you will leave any common business to do this and I hope to fee you this evening as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter-flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this-I could not (at this time) have written at all-Adieu! May you die às happily! Your, etc.

IT

LETTER XLIV.

To the fame.

T is hardly poffible to tell you the joy your pencil gave me, in giving me another friend, fo much the fame! and which (alas for mortality!) will out-laft the other. Pofterity will, thro' your means, fee the man whom it will for ages honour*, vindicate, and applaud, when envy is no more, and when (as I have already faid in the Effay to which you are fo partial)

at you,

The fons fhall blufh their fathers were his foes.

That Effay has many faults, but the poem you fent me has but one, and that I can eafily forgive. Yet I would not have it printed for the world, and yet I would not have it kept unprinted neither-but all in good time. I'm glad you publish your Milton. B-ly will be angry and at me too fhortly for what I could not help, a Satyrical Poem on Verbal Criticism by Mr. Mallet, which he has infcribed to me, but the Poem itself is good (another caufe of anger to any Critic.) As for myfelf, I refolve to go on in my quiet, calm, moral courfe, taking no fort of notice of man's anger, or woman's fcandal, with Virtue in my eyes, and Truth upon my tongue. Adieu,

LETTER XLV.

To Mr. BETHEL,

Aug. 9, 1733.

YOU might well think me negligent or forgetful of you, if true friendship and fincere efteem were to be mea fured by common forms and compliments. The truth is

Lord Bolingbroke,

I could

I could not write then, without faying fomething of my own condition, and of my lofs of fo old and fo deferving a parent, which really would have troubled you; or I must have kept a filence upon that head, which would not have fuited that freedom and fincere opening of the heart which is due to you from me. I am now pretty well; but my home is uneafy to me ftill, and I am therefore wandering about all this fummer. I was but four days at Twickenham fince the occafion that made it so melancholy. I have been a fortnight in Effex, and am now at Dawley (whofe mafter is your fervant) and going to Cirencester to Lord Bathurft. I fhall alfo fee Southampton with Lord Peterborow. The Court and Twit'nam I fhall forfake together. I wish I did not leave our friend +, who deferves more quiet, and more health and happiness, than can be found in fuch a family. The rest of my acquaintance are tolerably happy in their various ways of life, whether court, country, or town; and Mr. Cleland is as well in the Park, as if he were in Paradise. I heartily hope, Yorkshire is the fame to you; and that no evil, moral or phyfical, may come near you.

I have now but too much melancholy leifure, and no other care but to finish my Effay on Man: there will be in it one line that may offend you (I fear) and yet I will not alter or omit it, unless you come to town and prevent me before I print it, which will be in a fortnight in all probability. In plain truth, I will not deny myfelf the greatest pleasure I am capable of receiving, because another may have the modefty not to fhare it. It is all a poor poet can do, to bear teftimony to the virtue he cannot reach: besides, that, in this age, I fee too few good Examples not to lay hold on any I can find. You see what an interested man I am. Adieu.

Sept. 7, 1733.

γου cannot think how melancholy this place makes me; every part of this wood puts into my mind poor Mr. Gay, with whom I paft once a great deal of pleasant time in it, and another friend who is near dead, and quite Joft to us, Dr. Swift. I really can find no enjoyment in

Mrs. B.

the

the place; the fame fort of uneafinefs as I find at Twit'nam, whenever I pafs near my Mother's room.

I've not yet writ to Mrs. *. I think I fhould, but have nothing to lay that will anfwer the character they confider me in, as a Wit; befides, my eyes grow very bad (whatever is the caufe of it) I'll put them out for nobody but a friend; and, I proteft, it brings tears into them almost to write to you, when I think of your ftate and mine. Ilong to write to Swift, but cannot. The greatest pain I know, is to fay things fo very fhort of one's meaning, when the heart is full.

I feel the going out of life faft enough, to have little appetite left to make compliments, at beft ufelefs, and for the most part unfelt fpeeches. 'Tis but in a very narrow. circle that Friendship walks in this world, and I care not to trade out of it more than I needs muft; knowing well, it is but to two or three (if quite fo many) that any man's welfare or memory can be of confequence: The rest, I believe, I may forget, and be pretty certain they are already even, if not before-hand with me.

Life, after the firft warm heats are over, is all downhill and one almost wishes the journey's end, provided we were fure but to lie down eafy, whenever the Night fhall overtake us.

I dream'd all last night of. She has dwelt (a little more than perhaps is right) upon my fpirits: I faw a very deferving gentleman in my travels, who has formerly, I have heard, had much the fame misfortune: and (with, all his good breeding and fenfe) ftill bears a cloud and melancholy caft, that never can quite clear up, in all his behaviour and converfation. I know another, who, I believe, could promife, and eafily keep his word, never to laugh in his life. But one muft do one's beft, not to be ufed by the world as that poor lady was by her fifter; and not feem too good, for fear of being thought affected, or whimfical.

It is a real truth, that to the laft of my moments, the thought of you and the beft of my wifhes for you, will attend you, told or untold: I could wish you had once the conftancy and refolution to act for yourself, whether before or after I leave you (the only way I ever fhall leave you) you must determine; but reflect that the firft would make me, as well as yourself, happier; the latter could make you only fo. Adieu.

LETTER

LETTER XLVII.

From Dr. ARBUTHNOT.

Hampstead, July, 17, 1734.

1 Little doubt of your kind concern for me, nor of that of the Lady you mention. I have nothing to repay my friends with at prefent, but prayers and good wishes. I have the fatisfaction to find that I am as officioufly ferv'd by my friends, as he that has thoufands to leave in legacies; befides the affurance of their fincerity. God Almighty has made my bodily diftrefs as eafy as a thing of that nature can be. I have found fome relief, at least fome times, from the air of this place. My nights are bad, but many poor creatures have worse.

As for you, my good friend, I think, fince our first acquaintance, there have not been any of those little fufpicions or jealoufies that often affect the fincereft friendfhips; I am fure not on my fide. I must be fo fincere as to own, that though I could not help valuing you for those Talents which the world prizes, yet they were not the foundation of my friendships; they were quite of another fort; nor fhall I at prefent offend you by enumerating them: And I make it my Laft Requeft, that you will continue that Noble Difdain and Abhorrence of Vice, which you feem naturally endued with; but ftill with a due regard to your own fafety; and ftudy more to reform than chaftife, tho' the one cannot be effected without the other.

Lord Bathurst I have always honour'd, for every good quality that a perfon of his rank ought to have: Pray, give my refpects and kindeft wifhes to the family. My venifon ftomach is gone, but I have thofe about ine, and often with me, who will be very glad of his prefent. If it is left at my houfe, it will be tranfmitted fafe to me.

A recovery in my cafe, and at my age, is impoffible; the kindeft with of my friends is Euthanafia. Living or dying, I fhall always be Yours, etc.

LETTER XLVIII.

To Dr. ARBUTHNOT.

July 26, 1734.

I Thank you for your letter, which has all thofe genuine marks of a good mind by which I have ever diftinguifh'd

yours,

yours, and for which I have fo long loved you. Our friendship has been conftant; because it was grounded on good principles, and therefore not only uninterrupted by any Diftruft, but by any Vanity, much less any Intereft. What you recommend to me with the folemnity of a Laft Requeft, fhall have its due weight with me. That difdain and indignation against Vice, is (I thank God) the only difdain and indignation I have: It is fincere, and it will be a lafting one. But fure it is as impoffible to have. a juft abhorrence of Vice, without hating the Vicious, as to bear a true love for Virtue, without loving the Good. To reform and not to chaftife, I am afraid, is impoffible; and that the beft Precepts, as well as the beft Laws, would prove of fmall ufe, if there were no Examples to enforce them. To attack Vices in the abstract, without touching Perfons, may be fafe fighting indeed, but it is fighting with Shadows. General propofitions are obfcure, mifty, and uncertain, compar'd with plain, full, and home examples: Precepts only apply to our Reason, which in moft men is but weak: Examples are pictures, and ftrike the Senfes, nay raise the Paffions, and call in thofe (the ftrongest and most general of all motives) to the aid of reformation. Every vicious man makes the cafe his own; and that is the only way by which fuch men can be affected, much less deterr'd. So that to chaftife is to reform. The only fign by which I found my writings ever did any good, or had any weight, has been that they raised the anger of bad men. And my greatest comfort, and encouragement to proceed, has been to fee, that those who have no fhame, and no fear of any thing elfe, have appear'd touch'd by my Satires.

As to your kind concern for my Safety, I can guess what occations it at this time. Some Characters I have drawn are fuch, that if there be any who deferve them, 'tis evidently a service to mankind to point, thofe men out; yet fuch as, if all the world gave them, none, I think, will own they take to themselves. But if they should, those of whom all the world think in fuch a manner, muft be men I cannot fear. Such in particular as have the meanness to do mifchiefs in the dark, have seldom the courage to justify them in the face of day; the talents that make a Cheat or Whisperer, are not the fame that qualify a man for an Infulter; and as to private villainy, it is not

The Character of Sporus in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,