a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with
their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their
amities, and will write in a few days.

"This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable;
a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light
was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of an
autumnal sun! Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires,
ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes,
expand the heart, and 'chase all sorrows but despair.' In the midst of
such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A
calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating
power. The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties. There is
a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but
indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented
look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave
unattempted.

"Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it
contain? No matter--You like anything better than news. Indeed, you have
never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject,
from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the tastes of
Julia and _Cher Jean_. What is it to you or me,

"If here in the city we have nothing but riot;
If the Spitalfield weavers can't be kept quiet;
If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty;
Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty?

"But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I
should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would
plead my cause with Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has
the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my
random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs.----.
Here it is at your service.

"Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down,
With a flaming red face and a broad yellow gown,
And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.

"This little French cousin of our's, Delarise, was my sister Mary's
playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely.
Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters.

"How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the
friends most dear to you at Lichfield. Lichfield! Ah, of what magic
letters