We have exchanged spring and summer for autumn and winter, as well as day for night.  If religion or law enjoined people to love light, and prospect, and verdure, I should not wonder if perverseness made us hate them; no, nor if society made us prefer living always in town to solitude and beauty.  But that is not the case.  The most fashionable hurry into the country at Christmas and Easter, let the weather be ever so bad; and the finest ladies, who will go no whither till eleven at night, certainly pass more tiresome hours in London alone than they would in the country.  But all this is no business of mine:  they do what they like, and so do I; and I am exceedingly tolerant about people who are perfectly indifferent to me.  The sun and the seasons were not gone out of fashion when I was young; and I may do what I will with them now I am old:  for fashion is fortunately no law but to its devotees.  Were I five-and-twenty, I dare to say I should think every whim of my contemporaries very wise, as I did then.  In one light I am always on the side of the Young, for they only silently despise those who do not conform to their ordinances; but age is very apt to be angry at the change of customs, and partial to others no better founded.  It is happy when we are occupied by nothing more serious.  It is happy for a nation when mere fashions are a topic that can employ its attention; for, though dissipation may lead to graver moments, it commences with ease and tranquillity:  and they at least who live before the scene shifts are fortunate, considering and comparing themselves with the various regions who enjoy no parallel felicity.  I confess my reflections are couleur de rose at present.  I did not much expect to live to see peace, without far more extensive ruin than has fallen on us.  I will not probe futurity in search of less agreeable conjectures.  Prognosticators may see many seeds of dusky hue; but I am too old to look forwards.  Without any omens, common sense tells one, that in the revolution of ages nations must have unprosperous periods.  But why should I torment myself for what may happen in twenty years after my death, more than for what may happen in two hundred?  Nor shall I be more interested in the one than in the other.  This is no indifference for my country:  I wish it could always be happy; but so I do to all other countries.  Yet who could ever pass a tranquil moment, if such future speculations vexed him?

Adieu, my good lord!  I doubt this letter has more marks of senility than the one I announced at the beginning.  When I had no news to send you, it was no reason for tiring you with commonplaces.  But your lordship’s indulgence spoils me.  Does not it look as if I thought, that, because you commend my letters, you would like whatever I say?  Will not Lady Strafford think that I abuse your patience?  I ask both your pardons, and am to both a most devoted humble servant.

(496) George Ellis, Esq.; afterwards a contributor to “The Rolliad;” a coadjutor of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere in “The Anti-Jacobin,” and editor of “Specimens of Ancient English Romances,” etc.  He died in 1815, at the age of seventy.  Sir Walter Scott, in the introduction to the fifth canto of Marmion, thus addresses him-