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Friday Aug Augs 25. 1780
In my last which was of the 9th instt: I told
Anderson is gone back to Scotland: nothing would serve
you I should write again before I went to Thorpe:
him, poor man, but he must engage in an attempt to set
and so here begins. Schill Buchard Anderson
up a weekly magazine; which failed after 6 numbers.
The plague of it is I do not recollect what I
have wrote to you in my last about Schiller.
I had heard his translation of Smith's
Wealth of nations highly spoken of by a multitude
of Germans: and in particular Raigersfeldt
recommended it to me to get my book translated
by him if I could. I accordingly called
upon him at his lodgings No 73 High
Street Mary-bone about 10 days ago, taking
with me the three first sheets of Code with
a corrected copy of the Prospectus. I had appointed
a time of meeting by letter: I chose
to go to him that I might judge of the man
the better by the stile he lived in. A mean
lodging though on the first floor: and though not dirty
fetid to the highest degree ; and the appearance
of the man quite that of the Grub street
Post, tall thin and ugly and seemingly half
starved. He turns out after all to be a
more responsible man than one should
easily meet with, having been 19 years in
this country. I never saw a man enter
more into the spirit of any book than he did
into that of mine, stopping short every now &
then and reading aloud with an emphasis
which plainly shewed him to have a thorough
comprehension of the contents: the passages which
seemed to strike him the most were those which
I myself should have pitched upon as the
most striking and watched his countenance, &
saw in it all along marks of the most unfeigned
satisfaction. He asked me with great
eagerness
---page break---
PEAKE Pray, is it true that Old Peake paid you Harrison the
Taylor's bill upon Jack Peake? Do not fail to answer this.
eagerness for the rest of it: making abundance
of speeches about not making an improper use
of it, and referring me to people for his
character. While I was there came in a
packet to him from which he took occasion
to inform me that he was employ'd to
write the foreign articles in the Critical
Review : I looked at the sheet, and upon
my word no bad stile even in English.
He says he writes in French with the
same degree of facility: but in that language
I think I should be almost afraid
to trust him. Upon my mentioning Raigersfeldt,
he caught at the name and asked
me whether I were upon an intimate
footing with him: after some little discourse
on that head, at last out it came that he
wished I could introduce him to R.t I told
him I would try. I thought it could be a
good thing for me in several respects: 1. R.
upon the supposition of his having a good opinion
of my book, would contribute to impose
the like opinion into Schiller: 2. the fear
of losing any he might form with
R. by my means might be a sort of security
for his good behaviour. 3. I could set R.
to pump S. upon occasion in matters in
which I could not so conveniently appear myself. This I
think was on Monday the 14th. I told him
at the same time how I was circumstanced
with regard to Leonardi, but declined mentioning
his name. He seemed anxious to
know, pressed me upon the subject rather
more than with civility, and at last
it appeared that it was not of apprehension
lest
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Identifier: | JB/539/075/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
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1780-08-25 |
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539 |
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075 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Jeremy Bentham |
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