himself was a far inferior person, and had little or no love in him except that of having his way). Those of Lady Temple to Sir William, when she was Miss Osborne, should not be absent. Steele himself would furnish some charming ones of the lighter sort (with heart enough too in them for half a dozen grave people; more, we fear, than "dear Prue" had to give him in return). There would be several, deeply affecting, out of the annals of civil and religious strife; and the collection might be brought up to our own time, by some of those extraordinary outpourings of a mind remarkable for the prematurity as well as abundance of its passion and imagination, in the correspondence of Goëthe with Bettina Brentano, who, in the words of Shelley, may truly be called a "child of love and light."* The most agreeable of metaphysicians, Abraham Tucker, author of the "Light of Nature Pursued," collected, and copied out in two manuscript volumes, the letters which had passed between himself and a beloved wife," whenever they happened to be absent from each other," under the title of a "Picture of Artless Love." He used to read them to his daughters. These manuscripts ought to be extant somewhere, for he died only in the year 1744, and he gave one of them to her father's family, while the other was most likely retained as an heir-loom

* See the two volumes from the German, not long since published, under the title of "Goethe's Correspondence with a Child."

in his own, which became merged into that of Mildmay. The whole book would most likely be welcome to the reading world; but at all events some extracts from it could hardly fail to enrich the collection we have been recommending.

We will here give out of the " Lover" itself, and as a sample both of that periodical of Steele's, and of the more tragical matter of what this volume of love-letters might consist of, two most exquisite specimens, which passed between a wife and her husband on the eve of the latter's death on the scaffold. He was one of the victims to sincerity of opinion during the civil wars; and the more sincere, doubtless, and public spirited, in proportion to his domestic tenderness; for private and public affection, in their noblest forms, are identical at the core. Two more truly loving hearts we never met with in book; nor such as to make us more impatiently desire that they had continued to live and bless one another. But there is a triumph in calamity itself, when so beautifully borne. Posterity takes such sufferers to its heart, and crowns them with its tears.

"There are very tender things," says Steele, "to be recited from the writings of poetical authors, which express the utmost tenderness in an amorous commerce; but, indeed, I never read anything which, to me, had so much nature and love, as an expression or two in the following letter. But the reader must be let into the circumstances of the

matter to have a right sense of it. The epistle was written by a gentlewoman to her husband, who was condemned to suffer death. The unfortunate catastrophe happened at Exeter in the time of the late rebellion. A gentleman, whose name was Penruddock, to whom the letter was written, was barbarously sentenced to die, without the least appearance of justice. He asserted the illegality of his enemies' proceedings, with a spirit worthy his innocence; and the night before his death his lady wrote to him the letter which I so much admire, and is as follows:

MRS. PENRUDDOCK'S LAST LETTER TO HER HUSBAND. "My dear Heart,

"My sad parting was so far from making me forget you, that I scarce thought upon myself since; but wholly upon you. Those dear embraces which I yet feel, and shall never lose, being the faithful testimonies of an indulgent husband, have charmed my soul to such a reverence of your remembrance, that were it possible, I would, with my own blood, cement your dead limbs to live again, and (with reverence) think it no sin to rob Heaven a little longer of a martyr. Oh! my dear, you must now pardon my passion, this being my last (oh, fatal word!) that ever you will receive from me; and know, that until the last minute that I can imagine you shall live, I shall sacrifice the prayers of a Christian, and the groans of an afflicted wife. And when you are not (which sure by sympathy I shall know), I shall wish my own dissolution with you, that so we may go hand in hand to heaven. 'Tis too late to tell you what I have, or rather have not done for you; how been turned out of doors because I came to beg mercy; the Lord lay not your blood to their charge. I would fain discourse longer with you,

but dare not; passion begins to drown my reason, and will rob me of my devoirs, which is all I have left to serve you. Adieu, therefore, ten thousand times, my dearest dear; and since I must never see you more, take this prayer,-May your faith be so strengthened that your constancy may continue; and then I know Heaven will receive you; whither grief and love will in a short time (I hope) translate,

"My dear,

“Your sad, but constant wife, even to love your ashes when dead, "ARUNDEL PENRUDDOCK.

“May the 3d, 1655, eleven o'clock at night. Your children beg your blessing, and present their duties to you."

"I do not know," resumes Steele, "that I ever read anything so affectionate as that line, Those dear embraces which I yet feel. Mr. Penruddock's answer has an equal tenderness, which I shall recite also, that the town may dispute, whether the man or the woman expressed themselves the more kindly; and strive to imitate them in less circumstances of distress; for from all no couple upon earth are exempt."

MR. PENRUDDOCK'S LAST LETTER TO HIS LADY. "Dearest, best of Creatures!

"I had taken leave of the world when I received yours: it did at once recall my fondness to life, and enable me to resign it. As I am sure I shall leave none behind me like you, which weakens my resolution to part from you, so when I reflect I am going to a place where there are none but such as you, I recover my courage. But fondness breaks in upon me ;and as I would not have my tears flow to-morrow, when your husband, and the father of our dear babes, is a public spectacle, do not think meanly of me, that I give way to grief now in private, when

VOL. II.

E

I see my sand run so fast, and within a few hours I am to leave you helpless, and exposed to the merciless and insolent that have wrongfully put me to a shameless death, and will object the shame to my poor children. I thank you for all your goodness to me, and will endeavour so to die as to do nothing unworthy that virtue in which we have mutually supported each other, and for which I desire you not to repine that I am first to be rewarded, since you ever preferred me to yourself in all other things. Afford me, with cheerfulness, the precedence in this. I desire your prayers in the article of death; for my own will then be offered for

you and yours.

"J. PENRUDDOCK."

Steele says nothing after this; and it is fit, on every account, to respect his silence.