164 LORD MANSFIELD.-MR. WHITEHEAD. (Ær. 67.

but two. In my own mind I preferred the first, as a composition, for the quantity and variety of the matter contained, and a kind of spirited ending of each paragraph. But I find that others here generally prefer the second.

I am not suspected as the author, except by one or two friends; and have heard the latter spoken of in the highest terms, as the keenest and severest piece that has appeared here a long time. Lord Mansfield, I hear, said of it, that it was very ABLE and very ARTFUL indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government; and in the colonies, by encouraging them in their contumacy. It is reprinted in the Chronicle, where you will see it, but stripped of all the capitaling and italicking, that intimate the allusions and mark the emphasis of written discourses, to bring them as near as possible to those spoken. Printing such a piece all in one even small character, seems to me like repeating one of Whitefield's sermons in the monotony of a school-boy.

a What made it the more noticed here was, that people in reading it were, as the phrase is, taken in, till they had got half through it, and imagined it a real edict, to which mistake I suppose the King of Prussia's character must have contributed. I was down at Lord Le Despencer's, when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, (Paul Whitehead, the author of “Manners,'') who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlour, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper

in his hand. “Here !” says he, “ here's news for ye! Here's the King of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom !"' All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to

read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, “Damn his impudence, I dare say we shall hear by next post, that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.” Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face, said, “I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us." The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit; and the piece was cut out of the paper

and preserved in my Lord's collection.

I do not wonder that Hutchinson should be dejected. It must be an uncomfortable thing to live among people, who, he is conscious, universally detest him. Yet I fancy he will not have leave to come home, both because they know not well what to do with him, and because they do

J not very well like his conduct.

Thomas

To

The pieces I wrote, to increase and strengthen Cushing, dated London,

those sentiments, were more read and talked i Nov., 1773. of and attended to than usual. The first, as you will see by the enclosed, has been called for and reprinted in the same paper, besides being copied in others, and in the magazines. A long, labored answer has been made to it, (by Governor Bernard, it is said,) which I send you. I am told it does not satisfy those in whose justification it was written, and that a better is preparing.

a

I was much pleased with the specimens you so kindly sent me of your new art of engraving. That on the china is admirable. No one

166

PRINTING ON CHINA.

[Æt. 67.

would suppose it any thing but painting. I hope you meet with all the encouragement you merit, and that the invention will be, what inventions seldom are, profitable to the inventor.

Now we are speaking of inventions, I know not who pretends to that of copper-plate engravings for earthen ware, and I am not disposed to contest the honor with anybody, as the improvement in taking impressions not directly from the plate, but from printed paper, applicable by that means to other than flat forms, is far beyond my first idea. But I have reason to apprehend, that I might have given the hint, on which that improvement was made ; for, more than twenty years since, I wrote to Dr. Mitchell from America, proposing to him the printing of square tiles, for ornamenting chimneys, from copper plates, describing the ma iner in which I thought it might be done, and advising the borrowing from the booksellers the plates, that had been used in a thin folio, called “Moral Virtue Delineated," for the purpose.

The Dutch Delft ware tiles were much used in America, which are only or chiefly Scripture histories, wretchedly scrawled. I wished to have those moral prints, which were originally taken from Horace's poetical figures, introduced on tiles, which, being about our chimneys and constantly in the eyes of children when by the fire side, might give parents an opportunity of explaining them, to impress moral sentiments, and I gave expectations of great demand for them if executed. Dr. Mitchell wrote to me, in answer, that he had communicated my scheme to one of the principal artists in the earthen way about London, who rejected it as impracticable; and it was not till some years after, that I first saw an enamelled snuff box, which I was sure was from

a copper plate, though the curvature of the form made me wonder how the impression was taken. I understand the china work in Philadelphia is declined by the first owners. Whether any others will take it up and continue it, I know not.

CHAPTER V.

Rules for re- An ancient sage valued himself upon this, ducing a Great

that, though he could not fiddle, he knew how Empire to a Small One; to make a great city of a little one. The presented to a Late

Minis- science that I, a modern simpleton, am about ter,* when he

to communicate, is the very reverse. entered upon his Adminis- I address myself to all ministers who have tration.

the management of extensive dominions, which from their very greatness have become troublesome to govern, because the multiplicity of their affairs leaves no time for fiddling.

1. In the first place, Gentlemen, you are to consider, that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your attention, therefore, first to your remotest provinces; that, as you get rid of them, the next may follow in order.

2. That the possibility of this separation may always

2