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rate us. I continue, and ever fhall, to wish you all good and happiness: I wish that fome lucky event might fet. you in a ftate of ease and independency all at once! and that I might live to fee 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 strengthening as my age increases; not that I am worse 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 fast as it leaves me. Companions I have enough, friends few, and those too warm in the concerns of the world, for me to bear pace with; or else fo divided from me, that they are but like the dead whole remembrance I hold in honour. Nature, temper, and habit from my youth made me have but one strong defire; all other ambitions, my perfon, education, conftitution, religion, &c. confpired to remove far from me. That defire was, to fix and preferve a few lafting, dependable friendships: and the accidents which have disappointed me in it, have put a period to all my aims. So I am funk into an idleness, which makes me neither care nor labour to be noticed by the rest of mankind; I propofe no rewards to myself, and why fhould I take any fort of pains? here I fit and fleep, and probably here I fhall fleep till I fleep for ever, like the old man of Verona. I hear of what paffes in the VOL. VI.

E

:

bufy world with fo little attention, that I forget it the next day and as to the learned world, there is nothing paffes in it. I have no more to add, but that I am with the fame truth as ever

Your, &c.

LETTER XXII.

YOUR

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Octob. 23. 1730.

UR letter is a very kind one, but I can't say fo pleafing to me as many of yours have been, thro' the account you give of the dejection of your spirits. I wish the too conftant ufe of water does not contribute to it; I find Dr Arbuthnot and another very knowing physician of that opinion. I alfo wifh you were not fo totally immerfed in the country; I hope your return to Town will be a prevalent remedy against the evil of too much recollection. I wish it partly for my own fake. We have lived little together of late, and we want to be phyficians for one another. It is a remedy that agreed very well with us both for many years, and I fancy our conftitutions would mend upon the old medicine of Studiorum fimilitudo, &c. I believe we both of us want whetting; there are feveral here who will do you that good office, merely for the love of wit, which feems to be bidding the town a long and last adieu. I can tell you of no one thing worth reading, or feeing; the whole age seems refolv'd to juftify the Dunciad, and it may stand for a public Epitaph or monumental Inscription like that at Thermopyle, on a whole people perish'd!

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There may indeed be a Wooden image or two of Poetry set up, to preserve the memory that there once were bards in Britain; and (like the Giants at Guildhall) fhow the bulk and bad taste of our ancestors: At prefent the poor Laureat* and Stephen Duck ferve for this purpose; a drunken fot of a Parson holds forth the emblem of Inspiration, and an honest industrious Thresher not unaptly reprefents Pains and Labour. I hope this Phænomenon of Wiltshire has appear'd at Amesbury, or the Duchefs will be thought infenfible to all bright qualities and exalted genius's, in court and country alike. But he is a harmless man, and therefore I am glad.

This is all the news talk'd of at court; but it will please you better to hear that Mrs Howard talks of you, tho' not in the fame breath with the Thresher, as they do of me. By the way, have you feen or convers'd with Mr Chubb, who is a wonderful Phænomenon of Wiltshire? I have read thro' his whole volume with admiration of the writer; tho' not always with approbation of the doctrine. I have paft just three days in London in four months, two at Windfor, half an one at Richmond, and have not taken one excur fion into any other country. Judge now whether I can live in my library. Adieu. Live mindful of one of your first friends, who will be fo to the laft. Mrs Blount deferves your remembrance, for she never forgets you, and wants nothing of being a friend †.

* Eufden.

+ Alluding to thofe lines in the Epift. on the characters of Wo

men.

With

I beg the Duke's and her Grace's acceptance of my fervices: the contentment you exprefs in their company pleases me, tho' it be the bar to my own, in dividing you from us. I am ever very truly

LETTER XXIII.

Your, &c.

Oct. 2. 1732.

IR Clem. Cotterel tells me you will fhortly come

SIR

ters roar.

to town. We begin to want comfort in a few friends about us, while the winds whistle, and the waThe fun gives us a parting look, but 'tis but a cold one: we are ready to change those distant favours of a lofty beauty, for a grofs material fire that warms and comforts more. I wish you could be here till your family come to town: you'll live more innocently, and kill fewer harmless creatures, nay none, except by your proper deputy, the butcher. It is fit for confcience fake, that you fhould come to town, and that the Duchefs fhould stay in the country, where no innocents of another fpecies may fuffer by her. I hope the never goes to church: the Duke fhould lock you both up, and lefs harm would be done. I advife you to make man your game, hunt and beat about here for coxcombs, and trufs up Rogues in Satire: I fancy they'll turn to a good account, if you can produce them fresh, or make them keep: and their relations will come, and buy their bodies of you.

“ With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part,

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Say what can Cloe want?-She wants a heart.

The death of Wilks leaves Cibber without a collegue, abfolute and perpetual dictator of the ftage, tho' indeed while he lived he was but as Bibulus to Cæfar. However ambition finds fomething to be gratify'd with in a mere name; or elfe, God have mercy upon poor ambition! Here is a dead vacation at prefent, no politics at court, no trade in town, nothing stirring but poetry. Every man, and every boy, is writing verfes on the Royal Hermitage: I hear the Queen is at a lofs which to prefer; but for my own part, I like none fo well as Mr Poyntz's in Latin. You would oblige my Lady Suffolk if you tried your Muse on this occafion. I am fure I would do as much for the Duchefs of Queensberry, if she desired it Several of your friends affure me it is expected from you: one should not bear in mind, all one's life, any little indignity one receives from a Court; and therefore I am in hopes, neither her Grace will hinder you, nor you decline it.

The volume of Mifcellanies is just publish'd, which concludes all our fooleries of that kind. All your friends remember you, and, I affure you, no one more than

Your, &c.

LETTER XXIV.

From Mr GAY to Mr POPE.

O&. 7. 1732.

I Am at last return'd from my Somersetshire expediti

my

on; but fince my return I cannot fo much boast of health as before I went, for I am frequently out of

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