Etat. 53. many vegetables and animals with which philofo- 1962. phers are but little acquainted. I hope you will furnish yourself with fome books of natural hiftory, and fome glaffes and other inftruments of obfervation. Truft as little as you can to report; examine all you can by your own fenfes. I do not doubt but you will be able to add much to knowledge, and, perhaps, to medicine. Wild nations trust to fimples; and, perhaps the Peruvian bark is not the only specifick which thofe extenfive regions may afford us. "Wherever you are, and whatever be your fortune, be certain, dear Sir, that you carry with you my kind wifhes; and that whether you return hither, or stay in the other hemifphere, to hear that you are happy will give pleasure to, Sir, "Your most affectionate humble fervant, *June 1, 1762. A lady having at this time folicited him to obtain the Archbishop of Canterbury's patronage to have her fon fent to the University, one of thofe folicitations which are too frequent, where people, anxious for a particular object, do not confider propriety, or the opportunity which the perfons whom they folicit have to affift them, he wrote to her the following anfwer; with a copy of which I am favoured by the Reverend Dr. Farmer, Mafter of Emanuel College Cambridge. « MADAM, "I HOPE you will believe that my delay in anfwering your letter could proceed only from my unwillingness to deftroy any hope that you had formed. 1762. formed. Hope is itself a fpecies of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world. Etat. 53. affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly anfwer, that it is fuch expectation as is dictated not by reafon, but by defire, expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken. "When you made your request to me, you should have confidered, Madam, what you were afking. You afk me to folicit a great man to whom I never fpoke, for a young person whom I had never seen, upon a fuppofition which I had no means of knowing to be true. There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I fhould chufe to fupplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all the poffible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop should chufe your fon. I know, Madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted, when intereft opposes it; but furely, Madam, you must allow, that there is no reason why that should be done by me, which every other man may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man can do properly, without fome very particular relation both to the Archbishop and to you. If I could help you in this exigence by any proper means, it would give me pleasure; but this propofal is fo very remote from all usual methods, that I cannot 1762. comply with it but at the risk of fuch anfwer and fufpicions as I believe you do not wifh me to undergo. Etat. 53. "I have feen your fon this morning; he feems a pretty youth, and will, perhaps, find fome better friend than I can procure him; but, though he fhould at laft mifs the Univerfity, he may ftill be wife, ufeful, and happy. I am, Madam, "HOWEVER juftly you may accuse me for want of punctuality in correfpondence, I am not fo far loft in negligence as to omit the opportunity of writing to you, which Mr. Beauclerk's paffage through Milan affords me. "I fuppofe you received the Idlers, and I intend that you shall foon receive Shakspeare, that you may explain his works to the ladies of Italy, and tell them the ftory of the editor, among the other strange narratives with which your long refidence in this unknown region has fupplied you. "As you have now been long away, I fuppofe your curiofity may pant for fome news of your old friends. Mifs Williams and I live much as we did. Mifs Cotterel ftill continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and Charlotte is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets fix thoufands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much suspicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match. Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the circuit circuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardfon is dead of an apoplexy, and his fecond daughter has mar ried a merchant. My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myfelf, that you would rather hear of me than of those whom I have mentioned; but of myself I have very little which I care to tell. Laft winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to fufpect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughterin-law, from whom I expected moft, and whom I met with fincere benevolence, has loft the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and took the firft convenient opportunity of returning to a place, where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at leaft, fuch a diverfity of good and evil, that flight vexations do not fix upon the heart'. "I think in a few weeks to try another excurfion; though to what end? Let me know, my Baretti, what has been the refult of your return to your own country: whether time has made any alteration for the better, and whether, when the first raptures of falutation were over, you did not find your thoughts confeffed their disappointment. This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to melancholy minds, "Moral "Moral fentences appear oftentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occafions than the journey of a wit to his own town: yet fuch pleafures and fuch pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with great fenfibility, a mind able to fee common incidents in their real state, is difpofed by very common incidents to very serious contemplations. Let us truft that a time will come, when the prefent moment shall be no longer irkfome; when we fhall not borrow all our happiness from hope, which at laft is to end in difappointment. "I beg that you will fhew Mr. Beauclerk all the civilities which you have in your power; for he has always been kind to me. "I have lately feen Mr. Stratico, Profeffor of Padua, who has told me of your quarrel with an Abbot of the Celestine order; but had not the particulars very ready in his memory. When you write to Mr. Marfili, let him know that I remember him with kindness. May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or fome other place nearer to, Sir, "Your most affectionate humble fervant, To the RIGHT HONOURABLE the EARL of BUTE'. "MY LORD, "THAT generofity, by which I was recommended to the favour of his Majefty, will not be Lord Macartney obligingly favoured me with a copy of this letter, in his own hand-writing, from the original, which was found, by the prefent Earl of Bute, among his late father's papers. VOL. I. Z offended |