be right but I cannot think without tears of being feparated from my friends, when their condition is fo doubtful, that they may want even fuch affiftance as mine. Sure, it is more merciful to take from us after death all memory of what we loved or purfued here: for else what a torment would it be to a spirit, still to love those creatures it is quite divided from? Unless we suppose, that in a more exalted life, all that we esteemed in this imperfect state will affect us no more, than what we loved in our infancy concerns us now.

This is an odd way of writing to a lady, and, I am fenfible, would throw me under a great deal of ridicule, were you to fhow this letter among your acquaintance. But perhaps you may not yourself be quite a ftranger to this way of thinking. of thinking. I heartily wifh your life may be fo long and fo happy, as never to let you think quite fo far as I am now led to do; but to think a little towards it, is what will make you the happier, and the easier at all times.

There are no pleasures or amusements that I do not wish you, and therefore 'tis no small grief to me that I fhall for the future be lefs able to partake with you in them. But let fortune do her worst, whatever fhe makes us lofe, as long as fhe never makes us lofe our honesty and our independance; I defpife from, my heart whoever parts with the first, and pity from my foul whoever quits the latter.

I am grieved at Mr. Gay's condition in this last respect of dependance. He has Merit, Good-nature,

*and

and Integrity, three qualities, that I fear are too often loft upon great men; or at least are not all three a match for one which is oppofed to them, Flattery. I wish it may not foon or late difplace him from the favour he now poffeffes, and feems to like. I am fure his late action deferves eternal favour and esteem: Lord Bathurst was charmed with it, who came hither to see me before his journey. He asked and spoke very particularly of you. To-morrow Mr. Fortefcue comes to me from London about B's fuit in forma pauperis. That poor man looks ftarved: he tells me you have been charitable to him. Indeed 'tis wanted; the poor creature can scarce stir or speak ; and I apprehend he will die, just as he gets fomething to live upon. Adieu.

LETTER XIII.

THIS is a day of wishes for you, and I hope you have long known, there is not one good one which I do not form in your behalf. Every year that paffes, I wish fome things more for my friends, and fome things lefs for myself. Yet were I to tell you what I wish for you in particular, it would be only to repeat in profe, what I told you laft year in rhyme (fo fincere is my poetry): I can only add, that as I then

N 3

I then wished you a friend, I now wish that friend were Mrs.

Abfence is a fhort kind of death; and in either, one can only wish, that the friends we are feparated from, may be happy with thofe that are left them. I am therefore very folicitous that you may pafs much agreeable time together: I am forry to say I envy you no other companion; though I hope you have others that you like; and I am always pleased in that hope, when it is not attended with any fears on your own

account.

I was troubled to leave you both, just as I fancied we should begin to live together in the country. 'Twas a little like dying the moment one had got all one defired in this world. Yet I go away with one generous fort of fatisfaction, that what I part with, you are to inherit.

I know you would both be pleafed to hear fome certain news of a friend departed; to have the adventures of his paffage, and the new regions through which he travelled, defcribed; and, upon the whole, to know that he is as happy where he now is, as while he lived among you. But indeed I (like many a poor unprepared foul) have seen nothing I like fo well as what I left: no fcenes of Paradife, no happy bowers, equal to thofe on the banks of the Thames. Where

• To Mrs. Blount on her Birth-day.

"O be thou bleft with all that Heav'n ean fend,

Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend." W.

Where-ever I wander, one reflection ftrikes me: I wifh you were as free as I; or at least had a tie as tender, and as reasonable as mine, to a relation that as well deserved your conftant thought, and to whom you would be always pulled back (in fuch a manner as I am) by the heart-string. I have never been well fince I fet out: but don't tell my mother fo; it will trouble her too much: and as probably the fame reafon may prevent her fending a true account of her health to me, I must defire you to acquaint me.. I would gladly hear the country air improves your own; but don't flatter me when you are ill, that I may be the better satisfied when you fay you are well: for these are things in which one may be fincerer to a reasonable friend, than to a fond and partial parent. Adieu.

LETTER XIV.

you cannot be furprized to find him a dull correfpondent whom you have known fo long for a dull companion. And though I am pretty fenfible, that if I have any wit, I may as well write to fhow it, as not; yet I will content myself with giving you as plain a hiftory of my pilgrimage, as Purchas himself, or as John Bunyan could do of his walking through the wilderness of this world, etc.

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First

:

First then I went by water to Hampton-Court, unattended by all but my own virtues; which were not of so modest a nature as to keep themselves, or me, concealed: for I met the Prince with all his ladies on horfeback, coming from hunting. Mrs. B and Mrs. L took me into protection, (contrary to the laws against harbouring Papists,) and gave me a dinner, with fomething I liked better, an opportunity of converfation with Mrs. H. We all agreed that the life of a Maid of Honour was of all things the most miferable and wished that every woman who envied it, had a specimen of it. To eat Weftphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark in the forehead from an uneafy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for foxhunters, and bear abundance of ruddy complexioned children. As foon as they can wipe off the fweat of the day, they must fimper an hour and catch cold, in the Princess's apartment: from thence (as Shakespear has it) to dinner, with what appetite they may-and after that, till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they please. I can eafily believe, no lone-houfe in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this Court; and as a proof of it, I need only tell you, Mrs. L walked with me three

+ At this time it was the fashion for ladies of diftinction to ride a hunting in Windsor forest: as it is at present to drive ponies.