please, in my name or your own. Do not forget Mrs. Rayner, Drs. Disney, Kippis, Price, Towers, Enfield, Blackburne; Messrs. Salte, Radcliffe, Barbauld, Bretland, Toulmin. Mr. Johnson will take the trouble of some; and if you see Mr. Belsham, you may contrive so as not to send duplicates to any person.

I rejoice to hear that the war is unpopular, and the king disturbed at the idea of it.

I thank you for giving my History to Mr. Plachel. Consider the whole impression (which is my property, as also is that of Early Opinions) as devoted to any good use that can be made of the distribution of them. I have a letter, shewing the good that has arisen from a parcel of books I sent to Swansea, and I am making up another parcel. A person calling upon me, obliges me to conclude in haste.

P. S. My wife is at Heath, all pretty well. I am quite alone, and shall be so a fortnight, but shall be much at Mr. Russell's.*

TO REV. WILLIAM ASHDOWNE.†

DEAR SIR, Birmingham, Nov. 2, 1790. I SHALL be very glad to see what you have drawn up on the subject of Satan, though I do not think it can be in my power to be of any use to you with respect to it, and therefore that it will be only losing valuable time to send it. It will answer a better purpose to shew it to Mr. Lindsey, which I would therefore advise.

I have read with attention what Mr. Nesbitt has written on the miraculous conception; but I do not find in it any argument that I was not apprized of, and had considered, and therefore my opinion is the same as before. I am much pleased with his candour.§

• Orig. MS..

+ Dover.

"An Attempt to shew that the Opinion, concerning the Devil or Satan, as a Fallen Angel, and that he Tempts Men to Sin, hath no real Foundation in Scripture." Lond. Chron. LXX. 172. See I. 105. Mr. Ashdowne also published Two Letters to the Bishop of Llandaff, on the Operations of the Spirit."

Orig. MS.

TO REV. T. LINDSEY.*

DEAR FRIEND,

Birmingham, Nov. 26, 1790.

I HAVE heard from Dr. Price, and have received from him.

the new preface, &c., to his sermon. It is much to the purpose, and I think I may make some use of it in my Letters to Mr. Burke.

I shall be glad to see the letter from Mr. Kirwan,† and shall hope to have it to-day, as I am going to put this into the post, and look for the parcel from you.

Dr. Price mentions his apprehensions of the attempts of the aristocrats to subvert the French government, but has no doubt of their being unsuccessful.

Lord Stanhope can hardly be serious in his design to impeach Mr. Burke of high-treason. However, it will make the subject talked of.

I am reading, and with great satisfaction, Ramsay's History of the American Revolution, with a copy of which Mr. B. Vaughan presented me; and I shall quote a passage or two from it in my Letter to Mr. Burke.§

TO THE SAME.

DEAR FRIEND, Birmingham, Dec. 23, 1790. In compliance with your wishes, I have cancelled the whole. of the last letter, though the sheet was printed. The preceding letter will make a sufficiently good close. I have also cancelled the leaf where our ministry are said to be unfavourable to the French Revolution, and another that Dr. Price pointed out, where the 6th of October is put for the 14th of July, having also made some other alterations in it. The other passages I really think are trifles, and may be changed in a new edition, if there be any.

I cannot read Mr. Burke any more, being confident it would answer no good purpose; though, tired as I am of the business, having done thus much, I would not fail to do more, if I

• Essex Street.

See Letter IV., W. XXII. 175. VOL. II.

H

+ See supra, p. 2, note
§ Orig. MS.

had any prospect of doing better. It is time also to put an end to your anxiety about it, which is excessive. Yours and Mrs. Lindsey's most affectionately.*

DEAR FRIEND,

TO THE SAME.

Birmingham, Dec. 27, 1790. On Friday, or at, the farthest on Saturday, Mr. Johnson will receive 800 copies of the Letters to Mr. Burke.

I thank you for mentioning Mr. Hollis and Mr. Jeffries for presents. I have just written to Mr. Johnson, and mentioned a few more names, and among them Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Heywood. Add any others that occur to you. He has offered me 501. for it, which I have accepted.

I am glad to hear that things go on so well in France, and hope that in a short time all their difficulties will be over.

Be assured that I entirely approve of your rejection of my concluding Letter, at least the greatest part of it, and that I am truly thankful for so judicious a monitor. I am too apt to write in a hurry. †

DEAR FRIEND,

TO THE SAME.

Birmingham, Jan. 9, 1791. I BEG you would express my most grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. Rayner, for her unceasing bounty to me. I shall not fail to write to her in my next parcel, which will contain some copies of the new edition of my Letters, and the tract of Lord Somers.

I have just received from Mr. Hartley his Life of his father.§ I cannot say I admire the composition, but it may do pretty well. I shall suggest to him a few additions.

I am glad to hear that Mr. Lee is again entering into public life. I hope he will be of some use to his country, though my expectations of him are not what they formerly were.||

* Orig. MS.

+ Orig. MS.

Probably "The Judgment of whole Kingdoms and Nations." See Lett. IV., W. XXII. 174.

§ Accompanying the "Observations on Man."

Orig. MS. Here is probably a reference to the coalition. See supra, p. 89.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR FRIEND,

1791.

WISHING to send you a few copies of the third edition of my Letters to Mr. Burke, I take the opportunity of sending Mr. Thompson's book.*

I believe your intelligence has led me into a mistake respecting the National Assembly. I am assured that the present members cannot sit in the next; but my information came too late for the third edition.

Having done with this business, I am now taking up the translation, to which I shall stick till my journey to London. By the way, desire Mr. Johnson to send me what Dr. Geddes has published.†

TO DR. PRICE.

MY DEAR FRIEND, Birmingham, Jan. 27, 1791. I AM very happy to find that I have given you satisfaction with respect to Mr. Burke's gross abuse of you.§ These things do not, however, I hope, give you any material disturbance. They are the necessary consequences of any man's distinguishing himself, let him conduct himself in the best manner possible; and there is no field in which a man is exposed to more serious hatred than that of politics. This must always nearly affect the governing powers; and there are many depending upon them in all departments. I have sinned beyond forgiveness in many respects, but happily I am not apt to be disturbed at censure from any quarter, when I know it to be ill-founded. With respect to the Church, with which you have meddled but little, I have a long time ago drawn the sword, and thrown away the scabbard, and I am very easy about the consequences.

As to the Memoirs, you may as well keep them till I come. You will be so good as not to mention them to any person

See "Familiar Letters." Pref., W. XIX. 529.

↑ Orig. MS.

§ See Lett. V., W. XXII. 180, 181.

↑ Hackney.

|| See I. 418.

whatever. I wish you would write yours as much at large, and not confine yourself to a preface.

I wish much to see Dr. Franklin's Life, and hope it will be published by itself, and not merely annexed to his works, where it will be comparatively of very little use.

I rejoice with you that the French Revolution goes on, to all appearance, so well, and I hope the example will be followed in other countries. I also rejoice that the Russians are so near Constantinople. That is the only war that I wish to go on.*

TO REV. T. LINDSEY.†

DEAR FRIEND,

Birmingham, Feb. 8, 1791.

I HAVE received, through Dr. Kippis, the invitation you led me to expect, to preach the annual sermon for the new college, but I have declined it, thinking it would be wrong to invite me before Mr. Wakefield, as hitherto the tutors only have preached on that occasion, and that it would be impossible to say any thing new, and to the purpose, after what had been already done by others, hinting also that, being still very obnoxious to many, my preaching at all might do the cause no good.

I wish also not to appear forward, as I am thought to be, to catch at every opportunity of exhibiting myself, and throwing out bold and insolent things before the public; and some such things I should be tempted to say, if I did preach this sermon, in present circumstances.

If, however, it be your opinion that such things might be said with propriety and effect, as necessary to be laid stress upon, considering the opposite maxims now taught in our Universitics, and the sermons of churchmen, alluding to the sanction given to Mr. Burke's principles in the letter of thanks from Oxford, and the Bishop of Chester's sermon, &c., &c., shewing the state of things when the Universities were founded, how they suited those times, but not these, and the improbability of any change being made in old systems, from * Orig. MS. + Essex Street.