bosom-counsel, and who is, besides, himself a sound and discerning politician, told me at Buxton, that the Dove of Peace was abroad, and would, ere long, return to these shores with the olive-branch. I was sceptical to his augury, infected by the prevailing opinion that Buonaparte would not now make peace with us till he had tried invasion.

"No, Madam," replied my friend; "those look not coolly on the changing times, who exclaim,

"His throne is tempest, and his state convulsion."

"Those days are past. The people of France long for peace. Their Chief wishes, not less ardently, to maintain his supremacy. It is true the conquest of Ireland, which would soon be followed by that of England, must have covered him with glory; but the attempt would be setting his power in France upon a desperate cast.-If he fails, he falls. His glory is already great, beyond all need of augmentation; and, presenting his country with her anxious wish, he endears himself to her afresh, and by multiplied ties; and to the triumphant title of her hero, adds that of her wise legislator, her indulgent father.”

This dear proclamation has proved Colonel B's sentiments oracular.

Giovanni cautions me to restrain the fulness of my joy till we know, with more certainty, the terms on which the pacific blessings, so long banished, are restored to us. Sincerely do I wish they may prove favourable, even to the utmost wish of national partiality; but if they shall be found below its level, we should reflect that we have deep crimes of incendiarism to expiate. That which many would proudly call an inglorious peace, is far better than the continuance of an inhuman, an unavailing war. I have the honour to remain, &c.

LETTER LXX.

MRS M. Powys.

Lichfield, Oct. 10, 1801.

Ir appears, by your kind packet, received last week, that you did not think yourself a letter in my debt; and thus one has certainly miscarried, either of mine or yours, since, to a very long epistle, which I sent to you on the 22d of May,

I have not received an answer. It expressed much, and very sincere delight in the hope you had extended that you would be my guest this month. It was a dear and desired expectation, to which I looked forward during my month's pilgrimage in the land of strangers; made, alas! in vain for the purpose of restoring the strength I lost by my false step in March, whose ides were to me Cæsarian. A succession of maladies persecuted me at Buxton, till I measured back my way to dear Lichfield, and all the traces it bears of past happiness.

There I trusted to find a letter that should announce your speedy arrival; instead of it I receive one which throws this hope forward to a distant horizon a whole year's delay! Melancholy is such a long perspective at my time of life, and with such threatening sensations of the head and heart as often visit your friend. Existence, precarious in all its stages, is of muchincreased uncertainty, when so much in the wane as it is with me. How eloquent are the Night Thoughts on this theme!

"Time in advance behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepid in his pace;
Behold him when past by! what then is seen
But his broad pinions, swifter than the wind?"

I congratulate you that the friend you have so assiduously, so fondly nursed, seems now, at length, rescued from a long-opened grave. May her future health and ease reward your cares, your anxieties, your sympathy! Deeply impressed in PRIS nind and heart is the recollection of similar feelings, when in the autumn 1769, and the spring 1770, my dear Honora Sneyd's cheek exchanged the bloom of health for the hectic flush; the fine spirit of her youth for the languor of malady. She was also rescued! but ✪ for what a fate, after two smiling years had fled rapidly a

way.

I have also to congratulate you on the great national blessing, peace. Humiliating as are the terms for us, and glorious for France, the protraction of a foolish and wicked war, which has overturned the balance of power in Europe, and rendered France, Great Britain excepted, exclusively its mistress, would have accelerated rapidly that subjugation of this country, which her late ministry has rendered unavoidable, the instant our self-provoked foe can obtain a navy to cover her descent upon our islands, possessing, as she does, such a commanding line of coast; the, to us, fatal present the war had made her. If England, instead of subsidizing Austria, had permitted her to make peace when she had recovered the

Netherlands, and prior to the subjugation of Holland, which, but for us, she would gladly have done, this dread preponderance of Gallic sway had been averted, and Great Britain safe. The terms on which we obtain the pacific blessings incontrovertibly prove the wisdom of those who reprobated the insane contest. Had England obtained the status quo ante bellum, that would have shewn the waste she to no purpose made of her people's lives and health, and of the national treasures, and of the peace of Europe. The present terms of capitulation speak that cruel waste, and speak it trumpet-tongued.

Yet, as worse fate for Britain awaited the yet drawn-sword, its sheathing must fill the hearts of all, who truly love their country, with thankfulness to Heaven, who has bent, at last, the stubborn hearts of our rulers to submission to the consequences of their dire system. All will rejoice in peace, where private views, ambitious or pecuniary, do not stifle the feelings of humanity, and all solicitude for the safety and interests of this country, and the comforts of millions of her natives, to say nothing of the rescue of those unhappy states from a repetition of the miseries consequent upon being the seat of belligerent conflict; its deaths, its desolations. I said every heart, uncorrupted by sanguinary selfishness, would