it. Voltaire was offended, and Gib-You will understand, before you have bon has turned his back; but the read many of them, that they are not flock of Christ is still nourished, and for the press. I lay you under no still increases, notwithstanding the other injunctions. The unkind beunbelief of a philosopher is able to haviour of our acquaintance, though convert bread into a stone, and a fish it is possible that, in some instances, into a serpent. it may not much affect our happiness, I am much obliged to you for the nor engage many of our thoughts, voyages which I received, and began will sometimes obtrude itself upon to read last night. My imagination us with a degree of importunity not is so captivated upon these occasions, easily resisted; and then, perhaps, that I seem to partake with the navi- though almost insensible of it before, gators in all the dangers they encoun- we feel more than the occasion will tered. I lose my anchor: my main- justify. In such a moment it was, sail is rent into shreds; I kill a shark, that I conceived this poem, and gave and by signs converse with a Patago- loose to a degree of resentment, which nian; and all this without moving perhaps I ought not to have indulged, from the fire-side. The principal but which in a cooler hour I cannot fruits of these circuits, that have been altogether condemn. My former inmade around the globe, seem likely timacy with the two characters was to be the amusement of those that such, that I could not but feel mystaid at home. Discoveries have self provoked by the neglect with been made, but such discoveries as which they both treated me on a late will hardly satisfy the expense of occasion. So much by way of presuch undertakings. We brought face. away an Indian, and, having de- You ought not to have supposed, bauched him, we sent him home that if you had visited us last sumagain to communicate the infection mer, the pleasure of the interview to his country-fine sport, to be sure, would have been all your own. By but such as will not defray the cost. such an imagination you wrong both Nations that live upon bread-fruit, yourself and us. Do you suppose and have no mines to make them we do not love you? You cannot worthy of our acquaintance, will be suspect your mother of coldness; and but little visited for the future. So as to me, assure yourself I have no much the better for them; their po- friend in the world with whom I comverty is indeed their mercy. Yours, municate without the least reserve, my dear friend. yourself excepted. Take heart then; and when you find a favourable opportunity to come, assure yourself of such a welcome from us both, as you have a right to look for. But I have observed in your two last letters, somewhat of a dejection and melancholy, that Nov. 10, 1783. I am afraid you do not sufficiently My dear William, strive against. I suspect you of beI HAVE lost, and wasted, almost all ing too sedentary. "You cannot my writing time, in making an al-walk." Why you cannot is best teration in the verses I either inclose, known to yourself. I am sure your or subjoin, for I know not which will legs are long enough, and your perbe the case at present. If prose son does not overload them. But I comes readily, I shall transcribe them beseech you ride, and ride often. on another sheet, otherwise on this. I think I have heard you say you LETTER XXX. To the Rev. William Unwin. cannot even do that without an ob-|I am his humble servant, and shall ject. Is not health an object? Is never be at a loss to render him an not a new prospect, which in most equivalent. I will not, however, becountries is gained at the end of ev-lie my knowledge of mankind so ery mile, an object. Assure your-much, as to seem surprised at a treatself, that easy chairs are no friends ment which I had abundant reason to cheerfulness, and that a long win- to expect. To these men, with whom ter, spent by the fire-side, is a pre- I was once intimate, and for many lude to an unhealthy spring. Every years, I am no longer necessary, no thing I see in the fields, is to me an longer convenient, or in any respect object; and I can look at the same an object. They think of me as of rivulet, or at a handsome tree, every the man in the moon; and whether day of my life, with new pleasure. I have a lantern, or a dog and fagThis indeed is partly the effect of a got, or whether I have neither of those natural taste for rural beauty, and desirable accommodations, is to them partly the effect of habit, for I never, a matter of perfect indifference: upin all my life, have let slip the oppor-on that point we are agreed; our intunity of breathing fresh air, and con- difference is mutual; and were I to versing with nature, when I could publish again, which is not possible, fairly catch it. I earnestly recom- I should give them a proof of it. mend a cultivation of the same taste to you, suspecting that you have neg-furnished us with evening lectures. lected it, and suffer for doing so. LETTER XXXI. To the Rev. William Unwin. Nov. 24, 1783. L'Estrange's Josephus has lately But the historian is so tediously circumstantial, and the translator so insupportably coarse and vulgar, that we are all three weary of him. How would Tacitus have shone upon such a subject, great master as he was of the art of description; concise without obscurity, and affecting without beMy dear friend, ing poetical. But so it was ordered, AN evening unexpectedly retired, and for wise reasons no doubt, that and which your mother and I spend the greatest calamities any people without company (an occurrence far ever suffered, and an accomplishment from frequent), affords me a favour-of one of the most signal prophecies able opportunity to write by to-mor- in the Scripture, should be recorded row's post, which else I could not by one of the worst writers. The have found. You are very good to man was a temporizer too, and courtconsider my literary necessities with ed the favour of his Roman masters, so much attention, and I feel propor- at the expense of his own creed; or tionably grateful. Blair's Lectures else an infidel, and absolutely dis(though I suppose they must make a believed it. You will think me very part of my private studies, not being difficult to please: I quarrel with ad captum fœminarum) will be perfect-Josephus for the want of elegance, ly welcome. You say you felt my and with some of our modern hisverses. I assure you that in this you torians for having too much. With followed my example, for I felt them him, for running right forward like first. A man's lordship is nothing a gazette, without stopping to make to me, any farther than in connexion a single observation by the way; with qualities that entitle him to my and with them for pretending to derespect. If he thinks himself privi-lineate characters that existed two leged by it to treat me with neglect, thousand years ago, and to disco ver the motives by which they were tempted a balloon. You may possiinfluenced, with the same precision bly remember that at a place called as if they had been their contempo-Weston, a little more than a mile raries. Simplicity is become a very from Olney, there lives a family rare quality in a writer. In the de- whose name is Throckmorton. The cline of great kingdoms, and where present possessor is a young man, refinement in all the arts is carried whom I remember a boy. He has to an excess, I suppose it is always a wife, who is young, genteel, and rare. The later Roman writers are handsome. They are Papists, but remarkable for false ornament; they much more amiable than many Prowere yet no doubt admired by the testants. We never had any interreaders of their own day; and with course with the family, though ever respect to authors of the present since we lived here we have enjoyed æra, the most popular among them the range of their pleasure-grounds, appear to me equally censurable on having been favoured with a key, the same account. Swift and Addi- which admits us into all. When this son were simple. man succeeded to the estate, on the Your mother wants room for a death of his elder brother, and came postscript, so my lecture must con- to settle at Weston, I sent him a clude abruptly. Yours. LETTER XXXII. To the Rev. William Unwin. Your complimentary card, requesting the continuance of that privilege, having till then enjoyed it by favour of his mother, who on that occasion went to finish her days at Bath. You may conclude that he granted it, and for about two years nothing more My dear friend, passed between us. A fortnight Ir is hard upon us striplings, who ago, I received an invitation in the have uncles still living (N. B. I my-civilest terms, in which he told me, self have an uncle still alive), that that the next day he should attempt those venerable gentlemen should to fill a balloon, and, if it would be stand in our way, even when the la-jany pleasure to me to be present, dies are in question; that I, for in-should be happy to see me. stance, should find in one page of mother and I went. The whole your letter, a hope that Miss Shut- country were there, but the balloon tleworth would be of your party, and could not be filled. The endeavour be told in your next, that she is en- was, I believe, very philosophically gaged to your uncle. Well, we may made; but such a process depends perhaps never be uncles; but we for its success upon such niceties as may reasonably hope that the time make it very precarious. Our reis coming, when others, as young as ception was however flattering to a we are now, shall envy us the privi- great degree: insomuch that more leges of old age, and see us engross notice seemed to be taken of us, that share in the attention of the la- than we could possibly have expectdies, to which their youth must as-ed, indeed rather more than any of pire in vain. Make our compliments, his other guests. They even seemif you please, to your sister Eliza, ed anxious to recommend themselves and tell her that we are both morti- to our regards. We drank chocolate, fied at having missed the pleasure and were asked to dine, but were enof seeing her. gaged. A day or two afterwards, Balloons are so much the mode, Mrs. Unwin and I walked that way, that even in this country we have at- and were overtaken in a shower. I found a tree, that I thought would fashion, and respectable on every acshelter us both, a large elm, in a count. LETTER XXXIII. To the Rev. William Unwin. Jan. 3, 1784. My dear William, and had I not received a letter from grove that fronts the mansion. Mrs. I have told you a long story. T. observed us, and running towards Farewell. We number the days as us in the rain insisted on our walk- they pass, and are glad that we shall ing in. He was gone out. We sat see you and your sister soon. Yours, chatting with her till the weather &c. cleared up, and then at her instance took a walk with her in the garden. The garden is almost their only walk, and is certainly the only retreat in which they are not liable to interruption. She offered us a key of it, in a manner that made it impossible not to accept it, and said she would send us one. A few days afterwards, in the cool of the evening, we walked ing to both your mother and me; that way again; we saw them going toward the house, and exchanged you last night, I should have written bows and curtsies at a distance, but by this post to inquire after your did not join them. In a few minutes, health. How can it be, that you, when we had passed the house, and who are not stationary like me, but had almost reached the gate that often change your situation, and mix opens out of the park into the ad- a variety of company, should joining field, I heard the iron gate suppose me furnished with such belonging to the court-yard ring, and abundant materials, and yourself dessaw Mr. T. advancing hastily toward titute. I assure you faithfully, that I do not find the soil of Olney prous: we made equal haste to meet him; he presented to us the key, lific in the growth of such articles as which I told him I esteemed a sin- make letter-writing a desirable emgular favour; and after a few such ployment. No place contributes less speeches as are made on such occa- to the catalogue of incidents, or is sions, we parted. This happened more scantily supplied with anecdotes about a week ago. I concluded worth notice. with We have nothing less than that all this civility and attention was designed on their One parson, one poet, one belman, one crier, And the poor poet is our only 'squire. part as a prelude to a nearer acquaintance; but here at present the matGuess then if I have not more reater rests. I should like exceedingly son to expect two letters from you, to be on an easy footing there, to than you one from me. The pringive a morning call now and then, cipal occurrence, and that which af and to receive one, but nothing more. fects me most at present, came to For though he is one of the most pass this moment. The stair-foot agreeable men I ever saw, I could door, being swelled by the thaw, not wish to visit him in any other would do any thing better than it way; neither our house, furniture, would open. An attempt to force servants, or income, being such as it upon that office has been attendqualify us to make entertainments;ed with such a horrible dissolution neither would I on any account be of its parts, that we were immeintroduced to the neighbouring gen-diately obliged to introduce a chitry. Mr. T. is altogether a man of Irurgeon, commonly called a carpen ter, whose applications we have some unless such a one as it is a disgrace hope will cure it of a lock'd jaw, and to plead-the right of conquest. heal its numerous fractures. His The potentates of this country they medicines are powerful chalybeates, dash in pieces like a potter's vessel, and a certain glutinous salve, which as often as they please, making the he tells me is made of the tails and happiness of thirty millions of manears of animals. The consequen- kind a consideration subordinate to ces, however, are rather unfavourable that of their own emolument, oppressto my present employment, which ing them as often as it may serve a does not well brook noise, bustle, and lucrative purpose, and in no instance, interruption. that I have ever heard, consulting This being the case, I shall not, their interest or advantage. That perhaps, be either so perspicuous or government, therefore, is bound to so diffuse on the subject of which interfere, and to un-king these tyyou desire my sentiments, as I should rants, is to me self-evident. And if, be; but I will do my best. Know having subjugated so much of this then, that I have learnt long since, of miserable world, it is therefore neAbbé Raynal, to hate all monopolies, cessary that we must keep possession as injurious, howsoever managed, to of it, it appears to me a duty so bindthe interests of commerce at large; ing on the legislature to resume it consequently the charter in question from the hands of those usurpers, would not, at any rate, be a favour- that I should think a curse, and a ite of mine. This, however, is of bitter one, must follow the neglect itself, I confess, no sufficient reason of it. But suppose this were done, to justify the resumption of it. But can they be legally deprived of their such reasons I think are not want-charter? In truth I think so. If ing. A grant of that kind, it is well the abuse and perversion of a charknown, is always forfeited by the ter can amount to a defeasance of it, non-performance of the conditions. never were they so grossly palpable And why not equally forfeited if as in this instance; never was charthose conditions are exceeded; if ter so justly forfeited. Neither am the design of it be perverted, and I at all afraid that such a measure its operation extended to objects should be drawn into a precedent; which were never in the contempla- unless it could be alleged, as a suffition of the donor? This appears cient reason for not having a rogue, to me to be no misrepresentation of that perhaps magistracy might grow their case, whose charter is supposed wanton in the exercise of such a to be in danger. It constitutes them power, and now and then hang up a trading company, and gives them an honest man for its amusement. an exclusive right to traffic in the When the governors of the Bank East Indies. But it does no more. shall have deserved the same severiIt invests them with no sovereignty; ty, I hope they will meet with it. In it does not convey to them the royal the mean time I do not think them prerogative of making war and peace, a whit more in jeopardy because a which the king cannot alienate, if he corporation of plunderers have been would. But this prerogative they brought to justice. have exercised; and, forgetting the We are well, and love you all. I terms of their institution, have pos-never wrote in such a hurry, nor in sessed themselves of an immense such a disturbance. Pardon the efterritory, which they have ruled with fects, and believe me yours affectiona rod of iron, to which it is impossi-ately. ble they should even have a right,| |