We have been this morning to hear Rowland Hill.

M^rs Hughes called at his house last week to know when he would preach, & was answered by a demure looking woman, that the Lord willing her master would preach on Sunday morning at ½ past ten & in the evening at six. So this morning I set off with EMay, M^rs & Ann R.

We were in good time, & got into the free seats, where <there were> a few poor people, one of whom told to go round to another door & we should be admitted. Another door we found with orders that the doorkeepers should take no money for admittance, & a request that no person would enter in pattens.

Doorkeeper there was none, & we therefore ventured in & took our seats upon a bench beside some decent old women. One of these with the help of another & busier old piece of femininity, desired us to remove to a bench behind us, close to the wall, the seats we had taken, they said, belonged to particular persons, but if we would sit where she directed till the service was over, we should then be invited into the pews, if there was room. I did not immediately understand this, nor what we were to do in the pews when the service was at an end, till I recollected that in most schism shops

the sermon is looked upon as the main thing <for> which the congregation assemble. This was so much the case here that people were continually coming in during all the previous part of the service,

to which very little attention was paid: the people coughing al sitting or standing as they pleased, & coughing almost incessantly.

I suppose what is properly called the Morning service had been performed at an early hour, for we had only the Communion Service. Rowland Hills pulpit is raised very high, & before it at about half the height is the readers desk on his right, & the Clerks on his left, the Clerk being a very grand personage, with a sonorous voice. The singing was so general & so good that I joined in it, & doubtless made it better by the addition of my voice. During the singing after Rowland had made his prayer before the sermon, we, as respectable strangers were beckoned from our humble places by a gentleman in one of the pews. M^rs R & her daughter were stationed in one pew between two gentlemen of Rowlands flock; & EMay & I in another between a Lady & a person corresponding very much in countenance to the character of a light boy

in the old xx Methodistical magazines. He was very civil, & by finding out the hymns for me, & presenting me with the book, enabled me to sing, – which I did to admiration.

Rowland – a fine tall old man, with strong features, – very like his portrait, – began by reading three verses for his text, stooping to the book in a very peculiar manner. Having done this, he stood up erect & said Why the text is a sermon! & a very weighty one too. I could not always follow his delivery, the loss of his teeth rendering his words sometimes indistinct, & the more so because his pronunciation is peculiar, generally giving e the sound of ai like the French. His manner was animated & striking, sometimes impressive & dignified, always remarkable: & so powerful a voice I have rarely or never heard. Sometimes he took off his spectacles, frequently stoopd down to read a text, & on these occasions he seemed to double his body, so high did he stand. He told one or two familiar stories, & used some odd expressions, such as “A murrain on those who preach the doctrine that when we are sanctified we do not grow in grace!”

– & again – “I had almost said I had rather see the Devil in the pulpit than an Antinomian!”

– The purport of his sermon was good, – nothing fanatical, nothing enthusiastic; – & the Calvinism which it expressed was so qualified as to be harmless. The manner that of a performer as great in his line as Kean or Kemble.

Tx And this manner it is which has attracted so large a congregation xx about him, all apparently of the better order of persons in business. EMay was very much amused & I am very glad I have heard him at last. It is very well that there should be such preachers for those who have no appetite for better drest food. But when the whole service of such a place is compared with the x genuine devotion & sober dignity of the Church service, properly performed, – I almost wonder at the taste for xx which prevails for garbage.

Martha & Eliza are coming to dine here today. My Uncle tomorrow. The next day we go to Sir Robert Inglis’s, & Wednesday to M^rs Hughes, where I believe the Wynns will meet us Wynn & all his family seem to be very much taken with Edith. She went to the play with them on Friday, & is to go again when the King goes.

They are delighted with her manners, which indeed strike all who have seen her. Herries has asked us down to Montreal near Seven Oaks (Lord Amhersts house,

which he has taken) & he wished to have us there when there is a ball at Seven Oaks which will bring together all the gentry of those pa[MS missing] He wants me also to meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Robinson)

there. We shall probably go when we return from Greenwich: our visit there is fixed for Saturday next. Your daughter you see is made much of: but it will not spoil her.

Dumbee

is making a picture which promises to be as good as Phillips’s print

is bad, base, vile, vulgar, odious, hateful, detestable, abominable, execrable & infamous. The rascally mezzotints scraper has made my face fat, fleshy, silly & sensual, & given the eyes an expression which I conceive to be more like two oysters in love than anything else. But Dumbee goes on to the satisfaction of every body, & will neither make me look like an assassin, a Methodist preacher, a sensualist, nor a prig.

I called yesterday on M^r Rogers & found – Semed

at breakfast with him.

I shall see Edward Collins

at Maize Hill, – he has left Scotland to reside in what was his mothers house.

And I shall endeavor to see poor M^rs Bill at Blackheath, – did Edith mention the shocking loss of her husband, who died by his own hand. It was a clear case of insanity.

A great deal more must be left for Edith to relate. She seems to enjoy herself, – which is more than I do, for I am thoroughly tired every day, & heartily wish myself at home. Would that I could get away! – Some of my business I shall be able to do at Greenwich, & when we return from Montreal I must go to Streatham & finish it there. As soon as it is possible, off I shall be for the west, hurry thro my visits there, & then back again, only to be off for Norwich. – I can remember nothing about what was last paid to M^r Rumney. His civilities I must pay by sending him the B. of the Church

in return. – & my easiest way of paying his demand will be by having it ready in a letter to put in at his bedroom window when the mail stops there to exchange bags on my way home.

– You did quite right in sending the venison, which was very acceptable & good.

Did I tell you that the Rotheram man’s name is Ebenezer. We all like him hugely, & I have had from him one of the most characteristic & curious letters I every received. He is under a Lady-Mare,

– but he is both fond & proud of her. – And now let me write a few lines to Countess Rumpelstizchen.

So I remain