other preparation of mercury, under a notion of especial operation on the liver, as I am certain that such opinions are unfounded, and also that mercury is never taken with impunity.* If at any time your head is particularly oppressed, and not relieved by opening the bowels, then be bled, provided the size and force of the pulse indicates a large volume of circulating blood. I want you to live many years, and, among other reasons, I feel an interested vanity in wishing you to see the ultimate work of my cogitations. A work so wide in its moral and physical bearings that I dare not say what it is, excepting that the same has been contemplated by many of the first Philosophers, of all ages and countries, and that it embraces a great number of natural facts, which conspire to effect a most important practical result. Accept my affectionate regards and best wishes, my very dear Sir, verily yours, ANTHONY CARLISLE. I enclose the form of prescription for the pills herein mentioned. Sir Herbert Croft, to Dr. Parr. Holywell, Oxford, May 19. Hang compliments! What are necessary, from one who means well, to a worthy man and a scholar? So, dear Sir, without further ceremony, many thanks for the pleasure your company afforded me here, and many wishes for a repetition of it. Many more thanks, if possible, for your corrections of my little pamphlet. They convinced me so strongly of your friendship, that perhaps, upon the strength of them, I take this liberty of writing to you-nay, a still greater liberty. Though I have not had the happiness of being your pupil, like Mr. Legge, for whose acquaintance I hold myself much obliged to you, yet I have a strong inclination to become * I insert this letter for the purpose of inculcating a salutary doctrine. your pupil, touching the composition of a sermon, the masters in that way, &c. If you can find half an hour some day, do write me half a sheet on this subject. If I mistake not, you won't be angry with a man for wishing to get the best advice he can; so I trouble you with no apologies. Walsh advised Pope to correctness, which he told him the English poets had neglected, and which was left to him as a basis of fame. Plainness is the advice I have given myself. Tell me if the advice be good. To my knowledge, I have never met with a sermon, either in a pulpit or on paper, which I thought sufficiently plain and intelligible. But, surely, a gentleman may be benefited by what his servant can comprehend, though the servant will not understand a syllable of what is calculated for the meridian of the master's comprehension. The only amends I can make for giving you this trouble, is to copy a page which I find bound up with Seneca's tragedies among my variorum classics. It is all printed but the names and dates, which gives an air of solemnity to it; and perhaps it may afford you a hint (whatever you may think of the language) for bestowing those rewards which I am sure Dr. Parr's pupils must often deserve. Ingenuus et industrius Adolescentulus JOHANNES A BLOCKLAND,* Præmium hoc literarium, boni profectus sui in classe Quartâ comprobati hostimentum reportavit, tribuentibus Examine verno, a. d. 111. Non Majas. What can I say more, Dr. Parr, than desire you to believe me, most truly yours, HERBERT CROFT. * Inauspicatum nomen! Professor White would say. Sir George Dallas, to Dr. Parr. REVEREND SIR, Saint Margaret's, Titchfield, Hants, It is impossible I can adequately express my gratitude to you for the high honor you have conferred on my son and myself, in favouring me with your most valuable and enlightened opinion on my son's Ode, &c. which crowns him with an early garland, of which through life he will be proud. Sentiments flowing from so pure and high an authority must be received, and treasured up, as the tasteful precepts of moral and classical wisdom. Lady Dallas not having yet returned to me the "Casket," I have still to receive the hints on the future course of his education, which you mention as contained therein, and which I shall receive with all the just veneration that attaches on your opinions. I am well aware that immoderate talents, like immoderate desires, ought not to be the leading objects of parental wish. Genius and judgment are but too often at war with each other, as we behold in the deplorable inconsistencies of Edmund Burke's political life; and perhaps the road to human happiness lies more in treading the vale, than in climbing the mountain. Still, however, we cannot chuse; what comes from Providence we must receive as a blessing; it is not the quantum of talents we are to view, but how to direct what there is to a wise and virtuous course. This is my aim with my children. I feel education to be the proudest blessing; not merely the ornament, but the prop and stay-staff of life. On this view of the subject, I have watched the progress of this boy. I have formed no extravagant expectations of future distinction in his career. I do not wish to force him into any current of action to which his talents and taste do not lead him. I only seek to give a fair and liberal play to any energies within him; to be the hand-maid, not the violator of nature. My inclination is to urge him, hereafter, to the Bar as an eminent avenue to distinction; but I have a beacon before me, to warn me from consulting my own wish, and not his taste, in the short but interesting Memoir of the life of that lamented and accomplished scholar, the late Mr. Twed dell, whose talents and acquirements have been embalmed and preserved for public veneration by your regrets. His worthy father directed his course to the study of the Law. Nature opposed it by a taste of a different, and, perhaps, higher kind. Filial duty made the effort, but Nature prevailed, and reclaimed him for a path more congenial to his taste and wish, wherein he would have signalized himself, if a merciful Providence had not early intended for him a higher wreath. My brother, Sir Robert Dallas, at the age of 18 took of himself a decided taste for the Bar, and in the midst of pleasure, accomplishment, and belles lettres taste, pursued his passion sedulously. He became an elegant orator, as he is now an eminent judge. Nature did much of this. To her voice, therefore, I think every prudent father should very much listen, when weaving the destinies of his son. While I am on the subject of Memoirs, will you pardon the liberty I take, in soliciting the favour of your acceptance of one from my own unlearned pen, which Nature also, here, very much dictated. My pen was steeped in grief at the moment of its birth, and my heart gave utterance to its sorrows. I offer it as a tribute of my admiration of an art wherein, Sir, you shine, and which, from a boy, I have revered, but never, as a man, have reached. If there is aught in it which, at a distance, breathes a spirit of eloquence which, if better cultivated, might have been less imperfect, you will pardon its political sentiments, in compliment to its higher aim, of embalming the memory of a hero, and redeeming it from the oblivion of time. I have the honor to be, with much respect, Reverend Sir, your very faithful and obliged servant, GEO. DALLAS. I had some difficulty in making out your letter, but I repay you in your own coin, for this letter is written with my left hand, in consequence of a weakness in the pen-fingers of my right hand. The name of Sir Philip Francis has of late been so much canvassed, and celebrated on account of the Letters of Junius being imputed to him, that I shall lay before the readers two curious letters ;curious, one for its matter, and the other, though written carelessly, obviously written by one who could write elegantly. Sir Philip Francis, to Dr. Parr. Brighton, August 15, 1800. If any man, in these degenerate times, be entitled to talk without book, it is certainly Dr. Parr. I have just learning enough to know that he is a living library. His sore leg, which I lament for many reasons, prevents me from calling him a walking library. Every thing about him is liberal but his foot. When he recovers, I should like to see him kicking Salmasius, for the love I bear to the memory of Milton. As to my friend póvov, I see I must leave Orestes in possession of him; though, to my weak intellects, it makes stark nonsense. I thought verily that mine had been a pretty conceit enough; viz. Os. "How shall we account for taking Pylades with us?" Ia. "I shall say, that he is polluted by the murder as well as you. I need not tell you that I am writing without book. An Euripides at Brighton would be as great a curiosity, as an Iphigenia at Tauris. In the little I read, I am subject to a strange hankering after common sense. Now for ȧywyμos. Let it be known to Dr. Parr that, immediately after I saw him at my house, I commissioned Payne and other Bibliopola to provide me with all the books he recommended, viz. Heraldus, Scioppius, Salmasius, and the Port Royal Logic and Grammars; but have not succeeded, except for the last. I have consulted Budæus without satisfaction. He was not aware of the difficulty; or, if he was, he did not know how to resolve it. So he consulted his safety, at least, by not meddling with the question. Dr. Parr, I trust, will not suspect me of pretending to debate a point of learning with him, much less would so liberal a scholar as he is desire me to say I am satisfied when I am not. I am inquiring, not contending. He says that "aywypos, in plain English, means generically, "one that may be taken up." Agreed. But what |