gentleman, it will be (from you) sufficiently satisfactory.

I have just received a letter from Dr. Miles, informing me that the earthquake was felt at Tooting, though not by his family; it was felt pretty strongly at Greenwich, and at Darking in Kent, at Hampstead, at Kilburn, at Richmond, and Kingston in Middlesex, and also at Enfield. Other places I am as yet uncertain of. A line from you will always give me unspeakable satisfaction, and I hope you will do me the justice to believe, that I am, with the most cordial wishes for the prosperity of you and yours, in which Mrs. Baker and my sons join most heartily, dear sir, your most faithful and most affectionate humble servant.

LETTER LXIII.

MRS. ROWE TO THE COUNTESS OF HERTFORD.'

MADAM,

THIS is the last letter you will ever receive from me, the last assurance I shall give you on earth of a sincere and stedfast friendship; but, when we meet again, I hope it will be in the heights of immortal love and ecstasy. Mine perhaps may be the first glad spirit to congratulate your safe arrival on the happy shores. Heaven can witness how sincere my concern for your happiness is. Thither I have sent my ardent wishes that you may be so secured from the flattering delusion of the world, and, after your pious example has been long a

blessing to mankind, may you calmly resign your breath and enter the confines of unmolested joy!

I am now taking my farewell of you here, but it is a short adieu, for I die with full persuasion that we shall meet again.-But, O, in what elevation of happiness! in what enlargement of mind, and perfection of every faculty! What transporting reflections shall we make on the advantages of which we shall feel ourselves eternally possessed?

To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, we shall ascribe immortal glory, dominion, and praise for ever. This is all my salvation, and all my hope. That name in whom the gentiles trust, in whom all the families on earth are blessed, is now my glorious, my unfailing confidence; in his merits alone I expect to stand justified before infinite purity and justice. How poor were my hopes if I depended on those works, which my own vanity, or the partiality of men, have called good, and which, if examined by Divine purity, would prove perhaps but specious sins? The best actions of my life would be found defective, if brought to the test of that unblemished holiness in whose sight the heavens are not clean.

Where were my hopes but for a Redeemer's merits and atonement.-How desperate, how undone my condition!--With the utmost advantage I can boast I should start back and tremble at the thoughts of appearing before the unblemished Majesty.-O Jesus, what harmony dwells in thy name! -Celestial joy and immortal life are in the sound. -Let angels set thee to their golden harps; let the ransomed nations for ever magnify thee!

What a dream is mortal life;-What shadowp

are the objects of sense! All the glories of mortality, my much-beloved friend will be nothing in your view at the awful hour of death, when you must be separated from the whole creation, and enter on the borders of the immaterial world.

Something persuades me that this will be my last farewell in this world. Heaven forbid that it should be an everlasting parting. May that Divine protection, whose care I implore, keep you stedfast in the faith of christianity, and guide your steps in the strictest paths of virtue! Adieu, my most dear friend, till we meet in the paradise of God.

ELIZABETH ROWE.

MADAM,

LETTER LXIV.

MRS. ROWE TO HER MOTHER.

I AM now taking my final adieu of this world, in certain hopes of meeting you in the next. I carry to my grave my affection and gratitude to you. I leave you with the sincerest concern for your own happiness, and the welfare of your family. May my prayers be answered when I am sleeping in the dust. May the angels of God conduct you in the paths of immortal pleasure.

I would collect the powers of my soul, and ask blessings for you with all the holy violence of prayer. God Almighty, the God of your pious ancestors, who has been your dwelling-place for many generations, bless you.-It is but a short space I have to measure-my shadows are length

ening, and my sun declining; that goodness which has hitherto conducted me, will not fail me in the last concluding act of life: that name which I have made my glory and my boast, shall then be my strength and my salvation.

To meet death with a becoming fortitude, is a part above the powers of nature, and which I can perform by no power or holiness of my own; for oh! in my best estate, I am altogether vanity— a wretched helpless sinner; but in the merits and perfect righteousness of God my Saviour, I hope to appear justified at the supreme tribunal, where I must shortly stand to be judged.

[N. B. This letter was not to be sent to her mother till she was dead.]

LETTER LXV.

FROM MISS TALBOT TO A NEW-BORN CHILD, Daughter of Mr. John Talbot, Son of the Lord Chancellor. You are heartily welcome, my dear little cousin, into this unquiet world; long may you continue in it, in all the happiness it can give, and bestow enough on all your friends to answer fully the impatience with which you have been expected. May you grow up to have every accomplishment that your good friend, the Bishop of Derry, can already imagine in you; and in the mean time may you have a nurse with a tuneable voice, that may not talk an immoderate deal of nonsense to

you. You are at present, my dear, in a very philosophical disposition; the gaieties and follies of life have no attraction for you, its sorrows you kindly commiserate! but however, do not suffer them to disturb your slumbers, and find charms in nothing but harmony and repose. You have as yet contracted no partialities, are entirely ignorant of party distinctions, and look with a perfect indifference on all human splendour. You have an absolute dislike to the vanities of dress; and are likely for many months to observe the bishop of Bristol's* first rule of conversation, Silence; though tempted to transgress it by the novelty and strangeness of all objects round you. As you advance further in life, this philosophical temper will by degrees wear off; the first object of your admiration will probably be the candle, and thence (as we all of us do) you will contract a taste for the gaudy and the glaring, without making one moral reflection upon the danger of such false admiration, as leads people many a time to burn their fingers. You will then begin to show great partiality for some very good aunts, who will contribute all they can towards spoiling you; but you will be equally fond of an excellent mamma, who will teach you, by her example, all sorts of good qualities; only let me warn you of one thing, my dear, and that is, not to learn of her to have such an immoderate love of home, as is quite contrary to all the privileges of this polite age, and to give up so entirely all those pretty graces of whim, flutter, and affectation, which so many charitable poets have de

*Secker is decent." Pope.