TO LADY HESKETH.
The Lodge, June 10, 1788.
My dear Coz,—Your kind letter of precaution to Mr. Gregson, sent him hither as soon as chapel service was ended in the evening. But he found me already apprized of the event that occasioned it, by a line from 'Sephus, received a few hours before. My dear uncle's death awakened in me many reflections, which for a time sunk my spirits. A man like him would have been mourned had he doubled the age he reached. At any age his death would have been felt as a loss, that no survivor could repair. And though it was not probable that, for my own part, I should ever see him more, yet the consciousness that he still lived was a comfort to me. Let it comfort us now, that we have lost him only at a time when nature could afford him to us no longer; that, as his life was blameless, so was his death without anguish, and that he is gone to heaven. I know not that human life, in its most prosperous state, can present any thing to our wishes half so desirable as such a close of it.
Not to mingle this subject with others that would ill suit with it, I will add no more at present than a warm hope, that you and your sister[442] will be able effectually to avail yourselves of all the consolatory matter with which it abounds. You gave yourselves, while he lived, to a father, whose life was doubtless prolonged by your attentions, and whose tenderness of disposition made him always deeply sensible of your kindness in this respect, as well as in many others. His old age was the happiest that I have ever known, and I give you both joy of having had so fair an opportunity, and of having so well used it, to approve yourselves equal to the calls of such a duty in the sight of God and man.
W. C.