THE HAND OF THE LORD UPON HIM.

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ing any weariness at all, yet conscious of bearing about the hand of the Lord upon me, at which I must neither murmur nor rebel... Oh, that I might leave a blessing in this

hospitable and peaceful house!

"Your faithful husband,

"EDWD. IRVING."

The next letter is from Blymhill, by Shiffnel, where he describes himself to have arrived, "bearing the hand of the Lord upon me, yet careful enough and contented enough," and where his friends find him a horse on which to pursue his way. On the 6th of September, still lingering at this place, "visiting the brethren," which he speaks of as "strengthening and fitting me for the journey," he tells his Isabella that "the Lord deals very tenderly with me, and I think I grow in health. and strength. What I could not get in London or Birmingham," he adds, with quaint homeliness, “I found lying for me here the gift of Mr. Cowper, of Bridgenorth, a sort of trotcosie of silk oilcloth, which will take in both hat, and shoulders, and cheeks, and neck, and breast. I saw the hand of Providence in this." Here he is troubled by his own inadvertence in having dated a check, which he gave in payment for his horse, "London-little thinking that this was a trick to save a stamp. I am very sorry for this, but I did it in pure ignorance." Next day he is at Bridgenorth, in trouble about his little boy, who is ailing, and on whose behalf he directs his wife to appeal to the elders for such a visitation as had been, according to his belief, so effectual in her own case. "Ask them to come in after the evening service, when I shall separate myself to the Lord with them," says the absent

father, whose heart is with his children, and who, after many anxious counsels about the little four-year-old boy, sends a message to tell him that "the horse is brown, with black legs." Next day he resumes: "I did separate myself, according to my promise, and was much distressed by the heavy and incessant judgments of the Lord, and afterwards I had faith to plead the promise that the prayer of faith should heal the sick." "This Bridgenorth is one of the most beautifully-situated towns I ever saw," he continues, and proceeds to describe the route which he meant to adopt, to his wife; after recording the expenses to which his horse and saddle had put him, he adds: "but no matter-I feel that I am serving the Lord daily, and I think He daily giveth me more strength to serve Him." On the 10th of September he is again at Blymhill, where he lingers to receive the visits of some brethren in the neighbourhood, and to prove his horse," which goes well." The friends who detain him in this quarter seem to be the clergymen of the place. "I am greatly pleased and comforted," he says, "by all that I [hear] about Henry Dalton's two flocks, and have no doubt that the pleasure of the Lord is prospering in his hands; nor am I less pleased here with Mr. Brydgeman, whose labours for the Lord are very abundant." From Blymhill he also writes to Mr. Hamilton, committing into his hands the management of his business affairs with his former publishers; a commission which he introduces by the following affecting preface:—

"MY DEAR BROTHER HAMILTON,-Although we have parted company in the way for a season, being well assured of the sincerity and honesty of your mind, and praying always that

HIS ANCIENT COUNSELLOR.

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you may be kept from the formality of the world in divine things, I do fondly hope that we shall meet together in the end, and go hand in hand, as we have done in the service of God. And this not for you only, but for your excellent wife, whose debtor I am many ways. On this account, I have always continued to take your counsel and help in all my worldly matters, as in former times, though God, in His goodness, hath given me so many deacons and under-deacons worthy of all confidence. But I cannot forget, and never will, the assiduous kindness with which you have, ever since I knew you, helped me with your sound judgment and discretion in all temporal things; and sure am I that I should be glad as ever to give you my help in spiritual things as heretofore. I could not, without these expressions of my hearty, faithful attachment to you, and of my grateful obligations for all your past kindness, introduce the business upon which I am now to seek your help.”

All the literary business in which Irving was now concerned seems to have been the settlement of his accounts with his publishers. Some balances appear to have been owing him. But I have been told, I cannot say with what truth, that he derived little pecuniary advantage at any time, even from his most popular publications.

A few days later, he writes the following descriptive letter to his children :

"Ironbridge, Shropshire, 16th September, 1834. "MY DEAR CHILDREN, MARGARET AND MARTIN, -This place from which I write you is named Ironbridge, because there is a great bridge of iron, which, with one arch, spans across the river Severn, and there is another, about two miles farther up the river, where there are the ruins of an ancient abbey, in which men and women that feared God used, in old times, to live and worship Him. The walls of the ruin are all grown over with ivy. Your father stopped his horse to look at them; and six miles farther back there was an old grey ruined wall in a field, which a smith by the road side told me was the

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LETTER TO HIS CHILDREN.

ruins of an ancient Roman city, named Uniconium, which once stood there. . . . . . . Your father has ridden from Shrewsbury this morning, where he parted with his dear friend, the Honourable and Reverend Henry Brydgeman, who is a very godly man, and has been wonderfully kind to your father. He has six sons and only one daughter, all little children, the eldest not so big as Margaret; and I am writing to Bridgenorth to another dear friend, the Rev. Henry Dalton, who has no children yet. You must pray for both these ministers, and thank God for putting it into their head to be so good to your father.

"Now, concerning the house and the oak-tree in which the King was hidden and saved. There have been eight Kings since his time and one Queen-Queen Anne, whose statue is before St. Paul's Church, in London. This King's name was Charles, and his father's name was Charles, and therefore they called him Charles the Second. The people rose up against his father, and warred against him till they took him, and then they cut off his head at Whitehall, in London; and his poor son they pursued, to take him and kill him also, and he was forced to flee away and hide himself, as King David did hide himself. The house is only three miles from Mr. Brydgeman's, so we mounted our horses and away we rode -Mr. Brydgeman in the middle-till we came to a gate which led us into a park, and soon we came to another gate, which opened and let us into the stable yard, and there we dismounted from our horses. The master of the house and his family were gone, and there were none but a nice, tidy, kind woman, who took us through the kitchen into an ancient parlour all done round the walls with carved oak, just as it was when the King hid himself in the house. And there was a picture of the King. Then we went upstairs into an ancient bedroom, whose floor was sore worn with age, and by the side of this bedroom was a door leading into a little, little room, and the floor of that room lifted up in the middle, and underneath was a narrow dark dungeon or hiding-place, in which the King of all this island was glad to hide himself, in order to escape from his persecutors; this narrow place opened below by narrow stairs into the garden, where is a door in the wall hidden behind ivy. Then we went up another stair to

the garret, and at the top of it there was another board in the floor, that lifted up, and went down by a small ladder into another hiding-place. But all these hiding-places were not enough to hide the King from his persecutors, -armed soldiers on horseback, who entered the house to search it. Then the King fled out by the door behind the ivy in the garden, and leapt over the garden wall into a field, and climbed up an oak-tree, and hid himself among its thick branches. Papa saw this tree. It is done round with a rail, to distinguish it from the rest and to keep it sacred. . . . . Then the soldiers, not finding him in the house, galloped about into the wood, and passed under the very tree; but God saved the King, and they found him not. . . . There are many lessons to be learned from this, which your dear mother will teach you, for I am tired, and my horse is getting ready. So God bless you, and your little sister, and your dear mother, and all the house. Farewell!

"Your loving father,
"EDWD. IRVING.”

After this, his correspondence is exclusively addressed to his wife, and continues, from point to point along his journey, an almost daily chronicle:

"Shobdon (half way between Ludlow and Kington), Thursday, 18th September, 1834.

"MY DEAREST WIFE,-In this beautiful village, embowered with trees and clothed with ivy and roses, in the little inn— where are assembled the last remains of a wake, which has holden since Sunday-from a little bar-room or parlour within the ample kitchen, where they are playing their drunken tricks with one another-I sit down to write you. I know not wherefore I went to Shrewsbury*, but wherefore I returned to Bridgenorth I discern was for seeing Mejanel, and opening to

He had, however, in a former letter, described to his wife the impulse he felt to seek out a young surgeon, whom he believed to be in Shrewsbury, who was in danger of falling from the faith, but who, he found on going there, had left the place.