attack of an epidemical fever bad rather hastened than retarded my departure; but my indisposition proved more serious than I had supposed it to be; and instead of being able to execute some literary commissions for Cowper in London, with the alacrity which affection suggests, I was obliged to inform him that I was confined by illness. He wrote to me immediately, with the tenderness peculiar to himself, and my reviving health soon enabled me to enliven his apprehensive mind, not only, with an account of my recovery, but with intelligence relating to his own literary engagements, that had a tendency to relieve his spirits from a considerable part of their present embarrassment and dejection. His next Letter to one of his confidential friends, contains a very cheerful and just description of his favorite residence.

LETTER LIV.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

Weston, Nov. 5. 1793.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

In a letter from Lady Hesketh,

which I received not long since, she informed me

how very pleasantly she had spent some time at Wargrove. We now begin to expect her here, where our charms of situation are perhaps not equal to yours, yet by no means contemptible. She told me she had spoken to you in very handsome terms of the country round about us, but not so of our house, and the view before it. The house itself, however, is not unworthy some commendation; small as it is, it is neat and neater than she is aware of; for my study, and the room over it, have been repaired and beautified this summer, and little more was wanting to make it an abode sufficiently commodious for a man of my moderate desires. moderate desires. As to the prospect from it, that she misrepresented strangely, as I hope soon to have an opportunity to convince her by ocular demonstration. She told you, I know, of certain cottages opposite to us, or rather she described them as poor houses and hovels, that effectually blind our windows. But none such exist. On the contrary, the opposite object and the only one, is an orchard,, so well planted, and with trees of such growth, that we seem to look into a wood, or rather to be surrounded by one. Thus, placed as we are in the midst of a village, we have none of those disagreeables that belong to such a position, and the village it

self is one of the prettiest I know; terminated at one end by the church-tower, seen through the trees, and at the other, by a very handsome gateway, opening into a fine grove of elms, belonging to our neighbour Courtenay. How happy should I be to shew it instead of describing it to you!

consider my literary engagements, and to make them a reason for not interrupting me more frequently with a letter, but though I am indeed as busy as an author or an editor can well be, and am not apt to be overjoyed at the arrival of letters from uninteristing quarters, I shall always, I hope, have leisure both to peruse and to answer those of my real friends, and to do both with pleasure.

I have to thank you much for your benevolent aid in the affair of my friend Hurdis. You have doubtless learned ere now that he has succeeded, and carried the prize by a majority of twenty. He is well qualified for the post he has gained. So much the better for the honour of the Oxonian laurel, and so much the more for the credit of those, who have favored him with their suffrages.

I am entirely of your mind respecting this conflagration by which all Europe suffers at present, and is likely to suffer for a long time to come. The same mistake seems to have prevailed as in the American business. We then flattered ourselves that the colonies would prove an easy conquest, and when all the neighbour nations armed themselves against France, we imagined, I believe, that she too would be presently vanquished. But we begin already to be undeceived, and God only knows to what a degree we may find we have erred, at the conclusion. Such however is the state of things all around us, as reminds me continually of the Psalmist's expression-" He shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel."And I rather wish than hope in some of my me

Though my congratulations

have been delayed, you have no friend, numerous as your friends are, who has more sincerely rejoiced in your success than I. It was no small mortification to me, to find that three out of the six, whom I had engaged, were not qualified to vote. You have prevailed however, and by a considerable majority; there is, therefore, no room left for regret. When your short note arrived, which gave me the agreeable news of your victory, our friend of Eartham was with me, and shared largely in the joy, that I felt on the occasion. He left me but a few days since, having spent somewhat more than a fortnight here; during which