Un petit mot à l'oreille de Made. Romilly pour William : c'est d'éducation que nous parlons ensemble, et nous anticipons un peu. Je viens de lire, ou plutôt de relire, ce Sandford et Merton, dans lequel j'ai trouvé beaucoup d'esprit, de talent, de l'art de développer les idées, de les préparer, de les faire entrer dans une jeune tête; mais ne trouvez-vous pas à cet ouvrage le défaut d'être une satire, et de jeter une espèce d'odieux sur les rangs plus élevés de la société, de donner constamment le beau rôle au petit fermier, et le mauvais au petit gentleman? et ce contraste continuel entre les deux est-il sans danger? On conviendra qu'il ne seroit pas trop bon entre les mains des petits fermiers; je conviendrai qu'il seroit moins mauvais entre les mains des petits gentlemen exclusivement, mais je crois encore que cette satire, cette sauce piquante, est de trop dans l'instruction, et j'opine pour que William ne le lise pas avant l'âge de quinze ans.

Tout à vous,

ET. DUMONT.

LETTER CXVI.

TO MADAME G--.

Knill Court, Sept. 4, 1799.

The letter, Madam, which my dear Anne wrote to you last Saturday, and mine to Mr. G- were directed to Arundel Street, and may therefore possibly have mis

One word in Mrs. Romilly's ear about William. The subject is education, and a little premature. I have just been reading, for the second time, Sandford and Merton, in which I find a good deal of cleverness, of talent, of the art of developing ideas, of preparing them, and of introducing them into the minds of children. But does not this work appear to you to have the fault of being a satire, and of throwing a sort of odium upon the higher ranks of society, by always making the little farmer play the good part, and the little gentleman the bad one? and is this perpetual contrast between the two without danger? Every one will admit that it would not be a very good book for little farmers; I allow that it would do less harm in the hands of little gentlemen, but I still think that this satire, this high seasoning, education would be better without, and my advice is, that William should not read it till he is fifteen years old. Yours, &c. &c.

VOL. I.

ET. DUMONT. 2 D

carried. I send this therefore to your new residence, for it would be great injustice to ourselves, as well as to you, to suffer you to entertain the idea that this beautiful country, even with all its charms, can so soon have made us forget the pleasure which your company afforded us. As you say nothing of your sweet children, I conclude that they are both in good health. Our little William improves every day. He walks about, laughs, and is as happy as his little means of happiness will allow him to be. Every body that sees him is surprised that so healthy and strong a child should have been nursed in London.

Your La Harpe affords me great entertainment; though I have not yet got to that which I guess to be the most entertaining part of his works-his criticisms on modern authors. He has certainly a great deal of taste, his observations are generally just, his illustrations are new, and he is always amusing. It is remarkable, however, how much afraid he seems of ever going alone. He is continually a critic upon other critics; and he seldom judges of one author but through the medium of another. He gives his own opinion on dramatic poetry, on the sublime, and on oratory, in the form of a review of Aristotle's Poetics, Longinus's Treatise, Quinctilian's Institutions, and Cicero's Dialogue. To praise Homer he finds it necessary to refute Lamotte; to defend Sophocles he attacks Voltaire; and to explain his own opinion of Horace and Juvenal he undertakes to show how much Dusaulx had mistaken the characters of both those satirists. He seems to me like a man who had long followed the business of a reviewer of new publications, and who could not sufficiently divest himself of the habits of his past life, when he set about a great work, which required to be treated upon general principles and with method. The disposition of his work appears to me to be made in defiance of all order. He begins with dramatic poetry; then proceeds to the sublime; next to a comparison of the French and ancient languages; then to epic poetry; then to dramatic. The division of the work between the ancients and moderns appears to me to be most injudicious, since he must necessarily, in both parts of it, have to compare the moderns and ancients together. I will not, however, tire you

with my observations; I should rather say, I will not tire you any longer with them; but will thank you again for the great pleasure which the book has afforded me. Indeed you can hardly think what pleasure, after the drudgery of the last winter and spring, I have in passing a few days just as I like; in reading what I please; in walking when I please; in strolling about, or taking a ride with my dear Anne; in carrying about my little William ; and in laughing only because he shakes his little sides with laughter.

I am afraid you will both carry away a much less favourable opinion of this country than you brought into it, but I think you have seen it under disadvantages; and though I believe that many things are altered among us for the worse since the French revolution, which has had a most important effect on the whole nation, yet I really do not believe that our national character is so much changed as Mr. G. seems to think it. I must own, however, that what is now going forward in almost every part of the kingdom is not calculated to give a favourable opinion of the wisdom of my countrymen. Never, to be sure, were there such temptations held out to riot and insurrection as the resolutions which, in consequence of the late riots, have been entered into in different parts of the country respecting the price of provisions. London is almost the only place in which the rioters have not been triumphant; everywhere else, although the riots have. been stopped by an armed force, yet the price of provisions has for a moment been lowered; the rioters have consequently carried their point; and the success of one commotion has constantly produced others in other places. Nothing can be more foolish than the expedients which have been adopted for lowering the price of provisions: they are such, indeed, as will probably produce that effect

for a short time (I believe a very short one), but as must of necessity greatly increase them hereafter. The effect thus produced, while it lasts, will be naturally attributed by the rioters to their exertions; they will feel the necessity of interposing their authority again, and will consider a fresh violation of the law as an act of patriotism and a public duty. I have so little doubt of this effect being produced, and of fresh riots breaking out, that I should really think the state of the country most alarming, if the number of armed volunteers that are spread throughout it did not make it impossible that any commotions, in which only the lowest part of the community takes part, should be carried to any formidable length. The poor misguided wretches who engage in these riots are greatly to be pitied. They feel the scarcity and the high price of the necessaries of life most severely; great pains have been taken by persons in high authority to persuade them that what they suffer is not to be ascribed to those natural causes which were obvious to their senses, but to the frauds and rapaciousness of the dealers in provisions. They are told that there are severe laws in force against these crimes, and yet that the crimes are everywhere committed: it is clear, therefore, that no justice is done for the people till they do it for themselves. Then indeed resolutions are entered into, which the persons who make them admit to have been necessary, but which they never thought of entering into while they only saw their poor neighbours starving around them, and till the moment arrived when their own barns were about to be burnt, and their houses to be pulled down over their heads. Certainly a poor man, who, actuated by such considerations, has the courage to expose himself and his family to ruin for the public good, acts most meritoriously, though the men who have contributed most to mislead him will be the first to send him without pity to the gallows. To this very moment I cannot find that the least attempt has been anywhere made to undeceive the people; but, on the contrary, an opinion the most repugnant to common sense, that is, that provisions of all kinds bear a higher price than the persons who deal in them can well

afford to sell them at, is, without the least inquiry upon the subject, everywhere acted upon as an established truth.

Yours, &c.

S. R.

LETTER CXVIII.

TO M. DUMONT.

I

Dear Dumont,

Saturday, Jan. 9, 1802.

A thousand thanks for your letters; next to the pleasure of being at Paris, and comparing with one's own eyes the Paris of to-day with that which existed before the Revolution, is that of receiving such interesting details.

It

I am extremely rejoiced to hear that you and Bentham are about to make your appearance in public so soon. is very entertaining to hear Bentham speak of it. He says that he is very impatient to see the book,' because he has a great curiosity to know what his own opinions are upon the subjects you treat of. The truth I believe is, that he has a great curiosity to read these opinions in print; for when you gave them to him in manuscript, he had so little curiosity that I believe he read very little of them. He says that he thought what he read very insipid, principally because there was nothing new or striking in the expressions. This, however, was not said to me, and was so confidential that he would exclaim against a double treachery if he knew that I told you of it.

Have you yet seen Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson? It is well done, but inferior to the Life of Adam Smith. The most interesting part of it consists of the Letters, particularly those of Hume. The sincerity and cordiality with which he interests himself about the writings, and rejoices in the success of a contemporary and rival historian, do him the greatest honour. If Dugald Stew

1 Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale, which was shortly afterwards published at Paris.