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No 61.

D

TUESDAY, December 7. 1779.

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URING the late intermiflion of my bours, I paid a vifit of fome weeks to my friend Mr Umphraville, whose benevolence and worth never fail to give me the highest pleasure, a pleasure not leffened, perhaps, by thofe little fingularities of fentiment and manner, which, in fome former papers, I have defcribed that gentleman as poffefling. At his houfe in the country, thefe appear to the greatest advantage; there they have room to fhoot out at will; and, like the old yewtrees in his garden, though they do look a little odd, and now and then tempt one to fmile, yet the moft eccentric of them all have fomething venerable about them.

Some of my friend's peculiarities may not only be difcovered in his manner and his difcourse, but may be traced in his house and furniture, his garden and grounds. In his houfe are large rooms, lighted by fmall Gothic windows, and acceffible only by dark narrow stair-cafes; they are fitted up with old

arras,

arras, and have ceilings loaded with the maffy compartments of the laft age, where the heads of bearded fages and laurelled emperors look grim and terrible through the cobwebs that furround them. In his grounds you find ftiff rectangular walks, and ftraight narrow avenues. In his garden the yews and hollies still retain their primeval figures; lions and unicorns guard the corners of his parterres, and a fpread eagle, of a remarkable growth, has his wings clipped, and his talons paired the first Monday of every month during spring and fummer.

The contempt in which, to a fomewhat unreasonable degree, he holds modern refinement, has led him to continue these antiquated particulars about him. The India-paper of fome of his fashionable neighbours' drawing-rooms, has enhanced the value of his arras; his dufky Gothic windows have been contrafted, to great advantage, with their Bows and Venetians; their open lawns have driven him to the gloom of his avenues; and the zig-zag twift of their walks has endeared to him the long dull line of his hedged terraffes. As he holds, however, fome good old political tenets, and thinks, as I have often

heard

heard him exprefs himself, that every country can afford a king for itself, he had almost submitted to the modern plan of gardening a few

years ago, on being put in mind, fhion of hedges and terraffes was

by King William.

that the fabrought in

But, exclufive of all those motivés, on which his fifter and I fometimes rally him, my friend, from the warmth of his heart, and the fenfibility of his feelings, has a strong attachment to all the ancient occupiers of his houfe and grounds, whether they be of the human or the brute, the animate or inanimate creation. His tenants are, moftly, coeval with himself; his fervants have been either in his family, or on his eftate, from their infancy; an old pointer, and an old house-dog, generally meet him in the lobby; and there is a flea-bitten horfe, who, for several years, has been paft riding, to whom he has devoted the grafs of his orchard, and a manger of good hay du ring the feverity of winter. A withered ftump, which, I obferved, greatly incommoded the entry to his houfe, he would not fuffer to be cut down, because it had the names of himself and fome of his fchool.companions cyphered on its bark; and a divorce from his

leathern

leathern elbow-chair, patched and tattered as it is, would, I am perfuaded, be one of the moft ferious calamities that could befall him.

This feeling will be eafily understood by thofe in whom the business or the pleasure of the world has not extinguished it. That fort of relation which we own to every object we have long been acquainted with, is one of those natural propenfities the mind will always experience, if it has not loft this connection by the variety of its engagements, or the bustle of its purfuits. There is a filent chronicle of paft hours in the inanimate things amidst which they have been spent, that gives us back the affections, the regrets, the fentiments of our former days; that gives us back their joys without tumult, their griefs without poignancy, and produces equally from both a penfive pleasure, which men who have retired from the world like Umphraville, or whom particular circumftances have fomewhat eftranged from it, will be peculiarly fond of indulging. Above all others, thofe objects which recal the years of our childhood, will have this tender effect upon the heart: they prefent to us afresh the blissful illusions of life, when Gaiety was on the wing undamped

by

by Care, and Hope fmiled before us unchecked by Disappointment. The distance of the fcene adds to our idea of its felicity, and increases the tendernefs of its recollection; 'tis like the view of a landfcape by moon-fhine; the diftinctness of object is loft, but a mellow kind of dimnefs foftens and unites the whole.

From the fame fort of feeling has the idea of Home its attraction. For, though one's intereft there will undoubtedly be heightened by the relation to perfons; yet there is, exclu five of that connection altogether, a certain attachment to place and things, by which the town, the houfe, the room in which we live, have a powerful influence over us. He must be a very dull, or a very diffipated man, who, after a month's abfence, can open his own door without emotion, even though he has no relation or friend to welcome him within. For my part, I feel this ftrongly; and many an evening, when I have fhut the door of my little parlour, trimmed the fire, and fwept the hearth, I fit down with the feelings of a friend for every chair and table in the room.

There is, perhaps, a degree of melancholy in all this; the French, who are a lively people, have, I think, no vocable that answers to

Our

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