Sir James Mackintosh to Robert Hall-On his Recovery from temporary Insanity.

in the affections and attachments you have inspired, which you were most worthy to inspire, and which no human pollution can rob of their heavenly nature. If I were to prosecute the reflections and indulge the feelings which at this moment fill my mind, I should soon venture to doubt whether for a calamity derived from such a source, and attended with such consolations, I should so far yield to the views and opinions of men as to seek to condole with you. But I check myself, and I exhort you, my most worthy friend, to check your best propensities, for the sake of attaining their object. You cannot live for men without living with them. Serve God, then, by the active service of men. Contemplate more the good you can do, than the evil you can only lament. Allow yourself to see the loveliness of virtue amid all its imperfections; and employ your moral imagination, not so much by bringing it into contrast with the model of ideal perfection, as in gently blending some of the fainter colors of the latter with the brighter hues of real experienced excellence, thus heightening their beauty, instead of broadening the shade which must surround us till we awaken from this dream in other spheres of existence.

My habits of life have not been favorable for this train of meditation. I have been too busy, or too trifling. My nature, perhaps, would have been better consulted, if I had been placed in a quieter station, where speculation might have been my business, and visions of the fair and good my chief recreations. When I approach you I feel a powerful attraction toward this which seems the natural destiny of my mind; but habit opposes obstacles, and duty calls me off, and reason frowns on him who wastes that reflection on a destiny independent of him, which he ought to reserve for actions of which he is the master.

Robert Hall to W. Hollick-On his Recovery from a second attack of Insanity.

In another letter I may write to you on miscellaneous subjects; at present I cannot bring my mind to speak of them. Let me hear from you soon and often.

Farewell, my dear friend.

Yours ever most faithfully,

JAMES MACKINTOSH.

X-ON HIS RECOVERY FROM A SECOND ATTACK OF INSANITY.

Robert Hall to W. Hollick.

February 1st, 1806.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Accept my sincere thanks for your kind letter. Every assurance of respect from old friends, and especially from one whose friendship has been so long tried, and evinced on so many occasions, must afford much satisfaction to a person in any situation. Though Providence has produced a separation, which will probably be of long continuance (and, in one sense, final), nothing I am certain can efface from my mind those impressions of gratitude and esteem with which I shall ever look back upon my connections at Cambridge and its vicinity. With the deepest submission, I wish to bow to the mandate of that awful, yet I trust paternal Power, which, when it pleases, confounds all human hopes, and lays us prostrate in the dust. It is for Him to dispose of His creatures as he pleases; and, if they be willing and obedient, to work out their happiness, though by methods the most painful and afflictive. His plans are infinitely extended, and His measures determined by views of that ultimate issue, that final result which transcends our comprehension. It is with the sincerest gratitude I would acknowledge the goodness of God in restoring me. I am, as far as I can

Robert Hall to W. Hollick-On his Recovery from a second attack of Insanity.

judge, as remote from any thing wild and irregular in the state of my mind, as I ever was in my life; though I think, owing probably to the former increased excitation, I feel some abatement of vigor. My mind seems inert. During my affliction I have not been entirely forsaken of God, nor left destitute of that calm trust in His providence which was left to support me; yet I have not been favored with that intimate communion, and that delightful sense of His love, which I have enjoyed on former occasions. I have seldom been without a degree of composure, though I have had little consolation or joy. Such, with little variation, has been my mental state, very nearly from the time of my coming to the Fish-ponds; for I had not been here more than a fortnight before I found myself perfectly recovered, though my pulse continued too high. It has long subsided, and exhibits, the doctor assures me, every indication of confirmed health.

With respect to my future prospects and plans, they are necessarily in a state of great uncertainty. I am fully convinced of the propriety of relinquishing my pastoral charge at Cambridge, which I shall do in an official letter to the Church, as soon as I leave Dr. Cox, which I believe will be at the expiration of the quarter from my coming. My return to Cambridgeshire was extremely ill-judged, I am convinced; nor had I the smallest intention of doing it, until I was acquainted with the generous interposition of my friends, to which it appeared to me that my declining to live among them would appear a most ungrateful return. I most earnestly request that they will do me the justice to believe the intention I have named, of declining the pastoral charge, does not proceed from any such motive, but from the exigencies of my situation and a sense of duty. I propose to lay aside preaching for at least a twelvemonth.

John Sheppard to Lord Byron-Transmitting a Prayer found among his Wife's Papers.

Please to remember me affectionately and respectfully to your cousin, and all inquiring friends, as if named.

I am, my dear sir, your affectionate and obliged friend,

ROBERT HALL.

P. S. Please to present my best respects to Mrs. Hollick and your daughter.

XI.-TRANSMITTING A PRAYER FOUND AMONGST THE PAPERS OF HIS DECEASED WIFE.

John Sheppard to Lord Byron.

FROME, SOMERSET, Nov. 21st, 1821.

MY LORD: More than two years since a lovely and beloved wife was taken from me by lingering disease, after a very short union. She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were, "God's happiness! God's happiness!" Since the second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a passage from these papers, which there is no doubt refers to yourself, as I have more than once heard the writer mention your agility on the rocks at Hastings.

66 Oh, my God, I take encouragement from the assurance of Thy Word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I have lately been much interested. May the person to whom I allude (and who is now, we fear, as much distinguished for his neglect

John Sheppard to Lord Byron—Transmitting a Prayer found among his Wife's Papers.

of Thee, as for the transcendent talent Thou hast bestowed on him) be awakened to a sense of his own danger, and led to seek that peace of mind, in a proper sense of religion, which he has found this world's enjoyments unable to procure! Do Thou grant that his future example may be productive of far more extensive benefit than his past conduct and writings have been of evil; and may the Sun of righteousness, which we trust will, at some future period, arise on him, be bright in proportion to the darkness of those clouds which guilt has raised around him, and the balm which it bestows healing and soothing in proportion to the keenness of that agony which the punishment of his vices has inflicted on him! May the hope that the sincerity of my own efforts for the attainment of holiness, and the approval of my own love to the Great Author of religion, will render the prayer, and every other for the benefit of mankind, more efficacious. Cheer me in the path of duty; but let me not forget, that, while we are permitted to animate ourselves to exertion by every innocent motive, these are but the lesser streams which may serve to increase the current, but which, deprived of the grand fountain of good (a deep conviction of inborn sin, and firm belief in the efficacy of Christ's death for the salvation of those who trust in Him, and really wish to serve Him), would soon dry up, and leave us barren of every virtue as before.

"HASTINGS, July 31st, 1814."

There is nothing, my Lord, in this extract, which, in a literary sense, can at all interest you; but it may, perhaps, appear to you worthy of reflection how deep and expansive a concern for the happiness of others, the Christain faith can awaken in youth and prosperity. Here is nothing poetical and splendid, as in the expostulatory homage of M. De Lamartine; but here is