guessing her wishes, and anticipating her wants with the tenderest solicitude, she seemed to personify her, who as described by Mason, "Her meek hands folded on her modest breast, E'en to the storm that wrecks her." VOL. III. L CHAP. CHAP. XLV. Let me, o! let me near some fountain lie! That I their streams, and they my tears may feed; Spend all my days in weeping for this cursed deed. GILES FLETCHER. WE will not detain our readers with an account of Sir Edward Clayton's sensations, when he heard of Lord Courtney's death. All that a mind of sensibility could feel, at the dreadful thought of being accessary to the death of a fellow creature, was felt by him; and encreased by the recollection, of the amiable qualities of the deceased, and the wretched ness ness into which his untimely fate had plunged those connected with him. Literature, in which Clayton could once find a balm for every wound, now became hateful to him. What indeed could books teach him? Poetry and fiction, only led him to contrast and lament the sad realities of life; whilst morality and reasoning, taught him but to condemn more severely, his own conduct, of which the retrospect was already too painful. In this unfortunate situation he resolved to study the book of nature, and endeavouring to divert mental uneasiness by bodily employment, he assumed the name of Balfour, and wandered on foot through the greatest part of Wales, staying a few days at any place that appeared agreeable to him, and quitting it when the attractive but transient charm of novelty had fled. At Caermarthen he met with an old acquaintance, a clergyman, to whom he communicated L. 2 communicated his change of name, and reasons for so doing, and this friend, anxious to serve him, gave him letters to many of his brethren, and amongst the ' rest, to Mr. Price; and he made use of these letters, just as he felt a temporary wish to have some one, to whom he could communicate his remarks, or was pleased with the situation of those, to whom they were addressed. The latter motive induced him to deliver an introductory epistle to Mr. Price, with whose conversation and manners he was soon so highly gratified, that he resolved to suspend his wanderings, and endeavour to find consolation in the precepts, and reap benefit from the example, of the chastened mourner, who notwithstanding the retired life he had led for many years, possessed a mind richly stored, if not with classical learning, yet with that kind of reading and sentiment which perhaps affords a greater, and more pleasing variety of information. It It is not requisite for a person to have passed the principal part of his time in the busy scenes of life, to enable him to be an agreeable and instructive companion in retirement. It is certain, that if the paucity and uniformity of incidents be such, as to inspire no interest, and rouse no reflection, the mind must depend solely on its own powers for amusement; and then, memory may indeed afford truly valuable additions to present ideas, by recalling past scenes, and the sensations inspired by a retrospective view of them, will be gentle, and pleasing, as those felt on perusing for the second time, after a lapse of years, a work in which we were before strongly interested. They please indeed more from a recollection of the much greater pleasure, of which we had before been sensible; the vision is not now so bright; like a landscape by moonlight, the colours appear faded, and indistinct, but the very gloom in which they are involved |