that poem forward as a teftimony to the excellence of Toryifm; for, fays he, you LETTER LVII. of Mr. Thrale. may oblerve that it is wholly formed upon Dr. Jobrfon to Mrs. Thrale, on the Dicti our principles of obedience and tubordination; and I half with, for the fake of my firit friend, whofe memory I fhall for ever revere, that his remark had been preferved in this work of your's, which will doubtless be diffeminated far and upon wide; and, for aught I know, take poffeffion of the lands on which it lights, as Don Sebaftian faid of the duit that his body when dead would be dried into. And now if you call this flattery, I can leave off in a minute without bid ding; for fince you lions have no fkill in dandling the kid, we kids can expect but rough returns for caresses bestowed our haughty monarch-So be diligent, dear Sir, and have done with thefe men that have been buried thefe hundred years, and don't fit making verfes that never will be written, but fit down fteadily and finith their lives who did do fomething; and then think a little about mine, which has not been a happy one, for all you teize me fo concerning the pleasures I enjoy, and the flattery I receive, all which has nothing to do with comfort for the prefent diftrefs, and fometimes I am angry when I read fuch fluff. That your two Sultanas are fick is very uncomfort able for you; may be Dr. Turton may do them good: I never faw Dr. Turton, but my heart, like Clarifia's, naturally leans towards a phyfician. Le medicin et le curè, as the French themfelves, who have gayer hearts than mine, confefs, are the fat earthly cbjects on which the human hopes and human eyes are to be fixed and it is fomewhat unfair not to let them take up a little of our affections Dearest Madam, London, April 5, -81. OF your injunctions, to pray for you and write to you, I hope to love neither unobferved; and I hope to you willing in a fhort time to allevize your trouble by fome other exercile a the mind. I am not without my part the calamity. No death fince that of = wife has ever oppreffed me like this. I let us remember, that we are in the hard of Him who knows when to give a when to take away; who will look us with mercy through all our variasises of existence, and who invites as to ca on him in the day of trouble. Call up him in this great revolution of life, 24 call with confidence. comfort for the paft, and fupport for de future. He that has given you happin in marriage, to a degree of which, out perfonal knowledge, I fhould a thought the defcription fabulous, cu give you another mode of happines zs a mother; and at last, the happinch d lofing all temporal cares in the though of an eternity in heaven. You will then and I do not exhort you to reafon vouriti into tranquillity. We must first pr and then labour; firit implore the biing of God, and those means which puts into our hands. Cultivated gromé has few weeds; a mind occupied by las ful bufinefs, has little room for ufclefs regret. We read the will to-day; but I s3 not fill my first letter with any other ac count than that, with all my zeal your advantage, I am fatisfied; and thz the other executors, more ufed to confider property than I, commended it for wifdom and equity. Yet why thould I not tell you that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate expences, and two thousand pounds a-year, with both the houfes and all the goods? time, whether long or fhort, that ihal Let us pray for one another, that the yet be granted us, may be well spent: and that when this life, which at the longest is very fhort, fhall come to an end, a better may begin which fhall rever end. I am, dearest Madam, your, &c. If you think change of place likely to relieve you, there is no reafon why you fhould not go to Bath; the distances are unequal, but with regard to practice and bunnefs they are the fame. It is a day's journey from either place; and the poft is more expeditious and certain to Bath. Confult only your own inclination, for there is really no other principle of choice. God direct and bless you. LETTER LX. From the fame to the fame. Dear Madam, London, April 11, 1781. M glad to hear from my dear Mits, that you have recovered tranquillity enough to think on bathing; but there is no difpofition in the world to leave you that your abfence produces a thoufand long to yourself. Mr. P pretends difficulties which I believe it does not Mr. C has offered Mr. Pmoney, but it was not wanted. I hope we fhall all do all we can to make you lefs unhappy, and you must do all you can for yourself. What we, or what you can do, will for a time be but little; yet produce. He frights Mr. C. Mr. certainly that calamity which may be is of my mind, that there is no confidered as doomed to fall inevitably on half mankind, is not finally without alleviation. It is fomething for me, that as I have not the decrepitude I have not the calloufnefs of old age. I hope in time to be lefs amicted. I am, &c. LETTER LIX. London, need of hurry. I would not have this importunity give you any alarm or disturbance; but, to pacify it, come as foon as you can prevail upon your mind to mingle with bufinefs. I think bufinefs the best remedy for grief as foon as it can be admitted. We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really fo much to do and fuffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not fuffer yourself to be terrified. I comfort you, and hope God will blefs and fupport you; but I feel myself like a man beginning a new courfe of life. I had interwoven myfelf with my dear friend; but our great care ought to be, that we may be fit and ready, when in a fhort time we fhall be called to follow him.. There is, however, no ufe in communicating to you my heaviness of heart. I thank dear Mils for her letter. 1 am, &c. 3D 3 moler one's heart is, t more one's pride is gratified, if one may apparently frith an expretion, ba the musing of it does not lie deep. They who are too proud to care whether roof they pleate or no, lofe much deligit themielves, and give none to their neigh - on not to Saturday bours. Mrs. Porter is in a bad way, and that makes you melancholy; the vifits to Stowhill will this year be more frequent than ever. I am glad Watts's Improvement of the Mind is a favourite book the Lichfield ladies; it is fo among pious, fo wife, fo eafy a book to read for any person, and fo useful, nay neceffary, are its precepts to us all, that I never ceafe recommending it to our young ones. Tis à la portée de chacun fo, yet never vulgar; but Law beats him for wit; and the names are never happy in Watts fomehow. I fancy there was no comparison between the fcholaftic learning of the two writers; but there is prodigious knowledge of the human heart, and perfect acquaintance with common life, in the Serious Call. You used to fay you would not truft me with that author up-stairs on the dreffing-room fhelf, yet I now half wish I had never followed any precepts but his. Our laffes, indeed, might poffibly object to the education given her daughters by Law's Eufebia. That the ball did fo little towards diverting you, I do not wonder: what can a ball do towards diverting any one who has not other hopes and other defigns than barely to fee people dance, or even to dance himself? They who are entertained at the ball are never much amufed by the ball I believe, yet I love the dance on Queeney's birth-day and your's, where none but very honeft and very praiseworthy paffions, if paffions they can be called, heighten the mirth and gaiety. It has been thought by many wife folks, that we fritter our pleasures all away by refinement, and when one reads Goldfmith's works, either verfe or profe, one fancies that in corrupt life there is more enjoyment- yet we fhould find little folace from alelioufe merriment or cottage caroufals, whatever the best wrestler on the green might do I fuppofe; mere brandy and brown fugar liqueur, like that which Foote prefented the Cherokee kings with, and won their hearts from our fine ladies, who treated them with fpunge bifcuits and Frontiniac. I am glad Queeney and you are to refolve fo ftoutly, and labour fo violently; fuch a union may make her wifer and you happier,and can give me nothing but delight. We read a good deal here in your abfence, that is, I do it is better we fate all together than in feparate rooms; better that I read than not: and better that I should never read what is not fit for the young ones to hear: befides, I am fure they must hear that which I read out to them, and fo one faves the trouble of commanding what one knows will never be obeyed.-I can find no other way as well. Come home, however, for 'tis dull living without you; Sir Philip and Mr. Selwin call very often, and are exceedingly kind. I fee them always with gratitude and pleasure; but as the first has left us now for a month, come home therefore. You are not happy away, and I fear I fhall never be happy again in this world between one thing and another. My health, fieth, and complexion are quite loft, and I fhall have a red face if I live, and that will be mighty deteftablea humpback would be lefs offenfive vaftly. This is the time for fading: the year is fading round us, and every day huts in more difmally than the laft did. I never paled fo melancholy a fummer, though I have paffed fome that were more painful; privation is indeed fuppofed to be worse than pain. Inftead of trying the Sortes Virgiliana for our abfent friends, we agreed after dinner to-day to ask little Harriet what they were doing now who used to be our common guefts at Streatham. Dr. Johnfon (fays the) is very rich and wife, Sir Philip is drown'd in the water-and Mr. Piozzi is very fick and lame, poor man! What a curious way of deciding! all in her little foft voice. Was not there a custom among the ancients in fome country-'tis mentioned in Herodotus, if I remember right-that they took that method of inquiring into futurity from the mouths of infants under three years old? --but I will not fwear to the book I have read it in. The fcriptural expreffion, however, Out of the mouths of babes and fucklings, &c. is likely enough to allude to it, if it were once a general practice. In Ireland, where the peafants are mad after play, particularly back-gammon, Mr. Murphy days, they will even, when deprived of the necefiaries for continuing fo favourite a game, cut the turf in a clean spot of green iwerd, and make it into tables for that amufe ment, fetting a little baby boy behind the hedge to call their throws for them, and fupply with his unconscious decifions the place of box and dice. 3D 4 AJ I LETTER LXIV. Dr. Johnjon to Mrs. Thrale. Dear Madam, Ashburne, Nov. 12, 1781. HAVE a mind to look on Queeney as my own dear girl; and if I fet her a bad example, I ought to counteract it by good precepts; and he that knows the confequences of any fault is best qualified to tell them. I hate through my whole progrefs of authenthip honeftly endeayoured to teach the right, though I have net bien feficientiy diligent to practife it, and have offered mankind my opinion as a rule, but never prefelled my behaviour as an example. * ; i that be very forry to lofe Mr. but why should he fo certainly die? needed not have died if he had tried to live. If Mr. will drink a great deal of water, the acrimony that corredo, his bowels will be diluted, if the caufe be only acrimony; but I fufpect dyfenterie, to be produced by animalcula, which I know not how to kill. and me good, it was by bi- ben.volence; by his pills I nover meld. I am, however, rather better than I was. fhe has the courage an admiral's lady, but courage is vite in her cauf. I have ben at Linfield perfecuted with tolicheffops to read a poem; but I fent the aut word, that I would never review the work of an anonymous author; med i put my name in the power of one who will not truft me with his own? With this anfwer Lucy was tisfied, and I think it may fatisfy all whom it may concern. If Cy did nothing for life but ali weight to its burden, and darkness to a gloom, he is kindeft to thofe from when he is furtheft. I hope, when I come, to advance perhaps your pleasures, though even of that I fhall be unwilling to de fpair; but at least not to increase your conveniencies, which would be a very ufuitable return for all the kindnes th you have fhewn to, Madam, your, &c. H ERE is Doctor Taylor, by a rele adherence to bread and milk, wa better appearance of health than he ta had for a long time paft; and here an 1. living very temperately, but with very little amendment. But the balance is perhaps very unequal: he has no pi fure like that which I receive from o kind importunity with which you me to return. There is no danger very long delay. There is nothing this part of the world that can counterat your attraction. The hurt in my leg has grown sol flowly, according to Hector's prog and icems now to be almost healed: E my nights are very reftlefs, and the dry are therefore heavy, and I have not your converfation to cheer them. I am willing however to hear that there is happincfs in the world, and delightr think on the pleafure diffused among t Burneys. I quetion if any fhip upon t ocean goes out attended with more good wishes than that which carries the fate Burney. I love all of that breed when I can be faid to know, and one or two whom I hardly know I love upon cret, and love them becaufe they love ech other. Of this confanguineous unanimity I have had never much experience; b it appears to me one of the great katives of life; but it has this deficiente, that it is never found when distress is matual-He that has less than enough fr himself has nothing to fpare, and as every man feels only his own neceflities, he isage to think thofe of others lefs preting, Π |