in a letter of Montaigne's publish'd by P. Cofte, giving an account of the laft words of an intimate friend of his "Adieu, my friend! the pain I feel "will foon be over; but I grieve for that you are to "feel, which is to last you for life.” I join with your family in giving God thanks for lending us a worthy man fomewhat longer. The comforts you receive from their attendance, put me in mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune faid one day to me. "Alas, I have nothing to do but to "s die; I am a poor individual; no creature to wish, or to fear, for my life or death: 'Tis the only reason I have to repent being a fingle man; now "I grow old, I am like a tree without a prop, and " without young trees to grow round me, for company and defence." ་་ ་་ ་ I hope the gout will foon go after the fever, and all evil things remove far from you. But pray tell me, when will you move towards us? If you had an interval to get hither, I care not what fixes you afterwards, except the gout. Pray come, and never ftir from us again. Do away your dirty acres, caft them to dirty people, fuch as in the fcripture-phrafe poffefs the land. Shake off your earth like the noble animal in Milton, The tawny lyon, pawing to get free His binder parts, he springs as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brinded main: the ounce, The Lizard, and the tiger, as the mole Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw But, I believe, Milton never thought these fine verses of his should be apply'd to a man felling a parcel of dirty acres; tho' in the main, I think it may have fome resemblance. For, God knows! this little space of ground nourishes, buries, and confines us, as that of Eden did those creatures, till we can shake it loofe, at least in our affections and defires. Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you: let Mrs. Blount know that she is in the lift of my Mimento, Domine, famulorum famularumque's, &c. My poor mother is far from well, declining; and I am watching over her, as we watch an expiring taper, that even when it looks brigheft, waftes fastest. I am (as you will fee from the whole air of this letter) not in the gayeft nor easiest humour, but always with fincerity, LETTER XIII. Your, &c. June 27, 1723. OU may truly do me the justice to think no YOU man is more your fincere well-wisher than myfelf, or more the fincere well-wisher of your whole family; with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture of envy to you all, for loving one an ther fo well; and for enjoying the sweets of that life, which can only be tafted by people of good-will. They from all fhades the darkness can exclude, Torbay is a paradise, and a storm is but an amufement 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 spleenful, 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 tranflating the Odyffey as nothing. But whenever I think seriously (and of late I have met with so many occafions of thinking seriously, that I begin never to think otherwise) I car.not but think these things very idle; as idle as if a beast of burden fhould go on gingling his bells, without bearing any thing valuable about him, or ever ferving his master. Life's vain Amusements, amidst which we dwell; Not weigh'd, or understood, by the grim God of Hel!! faid a heathen poet; as he is tranflated by a christian Bishop, 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 first day I've been myself, and pafs 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 shall ever be a punctual and grateful friend, and all the good wishes of fuch an one will ever attend you. LETTER XIV. Twick'nam, June 2, 1724. You 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 promifcuous 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 (undisturb'd, innocent, ferene, and fenfible) with fuch as you. Let no accefs of any diftruft make you think of me differently in a cloudy day from what you do in the most funfhiny weather. Let the young ladies be affured I make nothing new in my gardens without wishing to fee the print of their fairy steps 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 cleareft water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes thro' the cavern day and night. From the river Thames, you fee 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 suddenly and vanishing, as thro' a perspective glass. When you fhut the doors of this. grotto, it becomes on the inftant, from a luminous room, a Camera obfcura; on the walls of which all 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 fcene; it is finished with fhells interspersed 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 alabafter) is hung in the middle, a thoufand 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 fmooth VOL. IX. . D. |