garden; and we have no dispute, save only in one point he says, that you labour very hard in your vocation; whereas I am not willing to allow that all the work you ever did, or will do in it, is worth a single bunch of radishes. However, I dare not contradict him too much, because he waits for my letter. How happy are you that can hold up your spade, and cry "Avaunt, Satan!" when a toyman offers you his deceitful vanities! Do not you rejoice inwardly, and pride yourself greatly in your own philosophy? "Twas thus The wise Athenian cross'd a glitt❜ring fair : Unmov'd by tongues and sights he walk'd the place, PARNELL. Meantime do not despise others that can find any needful amusement in what, I think, Bunyan very aptly calls Vanity Fair; I have been at it many times this season, and have bought many kinds of merchandise there. It is a part of philosophy, to adapt one's passions to one's way of life; and the solitary unsocial sphere in which I move makes me think it happy that I can retain a relish for such trifles as I can draw into it. Meantime, I dare not reason too much upon this head. Rea son, like the famous concave mirror at Paris, would, in two minutes, vitrify all the Jew's pack: I mean, that it would immediately destroy all the form, colour, and beauty, of every thing that is not merely useful.-But I ramble too far, and you do not want such speculations. My intent when I sat down, was to tell you that I shall probably see you very soon, and certainly remain in the mean times, and at all times, sir, your, &c. LETTER LX. MR. SHENSTONE TO MR. GRAVES, On the Death of Mr. Shenstone's Brother. DEAR MR. GRAVES, Leasowes, Feb. 14, 1752. You will be amazed at my long silence, and it might reasonably excite some disgust, if my days had passed of late in the manner they used to do: but I am not the man I was; perhaps I never shall be. Alas! my dearest friend! I have lost my only brother! and, since the fatal close of November, I have had neither peace nor respite from agonizing thoughts! men. You, I think, have seen my brother; but perhaps had no opportunity of distinguishing him from the group of others whom we called good-natured This part of his character, was so visible in his countenance, that he was generally beloved at sight: I, who must be allowed to know him, do assure you, that his understanding was no way inferior to his benevolence. He had not only a sound judgment, but a lively wit and genuine humour. As these were many times eclipsed by his native bashfulness, so his benevolence only suffered by being shown to an excess. I here mean his giving too indiscriminately into those jovial meetings of company, where the warmth of a social temper is discovered with least reserve; but the virtues of his head and heart would soon have shone without alloy. The foibles of his youth were wearing off; and his affection for me and regard to my advice, with his own good sense, would soon have rendered him all that I could have wished in a successor. I never in my life knew a person more sincere in the expression of his love or dislike. But it was the former that suited the propensity of his heart; the latter was as transient as the starts of passion that occasioned it. In short, with much true genius and real fortitude, he was, according to the English acceptation "a truly honest man;" and I think I may also add, a truly English character; but "Habeo, dixi? immo habui fratrem et amicum, Chreme!" All this have I lost in him. He is now in regard to this world no more than a mere idea; and this idea, therefore, though deeply tinged with melancholy, I must, and surely ought to, cherish and preserve. I believe I wrote you some account of his illness last spring; from which to all appearance he was tolerably well recovered. He took the air, and visited about with me, during the warmer months of summer; but my pleasure was of short duration. "Hasit lateri lethalis arundo!" The peripneumony under which he laboured in the spring had terminated in an adhesion of the lungs to the pleura, so that he could never lie but upon his right side; and this, as the weather grew colder, occasioned an obstruction that could never be surmounted. Though my reason forewarned me of the event, I was not the more prepared for it.-Let me not dwell upon it. It is altogether insupportable in every respect, and my imagination seems more assiduous in educing pain from this occasion, than I ever yet found it in administering to my pleasure. -This hurts me to no purpose-I know it; and yet, when I have avocated my thoughts, and fixed them for a while upon common amusements, I suffer the same sort of consciousness as if I were guilty of a crime. Believe me, this has been the most sensible affliction I ever felt in my life; and you, who know my anxiety when I had far less reason to complain, will more easily conceive it now, than I am able to describe it. I cannot pretend to fill up my paper with my usual subjects.-I should thank you for your remarks upon my poetry; but I despise poetry: and I might tell you of all my little rural improvements; but I hate them.-What can I now expect from my solitary rambles through them, but a series of melancholy reflections and irksome anticipations?-Even the pleasure I should take in showing them to you, the greatest they can afford me, must be now greatly inferior to what it might formerly have been. How have I prostituted my sorrow on occasions that little concerned me! I am ashamed to think of that idle "Elegy upon Autumn," when I have so much more important cause to hate and to condemn it now: but the glare and gaiety of the spring is what I principally dread; when I shall find all things restored but my poor brother, and something like those lines of Milton will run for ever in my thoughts: "Thus, with the year, Seasons return; but not to me returns A brother's cordial smile, at eve or morn.' I shall then seem to wake from amusements, company, every sort of inebriation with which I have been edeavouring to lull my grief asleep, as from a dream; and I shall feel as if I were, that instaut, despoiled of all I have chiefly valued for thirty years together; of all my present happiness, and all my future prospects. The melody of birds, which he no more must hear; the cheerful beams of the sun, of which he no more must partake; every wonted pleasure will produce that sort of pain to which my temper is most obnoxious. Do not consider this as poetry.-Poetry on such occasions is no more than literal truth. In the present case it is less; for half the tenderness I feel is altogether shapeless and inexpressible. After all, the wisdom of the world may perhaps esteem me a gainer. Ill do they judge of this event, who think that any shadow of amends can be made for the death of a brother, and the disappointment of all my schemes, by the accession of some fortune, which I never can enjoy! This is a mournful narrative: I will not, therefore, enlarge it.-Amongst all changes and chances, I often think of you; and pray there may be no suspicion or jealousy betwixt us during the rest of our lives. I am, dear sir, yours, &c. |