ing and irritating a difpofition naturally felfish, violent, and fufpicious, they fhould have the power to detach him from all thofe affections which humanize the heart, and obtain fuch a command over him as would throw his large. property into their hands? How well they fucceeded my narrative has declared. You are, however, a little dif pofed, I fee, to cavil at the probability of my ftory. My good friend, is there any thing impoffible in it? Unless there be, fufpend awhile your defire to criticife its probabilities; and recollect how many ftrange things both you and I (whofe ages together make not half a century) have feen, which had we read of, or been told of them, a few years ago, we should have confidered as the vifions of a difordered imagination.

Believe, for it is true, that Mifs Falconberg ftill exifts, or did very lately exift, in the neighbourhood of Florence; where, for aught I know, I may one day

or

or other be tempted to feek her, and, like a wandering knight of old times, liften to the history of her forrows, told in her own interefting words. Nay, do not begin to cry pfha! and pooh! and do not write to me another long lecture on eccentricity, or hint at a fufpicion that I feek a fort of folitary fame, by thinking, or at least acting, as no reasonable man ever thought or acted before. I feek no fame. Of what value would it be to me, fince 1 fhould certainly never hear of it? Or wherefore fhould I concern myself about opinions entertained of me by half a score or half an hundred infignificant people, who, five minutes after they have moft dogmatically decided on my conduct, will forget my very existence? You have asked me, my friend, if, by my defultory and wandering life, I expect to regain happiness? Happiness? Alas! can any rational being say that he ever tafted it? I once, indeed, fondly believed it within

my grafp; but it is gone, fled for ever!

and now all I attempt is to make the life I must endure as tolerable as poffible, and for this purpose I pafs whereever novelty or curiofity attract me. An author, who appears to me to have been one of the moft illuftrious men that any age or nation has produced, fays, in one of his letters written towards the end of his life, that to the end I aim at, "tout eft bon, pourvu qu'on attrape le bout de la journée; qu'on foupe et qu'on dorme: le reste eft vanité des vanités, mais l'amitié eft chofe véritable."

My life, whatever it may be to myself, is not however always useless to others; I have more than once met in my wanderings with those whofe forrows I had the power at least to fufpend; while, by remarking the various miferies of life, I have learned better to endure my own. I am now therefore going."Going ?" you will impatiently afk: "whither, and

for

for what?" In truth, it is not always eafy for me to answer thofe queftions; but now I rather, think, however, it will be northward; and from the north-western) coaft of England, or from Scotland, you may perhaps hear from me again. I have fome bufinefs at Liverpool, which I may as well do now as hereafter. It relates to accounts between my late father and a gentleman, the fon of an old friend, who was fent from Jamaica for education, and was fome time his ward. They have been long ready, and the balance long fince paid; but fome trifling adjustment yet remains, for which he refers me to his merchant at Liverpool. It is lucky, you will fay, that I find any reason for going to one place rather than another. I own I do want exert myfelf at all.

motive in general to

How fad is the talk of efcaping from

oneself!

LETTER II.

I PASS over my journey from

Liverpool.

late

my

folitary abode to this bufy town, where every object is affembled that I diflike the moft, and where I certainly should not have ftaid three hours, had I not very unexpectedly found here the young man of whom I spoke in my laft letter; and still more unexpectedly discovered in him, after a very short conversation, qualities of the heart and the understanding, which I hardly expected had furvived fome years refidence in Jamaica, and which made me wish to know more of him fuch as he now is; for when we laft parted we were both boys. He ap peared happy to fee the fon of a man to whom he confidered himself fo much obliged.