ther you have read Mrs. Macauley's history of that period. She has handled him more roughly than the Scots did at the battle of Dunbar. He would have thought it little worth his while to have broken through all obligations divine aud human, to have wept crocodile's tears, and wrapt himself up in the obscurity of speeches that nobody could understand, could he have foreseen that in the ensuing century, a lady's scissars would clip his laurels close, and expose his naked villany to the scorn of all posterity. This however has been accomplished, and so effectually, that I suppose it is not in the power of the most artificial management to make them grow again. Even the sagacious of mankind are blind, when Providence leaves them to be deluded; so blind, that a tyrant shall be mistaken for a true patriot: true patriots (such were the Long Parliament) shall be abhorred as tyrants, and almost a whole nation shall dream that they have the full enjoyment of liberty, for years after such a complete knave as Oliver shall have stolen it completely from them. I am indebted for all this show of historical knowledge to Mr. Bull, who has lent me five volumes of the work I mention. I was willing to display it while I have it; in a twelvemonth's time, I shall remember almost nothing of the matter.

W. C.

We have great pleasure in

the contemplation of your Northern journey, as it promises us a sight of you and yours by the way, and are only sorry Miss Shuttleworth cannot be of the party. A line to ascertain the hour, when we may expect you, by the next preceding post will be welcome.

It is not much for my advantage, that the printer delays so long to gratify your expectation. It is a state of mind, that is apt to tire and disconcert us; and there are but few pleasures, that make us amends for the pain of repeated disappointment. I take it for granted you have not received the volume, not having received it myself, nor indeed heard from Johnson, since he fixed the first of the month for its publication.

What a medley are our public prints, half the page filled with the ruin of the country, and the other half filled with the vices and pleasures of it

here is an island taken, and there a new comedyhere an empire lost, and there an Italian opera, or a Lord's rout on a sunday !

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May it please your Lordship! I am an Eng"lishman, and must stand or fall with the nation.

Religion, its true Palladium, has been stolen away; " and it is crumbling into dust. Sin ruins us, the "sins of the great especially, and of their sins espe

6.

cially the violation of the sabbath, because it is

naturally productive of all the rest. If you wish "well to our arms, and would be glad to see the kingdom, emerging from her ruins, pay more re

spect to an ordinance, that deserves the deepest ! "I do not say pardon this short remonstrance!-“The concern I feel for my country, and the inter"est I have in its prosperity, gave me a right to "make it. I am &c."

Thus one might write to his Lordship, and (I suppose) might be as profitably employed in whistling the tune of an old ballad.

I have no copy of the Preface, nor do I know at present, how Johnson and Mr. Newton have settled it. In the matter of it there was nothing offensively peculiar. But it was thought too pious.

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

LETTER XCVI.

To the Revd. JOHN NEWTON.

March 14, 1782.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I can only repeat what I said some time since, that the world is grown more foolish, and careless than it was, when I had the honour of knowing it. Though your Preface was of a serious cast, it was yet free from every thing that might, with propriety, expose it to the charge of Methodism, being guilty of no offensive peculiarities, nor containing any of those obnoxious doctrines, at which the world is so apt to be angry, and which we must give her leave to be angry at, because we know she cannot help it. It asserted nothing more than

every rational creature must admit to be true" that divine and

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earthly things can no longer stand in competition "with each other, in the judgment of any man, than "while he continues ignorant of their respective va"lue, and that the moment the eyes are opened, the "latter are always cheerfully relinquished for the

sake of the former." Now I do most certainly remember the time when such a proposition as this

would have been at least supportable, and when it would not have spoiled the market of any volume, to which it had been prefixed, ergo-the times are al tered for the worse.

I have reason to be very much satisfied with my publisher-he marked such lines as did not please him, and as often as I could, I paid all possible respect to his animadversions. You will accordingly find, at least if you recollect how they stood in the Ms. that several passages are better for having undergone his critical notice. Indeed I do not know where I could have found a bookseller who could have pointed out to me my defects with more discernment, and as I find it is a fashion for modern bards, to publish the names of the literati, who have favoured their works with a revisal, would myself most willingly have acknowledged my obligations to Johnson, and so I told him. I am to thank you likewise, and ought to have done it in the first place, for having recommended to me the suppression of some lines, which I am now more than ever convinced would at least have done me no honour.

W. C.