time, when another man would be ashamed to own he had received them. If therefore you are ever moved on my account by that spirit, which I take to be as familiar to you as a quotidian ague, I mean the spirit of goodness, pray never ftint it, in any fear of obliging me to a civility beyond my natural inclination. I dare truft you, Sir, not only with my folly when I write, but with my negliwhen I do not; and expect equally your pardon gence

for either.

If I knew how to entertain you thro' the reft of this, paper, it should be spotted and diverfified with conceits all over; you should be put out of breath with laughter at each fentence, and pause at each period, to look back over how much wit you have paffed. But I have found by experience, that people now-a-days regard writing as little as they do preaching: the moft we can hope is to be heard juft with decency and patience, once a week, by folks in the country. Here in town we hum over a piece of fine writing, and we whiftle at a fermon. The ftage is the only place we seem alive at ; there indeed we stare, and roar, and clap hands for K. George and the government. As for all other virtues but this loyalty, they are an obfolete train, fo ill drefs'd, that men, women, and children, hifs them out of all good company.

Humility knocks so sneakingly at the door, that every footman outraps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain-glory.

My Lady Scudamore, from having rufticated in your company too long, really behaves herself fcandalously among us the pretends to open her eyes for the fake of feeing the fun, and to fleep because it is night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have faid her prayers before; talks, without any manner of fhame, of good books, and has not seen Cibber's play of the Nonjuror. I rejoiced the other day to fee a libel on her toilette, which gives me fome hope that you have, at least, a taste of scandal left you, in defect of all other vices. Upon the whole matter, I heartily wish you well; but as I cannot entirely defire the ruin of all the joys of this

city, fo all that remains is to wifh you would keep your happiness to yourselves, that the happieft here may not die with envy at a blifs which they cannot attain to. I am, &c.

LETTER III.

From Mr. DIGBY.

Coleshill, April 17, 1718. I Have read your letter over and over with delight. By your defcription of the town, I imagine it to lie under fome great enchantment, and am very much concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the more afraid, imagining, fince you do not fly thofe horrible monfters, rapine, diffimulation, and luxury, that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you cannot escape. We are here in the country in quite another world, furrounded with bleffings and pleasures, without any occafion of exercifing our irafcible faculties; indeed we cannot boast of goodbreeding and the art of life, but yet we don't live unpleasantly in primitive fimplicity and good humour. The fashions of the town affect us but juft like a raree-fhow; we have a curiofity to peep at them, and nothing more. What you call pride, prodigality, and vain-glory, we cannot find in pomp and splendor at this distance; it appears to us a fine glittering fcene, which, if we don't envy you, we think you happier than we are, in your enjoying it. Whatever you may think to perfuade us of the humility of Virtue, and her appearing in rags amongst you, we can never believe: our uninform'd minds reprefent her fo noble to us, that we neceffarily annex fplendor to her and we could as foon imagine the order of things inverted, and that there is no man in the moon, as believe the contrary. I can't forbear telling you we indeed read the spoils of Rapine as boys do the English Rogue, and hug ourfelves. full as much over it; yet our rofes are not without thorns. Pray give me the pleasure of hearing (when you are at leifure) how foon I may expect to fee the next volume of Homer. I am, &c. VOL. IV.

R.

LET

LETTER IV.

May 1, 1720. YOU'LL think me very full of myself, when, after long filence (which however, to fay truth, has rather been employed to contemplate of you, than to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I find it is in the finishing a book, as in concluding a feffion of parliament, one always thinks it will be very foon, and finds it very late. There are many unlook'd-for incidents to retard the clearing any public account, and so I see it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great minifters, with undertaking too much for one man; and with a defire of doing more than was expected from me, have done Jefs than I ought.

For having defign'd four very laborious and uncommon forts of Indexes to Homer, I'm forced, for want of time, to publifh two only; the defign of which you will own to be pretty, tho' far from being fully executed. I've also been obliged to leave unfinish'd in my desk the heads of two Effays; one on the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they must wait for future editions, or perish : and (one way or other, no great matter which) dabit Deus bis quoque finem. I think of you every day, I affure you, even without fuch good memorials of you as your fifters, with whom I fometimes talk of you, and find it one of the moft agreeable of all subjects to them. My Lord Digby must be perpetually remember'd by all who ever knew him, or knew his children. There needs no more than an acquaintance with your family, to make all elder fons wish they had fathers to their lives end.

I can't touch upon the fubject of filial love, without putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a fincere, hearty, old-fashion'd refpect for you, and conftantly blames her fon for not having writ to you oftener to tell you fo.

I very much wifh (but what fignifies my wifhing? my

lady Scudamore wishes, your fifters wifh) that you were with us, to compare the beautiful contrast this season affords us, of the town and the country. No ideas you could form in the winter can make you imagine what Twickenham is (and what your friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) in this warmer season. Our river glitters beneath an unclouded fun, at the fame time that its banks retain the verdure of fhowers: our gardens are offering their first nofegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying their thanksgiving fongs for the new habitations I have made them; my building rifes high enough to attract the eye and curiofity of the paffenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he enquires what houfe is falling, or what church is rifing? So little taste have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take, in reflecting on their streams, by Tufcan Porticos, or Ionic Pilafters.

But (to defcend from all this pomp of ftyle) the best account of what I am building, is, that it will afford me a few pleasant rooms for fuch a friend as yourfelf, or a cool fituation for an hour or two for Lady Scudamore, when she will do me the honour (at this public houfe on the road) to drink her own cyder,

The moment I am writing this, I am furprized with the account of the death of a friend of mine, which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere jeft! Building, gardens, writings, pleasures, works, of whatever stuff man can raife! none of them (God knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mortal, or of fatisfying a foul that is immortal! Dear Sir,

LETTER V.

From Mr. DIGBY,

May 21, 1720.

Y

OUR letter, which I had two pofts ago, was very medicinal to me; and I heartily thank you for the relief it gave me. I was fick of the thoughts of my not having, in all this time, given you any teftimony of the affection I owe you, and which I as conftantly indeed feel as I think of you. This indeed was a troublesome ill to me, till, after reading your letter, I found it was a moft idle weak imagination to think I could fo offend you. Of all the impreffions you have made upon me, I never receiv'd any with greater joy than this of your abundant good-nature, which bids me be affured of fome fhare of your affections.

I had many other pleasures from your letter; that your mother remembers me, is a very fincere joy to me; I cannot but reflect how alike you are; from the time you do any one a favour, you think yourfelves obliged as thofe that have received one. This is indeed an oldfashioned refpect, hardly to be found out of your house. I have great hopes, however, to fee many old-fashioned virtues revive, fince you have made our age in love with Homer; I heartily wish you, who are as good a citizen as a poet, the joy of feeing a reformation from your works. I am in doubt whether I fhould congratulate your having finifhed Homer, while the two effays you mention are not completed; but if you expect no great trouble from finishing thefe, I heartily rejoice with you.

I have fome faint notion of the beauties of Twickenham from what I here fee round me. The verdure of fhowers is poured upon every tree and field about us; the gardens unfold variety of colours to the eye every morning, the hedges breath is beyond all perfume, and the fong of birds we hear as well as you. But tho' I hear and

fee