My prospects are not
very promising, but I suppose we shall wrestle through life like our
neighbours; indeed, by H.'s last advices, I have some apprehension of
finding Newstead dismantled by Messrs. Brothers, &c., and he seems
determined to force me into selling it, but he will be baffled. I
don't suppose I shall be much pestered with visiters; but if I am, you
must receive them, for I am determined to have nobody breaking in upon
my retirement: you know that I never was fond of society, and I am
less so than before. I have brought you a shawl, and a quantity of
attar of roses, but these I must smuggle, if possible. I trust to find
my library in tolerable order.
"Fletcher is no doubt arrived. I shall separate the mill from Mr.
B----'s farm, for his son is too gay a deceiver to inherit both, and
place Fletcher in it, who has served me faithfully, and whose wife is
a good woman; besides, it is necessary to sober young Mr. B----, or he
will people the parish with bastards. In a word, if he had seduced a
dairy-maid, he might have found something like an apology; but the
girl is his equal, and in high life or low life reparation is made in
such circumstances. But I shall not interfere further than (like
Buonaparte) by dismembering Mr. B.'s _kingdom_, and erecting part of
it into a principality for field-marshal Fletcher! I hope you govern
my little _empire_ and its sad load of national debt with a wary hand.
To drop my metaphor, I beg leave to subscribe myself yours, &c.
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