in his room. I would not advise the boys to imitate his accent in French, for he pronounces it with a deep guttural: I fancy he would speak Welsh well.

It gave me very great pleasure the other day to see my father's old friend Dr. Pulteney, whom Dr. Garthshore brought to us. It is a strange

and mixt emotion, however, which one feels at sight of a person one has not seen for twenty years or more. The alteration such a space of time makes in both parties, at first gives a kind of shock;-it is your friend, but your friend disguised.

We are making a catalogue of our books; and I have left a great deal of space under the letters A. and B. for our future publications.

Hampstead, Feb. 1788.

We are waiting with great impatience for two things, your book and my sister,—your child and your wife, that is to say.

I have been reading an old book, which has given me a vast deal of entertainment,-Father Herodotus, the father of history; and the father of lies too, his enemies might say. I take it for granted the original has many more beauties than Littlebury's humble translation, which I have been perusing but at any rate, a translation of an ori

ginal author gives you an idea of the times totally different from what one gains by a modern compilation. I am much entertained in observing the traces of truth in many of his wildest fables; as where he says it was impossible to proceed far in Scythia on account of vast quantities of feathers which fell from heaven and covered all the country.

We are reading too Sir T. More's Utopia. He says many good things; but it wants a certain salt, which Swift and others have put into their works of the same nature. One is surprised to see how old certain complaints are. Of the frequent executions, for instance: twenty men, he says, being hung upon one gibbet at a time of arable land turned to pasture, and deserted villages in consequence.

I hope the exertions which are now making for the abolition of the slave-trade will not prove all in vain. They will not, if the pleadings of eloquence or the cry of duty can be heard. Many of the most respectable and truly distinguished characters are really busy about it, and the press and the pulpit are both employed; so I hope something must be done. I expect to be highly gratified in hearing Mr. Hastings's trial, for which we are to have tickets some day. This impeachment has been the occasion of much pomp, much eloquence, and much expense; and there I sup

pose it will end. As somebody said, It must be put off for the judges to go their circuit, resumed late, and so it will fall into the summer amuse

ments.

Hampstead, May 1791.

WHAT do you say to Pitt and Fox agreeing so well about the affair of libels? Is there any thing behind the curtain? I hope not; for I own I have felt myself much interested for Fox since his noble and manly behaviour, mixed with so much sensibility and tempered with so much forbearance, towards Burke. It puts one in mind of the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius.

I am reading with a great deal of interest Ramsay's History of the American Revolution; and I do not wonder that the old story of Greece and Rome grows, as you say, flat, when we have events of such importance passing before our eyes, and from thence acquiring a warmth of colour and authenticity which it is in vain to seek for in histories that have passed from hand to hand through a series of ages. How uniformly great was Congress, and what a spotless character Washington! All their public acts, &c., are remarkably well drawn up. We are reading in idle moments, or rather dipping into, a very different work, Boswell's long-expected Life of Johnson. It is like going to Ranelagh; you meet all your acquaint

ance but it is a base and a mean thing to bring thus every idle word into judgement—the judgement of the public. Johnson, I think, was far from a great character; he was continually sinning against his, conscience, and then afraid of going to hell for it. A Christian and a man of the town, a philosopher and a bigot, acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserable through fear of death; professing great distaste to the country, and neglecting the urbanity of towns; a Jacobite, and pensioned; acknowledged to be a giant in literature, and yet we do not trace him, as we do Locke, or Rousseau, or Voltaire, in his influence on the opinions of the times. We cannot say Johnson first opened this vein of thought, led the way to this discovery or this turn of thinking. In his style he is original, and there we can track his imitators. In short, he seems to me to be one of those who have shone in the belles lettres, rather than, what he is held out by many to be, an original and deep genius in investigation.

....

Hampstead, 1791.

I Do not know whether I said so before, but I cannot help thinking that the revolution in France will introduce there an entire revolution in education; and particularly be the ruin of classical learning, the importance of which must be

lessening every day; while other sciences, particularly that of politics and government, must rise in value, afford an immediate introduction to active life, and be necessary in some degree to everybody. All the kindred studies of the cloister must sink, and we shall live no longer on the lean relics of antiquity.

Apropos of France, Mrs. Montague, who entertains all the aristocrats, had invited a marchioness of Boufflers and her daughter to dinner. After making her wait till six, the marchioness came, and made an apology for her daughter, that just as she was going to dress she was seized with a degout momentanée du monde, and could not wait on her.

There is a little Frenchman here at Hampstead who is learning the language, and he told us he had been making an attempt at some English verses. "I have made," says he, "four couplets in masculine and feminine rimes." "O sir," says I, "you have given yourself needless trouble, we do not use them." Why, how so," says he; "have you no rules then for your verse?" "Yes sir, but we do not use masculine and feminine rimes." Well, I could not make him comprehend there could be any regular poetry without these rimes.

Mr. Brand Hollis has sent me an American poem, The Conquest of Canaan,-a regular epic in twelve books; but I hope I need not read it. Not