Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Surely we, I mean our ministers, ought to have known, before this time, which of the two the French really intended; and if they meaned peace, to have bad it concluded; or, if they meaned war, to have given them the first blow at sea; for if, instead of that, you give them time to augment their marine, while you keep yours at an immense and useless expense, I believe they will be more explicit with you next year. The clamour at our inaction is universal and prodigious, people desiring something for their money. From that, and many other concurring causes, the next session will be a very boisterous one.

Adieu, my dear Dayrolles: lady Chesterfield's and my compliments to Mrs. Dayrolles.

LETTER XXXV.

LORD CHESTERFIELD TO DR. R. C

Bath, Nov. 22, 1757.

MY DEAR LORD, I SHALL make but a very unsatisfactory return to your kind inquiries and solicitude about my health, when I tell you, that but three days ago I had a very strong attack of my usual illness, which has left me still weak and languid. I thought myself the better for the waters, which I have drank a month, till this relapse came and undeceived me. All mineral waters, and the whole materia medica, lose their efficacy upon my shattered carcass, and the enemy within is too hard for them. I bear it all with patience, and without melancholy, because

I must bear it whether I will or no. Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something. My philosophy teaches me to reflect, how much higher, rather than how much lower, I might have been taxed. How gentle are my physical ills, compared with the exquisite torments of gout, stone, &c.! The faculties of my mind are, thank God, not yet much impaired; and they comfort me in my worst moments, and amuse me in the best.

I read with more pleasure than ever; perhaps, because it is the only pleasure I have left. For, since I am struck out of living company by my deafness, I have recourse to the dead, whom alone I can hear; and I have assigned them their stated hours of audience. Solid folios are the people of business, with whom I converse in the morning, Quartos are the easier mixed company, with whom I sit after dinner; and I pass my evenings in the light, and often frivolous, chit-chat of small octavos and duodecimos. This upon the whole hinders me from wishing for death, while other considerations hinder me from fearing it.

Does lord Clanbrazil bring in his register bill this session? If he can keep it short, clear, and mild, it will be in my opinion a very good one. Some time or other, though God knows when, it will be found out in Ireland, that the popish religion and influence cannot be subdued by force, but may be undermined and destroyed by art. Allow the Papists to buy lands, let and take leases equally with the protestants, but subject to the gavel act, which will always have its effect upon

their posterity at least. Tie them down to the government by the tender but strong bonds of landed property, which the pope will have much ado to dissolve, notwithstanding his power of loosening and binding. Use those who come over to you, though perhaps only seemingly at first, well and kindly, instead of looking for their cloven feet and their tails, as you do now. Increase both your number and your care of the Protestant charter-schools. Make your penal laws extremely mild, and then put them strictly in execution. Hæ tibi erunt artes.

(These will be your arts.)

This would do in time, and nothing else will, nor ought, I would as soon murder a man for his estate, as prosecute him for his religious and speculative errrors; and since I am in a way of quoting verses, I will give you three out of Walsh's famous ode to king William:

"Nor think it a sufficient cause,

To punish men by penal laws,

For not believing right."

I am very glad that your daughter is recovered. I am glad that you are well, and whatever you are glad of will, upon my word, gladden your faithful friend and servant, &c.

LETTER XXXVI.

COLLEY CIBBER TO MR. RICHARDSON.

SIR, Νου. 19, 1743. THE devil take the insolent goodness of your imagination! The spirited generosity of sir Charles to the two Danbys and their sister has put me so out of conceit with my own narrow soul, that I cannot be easy for not having been myself the author of your more than mortal history. By the way, don't I almost talk nonsense? But people in rapture never think that common words can express it. And so let me read on a little.

I could not make an end of this letter without having as handkerchiefly a feeling of it as Mr. Sylvester himself had. But don't you think it a bold stroke to give such a limb of the dry law so quick a sense of another's virtue and good nature! But it is your having yourself so much more of it than you want, that makes you willing to part with it, where you are sure it will be wondered at.

Thus far I had wrote ten days ago; and not being able to admit any interruption into my reading whatever might relate to sir Charles, has prevented me till now from sooner saying a word of your work. Were I to give my opinion at large, it would fill up a larger volume than you would have patience to read; though I should hardly write a line that you would not like. I will not give you a pretence to call me flatterer, by particular praises of what I like, nor gratify my own vanity

by finding faults, which, perhaps, it may be my fault if I don't like.

But let me at least do you this agreeable justice: that let your merit, as an author, be whatever it may, yet since I was born I cannot say that in all my reading of ancients or moderns, I ever met with such variety of entertainment, so much goodness of heart, and so indefatigable a capacity to give proofs of it! Can any man be a good moral writer that does not take up his pen in the cause of vir. tue? I had rather have the fame that your amiable zeal for it deserves, than be preferred as a poet to a Pope, or his Homer.

What a spirited imagination there is in the two keys of lord and lady L! What a sublime simplicity! What an original picture of matrimo nial harmony! And yet how pleasantly provoking is that toying temper of her sister! This is quite a new poetical piece, that no master-hand has been able to come up to. I will reserve finding fault, till I take a voyage to your end of the town, or till the penny-post walks this way, to put you in mind how much I owe to the volumes you have sent to, yours, &c.

LETTER XXXVII.

MR. STRAHAN TO MR, RICHARDSON.

DEAR SIR,

Edinburgh, Aug. 24, 1749. If I were to be long at a distance from you, I fancy I should become as troublesome in writing, as you haye experienced, to your cost, I have often been

« ÎnapoiContinuă »