LETTER XXI 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE: Nffif 28, 1786. 



DEAR SIR, [Your obliging & communicative letter of 

 Octob r 23 rd lies before me ; & ought not any longer to 

 remain unanswered. It is a great pleasure to me to find 

 that amidst your various & extensive correspondence, & 

 the daily labours of your work in hand, you still afford 

 time to pay regard to my trifling remarks, & discoveries ; 

 which a man cannot avoid stumbling upon now & then, 

 if he lives altogether in the country, & gives any attention 

 at all to the works of Nature. Happy the man ! who 

 knows, like you, how to keep himself innocently & use- 

 fully employed ; especially where his studies tend to the 

 advancement of knowledge, & the benefit of Society. And 

 happy would it be for many more men of fortune if they 

 knew what to do with their time ; if they knew how to 

 shun " The pains & penalties of Idleness," how much dissi- 

 pation, riot, & excess would they escape ; not without the 

 complacency of finding themselves growing still better 

 neighbours & better commonwealths-men ? 



Poor M r - Banks ! his undertakings are virtu in excess : 

 & I could almost wish he had followed your advice, & sent 

 a proxy. But then he would have foregone the honour & 

 praise due to such a disinterested hazarding of his life ; 

 which a very sensible man the other day told me much 

 more merited a peerage than the enterprize undertaken 

 by L d Anson. 



I am sorry D r - Hunter has given you no better satis- 

 faction with regard to the buck's head ; as I was in hopes 



89 M 



