and scenes long after they have been removed far from sight. But what a number of ideas imparted by objects once present to these eyes are irrevocably gone! Since I left you more than three years and a half have now elapsed, a considerable and serious space to have advanced toward the final, fatal hour. Many that both of us then knew alive, are now removed to the invisible region. To us, my friend, the time will come, and no point to which it is possible for our life to be protracted can justly be called remote, while we see time pass so fast away. Well, and let it come ! I am persuaded my excellent friend still regards the prospect of death as the prime of her pleasures. And with this sublime consciousness, how little you can envy the vain pleasures around you! These pleasures will soon fade into a dreary autumn; yours are beginning to bud into the living green of an eternal spring. You would not exchange-no enlightened mind would exchange-one of the consolatory and radiant ideas that beam upon you sometimes from hereafter, for all the delights for which fools solicit and worship this world. Say to yourself, "I have not parade and splendor, nor giddy juvenile gaiety, nor amusements, nor so much of the kind sympathies of friendship as I could wish; but I have the promises and the fidelity of a God, the assurance of a guardian Providence, the intercession of a Redeemer, the visions of Eternity, the prospects of Paradise.” My friend, I love to suggest such ideas to you, because they are appropriate to you. If I were to meet some of your gay neighbors in a pensive mood, I should not know how to console them, but with you I have no difficulty.

Thoughts of this kind would not come with so good a grace from me, if I myself were, the while, enjoying all the pleasures of this life. But the case is not so. My lot has probably some advantages over yours, but it is not such as to prevent my needing the full force of the consolations which I wish to suggest to you. And, my friend, would it be a good thing for life to be so crowded with temporal felicities as to make us forget eternity? Take for your motto the text, "All things work together for good to them that love God." . . .

....

I do not rate the social intercourse so low as that I could not wish you had some one or two pleasant friends to beguile and exhilarate your long evenings, this wintry season. But, my friend, we cannot transform our neighbors; ... we cannot create interesting human beings; nor can we bring them flying through the air from distant places, like the witches that used to ride on broomsticks, and make them, at will, alight by the fireside. Consider, too, that as we cannot make others such as we wish, so neither do we choose to make ourselves such as they wish. My friend might have more society, if she would only be vain and frivolous; but will she, for the sake of the society, give up the dignity of character which is of more value to her than that which she might gain by sacrificing it? . . . .

...

My mind is perhaps gradually but very slowly improving in knowledge, and the power of displaying and using it. My habits are

more retired and solitary than in the former part of the time of my residence here, and more than half the visits that I make are rather from a kind of duty of office than from inclination.

My long respected friend, Mr. Hughes, has spent a month in this neighborhood each autumn since I have been here. His company is always the highest excitement of my faculties. He is a very superior

man.

. . . I find myself not completely formed for friendship, for I often seclude myself in gloomy abstraction, and say, "All this availeth me nothing."

XLI. TO MRS. R. MANT.

Downend, April or May, 1803.

I Do not know what day of the month it is, nor whether it be April or May, but I believe it is some days past the time that I promised to write to you. The last week or two I have been very busy between society and some dry, laborious composition that I have been about. It always gives me the sincerest pleasure to hear from you, and I therefore thank you for your last letter, which, however, gave me less pleasure than some of your former ones, on account of its description of the state of your health. I can completely feel that such a headache, for a considerable portion of the fine part of the year, must be a most distressing companion, and am reduced again to the impotent wish that something could be recommended or done that should relieve you. One often feels it a melancholy thing to see or know that a friend suffers, and to be unable to do more than repeat the lesson of patience. That lesson, however, becomes forcible and important, when it is recollected that he who sends afflictions is the Infinitely Good and Wise,—who does all things well, and never gives his servants pain, even for a moment, but for their advantage. Remember, my friend, what a sublime compensation he is able to make you for all these troubles, and often read and muse on those promises in which he has engaged to make you eternally happier for the present pains. Think how completely all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the grave, and then think that one age multiplied ten thousand times, is not so much to eternity as one grain of sand is to the whole material universe. Think what a state it will be to be growing happier and happier still as ages pass away, and yet leave something still happier to come. Think whether the most adoring and emphatical gratitude will not be often kindled amidst those never-ending ages, when it is felt that no small part of this felicity is the strict consequence of those pains and griefs which were so oppressive in the poor state of mortal life. It would seem a great thing if I were authorized to prophesy to you, that within a month you should obtain perfect vigorous health, be surrounded by the most interesting friends, and amidst unlimited afflu

ence; all which you should retain to the last week of your life; with what elation of feeling I should at first be eager to write the prediction; and what an object of envy you would soon become. But oh, what a despicable trifle would be all this compared with what is really before you, on the assurance of the word of Him that cannot lie! And if the latter were, you were certain, within one month of your attainment, would not you feel the most animated emotion at the prospect? Let not the difference between this supposed month, and the uncertain length of time before you, which may extend through a number of years, oppressed by languor and affliction, extinguish all the pleasure of such a hope. Let us devote our most serious industry to the great concern of being habitually prepared for the coming of the Son of Man.

There are many affecting admonitions. I have been acquainted ever since I came into this neighborhood, with the widow of a man whom I knew and highly respected, and who died two or three years since, leaving this widow and two daughters (young women of very great excellence) in Bristol, where I have generally called on them when I have spent a few hours in the town. Yesterday (not having called on them for several weeks) I entered with a lively, unthinking air, the parlor where the elder lady and one of the daughters were sitting at work, and said in a gay voluble manner, "How does the world go? how have you all been since I saw you? where's Sarah?" I had slightly, at my entrance, perceived a certain gravity somewhat more than usual, but did not particularly mind it, as they were a habitually grave family, being Quakers. After some hesitation, the daughter replied, "You have not heard then of our loss; Sarah is dead.” I suppose your town has scarcely escaped the influenza, which has been so extensive and fatal. Most people in this neighborhood have had it, and some have been carried off. I have been entirely exempt. The complaint in my eyes is more troublesome during all the warmer part of the year than in the winter; of course I begin to feel it now in the spring. It is often such as to require some exercise of patience, besides being a gloomy omen, as I still consider it, of the final loss of sight. You cannot wonder that this is a melancholy anticipation, sufficient to damp all the gaiety of life, if I had any inclination of that kind. The double complaint in my throat is not quite gone, but materially better. I am sorry to think it probable that you are debarred from the luxuries of this delicious season. I can answer for the enchantment you feel, if you are able sometimes to take a walk up the lane and through the fields. The whole welcome visitation of blossoms, sweet verdure, cuckoos, and nightingales, is come down on the earth, and made it all a new world within the last month. All the beauties of the scene have been displayed to me this afternoon in an extended rural walk, in which I anxiously endeavored to seize all the magic images, and fix them in my mind, for a perpetual Paradise of Fancy to have recourse to, perhaps after I lose the power of receiving any more images by the eye. I could not help

being amazed at the power which could thus, by means that none can understand, and in the space of a few weeks, or even days, pour such a deluge of charms over the creation. We should cultivate as much as possible the habit of being led by everything we contemplate to the great First Cause.

Here it becomes necessary to advert to Foster's literary pursuits. It appears from the preceding correspondence, that even while at Brearley, Foster entertained some indeterminate projects of authorship. With this view, probably, he commenced, before the age of twenty, the practice of committing to paper observations on natural objects, illustrations of human character, and reflections on morals and religion. From these he selected such as appeared worthy of preservation, and formed them into a series, carefully written and numbered, under the quaint title of "A Chinese Garden of Flowers and Weeds." In the present volume it has already been quoted as "the Journal.” It was continued through successive years, and the last portion appears to have been written during his residence at Downend. It contains in all eight hundred and ten articles. On his return from Ireland he informs Mr. Hughes that he was engaged on "a kind of moral Essay;" the subject, however, is not mentioned. Of his early productions none have been preserved, excepting the following Essay, which will be read, not without interest, as a specimen of his juvenile style of thinking.

ON THE GREATNESS OF MAN.

MANKIND viewed collectively, as an assemblage of beings, presents to contemplation an object of astonishing magnitude. It has spread over this wide world to essay its powers against every obstacle, and every element; and to plant in every region its virtues and its vices. As we pass along the plains, we perceive them marked by the labors, the paths, or the habitations of man. Proceeding forward across rivers, or through woods, or over mountains, we still find man in possession on the other side. Each valley that opens, and each hill that rises before us, presents a repetition of human abodes, contrivances, and appropriations; for each house, and garden, and field (in some places almost each tree), reminds us that there is a person somewhere who is proud to think and say, "This is mine."

All the beautiful and rugged varieties of earth, from the regions of snow to those of burning sand, have been pervaded by man. If we sail

to countries beyond the seas, we find him still, though he may disclaim our language, our manners, and our color. And if we discover lands where he is not, we presently quit them, as if the Creator too were a stranger there. Here and there indeed a desert retreat is inhabited by an ascetic, whom the solemnity of solitude has drawn thither; or by a felon, whom guilt has driven thither.

While he extends himself thus over the world, behold his collective grandeur. It appears prominent in great cities built by his own hands ;— it is seen in structures that look like temples erected to Time, which promise by their strength to await the latest years of his continuance with men; and seem to plead by their magnificence against the decree which dooms them to perish when he shall abandon them;-it is seen in wide empires, and in armies, which may be called the talons of imperial power to give security to happiness where that power is just, but for cruel ravage where it is tyrannical;—it is displayed in fleets; in engines which operate as if informed with a portion of the actuating power of his own mind; in the various productions of beauty; the discoveries of science; in subjected elements, and a cultivated globe. The sentiment with which we contemplate this scene is greatly augmented when imagination bears her flaming torch into the enormous shade which overspreads the past, and passes over the whole succession of human existence, with all its attendant prodigies. When we have made the addition for futurity, of supposing the human race extensively enlightened, apprised of their dignity and power, and combined in a far stricter union, till the vast ocean of mind prevail over all its accustomed boundaries, and sweep away many of the evils which oppress the world,-we may pause awhile and indulge our amazement. Such an aggregate view of the multitude, achievements, and powers of Man, is grand. It has the air of a general and endless triumph.

But we know that mere multitude is not greatness. An object that is great only by the assemblage of many separate objects which are not individually great, is constantly in hazard of being resolved, while we view it, into the diminutiveness of which it is composed; and the character of greatness cannot survive a moment the charm which seemed to compact them into one. Great objects undoubtedly display an augmented grandeur in conjunction; but as everything which depends on combination is subject to be annihilated by dissolution, that greatness alone is permanent, which resides in an object that is simple and indivisible. We can view without emotion a lofty and extensive building of stone; but show us a single rock of the same dimensions, and we gaze with admiration. And if a being were created who should possess physical powers and mental powers equal to those of the entire human race, he would be a much sublimer object than collective Man. Sometimes, suspended high in contemplation, we look down on the human world as an immense mass of active intelligence and power; but lowering gradually from our elevation, we find that our circle of view becomes less and