The parish of South-Green is about seventeen miles from this place, and is, in my opinion, the most pleasing spot of ground in all Yorkshire.-I should have first told you, that our friend, by the death of a relation, was enabled to carry his wife from London with a neat two hundred and fifty guineas in his pocket; with which sum he has converted the old parsonage-house into a farm and garden, that even a Pelham or a Southcote might look upon with pleasure.

The house stands upon an eminence within the bending of a river, with about half an acre of kitchen garden, fenced in with a good old wall, well planted with fruit trees. The river that almost surrounds this little spot, affords them fish at all seasons. They catch trout there, and plenty of teem, from two to five pounds weight. Before the house is a little lawn with trees planted in clumps; and behind it a yard well stocked with poultry, with a barn, cow-house, and dairy. At the end of the garden a drawbridge leads you to a small piece of ground, where three or four pigs are kept. Here they are fattened for pork or bacon; the latter they cure themselves; and, in all my life, I never ate better.

In the seventh year of this retirement, they have so planted their little spot, that you can hardly conceive any thing more beautiful. The fields lie all together, with pasture-ground enough for two horses and as many cows, and the arable. Every thing thrives in their hands. The hedges, all of their own planting, are the thickest of any in the country, and within every one of them is a

sand-walk between a double row of flowery shurbs, hardly ever out of blossom. The produce of these fields supplies them abundantly with the means of bread and beer, and with a surplus yearly for the poor, to whom they are the best benefactors of any in the neighbourhood. The husband brews, and the wife bakes—

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manages the farm, and she the dairy; and both, with such skill and industry, that you would think them educated to nothing else.

Their house consists of two parlours and a kitchen below, and two bedchambers and a servant's room above. Their maid is a poor woman's daughter in the parish, whom they took at eleven years old, and have made the handiest girl imaginable. She is extremely pretty, and might

marry to her advantage, but she loves her mistress so sincerely, that no temptation is strong enough to prevail upon her to leave her.

In this sweet retirement they have a boy and girl; the boy six years old, the girl four; both of them the prettiest little things that ever were born. The girl is the very picture of her mother, with the same softness of heart and temper. The boy is a jolly dog, and loves mischief; but if you tell him an interesting story, he will cry for an hour together. The husband and wife constantly go to bed at ten; and rise at six. The business of the day is commonly finished by dinner-time ; and all after is amusement and pleasure, without any set forms. They are almost worshipped by the parishioners, to whom the doctor is not only the spiritual director, but the physician, the

surgeon, the apothecary, the lawyer, the steward, the friend, and the cheerful companion. The best people in the world are fond of visiting them; they call it going to see the wonders of Yorkshire, and say they never eat so heartily as of the parson's bacon and greens.

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I told you, at the beginning of this letter, that they were the the happiest couple of our acquaintance; and now I will tell you why they are so. In the first place, they love and are delighted with each other. Seven years' marriage, instead of lessening their affections, has increased them. They wish for nothing more than what their little income affords them; and even of that little they lay up. Our friend shewed me his account of expences, or rather his wife's account; by which it appears that they have saved yearly from fifteen shillings to a guinea, exclusive of about the same which they distribute among the poor, besides barley, wheat, and twenty other things. The only article of luxury is tea; but the doctor says he would forbid that, if his wife could forget her London education. However, they seldom offer it but to their best company, and less than a pound will last them a twelvemonth. Wine they have none, nor will they receive it as a present. Their constant drink is small beer or ale, both of which they brew in the highest perfection. Exercise and temperance keep them in perpetual health and goodhumour. All the strife between them is who shall please and oblige most. Their favourite amusement is reading: now-andthen, indeed, our friend scribbles.

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little; but his performance reaches no farther than a short sermon, or paper of verses in praise of his wife. Every birthday of the lady is constantly celebrated in this manner; and though you do not read a Swift to his Stella, yet there is something so sincere and tender in these little pieces, that I could never read any of them without tears. In the fine afternoons and evenings, they are walking armin-arm, with their boy and girl, about their grounds; but how cheerful, how happy! is not to be told you. Their children are hardly so much children as themselves. But though they love each other even to dotage, their fondness never appears before company. I never saw either of them so much as playing with the other's hand-I mean only when they have known I was within sight of them; I have stolen upon them unawares indeed, and have been witness to such words and looks as have quite melted me.

With this couple, and in this retirement, I have passed my time since you heard from mehow happily I need not say: come and be judge yourself— they invite you most heartily.

One thing I nearly forgot to tell you of them. It makes no part of their happiness that they can compare themselves with the rest of the world, who want minds to enjoy themselves as they do. It rather lessons than increases it. Their own happiness is from their own hearts. They have every thing they wish for in this fifty pounds a year and one another. They make no boast of themselves, nor find fault with any body. They are

sorry I am not as happy as they ; but are far from advising me to retire as they have done. I left a bank note of twenty pounds behind me in the room, inclosed in a letter of thanks for their civilities to me; but it was returned me this morning at York, in a manner that pleased me more than all the rest of their behaviour. Our friend thanked me for the favour I intended him; but told me I could bestow it better among the poor; that his wife and he had been looking over the family accounts for last month, and that they found me only a few shillings in their debt; that if I did not think they were a thousand times over-paid by the pleasure I had given them, they would be obliged to me for a pound of tea, and a little of Hardham's snuff when I got to London.

I hope soon to see you, and to entertain you by the week with the particulars of the parson and his wife. Till then,

I am, &c.

SUPERSTITION AND PIETY.

Amidst all my protestant zeal, I have been much struck with the greater devoutness to be observed in places of worship among the papists, than in some of our own churches; and I remember an instance, where even a ridiculous and disgustful exhibition of papal absurdity, was veiled by the piety of those who officiated in the worship. Being at a chapel near Cleves, in Germany, among the usual decorations of pictures, paintings, flowers, and crucifixes, I could not but take notice of the virgin, in chintz-pattern linen gown,

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over a full dress hoop of astonishing circumference, ornamented with three distinct rows of silver crosses, the middle row abundantly the largest; the crown upon her head was formed of broken beads and pieces of looking-glass; and the child Jesus held an apple in his hand partly

eaten.

I might have yielded up my gravity at the burlesque manner in which this part of sacred story was caricatured, had not the ridicule, it was so well calculated to excite, been checked, by my observing an old man and woman, two young men, and two female children, kneeling, with every mark of devotion, round the figures. "They are of one house," said a person who stood near me; and in the sequel, I found that that house had to boast an holy family. The very moment that I looked upon them, the spirit of mockery died within me, and a much better spirit came upon me in its stead. I had no longer eyes to criticise the figures, nor a heart to break a jest on their absurdity. As representatives of the blessed virgin and Redeemer of the world, they filled me with awe, and I caught so much of unaffected holiness from these humble suppliants, as to hold sacred the coarsest imitations and symbols of things divine. G.

THE SNUFF-BOX.

There is a remarkable contradiction in the national character of the English. No people are, in some respects, so patriotic, and none less so in others. We are proud of our country, our government, and laws; we are

vain of the atchievements of our ancestors; and often carry our partiality so far, as to believe that one Englishman, even of the present day, can beat three Frenchmen; yet by an extraordinary kind of fatality (how pernicious to the welfare of this kingdom!) -we are led to suppose, that foreigners in general, but more especially the French, excel us in every species of ingenuity, at a time when England surpasses all European nations in elegant arts and curious manufactures, as much as she ever went before them in feats of arms.

I was led to these reflections by an incident that occurred lately in a public company, of which I happened to make one. A gentleman, just returned from Paris, took out a very handsome machee, or paper snuff-box, which was greatly admired, and 1 on which he seemed to set an uncommon value. "How much superior is it," said he, "to any thing that this country can produce! The French take the lead of all Europe, in whatever depends on taste and ingenuity. What fancy! what fashion! what polish! even in this trifle !"

"I should be glad to see that wonderful box," said a plain dressed man, at some distance. It was immediately handed to him. The attention with which he viewed it, made the gentleman to whom it belonged say, "And pray, sir, what do you think of it?-you examine it as curiously as if you meant to take the model of it in your mind."

"That," replied the tradesman, (for such he happened to be, and from Birmingham) "I

have no occasion to do, for I made it."

"You made it!"-returned the owner, with a look of indignation mingled with contempt.

"Yes," said the tradesman, with a firm countenance, "I made it and I can tell you where you bought it."

"I bought it at Paris," replied the gentleman, somewhat confused-" but of whom?"

The name of the seller was instantly given. "But even that," said the owner, "is no proof that you made it."

"What proof do you require !" replied the tradesman. "Your name," said the gentleman, 66 or some mark by which your wares are known."

"Cut it up then," said the tradesman, "and I will engage to pay a dozen of claret, besides the value of this precious toy, if my mark is not found in the bottom of it."

The gentleman's pride was too great to withstand such a challenge. The favourite box was immediately cut up, and the tradesman's mark found, to the astonishment of the whole company, and to the confusion of the admirer of French taste and ingenuity.

The tradesman continued thus: -"I supply the shopkeeper who sold this box, with toys to the amount of some thousands annually; but I was ignorant till now, that they were employed to drain the pockets of my credulous countrymen, by being retailed to my lord Anglois, for three times their original value."

"That," said I, "is not your fault. You serve your country, by fabricating a commodity vend

I have a complaint to lay before you, which, to the best of my memory, you have not hitherto touched upon. The ground of my complaint, sir, is this. News, you know, never was more fluctuating than at this moment. What we are told at breakfast is contradicted by noon, and that again is old by dinner; the dinner-tale scarcely lasts till coffee, and all is found to be false before night. And yet, sir, there are a set of wise men, who are always satisfied with the last tale, and constantly assure you they were all along of that opinion. “ Lord,sir, I knew it must be so : how could it be otherwise? I always said so:" and though accounts vary to-morrow, it does not at all affect them for to-morrow they will have been all along perfectly well acquainted with just the contrary to what they knew so well to-day. This everlasting knowledge and secret

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intelligence is really, sir, a most provoking insult on us poor things who are not so knowing. If I am wrong to-day, my friend is wrong to-morrow, and that puts us on an equality; but these people, who are sure to be of the right opinion, because they have no opinion at all, are not to be endured.

But it is one thing to complain, and another to redress and unless I thought I had some method to remedy the evil, I would not complain of it. The remedy I would propose is simply this: that the term I be for ever excluded all conversations. There is not, perhaps, one single impertinence for foppery in discourse, that is not imputable to that same little letter I. The old man, going to repeat the lie he has talked himself into a belief of, cries, "I remember when I was young." The maiden of fifty blesses her stars, and says, "I was not such a flirt." The bold colonel tells you,, "I led on the men, I entered the breach." The rake, "I debauched such a girl, I drank down such a fellow." Now, sir, fond as people are of being foolish, they would even consent to be wise, if it was not confining their follies to their own dear persons. The old man's dull story is only to let you see what he was himself. The maiden gentlewoman only means to exemplify her own modesty, and does not care a pin for all the frailties of her neighbours, but that she has thereby an opportunity of telling you how virtuous she herself is. The soldier never tells you of a campaign, but the one he was himself in. The rake never tells you of any