Letter from Warren Hastings, Daylesford House, to Brigadier General Caillaud, 1808 July 1 : autograph manuscript signed

Returning a book "...with many thanks for the perusal, and more for the pleasure which I have had in the perusal of it - I should have said we ; for Mrs. Motte and Mrs. Hastings were as much pleased with it as I was. I will not say that they made the same deductions - from the praises which we joined in bestowing on the author. I am not sure that it would be quite decorous for them to make the confession that I shall. To every syllable that the author has said about novels I join in my most hearty concurrence; and am particularly pleased that so good a cause has found an advocate so capable as he has proved himself of giving to the most able and persuasive argument all the graces of the most elegant composition. I wish he had stopped at his professed subject. Neither are the works of Pope and Swift properly classed with 'light readings', nor were all their writings intended for the education of children. Proscribe such models of poetical excellent as the letter of Eloisa to Abelard, the Elegy on an unfortunate lady, and the Rape of the lock, and you will extinguish the best incentive to poetry, and almost its inspiration. And why combat what all mankind under the age of 76 (I speak from myself) will unite in defending. In vindication of Swift I could say a great deal more, even upon Mr. M's own ground: but it would be too long for a letter. I will only briefly observe that all language that would be indecent in conversation is not for that reason alone, unfit to be read in the closet, if it has no tendency to inflame the passions, and especially if its object is to excite the love of what is good by contrasting it with the most disgusting exhibition of its opposite bad -- God bless him for the eloquent praises that he bestows on Goldsmith and Cowper!;" sending the affection of Mrs. Motte and Mrs. Hastings and wishing him and Mrs. Caillaud good health."