"By the greatest accident in the world I received your intelligible epistle, but I cannot answer it so fully as I could wish, because I have kept my bed some days, as I still continue to do, and that likewise is a sufficing reason for my not coming to Bath, as you advise, and as I should be very happy to do."

After giving directions where to send a letter, he continues :-"As you know my heart, I shall not explain my sentiments upon some part of your letter, where you mention the resolutions of St. Cæcilia, etc., especially as it is some pain and some inconvenience to me to write in bed. But as for Mrs. Pleydell, whom I think I recollect, she will never move the settled purpose of my soul, you may depend upon it. Pray send up the letter as soon as possible, and apologize, both with yourself and St. C[æcilia], for my inability of writing, etc. In about a month or five weeks I shall be at Madeira, and from thence I will write to you, as I will from all other parts. These passages, like the others, do not justify the inference that Halhed knew he had been supplanted by Sheridan in Miss Linley's affections, and was filled with resentment. She her self was not in a marrying mood; her objections to matrimony resembling those of many a girl who, at the age of seventeen, declares her intention of remaining single and her own mistress. Doubtless, the advice was most unwelcome which Sheridan gave to Halhed with regard to Mrs. Pleydell, of whom I know nothing. He, too, may have felt at the moment that he could never be comforted for the