‘When you go to London, will you not be tempted to make a flying excursion to Bath? ’Tis a digression, but it can hardly be called an episode. If I have any skill, or knowledge of the world, Mrs. Allen’s conversation alone will indemnify you for your trouble, and that most amply. He also who subscribes his name to this letter has a private ambition to be better known to you than upon paper.

‘I am, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

‘W. Harte.‘

‘Kintbury, Berks: May 7, 1765.

‘Dear Sir,—If gratitude did not operate strongly upon me (and that towards a friend whom I never saw but hope to see, know, and cultivate his friendship) I should not trouble you with another letter so quick upon the heels of my last from Windsor; but finding by chance here, in a lone village, the Museum Rusticum, I see you have done justice to the Essays on Husbandry. I wish they had half the merit which your partiality to the author fancies they have.

‘In the main particular you have spoken exactly my private sentiments. When I write for the instruction and amusement of Cuddy and Lobbin and Clout in matters of husbandry I will also publish a supplemental essay on the art of push-pin,[[36]] stylo puerili. Who would write for farmers, who perhaps cannot read, or who, I am sure, will never try to read? Were I condemned to this punishment I would desire my footman to hold the pen—and even then what would such critics say? They would find fault with inelegance and want of propriety in the work. They bring to my mind an anecdote which de Voltaire once told me of his father (by the way, Voltaire put the incident into a farce, and was disinherited for it). The peevish old gentleman said one morning when his son rose from bed at about 11 o’clock: “Young man, you were drunk last night; you will sleep away your senses, neglect your studies, and die a beggar.” Piqued at this reproach, Voltaire got up at 4 next morning, and by the by it was in winter. “Son,” said his father at breakfast, “you will ruin us in the expenses of fire and candle. All your draggle-tailed Muses will never indemnify us with the wood-merchant and chandler.” This is a just picture of a reviewing Critic or a Mago.

‘Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea noto?

‘As to the Museum Rusticum (your writings in it excepted) I know nothing of the authors, but look upon it (as I am now speaking to you sub sigillo silentii) as a blue-paper job. Books in this age are a manufacture as much as hats or pins. The bookseller chooses a subject and the author writes at 10s. a sheet. It is probable that one man in a garret, who does not know a blade of wheat from a blade of barley, writes half the letters from the ‘Kentish man,’ ‘Yorkshire man,’ ‘Glocester man,’ &c. And perhaps the same hand, in the notes, signs with all the letters in the alphabet. Perhaps this very man Rocque (I speak only from conjecture), for I observe the whole work has a tendency to favour this avanturier in agriculture. I declare to you seriously that I know nothing of its authors, you excepted. Might it not be better if you kept your admirable tracts by you, and to those you have already published, so much to your honour, you may add such occasional pieces as you shall afterwards write, and let them all appear together in a volume which might be entitled Sylvae,[[37]] or occasional tracts on husbandry and rural economics. I would have all books on husbandry, if possible, pocket volumes, that one may read in the fields, &c. In short, I would print it in a beautiful duodecimo as du Hamel does; you have written enough already to make one such volume, or nearly. However, there must be some new things in this work; doubtless you have the plan of more tracts by you. If you read French I would recommend a charming idea to you in this enclosing age, namely a little 12mo. called "L’amélioration des Terres," by Patulle. In that work are plans, and also the manner of throwing a square tract of ground of three or four hundred acres, &c., into an ornamented farm, or, as the French call it, ferme ornée: the house and buildings in the centre; the fields are square, the hedges quick set, and the owner may command with his eye, and almost with his voice, everybody and thing he is concerned with. If you cannot get the book (though you certainly may at Vaillant’s) I will send you mine.

‘Adieu, dear Sir,

‘Your most affectionate and obliged friend,