tion letters may be strained to punish those, who, according to the spirit of the law, ought to be safe. But Joseph in his present train of talking and acting is likely to offend both against the spirit and the letter of the law, and to entangle himself in serious mischiefs. Ministers will bring odium, if they can, upon the Association, but they will reserve punishment for the members of the Constitutional Society. Now, that society cannot make itself very popular, nor in my estimation is it very respectable; the association, in order to revive their own credit, cannot take a very active part, if ministers commit flagrant injustice and oppression against their rejected brethren, the constitutionalists; and moderate men in every part of the kingdom may not be very zealous or very compassionate in favour of Mr. Paine's adherents. Joseph is a very clever fellow, and the constitutionalists know the worth of his abilities; but if they drive him into a jail I am not sure that they will support him there, and as Paine and he quarrelled in America, he has not much to hope from Mr. Paine's partiality. Mr. Horne Tooke is a pleasant companion, and a man of wonderful abilities. He employs Gerrald, consults Gerrald, flatters Gerrald, and Gerrald ought to know Mr. Horne Tooke. He may be betrayed, he may be deserted, he may be led to say and do those things which Mr. Tooke will be content merely to prompt; and he should be aware that it is an avowed part of Mr. Tooke's creed to avoid martyrdom in politics as well as religion. I beg of you, Sir, to put the plain and useful construction before him, and to remind him that, coming from me it comes from a counsellor, and a friend, whose judgment and sincerity he has long experienced. I beg my best compliments to your wife and to Joseph; and I have the honour to be, dear Sir, your very faithful obedient servant, S. PARR. MY GOOD FRIEND, May 25. Accept my very best thanks for the use of the carriage yesterday. I have received some intelligence about a learned friend, in whose happiness I am very much interested, and I hope not to offend Col. MacMahon, when, relying upon his politeness and good-nature, I take the liberty of requesting him to hear, or to read, what your long tried kindness now induces me to write to you. I hear with infinite satisfaction, that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent intends to honour with his patronage the Rev. T. Kidd. I cannot presume to express to His Royal Highness, the unfeigned approbation which I feel of his gracious intentions, but I venture to hope that the Prince Regent would not be displeased to hear, that, in my fixed and serious judgment, the exercise of his Royal authority and benevolence in favour of Mr. Kidd will be acceptable to all the scholars in this kingdom. I know Mr. Kidd personally—I have read some of his publications, and without hesitation I pronounce them highly creditable to his diligence, erudition, and taste. I have yesterday procured, from the most learned man in Oxford, a work which Mr. Kidd has occasion for in the re-publication of a critical book, for which he has prepared some notes, and which is going to the University Press at Cambridge, under the auspices of our Syndics. Knowing his utter ignorance of common life, the scantiness of his income, and the pecuniary embarrassments under which he labours, without any one defect in his moral habits, I have within this week endeavoured, though without success, to procure for him a valuable curacy at one village, and the yet more valuable mastership of a school, at another place in Warwickshire; and if his distresses had been told to me before I came up to town, I could have secured for him one or other of these situations. An infant in the cradle, or an adult at Otaheite, would be just as able as poor Kidd to conduct any negociation for worldly affairs; and within these three or four days he has been defeated in his endeavours to get a country curacy, and his ingenuous spirit has been mortified by the lofty tone of the ecclesiastic, who would have imposed him very hard conditions. He has only one very small living. He is compelled to quit his parsonage at Nazing, where he served the curacy, and took a few pupils. The living has lately been given away by the Chancellor, the pupils have been sent to their own homes, and Kidd is forced to turn out from the parsonage, My heart aches for the complicated and unmerited sufferings of a man, whose simplicity, innocence, probity, and learning, both sound and extensive, render him worthy of a more happy lot. I hope that Col. MacMahon will condescend to take the foregoing particulars into consideration, and I leave it to his discretion to mention them to his Royal Highness. I must, however, indulge my own feelings, by saying once more, that any gracious act of Royal patronage performed to so deserving a man would afford great satisfaction to all the friends of real learning. Kidd is pining in the country, and knows nothing of this letter. I have the honour to be, dear Sir, your very respectful, and much obliged, humble Servant, S. PARR. Francis Plowden, Esq., to Dr. Parr. MY DEAR SIR, Essex-street, June 9, 1795. I have received, and am very much flattered with your two letters; for, although upon the whole I ought to blush at the numerous defects that have caught the nicety and justness of your critical eye, yet the idea of having occupied so much of your thoughts, and not to have incurred a very severe censure, gives me some assurance that I shall not be damned by those whose judgments I revere. I am sensible of the delicacy and importance of the subject, and of my presumption in undertaking it. I am very sincere in my intentions, and wish to adhere closely to truth, and must, therefore, be satisfied with the reception which truth is likely to meet with in the present day. has very graciously accepted of a dedication. printing the index, so that I shall hope to send you down the remainder by the end of the week. I am truly grateful for the liberty you allow me. I am sensible how highly I compliment my own judgment in assuring you that a nullo malim me legi probarique quam a te. Lord Thurlow They are here At present I have not time to return you any observations upon the judicious remarks you have favoured me with. I shall merely note, that by what I said in page 53 I meant only to show that the ground upon which I undertook to defend any civil establishment of any religion, was the possibility of any number of men being convinced of the truth of it. For if such were the evidence of true religion revealed by Christ, that every rational being must necessarily see it-then could no human being give an establishment to a religion, which in that supposition must be evidently erroneous in the eyes of those who should adopt it. I must still think, that the right of duty of the civil magistrate to establish any religion arises not out of his own conviction of the truth of it, but out of the possibility of the sincerity of the conviction of others that it is true. Although James II. was a Roman Catholic, he ought to have given his assent to any bill for strengthening the Civil Establishment of the Protestant religion; because, although he thought it erroneous, yet he was to presume that the majority of his subjects were sincere in believing it true. I agree with you, that a magistrate must resign rather than adopt what appears to him error, and that it is of great utility that the magistrate should be of the religion of his subjects, but I do not see it of absolute necessity. For the present I must break off, and again endeavour to express the high sense I have of the honour of having occupied your thoughts, and of being permitted to subscribe myself with the greatest esteem and respect, dear Sir, your obliged and devoted, humble servant, FRA, PLOWDEN. DEAR SIR, London, Essex-street, Jan. 23, 1796. Having lately employed my thoughts upon the subject of annuities in the professional way, I found myself disposed to attempt to settle my own mind at least upon a matter that was closely connected with it, viz. Usury. For I profess, that the current of opinions upon the lawfulness of usury has often made me imagine that there were more reasons for condemning the practice than I was aware of. The investigation of the moral grounds for condemning it has driven me on the coast of theology, from which I am not a little anxious to escape clear of damage. I have vainly flattered myself that those parts of the work which touch the general nature of usury, the Jews, and the liability of ecclesiastical property to annuities and debt, might so far work upon your curiosity as to induce you to look into a law-book. I have, therefore, ventured upon the liberty of begging your acceptance of the work; and in following it up with a wish that you would at your leisure favour me with your opinion upon the fairness or rashness of hazarding what may appear novelties upon these topics, I proclaim the want of a much longer apology than I have already made: and am not insensible of the confidence and assurance that a man must possess to found a hope of employing your mind, and consequently of withdrawing your thoughts from the useful and sublime to the humble gatherings of mere industry. Much that I have said upon. clerical grantors of annuities has arisen from experimental knowledge of their sufferings; and if they can draw any advantage from my weak efforts to relieve them, I shall not have laboured in vain. I lately had the misfortune to lose my eldest daughter of a very rapid decline; she was premature both in mind and body, measuring six feet and one inch at the age of fourteen years and six months. God's will must be submitted to. The very black and desperate view of public affairs has some time since rendered me callous, and forced me to withdraw my thoughts from them; I wish in future to vacate solely to my profession. Had I not said so much upon the clergy and their property in this work, I should never have thought of troubling you with it. I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem and regard, dear Sir, your devoted and obedient humble servant, FRANCIS PLOWDEN. SIR, Uvedale Price, Esq. to Dr. Parr. Bath, November 19, 1798. When I ventured to make a criticism on Gray's imitation of Pindar, I did it with unfeigned and well founded diffidence; and certainly never expected that it would have produced such a comment from such a commentator. I think myself very highly honoured by it, and not less pleased and instructed; for you have thrown so many new and striking lights on the passage itself, and all that surrounds it, that I cannot but apply to you the words addressed by Dionysius to the source of light, Ποταμοι δε σεθεν πορος αμβροτου |