faith.... I earnestly wish and pray that we may all of us be devoted progressively more and more to Him who is our present happiness and our eternal life.

CV. TO THE REV. THOMAS LANGDON.

Bourton, June 18, 1817.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-You may very justly think it a little strange that your most friendly letter should remain so long unanswered, even though you should at any time have chanced to hear of my bad reputation with respect to correspondence. In the present instance, however, a very few words will make out a tolerable exculpation for me. I am just returned, after nearly a month's absence from home; the latter part of it spent in such uncertain rambling, that your letter could not have been transmitted to me with any confidence of its finding me at any particular place. It therefore remained till my return. I am sorry for this, but will hope it may not cause you any serious inconvenience with regard to the arrangements for that public concern on account of which it was written.

My dear and highly respected old friend will readily believe that the invitation it conveys to me gratifies all those feelings towards him and his domestic companion, and their circle of friends, which have perfectly survived so long an absence, and will survive to the end of life. But my acceptance of it is prevented by a combination of circumstances too insignificant to be recounted in detail, but all together forming an insurmountable obstruction. Some of them relate to very long engagements and tasks, of which I really must acquit myself within a short time to come, or incur much inconvenience and some discredit. I have, besides, an extreme difficulty and reluctance, which but increases with advancing life, to sustain any material part on important public occasions; and in addition, there are a number of deterring feelings and considerations arising from the changes which time and death have made in my native place.

You will have no difficulty in obtaining, nearer home, a better coadjutor in the interesting service you have in expectation. But, indeed, little will be wanting in addition, when you have the exertions of unquestionably the foremost preacher in the world. I am very glad that Hall has consented to be with you. I sincerely wish you every concurring favorable circumstance, and the utmost success in the intended institution.

I am greatly interested by the information concerning yourself and your family, and very grateful for the expressions of friendly regard from you and my dear old friend Mrs. Langdon. It pleases me too, not a little, that Mary can entertain what I may call a traditionary kindness for How vividly I recall at this moment the luxury of toying with her, and carrying her about the house, when she had been but a short time'

me.

an inhabitant of the world in which she has now lived long enough to have her youthful visions of felicity, and long enough to discover, or at least to suspect, that those flattering visions contain no small portion of delusive promise. Yet I hope the great Benefactor intends her as much felicity in this short life as can be imparted by piety, combined with the affection of the relatives and friends with whom she shall spend it. May it be long, and healthy, and useful. The same I wish for the six others that Heaven has spared you of the twelve. How much painful emotion it must have cost to surrender in succession five to him that gave them. Yet I am most confident that now, in thinking what a world they have left, and to what a world they are gone, both you and their other affectionate parent feel a very, very great preponderance of the consolatory over the mournful feeling.

I should have been glad, my dear friend, to have heard a better account of your health. I earnestly hope a merciful Providence will support you in a capacity of doing good to your family and your congregation for a number of years to come,-I would say for many years yet to come. And I trust we shall all, through whatever term of life yet remains to us, be still more earnestly devoted to Him, into whose presence we hope to go when it shall terminate.

What a length of retrospect it is back to the time that I used to mingle with so much delight in your society, your discussions, and vivacities! The ideas that arise in the review of that most animated period, and of all the stages since, are far too numerous for any attempt to note a hundredth part of them here. I do promise myself that I shall yet spend some days in the well-remembered scene of those remote years, and, with you and Mrs. L., make our comparisons.

It is now many years since I just saw her and Mary one short moment at the end of a bad sermon I preached at Bristol; and I was extremely sorry that their appointment to leave Bristol early the following morning, made it impossible for me to have the pleasure of a real interview.

I meant to say a few things about myself, but an intrusion has left me but one moment to the post hour, and I think I ought not to delay the reply so much as one day longer. I have general good health. The physical cause which about ten years since compelled me, most reluctantly, to give up preaching entirely for a considerable time, remains now but in so small a degree that I preach every Sunday, sometimes once, oftener twice, in the most irregular way; sometimes in the meeting-houses in the district, sometimes in school-rooms and barns.

I am in a great state of doubt and balancing whether to remove near Bristol; in which case I should preach oftener at Downend, which I dare say you remember.

I have been happy, very happy in a domestic union nearly ten years. We have three children and have lost two. My wife remembers you, and is ready with her friendly wishes. I should be very glad to hear from you at any time you could spare the space to fill a large sheet with

information respecting yourself, your family, and those old friends, of whom I cannot hope to find that all of them continue in the world....

Yours, most cordially,

J. FOSTER.

CVI. TO B. STOKES, ESQ

Bourton, October 31, 1817.

As to this book of Alps, torrents, and ices. . . . . I should have sent it several days since, but from the very onerous and engrossing business of making up a great number of packages of books for the transit toward Bristol. That business is, within a trifle, completed, a day or two since. They are now all gone, and about arrived at their destination, but two or three dozen of volumes. They have constituted one entire wagon-load, and a material portion of two others. I was myself hardly aware of the quantity which had been brought by degrees into this dark den, till they were thus summoned all out from their obscure lodgments in chests, corners, and dust; whence they have come forth, reproaching me with an expense carried, for a succession of years, beyond all conscionable bounds. . . . But I have told you positively, that I am now going to adopt a decided reform. I must of necessity do so, whether I would otherwise choose it or not. The book herewith sent you, forms a fine poetical finish to so extravagant a course; and it is yet to be paid for, as it can; I question if I dare ever tell you the price. You will find it a thing that may boldly brave criticism. It seems to me the most exquisite thing of its class that I have ever seen. It is, by its subject, a good match and counterpart to the other which I had the pleasure of lending you-icy mountains contrasted with burning ones. But you will readily perceive that this is of very considerably more refined and delicate execution than Hamilton's.

With a softness which I have never seen equalled but in the best water-color paintings, it has an admirable distinctness and precision of delineation, insomuch that the small human figures, goats, horses, &c., &c., will bear inspection through a considerably magnifying glass. This is owing, in good part, to the very fine engraving which forms the basis on which the colors are laid. Its defect is the want of about fifty pages of letter-press description, in French, which accompanied the plates at their publication, but which, from what cause I have no guess, are much oftener wanting than inserted in the copies on the continent-as the bookseller, a man of character, I believe, assures me he knows to be the Each plate has the pompous circumstance of a dedication to some high personage or other. This, however, tended to insure their being all executed with great care. One among the latest is inscribed to the unfortunate Louis XVI., in the year 1793, which proves that the work was long in publishing, for the publication commenced soon afte

case.

1780. Wolff, the draughtsman of the greatest number of them, was a landscape painter of high reputation, and I have seen the testimony of the very celebrated naturalist and philosopher, Baron Haller, that the drawings were of the highest merit in point of fidelity; and he had observantly traversed the scenes, he says, a number of times.

CVII. TO B. STOKES, ESQ.

Downend, May 5, 1818

My very worthy friend and brother-in-law, Dr. Cox, is in a state which reduces to these very three months the utmost calculation for his life, in the opinion of his medical friends, and I should feel a long absence and excursion of amusement, just at such a season, incompatible with the interest and attention justly claimed by such a situation, to say nothing of the many obligations I owe to his kindness. The progress of his decline to his present condition has been through constantly aggravating, and recently quite dreadful, suffering, from some malady still very uncertain to medical judgment, but probably the heart or its immediate vicinity. He has intervals of alleviation, but the grand cause is still working on, and the only uncertainty of anticipation is judged to lie between a speedy and sudden termination, and a protraction of extreme and frequently recurring sufferings through a space of several months.

. . . The fine book was delivered safe, and is now in its appropriate box in this garret. It does not, on re-inspection, appear of diminished excellence from my having seen many fine things in the interval of its absence, nor as compared with one or two most admirable and splendid things which have also found their way into this garret, and were never inhabitants of that other spider's palace which I left six months since.

. . . But I have gone on beyond any fair proportion of talk about myself. I am also at the end of my time, as it will be desirable to get a place in Broadmead Meeting this evening an hour before the time for the commencement of the service. I have seen a good deal of this intellectual giant.* His health is better than some time past. His mind seems of an order fit with respect to its intellectual powers to go directly among a superior rank of intelligences in some other world, with very little requisite addition of force.

* HALL.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.