1790.—All this summer I was employed in preparing my [French] Travels for the press. In October I had a violent fever, which brought me to the brink of the grave. I made a minute of that illness in the following words: ‘From almost the bed of death, it pleased the Divine Goodness to raise me up, and I remember it was in perfect hardness of heart and free from all true or grateful feelings. I was in a state of blindness and insensibility, on which I reflect with horror and amazement.’[138] I cannot speak of the ingratitude of my heart to God at this period but in the strongest terms, as it amounted to a degree of insensibility quite unaccountable. I fear that not one thought of God ever occurred to me at that time, and I doubt whether [it was so], while one evening I had resumed the habit of prayer, that is, of those formal prayers which an unconverted person may repeat without any real devotion; and yet during my delirium the physician afterwards told me that I one day broke forth into one of the most eloquent and sublime prayers he ever heard, to his utter astonishment. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: [Transcription]] During my recovery I wrote that melancholy review of my past life, which is printed in the ‘Annals.’ ----- Footnote 121: A Bill prohibiting the exportation of wool passed the House of Commons, May 15, 1788. Footnote 122: President of the Royal Society, and supporter of the cause of agriculture and science; died 1810. Footnote 123: ‘Then came the Oude case, that lasted no less than twenty-one days, and ended by a speech from Sheridan on which great labour and pains had been bestowed. This speech had been looked forward to as rivalling the great Begum speech of the same orator’ (Knight). Is not A. Y. here thinking of the great Begum speech of an earlier session? Footnote 124: The author of _Sandford and Merton_ died 1789 from the kick of a colt, which he had refused to have broken in on account of the cruelty usually involved in the process. Footnote 125: Died 1809. One of the most active members of the Royal Humane Society; fell a victim to his devotion in attending the sick and wounded Austrian soldiers on the field of Wagram. Footnote 126: See vol. x. of the _Annals of Agriculture_. Footnote 127: _Sic._ Footnote 128: Written about 1816. Footnote 129: Wild chicory or succory, used by the French as a winter salad, and in the adulteration of coffee. Footnote 130: Refers (see below) to a work by Baron Huthhausen on the servitude of the Silesian peasantry. Footnote 131: For this article see _Annals of Agriculture_, vol. ix. p. 479. Footnote 132: Son of a Protestant pastor of Nîmes, member of the Constituent Assembly; guillotined 1784. See _Letters of Helen Maria Williams_. Footnote 133: His country by adoption; Lazowski was a Pole. Footnote 134: Abbot. Footnote 135: