threshold--poor man--in very visible illness;--yet, under the pressure
of a multitude of infirmities--he could not forget his recent humane
benefactor. With faultering speech he enquired much who you were;--and,
in the conclusion, put up his most earnest petitions to the Father of
Mercies in your behalf--which (if the prayers of an indigent genius
have as much efficacy as those of a fat bishop) I should hope and
trust you may one day be the better for.--He is in direct descent
from the famous Hugo Grotius by the father’s side.--His own mother
was daughter to Sir Thomas Hesketh. He married the widow Marchioness
de Melaspina.--His age is 86; he had a paralytic stroke--and has a
rupture.--His eyes are dim, even with the help of spectacles.--In
truth, he comes close to Shakspeare’s description in his last age of
man--“Sans teeth--sans eyes--sans taste--sans every thing.”
He has the honour to be known to Dr. Johnson--and the luck to be
sometimes remembered by Mr. Garrick.--If you help him--you do yourself
a kindness--me a pleasure--and he, poor soul, a good--which he may one
time throw in your teeth--in that country where good actions are in
higher estimation than stars--ribbons--or crowns.
Yours, most respectfully,
IGNATIUS SANCHO.
He lodges at Nᵒ. 9, New Pye-Street, Westminster.
LETTER LXIII.
TO MR. R----.
MY good friend, take my thanks for your kind attention;--and,
believe me, I am exceedingly mortified at being thus thrust forward
in the public prints.--You may observe, by what has happened to me,
how very difficult it is to do even a right thing, so as to escape
uneasiness.--Trust me, this same letter (though wrote, I dare say,
with the kindest intention imaginable) will do me hurt in the opinion
of many;--I therefore repeat, I like it not--and dare own to my friend
R---- it hurts my pride.--You may laugh--but it’s truth.--The drawing
was gone to my friend S----, but I recovered it in time.--Hope the
ladies are well--and that it will amuse them for a few moments. The
young man who invented the design is no artist--but I think he has
genius.
LETTER LXIV.
TO MISS C----.
May 14, 1778.
WHAT terms shall I find to express my gratitude to the obliging, the
friendly Miss C----, for the pleasure we enjoyed from the contents
of the best letter that has been wrote this good year?--You, who
delight to please, will also feel high satisfaction in knowing
you have succeeded.--We hope the change of weather has had no ill
effect upon our friend--and that she will adhere to her promise in
remembering how ill she has been--and that it is too probable any
cold got by over-exertion or fatigue may occasion a relapse. We have
had much thunder and rain this morning--and, if old saws say true, we
are to expect a continuance of about thirty-seven days good ducking
weather;--we will leave it to the all-wise Disposer of events, with
this comfortable reflection--that whatever he wills--is best.--We are
happy to hear such an account of the ----; she especially, as very
likely a good course of fatigue, sweetened with gain, may contribute as
much to her health as her pleasure, and re-establish her perfectly.--We
have nothing stirring in the news way, or any other way:--the town
is literally empty, saving a few sharks of both sexes, who are too
poor to emigrate to the camps or watering-places, and so are forced
to prey upon one another in town.--I protest, it is to me the most
difficult of things to write to one of your female geniuses;--there is
a certain degree of cleverality (if I may so call it), an easy kind of
derangement of periods, a gentleman-like--fashionable--careless--seesaw
of dialogue--which I know no more of than you do of cruelty.--I write
as I think--foolishly--and you write well--why?--because you think
well.--So much for praise--compliment--flattery, &c.--My respects
attend Mr. B---- and Mrs. S---- and Mrs. ----. Tell Miss A----s, one
of us will come to see her--perhaps.--I have received a kind letter
from my good friend the doctor--and one also for the surgeon to the
guards, dated New York, June 12:--he thinks the commissioners might
have saved themselves the trouble, as they are like to come back just
as wise as they went.--The Panton-Street good folks are well, for what
I know--not having seen them since I last had the honor of addressing
Mrs. C----. Adieu.--Our best respects--with Kitty’s and Billy’s in
particular--attend Monsieur Nuts[6];--pray tell him so--with all
civility;--he deserves it on the score of his own merits--were it not
even so--yet surely, I think, we should regard him for the sake of our
friend.
Mrs. Sancho joins me, in every thing to Self and Co.
Yours, dear Miss C----,
with zeal and esteem,
IGN. SANCHO.
[6] A favourite Spaniel.
LETTER LXV.
TO MR. I----.
May 22, 1778.
DEAR SIR,
I CLAIM your indulgence--and modestly insist upon your help.--The
companions to this billet are the hobby-horses of a young man that I
respect.--Darley has used him with less attention than he ought--having
kept the press affair above a month--and done nothing--so he is (of
course) out of favor.--I want first your approbation--that gained, I
wish your interest, to get them speedily into the world;--there are
some inaccuracies in both--which any regular artist will amend.--As
my friend is self-taught, his errors must be excused.--I wish I could
wait upon you;--but my stiff joint--my leg--is so unwell, that at
present I must give up any hopes of that pleasure.--I hope Mrs.
I----’s health is perfectly restored.--I should wish to win her over
to our interests in the affairs before you: in good faith, I like the
subject myself--and can fancy I discern something like wit in both of
them.--Forgive and assist yours faithfully,
+Sancho+ the Big.
LETTER LXVI.
TO MR. H----.
Charles Street, Westminster, May 31, 1778.
THE Sanchonian chapter of enquiries, dictated by an esteem nearly
bordering upon affection (perhaps as warmly sincere as most modern
friendships), runs thus--How do you do? Are you the better for your
journey? Did the exercise create any amendment of appetite? Was your
travelling party agreeable? And how did you find the good couple?--The
sweet sensations arising from the sight of those we love, the reviewing
the places, either houses, fields, hedges, stiles, or posts, of
our early morn of life acquaintance, the train of pleasurable ideas
awakened, are more salutary than the college of grave faces.--Tell
me much about yourself--and more about your honored parents, whom I
hope you found as well as you wished--your kindred at Lancaster, to
whom my hearty wishes--and to all who have charity enough to admit
dark faces into the fellowship of Christians.--Say much for me to
your good father and mother--in the article of respect thou canst not
exaggerate;--excepting conjugal, there are no attentions so tenderly
heart-soothing as the parental.--Amidst the felicity of thy native
fields, may’st thou find health, and diffuse pleasure round the
respectable circle of thy friends!--No news--but that Keppel is in
chace of de-Chartres.
Yours truly,
I. SANCHO.
If you can afford a line, inclose it in the inclosed.--Mrs. Sancho and
girls wish you every pleasure.
LETTER LXVII.
TO MR. M----.
June 10, 1778.
“’Tis with our judgements as our watches--none
“Go just alike--yet each believes his own.”
+Pope.+
SO, my wise critic--blessings on thee,--and thanks for thy sagacious
discovery!--Sterne, it seems, stole his grand outline of character from
Fielding--and who did Fielding plunder? thou criticizing jack-ape!--As
to S----, perhaps you may be right--not absolutely right--nor quite
so very _altogether_ wrong--but that’s not my affair.--Fielding and
Sterne both copied Nature--their pallettes stored with proper colours
of the brightest dye--these masters were both great originals--their
outline correct--bold--and free--Human Nature was their subject--and
though their colouring was widely different, yet _here_ and there
some features in each might bear a little resemblance--some faint
likeness to each other--as for example--in your own words--Toby
and Allworthy--the external drapery of the two are as wide as the
poles--their hearts--perhaps--twins of the same blessed form and
principles;--but for the rest of the Dramatis Personæ, you must
strain hard, my friend, before you can twist them into likeness
sufficient to warrant the censure of copying.--Parson Adams is yet
more distant--his chief feature is absence of thought. The world
affords me many such instances--but in the course of my reading, I
have not met with his likeness, except in mere goodness of heart--in
that, perhaps, Jack M---- may equal him--but then he is so confounded
jingle-headed!--Read, boy, read--give Tom Jones a second _fair_
reading!--Fielding’s wit is obvious--his humour poignant--dialogue
just, and truly dramatic--colouring quite nature--and keeping
chaste.--Sterne equals him in every thing; and in one thing excels
him and all mankind--which is the distribution of his lights; which
he has so artfully varied throughout his work, that, the oftener they
are examined, the more beautiful they appear.--They were two great
masters, who painted for posterity--and, I prophesy, will charm to the
end of the English speech.--If Sterne has had any one great master in
his eye--it was Swift, his countryman--the first wit of this or any
other nation;--but there is this grand difference between them--Swift
excels in grave-faced irony--whilst Sterne lashes his whips with jolly
laughter.--I could wish you to compare (after due attentive reading)
Swift and Sterne--Milton and Young--Thomson and Akenside--and then give
your free opinion to yours ever.
I. SANCHO.
I want a handful or two of good fresh peach leaves--contrive to send
me them when opportunity serves--and word, at the first leisure
period, how Miss _Anne Sister-like_--_George Grateful-look_--Mrs. &c.
&c.--and how your worship’s hip does.--You had set up my bristles in
such guise--in attacking poor Sterne--that I had quite forgot to give
you a flogging for your punning grocery epistle--but omittance is no
quittance.--Swift and Sterne were different in this--Sterne was truly
a noble philanthropist--Swift was rather cynical;--what Swift would
fret and fume at--such as the petty accidental _sourings_ and _bitters_
in life’s cup--you plainly may see, Sterne would laugh at--and parry
off by a larger humanity, and regular good-will to man. I know you will
laugh at me--do--I am content;--if I am an enthusiast in any thing, it
is in favor of my Sterne.
LETTER LXVIII.
TO MR. J---- W----.
1778.
YOUR good father insists on my scribbling a sheet of absurdities,
and gives a notable reason for it--that is, ‘Jack will be pleased
with it.’--Now be it known to you--I have a respect both for father
and son--yea, for the whole family, who are every soul (that I have
the honour or pleasure to know any thing of) tinctured and leavened
with all the obsolete goodness of old times--so that a man runs some
hazard, in being seen in the W----e’s society, of being biassed to
Christianity.--I never see your poor father--but his eyes betray his
feelings--for the hopeful youth in India--a tear of joy dancing upon
the lids--is a plaudit not to be equalled this side death!--See the
effects of right-doing, my worthy friend; continue in the tract of
rectitude--and despise poor paltry Europeans--titled Nabobs.--Read your
Bible--as day follows night, God’s blessing follows virtue;--honour and
riches bring up the rear--and the end is peace.--Courage, my boy--I
have done preaching.--Old folks love to seem wise--and if you are silly
enough to correspond with grey hairs--take the consequence.--I have had
the pleasure of reading most of your letters, through the kindness of
your father.--Youth is naturally prone to vanity: such is the weakness
of human nature, that pride has a fortress in the best of hearts.--I
know no person that possesses a better than Johnny W----;--but although
flattery is poison to youth, yet truth obliges me to confess that your
correspondence betrays no symptom of vanity--but teems with truths of
an honest affection--which merits praise--and commands esteem.
In some of your letters which I do not recollect, you speak
(with honest indignation) of the treachery and chicanery of the
natives[7].--My good friend, you should remember from whom they learnt
those vices:--the first Christian visitors found them a simple,
harmless people--but the cursed avidity for wealth urged these first
visitors (and all the succeeding ones) to such acts of deception--and
even wanton cruelty--that the poor ignorant natives soon learnt to turn
the knavish and diabolical arts which they soon imbibed--upon their
teachers.
I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as
a resident I love--and for its freedom, and for the many blessings
I enjoy in it, shall ever have my warmest wishes--prayers--and
blessings;) I say, it is with reluctance that I must observe your
country’s conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East--West
Indies--and even on the coast of Guinea.--The grand object of
English navigators--indeed of all Christian navigators--is
money--money--money--for which I do not pretend to blame
them.--Commerce was meant, by the goodness of the Deity, to diffuse the
various goods of the earth into every part--to unite mankind in the
blessed chains of brotherly love--society--and mutual dependence:--the
enlightened Christian should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of
peace--with the commodities of his respective land.--Commerce, attended
with strict honesty--and with Religion for its companion--would be a
blessing to every shore it touched at.--In Africa, the poor wretched
natives--blessed with the most fertile and luxuriant soil--are
rendered so much the more miserable for what Providence meant as a
blessing:--the Christians’ abominable traffic for slaves--and the
horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty Kings--encouraged by their
Christian customers--who carry them strong liquors, to enflame their
national madness--and powder and bad fire arms, to furnish them with
the hellish means of killing and kidnapping.--But enough--it is a
subject that sours my blood--and I am sure will not please the friendly
bent of your social affections.--I mention these, only to guard my
friend against being too hasty in condemning the knavery of a people,
who, bad as they may be--possibly were made worse by their Christian
visitors.--Make human nature thy study wherever thou residest--whatever
the religion or the complexion, study their hearts.--Simplicity,
kindness, and charity, be thy guide;--with these, even Savages will
respect you--and God will bless you!
Your father--who sees every improvement of his boy with
delight--observes that your hand-writing is much for the better;--in
truth, I think it as well as any modest man can wish:--if my long
epistles do not frighten you--and I live till the return of next
spring--perhaps I shall be enabled to judge how much you are improved
since your last favour.--Write me a deal about the natives--the
soil and produce--the domestic and interior manners of the
people--customs--prejudices--fashions--and follies.--Alas! we have
plenty of the two last here--and what is worse, we have politics--and
a detestable Brothers war--where the right hand is hacking and hewing
the left--whilst Angels weep at our madness--and Devils rejoice at the
ruinous prospect.
Mr. R---- and the ladies are well.--Johnny R---- has favourd me with
a long letter; he is now grown familiar with danger--and can bear the
whistling of bullets--the cries and groans of the human species--the
roll of drums--clangor of trumpets--shouts of combatants--and thunder
of cannon--all these he can bear with soldier-like fortitude--with now
and then a secret wish for the society of his London friends--in the
sweet blessed security of peace and friendship.
This, young man, is my second letter;--I have wrote till I am stupid,
I perceive--I ought to have found it out two pages back.--Mrs. Sancho
joins me in good wishes--I join her in the same;--in which double
sense believe me,
Yours, &c. &c.
I. SANCHO.
Postscript. (Very short.)
It is with sincere pleasure I hear you have a lucrative
establishment--which will enable you to appear and act with
decency;--your good sense will naturally lead you to proper œconomy--as
distant from frigid parsimony, as from a heedless extravagancy;--but as
you may possibly have some time to spare upon your hands for necessary
recreation--give me leave to obtrude my poor advice.--I have heard it
more than once observed of fortunate adventurers--they have come home
enriched in purse--but wretchedly barren in intellects:--the mind, my
dear Jack, wants food--as well as the stomach;--why then should not one
wish to increase in knowledge as well as money?--Young says--“Books are
fair Virtue’s advocates and friends:”--now my advice is--to preserve
about 20_l._ a year for two or three seasons--by which means you may
gradually form a useful, elegant, little library.--Suppose now the
first year you send the order and the money to your father--for the
following books--which I recommend from my own superficial knowledge as
useful.--A man should know a little of Geography--History, nothing more
useful, or pleasant.
Robertson’s Charles the Fifth, 4 vols.
Goldsmith’s History of Greece, 2 vols.
Ditto, of Rome, 2 vols.
Ditto, of England, 4 vols.
Two small volumes of Sermons--useful--and very sensible--by one Mr.
Williams, a dissenting minister--which are as well as fifty--for I
love not a multiplicity of doctrines--a few plain tenets--easy--simple
and directed to the heart--are better than volumes of controversial
nonsense.--Spectators--Guardians--and Tatlers--you have of
course.--Young’s Night-Thoughts--Milton--and Thomson’s Seasons were my
summer companions for near twenty years--they mended my heart--they
improved my veneration to the Deity--and increased my love to my
neighbours.
You have to thank God for strong natural parts--a feeling humane
heart;--you write with sense and judicious discernment. Improve
yourself, my dear Jack, that if it should please God to return
you to your friends with the fortune of a man in upper rank, the
embellishments of your mind may be ever considered as greatly superior
to your riches--and only inferior to the goodness of your heart. I give
you the above as a sketch--your father and other of your friends will
improve upon it in the course of time--I do indeed judge that the above
is enough at first--in conformity with the old adage----“A few Books
and a few Friends, and those well chosen.” Adieu. Yours,
I. SANCHO.
[7] Extracts of two letters from Mr. W----e to his Father, dated
Bombay, 1776 and 1777.
“1776. I have introduced myself to Mr. G----, who behaved very
friendly in giving me some advice, which was very necessary, as the
inhabitants, who are chiefly Blacks, are a set of canting,
deceitful people, and of whom one must have great caution.”
“1777. I am now thoroughly convinced, that the account which Mr.
G---- gave me of the natives of this country is just and true; that
they are a set of deceitful people, and have not such a word as
Gratitude in their language, neither do they know what it is;--and
as to their dealings in trade, they are like unto Jews.”
LETTER LXVIII.
TO MR. R----.
July 16, 1773.
DEAR M----,
S*** is a riddle--I will serve him if I can--were I rich, he should
have no reason to despise me--but he must learn to try to serve
himself--I wish you would throw your good sense upon paper for
him--advice from one of his own years would sink deeper than the fusty
phlegmatic saws of an old man--do, in charity, give him half an hour’s
labour--I do really think that you and S*** have sense enough for a
dozen young fellows--and if it pleased God it were so divided--they
would each be happier, wiser, and richer, than S*** or M----. And this
by the way of thanking you--pooh--will do that when I see you--and if
that never happens, a good action thanks itself.--Mr. Garrick called
upon S---- on Tuesday night, and won his heart; he called to pay poor
de Groote’s lodgings, sat with him some time, and chatted friendly.
I admire your modesty in grudging me two letters for one--and greasing
me with the fulsoms of sneering praise--Sirrah, be quiet--what,
you Snoodle-poop! have you any care--wife--or family? You ought to
write volumes--it gives expansion to your thoughts--facility to your
invention--ease to your diction--and pleases your Friend,
SANCHO.
Write, Knave--or--or--or--
LETTER LXIX.
TO MRS. C----.
July 23, 1778.
DEAR MADAM,
SHALL I acknowledge myself a weak superstitious Fool? Yes, I will tell
the honest truth--you have this foolish letter in consequence of a last
night’s dream--Queen Mab has been with me--aye, and with Mrs. Sancho
too--for my part, I dare not reveal half my dream--but upon telling
our night’s visions over the tea-table at breakfast--it was judged
rather uncommon for us all to dream of the same party.--Now, I own, I
have great reason to dream of you waking--for you have been a true and
uncommon friend to me and mine--neither have I the least objection to
these nightly visits, so as I have the pleasure to meet you (though but
in vision) in good health. Thy health is the very thing that I doubt
about--therefore graciously let us know by the next post that you are
well, and mean to take every prudent step so to continue. That you
have left off tea, I do much approve of--but insist that you make your
visitors drink double quantity--that I may be no loser. I hope you find
cocoa agree with you--it should be made always over-night, and boiled
for above fifteen minutes; but you must caution Miss C---- not to
drink it--for there is nothing so fattening to little folks. The R--ns
waylaid my friend R----, and pressed Dame Sancho and self into the
service last Sunday--we had a good and social dinner; and Mrs. Sancho
forced me to stay supper--I think the Doctor looks as well as I ever
saw him--indeed I could read in his chearful countenance that he left
you well--I do not doubt but you have paid a visit to the camp--and
seen brother O---- in his glory--I hope he will have regard to his
health, and for profit I do think it must answer better to him than to
(almost) any other man in the country. Pray be so kind to make our best
respects to Miss A----s, and to every one who delighteth in Blackamoor
greetings.--We have no news but old lies--scoured and turned like
misers coats which serve very well. We gape and swallow--wonder and
look wise--conjurers over a news-paper, and blockheads at home.--Adieu!
let me hear that you are very well; it will please Mrs. Sancho; and, if
I know any thing of her husband, it will be no less pleasing to your
much obliged humble servant and friend,
IGN. SANCHO.
N. B. I walk upon two legs now.
Our best respects to Miss C----, hope she is intent upon camp fashions;
but caution her, in my name, to be on her guard. Cupid resides in camp
by choice. Oh, Miss C----! beware--beware of the little God.
I. S.
Now this is writing to Miss C----.
LETTER LXX.
TO MR. K----.
July 23, 1778.
I RECEIVED yours with satisfaction, as it gave me a certainty of
your being (upon the whole) much better. As to your saying you are
not girlishly inclined--why, I give you credit for it.--Thou must
watch--and pray--for Satan is artful, and knoweth all our weak
parts--and that dirty little blind feathered-shouldered scoundrel of
a boy, master Cupid--lurks couchant--in the pupil of an eye--in the
hollow of a dimple--in the cherry-ripe plumpness of a pair of lips--in
the artfully timid pressure of a fair hand--in the complimentary
squeeze of a farewell--in short, and in one word, watch--watch.