dead weight on my heart; I hated it in all its circumstances, as it affected your fortune and quiet, and in a fituation of life that muft make it every way vexatious. And as I am infinitely obliged to you for the juftice you do me in fuppofing your affairs do at least concern me as much as my own; fo I would never have pardoned your omitting it. But before I go on, I cannot forbear mentioning what I read last summer in a news-paper, that you were writing the history of your own times. own times. I fuppose such a report might arife from what was not fecret among your friends, of your intention to write another kind of history; which you often promis'd Mr. Pope and me to do: I know he defires it very much, and I am fure I defire nothing more, for the honour and love I bear and the perfect knowledge I have of your public virtue. My Lord, I have no other notion of Oeconomy than that it is the parent of Liberty and Eafe, and I am not the only friend you have who hath chid you in his heart for the neglect of it, tho' not with his mouth, as I have done. For there is a filly error in the world, even among friends otherwise very good, not to intermeddle with mens affairs in fuch nice matters. And, my Lord, I have made a maxim, that should be writ in letters of diamonds, That a wife man ought to have Money VOL. IX. K

you,

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is more probable that there may be an equal quantity of virtues always in the world, but sometimes there may be a peck of it in Afia, and hardly a thimble-ful in Europe. But if there be no virtue, there is abundance of fincerity; for I will venture all I am worth, that there is not one human creature in power, who will not be modeft enough to confefs that he proceeds wholly upon a principle of Corruption. I fay this because I have a scheme in spite of your notions, to govern England upon the principles of Virtue, and when the nation is ripe for it, I defire you will fend for me. I have learn'd this by living like a Hermit, by which I am got backwards about nineteen hundred years in the Æra of the world, and begin to wonder at the wickedness of men. I dine alone upon half a dish of meat, mix water with my wine, walking ten miles a day, and read Baronius. Hic explicit Epiftola ad Dom. Bolingbroke, et incipit ad amicum Pope.

Having finished my letter to Aristippus, I now begin to you. I was in great pain about Mrs. Pope, having heard from others that the was in a very dangerous way, which made me think it unfeasonable to trouble you. I am afhamed to tell you, that when I was very

young

young I had more defire to be famous than ever fince; and fame, like all things elfe in this life, grows with me every day more a trifle. But you who are so much younger, although you want that health you deferve, yet your spirits are as vigorous as if your body were founder. I hate a crowd, where I have not an eafy place to fee and be seen. A great Library always makes me melancholy, where the beit Author is as much squeezed, and as obfcure, as a Porter at a Coronation. In my own little Library, I value the compilements of Grævius and Gronovius, which make thirty-one volumes in folio (and were given me by my Lord Bolingbroke) more than all my books befides; because whoever comes into my closet, cafts his eyes immediately upon them, and will not vouchsafe to look upon Plato or Xenophon. I tell you it is almoft incredible how opinions change by the decline or decay of Spirits, and I will further tell you, that all my endeavours from a boy to diftinguish myself, were only for want of a great Title and Fortune, that I might be used like a Lord by those who have an opinion of my parts; whether right or wrong, it is no great matter; and fo the reputation of wit or great learning does the office of a blue ribband, or of a coach and fix horfes. To be remembered for ever on the account of our friendship,

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in his head, but not in his heart. Pray, my Lord, enquire whether your Prototype, my Lord Digby, after the Restoration when he was at Bristol, did not take fome care of his forture, notwithstanding that quotation I once fent you out of his fpeech to the H. of Commons? In my confcience, I believe Fortune, like other drabbs, values a man gradually fefs for every year he lives. I have demonftration for it; because if I play at piquet for fix-pence with a man or woman two years younger than myself, I always lofe; and there is a young girl of twenty, who never fails of winning my money at Backgammon, tho' fhe is a bungler, and the game be Ecclefiaftic. As to the public, I confefs nothing could cure my itch of meddling with it, but these frequent returns of deafness, which have hindered me from paffing laft winter in London; yet I cannot but confider the perfidioufnefs of fome people, who I thought when I was last there, upon a change that happened, were the most impudent in forgetting their profeffions that I have ever known. Pray will you please to take your pen, and blot me out that political maxim from whatever book it is in, that Res nolunt diu male adminiftrari; the commonness makes me not know who is the author, but fure he must be some Modern.

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I am forry for Lady Bolingbroke's ill health; but I proteft I never knew a very deferving perfon of that sex, who had not too much reafon to complain of ill health. I never wake without finding life a more infignificant thing than it was the day before; which is one great advantage I get by living in this country, where there is nothing I fhall be forry to lofe. But my greatest misery is recollecting the scene of twenty years paft, and then all on a fudden dropping into the prefent. I remember, when I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end of my line, which I drew up almost on the ground, but it dropt in, and the disappointment vexes me to this very day, and I believe, it was the type of all my future disappointments. I fhould be afham'd to fay this to you, if you had not a fpirit fitter to bear your own misfortunes, than I have to think of them. Is there patience left to reflect, by what qualities wealth and greatnefs are got, and by what qualities they are loft? I have read my friend Congreve's verfes to Lord Cobham, which end with a vile and falfe moral, and I remember is not in Horace to Tibullus, which he imitates, "that all times are equally virtuous and vi"cious," wherein he differs from all Poets, Philofophers, and Chriftians that ever writ. It