hood was originally got, and find, if I may credit the accounts given me, that there is not a single acre in the hands of the right owner. I have been told of intrigues between beaus and toafts that have been now three centuries in their quiet graves, and am often entertained with traditional fcandal on perfons of whofe names there would have been no remembrance, had they not committed fomewhat that might difgrace their defcendents.

In one of my vifits I happened to commend the air and dignity of a young lady, who had just left the company; upon which two grave matrons looked with great fliness at each other, and the elder asked me whether I had ever feen the picture of Henry the eighth. You may imagine that I did not immediately perceive the propriety of the queftion, but after having waited awhile for information, I was told that the lady's grandmother had a great great grandmother that was an attendant on Anna Bullen, and fuppofed to have been too much a favourite of the king.

If once there happens a quarrel between the prin cipal perfons of two families, the malignity is continued without end, and it is common for old maids to fall out about fome election, in which their grandfathers were competitors; the heart-burnings of the civil war are not yet extinguished; there are two families in the neighbourhood who have deftroyed each other's game from the time of Philip and Mary; and when an account came of an inundation, which had injured the plantations of a worthy gentleman, one of the hearers remarked, with exultation, that he might now have some

notion of the ravages committed by his ancestors in their retreat from Bofworth.

Thus malice and hatred defcend here with an inheritance, and it is neceffary to be well versed in history, that the various factions of this county may be understood. You cannot expect to be on good terms with families who are refolved to love nothing in common; and, in felecting your intimates, you are perhaps to confider which party you most favour in the barons wars. I have often loft the good opinion of my aunt's vifitants by confounding the interefts of York and Lancafter, and was once cenfured for fitting filent when William Rufus was called a tyrant. I have, however, now thrown afide all pretences to circumfpection, for I find it impoffible in lefs than feven years to learn all the requifite cautions. At London, if you know your company, and their parents, you are fafe; but you are here fufpected of alluding to the flips of great grandmothers, and of reviving contefts which were decided in armour by the re doubted knights of ancient times. I hope therefore that you will not condemn my impatience, if I am weary of attending where nothing can be learned, and of quarrelling where there is nothing to contest, and that you will contribute to divert nie while I ftay here by fome facetious performance.

Fam, &TR,

EUPHELIA,

NUMB. 47. TUESDAY, August 28, 1750.

Quanquam his folatiis acquiefcam, debilitor & frangor eadem illa bumanitate quæ me, ut hoc ipfum permitterem, induxit, non ideo tamen velim durior fieri: nec ignoro alios bujufmodi cafus nibil amplius vocare quam damnum; eoque fibi magnos bomines & fapientes videri. Qui an magni fapientefque fint, nefcio: bomines non funt. Hominis eft enim affici dolore, fentire refiftere tamen, & folatia admittere; non folatiis non egore.

PLIN.

These proceedings have afforded me fome comfort in my diftrefs;, notwithstanding which, I am still dispirited, and unhinged by the fame motives of humanity that induced me to grant such indulgences. However, I by no means wish to become lefs fufceptible of tenderness. I know these kind of misfortunes would be eftimated by other perfons only as common loffes, and from fuch fenfations they would conceive themselves great and wife men. I shall not determine either their greatness or their wisdom; but I am certain they have no humanity. It is the part of a man to be affected with grief; to feel forrow, at the same time, that he is to refift it,, and to admit of comfort.

Earl of OR RER Y

F the paffions with which the mind of man

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is agitated, it may be obferved, that they naturally haften towards their own extinction, by inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges our flight, and defire animates our progress; and if there are fome which perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their fatisfaction, as it is. frequently observed of avarice and ambition, yet their immediate tendency is to fome means of hap-. piness really exifting, and generally within the profpect. The mifer always imagines that there is a certain fum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquifition in his thoughts that is to terminate

his labours, after which he fhall pafs the rest of his life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.

Sorrow is perhaps the only affection of the breast that can be excepted from this general remark, and it therefore deserves the particular attention of those who have affumed the arduous province of preserving the balance of the mental conftitution. The other paffions are diseases indeed, but they neceffarily direct us to their proper cure. A man at once feels the pain, and knows the medicine, to which he is carried with greater hafte as the evil which requires it is more excruciating, and cures himself by unerring instinct, as the wounded ftags of Crete are related by Ælian to have recourfe to vulnerary herbs. But for forrow there is no remedy pro-. vided by nature; it is often occafioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have loft or changed their existence; it requires✩ what it cannot hope, that the laws of the universe fhould be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past should be recalled.

Sorrow is not that regret for negligence or errorwhich may animate us to future care or activity, or that repentance of crimes for which, however irrevocable, our Creator has promised to accept it as an atonement; the pain which arifes from these causes has very falutary effects, and is every hour extenuating itself by the reparation of thofe mifcarriages that produce it. Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our defires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an inceffant with that fomething were otherwife than it has been, a tormenting and harraffing want of some enjoyment or poffeffion which we have loft, and which no endeavours can poffibly regain.

regain. Into fuch anguish many have funk upon fome fudden diminution of their fortune, an unexpected blast of their reputation, or the lofs of children or of friends. They have fuffered all fenfibility of pleafure to be destroyed by a single blow, have given up for ever the hopes of fubftituting any other object in the room of that which they lament, refigned their lives to gloom and defpondency, and worn themselves out in unavailing mifery.

Yet fo much is this paffion the natural confequence of tenderness and endearment, that, however painful and however useless, it is justly reproachful not to feel it on fome occafions; and fo widely and conftantly has it always prevailed, that the laws of fome nations, and the customs of others, have limited a time for the external appearances of grief caufed by the diffolution of clofe alliances, and the breach of domestick union.

It seems determined, by the general fuffrage of mankind, that forrow is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love, or at least pardonable as the effect of weakness; but that it ought not to be fuffered to increase by indulgence, but must give way, after a stated time, to focial duties, and the common avocations of life. It is at firft unavoid able, and therefore must be allowed, whether with or without our choice; it may afterwards be admitted as a decent and affectionate testimony of kindness and esteem; fomething will be extorted by nature, and fomething may be given to the world. But all beyond the bursts of paffion, or the forms of folemnity, is not only ufelefs, but culpable; for we have no right to facrifice, to the vain longings of affection, that time which providence allows us for the tafk of our station.

Fet