Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African

London

Printed by J. Nichols

1782

"A young man should turn travel--home--leisure--or employment--all to the one grand end of improving himself:--from your account of Dalkeith, I now view it "in my mind's eye" (as Hamlet says) and think it a delightful spot."

WHAT, my honest friend K----, I am heartily glad to see you, quoth I--long look'd for, come at last.--Well, we will have done with that;--you have made ample amends for your silence--have approved yourself, what I ever esteemed you--an honest hearty good lad.--As to your apologizing about your abilities for writing--'tis all a humm--you write sense;--and verily, my good friend, he that wishes to do better must be a coxcomb.--You say you was thrown from your horse but once--in my conscience I think once full oft enough--I am glad, however, you escaped so well.--The description of your journey I return you thanks for--it pleased me much--and proved that you looked rather farther than your horse's head.--A young man should turn travel--home--leisure--or employment--all to the one grand end of improving himself:--from your account of Dalkeith, I now view it "in my mind's eye" (as Hamlet says) and think it a delightful spot.--I was wrong, I find, in my notions of the Edinburghers--for I judged them the grand patterns for--cleanliness--politeness--and generosity. Your birth-day entertainments made a blaze in our papers, which said, amongst other things, that the puncheons of rum stood as thick in your park as the trees--oh! how I licked my lips, and wished the distance (400 miles) less between us.--You do not say a word about coming back again.--Poor Pat has paid his last debt--peace and bliss to his spirit! rest to his bones!--his wife and daughter (both with child) and his youngest child all came down;--what a scene had I to be spectator of!--trust me, James, I cry'd like a whipt school-boy--but then my noble master--Great God! reward him!--tell me not of ninety covers--splendour--and feasting--to wipe away the tears of distress, to make the heart of the widow to sing for joy.--May such actions ever (as they have long been) be the characteristic of the good. [...]
(I.v, pp. 16-8; p. 32-3 in Carretta)

Body::Eye::Mind's Eye

Reading; text from DocSouth

Five entries in ESTC (1782, 1783, 1784). [Second edition in 1783, third in 1784.]

See Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of His Life (London: Printed by J. Nichols, 1782). <Link to text from Documenting the American South at UNC>

Reading Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, ed. Vincent Carretta (New York: Penguin, 1998).

07/11/2013