A THOUSAND thanks to my dear boy for a very pretty letter. I like extremely the account you give of your literary life; the reflexions you make upon some WestSaxon actors in the times you are reading, are natural, manly, and sensible, and flow from a heart that will make you far superior to any of them. I am content you should be interrupted (provided the interruption be not long) in the course of your reading by declaiming in defence of the Thesis you have so wisely chosen to maintain. It is true indeed that the affirmative maxim, Omne solum forti Patria est, has supported some great and good men under the persecutions of faction and party injustice, and taught them to prefer an hospitable retreat in a foreign land to an unnatural mothercountry. Some few such may be found in ancient times: in our own country also some; such was Algernoon Sidney, Ludlow, and others. But how dangerous is it to trust frail, F corrupt man, with such an aphorism! What fatal casuistry is it big with! How many a villain might, and has, masked himself in the sayings of ancient illustrious exiles, while he was, in fact, dissolving all the nearest and dearest ties that hold societies together, and spurning at all laws divine and human! How easy the transition from this political to some impious ecclesiastical aphorisms! If all soils are alike to the brave and virtuous, so may all churches and modes of worship; that is, all will be equally neglected and violated, Instead of every soil being his country, he will have no one for his country; he will be the forlorn outcast of man kind. Such was the late Bolingbroke of impious memory. Let me know when your declamation is over. Pardon an observation on style: 'I received yours' is vulgar and mercantile; 'your letter' is the way of writing. Inclose your letters in a cover, it is more polite. LETTER XII. Pay Office, May 20, 1755. MY DEAR NEPHEW, I AM extremely concerned to hear that you have been ill, especially as your account of an illness, you speak of as past, implies such remains of disorder as I beg you will give all proper attention to. By the medicine your physician has ordered, I conceive he considers your case in |