The loss of so many busy and idle hours was not compensated by any elegant plea sure; and my temper was insensibly soured by the society of our rustic officers. In every state there exists, however, a balance of good and evil The habits of a sedentary life were usually broken by the duties of an active profession: in the healthful exercise of the field 1 hunted with a battalion, instead of a pack; and at that time, I was ready, at any hour of the day or night, to fly from quarters to London, from London to quarters, on the slightest call of private or regimental business. But my principal obligation to the militia, was the making me an Englishman, and a soldier. After my foreign education, with my reserved temper, I should tong have continued a stranger in my native country, had I not been shaken in this various scene of new faces and new friends: had not experience forced me to feel the characters of our leading men, the state of parties, the forms of office, and the operation of our civil and military system. In this peaceful service, I imbibed the rudiments of the language, and science of tacties, which opened a new field of study and observation. I diligently read, and meditated, the Memoires Militaires of Quintus Icilius, (Mr. Guichardt) the only writer who has united the merits of a professor and a veteran, The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion; and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman empire. A youth of any spirit is fired even by the play of arms, and in the first sallies of my enthusiasm I had seriously attempted to embrace the regular profession of a soldier. But this military fever was cooled by the enjoyment of our mimic Bellona, who soon unveiled to my eye's her naked deformity. How often did I sigh for my proper station in society and letters. How often (a proud comparison) did I repeat the complaint of Cicero, in the command of a provincial army: "Clitellæ bovi sunt imposita. Est incredibile quam me negotii tædeat. Non habet satis magnum campun alle tibi non ignotus cursus animi; et industriæ meæ præclara opera cessat. Lucem, tibros, urbem, domum, vos desidero. Sed feram, ut potero; sit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum est."* From a service without danger I might indeed have retired without disgrace; but as often as I hinted a wish of resigning, my fetters were riveted by the friendly entreaties of the colonel, the parental authority of the major, and my own regard for the honour and welfare of the battalion. When I felt that my personal escape was impracticable, I bowed my neck to the yoke my servitude was protracted far beyond the annual patience of Cicero; and it was not till after the preliminaries of peace, that I received my discharge from the act of government, which disembodied the militia.t Epist. ad Atticum, lib. v. 15. JOURNAL, January 11th, 1761.]-In these seven or eight months of a most disagreeably active life, I have had no studies to set down; indeed, I hardly took a book in my hand the whole time. The first two months at Blandford, I might have done something; but the novelty of the thing, of which for some time I was so fond as to think of going into the army, our field days, our dinners abroad, and the drinking and late hours we got into, prevented any serious reflections. From the day we marched from Blandford I had hardly a moment I could call my own, almost continually in motion; if I was fixed for a day, it was in the guard-room, a barrack, or an inn. Our disputes consumed the little time I had left. Every letter, every memorial, relative to them fell to my share; and our evening conferences were used to hear all the morning hours strike. At last I got to Dover, and Sir Thomas left us for two months. The charm was over, I was sick of so hateful a service; I was settled in a com paratively quiet situation. Once more I began to taste the pleasure of thinking. Recollecting some thoughts I had formerly had in relation to the system of paganism, which I intended to make use of in my Essay, I resolved to read Tully de Natura Deorum, and finished it in about a month. I lost some time before I could recover my habit of application. Oct. 23.1-Our first design was to march through Marlborough; but finding on inquiry that it was a bad road, and a great way about, we resolved to push for the Devizes in one day, though nearly thirty miles. We accordingly arrived there about three o'clock in the afternoon. Nov. 2d.]-I have very little to say for this and the following month. Nothing could be more uniform than the life I led there. The little civility of the neighbouring gentlemen gave us no opportunity of dining out; the time of year did not tempt us to any excursions Found the country; and at first my indolence, and afterward a violent cold, prevented my going over to Bath. I believe in the two months I never dined or lay from quarters. I can therefore only set down what I did in the literary way. Designing to recover my Greek, which I had somewhat neglected, I set myself to read Homer, and finished the four first books of the Iliad, with Pope's translation and notes; at the same time, to understand the Geography of the Iliad, and particularly the catalogue, I read the 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th books of Strabo, in Casaubon's Latin translation: I likewise read Hume's History of England to the reign of Henry the Seventh, just published, ingenious but superficial; sand the Journals des Scavans for August, September, and October, 1761, with the Biblio When I complain of the loss of time, justice to myself and to the militia must throw the greatest part of that reproach on the first seven or eight months, while I was obliged theque des Sciences, &c. from July to October: Both these Journals speak very handsomely of my book. December 25th, 1761.]-When, upon finishing the year, I take a review of what I have done, I am not dissatisfied with what I did in it, upon making proper allowances On the one hand, I could begin nothing before the middle of January. The Deal duty lost me part of February; although I was at home part of March, and all April, yet electioneering is no friend to the Muses. May, indeed, though dissipated by our sea parties, was pretty quiet; but June was absolutely lost, upon the march, at Alton, and settling ourselves in camp. The four succeeding months in camp allowed me little leisure, and little quiet. November and December were indeed as much my own as any time can be while I remain in the militia ; but still it is, at best, not a life for a man of letters. However, in this tumultuous year, (besides smaller things which I have set down,) I read four books of Homer in Greek, six of Strabo in Latin, Cicero de Natura Deorum, and the great philosophical and theological work of M. de Beausobre: I wrote in the same time a long dissertation on the succession of Naples; reviewed, fitted for the press, and augmented above a fourth, my Essai sur l'Etude de la Literature. In the six weeks I passed at Beriton, as I never stirred from it, every day was like the former. 1 had neither visits, hunting, nor walking. My only resources were myself, my books, and family conversation-But to me these were great resources. April 24th, 1762.]—I waited upon Colonel Harvey in the morning, to get him to apply for me to be brigade major to Lord Effingham, as a post I should be very fond of, and for which I am not unfit. Harvey received me with great good nature and candour, told me he was both willing and able to serve me; that indeed he had already applied to Lord Effingham for, one of his own officers, and though there would be more than one brigade major, he did not think he could properly recommend two; but that if I could get some other person to break the ice, he would second it, and believed he should succeed: should that fail, as was in bad circumstances, he believed he could make a compromise with him (this was my desire) to let me do the duty without pay. I went from him to the Mallets, who promised to get Sir Charles Howard to speak to Lord Effingham. August 22d.]—I went with Ballard to the French church, where I heard a most indifferent sermon preached by M. A very bad style, a worse pronunciation and action, and a very great vacuity of ideas, composed this excellent performance. Upon the whole, which is preferable, the philosophic method of the English, or the rhetoric of the French preachers? The first, (though less glorious) is certainly safer for the preacher. It is difficult for a man to make himself ridiculous, who proposes only to deliver plain sense on a subject he has thoroughly studied. But the instant he discovers the least pretensions towards the sublime, or the pathetic, there is no medium; we must either admire or laugh and there are so many various talents requisite to form the character of an orator, that it is more than probable we shall laugh. As to the advantage of the hearer, which ought to be the great consideration, the dilemma is much greater. Excepting in some particular cases, where we are blinded by popular prejudices, we are in general so well acquainted with our duty, that it is almost superfluous to convince us of it. It is the heart, and not the head, that holds out; and it is certainly possible, by a moving eloquence, to rouse the sleeping sentiments of that heart, and incite it to acts of virtue. Unluckily it is not so much acts, as habits of virtue, we should have in view; and the preacher who is inculcating, with the eloquence of a Bourdaloue, the necessity of a virtuous life, will dismiss his assembly full of emotions, which a variety of other objects, the coldness of our northern constitutions, and no imme diate opportunity of exerting their good resolutions, will dissipate in a few moments. August 24th.-The same reason that carried so many people to the assembly to-night, was what kept me away; I mean the dancing, 28th.]-To-day Sir Thomas came to us to dinner. The Spa has done him a great deal of good, for he looks another man. Pleased to see him, we kept bumperising till after rollcalling; Sir Thomas assuring us, every fresh bottle, how infinitely sober he was grown. 29th.-I felt the usual consequences of Sir Thomas's company, and lost a morning because I had lost the day before. However, having finished Voltaire, I returned to Le Clerc, (I mean for the amusement of my leisure hours ;) and laid aside for some time his Bibliotheque Universelle, to look into the Bibliotheque Choisie, which is by far the better work. September the 23d.]-Colonel Wilkes, of the Buckinghamshire militia, dined with us, and renewed the acquaintance Sir Thomas and myself had begun with him at Reading. Í scarcely ever met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and hamour, and a great deal of knowledge. He told us himself, that in this time of public dissension he was resolved to make his fortune. Upon this principle he has connected himself closely with Lord Temple aud Mr. Pitt, commenced a public adversary to Lord Bute, whom he abuses weekly in the North Briton, and other political papers in which he is concerned. This proved a very debauched day: we drank a good deal both after dinner and supper; and when at last Wilkes had retired, Sir Thomas and some others (of whom I was not one) broke into his room, and made him drink a bottle of claret in bed. October 5th.-The review, which lasted about three hours, concluded, as usual, with marching by Lord Effingham, by grand divisions. Upon the whole, considering the camp had done both the Winchester and the Gosport duties all the summer, they behaved very to learn as well as to teach. The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpe well, and made a fine appearance. As they marched by, I had my usual curiosity to count their files. The following is my field return: I think it a curiosity; I am sure it is more exact than is commonly made to a reviewing general. Number of Men. Berkshire, 273 IV. Essex, 285 S. Gloster, 312 {Battalion, 84) N. Gloster, Grenadiers, 13 Battalion, 52 Lancashire, Grenadiers, 20 Battalion, 88( Wiltshire, Grenadiers, 24 Battalion, 120 ( N. B. The Gosport detachment from the Lancashire consisted of two hundred and fifty men. The Buckinghamshire took the Winchester duty that day. So that this camp in England, supposed complete, with only one detachment, had under arms, on the day of the grand review, little more than half their establishment. This amazing deficiency (though exemplified in every regiment I have seen) is an extraordinary military phenomenon: what must it be upon foreign service? I doubt whether a nominal army of a hundred thousand men often brings fifty into the field. Upon our return to Southampton in the evening, we found Sir Thomas Worsley. October 21st.]-One of those impulses, which it is neither very easy nor very necessary to withstand, drew me from Longinus to a very different subject, the Greek calendar. Last night, when in bed, I was thinking of a dissertation of M. d. la Nauze upon the Roman calendar, which I read last year. 1 his led me to consider what was the Greek, and finding myself very ignorant of it, I determined to read a short, but very excellent extract of Mr. Dodwell's book de Cyclis, by the famous Dr. Halley. It is only twenty-five pages; but as I meditated it thoroughly, and verified all the calculations, it was a very good morning's work. October 28th.]-I looked over a new Greek Lexicon which I have just received from London. It is that of Robert Constantine, Lugdon, 1637. It is a very large volume, in folio, in two parts, comprising in the whole 1785 pages. After the great Thesaurus, this is esteemed the best Greek Lexicon. It seems to be so. Of a variety of words for which I looked, I always found an exact definition; the various senses well distinguished, and properly supported, by the best authorities. However, I still prefer the radical method of Scapula to this alphabetical one. December 11th.]-I have already given an idea of the Gosport duty I shall only add a trait which characterises admirably our unthinking sailors. At a time when they knew that they should infallibly be discharged in a few weeks, numbers who had considerable wages due to them, were continually jumping over the walls, and risking the losing of it for a few hours amusement at Portsmouth. 17th.]-We found old Captain Meard at Alresford, with the second division of the fourteenth. He and all his officers supped with us, and made the evening rather a drunken one. 18th.]-About the same hour, our two corps paraded to march off. They, an old corps of regulars, who had been two years quiet in Dover castle. We, part of a young body of militia, two-thirds of our men recruits of four months standing, two of which they had passed upon very disagreeable duty. Every advantage was on their side, and yet our superiority, both as to appearance and discipline, was so striking, that the most prejudiced regu lar could not have hesitated a moment. At the end of the town our two companies separated; my father's struck off for Petersfield, while 1 continued my route to Alton; into which place I marched my company about noon; two years six months and fifteen days after my first leaving it. I gave the men some beer at roll-calling, which they received with great cheerfulness and decency. I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that old-fashioned breeding, which is at once so honourable and so troublesome. 23d.]-Our two companies were disembodied; mine at Alton, and my father's at Beriton. Smith marched them over from Petersfield: they fired three volleys, lodged the major's colours, delivered up their arms, received their money, partook of a dinner at the major's expense, and then separated with great cheerfulness and regularity. Thus ended the militia; I may say ended, since our annual assemblies in May are so very precarious, and can be of so little use. However, our sergeants and drums are still kept up, and quartered at the rendezvous of their company, and the adjutant remains at Southampton, in full pay As this was an extraordinary scene of life, in which I was engaged above three years and a half from the date of my commission, and above two years and a half from the time of our embodying, I cannot take my leave of it without some few reflections. When I engaged in it, I was totally ignorant of its nature and consequences. I offered, because my father did, without ever imagining that we should be called out, till it was too late to retreat with tual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind. After this long fast, the longest which I have ever known, I once more tasted at Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking: and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully's philosophical works is still present to my memory. The last review of my Essay, before its publication, had prompted me to investigate the nature of the gods; my inquiries led me to the Histoire Critique du Manichéisme of Beausobre, who discusses many deep questions of Pagan and Christian theology: and from this rich treasury of facts and opinions, I deduced my own consequences, beyond the holy circle of the author. After this recovery I never relapsed into indolence; and my example might prove, that in the life most averse to study, some hours may be stolen, some minutes may be snatched. Amid the tumult of Winchester camp, I sometimes thought and read in my tent; in the more settled quarters of the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I was always secured a separate lodging, and the necessary books; and in the summer of 1762, while the new militia was raising, I enjoyed at Beriton two or three months of literary repose.* In forming a new plan of study, I hesitated between the mathematics and the Greek language, both of which I had neglected since my return from Lausanne. I consulted a learned and friendly mathematician, Mr. George Scott, a pupil of de Moivre; and his map of a country which I never explored, may perhaps be more serviceable to others. As soon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of Scaliger and my own reason determined me on the choice of Homer, the father of poetry, and the Bible of the ancients: but Scaliger ran through the Iliad in one-and-twenty days; and I was not dissatisfied with my own diligence for performing the same labour in an equal number of weeks. After the first difficulties were surmounted, the language of nature and harmony soon became easy and familiar, and each day I sailed upon the ocean with a brisker gale and a more steady course. honour. Indeed, I believe it happens throughout, that our most important actions have been often determined by chance, caprice, or some very inadequate motive. After our embodying, many things contributed to make me support it with great impatience. Our continual disputes with the duke of Bolton; our unsettled way of life, which hardly allowed me books or leisure for study; and more than all, the disagreeable society in which I was forced to live. After mentioning my sufferings, I must say something of what I found agreeable. Now it is over, I can make the separation much better than I could at the time. 1. The unsettled way of life itself had its advantages. The exercise and change of air and of objects amused me, at the same time it fortified my health. 2. A new field of knowledge and amusement opened itself to me; that of military affairs, which, both in my studies and travels, will give me eyes for a new world of things, which before would have passed unheeded. Indeed, in that respect I can hardly help wishing our battalion had continued another year. We had got a fine set of new men; all our difficulties were over; we were perfectly well clothed and appointed; and, from the progress our recruits had already made, we could promise ourselves that we should be one of the best militia corps by next summer: a circumstance that would have been the more agreeable to me, as I am now established the real acting major of the battalion. But what value most, is the knowledge it has given me of mankind in general, and of my own country in particular. The general system of our government, the methods of our several offices, the departments and powers of their respective officers, our provincial and municipal administration, the views of our several parties, the characters, connexions, and influence of our principal people, have been impressed on my mind, not by vain theory, but by the indelible lessons of action and experience. I have made a number of valuable acquaintance, and am myself much better known, than (with my reserved character) I should have been in ten years, passing regularly my summers at Beriton, and my winters in London. So that the sum of all is, that I am glad the militia has been, and glad that it is no more. *JOURNAL, May 8th, 1762.]-This was my birthday, on which I entered into the twentysixth year of my age. This gave me occasion to look a little into myself, and consider impartially my good and bad qualities. It appeared to me, upon this inquiry, that my character was virtuous, incapable of a base action, and formed for generous ones; but that it was proud, violent, and disagreeable in society. These qualities I must endeavour to cultivate, extirpate, or restrain, according to their different tendency. Wit I have none. My imagi nation is rather strong than pleasing. My memory both capacious and retentive. The shining qualities of my understanding are extensiveness and penetration; but I want both quickness and exactness. As to my situation in life, though I may sometimes repine at it, it perhaps is the best adapted to my character. I can command all the conveniences of life, and I can command, too, that independence (that first earthly blessing,) which is hardly to be met with in a higher or lower fortune. When I talk of my situation, I must exclude that temporary one, of being in the militia. Though I go through it with spirit and application, it is both unfit for and unworthy of me. Εν δ' ανέμος πρησεν μέσον ιειον, αμφι δε κύμα Η δεθεί κατά κυμα δι πρήσσουσα κέλευθα. * Iliad, A. 481. In the study of a poet who has since become the most intimate of my friends, I successively applied many passages and fragments of Greek writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the Opuscula Mythologica of Gale, several books of the Geography of Strabo, and the entire treatise of Longinus, which, from the title and the style, is equally worthy of the epithet of sublime. My grammatical skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in the militia I acquired a just and indelible knowledge of the first of languages. On every march, in every journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand; but I should not mention his two critical epistles, the amusement of a morning, had they not been accompanied by the elaborate commentary of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of Worcester. On the interesting subjects of composition and imitation of epic and dramatic poetry, I presumed to think for myself: and thirty close-written pages in folio could scarcely comprise my full and free discussion of the sense of the master and the pedantry of the servant. After his oracle Dr. Johnson, my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds denies all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art or science rather than another. Without engaging in a metaphysical or rather verbal dispute, I know, by experience, that from my early youth I aspired to the character of a historian. While I served in the militia, before and after the publication of my essay, this idea ripened in my mind; nor can I paint in more lively colours the feelings of the moment, than by transcribing some passages, under their respective dates, from a journal which I kept at that time. Beriton, April 14, 1761. (In a short excursion from Dover.) Having thought of several subjects for a historical composition, I chose the expedition of Charles VIII. of France into Italy. I read two memoirs of Mr. de Foncemagne in the Academy of Inscriptions (tom. xvii. p. 539-607,) and abstracted them. I likewise finished this day a dissertation, in which I examine the right of Charles VIII. to the crown of Naples, and the rival claims of the house of Anjou and Arragon: it consists of ten folio pages, besides large notes." Beriton, August 4, 1761. (In a week's excursion from Winchester camp.) "After having long revolved subjects for my intended historical essay, I renounced my first thought of the expedition of Charles VIII. as too remote from us, and rather an introduction to great events, than great and important in itself. I successively chose and rejected the crusade of Richard the First, the barons' wars against John and Henry the Third, the history of Edward the Black Prince, the lives and comparisons of Henry V. and the emperor Titus, the life of Sir Philip Sidney, and that of the Marquis of Montrose. At length, I have fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh for my hero. His eventful story is varied by the characters of the soldier and sailor, the courtier and historian; and it may afford such a fund of materials as I desire, which have no yet been properly manufactured. At present, I cannot attempt the execution of this work. Free leisure, and the opportunity of consulting many books, both printed and manuscript, are as necessary as they are impossible to be attained in my present way of life. However, to acquire a general insight into my subject and resources, I read the life of Sir Walter Raleigh by Dr. Birch, his copious article in the General Dictionary by the same hand, and the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First in Hume's History of England." 26 Beriton, January, 1762. (In a month's absense from the Devizes.) During this interval of repose, I again turned my thoughts to Sir Walter Raleigh, ........Fair wind, and blowing fresh, Apollo sent them; quick they rear'd the mast, Dash'd wide the waves, and scudded swift away. COWPER'S Homer. |