riod, to look back over how much wit you have
pafled. But I have found by experience that people
now-a-days regard writing as little as they do preach-
ing : the moft we can hope is to be heard juft 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 whiftle at a fermon. The ftage is the
only place we feein alive at ! there indeed we flare,
and
FROM MR. DIGBY. 45
and roar, and clap hands for K. George and the
government. As for all other virtues but this loy-
alty, they are an obfolete train, fo ill-drefied, that
men, women, and children hifs them out of all good
company. Humility knocks fo fneakingly 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 rufticated in
your company too long, really behaves herfelf fcanda-
loufly among us : me pretends to open her eyes for
the fake of feeing the fun, and to fleep becaufe it is
night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is
thought to have faid her prayers before: talks, with-
out any manner of fhame, of good books, and has not
feen Gibber's play of the Nonjuror *. I rejoiced the
other day to fee a libel on her toilette, which gives
me fome hope that you have, at leaft, a tafte of fcan-
dal left you, in defect of all other vices.
Upon the whole matter, I heartily wifh you well j
but as I cannot entirely defire the ruin of all the joys
of this city, fo all that remains is to wifh you would
keep your happinefs to yourfelves, that the happieft
here may not die with envy at a blifs which they can-
not attain to.
I am, etc.
* Ciller always iafifted, that this comedy, founded on the ad-
mirable Tartujf'e of Moliere, was the chief caufe of our author's
refentraent againft him. It met with great fuccefs on the flage.
46 LETTERS TO AND
LETTER III.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
Cole/hill, April 17, 1718.
T HAVE read your letter over and over with delight.
By your defcription of the town, I imagine it to
lie under fome great enchantment, and am very much
concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the
more afraid, imagining, fmce you do not fly thofe
horrible monfters, rapine, dimmulation, and luxury,
that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you can-
not efcape. We are here in the country in quite an-
other world, furrounded with bleffings and pleafures,
without any occafion of exercifing our irafcible fa-
culties ; indeed we cannot boaft of good -breading
and the art of life, but yet we don't live unpleafantly
in primitive fimplicity and good humour. The fa-
mions of the town afFecl us but juft like a raree-fhow,
we have a curiofity to peep at them, and nothing
more. What you call pride, prodigality, and vain-
glory, we cannot find in pomp and fplendor at this
diftance ; it appears to us a fine glittering fcene,.
which if we don't envy you, we think ,you happier
than we are, in your enjoying it. Whatever you
may think to perfuade us of the humility of virtue,
and her appearing in rags amongft you, we can never
believe : our uninformed minds reprefent her fo no-
ble to us, that we neceflarily annex fplendor to her :
and
FROM MR. DIGBY. 47
and we could as foon imagine the order of things in-
verted, and that there is no man in the moon, as be-
lieve the contrary. I cannot forbear telling you we
indeed read the fpoils of Rapine as boys do the Eng-
lifh Rogue, and hug ourfelves full as much over it ;
yet our rofes are not without thorns. Pray give me
the pleafure of hearing (when you are at leifure)
how foon I may expect to fee the next volume of
Homer.
I am, etc.
LETTER IV.
May i, 1720.
XT OU'LL think me very full of myfelf, when after
long filence (which however, to fay truth, has
rather been employed to contemplate of you, than
to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I
find it is in the finiming a book, as in concluding a
feflion of Parliament, one always thinks it will be
very foon, and finds it very late. There are many
unlooked-for incidents to retard the clearing any pub-
lic account, and fo I fee it is in mine. I have plagued
myfelf, like great minifters, with undertaking too
much for one man ; and with a defire of doing more
than was expected from me, have done lefs than I
ought.
For
4 8 LETTERS TO AND
For having defigned four very laborious and un-
common fort of Indexes to Homer, I'm forced, for want
of time, to publifh two only : the defign of which
you will own to be pretty, though far from being
fully executed. I've alfo been obliged to leave un-
finimed in my defk the heads of two Effays, one on
the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another
on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they muft
wait for future editions, or perifh : and (one way or
other, no great matter which) dablt deus his quoque
fnem. I think of you every day, I affure you, even
without fuch good memorials of you as your fitters,
with whom I fometimes talk of you, and find it one of
the moft agreeable of all fubjects to them. My Lord
Digby muft be perpetually remembered by all who
ever knew him, or knew his children. There needs
no more than acquaintance with your family, to
make all elder fons wifh they had fathers to their lives
end.
I can't touch upon the fubjeft of filial love, with-
out putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a
fincere, hearty, old-fafhioned refpect for you, and
conftantly blames her fon for not having writ to you
oftener to tell you fo.
I very much wifh (but what fignifies my wifhing ?
My Lady Scudamore wifhes, your filters wiih) that
you were with us, to compare the beautiful contraft
this feafon affords us, of the town and the country.
No ideas you could form in the winter can make you
imagine
FROM MR. DIGBY. 49
imagine what Twickenham * is (and what your friend
Mr. Johnfon of Twickenham is) in this warmer fea-
fon. Our river glitters beneath an unclouded fun, at
the fame time that its banks retain the verdure of
mowers : our gardens are offering their firft nofe-
gays ; our trees, like new acquaintance brought
happily together, are flretching their arms to meet
each other, and growing nearer and nearer every
hour ; the birds are paying their thankfgiving fongs
for the new habitations I have made them : my build-
ing rifes high enough to attraft the eye and curiofity
of the paifenger from the river, where, upon be-
holding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he enquires
what houfe is falling, or what church is rifing ? So
little tafte have our common Tritons of Vitruvius ;
what-
* I cannot write verfes, fays Voltaire, in the 4th volume of his
Letters, fo well as Pope. But my houfe is better than his, and I
keep a better table ; thanks to the care and attention of Madame
Denis. If the name of Voltaire has been frequently repeated in
thofe volumes, it will be found on due examination, that his opi-
nions have as frequently been cenfured as commended. It is as
impofiible to deny that he had great genius and wit, as it is not to
lament the manner in which he too often ufed them. The French
Republicans have of late contributed to lower his reputation
among us, by daring to claim and to honour him as a Patron and
Defender of their principles ; when it was notorious that he was a
lover of monarchy, duly moderated and rightly underftood : and
if he had lived to fee the various miferies of his countrymen,
would certainly, if we may judge from his writings, have expofed
and condemned the cruelty and injuftice they have been guilty of
with his utmoft energy and force.
VOL. VIII. E
50 LETTERS TO AND
whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may
take, in reflecting on their ftreams, my Tufcan porti-
cos, or Ionic pilafters.
But (to defcend from all this pomp of ftyle) the
beft account of what I am building, is, that it will
afford me a few pleafant rooms for fuch a friend as
yourfelf, or a cool fituation for an hour or two for
Lady Scudamore, when me will do me the honour
(at this public houfe on the road) to drink her own
cyder.
The moment I arn writing this, I am furprized
wkh the account of the death of a friend of mine ;
which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere
jeft ! Buildings, gardens, writings, pleafures, works of
whatever Huff man can raife ! None of them (God
knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mor-
tal, or of fatisfying a foul that is immortal 1 Dear
Sir,
I am, etc.
LETTER V.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
May 21, 1720.
X^OUR letter, which I had two pofls ago, was very
medicinal to me ; and I heartily thank you for
the relief it gave me. I was lick of the thoughts of
my not having in all this time given you any tefti-
i mony
FROM MR* DIGBY. 51
mony of the affection I owe you, and which I as con-
ftantly indeed feel as I think of you. This indeed
was a troublefome ill to me, till, after reading your
letter, I found it was a moft idle weak imagination to
think I could fo offend you. Of all the impreffions
you have made upon me, I never received any with
greater joy than this of your abundant good-nature,
which bids me be aflured of fome mare of your af-
fections.
I had many other pleafures from your letter ; that
your mother remembers me, is a very fincere joy to me:
I cannot but reflect how alike you are ; from the time
you do any one a favour, you think yourfelves obliged
as thofe that have received one. This is indeed an
old-fafhioned refpect, hardly to be found out of your
houfe. I have great hopes, however > to fee many
old-famioned virtues revive, fince you have made our
age in love with Homer ; I heartily wifh you, who
are as good a citizen as a poet, the joy of feeing a
reformation from your works. I am in doubt whe-
ther I mould congratulate your having rimmed Ho-
mer, while the two eflays you mention are not com-
pleted ; but if you expect no great trouble from
rimming thefe, I heartily rejoice with you.
I have fome faint notion of the beauties of Twic-
kenham from what I here fee round me. 'The verdure
of mowers is poured upon every tree and field about
us ; the gardens unfold variety of colours to the eye
every morning j the hedges breath is beyond all per-
E 2 fume,
52 LETTERS TO AND
fume, and the fong of birds we hear as well as you.
But though I hear and fee all this, yet I think they
would delight me more if you was here. I found
the want of thefe at Twickenham while I was there
with you, by which I guefs what an increafe of charms
it muft now have. How kind is it in you to wifh me
there, and how unfortunate are my circumftances that
allow me not to vifit you ? If I fee you, I mud leave
my father alone, and this uneafy thought would dif-
appoint all my propofed pleafures ; the fame circum-
ftances will prevent my profpedb of many happy hours
with you in Lord Bathurfl's wood, and I fear of feeing
you till winter, unlefs Lady Scudamore comes to
Sherburne, iri which cafe I mail prefs you to fee Dor-
fetihire, as you propofed. May you have a long en-
joyment of your new favourite Portico !
Your, etc..
LETTER VI.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
Sherburne, July 9, 1720,
j-pHE London language and converfation is, I find,,
quite changed fmce I left it, though it is not
above three or four months ago. No violent change
in the natural world ever aftonifhed a Philofopher fo
much as this does me. I hope this will calm all Party
rage, and introduce more humanity than has of late
obtained
FROM MR. DIGBY. 53
obtained in converfation. All fcandal will fure be
laid afide, for there can be no fuch difeafe any more
as fpleen in this new Golden age. I am pleafed with
the thoughts of feeing nothing but a general good
humour when I come up to town ; I rejoice in the
univerfal riches I hear of, in the thought of their hav-
ing this effect. They tell me, you was foon content ;
and that you cared not for fuch an increafe as others
wimed you. By this account I judge you the richefl
man in the South-Sea, and congratulate you accord-
ingly. I can wifh you only an increafe of health, for
of riches and fame you have enough.
Your, etc.
LETTER VII.
^7/tjl 'jrf:
July 20, 1720.
X^OUR kind defire to know the ftate of my health
had not been unfatisfied fo long, had not that ill
ftate been the impediment. Nor mould I have feemed
an unconcerned party in the joys of your family,
which I heard of from Lady Scudamore, whofe fhort
Efchantillon of a letter (of a quarter of a page) I
value as the fhort glimpfe of a vifion afforded to fome
devout hermit ; for it includes (as thofe revelations
do) a promife of a better life in the Elyfian groves of
Cirencefter, whither, I could fay almoft in the ilyle of
a fermon, the Lord bring us all, etc. Thither may
we may tend, by various ways, to one blifsful bower :
E 3 thither
54 LETTERS TO AND
thither may health, peace, and good humour wait
upon us as aflbciates ; thither may whole cargoes of
neftar, (liquor of life and longevity!) by mortals
called Spa-water, be conveyed ; and there (as Milton
has it) may we, like the deities,
On flow'rs repos'd, and with frefh garlands crown'd,
Quaff immortality and joy.
When I fpeak of garlands, I mould not forget the
green veftments and fcarfs, which your fifters pro-
mifed to make for this purpofe : I expect you too in
green, with a hunting-horn by your fide and a green
hat, the model of which you may take from Ofborne's
defcription of King James the Firft.
What words, what numbers, what oratory, or what
poetry, can fuffice to exprefs how infinitely I efteem,
value, love, and defire you all, above all the great
ones of this part of the world ; above all the Jews,
jobbers, bubblers, fubfcribers, projectors, directors,
governors, treafurers, etc. etc. etc. in faecula faeculo-
rum.
Turn your eyes and attention from this miferable
mercenary period ; and turn yourfelf, in a juft con-
tempt of thefe fons of Mammon, to the contempla-
tion of books, gardens, and marriage ; in which I
now leave you, and return (wretch that I am) to
water-gruel and Palladio.
I am, etc.
FROM MR. DIGBY. 55
LETTER VIII.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
Sherburne, July 30.
T CONGRATULATE you *, dear Sir, on the return of
the Golden age ; for fure this muft be fuch, in
which money is fhowered down in fuch abundance
upon us. I hope this overflowing will produce great
and good fruits, and bring back the figurative moral
Golden age to us. I have fome omens to induce me
to believe k may ; for when the mufes delight to be
near a court, when I find you frequently with a Firft-
minifter, I can't but expect from fuch an intimacy
an encouragement and revival of the polite arts. I
know, you defire to bring them into honour, above
the golden Image which is fet up and worfhipped;
and, if you cannot effect it, adieu to all fuch hopes.
You feem to intimate in yours another face of things
from this inundation of wealth, as if beauty, wit, and
valour would no more engage our pafTions in the plea-
fprable purfuit of them, though affifted by this in-
creafe : If fo, and if monfters only as various as thofe
of Nile arife from this abundance, who that has any
fpleen about him will not hade to town to laugh ?
What will become of the play-houfe ? who will go
thither
* Written during the delufion of the famous South-Sea fcheme-
56 LETTERS TO AND
thither while there is fuch entertainment in the ftreets ?
I hope we mall neither want good Satire nor Comedy ;
if we do, the age may well be thought barren of ge-
niufes, for none has ever produced better fubjefts.
Your, etc.
LETTER IX.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
Colefhill, Nov. 12, 1720.
T FIND in my heart that I have a taint of the cor-
rupt age we live in. I want the public Spirit fo
much admired in old Rome, of facrificing every thing
that is dear to us to the commonwealth. I even feel
a more intimate concern for my friends who have
fuffered in the S. Sea, than for the public, which is
faid to be undone by it. But, I hope, the reafon is,
that I do not fee fo evidently the ruin of the public
to be a confequence of it, as I do the lofs of my
friends. I fear there are few befides yourfelf that
will be perfuaded by old Hefiod, that half is more than
the whole. I know not whether I do not rejoice in
your fufFerings a ; fmce they have fhewn me your
mind is principled with fuch a fentiment, I aflure you
I expect from it a performance greater ftill than
Homer.
* See Note onv. 139. of the fecond Satire, Book ii. of Horace.
FROM MR. DIGBY. 57
Homer. I have an extreme joy from your com-
municating to me this affection of your mind ;
Quid voveat dulci Nutricula majus alumno ?
Believe me, dear Sir, no equipage could (hew you to
my eye in fo much fplendor. I would not indulge
this fit of philofophy fo far as to be tedious to you,
elfe I could profecute it with pleafure.
I long to fee you, your Mother, and your Villa ;
till then I will fay nothing of Lord Bathurfl's wood,,
which I faw on my return hither. Soon after Chrift-
mas I defign for London, where I mail mifs Lady
Scudamore very much, who intends to flay in the
country all winter. I am angry with her, as I am
like to fuffer by this refolution, and would fain blame
her, but cannot find a caufe. The man is curfed that
has a longer letter than this to write with as bad a
pen, yet I can ufe it with pleafure to fend my fervices
to your good mother, and to write myfelf,
Your, etc.
LETTER X.
Sept. i, 1722.
-pvocTOR Arbuthnot is going to Bath, and will
*^ flay there a fortnight or more : Perhaps you
would be comforted to have a fight of him,
whether you need him or not. I think him as
good
58 LETTERS TO AND
good a Doftor as any man for one that is ill, and a
better Doftor for one that is well. He would do ad-
mirably for Mrs. Mary Digby : She needed only to
follow his hints, to be in eternal bufmefs and amufe-
ment of mind, and even as a&ive as me could defire.
But indeed I fear me would out-walk him ; for (as
Dean Swift obferved to me the very firft time I faw the
Doctor) " He is a man that can do every thing but
" walk." His brother, who is lately come into Eng-
land, goes alfo to the Bath j and is a more extraor-
dinary man than he, worth your going thither on pur-
pofe to know him. The fpirit of philanthropy, fo long
dead to our world, is revived in him : He is a philo-
fopher all of fire j fo warmly, nay fo wildly in the
right, that he forces all others about him to be fo too,
and draws them into his own vortex. He is a ftar
that looks as if it were all fire, but is all benignity, all
gentle and beneficial influence. If there be other men
in the world that would ferve a friend, yet he is the
only one, I believe, that could make even an enemy
ferve a friend.
As all human life is chequered and mixed with ac-
quifitions and lofles, (though the latter are more cer-
tain and irremediable, than the former lading or fatif-
fadlory,) fo at the time I have gained the acquaintance
of one worthy man, I have loft another, a very eafy,
humane, and gentlemanly neighbour, Mr. Stonor.
'Tis certain the lofs of one of this character puts us
naturally upon fetting a greater value on the few that
are
FROM MR. DIGBY. 59
are left, though the degree of our efleem may be dif-
ferent. Nothing, fays Seneca, is fo melancholy a cir-
cumftance in human life, or fo foon reconciles us to
the thought of our own death, as the reflection and
profpeft of one friend after another dropping round
us ! Who would ftand alone, the fole remaining ruin,
the laft tottering column of all the fabric of friend-
fhip once fo large, feemingly fo ftrong, and yet fo
fuddenly funk and buried ?
I am, etc.
LETTER XI.
T H AVE belief enough in the goodnefs of your whole
family, to think you will all be pleafed that I am
arrived in fafety at Twickenham ; though it is a fort
of earneft that you will be troubled again with me at
Sherburne, or Colefhill ; for however I may like one
of your places, it may be in that as in liking one of
your family ; when one fees the reft, one likes them
all. Pray make my fervices acceptable to them : I
wifh them all the happinefs they may want, and the
continuance of all the happinefs they have ; and I take
the latter to comprize a great deal more than the for-
mer. I muft feparate Lady Scudamore from you, as,
I fear, me will do herfelf before this letter reaches
you : So I wifh her a good journey, and I hope one
day
60 LETTERS TO AND
day to try if me lives as well as you do : Though 1
much queftion if fhe can live as quietly : I fufpeft the
bells will be ringing at her arrival, and on her own
and Mifs Scudamore's birth-days, and that all the
Clergy in the country come to pay refpe&s ; both
the Clergy and their Bells expecting from her, and
from the young Lady, further bufmefs and further
employment. Befides all this, there dwells on the
one fide of her the Lady Conningfby, and on the
other Mr. W* . Yet I mail, when the days and the
years come about, adventure upon all this for her
fake.
I beg my Lord Digby to think me a better man,
than to content myfelf with thanking him in the com-
mon way. I am, in as fincere a fenfe of the word,
his fervant, as you are his fon, or he your father.
I mufl in my turn infift upon hearing how my lad
fellow-travellers got home from Clarendon, and de-
fire Mr. Philips to remember me in his Cyder f, and
to tell Mr. W* that I am dead and buried.
I wifh the young Ladies, whom I almoft robbed of
their good name, a better name in return (even that
very name to each of them, which they mail like beft,
for the fake of the man that bears it).
Your, etc.
-j- He frequently cxprefled his total diflike of this poem ; though
its author was patronized by Bolingbroke, who alfo induced Philips
to write the poem on Blenheim. Cyder was elegantly tranflated
into Latin verfe by my amiable friend Mr. PL Ips, Under Secretary
of State to Lord Sandwich, whilfl he was a Scholar at Wincheftcr
College, 1738.
FROM MR. DIGBY.
LETTER XII.
1722.
OUR making a fort of apology for your not writ-
ing, is a very genteel reproof to me. I know I
was to blame, but I know I did not intend to be fo,
and (what is the happieft knowledge in the world) I
know you will forgive me ; for fure nothing is more
fatisfactory than to be certain of fuch a friend as will
overlook one's failings, fmce every fuch inftance is a
conviction of his kindnefs.
If I am all my life to dwell in intentions, and never
to rife to actions, I have but too much need of that
gentle difpofition which I experience in you. But I
hope better things of myfelf, and fully purpofe to
make you a vifit this fummer at Sherburne. I'm
told, you are all upon removal very fpeedily, and that
Mrs. Mary Digby talks in a letter to Lady Scudamore,
of feeing my Lord Bathurfl's wood in her way. How
much I wilh to be her guide through that enchanted
foreft, is not to be expreffed : I look upon myfelf as
the magician appropriated to the place, without whom
no mortal can penetrate into the receffes of thofe facred
fliades. I could pafs whole days, in only defcribing
to her the future, and as yet vifionary beauties that
are to rife in thofe fcenes : The palace that is to be
built, the pavilions that are to glitter, the colonades
that are to adorn them : Nay more, the meeting of
the
62 LETTERS TO AND
the Thames and the Severn, which (when the noble
Owner has finer dreams than ordinary) are to be led
into each other's embraces through fecret caverns of
not above twelve or fifteen miles, till they rife and
celebrate their marriage in the midft of an immenfe
amphitheatre, which is to be the admiration of
poflerity a hundred years hence, But till the def-
tined time fliall arrive that is to manifeft thefe won-
ders, Mrs. Digby muft content herfelf with feeing what
is at prefent no more than the fined wood in England.
The objefts that attract this part of the world, are
of a quite different nature. Women of quality are
all turned followers of the camp in Hyde-park this
year, whither all the town refort to magnificent en-
tertainments given by the officers, etc. The Scythian
Ladies that dwelt in the waggons of war, were not
more clofely attached to the luggage. The matrons,
like thofe of Sparta, attend their fons to the field, to
be the witnefles of their glorious deeds; and the
maidens, with all their charms difplayed, provoke the
fpirit of the Soldiers : Tea and Coffee fupply the place
of Lacedemonian black broth. This camp feems
crowned with perpetual victory, for every fun that
rifes in the thunder of cannon, fets in the mufic of
violins. Nothing is yet wanting but the conftant