fome urns for my garden. The minifterial writers rail at me; yet I have no quarrel with their masters, nor think it of weight enough to complain of them; I am very well with the Courtiers I ever was, or would be acquainted with. At least they are civil to me; which is all I afk from Courtiers, and all a wife man will expect from them. The Duchefs of Marlborough makes great court to me; but I am too old for her, mind and body; yet I cultivate fome young people's friendship, because they may be honest men: whereas the old ones experience too often proves not to be fo'; I having dropped ten where I have taken up one, and I hope to play the better with fewer in my hand. There is a Lord Cornbury, a Lord Polwarth *, a Mr. Murray t, and one or two more, with whom I would never fear to hold out against all the corruption of the world.

You compliment me in vain upon retaining my poetical fpirit; I am finking faft into profe: and if I ever write more, it ought (at thefe years, and in thefe times) to be fomething, the matter of which will give a value to the work, not merely the manner.

Since my proteft (for fo I call my Dialogue of 1738) I have written but ten lines, which I will fend you. They are an infertion for the next new edition of the Dunciad, which generally is reprinted once in two years. In the fecond Canto, among the authors

who

*Now Earl of Marchmont.
The late Lord Chief Justice.

who dive in Fleet-ditch, immediately after Arnal,

verfe 300, add thefe:

Next plung'd a feeble, but a desp’rate pack,
With each a fickly brother, at his back;
Sons of a day! juft buoyant on the flood,
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Alk ye their names? I could as foon difclofe
The names of those blind puppies, as of those.
Faft by, like Niobe, her children gone,
Sits mother Oborne, ftupified to stone;
And needful Paxton * tells the world with tears,
These are, ah! no; these were my Gazetteers.

ment.

Having nothing to tell you of my poetry, I come to what is now my chief care, my health and amufeThe first is better, as to head-achs; worse as to weakness and nerves. The changes of weather affect me much, otherwife I want not fpirits, except when indigestions prevail. The mornings are my life; in the evenings I am not dead indeed, but fleep, and am ftupid enough. I love reading ftill, better than conversation: but my eyes fail, and at the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labour of the paft day fufficient to weigh me down. So I hide myself in bed, as a bird in his nest, much about the fame time, and rise and chirp the earlier in the morning. I often vary the scene (indeed

* A Solicitor, who procured and paid thofe writers. Mr. Pope's MS. note. The line is now changed:

And monumental brass this record bears,
Thefe are, &c.

(indeed at every friend's call) from London to Twickenham; or the contrary, to receive them, or be received by them.

Lord Bathurst is ftill my conftant friend, and yours; but his country-feat is now always in Gloucestershire, not in this neighbourhood. Mr. Pulteney has no country-feat; and in town I fe him feldom ; but he always asks after you. In the fummer, I generally ramble for a month to Lord Cobham's, the Bath, or elsewhere. In all these rambles, my mind is full of you, and poor Gay, with whom I travelled fo delightfully two fummers. Why cannot I cross the fea? The unhappiest malady I have to complain of; the unhappiest accident of my whole life, is that weakness of the breast, which makes the phyficians of opinion that a strong vomit would kill me. I have never taken one, nor had a natural motion that way in fifteen years. I went, fome years ago, with Lord Peterborow about ten leagues at fea, purely to try if I could fail without fea-fickness, and with no other view than to make yourself and Lord Bolingbroke a visit before I died.

But the experiment, though almost all the way near the coast, had almost ended all my views at once. Well then, I must submit to live at the distance which fortune has fet us at: but my memory, my affections, my esteem, are infeparable from you, and will, my dear friend, be for ever yours.

P. S.

P. S. This I end at Lord Orrery's, in company with Dr. King. Wherever I can find two or three that are yours, I adhere to them naturally, and by that title they become mine. I thank you for fending Mr. Swift to me; he can tell

you more of me.

LETTER LV.

Auguft 28, 1731.

ou and the Duchefs ufe me very ill, for, I proYOU fefs, I cannot distinguish the style or the handwriting of either. I think her Grace writes more like you than herself, and that you write more like her Grace than yourfelf. I would fwear the beginning of your letter writ by the Duchefs, though it is to pass for yours; because there is a curfed lie in it, that she is neither young nor healthy, and befides it perfectly resembles the part fhe owns. I will likewise swear, that what I must suppose is written by the Duchefs, is your hand; and thus I am puzzled and perplexed between you, but I will go on in the innocency of my own heart. I am got eight miles from our famous metropolis, to a country Parfon's, to whom I lately gave a City-living, fuch as an English Chaplain would leap at. I retired hither for the public good, having two great works in hand: one to reduce the whole politenefs, wit, humour, and style

style of England into a short fyftem, for the ufe of all perfons of quality, and particularly the maids of honour. The other is of almost equal importance;

I

may call it the Whole Duty of Servants, in about twenty several stations, from the steward and waitingwoman down to the fcullion and pantry-boy '.-I believe no mortal had ever fuch fair invitations, as to be happy in the best company of England; I wish I had liberty to print your letter with my own comments upon it. There was a fellow in Ireland, who from a fhoe-boy grew to be several times one of the chief governors, wholly illiterate, and with hardly common fense: a Lord Lieutenant told the first King George, that he was the greateft fubject he had in both kingdoms; and truly his character was gotten and preferved by his never appearing in England, which was the only wife thing he ever did, except purchasing fixteen thousand pounds a year—Why, you need not stare: it is eafily applied: I must be absent, in order to preserve my credit with her Grace Lo, here comes in the Duchefs again (I know her by her dd's; but am a fool for discovering my Art) to defend herself against my conjecture of what she faid-Madam, I will imitate your Grace, and write to you upon the fame line. I own it is a bafe

e

Waghtaff's Dialogues of Polite Conversation, published in his life-time.

W.

f An imperfect thing of this kind, called Directions to Servants in general, has been published fince his death.

W.