LETTER IV.

May 1, 1720.

YOU'LL think me very full of myself, when after long silence (which however, to say 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 finishing a book, as in concluding a session of Parliament, one always thinks it will be very soon, and finds it very late. There are many unlookedfor incidents to retard the clearing any public account, and so I see it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great ministers, with undertaking too much for one man; and with a desire of doing more than was expected from me, have done less than I ought.

For having designed four very laborious and uncommon sort of Indexes to Homer, I'm forced, for want of time, to publish two only: the design of which you will own to be pretty, though far from being fully executed. I've also been obliged to leave unfinished in my desk the heads of two Essays, one on the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they must wait for future editions, or perish: and (one way or other no great matter which) dabit deus his quoque finem. I think of you every day, I assure you, even without such good memorials of you as your sisters, with whom I sometimes talk of you, and find it one of the most agreeable of all subjects to them. My Lord Digby must 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 sons wish they had fathers to their lives' end.

I can't touch upon the subject of filial love, without putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a sincere, hearty, old-fashioned respect for you, and constantly blames her son for not having writ to you oftener to tell you so.

I very much wish (but what signifies my wishing? My Lady Scudamore wishes, your sisters wish) that you were with us, to compare the beautiful contrast this season affords us, of the town and the country. No ideas you could form in the winter can make you imagine what Twickenham is (and what your friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) in this warmer seaOur river glitters beneath an unclouded sun, at the same time that its banks retain the verdure of showers; our gardens are offering their first nose

son.

" I cannot write verses, says Voltaire, in the 4th volume of his Letters, so well as Pope. But my house 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 those volumes, it will be found on due examination, that his opinions have as frequently been censured as commended. It is as impossible to deny that he had great genius and wit, as it is not to lament the manner in which he too often used 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 understood; and if he had lived to see the various miseries of his countrymen, would certainly, if we may judge from his writings, have exposed and condemned the cruelty and injustice they have been guilty of with his utmost energy and force.

gays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying their thanksgiving songs for the new habitations I have made them: my building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the passenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he inquires what house is falling, or what church is rising? So little taste have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take, in reflecting on their streams, my Tuscan porticos, or Ionic pilasters.

But (to descend from all this pomp of style) the best account of what I am building, is, that it will afford me a few pleasant rooms for such a friend as yourself, or a cool situation for an hour or two for Lady Scudamore, when she will do me the honour (at this public house on the road) to drink her own cider.

The moment I am writing this, I am surprised with the account of the death of a friend of mine; which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere jest! Buildings, gardens, writings, pleasures, works of whatever stuff man can raise! None of them (God knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mortal, or of satisfying a soul that is immortal! Dear Sir,

LETTER V.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

May 21, 1720.

YOUR letter, which I had two posts ago, was very medicinal to me; and I heartily thank you for the relief it gave me. I was sick of the thoughts of my not having in all this time given you any testimony of the affection I owe you, and which I as constantly indeed feel as I think of you. This indeed was a troublesome ill to me, till, after reading your letter, I found it was a most idle weak imagination to think I could so offend you. Of all the impressions you have made upon me, I never received any with greater joy than this of your abundant good-nature, which bids me be assured of some share of your affections.

I had many other pleasures from your letter; that your mother remembers me, is a very sincere joy to me: I cannot but reflect how alike you are; from the time you do any one a favour, you think yourselves obliged as those that have received one. This is indeed an old-fashioned respect, hardly to be found out of your house. I have great hopes, however, to see many old-fashioned virtues revive, since you have made our age in love with Homer; I heartily wish you, who are as good a citizen as a poet, the joy of seeing a reformation from your works. I am in doubt whether I should congratulate your having finished Homer, while the two essays you mention are not completed; but if you expect no

great trouble from finishing these, I heartily rejoice with you.

I have some faint notion of the beauties of Twickenham from what I here see round me. The verdure of showers is poured upon every tree and field about us; the gardens unfold variety of colours to the eye every morning; the hedges' breath is beyond all perfume, and the song of birds we hear as well as you. But though I hear and see all this, yet I think they would delight me more if you was here. I found the want of these at Twickenham while I was there with you, by which I guess what an increase of charms it must now have. How kind is it in you to wish me there, and how unfortunate are my circumstances that allow me not to visit you! If I see you, I must leave my father alone, and this uneasy thought would disappoint all my proposed pleasures; the same circumstances will prevent my prospect of many happy hours with you in Lord Bathurst's wood, and I fear of seeing you till winter, unless Lady Scudamore comes to Sherburne, in which case I shall press you to see Dorsetshire, as you proposed. May you have a long enjoyment of your new favourite Portico! Your, etc.

LETTER VI.

FROM MR. DIGBY,

Sherburne, July 9, 1720.

THE London language and conversation is, I find, quite changed since I left it, though it is not above