the undoers and the undone, generally so, I say, for I am persuaded there are many men of honesty and women of virtue in every street. An Englishman is cold and distant at first; he is very cautious even in forming an acquaintance, he must know you well before he enters into friendship with you; but if he does, he is not the first to dissolve that sacred band; in short, a real Englishman is one that performs more than he promises; in company he is rather silent, extremely prudent in his expressions, even in politics, his favourite topic. The women are not quite so reserved; they consult their glasses to the greatest advantage, and as Nature is very liberal in her gifts to their persons, and even mind, it is not easy for a young man to escape their glances, or to shut his ears to their softly flowing accents. As to the state of learning in this city, you know I have not been long enough in it to form a proper judgment of that subject. I don't think, however, there is as much respect paid to a man of letters on this side. the water as you imagine. I don't find that

genius, the "rath primrose, which, forsaken, dies," is patronized by any of the nobility, so that writers of the first talents are left to the capricious patronage of the public. Notwithstanding this discouragement, literature is cultivated in a high degree. Poetry raises her enchanting voice to Heaven. History arrests the wings of Time in his flight to the gulph of oblivion. Philosophy, the queen of Arts, and the daughter of Heaven, is daily extending her intellectual empire. Fancy sports on airy wing like a meteor on the bosom of a summer cloud, and even Metaphysics spins her cobwebs, and catches some flies. The House of Commons not unfrequently exhibits explosions of eloquence that rise superior to those of Greece and Rome, even in their proudest days. Yet after all a man will make more by the figures of arithmetic than by the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the trade wind, and then he may sail secure over Pactolean sands. As to the stage, it is sunk, in my opinion, into the lowest degree; I mean with regard to the trash

that is exhibited on it; but I don't attribute this to the taste of the audience, for when Shakspeare warbles his "native wood notes," the boxes, pit, and gallery, are crowded— and the Gods are true to every word, if properly winged to the heart,

Soon after my arrival in town, I visited Westminster Abbey; the moment I entered I felt a kind of awe pervade my mind, which I cannot describe; the very silence seemed sacred. Henry the Seventh's chapel is a very fine piece of Gothic architecture, particularly the roof; but I am told that it is exceeded by a chapel in the University of Cambridge. Mrs. Nightingale's monument has not been praised beyond its merit. The attitude and expression of the husband, in endeavouring to shield his wife from the dart of death, is natural and affecting. But I always thought that the image of death would be much better represented with an extinguished torch, inverted, than with a dart. Some would imagine that all these monuments were so many monuments of

folly I don't think so; what useful lessons of morality and sound philosophy do they not exhibit! When the high-born beauty. surveys her face in the polished parian, though dumb the marble, yet it tells her that it was placed to guard the remains of as fine a form and as fair a face as her own. They shew besides how anxious we are to extend our loves and friendship beyond the grave, and to snatch as much as we can from oblivion-such is our natural love of immortality; but it is here that letters obtain the noblest triumphs; it is here that the swarthy daughters of Cadmus may hang their trophies on high, for when all the pride of the chissel and the pomp of heraldry yield to the silent touches of Time, a single line, a half worn-out inscription, remain faithful to their trust. Blest be the man that first introduced these strangers into our islands, and may they never want protection or merit! I have not the least doubt, that the finest poem in the English language, I mean Milton's Il Penseroso, was composed in the long resounding isle of a mouldering

cloister or ivy'd abbey. Yet after all, do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the Capulets. I should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust. The good old expression, Family burying-ground," has something pleasing in it, at least to me. I am glad that Dr. Sheridan is returned, and determined to spend the rest of his days in your quarter. I should send him some Botanic writings, which I have in view, if I were not certain that the Irish Hippocrates would rather read nature in her own works. With what pleasure I have seen him trace the delicate texture of a lily, and exclaim with the God in humanity, that "Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of those;" and you know that our lilies are fairer than new fallen snow. I am extremely sorry that any dispute should arise betwixt you and your brother-in-law; he is, I know, a little hot-headed, especially when he takes a glass, and I am afraid he leans a little too much to

the social can. Mr. Peyton, however, is a