ranks among men, long before he was raised to that rank in the world which must still-if what I painfully fear should happen-aggravate such a loss; as one cannot but infinitely regret the good which such a mind in such a station must have done."

The event so much apprehended in this extract occurred soon after it was written; and in about two months from the decease of the Bishop, Miss Carter received a second epistle from her friend.

"Once before," she remarks," your company was a great relief to me in a melancholy time, I had then just lost the dearest and best of friends, the excellent sister of this last departed saint. You knew her not, and I could not talk of her with you; of him, we might talk by the hour; for who that ever saw him, as you have done, could ever be weary of the pleasing subject? Pleasing it is to know by one's own happy experience, that there are such beings in human nature, such amiable and benevolent spirits, so fitted for a higher state of existence. What a loss does the world sustain in such a man, who shewed goodness in its most engaging form, who was a ministering angel upon earth to all the blessed purposes of a gracious Providence! But that Providence can at all times raise up fit instruments to fulfil its all-wise purposes. To that let us leave the

care of the world, of ourselves poor passengers through it. May we everlastingly be the better for the examples of those excellent persons who are removed from us! May our spirits be always supported by the transporting hope of meeting them again! Mine have a great deal to support them, in the inestimable blessings which it pleases God still to continue to me. And indeed, dear Miss Carter, I am at heart truly cheerful and thankful, though continually my heart is softened into unfeigned sorrow by the recollection of those most delightful hours, which in this world we must never more enjoy, and of those painful weeks which closed a life so beneficent, so exemplary. But it was exemplary to its latest moments. Never had christianity a nobler triumph over exquisite pain and long approaching death than in him. He was not only resigned but joyful; and though impatient for a better world, yet submitting with the sweetest patience to a lingering continuance in this."

In the year 1759, Dr. Dodd, who, from his extravagant mode of living, was ever eager after preferment, imagining that he should secure the patronage of Archbishop Secker by adulation paid to Miss Talbot, dedicated an edition of Bishop Hall's Meditations to her, in terms so strongly panegyrical, as to disgust both the lady and the

divine; the latter of whom immediately wrote to Dodd, peremptorily requiring that the offensive sheet should be cancelled in every copy.

The death of the Archbishop, in 1768, was, in many respects, an irreparable loss to Miss Talbot and her mother. In the house of this worthy prelate they had enjoyed all the elegancies, and all the blessings of society, united with the inesti mable advantages derived from his example, experience, and advice. In point of pecuniary cir cumstances, the benevolence of their lamented patron had disengaged them from all embarassment, by a bequest for their joint lives of the interest of thirteen thousand pounds three per cent; a sum which, after their decease, was to be appro priated to various charitable purposes.

In this hour of trial the assiduity and soothing attentions of Miss Carter contributed greatly to mitigate the affliction of Mrs. Talbot and her daughter; she assisted them in the melancholy preparations for removal from the palace to a house which they had taken in Lower Grosvenor Street; and through her consolatory efforts the stroke, which would have bowed them to the ground, was disarmed of half its force.

The health, however, of Miss Talbot had for some time been secretly undermined by the progress of an almost incurable disease. For three

years, unknown to all her friends, except the Archbishop and Miss Carter, she had, from a tender regard to the feelings of her mother, silently endured the anguish arising from a confirmed cancer. This dreadful malady, soon after her removal from Lambeth, increased so rapidly, that in October, 1769, she was confined to her bed; when, medical assistance being required, the nature of her complaint was divulged. Her immediate death was expected; but, partially recovering from the severity of this attack, she lingered until the 9th of January, 1770; on which day, in the forty-ninth year of her age, and with a tranquillity and resignation truly exemplary, she relinquished this world for the reward which awaited her in another,

The distress of her mother and Mrs. Carter, on the deprivation of a companion so much and so justly beloved, was, as may be imagined, severe. The following admirable letter, the production of Mrs. Carter, and addressed to Mrs. Vesey, while it paints in vivid colours the affection and the feelings of the amiable writer, gives us a most interesting picture of the last moments of Miss Talbot.

"Clarges-street, Jan. 15, 1770.

"You will be so kindly solicitous about me, my dear Mrs. Vesey, when you see in the papers a

confirmation of the reality of my apprehensions about my dear Miss Talbot, that I cannot forbear writing you some account of myself. I am tolerably well, and my spirits, though low, are very composed. With the deepest feeling of my own unspeakable loss of one of the dearcst and most invaluable blessings of my life, I am to the highest degree thankful to the Divine goodness for removing her from the multiplied and aggravated sufferings which, in a longer struggle with such a distemper, must probably have been unavoidable. The calm and peaceful sorrow of tenderness and affection, sweetly alleviated by the joyful assurance of her happiness, is a delightful sentiment compared with what I have endured for the last two or three months.

"Two or three days before her death, she was seized with a sudden hoarseness and cough, which seemed the effect of a cold, and for which bleeding relieved her; but there remained an oppression from phlegm which was extremely troublesome to her. On the 9th this symptom increased, and she appeared heavy and sleepy, which was attributed to an opiate the night before. I stayed with her till she went to bed, with an intention of going afterwards into her room, but was told that she was asleep. I went away about nine, and in less