e
advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which
must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons
whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved
a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear
that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings
were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press
his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His
mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own
control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was
forbidden to regard as an elected husband.

It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him
the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure
the means of accomplishing matrimony, that Andre was now persuaded to
renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back
to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional
visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss
Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are
vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which
his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a
specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental
fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her
name is Anna.

"_London, October_ 19, 1769.

"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain,
let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And
first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must
tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future
profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so
disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged
man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping
a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a
tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the
Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded
with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue
their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods;
Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his
gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames