I believe I fhall get home on Wednesday night. I hope Lady Suffolk will not go fooner for Stowe, and, if not, I'll go with her willingly. Nothing can be more affecting and melancholy to me than what I fee here: yet he takes my vifit fo kindly, that I fhould have lost one great pleasure, had I not come. I have nothing more to fay, as I have nothing in my mind but this present object, which indeed is extraordinary. This man was never born to die like other men, any more than to live like them *.

I am ever yours, etc.

LETTER XVIII.'

TO THE SAME.

Stowe, July 4.

THE post after I writ to you, I received, with great pleasure, one from you; and it increased that pleafure to hope you would be in a little time in the country, which you love fo well, and when the weather is fo good. I hope it will not be your fate, though it commonly proves that of others, to be deferted by all your friends at court. friends at court. I direct to your

own house, supposing this will be sent after you, and

having

A few other particulars of Lord Peterborough's death are

given in a Letter to Swift, in Vol. IX.

C.

having no furer way. For the fame reafon, I have directed a haunch of venison to be fent Mrs. Dryden› in cafe you are out of town. It will arrive next Monday early at Lord Cobham's in Hanover-fquare; but if you are in town, and would have it otherwife difpofed of, you may prevent it, by fending thither over night a new direction to the porter. I will fend you another from Hagley, if you appoint beforehand where it fhall be left. Your next direction is to Sir Thomas Lyttleton, at Hagley near Stowerbridge, Worcestershire, where I hope to be on the tenth, or fooner, if Mr. Lyttleton come. Mr. Grenville was here, and told me he expected him in two or three days; so I think we may travel on the eighth or ninth. Though I never faw this place in half the beauty and perfection it now has, I want to leave it, to haften my return towards you; or otherwife I could pafs three months in agreeable rambles and flow journies. 1 dread that to Worcester and back; for every one tells me it is perpetual rock, and the worst of rugged roads which really not only hurt me at present, but leave confequences very uneafy to me. The Duke of Argyle was here yesterday, and affures me what Mr. Lyttleton talks of as one day's journey must be two, or an intolerable fatigue. He is the happiest man he ever was in his life. This garden is beyond all defcription in the new part of it: I am every hour in it, but dinner and night, and every hour envying myself the delight of it, because not partaken by you, who would

E 3

would fee it better, and confequently enjoy it more. Lady Cobham and Mrs. Speed, who (except two days) have been the fole inhabitants, wish you were here, as much at least as they wifhed for their gowns, which are not yet all recovered, and therefore I fear yours is not. You might be more at your own difpofal than usually; for every one takes a different way, and wanders about, till we meet at noon. All the mornings we breakfast and difpute; after dinner, and at night, mufic and harmony; in the garden, fifhing; no politics and no cards, nor much reading. This agrees exactly with me; for the want of cards fends us early to bed. I have no complaints, but that I wish for you and cannot have you. I will fay no more-but that I think of and for you, as I ever did and ever shall, prefent or abfent. I can really forget every thing befides.

I don't fee that any thing can be done as to Mr. Ruffel, except having the lease carried to Mr. Arbuthnot, and the alterations added. He will correct the draft; and if it be ready for figning, fo much the better for else I fear the lawyers will be all out of town before fhe returns.

I defire you will write a poft-letter to my man John*, at what time you would have the pine-apples to fend Lady Gerard, and whither he is to fend them in town? I have had none yet; but I bade him fend you the very first that ripened, I mean, for yourself.

*John Searle, of whom in his will.

But

C.

But if you are out of town, pray tell him to whom he fhall fend it? I have alfo ordered him, as foon as feveral of them ripen, to inquire of you where and when you would have any, which I need not say are

wholly at your fervice *.

The poft comes in crofsly here, and after I have written for the most part: but I keep this to the last, in cafe I have any letter to-night, that I may add to it, as I fincerely fhall, my thanks, whenever you oblige me by writing, but still more by thinking me, and all I fay, fincere; as you safely may, and always may.— Wednesday, 12 o'clock.

Adieu. I am going to the Elyfian fields, where I fhall meet your idea.

The poft is come in without any letters which I need answer; which is a pleasure to me, except with regard to yours. I did not expect another from you, but as you faid in your first that you might send one; and I thank you for the intention. I hope the more, that you are out of town for it, and fhall rejoice the more when I have one. Pray take care of yourself. Mr. Bethel is got well home.

Adieu, once more. I am going to dream of you.
Nine at night.

These little anxieties fhew the afcendancy Martha Blount acquired over Mr. Pope, and which fhe preferved to the laft. Whatever the nature of their attachment, they were mutually entangled beyond all power of feparation. Mr. Duncombe, in a Letter to Archbishop Herring, fays, "Mr. Pope, I hear, has left the bulk of his fortune to Mrs. Blount; a Lady, to whom, it is thought, he either was, or at leaft ought to have been, married." C.

I

LETTER XIX.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR MADAM,

Stowe, Saturday.

THINK you will not complain again that I don't write often enough; but as to long letters, it is hard to fay much, when one has nothing to tell you but what you should believe of course, and upon long experience. All is repetition of one great truth, which is leffened, when it really is fo, by too frequent profeffions. And then the other things are of places and perfons that little or not at all affect you, or interest you. You have often rebuked me for talking too much of myself and my own motions; and it is furely more trifling and abfurd to write them, than to talk them; confidering too that the clerks of the postoffice read thefe letters. But I am not at all ashamed, that they and all the world know how much I esteem you, or fee that I am one who continue to live with men out of favour at court, with the fame regard as if they were in power. Mrs. Blount's friend, and Lord Cobham's friend, and Mr. Lyttleton's friend, does not envy them, nor their master's best friends; and has more honour, and lefs impertinent curiofity, than to open any of their letters, did they fal! in his way. Nor does he think they have any fecrets more worth inquiry than what they will find in this letter. So I go on to tell you, that I am extremely well, as well

as