easily alarmed about his health; and has a most excellent constitution. I do not remember any thing worth your reading in the two volumes,* after the life of Wolsey. I entirely agree with you in thinking the only blemish in Sir Thomas More's perfections was his being too good a Catholic. Yet I doubt whether he was sincerely so, to the full extent of his professions. The part he took against the reformation appears to have proceeded in some degree from an apprehension that it was likely to endanger the political order and safety of Europe, and subvert the institutions of society; for the whole of Christendom formed at that time one state under the Pope, and casting off his supremacy was a revolution of which the immediate effects were very hurtful to the quiet and prosperity of every nation; and it required a very firm eye to see beyond them the remote beneficial consequences. I have sometimes fancied there was a considerable likeness in Sir Thomas More's conduct in the reformation to Windham's about the French revolution; they were both friendly to the innovation in its commencement, both eager liberty-boys in their youth, but became disgusted and shocked by the violence to which it led, and could not endure the prospect of the whole system of laws and government undergoing an untried change. There are other traits of resemblance that one might trace. I have great admiration for Margaret, who seems to have been the only one of the family worthy of the father. I am in no hurry to have the books back. Ever faithfully yours, FRA. HORNER. * Of Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography. LETTER CLXVI.** TO J. A. MURRAY, ESQ. My dear Murray, Launceston, 26th March, 1811. When I was at Exeter last week, I had the pleasure of receiving your letter from Bruntisland; which has since furnished me with several agreeable meditations. I had heard nothing before of the Sheriffship of Peebles-shire; Montgomery's conduct was most friendly towards you, and, in a public point of view, liberal as well as judicious. Your own conduct has been most strictly correct, and quite worthy of yourself and all your former life; the sentiments which you express regarding the judicial nature of the Sheriff's office, and the impropriety, on the part of a professional man, in either soliciting it or accepting it, as a political favour, or refusing it when conferred without solicitation, appear to me sound, and such as become every man who pursues the profession of the law upon just and honourable principles. With this conviction, it will seem rather inconsistent that I should feel a sort of satisfaction in reflecting that you have not been made a Sheriff on this occasion, and that I regard it as an escape from some danger; I cannot reason myself out of this incorrect feeling about it, and therefore I own it to you. At first, I disliked that there should have been a chance of your owing any promotion to those whose public conduct you condemn; but I satisfied myself, that your view of the nature of the Sheriff's place was more proper, and that, by the manner in which you gave your answer to Sir James's proposal, you had clearly guarded yourself against any mistake on that head. But what I cannot dismiss from my mind is, an apprehension that your conduct would not have been universally understood; be cause the motives upon which you would have acted in accepting the place, are not such as the vulgar can readily apprehend. One of the lamentable consequences of the manner in which the patronage of Scotland has so long been dispensed, is, that it is hard for a man to act up to his own standard of public duty, who wishes to command the means of rendering service to the public by the weight of a character not only pure, but never questioned. A part of Lord Melville's policy, in managing his burgh of Scotland, has been to make Sheriffships political gifts; and in this he has succeeded so well, and with respect to judicial offices indeed of a higher rank than the Sheriff's, that the vulgar here almost forget that they are judicial, and regard them much in the same light as he does, who has so degraded them. The present rancour and illiberality of political differences make the vulgar a much more numerous and powerful body, than they have been in better times; and one of the evils of their ungenerous domination over public sentiment is, that the sphere within which a man may turn his talents, knowledge, and integrity to the public service, is contracted, by the necessity of guarding against possible imputations, and his real usefulness diminished, by the prudence which is imposed upon him, of foregoing small opportunities of being serviceable, in order to maintain that reputation which is to be the means of doing greater service. I will not say that there is nothing strained in this, to apologize for a feeling about this recent affair of yours, which I cannot justify upon sounder and plainer reasons. But I could not have borne any reflections to have been made upon your conduct if the place had been conferred as it ought, though, for myself, I knew it to have been inflexibly right; and although I allow it to be a species of cowardice, which I have caught from the present tone of the public, with respect to public situations, yet I am more satisfied upon the whole that you have not been named to the office which you so well merited. I am perfectly aware that this sort of selfdenial may be carried a great deal too far, and that the public interests are permanently injured by the backwardness of men of the higher caste to accept of official places; but I am well pleased it has so happened, that you have not been made a sacrifice. I am much pleased with the prospect of seeing you in town, though it will be for so short a visit. I am glad to find by your letter from Bruntisland, that you have resumed the salutary practice of retreating to a solitude beyond the seas, in the intervals of vacation. Nothing is more delightful or more beneficial to one's mind, than solitude so enjoyed occasionally, both in raising and clearing all our views of life, and in strengthening our best attachments. I have never so much of your company, as when I get a fine day by myself in the country; But chief, when evening scenes decay, Ever very affectionately yours, FRA. HORNER. LETTER CLXVII. TO THE HON. MRS. W. SPENCER. My dear Mrs. Spencer, Lincoln's Inn, 4th May, 1811. I have allowed too many days to elapse without answering the kind inquiries you made in your last letter. I will reply to all your questions, though it will cost me some egotism. I did next to nothing upon the circuit; but that was not worse than before; I have no right to expect success yet. I am getting on at Sessions, which is the step that leads to success on the circuit; and, considering every thing, I have got on better than I had any reason to expect. It is a very slow progress that one makes in my profession, according to the usual routine of advancement; and I am not entitled to have miracles wrought in my favour, nor qualified to work miracles myself. I enjoy a very happy poverty, and, though I shall be very fond of advancement, if it comes upon me, I shall not repine much if it never does. I am going to Sessions at the end of this week, which will keep me from town about eight or ten days; I thought you had learned what these are, as distinguished from the circuit. Did not I teach it you, when you gave me a little dinner in Curzon Street, before setting out one winter night upon one of these irksome journies? I do not forget any thing that passed upon those pleasant occasions, which I often bring to mind as among the best days I have seen. my My mother is not in bad health, but not very strong; sea-bathing always does her good, and I have recommended Torquay to her, as so very beautiful and quiet. I mean to pass a month with her and sisters and my father, at that place in the autumn; which will do me a great deal of good in another way: they are all so amiable, and my sisters out-growing me so fast in understanding and reading, that I shall rub off some of the ignorance that one contracts in the business of London, and some of the selfishness that steals upon one by not living with other people very intimately. I have not yet fixed whether I shall pass September at Torquay, or OcEver, my dear Mrs. Spencer, tober. VOL. II. 6 Most truly yours, |