hold a hundred pounds, that you and I. agree is the point.

I did not know your Odyffey was finished, being yet in the country, which I fhall leave in three days. I thank you kindly for the prefent, but shall like it three fourths the lefs, for the mixture you mention of other hands; however, I am glad you faved yourself fo much drudgery. I have been told by Mr. Ford of your great atchievements in building and planting, and especially of your fubterranean paffage to your garden, whereby you turned a blunder into a beauty, which is a piece of ars poetica.

I have almoft done with Harridans, and fhall foon become old enough to fall in love with girls of fourteen. The lady whom you defcribe to live at court, to be deaf, and no party-woman, I take to be Mythology, but know not how to moralize

it

She cannot be mercy for Mercy is neither deaf, nor lives at court: Juftice is blind, and perhaps deaf; but neither is the a court-lady: Fortune is both blind and deaf, and a court lady; but then she is a moft damnable party-woman, and will never make me easy, as you promife. It must be riches, which anfwers all your description. I am glad fhe vifits you; but my voice is fo weak, that I doubt fhe will never hear me.

Mr. Lewis fent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness; which is a very fenfible affliction to me, who, by living fo long out of the world, have loft that hardness of heart_contracted by years and general converfation I am daily lofing friends, and neither feeking nor getting others. Oh, if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my travels! But however he is not without fault. There is a paffage in Bede, highly commending the picty and learning of the Irish in that age; where, after abundance of

praises

praises, he overthrows them all, by lamenting that, alas! they kept Eafter at a wrong time of the year. So our Doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful; but, alas, he hath a fort of flouch in his walk ! I pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Chriftian, tho?" not a Catholic.

I hear nothing of our friend Gay, but I find the court keeps him at hard meat. I advised him to come over here with a Lord Lieutenant. Philips writes little flams (as Lord Leicester called those fort of verfes) on Mifs Carteret. A Dublin blacksmith, a great poet, hath imitated his manner in a poem to the faid Mifs. Philips is a complainer; and on this occafion I told Lord Carteret, that complainers never fucceeded at court, though rail-ers do.

Are you altogether a country-gentleman, that I muft addrefs to you out of London, to the hazard of your lofing this precious letter, which I will now conclude, although so much paper is left? I have an ill name, and therefore fhall not fubfcribe it, but you will guess it comes from one who esteems and loves you about half as much as you deserve, I mean as much as he can.

I am in great concern at what I am just told is in fome of the news papers, that Lord Bolingbroke is much hurt by a fall in hunting. I am glad he has fo much youth and vigour left, (of which he hath not been thrifty); but I wonder he has no more discretion.

I

LETTER XIN.

Oct. 15. 1725.

Am wonderfully pleafed with the fuddenness of your kind answer. It makes mt hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends, in proportion as you draw nearer to them, and are getting into our vortex. Here is one who was once a powerful planet, but has (after long experience of all that comes of fhining) learned to be content with returning to his first point, without the thought or ambition of fhining at all. Here is another, who thinks one of the greateft glories of his father was to have diftinguifhed and loved you, and who loves hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleafed with the hope of feeing you again, than of reviewing a world; every part of which he has long defpifed, but what is made up of a few men like yourself. He goes abroad again, and is more chearful than ever health can make a man; (for he has a good confcience into the bargain, which is the most catholic of all remedies, though not the moi univerfal). I knew it would be a pleasure to you to hear this, and in truth that made me write fo foon to you.

I am forry poor P. is not promoted in this age; for certainly if his rewards be of the next, he is of all poets the most miferable. I am alfo forry for another reafon; if they don't promote him, they'll fpoil the conclusion of one of my fatires, where having endeavoured to correct the taste of the town in wit and criticism, I end thus,

But

But what avails to lay down rules for fenfe?
In's reign thefe fruitless lines were writ.
When Ambrofe Philips was preferr'd far wit!

Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs (and generally by Tories too). Because he had humour, he was fuppofed to have dealt with Dr. Swift: in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil. He puts his whole truft at court in that lady whom I defcribed to you, and whom you take to be an allegorical creature of fancy. I wifh the really were riches for his fake; though as for your's, I queftion whether (if you knew her) you would change her for the other.

Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall. I wish he had received no more by his other fall. Lord Oxford had none by his. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind fince you faw him, that ever was improved, without fhifting into a new body or being; paulo minus ab angelis. I have often imagined to myfelf, that if ever all of us meet again, after fo many varieties and changes, after fo much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that fcarce a fingle thought of the one, any more than a fingle atom of the other, remains just the fame; I've fancied, I fay, that we should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite in peace, divefted of all our former paffions, fmiling at our paft follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity. But I find you would rather be employed as an avenging angel of wrath, to break your vial of indignation over the heads of the wretched creatures of this world; nay, would make them eat your book, which you have made, I doubt not, as bitter a pill for them as poffible.

I won't tell you what defigns I have in my head (befides writing a set of maxims in oppofition to all Rochefoucault's principles *) till I fee you here, face to face. Then you fhall have no reafon to complain of me, for want of a generous difdain of this world, though I have not loft my ears in yours and their fervice. Lord Oxford too (whom I have now the third time mentioned in this letter, and he deferves to be always mentioned in every thing that is addreffed to you, or comes from you) expects you that ought to be enough to bring you hither: 'tis a better reason than if the nation expected you. For I really enter as fully as you can defire, into your principle of love of individuals; and I think the way to have a public spirit, is first to have a private one for who can believe, (faid a friend of mine), that any man can care for a hundred thoufand people, who never cared for one? No ill humoured man can ever be a patriot, any more. than a friend.

I defigned to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill; but he is so touched with the period in yours to me concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter He too is bufy about a book, which I guess he will tell you of. So adieu What remains worth elling you? Dean Berkley is well, and happy in the profecution of his fcheme. Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke in health; Duke Difney fo alfo; Sir William Wyndham better; Lord Barthurft well. These, and fome others, preferve their ancient honour and and ancient friendship. Thofe who do neither, if they were dd, what is it to a Proteftant priest, who has nothing to do with the dead? I answer,

This is only faid as an oblique reproof of the horrid mifanthro py in the foregoing letter; and which he fuppofed might be chiefly occafioned by the Dean's fondness for Rochefoucault, whofe maxims are founded on the principle of an univerfal felfishness in human na fure. Waib,

for