for me, because I know everybody knows you, and therefore more likely to succeed in subscriptions for mice cool. Pray is this letter long enough? If it be not, send it back, and I will fill the other side. In the meantime I remain your most obedient and very humble serve aunt, THOMAS SHERIDAN. Mice or vice two awl my if rends.* Send me word what o'clock it is, that I may set my watch by yours. FROM DR. KING. SIR, London, Sept. 20, 1735. SOON after I came into England I was obliged to cross the seas again, and go into France, upon a business of consequence to my private affairs. I am but just returned to this place, where I have met with your letter of 21st of last month. Since you are so kind as to repeat the promise you made me when I was in Ireland, I shall expect the paper with the greatest impatience. While I was reading your letter, a person called on me, who does business for you. I was in hopes he had brought it with him; but he told me, it would be sent by another hand. I will say nothing more of it here, than that I am very sure it will please the public, and do honour to the author. The gentleman concerning whom you inquire, is a * "My service to all my friends." member of our hall; but I have never yet seen him. He had left Oxford about the time I came from Dublin, to spend the summer vacation in Herefordshire. My son, who is well acquainted with him, assures me that he is very sober, that he studies hard, and constantly attends the exercises of the house. But I shall be able to give you a more particular account of him the next term, when I shall probably meet him in the hall; and he shall find me ready to do him any kind of service that may be in my power. I do not know whether my law-suit will force me into Ireland again the next term; as yet I have not received any summons from my managers. I should indeed be well pleased to defer my journey till the next spring, for Dublin is not a very good winter abode for a water-drinker.* However, I do not neglect my defence, especially that part of it which you mention. It is now in such forwardness that * Cardinal Polignac, observing that Dr. King drank only water, told him, "that whilst ambassador at Rome, and since he returned to France, he had entertained five hundred Englishmen, but the doctor was the only water-drinker in the whole number." + Dr. King's meaning in this place requires some elucidation. Provoked at some ill usage which he supposed himself to have received during a law-suit in Ireland, he had commenced a satirical poem called the Toast, bearing the name of Scheffer the Laplander, as author, of Peregrine O'Donald, Esq., as translator. Of this satire, he himself informs us, "I began the Toast in anger, but I finished it in good humour. When I had concluded the second book, I laid aside the work, and I did not take it up again till some years afterwards, at the pressing instances of Dr. Swift. In the last letter which I received from him, (to which that in the text seems to be an answer,) he writes thus: In malice I hope your law-suit will force you to come over [to Dublin] the next term, which I think is a long one, and will allow you time to finish it; in the meantime I wish I could hear of the progress and finishing of another affair [the Toast] relating to the same law-suit, but tried in the courts above, upon a hill with two heads, where the defendants will as infallibly and more effec as I compute, it will be finished in six weeks at farthest. There are some alterations, which I hope you will approve. I rejoice to hear that the honest doctor has good success in his new school. If the load of his baggage should endanger his vessel again, I think he has no other remedy left, but to throw it into the sea. What is he doing with his bons mots? and when does he design to send them abroad? My son, who is very proud to be in your thoughts, desires me to present his most humble service to you. I am, with great truth, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, W. K. TO DR. SHERIDAN. Sept. 30, 1735 YESTERDAY was the going out of the last lordmayor, and to-day the coming in of the new, who is Alderman Grattan. The duket was at both dinners, but I thought it enough to go to-day, and I came tually be cast," &c. And speaking of this work to a lady, his near relation, who is now living, [Mrs. Whiteway probably,] after he had perused the greater part of it in manuscript, he told her that "if he had read the Toast when he was only twenty years old, he would never have written a satire."-Dr. King's Anecdotes, P. 97. In consequence of this exaggerated commendation, the Toast was printed, and some copies given to friends, but it was never published. *Sheridan.-D. S. †The Duke of Dorset, lord-lieutenant.-H. I away before six, with very little meat or drink. The club meets in a week, and I determine to leave the town as soon as possible, for I am not able to live within the air of such rascals; but whither to go, or how far my health will permit me to travel, I cannot tell; for my mind misgives me, that you are neither in humour nor capacity to receive me a guest. had your law-letter. Those things Those things require serious consideration; in order to bring them to a due perfection, a wise man will prepare a large fund of idioms; which are highly useful when literally translated by a skilful, eloquent hand, and, except our Latino-Anglicus, is the most necessary as well as ornamental part of human learning. But then we must take special care of infusing the most useful precepts for the direction of human life, particularly for instructing princes, and great ministers, distributing out praises and censures with the utmost impartiality and justice. This is what I have presumed to attempt, although very conscious to myself of my inferior abilities for such a performance. I begin with "lady;" and because the judicious Mr. Locke says it is necessary to settle terms, before we write upon any subject, I describe a certain female of your acquaintance, whose name shall be "Dorothy;" it is in the following manner:† Dolis astra per, astra mel, a sus, a quoque et ; atra pes, an id lar, alas ibo nes, a præ ter, at at lar, avi si ter, age ipsi, astro lar, an empti pate, ara lar, aram lar, an et, ades e ver, ast rumpet, ad en, a gam lar, agrum lar, ac ros pus, afflat error, ape e per, as noti nos, ara ver, adhuc stare, asso fis ter, avi per, ad rive lar, age lar, apud The Irish parliament, which Swift, in allusion to the name of a fiend in Scripture, used to call the Legion Club. He left an unfinished satire with that title. + This is a list of epithets, as a strapper, a strammel, &c. &c. &c. lar, a fis lar, a fis ter, a far ter, as hi ter, annus lar, a mus lar, arat lar, a minximus, a prata pace, a gallo per, a sive." Most learned sir, I entreat you will please to observe, (since I must speak in the vulgar language,) that in the above forty-three denominations for females, many of them end with the domestic deity Lar, to shew that women were chiefly created for family affairs; and yet I cannot hear that any other author hath made the same remark. I have likewise begun a treatise of geography, (the Angloanglarians call it erroneously Jog Ralph I.) Mei quo te summo fit? Astra canis a miti citi ; an dy et Ali cantis qui te as bigas it. Barba dos is more populus. An tego is a des arti here."* I have a third treatise to direct young ladies in reading. "Ama dis de Gallis a fine histori, an dy et Belli anis is ab et er. Summ as eurus Valent in an Dorso ne isthmos te legant ovum alto bis ure. I canna me fore do mæsti cani males o falli que nat ure; na mel I, ac at, arat, amesti fanda lædi; I mæ ad amo usto o; a lædi inde edi mite ex cæptas a beasti e verme et aram lingo ut. Præis mi cum pari sono dius orno?" t I believe some evil spirit has got possession of you and a few others, in conceiving I have any power with the Duke of Dorset, or with any one bishop or man of power. I did but glance a single word to the duke about as proper a thing as he could do, and * "May I quote some of it? Astracan is a mighty city, and yet Alicant is as big as it. Barbadoes is more populous. Antigua is a desert, I hear." "Amadis de Gaul is a fine history, and yet Belianis is a better. Some assure us Valentine and Orson is the most elegant of them all to be sure. I can name four domestic animals of a like nature; namely, a cat, a rat, a mastiff, and a lady. I may add a mouse too. A lady, indeed, I might except as a beast I ever met a-rambling out. Pray, is my comparison odious, or no?" |