for ever, hundreds of harmless people, in its fall!

Lord Camelford, however, will see none of these cloud-capt events which perhaps await us. If the avalanche cover him, it must fall on the Swiss grave he has chosen, in the canton of Berne, on the margin of lake Saint-Pierre, not far from the real awful Alps. Poor fellow! He was certainly strange, and almost more than strange; as you and I agreed at Cuxhaven: but I sincerely wish that all men of large fortune had part of his strangeness. His directing his relations to deposit his remains in the grave he points out in Switzerland, at the foot of the middlemost of three trees, far from all the haunts of men, where he had often meditated on the mutability of human affairs and on the ingratitude of mankind; what a melancholy, and perhaps instructing, contrast does it not form with a young man of twenty-nine spending more than four thousand pounds of his income, every year, in a personal contest with Misfortune; in making his wretched fellowcreatures happy, notwithstanding all that she could do to the contrary! His principal delight was extricating young officers, in the navy or army, from the clutches of misery, and enabling them to get on in their profession.

You perhaps have seen the English papers which speak of his manly death, in consequence of a duel, the beginning of March, with Captain Best, of the navy, an old and intimate friend? He lived till the next day, and seems to have chiefly employed his time in obviating any unpleasant consequences to his antagonist for killing him. I once knew a fine fellow who fell also in consequence of a foolish quarrel, by the hand of a friend, to whom, in a will made afterwards, ne left a considerable legacy, which the other, of course, declined. The French account of Lord C.'s conduct and death (which is all I have seen) affected me much. He had a noble mind; and he would certainly have made a first-rate character, could his intellects have been regulated, and could their energies have been directed into a proper channel. It is far from my intention to censure his father, Mr. Thomas Pitt, created Lord Camelford in 1784; indeed I have heard that he and others bestowed all proper pains on the late Lord's education: but I apprehend that the contrary conduct in a parent may affect more than the powers

mind, as we are all agreed; that NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 83.

am

it may unhinge even the intellects, as we call them. I knew, full well, the son of one of the most eminent English poets; and I am confident of what my friend would not let me say, during his life-time, in my account of Dr. Young, among "Johnson's Lives," in 1779-I an confident that, with different care taken of his youth, and with such care as such a poet ought to have given to the only child of her whom he wrote the "NightThoughts" to lament, the world would have seen not only one individual the less in the class of those who are miserable, but one the more in the rank of those who reflect honour upon human nature. Frederick Young, the representative of our great poet and of the Lichfield family, and the heir of all his father's talents, died of a broken heart, or by his own too-culpable hands, because he who begot him neglected his youth and his education, and quitted the nursery of his wife and his own parlour, in order to make excursions to Parnassus. Poets and authors will defend their cause, by accusing their accuser of want of feeling; but I abstained from saying this, which it has always been my intention to add to my "Life of Young" for twenty-five years, while a single individual of the family survived; and I absolutely disclaim all enmity, which is impossible, to the memory of a poet whose works I revere. Gentlemen, if you choose to marry, and to enter into new duties, more numerous than you are aware of, you are bound to fulfil them. No number of laurel-crowns will ever conceal from the eyes of posterity, neglect, much less ill-usage, of a wife and children: the world has seen but 'three or four epic poems; and even a fifth, superior ev even to those we have, will never make amends for such conduct. The third duty of a married poet is to be a good poet; but the first is to be a good husband, and the second to be a good father.

My poor friend's poetical father, whose eye overlooked his only child in "glancing from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven;" this Rembrandt of English poesy missed a fine opportunity of adding to his gallery of human portraits, in his "Satires." His harmless florist worshipping a tulip, is nothing to what Young's strong and natural pencil might have painted.

He might have shewn us the poet, who, absorbed in his super-mundane pursuits, flatters himself that the best VOL. XIV.

4 M

verses of Virgil, and almost the worst of Bavius, or of Mævius, will always compensate for his being a good-for-nothing or only a middling character, in his conjugal and paternal capacities: who condescends to marry a poor lady, the object of his contempt, because she has never been taught Greek and Latin; and then commits, every night, more than adultery, with his little dirty Muse: who, in short, does worse than neglect his own legitimate flesh and blood, heir to powers of mind still richer than his father's, and doomed to imitate that father in neglecting his own children, and so on, ad infinitum; who, forsooth, "in his fine frenzy," (as Shakspeare calls it) does nothing but fondle his sickly, “mewling, puling" bastard, when it is not likely to live, nor worthy to live, a week-when it is already deadwhen it never was any thing but still

born.

Young would not have laid aside his dark and gloomy pencil, even from sketching satirical portraits, without piously representing such a wretch, while, in his poetical capacity, he hears his useless lays finally damned by all his contemporaries; and while, in his paternal character, he plainly foresees, on his death-bed, that his memory will be cursed by his latest posterity.

My good friend, when you acquit me of meaning to insult Young as a man, understand me not to hint that a syllable of this applies to the best of Young's works. Young, I well know, was a poet, in the full sense of the word :

Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum; des nominis hujus honorem.

I do not mean to say that he was not, in his happiest moments, all that Horace demands but what then? I do mean to say, that he was bound to be a father, as well as a poet: I will say, that God, of whom the author of the "Night Thoughts" is almost the particular poet, created Young, and all of us, for still nobler ends than to make verses. It is, indisputably, permitted to us, to compose and to publish either prose or poetry, either verses much inferior to Young's, or dull letters of history like these; provided we exert our talents, as Young always did, to improve, and not to corrupt our fellow creatures: yet we have not the right to be even useful, in this way, until we have fully answered every one of those other and nobler ends of our creation. All the private happiness of at least one whole family, and from generation to generation, is far

too much to pay for the possible instruction, or perhaps only the doubtful amusement, of part of the public, in only one language.

Either Sophocles or Euripides, at a very advanced age, produced a tragedy to the judges who were assembled to examine into the charge of his having lost his intellects: but, supposing the Athenian court of justice to understand its duty, in vain would he have offered in evidence the best of all his tragedies, had his children accused him of being a bad father, instead of brutally charging him with having fallen into a second childhood.

Racine has a name worthy to be mentioned with either Sophocles or Euripides; and yet he did not blush to be both a husband and a father. Unable one day to convince the politeness of a gentleman-usher how impossible it was that he should attend him, to dine at the Prince de Conde's, “because he had been engaged for a week by his wife and children to partake of a large carp with them ;" and pressed by the courtier, with "the prince's necessary mortification, as the company was to be very brilliant;" the poet sent for the fish. "There, sir! be judge yourself. Did you ever see so fine a carp? Is it possible for me to disappoint the poor things, who make a holiday of giving me this treat, and who would not perhaps touch a bit without me?" This scene deserves to be applauded and studied, as much as any in the best of Racine's tragedies.

Alas! when the only child of Young came home to Welwyn, for the vacation, from Winchester-school, where he was for two years senior boy, it happened repeatedly, according to the best possible evidence, that his poetical father only saw him on the first day and on the last; and that he left him to spend the intermediate time exactly as the boy pleased.

"These little things are great to little man :" or rather, the smallest things of this kind are of the greatest consequence, in giving perhaps a colour to a whole life. This poet's neglected child paid afterwards more attention, during two or three vacations, to me, a perfect stranger, to whom he only took a fancy in the fives-court at Winchester, when I was at school there, with the wise Mr. Addington, than, according to the oldest inhabitants of Welwyn, he experienced from his own father during his whole youth.

What I have been saying does not, as I have carefully observed, reflect on the family of Lord Camelford; who would, I fear, have been little less original, though five Fénélons had guarded his youth and guided his education. I do not mean to say any thing indecorous, but I would humbly, though seriously, submit to Lord Grenville, who takes all the property in right of his lady, the sister of Lord Camelford, whether along with Laurent in Norfolk, and Boconnoc in Cornwall, and I know not how many thousands a year, they do not strictly inherit part of the late owner's originality; and whether they be not bound, if not legally, more forcibly for certain minds than by any law, to dispose of some trifling portion of his great property, every year, in the exemplary manner in which he annually spent so much of it. I can readily believe what is said of this conduct of his in the newspapers, which do not often flatter the dead, and in this way; for I knew one instance that time at Cuxhaven, when he was five years younger than at his death.

You recollect the young English officer who came with me from Germany, and who pleased you and every one so much by his good sense, and by his want of affectation, not only as a soldier, but in all respects. I mentioned his cruel situation to Lord Camelford, that windy day that you left us walking upon the pier-head together, and told us we should be blown off to Heligoland. His Lordship desired me to draw all the facts for him to consider; and up begged I would bring my young friend to him, when we got to England, adding, we will see how we can force misfortune to raise the siege of this

Saint Jean d'Acre, which your friend defends so gallantly." I wanted no repetition of such requests; and, on the 3d of January, his Lordship, at his house in Oxford-street, told my friend "that he did not see how he could be

gin the year 1800 better, or more pleasantly, than by paying the debts of one who was so worthy a son and a brother; and by enabling him to purchase a superior commission." The officer, who has since considerably distinguished himself, may perhaps not be unwilling that his naine should be known; but, without his permission, I must not mention it.

Silly ladies spin out silly books, by inventing improbable tales of this sort: let us not be backward in recording such a fact, when we witness it with our own eyes. The Emperor Napoleon himself will grant you permission to let this letter pass, on account of this anecdote; for I know more than one such of him, since he became First Consul.

In your present situation, on the borders of Holstein, you may perhaps meet with some good old English tale, of a different degree of interest; since it is a fact that the Saxons set sail from precisely the spot where you now are, in three or four wretched boats, formed of skins, about 1350 years ago; invited by the Britons to make a descent, in order to defend them against the Picts, Lord Melville's Scotish ancestors. When I was in your neighbourhood, I remember to have seen a very old map of Holstein, &c. in which the last town on the sea-shore was marked, singularly at least, Lunden; and where I observed, in a hasty view, several names, which we certainly have in Dorset, Devon, and on the coast. Should you light upon Howell's entertaining letters, published in Queen Elizabeth's days, as I did, and was therefore struck, you will see one or two, which he writes from the part of the world where you are stationed, to my ancestor Sir James Croft, and in which he says, "that the people have so much the appearance of English, he almost thinks himself at home." If so, and if you have found a pleasant society among these descendants of those from whom we are descended

(Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum);

I do not much lament your remaining still abroad.

Adieu, my dear Sir! It is more than possible that you may find this epistle

much too long; but I had a good deal to say, and you remember Swift's excuse, "that he had not time to make his let ter shorter." However, I will whisper you a mighty good method of shortening any letter, the dullest and the longest read only so much of it as you like, and skip all the rest. You will not, in this letter, skip the anecdote of poor Lord C.

My kind compliments to your good lady, whose merit as a mother I have not forgotten; and my best wishes to your amiable daughter, if she have not already found a husband worthy of her; and to her husband, if she have found one. Should they see no other end answered

by these letters, you and they will at least pore over the historical parts of them hereafter, with no common kind of pleasure: as I shall make a point of recording, in some way or another, every event that happens. May I soon have to speak of your appointment to some station worthy of your talents and long services! and in which I am persuaded you would never act as your late visitor, Mr. D., is charged with having acted at Munich. Few events would be recorded by me with more real pleasure; for I am,

My dear H-
Your sincere friend,
H. C.

LETTER IV.

SIR, I expected to have found in your "Principles of Political Economy," something calculated to settle public opinion on the subject of machinery, and all those inventions for facilitating production by which manual labour is saved, and the quantity of produce is increased without any addition to the costs of production. I was in hopes to meet with such definite principles, such exact reasoning, as would ensure general conviction; such, in short, as your Essays on Population have accustomed us to expect; but the present work is not the Essays on Population.

You seem to admit (for after reading your demonstrations, I am sometimes reduced to the necessity of using this form of expression) only one advantage in the use of machinery and improved methods of production; namely, that of multiplying produce to such a degree, that even when its price is diminished, the total value of the quantity produced still exceeds the value of the quantity produced before the introduction of the improvements. The advantage which you particularize is incontestable, and

it had previously been observed, that the total value of the cotton manufactures, as well as the number of labourers employed in that pursuit, was singularly increased since the introduction of the improved methods of manufacture. An analogous observation had been made with respect to the printingpress, the machine employed in the multiplication of books, a branch of produce which now employs (besides authors) a much greater number of industrious persons, than formerly when books were copied by hand, and produces a sum far exceeding what it produced when books were more expensive than they now are. But this very substantial advantage is only one amongst many which nations have derived from the use of machines. It only refers to certain articles of produce, the consumption of which was capable of sufficient extension to counterbalance the diminution of price; but there is another advantage in the introduction of machinery; an advantage common to every economical and expeditive process; an advantage which would be felt, even where the consumption of