I doubt not but you will be surprised at my sending a church neither remarkable for beauty of design or neatness of execution. Waiving, however, all apologies for either, if you are disposed at some future time to visit the ‘Verdant House’ of your friend when he shall be at supper,—‘not when he eats, but when he is eaten,’—you will find it on the other side of this identical church. The very covering of the vault affords as striking an emblem of mortality as would even the mouldering tenant of the tomb. Yesterday, I know not from what strange humour, I visited it for the second time in my life; the former occasion was mournful, and no earthly consideration shall ever draw me there upon a like. My pilgrimage yesterday was merely the result of a meditating moment when philosophy had flattered itself into apathy. I am really astonished when I reflect upon the indifference with which I so minutely surveyed the heaving turf, which inclosed within its cold bosom ancestors upon whom fortune bestowed rather more of her smiles than she has done upon their descendants,—men who, content with an independent patrimony, lay hid from the world too obscure to be noticed by it, too elevated to fear its insult. Those days are past. Three Edward Hills there sleep for ever. I send the epitaph which, at

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present, is inscribed upon one of the cankered sides: perhaps the production of some one of my forefathers, who possessed more piety than poetry:—

‘Farwell this world With all Its Vanity; We hope, through Christ, To live eternally.’

“What is there, Bedford, contained in that word of such mighty virtue? it has been sounded in the ear of common sense till it is deafened and overpowered with the clamour. Artifice and vanity have reared up the pageant, science has adorned it, and the multitude have beheld at a distance and adored; it is applied indiscriminately to vice and virtue, to the exalted ideas of Socrates, the metaphysical charms of Plato, the frigid maxims of Aristotle, the unfeeling dictates of the Stoics, and the disciples of the

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defamed Epicurus. Rousseau was called a philosopher whilst he possessed sensibility the most poignant. Voltaire was dignified with the name when he deserved the blackest stigma from every man of principle. Whence all this seeming absurdity? or why should reason be dazzled by the name when she cannot but perceive its imbecility?

“So far I wrote last night; upon running it over, I think you will fancy you have a rhapsody for the Flagellant instead of a letter; and really, had I continued it in the same mood, it would have been little different. If I had any knowledge of drawing, I would send you some of the most pleasing views you can conceive, whether rural, melancholy, pleasing, or grand. At some future period I hope to show you the place, and you will then judge whether I have praised it too lavishly. . . . . In the course of next summer the Duke of Portland will be installed at Oxford: the spectacle is only inferior to a coronation. I have rooms there, and am glad of the opportunity to offer them to you. We are permitted to have men in college upon the occasion: the whole university makes up the procession. It will be worth seeing, as perhaps coronations, like the secular games, will soon be as a tale that is told.

“Within this half hour I have received a letter from my uncle at Lisbon, chiefly upon a subject which I have been much employed upon since March 1. I will show it you when we meet. It is such as I expected from one who has been to me more than a parent: without asperity, without reproaches. . . . . To-morrow I answer it, and, as he has desired, send

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him the Flagellant. I then hope to drop the subject for ever in this world; in the next all hearts are open, and no man’s intentions are hid.

“I can now tell you one of the uses of philosophy: it teaches us to search for applause from within, and to despise the flattery and the abuse of the world alike; to attend only to an inward monitor; to be superior to fortune: why, then, is the name so prostituted? Do give me a lecture upon philosophy, and teach me how to become a philosopher. The title is pretty, and surely the philosophic S. would sound as well as the philosophic Hume or the philosopher of Ferney. Would it not be as truly applied? I am loth to part with my poor Flagellants; they have cost me very dear, and perhaps I shall never see them more.* One copy ought to be preserved, in order to contradict the inventions of future malice. Are you not ashamed of your idleness?

“P.S. If I can one day have the honour of writing after my name Fellow of Balliol College, that will be the extent of my preferment. Sometimes I am tempted to think that I was sent into this world for a different employment; but, as the play says, beware of the beast that has three legs. Now, Bedford, as you might long puzzle to discover the genus of the beast, know that his grasp is always mortal, that—in short

* This proved to be the case:—he never saw the latter numbers of the Flagellant again. Mr. Hill preserved the copy which had been sent to him, but in after years kept it carefully from my father’s knowledge, thinking he would destroy it. This copy is now before me, and is, perhaps, the only one in existence.

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(here follows a sketch). But, as that drawing wants explanation as much, if not more, than the description, know it is—the gallows.

“About the 17th of January I begin my residence at Oxford, where the prime of my life is to pass in acquiring knowledge; which, when I begin to have some ideas of, it will be cut short by the Doctor, who levels all ranks and degrees. Is it not rather disgraceful, at the moment when Europe is on fire with freedom—when man and monarch are contending—to sit and study Euclid or Hugo Grotius? As Pindar says, a good button-maker is spoilt in making a king; what will be spoilt when I am made a fellow of Balliol? That question I cannot resolve, I can only say I have spoilt a sheet of paper, and you fifteen minutes in reading it.

“Such is the hour when I begin this letter,—when it will be finished is uncertain: expecting Wynn to

* There is a portrait of my father engraved in Mr. Cottle’s Reminiscences, which shows the long hair, &c.

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drink tea with me every moment, I have not patience to wait without employment, and know of none more agreeable than that of writing to you. My Mentor, while he prohibits my wanting, must nevertheless allow an exception in your favour; and believe me I look upon it as one great proof of my own reformation, or whatever title you may please to give, when I can pass a whole week without composing one word. Over the pages of the philosophic Tacitus the hours of study pass as rapidly as even those which are devoted to my friends, and I have not found as yet one hour which I could wish to have employed otherwise: this is saying very much in praise of a collegiate life; but remember that a mind disposed to be happy will find happiness everywhere; and why we should not be happy is beyond my philosophy to account for. Heraclitus certainly was a fool, and, what is much more rare, an unhappy one. I never yet met with any fool who was not pleased with the idea of his own sense; but for your whimpering sages, let sentiment say what it will, they are men possessed with more envy than wisdom.”

“Now, Bedford, this is more than you would do for me,—quit your bed after only five hours’ rest, light a fire, and then write a letter; really I think it would not have tempted me to rise unless assisted by other inducements. To-day I am going to walk to Abingdon with three men of this college; and having made the pious resolution (your good health in a glass of

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red negus) of rising every morning at five to study, that the rest of the day may be at my own disposal, I procured an alarum clock and a tinder-box. This morning was the first. I rose, called up a neighbour, and read about three hundred lines of Homer, when I found myself hungry; the bread and cheese were called in as auxiliaries, and I made some negus: as I spiced it my eye glanced over the board, and the assemblage seemed so curious that I laid all aside for your letter,—a lexicon, Homer, inkstand, candles, snuffers, wine, bread and cheese, nutmeg grater, and hour-glass. But I have given up time enough to my letter, the glass runs fast, and for once the expression is not merely figurative.

“How rapidly does Time hasten on when his wings are not clogged by melancholy! Perhaps no human being ever more forcibly experienced this than myself; often have I counted the hours with impatience when, tired of reflection and all her unpleasant train, I wished to forget myself in sleep. Now I allow but six hours to my bed, and every morning before the watchman rises, my fire is kindled and my bed cold: this is practical philosophy—but every thing is valued by comparison, and when compared with my neighbour, I am no philosopher. Two years ago Seward drank wine, and eat butter and sugar; now, merely from the resolution of abridging the luxuries of life, water is his only drink, tea and dry bread his only breakfast. In one who professed philosophy this would be only practising its tenets, but it is quite different with Seward. To the most odd and uncommon ap-

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pearance he adds manners, which, as one gets accustomed to them are the most pleasing. At the age of fourteen he began learning, and the really useful knowledge he possesses must be imputed to a mind really desirous of improvement. ‘Do you not find your attention flag?’ I said to him as he was studying Hutchinson’s Moral Philosophy in Latin. ‘If our tutors would but make our studies interesting we should pursue them with pleasure.’ ‘Certainly we should,’ he replied; ‘but I feel a pleasure in studying them because I know it is my duty.’ This I take to be true philosophy, of that species which tends to make mankind happy, because it first makes them good. We had verses here upon the 30th of January to the memory of Charles the Martyr. It is a little extraordinary that you should quote those very lines to poor Louis which I prefixed to my ode: ‘His virtues plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of his taking off.’ . . . . Morose austerity and stern enthusiasm are the characteristics of superstition; but what is in reality more cheerful or happy than Religion? I have in my own knowledge more than one instance of this, and doubt not you have likewise. Ought not, therefore, that wretch who styles himself a philosopher to be shunned like pestilence, who, because Christianity has to him no allurement, seeks to deprive the miserable of their only remaining consolation? . . . . I keep a daily journal for myself, as an account of time which I ought to be strict in; but this being only destined for my own eye, is uninteresting and unimportant. Boswell might compile a few quartos from the loose memorandums,

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but they would tire the world more than he has already done. Twenty years hence this journal will be either a source of pleasure or of regret; that is, if I live twenty years, and for life I have really a very strong predilection; not from Shakspeare’s fearfully beautiful passage:—‘Aye, but to die and go we know not whither,’ but from the hope that my life may be serviceable to my family, and happy to myself; if it be the longer life the better, existence will be delightful, and anticipation glorious. The idea of meeting a different fate in another world is enough to overthrow every Atheistical doctrine. The very dreadful trials under which virtue so often labours must surely be only trials; patience will withstand the pressure, and faith will lead to hope. Religion soothes every wound and makes the bed of death a couch of felicity. Make the contrast yourself: look at the warrior, the hypocrite, and the libertine, in their last moments, and reflection must strengthen every virtuous resolution. May I, however, practise what I preach. Let me have 200l. a year and the comforts of domestic life, and my ambition aspires not further.

“I am now sitting without fire in a cold day, waiting for Wynn to go upon the Isis, ‘silver-slippered queen,’ as Warton calls her; the epithet may be

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classical, but it certainly is ridiculous. Of all poetical figures the prosopopoeia is that most likely to be adopted by a savage nation, and which adds most ornament, but not to composition; but in the name of common sense, what appropriate idea does ‘silver-slippered’ convey? Homer’s Χρυσοπέδιλος* probably alludes to some well-known statue so habited. Nature is a much better guide than antiquity.

“On the water I went yesterday, in a little skiff, which the least deviation from the balance would overset. To manage two oars and yet unable to handle one!† My first setting off was curious. I did not step exactly in the middle, the boat tilted up, and a large barge from which I embarked alone saved me from a good ducking; my arm, however, got completely wet. I tugged at the oar very much like a bear in a boat; or, if you can conceive any thing more awkward, liken me to it, and you will have a better simile. . . . . When I walk over these streets what various recollections throng upon me, what scenes fancy delineates from the hour when Alfred first marked it as the seat of learning! Bacon’s study is demolished, so I shall never have the honour of being killed by its fall; before my window Latimer and Ridley were burnt, and there is not even a stone to mark the place where a monument should be erected

* “Άργυρόπεζα” would have been nearer the mark. Warton was imitating Milton, who uses the term “tinsel-slippered.” † My father used to say he learned two things only at Oxford,—to row and to swim.

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to religious liberty. . . . . I have walked over the ruins of Godstow Nunnery with sensations such as the site of Troy or Carthage would inspire; a spot so famed by our minstrels, so celebrated by tradition, and so memorable in the annals of legendary, yet romantic truth. Poor Rosamond! some unskilful impostor has painted an epitaph upon the chapel wall, evidently within this century; the precise spot where she lies is forgotten, and the traces are still visible of a subterranean passage—perhaps the scene of many a deed of darkness; but we should suppose the best:—surely amongst the tribe who were secluded from the world, there may have been some whose motives were good among so many victims of compulsion and injustice. Do you recollect Richardson’s plan for Protestant nunneries?* To monastic foundations I have little attachment; but were the Colleges ever to be reformed (and reformation will not come before it is wanted), I would have a little more of the discipline kept up. Temperance is much wanted; the waters of Helicon are far too much polluted by the wine of Bacchus ever to produce any effect. With respect to its superiors, Oxford only exhibits waste of wigs and want of wisdom; with respect to undergraduates, every species of abandoned excess.

* “Considering the condition of single women in the middle classes, it is not speaking too strongly to assert that the establishment of Protestant nunneries upon a wide plan, and liberal scale, would be the greatest benefit that could possibly be conferred upon these kingdoms. The name, indeed, is deservedly obnoxious, for nunneries, such as they exist in Roman Catholic countries, and such as at this time are being re-established in this, are connected with the worst corruptions of popery, being only nurseries of superstition and of misery.”—Southey’s Colloquies, vol. i. p. 338.

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As for me, I regard myself too much to run into the vices so common and so destructive. I have not yet been drunk, nor mean to be so. What use can be made of a collegiate life I wish to make; but in the midst of all, when I look back to Rousseau, and compare myself either with his Emilius or the real pupil of Madame Brulenck, I feel ashamed and humbled at the comparison. Never shall child of mine enter a public school or a university. Perhaps I may not be able so well to instruct him in logic or languages, but I can at least preserve him from vice.

“Had I, my dear Collins, the pen of Rousseau, I would attempt to describe the various scenes which have presented themselves to me, and the various emotions occasioned by them. On Wednesday morning, about eight o’clock, we sallied forth. My travelling equipage consisted of my diary, writing-book, pen, ink, silk handkerchief, and Milton’s Defence. We reached Woodstock to breakfast, where I was delighted with reading the Nottingham address for peace. Perhaps you will call it stupidity which made me pass the very walls of Blenheim, without turning from the road to behold the ducal palace: perhaps it was so; but it was the stupidity of a democratic philosopher who had appointed a day in summer for the purpose. . . . . Evesham Abbey detained me

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some time: it was here where Edward defeated and slew Simon de Montfort. Often did I wish for your pencil, for never did I behold so beautiful a pile of ruins. I have seen the Abbeys of Battle and Malmsbury, but this is a complete specimen of the simple Gothic: a tower, quite complete, fronts the church, whose roof is dropping down, and admits through the chasm the streaming light,—the high pointed window frames, where the high grass waves to the lonely breeze,—and that beautiful moss, which at once ornaments and carpets the monastic pile, rapt me to other years. I recalled the savage sons of superstition, I heard the deep toned mass, and the chaunted prayer for those that fell in fight; but fancy soon recurred to a more enchanting scene,—‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and his Daughter’: you know how intimately connected with this now mouldering scene that ballad is. Over this abbey I could detain you, Collins, for ever,—so many, so various, are the reveries it caused. We reached Worcester to dinner the second day. . . . . Here we staid three days; and I rode with Mr. Severn to Kidderminster, with intent to breakfast at ——, but all the family were out. We returned by Bewdley; there is an old mansion, once Lord Herbert’s, now mouldering away, in so romantic a situation, that I soon lost myself in dreams of days of yore,—the tapestried room—the listed fight—the vassal-filled hall—the hospitable fire—the old baron and his young daughter;—these formed a most delightful day-dream. How horrid it is to wake into common life from these scenes! at a moment when you are transported to

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happier times to descend to realities! Could these visions last for ever! Yesterday we walked twenty-five miles over Malvern Hills to Ledbury, to Seward’s brothers; here I am before breakfast, and how soon to be interrupted I know not. Believe me, I shall return reluctantly to Oxford; these last ten days seem like years to look back—so crowded with different pictures. . . . . This peripatetic philosophy pleases me more and more; the twenty-six miles I walked yesterday neither fatigued me then nor now. Who, in the name of common sense, would travel stewed in a leathern box when they have legs, and those none of the shortest, fit for use? What scene can be more calculated to expand the soul than the sight of nature, in all her loveliest works? We must walk over Scotland; it will be an adventure to delight us all the remainder of our lives: we will wander over the hills of Morven, and mark the driving blast, perchance bestrodden by the spirit of Ossian.”

“My philosophy, which has so long been of a kind peculiar to myself—neither of the school of Plato, Aristotle, Westminster, or the Miller—is at length settled: I am become a peripatetic philosopher. Far, however, from adopting the tenets of any self-sufficient cynic or puzzling sophist, my sentiments will be found more enlivened by the brilliant

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colours of fancy, nature, and Rousseau than the positive dogmas of the Stagyrite, or the metaphysical refinements of his antagonist. I aspire not to the honorary titles of subtle disputant or divine doctor, I wish to found no school, to drive no scholars mad: ideas rise up with the scenes I view; some pass away with the momentary glance, some are engraved upon the tablet of memory, and some impressed upon the heart. You have told me what philosophy is not, and I can give you a little more information upon the subject. It is not reading Johannes Secundus because he may have some poetical lines; it is not wearing the hair undressed, in opposition to custom perhaps (this I feel the severity of, and blush for); it is not rejecting Lucan lest he should vitiate the taste, and reading without fear what may corrupt the heart; it is not clapt on with a wig, or communicated by the fashionable hand of the barber. It had nothing to do with Watson when he burnt his books; it does not sit upon a woolsack; honour cannot bestow it, persecution cannot take it away. It illumined the prison of Socrates, but fled the triumph of Octavius: it shrank from the savage murderer, Constantine; it dignified the tent of Julian. It has no particular love for colleges; in crowds it is alone, in solitude most engaged; it renders life agreeable, and death enviable. . . . I have lately read the ‘Man of Feeling:’ if you have never yet read it, do now from my recommendation; few works have ever pleased me so painfully or so much. It is very strange that man should be delighted with the highest pain that, can be produced. I even begin to think

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that both pain and pleasure exist only in idea. But this must not be affirmed; the first twinge of the toothache, or retrospective glance, will undeceive me with a vengeance.

“Purity of mind is something like snow, best in the shade. Gibraltar is on a rock, but it would be imprudent to defy her enemies, and call them to the charge. My heart is equally easy of impression with that of Rousseau, and perhaps more tenacious of it. Refinement I adore, but to me the highest delicacy appears so intimately connected with it, that the union is like body and soul.”

“Call me Job, for I am without clothes, expecting my baggage from day to day; and much as I fear its loss unrepining, own I am modest in assuming no merit for all these good qualities. Know then, most indolent of mortals, that my baggage is not yet ar-

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rived, that I am fearful of its safety, and yet less troubled than all the rest of the family, who cry out loudly upon my puppet-show dress, and desire I will write to inquire concerning it. . . . .

“Now I am much inclined to fill this sheet, and that with verse, but I will punish myself to torment you: you shall have half a prose letter. The College bells are dinning the King’s proclamation in my ear, the linings of my breeches are torn, you are silent, and all this makes me talkative and angrily communicative; so that had you merited it, you would have received such a letter,—so philosophic, poetical, grave, erudite, amusing, instructive, elegant, simple, delightful, simplex munditiis,—in short, το αγαθον και το αριστον, το βελτιστον—such a letter, Grosvenor, full of odes, elegiacs, epistles, monodramas, comodramas, tragodramas, all sorts of dramas, though I have not tasted spirits to-day. Don’t think me drunk, for if I am, ’tis with sobriety; and I certainly feel most seriously disposed to be soberly nonsensical. Now you wish I would dispose my folly to a short series; which sentence if you comprehend, you will do more than I can. You must not be surprised at nonsense, for I have been reading the history of philosophy, the ideas of Plato, the logic of Aristotle, and the heterogeneous dogmas of Pythagoras, Antisthenes, Zeno, Epicurus, and Pyrrho, till I have metaphysicized away all my senses, and so you are the better for it. . . . .

“Now good night! Egregious nonsense, execrably written, is all you merit. O my clothes! O Joan!”*

* The first MS. of Joan of Arc was in his baggage.

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“Sunday morning.

“Of the various sects that once adorned the republic of Athens, to me that of Epicurus, whilst it maintained its original purity, appears most consonant to human reason. I am not speaking of his metaphysics and atomary system; they are (as all cosmogonies must be) ridiculous; but of that system of ethics and pleasure combined, which he taught in the garden. When the philosopher declared that the ultimate design of life is happiness, and happiness consists in virtue, he laid the foundation of a system which might have benefited mankind; his life was the most temperate, his manner the most affable, displaying that urbanity which cannot fail of attracting esteem. Plotinus, a man memorable for corrupting philosophy, was in

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favour with Gallienus, with whose imperial qualifications you are well acquainted: the enthusiast requested his royal highness would give him a ruined city in Campania, which he might rebuild and people with philosophers, governed by the laws of Plato, and from whom the city should be called Platonopolis. Gallienus, who was himself an elegant scholar, was pleased with the plan, but his friends dissuaded him from the experiment. The design would certainly have proved impracticable in that declining and degenerate age—most probably in any age; new visionary enthusiasts would have been continually arising, fresh sects formed, and each would have been divided and subdivided till all was anarchy. Yet I cannot help wishing the experiment had been tried; it could not have been productive of evil, and we might at this period have received instruction from the history of Platonopolis. Under the Antonines or under Julian the request would have been granted; despotism is perhaps a blessing under such men. . . . . I could rhapsodise most delightfully upon this subject; plan out my city—her palaces, her hovels—all simplex munditiis (my favourite quotation); but if you were with me, Southeyopolis would soon be divided into two sects; whilst I should be governing with Plato (correcting a few of Plato’s absurdities with some of my own), and almost deifying Alcaeus, Lucan, and Milton, you (as visionary as myself) would be dreaming of Utopian kings possessed of the virtue of the Antonines, regulated by peers every one of whom should be a Falkland, and by a popular assembly where

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every man should unite the integrity of a Cato, the eloquence of a Demosthenes, and the loyalty of a Jacobite.

To a proposal from Mr. Grosvenor Bedford to join with him in some publication, something I suppose after the manner of the Flagellant, he replies:—

“Your plan of a general satire I am ready to partake when you please. Pope, Swift, and Atterbury, you know, once attempted it, but malevolence intruded into the design, and Martin Scriblerus bore too strong a resemblance to Woodward. Swift’s part is more levelled at follies than at vice; establish the empire of justice, and vice and folly will be annihilated together. Draw out your plan and send it me, if you have resolution for so arduous a task,—you know mine.

The following letters will conclude the year. In the latter one we have a curious picture of the mar-

* Nov. 22. 1793.

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vellous industry with which he must have followed his poetical pursuits.

“Bath, Dec. 14. 1793.

“The gentleman who brings this letter must occupy a few lines of it. His name is Lovel: I know him but very little personally, though long by report; you must already see he is eccentric. Perhaps I do wrong in giving him this, but I wish your opinion of him. Those who are superficially acquainted with him feel wonder; those who know him, love. This character I hear. He is on the point of marrying a young woman with whom I spent great part of my younger years; we were bred up together I may almost say, and that period was the happiest of my life. Mr. Lovel has very great abilities; he writes well: in short, I wish his acquaintance myself; and, as his stay in town is very short, you will forgive the introduction. Perhaps you may rank him with Duppa, and, supposing excellence to be at 100, Duppa is certainly much above 50. Now, my dear Grosvenor, I doubt I am acting improperly; it was enough to introduce myself so rudely: but abilities always claim respect, and that Lovel has these I think very certain. Characters, if anyways marked, are well worth studying; and a young man of two-and-twenty, who has been his own master since fifteen, and who owes all his knowledge to himself, is so far a respectable character. My knowledge of

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him, I again repeat, is very confined: his intended bride I look upon as almost a sister, and one should know one’s brother-in-law. . . . .

“What is to become of me at ordination heaven only knows! After keeping the straight path so long the Test Act will be a stumbling-block to honesty; so chance and providence must take care of that, and I will fortify myself against chance. The wants of man are so very few that they must be attainable somewhere, and, whether here or in America, matters little; I have long learnt to look upon the world as my country.

“Now, if you are in the mood for a reverie, fancy only me in America; imagine my ground uncultivated since the creation, and see me wielding the axe, now to cut down the tree, and now the snakes that nestled in it. Then see me grubbing up the roots, and building a nice snug little dairy with them: three rooms in my cottage, and my only companion some poor negro whom I have bought on purpose to emancipate. After a hard day’s toil, see me sleep upon rushes, and, in very bad weather, take out my casette and write to you, for you shall positively write to me in America. Do not imagine I shall leave rhyming or philosophising, so thus your friend will realise the romance of Cowley, and even outdo the seclusion of Rousseau; till at last comes an ill-looking Indian with a tomahawk, and scalps me,—a most melancholy proof that society is very bad, and that I shall have done very little to improve it! So vanity, vanity will come from my lips, and poor Southey will either be cooked for a Cherokee, or oysterised by a tiger.

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“I have finished transcribing Joan, and bound her in marble paper with green ribbon, and now am about copying all my remainables to carry to Oxford. Thence once more a clear field, and then another epic poem, and then another, and so on, till Truth shall write on my tomb—‘Here lies an odd mortal, whose life only benefited the paper manufacturers, and whose death will only hurt the post-office.’

“Do send my great coat, &c. My distresses are so great that I want words to express the inconvenience I suffer. So as breakfast is not yet ready (it is almost nine o’clock), you shall have an ode to my great coat. Excellent subject, excellent trifler,—or blockhead, say you; but, Bedford, I must either be too trifling or too serious; the first can do no harm, and I know the last does no good. So come forth my book of Epistles.”