Non te civitas, non Regia domus in exilium miferunt, fed tu utrafque. So fays Cicero (as your Grace knows) or fo he might have faid.

I am told that the Craftsman in one of his papers is offended with the publishers of (I suppose) the last edition of the Dunciad; and I was afked whether you and Mr. Pope were as good friends to the new difgraced perfon as formerly? This I knew nothing of, but fuppofe it was the confequence of some miftake. As to writing, I look on you just in the prime of life for it, the very season when judgment and invention draw together. But schemes are perfectly accidental; fome will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful; and others the con trary And what you fay, is paft doubt, that every one can beft find hints for himself: though it is poffible that fometimes a friend may give you a lucky one juft fuited to your own imagination. But all this is almost past with me: my invention and judg ment are perpetually at fifty-cuffs, till they have quite difabled each other: and the meereft trifles I ever wrote are serious philofophical lucubrations, in comparison to what I now bufy myself about; as (to fpeak in the author's phrase) the world may one day fee*.

* His ludicrous prediction was, fince his death, and very much to his dishonour, seriously fulfilled, in collecting together, and publishing every folly that fell from his pen, in this difabled state of his wit, as he himself represents it to be; and which, the productions of it amply verify. This treatment of fo great a Genius for a little paltry lucre, well deferves the indignation of the Public.

LETTER LV.

Sept. 10, 1731.

F your ramble was on horfeback, I am glad of it

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, that Agamemnon rose without one. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up feven years to finish, befides two or three under ones, that may add another thousand pound to your ftock; and then I fhall be in lefs pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelve-penny coaches too well, without confidering that the intereft of a whole thoufand pounds brings you but half a crown a day. I find a greater longing than ever to come amongst you; and reason 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 "horfe, and Ducheffes pulled off his armour," or fomething 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.

my

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: 1 have long hated her on your account, and the more, because you are fo forgiving as not to hate her; however, fhe has good qualities enough to make her esteemed; but not one grain of feeling. I only wish the were a fool. I have been several months writing near five hundred lines on a pleasant fubject, only to tell what friends and enemies will fay on me after I am dead *. 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 with you joy of your fcurvy treatment at Court, which hath given you leisure to cultivate both public and private Virtue, neither of them likely to be foon met with within the walls of St. James's or Westminster.-But I must here difmifs you, that I may pay my acknowledgments to the Duke for the great honour he hath done me.

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

My Lord,

I could have fworn that my Pride would be always able to preserve me from Vanity; of 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 fhould have certainly gone about fhewing my letters under the charge of fecrefy to every blab of my acquaintance; if I could have the least hope of prevailing on any of them to believe that a man in so obscure a corner, quite thrown out of the prefent world, and within a few steps of the next, should receive fuch condescending invitations, from two such persons, to whom he is an utter stranger, and who know no more of him than what they have heard by the partial representations 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 moft politickly employ'd in increasing those forces, and fharpning thofe arms with which the 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 claufe, 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 bumble 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 reafon, 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 ftyle is poetic, containing an invitation from a very great perfon of the female sex to a strange 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 mok obedient, &c.