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you will not share my fortunes, I will not fhare your earnings.

The story you mention at Flamborough, of Boardingham, who was murdered by his wife and her lover, is moft shocking. The reflections you draw from it are most juft, and what you say of our fituation moft true. The woman muft have been beyond a wild beaft favage. Yet their feelings, when he and Aikney were at the gallows together (fuppofing any thing like. love 'remained) must have been exquifite.I protest, I would willingly embrace with M. the cruelleft death which torture could invent (provided the were on a bed of rofes), than lead the happieft life without her. -What vifions have I conjured up!-my pen drops from my hand.

Your catch upon a bumper I like much. It beats, both in words and music, “a bum

t

per 'Squire Jones." By the way what an old word it is! Let me make a linguist of you to-day.

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The learned Johnfon deriveth bumper ("a cup filled till the liquor fwells over the "brims") from bump, which cometh, he faith, from bum, perhaps, as being prominent; the which bum cometh, we are told, from bomme, (Dutch) and fignifieth "the part on which we fit."The word bumper is by fome writer derived from bonpere, the ufual familiar phrafe for priests, who were fuppofed not to diflike bumpers.This I may fay-if "a cup filled till the liquor fwells over the brims" comes from "the part on which we fit," it must be granted, as a French poet says of Alfana's coming from equus.

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Qu'en venant de la, jufqu' icy,
Il a bien changé fur la route.

And now I have ended in good spirits, as well as you. I remember the time when Hamlet might have faid to me, as he does to Horatio,

"Thou

"Thou haft no revenue but thy good

fpirits

"To feed and cloath thee."

Now, I have got a little revenue, which M. will not share with me, and God knows who has got my good spirits-Well, I must not think.

LETTER

To the Same.

XXX.

Ireland, 18 June, 76.

My Laura is not angry with me, I hope, for the three or four tender' letters I have written to her fince the beginning of this month. And yet, your's of yesterday feems to fay you are. If I bear my fituation like a man, will you not allow me to feel it like a man?

Misfortune, like a creditor fevere,
But rifes in demand for her delay.
She makes a fcourge of paft profperity,
To fting me more, and double my distress.

But

This country's facetious Dean said, his friend Arbuthnot could do every thing but walk. My friend can do every thing but lofe at cards.

Feeling, and all the commanding powers of the mind, were never perhaps before fo mixed up together. A tale of forrow will make his little eyes wink,,wink, wink, like a green girls. Before the company came last night, I fhewed him "Auld Robin Gray"; and, though he had seen it before, he could not get over "My mother could na speak," without winking. For the credit of your fide of the water, he is an Englishman. His agreeable wife, by her beauty and accomplishments, does credit to this this country. She is remarkable alfo for her feeling, though in a different way. You fhall relate an anecdote of diftrefs, or read a ftory of ill ufage, and, while his eyes are winking for the object of the ill usage or the diftrefs, her's fhall be ftriking fire with rage against the author of it. "Good God! fhe exclaims, "if that villain

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villain was but in my power!”. And I fometimes think fhe is going to ring for her hat and cloak, that she may fally forth, and pull his house about his ears.-Bound up together (as they are, and as I hope they will long continue) they form a complete fyftem of humanity.

It would have gratified me much to have been with you when Garrick took his farewel of the ftage. Do you remember the laft paper in the Idler upon its being the laft? The reflection that it was the last time Garrick would ever play, was, in itfelf, painful. How, my Laura, my M. my life, fhall I bear it, if I ever should be doomed to take my laft leave, my of you!

laft look

-In what I wrote this morning I mentioned the Idler. A curious letter was fhewn me the other day by a clergyman, which he affures me is authentic, and was written by the late Lord Gower to a friend of Dean Swift. As I know how you admire the eminent

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