literary ideas were banished from my mind. After this long faft, the longeft which I have ever known, I once more tafted October 28th.]-I looked over a new Greek Lexicon which I have just received from London. It is that of Robert Conftantine, Lugdun. 1637. It is a very large volume in folio, in two parts, comprifing in the whole 1785 pages. After the great Thefaurus, this is efteemed the best Greek Lexicon, It feems to be fo. Of a variety of words for which I looked, I always found an exact definition; the various fenfes well diftinguished, and properly fupported, 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 Gofport duty; I fhall only add a trait which characterizes admirably our unthinking failors. At a time when they knew that they should infallibly be difcharged in a few weeks, numbers, who had confiderable wages due to them, were continually jumping over the walls, and rifquing the lofing of it for a few hours amusement at Portfmouth. 17th.]-We found old Captain Meard at Alresford, with the second divifion of the fourteenth. He and all his officers fupped with us, and made the evening rather a drunken one, 18th.About the fame 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 ftanding, two of which they had paffed upon very disagreeable duty. Every advantage was on their fide, and yet our fuperiority, both as to appearance and difcipline, was so striking, that the most prejudiced regular could not have hesitated a moment. At the end of the town our two companies feparated; my father's ftruck off for Petersfield, whilst I continued my rout to Alton; into which place I marched my company about noon; two years fix months and fifteen days after my firft leaving it. I gave the men fome 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 fo honourable and fo 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 vollies, lodged the major's colours, delivered up their arms, received their money, partook of a dinner at the major's expence, and then separated with great cheerfulness and regularity. Thus ended the militia; I may say ended, fince our annual affemblies in May are so very precarious, and can be. of fo little ufe. However, our ferjeants and drums are still kept up, and quartered at the rendezvous of their company, and the adjutant remains at Southampton in full pay. As tafted at Dover the pleafures of reading and thinking; and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully's philofophical works is ftill prefent to my memory. The last review of my Eflay before its publication, had prompted me to investigate the nature of the gods; my inqui ries led me to the Hiftoire Critique du Manichèifme of Beau fobre, As this was an extraordinary fcene of life, in which I was engaged above three years and a half from the date of my commiffion, and above two years and a half from the time of our embodying, I cannot take my leave of it withbut fome few reflections. When I engaged in it, I was totally ignorant of its nature and confequences. I offered, because my father did, without ever imagining that we should be called out, till it was too late to retreat with honour. Indeed, I believe it happens throughout, that our most important actions have been often determined by chance, caprice, or fome very inadequate motive. After our embodying, many things contributed to make me support it with great impatience. Our continual difputes with the duke of Bolton our unfettled way of life, which hardly allowed me books or leisure for study; and more than all, the disagreeable fociety in which I was forced to live. After mentioning my fufferings, I must fay fomething of what I found agreeable. Now it is over, I can make the feparation much better than I I could at the time. 1. The unfettled way of life itself had its advantages. The exercife and change of air and of objects amufed me, at the fame time that it fortified my health. 2. A new field of knowledge and amusement opened itself to me; that of military affairs, which, both in my ftudies 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 fet of new men, all our difficulties were over; we were perfectly well clothed and appointed; and, from the progrefs our recruits had already made, we could promise ourfelves that we should be one of the best militia corps by next fummer: a circumstance that would have been the more agreeable to me, as I am now èftablished the real acting major of the battalion. But what I value moft, 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 feveral offices, the departments and powers of their respective officers, our provincial and municipal administration, the views of our several parties, the characters, connections, and influence of our principal people, have been impreffed on my mind, not by vain theory, but by the indelible leffons of action and experience. I have made a number of valuable acquaintance, and am myself much better known, than (with my referved character) 1 should have been in ten years, paffing regularly my fummers at Beriton, and my winters in London. So that the fum of all is, that I am glad the militia has been, and glad that it is no more. fobre, who difcuffes many deep questions of Pagan and Christian theology: and from this rich treasury of facts own confequences, beyond After this recovery I never and opinions, I deduced my the holy circle of the author. relapsed into indolence; and my example might prove, that in the life most averse to study, some hours may be stolen, fome minutes may be fnatched. Amidst the tumult of Winchefter camp I sometimes thought and read in my tent; in the more fettled quarters of the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I always fecured a feparate lodging, and the neceffary books; and in the fummer of 1762, while the new militia was raising, I enjoyed at Beriton two or three months of literary repofe*. In forming a new plan of ftudy, I hefitated between the mathematics and the Greek language; both of which I had neglected fince my return from Laufanne. I confulted a learned and friendly mathematician, Mr. George Scott, a pupil of de Moivre; and his map of a country which I have never explored, may perhaps be more serviceable to others +. As foon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of Scaliger and my own reafon * JOURNAL, May 8th, 1762.]—This was my birth-day, on which I en◄ tered into the twenty-fixth year of my age. This gave me occafon to look a little into myself, and confider impartially my good and bad qualities. It ap¬ peared 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 difagreeable in fociety. Thefe qualities I must endeavour to cultivate, extirpate, or reftrain, according to their different tendency. Wit I have none. My imagination is rather strong than pleafing. My memory both capacious and retentive. The fhining qualities of my understanding are extensiveness and penetration; but I want both quickness and exactness. As to my fituation in life, though I may fometimes repine at it, it perhaps is the beft adapted to my character. I can command all the conveniencies 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 fituation, 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. See Appendix, Letter, No XIV. excellent, fiom Mr. Scott to Mr. Gibbon, fon determined me on the choice of Homer, the father of po etry, 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 fame labour in an equal number of weeks. After the first difficulties were furmounted, the language of nature and harmony foon became eafy and familiar, and each day I failed upon the ocean with a brifker gale and a more steady course, Ἐν δ ̓ ἄνεμος πρῆσεν μέσον ἱσίον, αμφί δε κύμα Η δ ̓ ἔθειν κατα κῦμα διαπρήσσουσα κέλευθα *. Πίας, Α. 4849 In the ftudy of a poet who has fince become the most intimate of my friends, I fucceffively applied many paffages and fragments of Greek writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the Opufcula Mythologica of Gale, feveral books of the geography of Strabo, and the entire treatise of Longinus, which, from the title and the ftyle, is equally worthy of the epithet of fublime. My grammatical skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in the militia I acquired a just and indelible knowledge of the firft 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 epiftles, the amusement of a morning, had they not been ac◄ companied by the elaborate commentary of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of Worcester, On the interefting fubjects of com pofition and imitation of epic and dramatic poetry, I prefumed to think for myfelf; and thirty close-written pages in folio could scarcely comprise my full and free difcuffion of the sense of the mafter and the pedantry of the fervant +. Fair wind, and blowing fresh, Apollo fent them; quick they rear'd the mast, Around the bark, that ever as she went After Dash'd wide the brine, and scudded swift away. CowPER'S Homer + See Vol. II. Mifcellaneous Works. After his oracle Dr. Johnfon, my friend Sir Jofhua Reynolds denies all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art or fcience rather than another. Without engaging in a metaphyfical or rather verbal dispute, I know, by experience, that from my early youth I afpired to the character of an hiftorian. While I ferved in the militia, before and after the publication of my effay, this idea ripened in my mind; nor can I paint in more lively colours the feelings of the moment, than by transcribing fome paffages, under their respective dates, from a journal which I kept at that time. Beriton, April 14, 1761. (In a fhort excurfion from Dover.) "Having thought of feveral fubjects for an hiftorical "compofition, I chofe the expedition of Charles VIII. of "France into Italy. I read two memoirs of Mr. de Fon66 cemagne in the Academy of Infcriptions (tom. xvii. p. "539-607.), and abftracted them. I likewife finifhed this "day a differtation, in which I examine the right of Char"les VIII. to the crown of Naples, and the rival claims of "the Houfe of Anjou and Arragon: it confifts of ten folio "pages, befides large notes *." Beriton, August 4, 1761. (In a week's excursion from Winchester camp.) "After having long revolved fubjects for my intended "hiftorical effay, I renounced my first thought of the expe"dition of Charles VIII. as too remote from us, and rather "an introduction to great events, than great and important "in itself. I fucceffively chofe and rejected the crufade of "Richard the First, the barons' wars against John and Henry the Third, the hiftory 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 Montrofe. At length I have fixed on Sir Walter *See Vol. II. p. 6. "Raleigh |