LETTER XXXV.

TO HIS FATHER.

THIS

Dear Sir,

HIS is to beg you would inquire of Mrs. Clark, if she will board a family for the fummer in her houfe, and at what rate? Be pleafed alfo to ask at the house over-against ours, Mr. Gafcoin's fifter, if she will board, &c. and how many beds there are to be let there, and the lowest rate? and fend word by the firft poft you can to me. I am very well, and beg you both to believe me most affectionately,

Your, etc.

LETTER XXXVI.

TO HIS BROTHER.

Dear Brother,

Saturday.

I HOPE to be with you on Monday next: if you

don't see me that night, I defire you to fend a man and horse (such a one as I may ride fafely) on Tuef day morning to the Toy by Hampton-Court gate by ten o'clock, and I will not fail to wait upon you; which being all the business of this letter, I fhall add no more, than that I am my fifter's and

Yours most affectionately.

tentions of fending for you with the chariot on Thursday or Friday next, in order to get you hither. I have named the latest day that I could poffibly allow you to stay from us, being obliged to lend the chariot upon a journey on Saturday. We will take no denial, and therefore expect no excufe, or answer to the contrary, from you. If I hear nothing (as I hope I fhan't) it shall certainly come one of the days aforesaid so pray be in readiness. My hearty love to you both, and my mother's kindest remembrances. I am always, dear fifter,

Your, etc.

SIR,

MY

into

LETTER XXXVIII.*

FROM MRS. M. BLOUNT.

Sunday Morning.

y fifter and I fhall be at home all day if any company come that you don't like, I'll go up any room with you: I hope we shall see you.

Your, etc.

*This Letter, it has been obferved, is short, but very much to the purpose!

AB

BOVE all other news, fend us the beft, that of your good health, if you enjoy it; which Mr. Harcourt made us very much fear. If you have any defign either to amend your health, or your life, I know no better expedient than to come hither, where you should not want room though I lay myself in a truckle-bed under the Doctor. You might here converse with the old Greeks, be initiated into all their customs, and learn their prayers by heart as we have done: the Doctor, last Sunday, intending to say Our Father, was got half way in Chryfes' prayer to Apollo. The ill effects of contention and fquabbling, fo lively described in the first Iliad, make Dr. Parnelle and myfelf continue in the most exemplary union in every thing. We deferve to be worshipped by all the poor, divided, factious, interested poets of this world.

fo

any

As we rife in our fpeculations daily, we are grown grave, that we have not condefcended to laugh at of the idle things about us this week: I have contracted a feverity of afpect from deep meditation on high fubjects, equal to the formidable front of blackbrowed Jupiter, and become an awful nod as well, when I affent to fome grave and weighty propofition

of

of the Doctor, or inforce a criticism of my own. In a word, Y—g* himself has not acquired more tragic majesty in his aspect by reading his own verses, than I by Homer's.

In this state I cannot confent to your publication of that ludicrous trifling burlesque you write about. Dr. Parnelle also joins in my opinion, that it will by no means be well to print it.

Pray give (with the utmost fidelity and esteem) my hearty service to the Dean, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and to Mr. Fortefcue. Let them alfo know at Button's that I am mindful of them. I am, divine Bucoliaft!

THY LOVING COUNTRYMAN.

I

Dear Sir,

LETTER XL.

TO THE SAME.

October 23.

HAVE been perpetually troubled with sickness of late, which has made me fo melancholy, that the immortality of the foul has been my constant speculation, as the mortality of my body my conftant plague. In good earnest, Seneca is nothing to a fit of illness.

Dr.

Dr. Edward Young.

Dr. Parnelle will honour Tonfon's Mifcellany with fome very beautiful copies, at my request. He enters heartily into our defign: I only fear his stay in town may chance to be but fhort. Dr. Swift much approves what I proposed, even to the very title, which I defign fhall be, The Works of the Unlearned, published monthly, in which whatever book appears that deferves praise, fhall be depreciated ironically, and in the fame manner that modern critics take to undervalue works of value, and to commend the high productions of Grub-street.

I fhall go into the country about a month hence, and fhall then defire to take along with me your poem of the Fan*, to confider it at full leifure. I am deeply engaged in poetry, the particulars whereof fhall be deferred till we meet.

I am very defirous of feeing Mr. Fortefcue when he comes to town, before his journey; if you can any way acquaint him of my defire, I believe his good-nature will contrive a way for our meeting. I am ever, with all fincerity, dear Sir,

Your, etc.

From this circumftance, the date of the prefent Letter

fhould be 1713. See p. 179 of this Volume.

C.