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here. Tell me if you know any thing about Keller: I wrote twice to that gentleman, without being favoured with any answer. You will give my best respects to Mrs. Aldworth and her family; to doctor Creach's; and don't forget my good friends, Peter and Will Connel. Yours sincerely,

J. P. C.

P. S.-I will cover this blank edge with entreating you to write closer than you commonly do when you sit down to answer this, and don't make me pay tenpence for a halfpenny worth of white paper.

MR. CURRAN TO

1774.

APJOHN and I arrived in London about eight o'clock on Thursday. When I was set down, and threw myself into a box in the next coffeehouse to me, I think I never felt so strangely in my life. The struggle it cost me to leave Ireland, and the pain of leaving it as I did, had been hurried into a sort of numbness by the exertion of such an effort, and a certain exclusion of thought, which is often the consequence of a strong agitation of mind: the hurry also of the journey might in some measure have contributed to soothe for a moment these uneasy sensations. But the exertion was now over, the hurry was past; the barriers between me and reflection now

gave way, and left me to be overwhelmed in the torrent. All the difficulties I had encountered, the happy moments I had lately passed, all now rushed in upon my mind, in melancholy succession, and engrossed the pang in their turn

Revolving in his alter'd soul

The various turns of chance below,
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

At length I roused myself from this mournful reverie, and after writing a few words to Newmarket, set out in search of some of my old acquaintance. I sought them sorrowing, but there was not even one to be found; they had either changed their abodes, or were in the country. How trivial a vexation can wound a mind that is once depressed! Even this little disappointment, though it was of no consequence, though it could not surprise me, yet had the power to afflict me, at least to add to my other mortifications. I could not help being grieved at considering how much more important changes may happen even in a shorter time; how the dearest hopes and most favourite projects of the heart may flourish, and flatter us with gaudy expectations for a moment, and then, suddenly disappearing, leave us to lament over our wretchedness and our credulity. Pleased with the novelty of the world, we fasten eagerly on the bauble, till satiated with enjoyment, or disgusted with disappointment, we resign it with contempt. The world in general follows our example, and we are soon thrown

And yet, dreary

aside, like baubles, in our turn. as the prospect is, it is no small consolation to be attached to, and to be assured of the attachment of some worthy affectionate souls, where we may find a friendly refuge from the rigours of our destiny to have even one congenial bosom on which the poor afflicted spirit may repose, which will feelingly participate our joys or our sorrows, and with equal readiness catch pleasure from our successes, or strive to alleviate the anguish of disappointment.

I this day left my lodgings,-the people were so very unruly that I could stay no longer: I am now at No. 4, in St. Martin's Street, Leicester Fields, not far from my former residence. You will perhaps smile at the weakness, yet I must confess it; never did I feel myself so spiritless, so woe-begone as when I was preparing for the removal. I had settled myself with an expectation of remaining till I should finally depart for Ireland; I was now leaving it before that period, and my spirits sunk into a mixture of peevishness and despondence at the disappointment. I had emptied the desk belonging to the lodgings of my few movables, which I collected in a heap on the floor, and prepared to dispose of in my little trunk. Good Heavens! in how many various ways may the poor human heart be wounded! Is it that even Philosophy cannot so completely plunge her children in the waters of wisdom, that a heel, at least, will not be left vulnerable, and exposed to the danger of an arrow? Is the

fable equally applicable to the mind as to the body? And is all our firmness and intrepidity founded ultimately on our weakness and our foibles? May all our giant fortitude be so lulled into slumber, as, ere it awakes, to be chained to the ground by a few Lilliputian grievances, and held immovably by such slender fetters? Why else shall we be unaccountably depressed? To leave the friends of my heart, to tear myself from their last affecting farewell, to turn my face to a distant region, separated from them by mountains and oceans and tempests;-to endure all this with something like calmness, and yet to feel pain at changing from one street to another!Strange inconsistence! and yet so it was. I proceeded very slowly to fill the trunk. I could not please myself in the packing. Some letters now presented themselves; I could not put them in without reading. At length I made an end of the work, and fell into another reverie. I called to mind my first acquaintance with my little trunk; I industriously hunted my memory for every thing that any way related to it, and gave my recollection a great deal of credit for being so successful in making me miserable. At length I got it behind Tom Gess, and saw poor Tom edging forward to avoiding its jolting, and longing to be relieved from its durance. I saw it embark; over how many billows was it wafted from Cork to Bristol, over how many miles from Bristol to London! and how small a portion of that distance must it measure back to-day! And must I be equally slow in my return? With

such sentiments I left Mrs. Turner's, perhaps as completely miserable as any man in London.

As to my amusements, they are very few.Since I wrote last I went to one play. I commonly spend even more time at home than I can employ in reading of an improving or amusing kind. As I live near the Park, I walk there some time every day. I sometimes find entertainment in visiting the diversity of eating-places with which this place abounds. Here every coal-porter is a politician, and vends his maxims in public with all the importance of a man who thinks he is exerting himself for the public service; he claims the privilege of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud, of damning the ministry and abusing the king, with less reserve than he would his own equal. Yet, little as these poor people understand of the liberty they contend so warmly for, or of the measures they rail against, it reconciles one to their absurdity, by considering that they are happy at so small an expense as being ridiculous; and they certainly receive more pleasure from the power of abusing than they would from the reformation of what they condemn. I take the more satisfaction in this kind of company, as while it diverts me it has the additional recommendation of reconciling economy with amusement.

Another portion of time I have set apart every day for thinking of my absent friends. Though this is a duty that does not give much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or endeavour to confine it within proper bounds: I

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