the royal prerogative of making war and peace, which the king cannot alienate if he would. But this prerogative they have exercised, and, forgetting the terms of their institution, have possessed themselves of an immense territory, which they have ruled with a rod of iron, to which it is impossible they should even have a right, unless such a one as it is a disgrace to plead a right of conquest. The potentates of this country they dash in pieces like a potter's vessel as often as they please, making the happiness of thirty millions of mankind a consideration subordinate to that of their own emolument, oppressing them as often as it may serve a lucrative purpose, and in no instance that I have ever heard consulting their interest or advantage. That government, therefore, is bound to interfere, and to unking these tyrants, is to me self-evident. And if, having subjugated so much of this miserable world, it is therefore necessary that we must keep possession of it, it appears to me a duty so binding on the legislature to resume it from the hands of those usurpers, that I should think a curse, and a bitter one, must follow the neglect of it. But suppose this were done, can they be legally deprived of their charter? In truth I think so. If the abuse and perversion of a charter can amount to a defeasance of it, never were they so grossly palpable as in this instance; never was charter so justly forfeited. Neither am I at all afraid that such a measure should be drawn into a precedent, unless it could be alleged as a sufficient reason for not hanging a rogue, that perhaps magistracy might grow wanton in the exercise of such a power, and now and then hang up an honest man for its amusement. When the governors of the Bank shall have deserved the same severity, I hope they will meet with it. In the mean time I do not think them a whit more in jeopardy, because a corporation of plunderers have been brought to justice. We are well and love you all. I never wrote in such a hurry, nor in such disturbance. Pardon the effects, and believe me yours, affectionately, CXXXIX.-TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. MY DEAR FRIEND, W. C. Jan. 18, 1784. I too have taken leave of the old year, and parted with it just when you did, but with very different sentiments and feelings upon the occasion. I looked back upon all the passages and occurrences of it, as a traveller looks back upon a wilderness, through which he has passed with weariness and sorrow of heart, reaping no other fruit of his labour than the poor consolation, that, dreary as the desert was, he left it all behind him. The traveller would find even this comfort considerably lessened, if, as soon as he had passed one wilderness, another of equal length, and equally desolate expect him. In this particular his experience and mine would exactly tally. I should rejoice, indeed, that the old year is over and gone, if I had not every reason to prophesy a new one similar to it. I am glad you have found so much hidden treasure; and Mrs. Unwin desires me to tell you that you did her no more than justice in believing that she would rejoice in it. It is not easy to surmise the reason why the reverend doctor, your predecessor, concealed it; being a subject of a free government, and I suppose full of the divinity most in fashion, he could not fear lest his great riches should expose him to persecution. Nor can I suppose that he held it any disgrace for a dignitary of the church to be wealthy at a time when churchmen in general spare no pains to become so. But the wisdom of some men has a droll sort of knavishness in it, much like that of the magpie, who hides what he finds, with a deal of contrivance, merely for the pleasure of doing it. Yours, CXL.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR WILLIAM, W. C. January 23, 1784. When I first resolved to write an answer to your last, this evening, I had no thought of any thing more sublime than prose. But before I began, it occurred to me, that perhaps you would not be displeased with an attempt to give a poetical translation of the lines you sent me. They are so beautiful that I felt the temptation irresistible; at least, as the French say, it was plus forte que moi; and I accordingly complied. By this means I have lost an hour; and whether I shall be able to fill my sheet before supper is as yet doubtful. But I will do my best. For your remarks I think them perfectly just. You have no reason to distrust your taste, or to submit the trial of it to me. You understand the use and the force of language as well as any man. You have quick feelings and you are fond of poetry. How is it possible, then, that you should not be a judge of it? I venture to hazard only one alteration, which, as it appears to me, would amount to a little improvement. The seventh and eighth lines I think I should like better thus: At least my Aspirante levi zephyro et redeunte serenâ Anni temperie fœcundo è cespite surgunt, My reason is, that the word cum is repeated too soon. ear does not like it, and when it can be done without injury to the sense, there seems to me to be an elegance in diversifying the expression as much as possible upon similar occasions. It discovers a command of phrase, and gives a more masterly air to the piece. If extincta stood unconnected with telis, I should prefer your word micant to the doctor's vigent. But the latter seems to stand more in direct opposition to that sort of extinction which is effected by a shaft or arrow. In the day-time the stars may be said to die, and in the night to recover their strength. Perhaps the doctor had in his eye that noble line of Gray's-Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war!" But it is a beautiful composition. It is tender, touching and elegant. It is not easy to do it justice in English, as for example. * Many thanks for the books, which, being most admirably packed, came safe. They will furnish us with many a winter evening's amusement. We are glad that you intend to be the carrier back. We rejoice too that your cousin has remembered you in her will. The money she left to those who attended her hearse would have been better bestowed upon you; and by this time perhaps she thinks so. Alas! what an inquiry does that thought suggest, and how impossible to make it to any purpose! what are the employments of the departed spirit? and where does it subsist? Has it any cognizance of earthly things? Is it transported to an immeasurable distance; or is it still, though imperceptible to us, conversant with the same scene, and interested in what passes here? How little we know of a state to which we are all destined; and how does the obscurity that hangs over that undiscovered country increase the anxiety we sometimes feel as we are journeying towards it! It is sufficient, however, for such as you, and a few more of my acquaintance to know, that in your separate state you will be happy. Provision is made for your reception; and you will have no cause to regret aught that you have left behind. I have written to Mr. My letter went this morning. How I love and honour that man! For many reasons I dare not tell him how much. But I hate the frigidity of the style in which I am forced to address him. That line of Horace-" Dii tibi divitias dederant artemque fruendi"-was never so applicable to the poet's friend, as to Mr. My bosom burns to immortalize him; but prudence says, " Forbear!" and though a poet, I pay respect to her injunctions. I sincerely give you joy of the good you have unconsciously done by your example and conversation. That you seem to yourself not to deserve the acknowledgment your friend makes of it is a proof that you do. Grace is blind to its own beauty, whereas such virtues as men may reach without it are remarkable self-admirers. May you make such impressions upon many of your order! I know none that need them more. You do not want my praises of your conduct towards Mr. It is well for him, however, and still better for yourself, that you are capable of such a part. It was said of some good man (my memory does not serve me with his name), "do him an ill turn, and you make him your friend for ever." But it is Christianity only that forms such friends. I wish his father may be duly affected by this instance and proof of your superiority to those ideas of you which he has so unreasonably harboured. He is not in my favour now, nor will be upon any other terms. The Verses appearing again with the original in the next Letter, are omitted. I laughed at the comments you make on your own feelings, when the subject of them was a newspaper eulogium. But it was a laugh of pleasure and approbation: such indeed is the heart, and so is it made up. There are few that can do good and keep their own secret, none perhaps without a struggle. Yourself, and your friend -, are no very common instances of the fortitude that is necessary in such a conflict. In former days I have felt my heart beat and every vein throb upon such an occasion. To publish my own deed was wrong; I knew it to be so; but to conceal it seemed like a voluntary injury to myself. Sometimes I could, and sometimes I could not succeed. My occasions for such conflicts, indeed, were not very numerous. Yours, CXLI. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C. Jan. 25, 1784. MY DEAR FRIEND, This contention about East-Indian patronage seems not unlikely to avenge upon us, by its consequences, the mischiefs we have done there. The matter in dispute is too precious to be relinquished by either party; and each is jealous of the influence the other would derive from the possession of it. In a country whose politics have so long rolled upon the wheels of corruption, an affair of such value must prove a weight in either scale, absolutely destructive of the very idea of a balance. Every man has his sentiments upon this subject, and I have mine. Were I constituted umpire of this strife with full powers to decide it, I would tie a talent of lead about the neck of this patronage, and plunge it into the depths of the sea. To speak less figuratively, I would abandon all territorial interest in a country to which we can have no right, and which we cannot govern with any security to the happiness of the inhabitants, or without the danger of incurring either perpetual broils or the most insupportable tyranny at home. That sort of tyranny I mean, which flatters and tantalizes the subject with a show of freedom, and in reality allows him nothing more; bribing to the right and left, rich enough to afford the purchase of a thousand consciences, and consequently strong enough, if it happen to meet with an incorruptible one, to render all the efforts of that man, or of twenty such men, if they could be found, romantic, and of no effect. I am the king's most loyal subject, and most obedient humble servant. But, by his majesty's leave, I must acknowledge I am not altogether convinced of the rectitude even of his own measures, or the simplicity of his views; and if I were satisfied that he himself is to be trusted, it is nevertheless palpable that he cannot answer for his successors. At the same time he is my king, and I reverence him as such. I account his prerogative sacred, and shall never wish prosperity to a party that invades it, and under that pretence of patriotism would annihilate all the consequence of a character essential to the very being of the constitution. For these reasons I am sorry that we have any dominion in the East ;-that we have any such emoluments to contend about. Their immense value will probably prolong the dispute, and such struggles having been already made in the conduct of it as have shaken our very foundations, it seems not unreasonable to suppose, that still greater efforts, and more fatal, are behind; and after all, the decision in favour of either side may be ruinous to the whole. In the mean time, that the company themselves are but indifferently qualified for the kingship, is most deplorably evident. What shall I say, therefore? I distrust the court, I suspect the patriots, I put the company entirely aside, as having forfeited all claim to confidence in such a business, and see no remedy, of course, but in the annihilation, if that could be accomplished, of the very existence of our authority in the East Indies. The late Doctor Jortin In Brevitatem Vitæ Spatii Hominibus concessi. Hei mihi! Lege ratâ sol occidit atque resurgit, On the Shortness of Human Life. Suns that set, and moons that wane, Stars that orient day subdues, Night at her return renews. Herbs and flowers, the beauteous birth Of the genial womb of earth, Yours, my dear Friend, W. C. |