heart when I reflect, that my friendship is fo much less effectual than theirs; nay fo utterly ufeless that it cannot give you any thing, not even a dinner at this distance, nor help the General whom I greatly love, to catch one fifh. My only confo lation is to think you happier than myself, and to begin to envy you, which is next to hating you (an excellent remedy for love.) How comes it that Providence has been fo unkind to me (who am a greater object of compaffion than any fat man alive) that I am forced to drink wine, while you riot in water, prepar'd with oranges by the hand of the Duchefs of Queensberry? that I am condemn'd to live by a high-way fide, like an old Patriarch, receiving all guests, where my portico (as Virgil has it)

Mane falutantum totis vomit ædibus undam,

while you are wrapt into the Idalian Groves, fprink.. led with rofe-water, and live in burrage, balm, and burnet up to the chin, with the Duchefs of Queenfberry? that Tam doom'd to the drudgery of dining at court with the ladies in waiting at Windfor, while you are happily banish'd with the Duchefs of Queenfberry? So partial is fortune in her difpenfations! for I deferved ten times more to be banish'd than you, and I know fome ladies who merit it better than even her Grace. After this I must not name any, who dare do fo much for you as to fend you their fervices. But one there is, who exhorts me often to write to you, I suppose, to prevent or excuse her not doing it herfelf; the feems (for that is all I'll fay for a courtier) to wish you mighty well. Another, who is no courtier, frequently mentions you, and does certainly with you well-I fancy, after all, they both do so.

I writ to Mr. Fortefcue and told him the pains you took to fee him, The Dean is well; I have VOL. VIII,

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had many accounts of him from Irish evidence, but only two letters these four months, in both which you are mentioned kindly: he is in the north of Ireland, doing I know not what, with I know not whom. Mr. Cleland always fpeaks of you: he is at Tunbridge, wondering at the fuperior carnivoracity of our friend: he plays now with the old Duchefs, nay dines with her, after fhe has won all his money. Other news I know not, but that Counsellor Bickford has hurt himself, and has the ftrongest walking-staff I ever faw. He intends speedily to make you a visit with it at Amesbury. I am my Lord Duke's, my Lady Duchefs's, Mr. Dormer's, General Dormer's, and

Your, &c.

LETTER XIX.

Sept, 11, 1730.

with that think of you daily; oftener indeed than is confiftent with the character of a reasonable man, who is rather to make himself eafy with the things and men that are about him, than uneafy for thofe which he wants. And you, whofe abfence is in a manner perpetual to me, ought rather to be remembred as a good man gone, than breathed after as one living. You are taken from us here, to be laid up in a more blessed state with fpirits of a higher kind: fuch I reckon his Grace and her Grace, fince their banishment from an earthly court to a heavenly one, in each other and their friends; for, I conclude, none but true friends will confort or af fociate with them afterwards. I can't but 'look upon myself (fo unworthy as a man of Twitnam

feems,

feems, to be rank'd with fuch rectify'd and fublimated beings as you) as a feparated spirit too from Courts and courtly fopperies. But, I own, not altogether fo divefted of terrene matter, nor altogether fo fpiritualized, as to be worthy admiffion to your depths of retirement and contentment. I am tugg'd back to the world and its regards too often; and no wonder, when my retreat is but ten miles from the capital. I am within ear-fhot of reports, within the vortex of lies and cenfures. I hear fometimes of the lampooners of beauty, the calumniators of virtue, the jokers at reafon and religion. I prefume these are creatures and things as unknown to you, as we of this dirty orb are to the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter; except a few fervent prayers reach you on the wings of the post, from two or three of your zealous votaries at this distance; as one Mrs. H. who lifts up her heart now and then to you, from the midst of the Colluvies and fink of human greatness at W---r; one Mrs. B. that fancies you may remember her while you liv'd in your mortal and too tranfitory state at Petersham; one Lord B. who admir'd the Duchefs before she grew a Goddess; and a few others.

To defcend now to tell you what are our wants, our complaints, and our miferies here; I muft feriously fay, the lofs of any one good woman is too great to be born eafily: and poor Mrs. Rollinfon, tho' a private woman, was fuch. Her husband is gone into Oxfordshire very melancholy, and thence to the Bath, to live on, for fuch is our fate, and duty. Adieu. Write to me as often as you will, and (to encourage you) I will write as feldom as if you did not. Believe me

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LETTER XX.

DEAR SIR,

O&. 1, 1730.

A M fomething like the fun at this feason, withdrawing from the world, but meaning it mighty well, and refolving to fhine whenever I can again. But I fear the clouds of a long winter will overcome me to fuch a degree, that any body will take a farthing candle for a better guide, and more ferviceable companion. My friends may remember my brighter days, but will think (like the Irishman) that the moon is a better thing when once I am gone. I don't say this with any allufion to my poetical capacity as a fon of Apollo, but in my companionable one (if you'll fuffer me to ufe a phrase of the Earl of Clarendon's) for I fhall fee or be seen of few of you this winter. I am grown too faint to do any good, or to give any pleafure. I not only, as Dryden finely fays, feel my notes decay as a poet, but feel my fpirits flag as a companion, and shall return again to where I first began, my books. I have been putting my library in order, and enlarging the chimney in it, with equal intention to warm my mind and body (if I can) to fome life. A friend (a woman-friend, God help me!) with whom I have spent three or four hours a day these fifteen years, advised me to pass more time in my ftudies: I reflected, the muft have found fome reason for this admonition, and concluded fhe would complete all her kindnesses to me by returning me to the employment I am fittest for; converfation with the dead, the old, and the worm

eaten.

Judge therefore if I might not treat you as a beatify'd spirit, comparing your life with my ftupid ftate. For as to my living at Windfor with

the

the ladies, &c. it is all a dream; I was there but two nights, and all the day out of that company. I fhall certainly make as little court to others as they do to me; and that will be none at all. My Fair-weather friends of the fummer are going away for London, and I fhall fee them and the butterflies together, if I live till next year; which I would not defire to do, if it were only for their fakes. But we that are writers, ought to love pofterity, that pofterity may love us; and I would willingly live to fee the children of the prefent race, merely in hope they may be a little wifer than their Parents.

I am, &c.

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LETTER XXI.

T is true that I write to you very feldom, and have no pretence of writing which fatisfies me, because I have nothing to say that can give you much pleasure: only merely that I am in being, which in truth is of little confequence to one from whose conversation I am cut off by fuch accidents or engagements as feparate us. I continue, and ever shall, to wish you all good and happiness: I wish that some lucky event might set you in a state of eafe and independency all at once! and that I might live to see you as happy, as this filly world and fortune can make any one. Are we never to live together more, as once we did? I find my life ebbing apace, and my affections ftrengthening as my age encreases; not that I am worfe, but better, in my health than laft winter; but my mind finds no amendment nor improvement, nor fupport to lean upon, from thofe about me; and fo I feel myfelf leaving the world, as faft as it leaves me,

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