LETTER XLVI.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR,

November 21.

EVERY thing was welcome to me in your kind letter, except the occasion of it, the confinement you are under. I am glad you count the days when I do not see you: but it was but half an one that I was in town upon business with Dr. Mead, and returned to render an account of it.

I shall in the course of the winter probably be an evening visitant to you, if you sit at home, though I hope it will not be by compulsion or lameness. We may take a cup of sack together, and chatter like two parrots, which are at least more reputable and manlike animals than the grasshoppers, to which Homer likens old men.

I am glad you sleep better. I sleep in company, and wake at night, which is vexatious: if you did so, you at your age would make verses. As to my health, it will never mend; but I will complain less of it, when I find it incorrigible.

But for the news of my quitting Twit'nam for Bath, enquire into my years, if they are past the bounds of dotage? Ask my eyes if they can see, and my nostrils if they can smell? To prefer rocks and dirt to flowery meads and silver Thames, and brimstone and fogs to roses and sun-shine. When I arrive at these sensations, I may settle at Bath, of which I never yet dreamt, further than to live just out of the sulphurous

pit, and at the edge of the fogs at Mr. Allen's, for a month or so. I like the place so little, that health itself should not draw me thither, though friendship has twice or thrice.

Having answered your questions, I desire to hear if you have any commands. If the first be to come to you, it's probably I shall, before you can send 'em so round about as to Twit'nam, for I have lived of late at Battersea.

Adieu !

Yours, etc.

LETTER XLVII.

TO MR. BETHEL'.

August 9, 1733.

You might well think me negligent or forgetful of you, if true friendship and sincere esteem were to be measured by common forms and compliments. The truth is, I could not write them, without saying something of my own condition, and of my loss of so old and so deserving a parent, which really would have troubled you; or I must have kept a silence upon that head, which would not have suited that freedom and sincere opening of the heart which is due to you from me. I am now pretty well; but my home is

9

Hugh Bethel, Esq. was a gentleman of family and fortune in Yorkshire, who is celebrated in two fine lines in the Essay on Man, b. iv. 1. 125. on account of the asthma with which he was afflicted. The late Alderman was of the same family; and the estate was lately held by Capt. C. Codrington, a brother of Sir William, who took the name of Bethel.

uneasy to me still, and I am therefore wandering about all this summer. I was but four days at Twickenham since the occasion that made it so melancholy. I have been a fortnight in Essex, and am now at Dawley (whose master is your servant), and going to Cirencester to Lord Bathurst. I shall also see Southampton with Lord Peterborow. The Court and Twit'nham I shall forsake together. I wish I did not leave our friend', who deserves more quiet, and more health and happiness, than can be found in such a family. The rest of my acquaintance are tolerably happy in their various ways of life, whether court, country, or town; and Mr. Cleland is as well in the Park, as if he were in Paradise. I heartily hope, Yorkshire is the same to you; and that no evil, moral or physical, may come near you.

I have now but too much melancholy leisure, and no other care but to finish my Essay on Man: there will be in it one line that may offend you (I fear), and yet I will not alter or omit it, unless you come to town and prevent me before I print it, which will be in a fortnight in all probability. In plain truth I will not deny myself the greatest pleasure I am capable of receiving, because another may have the modesty not to share it. It is all a poor poet can do to bear testimony to the virtue he cannot reach: besides that, in this age, I see too few good Examples You see what an

not to lay hold on any

interested man I am.

I can find.
Adieu.

1 Mrs. B. W.

LETTER XLVIII.

ΤΟ

September 7, 1733.

You cannot think how melancholy this place makes me; every part of this wood puts into my mind poor Mr. Gay, with whom I passed once a great deal of pleasant time in it, and another friend who is near dead, and quite lost to us, Dr. Swift. I really can find no enjoyment in the place; the same sort of uneasiness as I find as Twit'nham, whenever I pass near my Mother's room.

I've not yet writ to Mrs. . . I think I should, but have nothing to say that will answer the character they consider me in, as a wit; besides, my eyes grow very bad (whatever is the cause of it), I'll put them out for nobody but a friend; and, I protest, it brings tears into them almost to write to you, when I think of your state and mine. I long to write to Swift, but cannot. The greatest pain I know, is to say things so very short of one's meaning, when the heart is full.

I feel the going out of life fast enough, to have little appetite left to make compliments, at best useless, and for the most part unfelt speeches. 'Tis but in a very narrow circle that Friendship walks in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than I needs must; knowing well, it is but two or three (if quite so many) that any man's welfare, or memory, can be of consequence: the rest, I believe,

2 Mrs. B. W.

I may forget, and be pretty certain they are already even, if not beforehand with me.

Life, after the first warm heats are over, is all downhill and one almost wishes the journey's end, provided we were sure but to lie down easy whenever the Night shall overtake us.

She has dwelt

I dreamed all last night of. (a little more than perhaps is right) upon my spirits: I saw a very deserving gentleman in my travels, who has formerly, I have heard, had much the same misfortune; and (with all his good-breeding and sense) still bears a cloud and melancholy cast, that never can quite clear up, in all his behaviour and conversation. I know another, who, I believe, could promise, and easily keep his word, never to laugh in his life. But one must do one's best, not to be used by the world as that poor lady was by her sister; and not seem too good, for fear of being thought affected, or whimsical.

It is a real truth, that to the last of my moments, the thought of you, and the best of my wishes for you, will attend you, told or untold.

I could wish you had once the constancy and resolution to act for yourself, whether before or after I leave you (the only way I ever shall leave you), you must determine; but reflect, that the first would make me, as well as yourself, happier; the latter could make you only so. Adieu.