dangered, having no stairs to descend.

BUT, having entertained you with things I don't like, 'tis but just I
should tell you something that pleases me. The climate is delightful
in the extremest degree. I am now sitting, this present fourth of
January, with the windows open, enjoying the warm shine of the sun,
while you are freezing over a sad sea-coal fire; and my chamber is
set out with carnations, roses, and jonquils, fresh from my garden.
I am also charmed with many points of the Turkish law, to our shame
be it spoken, better designed, and better executed than ours;
particularly, the punishment of convicted liars (triumphant criminals
in our country, God knows). They are burnt in the forehead with a
hot iron, when they are proved the authors of any notorious
falsehoods. How many white foreheads should we see disfigured! How
many fine gentlemen would be forced to wear their wigs as low as
their eye-brows, were this law in practice with us! I should go on
to tell you many other parts of justice, but I must send for my
midwife.

LET. XXXIX.

TO THE COUNTESS OF ----.

_Pera of Constantinople, March_ 10. O. S.

I HAVE not written to you, dear sister, these many months--a great
piece of self-denial. But I know not where to direct, or what part
of the world you are in. I have received no letter from you since
that short note of April last, in which you tell me, that you are on
the point of leaving England, and promise me a direction for the
place you stay in; but I have, in vain, expected it till now; and now
I only learn from the gazette, that you are returned, which induces
me to venture this letter to your house at London. I had rather ten
of my letters should be lost, than you imagine I don't write; and I
think it is hard fortune, if one in ten don't reach you. However, I
am resolved to keep the copies, as testimonies of my inclination, to
give you, to the utmost of my power, all the diverting part of my
travels, while you are exempt from all the fatigues and
inconveniences.

IN the first place, then, I wish you joy of your niece; for I was
brought to bed of a daughter [Footnote: The present Countess of Bute]
five weeks ago. I don't mention this as one of my diverting
adventures; though I must own, that it is not half so mortifying here
as in England; there being as much difference, as there is between a
little cold in the head, which sometimes happens here, and the
consumption cough, so common in