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Houghton Library, bMS Eng 265.1 (15). Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I have been several times on the point of writing to you & as often delayed by the daily expectation of a letter. your last never reachd me. I have received but one from you, except what arrived to day & in that you evidently allude to another which must have been lost on the road.
Take care of despondence Horace. you are younger than
I am — & yet I have not yet set out on my way of life — I am to live by
the law — & know not even the ABC of it. of the nature of the
application which you say has xxxxxxxx
<failed> I know nothing. is not the law open to you? or the more
rational & more respectable study of physic?
some subjects you say harrass you to distraction. if — as I suspect — they are upon some metaphysical questions — think nothing about them. I have followed the bubble myself till it burst — & take my word for it it is nothing but emptiness. time has produced some changes in me Horace since last we met. I have learnt heartily to despise the reptile race that pollute the world.
you love Rousseau. read his letter to that rascal Voltaire.
perhaps the most eloquent & the most excellent of all his works. it is
in answer to a Poem which Voltaire had written upon the earthquake at
Lisbonxxxx if the arguments on one side
balance those on the other — I fling the weight of Hope into the scale of
Reason.
My letters are advancing. I treat the Beast
with as little respect as he deserves, & give my own opinion totally
careless how far it may coincide with any one else.
I have now read the Monk — & admire the delicacy of
Lewisnot have men distrust themselves. xx he who slides timidly
will fall — & this is a slippery world.
apropos I must give you a couplet in the best alliterative stile
Lewiss poetry is contemptible — except the Water King — & Alonzo
& Imoginexx is little have you read
Fiesco? Stodhard
I envy you your Hastings expedition. that country is well known
to me. I love the sea when on shore — but no motive shall ever take me a longer
voyage than to Calais again. x somebody (a
painter I believe — Tresham?) has [MS torn] a poem called the Sea Sick
Minstrelt Intestinal Canal — in a state of insurrection — then
the tocsin of the windpipe — then the discharge — such a scene of retchedness! — there is no occasion of the W.
I must give you the Effusion of a morning [MS torn] before [MS torn] breakfast. the Personification & image is I think new
I made a good pun the other day on a boy who had stolen some
cakes — for I said he was
παις
κακος
“With what a weight does Expectation load the wings of
Time”!says <does> the bald old rascal run
on when the spur of business goads! I have a great desire to write my tragedy
& to finish Madoc. both of which I could do with great ease in a
twelvemonth — I have heard people laugh at “give us this day our daily
bread”
Sunday is to be a day of rest from my law studies. & as I frequent no place of worship I shall then have leisure for writing.
Let me hear from you soon: you promisd some remarks on Joan of
Arc. let them be critical ones. we shall meet soon — & then if you have
time & inclination to execute half my plans — take the mantle of
Elijah
farewell