Chapter XII: Illness and Death of Bobbin, 1797 (2)

_August 7._—To Ely. Called for a moment on Carter, who thinks so highly of Bishop Newton that he intends to buy his works.

At Ely quite alone, and no resource but in my own melancholy ideas. My first thought was to send to a Mr. Hall, who has hired Tattersall’s farm, or Mr. Metcalfe, a minor canon, who has written in the ‘Annals of Agriculture’—but I rejected the scheme and kept to solitude. As soon as I finished dinner I began Mr. Wilberforce for the fourth time, reading with renewed attention. I hear many objections to him, of his being a Presbyterian engrafted on a Methodist, but it is arrant nonsense. My mind goes with him in every word. View the Minster and Trinity chapel, and venerate the piety of former ages that raised such noble edifices in honour of God the Almighty giver and governor of all things. I once thought such buildings the efforts of superstition, perhaps folly! How different are my present sentiments! for what can be more rational than to raise temples of a character that shall impress some idea, however weak, of the sublimity of that infinite Being who made and pervades all that exists, except His own great creative self!

_8th._—Rise at five, write to my friends Dr. Valpy and C. Cole. To Peterborough. Much time for reflection, and it is singular that even while I am depressed with deep melancholy at the loss I have sustained, yet unholy ideas and imaginations will intrude. Is this the devil and his powers of darkness which buffet and beset us? Is not depravity and sin so inherent in our natures that we are ever liable to these wanderings which so disgrace our nature at better moments? But the conclusion, whatever it be owing to, is clear, that the government of the thoughts is an essential part of our duty, as Johnson has well explained in an admirable ‘Rambler.’ Such thoughts, unresisted, seize and take possession of the mind, and they cannot do that without leading to action and all the guilt that may follow. Repel the first germinating principle of the idea, and the difficulty is not great; but indulge the pleasing dream and the heart is vitiated, for the imagination is impure.

[_The remainder of the diary, in the same strain, is much too long for insertion. Here are a few closing sentences._]

_September 2_ [in Yorkshire].—To what is it that I shall return? My child no more! To what at London? Solitary in my lodgings, where am I to send for her whose cheerfulness gilded every scene, and little pleasing ways lent such a charm to render her presence such a comfort to me? All gone—gone for ever! Of that description of feelings what remains? A blank!—a desert!... Cried over the hair of my sweet departed Bobbin! Never more in this world to see thee again!

_October 15._—I have torn my heart to pieces with looking at my dear child’s hair! Melancholy remains, but how precious when their owner is no more! I am to see her no more in this world. Gone for ever!

_London, November 13._—This day se’nnight I came to town with Mrs. Y. and Mary. I knew it would be a very uncomfortable plan; but to do as I would be done by made it proper.

_November 26._—I have been a week at Petworth, an interesting, splendid, gay and cheerful week, and, as too often the case, a vain, frivolous, and impious one. Sir John Sinclair would have me on the Sunday go to Goodwood. Never a serious word, never a soul to church from that house to thank God for the numerous blessings showered down upon it, and the means of good which 60,000_l._ a year confers. Yet Lord Egremont does all that could be wished as far as humanity, charity, and doing moral benefits can—but no religion. In the chapel, no worship, no hats off but my own—dreadful example to a great family and to his children and to 2,500 people in the town. I talked to Arthur, and strongly recommended to him to attend constantly and to keep himself clear from such a want of piety. He disapproves of it much; and I pray to God that yet he may not be corrupted by such evil examples, but imbibe a dislike to such want of gratitude. I watched for opportunities of serious remark, but none of effect offered except one observation on Lady Webster’s infidelity in religion, when I threw in a word or two. The very virtues of such people do mischief by recommending their irreligious example.

The following letters are selected from those received this year:—

_From Dr. Burney_

‘Chelsea College: March 16, 1797.

‘My dear Sir,—You have applied to a very incompetent person for
political consolation in addressing me, an old notorious alarmist
who has long seen evils approaching even worse than those which
have already arrived. I wish anything had happened to convince me
that my mental eyes had been as short-sighted as those in my head.
But, alas! things are going on everywhere from bad to worse. My
foolish countrymen, nay, worse, the wicked and incurable democrats
who inhabit the same island, so far from being cured by the savage
cruelties and universal misery brought about in France by the
Revolution and the treatment of other countries which she has
conquered and even fraternised with, still long for a revolution
here, without even wishing to avert any of the evils which have
happened elsewhere, from the diabolical character and principles
of her inhabitants! I have seen that a wish to break the Bank has
long been formed, and I even have been advised to get all the cash
I could for my notes if I had any; and the person who advised this
measure, who had never been at the Bank before in his life, and
was forced to inquire his way thither, had been bullying the
harassed clerks to give him cash for a forty-pound note, for no
other purpose than to lock it up. Seven millions of guineas were
issued for notes in one week! Of this sum 300,000_l._, it is said,
were for notes presented by the English Santerre. A banker from
Norwich had collected notes to the amount of 400,000_l._, with
which he came post to London in the same seraphic hope of breaking
the Bank; but unluckily for his benevolent plan, the further
issuing of cash had been stopped the night before his arrival. The
favourite Jacobin plan at present is to make this nation and all
Europe believe that we are really in a state of bankruptcy, and
that the notes now in circulation will be soon of as little value
as French assignats, reporting every day that they are at a very
considerable discount, which God forbid should ever happen. For my
own part, I would starve myself to death sooner than buy, even
food, by the parting with a bank note for a farthing less value
than it has hitherto had. But the poor Duke of Bedford, Mr. Cooke,
the dissenting manufacturers, &c., are so distressed for want of
cash to pay their workmen, that they are _obliged_ to dismiss
them. And this, to be sure, is not done with an intention of
throwing all the blame upon Government and making furious rebels
of all the persons discharged. Everything is seen and represented
in the blackest colours—the French always right and the
Administration wrong. For if opposition should ever be obliged to
allow the present ministry to be right, why change it? And down
they must pull every person and thing above them, even if, like
Samson, they are crushed in the ruins, which I have not the least
doubt will be the case if ever the revolution they seem so
determined to bring about should happen.

‘The ballot has fallen upon me to furnish a man and a horse to the
Provisional Cavalry,[183] which has occasioned me much trouble and
vexation. The expense, had it been double, I would have paid with
alacrity, for the defence of everything dear to honest men, during
such a war and with such enemies; but the business of recruiting,
clothing, accoutring, &c., is so new to men of peace, that they
know not how to go to work. Three substitutes that I had engaged
have disappointed me, and the horse I have purchased I am not sure
will pass muster. Had Government levied a tax of five or ten
guineas upon each horse that was kept for pleasure, either in or
out of harness, and done the business of raising a certain number
of cavalry themselves, it would have been better done, and ladies
and superannuated gentlemen (like my worship) would have escaped
infinite plague and vexation.

‘I am exceedingly sorry that your dear and charming little
daughter is not well.

‘I am, with sincere regard,
‘My dear Sir,
‘Your affectionate Friend,
‘CHARLES BURNEY.’

From Edmund Burke, Esq., alluding to the projects in Parliament before named for regulating the price of labour.

‘Bath: May 23, 1797.

‘Dear Sir,—I am on the point of leaving Bath, having no further
hope of benefit from these waters; and as soon as I get home (if I
should live to get home) should I find the papers transmitted me
by your Board I shall send them faithfully to you; though, to say
the truth, I do not think them of very great importance.

‘My constant opinion was, and is, that all matters relative to
labour ought to be left to the conversations of the parties. That
the great danger is in Government intermeddling too much. What I
should have taken the liberty of addressing to you, had I
possessed strength to go through it, would be to illustrate or
enforce that principle.

‘I am extremely sorry that any one in the House of Commons should
be found so ignorant and unadvised as to wish to revive the
senseless, barbarous, and, in fact, wicked regulations made
against free trade in matters of provision which the good sense of
late Parliaments had removed. I am the more concerned at the
measure, as I was myself the person who moved the repeal of the
absurd code of statutes against the most useful of all trades,
under the invidious names of forestalling and regrating. But,
however, I console myself on this point by considering that it is
not the only breach by which barbarism is entering upon us. It is,
indeed, but a poor consolation, and one taken merely from the
balance of misfortunes.

‘You have titles enough of your own to pass your name to
posterity, and I am pleased that you have got spirit enough to
hope that there will be such a thing as a civilised posterity to
attend to things of this kind.

‘I have the honour to be,
‘With very high respect and esteem,
‘Your most obedient, humble servant,
‘EDMUND BURKE.’

Mr. Burke died July 7 [_note by A. Y._].

From John Symonds, Esq., on public affairs, very gloomy, with much condemnation of Mr. Pitt.

‘St. Edmund’s Hill: June 8, 1797.

‘At the time, my dear sir, that I received your letter I was
travelling over Italy, in order to figure in your “Annals of
Agriculture;” but the state of that country has been so much
_bouleversé_, that my head has been turned in reflecting upon it,
as is most probably the case with the greater part of its
inhabitants.

‘You ask me what plan I could propose to save the country. Arm,
undoubtedly, as you say; but how to do it most effectually I
pretend not to determine. You justly reprobate volunteering
infantry.

‘Charles Cole tells me you have something in the press upon this
subject. To fill the army or navy with defenders or volunteers, is
the way to pave the way to our ruin. But I should begin with
proposing a scheme which would probably be heard with disdain, and
which has been rejected by the King: recall Lord Camden; appoint
Lord Moira, Lord Lieutenant, with full powers to emancipate the
Roman Catholics. He is much respected in Ireland as well as in
England, for the opinion formed of him from his civil and military
knowledge and moral character. I have heard Lord Bishop Douglas,
who is no mean estimator of mankind, often say, that he wished he
could see Lord Moira one of the Secretaries of State.

‘Were the Catholics satisfied, Ireland might bid defiance to the
French, and, perhaps, some regular infantry might thence be sent
to England, which, the Duke of Grafton said lately in the House of
Lords, was much wanted here. But it is in vain to speak or write
about Ireland.

We govern there by a faction—the Beresfords, Fitzgibbons, and
Fosters—whose emoluments, including their relations and
dependents, fall not short of 100,000_l._ per annum; some think
much more. Now the Polignacs under the old government had not more
than 50,000_l._ per annum, including a bishopric. This the Duchess
of Liancourt one day made out to me upon paper, yet she was
willing enough to exaggerate the profits of that family;
especially as the old duchess just before had been cast in a
lawsuit with one of them.

‘Your idea of applying to Bonaparte pleases me much. He would
probably do more towards effecting a peace than a hundred
Malmesburys and St. Helens. It will be curious to see what terms
Pitt will propose. There seems to be no doubt but that the French
will insist on having all the places taken from them; and probably
a restitution of twelve or fourteen ships of the line, and perhaps
a sum of money by way of _indemnification_, for this word was
always in the mouth of our Premier. After this, an ample
recompense to the Dutch and Spaniards, whose interests the French
will consider as their own. A fine peace indeed, after so many
absurd and haughty declarations of our ministry! A peace there
must be or an insurrection, if considerable taxes be proposed to
continue the war. Not that these would be of any avail; for were
the French merely to line their coasts from Ostend to Calais with
troops, and do nothing else, their point would be carried. At the
very time that a separate peace was made by the Emperor with the
French, Mr. Pitt, in the House of Commons, called him “our great
and good ally.” It was but two days after that the news came of
his defection, which every thinking man naturally expected.

‘Mr. P. seems determined to do dirty jobs to the last; whilst our
enemies are almost at our gates, the subscribers to the loyalty
loan must forsooth be rewarded because many of them are his
Parliamentary friends. Should you hear your knight open himself on
this subject, remind him that a million or a million and a half
are wanted to pay the arrears of the Civil List; that professors,
whose stipends are fixed by Acts of Parliament, are in danger of
losing the profits of a couple of years from an abominable clause
in Burke’s Bill. Remind him of a remarkable circumstance in
Sully’s memoirs. When Henry IV. was in great distress for money it
was proposed to him to decline paying any stipends to the
professors in the University of Paris. “No,” said he, with an
honest indignation, “I will never consent to that; retrench the
expense of my table instead of touching their emoluments.” Such an
answer, and such conduct in conformity to it, reflected peculiar
honour on a prince who had never been trained up in the study of
polite letters

‘Carnot[184] cannot be too much commended for ordering your
agricultural works to be translated and published. It was giving
his countrymen a mass of knowledge, founded on experiment not to
be procured in their own writers. He showed very good sense in
sacrificing party prejudices. Would Pitt have acted thus in his
situation?

‘I have not read Wilberforce’s “Practical View of Christianity,”
nor am I indeed much solicitous about it, for my faith is not
built upon establishments but on the New Testament, which I have
considered with as much attention as most of our divines. W. is a
strict Calvinist, and is therefore orthodox, for he is supported
by our Articles of Religion. I who think that the Articles on this
head are not founded on Scripture, am a heretic, as I take you to
be also. It is very observable that the young theologians of
Geneva are at this day instructed much more in Ostervald’s[185]
Catechism than in Calvin’s books. The death of that worthy man and
excellent master of Italian, Isola, is an exceedingly great loss
to me, for he has managed all my little concerns at Cambridge for
twenty years. He can have left nothing for his family but his good
example. So respected was he by every one, that when a long
illness and his wife’s death prevented him from making his usual
earnings, and he was unavoidably loaded with heavy debts, they not
only raised for him 180_l._ by private subscriptions in the
Colleges, but in the following year the University gave him
100_l._ out of the public chest. I shall be very careful in
recommending his successor, for Isola always told me that most of
the Italians in England were rascals, and he therefore had no
communication with them when they came to Cambridge. I allowed him
twenty guineas a year, as few learn Italian. The profits from
teaching it are hardly sufficient to maintain one who has a
family; for parents in general are so foolish as not to require of
their sons the learning of that language, though their intention
is to send them into Italy.

‘Adieu! You will repent provoking me to write.

‘J. SYMONDS.’

From Jeremy Bentham, Esq., on the poor, &c.

‘Queen Square, Westminster: Sept. 8, 1797.

‘Dear Sir,—It was but the other day that I became master of a
complete series of your “Annals of Agriculture;” accept my
confession and record my penitence. Having on my return from my
long peregrination on the Continent lent to a friend—who had lent
to another friend, whom we neither of us could recollect—the
twenty-five or thirty numbers which I had taken in before that
period, I postponed from time to time the completion of the series
in hopes of recovering the commencement of it. When at last shame
and necessity got the better of procrastination, what a treasure
of information burst upon me. No—so long as power without ——— and
without ——— shall have left an annual guinea in my pocket (blanks
are better here than words) not a number of the “Annals” shall
ever be wanting to my shelves. Hold—don’t take me for a Jacobin
now, nor even for a croaker. What I allude to is not any _common_
burden, such as you land-owners and land-holders grunt under, but
my own ten thousand pound tax—my privilegium—a thing as new to
English language as it is to English practice—sole and peculiar
fruit of the very particular notice with which I have been
honoured by ———.

‘This waits upon you with a proof of a blank pauper population
table, framed for the purpose of collecting an account of them in
as many parishes as I can. Knowing so well your zeal for all
zeal-worthy objects, and mindful of your often experienced
kindness, I cannot on this occasion harbour a doubt of your
assistance. Is it worth while to give the table the indiscriminate
circulation of your "Annals"? At any rate your editorial Majesty
will, I hope, be pleased graciously to grant unto me your royal
letters, _patent_ or _close_, or both, addressed to _all_, and
if need be, _singular_, your loving subjects my fellow
correspondents; charging and exhorting them, each in his
parish—and as many other parishes as may be—to fill my tables and
send in their contributions.

‘Along with the table you will find a MS. paper, exhibiting the
importance of the information I am thus labouring to collect; you
will print it or suppress it as you think best. I also send in MS.
a table of cases calling for relief; a general map of _pauper
land_ with all the _roads_ to it. Few, if any, of the projects I
have seen but what have appeared (the arch-project not excepted)
to bear an exclusive—at least a predilective—reference to some of
these cases, overlooking or slighting the rest. I send it in the
state in which I propose printing it for my own book; but, in the
meantime, if it be worthy the honour of a place in the “Annals,”
it is altogether at your service. This preparatory insertion will
turn to the advantage of the work itself, if any of your
correspondents (not forgetting their editor) would have the
goodness to contribute their remarks to the emendation of it. You
will not easily conceive—few heads, at least, but yours are
qualified to conceive—the labour it has cost me to bring the two
tables to this state. As to the work at large, it will occupy two
independent, though connected volumes. Pauper systems compared;
pauper management improved—the last the romance, the Utopia, to
which I had once occasion to allude. Romance? How could it be
anything _less_? I mean to an author’s partial eye. In proportion
as a thing is excellent, when established, is it anything but
_romance_, and theory, and speculation, till the touch of the
_seal_ or the _sceptre_ has converted it into practice. Distress,
at least, distress, the very life and soul of romance, cannot be
denied to mine; for in this short and close-packed specimen
already you behold it in all its shapes. Magnanimous president!
accomplished secretary! ye, too, have your romance. Heaven send
you a happy catastrophe and a _fettered land_ “a happy
deliverance.” Patience! patience! ye too, before you are
comforted, must bear to be tormented.

‘Apropos of presidents. The high priest of Ceres, having divined
or not divined my recent occupations, has been pleased to send me
a mandate in form, summoning me to devote myself to this branch of
his goddess’s service, that the fruit of my labours may be
consecrated in her temple at Whitehall; so that whatever other
requisites may fail me, I shall be in no want of auspices.

‘I fear you will say to yourself that the Observations[186] I have
sent you are a sad farrago, but your miscellany, how superior
soever to others in subject-matter and contents, has this in
common with them, that half-formed ideas, so they have but matter
in them, are not prohibited from presenting themselves. It is part
of the character of your correspondents to have more of
_substance_ about them than of _form_; and of the many
recommendations which join in drawing so much good company to your
_conversazione_, one, nor that the least, is the convenience of
being admitted to it in boots. Mine (you will say) have hobnails
in them; for, somehow or other, the very idea of the person to
whom I am addressing myself has insensibly betrayed me into that
sort of playful confidence—that _épanchement_, as I think the
French call it—which I have always felt in his company.

‘Believe me, with the most serious respect,
‘Ever yours,
‘JEREMY BENTHAM.’

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Footnote 167:

Now fourteen years old.

Footnote 168:

This passage has been crossed out with a pencil, but is given as
showing the _régime_ of young ladies’ schools a hundred years ago.
In another note occurs the sentence, ‘Brought my dear little girl
from Camden House to London.’ Presumably Camden Town is meant, at
that time being less than suburban.

Footnote 169:

The county belle, Betsey Plampin, married some years before to Mr.
Orbell Oakes.

Footnote 170:

Lady Mary Hervey, the beautiful daughter of the Earl of Bristol,
Bishop of Derry. Her portrait, by Gainsborough, was on show at
Agnew’s in 1896.

Footnote 171:

Some medical questions the child wishes put to her London doctor
are here omitted.

Footnote 172:

John Jortin, D.D., born 1696, died 1770. His numerous theological
and historical works have been frequently reprinted.

Footnote 173:

Henry More, D.D., born 1614, died 1687. In 1640 published
_Psycho-Zoia; or, the Life of the Soul_. His philosophical and
theological works have been reprinted.

Footnote 174:

Th. Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, born 1693, died 1768.

Footnote 175:

Samuel Ogden, D.D., born 1716, died 1778.

Footnote 176:

Adam Littleton, D.D., born 1627, died 1674.

Footnote 177:

Samuel Clarke, D.D., born 1675, died 1729. The piece alluded to
was the first Boyle Lecture. Of his works Dr. Johnson remarked, ‘I
should recommend Dr. Clarke’s works were he orthodox.’

Footnote 178:

John Conybeare, D.D., born 1691, died 1755. ‘A great champion of
revelation.’

Footnote 179:

Plymer; in Redgrave’s _Dictionary of Artists_ written ‘Plimer.’
Two brothers therein mentioned, Andrew and Nathaniel, both
miniature painters and exhibitors at the R.A.; born 1763, died
1837; born 1767, died 1822.

Footnote 180:

_Practical View of the Prevailing System of Professed Christians
in the Higher and Middle Ranks in this Country, Contrasted with
Real Christianity._ Published 1797, and frequently reprinted.

Footnote 181:

Th. Scott—the friend of Cowper—born 1747, died 1821, chaplain to
the Lock Hospital.

Footnote 182:

Th. Newton, born 1704, died 1782; edited _Paradise Lost_.

Footnote 183:

Alluding to the movement suggested by A. Y., and ultimately
carried out, of forming regiments of volunteer cavalry, in view
of the menacing attitude of France.

Footnote 184:

Carnot, the ‘organiser of victory,’ grandfather of the late
lamented President of the French Republic. Almost alone of the
Senate, Carnot refused to sanction the _coup d’état_ of Napoleon,
1799.

Footnote 185:

J. F. Ostervald, Swiss Protestant divine, born 1683, died 1747.
All his works have been translated into English.

Footnote 186:

These ‘Observations,’ above referred to, are inserted in vol. xxix
_Annals of Agriculture_.

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