Volume 2 — LETTER II.

London, Oct. 19, 1769.

From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, let me lift up my drowsy head a while to converse with dear Julia.—And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her, that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff coloured cloaths, grasping a guinea in his red hand; I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopiæs that disembogue their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclined upon bales of goods; Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while in perspective, his gorgeous vessels “launched on the bosom of the silver Thames,” are wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all the mercantile glories croud on my fancy, emblazoned in the most refulgent colouring of an ardent imagination—Borne on her soaring pinions I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to receive me—I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabric is pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes around, and find John Andre, by a small coal fire, in a gloomy compting-house in Warnford court, nothing so little as what he has been making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is at present. But oh! my dear Honora!—it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth.—You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this threatening disease.

It is seven o’clock—You and Honora, with two or three more select friends, are probably encircling your dressing-room fire-place.—What would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and a snug circle round it, formed by a few sincere friends, transports me. You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as Julia’s and her Honora’s—Since I cannot be there in reality, pray imagine me with you; admit me to your conversationes;—Think how I wish for the blessing of enjoying them!—and be persuaded that I take part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that ere it be very long, your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray keep me a place;—let the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me;—But you have Dutch-tiles, which are infinitely better;—So let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam’s ass be my representative.

But time calls me to Clapton.—I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty.—Silvered with her beams I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps;—Musing as I homeward plod my way—Ah! need I name the subject of my contemplations!

Thursday.

I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well—My sisters send their amities, and will write in a few days.

This morning I returned to town—It has been the finest day imaginable—A solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon;—Its light was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the serene beams of the autumnal sun!—Gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and “chace all sorrow but despair.”—In the midst of such a scene, no lesser grief can prevent our sympathy with nature—A calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet insinuating power—The very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties;—There is a species of mild chearfulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure contented look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave unattempted.

Business calls me away—I must dispatch my letter,—Yet what does it contain?—No matter—You like any thing better than news.—Indeed you never told me so, but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the taste of Julia and Cher Jean.—What is it to you or me,

—But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would plead my cause to Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has the power of doing.—Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs——. Here it is at your service—

This little French cousin of ours, Delarise, was my sister Mary’s play-fellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. Doubtless they talk much of him to you in their letters.

How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh let me not be forgot by the friends most dear to you at Lichfield!—Lichfield! Ah! of what magic letters is that little word composed!—How graceful it looks when it is written!—Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning “The field of blood!”[55] Oh! no such thing!—It is the field of joy! “The beautiful city, that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, I am, and there is none beside me!”—Who says she is vain?—Julia will not say so—nor yet Honora—and least of all their devoted

John Andre.