HE mystery is at last unravelled. I fhall no more -T wonder now that you engrofs his company at Purley, whilst his other friends can scarce get a fight of him. This, you fay, was President Bradshaw's feat. That is the secret of his attachment to the place. You hold him by the best fecurity, his political prejudices and enthusiasm. But do not let his veneration for the memory of the antient poffeffor pass upon you for affection to the present. *The feat of William Tooke, Efq. near Croydon, Surrey. H. Should you be altogether fo fevere upon my politics; when you reflect that, merely for attempting to prevent the effufion of brother's blood and the final difmemberment of the empire, I ftand the fingle legal victim during the conteft, and the fingle inftance of profcription after it? But I am well contented that my principles, which have made fo many of your way of thinking angry, fhould only make you laugh. Such however as they are, they need not now to be defended by me: for they have stood the teft of ages; and they will keep their ground in the general commendation of the world, till men forget to love themselves; though, till then perhaps, they are not likely to be feen (nor credited if feen) in the practice of many individuals. But are you really forced to go above a hundred years back to account for my attachment to Purley? Without confidering the many ftrong public and private ties by which I am bound to its prefent poffeffor, can you find nothing in the beautiful profpect from these windows? nothing in the entertainment every one receives in this houfe nothing in the delightful rides and walks we have taken round it? nothing in the cheerful difpofition and eafy eafy kindness of its owner, to make a rational man partial to this habitation? T. We Sir, you are making him tranfgrefs our only standing rules. Politics and compliments are ftrangers here. always put them off when we put on our boots; and leave them behind us in their proper atmosphere, the smoke of London. B. Is it poffible! Can either of you-Englishmen and patriots !—abstain for four and twenty hours together from politics? You cannot be always on horseback or at piquet. What, in the name of wonder, your favourite topic excluded, can be the subject of your fo frequent converfations? T. But I affure you we You have a strange notion of us. find more difficulty to finish than to begin our conversations. As for our fubjects, their variety cannot be remembered; but I will tell you on what we were discoursing yesterday when you came in; and I believe you are the fittest person in the world to decide between us. He infifts, contrary to my opinion, that all forts of wisdom and ufeful knowledge may be obtained by a plain man of fenfe without what is commonly B 2 commonly called Learning. And when I took the easiest instance, as I thought, and the foundation of all other knowledge, (because it is the beginning of education, and that in which children are first employed) he declined the proof of his affertion in this instance, and maintained that I had chofen the most difficult: for, he fays, that, though Grammar be usually amongst the first things taught, it is always one of the last understood. B. I must confefs I differ from Mr. H. concerning the difficulty of grammar: if indeed what you have reported be. really his opinion. But might he not poffibly give you that answer to escape the difcuffion of a disagreeable, dry subject, remote from the course of his studies and the objects. of his inquiry and purfuit? By his general expreffion of— what is commonly called Learning—and his declared opinion of that, I can pretty well guess what he thinks of grammatical learning in particular. I dare fwear (though he will not perhaps pay me fo indifferent a compliment) he does not in his mind allow us even the poor confolation which we find in Athenæus un apos no av; but concludes, without -ει μη ιά]ροι ησαν a fingle exception, εδεν των Γραμματικων μωρότερον * * Ου γαρ κακως τινι των εξαιρων ημων ελέχθη του ει μη ιατροι ησαν εδέν αι ην των γραμματικών μωρότερον. Deipnofoph. Lib. 15. I muft 4 I must however intreat him to recollect, (and at the fame time whose authority it bears,) that—Qui Sapientiæ & literarum divortium. faciunt, nunquam ad folidam fapientiam pertingent. Qui verò alios etiam à literarum linguarumque Studio abfterrent, non antiquæ fapientiæ fed novæ ftultitia. Doctores funt habendi... H.. Indeed I spoke my real fentiments. I think Grammar difficult, but I am very far from looking upon it as foolish: indeed fo far, that I confider it as abfolutely necessary in the search after philofophical truth; which if not the most useful perhaps, is at least the most pleasing employment of the human mind. And I think it no lefs neceffary in the most important questions concerning religion and civil society. But fince you fay it is eafy, tell me where it may: be learned. B. If your look and the tone of your voice were lefs ferious,, the extravagance of your compliment to grammar would incline me to fufpect that you were taking your revenge,, and bantering me in your turn by an ironical encomium.. on my favourite study. But, if I am to fuppofe you in earnest, I answer, that our English grammar may be fuf- ficiently |