I have confessed to you that I am fond of local histories.  It is the general execution of them that I condemn, and that I call “the worst kind of reading.”  I cannot comprehend but that they might be performed with taste.  I did mention this winter the new edition of Atkyns’s Gloucestershire, as having additional descriptions of situations that I thought had merit.  I have just got another, a View of Northumberland, in two volumes, quarto, with cuts;(381) but I do not devour it fast; for the author’s predilection is to Roman antiquities, which, such as are found in this island, are very indifferent, and inspire me with little curiosity.  A barbarous country, so remote from the seat of empire, and occupied by a few legions that very rarely decided any great events, is not very interesting, though one’s own country; nor do I care a straw for a stone that preserves the name of a standard-bearer of a cohort, or of a colonel’s daughter.  Then I have no patience to read the tiresome disputes of antiquaries to settle forgotten names of vanished towns, and to prove that such a village was called something else in Antoninus’s Itinerary.  I do not say the Gothic antiquities I like are of more importance; but at least they exist.  The site of a Roman camp, of which nothing remains but a bank, gives me not the smallest pleasure.  One knows they had square camps-has one a clearer idea from the spot, which is barely distinguishable?  How often does it happen, that the lumps of earth are so imperfect, that it is never clear whether they are Roman, Druidic, Danish, or Saxon fragments:  the moment it is uncertain, it is plain they furnish no specific idea of art or history, and then I neither desire to see or read them.  I have been diverted, too, by another work, in which I am personally a little concerned.  Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray, that he murdered.(382) I doubt whether the letters are genuine; and yet, if fictitious, they are executed well, and enter into his character:  hers appears less natural, and yet the editors were certainly more likely to be in the possession of hers than his.  It is not probable that Lord Sandwich should have sent what he found in her apartments to the press.  No account is pretended to be given of how they came to light.

You will wonder how I should be concerned in this correspondence, who never saw either of the lovers in my days.  In fact, my being dragged in is a reason for doubting the authenticity; nor can I believe that the long letter in which I am frequently mentioned could be written by the wretched lunatic.  It pretends that Miss Ray desired him to give her a particular account of Chatterton.  He does give a most ample one; but is there a glimpse of probability that a being so frantic should have gone to Bristol, and sifted Chatterton’s sister and others with as much cool curiosity as Mr. Lort could do? and at such a moment!  Besides, he murdered Miss Ray,