pursue the Moral plan you marked out, and feemed fixteen months ago fo intent upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I die, and are you to enjoy the reputation of it while you live? or do you rather chufe to leave the marks of your friendship, like the legacies of a will, to be read and enjoyed only by those who survive you ? Were I as near you as I have been, I should hope to peep into the manufcript before it was finished. But alas! there is, and will ever probably be a great deal of land and fea between us. How many books have come out of late in your parts, which you think I fhould be glad to perufe? Name them: The catalogue, I believe, will not coft you much trouble. They must be good ones indeed to challenge any part of my time, now I have fo little of it left. I, who fquandered whole days heretofore, now husband hours when the glafs begins to run low, and care not to mispend them on trifles. At the end of the Lottery of Life, our last minutes, like tickets left in the wheel, rife in their valuation: They are not of fo much worth perhaps in themselves as those which preceded, but we are apt to prize them more, and with reafon. I do fo, my dear friend, and yet think the most precious minutes of my life are well employed in reading what you write. But this is a fatisfaction I cannot much hope for, and therefore must betake myfelf to others lefs entertaining. Adieu! dear Sir, and forgive me engaging with one, whom you, I think, have reckoned among the heroes of the Dunciad. It was neceffary for me either to accept of his dirty challenge, or to have fuffered in the efteem of the world by declining it.

My refpects to your Mother; I fend one of thefe papers for Dean Swift, if you have an opportunity, and think it worth while to convey it. My Country at this distance feems to me a ftrange fight; I know not

how it appears to you, who are in the midst of the scene, and yourself a part of it; I wish you would tell me. You may write fafely to Mr. Morrice, by the honeft hand that conveys this, and will return into these parts before Christmas; fketch out a rough draught of it, that I may be able to judge whether a return to it be really eligible, or whether I should not, like the Chemift in the Bottle, upon hearing Don Quevedo's account of Spain, defire to be corked up again.

After all, I do and muft love my Country, with all its faults and blemishes; even that part of the constitution which wounded me unjustly, and itself through my fide, shall ever be dear to me. My last with shall be like that of father Paul, Efto perpetua! and when I die at a distance from it, it will be in the fame manner as Virgil describes the expiring Peloponnefian,

Sternitur,

.

et dulces moriens reminifcitur Argos.

Do I ftill live in the memory of my friends, as they certainly do in mine? I have read a good many of your paper-fquabbles about me, and am glad to fee fuch free conceffions on that head, tho' made with no view of doing me a pleafure, but merely of loading another. I am, etc.

I

LETTER XXV.

From the Bishop of ROCHESTER,

On the Death of his Daughter.

Montpelier, Nov. 20, 1729. AM not yet Master enough of myself, after the late wound I have receiv'd, to open my very heart to you, and am not content with lefs than that, whenever

I converse with you. My thoughts are at present vainly, but pleasingly employed, on what I have loft, and can never recover. I know well I ought, for that reafon, to call them off to other subjects, but hitherto I have not been able to do it. By giving them the rein a little, and fuffering them to spend their force, I hope in fome time to check and fubdue them. Multis fortunae vulneribus perculfus, buic uni me imparem fenf, et pene fuccubui. This is weakness, not wisdom, I own; and on that account fitter to be trufted to the bofom of a friend, where I may fafely lodge all my infirmities. As foon as my mind is in fome measure corrected and calm'd, I will endeavour to follow your ad. vice, and turn it to fomething of use and moment; if I have still life enough left to do any thing that is worth reading and preferving. In the mean time I fhall be pleas'd to hear that you proceed in what you intend, without any fuch melancholy interruption as I have met with. Your mind is as yet unbroken by age and ill accidents, your knowledge and judgment are at the height: ufe them in writing fomewhat that may teach the prefent and future times, and if not gain equally the applaufe of both, may yet raife the envy of the one, and secure the admiration of the other. Employ not your precious moments, and great talents, on little men and little things; but chufe a fubje&t every way worthy of you, and handle it as you can, in a manner which nobody elfe can equal or imitate. As for me, my abilities, if I ever had any, are not what they were and yet I will endeavour to recollect and employ them.

Gelidus tardante fenecta

Sanguis hebet, frigentque effoeto in corpore vires. However, I should be ingrateful to this place, if I did not own that I have gained upon the gout in the fouth

of France, much more than I did at Paris, tho' even there I fenfibly improved. I believe my cure had been perfected, but the earneft defire of meeting One I dearly loved, called me abruptly to Montpelier; where after continuing two months, under the cruel torture of a fad and fruitless expectation, I was forced at laft to take a long journey to Toulouse; and even there I had miffed the perfon I fought, had the not, with great fpirit and courage, ventured all night up the Garonne to see me, which fhe above all things defired to do before fhe died. By that means fhe was brought where I was, between feven and eight in the morning, and liv'd twenty hours afterwards, which time was not loft on either fide, but pass'd in such a manner as gave great fatisfaction to both, and fuch as, on her part, every way became her circumftances and character. For fhe had her fenfes to the very last gasp, and exerted them to give me, in those few hours, greater marks of Duty and Love than she had done in all her life-time, tho' fhe had never been wanting in either. The laft words fhe faid to me were the kindeft of all; a reflection on the goodness of God, which had allow'd us in this manner to meet once more, before we parted for ever. Not many minutes after that, she laid herself on her pillow, in a fleeping posture,

placidaque ibi demum morte quievit.

Judge you, Sir, what I felt, and ftill feel on this occafion, and spare me the trouble of defcribing it. At my Age, under my Infirmities, among utter Strangers, how fhall I find out proper reliefs and fupports? I can have none, but those with which Reafon and Religion furnish me, and those I lay hold on, and grasp as fast as I can. I hope that He who laid the burthen upon me (for wife and good purposes no doubt) will enable me

to bear it in like manner as I have borne others, with fome degree of fortitude and firmness.

You fee how ready I am to relapse into an argument which I had quitted once before in this letter. I fhall probably again commit the fame fault, if I continue to write; and therefore I ftop fhort here, and with all fincerity, affection, and esteem, bid you adieu! till we meet either in this world, if God pleases, or else in another.