not many times seen him at Mr. Lind's, when, in compliance with an invitation from him, I visited Colchester, and passed a week or two at his house.

What passed at that visit, nothing determinate dwells on my recollection except the circumstance, that this was the first time of my ever seeing Dr. Parr. His situation at that time, was that of Master to the Grammar-School in that Town. Mr. Forster took me with him one day to pay him a short visit, place not recollected, except that no boys were visible at it. It served as the foundation of the acquaintance, which afterwards took place between us, and this is all that I remember about it, except it be, that one day we were conversing upon terms of intimacy and freedom, he brought it to my memory, saying, that at that time, he little expected to find in me the sort of person he now beheld in me; for that, in my dress, there was something, which bespoke a young man, who would have been glad to be a fop, had he been able. I do not think I ever saw him at Lind's. I must have seen him, I think, more than once at Romilly's, and thence afterwards at my own house. He was anxious to introduce me to the late Mr. Fox; but as I did not hear that Mr. Fox had anything particular to say to me, and I knew

man of free opinions; and by the freedom of his opinions, Mr. Bentham might imbibe the idea, however mistaken, that he was a disbeliever in the truth of Christianity. E. H. B.]

I had nothing in particular to say to Mr. Fox, this state of things was with me, in that instance, as at all times it has been in every other, a sufficient reason for declining it. It was in the summer of, I think, the year 1804, that, in pursuance of a kind invitation from him, I went upon a little excursion, and passed a very agreeable week or thereabouts, at his Parsonage. Mr. Koe, at present an eminent Barrister at the ChanceryBar, then living with me as an amanuensis, accompanied me. We there found the Doctor, his first wife, and a very agreeable and intelligent young lady, his daughter, then unmarried; the other was not there, having for some time been married to Mr. Wynne. In the behaviour of the Dr. and Mrs. Parr, one towards another, I observed nothing but what might have been expected, as between man and wife: between breakfast and dinner, his place of abode was indeed, not in the library, which was within the house, behind the dining-parlour, but in a little out-house, behind it, and at some little distance from it. But this distance had, as it seemed, no other cause than the desire of more perfect security against all interruption. Afterwards, in a visit of his to me in London, I heard from him, with not less surprise than regret, that their mode of living together, was such, cohabiting in one sense and no longer in another, as, had it been

referable to a motive different from the actual one, might have entitled each of them to a place in the Romish Calendar. The origin of this, together with the circumstances of it, cannot have been a secret to those, who were in convivial habits with him. It was my care not to hear on the subject anything more than what had thus been spontaneously communicated. Long, I afterwards heard, had been the number of years, which they had passed in this uncomfortable state. Another eminent friend of mine, Arthur Young, for much about the same length of time, laboured under the same misfortune. To me she seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, both worthy of a better fate. Tantæne animis cœlestibus ira? During my stay at Hatton, we made several little excursions: one was to Guy's Cliff, the mansion of Mr. Greathead, who, at that time, was among the personages placed at Verdun in a state of detention by Buonaparte: another was, I believe, to Warwick: of the Castle, circumstances limited our view to what was visible from the road.

Amongst Lind's acquaintances was Governor Johnstone. Johnstone, he told me, was to such a degree delighted with the Fragment on Government, that he used to go about with it in

*[A celebrated and now very scarce work by Mr. Bentham, of which the full title is, A Fragment of Government, being D

VOL. II.

his pocket, boring people with it. This was not long before his departure for the revolted Colonies, as one of the three Commissioners for sparing the lives of between two and three millions of human beings, on condition of universal penitence. Hearing of this, and having an ardent desire for seeing a little of the world, and more particularly of the political world, it seemed to me a good opportunity for taking my chance of doing so in the capacity of that Commissioner's Secretary. Lind, at my desire, mentioned this to Johnstone: the answer was, much regret at not having heard of it sooner, he being engaged to Ferguson, the Scotch Professor, author of Roman History, and some book on Morals, I forget the title of it.* The examples of Greece and an Examination of what is delivered on the Subject in Blackstone's Commentaries, Lond. 1776. 8vo. E. H. B.]

*[Dr. Adam Ferguson was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, author of An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Edinb. 1767. 4to. Lond. 1814. 8vo. ed. 7th; 2. Institutes of Moral Philosophy, for the use of Students, Edinb. 1769, 1770. 12mo; 3. Answers to Dr. Price's Observations on Civil and Religious Liberty, 1776; 4. The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, illustrated with Maps, Lond. 1783.3 vols. 4to. 5 vols. 8vo; 5. The Principles of Moral and Political Science, being chiefly a Retrospect of Lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh. Lond. 1792. 2 vols. 4to; 6. Lectures on Select Subjects; with Notes and an Appendix, by David Brewster. Edinb. 1805. 2 vols. 8vo. E. H. B.]

Rome had not been lost upon Ferguson. During the voyage, he was urgent with the Commissioners, as I learnt afterwards from good Government-authority, to put to death man, woman, and child, as many as they could catch, as an inducement to the rest to take the benefit of the proffered grace!

His

As to Lind, that work of his, which brought him into favour with Lord North and Lord Mansfield, has been already mentioned. When I began this Letter, I had not received it back from a friend, to whom I had lent it. It bears date 1775: the plan of it he had from me. design had originally embraced the whole of the Acts of the Parliament of that year, and eventually those of succeeding years. But the interest produced by those Acts, which laid the foundation of the American War, absorbed all other interests. The plan of the argument he had from me. Upon his mentioning the American part of his design, his plan not being as yet formed, I told him I had written two or three pages on the subject, which, such as they were, he was welcome to do what he pleased with; they were my own private thoughts without any view to publication. When he had made some little advance, my surprise was not small at finding this page or two of scattered thoughts had been set in front of his work, and constituted