perfectly accidental; fome will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful; and others the contrary: And what you fay, is paft doubt, that every one can beft find hints for himself: though it is poffible that sometimes a friend may give you a lucky one just suited to your own imagination. But all this is almoft past with me: my invention and judgment are perpetually at fifty-cuffs, till they have quite difabled each other; and the meerest trifles I ever wrote are serious philosophical lucubrations, in comparison to what I now bufy myself about; as (to speak in the author's phrase) the world may one day fee c.

I'

LETTER LV.

September 10, 1731.

F your ramble was on horfeback, I am glad

of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between ftage-coaches and friends coaches: for you are as arrant a cockney as any hofier in Cheapfide. One clean fhirt with two cravats, and as many handkerchiefs, make up your equipage; and as for a night-gown, it is clear from Homer,

His ludicrous prediction | very much to his dishonour, was fince his death, and seriously fulfilled.

that

I

that Agamemnon rofe without one. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have fome great work in scheme, which may take up feven years to finish, besides two or three under-ones, that may add another thousand pound to your stock: and then I shall be in lefs pain about you. know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without confidering that the intereft of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day. I find a greater longing than ever to come amongst you; and reafon good, when I am teazed with Dukes and Ducheffes for a vifit, all my demands comply'd with, and all excufes cut off. You remember, "O happy Don Quixote! Queens « held his horse, and Ducheffes pulled off his "armour," or something to that purpose. He was a mean-fpirited fellow; I can fay ten times more; O happy, &c. fuch a Duchefs was defigned to attend him, and fuch a Duke invited him to command his Palace. Nam iftos reges ceteros memorare nolo, hominum mendicabula: go read your Plautus, and obferve Strobilus vaporing after he had found the pot of gold. I will have nothing to do with that Lady: I have long hated her on your account, and the more, because you are fo forgiving as not to hate her; however, she has good qualities enough to make VOL. IX.

her.

her efteemed; but not one grain of feeling. I only with the were a fool.---I have been several months writing near five hundred lines on a pleafant fubject, only to tell what my friends and enemies will fay on me after I am dead 2. I fhall finish it foon, for I add two lines every week, and blot out four, and alter eight. I have brought in you and my other friends, as well as enemies and detractors.---It is a great comfort to fee how corruption and ill conduct are inftrumental in uniting Virtuous perfons and Lovers of their country of all denominations : Whig and Tory, High and Low-church, as foon as they are left to think freely, all joining in opinion. If this be difaffection, pray God fend me always among the difaffected! and I heartily wish you joy of your fcurvy treatment at Court, which hath given you leifure to cultivate both public and private Virtue, neither of them likely to be foon met with within the walls of St. James's or Weftminster.-But I must here. difmifs you, that I may pay my acknowledgments to the Duke for the great honour he hath done me.

My Lord,

I could have fworn that my Pride would be always able to preferve me from Vanity; of

This has been published, and is amongst the best of his poems.

which I have been in great danger to be guilty for fome months paft, firft by the conduct of my Lady Duchefs, and now by that of your Grace, which had like to finish the work: And I should have certainly gone about fhewing my letters under the charge of fecrecy to every blab of my acquaintance; if I could have the leaft hope of prevailing on any of them to believe that a man in fo obfcure a corner, quite thrown out of the present world, and within a few steps of the next, fhould receive fuch condescending invitations from two fuch perfons to whom he is an utter ftranger, and who know no more of him than what they have heard by the partial reprefentations of a friend. But in the mean time, I must defire your Grace not to flatter yourself, that I waited for Your Confent to accept the invitation. I must be ignorant indeed not to know, that the Duchefs, ever fince you met, hath been mcft politickly employ'd in encreafing those forces, and fharpning those arms with which fhe fubdued you at first, and to which, the braver and the wifer you grow, you will more and more fubmit. Thus I knew myself on the fecure fide, and it was a mere piece of good manners to infert that clause, of which you have taken the advantage. But as I cannot forbear informing your Grace that the Duchefs's great fecret in her art of government,

hath been to reduce both your wills into one; fo I am content, in due obfervance to the forms of the world, to return my most humble thanks to your Grace for fo great a favour as you are pleased to offer me, and which nothing but impoffibilities fhall prevent me from receiving, fince I am, with the greatest reason, truth, and refpect, my Lord, your Grace's most obedient, &c.

Madam,

I have confulted all the learned in occult fciences of my acquaintance, and have fate up eleven nights to discover the meaning of those two hieroglyphical lines in your Grace's hand at the bottom of the last Aimsbury letter, but all in vain. Only 'tis agreed, that the language is Coptic, and a very profound Behmift affures me, the style is poetic, containing an invitation from a very great person of the female sex to a ftrange kind of man whom she never faw; and this is all I can find, which after fo many former invitations, will ever confirm me in that respect, wherewith I am, Madam, your Grace's moft obedient, &c.

LET