God; for he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of right eousness." But by so much preaching and fatigue, his strength became exhausted and his health impaired; and during the midsummer vacation, the committee superintending the stations of the preaching students, appointed him to spend some weeks at Dorking, in Surrey, where the labour was but small, the retirement deep, the country beautiful, and the air salubrious! To this place he went in the beginning of July, having first paid a visit to his family at Hertford, and preached again in his native town. At Dorking he was committed to the eare of Mrs. Alexander, a kind and pious matron, whose hospitable attention to all the servants of Christ who have had the happiness to repose beneath her roof, renders her worthy the appropriate epithet of" Mother in Israel." The praises of such pious women are, and ought to be, in all the churches. Happy is that congregation which possesses one or two such valuable and useful characters. To the youthful preachers who may be commissioned from their respective academies to labour for awhile in the congregations to which they belong, they often prove an inestimable blessing. By their timely assiduities, not unfrequently, diseases the most serious and alarming may be averted, by which valuable ministers might have been early snatched from the church and from the world; and, at any rate, those little offices of unaffected kindness, in the performance of which they so much excel, will tend to soothe the anxieties by which, in early life, many a delicate frame is prematurely wasted and impaired! For Spencer too the spot was admirably chosen. Nothing could better suit his fondness for retirement, and love of social or solitary walks. I am not a stranger to the scenery-I once visited it, like him, for relaxation; and the remembrance of those happy days, in a thousand pleasing pictures and enchanting forms, crowds at this moment on my mind. The country is sufficiently bold and varied to inspire with ideas of grandeur and magnificence, though not so romantic and vast, as to excite astonishment and terror. From the summit of abrupt and lofty hills, clothed with luxuriant foliage, the delighted eye may roam at leisure over woods and valleys, that will not yield in fruitfulness and beauty to the fairest plains of Italy; and in deep embowered glens, made cool and fragrant by meandering streams, the mind may yield to melancholy musings and to solemn thought--so unbroken is the silence,-so profound the solitude!* * In one of these retired dells, where art has followed up the rude design of nature, a rustic temple, unadorned and simple as the genius of the place, affords to the weary wanderer its temporary rest. A grateful poet has left some tributary lines in honour of the scene, of which they are so descriptive, that I hope I shall be pardoned if I introduce them here: Stranger, whencesoe'er you come, Welcome to this rustic dome; To our simple homely fare, During his stay at Dorking it was his happiness to form a friendship the most intimate and endeared with Mr. J. Haddon, of London; and on the return of that gentleman to town, Mr. Spencer began an epistolary correspondence with him, which continued till his death. A valuable assortment of these letters have been kindly put into my hands, and with the Bury in this wooded glen, All the cares of busy men; While the streams that round us roll, See, the glorious orb of day Stranger, rest thee here awhile, Worn and wasted by disease, Come, and chase her on our hills; Health and peace, and joy are here; greater part of them I shall enrich these pages. The following is, I believe, the first in the series : No 15. TO MR. JOHN HADDON. MY WORTHY FRIEND, Dorking, July 25th, 1809. "I know no other way of expressing the pleasure your letters and your society have afforded me, than by endeavouring to repay your kindness, or at least by shewing you that I am sensible of the obligations under which I am laid by you. The pleasant interviews, the truly social walks, and the various other enjoyments which we experienced together, have left an impression of attachment to yourself on my mind, which I am persuaded will not be easily obliterated. The country is indeed as pleasant in itself now, as it was the week before last; yet, believe me, it is not half so much enjoyed by me as it was then. The same streams indeed glide pleasantly along the same hills majestically rise-the same enlivening prospects strike the eye, and pervade the soul, with admiration-and every thing around me seems to say, 'Tis Surrey still;' but there is a sad deficiency in all my perambulations-it is, that I am all alone.'*-Yesterday I went to Brockham ; This is a quotation from a beautiful poem of Henry Kirke White's, to whose charming productions Spencer was most ardently attached. The poem itself so accurately describes the state of his own mind, and the melancholy but there was no Haddon to meet me on my way thither, or to return with me any part of the way musings in which he indulged, in his solitary walks, when deprived of the pleasure of his friend's society, that I need not apologize for its introduction here : SOLITUDE. IT is not that my lot is low, In woods and glens I love to roam, Yet when the silent ev'ning sighs, The autumn leaf is sear and dead, I would not be a leaf to die The woods and winds with sullen wail, I've none to smile when I am free, Yet in my dreams a form I view, I weep that I am all alone. To these mild complainings of this sainted bard, a reply, characterised by the same tenderness of thought and ele |