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lent nature and understanding. I own I am very anxious for him on this account, and perhaps your inquietude may have proceeded from the same cause. I hope I am to hear when he has passed that cursed sea, or will he forget me thus in insulam relegatum? If he should it is out of my power to retaliate. Surely you have written to him, my dear Bonstetten, or surely you will! he has moved me with these gentle and sensible expressions of his kindness for you; are you untouched by them?

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You do me the credit, and false or true it goes to my heart, of ascribing to me your love for many virtues of the highest rank. Would to heaven it were so! but they are indeed the fruits of your own noble and generous understanding, which has hitherto struggled against the stream of custom, passion, and ill company, even when you were but a child; and will you now give way to that stream when your strength is increased? Shall the jargon of French sophists, the allurements of painted women comme il faut, or the vulgar caresses of prostitute beauty, the property of all who can afford to purchase it, induce you to give up a mind and body by nature distinguished from all others, to folly, idleness, disease, and vain remorse? Have a care, my ever amiable friend, of loving what you do not approve. Know me for your most faithful and most humble despot.

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LETTER III.

May 9, 1770.

I AM returned, my dear Bonstetten, from the little journey I made into Suffolk, without answering the end proposed. The thought that you might have been with me there has embittered all my hours your letter has made me happy, as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a being as I am, is capable of being made. I know, and have too often felt, the disadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little interest I have in you, by this air of sadness, so contrary to your nature and present enjoyments: but sure you will forgive, though you cannot sympathize with me.. It is impossible for me to dissemble with you; such as I am I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes. All that you say to me, especially on the subject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleasing ever to be ful-' filled, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London, I stop at these words: "La mort qui peut glacer nos bras avant qu'ils soient entrelacées."

POEMS.

MULTUM ET VERE GLORIÆ, QUAMVIS UNO LIBRO, MERUIT.

QUINCTILIAN.

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