and so thinking! If those I am now writing to are,--as I conceive they are,-of the number of the few, I have my end in, and shall need no apology, for this address. My incapacity, which has of late increased, of being so useful to, and conversant with, the family I the most revere of any under my charge, has been one inducement to this unusual manner of application to them, of which I promise myself their candid and favourable acceptance; and subscribe, with my earnest pravers for their improvement and perseverance in whatever may tend to their everlasting welfare, Mr. and the Miss Itheli's sincerely obedient and obliged humble servant,

M. HILDESLEY.

*** The above letter, or perhaps the unknown volume referred to, is thus superscribed :

To
my worthy

and
highly-esteemed parishioners,

Elizabeth
Mrs.

and Ithell,

Martha
these Meditations
are humbly presented

by
their obedient and faithful pastor,

M. H.

LETTER II.

Mr. S. Richardson, author of Clarissa, Grandison, and Pamela,

to a Lady.

MADAM,

London, Jan. 10, 1757.
I am very sorry that the bishop says “ He dare not call me

" liis friend." No one living could value the good Vicar of Hitchin more than I did, for the sake of his character, before I had the pleasure of being visited by him as Bishop of Man; and most heartily I congratulated in my mind the people committed to his charge, on their happiness not suffering by their change.

To myself, in the letters he favoured me with, I always thought him too condescending, too humble; and is he not so, in the notice he takes of me in the paper before me? I thought myself very happy in meeting, at the same inn at Barnet, the good Mr. Hildesley, on his return from Kent. Dr. Young dined with me there; and it was with regret that I could not engage him to do so too: but he had too good reasons to deny me that pleasure. My business lay always heavy upon me. I never, in two or three years could make a visit to Dr. Young of more than three or four days, out and in; but, had I known that the good Vicar of Hitchin had formed but half a wish to see me there, I would have got Dr. Young (both gentlemen respecting each other greatly) to have shewed me the way.

I had the favour of a visit, at my house in town, from his Jordship; and, meeting him afterwards in the street, I knew that he was in town preparing for his diocese; aud if I forget not, I was led to hope for another visit before his de. parture. But little did I know that his lordship was six whole weeks in town, while my business led me so near him; if I had, I should have held myself inexcusable not to have paid my duty to him in all that time.

I have a very sincere respect for this worthy prelate. He has an amiable aspect, and a chearfulness in bis manner that seemed to me an assurance that all was right within. [ had interested myself in his welfare, and should have rejoiced in an account of it, in his new settlement, His lordship is very good to me, in his kind promise not to free me, in future, occasionally, from what he calls his intrusions. He has not, any where, a more sis:cere well-wisher, I should take it for a favour to be considered by so worthy a divine as more than an acquaintance.

Many happy returns of the season attend your ladyship, and all you love, prays, madam, your most faithful and obliged servant,

S. RICHARDSON.

LETTER III.

Dr. Stephen Hales* to Bishop Hildesley.
MY GOOD LORD, Teddington, May 16, 1758.
I am much obliged to you for your kind letter of April 11,

a

and for the favourable reception of my book ; in which I hope there are many things of so great benefit to mankind as will hereafter have a considerable influence on the affairs of the world for the better, especially in relation to those mighty destroyers, drams; and that, not only of the lives, but also of the morals of mankind. With a view to which I have sent sixteen of this book, with its first part, to several nations of Europe, especially the more northern, as far as to Petersburg; and am just going to reprint the first part, so much abbreviated as to bind up well with the second part in one six-shilling book; principally with a view to send two or three hundred of them, at the first oppor. tunities, to all our colonies in America, from the southern to the most northern.

As the late occasional partial restraint took its rise from the great scarcity of corn, I cannot forbear looking upon it as a great blessing from him who in the midst of judgment remembers mercy; for, the happy event has been the almost half curing of the unhappy drammists. The reason why self-abuse of every kind seems to be paramount to the power of human laws is, that we have lost all discipline in church and state, as the late excellent Bishop of London observed in his last charge to us clergy in St. Martin's church; whence he inferred, that the parochial clergy ought therefore to exert themselves with the more zeal in their parochial duties.

As to your observation, that I have lived to eighty, without drams, it puts me in mind of an observation of the late Bishop Berkeley, viz. that "there was, in every district, a tough drammist, who was the devil's decoy, to draw others in.'

Upon the whole, the open public testimony that I have for thirty years past borne against drams, in eleven different books or newspapers, has been matter of greater satisfaction to me than if I were assured, that the means I have proposed to avoid noxious air should occasion the prolonging the health and lives of an hundred millions of persons.

I have here inclosed a very useful receipt for making yeast, which Mr. Pringle, surgeon to the first regiment of Guards, gave me, which I published in the newspapers the beginning of last March, and which is probably in the Magazines, there I guess you may have seen it. But, for greater certainty, I send it, and, with it, what I did not see till I was cutting the receipt out of Lloyd's Chronicle, viz. the query, “Whether it be right for truly serious persons to visit on Sundays?"

As to your queries on the causes of the scurvy; as we are wrought out of materials that have a strong tendency to putrefaction, and as the scurvy is a putrid malady, the principal causes of it in ships are the very putrid air and water which they there breathe and drink. Another cause is the long-salted Aesh which they eat; which, though it does not appear putrid to the taste and smell, yet is just on the borders of putrefaction, as appears by the following judicious experiment, which Dr. Addington told me he had made, viz. he put into a glass of water a piece of salted beef fit to boil; and, into a like quantity of water, he put a piece of fresh, raw, unsalted beef, when he observed the salted beef to stink first; which shews that it was very near a state of putrefaction, though the salt concealed it from t'e taste and smell. And when such salted flesh is, in eatiny, mixed with our drink, and other juices of the body, and withal heated in the body, no wonder that it should tend to breed the scurvy, which salt from the salt-cellar cures and prevents.

I look on sea air to be very wholesome, unless near muddy shores, where the vapours, being putrid, make the air unwholesome, as is evident on some parts of our shore; but, where that shore is sandy, it is constantly healthy. If sea air were unwholesome, the sea-port towns would be most sickly when the wind blew from the sea; which I never heard to be so.

The too great quantity of flesh which we eat in this island is, doubtless, a principal cause of the prevalence of the scurvy among us, which is the reason why I always begin dinner with plain pudding, to prevent my living on all fesh, of which I never eat any at night, but milky spoon-meat, which occasions me much sweet sleep.

Cold, damp, inclement air, may probably occasion the scurvy, by checking too much the perspirable vapour, which has a strong tendency to putrefaction, and which may also be the reason of the cutaneous disorders to which the more northern countries are so observed to be subject. There is also another reason why they are so subject to the scurvy in very cold northern countries, viz. the shutting themselves much up in close rooms, where they breathe very putrid air. As a remedy for this, I propose the having small trunks pass up through the roof, with turning copper cows at the top, for the most putrid, and therefore lightest, air continually to pass off.

I guess the strong winds are hurtful to your trees, &c. on account of the great quantity of marinę salt with which the air is impregnated, which is a common case on our sea shores. However, I find your climate is in the main temperate.

This is a long letter for me; but my sincere desire to do what I guess will be most acceptable to you has urged me to lengthen it. I am, my lord, with the greatest esteern, your lordship's obliged humble servant,

STEPHEN HALES,

P.S. I had forgot to mention a thing which I have long intended to write to you about, viz. whereas you complained that the duty of your large church and congregation had incommoded your voice; it has been found, by the experience of many, that drinking tar-water very much deterges and opens the lungs, and thereby gives a very sensibly greater ease in speaking. If you shall think fit to try it, you may use the common tar, which is sold in every town for the use of farmers; which I have known used with as good effect as any.

The Bishop's (Berkeley) : rescription is, a quart of tar stirred six minutes in a gallon of water; but, if there be somewhat less tar, it may do as well, especially at first, tờ try how it sits on you.

You may take about one-fourth of a pint, at four several times, at a due distance from meals. It will be a good time to begin in fourteen days. You may continue it for six or eight weeks, as you find necessary. I took it thus in the early spring with good effect, and intend to begin again in 14. days.

LETTER IV.

Dr. Leland to Bishop Hildesley.
MY LORD,

Dublin, June 27, 1764. I HAVE received your most obliging letter of May 11, together with the three guineas you so generously sent me. The expressions of your esteem and regard are very acceptable to me, as they come from a person of your lordship’s real worth and excellent character; though I must confess it humbles me to reflect how much I fall short of what your lordship and others of my friends are apt to conceive of me. I hope, however, I can truly say my intentions were upright; and, if I have been in any degree instrumental to serve the interests of religion, io God be all ibe glory: