an obfervation, or a little fcold, or fomething. -When you write less than twenty lines at once, 'tis only a fcrap rent from the next week's chat, for what fhall we have to talk if all the facts are fent flying fo between Ashbourne and Streatham? I will keep the story of the fourteen thousand pounds till we meet; fo I will all family concerns, unless little Queeney fends her country poft, as ufual, to give information of a new fail of ducks, or fome fuch important intelligence, which will not greatly interfere with my project. At present the last paragraph of your last long letter is much in my head; and Mr. Thrale faid, when we read it together, that you fhould not travel alone, if he could once fee this dear little boy quite well, or fee me well perfuaded (as many are) that nothing ails him.

Why, what an uncomfortable reflection it is at last, that those who are best qualified to travel, and tell what they have feen at their return, should be almost always obliged, for one reafon or another, to ftay at home. My great delight, like yours, would be to see how life is carried on in other countries, how various climates produce various effects, and how different notions of religion and government operate upon the human manners and the

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human

human mind; for 'tis they at laft which caufe all the diftinction between national characters, as the method in which our bones and fibres are difpofed creates all the variety observed in the human figure; yet I do not commend thofe voyagers who teize one with too much of fuch ftuff to fhew their own profundity, any more than I like a painter who exhibits none but anatomical figures: I think, however, we have had little to lament on that fide lately, as counting pictures and defcribing ruins feems to have been the fole bufinefs of modern travellers-but when we go to Cairo, one fhall take one department, another shall take another, and fo a pretty book may be made out amongst us, that fhall be commended, and cenfured, and cuffed about the town for a twelvemonth, if no new tub takes the 'whale's attention.

Well! now all this is nonfenfe, and fancy, and flight, you know, for my master has his great cafks to mind, and I have my little children, but he has really half a mind to cross the water for half a year's frisk to Italy, or France, if we could leave matters fo that we might not be frighted or called back to any vexation. For digging, walling, or planting,

we should be better qualified at our return, and we would fhake off our fuperflux of fcience to dear Dr. Taylor-to whom make in the mean time our beft compliments, with. love to his Jigg and Jeffamy-I fhould not expect to fee their fuperiors in any country, but the foreign afs we admired at Blenheim might measure againft either of them as well as I remember.

You account very tenderly for ***** dullness, it was perhaps only accidental; but if a man will never add to his original stock by reading, and keep on living away upon what he fet out with, dullnefs in conversation. must finally enfue. A befieged town is always obliged to capitulate at laft, if strongly invested, and all foreign fupplies cut off, however well stored with provifion when the blockade begun. Mr. Thrale faid he was more agreeable this afternoon, but I told him ftarving produced a fever always in the laft ftage of a life lofing by famine, and his friend's warmth in converfation was occafioned by nothing better

Would it not be wifer to talk of the regatta than make fuch Welch fpeeches as thefe ?but nobody was by.

I faid I would write nothing of family mat→ ters, but here is a letter from Suffex come, that will make me write of nothing else. The child is very bad I am fure, but I had better go and fee, for the fufpenfe is terrible, and these nafty posts!

The illness of this boy frights me for all the reft; if any of them have a headach it puts me in an agony, a broken leg would less affect my peace. So many to have the fame

diforder is dreadful.

ing of it?.

What can be the mean

Sophy complained yesterday, but I hope it was on purpose to fright me.

Send me fome comfortable words; do, dear Sir; and believe me ever

Your obliged and faithful servant.

LETTER CXXVI.

To Mrs. THRA L E.

DEAR MADAM,

Afhbourne, July, 1775

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AM forry that my poor little friend Ralph goes on no better. We must see what time will do for him.

I hope Harry is well. I had a very pretty letter from Queeney; and hope the will be kind to my hen and her ten chickens, and mind her book.

I forget whether I tell fome things, and may perhaps tell them twice, but the matter is not great, only, as you observe, the more we write the lefs we fhall have to fay when we meet.

Áre we to go all to Brighthelmftone in the Autumn, or have you fatiated yourself with this vifit? I have only one reafon for wishing you to go, and that reafon is far enough from amounting to neceffity.

That ****'s fimplicity fhould be forgiven, for his benevolence is very juft; and I will not now fay any thing in opposition to

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your