Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: has burnt the temple of modesty to make himself talked of. Here I finish; it is impossible to add any thing that would be of a piece with this rant. TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. Aston, August 14, 1778. I will say nothing about our naval skirmish, nor our land preparations, except that our poor country from being once a well bred gentleman is now turned a downright blackguard. A gentleman when he has received an affront, sends his challenge and then fights his duel. A blackguard in similar circumstances drives his fist directly at the jowl of his adversary and waves the ceremonial of the challenge. I leave you to make the application, only I protest that had Keppel been victorious, I should have hesitated about ringing the three crack'd bells in my country steeple, for I can never think a fair victory can be gained over an enemy before war has been declared. Perhaps I am too punctilious: no matter, we have not been victorious so we wont dispute about it. Your extract from Rousseau is indeed sui generis and I thank you a thousand tunes for it. Poor man, I always pitied him, even when I admired him the most, and I admired him the most in his letter to David Hume, when he was certainly the maddest. As from this foretaste of his memoirs, I conclude they will at least in this equal that letter, I shall read them with avidity whenever they reach my hands, because they will give me those humane emotions of pity, which many of his other works have given me, and I will never believe with you that his was either studied delirium or affected phrenzy till I am absolutely compelled to it, and this for the sake of that compassionate feeling which his writings do and will excite in me so long as I can believe them written by a madman in good earnest. Prove him a pretender to insanity and...