Hayley-XXI-68

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Parkgate Sep^t. 17^th 1792

My dear H

I rejoice to find by your kind & chearful letter that you entertain hopes upon the subject of French Liberty upon which I had begun to despair, but I see only the Star which I conclude is an aristocratical paper, therefore I trust all the calamities it represents are not to be depended upon yet I lamented the destruction of two names so illustrious as that of Mons^ir Rochefaucoult [sp?] & illeg Madame de Lambert, whatever may be their offences. I wish I could obtain a faithful account - but truth which is difficult of access in most situations is particularly so in politics - therefore in the present wretched state of things I try to believe as little as possible.

I have continued to bathe of late without

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interruption & I entirely agree with you in thinking it most serviceable & agreable now that the water is colder - but in all weather it makes me sleepy & having at present neither materials or invention I make a very insipid correspondent.

Our party are chiefly cardplayers & cardplayers have rarely a taste for reading or ∖talents for/ conversation. I therefore begin to find my evenings very long as we do not sup till half an hour after nine - but after supper we sing duets which is pleasant & I find my voice strengthens by exercise as well as by bathing. Is Cowper musical & in what degree? When I read the Task again (which I intend doing on my return to Derby) I may give a guess whether the has the feelings perceptions of Mason, or whether like you he loves a song or whether like Doctor Darwin he denies the existence

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of a musical ear, because he has not one himself. I have a pretty little poem of his given me by a young Council who came here from the northern circuit, upon an Ink Glass being dried in the sun

If all the Ink Glasses at Parkgate were in that condition it would save the credit of your very heavy but very sincere

Eliza Hayley

love to dear Tom & respectful comp.^ts to Cowper if he is with you.

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William Hayley Esq^re.
Eartham
near

Chichester