"Alas, no! I had no thought of going out. I left you, my love, to put on clean clothes, that I might look comfortable to you, flattering myself that you were greatly better: nobody came to tell me that you were not so well again."-She sighed, and waved her dear hand emphatically, as if she had said: "The days of our happiness here are passed away!"

Saturday morning.-Ah! she has grown worse and worse, though by slow degrees. Dr. D. says, when the fever returned, it was with a fatal change in its nature, from inflammatory to putrid, and that he has very little hope of saving her.

How pitiable would Mr. Porter's situation be, if he had strong sensibilities!-so near calling such a blessing his, and to have it thus torn from him! but his sensations seem more like vexation than grief.

My father's sanguine and cheerful disposition will not suffer him to think that his darling is so ill as she surely is. My mother, my poor mother!-She has heard that a clergyman in Worcestershire, of the name of Bayley, has frequently administered James's Powder with success, in very dangerous cases. She has just sent a chaise and four full speed, to conjure him to come hither in it, on an errand of life or death. We have all eagerly caught

at this possibility; and we are flattering ourselves with hopes, which, I fear, are but as the straws at which drowning wretches catch.

Sunday. Mr. Bayley is come; he arrived at ten this morning. The instant he came into the room, my mother rushed to him, and clasped her arms wildly around him, exclaiming, in the piercing accent of anguish : "Save my child!" He burst into tears. They went instantly into the sick chamber: but Q! he gives us not

more hope than Dr. D. If the fever had but continued inflammatory!-but here all evacuation is pernicious. He joins the doctor in advising musk medicines instead of the powders. Adieu!

Wednesday morning.-I have hardly strength to tell you-it is pronounced, she cannot survive this night!Pray for us that we may be supported under this severe chastisement of Almighty Power!

LETTER II.

To miss Emma

Anna Seward.

Gotham, Nottinghamshire, June 23, 1764.

I have sat almost an hour at the writing-table, my hands crossed upon this paper, unable to take up the pen; that pen which I used to seize with glad alacrity, when it was to convey my thoughts to you! Now, spiritless, afflicted, weary, my mind presents only scenes of mournful recollection; or, hovering over the silent and untimely grave of my sister, perceives nothing but a drear vacuity.

Your last letter came to me when my heart laboured under one of the keenest paroxysms of its late anguish. The funeral bell was tolling; and the dear remains were everlastingly passing away from our habitation. Six of her young companions, clad in white raiment, the em blem of her purity, and drowned in tears, bore, with trembling hands, the pall that covered the dim form, which, but a little fortnight before, had walked amidst them with the light step of youth and gaiety; upon the very lawn over which they were then slowly walking, in grieved and awful silence, interrupted only by the solemn death-bell.

Thus vanish our hopes!-thus cold is the bridal bed of my dear sister! No sun-beam shall pierce its dark recess, “till the last morn appear."

A few days after this sad scene was closed, we came hither, to the village retirement of my excellent uncle and aunt, Martin. Pious tranquillity broods over the kind and hospitable mansion; and the balms of sympathy, and the cordials of devotion, are here poured into our torn hearts.

At times, I can scarcely persuade myself that I shall see her no more!-Upon that tender, instinctive affection, which grew with our growth, were engrafted esteem the most established, and confidence the most entire. One bed!-one heart!-one soul!-Even the difference of our dispositions became a cement to our friendship; her gentleness tempered my impetuosity; her natural composure caught animation from her sister's sprightliness; our studies, our amusements, our taste the same.' O heavy, heavy loss! Yet bow thy stub born grief, O my spirit! and remember the reason thou hadst to fear for her happiness in that union, from which she was so awfully snatched away.

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Cut off, as she was, in the bloom of life, nobody could be more resigned. Sickness, pain, and extreme bodily weakness, had not power to extinguish, or even to abate, the pure flame of her devotion; yet all was calm and rational, for she had no delirium through the course of her illness. When her eyes were closed to open no more, when she seemed insensible to outward objects, she continued fervent in prayer, nay, in thanksgiving, tb and her God. She often repeated the Lord's prayer, several verses out of the Scriptures which were applicable to her expiring situation. In these repetitions, her

voice, though low, and interrupted by the pausings of weakness, was distinct.

She expressed unwillingness to take the musk medicines: but, when my father and mother solicited her, she opened her mouth and swallowed them, without showing any more reluctance.

Her partial affection for me was almost the latest yearning of her gentle spirit. As I sat by her weeping, on the morning of the final day, and saw her lie pale and stretched out, her sweet eyes unable to open, she said, in a low voice, when we had all thought her insensible to every earthly recollection: "Speak, my Nancy; let me once more hear that dear voice, ever welcome to me!"

O! how those words yet vibrate on my ear! I repeat them to myself many times in every day and night, endeavouring to imitate the sweet, mournful accent in which they fell upon my soul with indelible impression.`

My father was agonized by the loss of the darling of his heart; but it is amazing how soon the native cheerfulness of his temper has arisen from beneath the blow. My mother, at first, bore it better.

She directed the created seemed to

funeral; and the business which it have rendered her spirits collected, and to have dried the source of her tears: but, when that was over, a deep, severe dejection succeeded, which nothing seems of power to comfort or to cheer.'

My cousin, miss Martin, is of my sister's age; and was deservedly beloved by her above all her other companions, next to myself and Honora. She grieves for our loss and her own with passionate tenderness.

Honora, young as she is, has shared all my sorrow. If she is but spared me, I shall not be quite bereaved :

it will not be wholly in vain that I shall say,

blest days!"

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Adieu!

Anna Seward.

LETTER III.

To miss Emma

Lichfield, March 27, 1765.

With a sorrowing heart, and a trembling hand, I take up the pen to thank you, dearest Emma, for your kind though mournful letter of yesterday. It arrived a few hours after the fatal period of our beloved friend's indisposition; which, notwithstanding some foreboding fears rising at intervals in my mind, was apparently nothing more than a common cold and cough. Transient only were my apprehensions; and it is certain, that neither her father, nor any of her friends at Shrewsbury, had an idea of her being in danger, till within a few days of her setting out.-General Severn thought worse of her complaints than those who hourly beheld her, and persuaded the family she was in, to suffer him to take her with him to Bath, that her father, who was there, might carry her directly to Bristol. Alas! she lived not to reach its balmy springs! On alighting from the general's chaise at Bath, she fainted away in her father's arms; and, growing instantly too ill to be removed, died at three the ensuing morning. Alas! that father! my heart bleeds for him. O! that he had taken her to Bristol when he went to Bath, a week or two after we all left London! But who could foresee the sad necessity? she made so light of her complaints! I had a letter from him yesterday. It is full upon the sad circumstances. Blotted with his tears, the writing is almost effaced by mine.