be placed on another, which were first fixed on you, from convincing proofs of your accomplishments and merit? No, my dear, my fidelity to you shall remain as unspotted as this paper, before it was blotted with ink, and bedewed with tears. I know not how others love, but my engagements are for eternity. You desire me to put you in mind of your duty. I know not of any faults, nor am I disposed to look for them. I doubt not but the religious education you have received in your youth, will enable you to resist the strongest temptations; and that, although not afraid to fight, yet you will be afraid to sin. However terrifying it may be to meet death in the field, yet it is far more awful to appear before a just God, whom we have offended by our iniquities. My dear Charles, never be ashamed of religion. A consciousness of your integrity will inspire you with real courage in the day of battle: and if you should at last die in defence of the just rights of yonr country, you need not fear to meet death. Believe that my prayers shall constantly be for your safety and preservation, and my earnest hopes fixed on your happy return.

I have obtained leave of my parents to reside with your mother during the summer, which will at least be some consolation to me in your absence. Let me hear from you as often as possible, but never doubt of my fidelity. Consider me as already yours, and I am happy.

Farewell, my dear; and may the wisdom of God direct you, and his providence be your shield and guard, is the sincere prayer of her who prefers you before all the world.

LETTER LXIII.

A Lady writing to her Aunt immediately after the ceremony of Marriage.

All is over, my dearest aunt: and the fate of your Evelina is decided! This morning, with fearful joy and trembling gratitude, she united herself with the object of her dearest, her eternal affection.

I have time for no more; the chaise now waits which is to conduct me to dear Berry Hill, where we stop for three or four days, and then we come to spend many happy, happy days with my dearest aunt.

From a Gentleman to a Friend in distress, who had endeavoured to conceal his misfortune.

IT is the duty of friendship to assist those whom we esteem, not only by counsel and advice, but by that which shows the sincerity of both-assistance when needed. Indeed, I have almost entertained the suspicion that our friendship was warmer on my side than yours, from the circumstance that you did not repose in me that open confidence which lies at the very root of intimacy. How could you, my dear sir, distrust my willingness to be of service to you, in any way in my power. No man knows how suddenly he may be himself overtaken by misfortune; but how can he expect help, who has denied it to others? I did not require

the assurance, that neither extravagance nor bad conduct had affected your worldly station; for I know the probity and excellence of your character. I trust, then, that you will open your heart to me freely, and give me the gratification of shewing you that I am not one of those who will desert a man in misfortune, with whom he was willing to associate when placed on an equality with himself.-Believe me yours sincerely.

LETTER LXV.*

The Pleasures of a Town Residence.

I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister, I could gang any where; but I am afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, and until I have formed as many and as intense local attachments, as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, waggons, play-houses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles;-life awake, if you are awake, at all hours of the night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books, coffeehouses, steams of soup from kitchens, the pantominesLondon itself a pantomine and a masquerade. All these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night walks about her crowded

• Charles amb to Wordsworth.

streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand, from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you: so are your rural occupations to me. But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart, with usury, to such scenes.

My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry or books,) to groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case, which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge) wherever I have moved,-old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school,-these are my mistresses; and have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I not know, that the mind will make friends with every thing. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes, affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room, with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind; and at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleaSo fading upon me, from distance, have been the beauties of nature, as they have been confinedly called; so ever fresh, and green, and warm, are all the inventions of men, and assemblies of men, in this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna.

sure.

Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and yourself. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lauthwaite. Thank you for liking my play!

* Alluding to Wordsworth's poem, "The Pet Lamb."