the scanty light, admitted from above, is yet sufficient to shew to advantage the moss, the shells, and fossils, which cover the sides, and the beautiful little marble Naiad, who lies reclined, and bending over the brink, with pendant tresses, and a pensive sweetness in her countenance, that well becomes the magic seclusion of that watery con cave. You who love to lay your head upon beds of ooze and crystal pillows-You who have so much imagination, how would you luxuriate in such a bath, "When the fierce suns of summer noons invade ?" A young Scotch gentleman, of the name of Christie *, lately called upon me, introduced by a recommendatory letter from Mr Nichols, editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. This interesting young stranger is in very intimate correspondence with the celebrated Dr Beattie, from whom he shewed me a letter that breathed high esteem, and paternal affection. Mr Christie's sprightly wit, scientific acquirements, ingenious manners, and literary ardour, exceed any thing I have met of Afterwards the planner and editor of the Analytical Review. He died in London at an early age, early excellence since I first knew Major André, in his eighteenth year, which I guess to be about the age of this literary wanderer. He was on his road into the Peak of Derbyshire, which he purposed to explore with philosophic examination. I tremble for his health, appearing, as he does, to have out-grown his strength; for he is very tall, and thin almost to transparency, "While smooth as Hebe's his unrazor'd lip." You have heard of the success of that worthless time-serving supple flatterer, Mr. These are the people who obtain patrons and preferment; "And they take place when virtue's steely bones, LETTER LXVIII. MISS WESTON. Lichfield, July 19, 1787. AFTER the delight of passing a month with you, dear Sophia, amid your classic and lovely environs, you will be glad that I found my beloved, my aged nursling, as well as when we separated. I must ever feel a trembling gratitude to Heaven, that none of those dire attacks, to which his feeble frame has long been subject, assailed him when I was so distant. You saw how my anxiety to receive intelligence of his safety, from day to day, hurried my spirits, shook my nerves, and interrupted the dear satisfaction of finding myself in such society. Upon so long an absence I never more will venture till the hour of everlasting absence. For an existence so feeble and deprived, it is perhaps a weakness to dread that hour so very passionately; yet, O! we may have more friends than one, but we have only one father. I have had a kind letter from our excellent Mr Whalley. It is dated Bewdley, and I think decrees the palm of victory to Sir Edward Winnington's scenes near that place, from my darling Downton. Were I to see them, they would not, I believe, obtain my suffrage for such a pre-eminence. The smiling, the varied, the grand arrangement of objects, may be found in almost every country which is in any degree mountainous, and where wealth has been lavished to procure picturesque disposition;-but the Juan-Fers nandez seclusion-the coy, yet luxuriant and romantic graces of nature; the total invisibility of art; these charms are perfect at Downton ;—and, in comparison, magnificence, beauty, and even sublimity itself, are almost little in my estimation. Often do I think of your lovely friend, Miss and of those cruel anxieties which prey upon a mind so intelligent, affectionate, and gentle. Colonel Barry of Worcester is in Lichfield. He says few women have had more admirers—that she might have married extremely well more than once in the military line. What pity that she should have reserved her tenderness for a cold half-attached being, who so little feels its value. The once devoted assiduities by which it was won, were born of vanity, not passion, or they had not thus slackened in their course; at one time exerted, and at another withheld, as Richardson makes Belle Harlowe say of Lovelace, a mere ague-like lover. The sickly fever-fit returns only when alarmed pride fears that the just indignation its negligence has excited, may be chilled into indifference in that heart whose artless affection it will never ingenuously meet. Mrs Todd is very good to remember me with such warm partiality. Her unaffected sensibilities and pleasing talents live in my remembrance. Pray remind Mr Bains about inquiring the price of that picture* which hung in his drawingroom, and which he said was to be sold. If it should not be very high, I should like to becom.a the purchaser, though, as a picture, I know it has glaring faults. The gay drapery is totally inconsistent with the story, and harmonizes ill with the character of the countenance-but the head is divine-the expression in all its lovely features exactly answers my idea of that ingenuous child of genius, of which the poet says, "Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his youthful eye." I long to possess this portrait; the sooner the better. The sight of it must be always connected with a train of agreeable ideas; for the imagination will instantly present, through a little glassdoor, on the left,— "The soft umbrageous hill That brows the bottom glade;" And the grassy path-way that winds up its ascent; —and, dearer still, it will shew the friendly countenances of Mr and Mrs Bains, lighted upon with * Beattie's Minstrel. |