 
 the friends, to whom he sent it for their criti- 
 cism and correction, universally agreed in its 
 being written in a kind of irregular blank 
 verse, from the beginning to the end. He 
 was much surprised at the information ; but, 
 on examining his work, he found it to be true, 
 and gave to the whole the excellent dress it 
 
 now wears. Sir Robert R was so unfair 
 
 as to impress some of the passages upon his 
 memory, and has since been so ill-natured as 
 to repeat them. But, to put a period to thi?
 
 113 
 
 long letter, I declare myself to be very angry, 
 when you are but twenty miles from me, that 
 you should not put your horses to your chaise, 
 and be here in a shorter space of time than is 
 necessary to fill up half a sheet of papers 
 You will do well to come and amuse yourself 
 here, leaving gouty uncles and croaking aunts 
 to themselves. There is more vivacity con-i 
 centrated in my little dell, than is to be found 
 in all the ample sweets of your vale. As you 
 are musical, I will prepare a syren to sing to 
 you, and you shall accompany her in any man* 
 ner you please. Adieu ! 
 
 Your's most truly, &c.
 
 11-4 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 1 CANNOT yet fancy the suspected pre- 
 liminaries of alliance between Prance and A' 
 inerica ; and I will tell you why : because I 
 think it will not be the mutual interest of ei- 
 ther of them to engage in such a treaty. 
 The French finances are not in a state to jus- 
 tify the risking a war with England, which an 
 open alliance with America must immediately 
 produce. Monsieur de Maupouz and Monsieur 
 tie Necker, if I am rightly informed, are of the 
 same opinion, and, I believe, from nobler mo- 
 tives and better reasons, are in opposition to 
 those proposals which the Americans are said 
 to have offered to induce France to give an a- 
 vowed support to their cause. My informa- 
 tion goes somewhat farther, and assures me, 
 that the opinions of the two statesmen already 
 mentioned are supported by all the graver men 
 and older officers in the kingdom. America, at 
 present, makes a very powerful and extraor- 
 dinary resistance, and there seems to be a spir- 
 it awakened in her people, which will woefullr
 
 115 
 
 prolong the period of her reduction. The con- 
 test is, at present, between a child, forced into 
 resistance by what it calls tyranny, and a pa- 
 rent, enraged at filial ingratitude, who is resolv- 
 ed to reclaim his offspring by force and chas- 
 tisement. In such a state, though a mad spirit 
 of rebellion may instigate revolted children to 
 act against the parent, and the brethren of the 
 house of their parent, the latter will go very 
 reluctantly to the business of blood-shed ; and 
 many a brave man will consider the duty of 
 the soldier and the citizen as incompatible, and 
 let the former sink into the latter. But the mo- 
 ment that America flies for protection to the 
 arms of France, the case will be changed : ev- 
 ery tie of consanguinity will be then broken; 
 it will be impossible to distinguish between 
 them and their allies ; they will be all the ob- 
 ject of one common resentment ; and the A- 
 mericans must expect, as they will surely find, 
 an equal exertion against them as will be em- 
 ployed against their insidious supporters. 
 
 But this is not the only reason why I think 
 America will maintain the contest better with- 
 out the open support of France ; I have an- 
 other, in the natural aversion they bear to 
 each other. No two civilized nations, in the 
 same quarter. of the globe, can bear a more
 
 116 
 
 different and clashing character than France 
 and the revolted colonies. Fire and water 
 would as soon blend their opposite elements, 
 as the solemn, gloomy, unpolished American^ 
 with the gay, sprightly, animated Frenchman. 
 Besides, how will it be possible for the sim- 
 ple, sullen leaven of Calvinism to be kneaded 
 in the same lump with the motley genius and 
 complicated ceremony of Popery ? While the 
 hope for independence keeps alive the spirit 
 of contention, such considerations, if suggest- 
 ed at all, will, for a time, give way to their 
 ambition ; but, should the object of it be at- 
 tained, they would arise, on the first interval 
 of repose, in all the bitterness of disunion, and 
 bring on a scene of internal confusion big with 
 greater horrours than they now experience. 
 What will these deluded people think, and how 
 will they act, who, after manifesting such a sol- 
 emn and bold aversion to the power of a Prot- 
 estant Bishop, after having held forth the act 
 of parliament, which gave to the conquered in- 
 habitants of Canada a toleration of their relig- 
 ion, as one of their justifications to rebellion - 
 I repeat again, what will be the conduct of 
 these people, when they see the cross adored 
 in their streets, and hear the benedictions and 
 anathemas of Rome pronounced in their cities !
 
 117 
 
 For my own part, I cannot conceive such 
 an event as American Independence ; and, in 
 my poor opinion, if it were to be given them 
 to-morrow, it would, in the end, prove a worse 
 present than the Stamp- Act itself, with ah 1 its 
 aggravated horrours. The guards are order- 
 ed to r 'cross the Atlantic^, and along with 
 
 them. I am glad you like him ; I thought my 
 prophecy in that particular would be fulfilled; 
 You knew Madame, I think, at Geneva. They 
 both possess the same disposition to give a 
 pleasant turn to every thing. They put their 
 son to board chez un Bourgois de Dijon, and 
 have never since troubled themselves about 
 the boy, or the pension stipulated for his sup- 
 port. Luckily for the child, the man to whose 
 care he was entrusted has taken a fancy to 
 him, and declares, if he should be deserted 
 by his parents, that he will do his best to pro- 
 vide for him ; and our friends think it the best 
 joke in the world. 
 
 I have been to see the jfustitia hulk, where, 
 among many other miserables, I saw poor 
 Dignam wear the habit of a slave. He seem- 
 ed disposed to speak to me ; but I had previ- 
 ously desired the superintendent to request 
 him, since it was not in my power to do him 
 service, to wave all appearance of his having
 
 118 
 
 known me. This mode of punishment offers 
 a very shocking spectacle, and, I think, must 
 undergo some alleviation, if it be not entirely 
 abolished. If it were to come again before 
 parliament, I should give the subject a very 
 serious consideration, and the measure a very 
 serious opposition. Is it not extraordinary, 
 that the first publick exhibition of slavery in 
 this kingdom for so it is, however the situ- 
 ation may be qualified by law should be 
 suggested by a Scotchman, and that the first 
 regulator of this miserable business should 
 be from the same country ? I do not mean to 
 throw out any unpleasant ideas concerning 
 any one, whose lot it was to be born on the 
 other side of the Tweed, but merely to state 
 a fact for your observation. I have known 
 many of my northern fellow-subjects, and es- 
 teemed them. David Hume possesses my sin- 
 cere admiration ; but though the object of his 
 writings was to remove prejudices, he himself 
 possessed the strongest in favour of his coun- 
 try, and was, as is the great weakness of 
 Scotchmen, so jealous of its honour, that I 
 gave him great offence at Lord Hertford's at 
 Ragley, by asking him at what time of the 
 year the harvest was housed in Scotland. 
 My question arose from an innocent desire of
 
 being satisfied in that particular : but he con- 
 ceived it to convey a suspicion, that there was 
 no harvest, or at least no barns, in his coun- 
 try ; and his answer was slight and churlish. 
 Fare you well ! If you hear any thing on the 
 continent that at all concerns the present state 
 of publick affairs, I beg you will not fail to 
 favour me with the most early communication* 
 I am, with great sincerity, 
 
 ' 

 
 120 
 
 LETTER 
 
 Mi DEAR ~^~* , 
 
 
 
 I CANNOT assert it as a matter within 
 my own knowledge ; but I have some reason 
 to believe, that the late Earl of Bath, at the 
 close of life, manifested a kind of preference 
 of the French to the English government.' 
 Upon what principles such an opinion was 
 grounded, I cannot pretend to say : it is im- 
 possible he could form it in the abstract ; it 
 must arise, therefore, from pride of heart, de- 
 grading sentiments of mankind, a natural love 
 of power, or from some of those selfish mo- 
 tives which grow more strong and prevalent 
 as men approach the end of their days. In 
 short, the French government might be more 
 suitable to his character and disposition ; and, 
 though this conjecture is not in his favour, I 
 believe it to have a foundation in truth. It is 
 a common case among mankind, where reason 
 and judgment are perverted by the strength of 
 habitual inclination. I will give you an exam- 
 ple that shall please you.
 
 121 
 
 No one of common understanding, and who 
 has the least idea of human affairs or know- 
 ledge of human nature, after a comparative 
 examination of the Gospel and the Alcoran^ 
 but will give to the former a most instant, / 
 decided, and universal preference. He will ad* 
 mire the rational and amiable doctrines of the 
 one, and as readily acknowledge the absurdi- 
 ties of the other. Nevertheless, there are men 
 of sense I know some of them, and so do 
 you, my friend who would so far yield to 
 the warm desire of habitual gratification, as 
 to give their immediate consent to exchange 
 Christianity for the religion of Mahomet. 
 Lord Bath must have been indebted for the 
 opinions given to him, to the triumph of an 
 irrational self-love over a rational love of man- 
 kind : perhaps to the imbecility of his social 
 affections may be added the strange caprices 
 of disappointed dotage. 
 
 I have either read or heard an assertion, 
 that it is impossible to find upon earth a soci- 
 ety of men, who govern themselves upon prin- 
 ciples of humanity ; and I am forced to ac- 
 knowledge, that the opinion will find a very 
 powerful support in the customs of almost ev- 
 ery country in the world. Whoever will con- 
 sider with attention the histories of mankind,
 
 122 
 
 and examine, with an impartial eye, the con- 
 duct of different nations, will be seen con- 
 vinced, that, except those duties which are 
 absolutely necessary to the preservation of 
 the human species, he cannot name any prin- 
 ciple of morals, nor imagine any rule of virtue, 
 which, in some part or other of the v, orld^ is 
 not directly contradicted by the general prac- 
 tice of entire societies. The most polisl <_d 
 nations have supposed, that they had an equal 
 right to expose their children, as to bring them 
 into the world. There are countries now ex- 
 isting, where the child feels it as an high act 
 of filial duty to desert or murder their parents, 
 when they can no longer contribute to their 
 own support. Garcilasso cle la Fega relates, 
 that certain people of Peru make concubines 
 of their female prisoners of war, nourish and 
 carefully feed the children they have by them, 
 on whom they afterwards feast. But this is 
 not all ; when the wretched mother can r.o 
 longer furnish the delicacies of their horrid 
 banquets from her womb, she shares the fate 
 of her offspring, and be-cornes the meal of the 
 barbarians, whose throats had been moistened 
 with the blood of her children. 
 
 It would be a matter of very little difficulty 
 10 fill a volume with the various inhumanities
 
 123 
 
 -which mingle with the governments of the 
 Asian, African, and savage American nations 
 of this day. . The historians, .also; of ancient 
 times, would greatly increase the sad history 
 of human calamity ; nor is the quarter of the 
 world which we inhabit exempted from fur- 
 nishing its quota to the miserable account. 
 The various customs, religions, and govern- 
 ments which divide more enlightened Europe, 
 might furnish a multitude of actions less bar- 
 barous, indeed, in their appearance, but as 
 reprehensible in reality, and as dangerous in 
 their consequences, as those already recited. 
 England, however, has this advantage over 
 the rest of her neighbour kingdoms, that the 
 examples of inhumanity which she has pro- 
 duced have arisen from an audacious abuse 
 of her laws ; while those of other nations 
 seem to arise from the nature of their consti- 
 tutions. A code of such wise, rational, and 
 humane legislation never was known in the 
 world, as that which prescribes the rule of 
 conduct, as well to the governours as to the 
 governed, in our kingdom. The principles 
 of it are founded in the perfection of human 
 reason, and, in a certain degree, on that hap. 
 py union of justice and mercy which divines 
 have given to the decrees of Omnipotence.
 
 124 
 
 But my paper admonishes me to quit this in- 
 teresting subject, or it will not leave me a 
 space sufficient to assure you with what real 
 
 regard I am 
 
 Your's, &c,
 
 125 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 THE first article of your letter, which 
 
 tells me of 's death, has very much 
 
 affected me ; and, if it had arrived three hours 
 sooner, I would have set off for London, to 
 have dissipated the grave thoughts it occa- 
 sions. I can hardly give credit to your ac- 
 count of her last moments : she had much to 
 regret; rank, fortune, friends, and beauty, 
 which, St. Evremand says, a \voman. parts 
 with more reluctantly than even life itself. 
 By this time, I trust, she has reached the E- 
 lysian Fields, and, with the blest inhabitants 
 of that delightful abode, 
 
 On flow'rs repoiM, and with fresh garlands crowii'J, 
 Quaffs immortality and joy. 
 
 However that may be, the event of her 
 death is very sensibly felt by me. I shall miss 
 her very much; not indeed as an acquaint- 
 ance for she would admit me only to her 
 publick assemblies but as an object of res- 
 pect : and truly sorry am I that she is gone, 
 for the sake of her sex, as she has not left one
 
 126 
 
 behind who can supply her place in my good 
 opinion. I had a sort of occasional respect for 
 every woman, on her account,! which I fear will 
 be buried in her grave. She had nothing of 
 female inconsistency about her, and every 
 thing of female delicacy. She conversed with 
 the understanding of a man, but with the grace 
 and elegance of her own sex. Her sentiments, 
 language, and manners, were, like her own 
 frame, in the image of man, but possessing 
 every attraction of -female, nature. I will tell 
 you a secret f she was the only woman who 
 ever made me blush, and she once dyed;my 
 cheeks with such a crimson shame, that I feel 
 
 them glow at this distant moment. . * 
 
 * * * * # * . # 
 
 . 
 
 . * * * 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 To maintain the qualities of goodness, "ten- 
 derness, affection, and sincerity, in the seve- 
 ral offices of life ; to disdain ambition, avarice, 
 luxury, and wantonness ; and to avoid affec- 
 tation, folly, childishness, and levity is the 
 consummation of a female character, and was 
 fully accomplished by the lovely woman who 
 is no more. She little thought, I believe, that 
 it would be an employment of mine to pen her 
 eulogium ; and you smile, . I suppose, at my
 
 127 
 
 pretensions to describe female perfection. To 
 tell you the truth, 1 strained very hard to pro- 
 duce the foregoing period. My brain had a 
 severe labour of it, and suffered no small pains 
 in the delivery. However, I now recommend 
 the pious bantling to your care ; and, I think, 
 the midwife and the nurse will not contest the 
 business of superiour qualifications. 
 
 I put an end to the pleasure of my acquaint- 
 ance with at the Duke of Bolton's 
 
 masquerade at Hackwood, some years ago, by 
 what I thought a little simple love-making, but 
 which she thought impudence ; and she has 
 never suffered me to approach her since that 
 time, but upon the most distant footing. You 
 may know, perhaps, that I have got a terrible 
 character for this self-same vice of effrontery, 
 and, I am afraid, not without some little rea- 
 son. It is, upon the whole, an imprudent 
 mode of proceeding; and, though attended 
 with more success than modest people may 
 imagine, as you well know, never has a pros- 
 perous conclusion. One failure tacks a mis- 
 erable epithet to one's name for ever. In mil- 
 itary operations, the attack by storm sometimes 
 effects great matters ; but, on such a design, 
 a repulse is sometimes fatal, and always at- 
 tended with much loss and blood-shed. This
 
 123 
 
 has been the case with me in fields less glo- 
 rious, but far more delightful, than those of 
 Mars. 
 
 The arrival of news-papers has caused a 
 short interruption to my writing ; and they ac- 
 quaint me with a circumstance which you have 
 omitted, that she died in child-bed. It was a 
 custom, as I have read, among some of the 
 ancient nations, to bury the infant alive with 
 the mother whose death it had occasioned. I 
 shudder at the idea ; nevertheless, in this par- 
 ticular instance, I am disposed to vote all my 
 malice to the brat which has deprived the 
 world of so bright an ornament. Adieu ! 
 Shall I pay a compliment to your penetration, 
 in supposing that you will perceive how tardi- 
 ly my pen has proceeded to the bottom of the 
 page ? But this is literally the fact. The 
 French proverb says, On ne parle janiais de 
 bonne foi, quand on parle mal des femrnes. j 
 apprehended you would be unlucky enough 
 to reverse the sentiment, and apply it to 
 
 Your's, &c.
 
 129 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 WE all of us grew suddenly tired of our 
 Wiltshire rustication ; and, without a dissen- 
 tient voice, voted a party to Bristol, where I 
 eat such excellent turtle, and drank such ex- 
 ecrable wine, that, with the heat of the weath- 
 er into the bargain, I was suddenly taken ill 
 at the play-house, almost to fainting, and was 
 obliged to hurry into the air for respiration. 
 Believe me, I did not like the business. Cold 
 sweats and shiverings, accompanied with in- 
 ternal sinkings, gave me a better notion of dy- 
 ing than I had before, and made me think so 
 seriously of this mortal life, that, on my re- 
 turn home, I shall take the opportunity of the 
 first gloomy day to make my will, appoint ex- 
 ecutors, and harangue my lawyer into low 
 spirits on the doctrine of death and judgment. 
 I exhibited myself for none of the party 
 would accompany me at a publick breakfast 
 at the Hot Wells, and sat down at a long table 
 with a number of animated cadavers, who de- 
 voured their meal as if they had not an hour 
 
 R
 
 130 
 
 to live ; and, indeed, many of them seemed to 
 be in that doleful predicament. But this was 
 not all. I saw three or four groups of hectick 
 spectres engage in cotillions : it brought in- 
 stantly to my mind Holbein's Dance of Death; 
 and methought I saw the raw-boned scare- 
 crow piping and labouring to his victims. So 
 I proceeded to the fountain ; but, instead of 
 rosy, blooming health, diseases of every col- 
 our and complexion guarded the springs. As 
 I approached to taste them, I was fanned by 
 the foetid breath of gasping consumptions, 
 stunned with expiring coughs, and suffocated 
 with the effluvia of ulcerated lungs. Such a 
 living Golgotha never entered into my concep- 
 tions ; and I could not but look upon the stu- 
 pendous rocks, that rise in rude magnificence 
 around the place, as the wide-spreading jaws 
 of an universal sepulchre. 
 
 Lord JFalpole told me he was there in at- 
 tendance upon a daughter. I was glad to turn 
 my back upon the scene : but I had not yet 
 come to the conclusion of it ; for as I was wait- 
 ing for my chaise, two different persons put 
 cards into my hand, which informed me where 
 funerals were to be furnished with the great- 
 est expedition, and that hearses and mourning 
 "coaches were to let to any n;m of England.
 
 131 
 
 I immediately leaped into my carriage, and or- 
 dered the postilion to drive with all possible 
 haste from a place, where I was in danger of 
 being buried alive. 
 
 After all, this tenancy of life is but a bad 
 one, with its waste and ingress of torturing 
 diseases ; which, not content with destroying 
 the building, maliciously torture the possessor 
 with such pains and penalties, as to make him 
 oftentimes curse the possession. 
 
 Man's feeble race what ills a\rait ? 
 
 Labour and penury the racks of pain : 
 
 Disease and sorrow's mournful train, 
 
 And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate. 
 
 If I continue this kind of letter any farther, 
 you will tell me that I shall repent, found hos- 
 pitals, and die a Methodist ; and that Roches- 
 ter's funeral-sermon and mine will be bound 
 up in the same volume, to the edification and 
 comfort of all sinners of every enormity. A- 
 dieu, therefore, and believe me, very truly, 
 
 Your's, &c,
 
 132 
 
 LETTER XXXL 
 
 I NEITHER hunt nor shoot ; the form- 
 er is a diversion which requires certain sacri- 
 fices that I cannot grant, and shall not enume- 
 rate ; the latter suits me better, but is as little 
 pursued as the other. The business and form, 
 not to say tyranny, of preserving game, which 
 is necessary to establish a certainty of sport, 
 is not to my way of thinking. The laws con- 
 cerning game form a very unconstitutional mo- 
 nopoly : but that is not all ; the peace and so- 
 ciety of provincial vicinities are more or less 
 disturbed, by jealousies and disputes arising 
 from the game, in every part of the kingdom. 
 My country employments are better than you 
 imagine. I am reading, with great care and 
 observation, the works of the Chancellor 
 D'Agueseau of France. Many years ago, my 
 father gave a volume of them to me, desiring 
 me to study it with attention, and consider the 
 contents as his own paternal counsels. At that 
 time I did neither the one nor the other ; how- 
 ever, I am now making ample amends for for-
 
 133 
 
 mer neglect. The magistrate, the statesman, 
 the lawyer, the man of the world, the orator, 
 and the philosopher will find delight and in- 
 struction in these volumes. I can say no more ; 
 and what I have now said will add them to 
 your library, if it does not already possess 
 them. 
 
 You must know that I am angry with you 
 for writing to me ; or, rather, for not coming, 
 instead of writing. Delay not to visit a place 
 you so much admire, and to see a friend who 
 loves and values you. We will study togeth- 
 er in the morning, and court the Muses in the 
 evening ; and you shall visit Pope's urn by 
 moon-light, and I will promise not to laugh 
 at you. I propose to remain here a fortnight 
 longer ; but, if you will come to me, the time 
 of my departure shall be prolonged to your 
 pleasure. I am, with real regard, 
 
 Your most faithful, &c.
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 IN obedience to your Lordship's com- 
 mands, I have left no place unsearched, and 
 have ordered every possible inquiry to be 
 made after the manuscript -which my father 
 read to you a short time before his death, but 
 in vain. As he had determined upon a re- 
 publication of his Miscellaneous Works, with 
 the addition of some pieces which had never 
 been printed, I imagine he was cautious about 
 preserving any papers or compositions that 
 were not in his opinion sufficiently prepared 
 for the press, lest the partiality of his surviv- 
 ing friends might give them to the world. 
 
 I am apprehensive, my Lord, that the man- 
 uscript in question shared the fate of many 
 others which he had not an inclination to fin- 
 ish, and did not choose to leave in an unfin- 
 ished state. However, in my search, I found 
 three or four large sheets of paper in a folio 
 volume, which appear to contain extracts from 
 the memoirs of the great men of the last and
 
 135 
 
 present centuries, and were probably some of 
 the rude materials that formed the biographical 
 sketches which your Lordship so much admir- 
 ed, and whose loss, on that account, gives me 
 so much concern. These papers contain little 
 more than scraps of characters. The princi- 
 pal object of them seems to be the Duke de 
 Vitri, ambassadour plenipotentiary from the 
 French king, for the peace of Nimeguen ; but 
 it is impossible to form out of them any satis- 
 factory account of that able negociator. That 
 my letter, however, may not be entirely with- 
 out amusement, I shall add a couple of quo- 
 tations, which I have found among the rest, 
 from the characters of very figuring personag- 
 es on the theatre of Europe. I call them quo- 
 tations, as they are written in Italian, though 
 I cannot name the author from w r hence they 
 are taken, and are immediately followed . by 
 the character of Petronius^ from the annals of 
 Tacitus. The first of them relates to Cardinal 
 Mazarin, and the second to Oliver Cromwell. 
 I shall make no apology to your Lordship for 
 their language, as I have been informed thai 
 you understand it equally well with your own. 
 I am, my Lord, 
 
 With great respect 
 
 And obligation, &c.
 
 136 
 
 CARDINAL MAZARIN. 
 MOL TO la natura, non poco Varte, tutto gli 
 tontribui lafortuna, che suppli con la dignita a 
 do che manco ne' natali. Egli haveva bella e 
 grata presenza, faccia licta & amabile, occhi 
 vavaci, gratia e decoro ugualmente se parlava, 
 o taceva. Phi che Jino e capace in simular Vin- 
 tentioni, e dissimulare gli qffetti. La for tuna 
 lo sostenne ad ogni passo, e se pur alcuna volta 
 les pose al timor & al pericolo, non fu che per 
 animarlo, e per trarnelo con maggiore trionfo. 
 
 CROMWELL. 
 
 HUOMO grande ne i vitii^ e nelle virtu, che 
 neV arbitrio di licentiosa fortuna visse con mi- 
 rabile continenza, sobrio, casto, modesto, vigi- 
 lante, indefesso, ma da estrema ambitione agi- 
 tato, appena pote satiarsi col sangite del Re, e 
 coll' oppressione del regno.
 
 137 
 
 LETTER XXXIIL 
 
 HAVE you ever by chance looked into a 
 book on the science of cookery ? If so, have 
 you not observed, that the culinary disciple 
 is instructed, when certain quantities of gra- 
 vy, or essence, or conserves, are prepared, 
 to put them by for use ? Now, if we could 
 manage our ideas in the same manner ; if we 
 could lock up our acquired thoughts and 
 knowledge in a kind of intellectual store-room, 
 from whence they might be drawn forth for 
 application ; we should no longer be the 
 slaves of a capricious recollection, which at 
 this hour offers its treasures with intuitive 
 readiness, yields them on the morrow with 
 sullen reluctance, and on the succeeding day 
 may refuse them to our most arduous re- 
 searches. The active events of life, howev- 
 er, seldom die on the remembrance ; and you 
 must certainly be mistaken in associating with 
 me the circumstance you mention in your let- 
 ter, which is at this instant before me. It is 
 morally impossible that I should have forgot-
 
 138 
 
 ten it. My memory, perhaps, is the only fac- 
 ulty I possess, which has not at one time or 
 other deceived me : nay, so firm is its texture, 
 that the oblivious hours of courtship do not 
 affect its wonted capacities though, to say 
 the truth, mine is a very drowsy progress. 
 Assiduity without love, tenderness without 
 sincerity, and dalliance without desire, afford 
 the miserable, the hopeless, but the faithful 
 picture of my sluggish journey to the temple 
 of Hymen, However, to give something of 
 colour to the intervening hours between con- 
 sent and fruition, his Lordship performs won- 
 ders, and sighs and flatters for his heedless 
 son : nay, he tunes his neglected lyre, and 
 sings the power of those charms, which, by 
 an Anti-Circean fascination, are destined, by 
 his fancy, to recal my vagrant footsteps to 
 the paths of virtue. But, alas ! I know not 
 the resolution of the Greek; I cannot resist 
 the song of the syrens ; and, partial as I may 
 be to paternal musick, it will prove, in its in- 
 fluence upon me, far inferiour to their's. 
 
 But all is not torpor and inanimation, and 
 what love could not produce, vanity has in- 
 spired. Two of the brethren of the house of 
 my Dulcinea made her a visit last week, with 
 a design of turning her from the expectation
 
 of a coronet and from me. I need not tell you 
 that they are honest, simple bourgeois, or they 
 would not have meditated such a fruitless er- 
 rand to their ambitious sister. I was well as- 
 sured that they would not convert her, and 
 the fancy came across me to aim at converting 
 them. In this business I so exerted myself in 
 every form of attention, flattery, and amuse- 
 ment, that I verily believe they returned to 
 their home at Chipping- Nor ton without enforc- 
 ing that remonstrance which was the motive 
 to their journey. That Clipping-Norton^ in 
 whose neighbourhood I passed with my grand- 
 mother many of my youthful days, and te-which 
 I had never associated any idea but that of pigs 
 playing upon organs ; that chilly Chipping-Nor- 
 ton should yield one of its former toasts to be 
 the Cara sposa of your friend ! What can your 
 fertile fancy deduce from the union of Hagley's 
 genius and the widowed protectress of the more 
 than widowed Leasowes ? If offspring there 
 should be, what a strange demi-Theocrite will 
 owe its being to such an Hymen. Alas ! my 
 friend, this is but a dream for your amuse- 
 ment ; the reality will offer to your compas- 
 sionate experience the marriage of infatuation 
 and necessity, whose legitimate and certain is-
 
 140 
 
 Sue will be a separate maintenance, and per- 
 haps a titled dowry. 
 
 I have many and various communications to 
 make to you, but they must be reserved for 
 personal intercourse. In the mean time, when 
 you shall see me announced as being added to 
 the Benedicks of the year, save me, I beseech 
 you, save me your congratulations. Nothing 
 is so absurd as the tide of felicitations which 
 flow in upon a poor newly-married man, be- 
 fore he himself can determine, and much less 
 the complimenting world, upon the propriety 
 of them. Marriage is the grand lottery of 
 life ; and it is as great a folly to exult upon 
 entering into it, as on the purchase of a ticket 
 in the state-wheel of fortune. It is when the 
 ticket is drawn a prize that we can answer to 
 congratulation. Adieu I
 
 141 
 
 LETTER 
 
 MY DEAR , 
 
 IF I am not very much mistaken, your 
 library-table is always furnished with an in- 
 terleaved Bruyere, on whose blank pages you 
 amuse yourself with extending the ideas of 
 that celebrated writer, or directing them to 
 modern applications. I am, therefore, to of- 
 fer my name as an addition to your collections, 
 and to desire that in your scholia on that excel- 
 lent work, I may furnish a trait to his admira- 
 ble character of the absent man. 
 
 On the day of my marriage, a day 
 
 but no more of that ! After the nuptial bene- 
 diction was over, and we were returning to 
 our equipage, instead of being the gallant 
 Benedick, and conducting the new-made Mrs. 
 
 L to her coach, I slouched on before, 
 
 and was actually getting into the carriage, as 
 if I had been quite alone ; but, recollecting 
 myself as my foot was upon the step, I turn- 
 ed round to make my apology, which com-
 
 pleted the business, for I addressed the bride 
 in her widowed name, with " My dear Mrs. 
 
 " P , I beg ten thousand pardons," and 
 
 so on. This fit of absence was as strange as 
 it proved ridiculous an omen, perhaps, of all 
 the ungracious business which is to follow. 
 You may first laugh at this little foolish histo- 
 ry, and then, if you please, apply it to a more 
 serious purpose. But this species of absence 
 is an hereditary virtue. A virtue ! say you. 
 Yes, Sir, a virtue ; for it is a mark of genius, 
 and my Right Honourable father possesses it 
 in a most nattering degree. I will present you 
 with a most remarkable example, which you 
 may also add to the composition of your mod- 
 ern Theophrastus. His Lordship was about 
 to pay a morning sacrifice at the shrine of 
 
 M , and a large bunch of early pinks 
 
 lay upon his toilette, which were to compose 
 the offering of the day. With those antique 
 or professional beaux, who wear the tye or 
 large flowing wig, it appears to be convenient, 
 in the ceremony of their dress, that the head 
 should bring up the rear, and be covered the 
 last. The full-trimmed suit was put on, the 
 sword was girded to his side, the chapeau bos 
 was compressed by his left arm, the bunch of 
 pinks graced his right-hand, and his night-cap
 
 143 
 
 remained upon his pate. The servant having 
 left the room, the venerable peer, forgetful of 
 his perukean honours, would actually have 
 sallied forth into the street in full array and 
 en bonnet de nuit, if his valet de chambre had 
 not arrived, at the critical moment, to prevent 
 his singular exit. I was present, but my as- 
 tonishment at his figure so totally suspended 
 my faculties, that he would have made the 
 length of Curzon-street before I should have 
 recovered any power of reflection. I was ac- 
 cused, as you may suspect, of a purposed in- 
 attention, in order to render his Lordship ri- 
 diculous ; and I was told upon the occasion, 
 that, although this kind of occasional absence 
 of mind might furnish folly with laughter, it 
 generally arose from that habitual exertion of 
 thought which produces wisdom. You may 
 congratulate me, therefore, on the prospect of 
 my advancement to the title of sage. 
 
 I am already married, and what is to follow 
 God alone knows. Strange things daily hap- 
 pen dans ce bas monde, and things more strange 
 may be behind. I have such a budget to open 
 for you ! but that discovery must be reserv- 
 ed till we meet. Suffice it to say at present, 
 
 Qt'xdam parva cjuidem; sed non tolerar.da maritis.
 
 144 
 
 LETTER XXX V. 
 
 I CONGRATULATE you, with no com- 
 mon sincerity, on having got most complete- 
 ly into a scrape from whence all your finesse 
 and prudent demeanour will not be able to ex- 
 tricate you. I have seen you, more than once, 
 venture upon a flight which left my effrontery 
 far behind, while I could not but envy you 
 the advantages which publick prepossession in 
 your favour gave you over me. Frequently 
 have I blasphemed my stars for not having 
 given me the art of saving appearances, which 
 you so eminently possess ; but I have now 
 good reason to hope, that you have, at length, 
 fallen from your height, and will be obliged 
 in future to roll in the mire with myself, and 
 a few others of our common nature. The dev- 
 il, in the language of the proverb, having long 
 owed you a grudge, has taken a very fair op- 
 portunity to pay it. You may now exclaim, 
 on your entrance into our Pandzemonium, 
 
 Hail, horrours, hail ! and thou, profoundeit Hell, 
 Receive thy new possessor.
 
 145 
 
 For your consolation, however, I shall in- 
 form you, that, before the period of my pres- 
 ent incorrigible humour, I was once in a state 
 of disadvantage, very similar, in its circum- 
 stances and effects, to that which has now 
 overtaken you. You must know, then, that 
 some years ago I had formed an unlucky plan 
 to mortify my Right Reverend uncle, who 
 had taken some authoritative liberties with 
 me, without giving him a fair opportunity to 
 express his resentment. This was no less 
 than an attack upon the temporal privilege of 
 Episcopacy, in possessing a seat in the House 
 of Lords. I had some thoughts of my own 
 upon the subject, but I had fortunately added 
 to their number and importance from the ac- 
 cidental perusal of a re-published tract on the 
 conduct of our Bishops through upwards of 
 twenty reigns, which unanswerably proved, 
 that, during so long a period, they had al- 
 most uniformly manifested themselves to be 
 foes to rational liberty. I took up the argu- 
 ment in a very general view, urged it with 
 modesty, and, what was better, with securi- 
 ty, as, in case it had been returned with an- 
 ger, I was armed with the opinion of my fa- 
 ther, who was present, and, in his Persian 
 Letters, has written to the same purpose. In
 
 146 
 
 short, I enjoyed all the triumph that my ma- 
 licious expectation could have framed. The 
 prelate grinned with vexation, but was forced 
 to acquiesce in silence, and I had my revenge. 
 But, not many days after, when my resent- 
 ment towards this Reverend Relation had 
 been lost in its fruition, a trifling circum- 
 stance happened, which his vigilant anger 
 gladly seized, in order to heap upon me eve- 
 ry indignity which his truly Christian spirit 
 was capable of producing. As a family par- 
 ty of us were crossing the road on the side of 
 Hagley Park, a chaise passed along, followed 
 by a couple of attendants with French horns. 
 Who can that be ? said my father. Some 
 itinerant mountebank, replied I, if one may 
 judge from his musical followers. I really 
 spoke with all the indifference of an innocent 
 mind ; nor did it occur to me, that the Right 
 Reverend Father in God, my uncle, had some- 
 times been pleased to travel with servants ac- 
 coutred with similar instruments. 
 
 But evil on itself will soon recoil ; 
 
 and my recollection was soon restored to me 
 by a torrent of abuse, which was, in length, 
 violence, and, I had almost said, in expres- 
 sion, equal to any sacred anathema of Popish 
 resentment. In short, I was cursed, damned,
 
 147 
 
 and sent to the Devil, in all the chaste peri- 
 phrasis of a priest's implacability. The whole 
 of the business was of a very singular nature : 
 he availed himself of an inoffensive occur- 
 rence to let loose his resentment at a past of- 
 fence ; while I, in a state of actual innocence, 
 sunk beneath the consciousness of my past 
 guilt. This last part of the story is, I pre- 
 sume, in perfect unison with your present 
 feelings. But, to conclude with a serious ob- 
 servation, be assured, my friend, that, how- 
 ever rich, great, or powerful a man may be, 
 it is the height of folly to make, personal ene- 
 mies from any, but particularly from person- 
 al motives : for one unguarded moment and 
 who could support the horrours of a never- 
 ceasing, suspicious vigilance ? may yield you 
 to the revenge of the most despicable of man- 
 kind. From a very unpleasant experience of 
 my own, I should most sincerely counsel ev- 
 ery young man, who is entering on the thea- 
 tre of the world, to merit the good opinion of 
 mankind, by an easy, unaffected, and amiable 
 deportment to all, which will do more to make 
 his walk through life respectable and happy, 
 than those more striking and splendid quali- 
 ties, which are for ever in the extremes of 
 honour or disgrace. Adieu. I shall be curi-
 
 148 
 
 ous to hear of the progress you make in the 
 thorny paths of contrition, and whether the 
 fruits of it will be adequate to the humiliating 
 penalties you must have undergone. 
 I am, with great regard, 
 
 Your's, &c.
 
 149 
 
 LETTER XXXFI. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I SINCERELY lament with you the death 
 of Dr. Goldsmith, as a very considerable loss 
 to the learned, the laughing, and the senti- 
 mental world. His versatile genius was capa- 
 ble of producing satisfaction to persons of all 
 these varying denominations. But I shall, 
 without hesitation, combat the opinion which 
 you derive from the insolvent state in which 
 he died, that genius and talents meet with an 
 ungrateful return from mankind, and are gen- 
 erally seen to struggle with continual and in- 
 superable difficulties. Plautus is related to 
 have turned a mill, Boethius died in a gaol, 
 Tasso was in constant distress, Cervantes 
 died of hunger, and our Otway from too ea- 
 ger an indulgence of that appetite : Camoens 
 ended his days in an hospital, and Vaugelas 
 left his body to the surgeons to pay his debts 
 as far as it would go. I could fill my paper 
 with a melancholy detail of genius in misfor-
 
 tune ; but it would require a volume of no 
 common size to examine into the causes of 
 such an affecting branch of human distress : 
 and if a work of that nature were to be com- 
 posed, it would prove no more than what we 
 already know, that genius is not exempt from 
 human failings, and frequently possesses them 
 in a degree superiour to ordinary talents and 
 common dulness. An improvident spirit and 
 disdain of reflection are no uncommon attri- 
 butes of that character; and I need not in- 
 form a child of ten years old, that the dullest 
 Rosinante, who keeps on his way, will soon- 
 er arrive at his destined end, than the fleetest 
 courser of Newmarket, who has taken a dif- 
 ferent direction. 
 
 An unenlightened and barbarous age may 
 deny bread to men of understanding ; but we 
 have the happiness to live in the full blaze of 
 reason and knowledge. At this period, the 
 man of genius, as well as the less learned 
 character, is equally the framer of his own 
 fortune ; and it must arise from some inherent 
 deficiency in both, when the means of com- 
 fortable existence, to say no more, are remote 
 from them. This age is the most favourable 
 that has ever been known in the annals of 
 time, for men of genius, talents, and skill, in
 
 151 
 
 any and every branch of science and art. To 
 come home, however, to your subject, tell 
 me, I beg of you, in what respect Doctor 
 Goldsmith was neglected. As soon as his 
 talents were known, the publick discovered a 
 ready disposition to reward them ; nor did he 
 ever produce the fruits of them in vain. His 
 mode of life is generally known ; the profits 
 of his labours are no secret ; and the patron- 
 age, beneath which he, some time, flourished, 
 is a matter of publick notoriety : nor shall I 
 swerve from truth in the declaration, that he 
 was encouraged equal to his merits, whatever 
 they may have been; and that the publick 
 were ready to increase their favour in propor- 
 tion to his exertions. Ask your book-seller 
 what Doctor Goldsmith did acquire, and what 
 he might have acquired, by his writings : con- 
 tinue the question with respect to the manner 
 in which many of them were produced, and 
 what was the spring which generally set his 
 talents in motion. The respective replies will 
 be sufficient to convince you, that, if your 
 favourite author died in poverty, it was be- 
 cause he had not discretion enough to be rich. 
 A rigid obedience to the scripture command 
 of Take no thought for to-morrow, with an os- 
 tentatious impatience of coin, and an unrc-
 
 152 
 
 fleeting spirit of benevolence, occasioned the 
 difficulties of his life, and the insolvency of 
 its end. He might have blessed himself with 
 art happy independence, enjoyed, without in- 
 terruption, every wish of a wise man, secur- 
 ed an ample provision for his advanced age, if 
 he had attained it, and have made a respecta- 
 ble last will and testament ; and all this, with- 
 out rising up early or sitting up late, if com- 
 mon sense had been added to his other attain- 
 ments. Such a man is awakened into the ex- 
 ertion of his faculties but by the impulse of 
 some sense which demands enjoyment, or 
 some passion which cries aloud for gratifica- 
 tion ; by the repeated menace of a creditor, 
 or the frequent dun at his gate : nay, should 
 the necessity of to-day be relieved, the pro- 
 crastinated labour will wait for the necessity 
 of to-morrow ; and, if death should overtake 
 him in the interval, it must find him a beg- 
 gar, and the age is to be accused of obdura- 
 cy in suffering genius to die for want! If 
 Pope had been a debauchee, he would have 
 lived in a garret, nor enjoyed the Attick ele- 
 gance of his villa on the banks of the Thames. 
 If Sir Joshua Reynolds had been idle and 
 drunken, he might, at this hour, have been 
 acquiring a scanty and precarious mainte-
 
 153 
 
 nance by painting coach pannels and Birming- 
 ham tea-boards. Had not David Hume pos- 
 sessed the invariable temper of his country, 
 he might have been the actual master of a 
 school in the Hebrides ; and the inimitable Gar- 
 rick, if he had possessed Shuter's character, 
 would have acquired little more than Shuter's 
 fame, and suffered Shuter's end. Name me 
 a man of genius in our days, who, if he has 
 been destitute of independence, had a right 
 to complain of any one but himself. You 
 may tell me that Lloyd died in a gaol ; and I 
 believe, from every thing that I have heard 
 of that very ingenious gentleman, that his 
 fate would have been the same, if he had 
 been born to the inheritance of an ample for- 
 tune. You will add, perhaps, the name of 
 your very learned friend Morell. He certain- 
 ly deserves well of, and is esteemed by, the 
 learned world ; but the acute critick and pro- 
 found grammarian seems to be impelled rath- 
 er by the love of science, than the desire of 
 gain is generally in the habit of frugal con- 
 tentment, and hides himself in that shade of 
 retirement, where the learned few alone can 
 find him. I am, however, entirely of your 
 opinion, that he merits a less restrained situ- 
 ation than he possesses ; and I agree with 
 
 u
 
 154 
 
 you in not forgiving Doctor B for a 
 breach of justice in opposing his election to a 
 fellowship at Eton. Such a promotion would 
 have been a suitable reward for his labours, 
 and have afforded him that ample independ- 
 ence, and learned retreat, which would have 
 
 left his closing life without a wish. B 
 
 was the most able school-master that ever 
 grasped the birch ; and I am sorry he should 
 disgrace his succeeding and higher office, by 
 opposing, as you tell me, more than once, 
 the entrance of a man into his college, the 
 circumstances of whose life and character 
 gave him so fair a claim to the preferment 
 which he solicited. But this ill treatment of 
 your friend for I think it such is not ap- 
 plicable to the age, but to the folly of a vain 
 man, who finds a consolation for his disap- 
 pointed ambition in the despotick sway of a 
 college, wherein he will not suffer a man to 
 enter, whose character announces the least 
 gleam of an independent spirit. 
 
 Learning and fine talents must be respect- 
 ed and valued in all enrightened ages and na- 
 tions ; nay, they have been known to awaken 
 a most honourable veneration in the breasts of 
 men accustomed to spoil, and wading through 
 blood to glory. An Italian robber not only
 
 155 
 
 refused the rich booty of a caravan, but con- 
 ducted it under his safeguard, when he was in- 
 formed that Tasso accompanied it. The great 
 Duke of Marlborough, at the siege of Cam- 
 bray, gave particular orders, that the lands, 
 &c. of the admired Fenelon, Archbishop of 
 the diocese, should not be profaned by the 
 violence of war. Csesar, the ambitious Cae- 
 sar, acknowledged Tultys superiour charac- 
 ter ; for that the Roman orator had enlarged 
 the limits of human knowledge, while he had 
 only extended those of his country. But to 
 proceed one step higher, 
 
 The great Emathian Conquerour bid spare 
 
 The House of Pindams, when Temple and Tcrw'r 
 
 Went to the ground. 
 
 Rest then assured, my friend, when a man 
 of learning and talents does not, in this very 
 remunerative age, find encouragement, pro- 
 tection, and independence, that such an un- 
 natural circumstance must arise from some 
 concomitant failings which render his labours 
 obnoxious, or, at least, of no real utility. 
 Adieu, my dear Sir. A long letter may ad- 
 mit of excuse -on a subject which would fill a 
 large volume. 
 
 I am, with truth, 
 Your faithful, humble servant.
 
 156 
 
 LETTER 
 
 INDEED, my dear friend, you mistake 
 the matter : Irony is not my talent, and B 
 
 says I have too much impudence to make 
 
 use of it. It is a fine rhetorical figure ; and if 
 there were a chance of attaining the manner in 
 which Junius has employed it, its cultivation 
 would be worth my attention. But you add 
 an harsh injustice to real errour, when you 
 suppose that I have employed any powers of 
 raillery. I may possess on the subject of Her 
 Most Excellent Majesty. I recollect the con- 
 versation which produced this report to my 
 disadvantage, and, if it were true, to my dis- 
 honour. I can easily despise the malice of 
 those who understand and misrepresent me ; 
 but that ignorance which both misunderstands 
 and misrepresents is mortifying in the extreme. 
 I should really think it little less than blasphemy 
 to speak ill of a Princess who deserves so well. 
 The Queen does honour to the British Throne ; 
 she has a right to the place she possesses in the 
 breast of every reflecting Englishman ; and it
 
 157 
 
 has ever been my opinion, that her character 
 unites the royal virtues of her station with the 
 most amiable qualifications of her sex. Nor 
 have I ever been disposed to speak unfavour- 
 ably of the ladies who attend her person, or 
 compose her suit. There are, I must own, 
 half a dozen figures of her household who are 
 objects of my pity ; and the strain of commis- 
 eration which broke from me on their subjects, 
 has been represented, I find, as a contemptu- 
 ous raillery of their Royal Mistress. My mem- 
 ory will serve me, I believe, to recollect the 
 general tenour of niy discourse on the occa- 
 sion, which I shall offer to your candid inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 The Dowager Lady Townshend, as you 
 well know, divides the human species into 
 
 men, women, and h ; and where is the 
 
 crime, if I parody on her ladyship's logick, 
 and apply it to the division of her Majesty's 
 houshold into men, women, and maids of hon- 
 our ? Nor will it be difficult to justify this 
 new line of distinction, if we consider the pe- 
 culiar offices which compose the duty, and the 
 singular privileges which reward the service, 
 of these courtly virgins. 
 
 To make up, at least, two court suits in a 
 year ; to dance vis many court minuets in the
 
 158 
 
 same space ; to sidle, on days of duty, through 
 the presence-chambers, at the tail of a royal 
 procession ; to take her place in an established 
 corner of the drawing-room ; to say yes, Sir, 
 or no, Sir, and courtesy, when she is noticed 
 by the King; to say yes, Madam, and no, 
 Madam, and courtesy, when the Queen does 
 her the same honour ; to make an occasional 
 one of six large hoops in a royal coach, and 
 to aid the languor of an easy party in a side- 
 box at a royal play ; compose the principal la- 
 bours of a maid of honour's life. But they 
 are not without their rewards. A moderate 
 salary, and a thousand pounds when Miss gets 
 an husband ; an apartment in a palace, and I 
 believe a dinner from a royal kitchen ; in the 
 rotation of six weeks, a seven days' possession 
 of a royal coach, a royal coachman, and a 
 shabby pair of royal horses, for the purpose 
 of shopping in the city, paying distant visits, 
 airing in the King's road, and the being set 
 down at the very gate of Kensington Gardens, 
 while women of the first fashion are obliged 
 to trip it o'er an hundred yards of greensward 
 between their coaches and the place of admit- 
 tance ; to take place of Baronets' daughters ; 
 to go to plays, operas, and oratorios, gratis ; 
 to have physicians without fees, and medi-
 
 159 
 
 cines without an apothecary's bill ; to chat 
 with Lords and grooms of the bed-chamber 
 around the fire of an anti-chamber ; to stroke 
 the beardless face of a new-made page ; and, 
 perhaps, to receive an Heir-Apparent's first 
 effort at flirtation ; constitute the various priv- 
 ileges of a maid of honour. 
 
 This brief history, my dear friend, you well 
 know to be founded in fact, and will, therefore, 
 be ready to applaud the tender pity I feel for 
 these virgin automatons. I have never seen 
 them bringing up the rear of a royal train, but 
 each of them has appeared to bear, in legible 
 characters, on her forehead, Who will marry 
 me ? Nevertheless, upon the most favourable 
 average, not one in three years, during the 
 present reign, has been rewarded by Hymen ; 
 which, in their particular situation, is as pit- 
 iable a circumstance as can be found in the 
 long catalogue of female mortifications. A la- 
 dy of the bed-chamber is obliged only to a 
 partial duty ; and, during the short period of 
 her attendance, is, in some degree, the com- 
 panion of her royal Mistress ; while the vir- 
 gins of honour are not admitted, as I have 
 been informed, to stick a pin in a royal hand- 
 kerchief. Even the women of the same de- 
 partment figure only in her Majesty's cast-off
 
 160 
 
 gowns on royal birth-days ; but these poor 
 persecuted damsels are the common hackneys 
 of drawing-room parade : whether ill or wellj 
 in humour or out of humour, by day-light or 
 by candle-light, they are obliged, through 
 three parts of the year, to be on the continual 
 stretch of state -official exhibition. 
 
 I remember, \vhen I was little more than a 
 boy, to have seen a young lady in training for 
 this important office ; and the whole of that 
 serious business consisted in nothing more 
 than a practical lecture upon entrances and 
 exits, the language of courtisies, and the art 
 of conducting a large hoop in all modes and 
 forms of possible pliancy. I laughed then as 
 boys laugh, and had some unlucky thoughts 
 in my head which were not arrived at maturi- 
 ty : at this period, I would willingly give an 
 opera-subscription to be present at a similar 
 exercise. 
 
 After this manner did I treat the honoura- 
 ble subject of her Majesty's honourable vir- 
 gins ; and little did I think that it would beget 
 a long admonitory epistle' from you, to warn 
 me against speaking evil of dignities. My wit, 
 such as it is, has never directed a single glance 
 at the Throne ; and I have received the wel- 
 come testimony of your applause, more than
 
 161 
 
 once, for exerting the full force of my under- 
 standing to support the wishes of it. You have 
 my ready leave, my dear friend, to laugh with 
 me, and at me to reprove and to admonish 
 me ; but I must entreat you to relax your 
 proneness to believe every idle tale which is 
 fabricated to my dishonour. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 
 w
 
 163 
 
 LETTER XXXFIIL 
 
 YOUR usual accuracy has failed you in 
 your suggestions concerning the rise and rap- 
 id progress of Mr. D t's fortune. The 
 
 history of that gentleman's advancement to his 
 present affluence, if my immediate recollection 
 does not fail me, is as follows. 
 
 That he was appointed to his first employ- 
 ment in the service of government by my fa- 
 ther's interest is true ; and it may, perhaps, 
 have been procured for him from the motives 
 which current opinion has assigned : but of 
 this I do not pretend to be better informed 
 than the rest of the world. Thus placed in a 
 situation of little or no leisure, he was left, I 
 believe, by our family-patronage, to look for 
 any future promotion from his own industry, 
 the chance of succession, or the casual boon 
 of fortune. The latter was disposed to smile 
 upon him, or, it may be said with more pro- 
 priety, to reward the prudent modesty with 
 which he retreated from her first advances, 
 to secure her greater favours. In the usual
 
 163 
 
 course of promotion, he had ah acknowledged 
 claim to succeed to a vacant place of no incon- 
 siderable profit. Oh this occasion, Lord Hol- 
 land, for some particular reason which I have 
 forgotten, or perhaps never heard, wished to 
 make an irregular appointment in favour of 
 some other person ; and, to comply with his 
 
 Lordship's wishes, Mr. D wisely waved 
 
 his right of succession. That Nobleman, who 
 never suffered a good office to be long unre- 
 turned, soon after procured him to be named 
 Commissary-General to the expedition then 
 preparing to attack the French West-India 
 Islands. The success which attended it, to- 
 gether with the regular profits of his appoint- 
 ment, placed him in a situation, with respect 
 to fortune, with which, it may be imagined, 
 he was more than satisfied ; and I have been 
 told that he then looked no farther. But 
 Lord Holland never thought he did enough 
 for any one that had obliged him ; and I am 
 greatly mistaken, if his influence did not name 
 
 Mr. D to the same employment in the 
 
 formidable armament which was sent against 
 the Havannah, and succeeded. The fortunes 
 acquired by that capture are well known, and 
 
 Mr. D t's was among the largest of them. 
 
 On his return to England, he soon began to
 
 164 
 
 display a love of ostentation, which he indulg- 
 ed, however, as I understand, without injur- 
 ing his fortune ; for though George has no 
 small share of vanity, it has seldom operated 
 so far as to make him inattentive to the sum- 
 mum bonum of life. He built a fine house in 
 Portman-square, and purchased the very cap- 
 ital estate of Tong-Castle, in Shropshire, of 
 the Duke of Kingston. He immediately re- 
 newed, or rather improved, the ancient form 
 of the decayed edifice, adorned with the ven- 
 erable decorations of Gothick architecture, 
 beautified its surrounding lawns, and con- 
 ducted through them a long extent of fine 
 water, which flows on three sides of the state- 
 ly edifice. The castle is a very large build- 
 ing, contains many very capacious apartments, 
 and is furnished with a profusion of pictures 
 and splendid upholstery. Though it is not 
 situated in a fine part of the country, yet, tak- 
 en in all its circumstances, it may lay no small 
 claim to the character of magnificence. The 
 owner of it might have built a new and more 
 commodious house for much less money than 
 has been expended in the reparations of the 
 old one : but the word castle is a sounding 
 
 word ; it was in unison with Mr. D t's 
 
 notions of grandeur; and, apprehensive that
 
 165 
 
 this favourite title might, by degrees, be for- 
 gotten with the lofty turrets and stately bat- 
 tlements, he resolved to clothe them in more 
 than pristine grandeur, and thus secure their 
 ancient, honourable name, till time or chance 
 should destroy them for ever. Some of my 
 old neighbours positively assert, that they re- 
 member to have heard George D de- 
 clare, when he was a youth, that he hoped, 
 one day or other, to be possessed of a larger 
 house than Hagley ; and they insist upon it 
 that he gives such great extent to the limits of 
 Tang-Castle^ merely to fulfil his own predic- 
 tion. But this by the way the world in 
 general, who are not acquainted with the am- 
 bition of his early days, have thought, that, 
 by this creation of splendour, he hoped to 
 allure some lady of noble birth and great con- 
 nexions to become the mistress of it. The 
 bait offered by so handsome a man as he cer- 
 tainly is, would, in all probability, have been 
 soon taken, but, in this particular, expecta- 
 tion has been very much disappointed ; for 
 he has actually made a kind of half-runaway 
 match with a little Quaker of eighteen years 
 of age, and educated in all the rigour of her 
 sect. She has no pretensions to beauty I 
 write merely from information but possesses
 
 a very agreeable person, with a most amiable 
 simplicity, and loves her husband to idolatry. 
 I have heard your friend, Counsellor Day* 
 speak in high terms of her father, as a man 
 of excellent understanding, polite manners, 
 and generous dispositions. Since this mar- 
 riage, the superb service of plate very sel- 
 dom makes its appearance ; and the master of 
 the noble castle, as I am told, now lives in a 
 corner of it, with a small party of his re la* 
 tions, and seems to be growing into a disre- 
 gard of the intrigues and fashions of publick 
 life. His brother is the parson of my parish, 
 and is called Doctor John; but the Divine 
 and the Squire do not hold a very friendly in- 
 tercourse. 
 
 I rather think that this little piece of biog- 
 raphy is pretty well founded : if, however, it 
 should possess any errours, which may be the 
 case, I beg leave to assure you that they are 
 
 hot of my invention. As to Mr. D t's 
 
 unpopularity with the Lyttleton family, it does 
 hot arise, perhaps, from what you and the 
 world may, with some reason, suppose ; but 
 from a subsequent circumstance, of which 
 you, and the world, are, in general, igno- 
 rant. When my - was Governour of J 
 , he received positive orders to raise and
 
 167 
 
 discipline a regiment of Negroes for the ser- 
 vice of the Havannah expedition. As this 
 supply did not join the grand armament at 
 the time appointed, Mr. D 1 was dispatch- 
 ed to Jamaica, by the Commander in Chief, 
 to chide the tardy levies ; and, as report says, 
 he found a very surprizing languor in obey- 
 ing these very important orders of govern- 
 ment. On such an occasion, he was, per- 
 haps, instructed to threaten an accusation of 
 delinquency against the Governour to the 
 powers at home ; and it is equally prpbable, 
 that he did not forget his instructions. Wheth- 
 er this neglect was repaired by subsequent ex T 
 ertions, or whether it was forgotten in the suc- 
 cesses which followed, I do not know ; but I 
 very well remember, that, at the time, my fa- 
 ther was very uneasy about it and complain- 
 ed, in angry terms, to the clergyman of Hag- 
 ley, of his brother's forwardness to disgrace 
 a branch of that family by which his own had 
 been so warmly protected. Here- the matter 
 rested ; but that George D . t should have 
 been elevated to a situation, wherein he could 
 repeat what was called an insolent menace to 
 one of the Lyltlcton family, wiU never^be re- 
 memberecfc without much mortification > and, 
 therefore, can never be forgiven. Adieu.
 
 168 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 MUCH of the disputes, and consequent- 
 ly many of the inconveniencies, of this world, 
 arise from the strange difficulty (for a strange 
 one it is) that men find in understanding each 
 other's meaning. Hence the never-ending 
 game of cross-purposes, in which all of us, 
 at times, are so much engaged. A leading 
 cause of this disunion is a negligence in us- 
 ing terms appropriate to their object. The 
 philosopher, it is true, must generalize his 
 ideas to compass the views of his enquiring 
 mind. It is by such an application of his in- 
 tellectual faculties, that he surmounts such a 
 variety of obstacles ; that he passes from in- 
 dividual man to an whole people ; from a 
 people, to the human race ; from the time in 
 which he lives, to the ages that are to come ; 
 from what he sees to that which is invisible. 
 But in conveying the fruits of his study and 
 reflection to others, he must condescend to 
 weigh words, compare terms, and preclude 
 all possibility of errour in those he instructs.
 
 by using a simplicity of definition, a perspi- 
 cuity of expression, and, where the barren- 
 ness of language denies the immediate term, 
 a neatness of periphrase which not only in- 
 vites but creates conception. 
 
 You are pleased, in your last letter, to 
 charge the present age with the crime of 
 skepticism ; and you have abandoned your- 
 self to a more than common energy on the 
 subject. To tell you the truth, J do not veiy 
 clearly perceive the tendency of your accusa- 
 tion. If it alludes to religion, you would, I 
 think, find some difficulty to maintain your 
 position : if it should glance at politicks, our 
 national submission is certainly against you: 
 or, leaving the higher concerns of the world, 
 if you should apply your assertion to the or- 
 dinary intercourse and common transactions 
 between man and man, you are truly unfor- 
 tunate, as an extreme Gullibility seems to be 
 one of the leading features of the present 
 times. The age in which we live does not 
 possess so great a share, as former centuries, 
 of that faith which is able to remove moun- 
 tains : blind credulity, by the insults it so 
 long offered to reason, has in a great meas- 
 ure destroyed itself, or is rather become mod- 
 ified into that sobriety of belief which is con*
 
 170 
 
 sistent with a rational being. The gaudy, 
 awful, and presuming phantom of Papal au- 
 thority, has long begun to disappear: that 
 blazing meteor, which for so many ages daz- 
 zled the superstitious world, verges towards 
 the horizon, and grows pale before the stea- 
 dy, embodied light of liberal, unimpeded sci- 
 ence. But I cannot believe, although luxury 
 and dissipation with their concomitant de- 
 pravities have made such enormous strides 
 among the higher orders, that infidelity in re- 
 ligious matters is a leading characteristick of 
 our times. If we tum from the church to the 
 state, the firm confidence of a very great ma- 
 jority of the people in a government, which, 
 I am forced to confess, does not possess all 
 the wisdom that such a government ought to 
 possess, is a circumstance, which, were I to 
 enlarge upon it, you would be perplexed to 
 answer. In the ordinary transactions of life, 
 the wantonness of commercial credit is well 
 prepared to give the lie direct to any charge 
 of incredulity. Ask Foley, Charles Fox, and 
 a thousand others, what they think of mod- 
 ern infidelity ; and they will tell you, that the 
 Jeius themselves, that unbelieving race, have 
 deserted from the standard of skepticism, and, 
 having borne the stigma of spiritual unbelief,
 
 171 
 
 for upwards of seventeen hundred years, are 
 at this moment groaning beneath the effects 
 of temporal credulity. 
 
 Credula turba sumus We are a credulous 
 race of beings ; and the most steady profes- 
 sors of skepticism are deceived by others, and 
 deceive themselves, every hour of the day. 
 Religion, which commands, among its evi- 
 dent truths, the belief of matters which we 
 cannot entirely comprehend, will sometimes 
 so habituate the mind of its submissive disci- 
 ple to acts of faith, that he does not know 
 how to withhold his assent to the most im- 
 probable fictions of human fancy ; and the 
 Credo quia impossibile est of Tertullian is read- 
 ily adopted by his yielding piety. I shall con- 
 firm the truth of this observation by a story 
 which I have heard related, and is not more 
 extraordinary in its nature than the tone, 
 look, and language of belief which accompa- 
 nied the relation. A traveller, benighted in 
 a wild and .mountainous country, (if my re- 
 collection does not fail me, in the Highlands 
 of Scotland,) at length beholds the welcome 
 light of a neighbouring habitation. He urg- 
 es his horse towards it ; when, instead of an 
 house, he approached a kind of illuminated 
 chapel, from whence issued the most alarming
 
 172 
 
 sounds he had ever heard. Though greatly 
 surprised and terrified, he ventured to look 
 through a window of the building, when he 
 was amazed to see a large assembly of cats, 
 who, arranged in solemn order, were lament- 
 ing over the corpse of one of their own spe- 
 cies, which lay in state, and was surrounded 
 with the various emblems of sovereignty. 
 Alarmed and terrified at this extraordinary 
 spectacle, he hastened from the place with 
 greater eagerness than he approached it ; and 
 arriving, some time after, at the house of a 
 gentleman who never turned the wanderer 
 from his gate, the impressions of what he 
 had seen were so visible on his countenance, 
 that his friendly host enquired into the cause 
 of his anxiety. He accordingly told his sto- 
 ry, and, having finished it, a large family cat, 
 who had lain, during the narrative, before the 
 nre, immediately started up, and very articu- 
 lately exclaimed, " Then I am King of the 
 Cats /" and, having thus announced its new 
 dignity, the animal darted up the chimney 
 and was seen no more. 
 
 Now, the man, who seriously repeated this 
 strange and singular history, was a peer of 
 the realm, had been concerned in the active 
 scenes of life, and was held in high esteem
 
 173 
 
 and veneration among mankind for his talents, 
 wisdom, and Christian piety. After this in- 
 formation, which I give you as a serious fact, 
 what have you to say ? It is impossible but 
 you must immediately withdraw your charge 
 of infidelity against a period which could pro- 
 duce one such implicit believer. 
 
 As for myself, I will readily confess to you 
 that I am neither a skeptick nor a believer. 
 I have enough of skepticism to prevent the 
 throwing my share of faith away : at the same 
 time I feel within me that there is something, 
 which I cannot very well explain, the belief 
 whereof I ought to cultivate, and from whence 
 I should derive much satisfaction and content- 
 merit, could I but frame my mind to the pur- 
 pose. If, however, after all my reasoning, 
 you should still continue to fix a skeptical 
 character upon the present age, I trust that 
 you will at least discard it from your own 
 breast, while I assure you of the great re- 
 gard with which I am 
 
 Your most sincere, humble servant.
 
 174 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 YOUR letters to me arc those of friend- 
 ship. Under the impression of this sentiment, 
 I at all times receive them: nevertheless, 
 they are attended with this disagreeable cir- 
 cumstance, that, in my answers to them, I 
 am so often obliged to make myself the hero 
 of my own tale. 
 
 Your last charge has a foundation in truth ; 
 and the persons whom you name as being in 
 the circle of my intimacy, are received at my 
 house, and admitted to my table. You tell 
 me it is not only a dishonour, but a crime, to 
 herd with such men as familiar associates ; and 
 that it is beneath a rational being to receive 
 these outcasts from all other society into mine, 
 merely to be flattered by their submission, to 
 have base engines of my pleasures, or objects 
 for that raillery which will not be returned. 
 It is too true that I cannot altogether combat 
 the force of these very severe observations ;
 
 175 
 
 but let me persuade you to bestow a small por- 
 tion of your leisure on the volume of human 
 nature, to take a short review of human fail- 
 ings, and then to cast your eye upon that page 
 whereon my name is written. You will there 
 discover that my character is divided between 
 an ardent desire of applause, and a more than 
 equal love of pleasure ; and, on this discovery, 
 your considerate regard will look with less se- 
 verity upon me. When you have done me 
 this justice, proceed, I beseech you, one step 
 farther ; examine the world upon my subject, 
 and you will know what confirmed prejudices 
 it possesses against me ; that I am the contin- 
 ual victim of its injustice ; and that, not con- 
 tented to blazon forth my defects and follies 
 into a false, unnatural magnitude, it seems 
 pleased with the malignant task of fabricating 
 tales to my dishonour. Publick opinion aims 
 at excluding me from a familiar intercourse 
 with men of virtuous life, and women of chaste 
 manners : so that, when I appear even in gen- 
 eral societies, mothers seem to be alarmed for 
 their daughters, husbands for their wives, and 
 fathers for their sons : nay, the very impures 
 of the town have refused my most generous 
 offers, from an apprehension of my capacity 
 for mischief. I will freely own that my life
 
 176 
 
 has been marked with an extravagance of dis- 
 sipation ; but neither the force of my passions, 
 Sec. nor their success, though, viciously speak- 
 ing, I might be vain of the latter, can justify 
 these violent and continual fears of me. 
 
 But let us suppose for a moment, that this 
 most prodigal of all prodigals should meditate 
 a reformation, and begin the salutary work 
 with the favourable omen of shutting his doors 
 against those vagabonds, to use your own ex- 
 pression, whom you accuse him of suffering 
 to enter them. If, in the arduous task of 
 winning the forfeited esteem of mankind, I 
 should begin with paying my court to the lights 
 of the church, and beg their sanction to my in- 
 fant repentance, those holy men would not on- 
 ly suspect the sincerity of my declarations, but 
 do my effrontery the credit to believe, that, 
 under the semblance of contrition, I was med- 
 itating some unholy impertinence to the sac- 
 red Lawn. Permit me to continue the singu- 
 lar idea, and suppose me commencing my 
 round of episcopal visits with one of the 
 FIRST CHARACTERS of this age and nation, 
 the present Bishop of London. After some 
 hesitation on the part of my coachman, you 
 may imagine me at his Lordship's gate, where 
 it cannot be supposed that I should find ad-
 
 177 
 
 r 
 
 mittance. ' But this is not all. Mrs. Lowth 
 would probably throw my visiting card into 
 the fire, and forbid the porter to enter my 
 name in his book ; while the Right Reverend 
 Prelate would determine to take the opportu- 
 nity of some debate in the House of Lords, 
 wherein I 'Alight be engaged, to satisfy his po- 
 liteness as a gentleman, by leaving his name 
 at my door, without any apprehension of be- 
 ing admitted within it. What! would you 
 have me wander a solitary being through the 
 world, too bad for the good, and too good for 
 the bad? My whole nature shudders at the 
 idea, and I should perish in the attempt. I 
 love superiority, flattery, and 1 ease; and the 
 society which you condemn affords the three-* 
 fold gratification. You will tell me that it con- 
 sists of dishonourable men: in the common 
 sense of the term you may be right; but did- 
 cibus abundant vitiis ; and, as bad instruments, 
 in the hands of agreeable performers, make a 
 pleasant concert, so these characters compose 
 an amusing society. With them I am under 
 no restraint : they know the history of the day : 
 some of them, also, are well accomplished j 
 and, while they play upon one another, I can 
 play upon them all. Besides, coffee may be 
 
 ordered at whatever hour I please without an 
 
 y
 
 178 
 
 opposing look ; and while I confer honour, 1 
 enjoy convenience. 
 
 You will, perhaps, be disposed to enquire 
 if I think it worthy of me, in. the phrase of vul- 
 gar tongues, to enjoy the character of king of 
 the company. The love of rule, my clear sir, 
 is, more -or less, the inmate of every breast : 
 k is allied to all the pre-eminent virtues, and 
 the greatest men have owed their greatness to 
 
 it. Ctcsar declared that the first office of a vil- 
 
 - 
 
 lage was preferable to the second station in the 
 Roman world. Whittjidd, I believe, would not 
 have exxhanged his tabernacle for a metropol- 
 itan, diocese ; Zinzcndorjf\ amid the submis- 
 sion of his Moravian followers, looked down 
 with pity on despotick empire ; nor, in the 
 government of my. pandemonium, do I envy all 
 the didactick honours of your lyceum. 
 
 It may -be an opinion which proceeds from 
 a dissolute refinement, but it is mine that 
 pleasure is not pleasure, if difficulties are ne- 
 cessary to its enjoyment. I wish, as it were, 
 to have it brought home to me, without my 
 stirring- across the threshhold. My taste for 
 gratification is like their piety who erect chap- 
 els in their houses : it makes a domestick 
 priesthood necessary to me ; and, while the 
 persons who compose it arc zealous in t 1
 
 179 
 
 functions, I shall look no farther. The cir- 
 cumstances of my past life have produced the 
 colour of the present moment ; a future period 
 may receive another hue. The events of ev- 
 ery passing hour, in characters such as mine, 
 as well as in others which are supposed to be 
 much better, must furnish the tints. Experi- 
 ence may do something in my favour; your 
 friendly oracles may do more ; the calls of 
 publick duty may have their effect. To con- 
 clude, time and chance happen unto all men : 
 and, through their influence, the hour may 
 arrive when prelates will eat my soup without 
 fear of contamination, and modest women ad- 
 mit me to their society without apprehending 
 a loss of reputation. Do not be angry with 
 me, I beseech you ; it is impossible to treat 
 the subject otherwise : and, ii' I might add an- 
 other petition to the many you have already 
 so kindly granted, let me entreat you to give 
 our correspondence a more pleasing and prof- 
 itable subject, than the failings of 
 
 Your very sincei'e, 
 and obliged, &c.
 
 180 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 THE world at large is so disposed to 
 generalise, that it is seldom right when it de- 
 scends into the detail of opinion. It has so 
 many eyes and objects, that, in the act of par- 
 ticularising the sources of its favour or disap- 
 probation, the rectitude or errour of its con- 
 clusions are both the effect of hazard. I, as 
 you too well know, have been the subject of 
 its severest censure ; but, with all my faults, 
 I have much reason to complain of its precip- 
 itate injustice. 
 
 Among other instances of its premature in- 
 disposition towards me, the circumstance to 
 which you have alluded with so much hu- 
 mour, is in proof of my assertion ; and, to 
 heighten my mortification at that time, my 
 own family joined the popular cry : so that, 
 in pronouncing all possibility of amendment, 
 the devoted prodigal was driven to a situation 
 which absolutely precluded him from it. 
 
 My father, in a long detail of my unworthi- 
 ness, which, with his usual tenderness, he
 
 181 
 
 dealt forth to Harry de Sails, as a climax to 
 the amiable history, concluded the list of my 
 enormities with declaring that I actually in- 
 trigued with three different women of fashion 
 at one and the same time. Without making 
 any comment on the very creditable account 
 given of me, and the favourable picture which 
 his pious Lordship displayed of our first-rate 
 females, permit me to assure you, that neither 
 my prowess with the ladies, nor any foolish, 
 unworthy deed of mine occasioned the pater- 
 nal displeasure of that moment. The subject 
 of an occasional morning's reading was the 
 true, but unacknowledged cause of my dis- 
 grace. I shall do myself the justice of relat- 
 ing the fact to you in all its circumstances. 
 
 You must have heard of the celebrated 
 skeptical writer Claude Anet. His works, and 
 the prosecution which they brought upon him, 
 have conspired to give his name no small share 
 of publick notoriety. It will be also necessa- 
 ry to inform you, that, after the sacred writ- 
 ings, Lord L has directed his partial 
 
 estimation to two popular theological produc- 
 tions. The one details, explains, and observes 
 upon the resurrection of Christ ; and the oth- 
 er defends the character and conduct of the 
 apostle Paul. The former was written by his
 
 182 
 
 dearly beloved friend Mr. West the latter, 
 by himself. The infidel Claude Anet, among 
 other matters, thought proper to give these 
 two publications a particular and separate con- 
 sideration. He had the abominable impu- 
 dence to declare, that they were not only de- 
 ficient in their principles, but that they were 
 logically defective in the means they took to 
 support them : nay, he undertakes to give 
 them arguments superiour to any they have 
 used, and then to confute them. On this 
 ground he opens his battery, and makes his 
 attack ; nor is he without his partizans ainong 
 men of learning and talents, as I have been 
 informed, who do not hesitate to assign him 
 the victory. Of this I do not pretend to de- 
 termine 1 have, in truth, no genius for that 
 line of criticism. The mode of proceeding, 
 however, must be acknowledged to have been 
 accompanied with an air of insolence and con- 
 tempt, which might have been the cause of 
 mortification to men of a less sensible fibre 
 than one, at least, of those, against whom it 
 was directed. It had this effect in the ex- 
 treme : for the pity of the Christian gave way 
 to the pride of the author ; and the damnable 
 skeptick, instead of being, the object of fer- 
 vent prayer that he might be converted from
 
 183 
 
 the errour of his way, was wafted, in a mo- 
 ment, by ' his pious 1 antagonist, to the howling 
 portion of the devil and his angels: 
 
 In an unlucky hour it was discovered, that 
 ihis offensive volume was in my possession, 
 and the subject of my occasional T mtjdhation \ 
 and from hence arose that unexpjpcte^burst o 
 displeasure that fell : with so mucl;r- weight up : 
 on me, and which had instant recourse to my 
 graceless life, as the pretended reason for its 
 justification. I do not know a quality of the 
 human mind that Is of such an, absorbent na- 
 ture as vanity: in one disappointed .moment 
 it will suck up the virtue of years. If Claude 
 Anet had levelled his shafts in a different di- 
 rection, or I had encreased my caution in 
 tracing their course, I might have intrigued 
 with an whole seraglio of women of fashion, 
 without drawing down upon me an atom of 
 that vengeance of which I was the victim. I 
 could not tell the true cause, as it would 
 have increased, if possible, the irritation a- 
 gainst me, without doing any good ; and, be- 
 sides, my authority would have been lighter 
 than a feather, in the publick opinion, when 
 put in competition with the power that perse- 
 cuted me : for, religious opinions apart, the 
 whole was an abominable persecution.
 
 184 
 
 I never felt so sensibly the inconvenience 
 of a bad character as at this period. Impu- 
 dence could do but little ; hypocrisy, which 
 is so thick a garb for half mankind, was not 
 a veil of gauze to me ; and, as for repent- 
 ance, that was not in the reach of ordinary 
 credibility. I was really in the situatiorv-sf 
 the Quaker's dog, who, being caught in the 
 fact of robbing the pantry, was told, in all 
 the complacency of revenge, by his amiable 
 master, " I will not beat thee, nor kill thee, 
 ' for thy thieving ; but I will do worse, for I 
 " will give thee a bad name ;" and immediately, 
 on driving him from the house, alarmed the 
 neighbourhood with the calm assurance that 
 he was a wad dog : so that the poor animal 
 was pursued with the unreflecting brutality 
 usual on such occasions, which soon put an 
 end to his existence. You 'may truly apply 
 this story to 
 
 Your affectionate,
 
 LETTER XLIL 
 
 YOU must confess, as I am sure you ve- 
 ry well know, that one of the great arts, if not 
 the principal one, in acquiring a reputation, 
 as well as preserving it, is to know the extent 
 of our genius, what objects are most suitable 
 to it, in what track its propensities should be 
 conducted, and at what point to place the limits 
 beyond which it must venture with caution, as 
 well as the neplus ultra, whose barriers it must 
 not venture to pass. The man who possesses 
 this knowledge, and acts according to the dic- 
 tates of it, will not fail to make a respectable 
 figure in any station, and with any talents; 
 but in an high station, and great talents, he 
 may be secure of familiarizing his name with 
 future ages. 
 
 Ambition, an ardent and specious child of 
 self-love, continually urges men to pursue ob- 
 jects beyond their reach. Avarice, an horrid, 
 unnatural cub of the same origin, and a dis- 
 grace to it, takes a track which reason dis- 
 dains, and honour must condemn, to satisfy
 
 186 
 
 its desires. Envy delights itself in obsf 
 ing the prosperous career of others; and fo 
 ly, dreaming of what it cannot possess, wi 
 aim at the wreath of wisdom. In short, s in 
 ignorance of ourselves, from whatever cau< >c 
 it may proceed, whether from passion or want 
 of reflection, is the origin of all our mistakes 
 in private as well as publick life. In the 
 former, the mischief may be of narrow ex- 
 tent ; but, in the latter, the evil may affect, 
 not only a people, but every quarter of the 
 globe. The grand source of that glory which 
 shone, and will continue to shine, with res- 
 plendent lustre on Mr. Pitt's administration of 
 this country, till the annals of it are no more, 
 was a right application of means to ends, and, 
 among others, of employing men according to 
 the nature and tendency of their characters 
 and talents. You must perceive the drift of 
 my argument ; that it leads to the defence of 
 my publick political conduct since I have suc- 
 ceeded to my office in the constitution. Yon 
 tell me of application to business, and of throw- 
 ing aside a golden sinecure as disgraceful to a 
 real patriot. You counsel me, in the most flat- 
 tering manner, to claim an arduous post of gov- 
 ernment, and, by a vigilant attention to its du- 
 ties, to make a better return for the emolu-
 
 187 
 
 ments of office, than half a dozen flowery ora- 
 tions in parliament, during a winter's session, 
 which are, in your opinion, sufficiently re- 
 warded by the gratifications of my own vani- 
 ty. This, I must acknowledge, is coming at 
 once, and without ceremony, to the point; 
 but think for a moment, and ask yourself, 
 what kind of figure I should make at the desk. 
 Can you imagine that it is in my nature, and, 
 of course, in my capacity, to bear the oppres- 
 sion of such multifarious and eternal business 
 as must claim the attention of an eminent offi- 
 cial statesman ? The admirable structure of 
 the British constitution, its commerce, its in* 
 terests, and its alliances, have been the ob- 
 jects of my serious enquiry and attentive con- 
 sideration. I take continual occasion to watch 
 the changing scene of its political movements : 
 I form, with much thought, my opinions upon 
 them : I deliver those opinions, in my senato- 
 rial capacity, to the world ; not from the sug- 
 gestions of a giddy hour, or from the spur of 
 momentary vanity, but from curious research, 
 ardent reflection, and deliberate preparation. 
 To this point, my talents, such as they are, 
 must be directed ; and, by having given them 
 in some degree their natural direction, I have 
 acquired a political reputation, which would
 
 188 
 
 be lost in contempt and derision, were they 
 to be employed in the routine of official em- 
 ployment, and the perplexities of ministerial 
 duty. Besides, if there be any thing which 
 requires a more than vestal's vigilance, it is 
 the guidance of a principal wheel in the ma- 
 chine of our government ; and such a contin- 
 ual attention is foreign to my nature. I might, 
 perhaps, possess it for a certain time, and ap- 
 ply it with zeal ; may I not add, with reputa- 
 tion ? But my existence would be insupporta- 
 ble, if the intervals of relaxation did not fre- 
 quently relieve me, when I might retire 
 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 Or with the tangle* of Necra'* bair. 
 
 There is a certain degree of phlegm abso- 
 lutely necessary to the well-being of society ; 
 but I possess not an atom of it. There is al- 
 so an ardour of mind that leads to national as 
 well as personal greatness, nor am I without 
 an active flame of it ; but it burns by flashes, 
 and possesses me only in common with other 
 contending passions, which, in their turn, com- 
 mand my obedience, and are obeyed. Suffer 
 the stream, I beseech you, to flow in those 
 channels which nature has designed for it : let 
 it pass on sometimes in foaming eddies, and 
 sometimes with a tranquil wave : be content
 
 189 
 
 to watch its progress ; and, though it may now 
 force its angry passage through the divided 
 mountain, your eye may soon behold its crys- 
 tal surface reflect the golden harvests and flow- 
 ery meadows. But, should its natural course 
 be changed, it would be quickly lost in bog 
 and morass ; nor ever grow into that extent 
 and grandeur of waters which many rivulets 
 attain before they reach the ocean. 
 
 Is there not, in my own family, an imme- 
 diate circumstance of ridicule which comes in 
 aid of my argument ? My father, who made a 
 respectable figure as a senator, in both Hous- 
 es of Parliament, and possessed that theoret- 
 ick political erudition which constituted him an 
 able counsellor of the state, was incapable, as 
 you very well know, of counting twenty pounds, 
 if thrown in a promiscuous heap of the differ- 
 ent British coins : nevertheless, he was ap- 
 pointed to preside at the Exchequer, to con- 
 trive ways and means, and to run through the 
 combinations of finance, without the know- 
 ledge of arithmetick which is necessary to an 
 overseer of the poor. And what was the con- 
 sequence ? The whole nation was upon the 
 titter during his short-lived administration ; 
 nor does any visitor of Hagley House pass 
 through the room which is adorned with the
 
 190 
 
 Exchequer strong-box, but beholds the emp* 
 ty badge and sad memorial of his ministerial 
 honours with a significant look of wonder, or 
 shrug of disapprobation. 
 
 The sage physician endeavours to melior- 
 ate, but not to change, the constitution of his 
 patient, and infuses, by degrees, those whole- 
 some aids which may help to lessen its infirm- 
 ities. The same wise conduct should be pur- 
 sued in the care of mental health ; and to aim 
 at turning the natural bent of genius is an ap- 
 plication of moral quackery, which will de- 
 stroy all fervour of ability, administer an opi- 
 ate to the faculties of mind, bring on apathy 
 and torpour, and destroy all intellectual nerve 
 for ever. 
 
 Adieu, &c.
 
 191 
 
 LETTER XLIIL 
 
 I TAKE the opportunity of a sober hour, 
 while every one of the society here, except 
 myself, is happy in the delirium of a fox- 
 chase, to tell you where I am, what I am a- 
 bout, and with whom engaged. The spleen 
 of a gloomy day seized upon my spirits ; so I 
 ordered my chaise, and sought the enlivening 
 hospitality of this mansion. To increase our 
 satisfaction, who should arrive an hour after 
 me but your clerical friend, whose blunt sim- 
 plicity and unpolished benevolence afforded 
 their usual entertainment. Parson Adams 
 for he has no other name within these walls 
 came on Thursday to dinner, and continu- 
 ed with us, in much joy of heart, till Satur- 
 day afternoon ; when, suddenly awaking from 
 a kind of snoring doze, he made a most vo- 
 ciferous and unexpected demand if it was not 
 the last day of the week ; and receiving, after 
 some pause of astonishment and laughter, an 
 answer in the affirmative, he arose in haste, 
 examined his pockets with a most anxious vi?
 
 vacity, and then broke the cordage of the 
 bell, in the violence of ringing it. Being re- 
 quested to explain the meaning of all this 
 agitation, he observed, in a tone of voice 
 which betokened no small disappointment, 
 that as, in truth, it was Saturday, the mor- 
 row must, in the natural order of time, be 
 Sunday ; and as Sunday was the Sabbath- 
 day, it was fitting he should immediately re- 
 turn home, to prepare himself for the duties 
 of it. The night approached and threatened 
 darkness ; it was, therefore, proposed to him to 
 retake the possession of his arm-chair, nor to 
 think of business till the next morning. " My 
 " good friends," replied the Doctor, " it be 
 " comes me to inform you, that my habita- 
 " tion is fourteen miles distant, and that the 
 " church, where I am to officiate to-morrow 
 " morning, is exactly in the mid-way ; so that, 
 " if I remain here till the time you propose, 
 " I must ride fourteen miles to fetch a ser- 
 " mon, return seven of the same miles to 
 " preach it, and then go over these individual 
 " seven miles for the third time to preach the 
 " same sermon again, which I take, accord- 
 " ing to common arithmetick, to be no less 
 " than twenty-eight miles ; and all this riding, 
 "with double duty, will be too much both
 
 193 
 
 " for man and beast. I really thought," con- 
 tinued our Divine, " that I had equipped my- 
 " self with a sermon, in order to make the 
 " first church an half-way house on my re- 
 " turn to my own parish ; but I have either 
 " forgot to clap my divinity in my pocket, or 
 " I took it out accidentally with my tobacco- 
 " box in my way, and have unfortunately 
 "dropped it in the road." He then emptied 
 all his pockets one by one, not forgetting the 
 side-pocket of his breeches, turned them in- 
 side out, covered the floor with a quanity of 
 dry crumbs of bread and cheese, looked into 
 his tobacco-box, took his. watch from his fob, 
 poked down two of his flhgers, examined the 
 lining of his coat, and, at length,, with a deep 
 sigh, and an huge expectoration upon his 
 handkerchief^ which he had thrown upon the 
 ground, he gave it up for lost. u It was" saic| 
 he, " the best discourse I had to my back, and 
 " as pretty a piece of supernaculum as eves 
 " was enclosed in black covers. It was divid- 
 " ed," continued he, " into three parts ; the 
 " first was taken from Clarke, the second from 
 " Aberntfhy\ and the third was composed by 
 " myself; and the two practical observations 
 " were translated from a Latin sermon preach- 
 " ed and printed at Oxford, in the year of our 
 
 A a
 
 194 
 
 " Lerd 1735." On my observing that his dis- 
 course had as many heads as Cerbtrus, he 
 grew warm, and told me it was much better 
 to have three heads than none at all. " But," 
 added the Doctor, " if you wish to know more 
 " of the matter, it had four beginnings, and 
 *' seven conclusions ; by the help whereof I 
 " preached it, with equal success, on a Christ- 
 " mas-day, for the benefit of a charity, at a 
 " florist's feast, an assize, an arch-deacon's 
 " visitation, and a funeral, besides common 
 " occasions." On this account, F observ- 
 ed that it put him in mind of the mention made, 
 in Tristram Shandy, of a text which would 
 suit any sermon, arfti a sermon which would 
 suit any text. This the zealous preacher loud- 
 ly declared was a false insinuation ; for that 
 his text was steady to its post, nor had ever 
 deserted it ; and that whoever took him for 
 a man who would hold out a false flag, or 
 change his colours, on any occasion, mistook 
 his character, and did him a very sensible in- 
 justice. At this period, the master of the 
 house returned from a quiet but fruitless ex- 
 amination of his book-case, for the purpose 
 of finding, perchance, some old printed ser- 
 mon which might have served the Doctor's 
 purpose, prolonged the pleasure of his socie-
 
 195 
 
 ty, and saved him his dark and dangerous 
 journey. On this disappointment, I ventured 
 to remark, that, as he had given us so many 
 agreeable specimens of his ready eloquence, 
 it was certainly in his power to treat his flock 
 with an extempore discourse ; and I strongly 
 recommended him to adopt my idea, when he 
 struck me dumb, by hinting to me, in a loud 
 significant whisper, that I was mistaken in 
 supposing it to be as easy a business to preach 
 a sensible discourse on a divine subject, ex- 
 tempore, in a pulpit, as to talk a precipitate 
 hour of flowery, frothy nonsense, on a polit- 
 ical one, in the Parliament House. At this 
 moment of superiority his horse was announc- 
 ed, and we all attended to hear, rather than 
 to see him depart, which he did with much 
 horse language, and in a night of triple dark- 
 ness. 
 
 It was now seven o'clock ; our spirits were 
 fled with the parson : we gambled a little, but 
 not with sufficient spirit to keep us awake, 
 till at length supper fortunately arrived to 
 change the scene ; and I had scarce dissect- 
 ed the wing of a capon, when we were all 
 alarmed by a voice from the court, which re- 
 peated the cry of " house ! house !" with un- 
 common vehemence. We left the table and
 
 196 
 
 hurried to the hall-door, when the same voice 
 demanded, in the same tone, whether that 
 was the road to Bridgenorth ? On a reply in 
 the negative, it continued, " I suppose, then, 
 " I am at Davenport House." On a second 
 reply in the negative, " Then where the devil 
 am I ?" returned the voice, for we could see 
 nothing ; but the candles arriving, who should 
 appear but our unfortunate Doctor, who, af- 
 ter wandering about the commons for upwards 
 of three hours, had, by mere chance, return- 
 ed to us again. We received him in triumph, 
 placed him at the head of the table, where, 
 without grace or apology, or indeed uttering 
 a single word, he seized on the best part of a 
 fowl, with a proportionable quantity of ham, 
 and left us to laugh and be merry, while he 
 voraciously devoured his meat, and held his 
 tongue. At length, observing that his clay 
 wanted moistening, and that punch was a flu- 
 id the best adapted of any other to his soil, 
 he did not delay an instant to quench his 
 thirsty frame from a large bowl of that re- 
 freshing beverage. The cords of his tongue 
 were now loosened, and he informed us, thai 
 Providence, having, as he supposed, for wise 
 and good purposes, intimated to him, by a va- 
 riety of obstructions, that he should not dis*
 
 charge his usual functions on the morrow, it 
 became him to shew a due resignation to the 
 will of Heaven, and, therefore, he should send 
 his flocks to grass on the approaching Sabbath. 
 In a similar strain he continued to entertain us, 
 till, wearied with laughter, we were glad to re- 
 tire. The next morning it was hinted to him 
 that the company did not wish to restrain him 
 from attending upon the divine service of the 
 parish : but he declared that it would be add- 
 ing contempt to neglect, if, when he had ab- 
 sented himself from his own churches, he 
 should go to any other. This curious etiquette 
 he strictly observed ; and we passed a Sabbath, 
 contrary, I fear, both to law and gospel. 
 
 In the fulness of his heart, our divine has 
 given us an invitation to dine with him at his 
 parsonage on Thursday next. I expect infi- 
 nite entertainment from the party ; and you 
 may depend, by the succeeding post, to re- 
 ceive the best hash of it which the cookery 
 of my pen can afford you. In the mean time, 
 and at all times, I remain 
 
 Your's most affectionately.
 
 198 
 
 LETTER XL1P. 
 
 THE visit is paid, and more than an- 
 swered the warmest expectations which could 
 be formed in its favour. Our Reverend Host 
 had insisted, not a la mode de Scarron, that 
 each of his guests should bring his dish, but 
 that they should individually name it. This 
 easy preliminary was readily complied with, 
 and it was my lot to give birth to as excel- 
 lent a plumb-pudding as ever smoked upon 
 a table ; which, from my adoption, he is re- 
 solved, in future, to call a Lyttleton. You 
 see what honours wait upon me, and to what 
 
 solid excellence my title is assimilated. F 
 
 had named a goose, which he immediately 
 christened after its godfather, who did not 
 quite relish the joke, and could hardly force 
 a laugh, when the rest of the company were 
 bursting. The whole meal was a very com- 
 fortable one ; and the Doctor produced us no 
 small quantity of very tolerable wine : his 
 punch was grateful to the nostrils ; but he had 
 made it in a large pewter vessel, so like a two
 
 199 
 
 handled chamber-pot, that my resolution was 
 not equal to the applying of it to my palate. 
 
 On its being observed that -he must have 
 taken no small pains to procure all the good 
 things before us, he declared that no trouble 
 had attended any one article but the pudding, 
 whiCH, he said, had almost destroyed a pair 
 of black plush breeches, in riding round the 
 country to learn how it should be made in per- 
 fection. " You cannot be ignorant, my Lord," 
 continued our Divine, addressing himself par- 
 ticularly to me, "that .a plumb-pudding is no- 
 " thing more than a pudding, however it may 
 " be composed, with plumbs added to the oth- 
 " er ingredients ; but, apprehensive that the 
 " ordinary skill of our homely kitchens, in this 
 " particular, might not be agreeable to such 
 " refined palates as your's, I resolved to trav- 
 " erse the whole neighbourhood in order to 
 "obtain all ^necessary intelligence. Every 
 " learned person, to whom I applied, agreed, 
 " as your Lordship may suppose, in the es- 
 " sential articles of flour and water, milk and 
 " e gg s > suet an d plumbs, or raisins ; but the 
 " variety of other articles, which were seve- 
 tf rally recommended, filled two pages of my 
 ; memorandum-book, and drove me almost to 
 " despair. In the multitude of counsellors, I
 
 200 
 
 " did not, according to the proverb, find wis- 
 " dom, but confusion. I was successively, al- 
 " ternately, and separately advised the addi- 
 * 4 tion of rum, brandy, wine, strong beer, spices 
 " of every sort, chopped liver, and Holland's 
 " gin. With this load of multifarious intelli- 
 " gence, I hastened to the market town, fur- 
 " nished myself with every ingredient my own 
 " little store-house did not possess, and return* 
 " ed home jaded, fatigued, and my pockets lad- 
 " en with the produce of all quarters of the 
 " globe. Bufanother important labour," added 
 the Doctor, " succeeded in the consultation a- 
 " bout the choice and due mode of applying the 
 " hoard of grocery and variety of liquors which 
 " were displayed in form on the kitchen dres- 
 " ser : it was a solemn business, for the Lord 
 " had commanded it. Consultation, however, 
 " begot difference of opinion, and difference of 
 " opinion brought on dispute ; so that I was 
 " at length obliged to interpose my authority ; 
 " and, to shorten the business, I ordered all 
 " the various articles, consisting of more than 
 " a dozen in number, to be employed without 
 " favour or affection. The motley mixture 
 " was accordingly made, and, as every person 
 " consulted seemed to agree, that the longer 
 " it boiled the better it would prove, I ordered
 
 201 
 
 <* it to be put into the pot at midnight, and 
 " sent for a famous nurse in the neighbour* 
 " hood to sit up with it, and, with a vestal's 
 " vigilance, to keep in the fire till the family 
 " arose. In this state of concoction the pud- 
 " ding remained till after the arrival of this 
 " good company, who, I hope, will be so pre- 
 judiced in its favour, from the Herculean 
 " labour which produced it, as to attack its 
 " circumference with Herculean appetites." 
 Here ended the culinary oration, and, as I 
 before observed, the subject of it contained 
 unrivalled excellence ; and, though we laugh- 
 ed at it and over it, we did not fail to cause a 
 very apparent diminution of its ample dimen- 
 sions. Thus, my dear friend, we eat and 
 laughed, and drank and laughed, till night 
 stole imperceptibly upon us ; when our hos- 
 pitable host informed us, that he had two 
 beds and a cradle in his own house, and that 
 he had prepared three others at two neigh- 
 bouring farmers : so that we might be at rest, 
 as to our lodging, nor like him encounter the 
 perils of a darksome night. The squires, add- 
 ed he, must adjourn to my neighbours' ; my 
 two beds will serve the peer and the baronet, 
 and I myself will take to the cradle. Now, 
 this cradle, which caused us no little mirth,
 
 202 
 
 and will, I presume, have a similar effect up- 
 on you, who are acquainted with the huge 
 figure which was to occupy it this cradle, I 
 say, is a most excellent moveable for a small 
 house. It is made of a sufficient size to hold 
 an infant six feet in length, can be placed any 
 where, and will enable an hospitable spirit to 
 supply a friend with a lodging when his beds 
 are engaged. If I had not been fearful of af- 
 fronting our Divine, I should have indulged 
 my curious fancy by going to roost in it ; but 
 the best bed was prepared for me, and the 
 fine Holland sheets, which, probably, had not 
 been taken out of the sweet-scented press for 
 many a month, were spread for my repose : 
 nor would my slumbers have been suspended 
 for a moment, if the linen had not produced 
 so strong an effluvia of rosemary, that J al- 
 most fancied myself in a coffin, and wrapped 
 in a winding-sheet. But fatigue soon got the 
 better of fancy ; and I awoke the next morn- 
 ing to life and spirits, but not to immortality. 
 
 Before I bid you adieu, permit me to add a 
 singular example of complimentary repartee, 
 which our friendly host, very unexpectedly, 
 addressed to me, previous to our departure. 
 
 As I was looking out of the parlour win- 
 dow, from whence nothing is to be seen but
 
 a black, dreary heath, he asked me how 1 
 liked the prospect. I answered, that, from 
 its wild appearance, if Nebuchadnezzar had 
 been doomed to pasture in his environs, he 
 must have died of hunger. And if that 
 prince, replied the Doctor, had been sentenc- 
 ed to have passed his savage years in your 
 park at Hagley, he need not have regretted 
 the loss of a throne, or wished a return to 
 the . enjoyment of his human functions. At 
 this period of self-importance, which, in the 
 very description, returns upon me, you can- 
 not be surprized if I take my leave. 
 
 Adieu !
 
 LETTER XLF. 
 
 MY DEAR - , 
 
 IT gives me no small satisfaction to be 
 assured, that my two last letters have afforded 
 you the satisfaction it was their office to com- 
 municate. The rural Divine plays a most ad- 
 mirable part in the jovial interludes of pro- 
 vincial society. It is a pleasant circumstance 
 to meet occasionally with a man, whose hu 
 mour, sense, and foible are so blended, that, 
 while he possesses the pleasant mixture of 
 simplicity and vanity which bars him from 
 distinguishing when you laugh with him or at 
 him you may give a loose to the whole of 
 your mirthful dispositions, without any re- 
 straint from the fear of giving offence. Our 
 
 Reverend friend told B , that he is in no 
 
 small disgrace with his parishioners for enter- 
 taining so great a sinner as I am ; and that 
 
 one of them, who had seen me at Kiddermin- 
 
 ' 
 
 stcr, declares throughout the neighbourhood 
 that I have a cloven-foot. I am not without
 
 205 
 
 tny expectations that equal vouchers will be 
 produced for my tail and horns, and then the 
 devil will be complete. 
 
 At length, the grave and anxious occupa- 
 tions of worldly wisdom succeed to mirth and 
 jollity. The interest of money, and the value 
 of lives, together with trusts and securities, 
 are the subjects of my present meditations. 
 To explain myself, I am considering a plan 
 for easing my estate of the jointures to the 
 two dowager Lady Lyttletons for they are 
 both so in fact by making a purchase of e- 
 quivalent annuities for their valuable lives.- 
 Fortune has been kind to me, and I will for 
 once win your applause, by applying her gifts 
 to sensible purposes. To use a news-paper 
 species of portraiture, what think you of the 
 picture of a young nobleman offering the fa- 
 vours of fortune on the altar of wisdom, by 
 the present Lord Lyttleton ? If this idea 
 should be completed and, I assure you, the 
 dead colouring is disappearing apace will 
 you place the painting in the cabinet of your 
 mind, in the room of the picture which you 
 designed, and have so often retouched, of 
 that self-same nobleman sacrificing the gifts 
 of nature to folly, vice, and intemperance,
 
 I mist and believe, that a sordid thirst af- 
 ter money will never be added to the cata- 
 logue of my failings. It is true, that the love 
 of play proceeds from the desire of gain ; and 
 is, therefore, said to be founded on an avari- 
 cious principle. If this be fact, avarice is the 
 universal, passion; for I will venture to af- 
 firm, that, more or less, we are all gamesters 
 by nature. But the desire of winning money 
 for the sake of spending it, and encreasing 
 the joys of life, is one thing ; and the ardouf 
 of acquiring it, in order to lock it up, and 
 
 render it useless, is another. 
 
 
 
 Mahimdn, the !eait erected spirit tffst felt 
 
 From Heav'n : for e'en in Heav'n his loo' and thoughts 
 
 \Vere always downwards bent, admiring rnore 
 
 The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
 
 Than ought divine or holy else erjoy'U 
 
 la vision beatiUck. 
 
 I remain, most truly, Sec. 
 
 I cannot, at present, give a correct answer td 
 your enquiry ; but, from the recollection of 
 the moment, the only inscriptions written 
 or corrected by my father, in the Temple 
 f British worthies at Stow, are those be- 
 neath the Bustos of Locke, Pope, and Sir 
 yohn Barnard : but I .will take an opportu- 
 nity of satisfying you with a more accurato 
 information.
 
 207 
 
 LETTER XLFL 
 
 A >-, by no means, deserves your pity ; 
 
 and the conduct which I have, of late, used, 
 and*shall continue to use, towards him, arises 
 from my perfect knowledge of his character, 
 and the remembrance of his former treatment 
 of myself. I told you long ago, when my 
 bulrush hung its head, that, high as this gen- 
 tleman then bore himself, the time would 
 come when he would hang his head in his 
 turn, and bend his back for me to tread upon. 
 All this and more is now come to pass. 
 
 You express your surprize that he does not 
 discover some degree of resentment on the 
 occasion of his journey to Haglcy. The fever 
 of that business flushed him with no small 
 hope, and the succeeding ague shook him 
 with disappointment ; but he had the pru- 
 dence to conceal his symptoms, and I left 
 him to cure himself. He may bluster in a 
 guard-room with new-commissioned ensigns, 
 and, in the leisure of 'a tilt-yard duty, may 
 ve fanciful wreaths of future farae : nay,
 
 209 
 
 he may venture to give his name to the world 
 in a news-paper, or the title-page of a miser- 
 able poem ; but the prowess of our hero will 
 go no farther. If I were to bid him go to the 
 Pomona of Hocknel for a pippin, he would 
 not hesitate a moment, and would burn his 
 lingers willingly in roasting it ; and, when I 
 had eaten the pulp, he would content himself 
 with the core. 
 
 All this my little Greek exactly knowi ; 
 And bid iiiiu go to hell, to hell lie goes. 
 
 If, however, your obstinate humanity should 
 look towards such an object, have a little pa- 
 tience, and he will give you an opportunity 
 for the full exercise of it. I am in the secret ; 
 but I shall not gratify his vanity by betraying 
 it. After all, I find him convenient and to 
 my purpose. He is ready, submissive, and 
 not without amusement. If he were to die, 
 I should say with Shakespeare, I could have 
 better spared a better man. 
 
 At this moment, he is sitting on the other 
 side of my table, in the act of making some 
 of his own bad poetry worse, in which agree- 
 able business, I may, perhaps, be kind enough 
 to give him some assistance. You would not, 
 probably, have suspected him in so close a 
 vicinity to me ; but it is the fact : and v, hen I
 
 209 
 
 have folded up my letter, he shall enclose it 
 in its envelope ', and set the seal to this certifi- 
 cate of his own good qualities : nay, I will 
 make him direct it into the bargain. Your 
 pence, it is true, will suffer for this whim of 
 mine, but the revenue will be a gainer ; a cir- 
 cumstance which must satisfy you as a patri- 
 ot, on the truly political idea of making follies 
 productive to the state. You may observe, 
 however, and with some reason, that every 
 one should pay for his own. To such a re- 
 mark I have nothing to answer, but that I am 
 Your sincere and faithful, &c.
 
 GtO 
 
 LETTER XLVIt 
 
 I SHALL expect you with impatience, 
 and am much flattered that you can leave the 
 
 society of your friend C for the sake of 
 
 yielding to my solicitations. Is it beyond the 
 reach of your influence to persuade him to 
 accompany you ? I am apprehensive, that he 
 may have some scruples in being a guest of 
 mine ; but, if he will accord me that honour, 
 I will assume the virtue, though I have it 
 not, and he shall find nothing chez moi which 
 shall give the least offence to the tranquil pu- 
 rity of his character. Perhaps you will be 
 my guarantee upon the occasion. We were 
 at Eton together, though not in any particu- 
 lar intimacy ; and since that time I had once 
 the pleasure of dining with him. I happened 
 by chance to be present when he proposed to 
 give an Etonian dinner : his politeness led 
 him to invite me and the party was most 
 pleasant and classical. A particular circum- 
 stance of it I shall never forget. One of the 
 company, who had done honour to his table
 
 by indulging a very voracious appetite, wheti 
 the desert was served, thought proper to re- 
 collect the deficiency of a dish of fish which 
 had been promised him, and, in the true vein 
 of gorged disappointment, reproached your 
 friend for his forgetfulness. The reply was 
 singular, affecting, and, to the best of my re- 
 collection, as follows : " When I met you this 
 
 *' morning," said Mr. C , " I was proceed- 
 
 " ing to Temple-bar for the purpose of expend- 
 " ing an allotted trifle on a Turbot ; but, a 
 " few minutes after, I received an unwilling 
 " application from a very distressed person, 
 " to whom a guinea was far more necessary 
 " than the addition of one particular dish to a 
 " plentiful dinner would be to you, and you 
 " very well know the strict regulations of my 
 " Exchequer. It is true," continued he, " that 
 4i you have lost your fish ; but it is equally 
 " true, that, from the same cause, a poor un- 
 " fortunate fellow-creature has -lost his despair. 
 " Besides, the relish of the Turbot must have 
 " long been superceded on your palate, and I 
 ' ; have added a pleasure to my heart which will 
 u last for ever." He expressed himself with 
 much more ease and simplicity than I have 
 done ; and I was so affected, that, had I then 
 enjoyed my present affluence, I should have
 
 212 
 
 instantly subscribed to hospitals, and gone a- 
 bout in search of doing good. But, alas ! these 
 thoughts, morally speaking, of my better days, 
 have been rendered fruitless in the succession 
 of evil habits ; and I know not where I ^.lall 
 find a restorative, unless the society of your 
 friend should renew its former influence over 
 me. 
 
 Another circumstance of a very different 
 nature occurs to me from the recollection of 
 that day's pleasure. Poor John Darner was 
 one of the company. He has made a strange 
 exit in a strange manner. We were at Eton 
 and in Italy together, and at subsequent peri- 
 ods in the habits of friendly connection. 
 Few of those who knew him have been more 
 gloomily affected by the melancholy event than 
 myself. I have been informed, that the King 
 has exerted his royal influence to prevent the 
 publication of David Hume's posthumous trea- 
 tise in defence of self-murder. I am well con- 
 vinced that his Majesty has acted with his ac- 
 customed regard to the welfare of his people, 
 in procuring the suppression of a work dan- 
 gerous to society, and in direct opposition to 
 evangelical precept: but, for my own part, I 
 cannot conceive, that any man, in this period 
 of the world, could ever be argued into putt-
 
 ing a willing end to his existence, unless some 
 circumstances of ill-fortune, some malady of 
 the mind, or some torturing disease of the bo- 
 dy more than co-operated with the arguments 
 of the reasoning fatalist. Montesquieu does 
 not write like himself upon the subject; and 
 Rousseau, who seems purposely not to answer 
 his own arguments in favour of suicide, de- 
 fends it with sentiment instead of reason. : 
 Many examples are given, in the works of dif- 
 ferent writers, of amazing coolness in the act 
 of self-destruction, which represent the stroke 
 as having been given in youth, health, and 
 prosperity. I cannot trust to appearances in 
 these or any similar examples ; nor can I be-, 
 lieve, that the mens sana in corpore sano, with 
 the comforts of life, ever could submit to an 
 act of such dreadful uncertainty. I have, 
 sometimes, taken up the argument in favour 
 of self-murder, by way of supporting an opin- 
 ion, exercising a talent, or convincing a fool ; 
 but I will honestly acknowledge, that the 
 weakest of my antagonists have ever got the 
 better of me on this subject, though I might 
 not perhaps publish my conviction. Virgil's 
 picture of the after-misery of those whose 
 hands have given a prematurity to their end.
 
 214 
 
 would stagger the utmost sophistry of erring 
 reason. 
 
 -Quatn vellent sctherc in alto 
 
 Paupcriem paii et duros perferre labores ! 
 
 Despair, as it arises from very different and 
 opposite causes, has various and distinct ap- 
 pearances. It has its rage, its gloom, and its 
 indifference ; and while, under the former, its 
 operations acquire the name of madness, un- 
 der the latter it bears the title of philosophy. 
 Poor yohn Darner was no philosopher, and 
 yet he seems to have taken his leap in the 
 dark with the marks both of an Epicurean and 
 a Stoick. He acted his part with coolness, 
 and sought his preparation in the mirth of a 
 brothel. 
 
 This is an awful subject ; and, in casting 
 my eye over what I have hastily written upon 
 it, I observe some inaccuracies which I should 
 be glad to correct. But it is not my office, 
 nor is it in my pretensions, to instruct you. 
 When you are here, I will amuse you with a 
 pamphlet, which, without that particular view, 
 is a complete physical, or rather anatomical, 
 reply to those who defend the right of self- 
 murder. It is a treatise on the Ganglions of 
 the Nerves, by a Doctor Johnstone, a physi- 
 cian in my neighbourhood. It is written with
 
 215 
 
 the pen of a scholar, and possesses through- 
 out a most perspicuous ingenuity. This gen- 
 tleman attended my father in his last illness ; 
 and was not only his physician, but his con- 
 fessor. 
 
 Your letter to me consists of four lines, and 
 I have returned as many page". This kind 
 of illegal interest is not after my usual fash- 
 ion ; but your kindness deserves an hundred 
 fold from 
 
 Your affectionate, &c.
 
 LETTER XLFIII. 
 
 YOU are not the only one of my many 
 criticising friends, who have expressed their 
 surprize at my taking so kindly to the Surry 
 Dell, and becoming so dead to rural magnifi- 
 cence as to neglect Hagley's gaudy scene and 
 
 proud domain. C H , in one of her 
 
 visits to this place, told me that I looked like 
 a toad in a hole. Be that as it may, it is 
 shady, elegant, convenient, luxuriant, and 
 snug ; a term peculiar to English comfort, and 
 not translated into any other language. Be- 
 sides, a villa is a necessary appendage to that 
 rank whose dignity you so often recommend 
 me to maintain ; and in what spot could a Brit- 
 ish peer find a more delightful retreat than 
 mine, to solace himself in the interval of pub- 
 lick duty ? Or where is the JEgerian grot, in 
 whose auspicious solitude he could better hold 
 his secret counsels with the guardian Genius 
 of his country. But, badinage apart, its vi- 
 cinity to the metropolis is one of its principal 
 recommendations ; and, to a man of my ten-
 
 217 
 
 dencies, a cottage at Pimlico is preferable to a 
 palace in the distant counties. Here I .find 
 no inconvenience in. a rainy day : the means 
 of dissipating a gloomy temper are within my 
 beckon. If I wish to be alone, I can shut my 
 gates and exclude the world ; or, if I want 
 society, my post-chaise will quickly bear me 
 hence, or fetch it here. On the contrary 
 Haglty, which is certainly an Elysian scene, 
 uniting in itself grandeur, beauty, and conve- 
 nience, does not possess any of these advan, 
 tages ; and I might die there of ennui, before 
 any thing like the necessary remedy could be 
 found. In that spot, all delightful as it is, I 
 cannot enjoy the advantage of the society 
 which I prefer ; nor, when I am tired of com- 
 pany, is it possible for me to be alone. The 
 neighbourhood is extremely populous ; manu- 
 facturing towns surround me on all sides j 
 turn-pike roads environ me ; and the prospect 
 from every window in my house glares with 
 such a variety of intruding objects, that I 
 have been often thankful to the shades oi 
 night for giving me to tranquillity and to my- 
 self. Besides, the parish-church is in my 
 park; and I have more than once awoke from 
 brilliant dreams, by the cackling of gossips irt 
 full trot to a christening ; nay, I have some- 
 
 D D
 
 218 
 
 times shuddered to see on my splendid lawns 
 the dirges due and sad array of the ru stick fu- 
 neral. But this is not all. Coaches full of 
 travellers of all denominations, and troops of 
 holiday neighbours, are hourly chasing me from 
 my apartments, or, by strolling about the en- 
 virons, keep me a prisoner in it. The lord 
 of the place can never call it his for a day du- 
 ring the finer part of the year. Nor am I 
 proud, as others have been, of holding my- 
 self forth to the complimentary envy of those 
 who come to visit it. My pride is not of that 
 complexion ; and the consciousness of pos- 
 sessing the first place of its kind in Europe, 
 is a sufficient satisfaction to me, without shew- 
 ing any preference to it as a rural residence. 
 
 The little spot from whence I have the plea- 
 sure to address you, has won my fondest at- 
 tachment. H- left me this morning. We 
 
 passed the whole of yesterday evening in 
 searching into the nature of the soul, and con- 
 triving ways and means for the final dissolu- 
 tion of the world. We are neither of us 
 qualified to make any great figure in astrono- 
 my or metaphysicks ; nevertheless, we became 
 very familiar with the heavenly bodies, and 
 discoursed, with a most imposing gravity, on 
 matter and spirit. We exercised all our ingc-
 
 219 
 
 nuity to find out in what part of the human 
 frame the soul had fixed her abode, but were 
 totally unable to make the discovery, till our 
 friend, with his usual singularity of thought, 
 determined it to be in every part where there 
 is sensation, and, particularly, in those parts 
 where sensation is most exquisite. But, as it 
 is much easier to pull down systems than to 
 establish them, we destroyed the globe, and 
 all that it inherits, with surprising expedition. 
 A comet was seized upon by both of us, at 
 the same moment, as the engine to be employ- 
 ed in the tremendous conflagration. The con- 
 test for the originality of this idea was carried 
 on, with equal zeal between us, for some time, 
 which my antagonist concluded by introducing 
 another very interesting subject for enquiry: 
 Whether the great day of judgment was to 
 precede, accompany, or follow this great event 
 of the world's dissolution ? In the course of 
 his harangue, he rose to such a fervour of 
 thought, delivered such forcible language, and 
 intermingled such striking expressions from 
 the scriptures, that he grew pale beneath his 
 own conceptions. The alarm was contagious, 
 and made my blood curdle in its veins. I 
 verily believe, if a rattling thunder-storm had 
 immediately followed his oration^ that our
 
 -JO 
 
 confusion would have been too serious to have 
 admitted of an acknowledgment. The two 
 ladies, who composed our audience, were 
 thrown into such a terrour of mind, that I be- 
 gan to apprehend the evening's amusement 
 would have concluded in sending two hand- 
 some and useful women to the Magdalen. My 
 house, with all its advantages, is not calcula- 
 ted for the actual work of contrition, though 
 it may prepare the way for it ; and if such a 
 scene of repentance had really happened, it 
 would have constituted an sera in my life suf- 
 ficient to seduce the attention of mankind 
 frotji all the past singularities of it. 
 
 I remain,
 
 221 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 I HAVE obeyed your commands, 
 read, with a very continued attention, Des 
 Recherchcs sur le Despotisme Oriental. The 
 author is a person of considerable erudition, 
 active thought, and lively imagination. He 
 steers his vessel with no common address on 
 the ocean of conjecture, and I have beheld 
 his course with much admiration.- But though 
 he may help to forward an advanced progress 
 in infidelity, I cannot natter him with the 
 supposition that he alone has ever made an 
 infidel. The paradox of primitive theocra- 
 cies, I believe, is not a new one, though he 
 may have given it a novelty of examination, 
 and branched it forth into a variety of new 
 ramifications. A writer, who strikes at the 
 very root of sacred history, which has been 
 an object of faith to so great a part of the 
 
 more enlightened world for such a course of 
 ages, and possesses the support of collateral 
 tradition, as well as a supernatural strength 
 of internal evidence such an author, I say, 
 should produce something more than hypothe-
 
 sis, though supported by the most colossal 
 strength of human erudition : nay, it may not 
 be the least, among the many arguments, in 
 favour of the sacred writings, that nothing 
 but hypothesis can be brought against them. 
 A faith of some thousand years is not to be 
 destroyed by the elaborate, but artificial con- 
 jectures of a modern infidel. I will oppose 
 to your ingenious Frenchman the learned Mr. 
 Bryant^ of our own country, whose late splen- 
 did publication is an honour to our age and 
 nation. The Gallic infidel must sink into 
 nothing before the veteran abilities of our 
 English believer. These casual thoughts, my 
 dear friend, are my own ; and you may be 
 assured, that I have not stolen them from any 
 pious page of my father's manuscript lucu- 
 brations. 
 
 But I shall quit a subject, which is not in 
 the ordinary line of my enquiries, and whereon 
 I can only hazard a few occasional thoughts, 
 from the uninformed reflections of the mo- 
 ment, to thank you for the very judicious and 
 elegant manuscript which you have intrusted 
 to my perusal. It has all my praise. The 
 dialogue is natural ; the language chaste ; the 
 characters finely discriminated ; the sentiments 
 admirably appropriated ; and the moral, if I 
 may use the expression, irresistibly proposed
 
 223 
 
 to the business and bosom of the reader. I 
 will hope that you will continue to gild your 
 leisure-hours with such delightful amuse- 
 ments, and that your philanthropick spirit will 
 give them to instruct and improve mankind. 
 
 What think you of bringing Mrs. Montagu 
 and Miss Carter upon your charming theatre? 
 The similarity of those ladies' characters in 
 some points, and their dissimilitude in others, 
 would be finely portrayed by your pen, and 
 might give you an opportunity of determining 
 the just merits and standard of a literary fe- 
 male. The one is an highly-instructed, ac- 
 complished woman, possessed of great afflu- 
 ence, who indulges herself in a chaste display 
 of fashionable as well as literary elegance, 
 makes her drawing-room the Lyceum of the 
 day, maintains a luxurious hospitality for the 
 votaries of that science which she loves, and 
 patronizes the learning which she herself has 
 adorned. The other, in a state of contented 
 mediocrity, is humble as though she knew 
 nothing, while she is not only the most learned 
 woman of any age, but one of the most learn- 
 ed persons of that in which she lives. The 
 pure, sublime genius, which never swerves 
 from virtue, accompanies her in the paths of 
 rigid discretion, and is contented to slumber,
 
 224 
 
 while its favourite votary is employed in the 
 daily, habitual exercise of domestick duties. 
 This colloquy should take place between Jus- 
 tice, accompanied by Vanity enforcing reward, 
 and Merit attended by Modesty, who will 
 scarce suffer an acceptance. They must be 
 made to contend, not for their own, but each 
 other's genius and virtue ; and the scene may 
 conclude with a well-decorated notice of that 
 handsome independence which the former has 
 attached to the valuable life of the latter. The 
 whole, in your hands, will form a most enter- 
 taining, instructive, and exemplary picture. 
 Forgive my impertinence, I beseech you ; 
 but the idea came across me, and I could not 
 resist the vanity of offering it to you. 
 
 After all, except in some few instances, I 
 am not very partial to literacy ladies : they are, 
 generally, of an impertinent, encroaching dis- 
 position ; and almost always bring to my mind 
 the female astronomer, who, after applying 
 her nocturnal telescope, for a long series of 
 months, and had raised the jealousy, as well 
 as the expectations, of the male star-gazers, 
 declared her only object was to discover if 
 there were men in the moon. 
 
 I am, with great regard 
 
 and admiration, &...
 
 225 
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 MY DEAR LORD, 
 
 I AM not so dull of apprehension as to 
 be deceived by your elegant irony on the 
 drawings of naked figures which you have ac- 
 cidentally seen in their preparation for my 
 cabinet. As works of art they have a claim 
 to real admiration, as being exquisite copies 
 of nature in her most beautiful and interesting 
 appearance. This you readily acknowledge ; 
 but seem rather to hint at the very great im- 
 propriety of suffering such representations to 
 be held forth to publick view. In the applica- 
 tion, at least, this idea of your Lordship's is 
 somewhat erroneous : these designs are des- 
 tined to be the ornaments of my private dress- 
 ing room, sanctum sanctorum^ into which they 
 alone are admitted, whose steady virtue or ex- 
 perience of the world will enable them to look, 
 without any immoral sensation, on the works 
 of a far more lascivious pencil than that which 
 I have employed. 
 
 K F,
 
 226 
 
 The arguments which you have directed 
 against my drawings, might be turned, with 
 no small success, against the creative arts of 
 painting and sculpture. I really feel a vast 
 weight of matter rushing upon me ; but, for 
 your sake, I will resist its impulse, and ac- 
 knowledge with you, that a different species of 
 decoration is more suitable to common apart- 
 ments, where promiscuous companies of ei- 
 ther sez and every age are received ; though 
 a copy of Titian's Venus and the naked boys 
 of Dominic/lino grace your with-drawing- 
 room; not forgetting the sacrifice to Priapus, 
 which is a principal ornament of your library. 
 You have had the precaution, it is true, to 
 hang a curtain before the former, which, I do 
 insist, by tempting the guess of curious and 
 sportive fancies, to say no worse, is a more 
 actual promoter of blushing reflections, than 
 the most open exposure of those naked charms 
 that are obscured by it. Indeed, my Lord, 
 your's is a false delicacy as applied to me, and 
 unjust as proceeding from one who is himself 
 guilty of similar and even worse practices. I 
 really should have supposed, that an enthusi- 
 asm for the fine arts, and the repeated tour of 
 Italy, would have taught you better. The 
 etegantiutn formarum spectator is a character.
 
 227 
 
 that, I should imagine, would ever command 
 your esteem : nor could it have entered into 
 my belief, that you, who look with such fre- 
 quent admiration on your fine set of engrav- 
 ings after, if I mistake not, the Duke of Marl- 
 borough's valuable cabinet of antique gems, 
 would have ventured at any thing like a re- 
 monstrance on my far more inanimate seraglio. 
 The unfledged youth, who begins to feel 
 an unknown something running through his 
 veins, for a short time might be affected by 
 such unveiled representations ; but to men of 
 our age and experience, they would rather 
 serve to create indifference, by continually 
 presenting to us images of those objects, 
 whose novelty is one of the principal causes 
 of their influence upon us. Some of the an- 
 cient nations exhibited the different sexes na- 
 ked to each other, in order to smother that in- 
 flammatory sensibility of nature, which you 
 suppose the paintings of naked beauty, con- 
 tinually before my eyes, must be capable of 
 continually inspiring. Upon my word, you 
 give me a combustible temparament which I 
 do not possess ; and, if you judge of me, in 
 this particular, from yourself, I give your 
 Lordship joy of the very great advantage you 
 have over me. Without entering" further into
 
 the argument, which, if duly pursued, of a 
 moderate letter would make a long treatise, I 
 shall only observe, that the mode of dress, 
 now adopted by our women of fashion, is 
 more seducing and inflammatory, and has a 
 more direct tendency to call forth loose affec- 
 tions in our sex, than any painted represen- 
 tation of female beauty, though finished by 
 the exquisite pencil of Titian himself. Your 
 Lordship's Venus reposes, with little interrup- 
 tion, behind her curtain ; while the ladies of 
 the world unfold to every eye that share of 
 their charms which are best calculated to se- 
 duce it, and to fill the fancy with the idea of 
 more winning beauties, which the mantle of 
 lashion does not, as yet, disdain to cover. 
 
 I called at your door to laugh with you up- 
 on the subject of your reproof; and, though 
 you had taken your flight to Bath, I was re- 
 solved that you should not escape me. Per- 
 haps you have not heard of Cosway's misfor- 
 tune. In a pitched battle with his monkey, 
 he has been completely worsted, and now 
 keeps his bed from the wounds he received in 
 the combat. I have, however, the pleasure 
 to tell you, that the hand of your little Ra- 
 phael has escaped the fury of his antagonist, 
 and is still reserved to delight every lover of
 
 its art ; but, as there is a grievous laceration 
 in one of his legs, there is some reason to 
 fear that the important strut may be lost for 
 ever. 
 
 I am, with great regard,
 
 230 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 I PLEAD guilty to a very trifling part of 
 the charge which you bring against me ; but 
 I peremptorily deny that the accusing lady is 
 a woman of virtue. Do you believe that 
 every wife, who does not advance into the 
 guilt of adultery, is a virtuous character ? Is 
 it your opinion, that every unmarried lady, 
 who does not keep an handsome footman, or 
 make an occasional retreat into the country, to 
 drink ass's milk for a dropsy, has a right to 
 boast of chastity ? Alas ! sir, I know many 
 of these, and hear daily of more, who, though 
 they have not been guilty of what is pre-emi- 
 nently called a criminal deviation from the 
 nuptial vow or virgin honour, possess more 
 unchaste minds, than many of those forlorn 
 wretches who gain their daily bread by the 
 miserable trade of nocturnal prostitution. 
 
 Your artful, angry, or disappointed rela- 
 tion (for I have not yet decided which of these 
 epithets is most applicable to her present sit-
 
 231 
 
 tiation) makes out a strange and horrid story 
 from the ordinary occurrence of an accidental 
 half-hour's tete a tete. I found her, par haz- 
 ard, alone, and in those spirits which seem- 
 ed to ask for that kind of libcnme-badinage^ 
 which in her more sober humour would not 
 have been exerted. The idle raillery was par- 
 ried by her with much skill and coquetry : 
 she neither retired into another room, nor 
 rung for a servant to show me the door, or 
 even discovered a gleam of disapprobation by 
 a moment's gravity. On the contrary, she 
 pressed my longer stay, and at my departure 
 reproached me for the infrequency of my 
 visits. But, stung with the mortification that 
 her upbraidings were thrown away (excuse, 
 I beseech you, the necessary vanity of my 
 justification) she has thought proper to cry 
 aloud against me, to revenge what she might 
 consider as a neglect, or, perhaps, to make 
 the world believe that she was still capable of 
 inspiring such a violence of passion, which in 
 her history so irresistably impelled me to 
 make an adventurous attack upon her virtue. 
 It really concerns me, that you should be, at 
 once, the engine of her malicious rage, and 
 the dupe of your own amiable credulity. Her 
 threats, though they were to take her own
 
 232 
 
 shape, would not alarm me ; but she knows 
 too much of the wicked world to put them in 
 execution believe me, my friend, she will 
 not give her many enemies such advantage 
 over her. 
 
 I shall plead guilty, in a more general man- 
 ner, to another charge which your accusing 
 spirit has brought against me that I have a 
 decided ill opinion of our co-temporary wo- 
 men in high life. The corruption of the pres- 
 ent times is in no degree so strongly marked 
 as by the modern profligacy of female man- 
 ners. Examine the catalogue of those ladies, 
 whose rank, beauty, accomplishments, or for- 
 tune, give them an influence in the great world, 
 and then tell me what you think of the pres- 
 ent state of superiour female character. Is 
 their rank employed to give an example to the 
 inferiour orders ? Is their beauty exerted in 
 the various services of virtue ? Are their ac- 
 complishments exercised in confirming and 
 prolonging the duration of virtuous affection ? 
 And is their fortune taxed with relief to pov- 
 erty, encouragement to arts, or protection to 
 science, otherwise than in subservience to the 
 caprices of fashion ? Is a simplicity of char- 
 acter visible in female youth after fourteen 
 years of age ? And does not the reign of co-
 
 238 
 
 quetry commence before, and often times long 
 before, that period ? Trace the course of fash- 
 ionable education from the cradle to the altar ; 
 examine with attention the efforts and views 
 of maternal tenderness, in the circle of your 
 own society ; and tell me where is that per- 
 fection of female character to be found for 
 it might every where exist which can awe 
 the most dissolute into respect and admiration ? 
 You must very well know, that the passion of 
 the most impassioned is very rarely indeed 
 so irresistible as to inflame with the design of 
 carrying the fortress of chastity by a coup de 
 main ; and when such attempts are made, it 
 is some visible breach in the out-works which 
 encourages to that fierce mode of conquest* 
 A chaste, virtuous woman is an awful char- 
 acter : something supernatural seems to sur- 
 round and shroud her from the profane ap- 
 proaches of seduction. Innocence may be 
 seduced, and ignorance may be deceived ; but 
 chastity, founded on the firm basis of pure 
 virtue, holds forth to the eye of the most art- 
 ful, as well as the most rampant lust, the re- 
 pulsive evidence of impregnable security. 
 
 You must well remember where we dined 
 together not many weeks ago ; nor can it have 
 been possible for you to forget the friendly ap-
 
 234 
 
 prehensions which our hostess expressed lest 
 the House of Commons should detain Mr. 
 
 , as she was sure Lady would not be 
 
 in tolerable humour if he was not of the par- 
 ty. At length, however, they both came, 
 were carefully placed together at table, and 
 seemed in perfect contentment. Now, all this 
 pretty business was managed in chaste society, 
 and in a virtuous house ; nevertheless, it ap- 
 peared to me, that the mistress of it, even in 
 the presence of her daughters, did little less 
 than promote the progress of adultery. This, 
 you see, is so common an arrangement, that 
 Mrs. - , who holds herself forth as a wo- 
 man of renowned discretion, considered it as 
 a matter of course. I wonder much that you 
 will suffer such rare virtue, as dwells in that 
 most amiable woman whom you possess, to 
 risk the taint, of such societies. 
 
 I would forgive the artifice of dress, and 
 the little hypocrisies of personal decoration ; 
 they originate from a desire to please, and can 
 never produce any fatality of deception : but 
 the wearing a mask upon the mind, and the 
 giving a falacious appearance to character, is 
 a forgery that becomes oftentimes more fatal 
 to happiness and honour, than a crime of the 
 same title which never finds mercy. How
 
 many women are there now flaunting about 
 our world, who have made use of the falsest 
 pretences to obtain a settlement and an hus- 
 band; and, when they have succeeded, not 
 only throw aside the painted veil which cover- 
 ed them, but laugh at the poor hapless dupe 
 who reproaches their duplicity ! 
 
 They daub their tempers o'er with washes 
 As artificial as tl.e'.r faces j 
 
 and while some of them condescend to appear 
 charming, both in mind and person, to all the 
 world, poor Benedick, who possesses the en- 
 vied privilege of going behind the curtain, a- 
 lone sees the decomposition of that beauty and 
 virtue which leaves not a look or a wish to 
 please behind them. 
 
 That excellent woman, whom you have the 
 supreme happiness to call your own, is, as I 
 have been told, the only one of her sex who 
 deigns to say a word in my favour. The rea- 
 son, my dear sir, is evident : she is the only one 
 I know who possesses a sufficient share of real, 
 intrinsick virtue, to keep me, in her presence, 
 in the most patient and satisfactory decorum. 
 Those charms which, while they allure, cor- 
 rect, and, while they delight, improve, are of 
 rare growth ; and it becomes the interest of a 
 corrupt world to employ its contagion to their
 
 236 
 
 destruction. This is a language which you 
 might not expect from such an incorrigible sin- 
 ner as I am ; but believe me, it is that of all 
 the tribe when reason resumes her lucid in- 
 terval : and if the women of coquetry, vani- 
 ty, and intrigue, knew how much their most 
 devoted, admired, and familiar favourites, at 
 times despise and speak of them, they would 
 have recourse to the sincerity of virtue, to 
 obtain honest praise, real admiration, and so- 
 lid pleasure. 
 
 , It will afford me no small satisfaction to hear 
 that I have laid your spirit of censure, and 
 that on this subject at least it will haunt me no 
 more : for, though publick severity hardens me 
 more and more against publick opinion, I 
 should ever wish to justify myself to you, 
 
 when I possess the means of justification. 
 
 You will do me the favour to present my very 
 
 sincere respects to Mrs. , and receive 
 
 the affectionate regard of 
 
 Your faithful, &c.
 
 237 
 
 LETTER LIL 
 
 I WISHED, for many reasons, that you 
 could have accompanied me hither : but ano- 
 ther is now added to the number, by an un- 
 pleasant indisposition that has hung upon me 
 for some time ; and, though it does not keep 
 me at home, it deprives me of any and every 
 enjoyment when I go abroad. I want you to 
 console me, to assist my present tendency to 
 grave speculations, and to behold me an ex- 
 ample of your favorite proposition, that man 
 is a superstitious animal. A being continually 
 agitated by hopes and fears, is naturally dis- 
 posed to consider every trivial occurrence as 
 an omen of his good or evil fortune. The hot 
 and cold fits of life, from one or other of which 
 we are seldom free, keep the mind in that 
 tremulous state of suspense which makes rea- 
 son subservient to the sickly power of imagin- 
 ation. Common superstition is awakened by 
 the eager pursuit of the most common objects, 
 and is particularly visible in those who attend
 
 258 
 
 upon the nightly orgies of the god of game ; 
 where the force of lucky and unlucky omens 
 is strongly, as well as universally impressed. 
 
 Women, and men who resemble women, 
 are supposed, from extreme fear of disap- 
 pointment, to be very generally disposed to 
 the habit of drawing idle consequences from 
 every trivial event. But wherefore do I ven- 
 ture an imputation against the weaker sex, or 
 the less resolute part of my own, when a mo- 
 ment's reflection convinces me that the strong- 
 est mind cannot always resist the same influ- 
 ence ; and that it is not in the utmost perfec- 
 tion of human nature to boast a perfect supe- 
 riority over it. The wide extent of antiquity 
 is full of it : the flight of birds and the entrails 
 of beasts determined the fate of kings and 
 the prosperity of nations. The vision of the 
 night, and the awakening hour, gave a colour 
 of good or evil to the succeeding day ; and 
 the unwieldy code of proverbial wisdom is 
 indebted for its bulk to the liberal aid of preg- 
 nant superstition : nay, were I to explore the 
 modern and more rational system of late ages, 
 it would only be tracing a more extensive 
 chart of human credulity. 
 
 This propensity of the mind, which is tri- 
 lling and transitory in the course of ordinary
 
 259 
 
 occurrences, becomes a grievous and oppress- 
 ive weight, when, from the frowns of for- 
 tune, or the languors of disease, it passes 
 from this world to another. When the frame 
 begins to discover symptoms of decay, when 
 its pains and debility fix the gloomy idea of an 
 eternal separation upon a mind unused to sim- 
 ilar, or perhaps any serious contemplations, 
 there is no alternative but Stoical apathy or 
 fanciful superstition. I am not disposed to 
 admit the possibility of the former; or, at 
 least, it is beyond the reach of my nature to 
 attain it : I must, therefore, submit to the lat- 
 ter, and endeavour to shelter my weakness 
 under that of all mankind in all ages of the 
 world. 
 
 Will you believe me, when I tell you, that 
 in a morning's ride, which conducted me by 
 some of the tremendous fires employed in the 
 manufactories in my neighbourhood, I shud- 
 dered at the sight of their angry flames, and 
 expressed my sensations to the young lady I 
 accompanied, in such a manner, as to make 
 her cheek pale as my own ? It has been ob- 
 served by some wicked wit, and I believe by 
 Voltaire for the thought is of his cast that, 
 on the morning of the thirtieth of January, 
 every sovereign in Europe rises with a crick
 
 in his neck. Now, you may apply this idea, 
 for your amusement, to the alarms I have just 
 described. I am sinner enough to justify the 
 application, and am, at present, humble enough 
 to acknowledge the truth of it. The same 
 shrewd genius declared, when he was out of 
 humour with a certain race of kings, que tons, 
 les Bourbons craignent le diable : nevertheless, 
 (for I am determined to be even with him,) if 
 any credit is to be given to general and uniform 
 report, the lively satirist was himself subject 
 to certain fits of despondency, when he suf- 
 fered severely from similar apprehensions. 
 Mors instans mnnina majora facit. 
 
 Tranquillity, I am told, is absolutely neces- 
 sary for the restoration of my body ; but, in 
 submitting to the proposed remedy for my 
 corporal infirmities, I shall certainly acquire 
 all the horrours of intellectual disease, if you 
 do not hasten to console me. If you re- 
 fuse me your temporal comforts, I shall be 
 under the necessity of applying to the rever- 
 end John Wcstly (who, according to the Bir- 
 mingham paper, is preaching about the neigh- 
 bourhood,) to assist me with his spiritual 
 elixir. 
 
 was here last week, and happy 
 
 beyond expression in the full enjoyment of
 
 241 
 
 rural luxury ; but the beautiful scenes, which 
 filled his mind with such mad and mortifying 
 delight, are viewed, by my jaundiced eye, 
 with less than indifference : though, when he 
 exclaimed, 
 
 Rura mihi, et rigui placeant in vallibus amnesj 
 Flumina arnem sylvasque inglorius; 
 
 a moment's feeble inspiration enabled me to 
 add, 
 
 O ubi campi, 
 
 Sperchiusque, et virgivilnu bacchata Lacxnit 
 Taygeta ! 
 
 Adieu, and believe me, &c. &:c. 
 
 I have this moment received a letter ffcm 
 
 , which proves him to be the^iost un- 
 grateful villain in existence. This convic- 
 tion has, I believe, forced an unexpected 
 glow upon my wan countenance. It may 
 be for the best, that my immediate indispo- 
 sition prevents me from honouring the ras- 
 cal with a reproach. 
 
 , 
 
 G G
 
 LETTER LIIL 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 THE letter, which I had the pleasure 
 of receiving from you yesterday, afforded me 
 all the satisfaction I had so much reason to 
 expect from it. But as every good in this 
 world must have its alloy, it was accompanied 
 by one of those half-dictatorial epistles, which, 
 under the colour of friendly concern, and in 
 the garb of respectful language, contains no 
 small degree of concealed impertinence. A 
 certain relation of mine never fails to pester 
 me with a few of them, whenever I happen 
 to be in his debt. I had rather pay him ten 
 per cent, if he would spare his counsels, than 
 have the loan without interest and encumbered 
 with them. But this is not all ; for I am 
 obliged to play the hypocrite against the 
 grain, to acknowledge his goodness, to prom- 
 ise amendment, and so on.
 
 243 
 
 The last Paris jaunt ended unprontably ; 
 it emptied my purse, led me into difficulties, 
 and made me dependent where dependence is 
 particularly painful ; to which may be added 
 some scurvy treatment, which I do not like to 
 
 think of, and am sorry has got abroad. 
 
 ought to have cut the bully's throat, without 
 hesitation ; but he was a tranquil spectator of 
 the business, and had not the gratitude to risk 
 his own pitiful life to save my honour. 
 
 When I seriously reflect on the miseries of 
 dependence, by whatever name it may be dis- 
 tinguished, I cannot but admire the prudence, 
 and envy the disposition, of those men who 
 preserve themselves above it. I am convinced, 
 that no man can be happy, or honourable, 
 who does not proportionate his expenses to the 
 means he possesses : and if the phrase is sig- 
 nificant, that describes the man who pays ev- 
 ery body, as above the world, he, who has 
 disabled himself from pursuing the same con- 
 duct, must submit to the abject idea of being 
 beneath it. If your creditor is a shoe-m?,ker, 
 and you cannot discharge his bill, whatever 
 your rank may be, he becomes your superiour ; 
 and the moment you put it out of your power 
 to pay a servant his wages, he becomes your 
 master, and you must not only submit to his
 
 1^44 
 
 impertinence, but connive at his fraud, in or- 
 der to prevent this liveried creditor from mak- 
 ing his demands. I tell you honestly, that 
 the galled horse winces on the occasion, and 
 that my withers are most severely wrung. I 
 feel the grief so sensibly, that, if I had an 
 amanuensis at hand, I should like to patrol 
 my library, and dictate a discourse on worldly 
 prudence. The circumspect use of money, 
 arising, not from any avaricious principle, but 
 from the wise practice of applying means to 
 ends, will keep a man in that state of inde- 
 pendence which is the rock of life. On that 
 foundation he can stand firm, return the 
 haughty look, smile at the supercilious frown, 
 give truth its due force, and scorn the em- 
 broidered lie. You have a son ; and let me 
 advise you, while the smartings of the mo- 
 ment dictate the counsel, to instil into his ten- 
 der mind the lasting impression of a liberal 
 prudence, without which virtue is continually 
 harrassed by necessity, pleasure has but an 
 interrupted enjoyment, and life becomes a 
 chequered scene of agitation and distress. 
 
 -Quzrenda petunia primum j 
 
 Virtus post numinos.- 
 
 But this by the way. You inform me that 
 you every day expect an increase of your fam-
 
 iiy, which I very sincerely hope may prove 
 an addition to your happiness. However, I 
 cannot but think it a great mistake to make 
 merry over a creature who is born to the same 
 miseries as ourselves, who, the first moment 
 he draws the breath of life, is enrolled in the 
 register of death, and, from the womb, makes 
 swift and direct advances to the grave. I am 
 almost a convert to the practice of the Thra- 
 cians, who wept beside the cradle, and danced 
 around the tomb. These opinions will prob- 
 ably preclude any proposals to me from be- 
 coming a God-father. Mrs. once did 
 
 me the honour to hint something of that na- 
 ture : but I beg you to tell her, from your 
 own experience, that I am too unsanctified a 
 person to take upon me the character of a bap- 
 tismal sponsor. You will then be so obliging 
 as to add, from me, that I shall ever have too 
 sincere a regard for any child of her's, to pro- 
 cure it so ungracious an entrance into the 
 Christian Church, as I am apprehensive that 
 it would find, were I to be the officiating ush- 
 on the occasion. 
 
 I am, with great regard, &c.
 
 246 
 
 LETTER L1V 
 
 I RECEIVE your congratulations -with 
 an unaffected sensibility ; but, as your ap- 
 plause proceeds from the partiality of a fa- 
 vourable representation, and nbt from your 
 own immediate experience, I may, without 
 impropriety, or any false show of modesty, 
 to which I am not very much habituated, ob- 
 serve, that the part I took in the debate to 
 which you so kindly allude, would not have 
 been so favourably mentioned, if you had 
 been one of its crowded audience. 
 
 I will tell you, with great truth, that it was 
 an important object with me to exert the full 
 force of my mind and talents on the business 
 of that day. I had directed all my thoughts 
 to that purpose, and not only exerted a very 
 unusual industry in acquiring the knowledge 
 necessary to give my opinions their due 
 weight, but had laboured the dress in which 
 they were to be clothed, and attentively com- 
 posed the decorations which were to give the
 
 247 
 
 final embellishment. In short, I omitted no 
 mode of study, reflection, or exercise, which 
 might enable me to force conviction, and ra- 
 vish applause. But I succeeded in neither ; 
 and, after a speech of some length, I sat 
 down, oppressed with disappointment and 
 mortification. Several circumstances unex- 
 pected in themselves, and untoward in their 
 nature, co-operated to the fall of my pride on 
 that day. In the morning, while I was re- 
 hearsing my part to A , by some mistake 
 
 H was admitted to me, and not only in- 
 terrupted my lesson, but, by the ready com- 
 munication of his eccentrick flights upon the 
 aame subject, threw my well-marshalled band 
 of ideas into irretrievable confusion. But 
 this was not all ; he desired to accompany me 
 to the house, and, in our way thither, he 
 seized upon the bugle ornaments of my 
 clothes, as a subject for still more discomfit- 
 ing singularites of thought ; so that I was 
 most heartily glad when my coach broke down 
 in Parliament-street, and produced a separa- 
 tion. The worst, however, remains behind. 
 It was my purpose to follow the Earl of Shel- 
 burne ; and in consequence of such a plan, I 
 had necessarily pre-supposed the line of de- 
 bate he would take, with the general turn of
 
 248 
 
 argument he might adopt, and had prepared 
 myself accordingly. But all my conjectures 
 proved erroneous ; for that noble Lord took a 
 course so different from my pre-supposiuons, 
 and displayed a degree of political erudition 
 so far beyond me, that, when I arose, the 
 confusion between my prepared thoughts, and 
 those which were suggested by the able dis- 
 course of the foregoing speaker, was so great, 
 that, although I was not thrown into hesita- 
 tion, I got so wide of the point before me, as 
 to be called to order with great vehemence 
 and some propriety from the opposite side of 
 the house. This proved confusion worse con- 
 founded ; and though I proceeded with soma 
 degree of spirit and recovery, I sat down, at 
 length, with much self-dissatisfaction : nor 
 had I reason to think, from the succeeding 
 part of the debate, that I had made any im- 
 pression on those within the bar, whatever I 
 might have done among the tribe of curious 
 listeners without it. 
 
 This is the true, unvarnished state of the 
 rase ; and, from the circumstances of it, I have 
 formed a resolution, which, I trust, you 
 approve to make no more such pre- 
 
 paration. I will give the announced si 
 all the consideration they desei
 
 249 
 
 the knowledge of them in my power, form my 
 general principles, and leave their particular 
 arrangement, with the necessary shape, dress, 
 and delivery, to the circumstances and im- 
 pressions of the moment. When a senator is 
 to take the lead in a debate, in order to intro- 
 duce a projected motion of his own, or is 
 engaged to second that of another, he may 
 enter upon the task with the most minute 
 verbal preparation ; but, when he is to take 
 his casual turn, he must trust to his feelings 
 of the moment, operating upon the knowledge 
 of the moment. If a man, with the common, 
 gifts of speech, possesses a good store of the 
 latter, he may be soon habituated to yield 
 himself to the former, with a certain assurance 
 of acquiring an important political reputation. 
 In American affairs I have ever possessed a 
 perfect uniformity of opinion. My doctrine 
 has ever been, that legislation involves in it 
 every possible power and exercise of civil 
 government. For this principle I shall never 
 cease to contend ; though I am forced unwil- 
 lingly to acknowledge, that the ministerial 
 means of supporting it have, at times, been 
 very erroneous. But you may be assured, 
 that, if some better plans for reinstating Great- 
 Britain in the full dominion of her revolted 
 
 H H
 
 250 
 
 colonies be not pursued (an event which hu* 
 inanity at first, succeeded by mis-information 
 and later indecision, has so unfortunately de- 
 layed, but which is still practicable) ministers 
 shall hear the deep-toned energy of my re- 
 proach : I will lift up my voice against their 
 timid and indecisive counsels. My political 
 career, at least, shall not be marked with dis- 
 honour. 
 
 I cannot do better, than, with the feelings 
 of the present moment, to assure you of my 
 most grateful acknowledgements for the regard 
 vou have shown, on so many occasions, to 
 Your most faithful, Sec.
 
 551. 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 
 INDEED, my friend, you are quite wild 
 n the subject of eloquence. It may adorn 
 our parliamentary debates, but it will not save 
 our country. It is an adventitious qualifica- 
 tion, that will do but little, unless other more 
 substantial talents and attainments are in alli- 
 ance with it. An orator, in Cicero's definition 
 of the character, in which, I suppose, he de- 
 signed to comprehend himself, combines every 
 thing which is great in human nature ; but the 
 mere man of words, metaphors, and impu- 
 dence, in which, you may tell me, I should 
 comprehend myself, is nothing more than an 
 useful tool in the hands of superiour direction. 
 Tow are very sensible, but you mistake my 
 sense. I did not declare it to be my opinion 
 that we had no orators among us, but that 
 there was a melancholy dearth of real states- 
 men. Perhaps, there never was a period, in 
 the annals of this or any other country, which
 
 has produced more able publick speakers than 
 that wherein we live. The system of attack 
 and defence, displayed eveiy session in both 
 houses of parliament, produces specimens of 
 oratorical abilities which would have done 
 honour to any nation at any period. Elo- 
 quence is a powerful auxiliary to great poli- 
 tical talents ; but it is nothing without them 
 I mean, as to any great line of national utili- 
 ty. Mr. Edmund Burke, who is a prodigy in 
 his kind, will never make a leading statesman. 
 I do not know, nor have I ever heard of any 
 man who could deliver such a rapid, correct, 
 adorned, and highly-finished oration, as fre- 
 quently proceeds from the instantaneous im- 
 pulse of this gentleman's illuminated faculties. 
 As a scholar, as a man of universal knowl- 
 edge, as a writer, he is the object of my most 
 sincere admiration ; but, in my opinion, he 
 would never figure in office beyond the board 
 of trade. Charles Fox's abilities and elocu- 
 tion are of a decided superiority ; but, out of 
 the senate, their exertions would be of du- 
 bious expectation. If the formation of a new 
 ministry were to fall to my lot, Charles could 
 not be engaged in a more busy part than is 
 generally allotted to a vice-treasurer of Ireland 
 As for Colonel B , nature designed him
 
 253 
 
 for the service of attack: he is nothing but in 
 the house of commons, nor does he figure 
 there but in opposition. To muzzle the mas- 
 tiff, he must have a place ; for, while he sat 
 on the treasury-bench, he was dumb, and 
 opened not his mouih. Lord Weymouth is not 
 an orator ; but he delivers his good sense' with 
 a very becoming dignity. The Duke of G 
 's speeches are words, words, words ; but 
 are accompanied with an imposing air of con- 
 sequence, which tells you, in every look of 
 gesture, and expression, what the speaker 
 
 thinks of himself. Lord C an orator ! 
 
 Where was your reflection fled, or in what 
 quarrel had you engaged with reason and 
 judgment, when you made such a mistaken 
 declaration ? Believe me, my dear friend, he 
 possesses nothing but a little, literary, spang- 
 led kind of embroidered politicks ; pretty, 
 decorative, and in fashion ; but without any 
 thing like solidity of abilities, or permanency 
 of character. I could never view him in any 
 other light, not even when he presided at a 
 commission, whose history should be blotted 
 from the annals of Great-Britain. Our pre- 
 sent Palinurus is by no means deserving of 
 that contempt, which some men, very much 
 his inferiours in every thing, think proper to
 
 254 
 
 throw upon him ; and the secretary for the 
 American department ranks high among our 
 modern politicians : nor must Lord Shelburne 
 be forgotten, who possesses, in a brilliant de- 
 gree, the gift of utterance, and is a perfect 
 vade-mecum in politicks. I bear a willing tes- 
 timony to Lord Camderfs vigourous under- 
 standing ; and I possess an hereditary admira- 
 tion of Lord Mansfield's very superiour talents 
 and character : but the leading lawyers, how- 
 ever able or learned, do not come within the 
 compass of our present discriminations. But 
 all the eloquence on which you build your 
 hopes, and all the abilities which our leading 
 men possess, if brought into one aggregate 
 mass of political talents, would not compose 
 that consummate character on whom a nation 
 might repose with confidence and security. Is 
 there a man among us, who can claim an equal 
 share of ministerial reputation with Mr. Pel- 
 ham or Mr. George Grenville ? 
 
 But I must add, for our consolation, that 
 our enemies cannot boast of any intellectual 
 superiority over us : their mistakes have 
 kept pace with our errours : the catalogue of 
 their blunders is not less bulky than our own. 
 Besides, we still bear ourselves like a great 
 people ; we do not discover any marks of des-
 
 255 
 
 pendency ; and, I trust, we shall continue to 
 support our national character, to the confu- 
 sion of our enemies, and the final glory of our 
 country. 
 
 I have this day been informed, that Dr. 
 Price, the Dr. Brown of the present day, has 
 been formally and solemnly invited by the 
 Congress to take upon him the formation and 
 superintenclency of their exchequer. It would 
 gladden my very soul to hear that he was em- 
 barked for America ; though, I fear, he is too 
 much of a self-politician to take such a step. 
 The labours of his theological accompting- 
 house would be of no small service to Great- 
 Britain, if they were employed beyond the At- 
 tantick. This reverend gentleman, in his sad 
 vaticinations of British downfal, shelters him- 
 self beneath the double character of a political 
 prophet and Christian divine. If America 
 should finally become independent, the proph- 
 et will then exult in the accomplishment of an 
 event which he has long foretold : if, on the 
 contrary, the power of Great-Britain over her 
 colonies should be re-established, the Calvin- 
 istical cant of the divine must display itself 
 in an humble, submissive resignation to the 
 dispensations of Heaven. 
 
 I am. with great regard, cc.
 
 256 
 
 LETTER LFL 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I ACKNOWLEDGE, with a very serious 
 concern, the indecisive and sluggish spirit of 
 the present administration. This political 
 temper of our leading statesmen was amiable 
 in its origin, perhaps pardonable in its pro- 
 gress, but is equally unaccountable and dis- 
 graceful, to say no worse, at this very im- 
 portant period. The humanity of the royal 
 breast, co-operating with the moderate spirit 
 of his immediate councils, and the general 
 disposition of the nation, produced those lin- 
 gering measures in the beginning of the pre- 
 sent troubles, which encouraged the insolence 
 of democratick ambition. If half the regi- 
 ments, which have hitherto been employed 
 in vain, with a proportionable fleet, had cross- 
 ed the Atlantick at the early period of the 
 American revolt, the mishapen legions of 
 rebellion would have been awed into submis-
 
 257 
 
 sion, and the numerous loyal inhabitants would 
 have had a strong-hold to which they might 
 have resorted for protection, instead of being 
 urged, by the hopes of preserving their me- 
 naced property, to join the standard of rebel- 
 lion, to which, by seduction, by habit, or by 
 necessity, many of them vowed, and some of 
 them have proved, their fidelity. 
 
 This humane disposition of government 
 towards the colonies, which has proved a fa- 
 tal errour in the politicks of our day, naturally 
 led to another, which arose from the placing 
 a confidence in, and drawing their intelligence 
 from, men, some of whom I imagine, were 
 as deficient in judgment as the rest were in 
 honesty ; I mean the American refugees. By 
 their suggestions ministers were influenced to 
 continue the inactive line of conduct, till in- 
 dependence was thundered in their ears, and 
 circumstances seemed to announce that alli- 
 ance which has since taken place between the 
 natural enemies of this country and its revolt- 
 ed subjects. Permit me to observe, that, in 
 the early period of this unhappy business, 
 the nation at large seemed indisposed to adopt 
 the measures of fire and sword. The peo- 
 ple, very generally, hoped and believed, that 
 the alternate anathemas and conciliatory pro- 
 
 i i
 
 253 
 
 positions of rtur acts of parliament would have 
 answered their beneficial intentions of quiet- 
 ing the disorders of the colonies ; and I verily 
 believe, if, at the period to which I allude, a 
 parliamentary motion had been made to pn> 
 vide for the sending a large fleet and army, 
 \vith an active design, to America, that min- 
 isterial power would have met with a very nu- 
 merous and respectable opposition : nor would 
 the humanity of the nation at large have been 
 satisfied with a design which portended .the 
 slaughter of British subjects; while faction 
 would have lifted up its voice against it, as 
 being framed upon the principle of extending, 
 with drawn swords and bayonets fixed, the 
 powers of corruption, and the influence of 
 the crown. I again repeat, that, at this time, 
 there was a very general aversion in the Brit- 
 ish nation from entering seriously into the 
 contest ; for, even after the Americans had 
 published their separation from Grea-t-Britain, 
 and hostilities were actually commenced, the 
 exertions of British valour were languid, and 
 the rebels, at least on the sea, gained more ad- 
 vantages than they have since done with the 
 open alliance of France and the secret aid of 
 Spain. . When that unnatural union took 
 place, the British nation underwent a prci'y
 
 259 
 
 general and very sudden change in senti- 
 ments ; and many of the most rational friends 
 of America could no longer corfsider its inha- 
 bitants as fellow-subjects, when they humbly 
 ^mplored the ready ambition of France to sup- 
 port them in their disobedience to their lawful 
 sovereign. 
 
 At this period, I must acknowledge that my 
 expectations were broad awake to the most 
 vigourous exertions of the British govern- 
 ment. I did not doubt but the Genius of my 
 country would arise and shake his spear. 
 Alas ! one general was appointed upon a 
 principle of reconciliation, and he does not re- 
 concile ; a second is named, and accoutred 
 beyond example, for execution, and he exe- 
 cutes nothing. A third succeeds, and new 
 expectations are on the wing. Immense ex- 
 penses are incurred, the national debt enor- 
 mously encreased, and no substantial advan- 
 tages are obtained. At length my patience is 
 almost exhausted ; I begin to view the indeci- 
 sive spirit of ministry in a criminal light ; and, 
 if some promising symptoms of a change in 
 their measures do not appear at the meeting 
 of parliament, I will repeat what I have now 
 written, and much more, in their very teeth. 
 The place I hold shall not bribe me from let-
 
 260 
 
 ting loose the angry spirit of my reproach 
 against them. 
 
 But another scene is opening that is preg- 
 nant with more alarm, and may bring on a 
 contest more trying to this nation, than the 
 trans-atlantick commotions and the ambition of 
 France. I allude to the growing discontents 
 of Ireland. You must too well know that 
 there are, at this moment, thirty thousand in- 
 dependent men in arms in that kingdom, who 
 have erected their own standards, and are 
 prepared either to repel a foreign invasion, or 
 to resist domestick tyranny. The Irish have 
 long been an oppressed people ; but oppres- 
 sion has not quenched their spirit, and they 
 have seized on the present favourable moment 
 to demand justice ; nay, if they were to de- 
 mand more than justice, England is not in a 
 situation to refuse it. But of these matters I 
 shall soon be better informed ; and you may 
 be assured of being the first repository of my 
 future and more mature opinions. This is ra- 
 ther a disheartening subject. It demands my 
 utmost resolution to look towards the storm 
 which is gathering in the sister-kingdom. If, 
 however, that can be dissipated, and the bond 
 of peace, which is already cracked, be re- 
 stored, my fears will vanish, and I shall no
 
 261 
 
 longer doubt but that Great-Britain and Ire- 
 land, in spite of American rebellion, of for- 
 eign foes, of an indecisive, timid, procrasti- 
 nating ministry, and of a noisy, malicious, 
 hungry faction, will work out their own sal- 
 vation, and close the present contest with ad- 
 ded glory. 1 am, &c.
 
 2G2 
 
 LETTER LV1L 
 
 I WILL endeavour to obey your com- 
 mands, and, if possible, to compress my un- 
 prepared reflections into the compass of this 
 paper. The Opposition is respectable for rank, 
 property, and abilities ; but it is feeble and 
 unimportant, from the narrowness of its plans, 
 as well as the want of a sincere confidence, a 
 firm union, and, as I shrewdly suspect, a gen- 
 eral political integrity in the parties that com- 
 pose it. They all readily accord in opposition 
 to the measures of government, but differ, notf 
 only in the manner, but in the time of exer- 
 tion. They all agree to go forth against the 
 enemy ; but each distinct body follows its own 
 
 leader, and chooses its own mode of attack; 
 they never unite but for the purpose of the 
 moment ; by which means, that strong-com- 
 pacted, lasting force, which, directed to one 
 point, and at one instance, would scatter a- 
 larm through any administration, is frittered 
 down into a variety of desultory operations,
 
 263 
 
 which wouM disgrace the meanest ministerial 
 apprehension. 
 
 The warmest friend of government cannot 
 deny, that in the minority, "there are men of 
 sound principle and proved integrity. They 
 are indeed, but few in number, and may be 
 easily distinguished from those who are in- 
 fluenced by the daemon of disappointed am- 
 bition, the fury of desperate faction, and the 
 suggestions of personal rancour. It has been 
 a matter of surprize to many sensible, reflect- 
 ing persons, that the opposition did not use 
 every possible means to obtain the aid and 
 countenance of Lord Chatham's abilities, and 
 concentrate, as it were, their scattered rays 
 in the focus of that great man's character. 
 Under such a leader they might have acted 
 with effect, and knocked so loud at the door 
 of administration, as to have made every 
 member of it tremble, even in the most secret 
 and guarded recesses of the cabinet. But 
 such a coalition was wholly impracticable, 
 even if the veteran statesman had been free 
 from those bodily infirmities which so seldom 
 permitted him of late to step forth to any pub- 
 lick exertion. If we except Lord Camden, there 
 is not one of the leading actors of opposition, 
 who has not, ?.t some time or other, calumni-
 
 264 
 
 ated, deceived, deserted, or, in some manner, 
 
 mis-treated this great man. Lord S e's 
 
 oratorical Echo made his first entrance into the 
 house of commons notorious, by flying, as it 
 were, at his very throat : and yet this man 
 has been proud to wear the armorial banner 
 at his funeral. The first day on which the 
 Earl of Chatham took his seat in the house of 
 
 peers, the Duke of R was forced to bow 
 
 beneath its reproof for insulting him. The 
 
 Buke of G , who, to use his own words, 
 
 had accepted the seals merely to trail a pike 
 under the command of so distinguished a po- 
 litician, when advanced to an higher post, 
 turned an angry face against the leader whom 
 
 he had deserted. Even the INI of R 
 
 , when at the head of his short-lived admin- 
 istration, was vain enough to affect a refusal of 
 Mr. Pitt's assistance. The conduct of such 
 men, though it might be despised, could not 
 be entirely effaced from his mind by all the 
 submissive homage they afterwards paid him ; 
 and, though he may have since lived with 
 some of them in the habits of occasional inter- 
 course, you may be assured, if his health had 
 permitted a re-entrance into the publick ser- 
 vice, that he never would have engaged in the 
 views of men whom he could not trust. The
 
 265 
 
 ministry, I believe, sent somewhat of an em- 
 bassy to him, which he treated with contempt : 
 
 and if Lord S e, in an occasional visit to 
 
 Hayes, undertook a similar business, on the 
 part of opposition, I doubt not but the answer 
 he received, though perhaps more softened, 
 had its concomitant mortification. During the 
 last years of his venerable life, he seemed to 
 stand alone ; or made his communications to 
 no one but Lord Camden, whom 
 
 He faithful found among the faithless, 
 
 Faithful only he. 
 
 The grave is now closed upon that illustri- 
 ous statesman, and his splendid orb is set for 
 ever. There was that in his character which 
 gave him a very distinguised superiority over 
 the rest of mankind. He was the greatest 
 war-minister this kingdom ever knew ; and 
 the four years of his administration form the 
 most brilliant period that the British annals, 
 or perhaps those of the world, can produce. 
 They who aim at the diminution of his glory, 
 and that of his country, by attributing the 
 rapid change of national affairs, under his ad- 
 ministration, to chance and the fortunate cir- 
 cumstances of the moment, must be slaves to 
 the most rooted prejudice, the foulest envy. 
 
 K K
 
 266 
 
 or the darkest ignorance. To the more bril- 
 liant part of his life, let me add, that he was a 
 minister who detested the arts of corruption, 
 set his face against all court as well as cabinet 
 intrigues, and quitted his important station 
 with unpolluted hands. It is a great national 
 misfortune that the mantle of this political pa- 
 triarch has not been caught by any of his suc- 
 cessors. We are not deficient in men of ge- 
 nius, and both houses of parliament give 
 daily examples of eloquence which Rome and 
 Athens never excelled ; nevertheless, there 
 does not appear to be a man in the kingdom 
 with that power of understanding, depth of 
 knowledge, activity of mind, and strength of 
 resolution, sufficient to direct our harrassed 
 empire. There are many among us, who are 
 capable of being second in command, and fill- 
 ing all the subaltern departments with ade- 
 quate ability ; but the State, as well as the 
 army, wants a commander in chief. The 
 truncheon is become little more than an use- 
 less trophy, as an hand fit to grasp it is no 
 longer to be found. 
 
 In bearing my poor testimony to the manes 
 of Lord Chatham, I have yielded to the im- 
 pulse of my very soul. In this imperfect act 
 of veneration I can have no interest, for the
 
 267 
 
 object of it is gone where the applause of this 
 world cannot reach him ; and, as I ventured 
 to differ from him when alive, and delivered 
 the reasons of my difference to his face, what 
 motive can there be for me to flatter him now 
 he is no more ? To oppose the sentiments of 
 that venerable statesman, was an undertaking 
 which shook my very frame. My utmost re- 
 solution, strengthened by a sense of duty, and 
 the laudable ambition of supporting what I 
 conceived to be right, against the proudest 
 names, could not sustain me. You, I believe, 
 were present when I sunk down and became 
 silent beneath the imposing superiority of his 
 abilities ; but I did not feel it a defeat to b^ 
 vanquished by him : 
 
 nee (am 
 
 Turpe fuit viuci, quatn coulendisse decorum esf.
 
 LETTER LFIIL 
 
 YOUR letter arrived, most opportunely, 
 to awaken me from the slumbering ennui of a 
 toilette. I was actually in the power of my 
 valet de chambre, when it came to delight, as 
 well as instruct me ; and I have proposed a 
 truce with powder, pomatum, and papillotes, 
 to encourage a thought which instantaneously 
 arose from my situation, and may, in its pro- 
 gress, produce a suitable answer to your phi- 
 losophick epistle. 
 
 That very important and unexpected events 
 arise from the most trivial causes, is to be dis- 
 covered in every page of history, as well as in 
 every line of the passing volume of life. Cir- 
 cumstances, to all appearance, the most incon- 
 sequential and insignificant, have not only dip- 
 ped thousands of pens in the bitter ink of con- 
 troversy, produced infinite envy, heart-burn- 
 ing, and calumny, but have also turned the 
 plough-share and the pruning-hook into weap- 
 ons of bloodshed and destruction.
 
 269 
 
 Turning away, with alarm, from the sub- 
 ject at large, which would be little less than 
 the history of the world, permit me to call 
 your attention to the virulent animosities which 
 have been created, among a large and power- 
 ful part of mankind, in different ages, by the 
 modes of dressing the hair, wearing beards, 
 and weaving periwigs. It is a dressing-room 
 subject, and, being arrayed in all the satin- 
 dignity of a robe de chambre, I feel myself in- 
 spired to pursue it. 
 
 It is not with any view to instruct you, that 
 I mention the great veneration which in for- 
 mer times has been paid to the hair, but to 
 give somewhat of order and arrangement to 
 the weighty matter under my immediate con- 
 sideration. That the tresses of pious virgins 
 were thought an acceptable offering to their 
 tutelary goddess, is well known by every 
 classsical student ; nor is it less an object of 
 common literary knowledge, that among the 
 Greeks and Romans, the first fruits of the hu- 
 man temples, as well as of the chin, were 
 claimed, with great ceremony, by the altars 
 of Bacchus, Neptune, and other presiding 
 divinities. In later times, but in the early 
 part of our sera, (you perceive I write as a 
 Christian,) an oath was supposed to demand
 
 270 
 
 instant conviction, when a man swore by his 
 hair ; and the act of salutation was never so 
 graceful or acceptable, as when it was accom- 
 panied by the plucking an hair from the head, 
 and presenting it to the person who was the 
 object of respectful attention. The offering 
 the hair to be cut, was an acknowledgement 
 of sovereignty, and an acceptance of the of- 
 fer was considered as an assurance of adop- 
 tion. The cerf, or bondsman, was distin* 
 guished by the shortness of his hair ; and the 
 insolvent debtor, on the resigning himself to 
 the future service of his creditor, presented 
 the potent scissars, whose instant sharpness 
 was applied to his flowing locks, the marks of 
 that freedom he no longer possessed. 
 
 Long hair being at this period the distin- 
 guishing proof of a gentleman, and, of course, 
 an object of great care and attention, became 
 a subject for pulpit- sarcasm ; and religious 
 oratory did not fail to make the churches echo 
 with the crime of toi/efte-assiduity. At length, 
 however, some of the younger clergy, sigh- 
 ing after the appearance of fashionable life, 
 ventured upon the reigning mode, and gave a 
 new ton to clerical Coeffure, which was soon 
 adopted by a long train of their complying 
 brethren. This schism in dress caused the
 
 271 
 
 ecclesiasticks to turn the tide of invective from 
 the lay-world to each other, and produced a 
 division in the church, which drew forth, 
 through no small period, the retaliating me- 
 naces of damnation from the long-haired and 
 short-haired clergy. Saint Paul, it seems, 
 who by the perversions of his successors, has 
 been the innocent cause of much uneasiness 
 in the world, was held forth as having, by 
 apostolick authority, forbidden his own sex to 
 suffer their hair to fall below the shoulder, 
 and granted the luxuriant tresses to flow only 
 as a covering for female charms. There 
 seems to be some taste as well as wontonness 
 in the regulation ; but, as I do not possess, 
 among my many hereditary talents, the quali- 
 fication to become a commentator on the sa- 
 cred writings, or the champion of an injured 
 apostle, I shall take leave of the subject, and 
 proceed to another stumbling-block of offence, 
 and angry source of controversy," which the 
 human chin has so amply afforded. 
 
 The respect which has been shown to the 
 beard, in all parts of the civilized, and in 
 some parts of the uncivilized world, is well 
 known to the slightest erudition ; nay, a cer- 
 tain prejudice in its favour still exists, even in 
 the countries where the razor has long been
 
 272 
 
 omnipotent. This impression seems to arise 
 very naturally from the habit of associating 
 with it those ideas of Experience and wisdom, 
 of which it is the emblem. It cannot wait 
 upon the follies of youth; its bushy and de- 
 scending honours are not known to grace the 
 countenance of early life : and though it may 
 be said, in some degree, to grow with our 
 growth, and strengthen with our strength, it 
 continues to flourish in our decline, and at- 
 tains its most honourable form and beauty, 
 when the knees tremble, the voice grows 
 shrill, and the pate is bare. 
 
 When the bold and almost blasphemous 
 pencil of the enthusiastick painter has aimed 
 at representing the Creator of the world upon 
 the canvass, a flowing beard has ever been one 
 of the characteristick and essential marks of 
 the Supreme Divinity. The pagan Jupiter 
 and the graver inhabitants of Olympus would 
 not be known without this majestick ornament. 
 Philosophy, till our smock-faced days, has 
 considered it as the appropriate symbol of its 
 profession. Judaick superstition, Egyptian 
 wisdom, Attick elegance, and Roman virtue, 
 have been its fond protectors. To make it an 
 object of dissention, and alternately to con- 
 sider it as a sign of orthodoxy or the standard
 
 273 
 
 of heresy, was reserved for the fantastical 
 zeal of the Christian church. 
 
 In more modern times, not only provincial 
 and national, but general councils have been 
 convened, synods have been summoned, ec- 
 clesiastical congregations and cloistered chap- 
 ters of every denomination have been assem- 
 bled, to consider, at different periods, the 
 character of this venerable growth of the hu- 
 man visage. Infinite disputes have been, of 
 course, engendered, sometimes with respect 
 to its form, at other times in regard to its ex- 
 istence. Religion interested itself, in one age, 
 in contending for that pointed form to which 
 nature conducts it : at a succeeding period, 
 anathemas have been denounced against those 
 who refused to give it a rounder shape ; and 
 to these, other denunciations have followed, 
 which changed it to the square or scollop. 
 But, while religious caprice, (for religion, sor- 
 ry am I to say it, seems to be troubled with; 
 caprices,) quarelled about form and shape, the 
 disputes were confined within the pale of the 
 western church ; but, when the beard lessen- 
 ed into whiskers, and the scythe of ecclesias- 
 tical discipline threatened to mow down every 
 hair from off the face, the east sounded the 
 alarm, and the churches of Asia and Africa 
 
 L L
 
 274 
 
 took up the cause, and supported, with all 
 the violence of argument and remonstrance, 
 those honours of the chin that they still pre- 
 serve, and to which the existing inhabitants 
 of those climates offer up a perpetual incense. 
 In the history of the Gallick church, (for, 
 by some unaccountable accident, I have some- 
 times stumbled upon a page of ecclesiastical 
 story,) the scenes of religious comedy still live 
 in description. For example a bearded 
 bishop appears at the door of a cathedral in all 
 the pomp of prelacy, and demands installa- 
 tion to the diocese to which he is appointed. 
 He is there met by a troop of beardless ca- 
 nons, and refused admittance, unless he will 
 employ the golden scissars they present to 
 him, to cut that flowing ornament from his 
 face, which they would think disgrace to 
 their own, as well as to the religion they pro- 
 iess. This same history, also, is not barren 
 of examples, where the sturdy prelate has 
 turned indignant from the disgraceful propo- 
 sal, and sought the enforcing aid of sovereign 
 power, which has not always been able, with- 
 out much difficulty, to compel the reluctant 
 chapter to acknowledge a bearded diocesan. 
 Others, unwilling to risk or delay the power 
 and wealth of an episcopal throne for the sake
 
 275 
 
 of a cumbrous bush of hair, have, by the 
 ready sacrifice of their beards, been installed 
 amid acclamations and hosannas, as disgrace- 
 ful as they were undeserved. It may appear 
 still more ridiculous, but it is no less true, that 
 some of these bishops have compounded the 
 matter with their refractory clergy, in giving 
 up the greater part of the beard, but retaining 
 the growth of the upper lip in the form of 
 whiskers. The idea of a bishop en moustaches 
 must trouble the spirit of a modern Christian ; 
 but such there have been, who, in the act of 
 sacrificing to the God of Peace, have exhibit- 
 ed the fierce, terrifick aspect of a German pio- 
 neer. 
 
 At length, the persecuted beard, which has 
 been the object of such faithful veneration, 
 finds in our quarter of the globe, if we ex- 
 cept the corner of European Turkey, its only 
 asylum in the capuchin cloister ; unless we add 
 the casual protection which is given to it by 
 the fanatical Jew, or mendicant hermit. 
 
 The wig, peruke, o\- periwig, with the cler- 
 ical tonsure, have been the cause of as much 
 ecclesiastical contention, as the Arian.and 
 Athanasian schisms. The last century expe- 
 rienced all its fury, which would not have 
 given way to less important events, than the
 
 276 
 
 edict of Nantz, and the questions of 
 nius. The former turned bigotry to a more 
 engaging object, and lost common-sense in 
 astonishment ; while the latter opened a new 
 vent in the combustions volcano of religious 
 discord. 
 
 The first wig which is mentioned in history 
 was the hairy skin of a goat, which the daugh- 
 ter of Saul is related to have employed to 
 save the life of her husband. In a succeed- 
 ing age, Zenophon makes mention of the peri- 
 wig of Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus ; 
 and describes the astonishment which seized 
 the royal boy, on beholding his ancestor so 
 majestically covered. Suidas and Tacitus both 
 bear testimony, that Hannibal of Carthage 
 wore a peruke, and that his wardrobe was 
 furnished with a very large assortment of wigs 
 of all kinds, fashions, and colours, not only 
 for the purpose of magnificence, but also 
 from the policy which frequently obliged him 
 to change his appearance. 
 
 The Romans, and in particular the fash- 
 ionable ladies of Rome, had great recourse to 
 false hair. That of a white colour was the 
 ton in Ovid's days ; and it was imported from 
 Germany where it was common. 
 
 JNunc tili cafltivoi mittet Gtrmania crinci j 
 Culta triumphal^ munire gent is erh.
 
 277 
 
 This courtly, gallant poet is very severe up- 
 on the custom ; Martial has made it the sub- 
 ject of several epigrams ; and Juvenal charges 
 Messalina with wearing the adscititious orna- 
 ment of her head to obtain concealment in the 
 pursuit of her debaucheries. The ladies of 
 the present day may, therefore, shelter them- 
 selves behind the greater extravagance of the 
 female Romans. The latter imported their 
 borrowed locks from a foreign country, while 
 the former are contented with the spoils of 
 Death in their own, and do not shudder at 
 mingling, with their own tresses, such as are 
 furnished by the fatal hand of disease in hos- 
 pitals and infirmaries. 
 
 Louis the thirteenth of France, having lost 
 his hair, was obliged to ask, or, as he was 
 king, I should rather say, command, the com- 
 fortable aid of a periwig ; and the necessity of 
 the sovereign cut off all the hair of his fashion- 
 able subjects. Louis the fourteenth annexed 
 great dignity to his peruke, which he increas- 
 ed to an enormous size, and made a lion's 
 mane the object of its similitude. That mon- 
 arch, who daily studied the part of a king, was 
 never seen with his head uncovered but by the 
 barber who shaved him. It was not his prac- 
 tice to exchange his wig for a night- cap, till he
 
 273 
 
 was enclosed by his curtains, when a page 
 received the former from his hand, and deliv- 
 ered it to him in the morning before he un- 
 drew them. The figure of the great Bourbon 
 must, at times, have been truly ridiculous. 
 
 But of ridiculous figures had I lived in 
 
 the reign of good Queen Anne, my thread-pa- 
 per form and baby-face must have been adorn- 
 ed with a full-bottom periwig, as large as that 
 which bedecks the head and shoulders of Mr. 
 Justice Blackstone, when he scowls at the un- 
 happy culprit who is arraigned before him. 
 1 It is, I believe, very generally known, that 
 there is no small number of the Clergy who 
 love a little of the ton, as well as the ungodly 
 lay-men : the question, therefore, of wearing 
 wigs, with the form of ecclesiastical tonsure, 
 became a matter of bitter controversy ; and the 
 first petit-maitre of a clergyman, who was bold 
 enough to appear in a wig, was called le patri- 
 arch? des Ecclesiastiques emperruq.ues. At this 
 time was published the famous book in favour 
 of peri-wigs, with the admirable title of Absa- 
 lorn, whose melancholy fate was caused by his 
 hair ; and I remember, in the humourous ex- 
 hibition of sign-painters, with which I think 
 Bonncl Thornton amused the town some years 
 ago, that he adopted this idea, in a represent-
 
 279 
 
 ation of the Jewish prince suspended in mid- 
 air, as related in holy writ, which was entitled 
 A Sign for Peruke-makers. Tom JVarton, of 
 Oxford, wrote a little Latin jeu (V esprit on the 
 subject of wigs, with their applications and ef- 
 fects, of which it concerns me to remember no 
 more than that it possessed his usual Latinity 
 and classical humour. Hogarth also em- 
 ployed his pencil to ridicule the fall-bottoms, 
 especially the Aldermanick ones of the last cor- 
 onation, with his accustomed success. But of 
 the histories that relate to this subject, the 
 most extraordinary, and which will be hardly 
 credited by posterity, is the petition delivered 
 by 'the peruke-makers of London to his pres- 
 ent majesty, praying him, for the benefit of 
 their trade, to resume the wig he had been 
 pleased to lay aside : and (what adds to the 
 ridicule, as well as the impudence of the mea- 
 sure) I have been informed, by a spectator of 
 their procession, that a considerable number of 
 them actually wore their hair, though they 
 openly avowed the sacrilegious wish to pluck 
 that ornament from the pate of sovereignty. 
 
 In the Augustan age of the Roman empire, 
 the wit and the satirist have employed their 
 different weapons against the prevailing atten- 
 tions to the decorations of the hair ; and Sen-
 
 280 
 
 eca, in one of his epistles, writes with solemn 
 indignation, against the Roman toilettes, which 
 he describes in the precise form and process 
 of our own. Some of the fathers were equal- 
 ly severe against the female coquettes of 
 their time ; as their denunciations seem to 
 be more particularly levelled at the fairer part 
 of the creation. One of them, in particular, 
 declares, that they who employ their hours in 
 arranging their hair, instead of performing the 
 duty of Christians, sacrifice to Cotys, who is 
 the goddess of Impurity, and to Priapus, who 
 is the god of it. If this be true, what a more 
 than pagan age is renewed among us ! 
 
 But, to conclude my unsuspected learning 
 on this subject, I must add the curious re- 
 proach of Ttrtitllian against the high head- 
 dresses, as well as the practice of dying the 
 hair, so prevalent in his day. He concludes 
 his. earnest address, on this subject, to the la- 
 dies, by impressing on their attention the sa- 
 cred text, that we cannot make an hair white 
 or black, or cause the least addition to our stat- 
 ure ; and reproaches them on employing the 
 above-mentioned arts of the toilette to effect 
 both these purposes, and thereby giving an 
 express lie to the divine declaration of the gos- 
 pel.
 
 231 
 
 Petit- Maitrdsm (excuse a new-fangled word) 
 lias existed at all periods, in all countries, and 
 in every situation. Private peace has been 
 disturbed by it ; and the spirit of Christianity 
 has been lost in its contentions. It found its 
 way into the cloister ; it has accompanied the 
 hermit in his cell ; and the Hottentot does not 
 escape its influence : nay, 'the patriot Roman 
 and the hardy Goth have condescended to be- 
 come coxcombs. Theodorick, a well known 
 Gothick prince, is related to have had an of- 
 ficer, who, when the barber had finished his 
 beard, was employed to pluck every remain- 
 ing hair from his face which might interrupt 
 its smoothness. Ctssar used to say, that his 
 soldiers fought better when they were perfum- 
 ed ; and, according to Plutarch, Surena, gen- 
 eral of the Parthians, and the bravest man of 
 the nation, painted his face. The French do 
 not suffer the most refined effeminacy of their 
 toilettes to extinguish their gallant spirit, and, 
 at the command of their sovereign, they rush 
 from all the silken softness of luxury, to the 
 hardships of camps, and the dangers of battle. 
 
 Whether you will be of opinion with me, 
 that man is a Petit-Maitre by nature, or, to 
 express myself more philosophically, a cox- 
 comical animal, I cannot tell ; but I have, in
 
 282 
 
 the course of these reflections, wrought myself 
 so fully into the belief of it, that, under the 
 future operations of my friseur, I shall look 
 in the glass before me with the complacent 
 patience of a man, conscious that he is acting 
 under the common impulse which governs all 
 mankind. 
 
 Adieu !
 
 283 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 CONCERNING THE LAT1 
 
 LORD LYTTLETON, 
 
 OF all the men who have been distinguished by any thing 
 great, worthy, or remarkable, or who have left any thing behind 
 them which will transmit their names to posterity, no one, per- 
 haps, is so little known, or has left us so few memorials of his life, 
 as the subject of this brief memoir. Neither has there lived, in 
 modern times, any other man of eminence, concerning whom such 
 a circumstance would be so little regretted. None but the historian 
 who is uselessly and frivolously inquisitive, or the author who should 
 be constrained to publish his biography, would regret it all. 
 
 But the means of developing the mysteries, which hang over his 
 history, and the materials for writing his life cannot be found on this 
 side the Atlantick : and, that it has not already been written in that 
 country, where alone it could be faithfully done, is evidence that it 
 cannot yet be done, without either disagreeably affecting some rela- 
 tives or friends,* imposing upon the reader, or injuring the publick. 
 For it would seem, that such a life as he led would afford but few 
 incidents calculated to excite general interest, excepting what he has 
 himself related in his Letters ; and we are confident that any thing 
 like a biography of so young and so profligate a Lord ought not to 
 be laid before the publick. His character is best drawn by himself, 
 and will be sufficiently known and understood by those who read his 
 Letters and his Speeches in parliament. But, as all persons have a kind 
 
 * On publishing his Letters, the names of the persons to whom they were 
 addressed were omitted by particular request, as ;-.pj><>ars by the Introduction. 
 Scoie Lciurs, also, which alluded to certain trausai:t:oii of his life, wue 
 wholly oioitUd.
 
 284 
 
 of literary curiosity to learn something concerning the origin, the 
 situation, the family and connexions, and the publick career of any 
 one, whose deeds or whose writings have extorted admiration or 
 yielded entertainment and instruction this short sketch of young 
 Lyttleton'b life shall embrace some of these objects. 
 
 The late Thomas, Lord Lyttleton, was the only son of the wor* 
 thy and illustrious George, Lord Lyttleton, who descended from 
 one of the ancient and most respectable families in England. His 
 ancestors had possessions in Worcestershire, particularly a* South. 
 Littleton (from which place some antiquaries derive the name,) as 
 long ago as in the reign of Henry III. The learned Mr. Seiden had 
 in his possession two grants of land, to wh'ch one John de Lyttleton 
 was witness in 1160. The great Judge Lyttleton, in the reign of 
 Henry IV, was one of this family and from him dc'ccm'ed Sir 
 Thomas Lyttleton, father of George, Lord Lyttleton, and grand- 
 father of Lord Lyttleton, the Younger. 
 
 George, Lord Lyttleton, (for distinction's sa\e sometimes denorru, 
 inated the Elder,) was born in 1708, educated at Eton, and remov- 
 ed to Christ's Church, Oxford; after which he made the tour of 
 Europe, obtained a seat in parliament, distinguished himself as a 
 speaker in the opposition, was appointed secretary to the Prince of 
 Wales, and on the death of his father (i;6r) succeeded to the title 
 of Baronet. In 1744 he was appointed one of the lords commis- 
 sioners of the treasury in 1754 he was made cofferer to his majesty's 
 household and privy-counsellor and in 1757 he was created a peer 
 of Great-Britain. He rendered his name celebrated, as an author, by 
 his Persian Letters, the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul, Dia- 
 logues of the Dead, the History of Henry the Second, and by several 
 other ingenious performances, among which are seme fine and c'clic;;te 
 specimens of poetry. He was connected, on the side of his mother, 
 with the family of the late Lord Cobham. In 174! he married 
 Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, Esq. of Filleigh, in the county 
 of Devon, a most amiable lady,* the sister of Lord Fortescue. B? 
 her he had one son (the subject of this memoir) and two daughters- 
 one of whom married Lord Viscount Valentia, and the other the 
 Earl of Angitsey. 
 
 * Her husband has drawn her excellent character, in his Mw.h on her 
 . which happened in the br^inmi g of 17tn \'id- Poctica! Ln to iv 
 and in his h-.-crip'.ion on her Mouumeut Vide hi* tile io Aiucr. LacKco 
 .Urcb, &c. &c.
 
 285 
 
 This only son, Thomas, was born in 1744, or the latter part o 
 1743, and was educated at Eton. Where his education was finish- 
 ed for that he received a liberal and finished one, his speeches and 
 letters, as well as other records, evince we do not know; but from 
 his letters it appears, that he was sent on the tour of Europe '* to 
 complete the sensible plan," as he terms it, which was to be followed 
 by his marriage. As he does not think proper to disclore " what 
 happened during his travels," except by hinting at it incidentally, it 
 is presumed to have been in no wise creditable to himself or family. 
 And yet it seems that only because he had gotten into parliament 
 and made a bold and flowery speech, bis offended family (which had, 
 we believe, but lately discarded him,) received him ** with a degree 
 of warmth, delight, and triumph, which the brightest virtue could 
 alone have deserved." Such was the miserable management the 
 fond father and family applied to an only and darling son of the 
 most extraordinary promise. But on this subject we refer the reader 
 to the gth and nth Letters in this volume : there parents will find a. 
 most solemn premonition. 
 
 That such promising talents should partially blind the eyes of af- 
 fection is less to be wondered at, than regretted; but that the wise, 
 the pious, the polished Lyttleton, should suffer so hopeful a candi- 
 date for his titles and character, through profligacy, to disappoint 
 the political, and to disgust the moral world, can never be sufficient- 
 ly deplored. The brilliancy of his wit, the sprightliness of his fancy, 
 the native force of his intellect, the strength of his memory, the 
 extent of his knowledge, and the facility with which he wrote and 
 conversed in the most elegant language, very naturally excited high 
 expectations among his numerous acquaintance and friends as the 
 following EPISTLE, from the Hon. Constantine John Pbli>ps % JTjtf, 
 addressed to him, while in his juvenile years, will attest. 
 
 Sprung, Lyttleton, from noble British blood, 
 Mv friendship's honour, and life's greatest good 3 
 Th'n courts the ra'ible with obsequious nod, 
 Or, the mob's idol, deems himself a ^od : 
 lhat of th* unruly courser seeks a name, 
 And rsks his neck, to nain a jockev's lanio : 
 Aao her tills with joy his father's land, 
 Or prunes the curling vine with >ki!ful hand : 
 Some love '.he tented field, the drum, the file, 
 The din of aims, the battle's bloody stii'e : 
 Me, other can-s, in other climes engage, 
 To seek experience irem the battle's ui.'^e; 
 Where fleets moot fleets in deepest conflict joined, 
 Where Biimkk Unjuders aiock llic iiapuiliu;; wind.
 
 286 
 
 But, lirn in t^rtatfr character 1o tFiintf 
 And add neiu imlrc to a noble line, 
 Be thine the yrcater part in deejt d'.bate t 
 With steady counsels to uphold the state. 
 So thy great sire, skilled in each pubhtk art, 
 By virtue rules, bv preiept guides the h;art. 
 If his commands submissive you receive, 
 Immortal and unblamed your name shall live. 
 U ' may hu labour jjaiu an hu|>p\ end, 
 Make thee a patriot i><.iod, and constant f r ' er >d! 
 May heav'u show'r down its choicest blessings still> 
 A Calo's virtur, and a Tullv's (kill 
 Mav'st thou tiie first ol Britain's Senate shine, 
 And be thy lather's name surpassed by thine ! 
 
 How lamentable, that " Manhood did not keep the promise of 
 Youth" ! Yet in manhood, with all his dissipation and mispending 
 of time, he rose far above mediocrity, both as a politician and a 
 writer. And, however incorrect he might be in his opinion respect- 
 ing the issue of the war with the American colonies, his political 
 principles were just and well founded ; nor is it by any means im- 
 probable, that, if the measures he advised had been pursued, the 
 event would have been as he predicted. And besides a man's in- 
 tentions can never be considered altogether censurable, nor his pre- 
 dictions weak or erroneous, when he is obliged to make up his 
 opinion (if he have any of his own) on men and things that are not 
 under his observation, and are known only by second-hand informa- 
 tion or conjecture. But where the objects of his remarks and pre- 
 dictions lay before him, he was correct, even to prophecy witness 
 his observations on the character and abilities of Mr. Wyndham. 
 
 As a man and an author his judgment was sound and penetrating ; 
 his knowledge of the manners, character, and principles of men exten- 
 sive ; and his distinctions nicely drawn and plainly defined. His wit 
 sparkles without dazzling, his sentiments enliven without inflaming, 
 his knowledge instructs without dictating, his independence of spirit 
 elevates without over-awing, and his suavity interests without flat- 
 tering. As an orator (a title he was thought to have deservedly ac- 
 quired in both houses .of parliament,) he was, except perhaps in 
 some few instances, bold, graceful, and commanding, rather than 
 serviceable and efficient. As a statesman his powers were rather to 
 be dreaded in the opposition, than valued on the side of the ministry. 
 His oratory was luminous, rhetorical, and pure some specimens of 
 which will be found in "Chapman's SELECT SPEECHES, Forensick 
 and Parliamentary," now in the press at Philadelphia,
 
 287 
 
 In reviewing a speech of Mr. Burke's, in favour of conciliation 
 with America, March 21, 1775* the London Reviewers took up one of 
 Lord Lyttleton's also, delivered May 17, 1775, against the repeal of 
 the Canada bill, and gave the latter the preference. They observe that 
 Lord L's is as ' spirited, pointed, and concise, as Mr. B.'s is studied, 
 elaborate, and diffuse;" and add, that "Lord L. disunguished him- 
 self in a manner by no means unworthy his promising abilities." 
 But we will quote a few passages 
 
 After remarking that his exordium, different from Mr. Burke'f, was 
 pertinent, and without affectation, the Reviewers select the following 
 from his speech : 
 
 " At the conclusion of this long and laborious session of parlia- 
 ment, when the unhappy divisions subsisting between England and 
 America seemed, by the joint wisdom of both house?, to converge 
 towards conciliation, I am greatly surprised that the noble and 
 learned Lord* should come forth again to scatter abroad the seeds of 
 dissention, and, not content with that resistance to the legislature, 
 and to the law of England, which prevails over all British America, 
 should now endeavour to involve the Canadians in the common re- 
 volt ; establishing as a leading principle, by which your Lordships 
 may be induced 10 repeal this bill, that those for whose emolument 
 J t was made are the most dissatisfied with it that they groan under 
 the pressure, and consider it as a most intolerable grievance PAINT- 
 ING their dislike to it with the strongest colours of rhetorick, and, by 
 these groundless insinuations, wishing to deprive them of all those 
 beneficial advantages they most gratefully acknowledge to have re- 
 ceived by the equitable system of jurisprudence obtained from the 
 parliament of England. 
 
 " My Lords, however bright may be the eloquence, and however 
 dark the purpose, of that noble and learned Lord, I trust he will 
 fail in his attempt ; and though strong was the arm that directed this 
 shaft against the vitals of the constitution, though the point was ea- 
 venomed, and, though it was aimed at a mortal part, I trust, my 
 Lords, it will fall blunted to the ground, without endangering tlie 
 p:ifety of the commonwealth, or affecting the true interests of the 
 kingdom." 
 
 Having stated, that Lord C. had declared this bill to be repugnant 
 t> the constitution &c. he eays he will remind his Lordship, that 
 
 * i-orci CaimJeD.
 
 233 
 
 this bill was not framed for England, but for a Conquered province, 
 and agreeable to stipulations made and ratified between the country 
 which conquered and the one which has lost said province : he adds, 
 And then, my Lords, I will go a step further ; I will meet the no- 
 bie Lord on his own ground ; and I will uphold to his Lordship, that 
 the general principles and policy of this Canada bill were founded in 
 wisdom that the principles of it, which his Lordship affirms to 
 be repugnant to Christianity, emanated from the gospel, and are co- 
 eval with the religion of our Saviour ; that they breathe forth the 
 spirit of their divine master ; for they are neither principles of 
 popeiy nor feivitude they are principles, my Lords, of toleration, 
 unrestrained by prejudice, and unfettered by absurd and odious re- 
 strictions. The inhabitants of Canada were catholicks before they 
 were conquered by England ; they are catholicks now, but under 
 the jurisdiction of a protestant parliament, and under the cogni- 
 sance of protestant bishops, who form a part of that parliament, and 
 who, I believe, were unanimous in allowing them the free exer- 
 ci:-.e of their religion," 
 
 Having produced some arguments in favour of his opinions, &c. 
 he turns the battery of his rhetorick against Lord C. charges him. 
 with conduct less becoming himself than a factious burgher of Ge- 
 neva, and proceeds : 
 
 ** But we have seen enough of republican government enough of 
 that levelling principle, which pulls down every thing, and sets up 
 nothing of that furious, ungovernable spirit, which rises against all 
 order and subordination ; which militates against ail power which it 
 cannot invade, and would destroy all government which it dots not 
 possess. My Lords, the constitution of England abhors all despo- 
 tism : it equally abhors the despotism of one man, and the tyranny 
 of the uncounted multitude! The medium between both is what it 
 delights in : It delights in freedom, guarded and governed by law 
 under the controul and protection of the three powers of the state, 
 king, lords, and commons, in parliament assembled. But this hap- 
 py and most envied state, with which God has blessed us, does not 
 flatter the ambitious purposes of the noble and learned Lord : he 
 has therefore employed all his talents, and all his learning, to conjure 
 xip a noxious spirit, both in England and America; a spirit which 
 assumes the fair form of liberty, that it may more surely destroy le- 
 gal and constitutional freedom." 
 
 To this spirit his Lordship attributes the rise of the discontents in 
 America, and censures those who excited it as highly culpable,
 
 289 
 
 rather than the Americans. This spirit, he says, has roused the 
 colonists to opposition, by telling them " their lives and properties, 
 their all was at stake that the affair of the ship-money, in the time 
 of Charles I. was a trifle light as air to the afflictive despotism, under 
 the lash of which they groaned," &c. &c. He adds 
 
 "This was the language held forth within THESE walls, and from 
 THESE walls re-echoed to America. It was HERE, my Lords, HERE 
 that these opinions were broached : and can you wonder at the ef- 
 fect they have produced ? Can you wonder that, urged on by men 
 of such exceeding weight, the colonists should have taken the 
 alarm ; or that it should have spread, like a pestiferous disease, 
 from the mountains of New- York down to the Gulph of Mex ; co ? 
 To WHOM then are you to ascribe the?e disorders ? At WHOSE door 
 then are these calamities to be laid, which have shaken the peace of 
 the kingdom ? To the misled, to the infatuated Americans: 1 or to 
 the perfidious counsellors, whose atrocious policy has involved them 
 and us in common destruction ? Is it credible, my Lords, that so 
 long as the great interpreters of .the law in this house, men of supe- 
 riour talents, and deeply versed in the science of the constitution, 
 proclaim aloud that their fellow-subjects on the other side of the 
 Atlantick are cramped and fettered in slavery is it credible that 
 they should submit to any government, or ever think themselves in 
 a state of freedom ?" 
 
 He was active in parliament till his death ; and the subjoined re- 
 marks respecting that event advert to his speeches delivered the last 
 day of his life this we have no reason to doubt, as we find in the 
 journals of the House of Lords, that two days before his death, he, 
 together with the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Coventry, and 
 others, opposed Lord Chesterfield's motion for an address of thanks. 
 
 Of his Lordship's peculiar habits, temper, and disposition, we 
 have but little other knowledge than what is to be derived from his 
 Letters and the writings of those acquainted with him. We believe 
 he sometimes amused himself, like his father, in writing poetry 
 mostly gallant and complimentary, we presume : and in the London 
 Critical Review, for 1780, we find some notice taken of " Poems, by 
 aywng Ncbleman" which are attributed to his Lordship. Judging, 
 however, from the specimens there quoted, we should not think 
 very favourably of them, nor believe them to be his. In her Me- 
 moirs, Mrs. Robinson, after observing that his Lordship ore dny 
 presented her the works of Miss Aikin (since Mrs. Barbauld,) -says, 
 N N
 
 290 
 
 K Lord Lyttleton had some taste for poetical compositions and 
 wrote vtrses with considerable facility " 
 
 Mrs. Robinson, who had sufficient opportunity to know some- 
 thing of Lyttleton's conduct and standing in the world, makes t>e- 
 veral severe but contradictory observations on his Lordship. JrL and 
 Captain Ayscough were, at the same time, presented to her b) Lord 
 Northington ; and Lord Lyttleton afterwards introduced to her, 
 among other friends, some theatrical characters, Sir Francis Moli- 
 neux, Alderman Sayer, and the unfortunate George Robert Fitz- 
 gerald. Of all these, she says, Lord Lyttleton was most decidedly 
 her abhorrence that he led her husband from the paths of domes- 
 tick confidence to houses of profligate debasement that he was 
 uniformly her aversion his manners were overbearingly insolent, 
 his language licentious, his person slovenly to a degree that was dis- 
 gusting, &c. This does not well accord with a preceding remark, 
 that he " w, as the most accomplished libertine that any age or coun- 
 try has produced" that "he was an adept in the artifices of fash- 
 ionable intrigue" and, afterwards, that his " society had marked Mr. 
 Robinson as a man of universal gallantry. We may, therefore, con- 
 clude that she overstrained the d.scription of his manners, dress, &c. 
 through resentment at his continued raillery towards her, as he used 
 frequently to call her the pretty cbiTd ; whereas Mr. Fitzgerald was 
 very attentive to women, took great concern in her v\tlfare, and 
 became her ardent admirer ! No doubt, she preferred Mr. F. and 
 hated, perhaps misrepresented, Lord L. 
 
 Mrs. R. also mentions " his shameless conduct to an amiable wife 
 from whom he was separated :" but when he was married we do not 
 
 know ; neither to whom, txecpt that he himself calls her Mrs. P . 
 
 in his 34th letter. Mrs. R also chaige> him with "cruel neglect of a 
 lady by the name of Dawson, who had long been attached to him.' r 
 This is doubtless the "amiable and handsome lady,' 1 spoken of in 
 letter nth, as being "cold as an anchorite." 
 
 Many vague, and probably fictitious, stories have been spread 
 abroad, to make his life and death appear wonderful and miraculous. 
 The editor of the Lounger's Common-Place Book (London, 1796,) 
 thinks that many of his excesses \\crc founded in that kind of bravado 
 only, which revelling- and vanity produce ; and he is persuaded, that 
 many reports about him oiiginated with one of his infamous asso- 
 ciates. He says, also, it is reported of Lyttleton, that at 12 years of 
 age, he declared with an oath, that he would not only be a libertine,
 
 291 
 
 but a libertine destroyed that he had a front which no blush ever 
 disconcerted (hut there ought to be one exception to thib assertion, 
 according to letter 29th) that he believed in the earthly visitation 
 of apparition^, ghosts, &c. that he would frequently ring his bell 
 with violence at midnight, for his servants, who generally found him 
 sitting up in a cold sweat, with every symptom of dismay and ter- 
 r our and that he would oblige one or more of his servants to bit 
 up with him for the night, on account of these visitation of a guilty 
 conscience, or a disordered imagination, which was produced, or at 
 least exaggerated, by intoxication and revelry. Such a man, in des- 
 paii of a lost heaven and the honours of an approaching hell, may 
 be baid to " meet the ghosts of Ins departed days, a numerous 
 train, who frown like furLs." 
 
 After all his Lordship's ill conduct, we cannot but think, that most 
 of his misbehaviour is chargeable to the indulgence of his family, 
 and (to use h s own word..) nut to <l obdurate and inflexible disposi- 
 tions inherent in his character. ' We cannot discover in his whole 
 career any rooted malice towards mankind, any propensity to rebell- 
 ion, murder, publick or private frauds, or swindling but the very 
 reverse. Nor do we discover any other motive in his propensity to 
 licentiousness and profligacy, than the indulgence of inordinate appe- 
 tite, or a desire to appear as wild and unrestrained in thought, word, 
 and deed, as his young and prodigal companions. Inwardly, and 
 with himself, he was no libertine, no advocate for deistical or immor- 
 al principles, but deprecated such characters, paid secret homage to 
 opposite qualities, and deeply lamented his want of them in practice. 
 We refer the reader, among other letters, to the jd, jth, 7'.h, gth, 
 ijth, 24th, 29th, 4ad, 47th, 49th, jist, & jjd. What a lesson to 
 inculcate strict family-government, an attention to the choice of a 
 young man's associates, and to teach the fallacy of leaving a child to 
 himself because he has nothing real! wicked in his disposition ! 
 
 All our remark? have been founded on the supposition of these 
 Letters' being genuine which beems to have been a matter in dispute. 
 The editors of the Critical Review, after speaking highly in favour of 
 the Letters, suggested the possibility of their being the work of some 
 other hand: and when the zd volume appeared, an advertisement is 
 said to have been inserted in the newspapers by Lord Lyttleton's ex- 
 ecutors, declaring them spurious ; the truth of which advertisement 
 was never controverted by the publisher. The editor of the Loung- 
 e"'j Common-Place BOOK, also, says, they are the production of Mr. 
 jinbe, the ingenious author of the Diaboliad ; and that they are
 
 292 
 
 exactly such as Lord L.. wouIJ have written. The editor of the Port 
 Folio says, still " he is very incredulous" of all this. The Letters, 
 eays he, " are certainly strong resemblances of his speeches and 
 conversation." 
 
 We owed it to candour to cite these passages, though we have no 
 doubts respecting the authenticity of the Letters ; and although all 
 this could never affect the excellence of the production, and on that 
 account is of no importance at all, yet the whole business of the 
 before-mentioned advertisement looks very much like a concerted plan 
 between the publisher and the executors, after the fact, as the law 
 would term it. Almost innumerable reasons might, nay we should 
 say must, have operated among Lord L's remaining friends, acquaint- 
 ance, and correspondents, to have them declared spurious, for a 
 time, if not always since they tad gotten abroad, and most prob- 
 ably without the consent or knowledge of many persons concerned 
 or implicated. And there is in themselves evidence of their gen- 
 uineness ; as Mr. Combe would hardly have been able to relate all the 
 things, in them related, and with such exactness too, unless assisted 
 by his Lordship, his papers, or some of his family all which is 
 wholly improbable. 
 
 Concerning the manner of his death, various stories have been told, 
 and told no doubt without foundation. In the Lounger's Com. P. 
 Book, it is stated, that he hastened his death by over-heating himself 
 in running or walking for a wager and, that for several days before 
 his er.d he declared that an invisible hand had drawn open his bed- 
 curtains, and presented to his sight a fluttering dove. The first we 
 think a mistake ; and as to the last, it is sufficient to know, that all 
 the last days of his life and much of his evenings (even to a few 
 Lsurs before Lis death) Were sptnt in parliament, or among his gay 
 companions. 
 
 From the Gentlemen's Magazine, for December, 1779* we, there- 
 fore, extract the following, as the most rational, candid, and authcn- 
 tick Accoutit, which has yet been published, concerning this event. 
 
 "ANECDOTES AND REMARKS RISPECTING THE SUDDEN DEATH 
 OF THE LATE LORD LYTTLETON. 
 
 THE vtry extraordinary circumstances that preceded the disso- 
 lution of the young, the gay, the dissipated Lord Lyttleton, when 
 they first appeared in print, soon after his death, were generally con. 
 sidered as the productions of some enthusiastick brain, ever ready 
 to construe all striking iirpiessions on the rr.li.ds of men, who have
 
 293 
 
 led a life of vice or fully, into extraordinary interpositions of Provi- 
 dence to promote the teformation of the hardened sinner; and to 
 alarm a volatile, unthinking, giddy race of people, who, following 
 the tide of luxury and sensuality, are easily seduced into a denial of 
 the existence of a superintending Providence, or, if not so far advan- 
 ced on the road of infidelity, at least forget that there is a God. 
 Considered in this point of view, it is no wonder, in an age like this, 
 when philosophy, instead of being the handmaid to truth, is the pros- 
 tituted mistress of atheism and impiety, that everv report con- 
 cerning the previous warning, given to his lordship in a dream, of his 
 approaching end, was received by the publick as an idle tale, and 
 made the standing jest of all the polite assemblies in town. 
 
 At length, however, the following anecdote, so well attested that 
 not a shadow of doubt remains of its authenticity, has given birth to 
 a variety of speculative opinions on the nature of that impression on 
 his lordship's mind, which, from the time of his communicating his 
 dream to within an hour of his death, certainly was too strong to be 
 subdued either by the strength of a fine natural genius, the force of 
 reason improved by a liberal education, 01 the surrounding pleasures 
 which affluence and elevated rank can always command, when their 
 aid is wanting to dispel the gloom of melancholy reflections. 
 
 Having given the fact, as it now stands confirmed by the evidence 
 of persons of character, we shall submit to our readers some free 
 thoughts upon the subject, and shall esteem it as a favour if our cor- 
 respondents will take up this interesting theme, and communicate 
 their opinions, illustrated by any similar anecdotes withinthe compass 
 of their own knowledge. 
 
 On Thursday morning, the 25th of November last, his lordship 
 mentioned at breakfast to Mrs. Flood (a widow lady who lived with 
 him as companion to the Miss Amphletts, his nieces,) that he had pass- 
 ed a very restless night ; that he thought he had heard a fluttering 
 noise in the room ; and that immediately after he fancied he saw a 
 beautiful lady, dressed in white, with a bird on her hand, who desir- 
 ed he would settle his affairs, for that he had but a short time to live. 
 On his enquiring how long, the vision answered, " Not three Jajs." 
 His lordship mentioned this dream frequently, but with an affected 
 air of careless indifference, which only showed that it had made a 
 stronger impression on his mind, than he chose to acknowledge. 
 On Saturday evening he pulled out his watch, observed that it was 
 half past ten, and that he had still an hour and an half longer to live, 
 4d jocosely chucking under the chin one of the young ladies (hia
 
 294 
 
 nieces) danced about the room, and asked her if she did not think 
 he should get over it, and live beyond the time predicted for his death. 
 Soon afterwards, however, he went to bed, complained of an unea- 
 siness in his stomach, and while his servant was mixing a cup of rhu- 
 barb and pepper mint-water, a medicine which he frequently took, ex- 
 pired. It was remarkable, likewise, that his lordship endeavoured to 
 account for his having dreamed of the bird, by saying that a few 
 
 days before, being in his green-house, at Pitt place, with Mrs. D , 
 
 he had taken some pains to catch a robin, which had been shut in, 
 and which he had set at liberty. 
 
 The methodists and the quakers look upon the dream in this case, 
 together with its effect on his lordship's mind and the accomplishment 
 of the prediction, as one of those singular manifestations of his power 
 over men, which God is pleased to make from time to time, in order 
 to strike conviction home to the hearts of infidels and voluptuaries. 
 Proper subjects, say they, are likewise chosen for these supernatur- 
 al exertions of Providence ; persons whose exalted station in life, uni- 
 versal acquaintance, and known dissipation make the example more 
 awful and alarming to a gay world. Sermons have been already 
 preached to enforce this doctrine on the strength of this recent in- 
 stance, and the celebrated female speaker, Mrs. K , is expected to 
 
 deliver an excellent oration to the brethren and sisterhood in Grace- 
 church-street, upon this subject, wherein she will take occasion to 
 demonstrate the divine intercourse between the Supreme Being and 
 the spirit of man, from which will be deduced the favourite doctrine 
 of the operations of the spirit, the chief tenet of the quakers. 
 
 Others, who are inclined to think seriously upon the subject, but 
 at the same time cannot subscribe to the opinion that there is any 
 thing miraculous in the circumstance of the dream, or of his lord- 
 ship's subsequent death, account for the whole from physical causes. 
 They maintain, that his lordship having been in a bad state of health 
 for nine months past, and labouring under an inward complaint 
 which weakened his nerves, it is no wonder that he was subject to 
 restless nights and uneasy dreams. His gcncial complaint was a 
 pain in his stomach, and his usual medicine, a dose of rhubarb in 
 mint-water. His teal disorder was a polvpiu on the heart, described 
 to be a quantity of coagulated blood, contained in a erst or bag, on 
 the burbling of which, immediate death, the natural consequence, 
 emitted. 
 
 Let us now reason candidly upon all these circumstances: is it not 
 weil known that frequent return of paius in the stomach biing on
 
 295 
 
 great dejection of mind, or what is called low spirits ? It is natural 
 to suppose, that the gayest man upon earth, in such a situation, 
 will turn his thoughts upon the past disagreeable events of his life, 
 and that if any crime, of which he is conscious, occurs to his recol- 
 lection, it will serve only to increase the melancholy frame of 
 his mi'.jd ; the generous design of making retribution, the impossi- 
 bility of doing this, in some cases, reflections upon death, which 
 break in upon every valetudinarian (whatever may be his religious 
 opinion-,) all contribute to stir up the \var within. Thus distemper- 
 ed in mind and body, accustomed to palliative relief, the voluptuary, 
 upon the first interval of pain, repairs to the banquet, and indulges 
 to excess.. Repletion causes a return of the disorder, perhaps in a 
 lesser degree, permiting exhausted nature to seek for recruiting 
 strength from that universal restorative, balmy sleep ; but this relief 
 being interrupted by indigestion, perturbating dreams are the conse- 
 quence dreadful struggles, between the active spirit, imagination, 
 mind, or whatever you are pleased to call it, and the encumbered 
 body, prevail more horrid to sensation than words can describe : 
 few there are, young or old, who have not laboured under these 
 horrours, vulgarly called the night-mare, afttr eating hearty suppers. 
 What are the subjects that distract the man in these dreadful con- 
 flicts ? Are they not familiar occurrences of his life ? The horseman 
 is flung from his seat, dashed on the pavement, the blood gushes 
 from every vein, the struggle to recover awakens the terrified drtam* 
 cr: he doubts for a few minutes whether the scene was not real, 
 and dreads to close his eyes again, lest the imaginary vision should 
 return. Another is attacked by a favourite dog or cat, and seems 
 to feel the teeth or talons of these furious animals. In short, not to 
 dwell upon the variety of shapes which this midnight disorder as- 
 sumes, let us only add, that the seducer of women will in his turn 
 be visited by the imaginary appearance of the injured female : the 
 agitated mind and the diseased body may work this up, in one of 
 these nocturnal phrenzies, into confused combinations of occurren- 
 ces. Mrs. D , representing the green-house occurrence, and the 
 
 bird, the confined fluttering robin with these might be intermixed 
 (for the person in these dreams often changes in the instant, some- 
 times we fancy it one, and then another,) some other female form, 
 unhappily ruined, which assails the dreamer, and intimates what is 
 most likely to strike the seducer with terrour, at his speedy dissolu- 
 tion. Awakened at this scene of terrour, the idta of some fixed time 
 easily intrudes itself on the disturbed imagination, and leaves a last-
 
 296 
 
 ing impression t just the same, and no more than that which hag 
 urged a man to give a premium for a particular lottery-ticket which 
 he has dreamed of so perfect as to remember the number, and that 
 it was drawn a capital prize. 
 
 The very evening after the dream, Lord Lyttleton in his weak state 
 exerted himself in two speeches in the House of Lords, and returned 
 home quite exhausted: what other fatiguing voluntary exertions 
 he imposed upon himself the next day we know not ; but it is a fact, 
 that he ate a very hearty supper on the Saturday evening, that the 
 impression upon his mind of his approaching death still affected him, 
 that in this situation the pain in his stomach returned, too violent 
 to permit him to take his usual medicine, or to go off in a confused 
 dream. The pressure of the burthened stomach bore too heavy on 
 the polypus, and the discharge killed him almost instantaneously. 
 
 We s>ee nothing supernatural in all this, and could we possibly ad- 
 mit that the Supreme Being occasionally steps out of the line of the 
 ordinary operations of his prov idence in the regular course of nature, 
 we should suppose it would be to furnish more general examples of 
 bis omnipotence and mercy, which must inevitably have an effect 
 on whole bodies of people ; on the conduct of nations ; and produce 
 general, not particular changes. 
 
 Montezuma and his subjects, by such an interposition, would have 
 avoided those horrid cruelties under which they slowly expired, when 
 the Christian Spaniards conquered Mexico : or the innocent victims 
 of a bloody inquisition would have been saved, while the pretended 
 holy inquisitors had been destroyed by fire from heaven. But as we 
 have no right to expect miracles of this nature, it is miserable super- 
 stition to believe that they exist for less important purposes. 
 
 Finally, let it be remembered that men of apparently vigorous con- 
 stitutions and sound judgments have been killed by the force of ima- 
 gination ; and in Lord Lyultton's case, if imagination had any force, 
 disease of body co-operated at the same time to hasten his dissolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Lord Lyttltton, the Elder, died in July, 1773, on which event 
 young Lyttleton succeeded him in his titles and estate. The death 
 of the Younger Lyttleton happened, as mentioned above, Nov. oj, 
 1779, when he was about 15 years of age with him his titles became 
 extinct. A more appropriate epitaph could not, perhaps, be inscribed 
 on his tomb, than this by the editor of the Port Folio 
 
 " IN CENITS AND VICE A PARAGON."
 
 
 
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