These, you will say, are like a tailor's items of stay-tape and canvass. But remember, a coat cannot be made without them. I say nothing to you of the public. You are too much a philosopher to turn your eyes downwards on the dissentions of the great; and I cannot dwell upon the subject with any satisfaction. I am afraid we are at the eve of much disturbance, and ready to exchange a war abroad for one at home, less murderous, but more calumniating. We have long prayed to be delivered from our enemies; I wish the archbishop could hit upon an efficacious form of prayer to be delivered from ourselves. God bless you, and preserve the peace at Thurcaston, and in all its borders!

LETTER IX.

THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER TO MR. HURD.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

Grosvenor square,
March, 1765.

You say true, I have a tenderness in my temper which will make me miss poor Stukeley; for, not to say that he was one of my oldest acquaintance, there was in him such a mixture of simplicity, drollery, absurdity, ingenuity, superstition, and antiquarianism, that he often afforded me that kind of well-seasoned repast, which the French call an Ambigu, I suppose from a compound of things never meant to meet together. I have often heard him laughed at by fools, who had nei

ther his sense, his knowledge, nor his honesty; though it must be confessed, that in him they were all strangely travestied. Not a week before his death he walked from Bloomsbury to Grosvenorsquare, to pay me a visit: was cheerful as usual, and as full of literary projects. But his business was (as he heard Geekie was not likely to continue long) to desire I would give him the earliest notice of his death, for that he intended to solicit for his prebend of Canterbury, by lord chancellor and lord Cardigan. "For," added he, one never dies the sooner, you know, for seeking preferment."

66

You have had a curiosity, which I never shall have, of reading Leland's Second Thoughts. I be lieve what you say; they are as nonsensical as his first.

It is as you say of Percy's Ballads. Pray is this the man who wrote about the Chinese? Antiquarianism is, indeed, to true letters, what specious funguses are to the oak; which never shoot out and flourish till all the vigour and virtue of that monarch of the grove be effete, and near exhausted.

I envy the meeting of you three at Thurcaston; while I am confined here to the assemblies of pride and dulness.

I did mention to you, I think, the insult committed on the head of the supreme court of justice. The abuse was extreme, and much felt; generally resented, but I believe by nobody more than by me, as you will see by the enclosed. I have made what I had to say on that head, the conclusion of

my dedication*. It will please neither party. I was born to please no party. But what of that? In matters of moral conduct it is every honest man's chief concern to please himself.

P. S. When you have done with it, send it back.

LETTER X.

MR. JONES (AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN) TO HIS

DEAR SISTER,

SISTER.

WHEN I received your letter I was very concerned to hear the death of your friend Mr. Reynolds, which I consider as a piece of affliction common to us both. For although my knowledge of his name or character is of no long date, and though I never had any personal acquaintance with him, yet (as you observe) we ought to regret the loss of every honourable man; and if I had the pleasure of your conversation I would certainly give you any consolatory advice that lay in my power, and make it my business to convince you what a real share I take in your chagrin. And yet, to reason philosophically, I cannot help thinking any grief upon a person's death very superfluous, and inconsistent with sense; for what is the cause of our sorrow? Is it because we hate the person deeeased? that were to imply strange contradiction, to express our joy by the common signs of sorrow.

To lord Mansfield.-H.

If, on the other hand, we grieve for one who was dear to us, I should reply that we should, on the contrary, rejoice at his having left a state so perilous and uncertain as life is. The common strain is; 66 "Tis pity so virtuous a man should die :"but I assert the contrary; and when I hear the death of a person of merit, I cannot help reflecting, how happy he must be who now takes the reward of his excellencies, without the possibility of falling away from them and losing the virtue which he professed, on whose character death has fixed a kind of seal, and placed him out of the reach of vice and infamy! for death only closes a man's reputation, and determines it as either good or bad. On the contrary, in life nothing is certain; whilst any one is liable to alteration, we may possibly be forced to retract our esteem for him, and some time or other he may appear to us as under a different light than what he does at present; for the life of no man can be pronounced either happy or miserable, virtuous or abandoned, before the conclusion of it. It was upon this reflection, that Solon, being asked by Croesus, a monarch of immense riches, Who was the happiest man? answered, After your death I shall be able to determine. Besides, though a man should pursue a constant and determinate course of virtue, though he were to keep a regular symmetry and uniformity in his actions, and preserve the beauty of his reputation to the last, yet (while he lives) his very virtue may incur some evil imputation, and provoke a thousand murmurs of detraction; for, be lieve me, my dear sister, there is no instance of any virtue, or social excellence, which has not excited

the envy of innumerable assailants, whose acrimony is raised barely by seeing others pleased, and by hearing commendation which another enjoys. It is not easy in this life for any man to escape censure; and infamy requires very little labour to assist its circulation. But there is a kind of sanction in the characters of the dead, which gives due force and reward to their merits, and defends them from the suggestions of calumny. But to return to the point; What reason is there to disturb yourself on this melancholy occasion? do but reflect that thousands die every moment of time, that even while we speak, some unhappy wretch or other is either pining with hunger or pinched with poverty, sometimes giving up his life to the point of the sword, torn with convulsive agonies, and undergoing many miseries which it were superfluous to mention. We should therefore compare our afflictions with those who are more miserable, and not with those who are more happy. I am ashamed to add more, lest I should seem to mistrust your prudence; but next week, when I understand your mind is more composed, I shall write you word how all things go here. I designed to write you this letter in French, but I thought I could express my thoughts with more energy in my own language.

I come now, after a long interval, to mention some more private circumstances. Pray give my duty to my mamma, and thank her for my shirts. They fit, in my opinion, very well, though Biddy says they are too little in the arms. You may expect a letter from me every day in the week till I come home; for Mrs. Biscoe has desired it, and