ing or music have more in them than the life of man can exhaust. However, this is a question that will bear much argument, for though Providence, to excite man to the pursuit of knowledge, has strew'd pleasures like flowers on the surface; delight and sure satisfaction, like the ore and gem, are buried in the mine, and can thence be brought only by labour, time, and strong application.

All the family at the Stone-house, and myself in their train, went yesterday to Penshurst, and spent a good deal of time in viewing the pictures. I was most pleased with the portraits, as I know not any family that for arts and arms, greatness of courage, and nobility of mind, have excelled the Sidney race. Beauty too has been remarkable in it; they have adorned the Historian's and the Poet's page, but alas, all things change, and I fear that for the future, their highest renown will arise from some paragraph in the news-paper, that bestows on them beauty, wit, and fine accomplishments. We drove about the Park for some time,

admired the fine scenes, and revered the shades where Sir Philip, and Algernon Sidney had pursued their meditations, and Waller touched his gentle lyre. We went from the Park to an inn at Penshurst to dinner, and returned home in the evening.

My most honoured Cousin.

YOUR kind and agreeable letter restored me in some measure to the temper I lost at going out of town the very day you came to it. I know not what poets may find in the country when they have filled the woods with sylvan deities, and the

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rivers with naiades; but to me, groves, and streams, and plains, make poor amends for the loss of a friend's conversation. You have better supplied Mr. Pitt's absence by reading the orations of his predecessor, Demosthenes, and I can easily imagine you would rather have passed the evening with the British, than the Grecian Demosthenes, whom in talents, perhaps, he equals, and in grace of manners and the sweet civilities of life, I dare say, excels. But when you seem to say you would even have preferred the simple small-talk of your poor Cousin to the Athenian orator, I cry out, Oh, wonderous power of friendship! which, like the sun, gives glorious colours to a vapour, and brightens the pebble to a gem, till what would have been neglected by the common herd, is accepted by the most distinguished; thus has your partiality done by me, and having made me your companion and your friend, you at last begin to think I have a right to be so, and as I am in danger of thinking so too, I beg of you not to change your opinion after I

have adopted it. On Tuesday morning about eight o'clock, I call'd upon Mr. Hooke at his hermitage; I found him, like a true savant, surrounded by all the elements of science, but though I looked round the room, I could not perceive any signs of the author, no papers, pen, ink, or sheets just come from the press. I fear the fine ladies and fine prospects of Cookham divert his attention from the Roman History. I desired him to carry me to Mrs. Edwin's, which I heard was a very pretty place, and indeed I do not wonder if the Thames, which plays so prettily round the garden, should make Mr. Hooke forget the Tiber; and there is an old ferry woman, who crosses the Thames very often before Mrs. Edwin's terrace, whom, from acquaintance and friendship, he may prefer to the valiant Clelia, long so famed in story, as you do the impertinent caquet of your cousin to the rhetoric of former times; such advantage have present objects, and happy it is so, or the majesty of the antique world. might awe the spirits of the puny modern,

and action be lost in contemplation. Mr. Hooke made earnest enquiry after you, and I said for you to him, what I thought equivalent to the regard he expressed for you. While we were in Mrs. Edwin's garden, he betrayed my name to her; my face was well disguised with a pair of spectacles, but on his information, she came down, shew'd me her house, and the pictures, which are very fine, but the views from her windows gave one no leisure to consider the works of art. I shall not endeavour to describe the place to you, as I understand you were there last year to visit Mrs. Stanley, who lives at the edge of the garden. I know not whether the freshness of the morning, a small degree of mistiness in the air, which soften'd the near objects, and the sun obliquely falling upon parts of the wood, did not give it at that time a more than ordinary beauty; but I must own I was never so pleased with any situation on the Thames, its banks being usually flat and naked; these are finely wooded, and rise in variety of eminences. Cliefden Hill