eft. I am (as you will fee from the whole air of this letter) not in the gayeft nor eafieft humour, but always with fincerity, Your, &c. LETTER XIII. June 27, 1723. You OU may truly do me the juftice to think no man is more your fincere well-wisher than myself, or more the fincere well-wifher of your whole family; with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture of envy to you all, for loving one another so well; and for enjoying the fweets of that life, which can only be tafted by people of good-will. They from all fhades the darkness can exclude, Torbay is a paradife, and a storm is but an amusement to fuch people. If you drink Tea upon a promontory that over-hangs the fea, it is preferable to an Affembly: and the whistling of the wind better mufic to contented and loving minds, than the Opera to the fpleenful, ambitious, difeas'd, diftafted, and diftracted fouls which this world affords; nay, this world affords no other. Happy they, who are banish'd from us! but happier they, who can banish themselves; or more properly banish the world from them! Alas! I live at Twickenham ! I take that period to be very fublime, and to include more than a hundred fentences that might be writ to express distraction, hurry, multiplication of nothings, and all the fatiguing perpetual business of having no bufinefs to do. You'll wonder I reckon tran tranflating the Odyffey as nothing. But whenever I think ferioufly (and of late I have met with fo many occafions of thinking ferioufly, that I begin never to think otherwise) I cannot but think these things very idle; as idle as if a beaft of burden fhould go on gingling his bells, without bearing any thing valuable about him, or ever ferving his mafter. Life's vain Amufements, amidst which we dwell; Not weigh'd, or understood, by the grim God of Hell! faid a heathen poet; as he is tranflated by a chriftian Bifhop, who has, firft by his exhortations, and fince by his example, taught me to think as becomes a reasonable creature-but he is gone! I remember I promis'd to write to you, as foon as I fhould hear you were got home. You muft look on this as the firft day I've been myself, and pass over the mad interval un-imputed to me. How punctual a correfpondent I fhall hence-forward be able or not able to be, God knows: but he knows, I fhall ever be a punctual and grateful friend, and all the good wishes of such an one will ever attend you. You LETTER XIV. Twick'nam, June 2, 1725. OU fhew yourself a just man and a friend in thofe gueffes and fuppofitions you make at the poffible reafons of my filence; every one of which is a true one. As to forgetfulness of you or yours, I affure you, the promiscuous converfations of the town ferve only to put me in mind of better, and more quiet, to be had in a corner of the world (undifturb'd, innocent, ferene, and fenfible) with fuch as you. Let no access of any diftrust make you think of me differently in a cloudy day from what you do in the most funshiny weather. Let the young ladies be affured I make nothing new in my gardens without wishing to fee the print of their fairy fteps in every part of them. I have put the laft hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the fubterraneous way and grotto: I there found a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes thro' the cavern day and night. From the river Thames, you see thro' my arch up a walk of the wilderness, to a kind of open Temple, wholly compos'd of fhells in the ruftic manner; and from that distance under the temple you look down thro' a floping arcade of trees, and fee the fails on the river paffing fuddenly and vanishing, as thro' a perspective glass. When you shut the doors of this grotto, it becomes on the inftant, from a luminous room, a Camera obfcura; on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture in their vifible radiations: and when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different scene; it is finished with fhells interfperfed with pieces of looking-glafs in angular forms; and in the cieling is a ftar of the fame material, at which when a lamp (of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster) is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto by a narrower paffage two porches, one towards the river of smooth ftones full of light, and open; the other toward the Garden fhadow'd with trees, rough with fhells, flints, and iron-ore. The bottom is paved with fimple pebble, as is alfo the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural tafte, agreeing not ill with the little. dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole whole place. It wants nothing to compleat it but a good statue with an inscription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of, Hujus Nympha loci, facri cuftodia fontis, Dormio, dum blanda fentio murmur aquæ. Nymph of the grot, thefe facred fprings I keep, I You'll think I have been very poetical in this defcription, but it is pretty near the truth *. wish you were here to bear teftimony how little it owes to Art, either the place itself, or the image I give it. I am, &c. I LETTER XV. Sept. 13, 1725. Should be afham'd to own the receipt of a very kind letter from you, two whole months from the date of this; if I were not more ashamed to tell a lye, or to make an excufe, which is worse than a lye (for being built upon fome probable circumstance, it makes use of a degree of truth to *He had greatly inlarged and improved this Grotto not long before his death: and, by incrufting it about with a vaft number of ores and minerals of the richett and rarest kinds, had made it one of the most elegant and romantic retirements that was any where to be seen. He has made it the fubject of a very pretty poem of a fingular caft and compofition. 5 falfify falfify with, and is a lye guarded.) Your letter has been in my pocket in conftant wearing, till that, and the pocket, and the fuit, are worn out; by which means I have read it forty times, and I find by fo doing that I have not enough confidered and reflected upon many others you have obliged me with; for true friendship, as they fay of good writing, will bear reviewing a thousand times, and ftill discover new beauties. I have had a fever, a fhort one, but a violent : I am now well; fo it fhall take up no more of this paper. I begin now to expect you in town to make the winter to come more tolerable to us both. The fummer is a kind of heaven, when we wander in a paradifaical fcene among groves and gardens ; but at this feason, we are, like our poor firft parents, turn'd out of that agreeable though folitary life, and forced to look about for more people to help to bear our labours, to get into warmer houses, and live together in cities. I hope you are long fince perfectly reftor'd, and rifen from your gout, happy in the delights of a contented family, fmiling at ftorms, laughing at greatness, merry over a christmas-fire, and exercifing all the functions of an old Patriarch in charity and hospitality. I will not tell Mrs. B* what I think fhe is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, that he only ought to know it for whom it is done; and fhe will allow herself to be far enough advanced above a fine lady, not to defire to fhine before men. Your daughters perhaps may have some other thoughts, which even their mother must excuse them for, because she is a mother. I will not however suppose those thoughts get the better of their devotions, but rather excite them and affift the warmth of them; while their prayer may be, that they |