of which the disease in my eyes for a time almost deprived me, occasioned an accident the preceding Friday, whose dreaded, but I hope not inevitable, consequences, have, in their apprehension, filled my mind with terrors, which no former evil ever inspired. I hurt my left breast, by slipping against the sharppointed ledge of a wainscot, in stooping to reach an hearth-brush. It was on Friday three-weeks. Frequent pain and uneasiness in that region, unfeit till this disaster happened, create apprehensions which I cannot banish, and which rob every surrounding object of the power to interest or amuse me.

The pain and uneasiness which, with but little intermission, I have since felt, teaching me to fear a deep-seated injury, still farther impair my health, and excite terrors for the consequence, which rob my days of gladness, and my nights of rest. No external mark whatever, either to the eye or touch, has been perceivable from the time I hurt myself to this hour; yet the shooting pains, and sense of occult inflammation, never felt till after that unlucky bruise, terrify me extremely. By surgical advice, I have applied leeches thrice to the part, according to the present practice of the London faculty. Their bite, which is nothing on the tem. ples, is, on the bosom, a very painful, as well as troublesome, operation, and the wounds continue many days sore and inflamed.

If it please God to dispel my apprehensions on this dire theme, it appears to me, that all other disorders must appear as hight evils, even should they threaten vital extinction.

Born with an excellent constitution, I enjoyed twenty-three years of almost unclouded health. It was then that misfortune began to counteract that prime biessing: an incurable fracture of the patella, thenceforth combined with inherent love of sedentary employments, till remitted exercise sapt the foundations of corporeal strength. This time tenyears another fall, straining the side tendons of that injured knee, threatened contraction, a much worse evil than the original fracture. To prevent it, I used the warm-bath at Buxton to a rash excess, staying in it an hour every night doring a whole month. The growing rigidity of the tendons vanished beneath this process-but, from the general weakness and relaxation it caused, originoted that difficulty of respiration, then first perceived, and which has, at inter

vals, annoyed me from that period. Now another accident inspires a dread of the worst malady incident to the human frame. Alas! it has, through life, been the deprecation of my prayers.

MR. SNEY D.

Remind Mr. Adey of the uncommon circumstance of Mr. Sneyd, at the opening of our Vicars-hall, in the year 1757, dancing in the same set with the three women who afterwards succeeded each other as partners of his destiny. Ile bad not then a thought of any one of them..

OPINIONS IN 1794.

"Remember March, the Ides of March remember!"-They will give the dear Whalleys to my wishes, and I trust the will give me you, who are not less be loved. I entreat you to let them find you here. Propitious to my wishes be your reply! Life wastes, time fies, and the genius of Britain droops. Ah! who knows how long we may, any of us, have a home in which to receive each other? The rashness of our rulers, in pursuing this hopeless war, amidst the penury, weakness, treachery, and desertion, of our allies, seems to co-operate with the machinations of sedition, to involve as in miseries, dreadful as those which overwhelmed France; exchanging the solid blessings of her commerce, the splendid irradiations of her literature and arts, the respect and admiration of surrounding nations,

Thro' life's so cultur'd walks, and charm our "And all the gentler morals, such as play way,"

for the devastating conquests of desperate valour; lavish of life, through the extreme of its wretchedness; conquests, ruinous to others, and probably useless to that wretched country which obtains them.

It seems to me, that common sense is equally indignant of the shallow, reasonJess oratory, which is so perpetually shifting its ground, to defend this now totally unmotived war; and of the selfevident falsehoods, asserted by Fox, Sheridan, and Erskine, amidst their triumph on the subject of the acquitted traitors, and their dishonest clamours for a removal of the eminently necessary re straints upon the treasons to our constitution. Serjeant Adair and Mr. Wiiberforce are the only men, one on the habeas corpus act, the other on the war, who appear to have spoken, independent of selfish short-sighted ambition and party connections, the dictates of tree patri

of the times.

D'EƠN, THE IMPOSTOR. This is the period of inconceivable characters, as well as of unexpected and prodigious events. The modern Thalestris is now in this city, Mademoiselle le Chevalier D'Eon, exhibiting, for two shillings admittance, her skill in the art of attack and defence with the single Tapier.

Melancholy reverse of human destiny! what an humiliation for the aide-de-camp of Marshal Broglio! for the ambassador, during five years, from the court of France to that of Russia! For the envoy to our's, and the principal planner and negociator of the peace of 1782! In the German war, she lived five years in camps and tented fields, amidst the pride, the pomp, and circumstance, of high trust and glorious contest. In the American war, she was in five battles, fought against General Elliot, and received six wounds; and all this before her sex was discovered.

I learned from herself, that a destiny so astonishing was not originally the result of voluntary choice. Her parents bred her up as a boy, to avoid losing an estate entailed on the heir-male.

*

She seems to have a noble, independent, as well as intrepid, mind; and the muscular strength and activity of her large frame at sixty-nine, are wonderful. She fences in the French uniform, and then appears an athletic, venerable, graceful, man. In the female garb, as might be expected, she is awkwardly, though not vulgarly, masculine.

In three days she was to have sailed for France, by the order of the late un fortunate monarch, to have resumed her male dress, and to have taken military command as General, when the massacre at the Thuilleries, and imprisonment of the king, lamentably frustrated that design, and probably dropt an eternal curtain over her career of glory.“ Adieu!

adieu!

LANGOLLEN VALE.

I resume my pen, to speak to you of that enchanting un que, in conduct and situation, of which you have heard so much, though, as yet, without distinct description. You will guess that I mean the celebrated ladies of Langollen Vale, their mansion, and their bowers.

By their own invitation, I drank tea

my visit to Dinbren; and, by their kind introduction, partook of a rural dinner given by their friend, Mrs. Ormsby, amid the ruins of Valle-Crucis, an an cient abbey, distant a mile and a half from their villa. Our party was large enough to fill three chaises and two pha

etons.

After dinner, our whole party returned to drink tea and coffee in that retreat, which breathes all the witchery of genius, taste, and sentiment. You remember Mr. Hayley's poetic compliment to the sweet miniature painter, Miers: "His magic pencil, in its narrow space, Pours the full portion of uninjur'd grace."So may it be said of the talents and exertion which converted a cottage, in two acres and a half of turnip ground, to a fairy-palace, amid the bowers of Calypso.

It consists of four small apartments the exquisite cleanliness of the kitchen, its utensils, and its auxiliary offices, vie ing with the finished elegance of the gay, the lightsome little dining-room, as that contrasts the gloomy, yet superior, grace of the library, into which it opens.

This room is fitted up in the Gothic style, the door and large sash windows of that form, and the latter of painted glass," shedding the dim religious light." Candles are seldom admitted into this department. The ingenious friends have invented a kind of prismatic lantern, which occupies the whole elliptic arch of the Gothic door. This lantern is of cup glass, variously coloured, enclosing two lamps with their reflectors. The light it imparts resembles that of a volcano, sanguine and solemn. It is assisted by two glow-worm lamps, that, in little marble reservoirs, stand on the opposite chimney-piece, and these supply the place of the here always chastized day-light, when the dusk of evening sables, or when night wholly involves the thricelovely solitude.

A large Eolian harp is fixed in one of the windows, and, when the weather permits them to be opened, it breathes its deep tones to the gale, swelling and softening as that rises and falls. "Ah me! what hand can touch the strings so fine,

best authors, in proses and verse, which the English, Italian, and French, lan guages boast, contained in neat wire cases: over them the portraits, in miniature, and some in larger ovals, of the favoured friends of these celebrated votaries to that sentiment which exalted the cha racters of Theseus and Perithous, of David and Jonathan.

Between the picture of Lady Bradford and the chimney-piece, hangs a beautiful entablature, presented to the ladies of Langollen Vale, by Madam Sillery, late Madam Genlis. It has convex in niatures of herself and of her pupil, Pamela; between them, pyramidally placed,, garland of flowers, copied from a nosegay, gathered by Lady Eleanor in her bowers, and presented to Madam Sillery, The kitchen-garden is neatness itself, Neither there, nor in the whole precincts, can a single weed be discovered. The fruit-trees are of the rarest and Enest sort, and luxuriant in their pro duce; the garden-house, and its implements, arranged in the exactest order.

66

Nor is the dairy-house, for one cow, the least curiously elegant object of this magic domain. A short steep declivity, shadowed over with tall shrubs, conducts as to the cool and clean repository, The white and shining utensils that cons' tain the milk, and cream, and butter, are pure as snows thrice bolted in the northern blast." In the midst, a little machine, answering the purpose of a churn, enables the ladies to manufacture half a pound of butter for their own breakfast, with an apparatus which finishes the whole process without manual operation.

The wavy and shaded gravel-walk which encircles this Elysium, is enriched with various shrubs and flowers. It is nothing in extent, and every thing in grace and beauty, and in variety of foliage; its gravel smooth as marble. In one part of it we turn upon a small knoll, which overhangs a deep hollow glen. In its tangled bottom, a frothing brook leaps and clamours over the rough stones in its channel. A large spread ing beech canopies the knoll, and a semiluar seat, beneath its boughs, admits four people. A board, nailed to the clin, has this inscription,

"O cara Selva! e Fiumicello amato !"

It has a fine effect to enter the little Gothic library, as I first entered it, at the dusk hour. The prismatic lantern diffused a light gloomily glaring. It was

assisted by the paler flames of the peût lamps on the chimney-piece, while, through the opened windows, we had a darkling view of the lawn on which they look, the concave shrubbery of tall cy press, yews, laurels, and blachs; of the woody amphitheatre on the opposite hiil, that seems to rise immediately behind the shrubbery; and of the grey barren mountain which, then just visible, forms the back ground. The evening-star had. risen above the mountain; the airy harp loudly rung to the breeze, and completed: the magic of the scene.

You will expect that I say somethingof the enchantresses themselves, beneathwhose plastic wand these peculiar graces arose. Lady Eleanor is of middle height, and somewhat beyond the embonpoint, as to plumpness; ber face round and fair, with the glow of luxuriant health. She has not fine features, but they are. agreeable; enthusiasm in her eye, hilarityand benevolence in her smile. Exhaustless is her fund of historic and traditionary knowledge, and of every thing, passing in the present eventful period. She has uncommon strength and fidelity of memory; and her taste for works of imagination, particularly for poetry, is very awakened, and she expresses all she, feels with an ingenuous ardour, at which the cold-spirited beings stare. I am informed that both these ladies read and. speak most of the modern languages. Of the Italian poets, especially of Dante, they are warm adınivers.

Miss Ponsonby, somewhat taller than her friend, is neither slender nor others wise, but very graceful. Easy, elegant, yet pensive, is her address and manner: Her voice, like lovers watch'd, is kind

and low."

A face rather long than round, a complexion clear, but without bloom, with a countenance which, from its soft inelaocholy, has peculiar interest. If her fear, tures are not beautiful, they are very sweet and feminine. Though the pe sive spirit within permits not her lovely dimples to give mirth to her smile, they increase its sweetness, and, consequent ly, her power of engaging the affections. We see, through their veil of shading reserve, that all the talents and accom plishments which enrich the mind of Lady Eleanor, exist, with equal powers, in this her charming friend.

Such are these extraordinary women. who, in the bosom of their deep retire ment, are sought by the first characters

of the age, both as to rank and talents. To preserve that retirement from too frequent invasion, they are obliged to be somewhat coy as to accessibility.

When we consider their intellectual resources, their energy, and industry, we ́are not surprised to hear them asserting, that, though they have not once forsaken their vale, for thirty hours successively, since they entered it seventeen years ago, yet neither the long summer's day, nor winter's night, nor weeks of imprisoning snows, ever inspired one weary sensation, one wish of returning to that world, first abandoned in the bloom of youth, and which they are yet so per fectly qualified to adorn.

Mrs. Pritchard's voice was clear, dis -tinct, and various; but her figure coarse and large, nor could her features, plain even to hardness, at least when I saw them, exhibit the witchery of expression. She was a just and spirited actress; a more perfectly good speaker than her more elegant, more fascinating, contemporary.

Mrs. Siddons has all the pathos of Mrs. Cibber, with a thousand times more variety in its exertion; and she has the justness of Mrs. Pritchard; while only -Garrick's countenance could ever vie with her's in those endless shades of meaning, which almost make her charming voice superfluous; while the fine proportion and majesty of her form, and the beauty of her face, eclipse the remembrance of all her less consummate predecessors.

OPINIONS OF 1795.

O Mr. Whalley, bow perilous are the times! If I am disgusted with ministry, for their insane persistence in a war that has long been unmotived, and ruinous to this country, I am still more indignant at the Catilines of the minority, who are seeking to plunge the nation in all the horrors of anarchy, by their gross misre presentations of a bill, now absolutely

necessary, to prevent the farther spread. ing of the pestilential taint of republican principles amidst the undiscerning vulgar; necessary to save us from the rums and horrors in which France is plunged. I tremble for the event, though our pros pects brighten in the east, and though the danou legions are repaised in Germany,

HERSELF.

I cannot endure to see a creature, so imperfect as myself, invested with attractions and excellencies to which f have no pretence. Perfectly do I feel the ground on which I stand. I know that I have talents, and some good qua lities; that I am ingenuous; that my mind is neither stained nor embittered by envy; that I detest injustice, and ani grateful for every proof of affection. I can believe what I am told about my countenance expressing the feelings of my heart; but I have no charms, wo grace, no elegance of form or deport ment. If, in youth, my complexion was clear, glowing, and animated; if my fea tures were agreeable, though not regular, they have been the victims of time. When tolerably well, the cheerfulness of my temper is unclouded; but, beneath the pressure of disease, I am weakly de jected. I wish to be obliging; yet, if my manners are not rustic, there is about me an hereditary absence, which always did, and always must, prevent their taking the polish of perfect good breeding; and, to balance my tolerable properties, there is frequent indiscretion from an excess of frankness, and from native and yet unconquered impetuosity of temper; and fortitude, alas! I almost wholly want.

CONFESSIONS OF LOVE.

Colonel T had a grave and pen. sive cast of manners when I first knew him, in the flower of our mutual youth. Without doubt there is a marked congeniality in some of the circumstances of your and my destiny. To me as to you, Colonel T appeared interesting in that juvenile period, from a dignified seriousness, an air of refined attachment, not to a present but an absent object. His brother officers confirmed the idea which that shaded address, if I may so express inyseif, had excited, and named the late Lady Middleton, then Aliss Georgiana Chadwick, as the lovely source of its pensiveness.

* Addressed to the wife of Colonel Tand herself, an ingenious and most intere esting woman. I inade

The regiment then removing, we separated with tender, but not visibly impassioned regret. Two years after, in the winter, 1764, we met accidentally in London, renewed our friendship, which soon became mutual, and acknowledged love; hut in him so apparently reasonable and serene, as not ence to inspire an idea that, if authority should break our engagement, his passion would prove anextinguishable. My father, on discovering, disapproved and dissolved it. I believed that so placid a lover would not suffer severely from the disappointment, nor once imagined that his attach ment would be proof against time. This conviction extinguished that part of my own regard, which was more tender than esteem, and left my heart vacant to receive another impression more instant and enthusiastic than I had ever previously experienced. Its vivacity induced me to think that I had till then mistaken friendship for love. This happened the ensuing year, 1765. The inspirer was the present general, then Cornet V, a native of Lichfield, but absent six years to receive a military education in France and at Dublin, where he was page to the lord-lieutenant. At that period he returned, with the united graces of early youth, the dignity of manhood, and with politeness which had the Arst polish. He was tall, and, in my eyes, extremely lovely. If my susceptibility of these attractions was culpable fickleness to Mr. T, Mr. V's inconstancy to me avenged it at full.

I felt, during a short time, tortured and wrenched in the extreme; but I had pride, high spirits, intellectual resources, and fancied myself not born to be the victim of contemned affection. I resolved, however, not again to hope that I could be the object of lasting passion, I had proposals of inarriage from several, whom my father wished me to approve; but such sort of overtures, not preceded by assiduous tenderness, and which expected to reap the harvest of love without having nursed its germs, suited not my native enthusiasın, nor were calcu lated to inspire it. I had known what it was to love, to all the excess of the sentiment; and the sweetness and vivacity of the impression, though obliterated by ingratitude, was not forgotten. My liberty seemed a thousand times preferable to the dispiriting fetters of an unimpassioned connexion.

The changed V, soon after deserting me, joined his regiment in Ireland, and staid there two years. On his retorn, he attached himself to one of my most intimate friends; a graceful but not beautilul young lady. Her fortune, in ber own possession, exceeded my future prospects. Yes, to her he devoted his attentions, ou whose bosom I had shed those mingled tears of indignation and lacerated tenderness which be had caused to flow.

Their loves, however, nothing weakened my amity to her; they carried with them my best wishes to the altar, and I beard their nuptial peals without a sigh. She died in childbirth the next year. Her early fate excited my sorrow, and his sufferings my sympathy. I wrote a monody on her death. It has never been published, but may one day appear in collection of my poems.