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BL Add. MS 28268, ff. 98–101; published Hart, p. 27
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How often I have threatened to write to you in such a strain as to admit of free observation, and to give you the characters of about fifty persons whose names I have, and may hereafter have occasion to mention in my letters; it would only be giving you necessary information. At other times I have lookd out themes for a monthly exchange of sentiments between us conducted with the freedom of friendship and a total exclusion of satire. All these self promises have faild in consequence of that perpetual round of alack, exercise, Bookselling, thinking, visiting, and composing, with which I have long been surrounded.
I thank you for your comical poem, and should have acknowledged
it before—I have just read to Nat
the ‘Star’s’ account of the Bull baiting in the House of Commons,th May the
inward store of pleasure for ourselves. So much of this
speech is the most unadulterated aristocracy that I have ever seen. I cannot
help thinking what an opposition of sentiment would be expressd between Mr. W___ and Mr. Southey both perhaps
extraordinary men; the latter all fire and zeal in the cause of information and
perfectability! All things are to be accomplished by teaching; passions that
have their foundation in Nature are to be rendered tractable and tame; all are to be wonderfully wrought upon by instruction!
whereas thousands of us are absolutely incapable of being taught. some never
learn even to scrub a Room or to poke a fire: and with whom no new or improved
practice even in trifles can turn the bent of early and narrow impressions.
These would make wonderfull progress in their great work, the Empire of Mind, as they call it. In general information I think there
is this great advantage. As God has given us all souls of some sort or other,
without any regard to wealth or station, general information in a humble degree,
a dispersion of total ignorance, is the way to let such souls as have the power,
emerge to observation, and perhaps to actual service to their country, but it
does not create such souls. If all the natural talents of a
country are drawn into action, and if great talents be an ornament to the age in
which they appear, then the system of general instruction seems calculated to
produce in some measure that end; for if a heap of rough stones were ordered to
be polished, and workmen were employed for that purpose they would find some
porous, some brittle, some that would take a polish, and some on which labour
would be thrown away, and in short find, as Rowe says, that
the polish would not be alike in all. The great Heap of Stones mentioned by Mr Windham, i.e., the common people of his native country, are a rough set no
doubt, but I dislike the doctrine of keeping them in their dirt, for though it
holds good as to the preservation of potatoes, it would be no grateful
reflection to good minds to know that a man’s natural abilities had been
smother’d for want of being able to read and write. how can we consistently
praise the inestimable blessing of letters and not wish to extend it? Or why
should the great and the wealthy confine the probable production of intellectual
excellence to their own class, and exclude, by withholding the polish, all that
might amongst the poor by nature be intended to be Newtons and Lockes? I mean
only by what I have said about perfectibility to let you know that I deem it
wise, and deem it our duty to instruct, and to give every mind exercise, that it
may enjoy pleasure from it if capable; but that this doctrine of teaching, when
pushed to the strange expectation of the capability of the means (powerful as it
is,) to effect a change in the principals of nature, is wrong; for though I look
not on the Human Heart through the dark spectacles of Calvinism, I doubt we
shall always find innate covetousness and innate ambition, the parents of
crimes.— But I might write thus to the end of my life, and then leave somthing
unsaid.
Mr. W.’s argument as to Hunting
and Shooting has some truth in it; but they will not bear perhaps a close
comparison with Bull-baiting. and after all our pity for animals I must think
that when Mr. Sheridan said that
‘we do not learn lessons of good from animals when forced
and taught to be enemies to each other,’ that it does not
strictly apply to Bull Baiting, for, (though I never saw a Baiting) I can
believe that the Dog at least likes it, and seeks it; and as to the Fox Hound,
my Uncle kepd a puppy of the D
of Grafton’s, who used to absent himself in the woods alone for a
whole day in pursuit of game, he was ordered to be confined that he might not
run the flesh off his bones.—And after all I doubt not but Sir Richard and perhaps Mr.Wilberforce too, have travelled post, and caused more pain to two or four
generous animals subjected to man’s tyrany, than ever a
Bull in England felt from dogs.
I feel much obliged to Mr Windham for so high an expression of approbation as to my self, though perhaps here I may be allowd to say, that his doctrine and his illustration are rather at variance. And realy I think it best to let those read and think who find a pleasure in it.
I had a shopmate once (Will
Broders) who, in this great city, was connected with Bull baiting and
its followers—that was his pleasure; but neither he nor Mr W. would ever make it mine! If
we Bloomfields apply Mr W.’s
advice to ourselves, we may say, where is the wisdom of saying that the little
sons of a little Taylor should amuse themselves with athletic
exercises? If we happen to think a moral page a better object to admire
than the frizzled forehead of a bull, and like the ascending of a lark in
preference to the mounting of a bull-dog, what has Mr. W— to do with it?
My dear little Muse, come along!! and we’ll
mount up to Heaven; and when out of sight and hearing of the athletic school, look down upon the spot, and call to mind the
littleness of the strong sinew and the Bully’s voice. The Grave will swallow
them and their deeds! and thou wilt not give them the most glorious crown of
mortal triumph; a name amongst the advocates of moral good, and the feelings
that teach us Charity!!—
And now, after this flourish, I come down to Terry Firma again, to speak a word of Nat’s new poem, ‘The Culprit’.
I have just left ‘Little Davy’ at the Great House in
Piccadilly.very kind Letter from Troston, mentioning that a Mr
Langshaw of Lancaster had set my Winter Song,as they stand,
but would not Isaac
rather have this said now, than after publication?? As I am
no Musician myself, these things said are disagreeable, because if I insist upon
it they are not defective, it would do the cause hurt;
everybody persuades me to print them, and says that anyone in the habit of
composing will correct the Bass for us—I am still acting thus contrary to Isaac’s opinion; for I
have hopes of seeing Mr. Shield to
know from undoubted authority whither they are imperfect or not before anything
can reasonably be resolved on.
I send the Critical Review for your inspection, and can say
allmost for a certainty that the article respecting myself is written by Mr Southy.
I did not see the Duke to day, but expect a letter very shortly.
Excuse me to my Mother, and remember us to your wife and children.