boduc and this, as between Queen Anne and King George. It is truly a fcandal, that men fhould write with contempt of a piece which they never once faw, as those two Poets did, who were ignorant even of the fex, as well as sense, of Gorboduc *.

Adieu! I am going to forget you: this minute you took up all my mind; the next I fhall think of nothing but the reconciliation with Agamemnon, and the recovery of Brifeis. I fhall be Achilles's humble fervant these two months (with the good leave of all my friends). I have no ambition so strong at prefent, as that noble one of Sir Salathiel Lovel, recorder of London, to furnish out a decent and plentiful execution of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be expreffed how heartily I wish the death of all Homer's heroes, one after another. The Lord preserve me in the day of battle, which is just approaching! Join in your prayers for me, and know me to be always

Your, etc.

* I have been informed by Lord Macartney, that he had seen a Letter from this Lord Treasurer Buckhurst to Queen Elizabeth reprefenting the great inconvenience and diftance of his houfe at Buckhurft, forty miles from London, through ftrange, uncouth ways, and requesting a grant of Knowle, as being nearer town, and confequently more convenient to him for the duty of his office. So little communication was there, from place to place at that time.

1

LETTER II.

London, March 31, 1718. o convince you how little pain I give myself in correfponding with men of good-nature and good understanding, you fee I omit to answer your letters till a time, when another man would be afhamed to own he had received them. If therefore you are ever moved on my account by that spirit, which I take to be as familiar to you as a quotidian ague, I mean the fpirit of goodness, pray never ftint it, in any fear of obliging me to a civility beyond my natural inclination. I dare truft you, Sir, not only with my folly when I write, but with my negligence when I do not; and expect equally your pardon for either.

If I knew how to entertain you through the rest of this paper, it should be spotted and diverfified with conceits all over: you fhould be put out of breath with laughter at each fentence, and paufe at each period, to look back over how much wit you have paffed. But I have found by experience that people now-a-days regard writing as little as they do preaching: the moft we can hope is to be heard juft with decency and patience, once a week, by folks in the country. Here in town we hum over a piece of fine writing, and we whistle at a fermon. The stage is the only place we feem alive at! there indeed we stare,

and

and roar, and clap hands for K. George and the government. As for all other virtues but this loyalty, they are an obsolete train, fo ill-dreffed, that men, women, and children hiss them out of all good company. Humility knocks fo fneakingly at the door that every footman outraps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain-glory.

My Lady Scudamore, from having rufticated in your company too long, really behaves herself scandaloufly among us: fhe pretends to open her eyes for the fake of feeing the fun, and to fleep because it is night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have faid her prayers before: talks, without any manner of fhame, of good books, and has not feen Cibber's play of the Nonjuror *. I rejoiced the other day to see a libel on her toilette, which gives me fome hope that you have, at least, a taste of scandal left you, in defect of all other vices.

Upon the whole matter, I heartily wish you well; but as I cannot entirely defire the ruin of all the joys of this city, fo all that remains is to wish you would keep your happiness to yourselves, that the happieft here may not die with envy at a blifs which they can

not attain to.

I am, etc.

* Cibber always infifted, that this comedy, founded on the admirable Tartuffe of Moliere, was the chief cause of our author's resentment against him. It met with great success on the stage.

LETTER III.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

I

Coleshill, April 17, 1718.

letter over and over with delight.

I

HAVE read your By your description of the town, I imagine it to lie under fome great enchantment, and am very much concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the more afraid, imagining, fince you do not fly those horrible monsters, rapine, diffimulation, and luxury, that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you cannot escape. We are here in the country in quite another world, furrounded with bleffings and pleasures, without any occafion of exercising our irafcible faculties; indeed we cannot boaft of good-breading and the art of life, but yet we don't live unpleasantly in primitive fimplicity and good humour. The fafhions of the town affect us but just like a raree-show, we have a curiofity to peep at them, and nothing What you call pride, prodigality, and vainglory, we cannot find in pomp and fplendor at this distance; it appears to us a fine glittering scene, which if we don't envy you, we think you happier than we are, in your enjoying it. Whatever you may think to perfuade us of the humility of virtue, and her appearing in rags amongst you, we can never believe our uninformed minds reprefent her fo noble to us, that we neceffarily annex fplendor to her:

more.

and

and we could as foon imagine the order of things inverted, and that there is no man in the moon, as believe the contrary. I cannot forbear telling you we indeed read the fpoils of Rapine as boys do the Englifh Rogue, and hug ourselves full as much over it; yet our roses are not without thorns. Pray give me the pleasure of hearing (when you are at leifure) how foon I may expect to fee the next volume of Homer.

I am, etc.

LETTER IV.

May 1, 1720,

YOU'LL think me very full of myself, when after long filence (which however, to fay truth, has rather been employed to contemplate of you, than to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I find it is in the finishing a book, as in concluding a feffion of Parliament, one always thinks it will be

very foon, and finds it very late. There are many unlooked-for incidents to retard the clearing any public account, and so I fee it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great minifters, with undertaking too much for one man; and with a defire of doing more than was expected from me, have done lefs than I ought.

For