ments paft, are not more like a dream to` me, than those which are prefent: I lie in a refreshing kind of inaction, and have one comfort at least from obscurity, that the darkness helps me to fleep the better. I now and then reflect upon the enjoyment of my friends, whom, I fancy, I remember much as feparate fpirits do us, at tender intervals, neither interrupting their own employments, nor altogether carelefs of ours, but in general conftantly wishing us well, and hoping to have us one day in their

company.

To grow indifferent to the world, is to grow phi lofophical, or religious (which foever of thofe turnswe chance to take), and indeed the world is fuch a thing, as one that thinks pretty much, muft either laugh at, or be angry with: but if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; and if we are angry with it, they fay we are ill-natur'd. So the most politic way is to feem always better pleafed than one can be, greater admirers, greater lovers, and in fhort greater fools than we really are: fo fhall we live comfortably. with our families, quietly with our neighbours, favoured by our mafters, and happy with our miftreffes. L have filled my paper, and fo adieu..

.

LETTER IX.

Sept. 8. 1717.

I Think your leaving England was like a good man's leaving the world, with the bleffed confcience of having acted well in it; and I hope you have received your reward, in being happy where you are. I believe,

in the religious country you inhabit, you'll be better pleased to find I confider you in this light, than if I compared you to thofe Greeks and Romans, whofe conftancy in fuffering pain, and whose refolution in pursuit of a generous end, you would rather imitate than boast of.

But I had a melancholy hint the other day, as if you were yet a martyr to the fatigue your virtue made you undergo on this fide the water. I beg, if your health be restored to you, not to deny me the joy of knowing it. Your endeavours of service and good advice to the poor papists, put me in mind of Noah's preaching forty years to those folks that were to be drowned at last. At the worst, I heartily wish your Ark may find an Arrarat, and the wife and family (the hopes of the good patriarch) land fafely after the deluge, upon the fhore of Totnefs.

If I durft inix prophane with facred hiftory, I would chear you with the old tale of Brutus the wandering Trojan, who found on that very coaft the happy end of his peregrinations and adventures.

I have very lately read Jeffery of Monmouth (to whom your Cornwall is not a little beholden) in the tranflation of a clergyman in my neighbourhood. The poor man is highly concerned to vindicate Jeffery's veracity as an hiftorian; and told me he was perfectly aftonished, we of the Roman communion could doubt of the legends of his Giants, while we believe thofe of our faints. I am forced to make a fair compofition with him; and, by crediting some of the wonders of Corinæus and Gogmagog, have brought him so far already, that he fpeaks refpectfully of St Chriftopher's carrying Chrift, and the refufcitation of St Nicho

las Tolentine's chicken. Thus we proceed apace, in converting each other from all manner of infidelity.

Ajax and Hector are no more to be compared to Corinæus and Arthur, than the Guelphs and Ghibel lines are to the Mohocks of ever dreadful memory. This amazing writer has made me lay aside Homer for a week, and, when I take him up again, I fhall be very well prepared to translate, with belief and reverence, the fpeech Achilles's Horfe.

You'll excufe all this trifling, or any thing else which prevents a sheet full of compliment: and believe there is nothing more true (even more true than any thing in Jeffery is falfe) than that I have a conftant affection for you, and am, &c.

P. S. I know you will take part in rejoicing for the victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks, in the zeal you bear to the Chriftian intereft, though your Coufin of Oxford (with whom I dined yesterday) fays, there is no other difference in the Christians beating the Turks, or the Turks beating the Chriftians, than whether the Emperor fhall firft declare war against Spain, or Spain declare it against the Emperor.

LETTER X.

Nov. 27. 1717.

T

HE queftion you proposed to me, is what at prefent I am the most unfit man in the world to answer, by my loss of one of the best of fathers.

He had lived in fuch a courfe of Temperance as was enough to make the longest life agreeable to him, and in fuch a course of piety as fufficed to make the most fudden death fo alfo. Sudden indeed it was: however, I heartily beg of God to give me fuch an one, provided I can lead fuch a life. I leave him to the mercy of God, and to the piety of a religion that extends beyond the grave: Si qua eft ea cura, &c.

He has left me to the ticklish management of fo narrow a fortune, that any one falfe ftep would be fatal. My mother is in that difpirited state of refignation, which is the effect of long life, and the loss of what is dear to us. We are really, each of us, in want of a friend, of fuch an humane turn as yourself, to make almost any thing defirable to us. I feel your absence more than ever, at the fame time I can lefs exprefs my regards to you than ever; and shall make this, which is the most fincere letter I ever writ to you, the shortest and fainteft perhaps of any you have received. 'Tis enough if you reflect, that barely to remember any perfon when one's mind is taken up with a fenfible foris a great degree of friendship. I can fay no more, but that I love you, and all that are yours; and that I wish it may be very long before any of yours fhall feel for you, what I now feel for my father. Adieu.

row,

Yo

Rentcomb in Gloucestershire, OA. 3. 1721. OUR kind letter has overtaken me here, for I have been in and about this country ever fince your departure. I am well pleafed to date this from

a place fo well known to Mrs Blount, where I write as if I were dictated to by her ancestors, whole faces are all upon me. I fear none fo much as Sir Chriftopher Guife, who, being in his fhirt, feems as ready to combate me, as her own Sir John was to demolish Duke Lancaftere. I dare fay, your lady will recollect his figure. I look'd upon the manfion, walls, and terraces; the plantatious, and flopes, which nature has made to command a variety of valleys and rifing woods; with a veneration mix'd with a pleasure, that reprefented her to me in thofe puerile amusements, which engaged her fo many years ago in this place. I fancied 1 faw her fober over a fampler, or gay over a jointed Baby. I dare fay, fhe did one thing more, even in thofe early times: "remember'd her Creator

"in the days of her youth."

You describe so well your hermitical state of late, that none of the ancient anchorites could go beyond you, for a cave in a rock, with a fine fpring, or any of the accommodations that befit a folitary. Only I don't remember to have read that any of thofe venerable and holy perfonages took with them a lady, and begat fons and daughters. You must modestly be content to be accounted a patriarch. But were you a little younger, I should rather rank you with Sir Amadis, and his fellows. If piety be fo romantic, I fhall turn hermit in good earnett; for, I fee, one may go fo far as to be poetical, and hope to fave one's foul at the fame time. I really with myfelf fomething more, that is, a prophet; for I wish I were, as Habakkuk, to be taken by the hair of his head, and vifit Daniel in his den. You are very obliging, in faying I have