Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note530To Joseph Townsend12 May 1785 (Aet 37)

Lincolns Inn May 12 1785.

Dear Sir

Here am I still: how much longer I shall be here, I do not as yet precisely know: nor by what track nor by what manner pg 328/conveyance/ I shall migrate elsewhere. I am waiting for letters from Petersburgh: which is like the countryman's waiting/that is to say I am in the state and condition of your friend Horace's countryman who /kept/ waiting/ for the river to run itself dry. Thanks to my stars /sins/, I have to do with one of the most indolent men of one of the most indolent nations upon the face of God's/almightys/ earth. I write for him letter after letter about business purely his own. He, I am told, expresses much satisfaction: and how do you think he testifies it? You would suppose, by answering them: no such thing: he orders them to be translated out of my dog-French into Russian: for what purpose, or for whose use, I can't pretend to guess: not for his own most certainly: as he makes at least as much use of the French as of the Russ. However he talks of writing soon, and there the matter rests.

As for you, I will /almost/ venture to prophesy you will not quit the land of Tin /island/ in a hurry: the gnomes of Cornwall have bound /encompassed/ you with silver chains. I see the would-be Gulliver struggling to get loose: in vain. a swarm of little Pluto's keep fast hold of him by the heart-strings.

As to Sir Edward Bayntun,² I am much obliged to him for his good intentions: they are like Prince Potemkin's, of lasting stuff, not to be demolished /put an end to/ by performance. I should rather have said, for his declarations: which assuredly is full as much as I had any title to expect.

To come back to Milk maids. You gave me as your /decided/ opinion that no such animals would be to be met with, born in two countries at once. After great consideration and some enquiry, I do believe /am inclin'd to think/ you are in the right. Indeed I know but of /never cou'd hear of more than/ one sort of being that into and with /have been/ /is to be found/ in more than one place at a time, in any period of its existence. I think therefore I have done something in finding in /the person/ a Niece of my all performing pg 329capable Scotchman an intelligent well-bred young /gentle/ woman of about 25, who to the theoretical merit of having imbibed sound chemical principles from her Uncle, adds the practical requisite of having been born and bred in a Cheshire Dairy. You will say that is doing the business but by halves: true: but it would be more than half done, if I could get her regenerated in Wiltshire. Now how to bring about this good work? of my self /you know/ I can do nothing: I can pretend to the /art/ of regeneration no more /I can have no more pretend I make no more pretensions/ than to its simple forerunner prototype. But you, my venerable friend, are alike an adept in both: the one is /last/ your choice /pastime is,/ the other is /and the first/ your trade. Now then how shall I contrive to pay you: for everyone must live by his trade: and yours is not none of those which people dont /men are wont to/ live the worst by. I wont pretend to pay you but put it into your hands/ Don't /be wicked now and/ think that I mean to propose to you/ to pay yourself by making /intermixing upon this occasion/ your pastime /with/ your trade: that would be curtailing you of a syllable, without making you a jot the richer: besides that my commission does not extend quite so far: /and [several words crossed out] sacred as the precedent is, it is possible she might have her scruples about acting/ the part of Ruth, though you were to be her Booz. I mean to pay you more liberally in your own coin. Pewsey, I am told, or the near neighbourhood of it is a second Canaan; don't be angry, I speak of its produce, not of its inhabitants. The ditches instead of mud are filled with milk: and the footpaths instead of gravel are cased with Cheese. You must /can not but/ know plenty of your ouailles or of their commeres who out of courtesy /Christian Charity/ aided by the moderate application of a more substantial motive would undertake this pious work. The process would /need/ not take up above a week: and any recompense you thought adequate, two or three guineas suppose, would be chearfully bestow'd. But what /you will say, is/ become of the Levites there you'll say all this while? Have a little patience. I have a piece of Malachites—(Ye heavenly powers! what a piece!) fit to make a breast-plate for the Angel Gabriel. Indeed I know not but that it might/Who can say it may not/ have served heretofore to that use? Stones you know /tell us/ have fallen from heaven before now and this for aught I know /why may not this/ may be one of them? Sure nothing half so beautiful was ever /could ever have been/ dug out of the earth. This /jewel/ my fair Cheese-maker, who I am told /I understand/ is a fossilist to boot, shall bring down in her lap, and deposit with pious pg 330gratitude in the sanctum sanctorum of Pewsey. To this all /shall/ be added about 50 or 60 specimens of Siberian ores: sent over by my Brother in days of yore as an earnest of better things to come. True it is these were put up in a bundle with your direction to them before I had thought of Pewsey in any other light than that of a place in which I had spent some pleasant hours, and might possibly, at I know not what distant period, spend more. But the handling of so much wealth hath made me mercenary: and I have vowed a vow, /a tremendous irrevocable vow,/ that your eyes shall never behold a single grain of them, unless wafted to Pewsey by that enviable conveyance.

When you see Lord Lansdown, you will hear of a great pie which was cut up at his house, and in which, alas! alas! I full well know, my reverend friend would have rejoiced to have had a finger. I cried out with a loud voice, where is he? They answer'd me and said, three hundred miles off, even in Cornwall: too busy and too wise, to leave mountains for an /horse-loads/ chip-bond-boxes. What could I do? There is an hour for pies as for other things. The hour of this pie was come: it had been kept till it could be kept /would keep/ no longer. But what hath kept, keeps still, and will have kept when pyes and custards are grown stale (how does my little custardophagus?) is the /sincere/ regard and esteem with which I am

/Dear Sir/ Your obliged friend and humble servant If /at this distance/ you can assist me, /I beg leave to propose/ the best mode of doing it that you should send me /in your answer to me/ you should inclose a letter addressed to the discreet matron you make /whom you honour with your/ choice of, which that I may forward it to her. The lady's name is Miss Kirtland. At any rate I beg your immediate answer, that other measures may be taken if this should fail.