all, I defire to be thought serious. It would be vexatious indeed, if you fhould pretend to take that for wit, which is no more than the natural overflowing of a heart improved by an esteem for you; but fince you tell me you believe me, I fancy my expreffions have not been entirely unfaithful to my thoughts.

May your faith be encreased in all truths, that are as great as this; and depend upon it, to whatever degree it may extend, you never can be a bigot.

If you could fee the heart I talk of, you would readily think it a foolish good kind of thing, with some qualities as well-deferving to be half-laughed at, and half-esteemed, as most hearts in the world.

Its grand foible in regard to you, is the most like Reason of any foible in nature. Upon my word, this heart is not like a great warehouse, stored only with my own goods, or with empty spaces to be supplied as fast as Intereft or Ambition can fill them: but is every inch of it let out into lodgings for its friends, and shall never want a corner where your idea will always lie as warm, and as clofe, as any idea in Christendom.

If this distance (as you are so kind as to say) enlarges your belief of my friendship, I affure you, it has fo extended my notion of your value, that I begin to be impious upon that account, and to wifh that even flaughter, ruin, and defolation may interpofe between you and the place you defign for; and that you were restored to us at the expence of a whole people.

Is there no expedient to return you in peace to the bofom of your country? I hear you are come as far as: do you only look back to die twice? Is Eurydice once more snatched to the shades? If ever mortal had reason to hate the King, it is I, whose particular misfortune it is, to be almost the only innocent person he has made to fuffer; both by his Government at home, and his Negociations abroad. If you muft go from us, I with at least I with at least you might pass to your banishment by the most pleasant way; that all the road might be roses and myrtles, and a thousand objects rife round you, agreeable enough to make England lefs defirable to you. It is not now my interest to wish England agreeable it is highly probable it may use me ill enough to drive me from it. Can I think that place my country, where I cannot now call a foot of paternal Earth my own? Yet it may seem fome alleviation, that when the wisest thing I can do is to leave my country, what was most agreeable in it should first be snatched away from it.

I could overtake you with pleasure in —, and make that tour in your company. Every reasonable entertainment and beautiful view would be doubly engaging when you partook of it. I fhould at least attend you to the fea coafts, and cast a last look after the fails that transported you. But perhaps I might care as little to stay behind you; and be full as uneafy to live in a country where I faw others perfecuted by the rogues of my own religion, as where I was perfecuted

myself

myself by the rogues of yours. And it is not impoffible I might run into Afia in search of liberty; for who would not rather live a freeman among a nation of flaves, than a flave among a nation of freemen? In good earnest, if I knew your motions, and your exact time; I verily think, I should be once more happy in a fight of you next fpring.

I'll conclude with a wifh, God fend

you

with us,

or me with you.

LETTER XXII.

ou will find me* more troublesome than ever

you

Brutus did his evil Genius; I fhall meet you in more places than one, and often refresh your memory before you arrive at your Philippi. These fhadows of me (my letters) will be haunting you from time to time, and putting you in mind of the man who has really fuffered very much from you, and whom you have robbed of the most valuable of his enjoyments, your converfation. The advantage of hearing your fentiments by discovering mine, was what I always thought a great one, and even worth the risque I generally run of manifesting my own indiscretion. You then rewarded my truft in you the moment it was given, for you pleased and informed me the minute

you

*This and the preceding Letter are to Lady Wortley Montagu.

you answered. I must now be contented with more flow returns. However, 'tis fome pleasure, that your thoughts upon paper will be a more lasting poffeffion to me, and that I fhall no longer have caufe to complain of a loss I have so often regretted, that of any thing you faid, which I happened to forget. In earneft, Madam, if I were to write to you as often as I think of you, it must be every day of my life. I attend you in fpirit through all your ways, I follow you through every stage in books of travels, and fear for you through whole folios; you make me fhrink at the past dangers of dead travellers; and if I read of a delightful profpect, or agreeable place, I hope it yet fubfifts to please you. I enquire the roads, the amusements, the company, of every town and country through which you pass, with as much diligence, as if I were to set out next week to overtake you. In a word, no one can have you more constantly in mind, not even your Guardian-angel (if you have one); and I am willing to indulge fo much popery as to fancy fome Being takes care of you, who knows your value better than you do yourself: I am willing to think that Heaven never gave fo much felf-neglect and refolution to a woman, to occafion her calamity; but am pious enough to believe thofe qualities must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory.

Your first short letter only ferves to show me you are alive it puts me in mind of the first dove that re

turned

turned to Noah, and juft made him know it had found no rest abroad.

There is nothing in it that pleases me, but when you tell me you had no fea-sickness. I beg your next may give me all the pleasure it can, that is, tell me any that you receive. You can make no difcoveries that will be half fo valuable to me as thofe of your own mind. Nothing that regards the states or kingdoms you pass through, will engage fo much of my curiofity or concern, as what relates to yourself: your welfare, to fay truth, is more at my heart than that of Christendom.

I am fure I may defend the truth, though perhaps not the virtue, of this declaration. One is ignorant, or doubtful at best, of the merits of differing religions and governments: but private virtues one can be fure of. I therefore know what particular Perfon has defert enough to merit being happier than others, but not what Nation deferves to conquer or oppress another. You will fay, I am not public-fpirited; let it be fo, I may have too many tendernesses, particular regards, or narrow views; but at the fame time I am certain that whoever wants thefe, can never have a public fpirit; for (as a friend of mine fays) how is it poffible for that man to love twenty thousand people, who never loved one?

I communicated your letter to Mr. C—; he thinks of you and talks of you as he ought, I mean as I do, and one always thinks that to be just as it