I live to read his Metaphyfics. Pray God bless you both. I had a melancholy account from the Doctor of his health. I will anfwer his letter as foon as I can. I am ever entirely yours.

LETTER LXXIV.

Twickenham, Dec. 19, 1734.

I

AM truly forry for any complaint you have, and it is in regard to the weakness of your eyes that I write (as well as print) in folio. You'll think (I know you will, for you have all the candour of a good understanding) that the thing which men of our age feel the moft, is the friendship of our equals; and that therefore whatever affects those who are stept a few years before us, cannot but fenfibly affect us who are to follow. It troubles me to hear you complain of your memory, and if I am in any part of my conftitution younger than you, it will be in my remembering every thing that has pleafed me in you, longer than perhaps you will. The two fummers we paffed together dwells always on my mind, like a vifion which gave me a glimpse of a better life and better company than this world otherwife afforded. I am now an individual, upon whom no other depends; and may go where I will, if the wretched carcafe I am annexed to did not hinder me. I rambled

by very eafy journies this year to Lord Bathurst and Lord Peterborow, who upon every occafion commemorate, love, and wifh for you. I now pafs my days between Dawley, London, and this place, not studious, nor idle, rather polishing old works than hewing out new. I redeem now and then a paper that hath been abandoned several years; and of this fort you'll foon fee one, which I infcribe to our old friend Arbuthnot.

Thus far I had written, and thinking to finish my letter the fame evening, was prevented by company, and the next morning found myself in a fever highly difordered, and fo continued in bed for five days; and in my chamber till now; but fo well recovered as to hope to go abroad to-morrow, even by the ad vice of Dr. Arbuthnot. He himfelf, poor man, is much broke, though not worse than for thefe two laft months he has been. He took extremely kind your letter. I wish to God we could once meet again, before that feparation, which yet, I would be glad to believe, fhall re-unite us: but he who made us, not for ours but his purposes, knows only whether it be for the better or the worfe, that the affections of this life fhould, or fhould not continue into the other: and doubtless it is as it fhould be. Yet I am fure that while I am here, and the thing that I am, I fhall be imperfect without the communication of fuch friends. as you; you are to me like a limb loft, and buried in another country; though we feem quite divided,

every accident makes me feel you were once a part of me. I always confider you so much as a friend, that I forget you are an author, perhaps too much, but 'tis as much as I would defire you would do to me. However, if I could infpirit you to bestow correction upon those three Treatifes, which you fay are fo near completed, I should think it a better work than any I can pretend to of my own. I am almoft at the end of my Morals, as I've been long ago, of my Wit; my fyftem is a fhort one, and my circle narrow. Imagination has no limits, and that is a sphere in which you may move on to eternity; but where one is confined to truth (or to speak more like a human creature, to the appearances of truth) we foon find the shortness of our Tether. Indeed by the help of a metaphyfical chain of Ideas, one may extend the circulation, go round and round for ever, with_ out making any progrefs beyond the point to which Providence has pinned us: but this does not fatisfy me, who would rather say a little to no purpose, than a great deal. Lord B. is voluminous, but he is voluminous only to destroy volumes. I fhall not live, I fear, to see that work printed; he is so taken up still (in spite of the monitory hint given in the first line of my Effay) with particular men, that he neglects mankind, and is still a creature of this world, not of the Universe: this world, which is a name we give to Europe, to England, to Ireland, to London, to Dublin, to the Court, to the Castle, and fo diminish

ing, till it comes to our own affairs, and to our own perfons. When you write (either to him or me, for we accept it all as one) rebuke him for it, as a divine if you like it, or as a Badineur, if you think that more effectual.

1

What I write will fhew that my head is yet weak. I had written to you by that gentleman from the Bath, but I did not know him, and every body that comes from Ireland, pretends to be a friend of the Dean's. I am always glad to fee any that are truly fo, and therefore do not mistake any thing I faid,

fo as to difcourage your fending any fuch to me.

YOUR

ford, who landed the fame day, but I have not yet feen him. As to my filence, God knows it is my great misfortune. My little domeftic affairs are in great confufion by the villainy of agents, and the miseries of this kingdom, where there is no money to be had: nor am I unconcerned to fee all things tending towards abfolute power, in both na

tions (it is here in perfection already) although I fhall not live to fee it established. This condition of things, both public and perfonal to myself, hath given me fuch a kind of defpondency, that I am almost unqualified for any company, diverfion, or amusement. The death of Mr. Gay and the Doctor, hath been terrible wounds near my heart. Their living would have been a great comfort to me, although I fhould never have feen them; like a fum of money in a bank, from which I fhould receive at leaft annual intereft, as I do from you, and have done from my Lord Bolingbroke. To fhew in how much ignorance I live, it is hardly a fortnight fince I heard of the death of my Lady Mafham, my constant friend in all changes of times. God forbid that I fhould expect you to make a voyage that would in the least affect your health: but in the mean time how unhappy am I, that my best friend fhould have perhaps the only kind of diforder for which a feavoyage is not in fome degree a remedy? The old Duke of Ormond faid, he would not change his dead fon (Offory) for the beft living fon in Europe. Neither would I change you my abfent friend for the best present friend round the Globe.

I have

P>The Dean was frequently troubled, as he tells us, with a giddinefs in his head.

W.

But all who held this language were not giddy. The Editor might have read the Preface to Hammond's Elegies, written by his patron Lord Chesterfield.