verfation I am cut off by fuch accidents or engagements as separate us. I continue, and ever fhall, to wifh you all good and happiness: I 'wifh that fome lucky event might fet you in a state of eafe and independency all at once! And that I might live to fee you as happy as this filly world and fortune can make any one. Are we never to live together more, as once we did? I find my life ebbing apace, and my affections strengthening as my age encreases; not that I am worse, but better, in my health than last winter; but my mind finds no amendment nor improvement, nor fupport to lean upon, from thofe about me: and fo I find myself leaving the world, as fast as it leaves me. Companions I have enough, friends few, and thofe too warm in the concerns of the world, for me to bear pace with; or else fo divided from me, that they are but like the dead whose remembrance I hold in honour. Nature, temper, and habit from my youth made me have but one strong defire; all other ambitions, my perfon, education, conftitution, religion, etc. confpired to remove far from me. That defire was, to fix and preserve a few lafting, dependable friendships: and the accidents which have difappointed me in it, have put a period to all my aims. So I am funk into an idleness, which makes me neither care nor labour to be noticed by the rest of mankind; I propofe no rewards to myfelf, and why fhould I take any fort of pains? Here I fit and fleep, and probably here I fhall fleep till I fleep for ever, like the old man of Verona. I hear of what paffes in the bufy world with fo little attention, that I forget it the next day; and as to the learned world, there is nothing paffes in it. I have no more to add, but that I am, with the fame truth as ever, LETTER XXII. Your, etc. October 23, 1730. YOUR UR letter is a very kind one*, but I can't say fo pleafing to me as many of yours have been, through the account you give of the dejection of your fpirits. I wish the too conftant ufe of water does not contribute to it; I find Dr. Arbuthnot and another very knowing phyfician of that opinion. I alfo wifh you were not fo totally immersed in the country; I hope your return to town will be a prevalent remedy against the evil of too much recollection. I wish it partly for my own fake. We have lived little together of late, and we want to be phyficians for one another. It is a remedy that agreed very well with us both, for many years, and I fancy our conftitutions would mend upon the old medicine of Studiorum Similitudo, *In all this correfpondence with Gay, there appears to be a vein of more natural fentiments, and eafy unaffected language, than in most of his other Letters. militudo, etc. I believe we both of us want whetting; there are feveral here who will do you that good office, merely for the love of wit, which feems to be bidding the town a long and last adieu. I can tell you of no one thing worth reading, or feeing; the whole age seems refolved to justify the Dunciad, and it may ftand for a public Epitaph or monumental Inscription like that at Thermopyla, on a whole people perished! There may indeed be a Wooden image or two of Poetry set up, to preferve the memory that there once were bards in Britain; and (like the Giants in Guildhall) fhew the bulk and bad taste of our ancestors: at prefent the poor Laureat and Stephen Duck ferve for this purpose; a drunken fot of a Parfon holds forth the emblem of Infpiration, and an honest industrious Thresher not unaptly reprefents Pains and Labour. I hope this Phænomenon of Wiltshire has appeared at Amesbury, or the Duchefs will be thought insensible to all bright qualities and exalted geniuses, in court and country alike. But he is a harmless man, and therefore I am glad. This is all the news talked of at Court, but it will please you better to hear that Mrs. Howard talks of you, though not in the fame breath with the Trefher, as they do of me. By the way, have you seen or converfed with Mr. Chubb, who is a wonderful phænomenon of Wiltshire? I have read through his whole i Eufden. W. * He was a glover at Salisbury. How came the Commentator to imagine that the City fet him up to rival Locke? k whole volume with admiration of the writer; though not always with approbation of the doctrine. I have past just three days in London in four months, two at Windfor, half an one at Richmond, and have not taken one excurfion into any other country. Judge now whether I can live in my library. Adieu. Live mindful of one of your first friends, who will be fo till the laft. Mrs. Blount deferves your remembrance, for fhe never forgets you, and wants nothing of being a friend'. I beg the Duke's and her Grace's acceptance of my fervices the contentment you exprefs in their company pleases me, though it be the bar to my own, in dividing you from us. I am ever, very truly, Your, etc. * This was his quarto Volume, written before he had given any figns of these extravagancies, which have fince rendered his name fo noted. As the Court fet up Mr. Duck for the rival of Mr. Pope, the City at the fame time confidered Chubb, as one who would eclipfe Locke. The modefty of the Court Poet kept him fober in the very intoxicating fituation, while the vanity of this new-fangled Philofopher affifted his fage admirers in turning his head. W. 1 Alluding to thofe lines in the Epift. on the Characters of Women, "With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, "Say, what can Chloe want?-She wants a heart. W, LETTER XXIII. October 2, 1732. IR Clem. Cottrel tells me you will shortly come to SIR town. We begin to want comfort in a few friends about us, while the winds whistle, and the waters roar. The fun gives us a parting look, but 'tis a cold one; we are ready to change those diftant favours of a lofty beauty, for a gross material fire that warms and comforts more. I wish you could be here till your family come to town: you'll live more innocently, and kill fewer harmless creatures, nay none, except by your proper deputy, the butcher. It is fit for confcience fake, that you should come to town, and that the Duchefs fhould ftay in the country, where no innocents of another fpecies may fuffer by her. I hope fhe never goes to church: the Duke fhould lock both up, and lefs harm would be done. I advise you to make man your game, hunt and beat about here for Coxcombs, and trufs up Rogues in Satire I fancy they'll turn to a good account, if you can produce them fresh, or make them keep and their relations will come, and buy their bodies of you. you The death of Wilks leaves Cibber without a colleague, abfolute and perpetual dictator of the ftage, though indeed while he lived he was but as Bibulus to Cæfar. However, ambition finds fomething to be gratified |