read over my scrawl, so pray decipher her, and

I DON'T know whether I am entitled to continue our correspondence-it is certain I am unwilling to lose it; and I should have much sooner answered yours of a date so distant as the 18th of July, had I not, ever since the receipt of it, been wandering over the Highlands of Scotland, my ideas as unsettled as my residence. When I returned home, I found a good deal of business in arrear; your letter was among other papers. We generally find time soonest to do what we like to do, so I take the earliest opportunity of making a return to it.

We are perfectly agreed about the pleasure of the pains of sensibility; I may therefore say, without trespassing against the accuracy of a compli ment, that I am proud of having had it in my power to confer that pleasure on you; but you are less in my debt than you imagine; though a man, and a man of business, I too can shed tears and feel the luxury of shedding them; your Percy has cleared scores between us in that respect.

I will not say to yourself what I think of that tragedy. Before I knew anything of its author but the name, I could not resist the desire I felt of giving my warmest suffrage in its favour, to somebody who had an interest in it; so, for want of a nearer relation, I communicated my sentiments to

Mr. Cadell. Perhaps, however, either from his knowledge of your modesty, or of the insignificance of my opinion, he never informed you of my thoughts of it. They were indeed of no importance; but the public judged as I did, and made amends for their applause of some other plays, by that which they bestowed on Percy.

Do write again, that they may once more be in the right, and (since you wish to break my heart) that I may have another opportunity of fooling at a tragedy. To some late ones I can just reverse the answer given to Romeo-"Good Coz, I had rather weep." I will also take comfort, and hope, at some future period, to have the pleasure of paying you my respects at Bristol, though at present I have no prospect of being again in that quarter. I shall not be in the neighbourhood a second time without availing myself of your very obliging invitation.

I beg my best compliments to the Misses Er. skine when you see them. I wish them to know the remembrance I entertain of the civilities I received from them at Bath.

I am, madam,

With much respect and regard,

Your most obedient servant,
HENRY MACKENZIE,

Mrs. Boscawen to Miss H. More.

1784.

MACBETH has murdered sleep, and Pitt has murdered scribbling! What becomes of the damsels with ah's! and oh's! who tell some dear Miss Willis all their woes! And what becomes of me when

after many delays, I find leisure to scribble to my dear friend at Bristol any nonsense qui plait à ma plume? Why, she will generously tell me that she has postage in her pocket, but we have been used to franks, and besides the post is bewitched, and charges nobody knows what for letters; two shillings and ninepence, I think, Mrs. Leveson says she paid for a letter free, Falmouth, but no date of the day. Now he seems to have got his lesson, and remembers it. The duke is gone to Badminton, with sons of all sizes, and Dr. Penny le fidel Achate, so that I am left chargée d'affair; I am so happy with my two daughters, that I do by no means find out that London is unpleasant in September; indeed, sometimes I rise with the lark, and run down to breakfast at Glanvilla, where I must own that Mrs. Keeble gives me better cream and butter, raspberries, and fruit of all sorts, than I find here. I walk and sit in my garden, get an early dinner, and repair at sunset to the working party (not a bit like a lying-in-room, but with sashes open) in Grosvenor-square. Yesterday we saw there, and the duchess saw it, just as well as if we had been at Moorfields, the great balloon which had so many thousand spectators, that I assure you they were as little to be imagined as counted. Where all came from that I saw running, walking, crawling towards the spot, was to me incomprehensible. Admiral Barrington is hurt to think that no Englishman has gone up yet either in France or England: and indeed I thought it so suitable to English daring, that when first I heard of Messrs. Charles and Robert, I affirmed they must have had English mothers. Lunardi's nest, when I saw it yesterday looking like a peg-top, seemed, I assure

you, higher than the moon "riding towards her highest noon."

All this while I have not thanked you for your charming epistle, my dear friend; whenever you are disposed so to treat me, you have only to direct to Lord F., in Audley-street, and without enclosing, for I cannot mistake your hand. I can easily believe you spent your time very agreeably with Mrs. Montagu at Sandleford, and how glad you must be to see Mrs. Garrick arrive. The cathedral window and Gothic Grove I delighted in, and could hardly eat my dinner for gazing at it by moon. light; they must be charming, but for pity's sake no fairies. I don't believe I ever was young enough to like Mab or Oberon, so much do I differ from you; ah qui en doute! Adieu, my dear friend, another odious revolution of the post is, that it rides in coaches, so, as I go out of town to-morrow, 1 shall not be back time enough to send it on the day it is marked for, and it will keep no more than a roasting pig; whereas I used to write all my letters of a night, after that eight o'clock which parted us, and as to covers, I had them safe in a bag. These were the halcyon days of scribbling; now I am sitting up till past midnight, that this may be ready for to-morrow. Can you help say ing, Ah elle ne vaut pas la peine? Yes, for it tells. and it proves, that

I am most affectionately,

Yours,

F. B.

The Rev. J. Newton to Miss H. More.

Coleman-street Buildings, May 11, 1787.

MY DEAR MADAM,

A FAMILIAR style of address, you may say, upon so short an acquaintance; but may I not use it by anticipation? Thus, at this season of the year, we speak of a field of wheat, because, though there may be some Londoners who, from its green appearance, would pronounce it to be mere grass, we expect that it will produce ears of wheat before the harvest arrives. So, from yesterday's specimen, Mrs. Newton and I judge that if you and we were so situated as that our present slight acquaintance could be cultivated by frequent interviews, you would soon be very dear to us. And even now, from what I have seen, superadded to what I have read and heard, my heart will not allow me to make a serious apology for taking the liberty to say-My dear Madam.

This waits upon you to thank you for your obliging call to request your acceptance of the Fast Sermon-and to express my best wishes for your welfare, and to assure you that I am, with great sincerity,

Your affectionate and obliged servant,
JOHN NEWTON.

P. S.-I wrote a preface to the first volume of Cowper's Poems. His name was not then known among the booksellers, and they were afraid to bind up my preface with the book, lest it should operate like a death's-head at a feast, and, by its gravity, hinder the sale it was designed to recom. mend: but I am not afraid to send you a copy.