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May the heroic spirit of this enterprise be as much for her happiness as it is to her honour!— Adien.

LETTER XLII.

ANNA SEWARD TO THE EDITOR OF THE GENERAL EVENING POST.

Oct. 11, 1789.

SIR, THERE is a little misinformation in your account of the late Mr. Day of Anningsly. His estate, after paying his mother's jointure, which he had generously augmented, was twelve hundred per annum. He married the ingenious and amiable miss Mills of Yorkshire, whose fortune was twenty-three thousand pounds.

In his death, the indigent of his neighbourhood have an unspeakable loss-but let him be spoken of as he was, for truth is better than indiscriminate eulogium.

Mr. Day, with very first-rate abilities, was a splenetic, capricious, yet bountiful misanthropist. He bestowed nearly the whole of his ample fortune in relieving the necessities of the poor; frequently, however, declaring his conviction, that there were few in the large number he fed, who would not cut his throat the next hour, if their interest could prompt the act, and their lives be safe in its commission. He took pride in avowing his abhorrence of the luxuries, and disdain of even the decencies of life; and in his person, he was generally slovenly, even to squalidness. On being asked by one of

his friends, why he chose the lonely and unpleasant situation in which he lived? he replied, that the sole reason of that choice was, its being out of the stink of human society.

It had been said, and I believe with truth, that he put a total stop to all correspondence between Mrs. Day and her large and respectable family connexions in Yorkshire, who had never ceased to regret so undeserved an instance of morose deprivation. She not only sacrificed her friends to gratify her husband's unsocial spleen, but all the comforts of that affluence to which she had been accustomed. Before this lady married our gloomy philosopher, her generosity had been eminently distinguished in the large social circle in which she moved. Society is the proper sphere of action for the benevolent virtues. It is the duty of those who possess such virtues to exert them there, that the influence of excellent example may not be lost upon mankind, through the inevitable disgust it must receive from voluntary seclusion and avowed contempt. I am, sir, &c.

LETTER XLIII.

ANNA SEWARD TO THOMAS CHRISTIE, Esq.

July 1, 1790.

YES, my kind friend, Heaven has at length deprived me of that dear parent to whom I was ever most tenderly attached, and whose infirmities, exciting my hourly pity, increased the pangs of final sepa,

ration. It was in vain that my reason reproached the selfishness of my sorrow.

I cannot receive, as my due, the praise you so lavish upon my filial attentions. Too passionate was my affection to have had any merit in devoting myself to its duties. All was irresistible impulse. I made no sacrifices, for pleasure lost its nature and its name, when I was absent from him. I studied his ease and comfort, because I delighted to see him cheerful; and, when every energy of spirit was sunk in languor, to see him tranquil. It was my assiduous endeavour to guard him from every pain and every danger, because his sufferings gave me misery, and the thoughts of losing him anguish.

And thus did strong affection leave nothing to be performed by the sense of duty. I hope it would have produced the same attentions on my part; but I am not entitled to say that it would, or to accept of commendation for tenderness so involuntary.

It gives me pleasure that your prospects are so bright. A liberal and extended commerce may be as favourable to the expansion of superior abilities as any other profession; and it is certainly a much more cheerful employment than that of medicine. The humane physician must have his quiet perpetually invaded by the sorrows of those who look anxiously up to him for relief, which no human art can, perhaps, administer.

I have uniformly beheld, with reverence and delight, the efforts of France to throw off the iron yoke of her slavery; not the less oppressive for having been bound with ribbands and lilies. Ill

betide the degenerate English heart that does not wish her prosperity.

You ask me after Mrs. Cowley. I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance-but am familiar with her ingenious writings. This age has produced few better comedies than hers.

You are very good to wish to see me in London: but I have no near view of going thither. You will be sorry to hear that I have lost my health, and am oppressed with symptoms of an hereditary and dangerous disease.

Lichfield has been my home since I was seven years old-this house since I was thirteen; for I am still in the palace, and do not think of moving at present. It is certainly much too large for my wants, and for my income; yet is my attachment so strong to the scene, that I am tempted to try, if I recover, what strict economy, in other respects, will do towards enabling me to remain in a mansion, endeared to me as the tablet on which the pleasures of my youth are impressed, and the image of those that are everlastingly absent. Adieu. Yours.

LETTER XLIV.

ANNA SEWARD TO THE REV. RICHARD SYKES.

Lichfield, October 1, 1793. A LETTER SO ingenious, so interesting, so animated, and from a friend long valued, could not but be welcome to me such letters cannot arrive too often, on the indulgent terms you propose; but I

am, from the accumulation of my epistolary connexions, ruined for a correspondent, since it is impossible for me to write to any individual more than once in four or five months-and what is such seldomness worth as intercourse? already is my health perceivably impaired by this employment: yet I write scarce any thing but letters, and I am reluctantly obliged to decline very flattering proposals of correspondence from new acquaintance, even of the most alluring talents, and the most engaging virtues.

Those advantages which you too generously impute to me, and term them obligations, are perhaps chiefly ideal; yet, having always believed the warm, the natural illusions of the youthful heart its best preservation against the destructive taint of indiscriminate and dispassionate sensuality-if indeed your partial opinion of me gave that more refined bias to your thoughts, your manners, and your character,-I will venture to indulge the agreeable idea, that those hours, which, in your "ambiguous years," we passed together, were to you rather of auspicious, than of baneful influence.

I esteem you for acknowledging, that the poignance of your feelings, and your poetic taste, have been sources of delight. It has ever appeared to me false and unthankful retrospect, that remembers only the pains with which nature taxes our highwrought pleasures; that represents sensibility as an evil, and envies the sullen rest of stoicism. "Far be from me, and from my friends, such frigid philosophy!"

"With an alter'd brow,

Lours the false world, and the fine spirit grieves,

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