world of letters. A few enliven'd, fine fpirited paragraphs would fet libraries in motion; here, might we see a small manual lording it in the center of a Folio Syftem, and there an army of Quartos wheeling round an invifible Twelve: whole fhelves of morality would bend to little Epictetus, one page of Sy---s draw after it the labours of fynods, and a single fermon of Sh---k the divinity of a century.

It was faid by a great wit of France, that nation of great wits, that to fee and enjoy, only in imagination, any defirable good, was as true a pleasure, as the actual poffeffion of it: If this were fo, my Lord, as to the revolutions, one might thus paint to one's felf in the affairs of literature, and if fancy had, in truth, fuch virtue here, who but would indulge it to the utmost! who would not take fatisfaction

tisfaction for the injuries of wit, and the popularity of nonfenfe! who would not rejoice in a vifion, that might fhew him our Sc---ts, Cl----ts, Wh----ns in their true orbit, with ten thousand mitred theologers behind them.

There is, unquestionably, a very true and fublime pleasure, flowing from many fuch virtuous exercises, and plays, of the fancy: In folitude, my Lord, or hours of mufing, I have sometimes thrown my felf into your great fituation and character; and while I have been miniftring mercy to undeferv'd misfortune, or fuffering merit, I have felt, in this imaginary fcene, as high tranfport, as arifes, perhaps, from the real ability and habit to do fuch things.

The difproportion is, that these are the pleasures of but a few moments, and can be but feldom repeated;

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peated; whereas the acts themselves of charity and bounty, and the remembrance of them, are a fixed and perpetual entertainment and delight: fuch, no doubt, is to your Grace, the recollection of all your beneficent deeds, and fuch the daily fight of those monuments of piety, that have diftinguish'd your excellent life, and which, in a better age, would have done honour to poets and hiftorians, and rais'd the reputation of their arts.

Those arts were indeed meant, and were once able, to give immortality to heroes; but when fuch proftitution is made of them, as we have feen in our days, the truly great and good had better lie out of their notice, and truft their characters, as you may fafely do yours, my Lord, to that faithful tradition, which the memory of great benefactions, and gratitude

for

for them, will keep up and extend through fucceffive generations.

This oral chronicle, or register of virtue, is, in my partial judgment, as good a fecurity to it, as the pyramids of marble, and will laft, perhaps, as long as the hiftories of Mr. H-gg--ns. Your Grace, 'tis certain, needs no unnatural aids to convey your great name to future ages; its own intrinfic beauty` and fplendor will carry it through all time, as the Eagle is borne up to the fun by his native ftrength and velocity.

The late Mafter of the Charterhouse, as I remember, in a preface to one of his works, has fomething to this effect Í did not at firft expect, fays the Doctor, that my book would have come to fuch a length then adds mihi fcribenti fuccrevit materia

Sed

The

The fame thing, my Lord, feems in fome fort to have befallen me ; I have already stretch'd this addrefs to a number of pages, without defigning, or so much as perceiving it. Nevertheless, your Grace, I hope, will not be quite out of patience; for this defultory and carelefs way of speaking, as it deferves, fo asks little attention; 'tis what one may bear with in any temper, even when the mind is most inactive, and most defirous to be relieved from thought.

There is an art of converfing with great men, which fometimes happily enough amufes them, at the fame time that they are too knowing to be inftructed, and too delicate to be easily pleased: the thing, that comes nearest to this, in written difcourfe, is what we call Rhapsody, a fpecies of wit, con

ceiv'd