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I find your Idea is fo clofely connected to me that I muft forget both together, or neither. I'm forry, I could not have a glympfe either of you, or of the Sun, (your Father) before you went for Bath. But now it pleates me to fee him, and hear of you. Pray put Mr. Congreve in mind that he has one on this fide of the World who loves him; and that there are more Men and Women in the Universe, than Mr. Gay and my Lady Duchefs of M. There are Ladies in and about Richmond that pretend to value him and your felf; and one of 'em at leaft may be thought to do it without Affectation, namely Mrs. Howard. As for Mrs. Blounts (whom you mercifully make mention of) they are gone, or going to Suffex. I hope Mrs. Pulteney is the better for the Bath, tho' I have little Charity and few good Wishes for the Ladies, the Deftroyers of their best friends the Men. Pray tell her she has forgot the firft Commiffion I ever troubled her with, and therefore it shall be the last (the very thing I fear the defires). Dr. Arbuthnot is a strange creature; he goes out of town, and leaves his Baftards at other folks doors. I have long been fo far miftaken in him as to think him a Man of Morals as well as of Politicks. Pray, let him know I made a very unfafhionable enquiry t'other day of the welfare

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of his Wife and family: Things that (I prefume) are below the confideration of a Wit and an Ombre-player. They are in perfect health. Tho' Mrs. A's Navel has been burnt, I hope the Doctor's own Belly is in abfolute eafe and contentment. Now I fpeak of thofe Regions about the Abdomen, pray, dear Gay, confult with him and Dr. Chee to what exact pitch yours may be fuffer'd to fwell, not to outgrow theirs, who are, yet, your Betters. Pray tell Dr. Arbuthnot that even Pigeon-pyes, and Hogspuddings are thought dangerous by our Governors; for thofe that have been fent to the Bishop of Rochester, are open'd and prophanely pry'd into at the Tower: 'Tis the firft time dead Pigeons have been suspected of carrying Intelligence. To be ferious, you, and Mr. Congreve (nay and the Doctor if he has not dined) will be fenfible of my concern and furprize at the commitment of that Gentleman, whofe welfare is as much my concern as any friend's I have. I think my felf a moft unfortunate wretch; I no fooner love, and, upon knowledge, fix my efteem to any man; but he either dies like Mr. Craggs, cr is fent to Imprisonment like the Bishop. God fend him as well as I wish him, manifeft him to be as innocent as I believe him, and make all his Enemies know him as well as I do, that

they

they may love him and think of him as well!

If you apprehend this Period to be of any danger in being addrefs'd to you; tell Mr. Congreve or the Doctor, it is writ to them. I am

Your, &c.

July 13, 1723.

I

Dear Sir,

WAS very much pleas'd, not to fay oblig'd, by your kind letter, which fufficiently warm'd my heart to have anfwer'd it fooner, had I not been deceiv'd (a way one often is deceiv'd) by hearkening to Women; who told me that both Lady Burlington and yourself were immediately to return from Tunbridge, and that my Lord was gone to bring you back. The world furnishes us with too many examples of what you complain of in yours, and I affure you, none of them touch and grieve me fo much as what relates to you. I think your Sentiments upon it are the very fame. I fhould entertain: I wifh those we call Great Men had the fame Notions, but they are really the moft Little Creatures in the world; and the most interested, in all but one Point; which is, that they want Judg

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ment to know their greatest Intereft, to encourage and chufe Honeft men for their Friends.

I have not once feen the Person you complain of, whom I have of late thought to be, as the Apostle admonifheth, one Flefh with his Wife.

Pray make my fincere compliments to Lord Burlington, whom I have long known to have more Mind to be a Good and honourable man, than almost any one of his rank.

I have not forgot yours to Lord Bolingbroke, (tho' I hope to have speedily a fuller opportunity) he returns for Flanders and France, next Month.

Mrs. Howard has writ you fomething or other in a letter which the fays fhe repents. She has as much Good-nature as if he had never feen any Ill-nature, and had been bred among Lambs and Turtle-doves, inftead of Princes and Court-Ladies.

By the end of this week, Fortescue will pass a few days with me. We fhall remember you in our Potations, and with you a Fisher with us, on my Grafs-plat. In the mean time we wish you Succefs as a Fisher of Women, at the Wells, a Rejoycer of the Comfortless and Widow, an Impregnator of the Barren, and a Playfellow of the Maiden. I am

Your, &c.

I

Dear Sir,

Faithfully affure you, in the midst of that melancholy with which I have been fo long encompaffed, in an hourly Expectation almoft of my Mother's death; there was no circumftance that render'd it more infupportable to me, than that I could not leave her to fee you. Your own prefent Escape from fo imminent danger, I pray God may prove lefs precarious than my poor Mother's can be ; whofe Life at her age can at best be but a fhort Reprieve, or a longer Dying. But I fear, even that is more than God will please to grant me; for, these two days paft, her most dangerous Symptoms are returned upon her; and unless there be a fudden change, I must in a few days, if not in a few Hours, be depriv'd of her. In the afflicting Profpect before me, I know nothing that can fo much alleviate it as the View now given me (Heaven grant it may encrease!) of your recovery. In the fincerity of my heart, I am exceflively concern'd, not to be able to pay you, dear Gay, any part of the debt Ị very gratefully remember I owe you, on a like fad occafion, when you was here comforting me in her laft great Illness. May your P 4 health

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