every body that comes near me as a friend: this is too much; it dissipates me when I should be collected; for though I may be of some (not much) value to a few, yet, divided among so many, I must be good for nothing. Life becomes a mere pastime. When shall you and I sit by a fire-side without a brief or a poem in our hands, and yet not idle, not thoughtless, but as serious, and more so, than any business ought to make us, except the great business, that of enjoying a reasonable being, and regarding its end? The sooner this is the case the better. God deliver you from law, me from rhyme, and give us leisure to attend to what is more important. Believe me, dear Sir,. with all affection, but in great hurry, for my foot is in the coach the moment my hand is off this paper: [May all happiness wait on Buckland and Fallapit :] Entirely yours. DEAR SIR, LETTER XLIX. Sunday Night. SINCE I left you, I am informed Curll has served a process upon Cooper (the publisher of the letters which I told you I connived at, who entered them in the Hall book), for what I know not, only I am told he put an advertisement into a newspaper against Curll. I bid him send you the process, that you may judge what is to be done in it. If any thing be necessary, pray ac quaint me. I send Mrs. Blount's receipt, as you ordered. God prosper you, protect you, bless you, as I love you, and shall ever do. Dear Sir, write me a line of your health. LETTER L. DEAR SIR, Friday Night, Nov. 1735. Give I HOPE this finds you well arrived. I was put into more solicitude than I expected, for your health, by Dr. Hollings, who the other day told me you had been out of order, of which I knew nothing. I hope in God it is quite over. me a line when I may see you most at leisure. I think to be in town on Monday or Tuesday. The man whom Curll served with a process, just before you went out of town, I suppose should have the assistance of an attorney, to appear for him the first day of term, to know what it is for. I am always impatient to see you, dear Sir, and always faithfully Yours. DEAR SIR, LETTER LI. I HAVE just received a note from Mrs. Blount, that she and Lady Gerard will dine here to-day, which puts off my intention on Lord Hay. I wish you would dine with them, and we may go to Lord Hay's in the evening. But this, you see, hinders my being wholly at your service till to-morrow, when I will certainly be so at any place or time. Yours affectionately ever. DEAR SIR, LETTER LII. LADY GERARD was to see Chiswick gardens (as I imagined), and therefore forced to go from hence by five it was a mortification to Mrs. Blount to go, when there was a hope of seeing you and Mrs. Fortescue. I cannot get back tonight for want of a vehicle, but will be at home by eleven or twelve by water, ready to go with you to Jervas, unless you all care to come and see Chiswick in the morning by ten, which, if you do not, I will set out on my voyage. Adieu! dear Sir. DEAR SIR, You LETTER LIII. Friday Night. ou may think I have forgot you, and I may think you have forgot me; neither of us will think so wrong. but I believe The truth is, have been neither at home nor at London a day together; for my Lord Peterborough came very ill from Hantshire to Kensington a fortnight since, and has ever since kept his chamber, where I have been to help him pass his time almost daily. It was but yesterday that I left him well enough to stay at Twitnam for a few days. If this reach you in time, and at leisure, I hope it will bring you hither for a night. As soon as I return to town, you shall be troubled with me. Adieu! and may all health attend you, as I wish. Yours always. DEAR SIR, YOUR LETTER LIV. March 26, 1736. OUR very kind letter was not more kind than entertaining, in the agreeable description of Monmouth and its situation. And what you tell me of your own temper of mind, in the present discharge of your office, I feel very livelily with and for you. It is a dreadful duty, yet a noble one; and the hero you thought so much of at Monmouth, had, or ought to have had, his glory overcast and saddened, with the same reflection: how many of his own species he sentenced to death in every battle he gave. I am not so clear in his character as in that of Edward the Third. There seems a little too much of a turn to vanity, and knight (king errantry I would say) in his motives of quarrel with the Dauphin of France. And it appears by some of the monkish historians that he was much a bigot, and persecuted hotly for religion. After all, your office of a judge is more conscientious, and tends much more directly to public welfare. You may certainly, with a better title than any conqueror, sleep heartily, provided it be not upon the bench. You guessed rightly, (I should now say rather, you judged rightly,) when you supposed this weather was too fine to be sacrificed in London, where the sun shines on little else than vanity; but I have paid for taking my pleasure in it too exorbitantly. The sun at this season, and in this climate, is not to be too much depended on. Miseri quibus intentata nites! may be applied to the favours and smiles of the English planet, as properly as to those of an Italian lady. The matter of my complaint is, that it has given me a rheumatism in one arm to a violent degree, which lies useless and painful on one side of this paper, while the other is endeavouring to converse with you at this distance. God knows, if your family be across the water just now, I shall not be able once to see them there. But it is not five days ago that they were in London, at that filthy old place, Bell-yard, which you know I want them and you to quit. I was to see them one of the only two days I have been in town this fortnight, Your too partial mention of the book of Letters, with all its faults and follies, which Curll printed and spared not, (nor yet will spare, for he has published a fourth sham volume yesterday,*) makes one think it may not be amiss to send you, what I know you will be much more pleased with than I The third and fourth volume of Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, as surreptitiously published by Curll. |