agreeable companion, this nation ever had.

I REALLY do not love life fo dearly, or fo weakly, as to value it on any other score, than for that portion of happiness which a friend only can beftow upon it: or, if I must want that myself, for the pleasure which is next it, of seeing deferving and virtuous people happy. So that indeed I want comfort; and the greatest I can receive from you (at least unless I were fo happy as to deferve what I never can) will be to hear you grow better

Ι

till

till you grow perfectly well, perfectly eafy, and perfectly happy, which no one more fincerely wishes than,

LETTER XII.

MADAM,

Twitenham, Sept. 26, 1723.

T would be a vanity in me to tell

IT

you why I trouble you so foon again: I cannot imagine myself of the number of those correspondents whom you call favourite ones; yet I

know

know it is thought, that industry may make a man what merit cannot: and if an old maxim of my Lord Oxford's be true, That in England if a man refolve to be any thing, and constantly stick to it, he may (even a Lord Treasurer): if fo, I fay, it fhall not be want of resolution that shall hinder me from being a favourite. In good earnest, I am more ambitious of being fo to you, Madam, than I ever was, or ever shall be, of being one to any Prince, or (which is more) any Prince's Minister, in Christendom.

I WISH I could tell you any agreeable news of what your heart is concerned in, but I have a fort of quarrel to Mrs. H for not loving herself fo well as fhe does her friends; for those she makes happy, but not herfelf.

THERE is an air of sadness about her which grieves me, and which, I have learnt by experience, will increase upon an indolent (I will not fay an affected) refignation to it.

It