an original letter, his answer, with a PAPER annexed to it.---When you have read them, fir, said fhe, and confidered them, I shall beg the favour of you to give me your opinion of the letter of my friend, and of the paper annexed to it.---My friend died shortly after he had writ it.---She paufed a little and dropped a tear.---In regard, fir, faid fhe, to the letter I writ to him, if it has any value, it is because it has reference to his, and occafioned it to be written.

The next time I had the honour of feeing her, I laid the letters and the paper annexed to them upon her table, and said I had read them with pleasure, and hoped to profit by them, and that I wished to have copies of them.

I am glad, fir, faid fhe, that they have in any degree answered your expectation, and as you defire it, you may have copies

of them.---There is a young perfon in my houfe, who can tranfcribe them in a fair and legible hand.---That, said I, would be a very limited publication of them, when perhaps at an expence, which a tolerable fale of them would defray, they might be printed and offered to the public at large.

If you, fir, faid fhe, would take the trouble of writing a narrative of what you have so obligingly at different times related to me concerning the Afiatic Prince and his fubjects, and of printing and publishing it together with the letter of my deceased friend, and the paper annexed to it, they would, I think, be well received by the public.---They might serve to amufe fome people, and to instruct others. ---But as to my letter, if it should happen to be brought before the critics of this country, who are in their own right a lite

rary

rary tribunal of vaft extent and authority, they would immediately pronounce it to be, what I could not deny it to be, the letter of an old woman.---However, fir, if you fhould hereafter be of opinion, that a publication of fuch a narrative as I have fuggefted to you, together with the letter of my deceased friend, and the paper annexed to it, might be either useful to a few worthy individuals, or acceptable to the public at large, you may publish my letter with them, but without mention of my name, and not 'till after my death.

The conditions, which you prescribe, madam, faid I, with regard to your letter are hard; but you have a right to prefcribe, and I fhall ftrictly comply with them.---Why, fir, faid fhe, do you think my conditions hard ?---Because, said I, madam, if at any time a narrative of what I have related should be published together with

E 4

with the letters, &c. the whole by complying with your injunction will be de prived of the advantage of a favourable introduction to the world, and the Editor must forego the credit of presenting to the public view a

NAME. *

The Lady was much affected by what I faid, and looked grave.---A fervant announced the arrival of visiters, which happily put an end to our embarrassment.

* The Editor would be extremely happy to be able to fill up the blank, left by the author;

author; as well with the character as with the name of the Lady, whom he has mentioned with fo much refpect in feveral parts of his narrative; but no one circumftance has yet been difcovered among his papers, that ferves to lead to a probable conjecture of her name, except the following words written by him, with his own hand on the margin near the copy of the letter, which she had written to her friend in regard to the Sabbath, viz.

I abbor flattery---It is deceit accompanied with meaness and cunning on the part of the person, who offers it, and is a gross inJult to the perfon, to whom it is offered--for it carries with it a fuppofition, that the perfon, to whom it is offered, is proud, or vain, or ftupid, and is either incapable of diftinguishing truth from falfehood, or prefers the latter to the former.