Methinks, the moft heroic thing we are left capable of doing, is to endeavour to lighten each other's load, and (oppreffed as we are) to fuccour fuch as are yet more oppreffed. If there are too many who cannot be affifted but by what we cannot give, our money; there are yet others who may be relieved by our counfel, by our countenance, and even by our chearfulness. The misfortunes of private families, the misunderstandings of people whom diftreffes make fufpicious, the coldness of relations whom change of religion may difunite, or the neceffities of half ruined eftates render unkind to each other; these at least may be foftened in fome degree, by a general wellmanaged humanity among ourselves; if all those who have your principles of belief, had alfo your fenfe and conduct. But indeed most of them have given lamentable proofs of the contrary; and it is to be apprehended that they who want fenfe, are only religious through weakness, and good-natured through shame. These are narrow-minded creatures that never deal in effentials, their faith never looks beyond ceremonials, nor their charity beyond relations. As poor as I am, I would gladly relieve any diftreffed, confcientious French refugee at this inftant: what must my concern then be, when I perceive fo many anxieties now tearing those hearts, which I have defired a place in, and clouds of melancholy rifing on thofe faces, which I have long looked upon with affection? I begin already to feel both what fome apprehend, and

what

what others are yet too stupid to apprehend. I grieve with the old, for fo many additional inconveniences and chagrins, more than their fmall remain of life feemed destined to undergo; and with the young, for fo many of those gaieties and pleasures (the portion of youth) which they will by this means be deprived of. This brings into my mind one or other of thofe I love beft, and among them the widow and fatherless, late of -. As I am certain no people living had an earlier and truer sense of others misfortunes, or a more generous refignation as to what might be their own, so I earnestly wish that whatever part they must bear, may be rendered as fupportable to them, as it is in the power of any friend to make it.

But I know you have prevented me in this thought, as you always will in any thing that is good, or generous: I find by a letter of your Lady's (which I have feen) that their ease and tranquillity is part of your care. I believe there is fome fatality in it, that you fhould always, from time to time, be doing thofe particular things that make me enamoured of you.

I write this from Windfor-Foreft, of which I am come to take my last look. laft look. We here bid our neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hanged do their fellow-prisoners, who are condemned to follow them a few weeks after. I parted from honeft Mr. D* with tenderness; and from old Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, foretelling with

lifted hands the miferies to come, from which he is just going to be removed himself. Perhaps, now I have learnt fo far as

Let that, and all elfe be as Heaven pleafes! I have provided juft enough to keep me a man of honour. I believe you and I fhall never be afhamed of each other. I know I wish my Country well, and, if it undoes me, it fhall not make me wifh it otherwise.

YOUR

LETTER VII.

FROM MR. BLOUNT.

March 24, 1715-16.

OUR letters give me a gleam of fatisfaction, in the midst of a very dark and cloudy situation of thoughts, which it would be more than human to be exempt from at this time, when our homes muft either be left, or be made too narrow for us to turn in. Poetically speaking, I fhould lament the lofs WindforForest and you fuftain of each other, but that methinks, one can't say you are parted, because you will live by and in one another, while verse is verse. This confideration hardens me in my opinion rather to congratulate you, fince you have the pleasure of

the

the profpect whenever you take it from your shelf, and at the fame time the folid cash you fold it for, of which Virgil in his exile knew nothing in those days, and which will make every place easy to you. I for my part am not so happy; my parva rura are fastened to me, fo that I can't exchange them, as you have, for more portable means of fubfiftence; and yet I hope to gather enough to make the Patriam fugimus fupportable to me; it is what I am refolved on, with my Penates. If therefore you afk me, to whom you fhall complain? I will exhort you to leave laziness and the elms of St. James's Park, and choose to join the other two proposals in one, safety and friendship, (the least of which is a good motive for most things, as the other is for almost every thing,) and go with me where war will not reach us, nor paultry conftables fummon us to veftries.

The future epistle you flatter me with, will find me ftill here, and I think I may be here a month longer. Whenever I go from hence, one of the few reasons to make me regret my home will be, that I fhall not have the pleasure of faying to you,

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiefcere noctem, which would have rendered this place more agreeable than ever elfe it could be to me; for I proteft, it is with the utmost fincerity that I affure you, I am en

tirely,

Dear Sir,

Your, etc.

LETTER VIII.

June 22, 1717.

IF

a regard both to public and private affairs may plead a lawful excuse in behalf of a negligent correfpondent, I have really a very good title to it. I cannot fay whether it is a felicity or unhappiness, that I am obliged at this time to give my whole application to Homer; when without that employment, my thoughts must turn upon what is lefs agreeable, the violence, madness, and resentment of modern Warmakers, which are likely to prove (to fome people at least) more fatal, than the fame qualities in Achilles did to his unfortunate countrymen.

Though the change of my fcene of life, from Windfor-Foreft to the fide of the Thames, be one of the grand Era's of my days, and may be called a notable period in fo inconfiderable a history; yet you can fcarce imagine any hero paffing from one stage of life to another, with fo much tranquillity, fo eafy a transition, and fo laudable a behaviour. I am become fo truly a citizen of the world (according to Plato's expreffion) that I look with equal indifference on what I have left, and on what I have gained. The times and amusements past are not more like a dream to me, than those which are present: I lie in a refreshing kind of inaction, and have one comfort at leaft

This was written in the year of the affair at Freston.

P.