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science, I believe, and by the whole conduct of your life I have reason to believe, that you are too poor to bear the expence. I ever told you, I was the richer man of the two and I am now richer by five hundred pounds, than I was at the time when I was boasting at your table of my wealth, before Diamond Pitt.*

I have hitherto taken up with a scurvy print of you, under which I have placed this lemma:

Veteres actus primamque juventam

Prosequar? ad sese mentem præsentia ducunt.

And this I will place under your picture, whenever you are rich enough to send it me. I will only promise, in return, that it shall never lose you the reputation of poverty; which, to one of your birth, patrimony, and employments, is one of the greatest glories of your life, and so shall be celebrated by

me.

I entreat your lordship, if your leisure and your health will permit, to let me know when I can be a month with you at Brampton castle; because I have a great deal of business with you that relates to posterity. Mr Mynett has, for some time, led me an uncomfortable life, with his ill accounts of your health; but, God be thanked, his style of late is much altered for the better.

My hearty and constant prayers are perpetually offered up for the preservation of you and your excellent family. Pray, my lord, write to me: or you

* Thomas Pitt, Esq. who amassed great riches as governor of Fort St George, in the East Indies: he was noted as proprietor of the celebrated diamond, to which he gave a name, as he took designation from it. It was esteemed the largest in the world.

never loved me, or I have done something to deserve your displeasure. My Lord and Lady Harriot, my brother and sister, pretend to atone by making me fine presents; but I would have his lordship know, that I would value two of his lines, more than two of his manors, &c.

DEAR SIR,

FROM MR GAY.

London, Dec. 22, 1722.

AFTER every post-day, for these eight or nine years I have been troubled with an uneasiness of spirit, and at last I have resolved to get rid of it, and write to you. I do not deserve you should think so well of me as I really deserve; for I have not professed to you, that I love you as much as ever I did: but you are the only person of my acquaintance almost that does not know it. Whomever I see that comes from Ireland, the first question I ask is after your health; of which I had the pleasure to hear very lately from Mr Berkeley. I think of very often nobody wishes you better, or longs more to see you. Duke Disney, who knows more news than any man alive, told me I should certainly meet you at the Bath this season: but I had one comfort in being disappointed, that you did not want it for

you

* The members of the club of sixteen all called one another brothers, and consequently their wives were sisters to the several members.-D. S.

your health. I was there for near eleven weeks for a colic, that I have been often troubled with of late; but have not found all the benefit I expected. *

I lodge at present in Burlington-house, and have received many civilities from many great men, but very few real benefits. They wonder at each other for not providing for me; and I wonder at them all. Experience has given me some knowledge of them; so that I can say, that it is not in their power to disappoint me. You find I talk to you of myself; I wish you would reply in the same manner. I hope, though you have not heard of me so long, I have not lost my credit with you; but that you will think of me in the same manner, as when you espoused my cause so warmly, which my gratitude never can forget. I am, dear Sir,

Your most obliged, and sincere humble servant,
J. GAY.

P. S. Mr Pope, upon reading over this letter, desired me to tell you, that he has been just in the same sentiments with me, in regard to you, and shall never forget his obligations to you.

T

In a letter to Gay, during his illness, Mr Pope says, (( If, as I believe, the air of a better clime, as the southern part of France, may be thought useful for your recovery, thither I would go with you infallibly; and it is very probable we might get the Dean with us, who is in that abandoned state already in which I shall shortly be as to other cares and duties."

*

TO DR SHERIDAN.

Dublin, Dec. 22, 1722.

WHAT care we, whether you swim or sink? Is this a time to talk of boats, or a time to sail in them, when I am shuddering? or a time to build boathouses, or pay for carriage? No; but toward summer, I promise hereby under my hand to subscribe a (guinea) shilling for one; or, if you please me, what is blotted out, or something thereabouts, and the ladies shall subscribe three thirteens between them, and Mrs Brent a penny, and Robert and Archy halfpence a-piece, and the old man and woman a farthing each; in short I will be your collector, and we will send it down full of wine, a fortnight before we go at Whitsuntide. You will make eight thousand blunders in your planting: and who can help it? for I cannot be with you. My horses eat hay, and I hold my visitation on January 7, just in the midst of Christmas. Mrs Brent is angry, and swears as much as a fanatic can do, that she will subscribe sixpence to your boat.Well, I shall be a countryman when you are not; we are now at Mr Fad's, † with Dan and Sam; and I steal out while they are at cards, like a lover writing to his mistress.We have no news in our town. The ladies have left us to-day, and I promised them that you would carry your club to Arsellagh, when you are weary of one another. You express your happiness

*The word guinea is struck through with a pen in the copy.-F. + Faden.-F.

with grief in one hand, and sorrow in the other. What fowl have you but the weep? what hairs, but Mrs Macfaden's grey hairs? what pease but your own? Your mutton and your wether are both very bad, and so is your wedder mutton. Wild fowl is what we like.-How will this letter get to you?A fortnight good from this morning, you will find Quilca not the thing it was last August; nobody to relish the lake; nobody to ride over the downs; no trout to be caught; no dining over a well; no night heroics, no morning epics; no stolen hour when the wife is gone; no creature to call you names. Poor miserable master Sheridan! No blind harpers! no journies to Rantavan! Answer all this, and be my magnus Apollo. We have new plays and new libels, and nothing valuable is old but Stella, whose bones she recommends to you. Dan desires to know whether you saw the advertisement of your being robbed and so I conclude,

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COMING home after a short Christmas ramble, I found a letter upon my table, and little expected when I opened it to read your name at the bottom. The best and greatest part of my life, until these last eight years, I spent in England; there I made my friendships, and there I left my desires. I am condemned for ever to another country; what is in prudence to be done? I think to be oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis. What can be the

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