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home, could be accorded to your recommendation; but that, as to the middling or inferior offices, if there was not some particular reason to the contrary, regard would be had thereto. This is all that can reasonably be desired; and if you are not infected with a certain Creolian distemper (whereof I am persuaded your soul will utterly resist the contagion, as I hope your body will that of their natural ones), there are few men so capable of that imperishable happiness, that peace and satisfaction of mind at least, that proceed from being reasonable and moderate in our desires, as you are. These are the treasures dug from an inexhaustible mine in our breasts, which, like those in the kingdom of heaven, the rust of time cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. I must learn to work at this mine a little more, being struck off from a certain hundred pounds a year, which you know I had.West, Mallet, and I were all routed in one day. If you must know why-out of resentment to our friend in Argyle-street: yet I have hopes given me of having it restored with interest, some time or other. Ah! that some time or other is a great deceiver.

Coriolanus has not yet appeared upon the stage, from the little dirty jealousy of Tullus, I mean of him who was desired to act Tullus (Garrick), towards him who alone can act Coriolanus (Quin). Indeed the first has entirely jockeyed the last off the stage for this season; but I believe he will return on him next season, like a giant in his wrath. Let us have a little more patience, Patterson,-nay, let us be cheerful; at last, all will

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be over-here I mean! God forbid it should be hereafter! But as sure as there is a God, that will not be so.

Now that I am prating of myself, know that, after fourteen or fifteen years, the Castle of Indolence comes abroad in a fortnight. It will certainly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an apartment in it, as a night pensioner; which you may remember I fitted up for you, during our delightful party at Northaw. Will ever these days return again? Don't you remember our eating the raw fish that were never caught?

All our friends are pretty much in statu quo, except it be poor Mr. Lyttleton. He has had the severest trial a humane tender heart can have; but the old physician, Time, will at least close up his wounds, though there must always remain an inward smarting.

Mitchell is in the house for Aberdeenshire, and has spoken modestly well; I hope he will be in something else soon; none deserves better; true friendship and humanity dwell in his heart.— Gray is working hard at passing his accounts. I spoke to him about that affair. If he gives you any trouble about it, even that of dunning, I shall think strangely; but I dare say he is too friendly to his old friends, and you are among the oldest. Symmer is at last tired of quality, and is going to take a semi-country house at Hammersmith.

I am sorry that honest sensible Warrender (who is in town) seems to be stunted in church preferment he ought to be a tall cedar in the house of the Lord. If he is not so at last, it will add more fuel to my indignation, that burns al

ready too intensely, and throbs towards an eruption. Poor Murdoch is in town, tutor to Admiral Vernon's son, and is in good hope of another living in Suffolk, that country of tranquillity, where he will then burrow himself in his wife, and be happy. Good natured, obliging Millar is as usual. Though the doctor increases in his business, he does not decrease in his spleen; but there is a certain kind of spleen that is both humane and agreeable, like Jacques in the play; I sometimes too have a touch of it. But I must now break off this chat with you, about your friends, which, were I to indulge it, would be endless.

As to politics we are, I believe, upon the brink of a peace. The French are vapouring at present in the siege of Maestricht, at the same time they are mortally sick in their marine, and through all the vitals of France. It is pity we cannot continue the war a little longer, and put their agonizing trade quite to death. This siege (I take it) they mean as their last flourish in the war. May your health, which never failed you yet, still continue, till you have scraped together enough to return home, and live in some snug corner, as happy as the Corycius Senex, in Virgil's fourth Georgic, whom I recommend both to you and myself, as a perfect model of the truest happy life.

Believe me to be ever most sincerely and affectionately yours, &c.

JAMES THOMSON.

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in variety of affairs, but there is one general use of it, which I remember my Lord Bacon somewhere mentions-that it tends above all things to fix the attention of youth; for in demonstration, if a man's mind wander ever so little, he must begin again.

The study of the Roman civil law is what every true friend of your lordship would most earnestly wish you to pursue, as the ground work of the law of most countries, and in cases where their municipal laws have made no special provision, it is their rule of judging: believe me, the benefits you will derive from a superior knowledge of this science are not to be described within the compass of a letter; and as your lordship may possibly one day have a seat in Parliament, your country will by this means find you the much better qualified for their service, as well as your own. I shall be in danger of going farther out of my depth, if I attempt to say much about your exercises. They require judgment in choosing, and many of them are highly conducive to strengthening the constitution, and forming a graceful behaviour: it seems to be a fault of the present age, to neglect the manly and warlike exercises, and to prefer those which are soft and effeminate; the former are certainly a necessary part of the education of a man of quality, not to be laid aside as soon as learned, but to be made a habit for life. Hence you will be rendered more apt for military fatigue and discipline, if ever the cause of your prince and country shall require you to endure it. And one cannot help observing, that it would be much for the honour of the nobility,

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