June 19! gulations best calculated for their police and good govern'ment; and lastly, the state of the manners, the morals, and the general character of the people, and the articles in regard to which their situation is most capable of melioration and improvement. To conclude, it is only by means of such inquiries that any society can pofsibly expect to enjoy all that political happiness to which it must naturally aspire. By ascertaining facts with minuteness and accuracy, the real state of the country must be made known, and the means of its future improvement will be pointed out. Every field, it may be expected, will be cultivated to the best advantage, and every measure will then be taken, that can best tend to promote the general interests of the community. SIR, MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. To the Editor of Bee. In a former number of the Bee, (vol. xiv. p. 145.) you have given some very good specimens of easy epistolary correspondence; this I think may be of use to correct those improprieties that young persons, without examples to direct them in the choice of a proper manner, are apt to fall into. With this view I send you the two following letters, written by a nobleman now deceased, who was distinguished for the urbanity of his manners, and polite acquirements. If you think them worthy a place in your useful Miscellany, they are much at your service, M. E. MY DEAREST BROTHER, October 20. 1736. I have had so often occasion to apologise for my silence, that my whole stock of invention has been long since exhausted; true it is I never had so good an excuse; but on the other hand the late obligation I owe you, makes me more inexcusable than ever. I do not pretend to have obeyed your ghostly instruction, with relation to my duty as a husband, so very incessantly, as not to have had leisure enough to tell you that you have made me thoroughly happy; in fhort, if this is not a strong apology, I am sure it is a long one, and it is all I am at present disposed to bestow. I was a-going on, but am interrupted by my lady, who begs to make you her compliments ;--this seems to me something so valuable as to be preferred to every thing else. I really am in a situation next to what some philosophers think very wretched. I think they say that happinefs consists in having something constantly to wish for,' and that when we are once in pofsefsion of all we desire, hope, the fuel of pleasure, has no longer place, and so forth; I fhould really be an instance of the truth or falsehood of this proposition, was it not that there is still something wanting to make me happy, while you are not so; and though perhaps your happiness may make me miserable, yet I do afsure you there is nothing I want so much as to try the experiment. I think I have philosophised enough to convince you that I am no philosopher. 'Tis because I know you are, in point of patience, that I trouble you with so much stuff, and take so tedious a way of telling you, what I hope you knew long before, I am as happy as the most valuable 1 woman on earth can make me, and that I want to have you in pofsefsion of the next to her. Your letter from London gave me much entertainment; I hope you continue in the same chearful vein you seem to have been in when you wrote it ;--I beg to know how you pass your time. My lady is not a little concerned that your visit was obliged to be so fhort; I am certain it can never happen again, but on a like occasion, that your company shall not be wished for; nobody does more than I do; and if the distance and time of year did not make me almost despair of it, I should expatiate much on the praises of the finest pointer I ever saw, I have just had a present of.--A propos, Betty writes me that the bitch I had of lord D--- , which I designed for you, has been stolen; but I have wrote to-day for the dogs I told you of, so I fhall soon be able to provide you, as I hope to do soon in something better. Be persuaded that I love you with the affection of a brother and friend, and esteem you as a man of worth.--I find we shall be in town this winter; what I regret, when I cannot do with am, my dear, yours, &c. out you. I From the same to the same. DEAR BROTHER, I should not have failed to have answered your kind letter sooner, but was every day in hopes to have supplied you with grafs seeds in perfection, having commission. ed a considerable quantity from Holland (from which country only they can be had good) for my own use, and that of my friends; I am however hitherto disappointed, the ship not being arrived. I fhall however write to your man, Ewart, with my advice on that subject; but it will be too soon to sow them these six weeks,--I mean in our northern climate. 261 I think you are in the wrong in putting a harsh construction on the silence of your brothers. At our time of life, writing is no mark of friendship; and I acknowledge I seldom require it of my friends, because 'tis a disagreeable act to those not accustomed to it, and I do not choose to annex a painful condition to the preservation of friendship. I should like to contrive it so, that every thought of me fhould be attended with pleasure; for there is a connection of ideas that makes us tire of whatever costs us trouble, and we are apt to consider those who impose it as talkmasters. Believe me, dear Gideon, I neither say this to excuse myself, nor to decline your correspondence, it is not painful to me; and my friendship for you has a foundation to overcome every scruple and difficulty. For the same reason that I hate writing for writing's sake, I like to hear from, and of you, not only as a friend, but the real hope and support of my family, y, now, as an old man, my strongest passion. I am far from disapproving your plan for the education of your boys; I have so thorough a good opinion of their mother, as to be persuaded they would be at a lofs to be far removed from her; but that very good opinion of her convinces me, that her care will be as little useful after a certain age, as it may be necessary at present; a lord E- may be as considerable, as he is capable of, if a Scotsman ; an English lord E- must be contemptible and a beggar. It is not true that the English education is better than ours; 'tis education makes the man, and one needs but look about one to decide whether we or they excel most in proportion to our numbers and circumstances. My lady Ereally has not the receipt for the drops by her, and the woman to whom she gave it, has a daughter, our cousin, who lives by selling them; but when we go to the country, if I can come at the secret, you shall know it. With my sincere compliments to my sister, I am yours, sincerely and affectionately, &c. YOUR inserting the following extract in your useful Miscellany, as I don't doubt but it will be very acceptable to those of your readers who have an aversion to cards, will very much oblige your constant reader and admirer, LYCURGUS. Caithness, } A new kind of amusement at cards, from the manuscript French of the countess of Bafsewitz, of the court Mecklinburg Strelitz. From the German Spa. A propos of wit, you must expect none in this letter; for I spend it by handfuls at a deuce of a game brought here by general Isemburg. Prince Lewis, of Wolfenbuttle is so intoxicated with it, that he keeps us playing from morning to night. He, old General Defsing, Brigadier Schlipenbach Stemburg, Marquis Angelini, Count Furstenburg, Madam Bothmar, Miss Schulemberg, and I, commonly make the party. We have above five hundred cards, with different words written on every one; we shuffle, cut, and deal, and each, receiving eight cards, is obliged to tell immediately a story, or say something else that has some sense, and contains the eight words on his cards. I will give you an instance: they dealt me fast evening the following words: "Cream Tart, Addrefs, Jealous, Husband, Ball, Sense, Beau, Beard." Comes the story. "A Beau at a Ball used the utmost Addrefs, to make a certain Husband Jealous: but as the |