grotto; I intend to tell the inhabitants of the deep whom they are for, and they will all assist me ; even the Leviathan will not be worse than the judge; if he eats the fish, he will give us the shell. I am sorry Mrs. Pendarvis has left you for the summer; Dash too talks of departing; when they are gone London will lose much of its charms for you, and the country is not yet delightful; even this sweet month, the fairest of the year, does not disclose its beauties. Pray make my compliments to my lord duke, and give a thousand kisses to the dear little ones, and assure them should be glad to deliver them myself. I hope Mrs. Pendarvis had a long letter from me the beginning of this week. Farewell, my dear lady duchess; farewell is the hardest word in our language, and to you I generally speak it the last of a thousand. I am, dear madam, your most obliged servant, E. ROBINSON. LETTER XII. FROM MRS. ELIZABETH MONTAGU TO THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND. MADAM, May 7. I HAD begun a letter to your grace last post, but was interrupted by company; then did I regret having left the humble and quiet habitation to which the idle and the noisy did not resort; and where I had leisure to permit me to do what I did like, and no ceremonious duty to oblige me to do that I did not; for what a mortification to leave writing to you to entertain-whom? why, an honest boisterous sea captain, his formal wife, most wondrous civil daughter, and a very coxcombical son; the good captain is so honest and so fierce, a bad conscience and a cool courage cannot abide him; he thinks he has a good title to reprove any man that is not as honest, and to beat any mau that is not as valiant as himself; he hates every vice of nature but wrath, and every corruption of the times but tyranny; a patriot in his public character, but an absolute and angry monarch in his family; he thinks every man a fool in politics who is not angry, and a knave if he is not perverse : indeed, the captain is well in his element, and may appear gentle compared to the waves and wind, but on the happy quiet shore he seems a perfect whirlwind: he is much fitter to hold converse with the hoarse Boreas in his wintry cavern, than to join in the whispers of Zephyrus in Flora's honeymoon of May. I was afraid, as he walked in the garden, that he would fright away the larks and nightingales; and expected to see a flight of sea-gulls hovering about him: the amphibious pewet found him too much a water animal for his acquaintance, and fled with terror. I was angry to find he was envious of admiral Vernon; but considering his appetite to danger and thirst of glory, I endeavoured to excuse something of the fault: it is fine when danger becomes sport, and hardships voluptuousness. All this is brought about by the magic sound of fame. Dr. Young will tell us, the same principle puts the feather in the hat of the beau, which erects the high plume in the helmet of the hero; but if so, how gentle is the enchantment of the pretty man of praise, compared to the high maduess of the bold hero of renown! Very safely trips the red-heeled shoe, but most perilous is the tread of honour's boot! But a-propos, how do our scarlet beaux like this scheme of going abroad? Do the pretty creatures, who mind no other thing but the ladies and the king, like to leave the drawing-room and ridotto for camps and trenches? Should the chance of war bring a slovenly corpse betwixt the wind and their nobility, can they abide it?-Dare they behold friends dead, and enemies living? I think they will die of a panic, and save their enemies' powder. Well, they are proper gentlemen, heaven defend the nunneries! as for the garrisons, they will be safe enough. The father-confessors will have more consciences to quiet, than the surgeons will have wounds to dress; I would venture a wager Flanders increases in the christenings more than in the burials of the week. I am your grace's faithful and very affectionate, E. ROBINSON. LETTER XIII. FROM MRS. ELIZABETH MONTAGU TO THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND. MADAM, May 13,-. I CANNOT express the pleasure your grace's letter gave me, after not having heard from you for five weeks, nor indeed of you for the last fortnight. How can you say it is not in your power to make a return for my letters! mine can only afford you a little amusement, yours, my dear lady duchess, give me real happiness. I hope you did not receive any harm from writing; if your constitution is as naturally disposed as your mind to make a friend happy, I am sure you did not. My sister is just gone from me; our first meeting under the same roof was this morning; you will imagine wė lengthened our happiness as long as the day; this evening she retired a little the sooner, to give me time to write to your grace. I have not yet been at Mount Morris; though I believe the infection may be over, I am not willing to venture myself for the sake of the house, while the inhabitants of it can come to me here with much more ease to themselves, and better security to me. My habitation indeed is humble, but it has the best blessings of humility, peace and content. I think I never spent a happier day than this, though fortune gave no pageantry to the joy. Indeed we wanted none of that pomp that people make use of to signify happiness, but were glad to enjoy it free and alone. We talked of your grace; I won't tell you what we said, for then you would say I was partial, and my friend complaisant; however, my happiest hours are rendered more joyful by the remembrance of you, and my most melancholy less dismal. I can never want inclination to write to you, but that I may not want materials I cannot answer: first, you must know those who are impertinent in London are downright dull in the country; here is neither vice nor novelty; and consider, if news and scandal are out of the question, what a drawback it is upon conversation? If I could sit, and rightly spell, of every herb that sips the dew, &c. I might indeed be a very good correspondent: but being neither merry nor wise, what can you make of me? Should I tell you of an intrigue between the Moon and Endymion, Aurora and Cephalus, or the people of our sky, you would not thank me for my news; but except the plants of the earth, and the stars of heaven, what do I see here? My eyes, you know, are not fit for either minute speculations or distant prospects: however, I will own I am an admirer of a Narcissus, and now and then ogle the man in the moon through a glass. The first is as sweet as any beau, the second as changeable as any lover; but I know Pen, who despises all beaux and lovers, will afford a regard to these; therefore I imagine them worth my acquaintance. How impertinent is this interruption! Must I leave your grace for such a trivial consideration as my supper? They have sent me some chicken, but, alas! can one eat one's acquaintance! these inoffensive companions of my retirement, can I devour them! How often have I lately admired the provident care and the maternal affection of a hen, and shall I eat her hopeful son or fair daughter! Sure I should then be an unworthy member of the chicken society. I find myself reduced to a vegetable diet, not as a Pythagorean, for fear of removing the soul of a friend, but to avoid destroying the body of an acquaintance. There is not a sheep, a calf, a lamb, a goose, a hen, or a turkey in the neighbourhood, with which I am not intimately acquainted. When I shall leave my ark I don't know; would my dove bring me an olive branch, in promise of peace, I |