consequence of receiving some papers of Brown, the traveller, which, upon his death, were transmitted home from Smyrna, to poor Tennant's care.

I paid a visit lately, in company with Whishaw, to Mackintosh, at Weedon in the vale of Aylesbury; the ugliest country perhaps in England. But he is living comfortably, and I should think very happily; free from the hectic fever of London idleness, and working just enough to keep him in regular spirits. He told me, he expected before the meeting of parliament in February, to have nearly finished the reign of King William; but it rather surprised me, when he added, that this would not form more than between a fourth and a third of his first volume.

is in

I am very sorry to perceive that

danger of receiving such bad advice. He is but too apt himself, to take the course which is so recommended. Lord may be right or wrong in the conjecture which he had evidently formed as to the quarter in which the notion of a proceeding in parliament originated. But he knows nothing of the feelings of Westminster Hall upon the subject; if he supposes that the condemnation of for holding these two appointments, is confined to those who dislike the man personally, or who are excessive puritans in their politics. It would be some answer to the objection which they make, to urge that Lord Ellenborough had a seat in the Cabinet,

if it could first be proved that that was not very wrong. And if means only to urge that personally, and not upon principle, what is that personal argument to me or to a hundred more? It is making a very bad use of the compromise with principle, which the necessities of a party may force upon them for the sake of greater objects, to extend such instances into precedents and personal appeals, in order to colour every other compromise, for which there may be no stronger necessity than in the temptations of individual advantage or convenience. But he says it is not the pecuniary advantage that induces to keep this office. I am much mistaken if it is not that alone; but if it is not, my objection to the thing becomes much stronger; for if there are difficulties, as he says, the nature of which cannot be easily surmounted, there must grow out of the very intercourse and connexion, which it is the most improper for a judge to hold with the person of the sovereign. I do not know whether for all this I should be ranked by Lord in the "Band of Cossacks." You know whether

-'s

I have any motive of unkindness towards family, that would influence me on this occasion, or am more likely to feel pain and distress at the thoughts of being forced, by what I think the father's misconduct, to put in hazard, by the course which I shall certainly take upon it, one of my best and dearest friendships. It is a bad simile, for to compare some of our skirmishers in personal questions to Cossacks; but in our Whig army there used to be some camp followers from another country of the North, who had no objection after a defeat to console themselves individually with a little plunder, not much minding whether they took it from friend or foe; and the race of these does not seem extinct.

I have not availed myself of your permission to show Lord's letter to Whishaw; because it would make an impression, I think very unfavourable to Lord

We, who know his personal disinterestedness and the activity and warmth of his friendship, are prepared to make allowances for the views he takes of such questions, when the interest of others is affected; but that is not the inclination of people in general about him.

I am very curious to know what answer Lord Grey thinks can be made to Ney's appeal to the convention of Paris. I have not yet heard one suggested. If you have any farther communication from him upon the subject, give me a hint of his reasoning.

I went to your box last night to see the Abercrombys. She desired me to tell you, how much she was obliged to you for your note. Yours affectionately,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CCXLVIII. TO THOMAS THOMSON, ESQ.

My dear Thomson,

Temple, 2d Dec. 1815.

I have again to thank you for your kind bounty to me, and I shall not be content to place your Jewel Book upon the shelf, till I have looked into it for some of the curious matter. I wish, however, you would resolve to use your own materials. Not that I would not have you do all you are doing now, in the way of publishing these original documents. But then I would have you, besides, form some piece of history or dissertation for general readers, in which the antiquities you are daily extracting might be placed in such philosophi

* A Collection of Inventories and other Records of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel House, and of the Artillery and Munition in some of the Royal Castles, 1488-1606.

cal and useful points of view, as would give them a permanent value and interest. The early History of Scotland has never been written at all; I mean Pinkerton's period; yet it is a very instructive portion of the general history of laws and manners, and not altogether deficient in the characters or dramatic events that best exhibit manners, by showing them in action. The Scottish annals are thrown upon a scenery so marked, and so abound in peculiar details, that they would afford many subjects for an artist who could work in the strongest relief.

Political matters are worse since I wrote my last letter. The treaty, of anti-jacobin confederacy, has not only realised all the apprehensions which filled me then, but avows audaciously the design of suppressing by royal combination all attempts in all countries to improve their political institutions. Translate their phrases, and you have their avowal of all this in plain terms. And to show you how far these sovereigns are disposed to carry their practical application of the principle, the Emperor of Russia said at Paris to a man whom I know (an Englishman,) that, from the symptoms that appeared in the Prussian army, he did not know but he should very soon have to perform the same service for his brother of Prussia, at Berlin, which he had already rendered to Louis in France.

Will the general sentiment and feeling of this country be in favour of such a treaty? I believe it will be found so, unless we have to pay for enforcing it.

Yours affectionately,

FRA. HORNER.

I shall be glad to hear all that you have leisure to

tell me about the Jury Court.

LETTER CCXLVIII.* TO THE DUCHESS OF SOMERSET.

Dear Duchess of Somerset,

108 Great Russell Street,

2d Dec. 1815.

I think it very long since I have heard of you, and I am anxious to know if your recovery has been progressive since I had the pleasure of seeing you at Bulstrode.

From what I know of your opinions, I think you cannot fail to have sympathised with me, upon all the melancholy transactions at Paris, of which every newspaper is full, to the disgrace of our national character, and to the destruction of all the hopes of peace and order in Europe, with which the return of the Bourbons to their throne was supposed to be attended.

Surely, after a solemn agreement that nobody in Paris should be molested for their political sentiments or conduct, these executions are a direct breach of faith; and though the engagement was nominally signed by the allied chiefs, Louis adopted it by returning to Paris, which he entered upon the faith of that stipulation, and it could only be against Louis that his subjects, who had taken part against him, could feel it necessary to protect themselves by the article of amnesty inserted in the convention. Have you read Count de Labourdonnaye's proposal for a general execution? There has been nothing so murderous, and so cold-blooded, since the Reign of Terror, and one understands now what is meant by a White Jacobin. But the consummation of all is this Treaty of Alliance among the four powers, to suppress by arms any appearance in future of what they call revolutionary principles, that is of whatever they may choose to call so, that is of any attempt in any country to check the abuses of royal authority, or to