THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE HON. W. PITT. Hayes, Sunday, July 17, 1774.

NEED I tell my dear William that his letter, received this morning, diffused general joy here? To know that he is well and happy, and to be happy ourselves, is one and the same thing. I am glad that chambers, hall, and tufted robe, continue to please, and make no doubt that all the Nine, in their several departments of charming, will sue for your love with all their powers of enchantment. I know too well the danger of a new amour, or of a reviving passion, not to have some fears for your discretion. Give any of these alluring ladies the meeting by daylight, and in their turns; not becoming the slave of any one of them; nor be drawn into late hours by the temptation of their sweet converse. I rejoice that college is not yet evacuated of its learned garrison; and I hope the governor of this fortress of science, the master, or his admirable aides-decamp, the tutors, will not soon repair to their respective excursions. Dr. Brown, to whom I desire to present my best compliments, is very obliging in accommodating you with a stable. I hope with this aid Mr. Wilson's computation may not be out above one half, to bring it all bear the mark. I conclude a horse's allowance at Cambridge is upon the scale of a sizer's commons. However it prove, I am glad to think you and he will find more convenience for riding at every spare hour that offers. Stucky will carry Mr. Wilson safely, and, I trust, not un

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pleasantly. The brothers of the turf may hold the solid contents of his shoulders and forehead somewhat cheap; but by Dan's leave, he is no uncreditable clerical steed. No news yet from Pitt. James is here the flower of school-boys. Your loving father,

CHATHAM.

THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE HON. W. PITT. Hayes, Sept. 2, 1774.

Gout

I WRITE, my dearest William, the post just going out, only to thank you for your most welcome letter, and for the affectionate anxiety you express for my situation, left behind in the hospital, when our flying camp removed to Stowe. has for the present subsided, and seems to intend deferring his favours till winter, if autumn will do its duty, and bless us with a course of steady weather; those days which Madame de Sevigné so beautifully paints, des jours filés d'or et de soie.

I have the pleasure to tell you, your mother and sisters returned perfectly well from Bucks, warm in praises of magnificent and princely Stowe, and full of due sentiments of the agreeable and kind reception they found there. No less than two dancings in the short time they passed there. One escape from a wasp's nest, which proved only an adventure to talk of, by the incomparable skill and presence of mind of Mr. Cotton, driving our girls in his carriage, with four very fine horses, and no postilion. They fell into an ambuscade of wasps, more fierce

than Pondours, who beset these coursers of spirit not inferior to Xanthus and Podarges, and stung them to madness; when, disdaining the master's hand, he turned them short into a hedge, threw some of them, as he meant to do; and leaping down, seized the bridles of the leaders, which afforded time for your sisters to get out safe and sound, their honour, in point of courage, intact, as well as their bones; for they are celebrated not a little on their composure in this alarming situation. I rejoice that your time passes to your mind in the evacuated seat of the Muses. However, knowing that those heavenly ladies (unlike the London fair) delight most, and spread their choicest charms and treasures, in sweet retired solitude, I won't wonder that their true votary is happy to be alone with them. Mr. Pretyman will by no means spoil company, and I wish you joy of his return. How many commons have you lost of late? What fences have you broken? and in what lord of the manor's pond have any strays of science been found, since the famous adventure of catching the horses with such admirable address and alacrity? I beg my affectionate compliments to Mr. Wilson, and hope you will both beware of an enclosed country for the future. Little James is still with us, doing penance for the high living so well described to you in Mrs. Pain's excellent epistle. All loves follow my sweet boy in more abundance than I have time or ability to express.

I desire my best compliments to the kind and obliging master, who loves Cicero and you.

THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO THE HON. W. PITT.

Hayes, Sept. 22, 1777.

I

How can I address my reviving pen so well as by addressing a few lines to the hope and comfort of my life, my dear William ? You will have pleasure to see, under my own hand, that I mend every day, and that I am all but well. have been this morning to Campden Place, and sustained most manfully a visit, and all the idle talk thereof, for about an hour by Mr. Norman's clock, and returned home, untired, to dinner, where I eat like a farmer. Lord Mahon has confounded, not convinced, the incorrigible soidisant Dr. Wilson. Dr. Franklin's lightning, rebel as he is, stands proved the more innocent; and Wilson's nobs must yield to the pointed conductors. On Friday, Lord Mahon's indefatigable spirit is to exhibit another incendium to lord mayor, foreign ministers, and all lovers of philosophy and the good of society; and means to illuminate the horizon with a little bonfire of twelve hundred fagots and a double edifice. Had our dear friend been born sooner, Nero and the second Charles could never have amused themselves by reducing to ashes the two noblest cities in the world. My hand begins to demand repose, so with my best compliments to Aristotle, Homer, Thucydides, Xenophon, not forgetting the Civilians, and the Law of Nations' tribe. Adieu, my dearest William. Your ever most affectionate father,

СНАТНАМ,

WILLIAM JONES, ESQ. TO ROBERT ORME, ESQ. Duke Street, June 26th, 1773.

DEAR SIR, I WAS never less pleased with the study of the law than at this moment, when my attendance at Westminster Hall prevents me from thanking you in person for your most elegant and acceptable present, which shall ever be preserved amongst my literary treasures. Your history is not one of those books which a man reads once in a cursory manner, and then throws aside for ever; there is no end of reading and approving of it, nor shall I ever desist giving myself that pleasure to the last year of my life. You may rely on this testimony, as it comes from one who not only was never guilty of flattery, but like Cæsar's wife, would never suffer himself to be suspected of it.

It is much to be regretted that the historical pieces of Lucceius are not preserved to us: by a letter or two of his, which are extant, he seems to have been a man of exquisite parts and taste. Cicero declares himself charmed with his way of writing, which makes me think that his works would have been far preferable to those of Sallust and Tacitus, whom I cannot help considering as the first corrupters of the Roman language and eloquence. As to our language, if yourself, and perhaps Lord Lyttleton, had not restored it to its native simplicity, we should soon have been reduced to a new dialect, &c. &c. I have been for the last five weeks at Oxford, where I took the degree of Master of Arts in the regular course. I was