Corn bounties—A grievance—Reading—Hugh Boyd—Bishop Watson—Howlett on population—Irish Linen Board Experiments—Correspondence.
1779.—Quitting Ireland and coming again to Bradfield occasioned a great pause and break in my life and pursuits, and had I made a proper use of it might have fixed a quiet destiny, so far as a heart not renewed could be happy and content; but I wanted religion, and that want includes all others. I arrived at Bradfield on the first of January, and had then full time to reflect upon what should be the future pursuit of my life, and upon what plan I could devise for that fresh establishment of myself, which should, at the same time, prevent any relapse into those odious dependencies upon uncertainties, which from 1771 to 1778 had been the perpetual torment of my life. While I was hesitating what plan to follow, an emigration to America arose in my mind and much occupied my thoughts. But the advanced period of my mother’s life and her persuasions against any scheme of that sort prevailed, and with some reluctance I relinquished it. I had also to consider, how far it would be prudent to yield to her earnest entreaties to return to farming at Bradfield and live with her. To stock a farm of any size would have been to me a matter of difficulty, but, at the same time, to get free from all London engagements, and to secure the tranquillity of a retired life after all the stormy perplexities through which I had passed, was an object full of attraction, and it prevailed. A small farm contiguous to the old family mansion was to be vacant at Michaelmas, and notice was accordingly given to the tenant to quit. Thus was I once more engaged in husbandry, with a prospect of gradually increasing my business according as my capital should enable me. Relative to my farm, it may here be proper once for all to observe, that as the leases of the estate fell vacant I gradually enlarged my occupation, till I had between three and four hundred acres in hand, most amply stocked, and conducted with such an expense of labour as enabled me to support the credit of my husbandry. I remained at Bradfield the whole year, and the only literary pursuit I engaged in was a correspondence with Mr. Wight upon some points in the Scotch system of farming; it was published in his ‘Present State of the Husbandry of Scotland.’[62] I had reason to believe that his letters were written under the eye of Lord Kames,[63] the author of the well-known work called, ‘The Gentleman Farmer,’ and much better known book, ‘Elements of Criticism.’
About this period I was elected a member of the Imperial Œconomical Society of Petersburg.
The first event of the year 1780 was the publication of my Irish Tour in one volume quarto. It was so successful and popular in both kingdoms that it is unnecessary to expatiate upon it; thus much, however, I trust I may say without vanity, that it has stood the test of examination, and received from the best judges the highest commendation. But there is one circumstance which appears never to have been sufficiently understood, or at least the effect properly attributed to this work. Perhaps the most novel, instructing, and decisively useful part of the publication was the attack made upon the bounty paid on the land carriage of corn to Dublin.[64] I therein proved beyond the possibility of doubt the gross absurdity of the measure. The whole kingdom, however, without exception, considered this bounty as the great palladium of their national agriculture, and in conversation upon that subject with the most able men then living there, I found them so strongly prejudiced in its favour that they were not very willing to hear anything spoken against it. But it appeared to me so manifestly absurd that I exerted my industry to examine the measure on its very foundation. When I was a complete master of the subject and stated the result in conversation to the warmest friends of the measure, I had the satisfaction to find that the documents thus produced were utterly unknown to all, and they were fairly beat[65] out of their prejudices in favour of the measure; at least their argument entirely failed on the occasion. But the event proved that the conviction was real. For in the very first session after the publication of my book the bounty was reduced by half, as appears by Mr. Henry Cavendish’s publication on the revenue and national expenses of Ireland. It was afterwards gradually reduced, and at last gave up entirely. The saving to the nation occasioned palpably by this publication amounted to 40,000l. per annum immediately, and as the expense of the bounty had been constantly increasing, the saving was of course in reality much greater. Long after, in conversation with Lord Loughborough, he told me that he had read that part of my work relative to the bounty, &c., with particular attention, and that he thought the arguments most unanswerable, adding, ‘Ireland ought to have rewarded you for that.’ When the whole was given up it was a saving of 80,000l. a year to the nation. This was much for one individual to effect; and some reward for such services would not have been much for the nation to grant.
I cannot on such an occasion name Ireland without remarking that though the Irish are certainly a generous people, and liberal sometimes almost to excess, yet not a ray of that spirit was by any public body shed on my labours.
After I had left the kingdom and published the tour, I received the following letter:—
‘Sir,—With great pleasure I take up the pen in obedience to the commands of the Dublin Society, to communicate to you their thanks for the late publication of your tour in Ireland, a treatise which, in doing justice to this country, puts us in a most respectable view; for which reason we consider you to have great merit. But what particularly gained the attention of the Society were your just and excellent observations and reasoning, in the second part of that work, relative to the agriculture, manufactures, trade, and police of the kingdom. And gentlemen thought the publication of that part, particularly so as to fall into the hands of the generality of the people of this country, might be of great benefit and use; and we wish you would let us know your sentiments relative to the preparing a publication of that kind, and in what mode you would think it most proper, and would answer best, and what you would judge a reasonable amends for all this trouble, that we may lay the same before the Society at our next meeting, the beginning of November. There are a great many useful observations and hints interspersed in many parts of your tour which may be of great use to throw into the hands of the public.
In answer to this letter, I returned sincere thanks for the honour of the vote; and assured them that I should be ready either to publish any part of the work separately, or to make an abridgment of the whole, reduced in such a manner as to be diffused at a small expense over all the kingdom. In a few posts I received, under the Dublin post-mark, an envelope, enclosing an anonymous essay, cut out of a newspaper, which referred to the transactions of the Society relative to me, and condemning pretty heavily my whole publication; and in this unhandsome manner the business ended.
In a Society which disposed of 10,000l. a year of public money, granted by Parliament chiefly with a view, as the Act expresses, to encourage agriculture, but which patronised manufacturers far more, there will necessarily be an agricultural party and a manufacturing one. According as one or the other happens to prevail, such contradictions will arise. All that is to be said of my case now is, that it was not so bad as that of poor Whyman Baker, who settled in Ireland as their experimenter in agriculture—lived there in poverty ten or twelve years—and broke his heart on account of the treatment which he met with. But while their Societies acted thus, the Parliament of the kingdom paid my book a much greater compliment than any Society could do; for they passed more than one Act almost directly, to alter and vary the police of corn, which I had proved was vicious, but which till then had been universally esteemed as the chief pillar of their national prosperity, and I had thus the satisfaction to see the Legislature of the kingdom improving the policy of it from the known and confessed suggestions of a work that, in other respects, had proved to the author a mere barren blank. I have, however, since heard from many most respectable gentlemen of that nation, as well as from the correspondence of others, that the book is even now esteemed of some value to Ireland, and that the agriculture of the kingdom has been advanced in consequence. But it is time to dismiss a subject upon which I have dilated too much, and spoken perhaps with an unguarded vanity and self-love which would ill become me.
I was the chief part of this year at Bradfield, but I had bought at London a pair of roan mares for drawing a post-chaise, and having the small farm in hand, I made myself by practice no bad ploughman, and could finish the stetches[66] neatly, and execute everything except the rivalling the Suffolk ploughman in drawing straight furrows to a mark set for that purpose; yet I overcame this difficulty in a manner that would have been commended in any other county.
The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce voted me their Honorary Medal for some experiments I had communicated to them on the culture of potatoes.
According to custom, part of my time was occupied in reading, and among other works was highly entertained with Gray’s letters, and particularly with the following passage, which displays so much knowledge of the human mind, and, at the same time, much sterling sense: ‘To find oneself business I am persuaded is the great art of life, and I am never so angry as when I hear my acquaintance wishing they had been bred to some poking profession, or employed in some office of drudgery, as if it were pleasanter to be at the command of other people than at one’s own, and as if they could not go unless they were wound up. Yet I know and feel what they mean by this complaint; it proves that some spirit, something of genius (more than common) is required to teach a man how to employ himself—I say a man, for women, commonly speaking, never feel this distemper, they have always something to do. Time hangs not on their hands (unless they be fine ladies), a variety of small inventions and occupations fill up the void, and their eyes are never open in vain’ (vol. ii.)
Thank heaven, I have so much of the woman in me as to possess this faculty of employing myself. The day is never too long, for I think time spent in reading is always well employed, unless a man reads like an idiot, that is, equally removed from instruction and entertainment. Now the general occupation of my life—agriculture—has the happy circumstance of giving much employment, and with it exercise, at the same time that it naturally leads into a course of reading, to which it gives the air and turn of a study, and consequently renders it more interesting, an advantage I shall be solicitous to preserve, by persisting, at all events, to be much interested in farming, even though I should not continue an actual farmer. Gray felt the advantage of country pursuits. ‘Happy they that can create a rose tree or erect a honeysuckle, that can watch the brood of a hen, or see a fleet of their own ducklings launch into the water; it is with a sentiment of envy I speak it, who never shall have even a thatched roof of my own, nor gather a strawberry but in Covent Garden.’
I read also Roberts’ ‘Map of Commerce,’[67] and find the following extract about the spot where should be the ruin of Troy: ‘Anno Domini, 1620.—I hardly saw the relics of this mighty fabric (Troy), though I traced it for many miles, and gave ear to all the ridiculous fables of those poor Grecians that inhabit thereabouts in many villages within the compass of her ancient walls, from Mount Ida to the River Scamander, now only a brook not two feet deep, so that what Ovid said of old I found by experience verified, “jam seges est ubi Troja fuit.”’ There is a melancholy which attends such reflections that with me makes a deep impression; the idea that what was once the seat of power, arts, literature and elegance is now in the most miserable situation which Turkish oppression and Mahometan superstition can inflict, that not a trace of a once mighty city is now to be found, is depressing to the human mind. In an equal series of time what will become of the cities which are now the pride of Europe? what obscure farmer of futurity shall plough the ground whereon that House of Common stands in which a Hampden, a Bolingbroke, a Pitt, and a Mansfield have delighted the most celebrated assembly now in the world?[68]
My visit to London was, part of it, very agreeable, my whole intercourse with Arbuthnot entirely so. At Dr. Burney’s, while it lasted, the same; the opera, parties, the Royal Society, with some of the attendance on Parliament, add to this being in the world and on the spot for whatever happened, were all so many opportunities for pleasure and amusement, which, however, I did not make the most of. Against these I must now rank ease in my circumstances. Let it fly, and the change has been a bad one, indeed. But I think I have resolution enough to take special care of the greatest of all man’s chances. I do not remember when my acquaintance with Mr. Hugh Boyd[69] began, but I was acquainted with him in London, met him in many companies in Dublin, and travelled with him from thence to London. It has been supposed that he was the author of ‘Junius,’ and I must give it as my opinion that there was much probability in the supposition. I have been many times at his house, at breakfasts, morning calls and dinners, and never without seeing the Public Advertiser and remarking that they were blanks, that is to say, without being stamped. All writers in newspapers are allowed a copy gratis, and these are never stamped. His company was so much sought after in Dublin that I was scarcely at a great dinner without his being present. A very striking circumstance in his character was a memory in some points beyond example; he would multiply nine figures by eight entirely in his head, and would give the result with the most perfect accuracy. When it is considered that such an operation demands the recollection not merely of the figures, but of their position in order for the final addition, it must be admitted to be a stupendous one. He was on all occasions and in every circumstance a most pleasing, agreeable companion. His wife was a woman of very good understanding, and appeared to be sensible of her husband’s extraordinary talents. One morning at breakfast Mr. Burke’s son came in, and as his father had made a very celebrated speech the day before in the House of Commons which he intended to publish, but had, in the conclusion, departed from his notes in a very fine strain of eloquence, knowing the great memory of Boyd, he sent his son to request some hints for that conclusion. We set to work to recollect as much as possible his own words, and furnished young Burke much to his satisfaction. Mr. Boyd’s letters, of which I have preserved several, are written in a most pleasing, lively style.
‘My dear Sir,—You have an excellent physician, but I should be glad to know what right the patient has to become his own apothecary? The doctor’s prescription consists of such rare ingredients as require no common skill to discover and use, Cuivis in suâ arte. If it had been your inferior fate to wield the pestle instead of the ploughshare and the pen, I should subscribe to the judgment of the apothecary as fully as I do to the author’s genius and the farmer’s knowledge. “A friend who can enliven the dulness of the country.” Well said, doctor. Macbeth himself might take your advice, for there is little difference between a dull mind and “a mind diseased;” but my good friend has neither. His mistake, therefore, in making up your prescription, and shaking me up as the aforesaid ingredient, is of little consequence. To convince him, however, that he is mistaken—for I love to set your clever men right—I shall make my appearance, first in the county of Cambridge, and next in the county of Suffolk—or ere the amorous Phœbus shall have twice resorted to his evening assignation to take an oyster with Miss Thetis. By the bye, we have had very good [entertainment] in town for some days—though as to days I can only answer for one and a half; being no longer returned from a Western Tour, which I have had the pleasure and trouble of making—for everything is mixed, you know, pleasure and pain—rose and thorns—man and wife; I ask Mrs. Young ten thousand pardons.
‘I have had hopes sometimes of tempting Mrs. B. to a country excursion, and she has almost agreed to make it with me to Cambridge, where I wish to call for half a day, and perhaps longer, soon; the hopes of seeing her friends at Bradfield Hall are a strong inducement.
‘My good friend will be at least just in this instance, when he is in every other so partial to his friends; and you’ll believe that it is no small disappointment to me quod inclination, though the cause will probably be very advantageous, businessly speaking, that I am obliged to postpone my Suffolk trip. Observe I establish a credit by the term postpone, and I sincerely hope it will not be a long term. I have at present only another half minute to say fifty things. But not being able to think, speak, or write the fiftieth part as quick as certain persons of my acquaintance (my love to Mrs. Young), I must confine myself to one subject—which I have too much at heart to omit—the assuring you and her of my being very sincerely yours,
‘My dear Friends,—You’ll excuse coarse paper, and coarse writing in every sense, I’m afraid, “in matter, form, and style,” according to Milton’s divisions, when you know that I sit down to this delectable epistle in a City coffee-house, in the midst of Bob-wigs and worsted stocking knaves, Turks, Jews, and brokers, infidels, and merchants. Nunquam, si quid mihi credis, amavi Hos homines. O dialect of Babel! "Who calls for coffee?"—"This policy, sir"—"Strong convoy, a very good thing"—"Pen, ink, and wafer"—"I’sh would be rejoished to do for you, shur"—"Was Mr. Shylock here this morning?"—“Yesh, just gone to Jerusalem.” O blessed race! I wish you were all there, with all your adopted brethren of Jewish Christians from this holy land.
‘I have continued in much disappointment—at least, suspense—since I wrote to you last, when I hinted the sudden occurrence of some business preventing the pleasure of my proposed trip. Depending on the pleasures not only of some three or four different persons, but of great ones, too, who think themselves personages, you will not wonder that the said business has been like Sisyphus’s Stone, or Ixion’s Cloud, or Tantalus’s Apple, or anything else that’s infernally troublesome. But it may, and, notwithstanding their greatness, probably it will, be very consequential. In the meantime I must deny myself both Suffolk and Cambridge. The former, indeed, is the self-denial; for Cam. I had more at head than at heart. Besides, wishing to establish my Mastery of Arts by a little residence near them, I had a little reading and writing also in contemplation, near the walks locally—perlongo intervallo in every other sense—of old Erasmus.
‘I should have been happy in being at Bradfield Hall; I long to hear my friend refute himself, to complain with good spirits, and to demonstrate, with much wit, that he was extremely dull. But I dare say you have too much genuine vivacity, as well as good taste, to enter much into the bastard sort of alacrity—the intoxicated bustle that rages in empty heads and full pockets, by Royal proclamation. I should not object if the cui bono? could be answered. But in the present desperate size of power and depopulation of spirit, so much and so expensive pains seem little better than a curious folly. If a man’s brains must be blown out, why need he gild his pocket pistol, much less purchase a great gun—unless it be a Scotch canonade, which, it must be confessed, will do the business, con amore, for England or Ireland?
I continued farming at Bradfield, and also reading and writing with much attention, as about this time I had formed the intention of delivering lectures on agriculture, and had prepared several. The original hint came from Mr. Wedderburn,[70] who persuaded me to persevere in this plan; but the lectures never took place. I was highly honoured by the commendation and partiality of a friend, Dr. Watson,[71] the celebrated Professor at Cambridge, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, who wrote thus: ‘We owe to the agricultural societies, and to the patriotic exertions of one deserving citizen (Arthur Young, Esq.), the present flourishing condition of our husbandry’ (‘Chemical Mag.’ vol. 4).
I find from an application of my friend, Arbuthnot, that the Bishop of Chester was at this time collecting materials for a work on population by the Rev. Mr. Howlett,[72] and had desired Arbuthnot to apply to me for assistance. I was myself meditating such a work, but complied with the request, and transmitted the collections I had made to the Bishop, who wrote me a most obliging letter.
‘Your facts are clear and decisive, and the conclusions you draw from them, unanswerable. The only difficulty I am apprehensive of is that as his work is now pretty far advanced, and is already larger than I could wish he will not be able to take in the whole of your papers, especially as I observe that he has in some part of his pamphlet fallen into the same train of reasoning as yourself. If, therefore, you would allow him to take only your two general tables of baptism before and after the Revolution, and the two more recent periods of thirty years each, which is the very method he has himself adopted, subjoining such of your observations as are the most important and are not in some measure anticipated by him, he will be most exceedingly obliged to you, and will, I am sure, be very ready to acknowledge in proper terms the sense he has of your goodness to him.’
I had also a sad letter from my friend Arbuthnot on his return from France, but it was written in so melancholy a strain on his own situation and that of his wife and family, that it has often made my heart ache to read it. By Lord Loughborough’s interest he got an appointment in Ireland under the Linen Board,[73] which carried him to that country, where he lived but a few years. I lost in him by far the most agreeable friend I was ever connected with.
At this time I was much engaged in making a variety of experiments in expelling gaseous fluids from specimens of soils, the results of which were afterwards published in ‘The Annals of Agriculture.’ As I met with some difficulties I wrote to Dr. Priestley, stating them, and begging information. He very liberally and politely answered all my enquiries, encouraging me to proceed with my trials, and I received several interesting letters from him.
‘Dear Sir,—If I had any remarks or hints respecting the subject of your experiments, I should certainly with much pleasure have communicated them long ago. I meant, indeed, to have made a few more experiments on the growth of plants in the course of the last summer, but the weather was so bad, and the sun shone so little, that I dropped the scheme. All I can do, therefore, in return for your facts, is to mention one that I have lately observed. I readily convert pure water into permanent air, by first combining it with quicklime, and then exposing it to a strong heat. The weight of the air is equal to the weight of water, and no part of the water is turned into steam in the process. During the whole of it, a glass velum, interposed between the retort and the recipient for the air, remains quite cool and dry. The air I procure in this manner is in part fixed air, but the bulk of it is such as a candle would hardly burn in it, but is such as I should imagine would be the best for plants, which would purify it and render it fit for respiration. And as this kind of air would be yielded in great abundance by volcanoes, from calcareous matter in the earth; such was perhaps the original atmosphere of this earth, which according to the Mosaick account (which you must allow me to respect) had plants before there were any land animals.
‘This letter I fear is hardly worth sending you; your objects and mine are so very different, though now and then coinciding; but mine have seldom any practical uses, at least no immediate ones, whereas yours are highly and immediately beneficial. Wishing you the greatest success, and wishing you and all philosophers joy of the near prospect of peace,
‘J. Priestley.’
This year’s memoranda: ‘Wrote “Emigration,” an ode.’
In the autumn of this year I spent a month at Lowestoft, where the sea air and bathing agreed so well with me that I do not recollect in my life ever having spent a month with so continued a flow of high spirits, which received no slight addition by the society of a very handsome and most agreeable girl, whose name I have forgotten.[74]
In a letter from Dr. Burney (of this year) he rallied me with much wit on my culture of the earth instead of the Muses. This friend of mine had a happy talent of rendering his letters lively and agreeable, indeed they were a picture of the man, for I never met with any person who had more decided talents for conversation, eminently seasoned with wit and humour, and these talents were so at command that he could exert them at will. He was remarkable for some sprightly story or witty bon mot just when he quitted a company, which seemed as much as to say, ‘There now, I have given you a dose which you may work upon in my absence.’ His society was greatly sought after by all classes, from the first nobility to the mere homme de lettres. He dressed expensively, always kept his carriage, and yet died worth about 15,000l., leaving a most capital library of curious books. His second wife was my wife’s sister, the handsome widow of a Mr. Allen, of Lynn, who in a short life in commerce made above 40,000l., leaving her a handsome fortune and her two daughters equally provided for.
This year I had a controversy in the ‘Bury St. Edmunds News’ with Capel Lofft, Esq.,[75] on the proposal which originated with the Earl of Bristol,[76] for building a 74-gun ship and presenting it to the public. I wrote a paper in favour of this scheme, which so pleased Lord Bristol that he complimented me on my eloquent, spirited language, and he caused a numerous edition of it to be printed and given away. Lofft attacked the scheme as unconstitutional, I retorted, and a paper war ensued which lasted for some time, and was afterwards published. The Earl of Shelburne, at that time Minister, wrote several letters to Lord Bristol in which he appeared highly gratified by this plan. Capel Lofft at the conclusion of our controversy wrote to me a very polite letter, expressing his satisfaction that our names should be united in the same publication. These papers were read with much avidity, and established the Bury paper in which they were written, to the great emolument of the proprietor.
Prince Potemkin, the Russian Prime Minister, sent this year to England three young men consigned to the care of M. Smirnove, chaplain to the Russian Embassy, who requested that I would fix them in my immediate vicinity, in order that I might pay some attention to their progress and acquisitions. This I readily did, and took every means to have them well instructed in the English mode of cultivating land.[77]
1782.—This year Mrs. Cousmaker, sister to my mother, died in her house at Bradfield. She was a maiden lady who never would marry, though she had several advantageous offers. She left me her house and two farms, and a long annuity in the funds of 150l. a year, which expired about fifteen years afterwards. She had 300l. per annum of three annuities, the whole of which had once been left to me, but being much offended with my wife she gave half of it to another person. She also left me her carriage and horses. She was a very religious character; the bequest in her will by which she left the farms to me was not expressed exactly according to her mind, and she therefore altered it with her own hand after executing the will. This vitiated the legacy, on consulting Lord Loughborough, and he had doubts upon the question; but upon taking the opinion of several great lawyers, they declared the legacy null, and that the estates lapsed to the heir of law. This was John Cousmaker, Esq., of Hackney, who very generously declared that he would not take advantage of the error, and desired that Joshua Sharpe, a celebrated solicitor, might draw up a deed, by which he might make good the intention, which was accordingly done. Such an instance of uncommon liberality deserves to be recorded for the credit of mankind.
This year the Episcopal Earl of Bristol lived at Ickworth both summer and winter, and having very early called upon me after coming to the title and estate, a great intimacy took place between us; and Lord B. desired me to dine with him every Thursday, which I did through the whole year. Mr. Symonds, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, Sir John Cullum,[78] author of the ‘History of Hawstead,’ a very learned antiquary, and the Rev. George Ashby, Rector of Barrow,[79] another antiquary, and a man of universal knowledge, who for many years wrote a multitude of papers in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ being constantly of the party. It was a trait in this nobleman’s character, which deserved something more than admiration, to select men distinguished for knowledge and ability as his companions.
Lord Bristol was one of the most extraordinary men I ever met with. He was a perfect original—dressed in classical adorning; he had lived much abroad, spoke all modern languages fluently, and had an uncommon vein of pleasantry and wit, which he greatly exerted, and without reserve, when in the company of a few select friends. When abroad, and for many years afterwards, he lived in a manner that was not very episcopal. He had been so long absent from Ireland that the Primate wrote him three letters of remonstrance, and the answer he sent him was to do up and send in three blue peas in a blue bladder. The old proverb symptomatic of contempt, ‘Oh! that is but three blue peas,’ &c., is well known. The Bishop removing, he could not be forced back, and remained where he was. In my life I never passed more agreeable days than these weekly dinners at Ickworth. The conversation was equally instructive and agreeable. This eccentric man built in Ireland a large and very expensive round house, on a plan as singular as himself; and, what was more extraordinary, a repetition of it at Ickworth. The shell of the body was finished and covered in; the wings scarcely begun, and nothing done towards completing the centre. Above 40,000l. was expended, and it would require much more than forty more to finish it on the original plan, after which it would be nearly uninhabitable. Lady Bristol used to call it a stupendous monument of folly; but the most extraordinary circumstance in relation to it was, that he began it while he disliked the spot, from the wetness of the soil, and would often tell me that he should never be such a fool as to build in so wet a situation. It was then generally imagined that as he must inherit Rushbrooke he would wait till that period, and if he built at all, would do it there. It was begun and carried on till the time of his death without his ever having seen it; and he often declared in letters that he never would set his foot in England till it was finished and furnished with all the vertu that he had collected in Italy. He never did set his foot in England again, for the shell of this fantastic building, and that of its still more extraordinary possessor, were finished at the same time, and my Lord left the whole, as if by design, a burthen to his son and successor, with whom he had been on the worst terms, and from whom he gave away by will the very furniture of the old habitable house at Ickworth. At the Thursday dinners I, of course, met all who were visitors to the family, among whom Lord B.’s uncle, General Hervey, was sometimes present. This was another uncommon character in some respects, but had not half the originality of his brother. He, too, was a most determined infidel, but had so far an expectation, not only of a future state, but also a kind of instinctive belief of the possibility of rewards and punishments, that acting happily for others, poor man, if not for himself, this half-faced belief made him one of the most charitable men living. His morning rides were generally amongst the poor of the neighbouring parishes, amongst whom he distributed clothing, food, and bedding, with money to take them out of difficulties, in a spirit of liberality rarely equalled, and gave away during a long course of years more in charity than thousands who had ten times his fortune. This instance may excite a reflection upon the weakness of judging a man’s religion only by his works; for surely it would be a strange absurdity to take the measure of piety in the heart by any circumstance of the conduct which would be emulated or surpassed by an infidel. But what is charity when the right motive is wanting?
In my library[80] is a complete edition of Rousseau’s works, given me by the Earl of Bristol.
About this time my friend, the Rev. Mr. Valpy,[81] who had for some time been Usher at the Grammar School of Bury St. Edmunds, was elected master of that at Reading, and a correspondence commenced which lasted many years. He was a most learned, ingenious and agreeable man, in so much that I greatly regretted his departure, feeling most sensibly the loss of his society. I have been occasionally connected with him since, and shall always hold him in great estimation for his learning, his talents, and sincerity of friendship. My son was under his tuition for some years. In the following letter my brother describes the state of this nation, which he thinks miserably bad:—
‘Dear Arthur,—I wrote to you three days ago, and yesterday I received yours, complaining that I write no politicks. If you can, I cannot think of them with any degree of patience. We are a ruined people, tearing ourselves to pieces, everyone thinking of his party and himself, and no one caring for the publick, and that is the truth whatever you may hear or read. There is not a blockhead in England, who can only read and write and some who can only sign their names, of whom I could give you instances, who does not think himself qualified to new model the constitution. All true regard for liberty, and law, and a free government is gone, and there seems to be a general resolution not to be governed at all, which must end in despotism. We have no Ministry, nor do I see how we can have any. The whole summer has been spent in enlisting recruits against the winter. The friends of the old Ministry give out that Lord North has the decisive votes, which I think may be true. He was very lately unengaged, and, I am glad to hear, has declared positively against all innovations. For I am sure there is neither honesty, nor knowledge, nor abilities in this generation, to be trusted with altering our constitution. There are but two modes of governing—by power, or by influence. I desire to be governed by influence, but not that the influence may be so great as to be equivalent to power. I think that the Bill,[82] taking away the votes of the Revenue officers, will have great effect if ever executed, and am against proceeding further till I see the consequences of that Bill. I would annihilate the enormous plates in the Exchequer, but that would not much affect the influence of the Crown. As to increasing the Navy—what do you mean? Can you possibly increase your Navy without increasing the number of your seamen? And can you increase them without increasing your trade? You have already more ships than you can man. When your silly Suffolk scheme of building a ship was first mentioned to Lord Keppel, he said: If they could find him seamen he should be obliged to them, for he had ten more ships ready if he had seamen to put into them. We have got into one of those stupid wars which the Tories have always clamoured for, a naval war with France, without any land war in which our men might die in German ditches; we pay no subsidies to German princes for defending themselves, and you see how it has succeeded. The French having no diversion of their wealth to a land war are superior at sea, as any man of common sense might have foreseen. If your Suffolk gentry would take care of their own duty and suppress the smuggling on their coast, it would be well. The Parliament will supply Government with money, levied equally on the subject, to build ships as they are wanted; and Government is by common law armed with power to avail itself of every seaman in the country; and that is the only just and equitable way of providing a Navy.
‘I shall be in town next month, and will call on our Aunt Ingoldsby. I am sorry to hear that my mother’s memory fails so fast; it frightens me out of my wits every time I forget anything.