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Cole observes, Mr W. is manifestly hurt by the threats on his father, and the slights on himself; he sees not with the same eyes that I do the vile design of the book throughout, nor indeed cares for it-I mean the steady purpose of the editors to defame the Church of England, and to propagate the doctrine of independence and socinianism, a plan never out of sight; and the additions to the old articles of any orthodox clergyman of the Church of England are all on this principle.

Strawberry Hill, March 13, 1980. You compliment me, my good friend, on a sagacity that is surely very common. How frequently do we see portraits that have catched the features, and missed the countenance or character, which is far more difficult to hit. Nor is it unfrequent to hear that remark made.

I have confessed to you that I am fond of local histories. It is the general execution of them that I condemn, and that I call the worst kind of reading. I cannot comprehend but they might be performed with taste. I did mention this winter the new edition of Atkyn's Gloucestershire, as having additional descriptions of situations, that I thought had merit. I have just got another, a view of Northumberland, in two volumes quarto, with cuts; but I do not devour it fast, for the author's predilection is to Roman antiquities, which, such as are found in this island, are very indifferent, and inspire me with little curiosity. A barbarous country so remote from the seat of empire, and occupied by a few legions, that very rarely decided any great events, is not very interesting, though one's own country-nor do I care a straw for a stone that preserves the name of a standard-bearer of a cohort, or of a Colonel's daughter. Then, I have no patience to read the tiresome disputes of antiquaries, to settle forgotten names of vanished towns, and to prove that such a village was called something else in Antoninus's Itinerary. I do not say that the Gothic antiquities that I like are of more importance; but, at least, they exist. The scite of a Roman camp, of which nothing remains but a bank, gives me not the smallest pleasure. One knows they had square camps-has one a clearer idea from the spot, which is barely

distinguishable? How often does it happen that the lumps of earth are so imperfect, that it is never clear whe ther they are Roman, Druidic, Danish, or Saxon fragments-the moment it is uncertain, it is plain, they furnish no specific idea of art or history, and then I neither desire to see or read of them.

I have been directed, too, to another work, in which I am personally a little concerned. Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Wray, that he murdered. I doubt whether the letters are genuine, and yet, if fictitious, they are executed well, and enter into his character;-her's appear less natural, and yet the editors were certainly more likely to be in possession of her's than of his. It is not probable that Lord Sandwich should have sent what he found in her apartment to the press. No account is pretended to be given of how they came to light.

You will wonder how I should be concerned in that correspondence, who never saw either of the lovers in my days. In fact, my being dragged in, is a reason for my doubting the authenticity; nor can I believe that the long letter, in which I am frequently mentioned, could be written by the wretched lunatic. It pretends that Miss Wray desired him to give her a particular account of Chatterton. He does give a most ample one; but is there a glimpse of probability that a being so frantic should have gone to Bristol, and sifted Chatterton's sister and others, with as much cool curiosity as Mr Lort could do? and at such a moment? Besides, he murdered Miss Wray, I think, in March; my printed defence was not at all dispersed be fore the preceding January or Febru ary, nor do I conceive that Hackman could ever see it. There are notes, indeed, of the editor, who has certainly seen it; but I rather imagine that the editor, whoever he is, composed the whole volume. I am acquitted as being accessary to the lad's death, which is gracious, but much blamed for speaking of his bad character, and for being too hard on his forgeries, though I took so much pains to specify the innocence of them; and for his character, I only quoted the very words of his own editor and panegyrist. I did not repeat what Dr Gold

smith told me at the royal academy, where I first heard of his death, that he went by the appellation of the Young Villain; but it is not new to me, as you know, to be blamed by two opposite parties. The editor has in one place confounded me and my uncle, who, he says, as is true, checked Lord Chatham for being too forward a young man in 1740. In that year I was not even come into parliament, and must have been absurd indeed, if I had taunted Lord Chatham with youth, who was at least six or seven years younger than he was; and how could he reply by reproaching me with old age, who was then not twenty-three? I shall make no answer to these absurdities, nor to any part of the work. Blunder I see people will, and talk of what they do not understand; and what care I? There is another trifling mistake of still less consequence. The editor supposes that it was Macpherson who communicated Ossian to me. It was Sir David Dalrymple who sent me the first specimens. Macpherson did once come to me, but my credulity was then a little shaken.

Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1780. You may like to know one is alive, dear sir, after a massacre and the conflagration of a capital. I was in it both on the Friday and on the black Wednesday, the most horrible night I ever beheld, and which, for six hours together, I expected to end in half the town being reduced to ashes.

I can give you little account of the origin of this shocking affair. Negligence was certainly its nurse, and religion only its god-mother. The ostensible author is in the tower. Twelve or fourteen thousand men have quashed all tumults; and as no bad account is come from the country, except for a moment at Bath, and as eight days have passed, nay more, since the commencement,-I flatter myself, the whole nation is shocked at the scene, and that, if plan there was, it was laid only in and for the metropolis. The lowest and most villanous of the ple, and to no great amount, were almost the sole actors.

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I hope your electioneering rioting has not, nor will mix in these tumults. It would be most absurd; for Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, Sir George Saville, and Mr Burke, the patrons of toleration, were devoted to

destruction as much as the ministers. The rails torn from Sir George's house were the chief weapons and instruments of the mob. For the honour of the nation, I should be glad to have it proved that the French were the engineers. You and I have lived too long for our comfort,-shall we close our eyes in peace? You and I, that can amuse ourselves with our books and papers, feel as much indignation at the turbulent as they have scorn for us. It is hard, at least, that they who disturb nobody, can have no asylum in which to pursue their innocent indolence. Who is secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind? How I abominate Mr Banks and Dr Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions among them! Not even that poor little speck could escape European restlessness. Och! I have seen many tempestuous scenes, and outlived them! The present prospect is too thick to see through-it is well hope never forsakes us. Adieu. Yours, most sincerely, H. W.

We have no time to add a few notes to these letters, to counteract a little the caustic pleasantry of Walpole on some authors. But Cole's character, and that of his collections, have been given by Mr D'Israeli, from whom we beg leave to borrow them for the present purpose. "Cole was the college friend of Walpole, Mason, and Gray; a striking proof how dissimilar habits, and opposite tastes and feelings, can associate in literary friendship; for Cole; indeed, the public had informed him that his friends were poets and men of wit, and for them Cole's patient and curious turn was useful, and by its extravagant trifling_must have been very useful. He had a gossip's ear, and a tatler's pen; and, among better things, wrote down every grain of literary scandal his insatiable and minute curiosity could lick up ;-as patient and voracious as an ant-eater, he stretched out his tongue till it was covered by the tiny creatures, and drew them all in at one digestion. All these tales were registered, with the utmost simplicity, as the reporter received them; yet, still anxious after truth, and usually telling lies, it is very amusing to observe, that, as he proceeds, he very laudably contradicts, or explains away in subsequent me

moranda, what he had before written. Walpole, in a correspondence of forty years, he was perpetually flattering, though he must have imperfectly relished his fine taste, while he abhorred the more liberal feelings to which sometimes he addressed a submissive remonstrance. He has at times written a letter coolly, and at the same moment chronicled his suppressed feelings in his diary with all the flame and sputter of his strong prejudices. He was expressively nicknamed Cardinal Cole. These scandalous chronicles were ordered not to be opened till twenty years after his decease: he wished to do as little mischief as he could, but loved to do some. When the lid was removed from this Pandora's box, it happened that some of his intimate friends lived to perceive in what strange figures they were exhibited by their quondam admirer."

ON THE CANDIDE OF VOLTAIRE.

A WORK evolved from the mind, like Candide, as it were spontaneously, and not modelled in conformity to any established rules of art, is of the kind that is best adapted to express habits of thought and sentiment. The combinations of ideas that are dictated by logic, or by rules of composition, have comparatively little interest or meaning. They sink into oblivion because there is no soul or character embalmed in them, and because they merely exhibit the human mind working mechanically according to certain principles.

Although Candide professes to be a refutation of optimism, it is by no means confined to considerations applicable to that subject. Whatever is signified in it, is signified rather by means of incidents than of arguments. The incidents which the cynic introduces, are all of them extreme cases; but they are well chosen to ridicule the idea that the moral world is a scene fit to be contemplated with complacency. Voltaire had probably no very distinct conception of what he was attacking, at least he follows no close train of reasoning against it; but he had too much sagacity to concur with those low-minded sophists who endeavour to represent the condition of the moral world as a thing alto

gether free from mystery, and with regard to which the human mind should feel no demand either for explanation or amendment. Many of his contemporaries satisfied themselves with a sort of cant that every thing would go right if men would follow the unperverted dictates of nature. Voltaire, on the other hand, perceived around him every where the seeds of discord and wretchedness, and he did not attempt to disguise the fact. But the true view of the universe did not lead him to just conclusions. Having suppressed in his soul what affords consolation amidst the assaults of misfortune, it remained for him to consider what other habits of thought and feeling were best calculated to fortify a human being in making his way through the jarring chaos by which he is surrounded. Candide is merely an amusing parable, in which he developes his system of tactics for the campaign of human life. Voltaire's own nature, and the number of intellectual enjoyments which he possessed, led him rather to shun external causes of pain, than to search after external causes of pleasure. He perceived, in general, that the less purchase outward circumstances obtained over him, the less he would suffer; and the scope of Candide, accordingly, is to palsy within the mind, by means of derision, every movement of pride, or vanity, or shame, or the feeling of responsibility, which are all of them sentiments tending to entangle us with others, and subject us to the course of events. Pride he pays off, not by congratulating himself on the possession of merit, but by saying, "The whole world is only a subject for mockery and contempt. As nothing in it claims my respect, or mortifies me with the appearance of enviable superiority, I can well afford to deride even myself, and dispense with ambition." same scorn of mankind teaches him to extinguish vanity, by representing men's suffrages as not worth obtaining, and by considering the cultivation of the good opinion of others as a piece of ridiculous drudgery. Shame he gets quit of by saying to himself, “It is impudence in others to expect me to be ashamed before them of any thing I can do." Although he shakes off all regard for mankind, he is not in the least a misanthrope, but rather cultivates good nature as more conve

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nient and agreeable for him who feels it; and he would consider misanthropical indignation as foolish and useless. He prizes the pleasures of health and sense, and wishes, in many respects, to resemble the inferior animals, in order to be altogether free from the stirrings of what he considers as unprofitable sentiments, although he still relishes and enjoys the pleasures of the understanding. But having suppressed the sources of so many inquietudes, he finds that he has suppressed also the sources of those pleasures and interests which serve to fill up the span of existence; and, accordingly, Candide and Martin, in cultivating their garden, find themselves beset by the weariness of life, after they had endeavoured, by apathy, to emancipate themselves from almost all other evils. The freedom which philosophers of this school attain by extinguishing sentiment, is like the escape of a prisoner into a barren and rocky island, where he finds nothing to subsist upon; and they are obliged, by the want of enjoyment, to submit themselves again to the impulses of human feeling.

As the philosophy developed in Candide does not foster any of the passions, it does not lead to acts of positive immorality, but only prompts men to a scornful neglect of all they owe to their fellow-creatures, and to a deliberate isolation of self-interest. It inspires no arrogance, but extinguishes all respect. It teaches us to consider mankind as mischievous animals, with whom it would be folly to contend in earnest, but whose malice must be guarded against by whatever means are found most convenient, and whose good offices should be considered as so much good luck. It bids us contemplate them, not under the relations of morality or personal feeling, but as machines by which we must take care not to be hurt in passing. Although it stifles enthusiasm, it is no enemy to the pleasures of taste, or elegant perception, because they are so many detached enjoyments, which may be taken up and abandoned at will, without subjecting us either to our own passions, or entangling us with the movements of events. The general tendency of this philosophy would evidently be to disorganize society (so far as its organization hinges upon the feeling of duty), and to resolve men

into so many separate individuals, who acknowledge no mutual obligations, but who are willing to transact coolly with each other upon the principles of self-interest. The habits of feeling which it engenders are now generally condemned in theory throughout Europe, but at the same time there can be little doubt that they are too extensively acted upon. In France their bitter consequences have been practically felt in politics; and it is to be hoped that the rest of the nations, in struggling to obtain rights that have been too long denied them, will beware of supposing that the torch of self-interest is all that is necessary to conduct them safely to freedom; and that the severest virtues are not requir ed from individuals, as ballast for the vessel of the state, when it makes a voyage into unknown seas.

This novel, remarkable as a composition for the uncommon distinctness of the ideas, and the liveliness of their appositions, is also a model for compression and vivacity of language.Every common-place succession of thought is industriously broken by some amusing interruptions, so that the attention never flags. Neither is any thing introduced for the sake of the imagination. We are never allowed to dwell upon a detached object, but are hurried from one to another, that every feeling may be shocked by the atrocity of their relations, and the mind filled with amazement and derision, by the naked absurdities which are displayed. So long as Voltaire continues to paint the worst side of life, he is supplied with a diabolical copiousness of examples; but when, in describing El Dorado, he attempts to show what human nature ought to be, the poverty of his soul becomes wofully apparent, and he sinks into absolute childishness. His imaginary people are well fed, well clothed, good natured, and live under a just government, but we see nothing of their aims or enjoyments. Whatever may have been the errors of Rousseau, his views of human nature were, for the most part, profound and just. He did not seek, like Voltaire, to deaden the sensibility of his nature, but chose rather to suffer to the last, and strove to neutralize the pains to which his genius subjected him, by a double enjoyment of all those sweet and generous sentiments with which he was so

amply endowed. The internal fermentations of his mind revealed every thing to him, and he was almost never mistaken, except in deducing practical consequences. He was called a sophist, because the purity of the sentiments which he uttered was unadapted to the grovelling passions of society; but no person ever had a more disinterested love of truth. Voltaire, in his youth, had been well drilled amidst the cabals of Paris, and therefore understood better how to gain credit among his contemporaries.

THE LATE HOT WEATHER.

MR EDITOR, BEING very desirous of becoming acquainted with you, for reasons which the fear of being suspected of flattery, reluctance to offend your modesty, &c. &c. prevent me from offering,-I shall take the opportunity of a sober overcast day to make my overtures. Allow me to begin after the orthodox manner of my countrymen,-this is fine cool weather, Mr Editor;-this is pleasanter than the great heat of last summer. You will cease to smile at the salutation, when you learn in what hazard the interests of this Magazine have been put by the state of the late season. Know then, it is wholly owing to this cause that I have not hitherto attempted to approach that coifed wizard with the thistle wreath encircled, whose effigy oft hath fixed and low abashed mine eye, and to tender him the produce of my pen, though I have felt a wondrous longing so to do any time these three months. Leaden languor sat upon the wings of my imagination. It was with me, during the whole summer, an everyday history of suction and evaporation -nothing else. The heat of the weather, in fact, I felt, I thought of, and, when I could slumber, dreamt of. It entered into all my perceptions, and regulated, in a great measure, all my functions, corporal and mental; disposing me to light diet, light reading, light clothing, light sleep, and, I had almost said, light thoughts. No sublime flights-no profound reflections-the deuce a bit. A fortunate succession of showers has gradually restored me so far, as to enable me to set about a whole book!

(whereof more anon) and likewise to indite this epistle,—both of which are of course to be devoted to the interesting subject which has so long occupied my mind. In short, the theory of the union of light and heat became perfectly familiar to me. I have taken it for granted, that you in the north are well aware that his Majesty's liege subjects, in this part of the empire, did, for a long space of time now past, grievously complain that the atmosphere was warm, sultry, hot, close, oppressive, intolerable, and killing; and that although the same could not but be well known to certain persons holding certain high situations, yet that no remedy whatever was in this case provided. Carrying the charge no farther, we may at least aver, that most culpable negligence is chargeable somewhere. How far, indeed, those whom we are entitled, or, which is the same thing, accustomed, to charge with all the evils which befal the nation, may have even contributed, (as some, who shall be nameless, have ventured to surmise,) to our sufferings, is a matter of much graver and weightier import. For the present, I will only hint, that the confidence with which the temperature of the late season was predicted by one gentleman in office; the visit of the Esquimaux to this island, where he met with the greatest attention from individuals of distinction; the appearance in London of an American chief and suite, in the suspicious character of players; the fitting out, at an immense expense, of ships of war, destined to the north for the ostensible purpose of discovery; and the particular communications which appear to have been kept up between the Admiralty and the Greenland whalers, (not to mention the unusual number of ice-poles which those vessels have been known to carry of late)—are facts which cannot have escaped the sagacity of your readers. The politicians, to whom I allude, scruple not to assert, mistakenly I hope, that his Majesty's government has formed an alliance with the Esquimaux and Copper Indians on the one side, and with the Samoieds and Tchukotskoi on the Asiatic margin of the polar basin ; that these nations, in furtherance of the objects of the treaty, have, by a powerful contemporaneous direction of their physical force,' (as a great

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