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friendly warmth and affection with which you write, it is, that I have a heart full of love and esteem for you: fo truly, that I fhould lose the greatest pleasure of my life if I loft your good opinion. It rejoices me very much to be reckoned by you in the class of honeft men: for tho' I am not troubled over much about the opinion moft may have of me, yet, I own, it would grieve me not to be thought well of, by you and fome few others. I will not doubt my own ftrength, yet I have this further security to maintain my integrity, that I cannot part with that, without forfeiting your esteem with it.

Perpetual disorder and ill health have for fome years fo disguised me, that I sometimes fear I do not to my best friends enough appear what I really am. Sickness is a great oppreffor; it does great injury to a zealous heart, ftifling its warmth, and not fuffering it to break out in action. But, I hope, I shall not make this complaint much longer. I have other hopes that please me too, tho' not fo well grounded; these are, that you may yet make a journey weftward 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 ficknefs eafy to me, by bearing with my infirmities in the fame manner that you have always done. I often too confider him in other lights that make him valuable to me. With him, I know not by what connection, you never fail to come into my mind, as if you were infeparable. I have, as you guess, many philofophical reveries in the fhades of Sir Walter Raleigh, of which you are a great part. You generally enter there with me, and like a good Genius, applaud and ftrengthen all my fentiments that have honour in them. This good office which you VOL. VIII.

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have

have often done me unknowingly, I must acknowledge now, that my own breaft may not reproach me with ingratitude, and difquiet me when I would muse again in that folemn scene. I have not room now left to ask you many questions I intended about the Odyffey. Í beg I may know how far you have carried Ulyffes on his journey, and how you have been entertained with him on the way? I defire 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 fpring the Brocoli and the Fenochio? hard names to spell! how did the popies 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 pafs, all you fay, and all you do; of which I fhould queftion you yet farther, but my paper is full and fpares you. My brother Ned is wholly yours, fo my father defires to be, and every foul here whofe name is Digby. My fifter will be yours in particular. What can I add more? I am, &c.

LETTER XV.

Oct. 10.

I

was upon the point of taking a much greater

covered country, from whofe bourn No traveller returns!

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A fever carried me on the high gallop towards it for fix or seven days But here you have me now, and that is all I fhall fay of it: fince which time an impertinent lameness kept me at home twice as Jong; as if fate fhould fay (after the other danger

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ous illness)" "You shall neither go into the other "world, nor any where you like in this." Elfe who knows but I had been at Hom-lacy?

I confpire in your fentiments, emulate your pleafures, wifh for your company. You are all of one heart and one foul, as was faid of the primitive Chriftians: 'tis like the kingdom of the juft upon earth; not a wicked wretch to interrupt you, but a fet of try'd, experienced friends, and fellow-comforters, who have feen evil men and evil days, and have by a fuperior rectitude of heart set yourselves above them, and reap your reward. Why will you ever, of your own accord, end fuch a millennary year in London? tranfmigrate (if I may fo call it) into other creatures, in that scene of folly militant, when you may reign for ever at Hom-lacy in fense and reason triumphant? I appeal to a third Lady in your family, whom I take to be the most innocent, and the leaft warp'd by idle fashion and cuftom of you all; I appeal to her, if you are not every foul of you better people, better companions, and happier, where you are? I defire her opinion under her hand in your next letter, I mean Miss Scudamore's *. 1 am confident if fhe would or durft fpeak her fenfe, and employ that reafoning which God has given her, to infufe more thoughtfulness into you all; thofe arguments could not fail to put you to the blufh, and keep you out of town, like people fenfible of your own felicities. I am not without hopes, if the can detain a parliament man and a lady of quality from the world one winter, that I may come upon you with such irresistible arguments another year, as may carry you all with

*Afterwards Dutchefs of Beaufort, at this time very

young.

P.

me to Bermudas †, the feat of all earthly happiness, and the new Jerufalem of the righteous.

Don't talk of the decay of the year, the season is good where the people are so: 'tis the best time in the year for a painter; there is more variety of colours in the leaves, the profpects begin to open, thro' the thinner woods, over the valleys; and thro' the high canopies of trees to the higher arch of heaven: the dews of the morning impearl every thorn, and scatter diamonds on the verdant mantle of the earth; the frofts are fresh and wholesome : what would you have? the Moon fhines too, tho' not for Lovers these cold nights, but for Aftrono

mers.

Have ye not reflecting Telescopes t, whereby ye may innocently magnify her fpots and blemishes? Content yourselves with them, and do not come to a place where your own eyes become reflecting Telescopes, and where thofe of all others are equally fuch upon their neighbours. Stay you at least (for what I've faid before relates only to the ladies: don't imagine I'll write about any Eyes but theirs) ftay, I fay, from that idle, bufy-looking Sanhedrim, where wifdom or no wisdom is the eternal debate, not (as it lately was in Ireland) an accidental one.

If, after all, you will defpife good advice, and refolve to come to London, here you will find me, doing just the things I fhould not, living where I should not, and as worldly, as idle, in a word as much an Anti-Bermudanift as any body, Dear Sir, make the ladies know I am their fervant, you know I am Yours, &c.

+ About this time the Rev. Dean Berkley conceived his project of erecting a fettlement in Bermudas for the Propagation of the Chriftian faith, and introduction of Sciences into America.

P.

Thefe inftruments were juft then brought to per

fection.

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LETTER XVI.

Aug. 12.

Have been above a month ftrolling about in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from garden to garden, but ftill returning to Lord Cobham's with fresh fatisfaction. I fhould be forry to see my Lady Scudamore's, till it has had the full advantage of Lord B* improvements; and then I will expect fomething like the waters of Rifkins, and the woods of Oakley together, which (without flattery) would be at least as good as any thing in our world: For as to the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Paradife of Cyrus, and the Sharawaggi's of China, I have little or no ideas of them, but, I dare fay, Lord B* has, because they were certainly both very great, and very wild. I hope Mrs. Mary Digby is quite tired of his Lordfhip's Extravagante Bergerie: and that she is just now fitting, or rather reclining on a bank, fatigued with over much dancing and finging at his unwearied requeft and inftigation. I know your love of ease so well, that you might be in danger of being too quiet to enjoy quiet, and too philofophical to be a philofopher; were it not for the ferment Lord B. will put you into. One of his Lordship's maxims is, that a total abftinence from intemperance or business, is no more philofophy, than a total confopition of the fenfes is repofe; one muft feel enough of its contrary to have a relish of either. But, after all, let your temper work, and be as fedate and contemplative as you will, I'll engage you fhall be fit for any of us, when you come to town in the winter. Folly will laugh you into all the cuftoms of the company here; nothing will be able to prevent your converfion to her, but indifpofition, which, I hope, will be far from you. I

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