TO THE HON. HORATIO M--------.
An act to which the exaggeration of _your_ feelings gives the epithetof banishment, I shall consider as a voluntary sequestration from scenesof which I am weary, to scenes which, though thrice visited, stillpreserve the poignant charms of novelty and interest. Your hasty andundigested answer to my letter (written in the prompt emotion of themoment, ere the probable consequence of a romantic rejection to anoffer not unreflectingly made, could be duly weighed or coolly examined)convinces me experience has contributed little to the modification ofyour feelings, or the prudent regulation of your conduct. It is thispromptitude of feeling, this contempt of prudence, that formed thepredisposing cause of your errors and your follies. Dazzled by thebrilliant glare of the splendid virtues, you saw not, you would not see,that prudence was among the first of moral excellences; the director,the regulator, the standard of them all; that it is in fact thecorrector of virtue herself; for even _virtue_, like the _sun_, has her_solstice_, beyond which she ought not to move.
If you would retribute what you seem to lament, and unite restitutionto penitence, leave this country for a short time, and abandon with thehaunts of your former blameable pursuits, those associates who were atonce the cause and punishment of your errors. I myself will become yourpartner in exile, for it is to my estate in Ireland I _banish_ you forthe summer. You have already got through the “first rough brakes” ofyour profession: as you can now serve the last term of this season, Isee no cause why _Coke upon Lyttleton_ cannot be as well studied amidstthe wild seclusion of Connaught scenery, and on the solitary shores ofthe “steep Atlantic,” as in the busy bustling precincts of the Temple.
I have only to add, that I shall expect your undivided attention willbe given up to your professional studies; that you will for a shortinterval resign the fascinating pursuits of polite literature and belleslettres, from which even the syren spell of pleasure could not tear you,and which snatched from vice many of those hours I believed devotedto more serious studies. I know you will find it no less difficult toresign the elegant theories of your favourite _Lavater_, for the dryfacts of law reports, than to exchange your duodecimo editions ofthe amatory poets, for heavy tomes of cold legal disquisitions;but happiness is to be purchased, and labour is the price; fame andindependence are the result of talent united to great exertion, and theelegant enjoyments of literary leisure are never so keenly relished aswhen tasted under the shade of that flourishing laurel which our ownefforts have reared to mature perfection. Farewell! My agent hasorders respecting the arrangement of your affairs. You must excuse theprocrastination of our interview till we meet in Ireland, which I fearwill not be so immediate as my wishes would incline. I shall write to mybanker in Dublin to replenish your purse on your arrival in Ireland,and to my Connaught steward, to prepare for your reception at M--------house. Write to me by return.
Once more farewell!
M--------.