whole place. It wants nothing to compleat it but a good ftatue with an infcription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of, Hujus Nympha loci, facri cuftodia fontis, Dormio, dum blanda fentio murmur aquæ. Nymph of the grot, these facred springs I keep, You'll think I have been very poetical in this description, but it is pretty near the truth *. I with you were here to bear teftimony how little it owes to Art, either the place itself, or the image I give it. I am, &c. I Sept. 13, 1725: Should be afham'd to own the receipt of a very kind letter from you, two whole months from the date of this; if I were not more ashamed to tell a lye, or to make an excuse, which is worse than a lye (for being built upon fome probable circumftance, it makes use of a degree of truth to He had greatly inlarged and improved this Grotto not long before his death: and, by incrufting it about with a vast number of ores and minerals of the richest and rarest kinds, had made it one of the most elegant and romantic retirements that was any where to be seen. He has made it the subject of a very pretty poem of a fingular caft and compofition. 5 falfify falfify with, and is a lye guarded.) Your letter has been in my pocket in conftant wearing, till that, and the pocket, and the fuit, are worn out; by which means I have read it forty times, and I find by fo doing that I have not enough confidered and reflected upon many others you have obliged me with; for true friendship, as they fay of good writing, will bear reviewing a thousand times, and ftill discover new beauties. I have had a fever, a fhort one, but a violent: I am now well; so it shall take up no more of this paper. I begin now to expect you in town to make the winter to come more tolerable to us both. The fummer is a kind of heaven, when we wander in a paradifaical scene among groves and gardens ; but at this feason, we are, like our poor firft parents, turn'd out of that agreeable though folitary life, and forced to look about for more people to help to bear our labours, to get into warmer houses, and live together in cities. I hope you are long fince perfectly restor❜d, and rifen from your gout, happy in the delights of a contented family, fmiling at ftorms, laughing at greatness, merry over a christmas-fire, and exercifing all the functions of an old Patriarch in charity and hofpitality. I will not tell Mrs. B* what I think she is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, that he only ought to know it for whom it is done; and fhe will allow herself to be far enough advanced above a fine lady, not to defire to shine before men. Your daughters perhaps may have some other thoughts, which even their mother muft excuse them for, because she is a mother. I will not however suppose those thoughts get the better of their devotions, but rather excite them and affift the warmth of them; while their prayer may be, that they they may raise up and breed as irreproachable a young family as their parents have done. In a word, I fancy you all well, eafy, and happy, just as I wish you; and next to that, I wifh you all with me. Next to God, is a good man: next in dignity, and next in value. Minuifti eum paullo minus ab angelis. If therefore I wish well to the good and the deferving, and defire they only fhould be my companions and correfpondents, I muft very foon and very much think of you. I want your company, and your example. Pray make hafte to town, fo as not again to leave us: difcharge the load of earth that lies on you, like one of the mountains under which the poets fay, the giants (the men of the earth) are whelmed: leave earth, to the fons of the earth, your conversation is in heaven. Which that it may be accomplish'd in us all, is the prayer of him who maketh this short Sermon; value (to you) three-pence. Adieu. Mr. Blount died in London the following Year, 1726. P. LETTER F LETTERS To and from the Hon. ROBERT DIG BY. From 1717 to 1724. I LETTER I: To the Hon. ROBERT DIGBY. June 2, 1717. Had pleas'd myself sooner in writing to you, but that I have been your fucceffor in a fit of fickness, and am not yet so much recovered, but that I have thoughts of ufing your * physicians. They are as grave perfons as any of the faculty, and (like the ancients) carry their own medicaments about with them. But indeed the moderns are fuch lovers of raillery, that nothing is grave enough to escape them. Let them laugh, but people will ftill have their opinions: as they think our Doctors affes to them, we'll think them affes to our Doctors. I am glad you are fo much in a better state of health, as to allow me to jeft about it. My concern, when I heard of your danger, was fo very ferious, that I almoft take it ill Dr. Evans fhould tell you of it, or you mention it. I tell you fair * Afles. ly, ly, if you and a few more fuch people were to leave the world, I would not give fix-pence to stay in it. I am not fo much concerned as to the point whether you are to live fat or lean: most men of wit or honefty are usually decreed to live very lean: fo I am inclined to the opinion that 'tis decreed you fhall; however be comforted, and reflect, that you'll make the better Bufto for it. 'Tis fomething particular in you, not to be fatisfied with fending me your own books, but to make your acquaintance continue the frolic. Mr. Wharton forced me to take Gorboduc, which has fince done me great credit with feveral people, as it has done Dryden and Oldham some difkindness, in fhewing there is as much difference between their Gorboduc and this, as between Queen Anne, and King George. It is truly 'a fcandal, that men fhould write with contempt of a piece which they never once faw, as those two Poets did, who were ignorant even of the fex, as well as fenfe, of Gorboduc *. Adieu! I am going to forget you: this minute you took up all my mind; the next I fhall think of nothing but the reconciliation with Agamemnon, and the recovery of Brifeis. I fhall be Achilles's humble servant these two months (with the good leave of all my friends.) I have no ambition fo ftrong at present, as that noble one of Sir Salathiel Lovel, recorder of London, to furnish out a decent and plentiful execution, of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be exprefs'd how heartily I with the death of all Homer's heroes, one after another. The Lord preserve me in the day of battle, There is a correct edition of it in that valuable col lection of old Plays published by Dodsley. which |