not performing any one promise it makes us for the future, and every day taking away and annulling the joys of the past. Let us comfort one another, and, if possible, study to add as much more friendship to each other, as death has deprived us of in him: I promise you more and more of mine, which will be the way to deserve more and more of yours.

I purposely avoid saying more. The subject is beyond writing upon, beyond cure or ease by reason or reflection, beyond all but one thought, that it is the will of God.

So will the death of my mother be! which now I tremble at, now resign to, now bring close to me, now set farther off: every day alters, turns me about, and confuses my whole frame of mind. Her dangerous distemper is again returned, her fever coming onward again, though less in pain; for which last however I thank God.

I am unfeignedly tired of the world, and receive nothing to be called a pleasure in it, equivalent to countervail either the death of one I have so long lived with, or of one I have so long lived for. I have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort; the last we usually think of, though the only one we should in wisdom depend upon, in such a disappointing place as this. I sit in her room, and she is always present before me, but when I sleep. I wonder I am so well: I have shed many tears, but now I weep at nothing. I would above all things see you, and think it

would comfort you to see me so equal-tempered and so quiet. But pray dine here; you may, and she know nothing of it, for she dozes much, and we tell her of no earthly thing, lest it run in her mind, which often trifles have done. If Mr. Bethel had time, I wish he were your companion hither. Be as much as you can with each other: be assured I love you both, and be farther assured, that friendship will increase as I live on.

LETTER LI.

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

(Cirencester,) Sept. 7, 1733.

You cannot think how melancholy this place makes me. Every part of this wood puts into my mind poor Mr. Gay, with whom I passed once a great deal of pleasant time in it, and another friend, who is near dead, and quite lost to us, Dr. Swift. I really can find no enjoyment in the place; the same sort of uneasiness as I find at Twickenham, whenever I pass my mother's room.

I have not yet writ to Mrs.**: I think I should, but have nothing to say that will answer the character they consider me in, as a wit; besides, my eyes grow very bad, (whatever is the cause of it,) I will put them out for nobody but a friend: and, I protest, it brings tears into them almost to write to you, when I think of your state and mine. I long to write to Swift, but cannot. The greatest

pain I know, is to say things so very short of one's meaning, when the heart is full.

I feel the going out of life fast enough, to have little appetite left to make compliments, at best useless, and for the most part unfelt speeches. It is but in a very narrow circle that friendship walks in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than I needs must; knowing well, it is but to two or three (if quite so many) that any man's welfare, or memory, can be of consequence: the rest, I believe, I may forget, and be pretty certain they are already even, if not beforehand with me.

Life, after the first warm heats are over, is all down-hill and one almost wishes the journey's end, provided we were sure but to lie down easy whenever the night shall overtake us.

I dreamed all last night of. She has dwelt (a little more than perhaps is right) upon my spirits. I saw a very deserving gentleman in my travels, who has formerly, I have heard, had much the same misfortune; and (with all his good breeding and sense) still bears a cloud and melancholy cast, that never can quite clear up, in all his behaviour and conversation. I know another, who, I believe, could promise, and easily keep his word, never to laugh in his life. But one must do one's best, not to be used by the world as that poor lady was by her sister; and not seem too good, for fear of being thought affected, or whimsical.

It is a real truth, that to the last of my moments,

the thought of you, and the best of my wishes for you, will attend you, told or untold.

I could wish you had once the constancy and resolution to act for yourself; whether before or after I leave you, (the only way I ever shall leave you,) you must determine; but reflect, that the first would make me, as well as yourself, happier; the latter could make you only so. Adieu.

MADAM,

LETTER LII.

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

Tuesday, Aug. 25, 1735.

I FOUND my Lord Peterborough on his couch, where he gave me an account of the excessive sufferings he had passed through, with a weak voice, but spirited. He talked of nothing but the great amendment of his condition, and of finishing the buildings and gardens for his best friend to enjoy after him; that he had one care more, when he went into France, which was, to give a true account to posterity of some parts of history in Queen Anne's reign, which Burnet had scandalously represented; and of some others, to justify her against the imputation of intending to bring in the Pretender, which (to his knowledge) neither her ministers, Oxford and Bolingbroke, nor she, had any design to do. He next told me, he had ended his domestic affairs, through such difficulties from the law, that gave him as much torment of

mind, as his distemper had done of body, to do right to the person to whom he had obligations beyond expression: that he had found it necessary not only to declare his marriage to all his relations, but (since the person who had married them was dead) to re-marry her in the church at Bristol, before witnesses. The warmth with which he spoke on these subjects, made me think him much recovered, as well as his talking of his present state as a heaven to what was past. I lay in the next room to him, where I found he was awake, and called for help most hours of the night, sometimes crying out for pain. In the morning he got up at nine, and was carried into his garden in a chair: he fainted away twice there. He fell, about twelve,

* Lord Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, a celebrated singer, of whom Dr. Burney has given a very interesting account in vol. iv. of his History of Music. The marriage was long kept secret, and, we learn from this Letter, divulged only about this time. His Lordship did not survive this interview with his old correspondent many weeks. He persisted in going to Lisbon, but died in the passage, Oct. 15. He was born about the year 1658, and was in his seventy-seventh year when he died. At the time of his connexion with Mrs. Robinson, he must have been considerably beyond his prime. She survived him fifteen years, residing in an exalted station, partly at Bevis Mount, near Southampton (whence Mr. Pope's interesting Letter is dated), and partly at Fulham, or perhaps at Peterborough-House on Parson's Green (Lysons' Environs of London, vol. ii.). The only Life extant of Lord Peterborough is that by Dr. Birch, which accompanies the Earl's portrait in Houbraken's Heads. He had written his own Memoirs, which his Lady destroyed, from a regard to his reputation. Tradition says, that in these Memoirs he confessed his having committed three capital crimes before he was twenty years of age. Such Memoirs may be spared. C. Bowles.