of taking up the cross. And I do, I hope I shall, each succeeding day, more apply to the almighty power; "fly to the Lord for quick relief." At last I hope to say, exultingly, "Sin, the monster, bleeds and dies.”

...

We are all hereabouts, as everywhere else, deeply complaining of the times, and reproaching the bad men that preside over the state, and who manifest a scornful indifference on the subject, intent only to accomplish their own vain and vile purposes. But we are over-run with men just as unprincipled, in a lower condition.

CI. TO HIS MOTHER.

Bourton-on-the-Water, May, 1816. HONORED MOTHER,-The balmy influences of spring at length breathe into the room in which I am writing, and I have just been admiring the beauty of an apple-tree, and a few other trees now in full bloom. But this appearance has not, for a very long time, been so late in the spring. No one, scarcely, remembers so backward and ungenial a season as we have had this year. Snow has fallen within these few days. The consequence of this long rigor is, that now, when the vernal softness is at length come, the vegetation, with all its beauty, has come out as with a sudden burst; insomuch, that a very few days have made a prodigious alteration in the appearance all around; the earth seems almost as if it had undergone a miracle, in order to make it a proper place of abode for a purer, better kind of beings.

But, alas! the inhabiting beings remain the same; a debased, irreligious, iniquitous, and miserable race. Nature has no gales, no beauties, no influences, to transform the depraved mind. The benignant skies, the living verdure, the hues of flowers, the notes of birds, have no power on selfish and malignant passions, on inveterate evil habits, on ingratitude and hostility against God. And it is all just the same, notwithstanding that the scene not only has so much beauty, and is such a manifestation of the divine power, but also is equally a display of the divine bounty, this opening beauty being a part of the grand process the sustenance of man.

for

What a base and odions thing is this human nature! How multiplied and endless are the exhibitions of its abominable state!

All the in

habited world is overspread with them. I feel a peculiar interest and complacency in reading (in the many books of travels that come into my hands) of wildernesses and ruins. It gratifies me to read of this or the other city or district; that whereas it once contained perhaps half a million of inhabitants, there are now not a fifth part of the number;— that there are towers, castles, and mansions, and temples, and streets, deserted, dilapidated, falling in ruins ;-that the lonely traveller may traverse leagues and leagues of the region, and meet no face, and see no abode of man. I involuntarily exclaim, "So much the better; how

little there is, in that abandoned territory, of the abomination and misery with which man is sure to fill every place in which his race abounds !” With something of this, mingled with other modes of interest, I read lately a small book, recently published, concerning the Ruins of Babylon. It is by a young man, whom I remember seeing at Bristol ten or twelve years since as a boy, remarkably distinguished by his eastern learning. He now resides at Bassora, only a few days' journey from Babylon. He wrote this account after one visit of examination to the place of that proud city. The place is marked by enormous masses of bricks, the foundations of the vast edifices which, in Daniel's time, towered aloft, amidst the stupendous accumulations of ordinary structures for human dwelling. There is now (as far as I remember) not a man dwelling there! In clearing some secret vaulted passages, he found several human skeletons. What a striking sight this would be! while a crowd of solemn recollections came over one's mind. In one most enormous mass of bricks, in a great measure covered with mould and vegetation, he had little doubt he beheld the remains of the celebrated tower of Nimrod. There is one part exposed, as a wall, and it is two hundred feet high...

CII. TO HIS MOTHER.

Bourton, August, 1816 HONORED MOTHER,I am still very far from having worked off my accumulated tasks in the reviewing way. I am sorry for having got so much into this kind of service; it has its uses, but it has been in some measure a prevention of things that might have been more extensively, and more lastingly useful. I fully intend to withdraw, in a great measure, from the occupation, in order to attend to those more useful labors. But I have at the very least eight or nine months' work on hand, some parts of which have been very long, and almost inexcusably delayed. have no power of getting fast forward in any literary task; it costs me far more labor than any other mortal who has been in the habit so long. My taskmaster complains constantly and heavily of my slowness and delay. Part of which is indeed, I confess, owing to indolence. I have probably said before, what is always unhappily true, that I have the most extreme and invariable repugnance to all literary labor of every kind, and almost all mental labor. It is the literal truth, that I never, in the course of the whole year, take the pen, for a paragraph or a letter, but as an act of force on myself. When I have a thing of this kind to do, I linger hours and hours often before I can resolutely set about it; and days and weeks, if it is some task more than ordinary. About finding proper words, and putting them in proper places, I have more difficulty than it could have been supposed possible any one should have, after having had to work among them so long; but the grand difficulty is a downright scarcity of matter,-plainly the difficulty of finding anything to say. My inventive faculties are exactly like

the powers of a snail; and in addition, my memory is an inconceivably miserable one. This last is a peculiarly grievous circumstance in the business of reviewing books. I read through a volume, and though I write short notices of the matters as I go on, when I get to the end I find I have no manner of hold, in my memory, of the contents. I have to read the greatest part of it again, and some parts probably three or four times. This was the case particularly with one of the last books I have written some account of in the Eclectic Review,—a splendid and very interesting volume about Ancient Wiltshire. .

. . . The article I have referred to in the Eclectic Review, will, I should think, be extremely interesting to every curious reader, not from any quality in the writing, but because it contains the substance of the work in question, compressed into a comparatively small space. did not mean thus to occupy my paper about a book, but really it is one of the most remarkable books I ever read, and the contents have very strongly taken possession of my imagination.

. . I

CIII. TO HIS MOTHER.

Bourton, October, 1816.

HONORED MOTHER,-One may wonder that in a world so full of changes, a number of weeks should ever pass away without supplying considerable materials of record and information. In a multitude of instances such materials have not been wanting. How many persons within the last month have had to transmit to their distant relatives or friends melancholy information, sometimes expected, often unexpected. No doubt this very letter, in the course of its conveyance to you, will accompany in the post various letters going to one place and another with the information of the death of parents or children, husbands, wives, or other relatives; and various letters relating accidents, calamities, sicknesses, or distressing experiences of the evils of the times. And then, glancing back to the long series of letters I have sent you during so many years, and imagining how many letters conveying the expressions of distressed persons have so accompanied, during that whole length of time, the letters conveyed from me to you, what cause I have to wonder and be thankful that my letters have so seldom had to convey melancholy accounts or sentiments! what a life of providential indulgence mine has been! A life of health, a life of much favor from fellowmortals, of never-failing temporal supplies, of innumerable intellectual and religious means and advantages, and nearly nine years of it passed in a happy domestic connection. I think I do not forget any day to be grateful to Heaven for this last circumstance. My dear wife is one of the most estimable, and one of the most affectionate of her sex. I constantly feel how much she deserves to be loved, and I love her as much as in the commencement of our happy union. I often tell her fondly

how grateful I am to the Almighty that she is mine, and that she has been mine so long; only regretting, as I told her this morning, that she had not been mine earlier in life. But that was as Providence ordered it, the same Providence which ordered that my early partialities should not result in the conjugal relation. From all the merciful care of that providence during the past, I have very good cause to commit my way to the Lord for all the time that may yet be to come. In advancing into the darkness of futurity I will humbly and gratefully trust that the Guardian and Guide of my life hitherto, will "never leave me nor forsake me." And, the while, I hope to be found more faithful and diligent in his service. ...

....

I have not yet got my sermon ready for the printer. The cause of religion is but in rather a languid state. It would be happy if the evils of the times were to work a religious effect, but I fear there are no very strong signs of this. By one means or another, however, religion will most certainly make its promised advances, and bring at last to the wretched human race a most blessed change from the condition they have been in through all ages. . . . One of my friends is just returned from a summer excursion in France and Switzerland, and is going to betake himself with all diligence to the work of preaching. He preaches without any pecuniary reward, and just when and where he thinks he can do most good. Very few things have ever gratified me more than the course this excellent young man has taken. He has grown up perfectly free from all the vanities common among rich young men, has been the better for all the scenes and varieties he has passed through, and dedicates himself to the cause of religion with a most serious, deliberate, and growing determination. It would be a most delightful thing to see a few of what we call gentlemen enter life in anything like such a

manner.

CIV. TO HIS MOTHER.

...

Bourton [date uncertain].

MY DEAR AND HONORED MOTHER,-. . . . The divine Providence has continued indulgent to us in this house, our health having been prolonged, and each domestic advantage and blessing. It is my daily wish and prayer to be more thankful, and more willingly and actively obedient. How slow is the perverse mind to yield itself, even to the most powerful attractions of goodness-when it is the goodness of the supreme Being! The greatest of all his acts of goodness is to "give a new heart, and renew a right spirit within us."

Though nothing unusual has taken place within our walls, a field two or three hundred yards from the house has presented to me a very striking spectacle. In digging for gravel there have been found in different situations, a number of human skeletons. I have seen as many as four of them uncovered. One of them was within a rude structure of stones, placed

somewhat in the form of a coffin. Another seemed to have been in some kind of coffin of wood, as there were several very large iron nails, and an extremely small bit of decayed wood. About the others there were no stones nor relics of wood. They were in each instance complete, there being very little decay, excepting that the bones, of course, were in a state of separation from one another, and that the skulls were too brittle to be taken up perfectly whole. The teeth were in as perfect preservation as when the bodies were deposited. One set was remarkably fine, and being but little worn, indicated that the person was young, though of full growth. In another instance, a considerable number had been lost before the person's death, and the remainder were so much worn down, as to indicate a person of very considerable age. The stature or other dimensions did not appear to be materially different from the present state of the race. There were no coins, weapons, or other circumstances to assist curiosity in the inquiry after the dates of their interment. The most natural conjecture is that they might be Romans, as they were very near the mound of a large Roman camp, as it is judged to be. Other skeletons have at various times been found in these fields. One circumstance with respect to those just now found would seem to indicate that they were the people of pagan times;-they were placed mostly in a direction north and south; whereas the popish Christianity, had it then been in the country, would undoubtedly have prescribed most authoritatively that they should have been laid east and west. It may therefore be fairly conjectured that they have lain quiet and unknown in these beds of dust much more, at any rate, than a thousand years. In those beds, though now in a broken and dislocated state, they are again deposited, excepting some fragments that I and Dr. S- took away, consisting of several jaws and portions of skulls.

I have been extremely struck and interested by these spectacles, which I was glad to have an opportunity of seeing. They have much more power over the imagination than the bones that may sometimes be seen in opening or digging graves in our churchyards. To the idea of death, and human beings departed, is added, in this case, that of an unknown antiquity, that of the wonderful lengths of time which they have lain unseen and silent under the footsteps of many long generations in succession. The mind is absorbed in musings, inquiries, and wonder. ings, who they were, what were their language, religion, habits of life, personal appearance; what kind of people they were that inhabited the place around at that time. There is added the solemn idea, which occurs at the sight of any such spectacles of more modern date, that somewhere there exists at this moment, a soul that once inhabited this deserted form.

Here the gloom of approaching winter is coming fast upon us; and judging by the manner in which it affects one in even the vigor of life and health, I can partly imagine how it must affect you. I trust you will find the full effects of the consolations of piety, and the of

powers