have long look'd upon with affection? I begin already to feel both what fome apprehend, and what others are yet too ftup id to apprehend. I grieve with the old, for fo many additional inconveniencies and chagrins, more than their fmall remain of life feemed destined to undergo; and with the young, for fo many of thofe gaieties and pleafures (the portion of youth) which they will by this means be deprived of. This brings into my mind one or other of those I love beft, and among them the widow and fatherless, late of. As I am certain no people living had an earlier and truer sense of others misfortunes, or a more generous refignation as to what might be their own, fo I earneftly wifh that whatever part they must bear, may be rendered as fupportable to them, as it is in the power of any friend to make it.

But I know you have prevented me in this thought, as you always will in any thing that is good, or generous: I find by a letter of your lady's (which I have feen) that their ease and tranquillity is part of I believe there's fome fatality in it, that your care. you fhould always, from time to time, be doing those particular things that make me enamour'd of you.

I write this from Windfor-Foreft, of which I am come to take my laft look. We here bid our neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hang'd do their fellow-prisoners, who are condemn'd to follow them a few weeks after. I parted from honeft Mr. D* with tenderness; and from old Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, fortelling with lifted hands the miseries to come, from which he is juft going to be removed himself.

Perhaps,

Perhaps, now I have learnt fo far as

my next leffon

Nos dulcia linquimus arva,

may be

Nos Patriam fugimus.

Let that, and all elfe be as Heaven pleases! I have provided juft enough to keep me a man of honour. I believe you and I shall never be ashamed of each other. I know I wifh my Country well, and, if it undoes me, it shall not make me with it otherwise.

YOUR

LETTER VII.

From Mr. BLOUNT.

March 24, 1715-16. .

OUR letters give me a gleam of fatisfaction, in the midft of a very dark and cloudy fituation of thoughts, which it would be more than human to be exempt from at this time, when our homes muft either be left, or be made too narrow for us to turn in. Poetically speaking, I fhould lament the lofs Windfor-foreft and you sustain of each other, but that, methinks, one can't fay you are parted, because you will live by and in one another, while verfe is verfe. This confideration hardens me in my opinion rather to congratulate you, fince you have the pleasure of the profpect whenever you take it from your shelf, and at the fame time the folid cafh you fold it for, of which Virgil in his exile knew nothing in those days, and which will make every place easy to you. I for my part am not fo happy; my parva rura are fastened to me, so that I can't exchange them, as you have, for more portable means of fubfiftance; and yet I hope to gather enough to make the Patriam fugimus fupportable to

me: 'tis what I am refolved on, with my Penate. If therefore you alk me, to whom you fhall complain? I will exhort you to leave laziness and the elms of St. James's Park, and choose to join the other two proposals in one, fafety and friendship (the leaft of which is a good motive for most things, as the other is for almost every thing) and go with me where War will not reach us, nor paultry Conftables fummon us to veftries.

The future epiftle you flatter me with, will find me still here, and I think I may be here a month longer. Whenever I go from hence, one of the few reasons to make me regret my home will be, that I shall not have the pleasure of saying to you,

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiefcere no&tem, which would have rendered this place more agreeable, than ever else it could be to me; for I proteft, it is with the utmost fincerity that I affùre you, I am entirely,

Dear Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER VIII.

June 22, 1717.

F a regard both to public and private affairs may plead a lawful excufe in behalf of a negligent correfpondent, I have really a very good title to it. I cannot fay whether 'tis a felicity or unhappiness, that I am obliged at this time to give my whole application to Homer; when without that employment, my thoughts must turn upon what is lefs agreeable, the violence, madness, and refentment of

modern

modern War-makers *, which are likely to prove (to fome people at least) more fatal, than the fame qualities in Achilles did to his unfortunate country

men.

Tho' the change of my scene of life, from Windfor-forest to the fide of the Thames, be one of the grand Æra's of my days, and may be called a notable period in fo inconfiderable a history; yet you can scarce imagine any hero paffing from one ftage of life to another, with fo much tranquillity, fo eafy a tranfition, and fo laudable a behaviour. I am become fo truly a citizen of the world (according to Plato's expreffion) that I look with equal indifference on what I have left, and on what I have gained. The times and amusements paft are not more like a dream to me, than those which are present: I lie in a refreshing kind of inaction, and have one comfort at least from obfcurity, that the darkness helps me to fleep the better. I now and then reflect upon the enjoyment of my friends, whom, I fancy, I remember much as feparate spirits do us, at tender intervals, neither interrupting their own employments, nor altogether careless of ours, but in general constantly wishing us well, and hopeing to have us one day in their company.

To grow indifferent to the world is to grow philofophical, or religious (which foever of those turns we chance to take) and indeed the world is fuch a thing, as one that thinks pretty much, must either laugh at, or be angry with: but if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; and if we are angry with it, they fay we are ill-natured. So the most politic way is to feem always better pleased than one can be, greater admirers, greater lovers, and in fhort greater fools, than we really are: fo fhall we live

ton. P.

* This was written in the year of the affair of Pref comfortably

VOL. VIII.

C

comfortably with our families, quietly with our neighbours, favoured by our mafters, and happy with our miftreffes. I have filled my paper, and fo adieu.

LETTER IX.

Sept. 8, 1717.

I

Think your leaving England was like a good man's leaving the world, with the bleffed conscience of having acted well in it; and I hope you have received your reward, in being happy where you are. I believe, in the religious country you inhabit, you'll be better pleased to find I confider you in this light, than if I compared you to those Greeks and Romans, whofe conftancy in suffering pain, and whose resolution in pursuit of a generous end, you would rather imitate than boaft of.

But I had a melancholy hint the other day, as if you were yet a martyr to the fatigue your virtue made you undergo on this fide the water. I beg, if your health be restored to you, not to deny me the joy of knowing it. Your endeavours of service and good advice to the poor papifts, put me in mind of Noah's preaching forty years to those folks that were to be drowned at last. At the worst I heartily wish your Ark may find an Ararat, and the wife and family (the hopes of the good patriarch) land fafely after the deluge, upon the fhore of Totnefs.

If I durft mix prophane with facred history, I would chear you with the old tale of Brutus the wandering Trojan, who found on that very coaft the happy end of his peregrinations and adventures.

I have very lately read Jeffery of Monmouth (to whom your Cornwall is not a little beholden) in the translation of a clergyman in my neighbourhood.

The