Original Letter from Mr. WORTH to Dr. JOHN POTTER, (afterwards Abp. of CANTERBURY), on the Death of Dr., JOHN MILL, Principal of Edmund Hall, Oxford.

My dear Friend, Oxford, June

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23, 1707.

CAME to this place on Saturday evening, where, to my very great furprize, I found our good friend Mr. Principal in a very dangerous condition. He had been in the hall at fupper, and was obferved, by fome there, to be very much dozed, and to talk lightheaded. Immediately after fupper he went to his chamber, where his bed-maker finding him to grow more and more fenfelefs, fent for an apothecary, who let him blood, which feemed for the prefent to have relieved him; for at my coming into his room he was very fenfible, knew me, and expreffed no fmall fatisfaction at my coming to him fo opportunely. However, we could not prevail to have a phyfician fent for that night; yet we got the apothecary to lay a large blifter to his back, all which the phyficians, Dr. Breech and Dr, Frampton, highly approved of when they came to him yesterday morning, and ordered him to be blooded again, and bliftered from head to foot. We were in fome hopes that, by the blefling of God, he might have found fome benefit by them; but it has been fuch a fudden and irrefiftible fit of an apoplexy, that he found not the leaft relief by all the means that have been used. He continued all yesterday and the laft night, when I watched with him, in a profound lethargy, and die this morning about a quarter

1801.

four o'clock, to the very great lofs of all his friends, and that of the Learned World. And yet, I believe, no one is more fenfible of the greatnefs of this lofs than yourself and 1 are, who were particularly happy in fo great a fhare of his friendship. I doubt whether he has left any will, by fomething he faid to me in his illness: but I fhall know more of this when I have looked over his papers. Mr. Viceprincipal, who gives you his fervice, will write to you to-morrow, and perhaps by that time he may be able to inform you more of that matter. The inclofed letter was brought me laft night by Mr. Principal's bed-maker, who, knowing your hand, defired me to open it, thinking it might require an anfwer. I accordingly did fo; and no perfon befides myfelf has feen it; and therefore I thought it pro per to return it you again.

This of our dear friend's has been fuch a fudden and irrefiftible a ftroke, that I heartily pray God deliver us from the like, or at least fit and prepare us fo that we may not be furprized if it fhall pleafe God to make our own end like his. I am, dear Sir, your moft obliged and affectionate humble fervant,

Mr. URBAN,

A

W. WORTH.

July 16. FTER having committed to paper (in your laft number, p. 491,) a few remarks on our English peafantry, it is natural to communicate fome others that I have made on a clafs nearly connected with them, viz. the yeomanry, notwithstanding it is hard in thefe days to exactly define what a yeoman or farmer really is.

By the appellation of farmer, we ly understood a plain, induftrious,

duftrious, frugal, honeft man, who either cultivated a farm of his own or rented one of a gentleman. If he held a large one, he was generally called a topping-farmer, or a gentleman-farmer; and if his bargain was fmall, he was termed a little farmer; but the race of little farmers is now become nearly extinct, and most of the few furviving ones are degraded to the condition of parifh-paupers. Whether thefe good old-fairioned yeomen occupied a confiderable or an inconfiderable quantity of land, they vetted all their capital in farming-ftock, and they and their families dedicated the greater part of their thoughts and time to farming-bufinefs. Thefe worthy people pitched in the markets corn, cattle, pigs, bacon, butter, cheefe, poultry, and eggs; and, after they had difpofed of their commodities at fair prices, returned home with fatisfied minds to their afternoon employments. They confined themfelves folely to this line; and, by not connecting any other with it, they hindered not their neighbours from gaining livelihoods by other modes. They were not greedy of holding more land than would enable them to live, to rear their children, and to enjoy eafe in old age. Their houfes were nurferies and fchools for induftrious bufbandmen, notable housewives, good fervants, and quiet fubjects. It is true that, by every exertion that threwdness or obftinacy could devife, they would endeavour to get their farms and tythes at as low rents and compofitions as they could; yet, at the fame time, they refpected their landlords and liftened to their rectors, and took an innocent pride in making them prefents for their tables. Upon the whole, the yeomanry of the laft generation formed one of the most refpectable and ufeful claffes in the kingdom; obtaining by their induftry independance to themfelves, and contributing confiderably to the welfare of the community and realın.

A truer character of the men who are denominated yeomen in the prefent day cannot be given than by that character drawn by Juvenal (Sat. III. Stapleton's edit: and Notes) of Alturins and Catulus, " two perfons, who from low beginings had raifed themselves to great eftates and offices; and who made ufe of their wealth and authority to engrofs all good bargains, and monopolize all beneficial places and employments;

"Men who turn black to white, that can with ease [feas." Farm holy earth, our rivers, and our

By land-owners moft injudiciously flinging fmall farms together, there are now hardly any but very large ones exifting, and thofe are occupied by men who confolidate different bufineffes with farming, to the great injury of fociety in feveral refpects. Quantities of land and a variety of callings, that fhould provide bread for innumerable individuals, are now engroffed by a few perfons, who are making exhorbitant fortunes with very little trouble. Thefe men are not only farmers but graziers, cornfactors, mealmen, millers, maltfters, brewers, and horfe-dealers. Some have contracts with Government, fome act as brokers in the corn and cattle trade, and fome are partners in the country banks. They play the cards into one another's hands, and by their combinations regulate the markets according to their private interefis. Much of their bufint is tranfacted by clerks and clerks' deputies (all of whofe falaries come from out of the pockets of the contumers of the commodities); but they condefcend to attend markets with a few famples of corn, and, at the fame time, gratify their pride by riding thither on fine horfes, and ordering dinners of fith, fowl, and flesh, not forgetting port and ferry. The tons of thefe gentlemen generally belong to fome of the nume rous corps of volunteers and embudied yeomanry; and thefe dath

ing bucks we fee flourishing their broadfwords, and exhibiting their neatly-butkined pofteriors to the admiration of the miffes their fif

ters, or neighbours, who difplay in their turns all the attractive graees of Grecian gefticulation and nudity. Inftead of dithing butter, feeding poultry or curing bacon, the avocations of thefe young ladies at home are, ftudying drefs, attitudes, novels, French, and mufick, whilft the fine ladies their mothers fit lounging in parlours adorned with the fiddle-faddle fancy-works of their fashionable daughters. With as much rapidity as pott-horfes can convey them, fashious fly from London to the country towns, and from the country-towns to the remoteft villages; infomuch, that the exhibitions of girls in the country vie with thofe in the capitol. As the females of each clafs imitate thofe belonging to the clafs above them, fo thole below the farmers daughters must have their white dreiles as well as them, even if they appropriate to the purpose the cloth

that fhould make them thifts; and the form of thefe dreiles they alter as new modes arife fo long as the warp and the woof will hold any connexion with each other. We fee not now the farmer's wives and daughters jogging to the towns in little carts for the purpose of felling the productions of their cartons and dairies; but we fee them rattling in their fpruce gigs to the milliners and perfumers, in order to lavish in fripperies part of the enormous gains extorted by their fathers and hufbands from the groaning publick. In fhort, the characteristics of the modern yeomanry are pride and greedinefs; and whilft by their arts, combinations, and extortions, they are diftreifing their fuperiors, and ftarving their inferiors, they behave towards the former with upftart impertinence, and towards the latter with unfeeling tyranny.

A SOUTHERN FAUNIST.

Mr. URBAN, Water-fide, July 6. "Ut fugerem exemplis vitiorum quæque no

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tando."

HOR.

turning over Thevenot's Travels, I lately met with the following paffage. It fet me a mufing, and brought to my recollection other matters on the fubject of abundant drinking; and the fe have drawn me on to give you the prefent epile, which awaits your decifion for a column or two in your valuable record of Worthies.

"The burying-places of Surat," fays my entertaining author," are without the town. The English and Dutch a dorn their graves with pyramids of brick, whitened over with line. Whilft was there, one was building for a Dutch commander, which was to coft

8000 livres. Amongst the reft there is one of a great drinker, who had been banished to the Indies by the States General, and who is faid to have been kiufinan to the Prince of Orange. They have railed a monument for him, as for other perfons of note. But, to let the world fee that he could drink toutly, on the top of his pyramid there is a large flene cup, with one below at each corner of his tomb; and hard

by each cup there is the figure of

a fugar-ioni. When the Dutch have a mind to divert themselves at that monumcnt, they make God knows how many ragouts in thefe cups; and, with other lets cups, drink or eat what they have prepared in the great ones

From hence, Mr.. Urban, I am led to conjecture, that, if the gentleman in queftion was not fent abroad as a propagandist in good drinking, he found expert difciples to adopt and perpetuate his doctrine.

I claim no particular fkill, fir, in the making of ragouts, but have fome idea that I can build a monument; and you fhall bave it in honour of a diftinguished hero; as capital, I am perfuaded, as him at whofe tomb the Dutchmen of Surat fo jollily diftinguithed themfelves, their compatriot, and their wet country, by a pofthumous celebration of his prowefs in fwallowing liquors.

*key. Part III, en. XIII. p. 23.