sage in your Essay on Epic Poetry. See how we little satellites move around you, our Jupiter! Adieu!-Yours, &c.

LETTER XXII.

GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ.

Lichfield, May 16, 1788.

YOUR pardon for having detained Mr L's letter so long. The desire of not returning it in absolute silence, was the reason of this delay. Illness co-operated with indispensables to prolong it.

The destroying angel has, of late, been busy within the gates of our little city-changing the countenance of our neighbours and our friends, and hiding our acquaintance out of our sight.

There was a startling degree of pathos in the selection of one of his victims. A fair, and amiable young lady, only sixteen, stricken in the glow of her health, and in the blossom of her beautythe idol of a fond mother's heart. On Thursday three weeks she was walking upon our public

walk- her eye shining with health and sprightliness. That day week she lay a lifeless corse.

I had an inclination to see the body-and never saw I death so divested of its horrors. The still serenity of the features made their symmetry more conspicuous, and there was a perceivable smile upon the lips. A luxuriant quantity of dark hair, which had been pinned up in papers during her illness, was gracefully disposed in ringlets, that shaded her fair forehead, and fell half way down. her arms, over her alabaster neck and shoulders. The most ornamented robe of fashion could not have been half so advantageous to her fine form, in all its vital bloom, as was the simple elegance of the shroud when it became a statue a statue, whose whiteness and grace seemed to vie with the Medicean marble.

An ingenious young clergyman here, was to preach the Sunday seven-night after this pathetic funeral. He solicited me to make his sermon, and that it might be allusive to that mournful circumstance; but it was Whit-sunday. Uncommon as was the effort to give a funeral oration on a festival, I thought it possible to blend the subjects, so that they might be favourable to each other; observing in the course of the sermon— that it could not be improper to view the bles

sing of that day's commemoration through an awful perspective, even through the valley and shadow of death, whose thorny paths it can smooth, whose darkness it can illuminate; that we were called upon to rejoice in it for the dead as for the living, since the grave is not for the soul, and since for all that gives the capacity of happiness, in a purer existence, we are indebted to the influence of the Holy Spirit. I chose the text from the 7th chapter of Job;-a verse than which I think there is nothing in Scripture more sublime. "The eyes of them that have seen me, shall see me no more-thine eyes are upon me—and I am not."

The young preacher spoke this oration with solemn earnestness, and unaffected sensibility.

While I employed myself in this mournful task, I sickened of the same disease which had been fatal to her whose memory I was endeavouring to consecrate a violent cough, and inflammation upon my lungs. Mine, however, was in a much milder degree-and, being a frequent complaint with me, I am not alarmed.

So Mr

seems to think you ran a risk

of disgusting the minister, by the warm glow of your praise—but if, where sincerity is not doubted, the ardour of deserved commendation does not cheer the spirit, and is not welcome to it, there

must be a comfortless intrenchment of ice about the heart.

I seem to feel some of those cold gales blowing about the integrity and the abilities which sustain and adorn your friend's sentiments and language-but it surprises me that an Englishman, writing to an Englishman, should disgrace his own rich language with the frippery of French phrases. Mr

is a very perfect character, and one is inclined to worship the full of days. Adieu.

LETTER XXIII.

WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Lichfield, June 1, 1788.

INDEED, dear Mr Hayley, my heart bleeds for the intelligence your letter brings-mournful, bitter disappointment!-I, who on this occasion grieve infinitely for you, grieve not inconsiderably for myself. I had taken the most lively interest in the destiny of that gallant, accomplished, grate ful young man, whom you had so generously adopted, and so admirably instructed. I had

nourished the hope of one day being honoured and happy in his friendship, through your kind interposition.

Almost two years since he committed so precious a freight to "that fatal, that perfidious bark!"-Were you not alarmed by so long a silence? You probably formed some method of accounting for it, that preserved you from the rack of terrified suspense;―more agonizing than even that certainty, which, alas! must have been yours from the instant you knew how long it is since he sailed for England. Giovanni is not less shocked than myself-O! my dear Mr H. that I could have been with you at Eartham, to have softened your griefs, by sharing them!—the only possible consolation in so deep a sorrow.

I once tasted this bitter cup of apprehension, which you are drinking to the dregs. In the winter 1770, I passed three miserable days and nights in well-founded alarm, for my sweet Honora's safety, then on a journey home through perilous floods-O! that your present sorrows could be rewarded with rapture, such as succeeded to mine, when I heard the dear creature's voice in the hall!

I have often said that the delights of that evening, recompensed all the many woes of my lifebut forgive the vain, the tantalizing wish!--I am