The lizard, and the tiger, as the mole But, I believe, Milton never thought these fine verses of his should be apply'd to a man felling a parcel of dirty acres; tho' in the main, I think, it may have some resemblance. For, God knows! this little space of ground nourishes, buries, and confines us, as that of Eden did those creatures, till we can shake it loose, at least in our affections and defires. Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you: let Mrs. Blount know that she is in the lift of my Memento, Domine, famulorum famularumque's, &c. My poor mother is far from well, declining; and I am watching over her, as we watch an expiring taper, that even when it looks brighteft, waftes fastest. I am (as you will fee from the whole air of this letter) not in the gayeft nor easiest humour, but always with fincerity, Your, &c. YOU LETTER XIII. June 27, 1723. may truly do me the justice to think no man is more your fincere well-wisher than myself, or more the fincere well-wisher of VOL. VIII, D your your whole family; with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture of envy to you all, for loving one another fo well; and for enjoying the sweets of that life, which can only be tafted by people of good-will. They from all fades the darkness can exclude, Torbay is a paradife, and a storm is but an amusement to fuch people. If you drink Tea upon a promontory that over-hangs the fea, it is preferable to an Affembly: and the whistling of the wind better mufic to contented and loving minds, than the Opera to the fpleenful, ambitious, difeas'd, distasted, and diftracted fouls which this world affords ; nay, this world affords no other. Happy they, who are banifh'd from us! but happier they, who can banish themselves; or more properly banish the world from them! Alas! I live at Twickenham ! I take that period to be very fublime, and to include more than a hundred fentences that might be writ to exprefs diftraction, hurry, multiplication of nothings, and all the fatiguing perpetual business of having no business to do. You'll wonder I reckon tranflating the Odyffey as nothing. But whenever I think seriously (and of late I have met with fo many occafions of of thinking seriously, that I begin never to think otherwise) I cannot but think these things very idle; as idle as if a beaft of burden should go on jingling his bells, without bearing any thing valuable about him, or ever ferving his master. Life's vain amufements, amidst which we dwell; Not weigh'd, or understood, by the grim God of Hell! faid a heathen poet; as he is translated by a christian Bishop, who has, firft by his exhortations, and fince by his example, taught me to think as becomes a reasonable creature-but he is gone! I remember I promis'd to write to you, as foon as I should hear you were got home. You must look on this as the first day I've been myself, and pass over the mad interval un-imputed to me. How punctual a correfpondent I shall hence-forward be able or not able to be, God knows: but He knows, I fhall ever be a punctual and grateful friend, and all the good wishes of fuch an one will ever attend you. You LETTER XIV. Twick'nam, June 2, 1725. fhew yourself a just man and a friend in thofe gueffes and fuppofitions you make at the poffible reasons of my filence; every one of which is a true one. As to forgetfulness of you or yours, I affure you, the promiscuous converfations of the town ferve only to put me in mind of better, and more quiet, to be had in a corner of the world (undisturb'd, innocent, ferene, and fenfible) with fuch as you. Let no access of any diftruft make you think of me differently in a cloudy day from what you do in the most funshiny weather. Let the young ladies be affured I make nothing new in my gardens without wishing to fee the print of their fairy steps in every part of them. I have put the laft hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the fubterraneous way and grotto: I there found a spring of the cleareft water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes thro' the cavern day and night. From the river Thames, you fee thro' my arch up a walk of the wilderness, to a kind of open Temple, wholly compos'd of fhells in the ruftic manner; and from that distance under the temple you look down thro' a floping arcade of trees, and see the fails on on the river paffing fuddenly and vanishing, as thro' a perspective glass. When you fhut the doors of this grotto, it becomes on the instant, from a luminous room a Camera obscura; on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture in their visible radiations: and when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different scene; it is finished with fhells interfperfed with pieces of looking-glafs in angular forms; and in the cieling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp (of an orbicular figure of thin alabaster) is hung in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto by a narrower paffage two porches, one towards the river of smooth ftones full of light, and open; the other toward the Garden shadow'd with trees, rough with fhells, flints, and ironore. The bottom is paved with fimple pebble, as is also the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural tafte, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to compleat it but a good statue with an inscription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am fo fond of, |