LETTER

To Mifs

XXV.

Ireland, 26 March, 1776.

IRELAND-England-Good Heavens, that M. fhould be in one part of the world, and her H. in another! Will not our destinies suffer us to breathe the fame air? Mine will not, I most firmly believe, let me reft, till they have hunted me to death.

Will you not give me your approbation for obeying you thus? Approbation! And is that the coin to pafs between us?

Yet, I will obey you further. I will reftrain my pen as much as poffible. I will fcratch the word love out of my dictionary. I will forgetI lie-I never can, nor ever will forget you, or any thing which belongs to you. But I will, as you wifely advise, and kindly defire me, as much as poffible, write on other fubjects. Every thing entertaining, that I can procure, I will. I'll Twiffify, and write Tours-or any thing but love-letters. This morning, pardon me: I am unable to trifle; I must be allowed to talk of love, of M.

And, when I am able, you must allow me to put

in a word or two fometimes for myself. To-day, however, I will not make you unhappy by telling you how truly so I am.

The truth is--my heart is full; and though I thought, when I took up my pen, I could have filled a quire of paper with it, I now have not a word to fay. Were I fitting by your fide now (oh that I were!) I fhould only have power to recline my cheek upon your shoulder, and to wet your handkerchief with my tears.

My own fafety, but for your fake, is the last of my confiderations. Our paffage was rather boifterous, but not dangerous. Mrs. F. (whom I mentioned to you, I believe, in the letter I wrote just before we embarked) has enabled me to make you laugh with an account of her behaviour; were either of us in a humour to laugh. Why did you cheat me fo about that box? Had I known I fhould find, upon opening it, that the things were for me, I would never have brought it. But that you knew. Was it kind, my M. to give me so many daily memorandums of you, when I was to be at fuch a distance from you? Oh, yes, it was, it was, most kind. And that, and you, and all your thousand and ten thousand kindneffes I never will forget. The purfe fhall be my conftant companion, the shirts

I'll wear by night, one of the handkerchiefs I was obliged to use in drying my eyes as foon as I opened the box, the

God, God, blefs you in this world—that is, give you your H.-, and grant you an easy paffage to eternal bleffings in a better world.

If you go before me, may the ftroke be fo infantaneous, that you may not have time to caft one longing, lingering look on

LETTER XXVI.

To the Same.

H.!

Ireland, 8 April, 1776.

YOUR's, dated April the first, would have diverted me, had I been fome leagues nearer to you. It contained true wit and humour. I truly thank you for it, because I know with how much difficulty you study for any thing like wit or humour in the prefent fituation of your mind. But you do it to divert me; and it is done for one, who, though he cannot laugh at it, as he ought, will remember it, as he ought-Yet, with what a melancholy tenderness it concluded! There fpoke your heart.

Your fituation, when you wrote it, was fomething like that of an actress, who should be obli

ged

ged to play a part in comedy, on the evening of a day which, by fome real catastrophe, had marked her out for the capital figure of a real tragedy. Perhaps I have faid fomething like this in the long letter I have written you fince. Never mind.

Pray be careful how you feal your letters. The wax always robs me of five or fix words. Leave a space for your feal. Suppose that should be the part of your letter which tells me you ftill love me. If the wax cover it, I fee it not-I find no fuch expreffion in your letter-I grow distracted-and immediately fet out for Charing-Crofs to ask you whether you do indeed ftill love me.

In the hofpitality of this country I was not deceived. They have a curfe in their language, ftrongly defcriptive of it-" May the grafs grow at your door!"-The women, if I knew not you, I should find fenfible and pretty. But I am deaf, dumb, blind, to every thing, and to every perfon but you. If I write any more this morn ing, I fhall certainly fin against your commands.

Why do you fay nothing of your dear children? I infift upon it you buy my friend a taw, and two dozen of marbles; and place them to the account of

Your humble Servant.
LET

་

LETTER

XXVII.

To the Same.

Ireland, 20 April, 76.

THANKS for the two letters I received laft week. They drew tears from me, but not tears of forrow.

To my poetry you are much too partial. Never talk of writing poetry for the prefs. It will not do. Few are they, who like you, can judge of poetry; and, of the judges, few, alas! are juft. Juvenal, the Roman Churchill, advises a young man to turn auctioneer, rather than poet. In our days, Chriftie would knock Chatterton out of all chance in a week.--The Spaniards have a proverb, "He, who cannot make one verse, is a blockhead; he who makes more, is a fool."-Pythagoras you know a little by name. Perhaps. you may not know he was starved to death in the temple of the Mufes at Metapontum. The Mufes have no temples, it is true, in our days (for God knows they are not much worshipped now), but the Ladies are not without their human facrifices.

A young man was complaining the other day that he had loft his appetite; "Turn poet, then,"

faid.