makes writing much a great fatigue and Charon, and of the frogs that to me, have occasioned my choice of croak upon the banks of Lethe, givsmaller paper. Acquiesce in the ing his reader, at the same time, justness of these reasons for the pre-cause to suspect, that he was himself sent; and if ever the times should one of that profane number. Homend with me, I sincerely promise race, on the other hand, declares in to amend with them. sober sadness, that he would not for Homer says on a certain occasion, all the world get into a boat with a that Jupiter, when he was wanted at man who had divulged the Eleusinihome, was gone to partake of an en- an mysteries. Yet we know, that tertainment provided for him by the those mysteries, whatever they might Ethiopians. If by Jupiter we under- be, were altogether as unworthy to stand the weather, or the season, as be esteemed divine, as the mythology the ancients frequently did, we may of the vulgar. How then must we say that our English Jupiter has been determine? If Horace were a good absent on account of some such and orthodox heathen, how came Juinvitation during the whole month venal to be such an ungracious liberof June he left us to experience tine in principle, as to ridicule the almost the rigours of winter. This doctrines which the other held as safine day, however, affords us some cred? Their opportunities of inforhope that the feast is ended, and that mation and their mental advantages we shall enjoy his company without were equal. I feel myself rather inthe interference of his Ethiopian clined to believe, that Juvenal's avowfriends again. ed infidelity was sincere, and that Is it possible, that the wise men of Horace was no better than a canting antiquity could entertain a real reve- hypocritical professor. rence for the fabulous rubbish which You must grant me a dispensation they dignified with the name of reli- for saying any thing, whether it be gion? We, who have been favoured sense or nonsense, upon the subject from our infancy with so clear a light, of politics. It is truly a matter in are perhaps hardly competent to de- which I am so little interested, that cide the question, and may strive in were it not that it sometimes serves vain to imagine the absurdities, that me for a theme, when I can find no even a good understanding may re- other, I should never mention it. I ceive as truths, when totally unaided would forfeit a large sum, if after adby revelation. It seems, however, vertising a month in the Gazette, the that men whose conceptions upon minister of the day, whoever he may other subjects were often sublime, be, could discover a man that cares whose reasoning powers were un- about him, or his measures, so little doubtedly equal to our own, and as I do. When I say that I would whose management in matters of ju- forfeit a large sum, I mean to have risprudence, that required a very in- it understood, that I would forfeit dustrious examination of evidence, such a sum if I had it. If Mr. Pitt was as acute and subtle as that of a be indeed a virtuous man, as such I modern attorney-general, could not respect him. But at the best, I fear be the dupes of such imposture, as a that he will have to say at last with child among us would detect and Hector, laugh at. Juvenal, I remember, introduces one of his satires with an observation, that there were some in Si Pergama dextrâ Defendi possent, etiàm nâc defensa fuissent.* his day who had the hardiness to laugh * If Troy could be defended, my right hand at the stories of Tartarus and Styx had defended it. VOL. IV. Nos. 53 & 54. G taxes. At least I am much disposed sculls and broken limbs, and one of to quarrel with some of them. The them is dead. For my own part, I additional duty upon candles, by seem pretty much exempted from the which the poor will be much affect- dangers of the road. Thanks to ed, hurts me most. He says, indeed, that tender interest and concern, that they will but little feel it, be- which the legislature takes in my secause even now they can hardly curity! Having no doubt their fears afford the use of them. He had cer- lest so precious a life should detertainly put no compassion into his mine too soon, and by some untimebudget, when he produced from it ly stroke of misadventure, they have this tax and such an argument to made wheels and horses so expensive, support it. Justly translated, it seems that I am not likely to owe my death to amount to this-" Make the ne- to either. cessaries of life too expensive for the Your mother and I continue to poor to reach them, and you will save visit Weston daily, and find in those their money. If they buy but few agreeable bowers such amusement, candles, they will pay but little tax; as leaves us but little room to regret and if they buy none, the tax, as to that we can go no farther. Having them, will be annihilated." True. touched that theme, I cannot abstain But, in the mean time, they will from the pleasure of telling you, that break their shins against their furni- our neighbours in that place, being ture, if they have any, and will be about to leave it for some time, and but little the richer, when the hours, meeting us there but a few evenings in which they might work, if they before their departure, entreated us, could see, shall be deducted. during their absence, to consider the I have bought a great dictionary, garden, and all its contents, as our and want nothing but Latin authors, own, and to gather whatever we likto furnish me with the use of it. Had ed, without the least scruple. We I purchased them first, I had begun accordingly picked strawberries as at the right end. But I could not often as we went, and brought home afford it. I beseech you admire my as many bundles of honeysuckles as prudence. Yours affectionately. LETTER XL. To the Rev. William Unwin. served to perfume our dwelling till they returned. Once more, by the aid of lord Dartmouth, I find myself a voyager in the Pacific Ocean. In our last night's lecture we made our acquaintance with the island of Hapaee, where we had never been before. The French and Italians, it seems, have but little Aug. 14, 1784. cause to plume themselves on account of their achievements in the dancing way; and we may hereafter, without I GIVE you joy of a journey per- much repining at it, acknowledge formed without trouble or danger. their superiority in that art. They You have travelled five hundred miles are equalled, perhaps excelled, by without having encountered either. savages. How wonderful that withSome neighbours of ours, about a out any intercourse with a politer fortnight since, made an excursion world, and having made no proficienonly to a neighbouring village, and cy in any other accomplishment, they brought home with them fractured should in this, however, have made My dear friend, LETTER XLI. To the Rev. John Newton. Aug. 16, 1784. themselves such adepts, that for regularity and grace of motion they might even be our masters! How wonderful too, that with a tub, and a stick, they should be able to produce such harmony, as persons accustom- My dear friend, ed to the sweetest music, cannot but HAD you not expressed a desire to hear with pleasure! Is it not very hear from me before you take leave difficult to account for the strik- of Lymington, I certainly should ing difference of character that ob- not have answered you so soon. tains among the inhabitants of these Knowing the place, and the amuseislands? Many of them are near ments it affords, I should have had neighbours to each other; their op- more modesty than to suppose myportunities of improvement much self capable of adding any thing to the same; yet some of them are in a your present entertainments worthy degree polite; discover symptoms of to rank with them. I am not, howtaste, and have a sense of elegance: ever, totally destitute of such pleawhile others are as rude as we natu-sures as an inland country may prerally expect to find a people, who tend to. If my windows do not have never had any communication command a view of the ocean, at with the northern hemisphere. These least they look out upon a profusion volumes furnish much matter of phi- of mignonette; which, if it be not so losophical speculation, and often en- grand an object, is, however, quite as tertain me, even while I am not em- fragrant: and if I have not a hermit ployed in reading them. in a grotto, I have nevertheless myself I am sorry you have not been able in a green-house, a less venerable to ascertain the doubtful intelligence I figure perhaps, but not at all less anihave received on the subject of cork mated than he nor are we in this skirts and bosoms. I am now every nook altogether unfurnished with day occupied in giving all the grace such means of philosophical experiI can to my new production, and in ment and speculation, as at present transcribing it; I shall soon arrive the world rings with. On Thursat the passage that censures that fol- day morning last, we sent up a bally, which I shall be loth to expunge, loon from Emberton meadow. Thrice but which I must not spare, unless it rose, and as oft descended; and the criminals can be convicted. The in the evening it performed another world, however, is not so unproduc-flight at Newport, where it went up, tive of subjects of censure, but that and came down no more. Like the it may probably supply me with some arrow discharged at the pigeon in other that may serve as well. the Trojan games, it kindled in the If you know any body that is air, and was consumed in a moment. writing or intends to write an epic I have not heard what interpretation poem on the new regulation of franks, the soothsayers have given to the you may give him my compliments, omen, but shall wonder a little if the and these two lines for a begin- Newton shepherd prognosticate any ning Hau quot amatores nunc torquet epistola rara! Yours faithfully. thing less from it than the most bloody war that was ever waged in Europe. I am reading Cook's last voyage, and am much pleased and amused with it. It seems, that in some of LETTER XLII. To the Rev. William Unwin. My dear William, Oct. 2, 1784. A POET can but ill spare time for the Friendly Isles they excel so much what you knew before, that we love in dancing, and perform that opera- you all, and that I am your affectiontion with such exquisite delicacy and ate friend. grace, that they are not surpassed even upon our European stages. Oh! that Vestris had been in the ship, that he might have seen himself outdone by a savage. The paper indeed tells us, that the queen of France has clapped this king of capers up in prison, for declining to dance before her, on a pretence of prose. sickness, when in fact he was in per- to finish my transcript, that you may fect health. If this be true, per- receive it time enough to give it a haps he may by this time be prepar-leisurely reading before you go to ed to second such a wish as mine, town; which, whether I shall be able and to think, that the durance he to accomplish, is at present uncersuffers would be well exchanged for a tain. I have the whole punctuation dance at Annamooka. I should, how-to settle, which in blank verse is of ever, as little have expected to hear, the last importance, and of a species that these islanders had such con- peculiar to that composition: for I summate skill in an art that requires know no use of points, unless to diso much taste in the conduct of the rect the voice; the management of person, as that they were good ma- which, in the reading of blank verse, thematicians and astronomers. De- being more difficult than in the readfective, as they are, in every branch ing of any other poetry, requires perof knowledge, and in every other petual hints and notices, to regulate species of refinement, it seems won- the inflections, cadences, and pauses. derful that they should arrive at such This, however, is an affair that, in perfection in the dance, which some spite of grammarians, must be left of our English gentlemen, with all pretty much ad libitum scriptoris. the assistance of French instruction, For I suppose every author points find it impossible to learn. We must according to his own reading. If I conclude, therefore, that particular can send the parcel to the waggon nations have a genius for particular by one o'clock next Wednesday, you feats, and that our neighbours in will have it on Saturday the ninth. France, and our friends in the South But this is more than I expect. PerSea, have minds very nearly akin, haps I shall not be able to despatch though they inhabit countries so very it till the eleventh, in which case it remote from each other. will not reach you till the thirteenth. Mrs. Unwin remembers to have I the rather think that the latter of been in company with Mr. Gilpin at these two periods will obtain, beher brother's. She thought him very cause, besides the punctuation, I have sensible and polite, and consequently the argument of each book to tranvery agreeable. scribe. Add to this, that in writing We are truly glad that Mrs. New- for the printer, I am forced to write ton and yourself are so well, and that my best, which makes slow work. there is reason to hope that Eliza is The motto of the whole is—Fit surbetter. You will learn from this let- culos arbor.t If you can put the ter that we are so; and that, for my own part, I am not quite so low in spirits as at some times. Learn too,| *To the will of the author. SECT. II.] RECENT. 85 author's name under it, do so if other authors, I find myself under a not, it must go without one, for I poetical necessity of being frugal, know not to whom to ascribe it. It We love you all, jointly and sepawas a motto taken by a certain prince rately, as usual. of Orange, in the year 1733; but not to a poem of his own writing, nor indeed to any poem at all, but, as I think, to a medal. LETTER XLIII. To Joseph Hill, Esq. My dear friend, November, 1784. To condole with you on the death but for what place in Cornwall I know not. All I know of him is, that I saw him once clap his two hands upon a rail, meaning to leap over it. But he did not think the of a mother, aged eighty-seven, attempt a safe one, and therefore would be absurd-rather, therefore, took them off again. He was in as is reasonable, I congratulate you company with Mr. Throckmorton. on the almost singular felicity of With that gentleman we drank cho- having enjoyed the company of so colate, since I wrote last. The oc- amiable and so near a relation so casion of our visit was, as usual, a long. Your lot and mine, in this balloon. Your mother invited her, respect, have been very different, as and I him, and they promised to re- indeed in almost every other. Your turn the visit, but have not yet per- mother lived to see you rise, at least formed. Tout le monde se trouvoit to see you comfortably established in là,* as you may suppose; among the the world. Mine dying, when I was rest, Mrs. W. She was driven six years old, did not live to see me to the door by her son, a boy of se- sink in it. You may remember with venteen, in a phaeton, drawn by four pleasure while you live, a blessing horses from Lilliput. This is an vouchsafed to you so long; and Ĭ, ambiguous expression; and, should while I live, must regret a comfort what I write now be legible a thou- of which I was deprived so early. sand years hence, might puzzle com- I can truly say, that not a week mentators. Be it known therefore, passes (perhaps I might with equal to the Alduses and the Stevenses of veracity say a day,) in which I do not ages yet to come, that I do not mean think of her. Such was the impresto affirm, that Mrs. W- herself sion her tenderness made upon me, came from Lilliput that morning, or though the opportunity she had for indeed that she ever was there, but showing it was so short. But the merely to describe the horses, as be- ways of God are equal—and when I ing so diminutive, that they might reflect on the pangs she would have be, with propriety, said to be Lillipu- suffered had she been a witness of all mine, I see more cause to rejoice The privilege of franking having than to mourn, that she was hidden been so cropped, I know not in what in the grave so soon. manner I and my bookseller are to We have, as you say, lost a lively settle the conveyance of proof sheets and sensible neighbour in lady Aushither and back again. They must ten; but we have been long accustravel, I imagine, by coach, a large tomed to a state of retirement, withquantity of them at a time; for, like in one degree of solitude; and, be tian. * Every body was there. ing naturally lovers of still life, can relapse into our former duality, with |