TLETTER I. Mr. ALWYN to Mr. HILKIRK.
Dear HILKIRK,
I HAVE received a letter from our old school-fellow Pendril, who saw you as he passed through Carlisle. I need not tell you it gave me great pleasure to hear that you still exist in health and spirits, after the chasm which your absence has occasioned in

our friendship; and though your situation, as a travelling comedian, is such as some of your old acquaintance would not be over ready to recognize you under, yet, were I weak enough to be thus influenced, the affectation in me would not only be mean, but ridiculous. My hereditary hopes do not surpass your's; and, could certain considerations be removed, I don't know but it might be more agreeable to my sentiments (call it pride if you please) to live by my own labour, than by that of the dead— I am not unacquainted with the natural hilarity and chearfulness of your temper, and I am of opinion that (no matter what the rank in life) while the mind is chearful, the man is happy.—Cincinnatus at the plough, it is most probable, was happier than Cincinnatus in the senate—I know you begin to suspect this grave lecture: few, I believe, preach about

happiness, till they themselves either are, or have been unhappy—I own to you I am altered. The smiles and pleasures are fled; a gloom overhangs my youth, and has shut out the sun; my health declines, and my worthy Patron—(Patron?—Friend! —Father!—all these cannot express the sense I have of his goodness) wishes me to reside in the country for some time.— I wish it myself—I cannot be easy where I am—my disorder will increase—Not that I am anxious about life—it is a comfort that, sooner or later, all our cares shall end: and no sentiment ever came with greater force to me than that which Macbeth, where the poet represents him torn and distracted with a thousand fears, thus utters:
Better be with the dead
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless extasy.—Duncan is in his grave—
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst, Nor steel nor poison

Malice domestic, foreign levy—Nothing
Can touch him further.
These reflections are the cordials of my life. Enough of this.

You will be surprized, perhaps, when I tell you that I have an inclination to become an actor. Hear my reasons: I must either find a means of subsistence, or live upon the bounty of others. The first