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LETTER XXII.

The Answer.

April 20, 1723.

T is not poffible to express what I think, and

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what I feel; only this, that I have thought and felt for nothing but you, for fome time paft: and fhall think of nothing fo long for the time to come. The greatest comfort I had was an intention (which I would have made practicable) to have attended you in your journey, to which I had brought that perfon to confent, who only could have hindered me, by a tye which, tho' it may be more tender, I do not think more ftrong, than that of friendship. But I fear there will be no way left me to tell you this great truth, that I remember you, that I love you, that I am grateful to you, that I entirely esteem and value you: no way that one, which needs no open warrant to authorize it, or fecret conveyance to fecure it; which no bills can preclude, and no Kings prevent; à way that can reach to any part of the world where you may be, where the very whifper or even the wifh of a friend muft not be heard, or even fufpected by this way, I dare tell my esteem and affection of you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their fons, may hear of it.

but

You prove yourself, my Lord, to know me for the friend I am; in judging that the manner of your Defence, and your Reputation by it, is a point of the higheft concern to me: and affuring me, it shall be such, that none of your friends fhall blush for you. Let me further prompt you to do yourself the best and most lasting justice: the inftruments of your Fame to pofterity will be in your own hands, May it not be, that providence has

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appointed you to fome great and useful work, and calls you to it this fevere way? You may more eminently and more effectually ferve the Public even now, than in the ftations you have fo honou rably fill'd. Think of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon *: is it not the latter, the difgraced part of their lives, which you moft envy, and which you would choose to have liv'd?

I am tenderly fenfible of the wish you express, that no part of your misfortune may purfue me. But, God knows, I am every day less and less fond of my native country (fo torn as it is by Partyrage) and begin to confider a friend in exile as a friend in death; one gone before, where I am not unwilling nor unprepared to follow after; and where (however various or uncertain the roads and voyages of another world may be) I cannot but entertain a pleasing hope that we may meet again.

I faithfully affure you, that in the mean time there is no one, living or dead, of whom I fhall think oftner or better than of you. I fhall look upon you as in a state between both, in which you will have from me all the paffions and warm wishes that can attend the living, and all the refpect and tender fense of lofs, that we feel for the dead. And I shall ever depend upon your conftant friendship, kind memory, and good offices, tho' I were never to fee or hear the effects of them: like the trust we have in benevolent fpirits, who, tho' we never fee or hear them, we think, are constantly serving us, and praying for us.

Whenever I am wishing to write to you, I fhall conclude you are intentionally doing fo to me.

Clarendon indeed wrote his beft works in his banishment: but the best of Bacon's were written before his difgrace, and the best of Tully's after his return from exile.

And

And every time that I think of you, I will believe you are thinking of me. I never shall suffer to be forgotten (nay to be but faintly remember'd) the honour, the pleasure, the pride I must ever have, in reflecting how frequently you have delighted me, how kindly you have diftinguifh'd me, how cordially you have advis'd me! In conversation, in study, I fhall always want you, and wish for you: In my moft lively, and in my moft thoughtful hours, I fhall equally bear about me, the impreffions of you: And perhaps it will not be in This life only, that I fhall have caufe to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXIII.

To the fame.

May, 1723.

ON

NCE more I write to you, as I promis'd, and this once, I fear, will be the laft! the Curtain will foon be drawn between my friend and ne, and nothing left but to wifh you a long good-night. May you enjoy a ftate of repofe in this life, not unlike that fleep of the foul which fome have believ'd is to fucceed it, where we lye utterly forgetful of that world from which we are. gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go. If you retain any memory of the paft, let it only image to you what has pleas'd you beft; fometimes prefent a dream of an abfent friend, or bring you back an agreeable conversation. But upon the whole, I hope you will think lefs of the time paft than of the future; as the former has been lefs kind to you

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than

than the latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the world your Studies; they will tend to the be nefit of men against whom you can have no complaint, I mean of all Pofterity; and perhaps, at your time of life, nothing else is worth your care. What is every year of a wife man's life but a cenfure or critic on the paft? Those whose date is the fhorteft, live long enough to laugh at one half of it the boy defpifes the infant, the man the boy, the philofopher both, and the Chriftian all. You may now begin to think your manhood was too much a puerility; and you'll never fuffer your age to be but a fecond infancy. The toys and baubles of your childhood are hardly now more below you, than those toys of our riper and of our declining years, the drums and rattles of Ambition, and the dirt and bubbles of Avarice. At this time, when you are cut off from a little fociety and made a citizen of the world at large, you should bend your talents not to ferve a Party, or a few, but all mankind. Your Genius fhould mount above that mift in which its participation and neighbourhood with earth long involv'd it; to shine abroad and to heaven, ought to be the business and the glory of your present fituation. Remember it was at fuch a time, that the greateft lights of antiquity dazled and blazed the moft, in their retreat, in their exile, or in their death: but why do I talk of dazling or blazing? it was then that they did good, that they gave light, and that they became Guides to mankind.

Thofe aims alone are worthy of fpirits truly great, and fuch I therefore hope will be yours. Refentment indeed may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinquifhed, in the nobleft minds; but Revenge never will harbour there : higher principles than those of the firft, and better principles than thofe of the latter, will infallibly influence men, VOL. VIII. H whofe

whofe thoughts and whofe hearts are enlarged, and -cause them to prefer the Whole to any part of -mankind, especially to so small a part as one's fingle felf.

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རྩ ཝཱ།

Believe me, my Lord, I look upon you as a fpirit entered into another life *, as one juft upon the edge of Immortality; where the paffions and affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to defpife all little views, and all mean retrofpects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and therefore look forward, and make (as you can) the world look after you. But take care that it be not with pity, but with esteem and admiration.

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I am with the greatest fincerity, and paffion for your fame as well as happiness,

Your, &c.

LETTER XXIV.

From the Bishop of ROCHESTER.

You

Paris, Nov. 23, 1731.

OU will wonder to fee me in print; but how could I avoid it? The dead and the living, my friends and my foes, at home and abroad, calf'd upon me to fay fomething; and the reputation of an + Hiftory which I and all the world value, muft have fuffered, had I continued filent. I have printed it here, in hopes that fomebody may venture to reprint it in England, notwithstanding

*The Bishop of Rochester went into exile the month following, and continued in it till his death, which happen'd at Paris, on the fifteenth day of February in the year 1732.

E. of Clarendon's.

P.

thofe

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