Yet
after all do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern corner
of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the Capulets. I
should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust.
The good old expression 'family burying-ground' has something pleasing
in it, at least to me.
To JAMES BARRY
_A friend's infirmities_
Gregories, 16 _Sept_. 1769.
MY DEAR BARRY,
I am most exceedingly obliged to your friendship and partiality,
which attributed a silence very blameable on our parts to a favourable
cause: let me add in some measure to its true cause, a great deal of
occupation of various sorts, and some of them disagreeable enough.
As to any reports concerning your conduct and behaviour, you may be
very sure they could have no kind of influence here; for none of us
are of such a make as to trust to any one's report for the character
of a person whom we ourselves know. Until very lately, I had never
heard anything of your proceedings from others; and when I did, it was
much less than I had known from yourself, that you had been upon ill
terms with the artists and virtuosi in Rome, without much mention of
cause or consequence. If you have improved these unfortunate quarrels
to your advancement in your art, you have turned a very disagreeable
circumstance to a very capital advantage. However you may have
succeeded in this uncommon attempt, permit me to suggest to you, with
that friendly liberty which you have always had the goodness to bear
from me, that you cannot possibly have always the same success, either
with regard to your fortune or your reputation.
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