misfortune is, that I eat and drink, and can digeft neither for want of exercise; and, to increafe my mifery, the knaves are fure to find me at home, and make huge void fpaces in my cellars. I congratulate with you, for lofing your Great acquaintance; in such a cafe, philofophy teaches that we must submit, and be content with Good ones. I like Lord Cornbury's refufing his penfion, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed; and entirely devoted to new principles; fo it appeared to me the two laft times I was there.

I find by the whole caft of your letter, that you are as giddy and as volatile as ever, juft the reverse of Mr. Pope, who hath always loved a domeftic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had fome little place that you could call your own, but I profefs, I do not know you well enough to contrive any one fyftem of life that would please you. You pretend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchefs, yet, from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent defire of perpetually fhifting places and company, with a rooted lazinefs, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and fix horfes is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with fuch company as is beft fuited to your tafte, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting? while I, who am fo much later in life, can, or at leaft could, ride 500 miles on a trotting horfe. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do; as well to keep up the vogue you have in the world, as to make you eafy in your fortune: You are merciful to every thing but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity. Be aflured, I will hire people to watch all your motions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your L 2

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absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you at Aimsbury write domeftic libels to divert the family and neighbouring fquires for five miles round? or venture fo far on horfeback, without apprehending a ftumble at every step? can you fet the footmen a laughing as they wait at dinner? and do the Duchefs's women admire your wit? in what esteem are you with the Vicar of the parish? can you play with him at back-gammon? have the farmers found out that you cannot diftinguish rye from barley, or an oak from a crab-tree? You are fenfible that I know the full extent of your country skill is in fishing for Roaches, or Gudgeons at the highest.

I love to do you good offices with your friends, and therefore defire you will fhow this letter to the Duchefs, to improve her Grace's good opinion of your qualifications, and convince her how useful you are like to be in the family. Her Grace fhall have the honour of my correfpondence again when fhe goes to Aimbury. Hear a piece of Irish news, I buried the famous General Meredyth's father laft night in my Cathedral, he was ninety-fix years old: fo that Mrs. Pope may live feven years longer. You faw Mr. Pope in health, pray is he generally more healthy than when I was amongst you? I would know how your own health is, and how much wine you drink in a day? My ftint in company is a pint at noon, and half as much at night, but I often dine at home like a hermit, and then I drink little or none at all. Yet I differ from you, for I would have fociety, if I could get what I like, people of middle understanding, and middle rank. Adieu.

LET

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LETTER LVIII.

Dublin, July 10, 1732.

Had your letter by Mr. Ryves a long time after the date, for I fuppofe he stayed long in the way. I am glad you determine upon fomething; there is no writing I esteem more than Fables, nor any thing fo difficult to succeed in, which however you have done excellently well, and I have often admired your happiness in such a kind of performances which I have frequently endeavour'd at in vain. I remember I acted as you feem to hint; I found a Moral first and ftudied for a Fable, but could do nothing that pleased me, and fo left off that scheme for ever. I remember one, which was to represent what fcoundrels rife in Armies by a long War, wherein I fuppos'd the Lion was engaged, and having loft all his animals of worth, at laft Serjeant Hog came to be Brigadeer, and Corporal Afs a Colonel, &c. I agree with you likewife about getting fomething by the tage, which, when it fucceeds, is the beft crop for poetry in England: But, pray, take fome new fcheme, quite different from any thing you have already touched. The prefent humour of the players, who hardly (as I was told in London) regard any new play, and your present fituation at the Court, are the difficulties to be overcome; but thofe circumftances may have altered (at least the former) fince I left you. My fcheme was to pass a month at Aimbury, and then go to Twickenham, and live a winter between that and Dawley, and fometimes at Rifkins, without going to London, where I now can have no occafional lodgings: But I am not yet in any condition for fuch removals. I would fain have you get enough against you grow old, to have two or three fervants about you and a convenient house. It is hard to

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want thofe fubfidia fenectuti, when a man grows hard to please, and few people care whether he be pleafed or no. I have a large house, yet I should hardly prevail to find one vifiter, if I were not able to hire him with a bottle of wine: fo that, when I am not abroad on horseback, I generally dine alone, and am thankful, if a friend will pass the evening with me. I am now with the remainder of my pint before me, and fo here's your health-and the fecond and chief is to my Tunbridge acquaintance, my Lady Duchefs-and I tell you that I fear my Lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Pope (a couple of Philophers) would ftarve me, for even of port wine I fhould require half a pint a day, and as much at night and you were growing as bad, unless your Duke and Duchefs have mended you. Your cholic is owing to intemperance of the philofophical kind; you eat without care, and if you drink lefs than I, you drink too little. But your inattention I cannot pardon, because I imagined the caufe was removed, for I thought it lay in your forty millions of fchemes by Court-hopes and Court-fears. Yet Mr. Pope has the fame defect, and it is of all others the most mortal to conversation; neither is my Lord Bolingbroke untinged with it: all for want of my rule, Vive la bagatelle! but the Doctor is the King of Inattention. What a vexatious life fhould I lead among you? If the Duchefs be a reveuse, I will never come to Aimsbury; or, if I do, I will run away from you both, to one of her women, and the fteward and chaplain.

Madam,

I mentioned fomething to Mr. Gay of a Tunbridge-acquaintance, whom we forget of course when we return to Town, and yet I am affured that if they meet again next fummer, they have a

better

better title to resume their commerce. Thus I look on my right of correfponding with your Grace to be better establish'd upon your return to Aimsbury; and I shall at this time defcend to forget, or at leaft fufpend my refentments of your neglect all the time you were in London. Iftill keep in my heart, that Mr. Gay had no fooner turned his back, than you left the place in his letter void which he had commanded you to fill: though your guilt confounded you fo far, that you wanted prefence of mind to blot out the laft line, where that command stared you in the face. But it is my misfortune to quarrel with all my acquaintance, and always come by the worst; and fortune is ever against me, but never fo much as by pursuing me out of mere partiality to your Grace, for which you are to answer. By your connivance, the hath pleased, by one ftumble on the flairs, to give me a lameness that fix months have not been able perfectly to cure: and thus I am prevented from revenging myself by continuing a month at Aimsbury, and breeding confufion in your Grace's family. No difappointment through my whole life hath been fo vexatious by many degrees; and God knows whether I fhall ever live to fee the invifible Lady to whom I was obliged for fo many favours, and whom I never beheld fince fhe was a bratt in hanging-fleeves. I am, and shall be ever, with the greatest refpect and gratitude, Madam, your Grace's moft obedient, and most humble, &c.

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LETTER LIX.

Dublin, Aug. 12, 1732.

Know not what to fay to the account of your ftewardship, and 'tis monstrous to me that the South-fea fhould pay half their debts at one clap. But I will fend for the money when you put me into

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