O Rus, quando ego te afpiciam! quandoque licebit Ducere follicita jucunda oblivia vita! In that case I shall fancy I hear the ghost of the dead, thus intreating me, At tu facrate ne parce malignus arenæ Particulam dare Quanquam feftinas, non eft mora longa; licebit, There is an answer for me somewhere in Ham let to this request, which you remember, tho' thou shalt be fatisfied! However that be, take care you do not fail in your appointment, that the company of the living may make me some amends for my attendance on the dead. I know you will be glad to hear that I am well: I should always, could I always be here→ Sed me Imperiofa trabit Proferpina: vive, valeque. You are the first man I fent to this morning, and the last man I defire to converse with this evening, tho' at twenty miles distance from you. Te, veniente die, Te, decedente, requiro. LETTER I in LETTER XXI. From the Bishop of ROCHESTER, DEAR SIR, The Tower, April 10, 1723. Thank you for all the inftances of your friendship, both before, and fince my miffortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me for ever. But in what part of the world foever I am, I will live mindful of your fincere kindness to me; and will please myself with the thought, that I still live your efteem and affection, as much as ever I did; and that no accidents of life, no diftance of time, or place, will alter you in that respect. It never can me; who have lov'd and valued you, ever fince I knew you, and fhall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you fo; as the cafe will foon be. the cafe will foon be. Give my faithful fervices to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he sent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be faid to be to the purpose, in a cafe that is already determined. Let him know my Defence will be such, that neither my friends need blush for me, nor will my enemies have great occafion of Triumph, tho' fure of the Victory. I fhall want his advice before I go abroad, in many things. But I quef I question whether I shall be permitted to fee him, or any body, but fuch as are abfolutely neceffary towards the dispatch of my private affairs. If fo, God bless you both! and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me, ever purfue either of you! I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing, to say somewhat about. my way of spending my time at the Deanry, which did not feem calculated towards managing plots and confpiracies. But of that I fhall confider-You and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter subjects; and, that I may preserve the old custom, I shall not with you now till I have clos'd this letter, with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily and not without fome degree of concern apply to your ever affectionate, &c. part Some nat❜ral Tears he dropt, but wip'd them foon: LETTER LETTER XXII. The Anfwer. April 20, 1723. IT is not poffible to express what I think, and 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 person to confent, who only could have hindered me, by a tye which, tho' it may be more tender, I do not think more ftrong, that 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 but 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; a way that can reach to any part of the world where you may be, where the very whisper or even the wifh of a friend must not be heard, or even suspected by this way, I dare tell my efteem and affection of you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their fons, may hear of it. You 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 highest concern to me: and affuring me, it shall be such, that none of your friends shall blush for you. Let me further prompt you to do yourself the best and most lafting justice: the inftruments of your Fame to posterity will be in your own hands. May it not be, that providence has appointed you to fome great and useful work, and calls you to it this fevere way? You may more eminently and more effectually serve the Public even now, than in the stations you have fo honourably 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 exprefs, that no part of your misfortune may pursue me. But, God knows, I am every day lefs and lefs fond of my native country (fo torn as it is by Party-rage) and begin to confider a friend in exile as a friend in death; one gone before, where I am not unwilling nor unpre • Clarendon indeed wrote | disgrace, and the best of his best works in his banish- Tully's after his return from ment but the best of Ba- exile. con's were written before his |