stumble upon any one repugnant; you and I should not, however, receive for a maxim, that he who affects business, never does it: nor this, that he who brings about great revolutions, is always idle: nor this, that he who expresses indifference to power, and contempt of honours, is jealous of one, and fond of the other.

Proceed we now, dear doctor, to the application. A man in business, and a man who is out of it, may equally talk of philosophy; that is certain. The question is, whether the man in business may not practise it, as well as the man out of business? I think he may, in this sense, as easily; but sure I am, he may, in this sense, as usefully. If we look into the world, our part of it I mean, we shall find, I believe, few philosophers in business, or out of business. The greatest part of the men I have seen in business, perhaps all of them, have been so far from acting on philosophical principles, that is, on principles of reason and virtue, that they have not acted even on the highest principles of vice. I have not known a man of real ambition; a man who sacrificed all his passions, or made them all subservient to that one; but I have known many, whose vanity and whose avarice mimicked ambition. The greatest part of the men I have seen out of business, have been so far from praċtising philosophy, that they have lived in the world errant triflers; or retiring from it, have fallen into stupid indolence, and deserved such an inscription as Seneca mentions, in one of his letters to Lucilius, to have been put over the door of one Vattia, "Hic situs est Vattia." But, for

all this, I think that a man in business may prac tise philosophy as austerely to himself, and more beneficially to mankind, than a man out of it. The stoicks were an affected, pedantical sect; but I have always approved that rule of the Portique, that a philosopher was not to exempt himself from the duties of society, neither in the commuuity to which he particularly belonged, nor in the great community of mankind. Memcius and his master Confucius, were strange metaphysicians, but they were good moralists, and they divided their doctrines into three parts; the duties of a man, as an individual, as a member of a family, and as a member of a state. In short, a man may be, many men have been, and some, I believe, are philosophers in business; he that can be so out of it, can be sò in it.

But it is impossible to talk so much of philosophy, and forget to speak of Pope. He is actually rambling from one friend's house to another. He is now at Cirencester; he came thither from my lord Cobham's; he came to my lord Cobham's from Mr. Dormer's; to Mr. Dormer's from London; to London from Chiswick; to Chiswick from my farm to my farm from his own garden; and he goes soon from lord Bathurst's to lord Peterborow's; after which, he returns to my farm again. The demon of verse sticks close to him. He has been imitating the satire of Horace, which begins Ambubaiarum collegia pharmacopolo, &c. and has chosen rather to weaken the images, than to hurt chaste ears overmuch. He has sent it me; but I shall keep his secret as he desires, and shall not, I think, return him the copy; for the rogue has fixed a ridi

cule

cule upon me, which some events of my life would seem perhaps to justify him in doing. I am glad you approve his moral essays. They will do more good than the sermons and writings of some, who had a mind to find great fault with them. And if the doctrines taught, hinted at, and implied in them, and the trains of consequences deducible from these doctrines, were to be disputed in prose, I think he would have no reason to apprehend either the free-thinkers on one hand, or the narrow dogmatists on the other. Some few things may be expressed a little hardly; but none are, I believe, unintelligible. I will let him know your complaints of his silence; which I wonder at the more, because he has often spoke in such a manner, as made me conclude you heard from him pretty regularly. Your compliments shall be paid likewise to the other friends you mention.

You complain of the vast alteration which the last seven years have made in you; and do you believe, that they have not made proportionable alterations in us? Satisfy yourself they have. We all go the same road, and keep much the same stages. Let this consideration, therefore, not hinder you from coming among us. You shall ride, walk, trifle, meddle, chide, and be as ill-bred as you please; and the indulgence you receive on these heads you shall return on these or others. Adieu.

I will speak to you about books next time I write, if I can recollect what I intended to say upon a passage in your letter; or if any thing else, worth saying, comes into my head. Adieu, my friend.

FROM THE EARL OF OXFORD.

GOOD MR. DEAN,

DOVER STREET, AUG. 8, 1784

IT is now so long since I have troubled you with

a letter, that I am almost quite ashamed to do it now; but the truth of the case is this, I cannot be longer easy any farther to defer my making my due acknowledgments to you in the best manner I can, for the many kind remembrances I have received from under your own hand, and your obliging. notice of me in your letters to Mr. Pope, &c. It was an extreme great pleasure to me to find that I still maintained a share in your thoughts, that I was still worthy to receive your commands; I did my best, I did all that lay in my power to obey them; I wish there had been better success. I assure you this, that there is no person (I speak without excepting one) whose commands I would more readily obey than yours; I hope you will be so good as to indulge me, and make use of your power often; I value myself not a little upon this score, and you see here how easy it is for you to make one happy, which is more than can be said of

I shall now take the liberty to talk to you a little upon family affairs; and my encouragement to do it proceeds from this, that ever since I have been so fortunate to be acquainted with you, you have in the kindest manner always taken a part in whatever fortune befel me or my family.

Indulge

Indulge therefore the fondness of a father, to detain you so long, as to give a sincere friend some account of the completing a great work, the disposal of an only daughter in marriage, and in these times.

The whole affair was conducted with as much care and consideration as we were capable of: when we looked over and weighed the many offers that had been proposed to us, and what sort of creatures they were composed of, this person we have now chosen had the fairest and most unexceptionable character, and as his composition is the most unlike the generality of the young gentlemen of this age, which you will think was no small ingredient. toward our ap÷ probation of him; as I hope and long much to see you in England, I believe when you see the duke * you will be pleased with him, and you will not disapprove of our choice; as he is free from the prevailing qualifications of the present set of young people of quality, such as gaming, sharping, pilfering, lying, &c. &c. so on the contrary, he is endowed with qualifications they are strangers to; such as justice, honour, excellent temper both of mind and body, affability, living well with his own family; and the manner in which he proposed himself was what became a gentleman and a man of honour. Thus you see I have given you a long account of this affair, and the reasons which induced us to consent to this match. I flatter myself that you will not be displeased with the account I have given you of the gentleman to whom we have given our daughter.

* William Bentinck, the second duke of Portland. D. S.

My