IT

LETTER XXII.

The Anfwer.

April 20, 1723.

T is not poffible to express what I think, and what I feel; only this, that I have thought and felt for nothing but you, for some time past and shall think of nothing fo long for the time to come. The greatest comfort I had was an intention (which I would have made practicable) to have attended you in your journey, to which I had brought that perfon to confent, who only could have hindred me, by a tye which, tho' it may be more tender, I do not think more strong, than that of friendship. But I fear there will be no way left me to tell you this great truth, that I remember you, that I love you, that I am grateful to you, that I entirely esteem and value you: no way but that one, which needs no open warrant to authorize it, or fecret conveyance to secure it; which no bills can preclude, and no Kings prevent; a way that can reach to any part of the world where you may be, where the very whisper or even the wish of a friend must not be heard, or even fufpected: by this way I dare tell my efteem and affection of

you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their

fons, may hear of it.

You

You prove yourself, my Lord, to know me for the friend I am; in judging that the manner of your Defence, and your Reputation by it, is a point of the highest concern to me: and afsuring me, it shall be such, that none of your friends fhall blush for you. Let me further prompt you to do yourself the best and most lafting justice: the inftruments of your Fame to posterity will be in your own hands. May it not be, that Providence has appointed you to fome great and useful work, and calls you to it this fevere way? You may more eminently and more effectually ferve the Public even now, than in the stations you have fo honourably fill'd. Think of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon a : is it not the latter, the difgraced part of their lives, which you most and which you

envy, would choose to have liv'd?

I am tenderly fenfible of the wish you express, that no part of your misfortune may purfue me. But, God knows, I am every day less and lefs fond of my native country (fo torn as it is by Party rage) and begin to confider a friend in exile as a friend in death; one gone before, where I am not unwilling nor unprepared to follow after; and where (however va

* Clarendon indeed wrote | difgrace; and the best of his beft works in his banish-Tully's after his return frem ment: but the best of Ba- | exile.

con's were written before his

VOL. VIII.

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rious

rious or uncertain the roads and voyages of another world may be) I cannot but entertain a pleafing hope that we may meet again.

I faithfully affure you, that in the mean time there is no one, living or dead, of whom I shall think oftner or better than of you. I shall look upon you as in a state between both, in which you will have from me all the paffions and warm wishes that can attend the living, and all the respect and tender sense of loss, that we feel for the dead. And I fhall ever depend upon your constant friendship, kind memory, and good offices, tho' I were never to fee or hear the effects of them: like the truft we have in benevolent fpirits, who, tho' we never fee or hear them, we think, are conftantly ferving us, and praying for us.

Whenever I am wishing to write to you, I fhall conclude you are intentionally doing fo to me. And every time that I think of you, I will believe you are thinking of me. I never fhall fuffer to be forgotten (nay to be but faintly remember'd) the honour, the pleasure, the pride I must ever have, in reflecting how frequently you have delighted me, how kindly you have diftinguish'd me, how cordially you have advis'd me! In converfation, in ftudy, I fhall alIn my ways want you, and with for you: most lively, and in my most thoughtful hours, I fhall

I shall equally bear about me, the impreffions of you: And perhaps it will not be in This life only, that I shall have cause to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester.

LETTER XXIII.

To the fame.

May 17, 1723.

N CE more I write to you, as I promis'd,

ON

and this once, I fear, will be the laft! the Curtain will foon be drawn between my friend and me, and nothing left but to wish you a long good-night. May you enjoy a state of repofe in this life, not unlike that sleep of the foul which fome have believ'd is to fucceed it, where we lye utterly forgetful of that world from which we are gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go. If you retain any memory of the past, let it only image to you what has pleas'd you best; sometimes present a dream of an abfent friend, or bring you back an agreeable converfation. But upon the whole, I hope you will think lefs of the time past than of the future; as the former has been lefs kind to you

than the latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the world your ftudies; they will tend to the benefit of men against whom you can have no complaint, I mean of all Pofterity: and perhaps, at your time of life, nothing elfe is worth your care. What is every year of a wife man's life but a cenfure or critic on the paft? Those whose date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it: the boy despises the infant, the man the boy, the philofopher both, and the Christian all. You may now begin to think your manhood was too much a puerility; and you'll never fuffer your age to be but a second infancy. The toys and baubles of your childhood are hardly now more below you, than those toys of our riper and of our declining years, the drums and rattles of Ambition, and the dirt and bubbles of Avarice. At this time, when you are cut off from a little fociety and made a citizen of the world at large, you should bend your talents not to serve a Party or a few, but all mankind. Your Genius fhould mount above that mift in which its participation and neighbourhood with earth long involv'd it; to fhine abroad and to heaven, ought to be the business, and the glory of your present fituation. Remember it was at fuch a time, that the greateft lights of antiquity dazled and blazed the most, in their retreat, in their exile, or in