contributed to their amusement, and who trusts that he will never forfeit their good opinion by the flattery of prejudice, whether national or individual, or by the expression of a corrupt or immoral thought.

VIEWS

OF

SOCIETY, &c.

LETTER L

London.

THAT I should still be here you will wonder, and I almost wonder myself; but I knew London early, I have known it long; it was the scene of many a youthful joy, and youthful sorrow too; the joy and sorrow long are over, but their recollection remains. The friends who passed St. Paul's with me have passed away, but its heavy clock still rolls mellow on my accustomed ear. Those with whom I trod Westminster abbey, tread it no longer, but its dusky aisles almost give me back their tall figures and lengthening shades. In the stained glass and hollow organ, I see as it were, the sights, and hear the sounds of other and better days.

However I shall leave this at the furthest in a few weeks; I shall once more visit the

B

land of my fathers, then go where I originally proposed; but go wheresoever I may, never shall I forget my obligations to you; I can converse with you no longer, but I shall write until I can write no more.

I trust it has been otherwise with you, but the weather here has for some time past been frightful; my remembrance, (it is more now than young remembrance,) can scarce find its parallel; however, yesterday was fine, and I walked in the park; it was crowded, and black seemed still the prevailing colour. But though the garb is thus worn, the mourning in reality long is gone, and the Princess Charlotte is almost as much forgotten as if she had never lived. This you will scarcely credit, and rarely, I admit, has death taken place under circumstances more calculated to make a lasting, as well as deep impression; she was innocent and young-she was the affectionate daughter of a joyless mother, and she was about to be a joyful mother herself. The highest raised moment of expectation was the absolute extinction of hope, and the dreary vacancy of a November morning was broken on, not by the merry peals of rejoicing, but by the dismal tolling of a solitary bell. My heart at the sound melted within me, and the tears, I am not ashamed to acknowledge, spite of myself, dropped from my eyes, as I thought of this fair lily thus un

timely broken-this blooming rose shaken before it was fully blown.

But grief for the death of those whom we have scarcely seen, and never personally known, is, of all our short-lived feelings, the most short-lived. The very next day, or at the most the day after, I eat my bread and drank my wine, if not as a great king directs, with a merry heart, at least with my usual one. My sensibility, I believe, is not less than that of other men; and I may fairly presume that the measure of their sorrow was not greater than my own. I fear, therefore, God forgive me if I be wrong, that the face of woe so long and ostentatiously worn, was affectation soon, and at the last was neither more nor less than downright hypocrisy. It was in truth scarcely possible to be in society, without observing the laborious effort to keep individual feeling at the general standard; lashing up slumbering sorrow, as a boy does his top, lest it should fall before its companions.

In this sentimental deception, the newspapers bore a conspicuous part; the people were marshalled like mourners at a funeral, and instructed to manage gracefully their white handkerchiefs, and to sob and sigh in all the elegance of woe. In a particular manner one paper was the Grimaldi of this grimace; and, as the Princess of Abyssinia

did on the loss of her favourite, it stole each day a few moments from its Atlas-like labours, 'to dwell on the good qualities, and to mourn the loss of the deceased. This I suppose was intended to show to a wondering world, that the people of England knew the exact measure of joy and sorrow, as well as of praise and censure; and that, while beyond all others they had taken the greatest liberty with Princes, beyond all others they could mourn for them.

I say more on this subject than perhaps you will think necessary, but if there be a vice which I detest more than another, it is hypocrisy, and, so unaccountably do nations change, it is the one to which the people of England seem now the most prone; it is an ominous as well as odious one, for it is sure, and speedily too, to be followed by open and avowed profligacy. In this instance there was not only the hypocrisy of vanity, but I fear of hate, and dislike of the living was conveyed by mourning for the dead; grace and renown it not unintelligibly said were fled; the wine of life was drawn, and there was remaining only the dregs: this sentiment, or rather the application of it, is your own. How I came to know this you will wonder, but I shall not leave you to wonder.

I was returning on the walk, when a servant accosted me and said his mistress wished