And now, My Dear Madam, after so much about myself, let me conclude with a word of enquiry on a subject very near to my heart, your health and happiness. The only apprehension from your silence relates to want of activity and spirits, and from those fears I hope you can honestly deliver me. Remember me with kindness to Mrs. Gould, and Mrs. Holroyd, and let me hear if any thing good has befallen them, more especially the former, whose situation was more susceptible of change: when I mention her I include her family. Is Mr. Melmoth still alive? I saw young Coxe last year, with a very decent and reasonable Bear, whom he leads from North to South. Adieu, Dear Madam, my paper fails.
Most truly yours,
E. G.
504.
To Lord Sheffield.
Lausanne, May 10th, 1786.
THE DEATH OF "AUNT KITTY."
*By the difference, I suppose, of the posts of France and Germany, Sir Stanier's letter, though first written, is still on the road, and yours, which I received yesterday morning, brought me the first account of poor Mrs. P[orten]'s departure. There are few events that could affect me more deeply, and I have been ever since in a state of mind more deserving of your pity than of your reproaches. I certainly am not ignorant that we have nothing better to wish for ourselves than the fate of that best-humoured woman, as you very justly style her. A good understanding, and an excellent heart, with health, spirits, and a competency, to live in the midst of her friends till the age of fourscore, and then to shut her eyes without pain or remorse. Death can have deprived her only of some years of weakness, perhaps of misery; and for myself it is surely less painful to lose her at present, than to find her in my visit to England next year sinking under the weight of age and infirmities, and perhaps forgetfull of herself and of the persons once the dearest to her.
All this is perfectly true: but all these reflections will not dispell a thousand sad and tender remembrances that rush upon my mind. To her care I am indebted in earliest infancy for the preservation of my life and health. I was a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse, and of whose being very little care or expectation was entertained; without her maternal vigilance I should either have been in my grave, or imperfectly lived a crooked ricketty monster, a burthen to myself and others. To her instructions I owe the first rudiments of knowledge, the first exercise of reason, and a taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life; and though she taught me neither language nor science, she was certainly the most useful preceptor I have ever had. As I grew up, an intercourse of thirty years endeared her to me, as the faithful friend and the agreeable companion. You have seen with what freedom and confidence we lived together, and have often admired her character and conversation, which could alike please the young and the old. All this is now lost, finally, irrecoverably lost! I will agree with My Lady, that the immortality of the soul is on some occasions a very comfortable doctrine. A thousand thanks to her for her constant kind attention to that poor woman who is no more.
I wish I had as much to applaud and as little to reproach in my own behaviour towards Mrs. P. since I left England; and when I reflect that my letters would have soothed and comforted her decline, I feel more deeply than I can express, the real neglect, and seeming indifference, of my silence. To delay a letter from the Wednesday to the Saturday, and then from the Saturday to the Wednesday, appears a very slight offence; yet in the repetition of such delay, weeks, months, and years will elapse, till the omission may become irretrievable, and the consequence mischievous or fatal. After a long lethargy, I had rouzed myself last week, and wrote to the three old Ladies; my letter for Newman Street went away last post, Saturday night, and yours did not arrive till Monday morning. Sir Stanier will probably open it, and read the true picture of my sentiments for a friend who, when I wrote, was already extinct. There is something sad and awful in the thought, yet on the whole, I am sorry that even this tardy Epistle preceded my knowledge of her death. But it did not precede (you will observe) the information of her dangerous and declining state, which I conveyed in my last letter, and her anxious concern that she should never see or hear from you again.