2G0 HENRY KIRKE WIIITE's EEilAIXS. 



TO MR JOHN CHARLESWORTH. 



Kottingham, 27tli June ISOo. 

 Mr DEAr. Friend, 



It is some time since I wrote to you, and still longer 

 since I heard from you ; but you are acquainted with my 

 unceremonious disposition, and will, I hope, pardon me 

 for obtruding an unbidden guest on your notice. I have 

 a question to ask of you in the first place, and I shall then 

 fill up my letter with all the familiarity of a man talking 

 by your side, and saying anything, rather than be accused 

 of saying nothing. INIy leisure will scarcely permit me 

 to write to you again while I am here, and I shall there- 

 fore make the best use of the present occasion. 

 * ?;? * * 



We have been fagging through Rollin's Ancient His- 

 tory, and some other historical books, as I believe, to no 

 great purpose. Rollin is a valuable and truly pious writer, 

 but so crammed and garnished with reflections, that you 

 lose the thread of the story, while the poor man is 

 prosing about the morality of it ; when, too, after all, 

 the moral is so obvious as not to need insisting upon. 

 You may give my compliments to your good friends 

 Galen, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus, and tell them I had 

 much rather pay them my devoirs at a distance, than 

 come into close contact v/ith them or their cathartics. 

 Medical Greek, and Medical Latin, would act as a su- 

 dorific upon any man, who should hear their tremondous 

 technicals pronounced with the true ore rotundo of a 

 Scotch physician. 



And now, my dear Sir, we will cry a truce to flippancy 

 — I have neither time nor inclination to indulge in it to 

 excess. You and I have been some time asunder in the 

 pursuit of our several studies ; you to the lively and 

 busy seat of gaiety, fashion, and folly; I to the retired 

 haunts of a secluded village, and the studious walls of a 

 silent and ancient parsonage. At first sight one would 

 think that my lot had been most profitable, as un- 

 doubtedly it is most secure ; but when we come to con- 



