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not indeed with a contemptuous disdain, but with too ludicrous an air? descanted on it, in a sportive and frolicsome manner, in order to create a little pleasantry? Though your design might be innocent, your conduct was apparently wrong. That infinitely precious and important book, should be always held in the highest veneration. Whatever the Divine Spirit vouchsafes to dictate, should be thought and spoken of by mortals, with gratitude, dutifulness, and awe. It is the character of a religious man, that he trembles at God's Word; and it is said of the great Jehovah, that he has magnified his name and his word, above all things.

Who was it, dear sir, that lent to our valuable friend that vile French book, written with an enchanting spirit of elegance, which must render the mischief palatable, and the bane even delicious? I wonder, that your kind and benevolent heart could recommend arsenic for a regale. It puts me in mind of the empoisoned shirt presented to Hercules. I am sure you did not reflect; or else you would no more have transmitted such a pestilential treatise to the perusal of a friend, than you would have transmitted to him a packet of goods from a country depopulated by the plague. If that polluting book still remains in your study, let me beg of you to make it perform quarantine in the flames.

The last particular relates to attendance on the public worship of God. Let us not neglect the assembling of ourselves together, was the advice of the best and greatest casuist in the world; not to say, the injunction of the Maker of all things, and the Judge of all men.---Would we be assured of our love to God? This is one evidence of that most noble and happy temper; "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth."---Would we glorify the Lord? Then let us appear in his courts, fall low on our knees before

his footstool, and, in this public manner, avow him for our God, recognise him for our King, and acknowledge him to be our supreme good.---Would we follow the example of our devout and blessed Master? Let us remember that it is written, "Jesus went into the synagogue, as his custom was." And, if we take due care to have our hearts pre pared, by a little previous meditation, and earnest prayer, I dare answer for it, our attendance will not be in vain. God will, according to his promise, meet us in his ordinances; make us joyful in his house of prayer; and we shall experience what, (if I remember aright,) that brightest ornament of the court of judicature, judge Hale, declared, that he never sat under the preaching even of the meanest sermon, but he found some word of edification, exhortation, or comfort.

Dear sir, bestow a thought on these things. If the remonstrances are wrong, I willingly retract them; if they are right, you will not pronounce me impertinent. Love and friendship dictate what I write; and the only end I have in view, is the holiness, the usefulness, the happiness, the final salvation, of my much esteemed friend. It is for this, this only, I have taken my pen in hand; and for this I shall often bend my knees before God; and thus prove myself to be dear sir, &c.

JAMES HERVEY.

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CHAPTER V.

LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION.

LETTER I.

Miss Robinson, (afterwards Mrs. Montagu,) to Mrs. Donnellan.---On the new year.

Bullstrode, Jan. 1, 1742.

Dear Mrs. Donnellan,

Though there is no day of the year in which one does not wish all happiness to one's friends, this is the day in which the heart goes forth in particular vows and wishes for the welfare of those we love. It is the birth of a new year, whose entrance we would salute, and hope auspicious. Nor is this particular mark of time of little use; it teaches us to number our days. which a wise man thought an incitement to the well spending of them. And indeed, did we consider how much the pleasure and profit of our lives depend upon the economy of our time, we should not waste it, as we do, in idle regret or reflection on the past, or in a vain, unuseful regard for the future. In our youth, we defer being prudent till we are old, and look forward to a promise of wisdom as the portion of latter years when we are old, we seek not to improve, and we scarcely employ ourselves; we look backward to our youth, as to the day of our diligence, and take a pride in laziness, saying, we rest, as after the accomplishment of our undertakings. We ought to ask for our daily merit as for our daily bread. The mind, no more than the body, can be sustained by the food taken yesterday, or promised for to morrow. Every day ought to be considered as a period apart:

A

some virtue should be exercised, some knowledge improved, some pleasure comprehended, in it.

ny look upon the present day as only the day before to-morrrow, and wear it out with a weary impatience of its length. I pity those people who are ever in pursuit, but never in possession. I would wish myself as little anxious as possible about the future; for the event of things generally mocks our foresight, cludes our care, and shows us how vain is the labour of anxiety,

May the sun every day this year, when it rises, find you well with yourself: and, at its setting, leave you happy with your friends! Let yours be rather the felicity of ease and contentment, than the extacy of mirth and joy! May your mind repose in virtue and truth, and never in indolence or negligence! That you already know much, is the best incitement to know more; if you study trifles, you neglect two excellent things, knowledge and your own understanding. I wish we were as cautious of unbending the mind as we are of relaxing our nerves. I should as soon be afraid of stretching a glove till it was too strait, as of making the understanding and capacity narrow by extending them to things of a large comprehension; yet this is a common notion.

Our happy society is just breaking up; but I will think with gratitude, and not with regret, of the pleasant hours which I have had.---I hope this year will be happy to me: the last was encumbered with fears, and I had not much health in it; yet I was concerned at taking leave of it yesterday. I had not for it the tenderness one feels for a friend, or the gratitude one has to a benefactor; but I was reconciled to it as an old acquaintance. It had not enriched, nor, I fear, improved me; but it suffered me, and admitted my friends.

The dutchess of Portland thanks you for your letter: she will answer it by word of mouth...I am

sorry you have been low-spirited, but I can never like you the less for it. Mutual friendships are built on mutual wants: were you completely happy, you would not need me. Imperfection wants and seeks assistance.

I am, dear madam. &c.

ELIZABETH ROBINSON.

LETTER II.

Dr. Conyers Middleton to Mrs. Montagu.---On her

Madam,

marriage.

Hildersham, Aug. 17, 1742.

I should have paid my compliments earlier on the joyful occasion of your marriage, if I had known whither to address them, for your brother's letter, which informed me, happened to lie several days at Cambridge before it came to my hands. My congratulation. however, though late, wants nothing of the warmth, with which the earliest was accom panied: for I must beg leave to assure you, that I take a real part in the present joy of your family 3 and feel a kind of paternal pleasure, from the good fortune of one, whose amiable qualities I have witnessed, from her tenderest years, and to whom I have ever been wishing and ominating every thing that is good. I always expected that your singular merit and accomplishments would recommend you, in proper time, to an advantageous and honourable match; and I was assured that your prudence would never suffer you to accept any which was not worthy of you so that it gives me not only the greatest pleasure on your account, but a sort of pride also on my own, to see my expectations fully answered, and my predictions literally fulfilled.

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