94(3 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



might happen to suggest, in tlje 

 course of familiar correspondence. 

 Yet even there imperfect remains 

 vill undoubtedly be received by the 

 public with no common interest, as 

 "vrell from their own intrinsic value, 

 as from the picture -which they dis- 

 play of the charadlcr of their au- 

 thor. The editor's wish to do ho- 

 nour to the memory, both of the per- 

 son by whom they are written, and 

 of him to whom they were addressed, 

 would alone have rendered him de- 

 sirous of making these papers pub- 

 lie. But he feels a much higher mo- 

 tive, in the hope of promoting, by 

 such a publication, the inseparable 

 interests of learning, virtue, and 

 religion. By the writers of that 

 school, whose pliilosophy consists 

 in the degradation of virtue, it has 

 often been triumphantly declared, 

 that no excellence of character ran 

 stand the test of close observation ; 

 that no man is a hero to his domes- 

 tic servants, or to his familiar 

 friends. How much more just, as 

 well as more amiable and dignified, 

 is the opposite sentiment, delivered 

 to us in the words of Plutarch, and 

 illustrated throughout all his writ- 

 ings ! " Ileal virtue," says that ini- 

 mitable moralist, " is most loved 

 where it is most nearly seen : and no 

 respert, which it commands from 

 strangers, can equal the never-ceas- 

 ing admiration it excites in the daily 

 intercourse of domestic life." 



The following corri*6pondenCe, 

 imperfeft as it is, (and who will not 

 lament that many more such letters 

 are not preserved ?) exhibits a great 

 orator, statesman, and patriot, in 



one of the most interesting relations 

 of private society. Not, -as in the 

 cabinet or the senate, enforcing, by 

 a vigorous and commanding elo- 

 quence, those counsels to which his 

 country owed her pre-eminence and 

 glory ; but implanting,with parental 

 kindness, into the mind of an inge- 

 nuous youth, seeds of wisdom and 

 virtue, which ripened into full ma- 

 turity in the character of a most ac- 

 complished man : direfting him to 

 the acquisition of knowledge*, as 

 the best instrument of aftiou ; 

 teaching him, by the cultivation of 

 his reason, to strengthen and esta- 

 blish in his heart those principles of 

 moral rectitude which were conge- 

 nial to it ; and above all, exhorting 

 him to regulate the whole condudt 

 of his life by the predominant influ- 

 ence of gratitude and obedience to 

 God, as the only sure groundwork 

 of every human duty ! 



What parent, anxious for the 

 character and success of a son, bora 

 to any liberal station in this great 

 and free country, would not, in all 

 that related to his education, gladly 

 have resorted to the advice of such a 

 man? AVliat youthful spirit, ani- 

 mated by any desire of future excel- 

 lence, and looking for the gratifica- 

 tion of that desire, in the pursuits 

 of honourable ambition, or in the 

 consciousness of an upright, aftive, 

 and useful life, would not embrace 

 with transport any opportunity of 

 listening, on such a subject, to the 

 lessons of lord Chatham ? They are f 

 here before him. Not delivered 

 w ith the authority of a preceptor, 

 or a parent, but tempered by the 



* Ingenium illustre altioribus studiis juvcnis admodum d^dit ; non ut nom'r.e 

 magnifico se£;ne otium velaret, sed quo firmior adversus fortuita Rem publicalii ca- 

 pesscret. Tacitus, 



affeftion 



