Quanquam feftinas, non eft mora longa; licebit,
Injecto ter pulvere, curras.

There is an answer for me fomewhere in Hamlet to this request, which you remember, tho' I don't. Poor Ghoft! thou shalt be fatisfied!—or fomething like it. However that be, take care you do not fail in your appointment, that the company of the living may make me fome amends for my attendance on the dead.

I know you will be glad to hear that I am well: I fhould always, could I always be here

Sed me

Imperiofa trahit Proferpina: vive, valeque.

You are the first man I fent to this morning, and the last man I defire to converfe with this evening, tho' at twenty miles distance from you. Te, veniente die, Te, decedente, requiro.

I

LETTER XXI.

From the Bishop of ROCHESTER.

DEAR SIR,

The Tower, April 10, 1723.

Thank you for all the inftances of your friendfhip, both before, and fince my misfortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me for ever. But in what part of the world foever I am, I will live mindful of your fincere kindness to me; and will please myfelf with the thought, that I ftill live in your esteem and affection, as much as ever I did; and that no accidents of life, no distance of time, or place, will alter you in that refpect. It never can me; who have lov'd and valued you, ever fince I knew you, and

fhall

fhall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you fo; as the cafe will foon be. Give my faithful fervices to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he fent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be faid to be to the purpose, in a cafe that is already determined. Let him know my Defence will be fuch, that neither my friends need blush for me, nor will my enemies have great occafion of Triumph, tho' fure of the Victory. I shall want his advice before I go abroad, in many things. But I question whether I fhall be permitted to fee him, or any body, but such as are abfolutely neceffary towards the difpatch of my private affairs. If fo, God bless both! and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me, ever purfue either of you! I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing, to fay fomewhat about my way of spending my time at the Deanry, which did not feem calculated towards managing plots and confpiracies. But of that I fhall confiderYou and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter fubjects; and, that I may preserve the old cuftom, I fhall not part with you now till I have clos'd this letter, with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily and not without fome degree of concern apply to your ever affectionate, &c.

you

Some nat❜ral Tears he dropt, but wip'd them foon:
The World was all before him, where to chufe
His place of reft, and Providence his Guide.

LET

LETTER XXII

The Answer.

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 fome time past and fhall 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 hindered me, by a tye which, tho' it may be more tender, I do not think more ftrong, 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 fecure 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 wifh of a friend must not be heard, or even fufpected by this way, I dare tell my esteem and affection of you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their fons, may hear of it.

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 affuring 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 lasting juftice: the inftruments of your Fame to pofterity will be in your own hands. May it not be, that providence has

ap

appointed you to fome great and ufeful work, and calls you to it this fevere way? You may more eminently and more effectually serve the Public even now, than in the ftations you have fo honourably fill'd. Think of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon*: is it not the latter, the difgraced part of their lives, which you most envy, and which would choose to have liv'd?

you

I am tenderly fenfible of the wifh you express, that no part of your misfortune may purfue me. But, God knows, I am every day less and less fond of my native country (fo torn as it is by Partyrage) 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 various 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 fhall think oftner or better than of you. I fhall 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 fense of lofs, that we feel for the dead. And I fhall ever depend upon your conftant 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 constantly serving us, and praying for us.

Whenever I am wishing to write to you, I fhall conclude you are intentionally doing fo to me.

Clarendon indeed wrote his beft works in his banishment: but the best of Bacon's were written before his difgrace, and the beft of Tully's after his return from exile.

And

And every time that I think of you, I will believe you are thinking of me. I never shall suffer to be forgotten (nay to be but faintly remember'd) the honour, the pleasure, the pride I muft ever have, in reflecting how frequently you have delighted me, how kindly you have diftinguifh'd me, how cordially you have advis'd me! In conversation, in study, I fhall always want you, and wifh for you: In my moft lively, and in my moft thoughtful hours, I fhall equally bear about me, the impreffions of you: And perhaps it will not be in This life only, that I fhall have caufe to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXIII.

To the fame.

May, 1723.

NCE more I write to you, as I promis'd, 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 ftate of repofe in this life, not unlike that fleep 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 paft, let it only image to you what has pleas'd you beft; fometimes prefent 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