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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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your last containing the Xmas ode reached me before I left Bristol — which spot dull as it is I much regret when compared with Bath & shall revisit tomorrow. on Saturday sevennight hence I hope to take possession of my rooms at Baliol — once more to enter upon a course of doctorial learning & fetter inclination in the chains of pedantry & precedent.
In an age when the liberty of the press has been so openly attacked (may this fellow who now grinds god save the King
on a hand organ to my inexpressible annoyance, in the next world keep company with Alexander the great Louis the great
since the days of Nimrods wars which have
leaked away our treasures & lavished our blood are owing to monarchy at least the majority of them. our long wars with France
originated in the chimerical pretensions of Edward the third
to such as we are who wish not to attain the enjoyments of power with the loss of virtue & content it little
matters how the world wags. interest is too contemptible to affect us & our motive can only be a wish for the general welfare. to
self all is tolerable — what is it to man or to humanity! look at the hundreds of aged & infirm mendicants who throng your streets
— & then ask your own heart if all is right — that Bedford will
answer with justice. the labourer toils during the years of vigor & earns his scanty morsel with the sweat of his brow — yet this
man even in the vilest beer he drinks pays to support a set of pensioned courtiers who drink their wines heedless of his wants &
cry out — all is right — like Dr Pangloss
our house of Lords have the power of rejecting any tax. they consequently as much as possible shift them upon the people. is this as it should be. the name of Lord carries nothing in it & an equal education would make any Lord & my shoemaker equally philosophic. now I affirm that the first duty of [MS torn] where Liberty & Equality flourish is to regard the education of the people.
perhaps I may one day draw up my theory in a more regular plan — at present I will conclude with a few remarks upon the
present mode of proceeding. Edmund Burke
Solonsvates Flaccus.
I have some satires which I much wish to show you but I dare not trust them — you shall see them when we meet. I shall
write again from Bristol before I depart. your last I conceive to have been written before the receit of two of mine. remember Bedford though I condemn a defence of Suicide I look not upon it as a
deadly sin. every thing of that kind depends upon circumstances. Cato & Brutus
I heard from the learned Pig