The many alarms we have from your parts, have no effect upon the genius that reigns in our country, which is happily turned to preserve peace and quiet among us. What a dismal scene has there been opened in the North! what ruin have those unfortunate rash gentlemen drawn upon themselves and their miserable followers, and perchance upon many others too, who upon no account would be their followers! However, it may look ungenerous to reproach people in distress. I don't remember you and I ever used to trouble ourselves about politics, but when any matter happened to fall into our discourse, we used to condemn all undertakings that tended towards the disturbing the peace and quiet of our Country, as contrary to the notions we had of morality and religion, which oblige us on no pretence whatsoever to violate the laws of charity. How many lives have there been lost in hot blood, and how many more are there like to be taken off in cold! If the broils of the nation affect you, come down to me, and though we are farmers, you know Eumeus made his friends welcome. You shall here worship the Echo at your ease; indeed we are forced to do so, because we can't hear the first report, and therefore are obliged to listen to the second; which, for security sake, I do not always believe neither.

It is a great many years since I fell in love with the character of Pomponius Atticus: I longed to

Is the character of a man so cold and indifferent to the state of public affairs, patriæ tempore iniquo, as was Atticus, deserving the praises bestowed on him?

imitate him a little, and have contrived hitherto to be, like him, engaged in no party, but to be a faithful friend to some in both: I find myself very well in this way hitherto, and live in a certain peace of mind by it, which, I am persuaded, brings a man more content than all the perquisites of wild ambition. I with pleasure join with you in wishing, nay I am not ashamed to say, in praying for the welfare temporal and eternal of all mankind. How much more affectionately then shall I do so for you, since I am in a most particular manner, and with all sincerity,

LETTER IV.

Your, etc.

Jan. 21, 1715-16.

I KNOW of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present, as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet, and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, as I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of: Accordingly a few days before his death he underwent the ceremony; and joined together those two sacraments which, wise men say, should be the last we receive; for, if you observe, Matrimony is placed after Extreme unction in our Catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscience of having by this one act paid his just debts, obliged a wo

man, who (he was told) had merit, and shewn an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the Lady, discharged those debts; a jointure of four hundred a year made her a recompense; and the nephew he left to comfort himself as well as he could, with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate.

our friend twice after this was done, less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request, the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her, "My dear, it is only this, that you will never marry an old man again." I cannot help remarking, that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call Humour: Mr. Wycherley shewed his, even in this last compliment: though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms?

So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles, when they concern or characterise any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments: At least our friend ended much in the character he had lived

7 An observation founded on a deep knowledge of human

nature.

in And Horace's rule for a play, may as well be applied to him as a play-wright,

Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab inceptu processerit, et sibi constet.

I am, etc.

LETTER V.

Feb. 10, 1715-16.

I AM just returned from the country, whither Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and passed a week in the Forest. I need not tell you how much a man of his turn entertained me; but I must acquaint you there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposition almost peculiar to him, which make it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which generally succeeds all

8

During this visit, it is said, that Pope desired him to write a Tragedy on the Death of Charles the First; which he declined, on account of the recency of the event, and the state of parties in this country. At the same time, also, Pope recommended to him, as another good subject for the Drama, the Story of Mary Queen of Scots; "Which, if I undertake," said Rowe, "I will by no means introduce Queen Elizabeth; for where she appears, all the Queens and Heroines upon earth will make but a little figure." He preferred, and I think injudiciously, his Tragedy of Tamerlane to all his other pieces. As Bajazet was intended to represent Louis XIV. this play was not permitted to be acted, during the latter part of Queen Anne's reign, though constantly applauded and called for, till 1710. It is truly mortifying to hear it said, that a man of so gentle, engaging, and tender a disposition, had no heart, and no sincerity in his friendships; and that even Addison held this unfavourable opinion of him.

our pleasures. I have been just taking a solitary walk by moon-shine, full of reflections on the transitory nature of all human delights; and giving my thoughts a loose in the contemplation of those satisfactions which probably we may hereafter taste in the company of separate spirits, when we shall range the walks above, and perhaps gaze on this world at as vast a distance as we now do on those worlds. The pleasures we are to enjoy in that conversation must undoubtedly be of a noble kind, and (not unlikely) may proceed from the discoveries each shall communicate to another, of God and of Nature; for the happiness of minds can surely be nothing but knowledge.

The highest gratification we receive here from company is Mirth, which at the best is but a fluttering unquiet motion, that beats about the breast for a few moments, and after leaves it void and empty. Keeping good company, even the best, is but a less shameful art of losing time. What we here call science and study, are little better: the greater number of arts to which we apply ourselves are mere groping in the dark; and even the search of our most important concerns in a future being, is but a needless, anxious, and uncertain haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what without all this solicitude we shall know a little later. We are but curious impertinents in the case of futurity. It is not our business to be guessing what the state of souls shall be, but to be doing what may make our own state happy; we cannot be knowing, but we can be virtuous.