hither I did not at first understand the hours of Duck. Thus, in difficult cases, we naturally the post. I have seen the great bull; and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to inherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire. I have seen the man who offered a hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf. Matlock, I am afraid, I shall not see, but I purpose to see Dovedale; and, after all this seeing, I hope to see you. I am, &c. trust most what we least know. Why Bormefield, supposing that a lotion can do good, should despise laurel-water in comparison with his own receipt, I do not see; and see still less why he should laugh at that which Wall thinks efficacious. I am afraid philosophy will not warrant much hope in a lotion. Be pleased to make my compliments from Mrs. Salusbury to Susy. I am, &c. LAST Saturday I came to Ashbourne; the dangers or the pleasures of the journey I have at present no disposition to recount; else might I paint the beauties of my native plains; might I tell of the "smiles of nature and the charms of art;" else might I relate how I crossed the Staffordshire canal, one of the great efforts of human labour, and human contrivance; which, from the bridge on which I viewed it, passed away on either side, and loses itself in distant regions, uniting waters that nature had divided, and dividing lands which nature had united. I might tell how these reflections fermented in my mind till the chaise stopped at Ashbourne, at Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not the barren name of the Peak terrify you; I have never wanted strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull: and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence. I am, &c. LETTER VIII.-To the Same. Ashbourne, July 10th, 1771. DEAREST MADAM, I AM obliged to my friend Harry, for his remembrance; but think it a little hard that I hear nothing from Miss. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm? Toujours strawberries and cream. Dr. Taylor is much better, and my rheumatism is less painful. Let me hear in return as much good of you and Mrs. Salusbury. You despise the Dog and Duck; things that are at hand are always slighted. I remember that Dr. Grevil, of Gloucester, sent for that water when his wife was in the same danger; but he lived near Malvern, and you live near the Dog and LETTER IX.-To the Same. October 31st, 1772. MADAM, THOUGH I am just informed, that, by some accidental negligence, the letter which I wrote on Thursday was not given to the post, yet I cannot refuse myself the gratification of writing again to my mistress; not that I have any thing to tell, but that by showing how much I am employed upon you, I hope to keep you from forgetting me. Doctor Taylor asked me this morning on what I was thinking? and I was thinking on Lucy. I hope Lucy is a good girl. But she cannot yet be so good as Queeney. I have got nothing yet for Queeney's cabinet. I hope dear Mrs. Salusbury grows no worse. I wish any thing could be found that would make her better. You must remember her ad.. monition, and bustle in the brewhouse. When I come, you may expect to have your hands full with all of us. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull. Our deer have died; but many are left. Our waterfall at the garden makes a great roaring this wet weather. And so no more at present from, Madam, your, &c. I Am sorry that none of your letters bring better news of the poor dear lady. I hope her pain is not great. To have a disease confessedly incurable and apparently mortal, is a very heavy affliction; and it is still more grievous when pain is added to despair. Every thing else in your letter pleased me very well, except that when I come I entreat I may not be flattered, as your letters flatter me. You have read of heroes and princes ruined by flattery, and I question if any of them had a flatterer so dangerous as you. Pray keep strictly dious, and this day makes no promises of much to your character of governess. I cannot yet get well; my nights are flatulent and unquiet, but my days are tolerably easy, and Taylor says that I look much better than when I came hither. You will see when I come, and I can take your word. Our house affords no revolutions. The great bull is well. But I write not merely to think on you, for I do that without writing, but to keep you a little thinking on me. I perceive that I have taken a broken piece of paper, but that is not the greatest fault that you must forgive in, Madam, your, &c. IF you are so kind as to write to me on Saturday, the day on which you will receive this, I shall have it before I leave Ashbourne. I am to go to Litchfield on Wednesday, and purpose to find my way to London through Birmingham and Oxford. I was yesterday at Chatsworth. It is a very fine house. I wish you had been with me to see it; for then, as we are apt to want matter of talk, we should have gained something new to talk on. They complimented me with playing the fountain, and opening the cascade. But I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has A seen the ocean, cascades are but little things. ease. However, I have this day put on my shoe, and hope that gout is gone. I shall have only the cough to contend with, and I doubt whether I shall get rid of that without change of place. I caught cold in the coach as I went away, and am disordered by very little things. Is it accident or age? I am, dearest Madam, &c. To tell you that I am sorry both for the poor You, Madam, will have a great loss; a greater than is common in the loss of a parent. Fill your mind with hope of her happiness, and turn your thoughts first to Him who gives and takes away, in whose presence the living and dead are standing together. Then remember, that when this mournful duty is paid, others yet remain of equal obligation, and, we may hope, of less painful performance. Grief is a species of idleness, and the necessity of attenItion to the present preserves us, by the merciful disposition of Providence, from being lacerated and devoured by sorrow for the past. You must think on your husband and your children, and do what this dear lady has done for you. I am in hope of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may bring me a little good of you all. am, &c. THE inequalities of human life have always employed the meditation of deep thinkers, and I cannot forbear to reflect on the difference be tween your condition and my own. You live upon mock-turtle, and stewed rumps of beef; I dined yesterday upon crumpets. You sit with parish officers, caressing and caressed, the idol of the table, and the wonder of the day. I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad enough to be pitied, and not well enough to be endured. You sleep away the night, and laugh or scold away the day. I cough and grumble, and grumble and cough. Last night was very te Not to come to town while the great struggle continues is undoubtedly well resolved. But do not harass yourself into danger; you owe the care of your health to all that love you, at least to all whom it is your duty to love. You cannot give such a mother too much, if you do not give her what belongs to another. I am, &c. deceive yourself, that the disease which at last is | wicked and malicious, may be erroneously reli to destroy, must be gradually growing worse, and that it is vain to wish for more than that the descent to death may be slow and easy. In this wish I join with you, and hope it will be grant ed. Dear, dear lady! whenever she is lost she will be missed, and whenever she is remembered she will be lamented. Is it a good or an evil to me that she now loves me? It is surely a good; for you will love me better, and we shall have a new principle of concord; and I shall be happier with honest sorrow, than with sullen indifference and far happier still than counterfeited sympathy. I am reasoning upon a principle very far from certain, a confidence of survivance. You or I, or both, may be called into the presence of the Supreme Judge before her. I have lived a life of which I do not like the review. Surely I shall in time live better. I sat down with an intention to write high compliments; but my thoughts have taken another course, and some other time must now serve to tell you with what other emotions, benevolence, and fidelity, I am, &c. NEVER imagine that your letters are long; they are always too short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever content with a single perusal. Of dear Mrs. Salusbury I never expect much better news than you send me; de pis en pis is the natural and certain course of her dreadful malady. I am content when it leaves her ease enough for the exercise of her mind. Why should Mr. *** suppose that what I took the liberty of suggesting was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve his affairs, and now honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the hint take some hold of his mind. is more Your declaration to Miss ⚫ general than my opinions allow. I think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong, that nothing, or hardly any thing, can make it right. All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance which God has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free. Unlimited obedience is due only to the Universal Father of Heaven and Earth. My parents may be mad and foolish; may be gious, or absurdly scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates either positive or negative, which either religion condemns or reason rejects. There wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more than over any other transaction. If Miss followed a trade, would it be said that she was bound in conscience to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more interested, and has therefore more right of choice? When I may suffer for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge by parity of reason for my own happiness. The parent's moral right can arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money. Conscience cannot dictate obedience to the wicked, or compliance with the foolish; and of interest mere prudence is the judge. If the daughter is bound without a promise, she promises nothing; and if she is not bound, she promises too much. What is meant by tying up money in trade I do not understand. No money is so little tied as that which is employed in trade. Mr. perhaps only means, that in consideration of money to be advanced, he will oblige his son to be a trader. This is reasonable enough. Upon ten thousand pounds diligently occupied, they may live in great plenty and splendour, without the mischiefs of idleness. I can write a long letter as well as my mistress; and shall be glad that my long letters may be as welcome as hers. My nights are grown again very uneasy and troublesome. I know not that the country will mend them; but I hope your company will mend my days. Though I cannot now expect much attention, and would not wish for more than can be spared from the poor dear lady, yet I shall see you and hear you every now and then; and to see and hear you, is always to hear wit, and to see virtue. I shall, I hope, see you to-morrow, and a little on the two next days; and with that little I must for the present try to be contented. I am, &c. LETTER XVI.-To the Same. August 12th, 1773. DEAR MADAM, WE left London on Friday the 6th, not very early, and travelled without any memorable accident through a country which I had seen before. In the evening I was not well, and was forced to stop at Stilton, one stage short of Stamford, where we intended to have lodged. such as I have seen in no other place; it rather awes than pleases, as it strikes with a kind of gigantic dignity, and aspires to no other praise than that of rocky solidity and indeterminate duration. I had none of my friends resident, and therefore saw but little. The library is mean and scanty. At Durham, beside all expectation, I met an old friend: Miss Fordyce is married there to a physician. We met, I think, with honest kindness on both sides. I thought her much decay On the 7th we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark, where I had only time to observe that the market-place was uncommonly spacious and neat. In London we should call it a square, though the sides were neither straight nor parallel. We came, at night, to Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like this ;-What I gave, that I have; what I spent, that I had; what I left, that I lost. So saith Robert of Doncaster, who reigned, and having since heard that the banker had ed in the world sixty-seven years, and all that time lived not one. Here we were invited to dinner, and therefore made no great haste away. We reached York, however, that night; I was much disordered with old complaints. Next morning we saw the Minster, an edifice of loftiness and elegance equal to the highest hopes of architecture. I remember nothing but the dome of St. Paul's that can be compared with the middle walk. The Chapter-house is a circular building, very stately, but I think excelled by the Chapter-house of Lincoln. I then went to see the ruins of the Abbey, which are almost vanished, and I remember nothing of them distinct. The next visit was to the jail, which they call the castle; a fabric built lately, such is terrestrial mutability, out of the materials of the ruined abbey. The under jailor was very officious to show his fetters, in which there was no contrivance. The head jailor came in, and seeing me look, I suppose, fatigued, offered me wine, and when I went away would not suffer his servant to take money. The jail is accounted the best in the kingdom, and you find the jailor deserving of his dignity. We dined at York, and went on to Northallerton, a place of which I know nothing, but that it afforded us a lodging on Monday night, and about two hundred and seventy years ago gave birth to Roger Ascham. Next morning we changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect. The church is built crosswise, with a fine spire, and might invite a traveller to survey it; but I perhaps wanted vigour, and thought I wanted time. The next stage brought us to Durham, a place of which Mr. Thrale bade me take particular notice. The bishop's palace has the appearance of an old feudal castle, built upon an eminence, and looking down upon the river, upon which was formerly thrown a draw-bridge, as I suppose, to be raised at night lest the Scots should pass it. involved her husband in his extensive ruin, I cannot forbear to think that I saw in her withered features more impression of sorrow than of time Qua terra patet, sera regnat Erinnys. He that wanders about the world sees new forms of human misery, and if he chances to meet an old friend, meets a face darkened with troubles. On Tuesday night we came hither; yesterday I took some care of myself, and to-day I am quite polite. I have been taking a view of all that could be shown me, and find that all very near to nothing. You have often heard me complain of finding myself disappointed by books of travels; I am afraid travel itself will end likewise in disappointment. One town, one country, is very like another: civilized nations have the same customs, and barbarous nations have the same nature: there are indeed minute discriminations both of places and of manners, which perhaps are not wanting of curiosity, but which a traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and compare. The dull utterly neglect them; the acute see a little, and supply the rest with fancy and conjecture. I shall set out again to-morrow; but I shall not, I am afraid, see Alnwick, for Dr. Percy is not there. I hope to lodge to-morrow night at Berwick, and the next at Edinburgh, where I shall direct Mr. Drummond, bookseller, at Ossian's head, to take care of my letters. I hope the little dears are all well, and that my dear master and mistress may go somewhither; but wherever you go do not forget, Madam, your most humble servant. I am pretty well. DEAR MADAM, The cathedral has a massiness and solidity Ox the 13th I left Newcastle, and in the after noon came to Alnwick, where we were treated with great civility by the Duke: I went through the apartments, walked on the wall, and climbed the towers. That night we lay at Belford, and on the next night came to Edinburgh. On Sunday (15th) I went to the English chapel. After dinner Dr. Robertson came in, and promised to show me the place. On Monday I saw their public buildings: the cathedral, which I told Robertson I wished to see because it had once been a church, the courts of justice, the parliament house, the advocates' library, the repository of records, the college and its library, and the palace, particularly the old tower where the king of Scotland seized David Rizzio in the queen's presence. Most of their buildings are very mean; and the whole town bears some resemblance to the old part of Birmingham. Boswell has very handsome and spacious rooms; level with the ground on one side of the house, and on the other four stories high. At dinner on Monday were the Dutchess of Douglas, an old lady, who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is scarcely understood by her own countrymen; the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Adolphus Oughton, and many more. At supper there was such a conflux of company that I could scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered. and found them twenty-seven feet long, and twenty-three broad. The rock had some grass and many thistles, both cows and sheep were grazing. There was a spring of water. The name is Inchkeith. Look on your maps. This visit took about an hour. We pleased ourselves with being in a country all our own, and then went back to the boat, and landed at Kinghorn, a mean town; and travelling through Kirkaldie, a very long town meanly built, and Cowpar, which I could not see because it was night, we came late to St. Andrew's, the most ancient of the Scotch universities, and once the see of the Primate of Scotland. The inn was full; but lodgings were provided for us at the house of the professor of rhetoric, a man of elegant manners, who showed us, in the morning, the poor remains of a stately cathedral, demolished in Knox's reformation, and now only to be imagined by tracing its foundation, and contemplating the little ruins that are left. Here was once a religious house. Two of the vaults or cellars of the subprior are even yet entire. In one of them lives an old woman, who claims an hereditary residence in it, boasting that her husband was the sixth tenant of this gloomy mansion, in a lineal descent, and claims by her marriage with this lord of the cavern an alliance with the Bruces. Mr. Boswell staid a while to interrogate her, because he understood her lan This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Black-guage; she told him, that she and her cat lived lock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to, by a poor scholar, in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence. To-morrow our journey begins; I know not when I shall write again. am but poorly. I am, &c. LETTER XVIII.-To MRS. THRALE. Bamff, August 25th, 1773. I DEAR MADAM, Ir has so happened that though I am perpetually thinking on you, I could seldom find opportunity to write; I have in fourteen days sent only one letter; you must consider the fatigues of travel, and the difficulties encountered in a strange country. August 18th, I passed, with Boswell, the Frith of Forth, and began our journey; in the passage we observed an island, which I persuaded my companions to survey. We found it a rock somewhat troublesome to climb, about a mile long, and half a mile broad; in the middle were the ruins of an old fort, which had on one of the stones-Maria Re. 1564. It had been only a blockhouse, one story high. I measured two apartments, of which the walls were entire, together; that she had two sons somewhere, who might perhaps be dead; that when there were quality in the town notice was taken of her, and that now she was neglected, but did not trouble them. Her habitation contained all that she had; her turf for fire was laid in one place, and her balls of coal-dust in another, but her bed seemed to be clean. Boswell asked her, if she never heard any noises; but she could tell him of nothing supernatural, though she often wandered in the night among the graves and ruins, only she had sometimes notice by dreams of the death of her relations. We then viewed the remains of a castle on the margin of the sea, in which the archbishops resided, and in which Cardinal Beatoun was killed. The professors who happened to be resident in the vacation made a public dinner, and treated us very kindly and respectfully. They showed us their colleges, in one of which there is a library that, for luminousness and elegance, may vie at least with the new edifice at Streatham. But learning seems not to prosper among them; one of their colleges has been lately alienated. and one of their churches lately deserted. experiment was made of planting a shrubbery in the church, but it did not thrive. An |