mind is strong enough to feel recompence in his inevitable conviction, that his poetic and his philosophic writings possess the germs of a vitality which will be coëval with the existence of the English language.

Perhaps few have sufficient fortitude to sustain, unwounded, such reverse as this satire will produce in the present opinion of the reading multitude, always composed of those who have no power of judging for themselves. Self-love might not be able to find sufficient consolation from reflecting, that the continued suffrages of the ingenious, the discerning, and generous few, must, by slow degrees, place their compositions on that high and firm ground on which, though not perhaps impeccable, they have a right to stand. Adieu.

LETTER XXI.

MISS PONSONBY.

Buxton, Aug. 9, 1798.

I CONGRATULATE my dear friends upon the sweet and, I trust, lasting repose of their fears for the state of Ireland. Alas! that it should have cost such a bleeding price: yet that the greatly worse is averted, must inspire a sense of delight from subsided terror, which the intermingled bitterness of victim-regret cannot do

away.

The increasing power of my rheumatic malady, forced me to seek these springs rather than the billows of High Lake, from which I should have been thrice happy in circling home by Langollen. Thus the halcyon days, which last summer were mine, may not gild and inspirit this. If I live, and the fiend of the joints remits his persecution, I hope, next year, to see and converse with friends, to whose society my whole mind is wedded; and to see the image of that fair creature, who shed the light of happiness over many of my youthful years, honoured with so enshrined a situation.

This month is always high season at Buxton. The crowd is immense, though I never remember so few families of rank, and there is a tristful lack of elegant beaux. The male youth and middle life of England are, you know, all soldierized and gone to camps and coasts; and so a few prim parsons, and a few dancing doctors, are the forlorn hope of the belles.

And here is Mrs Powys of Berwick, in loveliness which none of them can approach, which time seems to have lost his power to tarnish, which no custom of the eye can pall.

No, dear Madam, I was not, as you suppose, favoured with a letter from General Washington, expressly addressed to myself; but, a few years after peace was signed between this country and America, an officer introduced himself, commissioned from General Washington to call upon me, and to assure me, from the General himself, that no circumstance of his life had been so mortifying as to be censured in the Monody on André, as the pitiless author of his ignominious fate: that he had laboured to save him-that he requested my attention to papers on the subject, which he had sent by this officer for my perusal.

On examining them, I found they entirely acquitted the General. They filled me with contrition for the rash injustice of my censure. With

a copy of the proceedings of the court-martial that determined Anrdé's condemnation, there was a copy of a letter from General Washington to General Clinton, offering to give up André in exchange for Arnold, who had fled to the British camp, observing the reason there was to believe that the apostate General had exposed that gallant English officer to unnecessary danger to facilitate his own escape: Copy of another letter from General Washington to Major André, adjuring him to state to the commander in chief his unavoidable conviction of the selfish perfidy of Arnold, in suggesting that plan of disguise, which exposed André, if taken, to certain condemnation as a spy, when, if he had come openly in his regimentals, and under a flag of truce, to the then unsuspected American general, he would have been perfectly safe: Copy of André's high-souled answer, thanking General W. for the interest he took in his destiny; but, observing that, even under conviction of General Arnold's inattention to his safety, he could not suggest to General Clinton any thing which might influence him to save his less important life by such an exchange.

These, Madam, are the circumstances, as faithfully as I can recal then, at such a distance of time, of the interview with General Washington's friend, which I slightly mentioned to yourself and

Lady Eleanor, when I had the happiness of being last summer.

with

you

A pleasant friend of mine from Lichfield, accompanied me hither, a Mrs Ironmonger. She is lively and pleasing. I have the pleasure to see her please and be pleased, in a scene of great gaiety, compared to our quiet little city, notwithstanding the diminution of splendour and elegance that used to pace through the golden-hued Crescent, whirl over its area, or flit beneath its chandeliers.

We have a very pleasant society at St Anne's Hotel. Our most intimate acquaintance, an interesting Irish family: Amiable, graceful Lady Newcomine, and her three lovely and very engaging daughters, with whom we walk and go to to the rooms. Captain and Mrs Bingham and her sister, a beautiful and sprightly little woman. Charming Mrs Childers will soon arrive, and pour her intellectual brightness over this scene.

Literary characters are as scarce here as nobility. I miss the eloquence of Erskine and Wilberforce more than the titles.

Adieu, dearest Madam, and believe me always faithfully yours.