own rule and measure of good-breeding, have, against my inclination, waited till now before I answered it, purely out of fear and respect, and an ingenuous diffidence of my own abilities. If you will not take this as an excuse, accept it at least as a well-turned period, which is always my principal concern.

So I proceed to tell you that my health is much improved by the sea; not that I drank it, or bathed in it, as the common people do : no! I only walked by it, and looked upon it. The climate is remarkably mild, even in October and November; no snow as been seen to lie there for these thirty years past; the myrtles grow in the ground against the houses, and Guernsey-lilies bloom in every window; the town, clean and well-built, surrounded by its old stone walls with their towers and gateways, stands at the point of a peninsula, and opens full south to an arm of the sea, which, having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view till it joins the British Channel; is skirted on either side with gently-rising grounds, clothed with thick wood, and directly cross its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight at distance, but distinctly seen. In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Nettley Abbey ; there may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man!) and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable pile that lies be

neath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks that mask the building, and have excluded a view too garish and luxuriant for a holy eye only on either hand they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did you not

observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself, to drive the temper from him that had thrown that distraction in his way? I should tell you that the ferryman who rowed me, a lusty young fellow, told me that he would not for all the world pass a night at the abbey (there were such things near it), though 'there was a power of money hid there. From thence I went to Salisbury, Wilton, and Stonehenge: but of these things I say no more, they will be published at the University press.

P. S. I must not close my letter without giving you one principal event of my history; which was, that (in the course of my late tour) I set out one morning before five o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got to the sea-coast time enough to be at the sun's levee. I saw the clouds and dark vapours open gradually to right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreathes, and the tide (as it flowed gently in upon the sands) first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue; and all at once a little line of insufferable brightness that (before I can write these five words) was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen. It is very odd it makes no figure on paper; yet I shall remember it as long as the sun,

or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether any body ever saw it before. I hardly believe it.

LETTER XXXV.

MR. GRAY TO MR. NICHOLLS.

IT is long since that I heard you were gone in haste into Yorkshire on account of your mother's illness; and the same letter informed me that she was recovered, otherwise I had then wrote to you only. to beg you would take care of her, and to inform you that I had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's whole life one can never have any more than a single mother. You may think this is obvious, and (what you call) a trite observation. You are a green gosling! I was at the same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet I never discovered this (with full evidence andconviction I mean) till it was too late. It is thirteen years ago, and seems but as yesterday, and every day I live it sinks deeper into my heart*. Many a corollary could I draw from this axiom for your use (not for my own), but I will leave you the merit of doing it for yourself. Pray tell me how your health is: I conclude it perfect, as I

* He seldom mentioned his mother without a sigh. After his death her gowns and wearing-apparel were found in a trunk in his apartments just as she had left them: it seemed as if he could never take the resolution to open it, in order to distribute them to his female relations, to whom by his will he bequeathed them.

hear you offered yourself as a guide to Mr. Palgrave into the Sierra Morena of Yorkshire. For me, I passed the end of May and all June in Kent, not disagreeably. In the west part of it, from every eminence the eye catches some long reach of the Thames and Medway, with all their shipping: in the east the sea breaks in upon you, and mixes its white transient sails and glittering blue expanse with the deeper and brighter greens of the woods and corn. This sentence is so fine, I am quite ashamed; but no matter: you must translate it into prose. Palgrave, if he heard it, would cover his face with his pudden sleeve. I do not tell you of the great and small beasts, and creeping things iunumerable, that I met with, because you do not suspect that this world is inhabited by any thing but men, and women, and clergy, and such two-legged cattle. Now I am here again very disconsolate, and all alone, for Mr. Brown is gone, and the cares of this world are coming thick upon me: you, I hope, are better off, riding and walking in the woods of Studley, &c. &c. I must not wish for you here; besides I am going to town at Michaelmas, by no means for amusement.

LETTER XXXVI.

MR. STERNE TO MISS L.

I HAVE offended her whom I so tenderly love!— what could tempt me to it! but if a beggar was to knock at thy gate, wouldst thou not open the door,

and be melted with compassion?—I know thou woulds, for Pity has erected a temple in thy bosom.-Sweetest, and best of all human passions! let thy web of tenderness cover the pensive form of Affliction, and soften the darkest shades of Misery! I have re-considered this apology, and, alas! what will it accomplish? Arguments, however finely spun, can never change the nature of things -very true-so a truce with them.

I have lost a very valuable friend by a sad accident; and what is worse, he has left a widow and five young children to lament this sudden stroke. -If real usefulness and integrity of heart could have secured him from this, his friends would not now be mourning his untimely fate.-These dark and seemingly cruel dispensations of Providence often make the best of human hearts complain.Who can paint the distress of an affectionate mother, made a widow in a moment, weeping in bitterness over a numerous, helpless, and fatherless offspring!God! these are thy chastisements, and require (hard task!) a pious acquies

cence.

Forgive me this digression, and allow me to drop a tear over a departed friend; and what is more excellent, an honest man. My L! thou wilt feel all that kindness can inspire in the death of- The event was sudden, and thy gentle spirit would be more alarmed on that account.— But, my L, thou hast less to lament, as old age was creeping on, and her period of doing good, and being useful, was nearly over.-At sixty years of age the tenement gets fast out of repair, and