so. His talents were of the first stamp, his intellect most clear, his attachment to England, I think, inflexible, his integrity not to be seduced, and his personal courage not to be shaken. If this shall be admitted, he has lived long enough; and if it is not, he has lived too long.

My health is much better; my breast quite free, the pain gone, my appetite rather better, sleep not so profound, spirits flutter, temper more even -altogether some gainer by the reduction of wine. At your side, I understand, my good friends have Sangradoed me, but I have taken only the water-no bleeding for me. I have written to Amelia; that may save you some three pages, which might be blank and written at the same time. I would beg a line, but I shall have set out too soon to get it. No news here, but what the papers give you; they are all mad about the convention: I differ from them totally, as I feel a disposition to do on every subject.

I am glad to hear you are letting yourself out at Old Orchard; you are certainly unwise in giving up such an inducement to exercise, and the absolute good of being so often in good air. I have been talking about your habit without naming yourself. I am more persuaded that you and Egan are not sufficiently afraid of weak liquors. I can say, from trial, how little pains it costs to correct a bad habit. On the contrary, poor nature, like an ill used mistress, is delighted with the return of our kindness, and is anxious to show her gratitude for the return, by letting us see how well she becomes it.

I am the more solicitous upon this point from

having made this change, which I see will make me waited for in heaven longer than perhaps they looked for. If you do not make some pretext for lingering, you can have no chance of conveying me to the wherry; and the truth is, I do not like surviving old friends. I am somewhat inclined to wish for posthumous reputation; and if you go before me, I shall lose one of the most irreclaimable of my trumpeters: therefore, dear Mac, no more water, and keep the other element-your wind, for the benefit of your friends. I will show my gratitude as well as I can, by saying handsome things of you to the saints and angels before you come. Best regards to all with you.

Yours, &c.

J. P. C.

MR. CURRAN TO P. LESLIE, ESQ. DUBLIN.

DEAR PETER,

Cheltenham, Sept. 11, 1811.

DON'T open this till the little circle of our Hirish friends are together. You will all be glad to hear that an old friend is yet in the harbour of this stormy world, and has not forgotten you: in truth, it is only that sentiment which troubles you with this worthless dispatch; but small as its value may be, it is worth at least what it costs you. I don't think these waters are doing me any good, I think they never did; they bury my poor spirits in the earth. I consulted yesterday evening (indeed chiefly to put so many moments to a technical death) our countryman B., a very obstinate fellow: though I paid him for his

affability, and his "indeed I think so too, Mr. Shandy," I could not work him into an admission that I had any malady whatsoever, nor even any to hope for by continuing the intrigue with Mrs. Forty *; so I have a notion of striking my tent, and taking a position behind the Trent, at Donnington +. During my stay here I have fallen into some pleasant female society; but such society can be enjoyed only by those who are something at a tea table or a ball. Tea always makes me sleepless; and as to dancing, I tried three or four steps that were quite the cream of the thing in France at one time, and which cost me something. I thought it might be the gaiters that gave them a piperly air; but even after putting on my black silk stockings, and perusing them again before the glass, which I put on the ground for the purpose of an exact review, I found the edition was too stale for republication.

The cover of this contains a list of all the politicians met at Cheltenham, and therefore you must see that I am out of work as well for my head as my heels. Even the newspapers seem so parched by the heat of the season, which is extreme, as to have lost all vegetation. In short, I have made no progress in any thing except in marketing, and I fancy I can cast a glance upon a shoulder of Welsh mutton with all the careless indecision of an unresolved purchaser, and yet with the eye of a master; so I have contrived to have two or three at five o'clock, except when I dine abroad, which I don't much like to do.

* The person who dispensed the waters at Cheltenham. + Lord Moira's seat.

If you remember our last political speculations, you know all that is to be known; and that all being just nothing, you cannot well forget it. The smoke is thickest at the corners farthest from the chimney, and therefore near the fire we see a little more distinctly; but as things appear to me, I see not a single ticket in the wheel that may not be drawn a blank, poor Paddy's not excepted. To go back to the fire-each party has the bellows hard at work, but I strongly suspect that each of them does more to blind their rivals, and themselves too, by blowing the ashes about, than they do in coaxing or cherishing the blaze for the comfort or benefit of their own shins. Therefore, my dear Peter, though we have not the gift of prophecy, we have at least the privilege of praying. There is no act of parliament that takes away the right of preferring a petition to Heaven; and therefore, while it is yet lawful, I pray that all may end well, and that we may have a happy escape from knaves and fools. In that hope there is nothing either popish or seditious. To-morrow I go to Gloucester, to the music meeting, and then I think Mrs. Forty and I shall take the embrace of an eternal adieu. Do not forget me to all our dear friends about you, and assure them that, however kindly they may remember me, I am not, as far as grateful recollection can go, in their debt. God grant we may all meet again in comfort here, or in glory somewhere else.

Yours, dear Peter, very truly yours,

JOHN P. CURRAN.

MR. CURRAN TO R. HETHERINGTON, ESQ.

DEAR DICK,

DUBLIN.

London, 1811.

I WRITE merely to say that I am alive. Never any thing so dull as this place; I shall soon steer towards you. You must know, I have been requested by a great sculptor to sit for him, and we are now employed in making a most beautiful head in mud, which is to be the model for a piece of immortal Parian marble. Is that a small style of going, Dick? Wellington has been obliged to give up Rodrigo, and retire westward; I suppose, to eat his Christmas pies at his old quarters in Torres Vedras, to which every hundred pounds that is sent to him costs only one hundred and forty pounds here. As to politics, they seem quite relinquished by every one: nobody expects any material change of men or measures; nor, in truth, do I see any thing in the present state of things that can't be done as well by one set as another. I have little doubt that Perceval is as warlike a hero as Grenville, and just as capable of simplifying our government to the hangman and the tax gatherer. I am just interrupted; so, God bless you.

J. P. CURRAN.

UU

VOL. VI.