Be affured, I will hire people to watch all your mo. tions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you at Aimsbury write domestic libels to divert the family and neighbouring fquires for five miles round? or venture fo far on horseback, without apprehending a stumble at every step? can you fet the footmen a laughing as they wait at dinner? and do the Duchefs's women admire your wit? in what esteem are you with the Vicar of the parish? can you play with him at back-gammon? have the farmers found out that you cannot distinguish rye from barley, or an oak from a crab tree? You are fenfible that I know the full extent of your country fkill is in fishing for Roaches, or Gudgeons at the highest.

I love to do you good offices with your friends, and therefore defire you will fhew this letter to the Duchefs, to improve her Grace's good opinion of your qualifications, and convince her how useful you are like to be in the family. Her Grace fhall have the honour of my correfpondence again when fhe goes to Aimsbury. Hear a piece of Irifh news, I buried the famous General Meredith's father last night in my Cathedral; he was ninety-fix years old: fo that Mrs. Pope may live seven years longer. You faw Mr. Pope in health; pray is he generally more healthy than when I was amongst you? I would know how your own health is, and how much wine

you

drink in a day? My ftint in company is a pint at noon, and half as much at night, but I often dine at home like a hermit, and then I drink little or none at all. Yet I differ from you, for I would have fociety, if I could get what I like, people of middle understanding, and middle rank.

LETTER LIX.

Adieu.

Dublin, July 10, 1732.

I

HAD your letter by Mr. Ryves a long time after the date, for I fuppofe he stayed long in the way. I am glad you determine upon fomething; there is no writing I esteem more than Fables, nor any thing fo difficult to fucceed in, which however you have done excellently well, and I have often admired your happiness in fuch a kind of performances, which I have frequently endeavoured at in vain. I remember I acted as you feem to hint; I found a Moral first and ftudied for a Fable, but could do nothing that pleased me, and fo left off that scheme for ever. I remember one, which was to represent what fcoundrels arife in armies by a long War, wherein I supposed the Lion was engaged, and having loft all his animals of worth, at last Serjeant Hog came to be Brigadier, and Corporal Afs a Colonel, etc. I agree with you

likewise about getting fomething by the stage, which, when it fucceeds, is the best crop for poetry in England: but, pray, take fome new fcheme, quite different from any thing you have already touched. The present humour of the players, who hardly (as I was told in London) regard any new play, and your present fituation at the Court, are the difficulties to be overcome; but thofe circumftances may have altered (at least the former) fince I left you. My scheme was to pass a month at Aimsbury, and then go to Twickenham, and live a winter between that and Dawley, and fometimes at Rifkins, without going to London, where I now can have no occafional lodgings: but I am not yet in any condition for fuch removals. I would fain have you get enough against you grow old, to have two or three fervants about you and a convenient houfe. It is hard to want thofe fubfidia fenectuti, when a man grows hard to please, and few people care whether he be pleased or no. I have a large house, yet I should hardly prevail to find one vifitor, if I were not able to hire him with a bottle of wine: fo that, when I am not abroad on horseback, I generally dine alone, and am thankful, if a friend will pass the evening with me. I am now with the remainder of my pint before me, and fo here's your health-and the fecond and chief is to my Tunbridge acquaintance, my Lady Duchefs —and I tell you that I fear my Lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Pope (a couple of Philofophers) would

ftarve me, for even of port wine I fhould require half a pint a day, and as much at night and you were growing as bad, unless your Duke and Duchess have mended you. Your cholic is owing to intemperance of the philofophical kind; you eat without care, and if you drink lefs than I, you drink too little. But your Inattention I cannot pardon, because I imagined the cause was removed, for I thought it lay in your forty millions of schemes by Court-hopes and Court-fears. Yet Mr. Pope has the fame defect, and it is of all others the most mortal to conversation; neither is my Lord Bolingbroke untinged with it: all for want of my rule, Vive la Bagatelle! but the Doctor is the King of Inattention. What a vexatious life should I lead among you? If the Duchess be a reveuse, I will never come to Aimsbury; or, if I do, I will run away from you both, to one of her women, and the steward and chaplain.

Madam,

I mentioned fomething to Mr. Gay of a Tun. bridge-acquaintance, whom we forget of course when we return to town, and yet I am affured that if they meet again next fummer, they have a better title to resume their commerce. Thus I look on my right of correfponding with your Grace to be better eftablished upon your return to Aimsbury; and I shall at this time descend to forget, or at least suspend my refentments of your neglect all the time

you were

in

in London. I still keep in my heart, that Mr. Gay had no fooner turned his back, than you left the place in this letter void which he had commanded you to fill: though your guilt confounded you so far, that you wanted prefence of mind to blot out the laft line, where that command stared you in the face. But it is my misfortune to quarrel with all my acquaintance, and always come by the worft; and fortune is ever against me, but never fo much as bý pursuing me out of mere partiality to your Grace, for which you are to answer. By your connivance, fhe hath pleased, by one stumble on the stairs, to give me a lamenefs that fix months hath not been able perfectly to cure: and thus I am prevented from revenging myself by continuing a month at Aimsbury, and breeding confufion in your Grace's family. No disappointment through my whole life hath been fo vexatious by many degrees; and God knows whether I fhall ever live to fee the invincible Lady to whom I was obliged for so many favours, and whom I never beheld since she was a bratt in hanging-fleeves. I am, and fhall be ever, with the greatest respect and grati tude, Madam, your Grace's most obedient, and most humble, etc.