Mrs. Holmes to Miss Harrington.
Belleview.
ALTHOUGH my attachment to Belleview is not so romantick as your airy pen has described it, I think its quiet and amusements infinitely preferable to the bustle and parade with which you are surrounded.
THE improvements made here by my late husband (who inherited the virtues of his parents, who still protect me, and endeavour to console the anguish of his loss by the most tender affection) have rendered the charms of Belleview superior in my estimation to every gilded scene of the gay world.
IT is almost vanity to pretend to give you a description of the beauty of the prospect—the grandeur of the river that rolls through the meadow in front of the house, or any eulogium of rural elegance, because these scenes are common to most places in the country. Nature is everywhere liberal in dispersing her beauties and her variety—and I pity those who look round and declare they see neither.
A GREAT proportion of our happiness depends on our own choice—it offers itself to our taste, but it is the heart that gives it relish—what at one time, for instance, we think to be humour, is at another disgustful or insipid—so, unless we carry our appetite with us to the treat, we shall vainly wish to make ourselves happy, “were I in a desert,” says Sterne, “I would find wherewith in it to call forth my affections—If I could do no better, I would fasten them on some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to—I would court their shade and greet them kindly for their protection—If their leaves withered, I would teach myself to mourn, and when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them.”
I BELIEVE you could hardly find the way to the summer house, where we have enjoyed many happy hours together, and which you used to call “The Temple of Apollo.” It is now more elegantly furnished than it formerly was, and is enriched with a considerable addition to the library and musick.
IN front of the avenue that leads to this place, is a figure of Content, pointing with one hand to the Temple, and with the other to an invitation, executed in such an antique style, that you would think it done either by the ancient inhabitants of the country, or by the hand of a Fairy—she is very particular in the characters she invites, but those whom she invites she heartily welcomes.
Rural Inscription.
Come ye who loath the horrid crest,