labours, to get into warmer houses, and live together in cities.

delights of a conlaughing at great

I hope you are long fince perfectly reftor'd, and rifen from your gout, happy in the tented family, fmiling at ftorms, ness, merry over a christmas-fire, and exercising all the functions of an old Patriarch in charity and hofpitality. I will not tell Mrs B* what I think she is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, that he only ought to know it for whom it is done; and fhe will allow herself to be far enough advanced above a fine lady, not to defire to shine before men.

Your daughters perhaps may have fome other thoughts, which even their mother must excuse them for, because she is a mother. I will not however fuppofe thofe thoughts get the better of their devotions, but rather excite them and affift the warmth of them; while their prayer may be, that they may raise up and breed as irreproachable a young family as their parents have done. In a word, I fancy you all well, eafy and happy, just as I wish you; and next to that, I wish all with me. you

Next to God, is a good man: next in dignity, and next in value. Minuifti eum paulo minus ab ́angelis. If therefore I with well to the good and the deferving, and defire they only fhould be my companions and correfpondents, I must very soon and very much think of you. I want your company, and your example. Pray make hafte to town, so as not again to leave us: discharge the load of earth that lies on you, like one of the mountains under which,

the poets fay, the giants (the men of the earth) are whelmed leave earth, to the fons of the earth, your converfation is in heaven. Which that it may be accomplished in us all, is the prayer of him who maketh this short Sermon; value (to you) threeFence. Adieu.

Mr Blount died in London the following Year 1726.

LETTERS.

TO AND FROM

The Hon. ROBERT DIGBY,

From the Year 1717 to 1724.

LETTER I.

To the Hon. ROBERT DICY.

June 2. 1717.

I Had pleas'd myself fooner in writing to you, but

*

that I have been your fucceffor in a fit of sickness, and am not yet fo much recovered, but that I have thoughts of using your physicians. They are as grave perfons as any of the faculty, and (like the ancients) carry their own medicaments about with them. But indeed the moderns are fuch lovers of raillery, that nothing is grave enough to efcape them. Let them laugh, but people will still have their opinions: as they think our doctors affes to them, we'll think them affes to our Doctors.

I am glad you are fo much in a better state of health, as to allow me to jeft about it. My concern, when I heard of your danger, was fo very ferious, that

I almost take it ill Dr Evans should tell you of it, or you mention it. I tell you fairly, if you and a few more fuch people were to leave the world, I would not give fix-pence to stay in it.

I am not fo much concerned as to the point whether you are to live fat orlean: moft men of wit or honefty are ufually decreed to live very lean, fo I am inclined to the opinion that 'tis decreed shall; how. ever, be comforted, and reflect, that you'll make the better Bufto for it.

you

'Tis fomething particular in you, not to be fatis fied with fending me your own books, but to make your acquaintance continue the frolic. Mr Wharton forced me to take Gorboduc, which has fince done me great credit with feveral people, as it has done Dryden and Oldham fome dif-kindness, in fhewing there is as much difference between their Gorboduc and this, as between Queen Anne, and King George. It is truly a fcandal that inen fhould write with contempt of a piece which they never once faw, as those two poets did, who were ignorant even of the fex as well as fense, of Gorboduc.

Adieu! I am going to forget you: this minute you took up all my mind; the next I fhall think of nothing but the reconciliation with Agamemnon, and the recovery of Brifeis. I fhall be Achilles's humble servant these two months (with the good leave of all my friends.) I have no ambition so strong at prefent as that noble one of Sir Salathiel Lovel, recorder of London, to furnish out a decent and plentiful execu tion, of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be express'd how heartily I wish the death of all Homer's heroes,

one after another. The Lord preferve me in the day of battle, which is just approaching!I join in your prayers for me, and know me to be always

Your, &c.

LETTER II.

London, March 31. 1718.

O convince you how little pain I give myself in correfponding with men of good nature and good understanding, you fee 1 omit to anfwer your letters till a time, when another man would be afhamed to own he had received them. If therefore you are ever moved on my account by that fpirit, 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 negligence when I do not; and expect equally your pardon for either.

If I knew how to entertain you thro' the rest 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 paufe 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 most we can hope is to be heard just 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 whistle at a fermon. The ftage is the only place we feem alive at; there indeed we