strain of a
Wesleyan Madame Guyon. These throw some little light upon the character
of Matthew Haygarth, but do not afford much information of a tangible
kind. I have transcribed the letters verbatim, adhering even to certain
eccentricities of orthography which were by no means unusual in an age
when the Pretender to the crown of Great Britain wrote of his father as
_Gems_.

The first letter bears the date of August 30th, 1773, one week after
the marriage of the lady to our friend Matthew.

"REVERED FRIEND AND PASTOR,--On Monday sennite we arriv'd in London,
wich seems to me a mighty bigg citty, but of no more meritt or piety
than Babylon of old. My husband, who knows ye towne better than he
knows those things with wich it would more become him to be familiar,
was pleas'd to laugh mightily at that pious aversion wherewith I
regarded some of ye most notable sights in this place. We went t'other
night to a great garden called by some Spring Garden, by others
Vauxhall,--as having been at one time ye residence or estate of that
Arch Fiend and Papistical traitor Vaux, or Faux; but although I felt
obligated to my husband for ye desire to entertain me with a fine
sight, I could not but look with shame upon serious Christians
disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and
listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost
of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to
improve and edify one another.

"My obliging Mathew would have taken me to other places of the like
character; but inspir'd, as I hope and believe, by ye direction of ye
spirit, I took upon myself to tell him what vain trifling is all such
kind of pleasure. He argu'd with me stoutly, saying that ye King and
Queen, who are both shining examples of goodness and piety, do attend
Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and are to be seen there frequent, to the
delight of their subjects. On which I told him that, much as I esteemed
my sovereign and his respectable consort, I would compleat my existence
without having seen them rather than I would seek to encounter them in
a place of vain and frivolous diversion. He listen'd to my discoorse in
a kind and sober temper, but he was not convinc'd; for by and by he
falls of a sudden to sighing and groaning, and cries out, 'O, I went to
Vauxhall once when ye garden was not many years made, and O, how bright
ye lamps shone, like ye stars of heaven fallen among bushes! and O, how
swee