rceval, and kind to the Master
Percevals!"

Finally Peter warns his brother:--"Mrs Abraham Plymley, my sister, will
be led away captive by an amorous Gaul; and Joel Plymley, your first
born, will be a French drummer."

I regret that I have not space to quote more from these admirable
_Letters_, which are full of good things. On 14th July 1807, he writes
to Lady Holland {186}:--"Mr Allen has mentioned to me the letters of a Mr
Plymley, which I have obtained from the adjacent market-town, and read
with some entertainment. My conjecture lies between three persons--Sir
Samuel Romilly, Sir Arthur Pigott, or Mr Horner, for the name is
evidently fictitious." I presume that Pigott was an eminently serious
person to match the other supposed authors.

JEFFREY, 20_th Feb._ 1808.--"Your Catholic article of the last Review is,
I perceive, printed separately. I am very glad of it: it is excellent,
and universally allowed to be so. I envy you your sense, your style, and
the good temper with which you attack prejudices that drive me almost to
the limits of insanity."

He writes to Lady Holland in an early but undated letter (ii., p. 39)
that he has let his house at Thames Ditton very well, and sold to the
tenant his wine and poultry!--"I attribute my success in these matters to
having read half a volume of Adam Smith early in the summer, and to hints
that have dropped from Horner, in his playful moods, upon the subject of
sale and barter."

LORD HOLLAND, 1_st Nov._ 1809.--Speaking of his project of publishing a
pamphlet to be called Common Sense for 1810, he concludes: "But what use
is there in all this, or in anything else? Omnes ibimus ad Diabolum et
Buonoparte nos conquerabit, et dabit Hollandium Domum ad unum corporalium
suorum, et ponet ad mortem Joannem Allenium."

LADY HOLLAND, _June_ 1810.--"You have done an excellent deed in securing
a seat for poor Mackintosh, in whose praise I most cordially concur. He
is a very great, and a very delightful man, and with a few bad qualities
added to his character, would have acted a most conspicuous part in
life."

LADY HOLLAND, 17_th Jan._ 1813.--There had been meetings on the Catholic
question, and he says:--"I shall certainly give my solitary voice in
favour of religious liberty, and shall probably be tossed in a blanket
for my pains."

JOHN ALLEN, 24_th Jan._ 1813.--"My fancy is my own: I may see as many
crosiers in the clouds as I please; but when I sit down seriously t