(640) The following are the Bishop’s expressions:—­“And now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales.  Ill as I have been, almost ever since they came to hand, I have read as much of them as I shall read while I live. indeed, they do not please my taste; they are writ with so romantic an air, and are of so wild and absurd a contrivance, that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience in reading them.  I cannot help thinking them the production of some woman’s imagination.”  The Honourable Charles Yorke, in a letter to his brother, the second Earl of Hardwicke written in June 1740, states that Pope and Warburton both agreed in condemning the bishop’s judgment on the Arabian Tales and that Warburton added, that from those tales the completest notion might be gather,d of the Eastern ceremonies and manners.-E.

(641) The work entitled “Mille et Une Nuits,” was translated from an original Arabic manuscript, in the King of France’s library by M. Galland, professor of Arabic in the University of Paris.  It appeared in 1704-8:  in twelve volumes.-E.

(642) Her “Observations and Reflections in the course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany,” honoured with a couplet in the Baviad—­

See Thrale’s gray widow with a satchel roam,
And bring in Pomp laborious nothings home."-E.

(643) A line from some verses that he had received.-M.B.

Letter 332 To Miss Hannah More.  Strawberry Hill, July 2, 1789. (PAGE 421)

I almost think I shall never abuse you again; nay, I would not, did not it prove so extremely good for you.  No walnut tree is better for being threshed than you are; and, though you have won my heart by your compliance, I don’t know whether my conscience will not insist on my using you ill now and then; for is there any precedent for gratitude not giving way to every other duty?  Gratitude like an earl’s eldest son, is but titular, and has no place upon trials.  But I fear I punning sillily, instead of thanking you seriously, as I do, for allowing me to print your lovely verses.  My press can confer no honour; but, when I offer it, it is a certain mark Of My sincerity and esteem.  It has been dedicated to friendship, to charity-too often to worthless self-love; sometimes to the rarity of the pieces, and sometimes to the merit of them; now it will unite the first motive and the last.

My fall, for which you so kindly concern yourself, was not worth mentioning; for as I only bruised the muscles of my side, instead of breaking a rib, camphire infused in arquebusade took off the pain and all consequences in five or six days:  and one has no right to draw on the compassion of others for what one has suffered and is past.  Some love to be pitied on that score; but forget that they only excite, in the best-natured, joy on their deliverance.  You commend me too for not complaining of my chronical evil; but, my dear Madam, I should be blamable for