THO rupted for a considerable time, by a variety of circumstances, yet I trust you will allow me to renew it, with the same flattering readiness with which you originally assented to my request of commencing an epistolary intercourse between us. B Happily, the continuance of friendship does not depend on the regular interchange of letters; for is it in the power of distance* to weaken esteem, or obliterate regard. The mind, independent of time and place, can perpetuate its partialities through all vicissitudes; and recollection, faithful to her office, preserves within it the image of our friends, though years elapse without the enjoyment of personal intercourse, or oceans separate us from these objects of our preference. These are sentiments, which I am sufficiently acquainted with you, to be assured you will concur in; I shall not therefore offer any apology for again using a privilege that has never been withdrawn from me, and from the renewed exercise of which I anticipate as much future pleasure, as I have experienced past satisfaction. Yet it must not be concealed, that however greatly my inclination may be gratified in once more addressing you through the medium of pen, ink, and paper, my conscience will be relieved at the same time in nearly a similar proportion; since I shall be performing a promise, which, though made some years since, has never yet been fulfilled, and paying a debt that has been equally * The gentleman to whom these letters are addressed has been for some years a resident in a foreign country. long undischarged, and is the more burthensome to me from its having been voluntarily contracted. You will perceive that I allude to the Letters I had the pleasure of addressing to you in 1799;* in the first of which I undertook to conduct you to the Western extremity of our Isle, and introduce to your notice whatever particulars Cornwall might offer worth communicating to my friend. Circumstances, however, which I could neither foresee, nor have controlled, had they been anticipated, prevented me from executing the plan I had chalked out for myself, and fulfilling the engagement I had contracted with you. Necessity compelled me to return, as soon as I had reached the Eastern limits of the county I purposed to perambulate; and I came home, with my curiosity ungratified with respect to the most interesting feature of my projected tour, but with my experience enriched by another proof of the delusive nature of hope, and the uncertainty of all anticipated enjoyment. You will smile at me, perhaps, that, whilst I am boasting of this addition to my wisdom, I should at the same time be neglecting its dictates, and again promising myself pleasures in perspective, the realizing of which a thousand accidents may again pre * Warner's Western Walk, 1 vol. octavo. vent. But such, you know, is the nature of man : a sage in theory, he is a child in action; and like a child, forgets on the morrow the lesson he has been taught on the preceding day. Yet let him be content with his lot; for if the delights of Hope be too frequently succeeded by the anguish of disappointment, their present enjoyment is still exquisite, and their ends noble and important. They enlighten the dark, and they sweeten the bitter of human life; they rouze to exertion, and animate to perseverance; they conquer difficulties, with which the mind, unsupported by their magic influence, would be unable to contend; and they draw forth energies, that could only be awakened by their enlivening call: Lo! startled by Hope's heavenly ray, The circumstances, indeed, under which I have commenced my second Tour into the West, are sufficiently propitious to justify every pleasing prospect. The weather is fine and settled; and in the ardent, cheerful, and benevolent W, I have a companion, who, whilst he promises to direct my curiosity, and assist my enquiries, will enliven every incident that may occur, and spread a sunshine over the excursion, which could never accompany a solitary journey. Our course, for the first thirty miles, led us through a country with which you are already acquainted. In the ancient city of WELLS, we again contemplated, with mingled delight and wonder, the magnificent specimens of an architecture, which, though the production of a comparatively barbarous age, defies all the efforts of modern science to imitate: But whilst we confessed the extinction of a style of building which so happily combined the beautiful with the august, we are compelled to allow the palm of taste to our contemporaries, by the elegant, judicious, and appropriate improvements in the Episcopal Palace made by the present Diocesan. The decaying ruins of GLASTONBURY naturally awakened all the melancholy associations connected with the view of fallen greatness; nor were our minds exhilarated, by observing, that the venerable old Market-Cross, which for centuries had adorned the town, was now removed, and had " left its place "A seat for emptiness." We were detained for a short time by the blue lias quarries of STREET, which underlie the surface |