have had but indifferent health. I have not made a visit to London: Curiosity and the love of Dissipation die apace in me. I am not glad nor sorry for it, but I am very sorry for those who have nothing else to live on.

I have read much, but writ no more. I have small hopes of doing good, no vanity in writing, and little ambition to please a world not very candid or deserving. If I can preserve the good opinion of a few friends, it is all I can expect, considering how little good I can do even to them to merit it. Few people have your candour, or are so willing to think well of another from whom they receive no benefit, and gratify no vanity. But of all the soft sensations, the greatest pleasure is to give and receive mutual Trust. It is by Belief and firm Hope, that men are made happy in this life, as well as in the other. My confidence in your good opinion, the dependance upon that of one or two more, is the chief cordial drop I taste, amidst the Insipid, the Disagreeable, the Cloying, or the Dead-sweet, which are the common draughts of life. Some pleasures are too pert, as well as others too flat, to be relished long and vivacity in some cases is worse than dulness. Therefore indeed for many years I have not chosen my companions for any of the qualities in fashion, but almost entirely for that which is the most out-offashion, sincerity. Before I am aware of it, I am making your panegyric, and perhaps my own too, for next to possessing the best qualities is the esteeming and distinguishing those who possess them. I truly love and value you, and so I stop short.

VOL. VIII.

MY LORD,

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROW.

August 24, 1728. I PRESUME you may before this time be returned, from the contemplation of many Beauties, animal and vegetable, in Gardens; and possibly some ra

" He was one of those men, says Mr. Walpole, of careless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bon mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this Lord: of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave, but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said "to have seen more Kings and more postilions than any man in Europe." His enmity to the Duke of Marlborough, and his friendship with Pope, will preserve his name, when his genius, too romantic to have laid a solid foundation for fame, and his politics, too disinterested for his age and country, shall be equally forgotten. He was a man, as his friend said, "who would neither live nor die like any other mortal." Yet even particularities were becoming in him, as he had a natural ease that immediately adopted and saved from the air of affectation. He wrote

"La Muse de Cavalier, or an Apology for such Gentlemen as make Poetry their Diversion, not their Business," in a letter from a Scholar of Mars, to one of Apollo, printed in the Public Register, or Weekly Magazine, No. 3. p. 88, published by Dodsley, 1741.

"A severe Copy of Verses on the Dutchess of Marlborough ; addressed to Mr. Harley after his Removal from Court."

He was author too of those well-known lines which conclude, "Who'd have thought Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was She!" Four very genteel letters of his are printed among Pope's. The account of the Earl's conduct in Spain, taken from his original letters and papers, was drawn up by Dr. Friend, and published in 1707, octavo.

your

tional, in Ladies; to the better enjoyment of own at Bevis-Mount. I hope, and believe, all you have seen will only contribute to it. I am not so fond of making compliment to Ladies as I was twenty years ago, or I would say there are some very reasonable and one in particular there. I think you happy, my Lord, in being at least half the year almost as much your own master as I am mine the whole year and with all the disadvantageous incumbrances of quality, parts, and honour, as mere a gardener, loiterer, and labourer, as he who never had Titles, or from whom they are taken. I have an eye in the last of these glorious appellations to the style of a Lord degraded or attainted: methinks they give him a better title than they deprive him of, in calling him Labourer: Agricultura, says Tully, proxima Sapientiæ, which is more than can be said, by most modern Nobility, of Grace or Right Honourable, which are often proxima Stultitia. The Great Turk, you know, is often a Gardener, or of a meaner trade and there are (my Lord) some circumstances in which you would resemble the Great Turk! The two Paradises are not ill connected, of Gardens and Gallantry; and some there are (not to name my Lord B.) who pretend they are both to be had, even in this life, without turning Musselmen.

We have as little politics here within a few miles of the Court (nay perhaps at the Court) as you at Southampton; and our Ministers, I dare say, have less to do. Our weekly histories are only full of the feasts given to the Queen and royal Family by their servants, and the long and laborious walks her Ma

jesty takes every morning. Yet if the graver Historians hereafter shall be silent of this year's events, the amorous and anecdotical may make posterity some amends, by being furnished with the gallantries of the Great at home; and 'tis some comfort, that if the Men of the next age do not read of us, the Women may.

From the time you have been absent, I've not been to wait on a certain great man, through modesty, through idleness, and through respect. But for my comfort I fancy, that any great man1 will as soon forget one that does him no harm, as he can one that has done him any good. Believe me, my Lord

yours.

LETTER XXXV.

FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROW.

I MUST confess, that in going to Lord Cobham's, I was not led by curiosity. I went thither to see what I had seen, and what I was sure to like.

Let those who are overfond of censuring great men, at every turn and on every occasion, attend to the remarkable words that Cardinal Richlieu spoke to Marshal Fabert: "In your situation of life, it is easy for you to distinguish your friends from your enemies. No disguise prevents you from discerning the difference with accuracy. But in my situation, it is impossible for me to penetrate into their real sentiments. They all hold to me the same language, they make their court to me with the same earnestness, and those who secretly wish to destroy me, give me as many visible proofs of their friendship, as those who are truly attached to my interest."

2

The ease and pleasantry of this Letter, so far preferable to

I had the idea of those Gardens so fixed in my imagination by many descriptions, and nothing surprised me; Immensity and Van Brugh appear in the whole, and in every part. Your joining in your letter animal and vegetable beauty, makes me use this expression I confess the stately Sacharissa at Stow, but am content with my little Amoret.

I thought you indeed more knowing upon the subject, and wonder at your mistake: why will you imagine women insensible to Praise, much less to yours? I have seen them more than once turn from their Lover to their Flatterer. I am sure the Farmeress at Bevis in her highest mortifications, in the middle of her Lent3, would feel emotions of vanity, if she knew you gave her the character of a reasonable

woman.

You have been guilty again of another mistake, which hindered me shewing your letter to a friend; when you join two ladies in the same compliment, though you gave to both the beauty of Venus and the wit of Minerva, you would please neither.

If you had put me into the Dunciad, I could not have been more disposed to criticise your letter. What, Sir, do you bring it in as a reproach, or as a thing uncommon to a Court, to be without politics? With politics indeed the Richlieus and such folks have brought about great things in former days; but what are they, Sir, who, without policy in our

the studied paragraphs of Pope, is a proof of what was said above, of the superiority of many of his Correspondent's Letters to his own. The same may be said of Letters 37, 38, 39.

'The Countess of Peterborow, a Roman Catholic. W.