to your Family, and leave you with the fincereft Concern for your own Happiness and Welfare of your Family. May my Prayers be answered, when I am fleeping in the Duft. O! may the Angels of God conduct you in the Paths of immortal Glory and Pleafure! I would collect the Powers of my Soul, and afk Bleffings for you with all the holy Violence of Prayer. God Almighty, the God of your pious Ancestors, who has been your dwelling Place for many Generations, bless you!

'Tis but a fhort Space I have to measure. The Shadows are lengthening, and my Sun declining. That Goodnefs which has hitherto conducted me, will not fail me in the laft concluding Act of Life. That Name which I have made my Glory and my Boaft, fhall then be my Strength and my Salvation.

To meet Death with a becoming Fortitude, is a Part above the Powers of Nature, and which I can perform by no Power or Holinefs of my own; for O! in my best Estate I am altogether Vanity, a wretched helpless Sinner! but in the Merits and perfect Righteoufnefs of God my Saviour, I hope to appear juftified at the fupreme Tribunal, where I must shortly ftand to be judged. ELIZ. ROW E.,

Lord Orford on his Retirement, to General Churchill.

I

Dear Charles,

Have now wrote to Captain J-kf-n to give Lord Ty-ley a Ticket, as you defired, and am very glad to oblige him with it. This Place

affords

affords no News, no Subject of Amusement and Entertainment to you fine Gentlemen. Perfons of Wit and Pleasure about Town understand not the Language, nor tafte the Charms of the inanimate World. My Flatterers here are all Mutes. The Oaks, the Beeches, and Chefnuts seem to contend which fhall beft please the Lord of the Manor. They cannot deceive, they will not lie. I, in return, with Sincerity admire them,. and have about me as many Beauties as take up ́ all my Hours of Dangling; and no Difgrace attends me fince Sixty-feven *. Within Doors we come a little to real Life, and admire the almoft fpeaking Canvas; all the Airs and Graces which the proudeft of the Ladies can boast. With these: I am fatisfied, as they gratify me with all I wish, and all I want, and expect nothing in return which I cannot give. If thefe, dear Charles, are. any Temptations, I heartily invite you to come and partake of them. Shifting the Scene has fometimes its Recommendations; and from Country Fare, you may poffibly return, with a better Appetite, to the more delicate Entertainments of a Court Life. Since I wrote what is above, we have been furprized with the good News + from. abroad. Too much cannot be faid upon it; for: it is truly Matter of infinite Joy, because of infinite Confequence. I am,

Dear Charles,

Yours affectionately,

ORD..

* The Year of his Age when he refigned.

+ The Battle of Dettingen.

LET

LETTER

CXI.

Mrs. Jones to the Hon. Mifs Lovelace

TH

HE whole Species of Thinkers may be divided into two forts, the flow ones, and the quick ones. Your flow Thinkers are feldom very fudden, but very fure; the quick ones. fee thro' an Idea in an Inftant, and have: you at every Turning. You must therefore be very fure of your Words, if you would not be mifunderstood, or rally'd. Of this latter Class is the Hon. Mifs L. I can't let fall a Sentence that may be mifapply'd, but, whip! you have me; and when I've drawn a Character the most unlike you in the World, prefently you cry out,. "that's I." But this is not fair: and therefore I take this Opportunity, once for all, to declare, that when I fpeak in praife of No-meaning, I never mean any body about St. James's; and whenever I pour out myfelf upon the Subject of Dulness, I always exclude her Majesty's Maids of Honour.

I am rejoic'd to hear that the Roads are paffable between Covent-Garden and St. James's; or rather, that the Way thither is fo well paved for

me.

The Pilgrim's Progrefs, if you have not. read, I would exhort you to read. 'Tis a very good Book, and full of ufeful Inftructions; fetting forth the Difficulties we Travellers are forced. to encounter, and the many Lets and Hindrances we daily meet with upon the Road, especially by you better fort of Chriftians, who ride in Coaches. And I would the rather exhort you to.

read

read this good Book at this Time, because I am myself, or shall be foon, a Traveller or Pilgrim, wandering about from Houfe to Houfe, in order to partake of the Benevolencies of fuch good People as you are. For I fhall fometimes be tempted to knock at your hofpitable Gate, which, I hear, is always open to Strangers; and therefore truft it will be so to one who is fo much a Stranger to every thing but your merits, that she scarce knows your Perfon, notwithstanding she is fo remarkably of the number of

Jan. 17, 1734.

Your most obedients, &c.

I am forry to find my much honour'd invifible Correfpondent is vanifh'd fo foon. But why do I fay vanish'd? for, as Swift obferves,

One may fee by the Hand, fhe has no cloven Foot.

Nothing is fo common as to hear People talking of their great Alliances, and boafting themselves upon the Merits of their Ancestors. This Vanity is generally moft confpicuous in those who have few Merits of their own, and who are oblig'd to their Forefathers for all the Credit and Esteem they meet with in the World. A few Days ago I was invited to attend the Hearse of a good old Aunt of my Mother's to SouthNewington, the burying place of the Family, about four Miles from Banbury. The Pomp of Death, and the humiliating Scene of a Charnelhoufe, are Objects I am not very fond of; but

the

the Vanity of viewing the Sepulchres of my Fathers, and the good old Hall where my Grandfather and the Vicar fo often fettled the Affairs of the Nation, inclin'd me to attend the Solemnity as a Relation, I cannot as a Mourner. As we came near the Town we were met by fome of the moft venerable Perfonages of the Place; but the Corps was no fooner put down in the Hall, than the whole Village came in upon us. When we had fatisfy'd the Curiofity of the whole Parish, and fitted the Hands of fome of them, we convey'd the poor old Woman to Church; where the first thing that ftruck my Eyes were the Portraits of Time and Death; two Figures dreffed out in all the Pomp of Red and Blue, extremely picturefque, and the most formidable Monsters I ever beheld. They seemed to be fighting a Duel; and indeed we left them at Daggers drawing, for we had not Time to see the End of the Combat: tho' 'tis generally believ'd in the Parish, that Time will get the better of it; for they have it upon very good Authority, that "Time conquers all Things.'

After the old Lady was decently depofited, and the Crowd pretty well difpers'd (finding, to my great fatisfaction, that the Remains of our Family occupy half the Chancel) I defired the Clerk to sweep away the rubbish a little, that I might look over the Tomb-ftones, in hopes to find fome pompous Infcription, recording the heroic Deeds of my Forefathers. But alas! my Vanity was fufficiently mortify'd, when I difcover'd that the Family of the Penns have only been born, and died, for fome hundred Years past. However I comforted myself that this Neg. lect might have been owing to the great Modefty

of