of your
youth. You may find friends of equal merit; you may esteem them
equally; but few connexions form'd after five and twenty strike root
like that early sympathy, which united us almost from infancy, and has
increas'd to the very hour of our separation.

What pleasure is there in the friendships of the spring of life,
before the world, the mean unfeeling selfish world, breaks in on the
gay mistakes of the just-expanding heart, which sees nothing but truth,
and has nothing but happiness in prospect!

I am not surpriz'd the heathens rais'd altars to friendship: 'twas
natural for untaught superstition to deify the source of every good;
they worship'd friendship, which animates the moral world, on the same
principle as they paid adoration to the sun, which gives life to the
world of nature.

I am summon'd on board. Adieu!

Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 2.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, June 27.

I have this moment your letter, my dear; I am happy to hear my
mother has been amus'd at Bath, and not at all surpriz'd to find she
rivals you in your conquests. By the way, I am not sure she is not
handsomer, notwithstanding you tell me you are handsomer than ever: I
am astonish'd she will lead a tall daughter about with her thus, to let
people into a secret they would never suspect, that she is past five
and twenty.

You are a foolish girl, Lucy: do you think I have not more pleasure
in continuing to my mother, by coming hither, the little indulgencies
of life, than I could have had by enjoying them myself? pray reconcile
her to my absence, and assure her she will make me happier by jovially
enjoying the trifle I have assign'd to her use, than by procuring me
the wealth of a Nabob, in which she was to have no share.

But to return; you really, Lucy, ask me such a million of questions,
'tis impossible to know which to answer first; the country, the
convents, the balls, the ladies, the beaux--'tis a history, not a
letter, you demand, and it will take me a twelvemonth to satisfy your
curiosity.

Where shall I begin? certainly with what must first strike a
soldier: I have seen then the spot where the amiable hero expir'd in
the arms of victory; have traced him step by step with equal
astonishment and admiration: 'tis here alone it is possible to form an
adequate idea of an enterprize, the difficulties of which must have
destroy'd hope itself had they been foreseen.

The country is a very fine one