mournful duties. She was at this time a Widow, and her indelible regard for her poetical relation, being agreeably inspirited by the publication of his recent works, she wrote to him, on that occasion, a very kind letter.

It gave rise to many from him, which I am particularly happy in being enabled to make a part of this Work, because they give a minute account of their admirable Author, at a very interesting period of his life; and because I persuade myself they will reflect peculiar honor on my departed Friend in various points of view, and lead the Public to join with me in thinking that his Letters are rivals to his Poems, in the rare excellence of representing life and nature with graceful and endearing fidelity.

LETTER XL.

To Lady HESKETH, New Norfolk Street, Grosvenor-Square.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

October 12, 1785.

It is no new thing with you to give

pleasure, but I will venture to say that you do not often give more than you gave me this morning. When I came down to breakfast, and found upon the table a Letter franked by my Uncle, and when opening that frank I found that it contained a Letter from you, I said within myself, this is just as it should be; we are all grown young again, and the days that I thought I should see no more, are

actually

able to me.

actually returned. You perceive therefore that you judged well when you conjectured that a line from you would not be disagreeIt could not be otherwise, than as in fact it proved, a most agreeable surprize, for I can truly boast of an affection for you that neither years, nor interrupted intercourse have at all abated. I need only recollect how much I valued you once, and with how much cause, immediately to feel a revival of the same value; if that can be said to revive, which at the most has only been dormant for want of employment. But I slander it when I say that it has slept. A thousand times have I recollected a thousand scenes in which our two selves have formed the whole of the drama, with the greatest pleasure; at times too when I had no reason to suppose that I should ever hear from you again. I have laughed with you at the Arabian Nights Entertainment, which afforded us, as you well know, a fund of merriment that deserves never to be forgot. I have walked with you to Nettley Abbey, and have scrambled with you over hedges in every direction, and many other feats we have performed together, upon the field of my remembrance, and all within these few years, should I say within this twelvemonth I should not transgress the truth. The hours that I have spent with you were among the pleasantest of my former days, and are therefore chronicled in my mind so deeply as to fear no erasure. Neither do I forget my poor friend Sir Thomas, I should remember him indeed at any rate on account of his personal kindnesses to myself, but the last testimony that he gave of his regard for you, endears

him to me still more. With his uncommon understanding (for with many peculiarities he had more sense than any of his acquaintance) and with his generous sensibilities, it was hardly possible that he should not distinguish you as he has done: as it was the last, so it was the best proof, that he could give of a judgment, that never deceived him, when he would allow himself leisure to consult it.

You say that you have often heard of me: that puzzles me. I cannot imagine from what quarter, but it is no matter. I must tell you, however, my Cousin, that your information has been a little defective. That I am happy in my situation is true, I live and have lived these twenty years with Mrs. Unwin, to whose affectionate care of me during the far greater part of that time, it is, under Providence, owing that I live at all. But I do not account myself happy in having been for thirteen of those years in a state of mind that has made all that care and attention necessary. An attention, and a care, that have injured her health, and which, had she not been uncommonly supported, must have brought her to the grave. But I will pass to another subject; it would be cruel to particularize only to give pain, neither would I by any means give a sable hue to the first Letter of a correspondence so unexpectedly renewed.

I am delighted with what you tell me of my Uncle's good health; to enjoy any measure of cheerfulness at so late a day is

much,

much, but to have that late day enlivened with the vivacity of youth, is much more, and in these postdiluvian times a rarity indeed. Happy for the most part, are parents who have daughters. Daughters are not apt to outlive their natural affections, which a son has generally survived even before his boyish years are expired. I rejoice particularly in my Uncle's felicity, who has three female descendents from his little person, who leave him nothing to wish for upon that head.

My dear Cousin, dejection of spirits, which I suppose may have prevented many a man from becoming an Author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed. Manual occupations do not engage the mind sufficiently, as I know by experience, having tried many. But composition, especially of verse, absorbs it wholly. I write therefore generally three hours in a morning, and in an evening I transcribe. I read also, but less than I write, for I must have bodily exercise, and therefore never pass a day without it.

You ask me where I have been this summer. I answer at Olney. Should you ask me where I spent the last seventeen summers, I should still answer at Olney. Ay, and the winters also, I have seldom left it, and except when I attended my Brother in his last illness, never I believe a fortnight together.

Adieu, my beloved Cousin, I shall not always be thus nimble in reply, but shall always have great pleasure in answering you when

Whose last most affectionate Letter has

run in my head ever since I received it, and which I now sit down to answer two days sooner than the post will serve me. I thank you for it, and with a warmth for which I am sure you will give me credit, though I do not spend many words in describing it. I do not seek new friends, not being altogether sure that I should find them, but have unspeakable pleasure in being still beloved by an old one. I hope that now our correspondence has suffered its last interruption, and that we shall go down together to the grave, chatting and chirping as merrily as such a scene of things as this, will permit.

I am happy that my Poems have pleased you. My Volume has afforded me no such pleasure at any time, either while I was writing