t Matthew was living in one place while
he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several
passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the
following:--

"I was yesterday--markett-day--at G., wear I ran suddennly agenst Peter
Browne's eldest ladd. The boy openn'd his eyes wide, stearing like an
owle; butt I gaive him bakk his looke with interrest, and tolde him if
he was curiouse to know my name, I was Simon Lubchick, farmer, at his
servise. The pore simpel ladd arsk'd my pardonn humbly for having
mistook me for a gentelman of Ullerton--a frend of his father; on wich
I gaive him a shillin, and we parted, vastly plesed with eche other;
and this is nott the fust time the site of Ullerton fokes has putt me
into a swett."

Amongst later letters are very sad ones. The little M. is dead. The
father's poor aching heart proclaims its anguish in very simple words:

"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and
compashin; butt, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or
comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres,
and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and
lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day.
Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing butt sorrow before me, and I wou'd
be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave."

I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here
and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been
lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart,
and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the
letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years.
Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I
transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd;
everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf:
wot a nobel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one
considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the
oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on
Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose
admir'd story of _Raselass_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am
bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an
orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners
wot in a more obskure personn