Something must be interwoven concerning the history of
the native powers, Mahomedan, Moor, Mahratta, etc., and their
institutions. I see how all this is to be introduced, and see also that
no subject can afford materials more important or more various. And what
a pleasure it will be to read the triumph of such a man as Hastings over
the tremendous combination of his persecutors at home! I had a noble
catastrophe in writing the Life of Nelson, but the latter days of
Hastings afford a scene more touching, and perhaps more sublime, because
it is more uncommon. Let me have the works of Orme and Bruce and Mill,
and I will set apart a portion of every day to the course of reading,
and begin my notes accordingly."
The second touches on his perennial grievance against Gifford:
"You will really serve as well as oblige me, if you will let me have a
duplicate set of proofs of my articles, that I may not _lose_ the
passages which Mr. Gifford, in spite of repeated promises, always will
strike out. In the last paper, among many other mutilations, the most
useful _fact_ in the essay, for its immediate practical application, has
been omitted, and for no imaginable reason (the historical fact that it
was the reading a calumnious libel which induced Felton to murder the
Duke of Buckingham).
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