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LETTER XIV.

ou cannot be furprised to find him a dull correfpondent whom you have known fo long for a dull companion. And though I am pretty fenfible, that if I have any wit, I may as well write to fhow it, as not; yet I will content myself with giving you as plain a hiftory of my pilgrimage, as Purchas himself, or as John Bunyan could do of his walking through the wil derness of this world, etc.

*

*

First then I went by water to Hampton-Court, unattended by all but my own virtues; which were not of fo modest a nature as to keep themselves, or me, concealed: for I met the Prince with all his ladies on horfeback, coming from hunting. Mrs. B and Mrs. L took me into protection, (contrary to the laws against harbouring Papists,) and gave me a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of converfation with Mrs. H*. We all agreed that the life of a Maid of Honour was of all things the most miferable and wifhed that every woman who envied it, had a specimen of it. To eat Weftphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges † and ditches on borrowed

Mary Bellenden, Mary Lepell, Maids of Honour to the Princefs; Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countefs of Suffolk. It is well known that at the time this was written, unmarried ladies were called generally Mrs's. Mifs Bellenden and Lepell have been before fpoken of.

At this time it was the fashion for ladies of distinction to ride hunting in Windfor foreft.

rowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark in the forehead from an uneafy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for foxhunters, and bear abundance of ruddy complexioned children. As foon as they can wipe off the sweat of the day, they must fimper an hour, and catch cold, in the Princess's apartment: from thence (as Shakespear has it) to dinner, with what appetite they may-and after that, till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they please. I can eafily believe, no lone-house in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this Court; and as a proof of it, I need only tell you, Mrs. L* † walked with me three or four hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality but the King, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain, all alone, under the garden-wall.

In short, I heard of no ball, affembly, basset-table, or any place where two or three were gathered together, except Madam Kilmanfegg's, to which I had the honour to be invited, and the grace to stay away.

* I was heartily tired, and posted to- park: there we had an excellent difcourfe of quackery; Dr. S. was mentioned with honour. 'Lady walked a whole hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the time I stayed, thwerth fhe feemed to be fainting, and had convulfive rper, As several times in her head. I arrived

+ Lepell.

* Some paffages of a very grofs kind are here omitted. The wonder is that they could have ever been addreffed to a Lady. The Dr. S

was Dr. Shadwell? and the Lady

Lady Arran. C.

I arrived in the foreft by Tuesday noon, having fled from the face (I wish I could fay the horned face) of Mofes, who dined in the midway thither. I paffed the rest of the day in those woods where I have fo often enjoyed a book and a friend; I made a Hymn as I paffed through, which ended with a figh, that I will not tell you the meaning of *.

Your Doctor is gone the way of all his patients, and was hard put to it how to dispose of an estate miferably unwieldy, and fplendidly unufeful to him. Sir Samuel Garth says, that for Ratcliffe to leave † a

library,

"All hail! once pleafing, once infpiring fhade,
Scene of my youthful loves, and happier hours!
Where the kind Mufes met me, a. I ftray'd,

And gently prefs'd my hand, and faid, Be ours.
Take all thou ere fhall have, a conftant Mufe:

At court thou may'ft be lik'd, but nothing gain: Stocks thou may'st buy and fell, but always lofe; And love the brighteft eyes, but love in vain. "On Thursday I went to Stonor, which I have long had a mind to fee fince the romantic defcription you gave me of it. The me lancholy which my wood and this place have spread over me, will go near to caft a cloud upon the rest of my letter, if I don't make hafte to conclude it here. I know you wish my happiness so much, that I would not have you think I have any other reason to be melancholy: And after all, he must be a beaft that is fo, with two fuch fine women for his friends. 'Tis enough to make any creature eafy, even fuch an one as Your humble Servant." What follows in the printed Letter, pears to have been added by Pope for publication.

C.

Because it was notorious the Maiad little learning; but he poffeffed what was better, wonderfteacity and penetration in judging of difeafes. Dr. Young has the fame fimile in his fecond fatire:

Unlearned men of Books affume the care,
As Eunuchs are the guardians of the Fair.

WARTON.

library, was as if a Eunuch fhould found a Seraglio. Dr. S lately told a Lady, he wondered fhe could be alive after him: fhe made anfwer, fhe wondered

at it for two reafons, because Dr. Ratcliffe was dead, and because Dr. S was living. I am

ten

LETTER XV. *

*

Your, etc.

OTHING could have more of that melancholy which once used to please me, than my last day's jour ney it for after having paffed through my favourite wood In the forest, with a thousand reveries of past pleaf her, I rid over hanging hills, whose tops were edged with groves, and whofe feet watered with winding rivers, listening to the falls of cataracts below, and the murmuring of the winds above: the gloomy verdure of Stonor fucceeded to these; and then the shades of the evening overtook me. The moon rofe in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whofe folemn light I paced on flowly, without company, or any interruption to the range of my thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells tolled in different notes; the clocks of every college answered one another, and founded forth (fome in a deeper, some a softer tone)

that

To Martha Blount. This is a pleafing and very interesting defcription.

that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led fince, among those old walls, venerable galleries, ftone porticos, ftudious walks, and folitary scenes of the univerfity. I wanted nothing but a black gown and a falary, to be as mere a book-worm as any there. I conformed myself to the college hours, was rolled up in books, lay in one of the most ancient, dufky parts of the University, and was as dead to the world as any hermit of the defart. If any thing was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity, fuch as even those good men used to ent tain, when the monks of their own order extolled ther piety and abstraction. For I found myself received with a fort of respect, which this idle part of man' ind, the learned, pay to their own fpecies; who e as confiderable here, as the bufy, the gay, and

bitious are in your world.

am

Indeed I was treated in fuch a manner, that I could not but sometimes ask myself in my mind, what college I was founder of, or what library I had built? Methinks, I do very ill to return to the world again, to leave the only place where I make a figure, and, from feeing myself seated with dignity on the most confpicuous fhelves of a library, put myself into the abject posture of lying at a lady's feet in St. James's Square *.

I will not deny, but that, like Alexander, in the -midst of my glory I am wounded, and find myself a

mere

* "Go to contemplate this wretched perfon in the abject condition of lying at a lady's feet in Bolton ftreet." Orig. The Mifs Blounts at this time refided in Bolton Street.

C.