present--although my ears have been stunned with your goodness and
kindness--the best young man!--and, good Lord! how shall we make him
amends? &c. &c.--Pshaw! simpleton, quoth I, do you not plainly ken,
that he himself has a satisfaction in giving pleasure to his friends,
which more than repays him?--so I strove to turn off the notion of
obligation--though, I must confess, my heart at the same time felt
a something--sure it was not envy--no, I detest it--I fear it was
pride--for I feel within myself this moment, that I could turn the
tables in repaying principal with treble interest--I should feel
gratified--though perhaps not satisfied.--I have a long account to
balance with you--about your comments upon the transcript:--you are
a pretty fellow, to dare put in your claim--to better sense--deeper
thinking--and stronger reasoning than my wise self.--To tell you the
truth (though at my own expence) I read your letter the first time with
some little chagrin;--your reasoning, though it hurt my pride--yet
almost convinced my understanding.--I read it carefully a second
time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--Whenever a spark of vanity
seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what
then?--Why then, humbled by a proper sense of my inferiority, I shall
still have cause for pride--triumph--and comfort--when I reflect that
my valued Censor--is the true friend of his sincerely affectionate
IGN. SANCHO.
LETTER XL.
TO MR. M----.
Dec. 4, 1776.
I FORGOT to tell you this morning--a jack-ass would have shewn more
thought--(are they rationals or not?)--the best recipe for the gout,
I am informed--is two or three stale Morning-Posts;--reclined in
easy chair--the patient must sit--and mull over them--take snuff at
intervals--hem--and look wise;--I apply to you as my pharmacopolist--do
not criticize my orthography--but, when convenient, send me the
medicine--which, with care and thanks, I will return.
Yours,
Dismal +SANCHO+.
Pray how do you do?
LETTER XLI.
TO MR. M----[4].
January 4, 1777.
I HAVE read, but have found nothing of the striking kind of sentimental
novelty--which I expected from its great author--the language is good
in most places--but never rises above the common pitch.--In many of our
inferior tragedies--I have ever found here and there a flower strewn,
which has been the grace and pride of the poetic parterre, and has made
me involuntarily cry out, Bravo!--From dress--scenery--action--and
the rest of play-house garniture--it may shew well and go down--like
insipid fish with good sauce;--the Prologue is well--the Epilogue
worth the whole--such is my criticism--read--stare--and conclude your
friend mad--though a more Christian supposition would be--what’s true
at the same time--that my ideas are frozen, much more frigid than the
play;--but allowing that--and although I confess myself exceeding cold,
yet I have warmth enough to declare myself yours sincerely,
I. SANCHO.
Love and many happy new years to the ladies.
[4] On reading the Tragedy of Semiramis, _from the French of Mons.
Voltaire_.
LETTER XLII.
TO MR. M----.
February 9, 1777.
ZOUNDS! if alive--what ails you? if dead--why did you not send me
word?--Where’s my Tristram?--What, are all bucks alike!--all promise,
and no--but I won’t put myself in a passion--I have but one foot,
and no head--go-to--why, what a devil of a rate dost thou ride at
anathematizing and reprobating poor ----! pho! thou simpleton--he
deserves thy pity--and whoever harbours a grain of contempt for his
fellow-creatures--either in the school of poverty or misfortune--that
Being is below contempt--and lives the scorn of men--and shame of
devils.--Thou shalt not think evil of ----; nor shall he, either by
word or thought, dispraisingly speak or think of M----.
In regard to thy N----, thou art right--guard her well--but chiefly
guard her from the traitor in her own fair breast, which, while it
is the seat of purity and unsullied honor--fancies its neighbours to
be the same--nor sees the serpent in the flowery foliage--till it
stings--and then farewell sweet peace and its attendant riches.
I have only time to thank you for the leaves, and to lament your want
of perspicuity in writing.--My love to George when you see him--and two
loves to Nancy--tell her I could fold her to my bosom with the same
tender pressure I do my girls--shut my eyes--draw her to my heart--and
call her Daughter!--and thou, monkey-face, write me a decent letter--or
you shall have another trimming from yours,
I. SANCHO.
Look’ye Sir, I write to the ringing of the shop-door bell--I
write--betwixt serving--gossiping--and lying. Alas! what cramps to poor
genius!
For THE GENERAL ADVERTISER.
The outline of a plan for establishing a most respectable body of
Seamen to the number 20,000, to be ever ready for the manning a
fleet upon twelve days notice.
THE proposer is humbly of opinion, that his plan is capable of many
wholesome improvements, which he thinks would prove no unprofitable
study, even to the Lords of the Admiralty.
Ist, Let the number of seamen, now upon actual service, be each man
inrolled upon his Majesty’s books, at the rate of 5_l._ _per annum_ for
life; let them also receive the same quarterly, or half-yearly, upon
personal application.
IIdly, Let books be opened for them in all his Majesty’s different
yards and sea ports, and there their dwelling, age, time they have
served, &c. to be fairly entered; each man to bring a certificate from
his ship, signed by the captain, or some one he shall please to depute.
IIIdly, As an encouragement to his Majesty’s service and population at
the same time, let there be instituted in each of the ship-yards, or
ports, &c. of these Kingdoms, a kind of asylum, or house of refuge,
for the sons of these honest tars, to be received therein at the age
of six years; there to be taught navigation, or, after the common
school learning, to be bound to such parts of ship-building as they by
nature are most inclined to; such as chuse sea service, to be disposed
on board his Majesty’s ships at fifteen years old, and to be enrolled
upon the pension-books after ten years faithful service, unless better
provided for.
Might not there be some plan hit on to employ the daughters, as well
as sons of poor sailors? Does not our Fisheries (if they should ever
happen to be attended to) open many doors of useful employment for both
sexes?
To defray the above, I would advise the following methods:
First, The pension of 5_l._ _per_ man for 20,000, amounts only to
100,000_l._: let this be taken from the Irish list; it will surely be
better employed, than in the present mode for Pensioners of noble blood.
Secondly, Let the book and office keepers at the different yards,
ports, &c. be collected from under-officers who have served with
reputation; it will be a decent retreat for them in the evening of
life, and only a grateful reward for past service.
May some able hand, guided by a benevolent heart, point out and
strongly recommend something of this sort, that the honoured name of
England may be rescued from the scandalous censure of man-stealing, and
from the ingratitude also of letting their preservers perish in the
time of peace!
I am, Sir, yours, &c.
+Africanus.+
LETTER XLIII.
TO MR. M----.
July 27, 1777.
GO-TO!--the man who visits church twice in one day, must either
be religious--curious--or idle--whichever you please, my dear
friend;--turn it the way which best likes you, I will cheerily
subscribe to it.--By the way, H----n was inspired this morning; his
text was from Romans--chapter the--verse the--both forgot;--but the
subject was to present heart, mind, soul, and all the affections--a
living sacrifice to God;--he was most gloriously animated, and seemed
to have imbibed the very spirit and manners of the Great Apostle. Our
afternoon Orator was a stranger to me--he was blest with a good, clear,
and well-toned articulate voice:--he preached from the Psalms--and took
great pains to prove that God knew more than we--that letters were
the fountain of our knowledge--that a man in Westminster was totally
ignorant of what was going forward in Whitechapel--that we might have
some memory of what we did last week--but have no sort of conjecture of
what we shall do to-morrow, &c. &c.--Now H----n’s whole drift was, that
we should live the life of angels here--in order to be so in reality
hereafter:--the other good soul gave us wholesome matter of fact;--they
were both right--(but I fear not to speak my mind to my M----, who,
if he condemns my head, will, I am sure, acquit my heart.)--You have
read and admired Sterne’s Sermons--which chiefly inculcate practical
duties, and paint brotherly love--and the true Christian charities--in
such beauteous glowing colours--that one cannot help wishing to feed
the hungry--cloathe the naked, &c. &c.--I would to God, my friend,
that the great lights of the church would exercise their oratorical
powers upon Yorick’s plan:--the heart and passions once listed under
the banners of blest philanthropy--would naturally ascend to the
redeeming God--flaming with grateful rapture.--Now I have observed
among the modern Saints--who profess to pray without ceasing--that they
are so fully taken up with pious meditations--and so wholy absorbed
in the love of God--that they have little if any room for the love of
man:--if I am wrong, tell me so honestly--the censure of a friend is
of more value than his money--and to submit to conviction, is a proof
of good sense.--I made my bow to-night to Mrs. H----; the rest of the
rogues were out--bright-eyed S---- and all.--Mrs. H---- says that you
are hypped--nonsense!--few can rise superior to pain--and the head,
I will allow, is a part the most _sensible_, if affected;--but even
then you are not obliged to use more motion than you like--though I
can partly feel the aukward sensations and uneasy reflections, which
will often arise upon the least ail of so precious a member as the
eye--yet certain I am, the more you can be master of yourself (I mean
as to chearfulness, if not gaiety of mind) the better it will of course
be with you.--I hope G---- is well--and that you ride often to see
him I make no doubt.--I like the monkey--I know not for why, nor does
it signify a button--but sure he is good-tempered and grateful;--but
what’s that to me?--Good-night:---- the clock talks of eleven.
Yours, &c.
I. SANCHO.
LETTER XLIV.
TO MR. M----.
July 23, 1777.
YES--too true it is--for the many (aye, and some of those many carry
their heads high) too true for the miserable--the needy--the sick--for
many, alas! who now may have no helper--for the child of folly poor
S----, and even for thy worthless friend Sancho.--It is too true, that
the Almighty has called to her rich reward--she who, whilst on earth,
approved herself his best delegate.--How blind, how silly, is the
mortal who places any trust or hope in aught but the Almighty!--You
are just, beautifully just, in your sketch of the vicissitudes of
worldly bliss.--We rise the lover--dine the husband--and too oft,
alas! lay down the forlorne widower.--Never so struck in my life;--it
was on Friday night, between ten and eleven, just preparing for my
concluding pipe--the Duke of M----’s man knocks.--“Have you heard the
bad news?”--No.--“The Dutchess of Queensbury died last night!”--I felt
fifty different sensations--unbelief was uppermost--when he crushed my
incredibility, by saying he had been to know how his Grace did--who was
also very poorly in health.--Now the preceding day, Thursday (the day
on which she expired) I had received a very penitential letter from
S----, dated from St. Helena;--this letter I inclosed in a long tedious
epistle of my own--and sent to Petersham, believing the family to be
all there.--The day after you left town her Grace died;--that day week
she was at my door--the day after I had the honour of a long audience
in her dressing-room.--Alas! this hour blessed with health--crowned
with honors--loaded with riches, and encircled with friends--the
next reduced to a lump of poor clay--a tenement for worms!--Earth
re-possesses part of what she gave--and the freed spirit mounts on
wings of fire:--her disorder was a stoppage--she fell ill the evening
of the Friday that I last saw her--continued in her full senses to
the last.--The good she had done reached the skies long before her
lamented death--and are the only heralds that are worth the pursuit
of wisdom:--as to her bad deeds, I have never heard of them.--Had it
been for the best, God would have lent her a little longer to a foolish
world, which hardly deserved so good a woman;--for my own part, I have
lost a friend--and perhaps ’tis better so.--“Whatever is,” &c. &c.--I
wish S---- knew this heavy news, for many reasons.--I am inclined to
believe her Grace’s death is the only thing that will most conduce
to his reform.--I fear neither his gratitude nor sensibility will be
much hurt upon hearing the news--it will act upon his fears, and
make him do _right_ upon a _base_ principle.--Hang him! he teazes me
whenever I think of him.--I supped last night with St----; he called
in just now, and says he has a right to be remembered to you.--You
and he are two old monkeys--the more I abuse and rate you, the better
friend you think me.--As you have found out that your spirits govern
your head--you will of course contrive every method of keeping your
instrument in tune;--sure I am that bathing--riding--walking--in
succession--the two latter not violent--will brace your nerves--purify
your blood--invigorate its circulation:--add to the rest
_continency_--yes, again I repeat it, _continency_;--before you
reply, think--re-think--and think again--look into your _Bible_--look
in _Young_--peep into your own breast--if your heart warrants what
your head counsels--act then boldly.--Oh! _apropos_--pray thank my
noble friend Mrs. H---- for her friendly present of C-- J--; it
did Mrs. Sancho service, and does poor Billy great good--who has
(through his teeth) been plagued with a cough--which I hope will not
turn to the whooping sort;--the girls greet you as their respected
school-master.--As to your spirited kind offer of a F----, why when you
please--you know what I intend doing with it.
Poor Lady S----, I find, still lingers this side the world.--Alas!
when will the happy period arrive, that the sons of mortality may
greet each other with the joyful news, that sin, pain, sorrow,
and death, are no more; skies without clouds, earth without
crimes, life without death, world without end!--peace, bliss, and
harmony, where the Lord God--All in all--King of kings--Lord of
lords--reigneth--omnipotent--for ever--for ever!--may you, dear M----,
and all I love--yea the whole race of Adam, join with my unworthy weak
self, in the stupendous--astonishing--soul-cheering Hallelujahs!--where
Charity may be swallowed up in Love--Hope in Bliss--and Faith in
glorious Certainty!--We will mix, my boy, with all countries, colours,
faiths--see the countless multitudes of the first world--the myriads
descended from the--Ark--the Patriarchs--Sages--Prophets--and Heroes!
My head turns round at the vast idea! we will mingle with them, and
try to untwist the vast chain of blessed Providence--which puzzles and
baffles human understanding. Adieu.
Yours, &c.
I. SANCHO.
LETTER XLV.
TO MR. M----.
August 8, 1777.
“Know your own self, presume not God to scan;
“The only science of mankind, is man.”
THERE is something so amazingly grand--so stupendously affecting--in
the contemplating the works of the Divine Architect, either in the
moral or the intellectual world, that I think one may rightly call
it the cordial of the soul--it is the physic of the mind--and the
best antidote against weak pride--and the supercilious murmurings
of discontent.--Smoaking my morning pipe, the friendly warmth of
that glorious planet the sun--the leniency of the air--the chearful
glow of the atmosphere--made me involuntarily cry, “Lord, what is
man, that thou in thy mercy art so mindful of him! or what the son
of man, that thou so parentally carest for him!” David, whose heart
and affections were naturally of the first kind (and who indeed had
experienced blessings without number), pours forth the grateful
sentiments of his enraptured soul in the sweetest modulations of
pathetic oratory;--the tender mercies of the Almighty are not less to
many of his creatures--but their hearts, unlike the royal disposition
of the Shepherd King, are cold, and untouched with the sweet ray
of gratitude.--Let us, without meanly sheltering our infirmities
under the example of others--perhaps worse taught--or possessed
of less leisure for self-examination--let us, my dear M----, look
into ourselves--and, by a critical examination of the past events
of our lives, fairly confess what mercies we have received--what
God in his goodness hath done for us--and how our gratitude and
praise have kept pace in imitation of the son of Jesse.--such a
research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so
much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof
of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually
cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional
aspirations--till we poured forth the effusions of our souls in
praise and thanksgiving.--When I sometimes endeavour to turn my
thoughts inwards, to review the power or properties the indulgent
all-wise Father has endow’d me with, I am struck with wonder and with
awe--worm, poor insignificant reptile as I am, with regard to superior
beings--mortal like myself.--Amongst, and at the very head of our
riches, I reckon the power of reflection:--Where? where, my friend,
doth it lie?--Search every member from the toe to the nose--all--all
ready for action--but all dead to thought--it lies not in matter--nor
in the blood--it is a party, which though we feel and acknowledge,
quite past the power of definition--it is that breath of life which
the Sacred Architect breathed into the nostrils of the first man--image
of his gracious Maker--and let it animate our torpid gratitude--it
rolls on, although diminished by our cruel fall, through the whole
race.--“We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” &c. &c. were the
sentiments of the Royal Preacher upon a self-review--but had he been
blessed with the full blaze of the Christian dispensation--what would
have been his raptures?--The promise of never, never-ending existence
and felicity, to possess eternity--“glorious, dreadful thought!” to
rise, perhaps, by regular progression, from planet to planet--to behold
the wonders of immensity--to pass from good to better--increasing
in goodness--knowledge--love--to glory in our Redeemer--to joy in
ourselves--to be acquainted with prophets, sages, heroes, and poets
of old times--and join in symphony with angels!--And now, my friend,
thou smilest at my futile notions--why preach to thee?--For this very
good and simple reason, to get your thoughts in return.--You shall
be my philosopher--my Mentor--my friend;--you, happily disengaged
from various cares of life and family, can review the little world of
man with steadier eye, and more composed thought, than your friend,
declining fast into the vale of years, and beset with infirmity
and pain.--Write now and then, as thought prompts, and inclination
leads--refute my errors--where I am just, give me your plaudit.--Your
welfare is truly dear in my sight;--and if any man has a share in my
heart, or commands my respect and esteem, it is I---- M----.
Witness my mark,
I. SANCHO.
LETTER XLVI.
TO MR. M----.
August 14, 1777.
MY dear M----, I know full well thy silence must proceed from ill
health. To say it concerns me, is dull nonsense--self-love without
principle will inspire even Devils with affection;--by so much less
as thou apprehendest thy friend has diabolical about him--so may’st
thou judge of his feelings towards thee.--Why wilt thou not part
with thy hair? most assuredly I do believe it would relieve thee
past measure--thou dost not fancy thy strength (like Sampson’s the
Israelite) lieth in thy hair. Remember he was shorn thro’ folly--he
lost his wits previous to his losing his locks--do thou consent to
lose thine, in order to save thy better judgement,--I know no worse
soul sinking pain than the head-ach, though (thank heaven) I am not
often visited with it.--I long to see thee--and will soon, if in
my power:--some odd folks would think it would have _been_ but good
manners to have thanked you for the fawn--but then, says the punster,
that would have _been_ so like _fawn_-ing--which J. M---- loves not,
_no_, nor Sancho either;--’tis the hypocrite’s key to the great man’s
heart--’tis the resource of cowardly curs--and deceitful b--p--s--it is
the spaniel’s sort--and man’s disgrace--it is--in short, the day is so
hot--that I cannot say at present any more about it--but that the fawn
was large, fresh, and worthy the giver, the receiver, and the joyous
souls that eat it.--Billy has suffered much in getting his teeth--I
have just wished him joy by his mother’s desire, who says that he took
resolution at last, and walked to her some few steps quite alone.
Albeit it gave me no small pleasure--yet, upon consideration, what I
approve of now, perhaps, (should I live to see him at man’s estate) I
might then disapprove--unless God’s grace should as ably support him
through the quick-sands--rocks--and shoals of life--as it has happily
the honest being I am now writing to.--God give you health!--your own
conduct will secure peace--your friends bread.--As to honors, leave it
with titles--to knaves--and be content with that of an honest man,
“the noblest work of God.”
Shave--shave--shave.
Farewell, yours sincerely,
I. SANCHO.
LETTER XLVII.
TO MISS C----.
August 15, 1777.
I WAITED, in hopes that time or chance might furnish me with
something to fill a sheet, with better than the praises of an old
man.--What has youth and beauty to do with the squabbling contentions
of mad ambition?--Could I new-model Nature--your sex should rule
supreme:--there should be no other ambition but that of pleasing the
ladies--no other welfare but the contention of obsequious lovers--nor
any glory but the bliss of being approved by the Fair.--Now, confess
that this epistle opens very gallant, and allow this to be a decent
return to one of the best and most sensible letters that L---- Wells
has produced this century past.--I much wish for the pleasing hopes
raised by your obliging letter--that my good friend’s health is
restored so fully, that she has by this time forgot what the pains
in the stomach mean,--that she has sent all her complaints to the
lake of Lethe--and is thinking soon to enliven our part our world,
enriched with health--spirits--and a certain bewitching benignity of
countenance--which cries out--‘Dislike me if you can!’--I want to
know what conquests you have made--what savages converted--whom you
have smiled into felicity, or killed by rejection;--and how the noble
Master of Ceremonies acquits himself, John S---- Esq; I mean.--I hear
my friend R---- will be in town this week, to my great comfort;--for,
upon my conscience, excepting my family, the town to me is quite
empty.--Mrs. R---- is gone to Bury--and the good man is toiling a
lonely and forlorne object.--Mrs. Sancho joins in every good and
grateful wish for your amiable friend, with, dear Miss C----, your
obliged friend and humble servant,
I. SANCHO.
LETTER XLVIII.
TO MR. M----.
August 25, 1777.
+Jack-asses.+