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Hujus Nympha loci, facri cuftodia fontis,

Dormio, dum blandæ fentio murmur aquæ. Parce meum, quifquis tangis cava marmora, Somnum

Rumpere ; fi bibas, five lavere, tace.

Nymph of the grot, these facred springs I keep,
And to the murmur of these waters fleep;
Ah spare my flumbers, gently tread the cave!
And drink in filence, or in filence lave!

You'll think I have been very poetical in this description, but it is pretty near the truth. I with you were here to bear teftimony how little it owes to Art, either the place itself, or the image I give of it.

I am, &c.

LETTER XV.

Sept. 13, 1725.

1

I

Should be afham'd to own the receipt of a very kind letter from you, two whole months from the date of this; if I were not more

He had greatly inlarged | come one of the moft elegant

and improved this Grotto not long before his death: and, by incrufting it about with a great number of ores and minerals of the richest and rareft kinds, it was be

and romantic retirements any where to be feen. He has made it the fubject of a very pretty poem of a fingular caft and composition.

afhamed

ashamed to tell a lye, or to make an excuse, which is worse than a lye (for being built upon fome probable circumftance, it makes use of a degree of truth to falfify with, and is a lye guarded.) Your letter has been in my pocket in conftant wearing, till that, and the pocket, and the fuit, are worn out; by which means I have read it forty times, and I find by fo doing that I have not enough confidered and reflected upon many others you have obliged me with; for true friendship, as they say of good writing, will bear reviewing a thousand times, and ftill difcóver new beauties.

I have had a fever, a fhort one, but a violent: I am now well; fo it fhall take up no more of this paper.

I begin now to expect you in town to make

the winter to come more tolerable to us both. The fummer is a kind of heaven, when we wander in a paradifaical fcené among groves and gardens; but at this feason, we are, like our poor first parents, turn'd out of that agreeable though folitary life, and forced to look about for more people to help to bear our labours, to get into warmer houses, and live together in cities.

I hope you are long fince perfectly reftor'd, and rifen from your gout, happy, in the delights of a contented family, smiling at storms, laugh

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ing at greatness, merry over a christmas-fire, and exercifing all the functions of an old Patriarch in charity and hofpitality. I will not tell Mrs. B* what I think she is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, that he only ought to know it for whom it is done; and she will allow herself to be far enough advanced above a fine lady, not to defire to thine before men.

Your daughters perhaps may have some other thoughts, which even their mother must excuse them for, because she is a mother. I will not however suppose those thoughts get the better of their devotions, but rather excite them and affift the warmth of them; while their prayer may be, that they may raise up and breed as irreproachable a young family as their parents have done. In a word, I fancy you all well, eafy, and happy, just as I wish you; and next to that, I wish you all with me.

Next to God, is a good man: next in dignity, and next in value. Minuifti eum paullo minus ab angelis. If therefore I wish well to the good and the deferving, and defire they only fhould be my companions and correfpondents, I muft very foon and very much think of you. I want your company, and your example. Pray make hafte to town, so as not again to leave us: discharge the load of earth that lies on you,

like

like one of the mountains under which, the poets fay, the giants (the men of the earth) are whelmed: leave earth, to the fons of the earth, your conversation is in heaven. Which that it may be accomplish'd in us all, is the prayer of him who maketh this short Sermon ; value (to you) three-pence. Adieu.

Mr. Blount died in London the following Year, 1726. P.

;

LET

LETTERS

TO AND FROM THE

Hon. ROBERT DIGBY,

From 1717 to 1727.

LETTER I..

To the Hon. ROBERT DIGBY.

I'

June 2, 1717.

Had pleas'd myself sooner in writing to you,

but that I have been your fucceffor in a fit of fickness, and am not yet so much recovered, but that I have thoughts of using your a phyfi cians. They are as grave perfons as any of the faculty, and (like the ancients) carry their own medicaments about with them. But indeed the moderns are fuch lovers of raillery, that nothing is grave enough to escape them. Let

* Affes.

them

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