evinces the truest regard. He sketches for him a scheme of life, which, as usual with kind relatives, had worldly, not literary, advancement in view.
Dublin, Nov. 10th, 1777.
I received your letter of the 24th October this day seven-night, a few hours after my arrival in town; and should have been sorry your expectations of seeing me suddenly in London, as indeed you had reason to do, should have prevented your writing. It is in vain I think to stop any more letters to me, for as surely as I do, some new matters occur to retard my journey. I had better therefore, I believe, say that it will be a long time before I shall see you, and then probably I shall appear at a moment when you least expect it.
But jest apart, I now really hope to embark in a few days, not that I can yet name the particular time. A Mr. Cahill, whom you remember we went with one day last spring, to Mr. Wolfe’s, is preparing to file a bill against me. Glasscock thinks, as indeed I do, that it will be best, if possible, to prevent the addition of another law-suit, and is now reading the case, which has been laid before him. When I find in what manner it is proper for me to proceed with regard to that affair, I shall quit this; and at all events shall not suffer that business to detain me here for any considerable time. I have attended the courts pretty constantly since I have been in town, but though I despair to get rid of, I hope at least to get out of them.
Some of your friends, whom I have seen there, and indeed at other places, lament your having quitted the kingdom at this time, as they think, and I believe with reason, there never was so favourable an opportunity for a young man of any abilities rising at the bar, as at present. The defalcation of the great lawyers that has happened here of late, is indeed astonishing. Tisdall’s death has in its consequences occasioned the retirement of two men of the most eminent that remained, Hutcheson and Radcliffe. The former, becomeGodolphin Hooper, Esq., of Berkhampstead; in 1785, raised to the Irish Peerage as Lord Sunderlin. His seat, Baronston, Westmeath, is fortyseven miles from Dublin.
