from their vanities to their miferies; and as the only certain way to avoid mifconftructions, to leffen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably, in my next, make use of real names inftead of fictitious I am,

ones.

IT

My Lord,

Your most affectionate, etc.

LETTER XXVII *.

Cirencefter.

T is a true faying that misfortunes alone prove one's friendships: they fhow us not only that of other people for us, but our own for them. We hardly know ourselves any otherwife. I feel my being forced to this Bath-journey as a misfortune; and to follow my own welfare preferably to thofe I love, is indeed a new thing to me : my health has not usually got the better of my tenderneffes and affections. I fet out with a heavy heart, wishing I had done this thing the laft feafon; for every day I defer it, the more I am in danger of that accident which I dread the moft, my Mother's death (efpecially fhould it happen while I am away.) And another Reflection pains me, that I have never, fince I knew you, been fo long separated from you, as I now muft be. Methinks we live to be more and more ftrangers, and every year teaches you to live without me: This abfence may, I fear, make my return less welcome and lefs wanted to you, than once it feem'd, even after but a fortnight. Time ought not in reason to diminish friendship, when it confirms the truth of it by experience.

The journey has a good deal diforder'd me, notwithstanding my refting-place at Lord Bathurst's. My Lord is too much for me, he walks, and is in fpirits all day long: I rejoice to fee him fo. It is a right diftinction, that I am happier in seeing my friends fo many degrees above me, be it in fortune, health, or pleasures, than I can be in fharing either with them for in these fort of enjoyments I cannot keep pace with them, any more than I can walk with a ftronger man. I wonder to find 1 am a companion for none but old men, and forget that I am not a young fellow myfelf. The worft is that reading and writing, which f have ftill the greatest relish for, are growing painful to my

To Mrs. B.

eyes.

eyes. But if I can preferve the good opinion of one or two friends, to fuch a degree as to have their indulgence to my weakneffes, I will not complain of life: And if I could live to fee you confult your eafe and quiet, by becoming independent on those who will never help you to either, I doubt not of finding the latter part of my life pleasanter than the former, or prefent. My uneafineffes of body I can bear; my chief uneafinefs of mind is in your regard. You have a temper that would make you easy and beloved (which is all the happiness one needs to wifh in this world) and content with moderate things. All your point is not to lofe that temper by facrificing yourself to others, out of a mistaken tenderness, which hurts you, and profits not them. And this you must do foon, or it will be too late Habit will make it as hard for you to live independent, as for L to live out of a Court.

:

You must excufe me for obferving what I think any defect in you; you grow too indolent, and give things up too eafily: which would be otherwife, when you found and felt yourself your own: Spirits would come in, as illufage went out. While you live under a kind of perpetual dejection and oppreffion, nothing at all belongs to you, not your own Humour, nor your own Senfe.

You can't conceive how much you would find refolution rife, and chearfulness grow upon you, if you'd once try to live independent for two or three months. I never think tenderly of you but this comes across me, and therefore. excufe my repeating it, for whenever I do not, I diffemble half that I think of you: Adieu, pray write, and be particular about your health.

YOUR

LETTER XXVIII *.

OUR letter dated at nine o'clock on Tuesday (night as I fuppofe) has funk me quite. Yefterday I hoped; and yesterday I fent you a line or two for our poor Friend Gay, inclos'd in a few words to you; about twelve or one o'clock you should have had it. I am troubled about that, tho' the prefent caufe of our trouble be fo much greater+. Indeed I want a friend, to help me to bear it better. We want each other. I bear a hearty share with Mrs. Howard,

To the fame.

Mr. Gay's death, which happen'd in Nov. 1732, at the Duke of Queenfberry's house in London, aged 46.

VOL. IV.

Dd

who

who has loft a man of a moft honeft heart; so honeft an one, that I wish her Mafter had none lefs honest about him. The world after all is a little pitiful thing; not performing any one promife it makes us, for the future, and every day taking away and annulling the joys of the paft. Let us comfort one another, and, if poffible, ftudy to add as much more friendship to each other, as death has deprived us of in him. I promise you more and more of mine, which will be the way to deferve more and more of yours.

I purposely avoid faying more. The fubject is beyond writing upon, beyond cure or eafe by reafon or reflection, beyond all but one thought, that is the will of God.

So will the death of my mother be! which now I tremble at, now refign to, now bring close to me, now fet farther off: Every day alters, turns me about, and confuses my whole frame of mind. Her dangerous diftemper is again return'd, her fever coming onward again, tho' lefs in pain; for which laft however I thank God.

I am unfeignedly tired of the world, and receive nothing to be called a pleasure in it, equivalent to countervail either the death of one I have fo long lived with, or of one I have fo long lived for. I have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort; the laft we ufually think of, tho' the only one we fhould in wifdom depend upon, in such a disappointing place as this. I fit in her room, and fhe is always prefent before me, but when I fleep. I wonder I am fo well: I have fhed many tears, but now I weep at nothing. I would above all things fee you, and think it would comfort you to fee me fo equal-temper'd and fo quiet. But pray dine here; you may, and the know nothing of it, for the dozes much, and we tell her of no earthly thing, left it run in her mind, which often trifles have tlone. If Mr. Bethell had time, I wish he were your companion hither. Be as much as you can with each other: Be affur'd I love you both, and be farther affur'd, that friendfhip will increase as I live on,

LETTER

I

LETTER XXIX.

TO HUGH BETHELL, Efq.

I am

July 12, 1723. Affure you unfeignedly any memorial of your goodnature and frendlinefs is moft welcome to me, who know those tenders of affection from you are not like the common traffic of compliments and profeffions, which moft people only give that they may receive; and is at be ft a commerce of Vanity, if not of Falfehood. happy in not immediately wanting the fort of good offices you offer: but if I did want them, I fhould not think myfelf unhappy in receiving them at your hands: this really is fome compliment, for I would rather moft men did me a fmall injury, than a kindness. I know your humanity, and allow me to fay, I love and value you for it: 'Tis a much better ground of love and value, than all the qualities I fee the world fo fond of: They generally admire in the wrong place, and generally moft admire the things they don't comprehend, or the things they can never be the better for. Very few can receive pleasure or advantage from wit which they feldom tafte, or learning which they feldom understand: much lefs from the quality, high birth, or fhining circumftances of thofe to whom they profess efteem, and who will always remember how much they are their Inferiors. But humanity and fociable virtues are what every creature wants every day, and still wants more the longer he lives, and moft the very moment he dies. It is ill travelling either in a ditch or on a terras; we should walk in the common way, where others are continually paffing on the fame level, to make the journey of life fupportable by bearing one another company in the fame circumftances.-Let me know how I may convey over the Odyffeys for your amusement in your journey, that you may compare your own travels with thofe of Ulyffes; I am fure yours are undertaken upon a more difinterested, and therefore a more heroic motive. Far be the omen from you, of returning as he did, alone, without faving a friend.

There is lately printed a book * wherein all human virtue is reduced to one teft, that of Truth, and branch'd out

*Mr. Wollafton's excellent book of the Religion of Nature delineated The Queen was fond of it, and that made the reading, and the talking of it fathiuable.

in every inftance of our duty to God and man. If you have not feen it, you muft, and I will fend it together with the Odyffey. The very women read it, and pretend to be charmed with that beauty which they generally think the leaft of. They make as much ado about truth, fince this book appear'd, as they did about health when Dr. Cheyne's came out and will doubtlefs be as constant in the purfuit of one, as of the other. Adieu.

I

LETTER XXX.

To the fame.

Aug. 9, 1726.

Never am unmindful of those I think fo well of as yourfelf; their number is not fo great as to confound one's memory. Nor ought you to decline writing to me, upon an imagination, that I am much employed by other people. For though my houfe is like the houfe of a Patriarch of old, ftanding by the highway-fide and receiving all travellers, neverthelefs I feldom go to bed without the reflection, that one's chief bufinefs is to be really at home : and I agree with you in your opinion of company, amusements, and all the filly things which mankind would fain nake pleafures of, when in truth they are labour and forrow.

I condole with you on the death of your Relation, the E. of C. as on the fate of a mortal man: Efteem I never had for him, but concern and humanity I had the latter was due to the infirmity of his laft period, tho' the former was not due to the triumphant and vain part of his course. He certainly knew himself beft at laft, and knew beft the little value of others, whofe neglect of him, whom they fo grofsly follow'd and flatter'd in the former fcene of his life, fhew'd him as worthlefs as they could imagine him to be, were he all that his worst enemies believ'd of him: For my own part, I am forry for his death, and wish he had lived long enough to fee fo much of the faithleffness of the world, as to have been above the mad ambition of go verning fuch wretches as he must have found it to be comspos'd of.

་

Tho' you could have no great value for this Great man, yet acquaintance itself, the custom of feeing the face, or entering under the roof, of one that walks along with us in the common way of the world, is enough to create a