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LXXXVIII. Dr. Young to the Rev. Thomas Newcombe.

MR. URBAN,

THE following excellent letter of the great Dr. Young, will doubtless be an acceptable present to your readers. It is probably one of the last he ever wrote.

E. H.

"To the Rev. Mr.Thos. Newcombe, at Hackney, near London.

"MY DEAR Old Friend,

Wellwyn, Nov. 25, 1762.

"AND now my only dear old friend, for your name-sake Colborn is dead; he died last winter of a cold, caught by officiating on the Fast-day he has left one daughter, I believe, in pretty good circumstances; for a friend of his, some time ago, settled upon her twenty-pounds a year; and he, no doubt, has left her something considerable himself.

"I am pleased with the stanzas you sent me; there is nothing in them of eighty-seven; and if you have been as young, in your attempt on the Death of Abel, it will do you credit. That work I have read, and think it deserves that reception it has met withall.

you,

"The libel you mention, I have not seen: but I have seen numberless papers, which shew that our body politic is far from being in perfect health. As for my own health, I do not love to complain; but one particular I must tell that my sight is so far gone, as to lay me under the necessity of borrowing a hand to write this. God grant me grace under this darkness, to see more clearly things invisible and eternal, those great things, which you and I must soon be acquainted with; and why not rejoice at it? There is not a day of my long life that I desire to repeat; and at fourscore it is all labour and sorrow. What then have we to do? But one thing remains, and in that one, blessed be God, by his assistance we are sure of success. Let nothing therefore lie heavy on your heart; let us rely on him who has done so great things for us; that lover of souls, that hearer of prayers, whenever they come from the heart; and sure rewarder of all those who love him, and put their trust in his mercy.

"Let us not be discontented with this world; that is bad, but it is still worse to be satisfied with it, so satisfied, as not

to be very anxious for something more. My love and best wishes attend you both, and,

I am,

My good old friend,

Sincerely yours,

E. YOUNG.

"P. S. I am persuaded that you are mistaken as to your age. You write yourself 87, which cannot be the case; for I always thought myself older than you, and I want considerably of that age. If it is worth your while, satisfy me as to this particular."

1797, Feb.

LXXXIX. Letter of John Locke.

MR. URBAN,

THE following letter of the great and good Mr. Locke, is in the possession of Mrs. Frances Bridger, of Fowlers, in Hawkherst, Kent, a lineal descendant of John Alford, Esq. son of Sir Edward Alford, Knt. of Offington-place, near Arundel, Sussex, to whom it was addressed.

" SIR,

D. J.

Ch. Ch. 12° Jun. 66.

"I have not yet quite parted with you; and though you have put off your gowne, you are not yet got beyond my affection or concernment for you. 'Tis true you are now past masters and tutors, and it is now therefore that you ought to have the greater care of yourself; since those mistakes, or miscarriages, which heretofore would have been charged upon them, will now, if any, light wholly upon you, and you yourself must be accountable for all your actions; nor will any longer any one else share in the praise or censure they may deserve, "Twill be time, therefore, that you now begin to think yourself a man, and necessary that you take the courage of one. I mean not such a courage as may name you one of those daring gallants that stick at nothing; but a courage that may defend and secure your virtue and religion; for, in the world you are now looking into, you will find perhaps more onsets made upon your innocence than you can imagine; and there are more dangerous thieves than those that lay wait for your purse,

who will endeavour to rob you of that virtue which they care not for themselves. I could wish you that happyness as never to fall into such company. But I consider you are to live in the world; and, whilst either the service of your country, or your own businesse, makes your conversation with men necessary, perhaps this caution will be needful. But you may withhold your heart where you cannot deny your company; and you may allow those your civility, who possibly will not deserve your affection. I think it needlesse and impertinent to dissuade you from vices I never observed you inclined to. I write this to strengthen your resolutions, not to give you new ones. But let not the importunities or examples of others prevail against the dictates of your own reason and education. I doe not in this advise you to be either a mumbe or morose; to avoid company, or not enjoy it. One may certainly with innocence use all the enjoyments of life and I have beene always of opinion, that a virtuous life is best disposed to be the most pleasant. For, certainly, amidst the troubles and vanitys of this world, there are but two things that bring a real satisfaction with them, that is, virtue and knowledge. What progress you have made in the latter, you will doe well not to lose. Your spare hours from devotion, businesse, or recreation for (for that too I can allow, where employment, not idlenesse, gives a title to it,) will be well bestowed in reviewing or improving your University notions; and if at this distance I could afford your studies any direction or assistance, I should be glad, and you need only let me know it. Though your ancestors have left you a condition above the ordinary rank, yet it's yourself alone that can advance yourself to it for it's not either your going upon two legs, or liveing in a great house, or possessing many acres, that gives one advantage over beasts or other men; but the being wiser and better. I speake not this to make you carelesse of your estate; for, though riches be not virtue, it's a great instrument of it, wherein lyes a great part of the usefullnesse and comfort of life.. In the right management of this lyes a great part of prudence, and about money is the great mistake of men; whilst they are either too coviteous, or too carelesse of it. If you throw it away idlely, you lose your great support, and best friend. If you hugge it too closely, you lose it and yourself too. To be thought prudent and liberall, provident and good-natured, are things worth your endeavour to obtain, which perhaps you will better doe, by avoiding the occasions of expences than by a frugall limiting them when accasion hath made them

necessary. But 1 forget you are neere your lady mother whilst I give you these advises, and doe not observe that what I meant for a letter begins to grow into a treatise. Those many particulars that here is not roome for, I send you to seeke in the writings of learned and sage authors. Let me give you by them those counsells I cannot now. They will direct you, as well as I wish you, and I doe truly wish you well. You will therefore pardon me for thus once playing the tutor, since I shall hereafter always be,

1797, Feb.

Sir, your faithful friend and servant,

JOHN LOCKE."

XC. From John Evelyn, on the Culture and Improvement of the English Tongue.

MR. URBAN,

INCLOSED you receive an original letter from John Evelyn, Esq. the celebrated author of "Sylva," to a Fellow of the Royal Society.

"SIR,

T. A.

Sayes Court, Jan. 28.

"On contemplation of your laudable designe of reviving the committee formerly appointed by the R. S. to consider of the culture and improvement of the English tongue; I here, to make good my promise, send you what suggestions I had once prepared in order to it; and, if you could engage my Lord Arlington, and the politer greate men to favour it, they would easily obtaine of his Majesty some conveniency of meeting in the Court itself; which might not only prove an ornament to it, but render it a profitable diversion, perhaps emulous of the stage, not to say the pulpit, and, by degrees, introduce likewise a greater kindness towards the R. Society in general, as to their philosophical concerns, and place it beyond the power of that envy and. detraction, under which it has so long laboured, for want of those influences, and its being better understood. But of these topics-upon some other occasion. I proceed to the subject in hand. And, first,

"I conceive the reason both of additions to, and the corruptions of, the English language (as of most other tongues,)

has proceeded from the same causes; namely, from victories, plantations or colonies, frontiers, staples of commerce, pedantry of schules, affectation of travellers, translations, fancy, and style of court, vernility and mincing of citts, pulpits, theatres, the bar, and from shops, &c.

"The parts affected with it we find to be the accent, annalogie, direct interpretation, tropes, phrases, and the like. I should, therefore, humbly propose, 1. that there might first be compil'd a gram'ar for the precepts, which (as it did the Roman, when Crates transferr'd the art to Rome, follow'd by Diomedes, Priscian, and others, who undertook it) might only insist on the rules, the sole and adequate meanes to render it a learned, as well as learnable, tongue.

"2. That, with this, a more certain orthography were introduced, as by leaving out superfluous letters, &c. such as (o) in woemen, people; (u) in honoúr; (a) in reproach; (ugb) in though, &c.

"3. That there might be excogitated some new periods and accents, besides such as our gram'arians and critics use, to assist, inspirit, and modifie, the pronuntiation of sentences, and to stand as marks before hand, how the voice and tone is to be govern'd in reading or reciting, and for varying the tune of the voice as the subject is affected. This would be of great use in the reading or pronouncing of verses, and of no small importance to the stage, the pulpit, and the barr.

"4. To this might follow a lericon, or collection of all the pure and genuine English words by themselves; then, those that are derivative from others, with their prime, certain, and natural, signification; then the symbolical; so as no innovation might be used or favour'd, at least, till there should arise some necessity of providing a new edition, and of amplifying the old upon mature advice.

"5. That, in order to this, some were appointed to collect all the technical words, especially those of the more generous and liberal employments, as the author of the

Essaies des Merveilles de Nature, et des plus nobles Artifices," has don for the French; Francis Junius, and others, have endeavour'd for the Latine; and as Mr. Philips has lately attempted in his English dictionary, and an ingenious divine (a friend of mine) is about upon the above-mention'dEssaies des Merveilles," &c. But this must be glean'd from shops, not books.

"6. That things difficult to be translated or express'd, and such as are, as it were, incom'ensurable one to another, as determinations of weights and measurs, coines, honors, nationalhabits, armes, dishes, drinks, municipal constitutions of courts,

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