Homer's Iliads; for in the very twinkle of one eye of it, there is more wit, and in the very dimple of one cheek of it, there is more meaning, than all the souls that ever were casually put into women since men had the making of them.

I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impression upon me. I have just past part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common-field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in Romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet, of the other Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man about five and twenty, Sarah a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding cloaths; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a

terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah frighted and out of breath, sunk on a haycock, and John (who never separated from her) sate by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if Heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another: those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stept to the place where they lay they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair;-John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eye-brow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, in the parish of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfordshire; where my Lord Harcourt, at my request, has erected a monument over them. Of the following epitaphs which I made, the critics have chosen the godly one: I like neither, but wish you had been in England to have done this office better; I think 'twas what you could not have refused me on so moving an occasion.

When Eastern lovers feed the fun'ral fire,
On the same pile their faithful fair expire ;
Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd,
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.

1.

Think not, by rig'rous judgment seiz'd,
A pair so faithful could expire;
Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd,

And snatch'd them in celestial fire.

2.

Live well, and fear no sudden fate:

When God calls virtue to the grave,
Alike 'tis justice, soon or late,

Mercy alike to kill or save.

Virtue unmov'd can hear the call,

And face the flash that melts the ball.

Upon the whole, I can't think these people unhappy. The greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree could have was to be remembered on a little monument; unless you will give them another,-that of being honoured with a tear from the finest eyes in the world. I know you have tenderness; you must have it; it is the very emanation of good sense and virtue; the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.

But when you are reflecting upon objects of pity, pray do not forget one, who had no sooner found out an object of the highest esteem, than he was separated from it; and who is so very unhappy as not to be susceptible of consolation from others, by being so miserably in the right as to think other women what they really are. Such an one can't but be desperately fond of any creature that is quite different from these. If the Circassian be utterly void of such honour as these have, and such virtue as these boast of, I am content. I have detested the sound of ho

nest woman, and loving spouse, ever since I heard the pretty name of Odaliche. Dear Madam, I am for

ever

Your, etc.

My most humble services to Mr. Wortley. Pray let me hear from you soon, though I shall very soon write again. I am confident half our letters are lost.

I COULD quarrel with you quite through this paper, upon a period in yours, which bids me remember you if possibly I can. You would have shewn more knowledge both of yourself and of me, had you bid me forget you if possibly I could. When I do, may this hand (as the Scripture says) forget its cunning; and this heart its-folly, I was going to say,—but I mean, its reason, and the most rational sensation it ever had, that of your merit.

The poetical manner in which you paint some of the scenes about you, makes me despise my native country, and sets me on fire to fall into the dance about your fountain in Belgrade-Village. I fancy myself, in my romantic thoughts and distant admiration of you, not unlike the man in the Alchymist, that has a passion for the queen of the fairies; I lie dreaming of you in moon-shiny nights, exactly in the posture of Endymion gaping for Cynthia in a pic

ture; and with just such a surprize and rapture should I awake, if, after your long revolutions were accomplished, you should at last come rolling back again, smiling with all that gentleness and serenity peculiar to the moon and you; and gilding the same mountains from which you first set out on your solemn melancholy journey. I am told that fortune (more just to us than your virtue) will restore the most precious thing it ever robbed us of. Some think it will be the only equivalent the world affords for Pitt's diamond, so lately sent out of our country; which, after you was gone, was accounted the most valuable thing here. Adieu to that toy! let the costly bauble be hung about the neck of the baby king it belongs to, so England does but recover that jewel, which was the wish of all her sensible hearts, and the joy of all her discerning eyes. I can keep no measures in speaking of this subject. I see you already coming; I feel you as you draw nearer; my heart leaps at your arrival. Let us have you from the East, and the sun is at her service.

I write as if I were drunk, the pleasure I take in thinking of your return transports me beyond the bounds of common sense and decency. Yet believe me, Madam, if there be any circumstance of chagrin in the occasion of that return, if there be any public or private ill fortune that may give you a displeasure, I must still be ready to feel a part of it, notwithstanding the joy I now express.

I have been mad enough to make all the enquiry I could at what time you set out, and what route you were to take. If Italy run yet in your thoughts, I

VOL. VIII.