You have heard of the burning of Wootton, the paterno nido of Lady Carysfort, just fitted up for Lord and Lady Temple; nothing saved but her jewels. Lady —— tells me that the poor people of the neighbourhood, after making the most extraordinary efforts to save the house, which was completely burned in three hours, actually sat down and cried over the ruins. Her sweet mind is fully convinced of this, and, indeed, so was I, till I began to write it. But putting a thing on paper is a sort of test of its probability; and now I begin to doubt a little so feudal a proof of attachment on this side of the water. Pass but the Channel or the Tweed, and it would be more probable.
TO JOHN BULLAR, ESQ., SOUTHAMPTON.
Elm Lodge, Jan., 1821.
Accept my best thanks for your valuable little volume. I read the greatest part of it to my family circle last night. My four boys were interested, and my nephew took the book the moment I laid it down, in order to become better acquainted with the whole of its contents. It gives a most pleasing view of the power of religion, and is the more valuable from the incidental lights it throws on various points of our faith.
If I might, unblamed, be permitted to use the phrase on so serious a subject, I should confess I was very much gratified by its being written in such exquisite good taste that neither the scoffer, nor the sceptic, nor the most fastidious man of the world, could find aught to ridicule. This may seem absurd, but I know too well the power of ridicule in obstructing the path of truth, not to rejoice when I see every door shut against so dangerous an intruder; and we must acknowledge this is not always the case in narratives drawn up with the best intentions.
... I am pleased at finding that so admirable a person as Isaac Watts was born in this neighbourhood, which I consider as my adopted home; and I wish you would, on a second edition, interweave a few more anecdotes of his private life. No one scarcely in these tempestuous and exciting times will read the biography of Isaac Watts as a single work; but a little more knowledge of him would be acceptable to all, since his hymns are equally prized by all gradations of intellect, and are repeated equally in the palace and the cottage.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.,
STOCKHOLM.
Elm Lodge, Jan. 20, 1821.