distant, and returned home the same evening. J. W. was very much favored
all the time he was in those parts; he really appears endowed with
astonishing powers.


The same letter affords a glimpse of the social position, which John and
Elizabeth Yeardley occupied at Bentham:--


We are very quiet, have kind neighbors, a very pleasant habitation, and
little society, plenty of books both of the religious and amusing kind,
and leisure to meditate on the one thing needful, which is to fit us for
that place to which we are fast hastening:--


"For who the longest lease enjoy
Have told us with a sigh,
That to be born seems little more
Than to begin to die."

(13_th of Seventh Month_, 1818.)



John Yeardley, no less than his wife, found in Bentham a seasonable
retreat from the harassing cares of the world. A memorandum made in the
autumn of this year shows that the doubts with which he was perplexed on
the subject of his removal from Barnsley, were entirely dispelled, and
that the change in his abode and position had been the happy means of
relieving him from the load of anxiety which once seemed ready to crush