hem away to you--therefore never lay us under
any embargoes of this kind, for I tell you beforehand, that we are
both incorrigible. My beloved Cousin, the first thing that I open my
eyes upon in a morning, is it not the bed in which you have laid me?
Did you not, in our old dismal parlour at Olney, give me the tea on
which I breakfast?--the chocolate that I drank at noon, and the table
at which I dine?--the everything, in short, that I possess in the
shape of convenience, is it not all from you? and is it possible,
think you, that we should either of us overlook an opportunity of
making such a tiny acknowledgement of your kindness? Assure yourself
that never, while my name is Giles Gingerbread, will I dishonour my
glorious ancestry, and my illustrious appellation, by so unworthy a
conduct. I love you at my heart, and so does Mrs. U., and we must say
thank you, and send you a peppercorn when we can. So thank you, my
dear, for the brawn and the chine, and for all the good things that
you announce, and at present I will, for your sake, say no more of
thanksgiving.

TO MRS. BODHAM

_His mother's portrait_

Weston, 27 _Feb._ 1790.

MY DEAREST ROSE,

Whom I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I still
find alive: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it,
and to hear it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a
child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so.
Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and
you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her:
I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for
your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so
acceptable to me, as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I
received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of
nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the
dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung
it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course,
the first on which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I
completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular
witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a
multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and
which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. There is in
me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and tho