challenge any part of my time, now I have fo little of it left. I, who fquandered whole days heretofore, now husband hours when the glafs begins to run low, and care not to mispend them on trifles. At the end of the Lottery of Life, our last minutes, like tickets left in the wheel, rife in their valuation: They are not of fo much worth perhaps in themselves as those which preceded, but we are apt to prize them more, and with reafon. I do fo, my dear friend, and yet think the most precious minutes of my life are well employed, in reading what you write. But this is a fatisfaction I cannot much hope for, and therefore must betake myself to others lefs entertaining. Adieu! dear Sir, and forgive me engaging with one, whom you, I think, have reckoned among the heroes of the Dunciad. It was neceffary for me either to accept of his dirty challenge, or to have fuffered in the esteem of the world by declining it.

My refpects to your Mother; I fend one of thefe papers for Dean Swift, if you have an opportunity, and think it worth while to convey it. My Country at this distance feems to me a ftrange fight, I know not how it appears to you, who are in the midst of the scene, and yourself a part of it; I wish you would tell me. You may write fafely to Mr. Morice, by the honeft hand that conveys this, and will return into these parts before Christmas; sketch out a rough draught of it, that I may be able to judge whether a return to it be really eligible, or whether I should not,

like the Chemift in the bottle, upon hearing Don Quevedo's account of Spain, defire to be corked up again.

After all, I do and must love my country, with all its faults and blemishes; even that part of the conftitution which wounded me unjustly, and itself through my fide, shall ever be dear to me. My laft wifh fhall be like that of father Paul, Efto perpetua! And when I die at a distance from it, it will be in the fame manner as Virgil describes the expiring Peloponnefian,

Sternitur et dulces moriens reminifcitur Argos. Do I still live in the memory of my friends, as they certainly do in mine? I have read a good many of your paper-fquabbles about me, and am glad to fee fuch free conceffions on that head, though made with no view of doing me a pleasure, but merely of loading another.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXV.

FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER,

ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER,

Montpelier, Nov. 20, 1729.

AM not yet master enough of myself, after the late wound I have received, to open my very heart to you, and I am not content with lefs than that, whenever I converse with you. My thoughts are at present vainly, but pleasingly employed, on what I have loft, and can never recover. I know well I ought, for that reason, to call them off to other fubjects, but hi, therto I have not been able to do it. By giving them the rein a little, and fuffering them to spend their force, I hope in fome time to check and fubdue them. Multis fortuna vulneribus perculfus, huic uni me imparem fenfi, et pene fuccubui. This is weakness, not wifdom, I own; and on that account fitter to be trusted to the bofom of a friend, where I may fafely lodge my infirmities. As foon as my mind is in fome measure corrected and calmed, I will endeavour to follow your advice, and turn it to fomething of use and moment; if I have still life enough left to do any thing that is worth reading and preferving. In the mean time I shall be pleased to hear that you proceed in what you intend, without any fuch melancholy interruption as I have met with. Your mind

all

is as yet unbroken by age and ill accidents, your knowledge and judgment are at the height: use them in writing fomewhat that may teach the present and future times, and if not gain equally the applause of both, may yet raise the envy of the one, and fecure the admiration of the other. Employ not your precious moments, and great talents on little men and little things*; but choose a subject every way worthy of you, and handle it as you can, in a manner which nobody else can equal or imitate. As for me, my abilities, if I ever had any, are not what they were: and yet I will endeavour to recollect and employ them.

-gelidus tardante fenecta

Sanguis hebet, frigentque effoeto in corpore vires. However, I should be ingrateful to this place, if I did not own that I have gained upon the gout in the fouth of France, much more than I did at Paris; though even there I fenfibly improved. I believe my cure had been perfected, but the earneft defire of meeting One I dearly loved, called me abruptly to Montpelier; where after continuing two months, under the cruel torture of a fad and fruitlefs expect, ation, I was forced at last to take a long journey to Toulouse; and even there I had miffed the perfon I fought, had the not, with great spirit and courage, ventured all night up the Garonne to fee me, which

fhe

*It is to be wifhed that our Author had attended to this judicious admonition.

fhe above all things defired to do before fhe died. By that means fhe was brought where I was, between feven and eight in the morning, and lived twenty hours afterwards; which time was not loft on either fide, but paffed in fuch a manner as gave great fatiffaction to both, and fuch as, on her part, every way became her circumftances and character. For fhe had her fenfes to the very last gasp, and exerted them to give me, in those few hours, greater marks of Duty and Love than fhe had done in all her life-time, though she had never been wanting in either. The laft words fhe faid to me were the kindest of all; a reflection on the goodness of God, which had allowed us in this manner to meet once more, before we parted for ever. Not many minutes after that, fhe laid herself on her pillow, in a fleeping posture,

Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit.

Judge you, Sir, what I felt, and still feel on this occafion, and spare me the trouble of describing it. At my age, under my infirmities, among utter strangers, how fhall I find out proper reliefs and supports? I can have none, but those with which Reason and Religion furnish me, and those I lay hold on, and grafp as faft as I can. I hope that He, who laid the burden upon me (for wife and good purposes no doubt), will enable me to bear it, in like manner, as I have born others with fome degree of fortitude and firmness.

You see how ready I am to relapfe into an argument which I had quitted once before in this letter. I fhall