The three captive generals of the Irish invasion are here. They have called upon me, introduced by a French gentleman, resident in Lichfield before the revolutionary volcano, from its Parisian crater, burst over Europe.

General Humbert is rather an handsome man, and polite in his address; much more externally polished than the Generals Saraszin and Fontaine; but none of them know any thing of English, and my ignorance of French clogged our converse with the tediousness of interpretation.

The restraints these gentlemen laid upon the depredations and murderous purposes of the savage Irish, entitle them to the civility they met from Lord Cornwallis and his officers; but they will meet with no general attention here. It would be better if the good people of this city would take other methods of reiterating the proofs of their unquestioned loyalty, than by a violation of that precept of the Gospel, of all others the most important to the interests of morality: "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you." Let them imagine their husbands, sons, and brothers prisoners in France, and as they would the French should treat them, so treat the prisoners of that country thrown on our mercy. Such liberality could do no harm; and, if universally prevalent, might do

much good, by softening the national rancour between the two states, and inducing a mutual wish to sheath the sword of desolation. I lately heard the brave Mr Ormsby of Dublin say, who has so gallantly exerted himself against the rebels in his native Ireland," I called upon the French generals when I was in Lichfield: the instant a man is a prisoner, I forget that he was a foe." I honoured him for the nobleness of the sentiment.-Such an oblivious power ought the misfortunes of our enemies to possess over every mind.

LETTER XXVI.

THOMAS DOWDESWELL, ESQ.

Lichfield, Oct. 29, 1798.

I HAVE been recently informed of your marriage with Miss Paisley-a young lady whose merits have been so represented in the letters of the late amiable Miss Wingfield, as to make this intelligence extremely welcome.

Such a marriage was the wisest plan you could pursue; the most probable means of softening

the misfortune of your life*, and of consoling that loneliness of heart, inevitable upon the loss of a sincere attentive friend and daily associate,-a loss which the casual and interrupted society of common minds could not recompence.

You have now anchored your happiness upon the firmest, yet tenderest, and most indissoluble of all friendships. She who could be wanting in any of its duties towards you, must be the reverse of Mrs Dowdeswell-must want that softness and kindness of temper, which, uniting pity with love and esteem, will produce that constant attention to which Shakespeare's beautiful definition of Mercy applies, when he says its quality is not forced,

"But droppeth, like the gentle dew from heaven,
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd,

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes,

Is loveliest in the lovely, and becomes

The wife of Dowdeswell better than her beauty."

Though I have not the pleasure to know the lady of your choice, I presume upon the friendship with which you honour me, to present my congratulatory compliments to her, as well as to your

Colonel Dowdeswell lost his eye-sight before he was thirty years of age.-S.

self, together with those wishes for your mutual happiness, which are felt with a fervour that passes far over the cold bounds of ceremony.

Mr Saville and his daughter, some of the most grateful of many whom your kindness has served and delighted, desire permission to present their congratulations on an event from which we all promise ourselves more peace and felicity to our excellent friend, than he has long, if ever, known.

I rejoice with you upon the successes of our gallant admirals. May they induce our proud foes to offer or to accept reasonable terms of conciliation; and may our rulers, instead of being inflated, by the pride of our naval conquests, into their former guilty contempt of the miseries of war, awaken to a sense of pity for the woes which the rival ambition of England and France have occasioned, since the mischievous revolution of 1789; and may those, with whom power is invested in each country, learn to prize the safety and happiness of their respective nation, above the proudest glory that can result from sanguinary triumphs!

I have the honour to remain, dear Sir, &c.

LETTER XXVII.

REV. T. S. WHALLEY.

Lichfield, Nov. 13, 1798.

THE sight of your handwriting on my table, increased the pleasure I have hitherto almost always felt on returning to this scene, after an absence of many weeks; but, alas! ere I had been a fortnight at home, a dark cloud descended to shroud the sunny smile of my Lares-the announced death of dear Mrs Mompessan. Six weeks of last winter she was my guest:

"And she was one who, when the wind and rain
Beat dark December, knew well to discourse
The freezing hours away."

A letter, that spoke cheerily of her health, came to me at Buxton but one short month before her death. No information of its since changed state had reached me. Thus was I wholly unprepared for the shock. This final letter had pressed my going to her at Woodhouse, ere I left a place which neighboured it so much more nearly than