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LETTER LXI.

MR. SHENSTONE TO C W

DEAR MR. W—,

ESQ.

July, 22, 1752.

I Do not know why I made you a promise of a pretty long letter. What I now write will be but a moderate one, both in regard to length and style; yet write I must, par maniere d'acquit, and you have brought four-pence expense upon yourself for a parcel of nonsense, and to no manner of purpose. This is not tautology, you must observe; for nonsense sometimes answers very considerable purposes. In love, it is eloquence itself.-In friendship, therefore by all the rules of sound logic, you must allow it to be something; what, I cannot say, nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum." The principal part of a correspondence betwixt two idle men consists in two important inquiries-what we do, and how we do: but as all persons ought to give satisfaction before they expect to receive it, I am to tell you in the first place, that my own health is tolerably good, or rather what I must call good, being, I think, much better than it has been this last half year.-Then as touching my occupation, alas! "Othello's occupation's gone.” I neither read nor write aught besides a few letters, and I give myself up entirely to scenes of dissipation; lounge at my lord Dudley's for near a week together; make dinners; accept of invitations; sit up till three o'clock in the morning with young sprightly married women, over white port and vin de paysans; ramble over my fields;

issue out orders to my hay-makers; foretell rain and fair weather; enjoy the fragrance of hay, the cocks, and the wind rows; admire that universal lawn which is produced by the scythe; sometimes inspect and draw mouldings for my carpenters; sometimes paper my walls, and at other times my ceilings; do every social office that falls in my way, but never seek out for any.

"Sed vos quid tandem? quæ circumvolitas agilis thyma? non tu corpus eras sine pectore. Non tibi parvum ingenium, non incultum est !" In short, what do you? and how do you do?—that is all.

Tell my young pupil, your son, he must by all manner of means send me a Latin letter: and if he have any billet in French for Miss Lea at The Grange, or even in Hebrew, Coptic, or Syriac, I will engage it shall be received very graciously. Thither am I going to dinner this day, and there "implebor veteris Bacchi, pinguisque ferinæ.”

All this looks like extreme jollity; but is this the true state of the case, or may I not more properly apply the

"Spem vultu simulat, premit atrum corde dolorem ?" Accept this scrawl in place of a letter, and believe me yours, &c.

LETTER LXII.

MR. SHENSTONE TO MR. GRAVES,

On the Death of Mr. Whistler.

DEAR MR. GRAVES,

Leasowes, June 7, 1754.

THE melancholy account of our dear friend Whistler's death was conveyed to me, at the same instant,

by yours and by his brother's letter. I have written to his brother this post; though I am very ill able to write upon the subject, and would willingly have waved it longer, but for decency. The triumvirate, which was the greatest happiness and the greatest pride of my life, is broken! The fabric of an ingenuous and disinterested friendship has lost a noble column! yet it may, and will, I trust, endure till one of us be laid as low. In truth, one can so little satisfy one's self with what we say upon such sad occasions, that I made three or four essays before I could endure what I had written to his brother.-Be so good as excuse me to him as well as you can, and establish me in the good opinion of him and Mr. Walker.

Poor Mr. Whistler! how do all our little strifes and bickerments appear to us at this time! yet we may with comfort reflect, that they were not of a sort that touched the vitals of our friendship; and I may say, that we fondly loved and esteemed each other, of necessity—“ Tales animas oportuit esse concordes." Poor Mr. Whistler! not a single acquaintance have I made, not a single picture or curiosity have I purchased, not a single embellishment have I given to my place, since he was last here, but I have had his approbation and his amusement in my eye. I will assuredly inscribe my larger urn to his memory; nor shall I pass it without a pleasing melancholy during the remainder of my days. We have each of us received a pleasure from his conversation, which no other conversation can afford us at our present time of life.

Adieu! my dear friend! may our remembrance

of the person we have lost be the strong and everlasting cement of our affection! Assure Mr. John Whistler of the regard I have for him, upon his own account, as well as his brother's. Write to me; directly if you have opportunity. Whether you have or no, believe me to be ever most affectionately yours.

I beg my compliments to Mrs. Graves.

LETTER LXIII.

MR. SHENSTONE TO MR. GRAVES.

On hearing that his Letters to Mr. Whistler were destroyed.

Leasowes, Oct 23, 1754.

DEAR MR. GRAVES, ir is certainly some argument of a peculiarity in the esteem I bear you, that I feel a readiness to acquaint you with more of my foibles than I care to trust with any other person. I believe nothing shows us more plainly either the different degrees or kinds of regard that we entertain for our several friends (I may also add the difference of their characters), than the ordinary style and tenor of the letters we address to them.

I confess to you, that I am considerably mortified by Mr. John W's conduct in regard to my letters to his brother; and, rather than they should have been so unnecessarily destroyed, would have given more money than it is allowable for me to mention with decency. I look upon my letters as some of my chef-d'œuvres ; and, could I be supposed to have the least pretensions to propriety of style or sentiment, I should imagine it must ap

pear principally in my letters to his brother, and one or two more friends. I considered them as the records of a friendship that will be always dear to me, and as the history of my mind for these twenty years last past. The amusement I should have found in the perusal of them would have been altogether innocent; and I would gladly have preserved them, if it were only to explain those which I shall preserve of his brother's. Why he should allow either me or them so very little weight as not to consult me with regard to them, I can by no means conceive. I suppose it is not uncustomary to return them to the surviving friend. I had no answer to the letter which I wrote Mr. J. W-. I received a ring from him; but as I thought it an inadequate memorial of the friendship which his brother had for me, I gave it to my servant the moment I received it; at the same time I have a neat standish, on which I caused the lines Mr. Wleft with it to be inscribed, and which appears to be a much more agreeable remembrancer.

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Adieu! in other words, God bless you!—I have company at the table all the time I am writing. Your ever most affectionate, &c.

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