yet, if charity, obedience, and necessity, call you into the great world, and where enemies compass round about, must not you accept it? And each of these, in my mean apprehension, determines you to do it. In short, it will be a noble sacrifice you will make; and I am confident you will find as a reward, kind and tender supports, if you do take the burthen upon you: there is, as it were, a commanding Providence in the manner of it. Perhaps I do as sincerely wish your thoughts at ease as any friend you have, but I think you may purchase that too dear; and if you should come to think so too, they would then be as restless as before.

Sir, I believe you would be as much a common good as you can: consider how few of ability and integrity this age produces. Pray do not turn this matter too much in your head; when one has once turned it every way, you know that more does but perplex, and one never sees the clearer for it. Be not stiff if it be still urged to you. Conform to the Divine Will, which has set it so strongly into the other's mind, and be content to endure; it is God calls you to it. I believe it was wisely said, that when there is no remedy they will give over, and make the best of it, and so I hope no ill will terminate on the king; and they will lay up their arrows, when they perceive they are shot in vain at him or you, upon whom no reflection that I can think of can be made that is ingenious; and what is pure malice you are above being af fected with.

I wish, for many reasons, my prayers were more worthy; but such as they are, I offer them with a

sincere zeal to the throne of Grace for you, in this strait, that you may be led out of it, as shall best serve the great ends and designs of God's glory.

LETTER XVII.

LADY RUSSELL TO

(SUPPOSED THE BISHOP

OF SALISBURY.)

16th October, 1690.

I HAVE, my lord, so upright an heart to my friends, that though your great weight of business had forced you to a silence of this kind, yet I should have had no doubt, but that one I so distinguish in that little number God has left me, does join with me to lament my late losses: the one was a just sincere man, and the only son of a sister and a friend I loved with too much passion: the other my last sister, and I ever loved her tenderly.

It pleases me to think that she deserves to be remembered by all those who knew her. But after above forty years acquaintance with so amiable a creature, one must needs, in reflecting, bring to remembrance so many engaging endearments as are yet at present imbittering and painful; and indeed we may be sure, that when any thing below God is the object of our love, at one time or another it will be matter of our sorrow. But a little time will put me again into my settled state of mourning; for a mourner I must be all my days upon earth, and there is no need I should be other. My glass runs low. The world does not want me,

nor I want that: my business is at home, and within a narrow compass. I must not deny, as there was something so glorious in the object of my biggest sorrow, I believe that, in some measure, kept me from being then overwhelmed. So now it affords me, together with the remembrance how many easy years we lived together, thoughts that are joy enough for one who looks no higher than a quiet submission to her lot; and such pleasures in educating my young folks as surmount the cares that it will afford. If I shall be spared the trial, where I have most thought of being prepared to bear the pain, I hope I shall be thankful, and I think I ask it faithfully, that it may be in mercy not in judgment. Let me rather be tortured here, than they or I be rejected in that other blessed peaceful home to all ages, to which my soul aspires. There is something in the younger going before me, that I have observed all my life to give a sense I cannot describe; it is harder to be bore than a bigger loss, where there has been spun out a longer thread of life. Yet I see no cause for it, for every day we see the young fall with the old but methinks it is a violence upon nature.

A troubled mind has a multitude of these thoughts. Yet I hope I master all murmurings: if I have had any, am sorry, and will have no more, assisted by God's grace; and rest satisfied, that whatever I think, I shall one day be entirely satisfied what God has done and shall do will be best, and justify both his justice and mercy. I meant this as a very short epistle: but you have been some years acquainted with my infirmity, and

have endured it, though you never had waste time, I believe, in your life; and better times do not, I hope, make your patience less. However, it will become me to put an end to this, which I will do, signing myself cordially your, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

LADY RUSSELL TO LORD CAVENDISH.

29th October 1690.

THOUGH I know my letters do lord Cavendish no service, yet, as a respect I love to pay him, and to thank him also for his last from Limbeck: I had not been so long silent, if the death of two persons both very near and dear to me had not made me so uncomfortable to myself, that I knew I was utterly unfit to converse where I would never be ill company. The separation of friends is grievous, My sister Montague was one I loved tenderly; my lord Gainsborough was the only son of a sister I loved with too much passion: they both deserved to be remembered kindly by all that knew them. They both began their race long after me, and I hoped should have ended it so too; but the great and wise Disposer of all things, and who knows where it is best to place his creatures, either in this or in the other world, has ordered it otherwise. The best improvement we can make in these cases, and you, my dear lord, rather than I, whose glass runs low, while you are young, and I hope have many happy years to come, is, I say,

that we should all reflect there is no passing through this to a better world, without some crosses; and the scene sometimes shifts so fast, our course of life may be ended, before we think we have gone half way; and that an happy eternity depends on our spending well or ill that time allotted us here for probation.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long. I hope the last shall be your lot, with many blessings attending it. Your, &c.

LETTER XIX.

LADY RUSSELL TO LADY

(SUPPOSED AR

LINGTON *.)

10th October 1691.

My dear sister, I have not yet had resolution to speak to you this way, nor know I now what to say. Your misfortune is too big to hope that any thing I offer can allay the present rage of your sorrow. I pray for you, and I pity yon, which is all I can do and that I do most feelingly, not knowing how soon your case may be mine: and 1 want from you what I would most willingly furnish you with, some consolation and truce from your extreme lamentation.

I hope that by this time your reason begins to get a power over your wasted spirits, and that you will let nature relieve herself. She will do it, if

* On the death of one of her daughters.