ry. She loves me, the surest pledge of her virtue, and adds to this a wonderful disposition to learning, which she has acquired from her affection to me. She reads my writings, studies them, and even gets them by heart. You would smile to see the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead, and the joy she shows when it is over. She finds means to have the first news brought her of the success I meet with in court; how I am heard; and what decree is made. If I recite any thing in public, she cannot refrain from placing herself privately in some corner to hear, where she feasts upon my applauses; sometimes she sings my verses, and accompanies them with the lute, without any masters, except love, the best of instructors. From these instances I take the most certain omens of our perpetual and increasing happiness, since her affection is not founded on my youth or person, which must gradually decay; but she is in love with the immortal part of me, my glory and reputation. Nor, indeed, could less be expected, from one who had the happiness to receive her education from you; who in your house, was accustomed to every thing that was virtuous and decent, and even began to love me on your recommendation. For as you had always had the greatest respect for my mother, you were pleased, from my infancy, to form me, to commend me, and kindly to presage that I should be one day what my wife fancies I am: accept, therefore, our united thanks; mine, that you have bestowed her on me; and her's, that you have given me to her as a mutual grant of joy and felicity.

TO LADY O. SPÁRROW.-MRS. H. MORE.

My dear Lady Olivia,-I appear to you in a new character, that of a prompt and forward correspondent. Were you to give this representation of me to my friends, they would never suspect the portrait to be mine; but having occasion to send a request to Mr. Addington, though I wrote to you only two days ago by Lord Gambier, I could not resist the temptation of thanking you for your kind little volunteer letter, received last night. One gift is worth two debts; to the latter justice obliges us, the former is more acceptable, as being more the fruit of affection.

You are to understand that I have a particular notion about correspondence. I would not give much for what is called a

fine letter, even from those who are most gifted in writing; if I want sentiment, or fine things, I can get them in books. What I want in a letter, is to know what my friend is doing, or thinking, or saying. Now this I cannot find in a book, nor can I by this mode get at the heart and mind of the writer, as I can by little unpremeditated details. This is one of my objections in general to the publication of letters; if they are honest, and open, and faithful, the peculiar interest they excite is in the mind of the person to whom they are written; hints and details are nothing to the world, which is only looking for fine sentences and polished periods. Cowper's letters are all ease and kindness, and feeling and affection-they were written for his correspondents. What Miss Seward's are I need not say, except that good taste revolts at them, and truth and candor abhor them; they were written for the public. But I did not intend to say a word of all this when I began. I only meant to say how delighted I was with your dinner, and with your kindness in being impatient to make me in some measure a partaker of a society of which I should have been so happy to partake.

If you see Mr. Way again, have the goodness to ask him if he has received a letter from me. Not knowing his address in town, I enclosed it to the bishop of St. David's, who had perhaps left London; if so, it will follow him to Durham, and he will probably forward it to Mr. W. to Stanstead Park. He is a pretty sort of a geographer, to think that place comparable with Brampton!

I am once more going through my darling Archbishop Leighton's Commentary on St. Peter. It is a mine of intellectual and spiritual wealth. Each chapter would make a volume of modern theology. Nothing is superficially described. He always goes to the bottom, and, without wearying the reader, hardly leaves any thing unsaid: he always catches hold on the heart.

Are you acquainted with Lady B-? I have not seen her since her marriage, but she promised to be a most interesting character. I saw some letters from her on her change of situation, full of such right views and christian plans and resolutions, as tended to confirm my opinion that she would prove worthy of her father. He is now most conscientiously bestowing his patronage on none but exemplary characters, and is indeed a prelate worthy of olden time. Adieu, my dearest Lady Olivia; I commend you and yours to your God and their God. Yours most faithfully,

H. MORE.

TO A SCOTCH COUSIN.-MISS SINCLAIR.

My dear Cousin,-Here are we, safely deposited among the rural solitudes and romantic beauties of Hyde Park! London, at this season, is a mere deserted village!-nobody that is anybody, in town,—not a shutter open in Grosvenor Square. You might pasture a flock of Southdown sheep in Portland Place,and every carriage we see has an imperial on the top. The sooner we escape ourselves the better; though you must not suppose, like Dr. Johnson, that he who is tired of London, must be tired of life, since there is in London every thing that life can afford."

Shall I attempt, in a single page, to describe this gigantic city? Such an achievement would resemble that of Crockford's cook, who distilled a whole ox into a basin of soup. Though Bonaparte struck out the word impossible from his vocabulary, it remains in mine, and falls, like an extinguisher, upon all my hopes of succeeding; but take Lord Byron's sketch, in full of all demands on ordinary pens :—

a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tip-toe, through their sea-coal canopy,
A huge, dun cupola, like a fool's cap crown
On a fool's head,-and there is London town.

Some skillful physician once remarked, that England would certainly go off in an apoplexy at last, because the circulation towards her extremities grows daily more languid, while every thing tends to the head; and it gave me some idea of the enormous scale which London is on now, compared with former times, to hear, that forty years ago, the mail left this for Scotland with only one letter, and now the average number that departs from the metropolis every morning is 80,000! One clerk at the post-office is allowed a considerable salary merely for turning all the directions upwards, previous to their being arranged. How insignificant my one epistle will appear among so many! And we ourselves, after being accustomed to occasion some sensation at inns and villages in the wilds of Wales, feel now reduced again to obscurity, like Cinderella, when her carriage was turned into a pumpkin,-her horses into mice,and herself into a mere nobody.

It is highly diverting to watch the incessant stream of anxious, busy faces, unceasingly passing our window. No mere loungers are in town at this season, or if cruel necessity detains

any, they keep out of sight; but the numerous equestrians and pedestrians of every rank and degree who do appear, are probably each of importance in some little coterie,-every one is, of course, pursuing some favorite object, compared with which the whole world besides is insignificant,-and all will at last come under the pen of their respective biographers, either in quarto or duodecimo,-in magazines, journals, or penny tracts, in the Newgate Calendar, or the annual obituary. Men of any eminence can scarcely now exchange an ordinary invitation to dinner, or return thanks for a box of grouse, without the very natural apprehension, that what they write will either be printed in some volume of memoirs, or else embalmed in a collection of autographs; and I was amused during the last Parliament at Lord who has such an objection to his frank appearing in any lady's album, that he only gave one, after receiving a positive promise that the cover should be turned inside out, and sent back by the next post.

You were diverted once to hear of the old lady who had a nervous complaint which could only be relieved by talking; but much as her friends had their complaisance put to the test, by listening without intermission, you must prepare to find me laboring under similar symptoms when we meet. Make up your mind to be considerably bored, and to have occasion for a large share of inexhaustible patience.

You have often wondered, and so do I, to observe how industriously many persons cultivate in themselves an extreme degree of fastidiousness about conversation, which leads to incessant irritation against their friends, for being tedious or common-place. Even christians, who profess to be prepared for the greatest trials of life, think it allowable to exclaim loudly and peevishly against the intolerable misery of associating with uncongenial minds, and believe themselves prepared for martyrdom itself, though not for such petty inconveniences. Certainly nothing is more soothing to our self-love than throwing the blame of stupidity upon others, which might more justly rest with ourselves; and I have often been amazed at the pride of intellect with which clever persons, or those who reckon themselves so, talk contemptuously of "a bore," as being of a different species from themselves, scarcely fit to live, and certainly not fit to live in their society." Genius or wit, in whatever way these gifts may be perverted, furnish undoubted tickets of admission and of welcome in select circles, where no crime is so great as that of failing to entertain; but

how much rather I would possess the "one talent" of Mrs. who can render up her account hereafter with joy, than the ten talents of who sets himself up as an idol to the literary world, and seems to have said of his mental faculties," they are our own: who is lord over us?" May we ever remember, my dear cousin, that a solemn responsibility rests on all we think, say, or do; and while careful not to let even our thoughts be such as might hurt the feelings of others, let us ever remember the example and the precepts of our Divine Master, who has promised, that "to him who ordereth his conversation aright, He will shew salvation."

Our correspondence is now about to terminate in the way that all correspondences ought, by a happy meeting, which will take place delightfully soon, for as A- says, with railways and steamboats, no one place is more than a hop, step, and a jump, from another. In the mean time, I shall say no more, but follow the very judicious advice of our favorite Cowper,

Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows,
And new or old, still hasten to a close.

TO MISS H. MORE-BISHOP PORTEUS.

My dear Madam,-I shall soon advertise the restorative virtues of the moat and the tides of Fulham, for Dr. Beattie was another of the patients whom we sent away much recruited and refreshed in body and mind, after trying the salutary springs of Bath in vain. He complained most bitterly of that place. He said that all the elements were in conspiracy against him; the fire of the sun burned him, the dust of the earth choked him, the grossness of the air oppressed him, and the waters totally unbraced and dissolved him. He was glad to have recourse to the pure, vivifying atmosphere of Fulham again for a few days, before he returned to Scotland, which he did soon after, in tolerable health and spirits.

The meadow on the banks of the Thames has advanced much in beauty since you left us; and if I should be rich enough to erect a little thatched cottage upon it next summer, I am not sure whether this place will not grow jealous of it, and whether even your cowslips must not bow their yellow heads, and make obeisance to it. I have made old father Thames a fine, easy grass slope, to walk up as far as he pleases upon my lawn, and this has put him in such good-humor, that after staying