I have had Mifs Sufy's and Mifs Sophy's letters, and now I am come home can write and write. While I was with Mr. Langton we took four little journies in a chaife, and made one little voyage on the Medway, with four miffes and their maid, but they were very quiet. I am very well, except that my voice foon faulters, and I have not flept well, which I imputed to the heat, which has been fuch as I never felt before for fo long time. Three days we had of very great heat about ten years ago. I infer nothing from it but a good harvest. Whether this fhort ruftication has done me any good I cannot tell, I certainly am not worse, and am very willing to think myself better. Are you better? Sophy gave but a poor account of you. Do not let your mind wear out your body. I am, Madam, Your, &c. LETTER CCCXIV. To Mifs SOPHIA THRAL E. DEAREST MISS SOPHY, BY London, July 24, 1783. Y an absence from home, and for one reason and another, I owe a great number of letters, and ́ I affure you that I fit down to write yours first. Why you should think yourself not a favourite, I VOL. II. P cannot cannot guess; my favour will, I am afraid, never be worth much; but be its value more or less, you are never likely to lofe it, and lefs likely if you continue your ftudies with the fame diligence as you have begun them. Your proficience in arithmetick is not only to be commended, but admired. Your mafter does not, I fuppofe, come very often, nor ftay very long; yet your advance in the fcience of numbers is greater than is commonly made by thofe who, for fo many weeks as you have been learning, fpend fix hours a day in the writing fchool. Never think, my Sweet, that you have arithmetick enough; when you have exhausted your master, buy books. Nothing amufes more harmlefly than computation, and nothing is oftener applicable to real bufinefs or fpeculative enquiries. A thousand stories which the ignorant tell, and believe, die away at once, when the computift takes them in his gripe. I hope you will cultivate in yourself a difpofition to numerical enquiries; they will give you entertainment in folitude by the practice, and reputation in publick by the effect. If you can borrow Wilkins's Real Character, a folio which the bookfeller can perhaps let you have, you will have a very curious calculation, which you are qualified to confider, to fhew that Noah's ark was capable of holding all the known animals of the world, with provifion for all the time in which the earth was under water. Let me hear from you foon again. I am, Madam, Your, &c. LETTER LETTER CCCXV. To Mifs SUSANNA THRALE. DEAR MISS SUSAN, London, July 26, 1783. I ANSWER your letter laft, because it was received laft; and when I have anfwered it, I am out of debt to your houfe. A fhort negligence throws one behind hand. This maxim, if you confider and improve it, will be equivalent to your parfon and bird, which is however a very good ftory, as it fhews how far gluttony may proceed, which where it prevails is I think more violent, and certainly more defpicable, than avarice itself. Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more fparingly, and are lefs curious in the choice of meat; but if once you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is enflaved to the loweft and groffeft temptation. A friend of mine, who courted a lady of whom he did not know much, was advised to fee her eat, and if the was voluptuous at table, to forfake her. He married her however, and in a few weeks came to his advifer with this exclamation," it is the disturbance of my life to fee this "woman eat." She was, as might be expected, selfish and brutal, and after fome years of difcord they parted, and I believe came together no more. Of men, the examples are fufficiently common. I had a friend, of great eminence in the learned and the witty world, who had hung up fome pots on his wall to furnish nefts for fparrows. The poor fparrows, P 2 fparrows, not knowing his character, were feduced by the convenience, and I never heard any man fpeak of any future enjoyment with fuch contortions of delight as he exhibited, when he talked of eating the young ones. When you do me the favour to write again, tell me fomething of your ftudies, your work, or your amusements. I am, Madam, Your, &c. LETTER CCCXVI. To Mrs. THRAL E. DEAR MADAM, London, Auguft 13, 1783. YOUR letter was brought just as I was com plaining that you had forgotten me. I am glad that the ladies find so much novelty at Weymouth. Ovid fays, that the fun is undelightfully uniform. They had fome expectation of fhells, which both by their form and colour have a claim to human curiofity. Of all the wonders, I have had no account, except that Mifs Thrale seems pleased with your little voyages. Sophy mentioned a story which her fifters would not fuffer her to tell, because they would tell it themselves, but it has never yet been told me. Mrs. Mrs. Ing is, I think, a baronet's daughter, of an ancient houfe in Staffordshire. Of her husband's father, mention is made in the life of Ambrofe Philips. Of this world, in which you represent me as delighting to live, I can fay little. Since I came home I have only been to church, once to Burney's, once to Paradife's, and once to Reynolds's. With Burney I faw Dr. Rofe, his new relation, with whom I have been many years acquainted. If I difcovered no reliques of disease I am glad, but Fanny's trade is fiction. I have fince partaken of an epidemical disorder, but common evils produce no dejection. Paradife's company, I fancy, difappointed him; I remember nobody. With Reynolds was the * of * a man coarse of voice * , and inelegant of language. I am now broken with disease, without the alleviation of familiar friendship or domeftick fociety; I have no middle state between clamour and filence, between general converfation and self tormenting folitude. Levet is dead, and poor Williams is making hafte to die: I know not if fhe will ever more come out of her chamber. I am now quite alone, but let me turn my thoughts another way. I am, Madam, Your, &c. LETTER |