‘Yours affectionately,
‘John Young.’
From Dr. Valpy, who corrected a poem I sent him, and, to my surprise, approves of my poetry:—
‘My dear Friend,—I beg your pardon again and again for keeping your poem so long. Unhappily I had mislaid it, and chance only recovered it. There runs a vein of fancy through your poetry which stamps a high character upon it, and would your genius but stoop to the minutiæ of correctness would raise you to an exalted rank in that line. Whether you will approve my alterations or not I cannot tell, but it would be difficult to point out more inaccuracies in the poem. You obliged me much by your introductory number. I had sent for one before, with a view to lend it to my friends and to engage them to become purchasers of the work. It is very correctly written, except that sometimes you use shook as a participle.
‘Everybody here is Pitt mad. Addresses upon addresses crowd the avenue to St. James’s. It has even been proposed to offer Mr. Pitt a seat in Parliament for this town if Mr. Neville can be engaged to put up for the county. Our county meeting was no bad an epitome of the House of Commons. We had some excellent speeches. I had occasion to be at the Oxfordshire meeting—a most shabby wrangle and scene of illiberal confusion. I admire Mr. Pitt—and do not like Fox; but ought not a dissolution to have taken place, or the people have instructed their representatives rather than suffer the House of Commons to be so degraded? What are your sentiments on this unhappy dissension? Sorry, very sorry I am that you would not come down to Reading. I am certain you must have met with an opportunity. It was my intention last Christmas to have paid you a visit, but I had some friends with me. Next Christmas, however, I mean to see Suffolk, if possible. Cullum is still here.
‘The present state of my school is this: six-and-thirty boarders and three parlour boarders, besides day scholars. I have two ushers. I sometimes hear of your brother, but I have not met with him. I am told he has a mortal aversion to everything that comes from Oxford.
‘l.—I hope your family and the materfamilias are in a prosperous way. Pray give my best respects to Mrs. Young, and remember me to the young ladies and my old scholar. Something I have heard of another child. One of the greatest luxuries that I sigh for in life is that you lived near me. But inconveniences of absence do not seem likely to be prevented by your endeavour to come after me. Let me, however, hear from you as often as you can.
‘Adieu.
‘R. Valpy.’
I find by memoranda that I was busied in the imagination of new fish-ponds,[[99]] taking lively interest in and examining how much of the low meadow at Bradfield could be laid under water. What led me to this folly is not easy to conceive, because I could have afforded to attempt the making of an ocean as much as of a pond; but how often is the register of a life the register of human folly?