going to apply that remedy of insanity, letting ourselves blood. Had the petitions been the tide of an universal torrent, they might have done what good they pleased; but I fear, with you, that that is not the case. Lord Cholmondeley told me that in Cheshire not one of the Whig gentlemen would sign the petition. In Norfolk, the county I know the best, there is scarce a name, except Mr. Coke's, of any of the great Whig or Tory families to the first signature. Nor can I believe, when three parts in four of England were with the Court, that even half have changed their opinions in one year, giddy as multitudes are. The Court has been thunderstruck with what has been already done; but will recover its spirits, and have a firm back game, for I do not find that one Scotch county has petitioned. If the petitioning committees receive no satisfaction, they will grow outrageous-and then-but I do not care to be a prophet. I like petitions; it is a Whig measure. I wished for, and recommended them five years ago, when they might have checked at least infinite mischief, and prevented the waste of buckets of blood and treasure; but some heads of opposition were still too much in hopes of passing into the closet without breaking open the door! though Yorkshire could have been led to petition then as easily as now. Well! we must still hope the best. Principles are, or ought to be, permanent things; and if they are right, must not be influenced by temporary events. We must only take care not to mistake passions for principles, nor let the latter be the aggressors, especially when the path leads to blood. I dread the spilling of blood for itself. I dread drawing it, because, though the person may suffer, the Crown, nine times in ten, is the gainer; and I dread it more particularly now, because my Whiggism was taught to consider France as our capital enemy, and she will be most advantaged by our domestic feuds. The Court deserves everything that a ruined and dishonoured nation can inflict, and has left itself without excuse. Who could plead for it, when its own accomplices and tools fly from it ?-But I do hope our friends will remember that we have enemies at sea as well as at land, and that the Temple will not be taken by the Romans, while we are pulling down the Pharisees.

P.S.-I write thus freely, because my letter goes by the coach with Lady Craven's book. It should not whisper my fears to the lowest courtier in the Post Office, because it is better the Court should be alarmed and bend. Its roideur would produce all I apprehend.

1897. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 5, 1780.

I HAVE been turning over the new second volume of the 'Biographia,' and find the additions very poor and lean performances. The lives entirely new are partial and flattering, being contributions of the friends of those whose lives are recorded. This publication made at a time when I have lived to see several of my contemporaries deposited in this national Temple of Fame has made me smile, and reflect that many preceding authors, who have been installed there with much respect, may have been as trifling personages as those we have known and now behold consecrated to memory. Three or four have struck me particularly, as Dr. Birch, who was a worthy, good-natured soul, full of industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in quest of anything, new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment. Then there is Dr. Blackwell,' the most impertinent literary coxcomb upon earthbut the editor has been so just as to insert a very merited satire on his Court of Augustus.'

The third is Dr. Brown, that mountebank, who for a little time made as much noise by his Estimate,' as ever quack did by a nostrum. I do not know if I ever told you how much I was struck the only time I ever saw him. You know one object, and the anathemas of his Estimate' was the Italian Opera; yet did I find him one evening, in Passion Week, accompanying some of the Italian singers, at a concert at Lady Carlisle's. A clergyman, no doubt, is not obliged to be on his knees the whole week before Easter, and music and a concert are harmless amusements; but when Cato or Calvin are out of character, reformation becomes ridiculous-but poor Dr. Brown was mad, and therefore might be in earnest, whether he played the fool or the reformer.

You recollect, perhaps, the threat of Dr. Kippis to me, which is to be executed on my father, for my calling the first edition of the 'Biographia' the 'Vindicatio Britannica "--but observe how truth

1 Dr. Thomas Blackwell, principal of the Marischal College in Aberdeen. Besides the above work, he wrote An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer,' and ⚫ Letters concerning Mythology.' He died in 1757.-WRIGHT.

2 In September, 1766, he destroyed himself in a fit of insanity.-WRIGHT.

3 4 'Vindicatio Britannica, or, a Defence of Everybody.' The expression occurs in

emerges at last! In his new volume he confesses that the article of Lord Arlington, which I had specified as one of the most censurable, is the one most deserving that censure, and that the character of Lord Arlington is "palliated beyond all truth and reason "—words stronger than mine-yet mine deserved to draw vengeance on my father! so a Presbyterian divine inverts divine judgment, and visits the sins of the children on the parents!

Cardinal Beaton's character, softened in the first edition, gentle Dr. Kippis pronounces "extremely detestable "-yet was I to blame for hinting such defects in that work!-and yet my words are quoted to show that Lord Orrery's poetry was ridiculously bad. In like manner, Mr. Cumberland, who assumes the whole honour of publishing his grandfather's Lucan,' and does not deign to mention its being published at Strawberry Hill (though by the way I believe it will be oftener purchased for having been printed there, than for wearing Mr. Cumberland's name to the dedication), and yet he quotes me for having praised his ancestor in one of my publications. These little instances of pride and spleen divert me, and then make me reflect sadly on human weaknesses. I am very apt myself to like what flatters my opinions or passions, and to reject scornfully what thwarts them, even in the same persons. The more one lives, the more one discovers one's ugliness in the features of others! Adieu! dear Sir: I hope you do not suffer by this severe season.

P.S. I remember two other instances, where my impartiality, or at least my sincerity, have exposed me to double censure. You perhaps condemn my severity on Charles the First; yet the late Mr. Hollis wrote against me in the newspapers, for condemning the republicans for their destruction of ancient monuments. Some blamed me for undervaluing the Flemish and Dutch pictures in my preface to the Edes Walpolianæ.' Barry the painter, because I laughed at his extravagances, says, in his rejection of that school, "But I leave them to be admired by the Hon. Horace Walpole, and such judges.' Would not one think I had been their champion!

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his 'Account of the Earl of Anglesey,' in his Royal and Noble Authors.'“It will behove us," says Kippis, “when we come to The Life of Sir Robert Walpole,' to take care that we be not too milky."-CUNNINGHAM.

1 See vol. vi. p. 187.-CUNNINGHAM.

1898. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Feb. 6, 1780.

I WRITE only when I have facts to send. Detached scenes there have been in different provinces: they will be collected soon into a drama in St. Stephen's Chapel. One or two and twenty counties, and two or three towns, have voted petitions. But in Northamptonshire Lord Spencer was disappointed, and a very moderate petition was ordered. The same happened at Carlisle. At first, the Court was struck dumb, but have begun to rally. Counter-protests have been signed in Hertford and Huntingdon shires, in Surrey and Sussex. Last Wednesday a meeting was summoned in Westminster Hall: Charles Fox harangued the people finely and warmly; and not only a petition was voted, but he was proposed for candidate for that city at the next general election, and was accepted joyfully. Wilkes was his zealous advocate: how few years since a public breakfast was given at Holland House to support Colonel Luttrell against Wilkes! Charles Fox and his brother rode thence at the head of their friends to Brentford. Ovid's Metamorphoses contains not stranger transformations than party can work.

I must introduce a new actor to you, a Lord George Gordon, metamorphosed a little too, for his family were Jacobites and Roman Catholics he is the Lilburne of the Scottish Presbyterians, and an apostle against the Papists. He dresses, that is, wears long lank hair about his shoulders, like the first Methodists; though I take the modern ones to be no Anti-Catholics. This mad lord, for so all his family have been too, and are, has likewise assumed the patronage of Ireland. Last Thursday he asked an audience of the King, and, the moment he was admitted into the closet, began reading an Irish pamphlet, and continued for an hour, till it was so dark he could not see; and then left the pamphlet, exacting a promise on royal honour that his Majesty would finish it. Were I on the throne, I would make Dr. Monro' a Groom of my Bedchamber: indeed it has been necessary for some time; for, of the King's lords, Lord Bolingbroke is in a mad-house, and Lord Pomfret and my nephew ought to be there. The last, being fond of onions, has lately distributed bushels of that root to his Militia; Mr. Windham will not be surprised.

Physician of Bedlam.-WALPOLE.

2 Mr. Windham had been Lieutenant-Colonel [Major] of the Norfolk Militia under Lord Orford, and had resigned on the trouble he gave them.-WALPOLE.

By the tenor of the petitions you would think we were starving; yet there is a little coin stirring. Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa tree, the difference of which amounted to an hundred and four-score thousand pounds. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman 1 into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said, "You can never pay me." "I can," said the youth; "my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said O.; "I will win ten thousand-you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey won.

1

However, as it is a little necessary to cast about for resources, it is just got abroad, that about a year ago we took possession of a trifling district in India called the Province of Oude, which contains four millions of inhabitants, produces between three and four millions of revenue, and has an army of 30,000 men: it was scarce thought of consequence enough to deserve an article in the newspapers. If you are so old-style as to ask how we came to take possession, I answer, by the new law of nations; by the law by which Poland was divided. You will find it in the future editions of Grotius, tit. "Si une terre est à la bienséance d'un grand Prince." Oude appertained by that very law to the late Sujah Dowla. His successors were weak men, which in India is incapacity. Their Majesties the East-India Company, whom God long preserve, have succeeded.

This petty event has ascertained the existence of a certain being, who, till now, has not been much more than a matter of faith,-the Grand Lama. There are some affairs of trade between the sovereigns of Oude and his Holiness the Lama. Do not imagine the EastIndia Company have leisure to trouble their heads about religion. Their commanding officer corresponded with the Tartar Pope, who, it seems, is a very sensible man. The Attorney-General asked this officer, who is come over, how the Lama wrote. "Oh," said he, "like any person." "Could I see his letters?" said Mr. Wedderburne. "Upon my word," said the officer, "when the business was settled, I threw them into the fire." However, I hear that somebody, not quite so mercantile, has published one of the Lama's letters in the Philosophical Transactions.' Well! when we break in Europe, we may pack up and remove to India, and be emperors again!

1 Afterwards Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey, Knt.. G.C.B., and distinguished as one of the heroes of Trafalgar. He sat in the House of Commons for the town of Malden from 1780 to 1784, and for the county of Essex from 1802 to his death in 1830.WRIGHT.