LETTERS. 211 You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom therefore I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you, that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you, nor to me, of any farther use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The busi ness of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues, of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death: a life, so far as 1 can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death, resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God: yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that our separation from those, whom we love, is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable, that that union, which has re ceived the divine approbation, shall continue to eternity. There is one expedient, by which you may, in some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, Dear Sir, Your most obliged, most obedient, If you have really so good an opinion of me es you express, it will not be necessary to inform you how unwillingly I miss the opportunity of coming to Brighthelmstone in Mr. Thrale's company; or, since I cannot do what I wish first, how eagerly I shall catch the second degree of pleasure, by coming to you and him, as soon as I can dismiss my work from my hands. I am afraid to make promises even to myself; but I hope that the week after the next will be the end of my present business. When business is done, what remains but pleasure? and where should pleasure be sought, but under Mrs. Thrale's influence? Do not blame me for a delay by which I must suffer so much, and by which I suffer alone. If thing has deterred these audacious aldermen from violating the Hamadryads of George Lane. As an impartial traveller, I must however tell, that, in Stow-Street, where I left a draw-well, I have found a pump, but the lading-well in this ill-fated George Lane lies shamefully neglected. I am going to-day, or to-morrow, to Ashbourne; but I am at a loss how I shall get back in time to London. Here are only chance coaches, so that there is no certainty of a place. If I do not come, let it not hinder your journey. I can be but a few days behind you ; and I will follow in the Brighthelmstone coach. But I hope to come. I took care to tell got another Lucy. Mrs. Salusbury, that Miss Porter, that I have I hope she is well. Tell beg her stay at Strea THOUGH I have been away so much longer than I SET out on Thursday morning, and found my companion, to whom I was very much a stranger, more agreeable than I expected. We went cheerfully forward, and passed the night at Coventry. We came in late, and went out early; and therefore I did not send for my cousin Tom; but I design to make him some amends for the omission. Next day we came early to Lucy, who was, I believe, glad to see us. She had saved her best gooseberries upon the tree for me; and, as Steele says, "I was neither too proud nor too wise" to gather them. I have rambled a very little inter fontes et flumina nota, but I am not yet well. They have cut down the trees in George Lane. Evelyn, in his book of Forest Trees, tells us of wicked men that cut down trees, and never prospered afterwards; yet no LETTER V.-To the Same. MADAM, Litchfield, July 11th, 1770. SINCE my last letter, nothing extraordinary has Do you not Nothing is Many faminow extinct, The passions rise higher at domestic than at imperial tragedies. I am not wholly unaffected by the revolutions of Sadler-Street; nor can forbear to mourn a little when old names vanish away, and new come into their place. Do not imagine, Madam, that I wrote this letter for the sake of these philosophical meditations; for when I began it, I had neither Mr. Green, nor his book, in my thoughts; but was resolved to write, and did not know what I had to send, but my respects to Mrs. Salusbury, and Mr. Thrale, and Harry, and the Misses. I am, dearest Madam, your, &c. Miss Lucy Porter, daughter to Dr. Johnson's THERE had not been so long an interval between wife by a former husband. my two last letters, but that when I came |