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 that he did not condemn civil employment, but that it was a state of great danger ; and that he had therefore one piece of advice earnestly to impress upon me that I would set apart every seventh day for the care of my soul ; that one day, the seventh, should be employed in repenting what was amiss in the six pre ceding, and fortifying my virtue for the six to come ; that such a portion of time was surely little enough for the meditation of eternity. He then told me that he had a request to make to me ; namely, that I would allow his servant Frank to look up to me as his friend, adviser, and protector, in all difficulties which his own weakness and imprudence, or the force or fraud of others, might bring him into. He said that he had left him what he considered an ample provision, viz. yc/. per annum x ; but that even that sum might not place him above the want of a protector, and to me, therefore, he recommended him as to one who had will, and power, and activity to protect him. Having obtained my assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be called in ; and desiring me to take him by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to attend to it. I then took occasion to say how much I felt what I had long foreseen that I should feel, regret at having spent so little of my life in his company 2. I stated this as an instance where resolutions are deferred till the occasions are past. For some time past I had determined that such an occasion of self-reproach should not subsist, and had built upon the hope of passing in his society the chief part of my time, at the moment when it was to be appre hended we were about to lose him for ever.. I had no difficulty in speaking to him thus of my apprehensions ; I could not help, on the other hand, entertaining hopes ; but with these I did not like to trouble him, lest he should conceive that I thought it necessary to flatter him. He answered hastily, that he was sure

dangerous in practice, were in theory days earlier. Ante, ii. 126, 132.

only amusing.' Field's Life of Parr, * Windham, who had lately paid

i. 319. him a short visit at Ashbourne, re-

1 His will is dated Dec. 8, the day corded the day he left, ' Regretted,

after he spoke to Windham ; but he upon reflection, that I had not staid

had made 'a temporary one' eleven another day.' Letters, ii. 441.

I would

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