graceful in her form and address. By the best chosen studies, she has assiduously cultivated her naturally fine talents; and her benevolent virtues have the most active energy. In her native village, she has established two charity schools, to which she constantly attends like a ministering angel; nor can any thing exceed the sweetness of her filial duties and attentions to her admirable parents. I am sure you will be glad to hear that the fair and gentle girl, whom you used so kindly to play with, during the time she was my pupil, is become so bright a pattern of female excellence. My long-valued friend, Mr. Dewes, is here, with his brother and sister Granville: but he is lamentably out of health; nor does his disease yield, as we hoped, to the effects of sea-air. Heaven restore him; and comfort you under the regrets of deprivation ! Mansfield Woodhouse, Sept. 19, 1796. I thank God for the hitherto safe course of a journey that now bends homewards. Ever welcome is that consciousness; for pleasant are my domestic bowers, and dear are the friends whose society gilds them. Yesterday evening, by six o'clock, I arrived at Woodhouse, the village of acknowledged beauty; and I was welcomed with all that energetic affection, which has ever marked good Mrs. Mompesson's attachment to me. When I arose, at seven this morning, the sun was veiled in heavy, autumnal mists. By eight, they rolled away; and the orb looked out in golden beauty. I hastened to ascend the steep, little lawn, that immedi ately rises from the low-roofed, but pleasant old mansion, and at whose top commences the pretty shrubbery which winds, as I have before described to you, round a field of about two acres. I passed ten days very agreeably at Chesterfield, with my friends, doctor and Mrs. Stokes. On Saturday, Mr. Jebb, cousin of the present sir Richard Jebb, and of the late amiable, and distinguished Dr. John Jebb, took Mrs. Jebb, Mrs. Stokes, and myself, in his carriage, to pay an interesting visit to his father; who resides in a little Eden of his own creation, about two miles from Chesterfield. Every tree of the woods that curtain his swelling hill, was planted by his own hands. He retired from business to this rural abode, about fifty years ago. If this venerable gentleman live till February twelvemonth, he will have completed his century; and if he live till February three years, he will have lived in three centuries. He is the greatest wonder of intelligence so nearly centennial, that perhaps has ever existed in modern times; for he has no chimeras in his brain, and his memory is perfectly sound, not only concerning long past, but very recent transactions. It is within the last year only, that his limbs are become too feeble to allow him to walk further than across the room. His teeth are all gone, and their desertion has impaired his utterance a little; but he is not defective either in sight, or hearing, in any marked degree. I cannot express with what an awed tenderness I was affected, when this very reverend personage rose, with mild grace, to receive me. He is a perfect Nestor in eloquence. "Madam," said he, "I am glad to see you. I remember your father a sprightly bachelor. I travelled from London with him, when he went to take possession of the living of Eyam. He was a lovely man; of a fine person, and of a frank, communicative spirit. Soon after that period, he married a beautiful young lady, your mother, madam.-Mr. Seward, as you know, had travelled; and he spoke admirably of the customs and manners of foreign nations." I wept with pleasure at this testimony of respect to my father's memory, from a character thus venerable. He indulged my inquiries after the habits of a life protracted to uncommon length, and singularly illuminated by the duration of the mental powers. "Madam," said he, "I was not naturally a strong man. I was so feeble till sixteen, that my mother despaired of my arriving at manhood. The virulent disorder that fled about me, settled in my hand about that period; and obliged me to suffer the amputation of my forefinger. After that time, I had no violent disease; but I was never strong, never enjoyed robust health. Nor was I, at any time, guilty of excesses; I neither eat nor drank immoderately; I abstained from meat suppers; I went early to rest, and rose early; I was seldom out of my bed at ten in the evening, or in it after five in the fine seasons, or after seven in the winter; and I dined at two o'clock. I am glad I was not born in this strange, unnatural period, in which all the great and wealthy, and most of the middle ranks of life, like their own ways better than God's ways; exhaust themselves by sitting up, and revelling, through the night, and enervate themselves by late, and some by noontide slumberings. Madam, they shut their eyes upon the flush and resplendence of the day; rob their bodies of the strengthening power of the early and fresh gales, and their minds of the pleasure of watching the joyous comforts, which the fresh and bright hours diffuse upon the animal world, that act under instinct. It was always my delight to see the busy birds, with gay industry, collecting food for themselves and for their young; to hearken to their songs, and to the lowings of the cattle, at early day; and to imagine them hymns to God of thankfulness and praise." Thus did this old man of ninety eight, pour, on my charmed ear, though in the tremulous and piping tones of second, personal childhood, the blended oratory of an elevated imagination, and of a feeling and pious heart! "Last He told me also, that it had been his annual custom, till this year, that he thought himself too infirm for the attempt, to take a summer's journey either to Matlock, Buxton, Cheltenham, or some of the coasts. year, madam," continued he, "on the twenty first of August, I set off for Scarborough ; and there I breathed the sea-air, during twenty days. I always thought those journeys renovated my aged body; and the sea-air revived me last year." I asked after the quantity and nature of his liquor. "When I grew very old, the physicians ordered me three glasses of white wine after dinner, and three after supper; but, of late years, I have drunk only two after dinner, and not any after supper."—"By a physician's order, sir, did you lessen the quantity of wine at so advanced a period of life?"-" Yes, madam; by that of a very able physician,-Dr. Experience." O! that it would please God so to lengthen your days, my friend, "To age, thus melting in scarce felt decay, I am convinced, that the sensibility and piety of your heart would administer similar cordials of grateful and happy sympathy, with the felicity which results to instinctive creation from the bounties of its Maker; and surely such cordials are highly propitious to the vital powers. The exhilaration which they inspire, strengthens while it stimulates. No baneful lassitude succeeds. But I fear you will never have resolution to acquire the habit of ten o'clock retreat, and of early rising, so essential to health, particularly in declining life. Bracing and restorative is the fresh morning air, and salutary are the slumbers which precede midnight. I wish we could all learn to live naturally: we should then live more happily, better, and longer. I am &c. Anna Seward. LETTER IX. To the rev. T. S. Whalley. Lichfield, Nov. 13, 1798. The sight of your handwriting on my table, increased the pleasure I have hitherto almost always felt on returning to this scene, after an absence of many weeks; but alas! ere I had been a fortnight at home, the death of dear Mrs. Mompesson*, was announced to Six weeks of last winter she was my guest: me. "And she was one who, when the wind and rain Beat dark December, knew well to discourse The freezing hours away." This lady was the great granddaughter of Mr. Mompesson, rector of Eyam, of whom an interesting account is given in a letter of miss Seward's, inserted in the preceding part of this work. Mrs. Mompesson died unmarried: she was beloved, and her loss was regretted, by all who knew her, for she was worthy of the name of Mompesson. P |