ble effect, in keeping the attention fixed and lively, and could not fail to disperse that heavy atmosphere of sadness and gravity, which hangs over the jurisprudence of our country. I remember many years ago, being informed by a relation of mine, who in his youth had applied himself to the study of the law, that one of his fellow-students, a gentleman of sprightly parts, and very respectable talents of the poetical kind, did actually engage in the prosecution of such a design; for reasons, I suppose, somewhat similar to, if not the same, with those I have now suggested. He began with Coke's Institutes; a book so rugged in its stile, that an attempt to polish it seemed an Herculean labour, and not less arduous and difficult, than it would be to give the smoothness of a rabbit's fur, to the prickly back of a hedgehog. But he succeeded to admiration, as you will perceive by the following specimen, which is all that said relation could recollect of the performance.

my

You have an ear for music, and a taste for verse, which saves me the trouble of pointing out, with a critical nicety, the advantages of such a version. I proceed, therefore, to what I at first intended, and to transcribe the record of an ajudged case, thus managed, to which indeed, what I premised was intended merely as an introduction.*

LETTER LXXII.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr

MY DEAR FRIEND,

W. C.

Feb. 15, 1781.

I am glad you were pleased

with my report of so extraordinary a case. If the thought of versifying the decisions of our courts of justice had struck me, while I had the honour to attend them, it would perhaps have been no difficult matter to have compiled a volume of such amusing and interesting precedents; which if they wanted the

This Letter concluded with the poetical law case of Nose, plaintiff---Eyes, defendants.

eloquence of the Greek or Román oratory, would have amply compensated that deficiency by the harmony of rhyme and metre.

Your account of my Uncle and your Mother gaye me great pleasure. I have long been afraid to inquire after some in whose welfare I always feel myself interested, lest the question should produce a painful answer. Longevity is the lot of so few, and is so seldom rendered comfortable by the associations of good health, and good spirits, that I could not very reasonably suppose either your relations or mine so happy in those respects, as it seems they are. May they continue to enjoy those blessings so long as the date of life shall last. I do not think that in these coster-monger days, as I have a notion Falstaff calls them, an antideluvian age is at all a desirable thing, but to live comfortably, while we do live, is a great matter, and comprehends in it every thing that can be wished for on this side the curtain that hangs between Time and Eternity!

Farewell my better friend, than any I have to boast of either among the Lords—or gentlemen of the House of Commons

Q2

W. C.

LETTER LXXIII.

To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN.

April 2, 1781.

My dear friend, fine wea

ther, and a variety of extra-foraneous occupations, (search Johnson's dictionary for that word, and if not found there, insert it—for it saves a deal of circumlocution, and is very lawfully compounded) make it difficult (excuse the length of a parenthesis, which 1 did not forsee the length of when I began it, and which may perhaps a little perplex the sense of what I am writing, though, as I seldom deal in that figure of speech, I have the less need to make an apology for doing it at present) make it difficult (I say) for me to find opportunities for writing. My morning is engrossed by the garden; and in the afternoon, 'till I have drunk tea, I am fit for nothing. At five o'clock we walk; and when the walk is over, lassitude recommends rest, and again I become fit for nothing. The current hour, therefore, which (I need not tell you) is comprised in the interval between four and five, is devoted to your service, as the only one in the twentyfour which is not otherwise engaged.

I do not wonder that you have felt a great deal upon the occasion you mention in your last, especially on account of the asperity you have met with, in the behaviour of your friend. Reflect however, that as it is natural to you to have very fine feelings, it is equally natural to some other tempers, to leave those feelings entirely out of the question, and to speak to you, and to act towards you, just as they do towards the rest of mankind, without the least attention to the irritability of your system. Men of a rough, and unsparing address, should take great care that they be always in the right, the justness, and propriety of their sentiments and censures, being the only tolerable apology that can be made for such a conduct, especially in a country where civility of behaviour is inculcated even from the cradle. But in the instance now under our contemplation, I think you a sufferer under the weight of an animadversion not founded in truth, and which, consequently, you did not deserve. I account him faithful in the pulpit, who dissembles nothing, that he believes, for fear of giving offence. To accommodate a discourse to the judgment, and opinion of others, for the sake of pleasing them, though by doing so, we are obliged to depart widely from our own, is to be unfaithful to ourselves at