well than ill. The cocoa nut, though it had not a drop of liquor in it, and though the kernel came out whole, entirely detached from the shell, was an exceeding good one. Our hearts are with you.

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

Mrs. Madan is happy. She will be found ripe, fall when she may.

We are sorry you speak doubtfully about a spring visit to Olney. Those doubts must not outlive the winter.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The shortest day, 1781. I MIGHT easily make this letter a continuation of my last, another national miscarriage having furnished me with a fresh illustration of the remarks we have both been making. Mr. Smith, who has most obligingly supplied me with franks throughout my whole concern with Johnson, accompanied the last parcel he sent me with a note dated from the House of Commons, in which he seemed happy to give me the earliest intelligence of the capture of the French transports by Admiral Kempenfelt, and of a close engagement between the two fleets, so much to be expected. This note was written on Monday, and reached me by Wednesday's post; but, alas! the same post brought us the newspaper that informed us of his being forced to fly before a much superior enemy, and glad to take shelter in the port he had left so lately. This event,

I

suppose, will have worse consequences than the mere disappointment; will furnish opposition, as all our ill success has done, with the fuel of dissension, and with the means of thwarting and perplexing administration. Thus all we purchase with the many millions expended yearly, is distress to ourselves, instead of our enemies, and domestic quarrels, instead of victories abroad. It takes a great many blows to knock down a great nation; and, in the case of poor England, a great many heavy ones have not been wanting. They make us reel and stagger, indeed; but the blow is not yet struck that is to make us fall upon our knees. That fall would save us; but if we fall upon our side at last, we are undone. So much for politics. Next comes news from the north of a different complexion, which it is possible may be news to you.

Mr. Fletcher, on his recovery from his late dangerous illness, has started up a Perfectionist. He preached perfection not long since at Dewsbury, where Mr. Powley and his curate heard him. He told the people that he that sinned was no Christian, that he himself did not sin, ergo had a right to the appellation. Mr. Powley was so shocked by his violent distortion of the Scriptures, by which he attempted to prove his doctrine, that he thought it necessary to preach expressly against him the ensuing Sabbath; and when he was desired to admit the perfect man into his pulpit, of course refused it. I have heard that he is remarkably spiritual. Can this be? Is it possible that a person of that description can be left to indulge himself in such a proud conceit,-is it possible he should be so defective in self-knowledge, and so little

acquainted with his own heart? If I had not heard you yourself speak favourably of him, I should little scruple to say, that having spent much of his life, and exerted all his talents, in the defence of Arminian errors, he is at last left to fall into an error more pernicious than Arminius is to be charged with, or the most ignorant of his disciples. When I hear that you are engaged in the propagation of error, I shall believe that an humble and dependant mind is not yet secured from it, and that the promises which annex the blessing of instruction to a temper teachable and truly child-like, are to be received cum grano salis, and understood with a limitation. Mr. Wesley has also been very troublesome in the same place, and asserted, in perfect harmony of sentiment with his brother Fletcher, that Mr. Whitefield disseminated more false doctrine in the nation, than he should ever be able to eradicate. Methinks they do not see through a glass darkly, but for want of a glass they see not at all.

I enclose a few lines on a thought which struck me yesterday. If you approve of them, you know what to do with them. I should think they might occupy the place of an introduction, and should call them by that name, if I did not judge the name I have given them necessary for the information of the reader. A flatting-mill is not met with in every street, and my book will, perhaps, fall into the hands of many who do not know that such a mill was ever invented. It happened to me, however, to spend much of my time in one, when I was a boy, when I frequently amused myself with watching the operation I describe.

Mrs. Unwin sends her love, and will be much

obliged to Mrs. Newton if she will order her down a loaf of sugar, from nine pence to ten pence the pound, for the use of my sweet self at breakfast. The sugar merchant, if she will be so kind as to give him the necessary instruction, will be paid by the book-keeper at the inn.

Yours, my dear Sir,

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The last day of 1781. YESTERDAY'S post, which brought me yours, brought me a packet from Johnson. We have reached the middle of the Mahometan Hog. By the way, your lines, which, when we had the pleasure of seeing you here, you said you would furnish him with, are not inserted in it. I did not recollect, till after I had finished the Flatting Mill, that it bore any affinity to the motto taken from Caraccioli. The resemblance, however, did not appear to me to give any impropriety to the verses, as the thought is much enlarged upon, and enlivened by the addition of a new comparison. But if it is not wanted, it is superfluous; and if superfluous, better omitted. I shall not bumble Johnson for finding fault with Friendship, though I have a better opinion of it myself; but a poet is, of all men, the most unfit to be judge in his own cause. Partial to all his productions, he is always most partial to the youngest. But as there is a sufficient quantity without it, let that sleep too. If I should live to write again, I may possibly take up that subject a second.

time, and clothe it in a different dress. It abounds with excellent matter, and much more than I could find room for in two or three pages.

This

I consider England and America as once one country. They were so, in respect of interest, intercourse, and affinity. A great earthquake has made a partition, and now the Atlantic ocean flows between them. He that can drain that ocean, and shove the two shores together, so as to make them aptly coincide, and meet each other in every part, can unite them again. But this is a work for Omnipotence, and nothing less than Omnipotence can heal the breach between us. dispensation is evidently a scourge to England;-but is it a blessing to America? Time may prove it one, but at present it does not seem to wear an aspect favourable to their privileges, either civil or religious. I cannot doubt the truth of Dr. W.'s assertion; but the French, who pay but little regard to treaties that clash with their convenience, without a treaty, and even in direct contradiction to verbal engagements, can easily pretend a claim to a country which they have both bled and paid for; and if the validity of that claim be disputed, behold an army ready landed, and well-appointed, and in possession of some of the most fruitful provinces, prepared to prove it. A scourge is a scourge at one end only. A bundle of thunderbolts, such as you have seen in the talons of Jupiter's eagle, is at both ends equally tremendous, and can inflict a judgement upon the West, at the same moment that it seems to intend only the chastisement of the East.

In my last letter, in which I desired your opinion of Ætna, whether its poetical merits might not atone