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242 reasons; and the balls and rooms badly attended, though they go to grace them. Your old friend Mr. (or Mrs.) Spencer is here; so is Baron Graham and his lady; but he has lost all taste for society.”

Another long letter from Lord Charlemont (October, 1797) greets him at Brighton, in which the present of a portrait from a grateful painter to his lordship, forms a more interesting portion of it than a lengthy dissertation on politics. These are no doubt honest, though strong and sadly one-sided. He writes, he says, as a Constitutional Royalist—“I hate the French. I detest their principles;”—but has an utter antipathy to the war, the Ministry, all their policy and proceedings at home and abroad. We shall quote him, however, on more appropriate subjects:—

So little selfish am I, my dear Malone, and so much do I prefer your advantage to my own pleasure, that though your abode at Brighthelmstone suspended for a long time that correspondence which in my present situation is one of my principal comforts, still I rejoice in your country residence, and even in your idleness, both of which I consider as relaxations absolutely necessary to your health and spirits—to your mind and body. And if I can persuade myself to be content with your having postponed a jaunt of amusement upon my account, it is only because my opinion of your friendship induces me to believe that chatting with me is pleasant, and consequently salutary to you.

Indeed, my dear friend, you lead too sedentary a life, and do not sufficiently diversify your occupations. For though I be thoroughly of opinion that constant employment is the most universal of all specifics to you in its full effects, it should be often varied. You think also too much and too