would like to know the soil of the clime, the scenery, the disposition, the manners, the habits of the cities of Rome, Naples, Genoa, Venice, Bologna, &c. just as familiarly as you know all these things at Rugely, Birmingham, and Lichfield, you must shut yourself up for a few days with those volumes. No other's travels I ever read possess their discriminating powers.

I am charmed with your portraits of our Princes at Brighthelmstone, and their train of supple courtiers. If I had not so often seen ordinary phizes resemble beautiful ones, I should be flattered that you think me so like the buxom widow, who tows our plump heir-apparent about by the heart-strings. Several others have told me of the resemblance between us.

My dear father yet exists. During three weeks of this flower-soft winter, he suffered so much from a violent cough, and difficulty of breathing, that, if the disorder had continued, I hope I should not have been so selfish to wish his life prolonged; but, returning to his former quiescent state, my ardent desire to detain yet longer, this dim resemblance of a beloved parent, repossesses my heart.

Last week arrived news that thrilled my heart with tender melancholy; the cutting off, by hereditary consumption, of that fair blossom, the

daughter of my lost Honora. I have been assured she possessed her mother's beauty, and all those native intellectual graces, whose influence shone long upon my happiness, like a vernal morning. Honora Edgeworth was just fifteen. And grieving is the consciousness, that all remains, all traces of my soul's idol vanish thus from the earth. Her boy, ever feeble and delicate, will, I suppose, follow his lovely sister to an early grave.

Lady G. of Lichfield, long invalid, and far advanced in life, sunk from us some few months since. A civil, social being, as you know, "whose care was, never to offend;" who had the spirit of a gentlewoman, in never doing a mean thing; whose mite was never withheld from the poor; and whose inferiority of understanding and knowledge, found sanctuary at the card-table, that universal leveller of intellectual distinctions. Her loss will make a considerable chasm in the pleasures of many, who like to be often engaged in card-parties, without the trouble of forming them at home.

Soon after followed the very aged Mrs F., who had lived ninety-two years in the world, without conciliating the esteem of a single being. A creature of selfish avarice, she died unla mented,

Seldom have I seen a young man more qualified to pass innocently, laudably, and happily, a life of leisure, than your George. If he likes the sports of the field, moderately taken, they would advantage his health; and when there is such a love of books and the pencil, as dwells with him, no danger would surely arise, that he should take field sports immoderately. His dependence upon you, his attachment to your person, your abilities, your virtues, form a bulwark about him against the vices of youth. The fortune which he will inherit from you, as the reward of his good conduct, is more than competent to the elegant comforts of life. Ah! why then endeavour to inspire him with the desire of accumulating so affluent a property? Is there a passion,-nay, is there a vice, which the New Testament declares more fatal to Christian peace, and Christian virtue, than the thirst of riches? Never has experience shewn that happiness was the result of wealth, beyond the pale of affluence. Finely does that master of the human heart, that Shakespeare of prose, Richardson, express himself upon this subject: "You are, all of you, too rich to be happy, child; for must not each of you, by the constitutions of your family, be put upon making yourselves still richer; and so every individual of it, except yourself, will go on accu

mulating; and, wondering that they have not happiness, since they have riches, continue to heap up, till death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner.”

It seems strange to me, than any person of an exalted mind, untainted with the vices of profusion, and undazzled by the splendour of ostentation, can wish a beloved child to imbibe the desire of increasing an affluent property ;-stranger still, that a pious character should so wish, since the Scriptures declare it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The expression, rich man, certainly means a miser; and how great a temptation to this exclusive vice, is the habit of living daily in contemplation, and constant attention, to heaps of sordid Mammon !

Forgive my ingenuousness; the sincerity of an almost life-long friendship.

You will soon see, if you have not already seen, our generous, open-hearted friend, Mr Saville. I am afraid you will think he looks ill. He will tell you all about himself, his Elizabeth, and about the dissolution of all acquaintance with Mr N. and myself.

I wish you would ask for a description of Mr Saville's disorder in his stomach. You must have skill and discernment, living so long with

an able physician, who had an ingenuous desire of imparting his knowledge. As to the magnetic art, if it really possessed the powers which are attributed to it, the fame of miracles, transcending those of the Saviour and his apostles, must spread and increase every day, instead of sinking, as it does, from the notice of the multitude.

Strong imagination, thirst for the marvellous! what will ye not do with the strongest minds, when once ye seize upon them?

Neither you nor Į, my dear Mrs Knowles, ought to apologize to each for our sincerity, or for our hurried and defaced scribbling; both are habits of long standing, the one laudable, the other inconsequential. Adieu! adieu.

LETTER XCIV.

HENRY CARY, Esq.

March 16, 1790.

EXHAUSTED, spiritless, cold to every subject

of abstract disquisition, my pen can do little more