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If you hear any farther account of him before I return to town, I wish much to know it.

I thank you very much, and Sir Abraham Elton too, for your kind inquiries after my health. It gave me much regret at Bridgewater, that I was forced to be so neglectful of the attentions which I owed him on that occasion. But I was much incommoded then, and have been since I left town, by an attack of a complaint to which I have been subject of late, and which is more an inconvenient illness than a serious one at present. I have been induced to stop here, instead of going with the circuit into Cornwall, in hopes of being made well by a week's repose. I am certainly better already, than I was at Bridgewater.

The event that has most agitated me since I parted from you, is the death of Whitbread, which you mentioned with sentiments that gave me a real pleasure; for I shall ever respect his memory, and with something like affection too, for the large portion of my life which, in a certain sense, I consider as having been passed with him, and for the impression he had made upon me of his being one of the most just, upright, and intrepid of public men. As a statesman, I never regarded him at all; he had no knowledge of men or affairs, to fit him for administration; his education had been very limited, and its defects were not supplied by any experience of real political business: but he must always stand high in the list of that class of public men, the peculiar growth of England and of the House of Commons, who perform great services to their country, and hold a considerable place in the sight of the world, by fearlessly expressing in that assembly the censure that is felt by the public, and by being as it were the organ of that public opinion which, in some measure, keeps our statesmen to their

duty. His force of character and ability, seconded by his singular activity, had, in the present absence of all men of genius and ascendency from the House, given him a preeminence, which almost marks the last years of Parliament with the stamp of his peculiar manner. His loss will lead to a change of this: in all points of taste and ornament, and in the skill too and prudence of debate, the change may probably be for the better; but it will be long, before the people and the constitution are supplied in the House of Commons with a tribune of the same vigilance, assiduity, perseverance and courage, as Samuel Whitbread. The manner of his death quite overwhelmed me, I could think of nothing else for days together; nor do I remember, in our own time, another catastrophe so morally impressive, as the instantaneous failure of all that constancy, and rectitude, and inflexibility of mind, which seemed possessions that could be lost only with life; yet all the while there was a speck morbid in the body, which rendered them as precarious as life itself.

Pray give me your speculations upon the present state of France, so problematical, so pregnant with future consequences. For you always improve and correct my judgments, even when we differ most widely; though we do not agree about immediate means, nor in some respects about the principles which we like to see in action, the thing we both wish for, in the end, is the same; that well-ordered liberty, which gives the best chance for general tranquillity, and the only chance for national welfare. It is evident the present state of things cannot be lasting; the occupation of such a country as France by foreign troops. They may be kept there long enough to devastate the surface of the territory, and to keep the Bourbons a few years nominally

upon the throne. But do you believe it practicable for the Allies to accomplish the restoration of that family, and then to leave them to carry on the government with French hands and French guards? or, on the other hand, do you consider it as practicable for the French to be permanently subjugated by the foreign soldiery? It may be a long while before the peasantry, and the townsmen, betake themselves to assassination in detail; but to that horrible extremity I think it must come at last, if the Prussians and Russians remain. The geography of France is not very advantageous for guerillas, but there are other advantages in the habits of the people, from their discipline and docility. and docility. Depraved as the French are, the reaction of French patriotism will be dreadful and resistless. And I must own that my wishes are decidedly for the deliverance of that country, by the exertions of its own people, from the conquest of their invaders. I am conscious that I can honestly and purely cherish this wish, without abating a jot of that wholesome distrust of France which we must always keep up, as our enemy in Europe; but along with this distrust, I retain also so much of the notions of the old school, as to feel persuaded that France, as a separate country, is an essential member of the European system. But how idle it is to speculate, when the fate of the world is in the hands of Metternich and Castlereagh.

I hope Mrs. Hallam is now quite recovered, and that the children are in great vigour. Let me hear from you very soon.

Truly yours,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CCXL.* TO HIS MOTHER.

My dear Mother,

Exeter, 23d July, 1815.

I am much concerned to hear that by the death of Mr. G., his wife is left in a very destitute situation with several children, and I wish you to enable me, through yourself, to contribute a little to her present assistance. I can easily and with very sincere pleasure give £20 a year for this purpose, if you will undertake to manage the giving of it in such a way as will be least disagreeable to her feelings. But I must make one condition about it, and that positively, that you say nothing about me in the matter, but give it entirely from yourself. I know how much satisfaction you derive from any opportunity of being kind and attentive to any one connected with you, and it is for the sake of putting an additional satisfaction of that sort in your way, that` I wish to make this arrangement, not but what I would feel myself bound to do the little I could at any time for any of Mrs. G.'s family, who have always shown so much worth and propriety in their conduct. You must, however, let me do this for the present in my own mode, as it may be convenient to the poor lady to have something immediately. I enclose two £10 notes of the Bank of England. My kind love to my father, and every body in Charlotte Square, and at Whitehouse. Yours most affectionately, FRA. HORNER.

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LETTER CCXLI. FROM HENRY HALLAM, ESQ.

My dear Horner,

Stamp Office, 26th July, 1815.

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen Mrs. Spencer two or three times, and think she is better than I expected to find. The long continuance of her illness is certainly alarming, but I wish to hope that she may finally weather it. I have heard more of Rose since I wrote to you last. The accounts are certainly as favourable as could well be hoped; and his family entertain a hope, on the authority of his physician, that the seizure has not been paralytic. However this may prove, I hope it has not proceeded from constitutional failure.

It is very difficult to form any speculations upon the state of affairs in France. I never remember any political crisis where there was so little to guide our anticipations. It is a very thick fog indeed. What can be more wonderful, than that the actual capture of Bonaparte, an event beyond all calculation, and which seemed the consummation of the present contest, should not raise our stocks, and hardly our spirits? The real difficulties arising out of this extraordinary crisis are not much applanis by possessing his person; though it is certainly an important event, if it were only as it simplifies the course we ought to pursue.

It is always with diffidence, as well as with regret, that I differ from you, as we sometimes do differ, in my political theories; and I should feel this sentiment still more strongly, if I did not think that our disagreement was generally more owing to different opinions as to matters of fact, than to any thing incompatible in the bases we should adopt. You only do me justice in supposing that we are united in desiring the prevalence of well

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