I LETTER XVII. AM not at all concerned to think that this letter may be lefs entertaining than fome I have fent: I know you are a friend that will think a kind letter as good as a diverting one. He that gives you his mirth makes a much leis prefent than he that gives you his heart; and true friends would rather fee fuch thoughts as they communicate only to one another, than what they fquander about to all the world. They who can fet a right value upon any thing, will prize one tender, well-meant word, above all that ever made them laugh in their lives. If I did not think fo of you, I fhould never have taken much pains to endeavour to pleafe you, by writing, or any thing else. Wit, 1 am fure, I want; at leaft in the degree that I fee others have it, who would at all feafons alike be entertaining; but I would willingly have fome qualities that may be (at fome feafons) of more comfort to myfelf, and of more fervice to my friends. I would cut off my own head, if it had nothing better than wit in it; and tear out my own heart, if it had no better difpofitions than to love only myfelf, and laugh at all my neighbours. I know you'll think it an agreeable thing to hear that I have done a great deal of Homer. If it be tolerable, the world may thank you for it: for if I could have seen you every day, and imagin'd my company could have every day pleas'd you, 1 fhould fcarce have thought it worth my while to please the world. How many verses could I gladly have left unfinish'd, and turn'd into it, for people to fay what they would of, had I been permitted to pafs all thofe hours more pleafingly? Whatever fome may think, Fame is a thing I am much less covetous of, than your friendship; for that I hope, will laft all my life; the other I cannot answer for. What if they fhould both grow greater after my death? alas! they would both be of no advantage to me! Therefore think upon upon it, and love me as well as ever you can, while I live. Now I talk of fame, I send you my Temple of Fame, which is just come out: but my sentiments about it you will fee better by this Epigram. What's Fame with men, by custom of the nation, Is call'd in women only Reputation: About them both why keep we fuch a pother? LETTER XVIII. ALL the pleasure or ufe of familiar letters, is to give us the affurance of a friend's welfare: at leaft 'tis. all I know, who am a mortal enemy and defpifer of what they call fine letters. In this view, I promise you, it will always be a fatisfaction to me to write letters and to receive them from you; because I unfeignedly have your good at my heart, and am that thing, which many people make only a fubject to display their fine fentiments upon, a Friend: which is a character that admits of little to be faid, till fomething may be done. Now let me fairly tell you, I don't like your ftyle: 'tis very pretty, therefore I don't like it; and if you writ as well as Voiture, I would not give a farthing for fuch letters, unless I were to fell them to be printed. Methinks I have loft the Mrs. L* I formerly knew, who writ and talked like other people (and fometimes better.) You must allow me to say, you have not said a fenfible word in all your letter, except where you speak of fhewing kindness and expecting it in return: but the addition you make about your being but two and twenty, is again in the style of wit and abomination. To fhew you how very unsatis factorily you write, in all your letters you've never told me how you do. Indeed I fee 'twas abfolutely neceffary for me to write to you, before you continued to take more notice of me, før I ought to tell you what you are VOL. III. Ggg to to expect; that is to say, kindness, which I never fail'd (I hope) to return; and not wit, which if I want, I am not much concerned, because judgment is a better thing; and if I had, I would make use of it rather to play upon thofe I defpifed, than to trifle with those I loved. You fee, in short, after what manner you may moft agreeably write to me: tell me you are my friend, and you can be no more at a loss about that article. As I have open'd my mind upon this to you, it may also ferve for Mr. H-, who will fee by it what manner of letters he muft expect if he correfponds with me. As I am too fe riously yours and his fervant to put turns upon you inftead of good wifhes, fo in return I should have nothing but honeft plain How-d'ye's and Pray remember me's; which not being fit to be shown to any body for wit, may be a proof we correfpond only for ourselves, in mere friendliness; as doth, God is my witness, Your very, etc. concern. LETTER XIX. IT is with infinite fatisfaction I am made acquainted that your brother will at laft prove your relation, and has entertained fuch fentiments as became him in your I have been prepared for this by degrees, having feveral times receiv'd from Mrs. that which is one of the greatest pleasures, the knowledge that others entered into my own fentiments concerning you. I ever was of opinion that you wanted no more to be vindicated than to be known. As I have often condoled with you in your adversities, fo I have a right, which but few can pretend to, of congratulating on the profpect of your better fortunes: and I hope, for the future, to have the concern I have felt for you overpaid in your felicities. Tho' you modeftly fay the world has left you, yet, I verily believe, it is coming to you again as faft as it can : for, to give the world its due, it is always very fond of merit when it is paît its power to oppofe it. Therefore, if you can, take it into favour again upon its repentance, and continue in it. But if you are refolved in revenge to rob the world of fo much example as you may afford it, I believe your defign will be vain; for even in a monaftery your devotions cannot carry you fo far toward the next world as to make this lofe the fight of you; but you'll be like a ftar, that, while it is fixed to heaven, fhines over all the earth. Wherefoever Providence fhall difpofe of the most valuable thing I know, I fhall ever follow you with my fincereft wishes, and my beft thoughts will be perpetually waiting upon you, when you never hear of me nor them. Your own guardian angels cannot be more conftant, nor more filent. I beg you will never cease to think me your friend, that you may not be guilty of that which you never yet knew to commit, an injuftice. As I have hitherto been fo in fpite of the world, so hereafter, if it be poffible you should ever be more opposed, and more deferted, I fhould only be fo much the more Your faithful, etc. I Can fay little to recommend the letters I fhall write to you, but that they will be the most impartial reprefentations of a free heart, and the trueft copies you ever faw, tho' of very mean original. Not a feature will be foftened, or any advantageous light employed to make the ugly thing a little lefs hideous; but you fhall find it, in all respects, moft horribly like. You will do me an injuftice if you look upon any thing I fhall fay from this inftant, as a compliment, either to you or to myfelf: whatever I write will be the real thought of that hour; and I know you'll no more expect it of me to perfevere till death, in every fentiment or notion I now fet down, than you would imagine a man's face fhould never change when once his picture was drawn. Ggg 2 The The freedom I fhall ufe in this manner of thinking ar loud, may indeed prove me a fool; but it will prove me one of the best fort of fools, the honeft ones. And fince what folly we have, will infallibly buoy at one time or other in fpite of all our art to keep it down; methinks, 'tis almoft foolish to take any pains to conceal it at all, and almoft knavifh to do it from thofe that are our friends. If Momus's project had taken, of having windows in our breafts, I fhould be for carrying it further, and making those windows, cafements; that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do fomething more for his friends; even give it them, and truft it to their handling. I think I love you as well as King Herod did Herodias (tho' I never had fo much as one dance with you) and would as freely give you my heart in a dish, as he did another's head. But fince Jupiter will not have it fo, I muft be content to fhew my tafte in life, as I do my tafte in painting, by loving to have as little drapery as poffible. Not that I think every body naked altogether fo fine a fight, as yourself and a few more would be, but becaufe 'tis good to use people to what they must be acquainted with; and there will certainly come fome day of judgment or other, to uncover every foul of us. We fhall then fee that the Prudes of this world owed all their fine figure only to being ftraiter-laced than the reft; and that they are naturally as arrant fquabs as those who went more loose, nay as those that never girded their loins at all. But a particular reafon that may engage you to write your thoughts the more freely to me, is, that I am confident no one knows you better; for I find, when others exprefs their thoughts of you, they fall very fhort of mine, and, I know, at the fame time, theirs are fuch as you would think fufficiently in your favour. You may cafily imagine how defirous I must be of a correfpondence with a perfon, who had taught me long ago that it was as poffible to efteem at first fight, as, to love and who has fince ruin'd me for all the converfa |