with her fore foot; with her claws, however, sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophical inquiry and examination.  To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and performed an act of decapitation, which though not immediately mortal proved so in the end.  Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he, when in the yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself in any of the outhouses, it is hardly possible but that some of the family must have been bitten; he might have been trodden upon without being perceived, and have slipped away before the sufferer could have well distinguished what foe had wounded him.  Three years ago we discovered one in the same place, which the barber slew with a trowel.

“Our proposed removal to Mr. Small’s was, as you suppose, a jest, or rather a joco-serious matter.  We never looked upon it as entirely feasible, yet we saw in it something so like practicability, that we did not esteem it altogether unworthy of our attention.  It was one of those projects which people of lively imaginations play with, and admire for a few days, and then break in pieces.  Lady Austen returned on Thursday from London, where she spent the last fortnight, and whither she was called by an unexpected opportunity to dispose of the remainder of her lease.  She has now, therefore, no longer any connexion with the great city, she has none on earth whom she calls friends but us, and no house but at Olney.  Her abode is to be at the vicarage, where she has hired as much room as she wants, which she will embellish with her own furniture, and which she will occupy, as soon as the minister’s wife has produced another child, which is expected to make its entry in October.

“Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport, a learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of ours, who sometimes visits us, and whom we visited last week, has put into my hands three volumes of French poetry, composed by Madame Guyon;—­a quietist, say you, and a fanatic, I will have nothing to do with her.  It is very well, you are welcome to have nothing to do with her, but in the meantime her verse is the only French verse I ever read that I found agreeable; there is a neatness in it equal to that which we applaud with so much reason in the compositions of Prior.  I have translated several of them, and shall proceed in my translations, till I have filled a Lilliputian paper-book I happen to have by me, which, when filled, I shall present to Mr. Bull.  He is her passionate admirer, rode twenty miles to see her picture in the house of a stranger, which stranger politely insisted on his acceptance of it, and it now hangs over his parlour chimney.  It is a striking portrait, too characteristic not to be a strong resemblance, and were it encompassed with a glory, instead of being dressed, in a nun’s hood, might pass for the face of an angel.