and the step wonderfully improved. But the night has been almost a sleepless one, owing partly, I believe, to her having had as much sleep again as usual the night before; for even when she is in tolerable health she hardly ever sleeps well two nights together. I found her accordingly a little out of spirits this morning, but still insisting on it that she is better. Indeed she always tells me so, and will probably die with those very words upon her lips. They will be true then at least, for then she will be best of all. She is now (the clock has just struck eleven) endeavouring, I believe, to get a little sleep, for which reason I do not yet let her know that I have received your letter. Can I ever honour you enough for your zeal to serve me? Truly I think not: I am, however, so sensible of the love I owe you on this account, that I every day regret the acuteness of your feelings for me, convinced that they expose you to much trouble, mortification, and disappointment. I have, in short, a poor opinion of my destiny, as I told you when you were here; and though I believe that if any man living can do me good you will, I cannot yet persuade myself that even you will be successful in attempting it. But it is no matter; you are yourself a good which I can never value enough, and whether rich or poor in other respects, I shall always account myself better provided for than I deserve, with such a friend at my back as you. Let it please God to continue to me my William and Mary, and I will be more reasonable than to grumble. I rose this morning wrapt round with a cloud of melancholy, and with a heart full of fears, but if I see Mary's amendment a little advanced when she rises, I shall be better. I have just been with her again. Except that she is fatigued for want of sleep, she seems as well as yesterday. The post brings me a letter from Hurdis, who is broken-hearted for a dying sister. Had we eyes sharp enough, we should see the arrows of Death flying in all directions, and account it a wonder that we and our friends escape them but a single day. CCCXCIII.-To WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. W. C. Weston, June 7, 1792. Of what materials can you suppose me made if, after all the rapid proofs that you have given me of your friendship, I do not love you with all my heart, and regret your absence continually? But you must permit me to be melancholy now and then; or if you will not, I must be so without your permission; for that sable thread is so intermixed with the very thread of my existence, as to be inseparable from it, at least while I exist in the body. Be content, therefore; let me sigh and groan, but always be sure that I love you! You will be well assured that I should not have indulged myself in this rhapsody about myself and my melancholy, had my present mood been of that complexion, or had not our poor Mary seemed still to advance in her recovery. So in fact she does, and has performed several little feats to day; such as either she could not perform at all, or very feebly while you were with us. I shall be glad if you have seen Johnny as I call him, my Norfolk Cousin; he is a sweet lad, but as shy as a bird. It costs him always two or three days to open his mouth before a stranger; but when he does, he is sure to please by the innocent cheerfulness of his conversation. His sister too is one of my idols, for the resemblance she bears to my mother. Mary and you have all my thoughts; and how should it be otherwise? She looks well, is better, and loves you dearly. Adieu! my dear Brother, W. C. CCCXCIV.-To WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. Weston, June 10, 1792. I do indeed anxiously wish that every thing you do may prosper; and should I at last prosper by your means, shall taste double sweetness in prosperity for that reason. I rose this morning, as I usually do, with a mind all in sables. In this mood I presented myself to Mary's bedside, whom I found, though after many hours lying awake, yet cheerful, and not to be affected by my desponding humour. It is a great blessing to us both, that, poor feeble thing as she is, she has a most invincible courage, and a trust in God's goodness that nothing shakes. She is now in the study, and is certainly in some degree better than she was yesterday, but how to measure that little I know not, except by saying that it is just perceptible. I am glad that you have seen my Johnny of Norfolk, because I know it will be a comfort to you to have seen your successor. He arrived, to my great joy, yesterday; and not having bound himself to any particular time of going will, I hope, stay long with us. You are now once more snug in your retreat, and I give you joy of your return to it, after the bustle in which you have lived since you left Weston. Weston mourns your absence, and will mourn it till she sees you again. What is become of Milton I know not; I do nothing but scribble to you, and seem to have no relish for any other employment. I have, however, in pursuit of your idea, to compliment Darwin, put a few stanzas together, which I shall subjoin; you will easily give them all that you find they want, and match the song with another. I am now going to walk with Johnny, much cheered since I began writing to you, and by Mary's looks and good spirits. W. C. TO DR. DARWIN, Author of The Botanic Garden. Two poets (poets by report Sweet harmonist of Flora's court! They best can judge a poet's worth By labours of their own. We, therefore, pleased, extol thy song, No envy mingles with our praise; They would, they must, at thine. And deem the bard, whoe'er he be, And howsoever known, Who would not twine a wreath for thee, CCCXCV.—To LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST Coz, Weston, June 11, 1792. Thou art ever in my thoughts, whether I am writing to thee or not, and my correspondence seems to grow upon me at such a rate that I am not able to address thee so often as I would. In fact, I live only to write letters. Hayley is as you see added to the number, and to him I write almost as duly as I rise in the morning; nor is he only added, but his friend Carwardine also-Carwardine the generous, the disinterested, the friendly. I seem in short to have stumbled suddenly on a race of heroes, men who resolve to have no interests of their own till mine are served. But I will proceed to other matters, and that concern me more intimately, and more immediately, than all that can be done for me either by the great or the small, or by both united. Since I wrote last Mrs. Unwin has been continually improving in strength, but at so gradual a rate, that I can only mark it by saying that she moves about every day with less support than the former. Her recovery is most of all retarded by want of sleep. On the whole, I believe, she goes on as well as could be expected, though not quite well enough to satisfy me. And Dr. Austin, speaking from the reports I have made of her, says he has no doubt of her restoration. During the two last months I seem to myself to have been in a dream. It has been a most eventful period, and fruitful to an un common degree, both in good and evil. I have been very ill, and suffered excruciating pain. I recovered, and became quite well again. I received within my doors a man, but lately an entire stranger, and who now loves me as his brother, and forgets himself to serve me. Mrs. Unwin has been seized with an illness, that for many days threatened to deprive me of her, and to cast a gloom, an impenetrable one, on all my future prospects. She is now granted to me again. A few days since I should have thought the moon might have descended into my purse as likely as any emolument, and now it seems not impossible. All this has come to pass with such rapidity as events move with in romance indeed, but not often in real life. Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases. To the foregoing I have to add in conclusion the arrival of my Johnny, just when I wanted him most, and when only a few days before I had no expectation of him. He came to dinner on Saturday, and I hope I shall keep him long. What comes next I know not, but shall endeavour, as you exhort me, to look for good, and I know I shall have your prayers that I may not be disappointed. Hayley tells me you begin to be jealous of him, lest I should love him more than I love you, and bids me say, "that should I do so, you in revenge must love him more than I do."-Him I know you will love, and me because you have such a habit of it, that you cannot help it. Adieu! My knuckles ache with letter-writing. With my poor patient's affectionate remembrances, and Johnny's, I am ever thine, CCCXCVI.-To WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. W. C. Weston, June 19, 1792. * Thus have I filled a whole page to my dear William of Eartham, and have not said a syllable yet about my Mary. A sure sign that she goes on well. Be it known to you, that we have these four days discarded our sedan with two elbows. Here is no more carrying, or being carried, but she walks up stairs boldly, with one hand upon the balustrade, and the other under my arm, and in like manner she comes down in a morning. Still I confess she is feeble, and misses much of her former strength. The weather too is sadly against her: it deprives her of many a good turn in the orchard, and fifty times have I wished this very day, that Dr. Darwin's scheme of giving rudders and sails to the Ice-islands, that spoil all our summers, were actually put into practice. So should we have gentle airs instead of churlish blasts; and those everlasting sources of bad weather being once navigated into the Southern hemisphere, my Mary would recover as fast again. We are both of 2H2 your mind respecting the journey to Eartham, and think that July, if by that time she have strength for the journey, will be better than August. We shall have more long days before us, and them we shall want as much for our return as for our going forth. This, however, must be left to the Giver of all good. If our visit to you be according to his will, he will smooth our way before us, and appoint the time of it; and thus I speak, not because I wish to seem a saint in your eyes, but because my poor Mary actually is one, and would not set her foot over the threshold, unless she had, or thought she had God's free permission. With that she would go through floods and fire, though without it she would be afraid of every thing-afraid even to visit you, dearly as she loves and much as she longs to see you. W. C. CCCXCVII.-To WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. Weston, June 27, 1792. Well then let us talk about this journey to Eartham. You wish me to settle the time of it, and I wish with all my heart to be able to do so, living in hopes meanwhile that I shall be able to do it soon. But some little time must necessarily intervene. Our Mary must be able to walk alone, to cut her own food, feed herself, and to wear her own shoes, for at present she wears mine. All things considered, my friend and brother, you will see the expediency of waiting a little before we set off to Eartham. We mean, indeed, before that day arrives to make a trial of the strength of her head, how far it may be able to bear the motion of a carriage, a motion that it has not felt these seven years. I grieve that we are thus circumstanced, and that we cannot gratify ourselves in a delightful and innocent project without all these precautions, but when we have leaf-gold to handle, we must do it tenderly. I thank you, my brother, both for presenting my authorship to your friend Guy, and for the excellent verses with which you have inscribed your present. There are none neater or better turnedwith what shall I requite you? I have nothing to send you but a gimcrack, which I have prepared for my bride and bridegroom neighbours, who are expected to-morrow. You saw in my book a poem intituled Catharina, which concluded with a wish that we had her for a neighbour; this therefore is called CATHARINA, THE SECOND PART. On her Marriage to George Courtenay, Esq. Believe it or not, as you choose, The doctrine is certainly true, That the future is known to the muse, |