“Your son Edward is the very _beauty of holiness_: he not only does faithful service to religion by the strong reasoning powers of his mind, but renders it lovely by the gracefulness of his manners. My spiritual pastor and teacher takes quite as much care of his own body, as he does of my soul: he is silent at his meals, but loud in talk and positive in argument, when he has satisfied his craving: He can’t keep his temper at backgammon, when the dice go against him; yet if I ever slip out a hard word, as we soldiers are too apt to do, he takes up their cause at once and sermonizes against swearing. I don’t think this is quite fair; for he swallows his oaths out of compliment to his cloth, and I from the habits of mine make it a point of honour to say nothing behind a gentleman’s back that I won’t say before his face. One day by chance he had not dined with me, and I sent to him to come and read the evening prayers to my crew of sinners as usual; for which, by the way, I pay him an annual stipend: He sent for answer it was not his custom to turn out after dinner; he has never had it in his power to make that excuse again, and of course has regularly lulled dame Richards and the old butler to sleep with his soporiferous homily as surely as the evening comes. I do not think there is in existence a worse enemy to edification than metheglin. “Lord have mercy on me, what a household of idlers do I keep! I would make a total reform in my family, if I could flatter myself that I should live to reap the benefit of it; but that is not upon the chances, and I am such a lazy blockhead, so mere a caput mortuum, that I let them work their own will, and am content to lie at my length, like Sampson’s lion, for the bees to make honey in my carcase. “You must be sure to lay me at the feet of the divine Cecilia; for, if you don’t do it for me, I can’t do it for myself: I am quite as inflexible as the wax-work in Fleet-street; attempt to bend me, and I break asunder. I am absolutely good for nothing, and I dare say the gout only left me because there was no credit to be got by killing me: That same _podagra_ is a purse-proud sycophant, and if he stoop to kiss your toe, were you the pope himself, he will make you pay dear for the compliment. “I suppose you wonder why I write to you so long a letter--so do I; but though it wearies you with nonsense, it winds up with a truth, when I profess myself your cordial friend and faithful servant JOHN MORGAN.”