yet, with those inelegant cadences which at once ascertain the county of the speaker, it can have little operation.

Dr Stokes is an extremely skilful physician, on the testimony of the ingenious and candid of his own profession, and on the proofs of his successful treatment of several very difficult and dangerous cases. His devotion to the study of medicine, and those sciences most nearly connected with it, as chemistry, botany, and mineralogy, has not allowed him to cultivate his taste for eloquence and poetry, sufficiently to authorize those unhesitating decisions on their subjects, which have often more tenacity than happiness. His voice in speaking, and his address, have each that insinuating softness which his wife's want, and which evince at once the man of education and the gentleman. It is curious to observe how totally these graces forsake him when he reads either oratoric prose or verse aloud. He has absolutely no impassioned or metrical intonation, but, instead of it, the oddest cadences, that have no congeniality with the passion or sentiment which the words express. An author's vanity could meet no severer damp than from hearing Dr S. read his or her compositions. He has the art of sinking the manly melodies of Milton's blank

verse into the vapidness of Phillips* and of Glover's; and the sweetness of Pope's, and the richness of Darwin's rhyme, into the insipidity of Blackmore's, and of the worst of our modern versifiers.

I talked with Dr Stokes of your malady. He assured me, and he is no boaster, that he had, in two instances, restored the natural power of the intestines, after it had been lost during several years. I fervently wish you would consult him without delay.

You will see, by the date of this letter, that we have lingered long in the shades of Belmont. Its sylvan steeps and romantic vales, have more varied charms than Matlock. Lovely and differently featured from each other are the vallies and glens that sink between its cradling woods. The superiority of Matlock, as one scene, to the environs of Belmont, results from the nobler height of the mountains, and the ampler and more meandering course of the Derwent; its more rocky channel; its clearer and more frothing waters; yet the Churnet, that laves the base of these steeps, pours not his lesser urn in vain for the purposes of scenic beauty.

* Author of the poem called Cyder.

Our reception here has been infinitely kind and friendly. Prosperity is Mrs Sneyd's shining time, and that it is not to the generality of people. We have made several agreeable visits, and, for the domestic and unfettered hours, the sources of interesting amusement to guests, who have mind, are various and considerable. When Mr Sneyd purchased this wide domain, some twenty-five years back, it was but a desert, with fine capabilities, which his taste has cultivated. Nor merely scenic and argricultural have been his pursuits. He has, through life, roved, like the bee, over the fields of science, and brought to his sylvan hive a portion of honey from all their flowers. A library of curious as well as classic literature; pictures, prints, drawings, statues, medals, and minerals, present all sort of aliment to mental taste.

I hope to be at home on Monday, where my whole heart would rejoice to see you and yours.

LETTER XXIII.

MRS SNEYD.

Lichfield, Oct. 2, 1798.

I AM much concerned to hear from Mrs Mallet, that your recovery is yet incomplete, and that you are ordered to Cheltenham. You must pass through Lichfield. If, in the meantime, your convalescence advances more rapidly than was expected when Mr Sneyd wrote to Mrs Mallet, I trust you will exchange the purpose of trying Cheltenham springs in favour of your native air, and stay beneath my roof to the last hour your inclination shall dictate, or your plans per

mit.

My pen has melancholy tidings to convey-the death of my long-valued friend, Mrs Mompessan, -hence these epistolary symbols of mourning. She, dear soul, put on its raiments for my sister, my mother, and my father;it is meet that I wear them for her. The event took place the 24th of last month.

It was a great surprise as well as shock to me, since I received a letter from her, when I was at Buxton, dated August

15th, which spoke cheerily of her health in general, though it confessed an increase of her old asthmatic complaint. Since that period, it seems, a dropsy in the chest came on, and deprived her acquaintance of a most delightful and instructive companion; those who loved her, of a fervently attached friend; and the poor of her village of a generous protectress, attentive to all their wants, and interested in their welfare. Death never chilled a warmer heart, or translated a spirit of more spotless integrity. While life is given me, I shall cherish her memory.

Mr Newton has put an immense sponge upon Dr Falconer's reproach to his miserism. He has vested L. 20,000 stock, from the three per cents., in trustees hands, for the purpose of building twenty houses, as habitations for clergymen's widows, or aged unmarried daughters, whose income may not exceed L. 30 per annum. These houses are to form an handsome approach to the west front of our cathedral; to commence on the spot where cousin White's house now stands, extending down the gullet, which will be widened to admit carriages to pass each other, which at present they cannot do. The tenements are to be gothicized, and endowed with a salary of L. 40 per ann. to each inhabitant.

My cousins will be grieved to quit the beloved