who have not the same resources to support them. You have youth: you have many kind well-intentioned people belonging to you; many acquaintance of your own, or families that will wish to serve you. Consider how many have had the same, or greater cause for dejection, with none of these resources before their eyes. Adieu! I sincerely wish you happiness.

P.S. I have just heard that a friend of mine is struck with a paralytic disorder, in which state it is likely he may live incapable of assisting himself, in the hands of servants or relations that only gape after his spoils, perhaps for years to come: think how many things may befall a man far worse than poverty or death.

CXLII.

TO MR. NICHOLLS.

Pembroke College, June 24, 1769.

AND SO you have a garden of your own,* and you plant and transplant, and are dirty

Mr. Nicholls, by having pursued the advice of his correspondent, we find was now possessed of that competency which he

and amused! Are not you ashamed of yourself? Why, I have no such thing, you monster, nor ever shall be either dirty or amused as long as I live. My gardens are in the windows like those of a lodger up three pair of stairs in Petticoat-Lane, or Camomile-Street, and they go to bed regularly under the same roof that I do. Dear, how charming it must be to walk out in one's own garding, and sit on a bench in the open air, with a fountain and leaden statue, and a rolling stone, and an arbour: have a care of soar-throats though, and the agoe.

However, be it known to you, though I have no garden, I have sold my estate and got a thousand guineas,* and fourscore pounds a year for my old aunt, and a twenty pound prize in the lottery, and Lord knows what arrears in the treasury, and am a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns,

wished him. Happy, not only in having so sage an adviser, but in his own good sense which prompted him to follow such advice. The gayety, whim, and humour of this letter contrast prettily with the gravity and serious reflection of the former.

* Consisting of houses on the west side of Hand-Alley, London: Mrs. Oliffe was the aunt here mentioned, who had a share in this estate, and for whom he procured this annuity. She died in 1771, a few months before her nephew.

and every thing handsome about him, and in a few days shall have new window curtains: are you advised of that? Ay, and a new mattress to lie upon.

*

My ode has been rehearsed again and again, and the scholars have got scraps by heart: I expect to see it torn piece-meal in the North-Briton before it is born.-If you will come you shall see it, and sing in it amidst a chorus from Salisbury and Gloucester music meeting, great names there, and all well versed in Judas Maccabæus. I wish it were once over; for then I immediately go for a few days to London, and so with Mr. Brown to Aston, though I fear it will rain the whole summer, and Skiddaw will be invisible and inaccessible to mortals.

I have got De la Lande's Voyage through Italy, in eight volumes; he is a member of the academy of sciences, and pretty good to read. I have read too an octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters: poor man! he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned; but which he only enjoyed when people of

+ Ode for Music on the duke of Grafton's installation. See Poems. His reason for writing it is given in the next letter.

note came to see and commend it: his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen who wrote

verses too.

I have just found the beginning of a letter, which somebody had dropped: I should rather call it first-thoughts for the beginning of a letter; for there are many scratches and corrections. As I cannot use it myself, (having got a beginning already of my own) I send it for your use on some great occasion.

Dear Sir,

"After so long silence, the hopes of pardon, and prospect of forgiveness might seem entirely extinct, or at least very remote, was I not truly sensible of your goodness and candour, which is the only asylum that my negligence can fly to, since every apology would prove insufficient to counterbalance it, or alleviate my fault: how then shall my deficiency presume to make so bold an attempt, or be able to suffer the hardships of so rough a campaign?" &c. &c. &c.

CXLIII.

TO MR. BEATTIE.

Cambridge, July 16, 1769.

THE late ceremony of the duke of Grafton's installation has hindered me from acknowledging sooner the satisfaction your friendly compliment gave me: I thought myself bound in gratitude to his grace, unasked, to take upon me the task of writing those verses which are usually set to music on this occasion.* I do not think them worth sending you, because they are by nature doomed to live but a single day; or, if their existence is prolonged beyond that date, it is only by means of newspaper parodies, and witless criticisms. This sort of abuse I had reason to expect, but did not think it worth while to avoid.

* In a short note which he wrote to Mr. Stonhewer, June 12, when, at his request, he sent him the ode in manuscript for his grace's perusal, he expressess this motive more fully. "I did not intend the duke should have heard me till he could not help it. You are desired to make the best excuses you can to his grace for the liberty I have taken of praising him to his face; but as somebody was necessarily to do this, I did not see why gratitude should sit silent and leave it to Expectation to sing, who certainly would have sung, and that a gorge deployee upon such an occasion."