upon the subject of the gallant conduct of his old corps in the late desperately fought struggle in Flanders; indeed, strange as it may seem, with the exception of a very few lines from Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, the commanding officer, he has not received a sentence from the battalion since those memorable days, nor any certain return of their loss: as such, Mr. Stephens' letter was doubly gratifying, and the Duke begs to assure him that he very highly appreciates it.

"The Duke cannot think of concluding this note without offering his sincere congratulations to Mr. Stephens upon the safety of his gallant son, in whose welfare, from the very moment he was first introduced to him, he has felt a personal interest, as it was impossible to see him, without being strongly prepossessed in his favour.

"A. Stephens, Esq."

From several original letters and notes from the same distinguished individual to Mr. Stephens, we select the following, as honourable to the active kindness of the Duke to the character of the young gentleman whose interests his Royal Highness appeared so anxious to promote.

"Kensington Palace, April 16. 1818.

"The Duke of Kent had the pleasure of receiving yesterday Mr. Stephens' favour, and the book he was so good as to send; and now requests that he will accept his best thanks for this fresh mark of attention. The volume at Brussels being already bound, this will be taken there by the Duke on his return, in order to be done up in a similar way; not the smallest inconvenience therefore has arisen from the circumstance of its having been sent in its present state. The Duke being a great deal at Windsor, and unwilling that Mr. Stephens should come out a second time without finding him, requests he will favour him with a note, to say when his health is sufficiently re-established to admit of his coming to Kensington, that an hour may then be fixed for receiving his visit. The Duke is happy to find that Ensign Stephens returned

to his station within his time; and Mr. Stephens may be assured, that he shall not be overlooked the moment a lieutenancy for purchase becomes vacant, and there is no senior ensign ready to give the money.

"Mr. Stephens being already apprised of the high opinion the Duke entertains of his son's character and promise as an officer, will give him credit, when he assures him of the pleasure he shall derive from being able at any time to forward that advancement, to which he is so justly entitled."

"A. Stephens, Esq."

Besides enjoying the friendship and esteem of the Duke of Kent, Mr. Stephens was in habits of intimacy with the Earl of Fife, Dr. Geddes, Sir James Mackintosh, John Horne Tooke, Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Phillip Francis, the Earl of Buchan, Mrs. Thicknesse, Mrs. Mary Wolstonecraft, Mr. Curran, and several other distinguished characters of the age. He was related to the Duke of Roxburghe, whose claim to that title he pleaded with memorable success in the House of Lords. This case resembled in some degree the one decided two or three years ago respecting the Huntingdon peerage. On both occasions the issues were favourable to the parties preferring the claim.

Although a man, on the whole, of retired habits, Mr. Stephens often interested himself in the concerns of the parish (Chelsea) in which he resided; and distinguished himself by the zeal with which he advocated measures likely to prove beneficial to it. He was chairman of the city of London when the conduct of Governor Aris, of Cold Bath Fields prison notoriety, was arraigned; the petition respecting him presented to parliament, and which ultimately led to his dismissal from the post he had so much abused, was drawn up by the subject of this notice.

The following interesting piece of auto-biography, as it respects his opinions of books and men, was discovered among the posthumous papers of Mr. Stephens. It is a curious document, and worthy of preservation: we print it from one of his common-place books.

"MYSELF.

"An humble and obscure man. I live in town that I may preserve my independence. -- I live on the northern side of the metropolis. My house exhibits a charming view of nature in her gayest and richest attire. — In this rus in urbe, or town and country-house of a man of small fortune, not out of the reach of society, and within the verge of retirement, I live at my ease, and contemplate nature and society as occasion may serve. The street in which I live issues as it were from a fashionable square, and ends in the country: the vista of one end presents the busy haunts of men; that of the other, the gentle slope of Primrose-Hill, and the bolder and more masculine aspect of Hampstead, with the houses rising like the rows of an ancient amphitheatre, and intermingled with plantations, steeples, houses, and gardens.

"My house at least that part of it occupied by myself, presents a transcript of my sentiments. The study, or what people affect to term the library, is composed of about three hundred volumes only. I have collected some of the best works on natural history; a series of English poets, and most of our historians, and shall soon be able, I trust, to possess all the books favourable to the liberty, or in other words, according to my fixed opinions, the happiness of mankind.

"Tacitus ranks high in this number, and has a conspicuous station assigned to him- but it is not the pedantic Tacitus of Gordon, nor the translation of Murphy, a man whose soul could never move in unison with that of the original it is the Tacitus of Rome of Rome, which, even in her declining days, possessed a noble-minded citizen, worthy of her ancient liberty.

"Lucan stands next to Tacitus; and I admire the text still more than the plates, although engraved by the first artists of the English school.

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Xenophon, ignorantly quoted by the zealots of absolute monarchy; and Cicero and Demosthenes, quoted by scholars of every description, exhibit their plain Russia bindings to the

eye of the spectator. Virgil and Horace are admitted — but they shrink back and keep at a reverential distance, as venal genius should stand abashed in the presence of virtue: indeed, they would not find a place in so conspicuous a situation, were it not that the one wrote a verse in favour of liberty (Ethis dantem jura Catonem); and that the other, although the flatterer of a base prince, could not be induced to write against the glorious cause for which he had fought - and fought but badly:

:

Et non bene relicta parmella.

"Alexander enclosed Homer in the precious casket formerly belonging to Darius. I do not possess the Oriental covering of the king of Persia, and am therefore content to enclose the poet of Ancient Greece between a couple of boards covered with Morocco.

"By the side of the inconsistent Hume, the abject apologist of the Stewarts in his history, and the barefaced republican in his miscellanies, I place an avowed republican throughout. An excellent work is on the other side of him, Blackstone.

On the file to the right-hand, and in the place of honor, are to be found those books in our vernacular language which I esteem most. Milton, the pride, Sidney, the ornament, of our nation; and Locke, more fortunate than either of them, who was the first to maintain the Revolution of 1688, on the broad principles of public liberty — that revolution which the brave and intrepid Ludlow- a soldier, yet a citizen, — member for Hull. All these are of the Holles' approved edition; for that respectable friend to liberty employed a portion of his fortune in publishing books that had a tendency to promote public virtue, and, with a laudable zeal, presented them to all the public libraries in Europe and America. The vindicta, or, in other words, the caps of liberty, with which the bindings are adorned, are still visible in Berne and Geneva; but I suspect that they have been wholly obliterated at Madrid, St. Petersburgh, and Berlin! Even in the royal library at

London, and in the British Museum, which has a chancellor and bishops for curators, they are beginning to be effaced by time!

"Next to Locke, I have placed George Buchanan; for I have learned, and I now find it true, that it was a country which never could preserve freedom to itself, that its great principles were inculcated more than two centuries and a half since.

"Lord Shaftesbury (formerly a friend to liberty) is placed at a little distance.

"So much for the Republic of Letters. My furniture will perhaps exhibit my principles as well as my books.

"Over the chimney-piece is a print of the Marquis of Landsdowne, to which, after due trial, I hope to add that of his two sons, Lord Wycombe, and Lord Henry Petty. I placed his Lordship, when Earl of Shelburne, in that conspicuous situation, towards the conclusion of the peace with America; a peace that rendered him unpopular, because he did not condescend to employ the vulgar and obvious means of applause, and was disabled by an unjust and badly conducted war to make a better. He thus received some of the odium of an unjust war; and those with whom it had originated, and some of those who had opposed it, actually had the unprincipled effrontery to revile him, because an unjust and glorious war could not be followed by an advantageous peace! His letter to the sheriff of Wilts, while in power, his avowed opinion for a reform in parliament, his attempt, if not to disband a standing army, at least to render it less hurtful, by recruiting it in the manner of a militia; in short, the circumstance of his being the first minister in our own time that ever interfered in behalf of the people; all these considerations have procured him the proud pre-eminence he now holds in my closet.

"To the right is Charles James Fox: he was placed there several years ago; and, on the coalition, I veiled the print over with a pink curtain. On the beginning of the present disastrous contest, I lifted up the corner --On Saturday, June, 1796, (two days before he was chaired,) I uncovered his face, and would have taken it entirely off, but that I