LETTER I.* TO MISS L YES! I will steal from the world, and not a babbling tongue shall tell where I am,-Echo shall not so much as whisper my hiding place: -suffer thy imagination to paint it as a little sun-gilt cottage, on the side of a ró-mantic hill. Dost thou think I will leave love and friendship behind me? No! they shall be my companions in solitude, for they will sit down and rise up with me in the amiable form of my L. We will be as merry an as innocent as our first parents in Paradise, before the arch fiend entered that undescribable scene. The kindest affections will have room to shoot and expand in our retirement, and produce such fruit as madness, and envy, and ambition, have always killed in the bud.-Let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance: the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December,-some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. -No planetary influence shall reach us, but that which *This, and the three subsequent letters, were written by Mr. Sterne to his wife, while she resided in Staffordshire, before their marriage. which presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. God preserve us! how delightful this prospect in idea! We will build and we will plant in our own way, simplicity shall not be tortured by art;— we will learn of Nature how to live, she shall be our alchymist, to mingle all the good of life into one salubrious draught. The gloomy family of Care and Distrust shall be banished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity; we will sing our choral songs of gratitude, and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes. for thy society. LETTER II. L. STERNE. TO THE SAME. You bid me tell you, my dear L. how I bore your departure for S, and whether the valley where D'Estella stands, retains still its looks,-or, if I think the roses or jessamines smell as sweet, as when you left it.—Alas! every thing has now lost its relish and look! The hour you left D'Estella, I took to my bed. I was worn out by fevers of all kinds, but most by that fever of the heart with which thou knowest well I have been wasting these two years-and shall continue wasting till you quit S The good |