their confidence, and at laft come to fight on equal terms of fkill and bravery, without equal numbers.

Mrs. Williams wrote me word, that you had honoured her with a vifit, and behaved lovely.

Mr. Thrale left off digging his pool, I fuppofe, for want of water. The first thing to be done is by digging in three or four places, to try how near the fprings will rife to the furface; for though we cannot hope to be always full, we must be fure never to be dry.

Poor *****! I am forry for him. It is fad to give a family of children no pleasure but by dying. It was faid of Otho: Hoc tantum fecit nobile quod periit. It may be changed to ****: Hoc tantum fecit utile.

If I could do Mr. Carter any good at Oxford, I could eafily ftop there; for through it, if I go by Birmingham, I am likely to pass; but the place is now a fullen folitude. Whatever can be done I am ready to do; but our operations muft for the prefent be at London.

I am, &c.

LETTER CXXXVII.

To Mrs. THRAL E.

I

MADAM,

Lichfield, August 2, 1775.

DINED to-day at Stowhill, and am come away to write my letter. Never furely , was I fuch a writer before. Do you keep my letters? I am not of your opinion that I fhall not like to read them hereafter; for though there is in them not much hiftory of mind, or any thing elfe, they will, I hope, always be in fome degree the records of a pure and blamelefs friendship, and in fome hours of languour and fadnefs may revive the memory of more cheerful times.

Why you should fuppofe yourself not defirous hereafter to read the hiftory of your own mind, I do not fee. Twelve years, on which you now look as on a vast expanfe of life, will probably be paffed over uniformly and fmoothly, with very little perception of your progress, and with very few remarks

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upon the way. That accumulation of knowledge which you promise to yourself, by which the future is to look back upon the prefent, with the fuperiority of manhood to infancy, will perhaps never be attempted, or never will be made; and you will find, as millions have found before you, that forty-five has made little fenfible addition to thirty-three.

As the body after a certain time gains no increase of height, and little of ftrength, there is likewise a period, though more variable by external causes, when the mind commonly attains its stationary point, and very little advances its powers of reflection, judgment, and ratiocination. The body may acquire new modes of motion, or new dexterities of mechanick operations, but its original strength receives not improvement; the mind may be ftored with new languages, or new fciences, but its power of thinking remains nearly the fame, and unless it attains new fubjects of meditation, it commonly produces thoughts of the fame force and the fame extent, at very diftant intervals of life, as the tree, unlefs a foreign fruit be ingrafted, gives year after year productions of the fame form and the fame flavour.

By

By intellectual force or ftrength of thought is meant the degree of power which the mind poffeffes of furveying the subject of meditation, with its circuit of concomitants, and its train of dependence.

Of this power, which all obferve to be very different in different minds, part seems the gift of nature, and part the acquifition of experience. When the powers of nature have attained their intended energy, they can be no more advanced. The fhrub can never become a tree. And it is not unreafonable to fuppofe, that they are before the middle of life in their full vigour.

Nothing then remains but practice and experience; and perhaps why they do fo little, may be worth enquiry.

But I have juft now looked, and find it fo late, that I will enquire against the next postnight,

I am, &c.

LETTER CXXXVIII.

To Mrs. THRAL E.

DEAR MADAM,

Lichfield, August 5, 1775.

IN

you

NSTEAD of forty reasons for my return, one is fufficient, that you wish for my company. I purpose to write no more till fee me. The ladies at Stowhill and Greenhill are unanimously of opinion, that it will be beft to take a poft-chaife, and not to be troubled with the vexations of a common carriage. I will venture to suppose the ladies at Streatham to be of the fame mind.

You will now expect to be told why you will not be fo much wifer as you expect, when you have lived twelve years longer.

It is faid, and faid truly, that experience is the best teacher; and it is fuppofed, that as life is lengthened experience is encreased. But a clofer infpection of human life will discover that time often paffes without any incident which can much enlarge knowledge or ratify

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