so little attention, that I forget it the next day; and as to the learned world, there is nothing passes in it. I have no more to add, but that I am, with the same truth as ever,

Your, etc.

LETTER XXII.

October 23, 1730.

YOUR letter is a very kind one3, but I can't say so pleasing to me as many of yours have been, through the account you give of the dejection of your spirits. I wish the too constant use of water does not contribute to it; I find Dr. Arbuthnot and another very knowing physician of that opinion. I also wish you were not so totally immersed in the country; I hope your return to town will be a prevalent remedy against the evil of too much recollection. I wish it partly for my own sake. We have lived little together of late, and we want to be physicians for one another. It is a remedy that agreed very well with us both, for many years, and I fancy our constitutions would mend upon the old medicine of Studiorum Similitudo, etc. I believe we both of us want whetting; there are several here who will do you that good office, merely for the love of wit, which seems to be bidding the town a long and last adieu. I can tell you of no one thing worth reading, or seeing; the

In all this correspondence with Gay, there appears to be a vein of more natural sentiments, and easy unaffected language, than in most of his other Letters.

whole age seems resolved to justify the Dunciad, and

it

may stand for a public Epitaph or monumental Inscription like that at Thermopylae, on a whole people perished! There may indeed be a Wooden image or two of Poetry set up, to preserve the memory that there once were bards in Britain; and (like the Giants in Guildhall) shew the bulk and bad taste of our ancestors at present the poor Laureat and Stephen Duck serve for this purpose; a drunken sot of a Parson holds forth the emblem of Inspiration, and an honest industrious Thresher not unaptly represents Pains and Labour. I hope this Phænomenon of Wiltshire has appeared at Amesbury, or the Dutchess will be thought insensible to all bright qualities and exalted geniuses, in court and country alike. But he is a harmless man, and therefore I am glad.

This is all the news talked of at Court, but it will please you better to hear that Mrs. Howard talks of you, though not in the same breath with the Thresher, as they do of me. By the way, have you seen or conversed with Mr. Chubb, who is a wonderful phænomenon of Wiltshire? I have read through his whole volume with admiration of the writer; though

⚫ He was a glover at Salisbury. How came the Commentator to imagine that the City set him up to rival Locke?

6

• This was his quarto Volume, written before he had given any signs of these extravagancies, which have since rendered his name so noted. As the Court set up Mr. Duck for the rival of Mr. Pope, the City at the same time considered Chubb, as one who would eclipse Locke. The modesty of the Court Poet kept him sober in the very intoxicating situation, while the vanity of this new-fangled Philosopher assisted his sage admirers in turning his head. W.

not always with approbation of the doctrine. I have past just three days in London in four months, two at Windsor, half an one at Richmond, and have not taken one excursion into any other country. Judge now whether I can live in my library. Adieu. Live mindful of one of your first friends, who will be so till the last. Mrs. Blount deserves your remembrance, for she never forgets you, and wants nothing of being a friend".

I beg the Duke's and her Grace's acceptance of my services the contentment you express in their company pleases me, though it be the bar to my own, in dividing you from us. I am ever, very truly,

Your, etc.

LETTER XXIII.

October 2, 1732.

SIR Clem. Cottrel tells me you will shortly come to town. We begin to want comfort in a few friends about us, while the winds whistle, and the waters roar. The sun gives us a parting look, but 'tis a cold one; we are ready to change those distant favours of a lofty beauty, for a gross material fire that warms and comforts more. I wish you could be here till your family come to town: you'll live more innocently, and kill fewer harmless creatures, nay

7 Alluding to those lines in the Epist. on the Characters of

women,

"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part,

Say, what can Chloe want?-She wants a heart." W.

none, except by your proper deputy, the butcher. It is fit for conscience sake, that you should come to town, and that the Dutchess should stay in the country, where no innocents of another species may suffer by her. I hope she never goes to church: the Duke should lock you both up, and less harm would be done. I advise you to make man your game, hunt and beat about here for Coxcombs, and truss up Rogues in Satire: I fancy they'll turn to a good account, if you can produce them fresh, or make them keep and their relations will come, and buy their bodies of you.

The death of Wilks leaves Cibber without a colleague, absolute and perpetual dictator of the stage, though indeed while he lived he was but as Bibulus to Cæsar. However, ambition finds something to be gratified with in a mere name; or else, God have mercy upon poor ambition! Here is a dead vacation at present, no politics at Court, no trade in town, nothing stirring but poetry. Every man, and every boy, is writing verses on the Royal Hermitage: I hear the Queen is at a loss which to prefer: but for my own part I like none so well as Mr. Poyntz's in Latin. You would oblige my Lady Suffolk if tried your Muse on this occasion. I am sure I would do as much for the Dutchess of Queensberry, if she desired it. Several of your friends assure me it is expected from you: one should not bear in mind, all one's life, any little indignity one receives from a Court and therefore I am in hopes, neither her Grace will hinder you, nor you decline it.

you

October 7, 1732

I am at last returned from my Somersetshire expedition, but since my return I cannot so much boast of my health as before I went, for I am frequently out of order with my colical complaints, so as to make me uneasy and dispirited, though not to any violent degree. The reception we met with, and the little excursions we made, were every way agreeable. I think the country abounds with beautiful prospects. Sir William Wyndham is at present amusing himself with some real improvements, and a great many visionary castles. We are often entertained with seaviews, and sea-fish, and were at some places in the neighbourhood, among which I was mightily pleased with Dunster Castle, near Minehead. It stands a great eminence, and hath a prospect of that town with an extensive view of the Bristol channel, in which are seen two small Islands called the Steep Holms and Flat Holms, and on t'other side we could plainly distinguish the divisions of fields in the Welsh coast. All this journey I performed on horseback, and I

upon