year, without making my acknowledgements to it for introducing me to Miss Carter's acquaintance, and think it no ill contrivance by addressing these thanks to her to engage her good-nature to continue to me a pleasure I am so sensible of. I have not the gift of saying fine things, therefore shall not pretend to answer all those with which your politeness would flatter me, or perhaps by an agreeable irony would rally my vanity. The most I pretend to is common sense enough not to be deceived by them into a false notion of myself, and charity enough to believe you meant them kindly, in token of which charity I sent you many compliments by Mr. Wright, but if I had not been impertinent enough to make him open his Letter again, I believe you would never have had them. I had the pleasure of spending part of November and December in the same family with him, and often enquired about the time he passed in Kent, which he talked of as one that was equal to all I could imagine of it. Poor man, the time he spent at Windsor was the latter part of it embittered by a loss which he seemed touched by very deeply, and his melancholy air made me reflect on your moonlight walks. To you, however, who can look beyond the stars for a support under every affliction, too much indulgence of these sad and soothing meditations should not be allowed, and I should rather rather recommend all sorts of idleness to you. As this town is the properest place in the world to follow such a prescription in, I shall be a little impatient to hear of your arrival in it. I am afraid this is being very ill-natured to a family I have a great respect for, but except that article of your spending a whole Winter in the country, I very sincerely wish both them and you all the happiness the new year can bring with it, and hope the other too interested wish may be excused, MRS. CARTER TO MISS TALBOT. Deal, Jan. 25, 1742. IF you, Madam, could think it necessary to make any acknowledgment to the past year for a trifle hardly deserving your remembrance till the present, how much higher ought my gratitude to rise, who am indebted to it for a pleasure which will constantly supply me with the most agreeable reflections I am capable of, while I have either sense or memory left, Benedetto sia il giorno, e'l mese, e'l anno And And St. James's church, and Mr. Wright, and the particles yes and no, and every other circumstance, and every other person that contributed to make me happy in the sight and conversation of Miss Talbot. If I had Petrarch's genius I would not have borrowed his Italian on this anniversary of January 25th, 1741. I have the greater reason for the pleasure I find in the return of a day that introduced me to your acquaintance, as that was attended with a circumstance I have not often found in the attainment of any other wish, that it was equal, not to say superior, to the most flattering expectations I had formed of it, and How can you be so cruel as to cramp my genius for saying what you call fine things? A term I must absolutely quarrel with you, unless you understand by it the real and unaffected expressions of my thoughts, and to these you may apply whatever name you like best. If your Letter had not laid me under some sort of restriction, I should certainly have displayed my eloquence for this half hour in talking of you, which would in some measure alleviate the mortification I feel in not being able to talk with you. Nothing could more obligingly flatter my vanity than your enquiries about my coming to London, but I must follow your prescription in another place, for I am going in a few days to Dr. Lynch's at Can terbury, terbury, where I shall have all the opportunities in the world for it, as I generally lead a very agreeable idle sort of a life when I am there. But as much pleasure as I always find in a place and a set of company I am very fond of, the indolence of my temper meets no small difficulty in the thoughts of getting there, and a journey of only sixteen miles seems to me as formidable as if it was a voyage to Grand Cairo. I find myself growing extremely stupid, so think it the most prudent method to conclude, when I have assured you, that if my wishes have any efficacy, you will not want for any happiness either this or any other of the years that compose the longest life can possibly afford; and one of the most agreeable wishes I can form for myself is, that I may still have the pleasure of subscribing myself, &c. Miss TALBOT TO MRS. CARTER. Piccadilly, June 1, 1742. IN a time when my health and spirits were too weak to receive much pleasure from any thing, I received a most obliging Letter from dear Miss Carter, that really gave me a great deal; but unequal unequal as I am at the very best to such a Correspondence, imagine how unfit I am to renew it after a long illness that has exhausted all the little vivacity I ever had, and left me a mere trifler of the dullest kind. So slight a thing is gratitude in the present age, that these considerations were quite sufficient to hinder me from acknowledging the favour of your last Letter, till self-interest comes in the way, and puts me in mind that unless I desire you will direct your next to Cuddesden, I may miss the pleasure of receiving it. It is now little more than a week we have to stay in this unjoyous town: a place surely of as much gaiety, and as little cheerfulness as one can imagine. Its neighbourhood is enriched since you was here, with a building which I am told exceeds in taste and magnificence every one in Europe: to untravelled eyes like mine 'tis to be sure an amazing fine thing, and quite worth your coming to see it next year, by which time they may possibly have found all that it wants to make it complete; some use for it answerable to the fineness and stateliness of the structure, for to be sure it is quite vexatious at present to see all the pomp and splendour of a Roman amphitheatre, devoted to no better use than a twelvepenny entertainment of cold ham and chicken*. * Probably Ranelagh is the place meant, which was finished in 1740. Certainly |