I write this from Windfor-Foreft, of which I am come, to take my last look. We here bid our neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hang'd do their fellow pri foners, who are condemned to follow them a few weeks. after. 1 parted from honeft Mr. D with tenderness : and from old Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, foretelling with lifted hands the miseries to come, from which he is just going to be remov'd himself. Perhaps now I have learnt fo far as

Nos dulcia linquimus arva,

my next leffon may be

Nos Patriam fugimus.

Let that, and all elfe be as heaven pleafes! I have provided just enough to keep me a man of honour. I believe you and I fhall never be ashamed of each other. I know I wish my country well, and, if it undoes me, it shall not make me wifh it otherwife.

LETTER VII.

From Mr. BLOUNT.

March 24, 1715-16.

YOUR letters give me a gleam of fatisfaction, in the midst of a very dark and cloudy fituation of thoughts, which it would be more than human to be exempt from at this time, when our homes muft either be left, or be made too narrow for us to turn in. Poetically speaking, I should lament the lofs Windfor-foreft and you sustain of each other, but that, methinks, one can't say you are parted, because you will live by and in one another, while verfe is verfe. This confideration hardens me in my opinion rather to congratulate you, fince you have the pleafure of the prospect whenever you take it from your shelf, and at the fame time the folid cafh you fold it for, of which Virgil in his exile knew nothing in thofe days, and which will make every place eafy to you. I, for my VOL. IV.

P

pait,

part, am not fo happy; my parva rura are fasten'd to me, fo that I can't exchange them, as you have, for more portable means of fubfiftance; and yet I hope to gather enough to make the Patriam fugimus fupportable to me: 'tis what I am refolved on with my Penate. If therefore you ask me, to whom you fhall complain? I will exhort you to leave lazinefs and the elms of St. James's Park, and choose to join the other two propofals in one, fafety and friendship (the least of which is a good motive for moft things, as the other is for almoft every thing) and go with me where war will not reach us, nor paultry conftables fummon us to veftries.

The future epiftle you flatter me with will find me ftill here, and I think I may be here a month longer. Whenever I go from hence, one of the few reafons to make meregret my home will be, that I shall not have the pleasure of faying to you,

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiefcere noctem, which would have rendered this place more agreeable, than ever it else could be to me; for I proteft, it is with the utmost fincerity that I affure you I am entirely,

LETTER VIII.

Dear Sir,

Your, &c.

June 22, 1716.

IF a regard both to public and private affairs may plead a lawful excufe in behalf of a negligent corrofpondent, I have really a very good title to it. I cannot fay whether 'tis a felicity or unhappiness, that I am obliged at this time to give my whole application to Homer; when without that employment, my thoughts muft turn upon what is lefs agreeable, the violence, madness, and refentment of modern War-makers *, which are likely to prove (to fome people at leaft) more fatal, than the fame qualities in Achilles did to his unfortunate countrymen.

✦ This was written in the year of the affair of Preston,

Tho

Tho' the change of my fcene of life, from Windforforeft to the fide of the Thames, be one of the grand Ara's of my days, and may be called a notable period in fo inconfiderable a hiftory, yet you can scarce imagine any hero paffing from one stage of life to another, with so much tranquility, fo eafy a tranfition, and fo laudable a behaviour. I am become fo truly a citizen of the world (according to Plato's expreffion) that I look with equal indifference on what I have left, and on what I have gained. The times and amufements paft are not more, like a dream to me, than those which are prefent: I lie in a refreshing kind of inaction, and have one comfort at leaft from obfcurity, that the darkness helps me to fleep the better. I now and then reflect upon the enjoyment of my friends, whom, I fancy, I remember much as feparate fpirits do us, at tender intervals, neither interrupting their own employments, nor altogether careless of ours, but in general conftantly wifhing us well, and hoping to have us one day in their company.

To grow indifferent to the world is to grow philofophical, or religious (which foever of those turns we chance to take) and indeed the world is such a thing, as one that thinks pretty much, muft either laugh at, or be angry with but if we laugh at it, they fay we are proud; and if we are angry with it, they fay we are ill natur'd. So the moft politic way is to feem always better pleas'd than one can be, greater admirers, greater lovers, and in fhort greater fools than we really are: fo fhall we live comfortably with our families, quietly with our neighbours, favoured by our mafters, and happy with our miftreffes. I have filled my paper, and so adieu,

LETTER IX,

Sept. 8, 1717.

I Think your leaving England was like a good man's leaving the world, with the bleffed confcience of

P 2

having

having acted well in it; and I hope you have received your reward, in being happy where you are. I believe, in the religious country you inhabit, you'll be better pleafed to find I confider you in this light, than if I compared you to thofe Greeks and, Romans, whofe conftancy in fuffering pain, and whofe refolution in pursuit of a generous end, you would rather immitate than boast of

But I had a melancholy hint the other day, as if you were yet a martyr to the fatigue your virtue made you. undergo on this fide the water. I beg if your health be reftored to you, not to deny me the joy of knowing it. Your endeavours of fervice and good advice to the poor papifts, put me in mind of Noah's preaching forty years to thofe folks that were to be drowned at laft. At the worst I heartily with your ark may find an Arrarat, and the wife and family (the hopes of the good patriarch) land safely after the deluge, upon the shore of Totness,

If I durft mix prophane with facred: hiftory, I would chear you with the old tale of Brutus, the wandering Trojan, who found on that very coaft the happy end of his peregrinations and adventures.

I have very lately read Jeffery of Monmouth (to whom your Cornwall is not a little beholden) in the tranflation of a clergyman in my neighbourhood. The poor man is highly concerned to vindicate Jeffry's veracity as an historian: and told me he was perfectly aftonished, we of the Roman communion could doubt of the legends of his Giants, while we believe thofe of our faints. I am forced to make a fair compofition with him: and, by crediting fome of the wonders of Corinæus and Gogmagog, have brought him fo far already, that he speaks refpectfully of St. Chriftopher's carrying Chrift, and the resuscitation of St. Nicholas Tolentine's chicken. Thus we proceed apace in converting each other from all manner of infidelity.

Ajax and Hector are no more to be compared to Corinæus and Arthur, than the Guelphs and Ghibellines are to the Mohocks of ever dreadful memory. This amazing

writer has made me lay afide Homer for a week, and when I take him up again, I fhall be very well prepared to translate, with belief and reverence, the speech of Achilles's horse.

You'll excufe all this trifling or any thing else which prevents a sheet full of compliment: and believe there is nothing more true (even more true than any thing in Jeffry is falfe) than that I have a conftant affection for you, and am, &c.

P. S. I know you will take part in rejoicing for the victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks, in the zeak you bear to the Chriftian intereft, tho' your Cousin of Oxford (with whom I dined yesterday) fays, there is no other difference in the Chriftians beating the Turks, or the Turks beating the Chriftians, than whether the Emperor fhall firft declare war against Spain, or Spain declare it against the Emperor.

LETTER X.

Nov. 27, 1717.

THE queftion you propofed to me is what at present. I am the most unfit man in the world to answer, by

my lofs of one of the best of fathers.

He had lived in fuch a courfe of temperance as was enough to make the longest life agreeable to him, and in such a course of piety as fufficed to make the most sudden death fo alfo. Sudden indeed it was: however, I heartily beg of God to give me fuch a one, provided I can lead fuch a life. I leave him to the mercy of God, and to the piety of a religion that extends beyond the grave: Si qua eft ea cura, &c.

He has left me to the ticklish management of fo narrow a fortune, that any one falfe ftep would be fatal. My mother is in that difpirited state of refignation, which is the effect of long life, and the lofs of what is dear to us, We are really each of us in want of a friend, of fuch an humane turn as yourself, to make almoft any thing de

firable