fome others whom I have forgot. I am forry at my heart that you are pestered with people who come in my name, and I profess to you, it is without my knowledge. I am confident I shall hardly ever have occasion again to recommend, for my friends here are very few, and fixed to the free-hold, from whence nothing but death will remove them. Surely I never doubted about your Essay on Man; and I would lay any odds, that I would never fail to discover you in fix lines, unless you had a mind to write below or beside yourself on purpose. I confess I did never imagine you were so deep in Morals, or that so many new and excellent rules could be produced so advantageoufly and agreeably in that science, from any one head. I confess in some few places I was forced to read twice, I believe I told you before what the Duke of D---- said to me on that occafion, How a judge here, who knows you, told him that on the first reading those Efsays, he was much pleased, but found some lines a little dark: On the second most of them cleared up, and his pleasure increased: On the third he had no doubt remained, and then he admired the whole. My lord B----'s attempt of reducing Metaphysics to intelligible sense and usefulness, will be a glorious undertaking, and

as I never knew him fail in any thing he attempted, if he had the fole management, so I am confident he will fucceed in this. I defire you will allow that I write to you both at present, and so I shall while I live: It saves your money, and my time; and he being your Genius, no matter to which it is addressed, I am happy that what you write is printed in large letters; otherwife between the weakness of my eyes, and the thickness of my hearing, I should lose the greatest pleasure that is left me. Pray command my lord B----- to follow that example, if I live to read his Metaphyfics. Pray God bless you both. I had a melancholy account from the Doctor of his health. I will anfwer his letter as foon as I can. I am ever entirely yours,

LETTER

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LETTER LXXIII.

Twickenham, Dec. 19, 1734.

Am truly forry for any complaint you have, and it is in regard to the weakness of your eyes that I write (as well as print) in folio. You'll think (I know you will, for you have all the candor of a good understanding) that the thing which men of our age feel the most, is the friendship of our equals; and that therefore whatever affects those who are stept a few years before us, cannot but sensibly affect us who are to follow. It troubles me to hear you complain of your memory, and if I am in any part of my conftitution younger than you, it will be in my remembring every thing that has pleased me in you, longer than perhaps you will. The two fummers we pass'd together dwell always on my mind, like a vision which gave me a glympse of a better life and better company, than this world otherwise afforded. I am now an individual, upon whom no other depends; and may go where I will, if the wretched carcafe I am annex'd to did not hinder me. I rambled by very easy journeys this year to Lord Bathurst and Lord Peterborow, who upon every occafion commemorate, love, and wish for you. I now pass my days be

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tween Dawley, London, and this place, not studious, nor idle, rather polishing old works than hewing out new. I redeem now and then a paper that hath been abandon'd several years; and of this fort you'll foon fee one, which I infcribe to our old friend Arbuthnot.

Thus far I had written, and thinking to finish my letter the same evening, was prevented by company, and the next morning found myfelf in a fever, highly diforder'd, and so continued in bed for five days, and in my chamber till now; but fo well recover'd as to hope to go abroad to-morrow, even by the advice of Dr. Arbuthnot. He himself, poor man, is much broke, tho' not worse than for these two last months he has been. He took extremely kind your letter, I wish to God we could once meet again, before that separation, which yet, I would be glad to believe, shall re-unite us: But he who made us, not for ours, but his purposes, knows only whether it be for the better or the worse, that the affections of this life should, or should not continue into the other: and doubtless it is as it should be. Yet I am sure that while I am here, and the thing that I am, I shall be imperfect without the communication of fuch friends as you; you are to me like a limb loft, and buried in another country; tho' we seem quite divided, every accident makes me feel you were once a part of me. I always consider you fo much as a friend, that I forget you are an author, perhaps too much, but 'tis as much as I would defire you would do to me. However, if I could inspirit you to bestow correction upon those three Treatises, which you say are fo near completed, I should think it a better work that any I can pretend to of my own. I am almost at the end of my Morals, as I've been, long ago, of my Wit; my system is a short one, and my circle narrow. Imagination has no limits, and that is a sphere in which you may move on to eternity; but where one is confined to Truth (or to fpeak more like a human creature, to the appearances of Truth) we foon find the shortness of our Tether. Indeed by the help of a metaphysical chain of Ideas, one may extend the circulation, go round and round for ever, without making any progress beyond the point to which Providence has pinn'd us: But this does not fatisfy me, who would rather say a little to no purpose, than a great deal. Lord B. is voluminous, but he is voluminous only to destroy volumes. I shall not live, I fear, to fee that work printed; he is so taken up still (in spite of the monitory hint given in the first line of my Effay) with particular Men, that he neglects mankind, and is still a creature of this world, not of the Universe: This World,