No

A letter, that spoke cheerily of her health, came to me at Buxton but one short month before her death. information of its since changed state had reached me. Thus I was wholly unprepared for the shock. This final letter had pressed my going to her at Woodhouse, ere I left a place which was so much nearer than Lichfield. Unapprehensive of her danger, as she herself then was, I feared for my rheumatic complaints, still heavy upon me, the autumnal damps of a spot so low, so irriguous, and embowered; and, as we had been very recently together, begged her to excuse my compliance. Had I suspected that an existence, which I so much valued, was near its close, I should have obeyed her injunction. My ignorance of her danger preserved me from the shock of witnessing the near approach of her dissolution, probably the sad event itself; but I could not voluntarily have shrunk from the mournful duties of such hours.

I believe you know that she had been invariably attached to me from my sixteenth year; the indulgent friend and confident of my youthful pleasures and pains, though twenty years my senior. I have seldom known a better, and never a happier woman. She had great energy of mind, strength of understanding, firmness of purpose, and promptness of action. She knew much of life, of characters, of manners; and had explored them on the continent as well as at home. In historic and chronologic knowledge, she was, from her wonderful memory, a living library. Her language had vigour and ease, and, when she was warm on her subject, eloquence; but she had not sufficiently cultivated her imagination to relish poetry or painting. She loved music, from a naturally good ear; but she was a stranger to the noblest delight it can impart, and which results from its union

with beautiful poetry. Her adherence to truth was unswerving; her sincerity taintless. Her affections, her enthusiasm, her zeal to serve her friends, and even her slightest acquaintance, when opportunity offered, were unchilled by age and disappointing experience, and preserved, till her last hour, the energy and unsoiled simplicity of youth. I do verily believe she enjoyed every fortunate occurrence in the destiny of her friends, and even in that of her mere acquaintance, yet more and longer than they themselves enjoyed it. To her it came unalloyed. She was never weary of thinking and talking on the subject; of looking back to the disquiets which it had dissipated, and to the peace and pleasures which it promised.

Thus was her vivid sympathy a source of constant delight, while the pains which it occasioned, from the misfortunes and sorrows of her connexions and acquaintance, though very keen for a time, were, ere long, consoled by religious resignation, and by the ascending power of a cheerful temperament. She was pious without austerity; and generous on a very limited income. What recompensing qualities for a repulsive exterior!

I hear, as I expected to hear, that she is extremely lamented by all ranks of people in the vicinity of her pleasant home; which the pretty brook that passed through her garden, her love of landscape and of outdoor employment, had rendered so crystal, so lawny, and so sylvan. Her wealthy neighbours have lost a most entertaining and instructive companion; the indigent around her, a steady friend, earnest to relieve their wants, to the last limits of discreet generosity, and ever ready to compose their feuds by arbitration, on the impartial justice of which experience had taught them to rely. Her memory is consecrated in my heart; which

does not suffer those whom it loved to lie forgotten in

the grave.

I will not apologize to you for having sketched her portrait upon so wide a canvass. She was no every

day character.

You are pleased with colonel Addington; and I am not less delighted with his sister, the elegant, the eloquent, and interesting Mrs. Goodenough, with whom I had lately the pleasure of passing a few hours of very rapid wing.

Ah, friend! how political prejudice can betray into uncandid decision the clearest heads and kindest hearts! You perceive I allude to the sentences which close your letter.-Adieu! and believe, that it is not in the wide difference of our opinion concerning those measures which may best preserve the welfare of this country, to alienate from you any portion of the esteem and regard of

Anna Seward.

CHAPTER XV.

LETTERS OF SEVERAL DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.

LETTER 1.

William Melmoth, esq. to

May 5, 1743.

If you received the first account of my loss from other hands than mine, you must impute it to the dejection of mind into which that event threw me. The blow, indeed, fell with too much severity, to leave me capable of recollecting myself enough to write to you immediately as there cannot, perhaps, be a greater shock to a breast of any sensibility, than to see its earliest and most valuable connexions irreparably broken; to find itself for ever torn from the first and most endeared object of its highest veneration. At least, the affection and esteem I bore to that excellent parent were founded upon so many and so uncommon motives, that his death has given me occasion to lament not only a most tender father, but a most valuable friend.

That I can no longer enjoy the benefit of his animating example, is one among the many aggravating circumstances of my affliction; and I often apply to myself what an excellent ancient has said upon a similar occasion, "Vereor ne nunc negligentius vivam." There is nothing, in truth, puts us so much upon our guard, as to act under the constant inspection of one, whose virtues as well as years, have rendered him venerable. Never, indeed, did the dignity of goodness appear more irresistible in any man: yet there was something at the

same time so gentle in his manners, such an innocence and a cheerfulness in his conversation, that he was as sure to gain affection as to inspire reverence.

It has been observed, (and I think, by Cowley,) that a man in much business must either make himself a knave, or the world will make him a fool. If there is any truth in this observation, it is not, however, without exceptions. My father was early engaged in the great scenes of business, in which he continued almost to his very last hour; yet he preserved his integrity firm and unbroken, through all those powerful assaults which he must necessarily have encountered in so long a course of action.

If it were justice, indeed, to his other virtues, to single out any particular one as shining with superior lustre to the rest, I should point to his probity as the brightest part of his character. But the truth is, the whole tenour of his conduct was one uniform exercise of every quality that can adorn and exalt human nature. To defend the injured, to relieve the indigent, to protect the distressed, were the chief end and aim of all his endeavours; and his principal motive both for engaging and persevering in his profession, was, to enable himself more abundantly to gratify so glorious an ambition.

No man had a higher relish for the pleasures of retired and contemplative life; as none was more qualified to enter into those calm scenes with greater ease and dignity. He had nothing to make him desirous of flying from the reflections of his own mind; nor any passions which his moderate patrimony would not have been more than sufficient to gratify. But to live for himself only, was not consistent with his generous and enlarged sentiments. It was a spirit of benevolence that led him into the active scenes of the world: upon any other principle,