I have a female friend, on whom unfortunate accidents have the singular effect of causing violent laughter, which, with her, is much better proportioned to the calamity, than crying is with many others of the sex. I have seen the losing of a rubber at whist, when there was every probability that her party would gain it, cause her to laugh till her eyes streamed with tears. The breaking of a tureen, or set of valuable china, would quite convulse her. Danger always makes her sing, and misfortunes laugh. If we hear her in any apartment of the farm-house, or the offices, singing very loud, and very quick, we are sure something is on the point of going wrong with her; but if we hear her burst out a-laughing, we know that it is past redemption. Her memory is extremely defective; indeed she scarcely seems to retain any perfect recollection of past events; but her manners are gentle, easy, and engaging; her temper good, and her humour inexhaustible; and, with all her singularities, she certainly enjoys a greater share of happiness than her chequered fortune could possibly have bestowed on a mind differently constituted. I have another near relation, who, besides being possessed of an extensive knowledge in literature, and a refined taste, is endowed with every qualification requisite to constitute the valuable friend, the tender parent, and the indulgent husband; yet his feelings, and his powers of conception, are so constructed, as to render him a constant prey to corroding care. No man can remain many days in his company without saying, in his heart, "that man was made to be unhappy." What others view as slight misfortunes, affect him deeply; and in the event of any such happening to himself, or those that are dear to him, he will groan from his inmost soul, perhaps for a whole evening after it first comes to his knowledge, and occasionally, for many days afterwards, as the idea recurs to him. Indeed, he never wants something to make him miserable; for, on being made acquainted with any favourable turn of fortune, the only mark of joy that it produces is an involuntary motion of the one hand to scratch the other elbow; and his fancy almost instantaneously presents to him such a number of difficulties, dangers, and bad consequences attending it, that though I have often hoped to awake him to joy by my tidings, I always left him more miserable than I found him.