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.

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I cannot express with what an awed tenderness It 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 res pect 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 bymus to God of thankfulness and praise."

Thus did this old man of ninety eight, pour, on my charmed ear, .hough in the tremulous and piping tones of second, personal childhood, the blendid oratory of an elevated imagination, and of a feeling and pious heart!

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."Last 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."

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O! that it would please God so to lengthen your days, my friend,

"To age, thus melting in scarce felt decay, Gliding in modest innocence away!"

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 long

er.

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 an

*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.

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nounced to me. Six weeks of last winter she was my guest:

"And she was one who, when the wind and rain,

Beat dark December, knew well to discourse

The freezing hours away."

A letter that spoke cheerily of her health, came to me at Buxton, but one short month before her death. No 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 exeuse 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 connections 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