my mind in tune. Observe, this is not one of N.'s excuses for want of time, for that I have read and think is allowable to no man but a cobbler, who by his work is forced to maintain a wife and nine children. I am now in a humour to write, but I fear I am not in unison with you, especially if you are amidst the elegant dissipations of Bath, and enjoying the happy sunshine of the company of your friends, -for I have just lost one: -I parted with James Dan last Wednesday evening, in high spirits, on Barham Down, and this day I have received advice that he died on Thursday of an inflammation in his bowels. I am shocked and grieved beyond expression. We sincerely loved each other, and had you known him better you would have loved him more. Here, my dear Bowdler, here is room for meditation. This lesson is urged home to our feelings. How soon may one or both of us be called on to pay that debt which has been demanded of him on so short a notice. The long account of follies and infirmities is now sealed up, and no penitence can revoke the sentence passed upon him. Yet do I firmly believe that his life has been such as to recommend him to to the mercy of his Creator. I think I see him now hovering over my head, a tutelar spirit, warning me not to fix my mind on a world from whence I must soon, and may immediately, be summoned. But I have done with the subject, though not with the idea. "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." My melons are now ripe; I wept over them this morning, for Dan was to have come and eat some. I can write no more. Adieu !" 66 Lydd, Oct. 5th, 1771. "You are very concise, friend Bowdler; however, I can excuse it. Before I go any further it will be necessary to premise, that I am writing this at nine o'clock in the morn ing, and as that is twelve hours sooner than my fits of inspiration generally come on, you will have a plain matter of fact letter. I am glad you are still at Spring Grove, for I have a kind of satisfaction in knowing that you are near me, though I do not see you. I should have liked your scheme monstrously, and it has no other objection than compound impossibility. To-day is our general quarter sessions and gaol delivery. Now awful justice puts on all her frowns.' Luckily, however, there is nothing to deliver our gaol from, rats excepted. We dine in great form with our grand jury. My wife is much concerned at the misfortune you mention with regard to her: it is still more unlucky, as you are entrenched to the teeth in her good opinion. I beg you will not come to reside here, for I shall be jealous. Observe, I omit here to give you a long quotation from Shakspeare on the attributes of jealousy. I am going to Hardres, to return on Monday morning, and wish I could meet you there: but we are not to be always happy, else should I be always with you. However, you can send your representative a letter; and I desire you to do so regularly, frequently, and, above all, speedily, for it seems I have no chance of meeting you again soon; well, we must rest in hope: perchance we may meet, as N. says, in the windings of our way,' sooner than we expect. Adieu ! — believe me your affectionate friend.” "Lydd. "Plerique perverse (ne dicam impudenter) amicum habere talem volunt, quales ipsi esse non possunt ; quæque ipsi non tribuunt amicis, hæc ab iis desiderant.' Now that saying of Cicero's will, I ingenuously own, be verified in myself. Sed quis ego sum? aut quæ in me est facultas? Doctorum (such as you) est ista consuetudo eaque Græcorum (Guyon for in 6 stance) ut iis ponatur de quo disputent quamvis subito. Magnum opus est egetque exercitatione non parva. Indeed, friend, you must not expect that I can always fill you a sheet, even with nonsense. Consider, first, the tenuity of my intellect; consider, next, the scarcity of matter to write on in this desert. Unless, indeed, you choose a dissertation, or a disputation, or an essay, or any thing of that sort; but then you must first set me an example. But all the while you mean to write on I was going to say frivolous, but that's impossible with you common every day subjects, I shall always, as in every thing else, fall infinitely short of you. O, did I live where you do, I could never want subjects; but I have none without I go deep, and that, as Cicero says above, Magnum opus est egetque exercitatione non parva.' But stop, and let me answer thine. I do not remember that the first page of my last was filled with apologies, but as you say so, I suppose it was, and that they were not dressed in language to your mind; for the necessity of them, I suppose you will not disavow, the general opinion of the world having stamped them current. do not know whether I express myself very clearly, but if I do not, you must blame Shakspeare, for I have been studying him till my apprehension and style are both somewhat confused. I am much obliged to you for so often calling at the Sussex; and will say no more of the many obligations I have to you on this subject, since it seems to offend you, than to assure you they will never be forgotten. You are a rascal to say that your last letter in breadth of margin, &c. &c. is a pattern of mine, and then to put yourself in a passion about it, and not write half what you had a mind to say. 'Give me the man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him I "But you, indeed, expect every body to be as clever as yourself, or else truly you will be in a passion with them. Go to, go to, endeavour to learn the virtues of patience, forbearance, meekness, temperance. And to that end avoid N.; 'tis his company, his villainous company, hath been the ruin of thee. But mark me, do not shake him off till he has received my box, for it contains for thee a bottle of Frontignac (a present from ma femme), which well I know, unless thou lookest sharp, for his own purposes he will purloin. My melons come on well. By heaven, I said true when I told you I planted them for you — for, Dost thou hear? 'Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice "Ce que je dis est la verité même, tous les tresors de l'univers n'ont de valeur que par l'objet qu'on aime. To be sure my French quotation would be rather properer to one's mistress than one's friend; but, however, it is true for all that." 66 Lydd, 27th Jan. "Well! and suppose your's was dated the 14th, that is but thirteen days ago, and you have received a letter from me since you wrote, so you need not look so grave and grim. Besides, I think when folks are running about from London to Bath and from Bath to London, if a body writes at all it should be like Queen Anne's ministry to Lord Peterborough, that is, at him, and not, to him. You had a right to write to me again in answer to my last, but my inclination tends to mercy and not to justice, (unlike the people of Lydd, who wanted me very much the other day to hang a man upon suspicion of felony, which, by the bye, D would have been at most only what the justice in Joseph Andrews calls a felonious larcenous kind of thing, if he had been really guilty: but this is all digression and nothing at all to the purpose, do you think it is?) and, therefore, as my wife is very hard at work with her handmaids, and I am above in my room, by way of preventing myself from falling asleep, I thought I might as well scratch over a little paper, and make you pay for it, though it is like to be a strange letter, for my daughter is with me looking over a book of pictures, which want so much explanation, and I am so often called off to admire their astonishing beauty, that I can only write about nothing; and a very good subject too, for, to the best of my recollection, it is a maiden one, unsullied by the mercenary hands of authors, and I have the vanity to think that, were it publicly known that it had been so ably handled by me, no one in future would presume to attempt it. A shrewd suspicion has just shot itself across my brain, namely, that you have been all this while reading without understanding my letter. Now, confess honestly, did you not think at the bottom of the last page, that this on which I am now writing was to be covered with an essay on the thing called nothing? Alas! alas! couldst thou not see that the treatise was concluded when you thought it was only going to begin? It is impossible to write to any thing so impenetrable, so send me word who is the author of a newish book called Principles of Penal Law,' for whoever he is, you may tell him he has had the honor of giving great pleasure to "With flesh of swine (unhallowed, Christian food!) And wine imported from the Gallic shore, |