"Poets, the first instructors of mankind, Adieu! and believe me, &c. LETTER XXXI. MRS Buxton, July 17, 1804. I AM shocked that your darling child, my little god-daughter, should have been exposed, on the 7th instant, to a tempest of so much violence, and that on the dreary and unsheltered vastness of the East-Moor. The buildings here had a narrow escape that day; since instantaneously, with one cannon-like explosion, a ball of fire, the size of a melon, passed over the old hall, and scathed a tree in the opposite garden, at about fifty yards distance. It fell before the company at the hotels had risen from dinner, which I had been constrained from attending by the commencing thunder. It was fortunate for my credit that it warned me to hide my fears in solitude, for I am utterly unable to suppress the violent nervous agitation into which I am thrown by the flashing and the noise. That I had hoped that the extinction, which has gloomed my remaining life, would have rendered me superior to affright, under every circumstance which may seem to threaten its duration. such a quiescent effect has not ensued to me beneath electric storms, proves that my trepidation from their influence is merely corporal, and out of the control of my mind. I hope little Annie caught no cold from the rain; received no impression of dismay so deep as to fix her a trembling coward through life, under every return of an exploding atmosphere Your letter is doubtless at Lichfield awaiting my return, since it has not followed me hither. Concerning" those long lists of accusation, those contemptuous expressions," which you say are contained in that to which it replies, I have no con sciousness. The very frivolous excuses which you made for having kept an old friend's book unread in your possession during several months, struck me with an indelible impression of incompatibility with affectionate regard for the writer, and with any respect for her talents. I am an ingenuous creature; as I feel I speak, or I write; except to people whose slights are, either from their mental incapacity, or literary jealousy, beneath my notice. It is then, too, that I can scorn "the weakness of complaint," and avoid the "bitterness of reproach;" but where I have esteemed and loved, I cannot dress my language, either oral or scriptural, in cold civility, or feigned kindness. If I had thought, as you do, that the suppression of resentment was an owed delicacy and duty of friendship, I must have retreated from our intimacy in gradual and cold alienation. I am sorry that illness prevented your coming to Buxton. Yours is a life of great value, and it is one of your first, perhaps your very first duty, to attend to yourself in all things which respect your health. We remove from hence to Matlock to-morrow seven-night, and purpose staying there a week. If you can, without the least hazard, come over to either place, while I am a sojourner there, I hope you will; and I thank you and Dr S. for your kind invitation to myself and Susan; but we are four of us, for my man and maid are with me; all your sons being at home, must make so large an addition to your already large family, very in convenient. It is not your kindly struggling to suppress the testimonies of that inconvenience which can prevent my sense of its inevitable existence. Therefore, and only therefore, is it that I cannot think of being your guest this sum mer. Next week was, in the last fatal year, the final week of my dear lost friend's existence. Its Thursday, the dreadful anniversary when vanishes for ever the sole remaining, though but ideal, consolation of my deprived existence. O! it is yet something to be able to say to myself—This day twelvemonth Saville existed, in apparently renovated health, and with the sprightly glow of gratitude to Heaven, and of hope to continue some more years with the friends and children he so tenderly loved. At seven next Thursday evening, this latest comfort leaves me for ever. That dismal day, if I live to see it rise, I shall pass at Matlock, in solitude and woe. Few, in all probability, will be its annual returns to me; but few or more in number, silence and sorrow shall always consecrate its fatal hours. LETTER XXXII. MRS GRANVILLE of Calwich. Matlock, Aug. 1, 1804. My dear Madam,-If you and Mr Granville will be at home from Monday, the 6th of next month, during the ensuing fortnight, I should have great satisfaction in passing a few days with you both. Myself and cousin, Miss Seward, have passed a month at Buxton, and came hither from thence last night. Whether or not we go back into Derbyshire next Monday, to pass a week with Mrs Stokes at Chesterfield, depends upon circumstances, concerning which I expect to obtain intelligence in the course of this week. Ah, dear Madam, since last we met, marriage has temporarily deprived you of your lovely and amiable protegée Miss F. Port, and death has forever, in this world, deprived me of one of the best, kindest, and most disinterested friends that ever bore that too often unmeaning name; the only one remaining with whom I could almost daily recal |