Here's to our Lichfieldian friends, says Nanny;Oh-h, says Mary ;-with all my soul, say I;-alolns, cries my mother; and the draught seems Nectar.The libation made, we begin our uncloying theme, and so beguile the gloomy evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Seward will accept my most affectionate respects. My male friend at Lichfield will join in your conversation on the Andrès. Among the numerous good qualities he is possessed of, he certainly has gratitude, and then he cannot forget those who so sincerely love and esteem him.-I, in particular, shall always recal with pleasure, the happy hours I have passed in his company. My friendship for him, and for your family, has diffused itself, like the precious ointment from Aaron's beard, on every thing which surrounds you, therefore I beg you would give my amitiès to the whole town.-Persuade Honora to forgive the length and ardour of the inclosed, and believe me truly,

Your affectionate and faithful friend,

J. ANDRE.

LETTER II.

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 cornucopies that disembogue their stores upon his

head; Mercuries reclined upon bales of goods; Genii playing with pens, Ink, and paper;-while in perspective, his gorgeous vessels "launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames," are wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all the mercantile glories croud on my fancy, emblazon'd in the most refulgent colouring of an ardent imagination.Borne on her soaring pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to receive me-I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and poets, and builders, protected and en-' couraged; and when the fabric is pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes around, and find John Andrè, by a small coal fire, in a gloomy Compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been making himself, and, in all probability, never to be much more than he is at present.But oh! my dear Honora -it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth.-You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I must flatter myself, that she will soon be without any remains of this threatening disease.

It is seven o'clock.-You and Honora, with two or three more select friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fire-place.-What would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and a snug circle round it, formed by a few sincere friends, transports me. You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray imagine me with you; admit me to your conversationès; think how I wish for the blessing of joining them!and be persuaded that I take part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that ere it be very long, your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray keep me a place; let the poker, tongs, or shovel, represent me ;-but you have Dutch tiles, which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's Ass, be my representative.

But time calls me to Clapton.-I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, if I do not tear the nonsense I

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have been writing, I may perhaps increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty,-Silvered with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps. Musing as I homeward plod my way-Ah! need I name the subject of my contemplations!

Thursday.

I had 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 the autumnal sun!-Gilded hills-variegated woods-glittering spires-ruminating herds-bounding flocks-all combined to enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and "chase all sorrow but despair."-In the midst of such a scene, no lesser grief can prevent our sympathy with nature. A calmness, a benevolent disposition, seizes us with sweet insinuating power. The very brute