Our imagination is often our greatest enemy: I am striving to weary mine before I act. Business like fruit hath its time of maturity, and we should not think of dispatching it while it is half ripe. The Cardinal de Retz said, 'I have all my life-time held men in greater esteem for what they forbore to do on some occasions than for what they did.' I have here a most delightful dwelling----It is thatched, and covered on every side with roses, wood-bines, and honey-suckles, surrounded with a garden of the most artful confusion. The streams all around murmur, and fall a thousand ways. A great variety of birds are here collected, and are in high harmony on the sprays. The ruins of an abbey enhance the beauties of this place: they appear at the distance of four hundred yards from the house; and as some great trees are now grown up among the remains, and a river winds among the broken walls, the view is solemn, the picture fine. Here I often meditate on my misfortunes. 'There is a joy in grief when peace dwells in the breast of the sad.' OSSIAN'S Poems. Sadness receives so many eulogiums in the scripture, that it is easy to judge, that if it be not of the number of the virtues, it may be usefully employed in their service----and it may be truly observed, that without experiencing sorrow, we should never know life's true value. About a mile above the house is a range of very high hills, the sight of which renders me less incredulous of the accounts of Olympus, and mount Athos. Hygeia resides here, and dispenses the chief blessings of life, ease and health. I will pass my days in sweet tranquillity and study. 'In either place 'tis folly to complain, The mind, and not the place, creates the pain.' HORACE, lib. i. epist. 14.