so I earnestly wish that whatever part they must bear, may be rendered as supportable to them, as it is in the power of any friend to make it.

But I know you have prevented me in this thought, as you always will in any thing that is good, or generous: I find by a letter of your lady's (which I have seen) that their ease and tranquillity is part of your care. I believe there is some fatality in it, that you should always, from time to time, be doing those particular things that make me enamoured of you.

I write this from Windsor-Forest, of which I am come to take my last look. We here bid our neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hanged do their fellow-prisoners who are condemned to follow them a few weeks after. I parted from honest Mr. D- with tenderness; and from old Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, foretelling with lifted hands the miseries to come, from which he is just going to be removed himself.

Perhaps, now I have learnt so far as

Nos dulcia linquimus arva,

my next lesson may be

Nos Patriam fugimus.

pro

Let that, and all else be as Heaven pleases! I have vided just enough to keep me a man of honour. I believe you and I shall never be ashamed of each other. I know I wish my country well, and, if it undoes me, it shall not make me wish it otherwise.

LETTER VII.

FROM MR. BLOUNT.

March 24, 1715-16.

YOUR letters give me a gleam of satisfaction, in the midst of a very dark and cloudy situation of thoughts, which it would be more than human to be exempt from at this time, when our homes must either be left, or be made too narrow for us to turn in. Poetically speaking, I should lament the loss WindsorForest and you sustain of each other, but that methinks, one can't say you are parted, because you will live by and in one another, while verse is verse. This consideration hardens me in my opinion rather to congratulate you, since you have the pleasure of the prospect whenever you take it from your shelf, and at the same time the solid cash you sold it for, of which Virgil in his exile knew nothing in those days, and which will make every place easy to you. I for my part am not so happy; my parva rura are fastened to me, so that I can't exchange them, as you have, for more portable means of subsistence; and yet I hope to gather enough to make the Patriam fugimus supportable to me; it is what I am resolved on, with my Penates. If therefore you ask me, to whom you shall complain? I will exhort you to leave laziness and the elms of St. James's Park, and choose to join the other two proposals in one, safety and friendship, (the least of which is a good motive for most things, as the other is for almost every thing,) and with me where war will not reach us, nor paultry constables summon us to vestries.

go

The future epistle you flatter me with, will find me still here, and I think I may be here a month longer. Whenever I go from hence, one of the few reasons to

make me regret my home will be, that I shall not have the pleasure of saying to you,

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiescere noctem,

which would have rendered this place more agreeable than ever else it could be to me; for I protest, it is with the utmost sincerity that I assure you, I am entirely, Dear Sir,

Your, etc.

LETTER VIII.

June 22, 1717.

IF a regard both to public and private affairs may plead a lawful excuse in behalf of a negligent correspondent, I have really a very good title to it. I cannot say whether it is a felicity or unhappiness, that I am obliged at this time to give my whole application to Homer; when without that employment, my thoughts must turn upon what is less agreeable, the violence, madness, and resentment of modern warmakers, which are likely to prove (to some people at least) more fatal, than the same qualities in Achilles did to his unfortunate countrymen.

Though the change of my scene of life, from Windsor-Forest to the side of the Thames, be one of the grand eras of my days, and may be called a notable period in so inconsiderable a history; yet you can scarce imagine any hero passing from one stage of life to another, with so much tranquillity, so easy a transition, and so laudable a behaviour. I am become so truly a citizen of the world (according to Plato's expression) that I look with equal indifference on what I have left, and on what I have gained. The times and amusements past are not more like a dream

* This was written in the year of the affair at Preston.

to me than those which are present: I lie in a refreshing kind of inaction, and have one comfort at least from obscurity, that the darkness helps me to sleep the better. I now and then reflect upon the enjoyment of my friends, whom, I fancy, I remember much as separate spirits do us, at tender intervals, neither interrupting their own employments, nor altogether careless of ours, but in general constantly wishing us well, and hoping to have us one day in their company.

To grow indifferent to the world is to grow philosophical, or religious (whichsoever of those turns we chance to take); and indeed the world is such a thing, as one that thinks pretty much must either laugh at, or be angry with: but if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; and if we are angry with it, they say we are ill-natured. So the most politic way is to seem always better pleased than one can be, greater admirers, greater lovers, and, in short, greater fools, than we really are: so shall we live comfortably with our families, quietly with our neighbours, favoured by our masters, and happy with our mistresses. I have filled my paper, and so adieu.

LETTER IX.

Sept. 8, 1717.

I THINK your leaving England was like a good man's leaving the world, with the blessed conscience of having acted well in it; and I hope you have received your reward, in being happy where you are. I believe, in the religious country you inhabit, you will be better pleased to find I consider you in this light, than if I compare you to those Greeks and Romans, whose constancy in suffering pain, and whose resolution in pursuit of a generous end, you would rather imitate than boast of.

But I had a melancholy hint the other day, as if you were yet a martyr to the fatigue your virtue made you undergo on this side the water. I beg, if your health be restored to you, not to deny me the joy of knowing it. Your endeavours of service and good advice to the poor Papists, put me in mind of Noah's preaching forty years to those folks that were to be drowned at last. At the worst I heartily wish your ark may find an Ararat, and the wife and family (the hopes of the good patriarch) land safely after the deluge upon the shore of Totness.

If I durst mix prophane with sacred history, I would cheer you with the old tale of Brutus the wandering Trojan, who found on that very coast the happy end of his peregrinations and adventures.

I have very lately read Jeffery of Monmouth, (to whom your Cornwall is not a little beholden,) in the translation of a clergyman' in my neighbourhood. The poor man is highly concerned to vindicate Jeffery's veracity as an historian; and told me he was perfectly astonished, we of the Roman communion could doubt of the legends of his giants, while we believe those of our saints. I am forced to make a fair composition with him; and, by crediting some of the wonders of Corinæus and Gogmagog, have brought him so far already, that he speaks respectfully of St. Christopher's carrying Christ, and the resuscitation of St. Nicholas Tolentine's chicken.

1 Aaron Thompson, of Queen's College, Oxon.

Pope gave to this clergyman the following lines, being a translation of the prayer of Brutus, which ought to be preserved: Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chace, To mountain wolves and all the savage race, Wide o'er the aërial vault extend thy sway, And o'er th' infernal regions void of day. On thy third reign look down; disclose our fate, In what new station shall we fix our seat? When shall we next thy hallow'd altars raise, And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?