ment of pleadings, trials of causes, and opinions to clients, scarcely allow me a few moments for eating and sleeping. I thank you sincerely for your very entertaining account of your own occupations, and of what is going on in your country. If I should hear of any wealthy English gentleman who wishes to send his son as a pupil to Holland, to study literature, you may rely upon my recommendation of your merits, as well as upon my assistance on all occasions. I must, however, at the same time tell you, that an opportunity of this nature is very uncertain.

XLVII.

To Lord Althorpe.

MY DEAR LORD,

Bath, Dec. 28, 1777.

I TOLD you, when I had the pleasure of seeing you in London, that it was doubtful whether I should pass my vacation at Amsterdam or at Bath: the Naiads of the hot springs have prevailed, you see, over the nymphs of the lakes, and I have been drinking the waters for a month, with no less pleasure than advantage to my health; the improvement of which I ascribe, however, in great measure, to my regular exercise on the Downs, and to abstinence from any study that requires too much

exertion of the mind. I should have skated indeed in Holland from town to town, and a little voyage would have dissipated my bile, if I had any; but that scheme I must postpone till another winter, and have sent an excuse to my Dutch friend, who ex. pected me.

As I came hither entirely for the purpose of recruiting my exhausted spirits, and strengthening my stomach, I have abstained with some reluctance from dancing, an amusement which I am as fond of as ever, but which would be too heating for a water-drinker; and as for the idler diversions of a public place, they have not the recommendation of novelty, without which they cannot long please. You, my dear friend, are in the mean time relaxing yourself, from the severer pursuits of science and civil knowledge, with the healthy and mauly exercise of the field, from which you will return, with a keener appetite, to the noble feast which the Muses are again preparing for you at Cambridge. And here, by way of parenthesis, I must tell you that I joined a small party of hunters the other morning, and was in at the death of a hare; but I must confess, that I think hare-hunting a very dull exercise, and fit rather for a huntress than a mighty hunter, rather for Diana than Orion. Had I the taste and vigour of Actæon, without his indiscreet curiosity, my game would be the stag or the fox, and I should leave the hare in peace, without sending her to her many friends. This heresy of mine may arise from my fondness for every thing vast, and my disdain of every thing little; and for the same reason, I should prefer the more violent sport of the Asiatics, who enclose a whole district with toils, and then

attack the tigers and leopards with javelins, to the sound of trumpets and clarions. Of music, I conclude, you have as much at Althorpe as your heart can desire; I might here have more than my ears could bear, or my mind conceive, for we have with us La Motte, Fischer, Rauzzini; but, as I live in the house of my old master, Evans, whom you remember, I am satisfied with his harp, which I prefer to the Theban lyre, as much as I prefer Wales to ancient or modern Egypt.

I was this morning with Wilkes, who showed me a letter lately written to him from Paris, by Diderot as I have, you know, a quick memory, I brought away the substance of it, and give it to you in a translation almost literal :-" Friend Wilkes, it delights me to hear that you still have sufficient employment for your active mind, without which you cannot long be happy. I have just read the several speeches which you have delivered on the subject of your present war against the provincials: they are full of eloquence, force, and dignity. I too have composed a speech on the same subject, which I would deliver in your senate, had I a seat in it. 'I will wave for the present, my countrymen, all consideration of the justice or injustice of the measures you are pursuing; I well know that to be an improper topic at the time when the public welfare is immediately concerned: I will not even question, at present, your power to reduce an exasperated and desperate people; but consider, I entreat you, that you are surrounded by nations by whom you are detested; and say, for Heaven's sake, how long you will give them reason to laugh at the ridiculous figure you are making.' This is my harangue;

it is short in words, but extensive in meaning."— So far, my dear lord, we have no reason to censure the thoughts or expressions of the learned Encyclopedist what follows is so profligate, that I would not transcribe it, if I were not sure that you would join with me in condemning it. "As to yourself," he adds, "be cheerful; drink the best wines; keep the gayest company; and should you be inclined to a tender passion, address yourself to such women as make the least resistance: they are as amusing and as interesting as others. One lives with them without anxiety, and quits them without regret." I want words, Diderot, to express the baseness, the folly, the brutality of this sentiment. I am no cynic, but as fond as any man at Paris of cheerful company, and of such pleasures as a man of virtue need not blush to enjoy; but if the philosophy of the French academicians be comprised in your advice to your friend Wilkes, keep it to yourself, and to such as you. I am of a different sect. He concludes his letter with some professions of regard, and with a recommendation of a young Frenchman, who told Wilkes some speeches of Diderot to the empress of Russia, which you shall hear at some other time. I am interrupted, and must leave you with reluctance till the morning.

XLVIII.

From Mr. Burke.

March 12, 1778.

MY DEAR SIR, I GIVE you many thanks for your most obliging and va-luable present, and feel myself extremely honoured by this mark of your friendship. My first leisure will be employed in an attentive perusal of an author, who had merit enough to fill up a part of yours, and whom you have made accessible to me with an ease and advantage, which one so many years disused to Greek literature as I have been, could not otherwise have. Isæus is an author of whom I know nothing, but by fame; I am sure that any idea I had from thence conceived of him, will not be at all lessened by seeing him in your translation. I do not know how it has happened that orators have hitherto fared worse in the hands of the translators, than even the poets: I never could bear to read a translation of Cicero. Demosthenes suffers, I think, somewhat less; but he suffers greatly so much, that I must say, that no English reader could well conceive from whence he had acquired the reputation of the first of orators.