LETTER XXV. FROM THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER. Montpelier, Nov. 20, 1729. I AM not yet master enough of myself, after the late wound I have received, to open my very heart to you, and I am not content with less than that, whenever I converse with you. My thoughts are at present vainly, but pleasingly employed, on what I have lost, and can never recover. I know well I ought, for that reason, to call them off to other subjects, but hitherto I have not been able to do it. By giving them the rein a little, and suffering them to spend their force, I hope in some time to check and subdue them. Multis fortune vulneribus perculsus, huic uni me imparem sensi, et pene succubui. This is weakness, not wisdom, I own; and on that account fitter to be trusted to the bosom of a friend, where I may safely lodge all my infirmities. As soon as my mind is in some measure corrected and calmed, I will endeavour to follow your advice, and turn it to something of use and moment; if I have still life enough left to do any thing that is worth reading and preserving. In the mean time I shall be pleased to hear that you proceed in what you intend, without any such melancholy interruption as I have met with. Your mind is as yet unbroken by age and ill accidents, your knowledge and judgment are at the height use them in writing somewhat that may teach the present and future times, and if not gain equally the applause of both, may yet raise the envy of the one, and secure the admiration of the other. Employ not your precious moments, and great talents, on little men and little things; but choose a subject every way worthy of you, and handle it as you can, in a manner which nobody else can equal or imitate. As for me, my abilities, if I ever had any, are not what they were: and yet I will endeavour to recollect and employ them. --gelidus tardante senecta Sanguis hebet, frigentque effueto in corpore vires. However, I should be ingrateful to this place, if I did not own that I have gained upon the gout in the south of France, much more than I did at Paris : though even there I sensibly improved. I believe my cure had been perfected, but the earnest desire of meeting One I dearly loved, called me abruptly to Montpelier; where after continuing two months, under the cruel torture of a sad and fruitless expectation, I was forced at last to take a long journey to Toulouse; and even there I had missed the person I sought, had she not, with great spirit and courage, ventured all night up the Garonne to see me, which she above all things desired to do before she died. By that means she was brought where I was It is to be wished that our Author had attended to this judicious admonition. between seven and eight in the morning, and lived twenty hours afterward; which time was not lost on either side, but passed in such a manner as gave great satisfaction to both, and such as, on her part, every way became her circumstances and character. For she had her senses to the very last gasp, and exerted them to give me, in those few hours, greater marks of Duty and Love than she had done in all her life-time, though she had never been wanting in either. The last words she said to me were the kindest of all; a reflection on the goodness of God, which had allowed us in this manner to meet once more, before we parted for ever. Not many minutes after that, she laid herself on her pillow, in a sleeping posture, Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. Judge you, Sir, what I felt, and still feel on this occasion, and spare me the trouble of describing it. At my age, under my infirmities, among utter strangers, how shall I find out proper reliefs and supports? I can have none, but those with which Reason and Religion furnish me, and those I lay hold on, and grasp as fast as I can. I hope that He, who laid the burden upon me (for wise and good purposes no doubt), will enable me to bear it, in like manner as I have born others, with some degree of fortitude and firmness. You see how ready I am to relapse into an argument which I had quitted once before in this letter. I shall probably again commit the same fault, if I continue to write; and therefore I stop short here, and with all sincerity, affection, and esteem, bid you adieu! till we meet either in this world, if God pleases, or else in another. I am, etc. "His body was brought to England, and interred on May 12, 1732, in his vault in Westminster Abbey: his bowels were in an urn thus inscribed: "In hac urna depositi sunt cineres "FRANCISCI ATTERBURY Episcopi Roffensis." The inscription was intended to be longer, containing very severe sarcasms on his trial and banishment, and ending thus; "Cavete Posteri ! "Hoc Facinus, conscivit, aggressus est, perpetravit, (Episcoporum præcipue suffragiis adjutus,) Robertus iste Walpole, Quem nulla nesciet Posteritas!" Epistolary Correspondence, published by |