afraid that even in England your proposal will come to nothing. There is not virtue enough left among mankind.— If your scheme should pass into an act, it will become a job; your sanguine temper will cool; rogues will be the only gainers; parties and faction will intermingle, and defeat the most essential parts of the design.-Standing armies in time of peace, projects of excise, and bribing elections, are all you are like to be employed in, not forgetting septennial parliaments, directly against the old whig principles, which have always been mine.

A gentleman of this kingdom, about three years ago, joined with some others in a fishery here, in the northern parts. They advanced only 2001. by way of trial; they got men from Orkney to cure their fishes, who understood it well. But the vulgar folks of Ireland are so lazy and so knavish, that it turned to no account, nor would any body join with them; and so the matter fell, and they lost two thirds of their money. Oppressed beggars are always knaves, and I believe there are hardly any other among us. They had rather gain a shilling by knavery, than five pounds by honest dealings. They lost 300,000l. a year for ever, in the time of the plague at Marseilles, when the Spaniards would have bought all their linen from Ireland; but the merchants and weavers sent over such abominable linen, that it was all returned back, and sold for a fourth part of its value. This is our condition, which you may please to pity, but never can mend. I wish you good success with all my heart. I have always loved good projects, but have always found them to miscarry. I am, Sir, with true esteem for your good intentions,

Your most obedient humble servant.

P.S. I would have subscribed my name, if I had not a very bad one; so I leave you to guess it. If I can be of any service to you in this kingdom, I should be glad you will employ me.

1762, March.

VII. Two Letters from the late Countess of Hertford, afterwards Duchess of Somerset, on the death of her only son, George, Lord Viscount Beauchamp, who died of the Small Pox at Bologna, in 1744.

SIR,

To the Rev. Dr. B.

I AM very sensibly obliged by the very kind compassion you express for me under my heavy affiiction. The meditations you have favoured me with, afford the strongest motives for consolation that can be offered to a person under my unhappy circumstances. The dear lamented son I have lost, was the pride and joy of my heart, but I hope I may be the more easily excused for having looked on him in this light, since he was not so from the outward advantages he possessed, but from the virtues and rectitude of his mind. The prospects which flattered me in regard to him, were not drawn from his distinguished rank, or from the beauty of his person, but from the hopes that his example would have been serviceable to the cause of virtue, and would have shewn the younger part of the world, that it was possible to be chearful without being foolish or vicious, and to be religious without severity or melancholy. His whole life was one uninterrupted course of duty and affection to his pa rents, and when he found the hand of death upon him, his only regret was to think of the agonies that must rend their hearts; for he was perfectly contented to leave the world, as his conscience did not reproach him with any presumptuous sins, and he hoped his errors would be forgiven. Thus he resigned his innocent soul into the hands of his merciful Creator on the evening of the birth-day which completed him nineteen. You will not be surprised, Sir, that the death of such a son should occasion the deepest sorrow yet at the same time it leaves us the most comfortable assurance, that he is far happier than our fondest wishes could have made him, which must enable us to support the remainder of years which it shall please God to allot for us here, without murmuring or discontent, and quicken our endeavours to prepare ourselves to follow him in that happy place, where our dear valuable child is gone before us, I beg the continuance of your prayers, and am,

Sir, Yours, &c.

F. HERTFORD,

2d. Written ten years after.

I AM sorry, good Mrs.-to find that your illness seems rather to increase than diminish; yet the disposition of mind with which you receive this painful dispensation, seems to convert your sufferings into a blessing. While you resign to the will of God in so patient a manner, this disease seems only the chastisement of a wise and merciful being, who chasteneth not for his own pleasure, but for our profit. Were I not convinced of this great truth, I fear I must long since have sunk under the burthen of sorrow, which God saw fit to wean my foolish heart from this vain world, and shew me how little all the grandeur and riches of it avail to happiness. He gave me a son, who promised all that the fondest wishes of the fondest parents could hope; an honour to his family, an ornament to his country; with a heart early attached to all the duties of religion and society, with the advantage of strong and uninterrupted health, joined to a form, which when he came into Italy, made him more generally known by the name of the English Angel than by that of his family. I know this account may look like a mother's fondness; perhaps it was too much so once but alas! it now only serves to shew the uncertainty and frailty 'of all human dependance. This justly beloved child was snatched from us before we could hear of his illness. That fatal disease, the small pox, seized him at Bologna, and carried him off the evening of his birth-day, on which he had completed nineteen years. Two posts before, I had a letter from him, written with all the life and innocent chearfulness inherent to his nature; the next but one came from his afflicted governor*, to acquaint his unhappy father that he had lost the most dutiful and best of sons, the pride and hope of his declining age. He bore the stroke like a wise man and a Christian; but never forgot, nor ceased to sigh for it. A long series of pain and infirmity, which was daily gaining ground upon him, shewed me the sword, which appeared suspended over my head by an almost cobweb thread, long before it droppedt. As to my bodily pains, I bless God, they are by no means insupportable at present. I rather suffer a languid state of weakness, which wastes my flesh and consumes my spirits by a gentle decay, than any frightful suffering; and am spending that remains

* Mr. Dalton.

Algernon, Duke of Somerset, died Feb. 7, 1749-50.

of nature, which was almost exhausted in continued care and anxiety for the sufferings of a person dearer to me than one's self. My daughter*, who is very good to me, has sent me her youngest son, just turned of four years old, to amuse me in my solitude, because he is a great favourite of mine, and shews a great deal of his uncle's disposition, and some faint likeness of his person. It is high time to release you from so long a letter, but there are some subjects, on which my tears nor pen know not how to stop, when they begin to flow.

I am, dear Madam,

Your sincerely affectionate Friend,

1762, July.

F.SOMERSETT.

VIII. The Duke of Ormond to his Son.

SON GOWRAN,

July 10, 1675. By the last account I received of your condition, I must, with the trouble and grief of a father, conclude you are in danger of death, and that, in all human probability, the days you are to live in the world are not many.

I fear, neither you nor I have so served God, that we can reasonably expect he should afford you a miraculous deliverance from that distemper and weak estate to which your own negligence and intemperance, and my ill example and want of seasonable and proper admonition, may have too much contributed.

I hope your own piety, and consideration of a happy or miserable eternity, have suggested to you thoughts of this nature; and whether it shall please God to restore you to your health, or put a period to your life, this merciful affliction of his, which allows you time for repentance and addresses for mercy, will be of advantage to you. Yet I have thought it my duty to furnish you with all the helps in my power towards your making a happy end (if it be God's will) or a profitable use of these approaches of death, if, in undeserved indulgence towards us, he shall youchsafe to

* Lady Eliz. Smithson, afterwards Countess of Northumberland, + Her Grace died a few months after.

give you a longer life. I have therefore sent my chaplain, Dr. Ashton, to administer those assistances and comforts to you which are proper for his function, and necessary for you; not knowing whether any of our clergy may be had, or if there may, whether so able or so affectionate.

I hope it is below your spirit, and that you have too much reason and christianity to think you are the nearer death because you prepare yourself for eternal life. You know I have lately given you proofs of my kindness to you, yet I would have you value this care of your well-dying before and beyond it, since, as it may be the last, so it is the greatest demonstration I can give of being,

1762, Aug.

Your affectionate Father,

ORMOND.

IX. To Sir Richard Steele, on his Play of the Conscious Lovers,

SIR,

No one, I believe, has a higher opinion of the Conscious Lovers, in general, than myself, or more admires the charac ter of Indiana, in particular, which is, I think, drawn with exquisite skill. She appears to be amiable in the highest degree, as her story is very judiciously told, and in the most affecting manner; but it grieves me to say, what, however, I apprehend to be too just, that the character of Bevil, is strained beyond all reason. You have, I fear, instead of making his character proper to be imitated, rendered it such as no wise man ought to imitate; since it is possible, on his principles, for two persons of the strictest virtue, perfectly suited for each other, and in the highest degree sensible of it, with a competency in their own hands. to answer all consequences, and with which they themselves are contented, to be made as miserable as total separation can be supposed to make them, merely because a person, who happens to be a parent of one of them, takes it into his head, that he has an absolute power of commanding (by virtue of that relation) one, who is as much a man, and as capable of reasoning as himself, and a thousand times. more intimately concerned in the affair about which he pretends to have so unlimited an authority. Now, to make this necessary, in order to preserve, and support the character of