Selected English Letters (XV XIX Centuries) by Various

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To LADY HESKETH

_An acquaintance reopened_

Olney, 9 _Nov_. 1785.

MY DEAREST COUSIN,

Whose last most affectionate letter has run in my head ever since I
received it, and which I now sit down to answer two days sooner than
the post will serve me; I thank you for it, and with a warmth for
which I am sure you will give me credit, though I do not spend
many words in describing it. I do not seek _new_ friends, not being
altogether sure that I should find them, but have unspeakable
pleasure in being still beloved by an old one. I hope that now our
correspondence has suffered its last interruption, and that we shall
go down together to the grave, chatting and chirping as merrily as
such a scene of things as this will permit.

I am happy that my poems have pleased you. My volume has afforded me
no such pleasure at any time, either while I was writing it, or since
its publication, as I have derived from yours and my uncle's opinion
of it. I make certain allowances for partiality, and for that peculiar
quickness of taste, with which you both relish what you like, and
after all drawbacks upon those accounts duly made, find myself rich in
the measure of your approbation that still remains. But above all,
I honour _John Gilpin_, since it was he who first encouraged you to
write. I made him on purpose to laugh at, and he served his purpose
well; but I am now in debt to him for a more valuable acquisition
than all the laughter in the world amounts to, the recovery of my
intercourse with you, which is to me inestimable. My benevolent and
generous Cousin, when I was once asked if I wanted anything, and given
delicately to understand that the inquirer was ready to supply all
my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, declined the
favour. I neither suffer, nor have suffered, any such inconveniences
as I had not much rather endure than come under obligations of that
sort to a person comparatively with yourself a stranger to me. But to
you I answer otherwise. I know you thoroughly, and the liberality of
your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the
sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward
constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you,
therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever, and whatsoever, and in what
manner-soever you please; and add moreover, that my affection for the
giver is such as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction that I
shall have in receiving. It is necessary, however, that I should let
you a little into the state of my finances, that you may not suppose
them more narrowly circumscribed than they are. Since Mrs. Unwin and
I have lived at Olney, we have had but one purse, although during the
whole of that time, till lately, her income was nearly double mine.
Her revenues indeed are now in some measure reduced, and do not much
exceed my own; the worst consequence of this is, that we are forced to
deny ourselves some things which hitherto we have been better able to
afford, but they are such things as neither life, nor the well-being
of life, depend upon. My own income has been better than it is,
but when it was best, it would not have enabled me to live as my
connexions demanded that I should, had it not been combined with a
better than itself, at least at this end of the kingdom. Of this I had
full proof during three months that I spent in lodgings at Huntingdon,
in which time by the help of good management, and a clear notion of
economical matters, I contrived to spend the income of a twelvemonth.
Now, my beloved Cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as it
stands. Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there
is no need of it, but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter
what) that you can spare without missing it, since by so doing you
will be sure to add to the comforts of my life one of the sweetest
that I can enjoy--a token and proof of your affection.

I cannot believe but that I should know you, notwithstanding all that
time may have done: there is not a feature of your face, could I meet
it upon the road, by itself, that I should not instantly recollect.
I should say that is my Cousin's nose, or those are her lips and her
chin, and no woman upon earth can claim them but herself. As for me, I
am a very smart youth of my years; I am not indeed grown grey so much
as I am grown bald. No matter: there was more hair in the world than
ever had the honour to belong to me; accordingly having found just
enough to curl a little at my ears, and to intermix with a little
of my own that still hangs behind, I appear, if you see me in an
afternoon, to have a very decent head-dress, not easily distinguished
from my natural growth, which being worn with a small bag, and a black
riband about my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, even on
the verge of age. Away with the fear of writing too often!

PS. That the view I give you of myself may be complete, I add the two
following items--That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.

TO THE SAME

_The kindliness of thanks_

30 _Nov_. 1785.

My dearest cousin,

Your kindness reduces me to a necessity (a pleasant one, indeed), of
writing all my letters in the same terms: always thanks, thanks at
the beginning, and thanks at the end. It is however, I say, a pleasant
employment when those thanks are indeed the language of the heart: and
I can truly add, that there is no person on earth whom I thank with
so much affection as yourself. You insisted that I should give you my
genuine opinion of the wine. By the way, it arrived without the least
damage or fracture, and I finished the first bottle of it this very
day. It is excellent, and though the wine which I had been used to
drink was not bad, far preferable to that. The bottles will be in town
on Saturday. I am enamoured of the desk and its contents before I see
them. They will be most entirely welcome. A few years since I made
Mrs. Unwin a present of a snuff-box--a silver one; the purchase was
made in London by a friend; it is of a size and form that make it
more fit for masculine than feminine use. She therefore with pleasure
accepts the box which you have sent--I should say with the greatest
pleasure. And I, discarding the leathern trunk that I have used so
long, shall succeed to the possession of hers. She says, Tell Lady
Hesketh that I truly love and honour her. Now, my Cousin, you may
depend upon it, as a most certain truth, that these words from her
lips are not an empty sound. I never in my life heard her profess a
regard for any one that she felt not. She is not addicted to the use
of such language upon ordinary occasions; but when she speaks it,
speaks from the heart. She has baited me this many a day, even as a
bear is baited, to send for Dr. Kerr. But, as I hinted to you upon
a former occasion, I am as mulish as most men are, and have hitherto
most ungallantly refused; but what is to be done now?--If it were
uncivil not to comply with the solicitations of one lady, to be
unmoved by the solicitations of two would prove me to be a bear
indeed. I will, therefore, summon him to consideration of said
stomach, and its ailments, without delay, and you shall know the
result.--I have read Goldsmith's _Traveller_ and his _Deserted
Village_, and am highly pleased with them both, as well for the manner
in which they are executed, as for their tendency, and the lessons
that they inculcate.

Mrs. Unwin said to me a few nights since, after supper, 'I have two
fine fowls in feeding, and just fit for use; I wonder whether I should
send them to Lady Hesketh?' I replied, Yes, by all means! and I will
tell you a story that will at once convince you of the propriety of
doing so. My brother was curate on a time to Mr. Fawkes, of Orpington,
in Kent: it was when I lived in the Temple. One morning, as I was
reading by the fireside, I heard a prodigious lumbering at the door. I
opened it, and beheld a most rural figure, with very dirty boots, and
a great coat as dirty. Supposing that my great fame as a barrister had
drawn upon me a client from some remote region, I desired him to walk
in. He did so, and introduced himself to my acquaintance by telling me
that he was the farmer with whom my brother lodged at Orpington.
After this preliminary information he unbuttoned his great coat, and I
observed a quantity of long feathers projected from an inside pocket.
He thrust in his hand, and with great difficulty extricated a great
fat capon. He then proceeded to lighten the other side of him, by
dragging out just such another, and begged my acceptance of both.
I sent them to a tavern, where they were dressed, and I with two or
three friends, whom I invited to the feast, found them incomparably
better than any fowls we had ever tasted from the London co-ops. Now,
said I to Mrs. Unwin, it is likely that the fowls at Olney may be as
good as the fowls at Orpington, therefore send them; for it is not
possible to make so good a use of them in any other way ... Adieu, my
faithful, kind, and consolatory friend!

TO THE SAME

_Arrival of the desk_

7 _Dec_. 1785.

My dear cousin,

At this time last night I was writing to you, and now I am writing to
you again ... My dear, you say not a word about the desk in your last,
which I received this morning. I infer from your silence that you
supposed it either at Olney or on its way thither, and that you
expected nothing so much as that my next would inform you of its safe
arrival;--therefore, where can it possibly be? I am not absolutely in
despair about it, for the reasons that I mentioned last night; but to
say the truth, I stand tottering upon the verge of it. I write, and
have written these many years, upon a book of maps, which I now begin
to find too low and too flat, though till I expected a better desk,
I found no fault with _them_. See and observe how true it is, that
by increasing the number of our conveniences, we multiply our wants
exactly in the same proportion! neither can I at all doubt that if you
were to tell me that all the men in London of any fashion at all, wore
black velvet shoes with white roses, and should also tell me that you
would send me such, I should dance with impatience till they arrived.
Not because I care one farthing of what materials my shoes are made,
but because any shoes of your sending would interest me from head to
foot.

_Thursday Evening_.

Oh that this letter had wings, that it might fly to tell you that my
desk, the most elegant, the compactest, the most commodious desk in
the world, and of all the desks that ever were or ever shall be,
the desk that I love the most, is safe arrived. Nay, my dear, it was
actually at Sherrington, when the wagoner's wife (for the man himself
was not at home) croaked out her abominable _No_! yet she examined the
bill of lading, but either did it so carelessly, or as poor Dick Madan
used to say, with such an _ignorant eye_, that my name escaped her. My
precious Cousin, you have bestowed too much upon me. I have nothing
to render you in return, but the affectionate feelings of a heart most
truly sensible of your kindness. How pleasant it is to write upon such
a green bank! I am sorry that I have so nearly reached the end of
my paper. I have now however only room to say that Mrs. Unwin is
delighted with her box, and bids me do more than thank you for
it. What can I do more at this distance but say that she loves you
heartily, and that so do I? The pocket-book is also the completest
that I ever saw, and the watch-chain the most brilliant.

Adieu for a little while. Now for Homer.

N.B.--I generally write the day before the post sets out, which is
the thing that puzzles you. I do it that I may secure time for the
purpose, and may not be hurried. On this very day twenty-two years ago
I left London.

TO THE SAME

_Anticipations of a visit_

Olney, 9 _Feb_. 1786.

MY DEAREST COUSIN,

I have been impatient to tell you that I am impatient to see you
again. Mrs. Unwin partakes with me in all my feelings upon this
subject, and longs also to see you. I should have told you so by the
last post, but have been so completely occupied by this tormenting
specimen, that it was impossible to do it. I sent the General a letter
on Monday that should distress and alarm him; I sent him another
yesterday, that will, I hope, quiet him again. Johnson has apologized
very civilly for the multitude of his friend's strictures; and his
friend has promised to confine himself in future to a comparison of
me with the original, so that, I doubt not, we shall jog on merrily
together. And now, my dear, let me tell you once more, that your
kindness in promising us a visit has charmed us both! I shall see you
again. I shall hear your voice. We shall take walks together. I will
show you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse and its banks,
everything that I have described. I anticipate the pleasure of those
days not very far distant, and feel a part of it at this moment. Talk
not of an inn! Mention it not for your life! We have never had so many
visitors, but we could easily accommodate them all, though we have
received Unwin, and his wife, and his sister, and his son all at once.
My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May, or beginning
of June, because before that time my greenhouse will not be ready to
receive us, and it is the only pleasant room belonging to us. When
the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and spread the floor
with mats; and there you shall sit with a bed of mignonette at your
side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make
you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I mention the
country will not be in complete beauty.

And I will tell you what you shall find at your first entrance.
Imprimis, as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you cast a
look on either side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box of
my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all my hares, and
in which lodges Puss at present; but he, poor fellow, is worn out with
age, and promises to die before you can see him. On the right
hand stands a cupboard, the work of the same author; it was once a
dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you stands a table,
which I also made; but a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it
became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament; and all
my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the farther end
of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour,
into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs.
Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy
as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the Swan at Newport,
and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney.

My dear, I have told Homer what you say about casks and urns, and have
asked him whether he is sure that it is a cask in which Jupiter keeps
his wine. He swears that it is a cask, and that it will never be
anything better than a cask to eternity. So if the god is content with
it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so too.

Adieu! my dearest, dearest Cousin.

TO THE SAME

_Commissions and thanks_

The Lodge, 24 _Dec_. 1786.

You must by no means, my dearest Coz, pursue the plan that has
suggested itself to you on the supposed loss of your letter. In
the first place I choose that my Sundays, like the Sundays of other
people, shall be distinguished by something that shall make me look
forward to them with agreeable expectation, and for that reason desire
that they may always bring me a letter from you. In the next place,
if I know when to _expect_ a letter, I know likewise when to _inquire
after_ a letter, if it happens not to come; a circumstance of some
importance, considering how excessively careless they are at the Swan,
where letters are sometimes overlooked, and do not arrive at their
destination, if no inquiry be made, till some days have passed since
their arrival at Olney. It has happened frequently to me to receive
a letter long after all the rest have been delivered, and the Padre
assured me that Mr. Throckmorton has sent notes three several times to
Mrs. Marriot, complaining of this neglect. For these reasons, my dear,
thou must write still on Saturdays, and as often on other days as thou
pleasest.

The screens came safe, and one of them is at this moment interposed
between me and the fire, much to the comfort of my peepers. The
other of them being fitted up with a screw that was useless, I have
consigned it to proper hands, that it may be made as serviceable
as its brother. They are very neat, and I account them a great
acquisition. Our carpenter assures me that the lameness of the chairs
was not owing to any injury received in their journey, but that the
maker never properly finished them. They were not high when they came,
and in order to reduce them to a level, we have lowered them an inch.
Thou knowest, child, that the short foot could not be lengthened, for
which reason we shortened the long ones. The box containing the plate
and the brooms reached us yesterday, and nothing had suffered the
least damage by the way. Everything is smart, everything is elegant,
and we admire them all. The short candlesticks are short enough. I am
now writing with those upon the table; Mrs. U. is reading opposite,
and they suit us both exactly. With the money that you have in hand,
you may purchase, my dear, at your most convenient time, a tea-urn;
that which we have at present having never been handsome, and being
now old and patched. A parson once, as he walked across the parlour,
pushed it down with his belly, and it never perfectly recovered
itself. We want likewise a tea-waiter, meaning, if you please, such
a one as you may remember to have seen at the Hall, a wooden one.
To which you may add, from the same fund, three or four yards of
yard-wide muslin, wherewithal to make neckcloths for my worship. If
after all these disbursements anything should be left at the bottom
of the purse, we shall be obliged to you if you will expend it in the
purchase of silk pocket-handkerchiefs. There, my precious--I think I
have charged thee with commissions in plenty.

You neither must nor shall deny us the pleasure of sending to you
such small matters as we do. As to the partridges, you may recollect
possibly, when I remind you of it, that I never eat them; they refuse
to pass my stomach; and Mrs. Unwin rejoiced in receiving them only
because she could pack them away to you--therefore never lay us under
any embargoes of this kind, for I tell you beforehand, that we are
both incorrigible. My beloved Cousin, the first thing that I open my
eyes upon in a morning, is it not the bed in which you have laid me?
Did you not, in our old dismal parlour at Olney, give me the tea on
which I breakfast?--the chocolate that I drank at noon, and the table
at which I dine?--the everything, in short, that I possess in the
shape of convenience, is it not all from you? and is it possible,
think you, that we should either of us overlook an opportunity of
making such a tiny acknowledgement of your kindness? Assure yourself
that never, while my name is Giles Gingerbread, will I dishonour my
glorious ancestry, and my illustrious appellation, by so unworthy a
conduct. I love you at my heart, and so does Mrs. U., and we must say
thank you, and send you a peppercorn when we can. So thank you, my
dear, for the brawn and the chine, and for all the good things that
you announce, and at present I will, for your sake, say no more of
thanksgiving.

TO MRS. BODHAM

_His mother's portrait_

Weston, 27 _Feb._ 1790.

MY DEAREST ROSE,

Whom I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I still
find alive: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it,
and to hear it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a
child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so.
Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and
you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her:
I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for
your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so
acceptable to me, as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I
received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of
nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the
dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung
it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course,
the first on which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I
completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular
witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a
multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and
which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. There is in
me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and though I love
all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own
name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to your side.
I was thought in the days of my childhood much to resemble my mother;
and in my natural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I must
be supposed to be a competent judge, can trace both her, and my late
uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability; and a little,
I would hope, both of his and of her--I know not what to call it,
without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but
speaking to _you_, I will even speak out, and say _good nature_. Add
to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the
Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at
all points. The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all.

EDMUND BURKE

1729-1797

TO MATTHEW SMITH

_First impressions of London_

[1750.]

You'll expect some short account of my journey to this great city. To
tell you the truth, I made very few remarks as I rolled along, for my
mind was occupied with many thoughts, and my eyes often filled with
tears, when I reflected on all the dear friends I left behind; yet
the prospects could not fail to attract the attention of the most
indifferent: country seats sprinkled round on every side, some in the
modern taste, some in the style of old De Coverley Hall, all smiling
on the neat but humble cottage; every village as neat and compact as
a bee-hive, resounding with the busy hum of industry; and inns like
palaces.

What a contrast to our poor country, where you'll scarce find a
cottage ornamented with a chimney! But what pleased me most of all
was the progress of agriculture, my favourite study, and my favourite
pursuit, if Providence had blessed me with a few paternal acres.

A description of London and its natives would fill a volume. The
buildings are very fine: it may be called the sink of vice: but its
hospitals and charitable institutions, whose turrets pierce the skies
like so many electrical conductors, avert the wrath of Heaven. The
inhabitants may be divided into two classes, the _undoers_ and the
_undone_; generally so, I say, for I am persuaded there are many men
of honesty and women of virtue in every street. An Englishman is
cold and distant at first; he is very cautious even in forming an
acquaintance; he must know you well before he enters into friendship
with you; but if he does, he is not the first to dissolve that sacred
bond: in short, a real Englishman is one that performs more than he
promises; in company he is rather silent, extremely prudent in his
expressions, even in politics, his favourite topic. The women are not
quite so reserved; they consult their glasses to the best advantage;
and as nature is very liberal in her gifts to their persons, and even
minds, it is not easy for a young man to escape their glances, or to
shut his ears to their softly flowing accents.

As to the state of learning in this city, you know I have not been
long enough in it to form a proper judgement of that subject. I don't
think, however, there is as much respect paid to a man of letters on
this side of the water as you imagine. I don't find that genius, the
'rath primrose, which forsaken dies', is patronized by any of the
nobility, so that writers of the first talents are left to the
capricious patronage of the public. Notwithstanding discouragement,
literature is cultivated in a high degree. Poetry raises her
enchanting voice to Heaven. History arrests the wings of Time in his
flight to the gulf of oblivion. Philosophy, the queen of arts, and the
daughter of Heaven, is daily extending her intellectual empire. Fancy
sports on airy wing like a meteor on the bosom of a summer cloud; and
even Metaphysics spins her cobwebs, and catches some flies.

The House of Commons not unfrequently exhibits explosions of eloquence
that rise superior to those of Greece and Rome, even in their
proudest days. Yet, after all, a man will make more by the figures of
arithmetic than the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the
trade wind, and then he may sail secure over Pactolean sands. As to
the stage, it is sunk, in my opinion, into the lowest degree; I
mean with regard to the trash that is exhibited on it; but I don't
attribute this to the taste of the audience, for when Shakespeare
warbles his 'native woodnotes', the boxes, pit, and gallery, are
crowded--and the gods are true to every word, if properly winged to
the heart.

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