I want of the passages from Cicero and Aristotle. By the bye, I thank you for your caution as to the latter not adopting Plato's notion, or, as I should say, the notion of Socrates, as to a preexistent state; but this I had attended to. To save you trouble, as much as I could, I have pinned slips of paper against the passages I want translated. Page 25, beginning with "Ex quo effici" page 24. Pages 27 and 28, from the de Memoria et Reminiscentia of Aristotle; from the Poetic, page 29 and the scraps, pages 70 and 80. I shall of course make no other use of your name, than I have done in my quotations from you. : I need not say that I shall be very thankful also, if (which is my second object) when you see me to be near any point of importance, but not exactly upon it, you will, in every instance, put me so. You will see, as early as the third page, the importance I attach to exact truth, Also, when there are obscure, tasteless, or ill-turned expressions, pray let them not escape. The right word, in the right place-how right it is! It is not merely as a friend that I am applying to you; but it is because you are the only person who can completely give me what I want. Not any new sentiments, no additions whatever, which should be borrowed plumes, do I want. What alone I seek is, that correction of those who are best capable of correcting, which it would have been well for so many other pages if they had received before they were printed. Under the paper, containing the MS. there is the address of my brother: Mr. William Martin; Bright, Martin, and Co. 32, New-street, Birmingham; to whom you will oblige me by sending it me when you have done, and who will immediately forward it to me. I learn from Mr. Parkes, that I am indebted to Mr. Kendall for being your amanuensis in the criticism. I shall endeavour to shew my sense of my obligation to him by sending him a copy. I have only to hope, that I shall fall into the hands of persons for reviewers who know how to review me. Yours, dear Sir, with sincere respect, THOMAS MARTIN. If you write any thing in your own hand, do, my dear friend, so write that I can read it. The slips of paper, the remarks on which are for yourself, can be unpinned and thrown away. DEAR SIR, Dr. Parr, to Mr. Mawman. Hatton, April 27, 1806. The activity of my mind in correspondence has been much weakened by an event, the effects of which have been, and continue to be, very injurious to my health and spirits. I do not love to pour forth complaints. I have combated affliction by change of scene, and by the soothing influence of friendly society; but the truth is, that my existence is bereaved of its sweetest consolation,* and that my grey hairs are likely to go down with sorrow to the grave. I reached home this day fortnight; I avoid intellectual exertion, and spend much of my time among my neighbours, but I am not sufficiently restored to visit the Capital; and at this juncture I am further restrained by motives of respect and delicacy most due to such men as I have the honour to call my friends; and most, most adapted to my own habits of action, and sentiments of propriety. I would have condemned and opposed father and mother, sister and brother, if I had found them secretly or openly employed in misrepresenting the behaviour, wounding the peace, or injuring the good name of Mr. Fox. I have said to him and to others, as I now say to you, that my attachment to Mr. Fox is founded upon sympathy in the most precious rights and interests of our fellow Englishmen, and our fellow creatures; upon similarity of opinion in situations most critical, and upon subjects which involved the liberty and the happiness of Englishmen ; upon the resemblance of our habits in connecting politics with the soundest and most sacred principles of morality: and upon the consciousness of common suffering for our unfeigned, undisguised, unalterable perseverance in the pursuit of those objects which carry to our minds the evidences of truth, the obligations of duty, and the lovely charms of benevolence. . . . is not to learn for the first time that few men have so much of my regard as Mr. Fox: that one man only has so much of my confidence; and that not one ever had, or is likely to have, so much of my respect and admiration. Et hominem, et causam secutus sum, and death, which must sever me from the one, will be * The death of his daughter Catharine. accompanied by the hope of meeting the other in a better world. As to Mr. Fox, experience will bring home to wise and honest men that conviction which long observation had impressed upon my mind. I never could persuade myself to imitate or even to endure that vulgar and savage spirit of calumny which Mr. Pitt had excited indiscriminately against the character of Bonaparte, and the tendency of which was not only to irritate a jealous and a powerful foe, but to prepare the minds of Englishmen for the continuance of war without any distinct object, and amidst the most gross and perilous mismanagement to alienate them from the love of peace, and even reconcile them to the atrocities of assassination. Upon every principle of prudence, of decorum, and of virtue both public and private, I resisted that spirit by which Mr. Pitt and his partizans were actuated. But I have ever dreaded the ambition of Bonaparte. I would make many sacrifices in setting bounds to his outrageous encroachments. I despise the irresolution, and detest the perfidy of Prussia; and for the very first time I acknowledge, and even pronounce, war to be indispensably necessary; and, through that necessity, completely just. The speech of Mr. Fox seemed to me replete with sound matter and irresistible reasoning, but his note to Jacobi stands in the very highest class of state papers; it is dignified without arrogance, animated without bombast, and severe without invective. The mixture of statement with argument; the perspicuity of the diction, the propriety of the topics, and the vigour of the spirit, quite overpower me. It could not have been conceived by Pitt; it cannot be answered by Haugwitz; it will not be despised by Bonaparte; it must be admired in England, assented to throughout Europe, and approved by every honest patriot, and every enlightened Statesman to the very latest posterity. My good friend, you have comforted my aching heart by the intelligence you have given me about the health of Mr Fox. I certainly was dismayed with the reports which came to me from various quarters. May he live to conclude successfully that war, which he has begun righteously, and which beyond all other human beings he is calculated to conduct wisely! I hope that the prejudices of the King, and the infatuation of the people, will be quite subdued by the judicious and manly conduct of Mr. Fox. Already, dear Sir, the character of deliberations in Parliament and of measures in Government must, in your eye, as well as my own, have assumed a different and a nobler aspect. Insolence, hypocrisy, and intolerance no longer deform the language, or the temper of administration; but I must own to you, as I have to others, that far too heavy a burden is laid upon the shoulders of Mr. Fox; and that, with his ardent mind, and at his advanced age, the toils of office bear too hard, too hard upon the powers of nature. My daughter shall upon this head transcribe for your perusal what I have this very morning dictated in my letter to another friend. "The mighty lion of the forest should not be left to shake his mane, or to open his claws, or to lift up his majestic and awful roar, against the yelp of Percival, the barking of Castlereagh, the yell of Canning, or the angry growl of Francis. Surely the wit of Mr. Sheridan, the drollery of Mr. Courtenay, the good sense of Mr. Pigott, the acuteness of Sir Samuel Romilly, the caustic satire of General Fitzpatrick, the logical subtlety of Mr. Windham, the elegant fluency of Lord Howick, and even the rambling copiousness of Dr. Lawrence; these, dear Sir, are the proper instruments of warfare, and are quite sufficient to hew down the puny, peevish, prating rabble of Philistines who have set themselves in array against the hosts of Israel. When a Goliah goes forth, and not till then, would I give David the trouble of going forth with his sling, and stones collected from the brook. Mr. Pitt is no more, and with him are buried all the blusterings of rhetoric, and all the wiles of sophistry." S. PARR. Mr. Mawman, to Dr. Parr. REV. AND DEAR SIR, May 2, 1807. An arrangement was made between Mr. Johnson and myself, to which I thought you were privy, that the little book on Population should be our joint publication, and that Mr. Belcher was to print it as soon as might be convenient to you and him. I am sure it is impossible that there should be any altercation between you and myself, relative to compensation for your trouble in editing the volume of Metaphysical Tracts. Whatever you think I ought to give, shall most cheerfully be given. You will never, dear Sir, have cause to complain of any temporising or intolerant spirit in my politics. I am deeply impressed with the wisdom and virtues of the late Ministers, and with the folly and wickedness of the present. Can any thing be more false and absurd than the last speech which was put into his Majesty's mouth. It states that the dissolution will be "without material inconvenience to the public business," though there were more than one hundred and fifty private bills in the House; it expresses satisfaction at there having been no "additional taxes," though his present abused his late Ministers for not imposing them; it expresses a hope "that the next Parliament will prosecute the inquiries after public abuses," and yet they precipitated the dissolution of the last, to prevent those abuses being made public; and, to fill up the measure of mean duplicity and impudent absurdity, it finally "earnestly recommends a spirit of union, harmony, and good will among all classes and descriptions of people," though the avowed cause of the dissolution is to prevent the Catholics from having what they were promised by the authors of this address. I am sorry to inform you that there is a contest for the City of York; for, though our friend Sir Wm. Milner is perfectly secure, yet must it be attended with considerable expence to him. I have secured to him and his excellent colleague Mr. Dundas almost every vote in London. Hankey the new Candidate for London, is I understand certain of being returned; Combe I hope is secure. Shaw, Price, and Curtis, are said to be the weakest. You will be sorry to hear that Sir F. Burdett has had a duel with Paull: both are wounded, the former in the thigh, the latter in the leg, but neither of them I am told dangerously. Believe me, my dear Sir, with the utmost sincerity, J. MAWMAN. DEAR SIR, Dr. Parr, to J. Nichols, Esq. Hatton, near Warwick, July 18, 1789. I beg leave to thank and to applaud you for the judgment and |