times; remember'd her Creator in the Days of her Youth. You describe fo well your Heremitical ftate of Life, that none of the antient Anchorites could go beyond you, for a Cave in a Rock, with a fine Spring, or any of the Accommodations that befit a Solitary. Only I don't remember to have read, that any of those venerable and holy Perfonages took with them a Lady, and begat Sons and Daughters. You must modeftly be content to be accounted a Patriarch. But were you a little younger, I fhould rather rank you with Sir Amadis, and his fellows. If Piety be fo Romantick, I fhall turn Hermit in good carneft; for I fee one may go fo far as to be Poetical, and hope to fave one's Soul at the fame time. I really wifh myself something more, that is, a Prophet; for I wish I were as Habakkuk, to be taken by the Hair of the Head, and vifit Daniel in his Den. You are very obliging in fay-" ing, I have now a whole Family upon my hands, to whom to discharge the part of a Friend I affure you I like 'em all fo well, that I will never quit my Hereditary Right to them; you have made me yours, and confequently them mine. I ftill fee them walking on my Green at Twickenham, and gratefully remember (not only their green Gowns) but the Inftructions they gave me how to flide down, and trip up the steepest Slopes of my Mount. Pray think of me fometimes, as I fhall often of you; and know me for what I am, that is, m Dear Sir, OUR Yo To the fame. Twickenham, Oct. 21. 1721. OUR very kind and obliging manner of enquiring after me, among the firft Concerns of Life, at your Refufcitation, fhould have been fooner anfwer'd and acknowledg'd. I fincerely rejoice at your recovery from an Illness which gave me lefs pain than it did you, only from my Ignorance of it. Ifhould have elfe been feriously and deeply affected, in the thought of your danger by a Fever. I think it a fine and a natural thought, which I lately read in a private Letter of Montaigne, giving an account of the laft words of an intimate Friend of his: Adieu my Friend! the pain 'I feel will foon be over, but I grieve for ' that' that you are to feel, which is to last you for life. 9 I join with your Family in giving God. thanks for lending us a worthy Man fomewhat longer. The Comforts you receive from their Attendance put me in mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune faid one day to me: Alas, I have nothing to do but to die; I am a poor Individual; no Creature to wifh, or to fear, for my life or death: 'Tis the only reafon I have to repent being a fingle Man; now I grow old, I am ' like a Tree without a Prop, and without young Trees of my own fhedding, to grow 'round me, for Company and Defence."* I hope the Gout will foon go after the Fever, and all evil things remove far from you. But pray tell me, when will you move towards us? If you had an Interval to get hither, I care not what fixes you afterwards, except the Gout. Pray come, and never ftir from us again. Do away your dirty Acres, caft 'em to dirty People, fuch as in the Scripture-Phrafe poffefs the Land. Shake off your Earth like the noble Animal in Milton. The tawny Lyon, pawing to get free But But I believe Milton never thought, these fine Verfes of his fhould be apply'd to a Man felling a parcel of dirty Acres; tho' in the main I think it may have some refemblance; for God knows this little space of Ground nourishes, buries, and confines us, as that of Eden did thofe Creatures, till we can fhake it loofe, at least in our Affections and Defires. Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you; let Mrs. Blount know that the is in the lift of my Memento Domine's Famulo rum Famularumque's, &c. My poor Mother is far from well, declining, and Lam watching over her, as we watch an expiring Taper, that even when it looks brightest, waftes fafteft. I am (as you will fee from the whole Air of this Letter) not in the gayeft nor easiest Humour, but always with Sincerity, Dear Sir, Yours. Dear Sir, You To the fame. June 27, 1723.1 COU may truly do me the Juftice to think no Man is more your fincere Well-wisher than myself, or more the fin cere . cere well-wisher of your whole Family; with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture of Envy to you all, for loving one another fo well; and for enjoying the fweets of that life, which can only be tafted by people of good will. They from all Shades the Darkness can exclude, And from a Defart banish Solitude. Torbay is a Paradise, and a Storm is but an Amusement to fuch people. If you drink Tea upon a Promontory that overhangs the Sea, it is preferable to an Affembly; and the whiftling of the Wind better Mufic to contented and loving Minds, than the Opera to the Spleenful, Ambitious, Dif eas'd, Diftafted, and Distracted Souls, which this World affords; nay, this World affords no other. Happy they! who are banish'd from us: but happier they, who can banish themselves; or more properly, banish the World from them! Alas! I live at Twickenham! I take that Period to be very fublime, and to include more than a hundred Sentences that might be writ to exprefs Diftraction, Hurry, Multiplication of Nothings, and all the fatiguing perpetual Bufinefs of having no Bufinefs to do. You'll wonder I reckon tranflating the Odyssey as nothing? But whenever I think N ferioufly |