valued letter, arrived Mrs and Miss Dyott of Whittington, and remained my guests during four days. The pleasure of their beloved Mrs Lee's recent restoration from the imminent danger in which she had long languished, left a sunny glow upon their native cheerfulness. They were so good to express frequent satisfaction in their visit; enjoyed my spacious old rooms, and the embowered, the rural, the quiet scene which surrounds them. Fond of choral service, they delighted in the harmonious grandeur of ours, though he, alas! was absent, whose fine voice, and evervarious expression, had so long been its highest boast.

Mr Leigh's family passed an evening with me while the Dyotts were here, together with the ingenious Dr Harwood, the Anatomic Professor at Cambridge, whose Proteus-voice, countenance, and attitudes, can assume, at pleasure, the characteristic oddities, both personal and colloquial, of all his acquaintance. With him came an ingenuous and beautiful young student of that university, his name Belchere. Miss Leigh enchanted us with the lightning-brilliance of her execution in Clementi's lessons on the harpsichord. Her father's comic spirit diffuses convivial pleasure wherever he presides; nor did it fail us that evening, though he neither looked nor was in health.

Your Ladyship is very good to inquire after my poor friend Mr Saville. He set out for the sea yesterday morning. His health, which appeared to amend, though slowly, had faded again during the seven or eight preceding days.

Mrs Knowles, the witty and the eloquent, was amongst us, on a week's visit, since you left Lichfield. She made flaming eulogiums upon French anarchy, which she calls freedom, and uttered no less vehement philippics against every thing which pertains to monarchy. For myself, I have ever loved and venerated the cause of liberty; and wished every restraint upon power which can be consistent with that order, and those links of subordination which bind, in one agreeing whole, the necessarily various degrees and enployments of civilized life; but I every day grow more and more sick of that mischievous oratory which ferments and diffuses the spirit of sedition. In the name of peace and comfort, let those who are dissatisfied with a government, in which their lives and properties are secure, which is great and revered in the eyes of every neighbouring nation; against which no sword is drawn, and to whose commerce every port is open; let them go to America, where they may be quiet, or to France, where their energies may have ample scope;

but let them not attempt to muddy the at present silver-currents of our prosperity.

I do not yet wish that the blood-thirsty invaders of unhappy France may succeed; nor do I at all apprehend that they can be victorious. At the king's deposition I felt very indignant ;—but if, as it now seems to appear, he was secretly plotting with the invaders, he deserves his fate, and justifies those who have abjured him. Surely we shall have the wisdom to persist in our neutrality. Ill as the French have, in many respects, acted, distracted as are their councils, and impotent as at present seem their laws, there is danger that the worst consequences would ensue to us should we arm against them; that the contagion of ideal liberty might infect our troops, as it has infected those of the Austrians and Prussians. Paine's pernicious and impossible system of equal rights, is calculated to captivate and dazzle the vulgar; to make them spurn the restraints of legislation, and to spread anarchy, murder, and ruin over the earth.

Poor Mr Adams is again in the deepest distress and terror for the life of his son. The late accounts darken every ray of hope on that subject; but Miss Adams is returned, and said to be in tolerable health. I have long thought, though

it was mere conjecture, that a certain friend of ours had matrimonial inclinations for that young woman. Fortune, if I read him right, is a powerful nuptial object in his consideration. He has many good qualities; but his affections have no dangerous energy that should make them rebels to his interest; and he much respected Miss Adams's understanding and virtues. However, from the apprehension of parental purse-proud interference, he played a game too deeply senti mental, wearing the masque of friendship to the lady herself too long. They have corresponded during the whole of this lengthened absence, still platonically, doubtless; for, lo! she brings home a favoured lover; so

"Platonics have ill-luck, and Harry's spur is cold."

Part of this long letter was written yesterday; but, interrupted in its progress, and dining and supping at Mrs Cobb's, I could not finish it till this morning. Our party there was an old friend and his wife, Mr and Mrs whom I have

not seen during a very long time. His affectionate assiduities engrossed four golden years of my earliest youth; yet, at length, from his preference of this lady, I wore the willow, but with no

drooping, at least no long drooping heart. They are the guests of Mr and Mrs Arden at Longcroft. I go there to pass Friday with them. Mr and Mrs are highly respected by all who know them, and live in the garden of Norfolk. We are cordial friends. I abjure the pride which could not freely pardon a perhaps involuntary fickleness, produced by necessary absence, and engaging presence, and in which the secret heart of the deserted soon learnt to felicitate itself.

Adieu, dear Lady Gresley! propitious, ah! speedily propitious to you be the Naiads of those pain-assuaging waters!

LETTER XLIX.

REV. T. S. WHALLEY.

Sept. 4, 1792.

ALL you so kindly say on the subject of Mr Saville's disease entirely meets my conviction. I am clear it has been produced by the complicated objects of solicitude, which situation and propensity have created; the intenseness of his botanic studies and labours, united with the business of