immediately the colour of his company. When you see him again, you will find him reanimated. Most men have their bright and their cloudy days; at least they have days when they put their powers into action, and days when they suffer them to repose. Fourteen thousand pounds make a sum sufficient for the establishment of a family, and which, in whatever flow of riches or confidence of prosperity, deserves to be very seriously considered. I hope a great part of it has paid debts, and no small part bought land. As for gravelling and walling and digging, though I am not much delighted with them, yet something, indeed much, must be allowed to every man's taste. He that is growing rich has a right to enjoy part of the growth his own way. I hope to range in the walk, and row upon the water, and devour fruit from the wall. I have just had your sweet letter, and am glad that you are to be at the Regatta. You know how little I love to have you left out of any shining part of life. You have every right to distinction, and should therefore be distinguished. You will see a show with philosophic superiority, and therefore may see it safely. It is easy to talk of sitting at home contented when others are seeing or making shows. But not to Dr. Taylor wants to be gardening. He means have been where it is supposed, and seldom sup- to buy a piece of ground in the neighbourhood, posed falsely, that all would go if they could; to and surround it with a wall, and build a gardenbe able to say nothing when every one is talker's house upon it, and have fruit, and be happy. ing; to have no opinion when every one is Much happiness it will not bring him; but what judging; to hear exclamations of rapture, with- can he do better? If I had money enough, what out power to depress; to listen to falsehoods would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not without right to contradict, is, after all, a state hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble in India. rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported Would this be better than building and plantby fortitude. If the world be worth winning, ing? It would surely give more variety to the let us enjoy it; if it is to be despised, let us eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half despise it by conviction. But the world is not fourteen thousand would send me out to see to be despised, but as it is compared with some- other forms of existence, and bring me back to thing better. Company is in itself better than describe them. solitude, and pleasure better than indolence. Ex nihilo nihil fit, says the moral as well as the natural philosopher. By doing nothing, and by knowing nothing, no power of doing good can be obtained. He must mingle with the world that desires to be useful. Every new scene impresses new ideas, enriches the imagination, and enlarges the power of reason, by new topics of comparison. You that have seen the Regatta will have images which we who miss it must want, and no intellectual images are without use. But when you are in this scene of splendour and gayety, do not let one of your fits of negligence steal upon you. Hoc age, is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry: whether you are stating the expenses of your family, learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames in a fancied dress. Of the whole entertainment let me not hear so copious nor so true an account from any body as from you. am, dearest Madam, your, &c. I I AM sure I write and write, and every letter that comes from you charges me with not writing. Since I wrote to Queeney I have written twice to you, on the 6th and the 9th: be pleased to let me know whether you have them or have them not. That of the 6th you should regularly have had on the 8th, yet your letter of the 9th seems not to mention it; all this puzzles me. Poor dear****! He only grows dull because he is sickly; age has not yet begun to impair him; nor is he such a chameleon as to take I answer this the day on which I had yours of the 9th, that is on the 11th. Let me know when it comes. I am, &c. LETTER XXXI.-TO THE SAME. MADAM, I DINED to-day at Stowhill, and am come away to write my letter. Never surely was I such a writer before. Do you keep my letters? I am not of your opinion that I shall not like to read them hereafter; for though there is in them not much history of mind, or any thing else, they will, I hope, always be in some degree the records of a pure and blameless friendship, and, in some hours of languor and sadness, may revive the memory of more cheerful times. Why you should suppose yourself not desirous hereafter to read the history of your own mind, I do not see. Twelve years, on which you now look as on a vast expanse of life, will probably be passed over uniformly and smoothly, with very little perception of your progress, and with very few remarks upon the way. The accumulation of knowledge which you promise to your self, by which the future is to look back upon the present, with the superiority of manhood to infancy, will perhaps never be attempted, or never will be made; and you will find, as mil lions have found before you, that forty-five has made little sensible addition to thirty-three. As the body after a certain time gains no increase of height, and little of strength, there is likewise a period, though more variable by exter nal causes, when the mind commonly attains its stationary point, and very little advances its are stealing away; practices by which wisdom may be kept, but not gained. The merchant who was at first busy in acquiring money, ceases to grow richer, from the time when he makes it his business only to count it. powers of reflection, judgment, and ratiocina-ciples turns inwards for its own entertainment, tion. The body may acquire new modes of and is employed in settling those ideas which run motion, or new dexterities of mechanic opera-into confusion, and in recollecting those which tions, but its original strength receives not improvement: the mind may be stored with new languages, or new sciences, but its power of thinking remains nearly the same, and unless it attains new subjects of meditation, it commonly produces thoughts of the same force and the same extent, at very distant intervals of life; as the tree, unless a foreign fruit be ingrafted, gives year after year productions of the same form and the same flavour. By intellectual force or strength of thought is meant the degree of power which the mind possesses of surveying the subject of meditation, with its circuit of concomitants, and its train of dependence. Of this power, which all observe to be very different in different minds, part seems the gift of nature, and part the acquisition of experience. When the powers of nature have attained their intended energy, they can be no more advanced. The shrub can never become a tree. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that they are before the middle of life in their full vigour. Nothing then remains but practice and experience; and perhaps why they do so little, may be worth inquiry. But I have just now looked, and find it so late, that I will inquire against the next postnight. I am, &c. LETTER XXXII.-TO THE SAME. DEAR MADAM, INSTEAD of forty reasons for my return, one is sufficient, that you wish for my company. I purpose to write no more till you see me. The ladies at Stowhill and Greenhill are unanimously of opinion, that it will be best to take a postchaise, and not to be troubled with the vexations of a common carriage. I will venture to suppose the ladies at Streatham to be of the same mind. You will now expect to be told why you will not be so much wiser as you expect, when you have lived twelve years longer. It is said, and said truly, that experience is the best teacher; and it is supposed, that as life is lengthened experience is increased. But a closer inspection of human life will discover that time often passes without any incident which can much enlarge knowledge or ratify judgment. When we are young we learn much, because we are universally ignorant; we observe every thing, because every thing is new. But after some years, the occurrences of daily life are exhausted; one day passes like another, in the same scene of appearances, in the same course of transactions; we have to do what we have often done, and what we do not try, because we do not wish to do much better; we are told what we already know, and therefore what repetition cannot make us know with greater certainty. He that has early learned much perhaps seldom makes, with regard to life and manners, much addition to his knowledge: not only because as more is known there is less to learn, but because a mind stored with images and prin Those who have families or employments are engaged in business of little difficulty, but of great importance, requiring rather assiduity of practice than subtilty of speculation, occupying the attention with images too bulky for refinement, and too obvious for research. The right is already known: what remains is only to follow it. Daily business adds no more to wisdom, than daily lesson to the learning of the teacher. But of how few lives does not stated duty claim the greater part? Far the greater part of human minds never endeavour their own improvement. Opinions once received from instruction, or settled by whatever accident, are seldom recalled to examination; having been once supposed to be right, they are never discovered to be erroneous, for no application is made of any thing that time may present, either to shake or to confirm them. From this acquiescence in preconceptions none are wholly free; between fear of uncertainty, and dislike of labour, every one rests while he might yet go forward; and they that were wise at thirty-three, are very little wiser at forty-five. Of this speculation you are perhaps tired, and would rather hear of Sophy. I hope before this comes, that her head will be easier, and your head less filled with fears and troubles, which you know are to be indulged only to prevent evil, not to increase it. Your uneasiness about Sophy is probably unnecessary, and at worst your own children are healthful, and your affairs prosperous. Unmingled good cannot be expected; but as we may lawfully gather all the good within our reach, we may be allowed to lament after that which we lose. I hope your losses are at an end, and that as far as the condition of our present existence permits, your remaining life will be happy. I am, &c. LETTER XXXIII.-TO THE SAME. Litchfield, March 25th, 1776. DEAR MADAM, THIS letter will not, I hope, reach you many days before me; in a distress which can be so little relieved, nothing remains for a friend but to come and partake it. Poor dear sweet little boy! When I read the letter this day to Mrs. Aston, she said, "Such a death is the next to translation." Yet however I may convince myself of this, the tears are in my eyes, and yet I could not love him as you loved him, nor reckon upon him for a future comfort as you and his father reckoned upon him. He is gone, and we are going! We could not have enjoyed him long, and shall not long be separated from him. He has probably escaped many such pangs as you are now feeling. Nothing remains, but that with humble confidence we resign ourselves to Almighty Good ness, and fall down, without irreverent murmurs, before the Sovereign Distributor of good and evil, with hope that though sorrow endureth for a night, yet joy may come in the morning. I have known you, Madam, too long to think that you want any arguments for submission to the Supreme Will; nor can my consolation have any effect but that of showing that I wish to comfort you. What can be done you must do for yourself. Remember first, that your child is happy; and then, that he is safe, not only from the ills of this world, but from those more formidable dangers which extend their mischief to eternity. You have brought into the world a rational being; have seen him happy during the little life that has been granted him; and can have no doubt but that his happiness is now permanent and immutable. thought of when I began? The Thraliana drove it all into my head. It deserves however an hour's reflection, to consider how, with the least loss of time, the loss of what we wish to retain may be prevented. Do not neglect to write to me, for when a post comes empty, I am really disappointed. Boswell, I believe, will meet me here. I am, dearest lady, your, &c. LETTER XXXV.-TO THE SAME. Litchfield, Oct. 3d, 1777. DEAR MADAM, THIS is the last time that I shall write, in this excursion, from this place. To-morrow I shall When you have obtained by prayer such tran-be, I hope, at Birmingham; from which place quillity as nature will admit, force your attention, I shall do my best to find the nearest way home. as you can, upon your accustomed duties and I come home, I think, worse than I went; and accustomed entertainments. You can do no do not like the state of my health. But, vive more for our dear boy, but you must not there-hodie, make the most of life. I hope to get betfore think less on those whom your attention ter, and-sweep the cobwebs. But I have sad may make fitter for the place to which he is gone. nights. Mrs. Aston has sent me to Mr. Greene I am, dearest, dearest Madam, your most affec- to be cured. tionate humble servant. LETTER XXXIV.-TO THE SAME. DEAREST LADY, Ir is true that I have loitered, and what is worse, loitered with very little pleasure. The time has run away, as most time runs, without account, without use, and without memorial. But to say this of a few weeks, though not pleasing, might be borne, but what ought to be the regret of him who, in a few days, will have so nearly the same to say of sixty-eight years? But complaint is vain. If you have nothing to say from the neighbourhood of the metropolis, what can occur to me in little cities and petty towns; in places which we have both seen, and of which no description is wanted? I have left part of the company with which you dined here, to come and write this letter; in which I have nothing to tell, but that my nights are very tedious. I cannot persuade myself to forbear trying something. As you have now little to do, I suppose you are pretty diligent at the Thraliana; and a very curious collection posterity will find it. Do not remit the practice of writing down occurrences as they arise, of whatever kind, and be very punctual in annexing the dates. Chronology, you know, is the eye of history; and every man's life is of importance to himself. Do not omit painful casualties, or unpleasing passages; they make the variegation of existence; and there are many transactions, of which I will not promise with Eneas, et hæc olim meminisse juvabit. Yet that remembrance which is not pleasant may be useful. There is however an intemperate attention to slight circumstances which is to be avoided, lest a great part of life be spent in writing the history of the rest. Every day perhaps has something to be noted, but in a settled and uniform course few days can have much. Why do I write all this, which I had no Did you see Foote at Brighthelmstone?-Did you think he would so soon be gone?-Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle. He was a fine fellow in his way; and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. Murphy ought to write his life, at least to give the world a Footeana. Now, will any of his contemporaries bewail him? Will genius change his sex to weep? I would really have his life written with diligence. It will be proper for me to work pretty diligently now for some time. I hope to get through, though so many weeks have passed. Little lives and little criticisms may serve. Having been in the country so long, with very little to detain me, I am rather glad to look homewards. I am, &c. LETTER XXXVI.—TO The Same. Oct. 13th, 1777. DEAR MADAM, YET I do love to hear from you. Such pretty kind letters as you send. But it gives me great delight to find that my master misses me. I begin to wish myself with you more than I should do, if I were wanted less. It is a good thing to stay away till one's company is desired, but not so good to stay after it is desired. You know I have some work to do. I did not set to it very soon; and if I should go up to London with nothing done, what would be said, but that I was who can tell what? I therefore stay till I can bring up something to stop their mouths, and then Though I am still at Ashbourne, I receive your dear letters that come to Lichfield, and you may continue that direction, for I think to get thither as soon as I can. One of the does died yesterday, and I am afraid her fawn will be starved; I wish Miss Thrale had it to nurse; but the doctor is now all for cattle, and minds very little either does or hens. How did you and your aunt part? Did you turn her out of doors to begin your journey? of did she leave you by her usual shortness of visits. | wrong, you fall to writing about me to Tom I love to know how you go on. I cannot but think on your kindness and my master's. Life has, upon the whole, fallen short, very short, of my early expectation; but the acquisition of such a friendship, at an age when new friendships are seldom required, is something better than the general course of things gives man a right to expect. I think on it with great delight; I am not very apt to be delighted. am, &c. LETTER XXXVII.-TO THE SAME. DEAR MADAM, You talk of writing and writing, as if you had all the writing to yourself. If our correspondence were printed, I am sure posterity, for posterity is always the author's favourite, would say that I am a good writer too. Anch' io sono pittore. To sit down so often with nothing to say; to say something so often, almost without consciousness of saying, and without any remembrance of having said, is a power of which I will not violate my modesty by boasting, but I do not believe that every body has it. Some, when they write to their friends, are all affection; some are wise and sententious; some strain their powers for efforts of gayety; some write news, and some write secrets; but to make a letter without affection, without wisdom, without gayety, without news, and without a secret, is, doubtless, the great epistolic art. In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast; whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process; nothing is inverted, nothing distorted: you see systems in their elements; you discover actions in their motives. Of this great truth, sounded by the knowing to the ignorant, and so echoed by the ignorant to the knowing, what evidence have you now before you? Is not my soul laid open in these veracious pages? Do not you see me reduced to my first principles? This is the pleasure of corresponding with a friend, where doubt and distrust have no place, and every thing is said as it is thought. The original idea is laid down in its simple purity, and all the supervenient conceptions are spread over it, stratum super stratum, as they happen to be formed. These are the letters by which souls are united, and by which minds naturally in unison move each other as they are moved themselves. I know, dearest lady, that in the perusal of this, such is the consanguinity of our intellects, you will be touched as I am touched. I have indeed concealed nothing from you, nor do I expect ever to repent of having thus opened my heart. I am, &c. LETTER XXXVIII.-TO THE SAME. DEAR MADAM, AND so, supposing that I might come to town and neglect to give you notice, or thinking some other strange thought, but certainly thinking Davies, as if he could tell you any thing that I would not have you know. As soon as I came hither, I let you know of my arrival; and the consequence is, that I am summoned to Brighthelmstone through storms, and cold, and dirt, and all the hardships of wintry journeys. You know my natural dread of all those evils; yet to show my master an example of compliance, and to let you know how much I long to see you, and to boast how little I give way to disease, my purpose is to be with you on Friday. I am sorry for poor Nezzy, and hope she will in time be better; I hope the same for myself. The rejuvenescency of Mr. Scrase gives us both reason to hope, and therefore both of us rejoice in his recovery. I wish him well besides as a friend to my master. I am just come home from not seeing my Lord Mayor's show, but I might have seen at least part of it. But I saw Miss Wesley and her brothers; she sends her compliments. Mrs. Williams is come home I think a very little better. Every body was an enemy to that wig.-We will burn it, and get drunk; for what is joy without drink? Wagers are laid in the city about our success, which is yet, as the French call it, problematical. Well, but seriously, I think I shall be glad to see you in your own hair; but do not take too much time in combing, and twisting, and papering, and unpapering, and curling, and frizzing, and powdering, and getting out the powder, with all the other operations required in the cultivation of a head of hair; yet let it be combed at least once in three months, on the quarter-day-I could wish it might be combed once at least in six weeks; if I were to indulge my wishes, but what are wishes without hopes, I should fancy the operation performed-one knows not when one has enough-perhaps every morning. I am, dearest lady, your, &c. LETTER XXXIX.-TO THE SAME. DEAR MADAM, YOUR account of Mr. Thrale's illness is very terrible; but when I remember that he seems to have it peculiar to his constitution, that whatever distemper he has, he always has his head affected, I am less frighted. The seizure was, I think, not apoplectical, but hysterical, and therefore not dangerous to life. I would have you however consult such physicians as you think you can best trust. Bromfield seems to have done well, and by his practice appears not to suspect any apoplexy. This is a solid and fundamental comfort. I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale's, for he fell down helpless, but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua. His fit was considered as only hysterical. I hope Sir Philip, who franked your letter, comforts you as well as Mr. Seward. If I can comfort you, I will come to you; but I hope you are now no longer in want of and help to be happy. I am, &c. The Doctor sends his compliments; he is one of the people that are growing old. LETTER XLII.-To MRS. THRALE. DEAR MADAM, ON Sunday I dined with poor Lawrence, who is deafer than ever. When he was told that Dr. Moisy visited Mr. Thrale, he inquired for what? and said there was nothing to be done, which Nature would not do for herself. On Sunday evening I was at Mrs. Vesey's, and there was inquiry about my master, but I told them all good. There was Dr. Bernard of Eton, and we made a noise all the evening; and there was Pepys, and Wraxal till I drove him away. And I have no loss of my mistress, who laughs, and frisks, and frolicks it all the long day, and never thinks of poor Colin. How near we are all to extreme danger. We are merry or sad, or busy or idle, and forget that death is hovering over us. You are a dear lady for writing again. The case, as you now describe it, is worse than I conceived it when I read your first letter. It is still however not apoplectic, but seems to have something worse than hysterical, a tendency to a palsy, which I hope however is now over. I am glad that you have Heberden, and hope we are all safer. I am the more alarmed by this violent seizure, as I can impute it to no wrong practices, or intemperance of any kind, If Mr. Thrale will but continue to mend, we and therefore know not how any defence or pre-shall, I hope, come together again, and do as servative can be obtained. Mr. Thrale has cer- good things as ever we did; but perhaps you tainly less exercise than when he followed the will be made too proud to heed me, and yet as I foxes; but he is very far from unwieldiness or have often told you, it will not be easy for you to inactivity, and further still from any vicious or find such another. dangerous excess. I fancy, however, he will do well to ride more. Queeney has been a good girl, and wrote me Do, dear Madam, let me know every post how told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. a letter; if Burney said she would write, she She he goes on. Such sudden violence is very dreadcan write home fast enough. I have a good ful; we know not by what it is let loose upon us,mind not to let her know that Dr. Bernard, to nor by what its effects are limited. If my coming can either assist or divert, or be useful to any purpose, let me but know. I will soon be with you. Mrs. Kennedy, Queeney's Baucis, ended last week a long life of disease and poverty. She had been married about fifty years. Dr. Taylor is not much amiss, but always complaining. I am, &c. LETTER XLI.-To MR. THRALE. DEAR SIR, To show you how well I think of your health, I have sent you a hundred pounds to keep for me. It will come within one day of quarter-day, and that day you must give me. I came by it in a very uncommon manner, and would not confound it with the rest. My wicked mistress talks as if she thought it possible for me to be indifferent or negligent about your health or hers. If I could have done any good, I had not delayed an hour to come to you; and I will come very soon to try if my advice can be of any use, or my company of any entertainment. What can be done you must do for yourself; do not let any uneasy thought settle in your mind. Cheerfulness and exercise are your great remedies. Nothing is for the present worth your anxiety. Vivite læti is one of the great rules of health. I believe it will be good to ride often, but never to weariness, for weariness is itself a temporary resolution of the nerves, and is therefore to be avoided. Labour is exercise continued to fatigue-exercise is labour used only while it produces pleasure. Above all, keep your mind quiet: do not think with earnestness even of your health; but think on such things as may please without too much agitation; among which I hope is, dear Sir, your, &c. whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the copy which she lent me, has been read by Dr. Lawrence three times over. And yet what a gipsy it is. She no more minds me than if I were a Brangton. Pray speak to Queeney to write again. I have had a cold and a cough, and taken opium, and think I am better. We have had very cold weather; bad riding weather for my master, but he will surmount it all. Did Mrs. Browne make any reply to your comparison of business with solitude, or did you quite down her? I am much pleased to think that Mrs. Cotton thinks me worth a frame, and a place upon her wall; her kindness was hardly within my hope, but time does wonderful things. All my fear is, that if I should come again, my print would be taken down. I fear I shall never hold it. Who dines with you? Do you seek Dr. Woodward or Dr. Harrington? Do you go to the house where they write for the myrtle? You are at all places of high resort, and bring home hearts by dozens; while I am seeking for something to say about men of whom I know nothing but their verses, and sometimes very little of them. Now I have begun, however, I do not despair of making an end. Mr. Nichols holds that Addison is the most taking of all that I have done. I doubt they will not be done before you come away. Now you think yourself the first writer in the world for a letter about nothing. Can you write such a letter as this? So miscellaneous, with such noble disdain of regularity, like Shakspeare's works; such graceful negligence of transition, like the ancient enthusiasts? The pure voice of nature and of friendship. Now of whom shall I proceed to speak? Of whom but Mrs. Montague? Having mentioned Shakspeare and Nature, does not the name of Montague force itself upon me? Such were the transitions of the ancients, which now seem abrupt, because the intermediate idea is lost to modern understandings. I wish her name had connected |