MY DEAR SIR, Wroxham Hall, May 16, 1815. I thank you, and feel proudly grateful to you for your good opinion; wisdom, or sense, or graceful-mindedness, are (as Paris observes on personal qualities) gifts of God, most estimable, and most desirable where they are bestowed, not matters for envy. But honesty is every man's duty and in every man's power; yet such is the frailty of our nature that you may see ten thousand wise, or sensible, or agreeable men, sooner than one honest man; and if we did not both of us know Mr. Coke, I should find it very difficult, if not impossible, to point out a man of strict uniform integrity in great and small, in business or pleasure, pursuit or relaxation; to all these qualities he unites native dignity. With respect to Bonaparte, I separate him from his cause; he was a traitor to liberty, and through him no good can come ; if I were in a humour to sport, I should say liberty in her early youth, and in the hey-day of blood and spirit, produced a bastard, who when grown up disowned his illegitimacy, and denied his mother with insult and injury: from such a wretch what good can arise? Yet, could we rescue the mother, innumerable benefits would attend us. My son, who is not yet wholly recovered from his Spanish hardships, is on his route to Belgium; I feel there is some nature in the Scotch Tramper's remark, "Hoot, hoot, you fool! the deel take the just cause, the Lord deliver Mark Kerr's regiment, I say;" so say I to the royals. Be so kind as to remember me most respectfully and affectionately to the Bishop of Cloyne. I remain, my dear Sir, most truly yours, S. T. SOUTHWELL. MY DEAR SIR, September 4, 1815. You are going to travel with that great and good man Mr. Coke; I hope you will have fine weather. Sir J. Smith to soft manners unites great knowledge; and, though he possesses classical knowledge in a degree far, very far, beneath you, his taste is truly classical; you must have a very agreeable tour. With respect to foreign affairs, the French are as bad, and profligate, and perfidious, and have been as tyrannical, as a people can be ; and the Allies are the same with power. The English, you among the rest, gape about and look abroad too much; liberty, constitutional, practical, orderly liberty, is of true English growth: we have lost much of it by pursuing foreign Will-of-the-wisps, and as long as we chuse to amuse ourselves in that manner, ministry will indulge us, and make us pay. Believe me we never did, and never shall acquire any accession or security to our liberties from France. Mr. Fox originally wished the French to be left to themselves, and I am convinced we must do so at last. Mrs. Southwell unites with me in best regards, and I remain, my dear Sir, most truly yours, S. T. SOUTHWELL. MY DEAR SIR, Wroxham Hall, January 22, 1821. I am sorry to hear you have an erysipelatous complaint; generally they are very harmless; but, if neglected or ill managed, they become highly dangerous. Let me advise you to consult some eminent physician, who will treat your complaint with an alterative system, and mark out a proper diet; all acids are bad, you are a very moderate man in wine, but wine acts as a powerful acid in the habit. As to the situation of the country, it is so dreadfully bad, so near ruin, public and private, so near revolution, either despotical or anarchical, that people now, though too late, see and tremble. Do not let the Toryism of your brother trustees vex you; I have been disgusted so long with the universal corruption, that I am always rather surprised when I meet with a man who is not a Tory. Gibbon, somewhere says, corruption is a symptom of liberty existing in reality; if so, let us hope selfishness may be directed to a good end. We celebrated Fox's memory the other night, Lord Albemarle in the chair. The Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Coke, and many gentlemen of fortune and influence were present, who all united in the wish for Parliamentary Reform, without which they said change of men could be of no service, and change of measures not permanent. Thank God, my wife and children are all well; my wife begs to unite with me in best wishes and compliments to you and Mrs. Parr. On the other side of the paper I write as trustee, according to your direction. I remain, my dear doctor, yours truly and affectionately, S. T. SOUTHWELL. I, S. T. Southwell, one of the trustees for Mrs. Throgmorton's Charity for repairing and beautifying Hatton Church, do hereby authorize the Rev. Dr. Parr, to lay out fourteen pounds from the church fund in the purchase of new coverings for the pulpit, desk, and communion table. S. T. SOUTHwell. Jan. 22, 1821. In a copy of Dr. Battie's Isocrates, which Dr. Parr presented to Sigismund Trafford Southwell, Esq. are the following hendecasyllables. "Sit hoc μvnμóovvov tui magistri, Quod legas relegasque-vive semper, Non. Mart. 1780. S. P. Dr. Parr, to the Rev. John Bartlam. DEAR JOHN, Hatton, 24 December, 1804. I send over my boy with panniers for the wine. Pray write SOH in capitals on the sherry: you need not mark Mrs. Parr's. I thank you for this friendly present, and I beseech you to be very careful in packing up all the materials with plenty of hay. Moreover be so good as to have my old horse fed with half a peck of corn on Sunday and with a quartern on Monday morning; and do not fail to send off the boy before eleven. Be punctual in this. I shall be with you on Monday, the 7th January. Johnny, the covers are come, and one has your name. Now, you have extremely embarrassed me; for depending on what you said about your own convenience at the close of November, I told the silversmith that I would send him ₤26 as soon as the goods were delivered; but they are delivered, and the money is not sent, which is extremely painful to my feelings, and contrary to my practice. I therefore earnestly desire that you would do as follows: By Monday's post send a bank post bill, payable in nine days from the date, and let it be for £26, of which I will pay you the one pound surplus as soon as I can. Mind this. Pin the bill in very safe, and direct it to Messrs. Harrison and Co. silversmiths, successors to Mr. Coly, Fetterlane, Holborn, London. Write them a short letter; tell them you send the post bill by my direction, and desire them by return of post to acknowledge the receipt thereof, directed to you at Alcester, Warwickshire, and to me at Hatton. Indeed, Johnny, you have exercised my spirits. I hope you have brought Morhoff and T. Maurus from Oxford. I am sorry you did not share in the pleasant time I spent with Dealtry and Dr. John last week. We should all have been happy to see you. I meant to come home on horseback on the Friday; but the fear of bad weather led me to come home on Thursday in the chaise with Dealtry, who, in his good-natured way, returned through Warwick instead of Stratford for my accommodation. Dr. Percival's son came to see me he is a very sensible man, and I have promised to write a Latin epitaph for his father. Give my best compliments to Robert, to Mr. Bartlam, and to Booker. Be punctual about the post bill, and send off my boy in good time. I am truly yours, S. PARR. Dr. Priestley's committee are pleased with the epitaph, and have voted me the Cambridge Beza in return for my services. This is very proper. Rev. John Bartlam, to Dr. Parr. Merton College, November 24, 1805. MY DEAR AND MOST VALUABLE FRIEND, 1 have received all your letters. I am particularly grieved at the contents of the last. It is in vain for me to offer any consolation to a heart so tender, and to a situation so afflicting as yours. The resources of your own fortitude, piety, and wisdom, will do more than all the assistance which you can experience from the kindest sympathies of friendship, or the most judicious and best-meant exertions of those who grieve for the severe trial to which you are at present exposed. I feel most sensibly for the sorrows of you all; and I pray God to afford you as speedy and effectual a release from them as His wisdom and goodness may appoint, or human circumstances and human sensibility may allow. The sincere regard I bear to you all, and the affectionate interest I take in the situation of her who suffers, and in the afflictions of those to whom they are most afflicting, will secure my heartiest concurrence in every thing which may be proposed to me, or expected of me, either to alleviate present miseries, or, upon the melancholy termination of them, to shew the sense I feel of a daughter's inexpressible value, and a parent's inexpressible loss. May God bless you, and support you. Pray do not fail to give my best remembrances, and to express my tenderest regrets to Mrs. Parr. To Catherine, if you say what my feelings prompt, and my prayers ask, you will deliver a message of as much personal tenderness as the sufferings of a most valued friend can excite, or the worth of a most exalted character can demand. I am glad that you have reached Teignmouth. It will afford you, in future, a melancholy satisfaction, that the affectionate assiduities of a parent attended her last sufferings, and that his anxious eyes beheld her when she drew her latest breath. I was at once affected and consoled by your letter of this morning; it describes at the same time the anguish of your parental feelings and the support which is afforded you by the purity and strength of your religious principles. May God continue His goodness to you in every trial which may await you. I have called frequently upon our excellent and righteous friend, the President. He desires me to express his deep concern for the cause of your present and aggravated sorrows. He desires me also to express his disappointment at not having received you as his visitor at Oxford. You will be a welcome guest whenever you choose to make his house either a refuge of sorrow, or a resource of happiness. I have asked his opinion of the passages in the inscriptions. He has, I think, made them both out satisfactorily and clearly. I went to the Bodleian on Saturday, to consult Anton. Augustinus, and the other authors referred to by T. Warton, in the notes. As I did not go before two o'clock, I found it closed. I will, however, make a second |