desty will not permit me to specify, except one, which, modest as I am, I cannot suppress-a very handsome Letter from Dr. Franklin at Passy These fruits it has brought me.

I have been refreshing myself with a walk in the garden, where I find that January (who according to Chaucer was the husband of May) being dead, February has married the widow.

Yours, &c.

W. C.

LETTER XVIII.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

Olney, Feb. 20, 1783.

Suspecting that I should not

have hinted at Dr. Franklin's encomium under any other influence than that of vanity, I was several times on the point of burning my Letter for that very reason. But not having time to write another by the same post, and believing that you would have the grace to pardon a little self-complacency in an au

thor on so trying an occasion, I let it pass. One sin naturally leads to another, and a greater, and thus it happens now, for I have no way to gratify your curiosity, but by transcribing the Letter in question. It is addressed, by the way, not to me, but to an acquaintance of mine, who had transmitted the volume to him without my knowledge.

66 SIR,

Passy, May 8, 1782.

I received the Letter you did

me the honour of writing to me, and am much obliged

by your kind present of a book, of poetry had long since left me,

The relish for reading

but there is something

so new in the manner, so easy, and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression, yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgements, and to present my respects to the author.

Your most obedient humble Servant,

B. FRANKLIN."

LETTER XIX.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Great revolutions happen

in this Ant's nest of ours. One Emmet of illustrious character, and great abilities, pushes out another; parties are formed, they range themselves in formidable opposition, they threaten each other's ruin, they cross over and are mingled together, and like the coruscations of the Northern Aurora amuse the spectator, at the same time that by some they are supposed to be forerunners of a general dissolution.

There are political earthquakes as well as natural ones, the former less shocking to the eye, but not always less fatal in their influence than the latter. The image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream was made up of heterogeneous and incompatible materials, and accordingly broken. Whatever is so formed must expect a like catastrophe.

I have an etching of the late Chancellor hanging over the parlour chimney. I often contemplate it, and call to mind the day when I was intimate with the original. It is very like him, but he is disguised by

his hat, which, though fashionable, is aukward; by his great wig, the tie of which is hardly discernable in profile, and by his band and gown, which give him an appearance clumsily sacerdotal. Our friendship is

dead and buried, yours is the only surviving one of all with which I was once honoured.

When one has a Letter to write, there is nothing more useful than to make a beginning. In the first place, because unless it be begun, there is no good reason to hope it will ever be ended; and secondly, because the beginning is half the business, it being much more difficult to put the pen in motion at first, than to continue the progress of it, when once moved.

Mrs. C's illness, likely to prove mortal, and seizing her at such a time, has excited much com passion in my breast, and in Mrs. Unwin's, both for her and her daughter. To have parted with a child she loves so much, intending soon to follow her; to find herself arrested before she could set out, and at so great a distance from her most valued relations, her daughter's life too threatened by a disorder not often curable, are circumstances truly affecting. She has indeed much natural fortitude, and to make her condition still more tolerable, a good Christian hope for her support. But so it is, that the distresses of those who least need our pity, excite it most; the amiableness of the character engages our sympathy, and we mourn for persons for whom perhaps we might more reasonably rejoice. There is still however a possibility that she may recover; an event we must wish for, though for her to depart would be far better. Thus we would always with-hold from the skies those who alone can reach them, at least till we are ready to bear them company.

Present our love, if you please, to Miss C——— I saw in the Gentleman's Magazine for last month, an account of a physician, who has discovered a new method of treating consumptive cases, which has suc