Judaeus Apella."-E.

(721) In Mr. Wilberforce’s Diary for this year there appears the following entry:-"Nov- 22.  Dined with Mr. Pitt.  He told me of Grenville’s peerage and the true reasons—­distrust of Lord Thurlow.  Saw Thurlow’s answer to the news.  Gave Pitt a serious word or two.”  See Life, vol. i. p. 284.-E.

Letter 363 To The Miss Berrys.  Strawberry Hill, Dec. 20, 1790; very late at night. (page 465)

The French packet that was said to be lost on Tuesday last, and which did hang out signals of distress, was saved, but did not bring any letters; but three Flemish mails that were due are arrived, and did bring letters, and, to my inexpressible joy, two from you of the 22d and 29th of the last month, telling Me that you have received as far as No. 4 and 5 of mine.  Thank all the stars in Herschell’s telescope, or beyond its reach, that our correspondence is out of the reach of France and all its ravages!  Thank you a million of times for all your details about yourselves When even the apprehension of any danger disquiets me so much, judge whether I do not interest myself in every particular of your pleasures and amusements!  Florence was my delight, as it is yours but, I don’t know how, I wish you did not like it quite so much and, after the gallery. how will any silver-penny of a gallery look?  Indeed, for your Boboli, which I thought horrible even fifty years ago, before shepherds had seen the star of taste in the west, and glad tidings were proclaimed to their flocks, I do think there is not an acre on the banks of the Thames that should vail the bonnet to it.

Of Mr. Burke’s book, if I have not yet told you my opinion, I do now:  that it is one of the finest compositions in print.  There is reason, logic, wit, truth. eloquence, and enthusiasm in the brightest colours.  That it has given a mortal stab to sedition, I believe and hope; because the fury of the Brabanters,-whom, however, as having been aggrieved, I pitied and distinguish totally from the savage Gauls, -and the unmitigated and execrable injustices of the latter, have made almost any state preferable to such anarchy and desolation, that increases every day.  Admiring thus, as I do, I am very far from subscribing to the extent of almost all Mr. Burke’s principles.  The work, I have no doubt, will hereafter be applied to support very high doctrines; and to you I will say, that I think it an Apocrypha, that, in many a council of Bishops, will be added to the Old Testament.  Still, such an Almanzor was wanting at this crisis; and his foes show how deeply they are wounded, by their abusive pamphlets.  Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay(722) and the virago Barbauld, whom Mr. Burke calls our poissardes, spit their rage at eighteenpence a head, and will return to Fleet-ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors, immortalized in the Dunciad.  I must now bid you good-night; and night it is, to the tune of morning.  Adieu, all three!