ducted their canvass and survey of the votes by parochial subdivisions; Romilly, however, is in all such things apt to be very sanguine. He does not complain of any fatigue or irksomeness in the canvass, though he has had four days of it from door to door; and they tell me he does it well.

You will be glad to hear that Abercromby is to be returned for Calne.

Yours affectionately,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CLXXXIX. TO THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

My dear Sydney,

Bowood, 11th October, 1812.

I received your letter at Taunton the other day, where I was attending the sessions. Your reproaches, for what you call want of egotism, I take very kind, and, in return, I use my first opportunity of leisure to tell you all about myself. It is very soon told; in those two respects on which you desire information; my health is considerably improved; and I am not to be in Parliament. I have been very careful and attentive about the former for several months, and am reaping the fruits of this in a more uniform course of comfortable easy health and good spirits, than I knew all last year; though I cannot describe myself as having yet regained my former robustness, or the privileges of a freeman, for I am still under the slavery of medicine and regimen. As to Parliament, I have no seat, because Lord Carrington, to whom I owed my last, has to provide for a nephew, who has come of age since the last election, as well as for his son-in-law, who, being abroad, loses his seat for Hull; and because I have not money, or popularity of my own, to obtain a seat in the

more regular and desirable way. I need not own to you, for you would guess as much, that it is some mortification to me to be thrown out of the course, and that I indulge myself with regretting that I shall no longer have the opportunity of trying to be useful in the immediate concerns of the public. With the usual repentance that is felt at the close of any state of existence, I am something sorry and something ashamed, that, during the time I had such opportunity, I did so little. As for the future, I am not inconsolable; my own resources for employment and amusement are quite enough.*

(UNFINISHED.)

LETTER CXC. TO SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.

My dear Sir,

Lincoln's Inn, 15th Oct. 1812.

I feel very painfully our disappointment at Bristol. What annoys me most at present, is my uncertainty about your coming into Parliament at all. I hope you will not decline a seat, if any of those who have boroughs should (as I cannot doubt they will) put it in your power. I know your objection to that mode of holding a seat in the House; but as long as the representation continues on its actual footing, I cannot agree that a man who knows he can serve the public, ought to refuse that opportunity of serving them. While I take so great a freedom as to express this to you, from my earnest anxiety to see you again in the

This unfinished letter had fallen accidently among my brother's papers. I regret that I cannot give even one of the many letters he must have written to this intimate friend. I applied to Mr. Smith, several years ago, to know if he had any in his possession, and he replied in nearly the same terms as the following, which he afterwards used, on a similar occasion, to Mr. Robert Mackintosh :-"You ask me for some of your late father's letters; I am sorry to say I have none to send you. Upon principle, I keep no letters except those on business. I have not a single letter from him, nor from any human being, in my possession."- Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 499.- ED.

House of Commons, I can at the same time assure you, that I should not hold this opinion, if I entertained the least doubt that such a step could in any degree affect your public or parliamentary reputation. I shall regard it as one of the greatest public losses, if you are not in the House this Parliament; I trust you will not, by refusing a close borough, compel us to impute that misfortune to yourself. Believe me, my dear sir, with much attachment,

Very sincerely yours,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CXCI. FROM SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.

My dear Sir,

Eastbourne, 18th Oct. 1812.

I am very much obliged to you for the anxiety you have felt about me. I really believe that my friends feel more sensibly my disappointment at Bristol than I do myself. I certainly was very anxious to succeed, and, till the third day of the election, I thought my success certain; but after that, I soon saw what was to happen, and had made up my mind to it. It is not a little fortunate for me, that I have got out of such a contest without a single occurrence unpleasant to me, though I had the Tories on the one hand, and Hunt on the other, anxiously watching to take advantage of any thing I might do, or any unguarded expression I might use, which could be turned to my disadvantage. Since the election was over, I have been reflecting on many circumstances, which I would not allow to occupy my mind while it was depending, and which seem to afford reasons why I should rejoice at my defeat. The Bristol business certainly would, in addition to my other labours, have overloaded me with fatigue, and no doubt

LETTER CXCIII. TO J. A. MURRAY, ESQ.

My dear Murray,

Lincoln's Inn, 21st Oct. 1812.

I received both your letters from Liverpool, and am much pleased that you made the exertion of going there to assist Brougham, particularly as he tells me you did him an important service in an affair of some delicacy. His disappointment came upon me quite unexpectedly, for I looked upon his return at least as certain; and nothing, except Romilly's similar disappointment, has given me greater or more sincere distress. It is a great public loss, not to have Brougham in Parlia ment; it is rendered greater, by his failing in an attempt, to which he had been encouraged by the popularity of his eminent services last summer; and what aggravates it as a public misfortune, is, that Canning, the author of those same Orders in Council, should be elected, with such triumph, upon the very spot where their ruinous consequences were most severely experienced. It seems clearly enough ascertained, that the real cause of Brougham's failure is the indiscretion of having joined Creevy with him, and attempted to carry both members upon the popular interest. It is a mistake which has been committed over and over again, with the same fatal result. It is among the very sincere and zealous friends of liberty, that you will find the most perfect specimens of wrong-headedness, men of a dissenting, provincial cast of virtue, who (according to one of Sharp's favourite phrases) will drive a wedge the broad end foremost, utter strangers to all prudence and moderation in political business, who are sensible enough, when they find themselves in defeat, that it is worse than partial success, but who, while the thing is in contest, imagine it would

be a sort of treachery to their cause to accept in the first instance a whole half of the object they are contending for.

If Brougham is to be out of Parliament, which I hope and trust will not be the case, I am very far from being able to accede to your opinion, that this public loss will be counterbalanced by advantages to him in a private point of view, such as ought to take away all regret from his friends and himself. I cannot conceive any single private advantage he will gain by it, of the least moment. Money, to be sure, he may make in abundance by parliamentary business; for that loose, rambling sort of practice is richly paid; but no professional fame or science is to be gained in that department; and what are a few hundred acres more in Westmoreland worth to Brougham? Depend upon it, he will not quit politics, even for the time he is out of Parliament; but will exert his boundless activity in another sphere, and in other directions, where his exertions will be probably less advantageous to his own reputation, and to the welfare of the public. I was made quite happy by your account of the manner in which he took leave of the contest when it became hopeless; and I lost no time in communicating your account of it to such of our friends in London as were sure to take a proper interest in what concerns him.

I have some news to give you about myself: as I have now reason to believe, that very soon after the meeting of Parliament, when the double returns are disposed of, I shall have a seat in my power, which comes to me in a manner so perfectly satisfactory and agreeable to me, that I shall have no hesitation in accepting of it. I shall give you the particulars, as soon as I am at liberty; in the mean while, I wish not to say that I