and judge of all these.  They did not then run away from society for fear of its temptations; they passed their days in the midst of it, conversation was their business; they cultivated the arts of persuasion, on purpose to show men it was their interest, as well as their duty, not to be foolish and false and unjust; and that, too, in many instances with success; which is not very strange, for they showed by their life that their lessons were not impracticable.

TO THE SAME

Cambridge, February 11, 1751.  As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can.  Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen who have taken the “Magazine of Magazines” into their hands.  They tell me that an “ingenious” poem, called “Reflections in a Country Church-* yard,” has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the “excellent” author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his “indulgence,” but the “honour” of his correspondence, etc.

As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent or so correspondent as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week’s time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character.  He must correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be, “Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard.”  If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better.

TO STONEHEWER

Cambridge, August 18, 1758.  I am as sorry as you seem to be that our acquaintance harped so much on the subject of materialism when I saw him with you in town.  That we are indeed mechanical and dependent beings, I need no other proof than my own feelings; and from the same feelings I learn with equal conviction that we are not merely such; that there is a power within that struggles against the force and bias of that mechanism, commands its motion, and, by frequent practice, reduces it to that ready obedience which we call “habit”; and all this in conformity to a preconceived opinion, to that least material of all agents, a thought.

I have known many in his case who, while they thought they were conquering an old prejudice, did not perceive they were under the influence of one far more dangerous; one that furnishes us with a ready apology for all our worst actions, and opens to us a full licence for doing whatever we please; and yet these very people were not at all the more indulgent to other men, as they should have been; their indignation to such as offended them was nothing mitigated.  In short, the truth is, they wished to be persuaded of that opinion for the sake of its convenience, but were not so in their heart.