LETTER S. LETTER I. TO MISS L YES! I will steal from the world, and not a babbling tongue fhall tell where I am-Echo fhall not fo much as whifper my hiding-place-fuffer thy imagination to paint it as a little fungilt cottage, on the fide of a romantic hill-doft thou think I will leave love and friendship behind me? No! they fhall be my companions in folitude, for they will fit down and rife up with me in the amiable form of my L.-We will be This and the three fubfequent Letters were written by Mr. Sterne to his wife, while fhe 'refided in Staffordshire, before their marriage. as merry and as innocent as our firft parents in Paradife, before the arch fiend entered that undefcribable fcene. The kindeft affections will have room to fhoot and expand in our retirement, and produce fuch fruit as madness, and envy, and ambition have always killed in the bud. Let the human tempeft and hurricane rage at a distance, the defolation is beyond the horizon of peace. -My L. has feen a Polyanthus blow in December-fome friendly wall has fheltered it from the biting wind.-No planetary influence fhall reach us, but that which prefides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. God preferve us! how delightful this profpect in idea! We will build, and we will plant, in our own way fimplicity shall not be tortured by artwe will learn of nature how to live-she fhall be our alchymift, to mingle all the good of life into one falubrious draught. -The gloomy family of care and diftruft fhall be banished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity— we will fing our choral fongs of gra |