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harper making a harp of it, to which often-illuminated grandeur of Glenhe sung her dirge in her father's hall, finlas.

is contemptible. Permit me to add one observation Your dissertation preceding Tam to this already long epistle. The Lane, in the second volume, is a lit-battle of Flodden-field, so disastrous tle mine of mythologic information to Scotland, has been, by two poetic and ingenious conjecture, however females, beautifully mourned; but melancholy the proofs it gives of your boasted James the Fourth dedark and cruel superstition. Always served his fate, from the ungenerous partial to the fairies, I am charmed advantage he sought to take of Hento learn that Shakspeare civilized ry the Eighth, by breaking the peace, the elfins, and, so doing, endeared without provocation, when that motheir memory on English ground. It narch was engaged in a war with is curious to find the Grecian Orphe- France. So deserve all the rulers us metamorphosed into a king of of nations, who, unstimulated by reWinchelsea. cent injuries, thus unclasp "the pur

The Terrible Graces look through ple testament of bleeding war." a couple of stanzas in the first part Perhaps this voluminous intrusion of Thomas the Rhymer, "O they on your time will be thought mercirade on," &c.; also, "It was mirk, less; but it seemed to me that barmirk, night;" and potent are the po- ren thanks, and indiscriminate praise, etic charms of the second part of this was an unworthy acknowledgment oracular ballad, which you confess of the honour conferred upon me by to have been modernized; yet more the gift of these highly curious and potent in the third. Both of them ingenious books.

exhibit tender touches of sentiment, A bright luminary in this neighvivid pictures, landscapes from na- bourhood recently shot from its ture, not from books, and all of them sphere, with awful and deplored worthy the author of Glenfinlas. suddenness-Dr. Darwin, on whose

"O tell me how to woo thee," is a philosophical talents and dissertapretty ballad of those times, in which tions, so ingeniously conjectural, the it was the fashion for lovers to wor- adepts in that science looked with ship their mistresses, and when bal- admiring, if not always acquiescent lads, as you beautifully observe, re- respect; in whose creative, gay, luxflected the setting rays of chivalry. uriant, and polished imagination, and Mr. Leyden's Cout Keelder pleases harmonious numbers, the votaries of me much. The first is a sublime poetry basked delighted; and on stanza, and sweet are the landscape- whose discernment into the cause of touches in the 3d, 10th, and 11th, diseases, and skill in curing them, and striking the winter simile in the 9th. The picture of the fern is new in poetry, and to the eye, thus,

"The next blast that young Keelder blew,
The wind grew deadly still:

Yet the sleek fern, with fingery leaves,
Wav'd wildly o'er the hill."

his own and the neighbouring counties reposed. He was born to confute, by his example, a frequent assertion, that the poetic fancy loses its fine efflorescence after middle life. The Botanic Garden, one of the most highly imaginative poems in

The "wee demon" is admirably ima- our language, was begun after its gined.

author had passed his forty-sixth

And now the poetic day, which year. I have the honour to remain, had gradually risen into beauty and sir, &c.

strength through this second volume,

sets nobly amidst the sombre yet

LETTER XCIX.

Mr. Warburton*to Mr. Hurd.

|ter-carrier, directed to Mr. Knapton, bookseller, in Ludgate-street. But you must be careful not to pay the carriage, because that will endanger

Bedford-row, October 28th, 1749. a miscarriage, as I have often experienced.-I intend to soften the con

Dear sir, I DEFERRED making my acknow-clusion of the note about Grotius ledgments for the favour of your last and the archbishop, according to obliging letter till I came to town. your friendly hint.

LETTER C.

Mr. Hurd to Dr. Warburton.

I am now got hither to spend the month of November: the dreadful month of November-when the little wretches hang and drown themselves, and the great ones sell themselves to the C- and the devil. Ishould be glad if any occasion would bring Shifnal, September 13th, 1755. you hither, that I might have the YOUR truly friendly letter, of the pleasure of waiting on you-I don't 31st past, brought me all the relief I mean to the C- and the devil, am capable of in my present situabut in Bedford-row. Not that I tion. Yet that relief had been greatwould fright you from that earthly er, if the fact had been, as you supPandemonium, a C————, because I pose, that the best of fathers was never go thither. On the contrary, removing from me, in this matuI wish I could get you into the circle. rity of age, by a gradual, insensible For (with regard to you) I should be decay of nature; in which case, I something of the humour of honest could have drawn to myself much Cornelius Agrippa, who, when he ease from the considerations you so left off conjuring, and wrote of the kindly suggest to me. But it is not vanity of the art, could not forbear his being out of all hope of recovery to give receipts, and teach young no- (which I had known long since, vices the way to raise the devil. and was prepared for), but his being One method serves for both, and his in perpetual pain, that afflicts me so political representatives are rendered much. I left him, last night, in this tractable by the very same method, disconsolate condition. So near a namely, fumigations. But these high prospect of death, and so rough a mysteries you are unworthy to par- passage to it-I own to you I cannot take of. You are no true son of be a witness of this, in one whom Agrippa, who choose to waste your nature and ten thousand obligations incense in raising the meagre spirit have made so dear to me, without of friendship, when the wisdom of the utmost uneasiness. Nay, I think the prince of this world would have the very temper and firmness of mind, inspired you with more profitable with which he bears this calamity, sharpens my sense of it. I thank Let me hear, at least, of your God, an attachment to this world has health; and believe that no absence not as yet been among my greater can lessen what the expressions of vices. But were I as fond of it as your good will have made me, that prosperous and happy men someis to say, very much your servant. times are, what I have seen and felt I have now put that volume, of for this last month were enough to which the epistle to Augustus is mortify such foolish affections. And, part, to the press; so should be in truth, it would amaze one, that a obliged to you to send it by your let-few such instances as this, which

sentiments.

* Afterwards Bishop of Gloucester.

hardly any man is out of the reach having left him; though, when I of, did not strike dead all the pas- was with him, as I could not hide sions, were it not that Providence my own uneasiness, I saw it only has determined, in spite of ourselves, added to his. I know not what to by means of these instincts, to ac- say. He was the best of men in all complish its own great purposes. relations, and had a generosity of But why do I trouble my best friend mind that was amazing in his rank with this sad tale and rambling re- of life. In his long and great afflicflections? I designed only to tell him tion he showed a temper, which phithat I am quite unhappy here; and losophers only talk of. If he had that, though it is more than time for any foible, it was, perhaps, his too me to return to Cambridge, I have great fondness for the unworthiest no power of coming to a thought of of his sons.-My mother is better leaving this place. However, a very than could be expected from her mefew weeks, perhaps a few days, may lancholy attendance. Yet her health put an end to this irresolution. has suffered by it. I have many let

I thank you for your fine observa-ters to write, but would not omit tion on the neglect to reform the communicating what so tenderly ecclesiastical laws. It is a very ma- concerns me, to my best friend. terial one, and deserves to be well. considered. But of these matters when I return to my books, and my mind is more easy.

LETTER CI.

I thank you for your book and your kind letters. Mr. Balguy and I think much more hardly of Jortin than you do. I could say much of this matter at another time.

LETTER CII.

I wish you all the health and all the happiness your virtues deserve, and this wretched world will admit of. I know of nothing that reconciles me more to it than the sense of having such a friend as you in it. I Dr. Warburton to Mr. Hurd. have the greatest obligations to Mrs. Warburton and the rest of your fa- I OUGHT rather to rejoice with all mily for their kind condolence. My who loved that good man, lately rebest respects and sincerest good wishes leased, than to condole with them. attend them. I must ever be, &c. Can there be a greater consolation R. HURD. to all his friends than that he was snatched from human miseries to the reward of his labours? You, I am sure, must rejoice, amidst all the tenderness of filial piety, and the softenings of natural affection. The gentle melancholy, that the incessant Cambridge, Dec. 1, 1755. memory of so indulgent a parent and I HAVE to tell you, that it has so excellent a man will make habitupleased God to release my poor fa-al, will be always brightened by the ther from his great misery. You sense of his present happiness; will guess the rest, when I ac- where, perhaps, one of his pleasures quaint you that his case was cancer- is his ministering care over those ous. All his family have great rea- which were dearest to him in life. son to be thankful for his deliverance: I dare say this will be your case, beand yet I find myself not so well cause the same circumstances have prepared for the stroke as I had made it mine. My great concern thought. I blame myself now for for you was while your father was

Mr. Hurd to Dr. Warburton.

languishing on his death-bed. And an hour after, and saw the city inmy concern at present is for your volved in flames, and sinking in mother's grief and ill state of health. thunder. A sight more awful morTrue tenderness for your father, and tal eyes could not behold on this the dread of adding to his distresses, side the day of doom. And yet absolutely required you to do what does not human pride make us misyou did, and to retire from so me- calculate? A drunken beggar shall lancholy a scene. work as horrid a desolation, with a

As I know your excellent nature, kick of his foot against an ant-hill, I conjure you by our friendship to as subterraneous air and fermented divert your mind by the conversation minerals to a populous city. And if of your friends, and the amusement we take in the universe of things raof trifling reading, till you have forti- ther with a philosophic than a relified it sufficiently to bear the reflec-gious eye, where is the difference in tion on this common calamity of our point of real importance between nature, without any other emotion them? A difference there is, and a than that occasioned by a kind of very sensible one, in the merit of soothing melancholy, which perhaps the two societies. The little Troglokeeps it in a better frame than any dytes amass neither superfluous nor other kind of disposition. imaginary wealth; and consequent

You see what man is, when never ly have neither drones nor rogues so little within the verge of matter amongst them. In the confusion and motion in a ferment. The af- we see caused by such a desolation, fair of Lisbon has made men tremble, we find, by their immediate care to as well as the continent shake, from repair and remedy the general misone end of Europe to another, from chief, that none abandons himself to Gibraltar to the Highlands of Scot- despair, and so stands not in need land. To suppose these desolations of bedlams and coroners' inquests: the scourge of Heaven for human but, as the poet says, impieties, is a dreadful reflection; and yet to suppose ourselves in a forAnd you will say, remember the lorn and fatherless world, is ten times sovereignty of reason. To this I rea more frightful consideration. In ply, that the common definition of the first case we may reasonably man is false: he is not a reasoning hope to avoid our destruction by the animal. The best you can predicate amendment of our manners; in the of him is, that he is an animal capalatter, we are kept incessantly alarm-ble of reason, and this too we take ed by the blind rage of warring ele- upon old tradition. For it has not

ments.

The relation of the captain of a vessel, to the Admiralty, as Mr. Yorke told me the story, has something very striking in it. He lay off Lisbon on this fatal 1st of November, preparing to hoist sail for England. He looked towards the city in the morning,

"In this, 'tis God directs; in that, 'tis man."

been my fortune yet to meet, I won't say with any one man, but I may safely swear with any one order of men, who ever did reason.

LETTER CIII.

which gave the promise of a fine day, Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester.

and saw that proud metropolis rise above the waves, flourishing in wealth

and plenty, and founded on a rock

Thurcaston, March 4, 1760.

My lord,

that promised a poet's eternity, at I HAD your favour of the 19th least, to its grandeur. He looked past, and about the same time re

ceived the confirmation of Mr. Allen's recovery, under his own hand. I hope this fit is now over. But it affects me very much to think that the declining years of this good man are likely to be rendered so uneasy to him, as they must be, by the frequent returns of this disorder.

LETTER CIV.

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr.
Hurd.

Grosvenor Square, March 31, 1760. I HAVE two kind letters of yours to acknowledge.

Mrs. Warburton is always extreme- I am extremely glad that good ly kind. From a letter she did me Mrs. Hurd enjoys reasonable health. the favour to write to me after her Her mistake about bishops pleases interview with Mrs. Johnson, I find me the more, as an excellent woman, she is intent on dignifying all your like herself (my mother), lived and lordship's domestics, as well as your died in this capital error. footmen. For whereas the chaplains You ought not to have excepted of other bishops, and even Lambeth my Sermon from the poverty of the chaplains, are usually thrust, with press. And in the dusky road tothe other lumber of the family, into wards antiquity, if it drew you aside any blind corner, she invites me to by its glimmering, you fared no betrepose, in state, in the Abbot's apart- ter than many before you have done, ment at Gloucester. You will judge, who, in a bad light, have mistaken a after this, if I can have the heart to glow-worm for a jewel. say one word against the shoulderknots.

I am inclined to think that Mr. Allen is not likely to come to London Your early intelligence of the suc- this spring. For my part, I shall cess of Dr. Richardson was very leave this place on the recess at obliging. I am glad of it, because I Easter; and, if he has laid aside the know it will make him very happy; thoughts of his journey, I shall not and because a piece of justice is return, but take to the Bath waters; done at last upon a man, who had no the first trial I make for my old comregard to the decency of his own plaint of indigestion, after having tricharacter. ed every thing else to little purpose. Your lordship is always so good to Poor Mr. Towne rather goes backme, that you will be pleased to hear ward than advances in his health. He of the health and usual cheerfulness talks of coming this spring to town of my mother. She is in a disposi- for his health; in which I think he tion rather to beg your blessing than judges right; as little opinion as I pay compliments. Though, to con- have of the physical tribe.

ceal nothing, I must tell you her infirmity, that she takes all bishops for such as she reads in her Bible they should be. So that 'tis only by accident she does not misapply the veneration she professes for your lordship.

LETTER CV.

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr.
Hurd.

Prior Park, November 4, 1760.

Í resolve to have your Sermon, though at the expense of sixpence ; I HAVE your kind letter of the 24th which your lordship will consider as past, and would not leave this place one argument, amongst others, of without acknowledging it. the regard with which I am ever, &c. going to look about me in this new

I am

world, but am in no more hurry than some older bishops are in their jour

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