LXXI.

FROM PRINCE ERNEST TO THE QUEEN.1

MY DEAR COUSIN,

DRESDEN, Dec. 19, 1839.

Let me thank you very sincerely for You are always so good and so kind to me that I really fear I have not thanked you sufficiently.

your kind answer to my letter.

Oh! if you could only know the place you and Albert occupy in my heart! Albert is my second self, and my heart is one with his! Independently of his being my brother, I love and esteem him more than any one on earth. You will smile, perhaps, at my speaking of him to you in such glowing terms; but I do so that you may feel still more how much you have gained in him!

As yet you are chiefly taken with his manner, so youthfully innocent-his tranquillity-his clear and open mind. It is thus that he appears on first acquaintance. One reads less in his face of knowledge of men and experience, and why? It is because he is pure before the world, and before his own conscience. Not as though he did not know what sin was the earthly temptations-the weakness of man. No; but because he knew, and still knows, how to struggle against them, supported by

the incomparable superiority and firmness of his character!

From our earliest years we have been surrounded by difficult circumstances, of which we were perfectly conscious, and, perhaps more than most people, we have been accustomed to see men in the most opposite positions that human life can offer. Albert never knew what it was to hesitate. Guided by his own clear sense, he always walked calmly and steadily in the right path. In the greatest difficulties that may meet you in your eventful life, you may repose the most entire confidence in him. And then only will you feel how great a treasure you possess in him!

He has, besides, all other qualities necessary to make a good husband. Your life cannot fail to be a happy one!

I shall be very glad when the excitement of the first days is over and all is again quiet, and when Papa shall have left England to be a distant and unintruding spectator of your new life! But how I shall then feel how much I have

will, I trust, help me also. Now lonely!

lost! Time

I feel very

ERNEST.

LXXII.

FROM TIMOTHY THE TORTOISE TO MISS HECKY MULSO.

(In answer to a poem addressed by Miss Mulso to the

Tortoise.)

FROM THE BOrder under THE FRUIT WALL,

MOST RESPECTABLE LADY,—

Aug. 31, 1784.

Your letter gave me great satisfaction, being the first that ever I was honoured with. It is my wish to answer you in your own way; but I never could make a verse in my life, so you must be contented with plain prose. Having seen but little of this great world, conversed but little and read less, I feel myself much at a loss how to entertain so intelligent a correspondent. Unless you will let me write about myself, my answer will be very short indeed.

Know then that I am an American and was born in the year 1734, in the province of Virginia in the midst of a Savannah that lay between a large tobacco plantation and a creek of the sea. Here I spent my youthful days among my relations with much satisfaction, and saw around me many venerable kinsmen, who had attained to great ages, without any interruption from distempers. Longevity is so general among our species that a funeral is quite a strange occurrence. I can just remember

the death of my great-great-grandfather, who departed this life in the 160th year of his age. Happy should I have been in the enjoyment of my native climate and the society of my friends had not a sea-boy, who was wandering about to see what he could pick up, surprised me as I was sunning myself under a bush; and whipping me into his wallet, carried me aboard his ship. The circumstances of our voyage are not worthy a recital; I only remember that the rippling of the water against the sides of our vessel as we sailed along was a very lulling and composing sound, which served to soothe my slumbers as I lay in the hold. We had a short voyage, and came to anchor, on the coast of England in the harbour of Chichester. In that city my kidnapper sold me for half-a-crown to a country gentleman, who came up to attend an election. I was immediately packed in a handbasket, and carried, slung by the servant's side, to their place of abode. As they rode very hard for forty miles, and I had never been on horseback before, I found myself somewhat giddy from my airy jaunt. My purchaser, who was a great humourist, after showing me to some of his neighbours and giving me the name of Timothy, took little further notice of me; so I fell under the care of his lady, a benevolent woman, whose humane attention extended to the meanest of her retainers. With this gentlewoman I remained almost forty years, living in a little walled in court in the front of her house, and enjoying much quiet and as much satisfaction as I could expect without society. At

last this good old lady died in a very advanced age, such as a tortoise would call a good old age; and I then became the property of her nephew. This man, my present master, dug me out of my winter retreat, and, packing me in a deal box, jumbled me eighty miles in post-chaises to my present place of abode. I was sore shaken by this expedition, which was the worst journey I ever experienced. In my present situation I enjoy many advantages-such as the range of an extensive garden, affording a variety of sun and shade, and abounding in lettuces, poppies, kidney beans, and many other salubrious and delectable herbs and plants, and especially with a great choice of delicate gooseberries! But still at times I miss my good old mistress, whose grave and regular deportment suited best with my disposition. For you must know that my master is what they call a naturalist, and much visited by people of that turn, who often put him on whimsical experiments, such as feeling my pulse, putting me in a tub of water to try if I can swim, etc., and twice in the year I am carried to the grocer's to be weighed, that it may be seen how much I am wasted during the months of my abstinence, and how much I gain by feasting in the summer. Upon these occasions I am placed in the scale on my back, where I sprawl about to the great diversion of the shopkeeper's children. These matters displease me; but there is another that much hurts my pride: I mean that contempt shown for my understanding which these Lords of the Creation are very apt to discover,