white, I have experienced the utmost you can do in colours; but all your movements, all your graceful fteps, deserve not half the glory you might here attain of a moving and easy behaviour in buckram: Something between swimming and walking, free enough, and more modeftly half-naked than you can appear any where else. You have conquer'd enough already by land; fhow your ambition, and vanquish alfo by water. The buckram I mention is a dress particularly useful at this time, when, we are told, they are bringing over the fathion of German ruffs: You ought to use yourselves to fome degrees of stiffness beforchand; and when our ladies chins have been tickled a while with ftarched muflin and wire, they may poffibly bear the brush of a German beard and whisker. I could tell you a delightful story of Doctor P. but want room to display it in all its fhining circumftances. He had heard it was an excellent cure for love, to kifs the Aunt of the perfon beloved, who is generally of years and experience enough to damp the fierceft flame: he try'd this course in his paffion, and kiffed Mrs. Eat Mr. D's; but he fays it will not do, and that he loves you as much as ever. Your, etc. LETTER VIII. To the fame. you afk how the waters agree with me, I must tell you fo very well, that I queftion how you and I should agree if we were in a room by ourselves. Mrs. has honeftly affured me, that but for fome whims which fhe can't entirely conquer, fhe would go and fee the world with me in man's cloaths. Even you, Madam, I fancy (if you would not partake in our adventures) would wait our coming in at the evening with fome impatience, and be well enough pleas'd to hear them by the fire-fide. That would be better than reading romances, unless lady M. would be our hiftorian. What VOL. III. Eee raife raifcs these defires in me, is an acquaintance I am be-' ginning with my lady Sandwich, who has all the spirit of the laft age, and all the gay experience of a pleasurable life. It were as fcandalous an omiffion to come to the Bath and not to fee my lady Sandwich, as it had formerly been to have travelled to Rome without vifiting the Queen of Sweden. She is, in a word, the best thing this country has to boast of; and as she has been all that a woman of spirit could be, so she ftill continues that easy and independent creature that a fenfible woman always will be. I must tell you a truth, which is not, however, much to my credit. I never thought so much of yourself and your fifter, as fince I have been fourfcore miles distance from In the Foreft I look'd upon you as good neighyou. bours, at London as pretty kind of women, but here as divinities, angels, goddeffes, or what you will. In the fame manner, 1 never knew at what rate I valued your life, till you were upon the point of dying. If Mrs. and you will but fall very fick every feason, I fhall certainly die for you. Serioufly, I value you both fo much, that I cfteem others much the less for your fakes; you have robb'd me of the pleasure of efteeming a thoufand pretty qualities, in them, by fhowing me fo many finer in yourfelves. There are but two things in the world which could make you indifferent to me, which, I believe, you are not capable of, I mean ill-nature and malice. I have feen enough of you, not to overlooky an frailty you could have, and nothing less than a vice can make me like you lefs. I expect you should difcover by my conduct towards you both, that this is true, and that therefore you should pardon a thousand things in me for that one difpofition. Expect nothing from me but truth and freedom, and I shall always be thought by you what I al ways am, Your, etc. LETTER LETTER IX. To the fame. 1714. I Return'd home as flow and as contemplative after I had parted from you, as my Lord retired from the Court and glory to his country feat and wife, a week ago. I found here a difinal defponding letter from the fon of another great courtier who expects the fame fate, and who tells me the great ones of the earth will now take it very kindly of the mean ones, if they will favour them with a vifit by day-light. With what joy would they lay down all their schemes of glory, did they but know you have the generofity to drink their healths once a day, as foon as they are fallen? Thus the unhappy, by the fole merit of their misfortunes, become the care of Heaven and you. I intended to have put this last into verse, but in this age of ingratitude my best friends forfake me, I mean my rhymes. I defire Mrs. P-to ftay her ftomach with these half hundred Plays, till I can procure her a Romance big enough to fatisfy her great foul with adventures. As for Novels, I fear fhe can depend upon none from me but that of my Life, which I am ftill, as I have been, contriving all poffible methods to fhorten, for the greater ease both of the hiftorian and the reader. May the believe all the paffion and tenderness exprefs'd in thefe romances to be but a faint image of what I bear her, and may you (who read nothing) take the same truth upon hearing it from me. You will both injure me very much, if you don't think me a truer friend, than ever any romantic lover, or any imitator of their style could be. The days of beauty are as the days of greatness, and fo long, all the world are your adorers. I am one of thofe unambitious people, who will love you forty years hence, when your eyes begin to twinkle in a retirement, and without the vanity which every one now will take to be Your, etc. thought LETTER X. THE more I examine my own mind, the more romantic I find myself. Methinks it is a noble spirit of contradiction to Fate and Fortune, not to give up those that are fnatched from us: but to follow them the more, the farther they are remov'd from the fense of it. Sure, Flattery never travelled fo far as three thousand miles; it is now only for Truth, which overtakes all things, to reach you at this diftance. 'Tis a generous piece of Popery, that pursues even those who are to be eternally abfent into another world; whether you think it right or wrong, you'll own the very extravagance a fort of piety. I can't be fatisfied with ftrowing flowers over you, and barely honouring you as a thing loft: but must confider you as a glorious tho' remote being, and be fending addreffes after you. You have carried away fo much of me, that what remains is daily languishing and dying over my acquaintance here, and, I believe, in three or four months more I fhall think Aurat Bazar as good a place as Covent-Garden. You may imagine this is raillery, but I am really fo far gone as to take pleasure in reveries of this kind. Let them fay I am romantic; fo is every one said to be, that either admires a fine thing or does one. On my confcience, as the world goes, 'tis hardly worth any body's while to do one for the honour of it: Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is now as ill paid as other just debts; and neither Mrs. Macfarland for immolating her lover, nor you, for conftancy to your lord, must ever hope to be compared to Lucretia or Portia. I write this in fome anger; for having, fince you went, frequented thofe people moft, who seemed most in your favour; I heard nothing that concerned you talk'd of s。 often, as that you went away in a black full-bottom'd wig; which I did but affert to be a bob, and was answered, Love is blind. I am perfuaded your wig had never suffered this criticifin, but on the fcore of your head, and the two eyes that are in it, Pray Pray when you write to me, talk of yourfelf; there is nothing I fo much defire to hear of: talk a great deal of yourself; that she who always thought talked best, may speak upon the beft fubject. The fhrines and reliques you tell me of, no way engage my curiofity; I had ten times rather go on pilgrimage to fee one fuch face as yours, than both St. John Baptift's heads. I wifh (fince you are grown fo covetous of golden things) you had not only all the fine ftatues you talk of, but even the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar fet up, provided you were to travel no farther than you could carry it. The court of Vienna is very edifying. The ladies with refpect to their hufbands, feem to understand that text literally, that commands to bear one another's burdens: but, I fancy, many a man there is like Iffachar, an ass between two burdens. I fhall look upon you no more as a Chriftian, when you pafs from that charitable court to the land of jealoufy. I expect to hear an exact account how, and at what places, you leave one of the thirtynine articles after another, as you approach to the land of Infidelity. Pray how far are you got already? amidst the pomp of a high mass, and the ravishing trill of a Sunday opera, what did you think of the doctrine and difcipline of the church of England? Had you from your heart a reverence for Sternhold and Hopkins? How did your Chriftian virtues hold out in fo long a voyage? you have it feems (without paffing the bounds of Chriftendom) out-travelled the fin of fornication: in a little time you'l look upon fome others with more patience, than the ladies here are capable of. I reckon, you'll time it fo well as to make your religion laft to the verge of Christendom, that you may difcharge your Chaplain (as humanity requires) in a place where he may find some business. I doubt not but I fhall be told (when I come to follow you through those countries) in how pretty a manner you accommodated yourself to the customs of the true Muflemen. They will tell me at what town you practifed to fit on the Sopha, at what village you learned to fold a Turbant, |