I'

LETTER XCIX.

you

Twitenham, Sept. 20, 1739. Receive with great pleasure the paper you fent me; and yet with greater, the prospect you give me of a nearer acquaintance with when you come to Town. I fhall hope what part of your time you can afford me, amongst the number of those who esteem you, will be past rather in this place than in London; fince it is here only I live as I ought, mihi et amicis. I therefore depend on your promise; and so much as my constitution fuffers by the winter, I yet affure you, fuch an acquifition will make the fpring much the more welcome to me, when it is to bring you hither, cum zephyris et hirundine prima.

As foon as Mr. R. can tranfmit to me an entire copy of your Letters, I wish he had your leave fo to do; that I may put the book into the hands of a French gentleman to translate, who, I hope, will not fubject your work to as much ill-grounded criticism as my French tranflator has fubjected mine. In earnest, I am extremely obliged to you, for thus espousing the cause of a stranger whom you judged to be injured; but my part, in this fentiment, is the leaft. The generofity of your conduct deferves esteem, your zeal for truth deserves affection

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Refnel, on whofe faulty | faz founded his most plaufiand abfurd translation Crou-ble objections.

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from every candid man: And as fuch, were I wholly out of the cafe, I fhould esteem and love you for it. I will not therefore use you fo ill as to write in the general ftyle of compliment; it is below the dignity of the occafion and I can only fay (which I fay with fincerity and warmth) that you have made me, &c.

LETTER C.

Jan. 4, 1739.

T is a real truth that I fhould have written

IT

to you oftener, if I had not a great refpect for you, and owed not a great debt to you. But it may be no unneceffary thing to let you know that most of my friends alfo pay you their thanks; and fome of the most knowing, as well as moft candid Judges think me as much beholden to you as I think myself. Your Letters a meet from fuch with the Approbation they merit, and I have been able to find but two or three very flight Inaccuracies in the whole book, which I have, upon their observation, altered in an exemplar which I keep against a second Edition. My very uncertain ftate of health, which is fhaken more and

On the Effay on Man.

more

more every winter, drove me to Bath and Bristol two months fince; and I fhall not return towards London till February. But I have received nine or ten Letters from thence on the fuccefs of your Book b, which they are earneft to have tranflated. One of them is begun in France. A French gentleman, about Monfieur Cambis the Ambaffador, hath done the greatest part of it here. But I will retard the Impreffion till I have your directions, or till I can have the pleasure I earnestly wish for, to in town, where you gave me fome hopes you sometimes past a part of the spring, for the best reason, I know, of ever visiting it,

meet you

the converfation of a few Friends, Pray, fuffer me to be what you have made me, one of them, and let my houfe have its share of you: or, if I can any way be inftrumental in accommodating you in town during your stay, I have lodgings and a library or two in my disposal; which, I believe, I need not offer to a man to whom all libraries ought to be open, or to one who wants them fo little; but that 'tis poffible you may be as much a stranger to this town, as I wish with all my heart I was. I fee by certain fquibs in the Mifcellanies that you have as

The Commentary on

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f The Weekly Mifcel

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lany, by Dr. Webster, Dr. Waterland, Dr. Stebbing, Mr. Venn, and others.

much

much of the uncharitable spirit pour'd out upon you as the Author you defended from Croufaz. I only wish you gave them no other answer than that of the fun to the frogs, fhining out, in your second book, and the completion of your argument. No man is, as he ought to be, more, or so much a friend to your merit and character, as, Sir,

Your, &c.

T

LETTER CI.

Jan. 17, 1739-40.

Hough I writ to you two posts ago, I ought to acknowledge now a new and unexpected favour of the Remarks on the fourth Epiftlea; which (though I find by yours attending them, they were fent last month) I received but this morning. This was occafioned by no fault of Mr. R. but the neglect, I believe, of the perfon, to whofe care he configned them. I have been full three months about Bath and Bristol, endeavouring to amend a complaint which more or lefs has troubled me all my life: I hope the regimen this has obliged me to, will make the remainder of it more philofophical, and improve my refignation to part with it at

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laft.

laft. I am preparing to return home, and shall then revise what my French gentleman has done, and add this to it. He is the fame perfon who translated the Essay into prose, which Mr. Croufaz fhould have profited by, who, I am really afraid, when I lay the circumstances all together, was moved to his proceeding in fo very unreasonable a way, by fome malice either of his own, or fome other's, tho' I was very willing, at first, to impute it to ignorance or prejudice. I fee nothing to be added to your work; only fome commendatory Deviations from the Argument itself, in my favour, I ought to think might be omitted.

I must repeat my urgent defire to be previously acquainted with the precife time of your vifit to London; that I may have the pleasure to meet a man in the manner I would, whom I must esteem one of the greatest of my Benefactors. I am, with the most grateful and affectionate regard, &c.

. LET