1796. JEx. 34.] COUNT EUMFOED. 47 



In consequence Count Eumford wrote to Thomas 

 Bernard, Esq., from Germany : 



Munich, April 28, 1797. 



I feel myself very highly honoured by the distinguished 

 mark of esteem and regard which the Society for Bettering 

 the Condition of the Poor has conferred on me, and I beg 

 leave through you to return the Society my respectful and 

 grateful acknowledgments. 



This nattering proof of the approbation of those most 

 respectable persons who compose the Society will tend very 

 powerfully to encourage me to persevere in those endea- 

 vours to promote the important objects they have in view, 

 by which I first obtained their notice and esteem. 



I am very sanguine in my expectations of the good which 

 will be done by this Society ; they will, however, be able to 

 do much more by examples by models that can be seen and 

 felt than by anything that can be said or written. 



The follovying year he wrote : 



Munich, May 13, 1798. 



The rapid progress you are making in your most interest- 

 ing and laudable undertakings affords me a high degree of 

 satisfaction. It proves that I was not mistaken when I 

 concluded that, notwithstanding the alarming progress of 

 luxury and corruption of taste and of morals in England, 

 there is still good sense and energy to be found, even in 

 the highest classes of society, where the influx of wealth 

 has operated most powerfully. Go on, my dear sir, and be 

 assured that when you shall have put doing good in fashion, 

 you will have done all that human wisdom can do to 

 retard and prolong the decline of a great and powerful 

 nation that has arrived at, or passed, the zenith of human 

 glory. 



