you will be troubled again with me, at Sherburne, or Colefhill; for however I may like one of your places, it may be in that as in liking one of your family; when one fees the reft, one likes them all. Pray make my services acceptable to them: I wish them all the happiness they may want, and the continuance of all the happiness they have; and I take the latter to comprize a great deal more than the former. I muft feparate Lady Scudamore from you, as, I fear, fhe will do herself before this letter reaches you: fo I wish her a good journey, and I hope one day to try if the lives as well as you do: tho' I much question if she can live as quietly: I fufpect the bells will be ringing at her arrival, and on her own and Mifs Scudamore's birth-days, and that all the clergy in the country come to pay respects; both the clergy and their bells expecting from her and from the young lady, further business and further employment. Befides all this, there dwells on the one fide of her the Lord Coningsby, and on the other Mr. W*. Yet I fhall, when the days and the year is come about, adventure upon all this for her fake.

I beg my Lord Digby to think me a better man than to content myself with thanking him in the common way. I am, in as fincere a fenfe of the word, his fervant, as you are his fon, or he your father.

I muft in my turn infift upon hearing how my last fellow-travellers got home from Clarendon, and defire Mr. Philips to remember me in his Cyder, and to tell Mr. W*. that I am dead and buried.

I wish the young ladies, whom I almoft robb'd of their good name, a better name in return, (even that very name to each of them, which they shall like beft, for the fake of the man that bears it.) Your, &c.

LETTER XII.

1722.

YOUR making a fort of apology for your not writing, is a very genteel reproof to me. I know I was to blame, but I know I did not intend to be fo, and (what

is the happiest knowledge in the world) I know you will forgive me for fure nothing is more fatisfactory than to be certain of fuch a friend as will overlook one's failings, fince every fuch inftance is a conviction of his kindness.

If I am all my life to dwell in intentions, and never to rife to actions, I have but too much need of that gentle difpofition which l experience in you. But I hope better things of myself, and fully purpose to make you a vifit this fummer at Sherburne. I'm told you are all upon removal very speedily, and that Mrs. Mary Digby talks, in a letter to Lady Scudamore, of feeing my Lord Bathurst's wood in her way. How much I wish to be her guide thro' that enchanted foreft, is not to be expreft: I look upon myself as the magician appropriated to the place, without whom no mortal can penetrate into the receffes of thofe facred'fhades. I could pafs whole days, in only defcribing to her the future, and as yet vifionary beauties, that are to rife in thofe fcenes: the palace that is to be built, the pavillions that are to glitter, the colonades that are to adorn them: nay more the meeting of the Thames and the Severn, which (when the noble owner has finer dreams than ordinary) are to be led into each other's embraces thro' fecret caverns of not above twelve or fifteen miles, till they rife and celebrate their marriage in the midst of an immense ampitheatre, which is to be the admiration of pofterity, a hundred years hence. But till the deftin'd time fhall arrive that is to manifeft thefe wonders, Mrs. Digby muft content herself with seeing what is at prefent no more than the finest wood in England.

The objects that attract this part of the world, are of a quite different nature. Women of quality are all turn'd followers of the camp in Hyde-park this year, whither all the town refort to magnificent entertainments given. by the officers, &c. The Scythian Ladies that dwelt in the waggons of war, were not more clofely attached to the luggage. The matrons, like thofe of Sparta, attend their fons to the field, to be witneffes of their glorious deeds ¿ and the maidens with all their charms difplay'd,

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provoke

provoke the spirit of the foldiers: Tea and Coffee fupply the place of Lacedemonian black broth. This camp feems 'crown'd with perpetual victory, for every fun that rifes in the thunder of cannon, fets in the mufic of violins. Nothing is yet wanting but the conftant prefence of the Princefs to reprefent the Mater exercitus.

At Twickenham the world goes otherwife. There are certain old people who take up all my time, and will hardly allow me to keep any other company. They were introduced here by a man of their own fort, who has made me perfectly rude to all contemporaries, and won't so much as fuffer me to look upon them. The perfon I complain of is the Bishop of Rochefter. Yet he allows me (from fomething he has heard of your character, and that of your family, as if you were of the old fect of moralifts) to write three or four fides of paper to you, and to tell you (what thefe fort of people never tell but with truth and religious fincerety) that I am, and ever will be, Your, &c.

LETTER XIII,

THE fame reafon that hinder'd your writing, hinder'd mine, the pleafing expectation to fee you in town, Indeed fince the willing confinement I have lain under here with my mother (whom it is natural and reasonable I fhould rejoice with, as well as grieve) I could the better bear your abfence from London, for I could hardly have feen you there; and it would not have been quite reafonable to have drawn you to a fick room hither from the firft embraces of your friends. My mother is now (I thank God) wonderfully recovered, tho' not fo much as yet to venture out of her chamber, but enough to enjoy a few particular friends, when they have the good nature to look upon her. I may recommend to you the room we fit in, upon one (and that a favourite) account, that it is the very warmeft in the houfe; we and our fires will equally smile upon your face. There is a Perfian pro

verb that fays (I think very prettily) "The conversa❝tion of a friend brightens the eyes." This I take to be a splendour ftill more agreeable than the fires you fo delightfully defcribe.

That you may long enjoy your own fire-fide in the metaphorical fenfe, that is, all thofe of your family who make it pleafing to fit and fpend whole wintry months together, (a far more rational delight, and better felt by an honeft heart, than all the glaring entertainments, numerous lights, and falfe fplendours, of an affembly of empty heads, aching hearts, and falfe faces.) This is my fincere wifh to you and yours.

You fay you propofe much pleasure in feeing fome few faces about town of my acquaintance. I guess you mean Mrs. Howard's and Mrs. Blount's. And I affure you, you ought to take as much pleafure in their hearts, if they are what they fometimes exprefs with regard to you. Believe me, dear Sir, to you all, a very faithful fervant.

LETTER XIV.

From Mr. DIGBY.

Sherburne, Aug. 14, 1723. Can't return from fo agreeable an entertainment as yours in the country, without acknowledging it. I thank you heartily for the new agreeable idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very ftrongly impreffed upon my imagination. I repeat the memory of it often, and shall value that faculty of the mind now more than ever, for the power it gives me of being entertained in your villa, when abfent from it. As you are poffeffed of all the pleafures of the country, and, as I think, of a right mind, what can I wish you but health to enjoy them? This I fo heartily do, that I fhould be even glad to hear your good mother might loofe all her prefent pleasures in her unwearied care of you, by your better health convincing them it is unneceffary.

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I am troubled, and shall be so, till I hear you have receiv'd this litter for you gave me the greatest pleasure imaginable in yours, and I am impatient to acknowledge it. IfI any ways deferve that friendly warmth and affection, with which you write, it is, that I have a heart 'full of love and esteem for you: fo truly, that I fhould loose the greatest pleasure of my life if I loft your good opinion. It rejoices me very much to be reckoned by you in the clafs of honeft men; for tho' I am not troubled over much about the opinion moft may have of me, yet, I own, it would grieve me not to be thought well of, by and some few others. I will not doubt my own you ftrength, yet I have this further security to maintain my integrity, that I cannnot part with that, without forfeiting your esteem with it.

Perpetual disorder and ill health have for fome years fo disguised me, that I fometimes fear I do not to my best friends enough appear what I really am. Sickness is a great oppreffor: it does great injury to a zealous heart, ftifling its warmth, and not suffering it to break out in action. But, I hope, I fhall not make this complaint much longer. I have other hopes that please me too, tho' not fo well grounded; these are, that you may yet make a journey weftward with Lord Bathurft; but of the probability of this I do not venture to reafon, because I would not part with the pleasure of that belief. It grieves me to think how far I am removed from you, and from that excellent Lord, whom I love! Indeed I remember him, as one that has made fickness easy to me, by bearing with my infirmities in the fame manner that you have always done. I often too confider him in other lights that make him valuable to me. With him, I know not by what connection, you never fail to come into my mind, as if you were infeparable. I have, as you guess, many philofophical reveries in the fhades of Sir Walter Raleigh, of which you are a great part. You generally enter there with me, and like a good genius, applaud and ftrengthen all my fentiments that have honour in them.