LETTERS

TO AND FROM

THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY,'

From 1717 to 1727.

LETTER I.

TO THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY.

b

June 2, 1717.

HAD pleased myself sooner in writing to you, but that I have been your successor in a fit of sickness, and am not yet so much recovered, but that I have thoughts of using your physicians. They are as grave persons as any of the faculty, and (like the ancients) carry their own medicaments about with them. But indeed the moderns are such lovers of raillery, that nothing is grave enough to escape them. Let them laugh, but people will still have their opinions as they think our doctors asses to them, we'll think them asses to our doctors.

I am glad you are so much in a better state of health, as to allow me to jest about it. My concern, when I heard of your danger, was so very serious, that

a Second son of William, fifth Lord Digby.

b Asses.

I almost take it ill Dr. Evans should tell you of it, or you mention it. I tell you fairly, if you and a few more such people were to leave the world, I would not give sixpence to stay in it.

I am not so much concerned as to the point whether you are to live fat or lean: most men of wit or honesty are usually decreed to Eve very lean: so I am inclined to the opinion that it is decreed you shall; however be comforted, and reflect, that you will make the better busto for it.

'Tis something particular in you, not to be satisfied with sending me your own books, but to make your acquaintance continue the frolic. Mr. Warton forced me to take Gorboduc, which has since done me great credit with several people, as it has done Dryden and Oldham some diskindness: in shewing there is as much difference between their Gorboduc and this, as between Queen Anne and King George. It is truly a scandal, that men should write with contempt of a piece which they never once saw, as those two poets did, who were ignorant even of the sex, as well as sense, of Gorboduc.

Adieu! I am going to forget you: this minute you took up all my mind; the next I shall think of nothing but the reconciliation with Agamemnon, and the recovery of Briseis. I shall be Achilles's humble servant these two months (with the good leave of all my friends). I have no ambition so strong at present as that noble one of Sir Salathiel Lovel, recorder of London, to furnish out a decent and plentiful execution of Greeks and Trojans. It is not to be expressed how heartily I wish the death of all Homer's heroes, one after another. The Lord preserve me in the day of battle, which is just approaching! Join in your prayers for me, and know me to be always

Your, etc. Dr. Evans, the well-known epigrammatist of St. John's College, Father of Dr. Joseph and Thomas Warton.

Oxford.

LETTER II.

London, March 31, 1718.

you are

TO convince you how little pain I give myself in corresponding with men of good-nature and good understanding, you see I omit to answer your letters till a time, when another man would be ashamed to own he had received them. If therefore ever moved on my account by that spirit which I take to be as familiar with you as a quotidian ague, I mean the spirit of goodness, pray never stint it, in any fear of obliging me to a civility beyond my natural inclination. I dare trust you, Sir, not only with my folly when I write, but with my negligence when I do not; and expect equally your pardon for either.

:

If I knew how to entertain you through the rest of this paper, it should be spotted and diversified with conceits all over: you should be put out of breath with laughter at each sentence, and pause at each period, to look back over how much wit you have passed. But I have found by experience that people now-a-days regard writing as little as they do preaching the most we can hope is to be heard just with decency and patience, once a week, by folks in the country. Here in town we hum over a piece of fine writing, and we whistle at a sermon. The stage is the only place we seem alive at ! there indeed we stare and roar, and clap hands for K. George and the government. As for all other virtues but this loyalty, they are an obsolete train, so ill-dressed, that men, women, and children, hiss them out of all good company. Humility knocks so sneakingly at the door that every footman outraps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain-glory.

My Lady Scudamore, from having rusticated in your company so long, really behaves herself scandalously among us: she pretends to open her eyes for the sake of seeing the sun, and to sleep because it is night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have said her prayers before: talks, without any manner of shame, of good books, and has not seen Cibber's play of the Nonjuror. I rejoiced the other day to see a libel on her toilette, which gives me some hope that you have, at least, a taste of scandal left you, in defect of all other vices.

you

Upon the whole matter, I heartily wish well; but as I cannot entirely desire the ruin of all the joys of this city, so all that remains is to wish you would keep your happiness to yourselves, that the happiest here may not die with envy at a bliss which they cannot attain to. I am, etc.

LETTER III.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

Coleshill, April 17,1718.

I HAVE read your letter over and over with delight. By your description of the town, I imagine it to lie under some great enchantment, and am very much concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the more afraid, imagining, since you do not fly those horrible monsters, rapine, dissimulation, and luxury, that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you cannot escape. We are here in the country in quite another world, surrounded with blessings and pleasures, without any occasion of exercising our irascible faculties: indeed we cannot boast of good-breeding and the art of life, but yet we don't live unpleasantly in primitive simplicity and good humour. The fashions of the town affect us but just like a raree-show, we have