PIQUES HESTER VANHOMRIGH'S JEALOUSY.

151

it high treason to bring over foreign troops? I wish a little care was taken for securing the Kingdom as well as the Succession. But country politics are doubly insupportable, and so I have done, and retire to lament with my neighbours the want of rain, and the dearness of hay.

Farmer Tyler says the white mead at Chawdry has not been so bad in the memory of man, and the summer barley is quite dried up; but we hope to have a pretty good crop of wheat. Parson Hunsden, 'tis thought, must stick to his bargain; but all the neighbours say the attorney was an arrand rogue. We cannot get a bit of good butter for love or money. I could tell you more of the state of our affairs, but doubt your taste is not refined enough for it.

TO MISS VANHOMRIGH.

Letcombe, near Wantage.

August, 1714.

I have had two letters of yours to answer. I am pleased to see you piqued about my dearness to Ben and John.1 They are worthy subjects. There are some words I never use to some people; let that satisfy. How many gentlemen, say you, and fine young gentlemen, truly, would be proud to have

so much of them.

you desire

Who told you I was going to Bath? No such thing. I had fixed to set out to-morrow for Ireland, but poor Lord Oxford

1 It would seem that the Dean, in addressing his printer and bookseller, had styled them dear Ben and dear John. Vanessa appears to have been jealous of a distinction never paid to her in the course of their correspondence, and the Dean gaily justifies himself.-S.

desires I will go with him to Herefordshire, and I only expect his answer, whether I shall go there before, or meet him hereabouts, or go to Wimpole (his son's house), and go with him down. And I expect to leave this in two or three days, one way or other. I will stay with him till the Parliament meets again, if he desires it. I am not of your opinion about Lord Bolingbroke-perhaps he may get the Staff; but I cannot rely on his love to me. He knew I had a mind to be historiographer, although I valued it not but for the public service. Yet it is gone to a worthless rogue that nobody knows. I am writ to earnestly by somebody to come to town, and join with these people now in power, but I will not do it. Say nothing of this, but guess the person. I told Lord Oxford I would go with him when he was out; and now he begs it of me, and I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his faults as he was a Minister of State; but you know his personal kindness to me was excessive. He distinguished and chose me above all other men while he was great, and his letter to me t'other day was the most moving imaginable.

The knife handles should surely be done up in silver, and strong. I believe Brandreth, my toy man, in Exchange Alley, would deal most honestly by me. Barber knows him. Where's your discretion in desiring to travel with that body, who,1 I believe, would not do it for a thousand pounds, except it were to Italy. Pray God send you a good deliverance through your accounts. 'Tis well you have been a lawyer so long. You will be two hours reading this letter, it is writ so ill. When I am fixed anywhere, perhaps I may be so gracious as to let you know; but I will not promise. Service to Moll. Adieu.

1 Barber seems to be indicated. He was a Jacobite, and to this the Dean probably alludes, in saying he would travel nowhere but to Italy.-S.

HESTER VANHOMRIGH'S EPISTOLARY INDISCRETIONS 153

TO MISS VANHOMRIGH.

August 12, 1714.

I had your letter last post, and before you send me another I shall set out for Ireland. I must go and take the oaths; and the sooner the better. I think since I have known you, I have drawn an old house upon my head. You should not have come by Wantage for a thousand pounds.1 You used to brag you were very discreet; where is it gone? It is probable I may not stay in Ireland long, but be back by the beginning of winter. When I am there, I will write to you as soon as I can conveniently, but it shall be always under a cover; and, if you write to me, let some other direct it, and I beg that you will write nothing that is particular, but what may be seen, for I apprehend letters may be opened and inconveniences will happen.

If you are in Ireland while I am there, I shall see you very seldom. It is not a place for any freedom, but where everything is known in a week, and magnified a hundred degrees. These are laws which must be passed through; but it is probable that we may meet in London in winter, or, if not, leave all to Fate that seldom cares to humour our inclinations. I say all this out of the perfect esteem and friendship I have for you. These public misfortunes have altered all my measures, and broke my spirits. I shall, I hope, be on horseback in a day after this comes to your hand. I would not answer your questions for a million, nor can I think of them with any ease of mind." Adieu.

1 In a subsequent letter he mentions the Berkshire surprise, which was, probably, an unexpected visit of Vanessa to Wantage.-S.

The reference to these questions is a sort of cant expression, which repeatedly occurs afterwards. It would seem Vanessa subjected her admirer to a sort of regular catechism (it may be supposed to respect the state of his affection), which must have sometimes sufficiently embarrassed him. —S.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

Dublin, Sept. 14, 1714.

I hope your Lordship, who were always so kind to me while you were a servant, will not forget me now in your greatness. I give you this caution, because I really believe you will be apt to be exalted in your new station of retirement, which was the only honourable post that those who gave it you were capable of conferring. I go on in writing, though I know not how to send you my letter. If I were sure it would be opened by the sealers of your Office, I would fill it with some terms of art that they would better deserve than relish.1

It is a point of wisdom too hard for me, not to look back with vexation upon past management. Divines tell us often from their pulpits, that "half the pains, which some men take to be damned, would have compassed their salvation." This, I am sure, was extremely our case. I know not what motions your Lordship intends: but, if I see the old Whig measures taken in the next elections, and that the Court, the Bank, East India, and South Sea [Companies] act strenuously, and procure a majority, I shall lie down, and beg of Jupiter to heave the cart out of the dirt. I would give all I am worth, for the sake of my country, that you had left your mantle with somebody in the House of Commons, or that a dozen honest men among them had only so many shreds of it. And so, having despatched all our friends in England, off flies a splinter, and knocks two Governors of Ireland dead. I remember, we never had leisure to think of that kingdom. The poor dead Queen is used like the giant Longaron in Rabelais. Pantagruel took Longaron by the heels, and made him his weapon to kill twenty

The death of the Queen six weeks previously, and the expected advent of the Elector, had put to rout the Tory and Jacobite Ministry, in which Lord Bolingbroke had been Secretary of State.

CONDOLES WITH BOLINGBROKE.

155

other giants, then flung him over a river into the town, and killed two ducks and an old cat. I could talk very wisely to you; but you would regard me not. I could bid you non desperare de republicâ, and say, that res nolunt diu male administrari. But I will cut all short, and assure you, if you do not save us, I will not be at the pains of racking my invention to guess how we shall be saved, and yet I have read Polybius.1

They tell me you have a very good crop of wheat, but the barley is bad. Hay will certainly be dear, unless we have an open winter. I hope you found your hounds in good condition [at Dawley], and that Bright has not made a stirrup-leather of your jockey-belt. I imagine you now smoking with your humdrum Squire (I forget his name), who can go home at midnight, and open a dozen gates, when he is drunk.

I beg your Lordship not to ask me to lend you any money. If you will come and live at the Deanery, and furnish up an apartment, I will find you in victuals and drink; which is more than ever you got by the Court. And, as proud as you are, I hope to see you accept a part of the offer before I die. The devil take this country. It has, in three weeks, spoiled two as good sixpenny pamphlets as ever a Proclamation was issued against. And since we talk of that, there will not be.

2

I shall be cured of loving England, as the fellow was of his ague by getting himself whipped through the town. I would retire too, if I could: but my country seat, 3 where I have an acre of ground, is gone to ruin. The wall of my own apartment is fallen down, and I want mud to rebuild it, and straw to thatch it. Besides, a spiteful neighbour has seized on six feet of

The Pragmateia, or Practical History, of the great Greek historian, the first attempt at a Science of History, consisted originally of forty books. Only five have come down to us entire.

2 Here are two or three words in the MS. totally erased and illegible.-D. S. At Laracor.