use no ceremony where I mean well, and communicate with a Iman of sense and candour. You do, or doubtless will often, advert to this subject of delivery when you are with the Mentor above-named; believe me, his remarks and hints on that head will enable you to steer, like a second Telemachus, through many a strait which those who are deficient in manner often fall into, however sound or well digested their matter may be. Handel's Messiah is an excellent composition; but what would it be without the superadded graces of just and harmoniously-conducted execution? "Have you yet composed much? Suppose (for a mutual stimulus) we were each to give the other a subject or a text, or both together, occasionally; and then interchange our productions. I am ready on my part,—sub conditione tantum, not to let them be seen by any third person without our joint consent; not even by a Hunter or a Brooman, by a Dodd or a Smith. What say you?. Let us, however, if you agree to it, begin with the more plain and simple, the better to rise to the more difficult and complex objects of disquisition. "I have not heard a syllable from Cambridge for a long while, and begin almost to grumble. Should I hear of any one who wants such a Curacy as that in which you are fixed, I would let you know; but they are not among the most eligible objects, at least I speak from my own feelings, on a view of some of those downy gentlemen in whose disposal Curacies are placed. I wish they were in the nomination of parishioners *; it would be attended with much happier effects in most cases. What is the stipend annexed to your Curacy? Should you like to exchange it, or leave it for any thing tolerably decent in these parts; and shall I look out for you? they have sometimes fallen in my way. I shall be glad to hear, when you write next, how Rowe and Sukey got down; mean time commend me to all in the manner and measure which to your judgment shall seem meet, and believe me heartily yours, W. BUTLER." 8. Mr. LYON to Mr. BUTler. "DEAR SIR, Margute, July.., 1770. "I happened accidentally to meet our friend Matt. this morning; I find him as comical as ever, and I apprehend he will always remain so. I have not had any private conversation with him, but suppose he is come down on the old errand, to pay his respects to Miss Swinford. "Hunter and I keep very close to our theological studies, and seldom miss an evening; this you will perhaps say is right. You may, possibly, condemn me when I tell you I am going retrograde to the old adage, viz. 'Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast a better.' I do assure you I now hold iny school like an *It was such a preferment, one undoubtedly very honourable to the party elected, that Mr. Lyon subsequently obtained at Dover. eel by the tail, which will entirely slip out of my hand this week; it is promised; the word has passed my lips, and I cannot recall it, neither would I if I could. I find I want more time than I can conveniently spare to prepare myself for the examination next Ember-week, as I am willing to pass with decency if I can. I have the promise of a Curacy; but am not yet fully determined whether I shall take it. Fortune hitherto favours me beyond my expectations in regard to interest; I hope the old girl will not drop me in the midst of my trouble. I think to be in town with Hunter the 3d or 4th of March, when I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you. I am yours unfeignedly, J. LYON." CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN ALLEYNE, Esa. [This gentleman had been a clerk with his correspondent Mr. Butler in the office of Benjamin Rosewell, Esq. attorney, in Angel-court, Throgmorton-street, whose daughter he married May 29, 1768; but afterwards determined for the Bar. In 1774 he published a small octavo volume, intituled, "Legal Degrees of Matrimony stated and considered in a Series of Letters to a Friend; with an Appendix, containing letters from several divines and others." A second edition was published in 1776, and a third in 1810. Mr. Alleyne died young, at his house at Hackney, July 1, 1777.] 1. The Rev. WEEDEN BUTLER to JOHN ALLEYNE, Esq. "DEAR SIR, Southampton-row, Dec. 5, 1767. "You have much obliged me by your letter, which was still more acceptable on account of its contents. I had the pleasure of spending with Mr. Hunter* the last evening he staid in London, when he engaged ine to write him at Cambridge,—a pleasure which I propose doing myself in a few days. If you will promise only to be as agreeable, frank, and easy as in your last letter, I here declare that I will never stint you in size or in sentiment; sheet or half sheet shall find a cordial welcome, and oddity or plain urbanity shall receive my acknowledgments +. "What a pretty gentleman are you to keep a secret! a very Cerberus, I protest . Could you think me so lavish of my good Of whom before, p. 808. This gentle rebuke alludes to Mr. Alleyne's humourous and friendly, but sometimes very caustic raillery, of Mr. Butler's more serious disposition and less obtrusive habits. He was a wag. "Tria Cerberus extulit ora; Et tres latratus simul edidit." Ovid. Met. IV. 450. fame as to suppose that the communicating as mine, those trite ' remarks on a certain occasion' to your other two mouths, Hunter and Brooman, must not raise a blush in your modest friend? Let me particularly beg the favour of you to commit my copy to the flames immediately on receiving this. I hope the effect was such as to answer the purpose of a well-meant remonstrance *. Plan, my dear Sir, and the et-cæteras of limitation as to time or subject seem not to coincide with the nature of epistolary correspondence, of which were I to give a definition in the technical phraseology of a modern writer, it might be called, 'Spontaneous excogitations, the immediate result of casual circumstances, unconfined by rule, and free as the spirit which supplies them; the vagrant effusions of the mind.' Mr. Pope's regimen seems most nearly adapted to the proper treatment of the epistle, viz. to Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as she flies, And catch the manners living as they rise. "Indeed his letters, generally speaking, show very happily the attention he paid to this liberal rule; and this, if I rightly apprehend you, is all, that the study of nature and the researches of philosophy are calculated for, or need to effect. Subjects these, of which, however unequally, I profess myself with you a sincere admirer; though in doing so I know not but I may be paying myself no mean compliment, when I find the wisest son of the greatest king in the world, my exemplar. A Solomon has recorded it, to his own immortal honour, that he made the volume of Creation his peculiar study: "The vegetable world, each plant and tree, To creeping moss and hyssop on the wall. "Nor can I think that he, who with candour takes a single paragraph of this stupendous folio, a single blade or spire,-nay, or to go out of this vegetative kingdom into the mineral or animal, examines into the mode, conformation, re-production, and other properties of stones, beasts, or birds,—I do not think any such disquisitor can fail to exclaim with the wondering Poet: "Maximus in minimis certe Deus! * Mr. Alleyne's tongue was at times like a two-edged sword amongst his sincerest friends and valued intimates; Mr. B. chose not to be made his butt. Horace truly writes of a similar character, that, VOL. V. "Dum modo risum Excutiat sibi, non hic cuiquam parcet amico." 3 H These are visibles of the Godhead, which lead us up by such an easy gradation as that human steps and finite conception may attain to a satisfactory idea of the invisible things; even that Eternal Power, which presides over, modifies, and informs the amazing whole. I said a satisfactory idea, by which I only mean such an idea as should, nay, and ever will, suffice the wellinformed, humble, rational mind; not such an extravagant fever as theirs, insatiably under the most unhappy of all indispositions, an indisposition to be that limited creature-that feeble being, which the Almighty God formed. If I am found diffuse on this glowing subject, take the blame to yourself, and remember it was you laid the train of this reflection, from which it had been unjust to have turned my pen in silence. Your closing sentence much pleases me, and I lay upon it my strongest finger: I never begin a friendship but for life, unless some just cause of its dissolution is assigned; therefore, &c.' After such a confession he must be unjust to reason, to humanity, and himself, who can ever wish to be the cause of offence to one who intitles himself to far other and better returns. W. B." 2. Mr. ALLEYNE to Mr. BUTLER. "DEAR BUTLER, May 19, 1769. "You mention a desire, amusing to yourself, and I am sure happy in its consequences for me, of a weekly correspondence. I am ready, my friend, to begin it immediately; and look on this letter as an acceptance of the challenge. Begin it; start what subject you will, be it religion, morality, polity, belles lettres, I will endeavour to carry it on. A weekly paper of this sort I am sure will be a pleasing recreation to us both; and give me leave to say, Butler, the sight of our epistles may prove no unwelcome present to Nancy *. Think of this, and let me hear your sentiments; if in proprid persond the better, if not, by the mind's mirror-a letter. "Yours affectionately, JOHN ALLEYNE." 3. Mr. ALLEYNE to his brother-in-law Mr. Wм. ROSEWELL. "DEAR BILLY, May 18, 1769. "If the following sheets should carry with them neither improvement nor novelty, pardon the trouble I give you in perusing, for the sake of the motives which gave birth to them. Your interest I have always regarded, and I hope I shall never cease to regard it as inseparably mine; the present situation, therefore, in which I behold you, alarm me. It is not that I fear you will never surmount the difficulties which lie in your way, it is not the abstruse science on which you are about to enter, * Mrs. Alleyne. which causes the alarm, but it is the hours of fatigue, the Jaborious days, the restless nights, which lie before you, that cause me to shudder. The obscurity in which the young mind is enveloped, at its first entrance on the paths of knotty science, is greater than, I think, you are aware of. This is the fatal rock, on which, alas! too many have split. Bright Genius and solid Judgment have ranged in the labyrinth of law-have lost their way in it, and there at length have perished for want of timely aid. I do not mean to write a civil thing to myself, or to provoke one from you; but I will say, that no man ever begun the study of our profession with greater ardour than I did, and yet, for several months, I was a stranger to one clear idea. The whole appeared a mass of learning, indigested, unintelligible, vain, uncertain; it was by many repeated attacks, with redoubled vigour, that I finally saw day-light. Length of time, continual reflection, and much labour, at last overcame these difficulties, and now render my profession my chief delight. You are, however, better circumstanced in this respect than I was, you may receive daily help from the friendly lessons of your instructor; I stood alone: you are at a time of life when judgment is more mature; was I a boy of seventeen: you may therefore both see, and see through, a difficulty much sooner than I could. But still give me leave to tell you, that you will find it necessary to exert the faculties of the mind in an extraordinary manner to accomplish your desires. You will meet with obscurities which will stagger you; the best and only way to surmount them, or rather to avoid them, is by obtaining clear and distinct ideas of your business in the first out-set. Consider what it is abstractedly, unembarrassed with the idea of any particular law, on the grand basis of general policy. This is the way I have considered all law; it is difficult to do so; no one has done it (that I know of) but myself. I have been the author of my own labour, and have found my account in it. I will endeavour to convey my mind to you, but in whatever I shall say, I beg to be understood, once for all, as only submitting to you my thoughts upon the subject, not pretending to make use of a privilege to which the old man only is intitled, namely, giving advice. "What is the business of a Conveyancer? The practitioner will answer, a person employed to draw deeds, agreements, wills, &c. whereby estates are sold, and men are bounden to fulfil their agreements. But this definition falls short of my idea, which is, of a person bounden by his profession to advise his fellow citizens on the distribution of their property, whereby they themselves may enjoy peace and happiness during their lives, and may provide for their families and posterity afterwards. How is this respectable character to be attained? By a knowledge in the laws regulating property, and the legal means of distributing it; by the former, the law of England understands the |