London, for I could hardly have seen you there; and it would not have been quite reasonable to have drawn you to a sick room hither, from the first embraces of your friends. My mother is now (I thank God) wonderfully recovered, though not so much as yet to venture out of her chamber, but enough to enjoy a few particular friends, when they have the good nature to look upon her. I may recommend to you the room we sit in, upon one (and that a favourite) account, that it is the very warmest in the house; we and our fires will equally smile upon your face. There is a Persian proverb that says (I think very prettily), "The conversation of a friend brightens the eyes." This I take to be a splendour still more agreeable than the fires you so delightfully describe. That you may long enjoy your own fire-side in the metaphorical sense; that is, all those of your family who make it pleasing to sit and spend whole wintry months together (a far more rational delight, and better felt by an honest heart, than all the glaring entetainments, numerous lights, and false splendours, of an Assembly of empty heads, aking hearts and false faces). This is my sincere wish to you and yours.

You say you propose much pleasure in seeing some new faces about town, of my acquaintance. I guess you mean Mrs. Howard's and Mrs. Blount's. And I assure you, you ought to take as much pleasure in their hearts, if they are what they sometimes express with regard to you.

Believe me, dear Sir, to you all, a very faithful

servant.

LETTER XIV.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

Sherburne, Aug. 14, 1723.

I CAN'T return from so agreeable an entertainment as yours in the country, without acknowledging it. I thank you heartily for the new agreeable idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very strongly impressed upon my imagination. I repeat the memory of it often, and shall value that faculty of the mind now more than ever, for the power it gives me of being entertained, in your villa, when absent from it. As you are possessed of all the pleasures of the country, and as I think, of a right mind, what can I wish you but health to enjoy them? This I so heartily do, that I should be even glad to hear your good old mother might lose all her present pleasures in her unwearied care of you, by your better health convincing them it is unnecessary.

I am troubled, and shall be so, till I hear you have received this letter: for you gave me the greatest pleasure imaginable in yours, and I am impatient to acknowledge it. If I any ways deserve that friendly warmth and affection with which you write, it is, that I have a heart full of love and esteem for you: so truly, that I should lose the greatest pleasure of my life if I lost your good opinion. It rejoices me very much to be reckoned by you in the class of honest men for though I am not troubled over much about

the opinion most may have of me, yet, I own, it would grieve me not to be thought well of by you and some few others. I will not doubt my own strength, yet I have this farther security to maintain my integrity, that I cannot part with that, without forfeiting your esteem with it.

Perpetual disorder and ill health have for some years so disguised me, that I sometimes fear I do not to my best friends enough appear what I really am. Sickness is a great oppressor; it does great injury to a zealous heart, stifling its warmth, and not suffering it to break out into action. But, I hope, I shall not make this complaint much longer. I have other hopes that please me too, though not so well grounded: these are, that you may yet make a journey westward with Lord Bathurst; but of the probability of this I do not venture to reason, because I would not part with the pleasure of that belief. It grieves me to think how far I am removed from you, and from that excellent Lord, whom I love! Indeed I remember him, as one that has made sickness easy to me, by bearing with my infirmities in the same manner that you have always done. I often too consider him in other lights that make him valuable to me. With him, I know not by what connexion, you never fail to come into my mind, as if you were inseparable. I have, as you guess, many philosophical reveries in the shades of Sir Walter Raleigh, of which you are a great part. You generally enter there with me, and like a good Genius, applaud and strengthen all my sentiments that have honour in them. This good office, which you have often done me unknow

ingly, I must acknowledge now, that my own breast may not reproach me with ingratitude, and disquiet me when I would muse again in that solemn scene. I have not room now left to ask you many questions I intended about the Odyssey. I beg I may know how far you have carried Ulysses on his journey, and how you have been entertained with him on the way? I desire I may hear of your health, of Mrs. Pope's, and of every thing else that belongs to you.

How thrive your garden plants? How look the trees? How spring the Brocoli and the Fenochio? Hard names to spell! How did the poppies bloom? And how is the great room approved? What parties have you had of pleasure? What in the grotto? What upon the Thames? I would know how all your hours pass, all you say, and all you do; of which I

should question you yet farther, but my paper is full and spares you. My brother Ned is wholly yours, so my father desires to be, and every soul here whose name is Digby. My sister will be yours in particular. What can I add more?

LETTER XV.

I am, etc.

October 10.

I was upon the point of taking
WAS

point of taking a much greater journey than to Bermudas, even to that undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns!

A fever carried me on the high gallop towards it for six or seven days-But here you have me now,

and that is all I shall say of it: since which time an impertinent lameness kept me at home twice as long; as if fate should say (after the other dangerous illness), “ You shall neither go into the other world, nor any where you like in this." Else who knows but I had been at Hom-lacy?

66

a

in

I conspire in your sentiments, emulate your pleasures, wish for your company. your company. You are all of one heart and one soul, as was said of the primitive Christians: 'tis like the kingdom of the just upon earth; not a wicked wretch to interrupt you, but set of tried, experienced friends, and fellow-comforters, who have seen evil men and evil days, and have by a superior rectitude of heart set yourselves above them, and reap your reward. Why will you ever, of your own accord, end such a millenary year London? Transmigrate (if I may so call it) into other creatures, in that scene of folly militant, when you may reign for ever at Hom-lacy in sense and reason triumphant? I appeal to a third lady in your family, whom I take to be the most innocent, and the least warped by idle fashion and custom of you all; I appeal to her, if you are not every soul of you better people, better companions, and happier, where you are? I desire her opinion under her hand in your next letter, I mean Miss Scudamore's. I am confident if she would or durst speak her sense, and employ that reasoning which God has given her, to infuse more thoughtfulness into you all; those arguments could not fail to put you to the blush, and keep you

• Afterward Dutchess of Beaufort, at this time very young. P. She was afterward much talked of, for a particular intrigue.