REASONS FOR WRITING AGAIN.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Supplement-Reasons for writing-Difficulties in speaking of living characters -His unpublished writings-Anecdote of his son and the seaman-Collision with Mr. Hayley-Cowper-Dr. Bentley-Pitt-Cicero-Lines to Pitt-Nelson -Lord Collingwood-Commemorates the victory and death of Nelson-Sharon Turner-Earl of Dorchester-Reform in the newspapers-Love of booksHis health at Tunbridge Wells-Rev. Martin Benson-The men of KentVolunteer companies-Captain of infantry-Residents at Tunbridge Wells -Death of friends-Mr. Badcock-His children-Erskine-Answers to letters-Lord Mansfield- Anecdote of Charles Townshend - Conversational talents of Mansfield-Andrew Stuart-Lord North-Primate Robinson-Cathedral of Armagh-Sir William Robinson-Archbishop Moore-Doctor Moss -Anecdote of-Consequences of old age-Sir James Bland Burges-MooreSir William Spencer-Eccentricities of eminent men-Edinburgh reviewers -Rodney's nautical manœuvre-Rev. Mr. Higgs-Doctor Drake-Epic poem -The Exodiad-His wife-His daughter-Apology to Mr. Smith-Drury Lane and Covent Garden-Garrick-The stage-The profession of actor— Death of Fox-Mr. Higgs-Mistakes in his 'Memoirs'-Sir William Pepys -'A Hint to Husbands'-Napoleon-Conclusion.

February the 19th, 1806.

I AM this day seventy-four years old, and having given to the world an account of what I have been employed upon since I have belonged to it, I thought I had said quite enough of an humble individual, and that I might have been acquitted of my task, and dismissed to my obscurity; but certain friends, upon whose judgment and sincerity I have all possible reliance, tell me that I have disappointed their expectations in the narrative of what I have been concerned in since I came from Spain; a period which, being more within their own time, might, as they conceive, have been made more interesting to them, and to the rest of my readers.

It may be so; nay, I have reason to believe it is so, for I am conscious that I was impatient to conclude my work, and was intimidated by the apprehension of offending against that modesty of discourse, which becomes me to hold when I have no better subject to talk upon than myself.

In deference to their judgment I shall now attempt to fill up that chasm, which they have pointed out, in my imperfect work; but the volume, which is in the hands of the first purchasers, and which I have disposed of to them with all its errors,

I consider myself in honor bound to abide by; as I hold it not correctly fair to recommend a second edition by any means, that may contribute to degrade the first: I therefore leave untouched all which the liberal patrons of my book are already possessed of, and now tender to them a few additional pages, which they may, or may not, attach to their volume, as they shall see fit.

There are considerations, that will weigh with every writer, when his subject leads him to discourse of living characters; there is at once temptation to indulge his friendly prejudices, and motives to deter him from exposing all his free opinions. Hence it comes to pass, that, being checked by truth on one side, and by delicacy on the other, he finds his only safe resource in silence or an inoffensive tame neutrality.

If therefore I have written indolently of this latter period of my life, it was not because I had been more indolent in it, for I might have said, without offence to modesty, that I have been much more active as a literary man since I have ceased to be busied as an official one; but it was because I had fallen into heavy roads, and like the traveller, who, wearied by the tediousness of the way, puts four horses to his chaise for the concluding stage, so did I hasten to terminate my task, shutting my eyes against those objects that would have operated to prolong it.

I will only say in general, that there is a multiplicity of my unpublished productions, written since I came from Spain, which, to those who shall search for them and find them, will evince my industry. The world has such an amiable partiality to dead men's doings, that, perhaps, when these embryos shall see the light, and my eyes shall be forever closed against it, I may look to receive a vast deal of mercy and some praise, when I can no longer be the better for either. If our resurrection critics shall persist to rummage amongst the graves, and carry their eyes like the hare, who sees distinctly only what is behind her, they may probably spy out my shade in the background, and bring it into notice. It is naturally to be presumed that, if they would come manfully forward for a living author, the living author would be better pleased; but this he must not expect; the temple of their praise is reared with dry bones and skulls, and till he is a skeleton he cannot be their hero; in this, however, they are more generous than the legislature, who have given so short a date to the tenure of his copyright, that, till that is out, the circulation of his works can scarce commence. Now although this mode of dealing may not exactly suit the living man's occasions, yet there is a kind of posthumous justice in it, as it leads

ANECDOTE OF MY SON.

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him to expect a consideration for what he does some time or other, notwithstanding he shall have done it so much the worse for the discouragement which he met with whilst he was about it. It also warns him what he is to expect from the company he lives with, and apprises him of the luxury he is to enjoy when he is out of their society.

My youngest son, now a post-captain in the royal navy, had a lazy, pilfering rascal in his ship, though all the while a prime seaman; when he had seized him up to the gun for some enormity, he liberated him without a stroke, and reminding him of his capacity to perform his duty with credit to himself and good service to his country, appointed him at a word to be captain of the forecastle. Reformation instantly took place in the man's mind; promotion roused his pride; pride inspired honesty, and he thenceforth acquitted himself as an excellent and trustworthy seaman, and was pointed out to me from his quarter-deck as such. Now, according to the moral of my story, we may imagine a young beginner to set out lazily on his first start into authorship: he may, like the seaman, have good stores in his own capacity, but through indolence or something else prefer the shorter process of plagiarism to the laborious efforts of invention. I humbly apprehend that his reviewing officer, instead of flogging him round the fleet of critics, may come sooner to his point, if the object of correction be amendment, by copying the humane experiment of the gallant officer, whom I have taken the liberty to instance, and have the honor of being allied to.

I flatter myself I have through life been not unmindful of the rule, which I have been so frequently importunate to recommend; and I must own in some instances I have had no better reason for my praise and commendation of a brother author than because he was alive; for I was perfectly convinced he would not mend upon discouragement, and I conceived perhaps it was as easy for him to be better, as it was for me to persuade myself that he was not bad.

In these endeavors I have sometimes been defeated, and an instance has occurred since the publication of my Memoirs, which proves how little certainty there is that fair intentions shall be fairly understood. I have unfortunately for myself given offence to Mr. Hayley, and put him to the trouble of stopping the press, whilst advancing peaceably towards the completion of its labor, merely to make room for me in his supplementary pages to the life of Cowper, and with no other cause in view, that I can comprehend, but to show the world that he can be angry without cause. The passages he alludes to in my

Memoirs are in the hands, if not in the recollection, of my readers. As they gave umbrage to him, I wish I could extinguish them; but that is not in my power, and he has made them necessary for my exculpation; to them of course I must appeal; to his pages there is no need that I should make any reference, for all the world will read what Mr. Hayley writes. Still I must think that in the judgment of all men, who have read us both, I shall stand acquitted of any purpose to affront Mr. Hayley; for surely I may hope there cannot be a chance that any man besides himself can so misconstrue and pervert the compliment I meant to pay him.

He doubts if I deserve the praise he gave me; I doubt so too, and my doubts were prior to his. I believe he also doubts if I am justified in publishing his verses. I confess I am at his mercy upon that account; yet he gives me reason to hope he cannot be very angry with me, when I can quote his own authority in extenuation of my fault, for he says-that 'the praise of Cowper is so singularly valuable from the reserve and purity of his disposition, that it would almost seem a cruel injury to suppress a particle of it, when deliberately or even cursorily bestowed'— (page 4 Add. Pages). Now, why it should be 'almost a cruel injury' to suppress Mr. Cowper's praise, and anything like an offence to publish Mr. Hayley's, I do not comprehend; I have ever paid my testimony both publicly and in private to Mr. Hayley's genius, and how then can I be supposed insensible to his praise? Though I should profess myself even as vain of his applause as I could have been of Mr. Cowper's, there is one man at least in the world, who methinks might in his heart be moved to pardon and excuse my error. I must confess, however, that if Mr. Hayley had treated me no better than his hero has treated his three kittens in the 'Colubriad,' I should not have esteemed myself justified in exposing his lusus poeticus to the ridicule of the reader.

I had not the happiness to know the hero of Mr. Hayley, and I am not quite sure that I have a clear conception of his character from his biographer's description of it; for when I am told in one page of the reserve and purity of his disposition, and in another, close ensuing, of his unsuspecting innocence and sportive gayety, I am rather puzzled how to reconcile these seeming contrarieties; especially when I am again informed of a peculiarity in his character, a gay and tender gallantry, perfectly distinct from amorous attachment-a reserve of this nature was indeed a peculiarity in the character of this gentleman; and whilst the ladies had nothing to apprehend from his gay and tender gallantry, his male acquaintance, who enjoyed the unsuspecting

innocence and sportive gayety of his disposition, very possibly overlooked the reserve of it, and found him a very pleasant companion with the property most decisively characteristic of a very dull one.

Now I want all that respect for the gay reserve of the departed poet, which should cause me to appreciate his praise above that of the living one; and with all the reverence that I can summon, for a gallantry so perfectly distinct from amorous attachment, I cannot bring myself to honor Cowper as a poet one whit the more for his non-amorous gallantry, or Mr. Hayley, in the same light, one atom the less, though any one should officiously suggest that his gallantry may be of a different complexion. I have nothing more to offer in my own defence.

On the part of Doctor Bentley I shall hope that Mr. Hayley describes his character with no better precision than he does the reserve of Mr. Cowper, when he stigmatizes him as an arrogant critic, subject to fits of dogmatical petulance, an imperious Patagonian polemic. These would be hard words in some men's mouths, but I would fain convince the author of 'The Triumphs of Temper,' that I have not been less edified than delighted by his poem; and as the natural suavity of his disposition has induced him to promise that my grandfather shall rest in peace for the present, I can assure Mr. Hayley that I should credit him for his mercy, if I could feel any horror of his vengeance; but when I know he cannot disturb that rest, over which he presumes to arrogate a dispensing power, I must put the best interpretation on his language that it will bear, and calmly tell him-if it was not nonsense, it would be something worse.

But when Mr. Hayley, after venting these invectives against Doctor Bentley, is pleased to announce to the world that he meditates to pay his respects to him again, if Heaven allows him life and leisure to write such a preface as he wishes to prefix to the 'Milton' of Cowper-it seems to me that if this ingenious gentleman had not stopped the press at all, or only stopped his pen before he wrote this vaunting and inveterate paragraph, it would have been a rescue to his reputation. Let the public now decide betwixt the station which Mr. Hayley fills in literature and that which my ancestor once held, and say if I have cause to tremble at the flourish of this proud challenger's trumpet: No: I am well aware that although a gnat can sound a loud horn, it is but a little insect; and I am confident that arrogance and petulance, when charged upon my ancestor by one so open to the rebound, will neither penetrate nor fix, but return back to the place from whence they came.