when we may expect to see you.

We were disappointed that we had no Letter from you this morning. You will find me coated and buttoned according to your recommendation,

I write but little, because writing is become new to me; but I shall come on by degrees. Mrs. Unwin begs to be affectionately remembered to you. She is in tolerable health, which is the chief comfort here that I have to boast of.

Come when thou canst come, secure

of being always welcome. All that is here is thine, together with the hearts of those who dwell here. I am only sorry that your. journey hither is necessarily postponed beyond the time when I did hope to have seen you, sorry too, that my Uncle's infirmities are the occasion of it. But years will have their course, and their effect; they are happiest so far as this life is concerned, who like him escape those effects the longest, and who do not grow old before their time. Trouble and anguish do that for some, which only longevity does for others. A few months since I was older than

your

Father

Father is now, and though I have lately recovered, as Falstaff says, some smatch of my youth, I have but little confidence, in truth none, in so flattering a change, but expect, when I least expect it, to wither again. The past is a pledge for the future.

Mr. G. is here, Mrs. Throckmorton's Uncle. He is lately arrived from Italy, where he has resided several years, and is so much the gentleman that it is impossible to be more so. Sensible, polite, obliging; slender in his figure, and in manners most engaging, every way worthy to be related to the Throckmortons.I have read Savary's Travels into Egypt. Memoirs du Baron de Tott. Fenn's original Letters, the Letters of Frederic of Bohemia, and am now reading Memoirs d' Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. I have also read Barclay's Argenis, a Latin Romance, and the best Romance that was ever written. All these, together with Madan's Letters to Priestly, and several pamphlets within these two months. So I am a great reader.

MY DEAREST COUSIN,

LETTER LXXII.

W, C.

To Lady HESKETH.

The Lodge, Sept. 15, 1787.

On Monday last I was invited to meet

your friend Miss J, at the Hall, and there we found her. Her good nature, her humourous manner, and her good sense are

charming,

charming, insomuch that even I, who was never much addicted to specch-making, and who at present find myself particularly indisposed to it, could not help saying at parting, I am glad that I have seen you, and sorry that I have seen so little of you. We were sometimes many in company; on Thursday we were fifteen, but we had not altogether so much vivacity and cleverness as Miss J-, whose talent at mirth-making has this rare property to recommend it, that nobody suffers by it.

I am making a gravel walk for winter use, under a warm hedge in the orchard. It shall be furnished with a low seat for your accommodation, and if you do but like it, I shall be satisfied.. In wet weather, or rather after wet weather, when the street is. dirty, it will suit you well, for lying on an easy declivity, through its whole length, it must of course be immediately dry.

You are very much wished for by our friends at the Hallhow much by me I will not tell you till the second week in October.

W. C.

MY DEAR COZ.

LETTER LXXIII.

To Lady HESKETH.

The Lodge, Sep. 29, 1787.

I thank you for your political intelli

gence; retired as we are, and seemingly excluded from the world,

we

1

we are not indifferent to what passes in it; on the contrary, the arrival of a news-paper, at the present juncture, never fails to furnish us with a theme for discussion, short indeed, but satisfactory, for we seldom differ in opinion.

I have received such an impression of the Turks, from the Memoirs of Baron de Tott, which I read lately, that I can hardly help presaging the conquest of that empire by the Russians. The disciples of Mahomet are such babies in modern tactics, and so enervated by the use of their favourite drug, so fatally secure in their predestinarian dream, and so prone to a spirit of mutiny against their leaders, that nothing less can be expected. In fact, they had not been their own masters at this day, had but the Russians known the weakness of their enemies half so well as they undoubtedly know it now. Add to this, that there is a popular prophecy current in both countries, that Turkey is one day to fall under the Russian sceptre. A prophecy, which from whatever authority it be derived, as it will naturally encourage the Russians, and dispirit the Turks, in exact proportion to the degree of credit it has obtained on both sides, has a direct tendency to effect its own accomplishIn the mean time, if I wish them conquered, it is only because I think it will be a blessing to them to be governed by any other hand than their own. For under Heaven has there never been a throne so execrably tyrannical as theirs. The heads of the innocent that have been cut off to gratify the humour or caprice of

ment.

VOL. I.

K K

their

their tyrants, could they be all collected, and discharged against the walls of their city, would not leave one stone on another.

Oh! that you were here this beautiful day! It is too fine by half to be spent in London.. I have a perpetual din in my head, and though I am not deaf,

hear nothing aright, neither my own

voice, nor that of others. I am under a tub, from which tub accept my best love, Yours,

DEAR SIR,

W. C.

LETTER LXXIV..

To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr.

Weston, Oct. 19, 1787..

A summons from Johnson, which I received yesterday, calls my attention once more to the business of Translation. Before I begin I am willing to catch, though but a short opportunity, to acknowledge your last favour. The necessity of applying myself with all diligence to a long work that... has been but too long interrupted, will make my opportunities of writing, rare in future,

Air and exercise are necessary to all men, but particularly so to the man whose mind labours, and to him who has been, all his life, accustomed to much of both, they are necessary in the extreme. My time, since we parted, has been devoted entirely to

the