I  KNOW  not  how  to  express  my  thankfulness  to  dear
Mr.  Wood  for  the  great  favour  of  so  long  and  so
excellent  a  letter.     I  am  now  very  well  dii^osed  to


Digitized  by  CjOOQ IC


OF  DR.  DODPRIDGE,  215

answer  it  line  for  line ;  but  incorrigible  creature  as
I  am,  I  am  again  in  a  hurry :  how  I  came  to  be  so
is  an  unlucky  kind  of  question,  which  it  will  not  be
for  my  credit  very  particularly  to  answer.  I  can  only
say,  that  a  friend  hindered  me,  I  know  not  how  long,,
with  a  veiy  grave  story  about  my  mistress,  which
has  put  me  into  a  most  doleful  fit  of  the  vapours.
How  happy  are  you  that  are  safe  and  quiet  in  the
haven  of  matrimony !  while  we,  poor,  unsettled  ba-
chelors, are  exposed  to  continual  anxiety,  embarked
on  the  uncertain  sea  of  female  caprice ;  at  the  mercy
of  every  wind  and  wave,  and  in  continual  danger  of
being  lost.  It  was  but  a  few  months  ago  that  I
thought  myself  as  secure  of  the  harbour  as  your-
self:  but  a  fiirious  storm  has  driven  me  back ;  and
for  I  know  not  how  long,  I  have  been  beating
about  in  the  dark;  the  starry  eyes  of  beauty  ob-
scured, and  the  craapass  of  affection  destroyed !  I
have  not  known  whither  I  was  bound :  nay,  by  the
force  of  some  unaccoimtable  enchantment,  when  I
discovered  the  shore  I  had  so  long  sought,  and  made
towards  it  with  the  most  friendly  view,  I  was  taken
for  an  enemy,  and  chased  away  by  a  sharp  discharge
of  the  heaviest  artillery  of  anger.  All,  however,
arose  from  the  old  cause,  which  in  so  many  other
respects,  is  fatally  mischievous.
