degree like a crime, you will think me endued with a most heroic patience, who have so long submitted to that trouble on account of yours not answered yet. But the truth is, that I have been much engaged. Homer (you know) affords me constant employment; besides which I have rather what may be called, considering the privacy in which I have long lived, a numerous correspondence: to one of my friends in particular, a near and much loved relation, I write weekly, and sometimes twice in a week; nor are these my only excuses; the sudden changes of the weather have much affected me, and especially with a disorder most unfavourable to letter-writing, an inflammation in my eyes. With all these apologies I approach you once more, not altogether despairing of forgiveness.

It has pleased God to give us rain, without which this part of our country at least must soon have become a desert. The meadows have been parched to a January brown, and we have foddered our cattle for some time, as in the winter. The goodness and power of God are never (I believe) so universally acknowledged as at the end of a long drought. Man is naturally a self-sufficient animal, and in all concerns, that seem to lie within the sphere

of his own ability, thinks little or not at all of the need he always has of protection and furtherance from above. But he is sensible, that the clouds will not assemble at his bidding, and that, though the clouds assemble, they will not fall in showers, because he commands them. When therefore at last the blessing descends, you shall hear even in the streets the most irreligious and thoughtless with one voice exclaim-"Thank God !"-confessing themselves indebted to his favour, and willing, at least so far as words go, to give him the glory. I can hardly doubt therefore, that the earth is sometimes parched, and the crops endangered, in order that the multitude may not want a memento, to whom they owe them, nor absolutely forget the power, on which all depend for all things.

Our solitary part of the year is over. Mrs. Unwin's Daughter and Son-in-law have lately spent some time with us. We shall shortly receive from London our old friends the Newtons, (he was once minister of Olney); and, when they leave us, we expect, that Lady Hesketh will succeed them, perhaps to spend the summer here, and possibly the winter also. The summer indeed is leaving us at a rapid rate, as do all the seasons, and though I have marked their flight so

often, I know not which is the swiftest. Man is never so deluded as when he dreams of his own duration. The answer of the old Patriarch to Pharaoh may be adopted by every man at the close of the longest life. "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Whether we look back from fifty, or from twice fifty, the past appears equally a dream; and we can only be said truly to have lived, while we have been profitably employed. Alas, then! making the necessary deductions, how short is life! Were men in general to save themselves all the steps they take to no purpose, or to a bad one, what numbers, who are now active, would become sedentary!

Thus I have sermonized through my paper. Living where you live, you can bear with me the better. I always follow the leading of my unconstrained thoughts, when I write to a friend, be they grave or otherwise. Homer reminds me of you

every day. I am now in the twenty-first Iliad.

Adieu!

W. C.

LETTER LXII.

To Lady HESKETH.

The Lodge, June 27, 1788.

For the sake of a longer

visit, my dearest Coz. I can be well content to wait. The country, this country at least, is pleasant at all times, and when winter is come, or near at hand, we shall have the better chance for being snug. I know your passion for retirement indeed, or for what we call deedy retirement, and, the F-s intending to return to Bath with their mother, when her visit at the Hall is over, you will then find here exactly the retirement in question. I have made in the orchard the best winter-walk in all the parish, sheltered from the east, and from the north-east, and open to. the sun, except at his rising, all the day. Then we will have Homer and Don Quixote; and then we will have saunter and chat and one laugh more before we die. Our orchard is alive with creatures of all kinds; poultry of every denomination swarms in it, and pigs, the drollest in the world!

I rejoice, that we have a Cousin Charles also, as

well as a Cousin Henry, who has had the address to win the good-likings of the Chancellor. May he fare the better for it! As to myself, I have long since ceased to have any expectations from that quarter. Yet, if he were indeed mortified as you say, (and no doubt you have particular reasons for thinking so) and repented to that degree of his hasty exertions in favour of the present occupant, who can tell? He wants neither means nor management, but can easily at some future period redress the evil, if he chuses to do it. But in the mean time life steals away, and shortly neither he will be in circumstances to do me a kindness, nor I to receive one at his hands. Let him make haste therefore, or he will die a promise in my debt, which he will never be able to perform. Your communications on this subject are as safe as you can wish them. We divulge nothing, but what might appear in the magazine, nor that without great consideration.

I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the river-side, I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. They are a large white flower, with an orange-coloured eye,very beautiful. I had a desire to gather one, and, having your long cane in my hand, by the help of it endea