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Olney, Feb 19, 1781.

Dear Madam—When a man, especially a man that lives altogether in the country, undertakes to write to a lady he never saw, he is the awkwardest creature in the world. He begins his letter under the same sensations he would have if he was to accost her in person, only with this difference—that he may take as much time as he pleases for consideration, and need not write a single word that he has not well weighed and pondered beforehand, much less a sentence that he does not think super-eminently clever. In every other respect, whether he be engaged in an interview or in a letter, his behaviour is, for the most part, equally constrained and unnatural. He resolves, as they say, to set the best leg foremost, which often proves to be what Hudibras calls—