I

Dear Sir,

LETTER XVI.

O&. 6, 1727.

HAVE many years ago magnified in my own mind, and repeated to you, a ninth Beatitude, added to the eighth in the Scripture; "Blessed is he who ex"pects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." I could find in my heart to congratulate you on this happy difmiffion from all Court dependance; I dare fay I shall find you the better and the honester man for it many years hence; very probably the healthfuller and the chearfuller into the bargain. You are happily rid of many curfed ceremonies, as well as of many ill and vicious Habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackneyed and tramelled in the ways of a court. Princes indeed, and Peers (the lackies of Princes), and Ladies (the fools of Peers), will fmile on you the less; but men of worth, and real friends, will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which Kings and Queens cannot give you, (for they have it not to give,) Liberty, and which is worth all they have; which, as yet, I thank God, Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the fatisfactory consciousness of having not merited fuch graces from courts as are bestowed only on the mean, fervile, flattering, interested, and undeferving.

The

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The only steps to the favour of the Great are fuch complacencies, fuch compliances, fuch diftant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their paffions. He is their greatest favourite† who is the falfeft; and when a man by fuch vile gradations, arrives at the height of grandeur and power, he is then at best but in a circumstance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged, for ferving their ends: fo many a Minifter has found it!

I believe you did not want advice in the letter you sent by my Lord Grantham; I prefume you writ it not, without: and you could not have better,

if

Is the picture of Minifters and Courtiers and Great Men, drawn by the mafterly hand of a perfon of much experience and obfervation, Mad. Maintenon, faithful and true?

"Je ne fuis point portée à la defiance, & j'aurois vecu long-temps fans croire les hommes auffi mauvais qu'on les dit; mais la Cour change les meilleurs. Prefque tous noyent leurs parens & leur amis pour dire un mot de plus au Roi, & pour lui montrer qu'ils lui facrifient tout. Ce pays eft effroyable, il n'y a point de tête qui n'y tourne. Enfin les hommes font tres mal dans mon efprit, & je ne regarde pas les femmes. Cependant je reçois la compagnie ; & quelle compagnie! Je fuis obfedée ou de femmes que je meprife, ou d'hommes qui ne m'aiment point. Je vois, j'entends des chofes qui me deplaifent, ou qui m'indignent. Je m'obferve fans ceffe pour retenir mon impatience, & pour empêcher qu'on ne s'apperçoive que je la retiens. Nous avons des affaffinats de fang froid, des envies fans fujet, des rages, des trahifons fans reffentimens, des avarices infatiables, des défefpoirs au melieu du bonheur, des baffeffes, qu'on couvre du nom de grandeur d'ame. Je me tais, je n'y puis penfer fans emportement."

This fatire is carried to excefs. The Great, as they are called, are neither fo bad or fo good, as they are ufually reprefented to be.

if I guess right at the person who agreed to your doing it, in respect to any Decency you ought to ob ferve: for I take that person to be a perfect judge of decencies and forms. I am not without: fears even on that person's account: I think it a bad omen: but what have I to do with Court-omens ?-Dear Gay, adieu. I can only add a plain uncourtly fpeech: While you are nobody's fervant, you may be any one's friend; and, as fuch, I embrace you, in alt conditions of life. While I have a fhilling, you fhall have fix-pence, nay eight-pence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat. I am faithfully

"TWA WAS two or three weeks ago that I writ you a letter; I might indeed have done it sooner; I thought of you every poft-day upon that account, and every other day upon fome account or other. I must beg you to give Mrs. B. my fincere thanks for her kind way of thinking of me, which I have heard of more than once from our friend at court, who seemed, in the letter fhe writ, to be in high health and spirits. Confidering

Confidering the multiplicity of pleasures and deliglits that one is over-run with in thofe places, I wonder how any body hath health and spirit enough to fupport them: I am heartily glad fhe has, and whenever I hear fo, I find it contributes to mine. You fee I am not free from dependance, though I have lefs attendance than I had formerly; for a great deal of my own welfare ftill depends upon hers. Is the widow's house to be difpofed of yet? I have not given up my pretenfions to the Dean: if it was to be parted with, I wish one of us had it; I hope you wish fo too, and that Mrs. Blount and Mrs. Howard with the fame, and for the very fame reason that I wish it. All I could hear of you of late hath been by advertisements in news-papers, by which one would think the race of Curls was multiplied; and by the indignation fuch fellows fhow against you, that you have more merit than any body alive could have. Homer himself hath not been worse used by the French. I am to tell you that the Duchess makes you her compliments, and is always inclined to like any thing you do; that Mr. Congreve admires, with me, your fortitude; and loves, not envies, your performance; for we are not Dunces. Adieu.

LETTER XVIII.

April 18, 1730.

I'

F my friendship were as effectual at it is fincere, you would be one of thofe people who would be vastly advantaged and enriched by it. I ever honoured thofe Popes who were most famous for Nepotifm, 'tis a fign that the old fellows loved Somebody, which is not usual in fuch advanced years. And I now honour Sir Robert Walpole for his extenfive bounty and goodness to his private friends and relations. But it vexes me to the heart when I reflect, that my friendfhip is fo much lefs effectual than theirs; nay fo utterly useless that it cannot give you any thing, not even a dinner at this distance, nor help the General, whom I greatly love, to catch one fish. My only confolation is to think you happier than myself, and to begin to envy you, which is next to hating you (an excellent remedy for love). How comes it that Providence has been fo unkind to me, (who am a greater object of compaffion than any fat man alive,) that I am forced to drink wine, while you riot in water, prepared with oranges by the hand of the Duchefs of Queensberry? that I am condemned to live by a highway fide, like an old Patriarch, receiving all guests, where my portico (as Virgil has it)

Mane falutantum totis vomit ædibus undam,