bustling precincts of the Temple.
I have only to add, that I shall expect your undivided attention will be given up to your professional studies; that you will for a short interval resign the fascinating pursuits of polite literature and belles lettres, from which even the syren spell of pleasure could not tear you, and which snatched from vice many of those hours I believed devoted to more serious studies. I know you will find it no less difficult to resign the elegant theories of your favourite Lavater, for the dry facts of law reports, than to exchange your duodecimo editions of the amatory poets, for heavy tomes of cold legal disquisitions; but happiness is to be purchased, and labour is the price; fame and independence are the result of talent united to great exertion, and the elegant enjoyments of literary leisure are never so keenly relished as when tasted under the shade of that flourishing laurel which our own efforts have reared to mature perfection. Farewell! My agent has orders respecting the arrangement of your affairs. You must excuse the procrastination of our interview till we meet in Ireland, which I fear will not be so immediate as my wishes would incline. I shall write to my banker in Dublin to replenish your purse on your arrival in Ireland, and to my Connaught steward, to prepare for your reception at M———— house. Write to me by return.
Once more farewell!
M————.
TO THE EARL OF M————
My Lord,
He who agonized on the bed of Procrostus reposed on a couch of down, compared to the sufferings of him who in the heart he has stabbed, beholds the pulse of generous affection still beating with an invariable throb for the being who has inflicted the wound.
I shall offer you no thanks, my Lord, for the generosity of your conduct, nor any extenuation for the errors of mine.
The gratitude the one has given birth to—the remorse which the other has awakened, bid equal defiance to expression. I have only (fearfully) to hope, that you
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