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LETTER I.

Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE to Mr. SIDNEY.

Hague, Dec. 13. N. S. 1675.

HO' I did not like the Date of your laft Letter, yet

I did all the reft very well. I thought Lyons a little too far off for one I wish always in my Reach: But when I remembered, it was a Place of fo great Trade, and where you told me yours had been very good in former Times, I was contented, to think you fpent your Time to your own Advantage and Satisfaction, tho' not to your Friends, by keeping at fuch a Diftance. I was very well pleafed t'other Day with a Vifit made me by Captain Frefheim, who was much in your Praises; but I did not like that he fhou'd make you kinder to him than to me: Yet I think he deserves it of you, if all be true that he tells; for he pretends to think you, le plus belle Homme, & le plus honnête Homme, and I know not what more, that never cane into my Head, as you know very well. However, I was mighty glad to hear him fay, you had the beft Health that cou'd be, and that you looked as if you would keep it fo, if you did not grow too kind to the Place and Company you lived in, or they to you. Yet, after what you tell me of the French Air and Bourbon Waters, I am much apter to wifh myself there, than you in thefe Parts of the World; and tho' I hear News every Day from all Sides, yet I have not heard any fo good, fince I came upon this Scene, as what you send me, of the Effects I am like to feel by the Change whenever I come upon that where you are: They will be greater and better than any I can expect by being the bufy Man, tho' Je pourrois bien faire Merveilles, with the Company I am joined to, and nobody knows to what Sir Ellis may raife another Ambailador, that has already raised one from the Dead. They begin to talk now of our going to Nimeguen, as if it were nearer than I thought it a Month ago: When we are there, it will be time enough to tell you what I think of our coming away. Hitherto, I can only fay, there are fo many Splinters in the broken Bone, that the Patient must be very good, as well as the Surgeon, if it be a fudden Cure. And though I behieve both where you and I are, the Difpofitions towards it

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are

are very well, yet I doubt of those who are farther off on both Sides of us. For aught any body knows, this great Dance may end as others ufe to do, every Man coming to the Place where they begun, or near it: Only, against all Reason and Custom, I doubt the poor Swede, that never led the Dance, is likelieft to pay the Fidlers. I hope you know what paffes at Home; at least, 'tis Pity you should not: But if you don't, you fhall not for me at this Distance; and fince you talk of returning, the Matter is not great. In the mean time, pray let me know your Motions and your Health, fince the Want of your Cypher keeps me from other things you say you have a mind to tell me. I hear nothing of the Letter you fay you have fent me by fo good a Hand; fo that all I can fay to that is, that by whatsoever it comes, any will be welcome that comes from yours; because nobody loves better than I, nor can be more than I am,

you

Yours, &c.

LETTER II.

Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE to the Bishop of ROCHESTER.

I

My LORD,

Nimeguen, May 21, N. S. 1677.

AM unacquainted with Thanks or Praises, having fo little deferved any, that I must judge of them rather by the Report of others, than by any Experience of my own. But if by either, I understand any thing of them, all the Charm or Value they have, arifes from the Efteem a Man has of the Perfon that gives them, or the Belief, in fome measure, of his own deferving them. The first of these Circumftances gave fo great an Advantage to those I had lately the Honour of receiving from your Lordship in a Letter delivered me by Mr. Delben, that the Want of the other was but neceffary to allay the Vanity they might otherwise have given me. But where a Man can find no Ground to flatter himfelf upon the Thanks he receives, he begins to confider whether they are Praife or Reproach: And fo, I am fure, I have Reafon to do in the Acknowledgments_your

Lord

Lordship is pleased to make me of any Favours to your Son, who has never yet been fo kind to me, as to give me the least Occafion of obliging him. I confefs, I should have been glad to meet with any, tho' I do not remember fo much as ever to have told him fo; but if he has gueffed it from my Countenance or Conversation, it is a Teftimony of his obferving much, and judging well; which are Qualities I have thought him guilty of, among thofe others that allow me to do him no Favour but Juftice only in esteeming him. 'Tis his Fortune to have been beforehand with me, by giving your Lordship an Occafion to take notice of me, and thereby furnifhing me with a Pretence of entering into your Service; which gives him a new Title to any I can do him, and your Lordship a very just one to employ me upon all Occafions.

Notwithstanding your Lordship's favourable Opinion, I will affure you, 'tis well for me, that our Work here requires little Skill, and that we have no more but Forms to deal with in this Congrefs, while the Treaty is truly in the Field, where the Conditions of it are yet to be determined. Fata viam invenient: Which is all I can fay of it; nor shall I increase your Lordship's prefent Trouble, beyond the Profeffions of my being,

My LORD,

Your LORDSHIP's moft Obedient

Humble Servant.

LETTER

III.

Mr. POPE to the Bishop of ROCHESTER.

NCE more I write to you as I promised, 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 with you a long good Night. May you enjoy a State of Repofe in this Life, not unlike that Sleep of the Soul which fome have believed is to fucceed it, where we lie 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 beft; fometimes prefent a Dream of an abfent

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pleas'd you Friend, or

bring

bring you back an agreeable Conversation. But upon the whole, I hope you will think lefs of the Time paft 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 Studies; 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 else is worth your Care. What is every Year of a wife Man's Life but a Ĉensure or Critique on the paft? Those whofe Date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it: The Boy defpifes the Infant, the Man the Boy, the Philofopher both, and the Chriftian 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 fecond Infancy. The Toys and Baubles of your Childhood are hardly now more below you, than thofe 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 Society, and made a Citizen of the World at large, you fhould bend your Talents not to ferve a Party, or a few, but all Mankind. Your Genius fhould mount above that Mift in which its Participation and Neighbourhood with Earth long involved it: To fhine abroad and to Heaven, ought to be the Business and the Glory of your prefent Situation. Remember it was at fuch a time, that the greatest Lights of Antiquity dazled and blazed the moft; in their Retreat, in their Exile, or in their Death: But why do I talk of dazling or blazing? it was then that they did Good, that they gave Light, and that they became Guides to Mankind.

Thofe Aims alone are worthy of Spirits truly great, and fuch I therefore hope will be yours. Refentment indeed may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinguished, in the nobleft Minds; but Revenge never will harbour there: Higher Principles than thofe of the firft, and better Principles than those of the latter, will infallibly influence Men whofe Thoughts and whofe Hearts are enlarged, and caufe them to prefer the Whole to any Part of Mankind, especially to fo small a Part as one's fingle Self.

Believe me, my Lord, I look upon you as a Spirit enter'd into another Life, as one juft upon the Edge of Immortality, where the Paffions and Affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to defpife all little Views, and all mean Retrospects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and therefore look forward, and make (as you can) the

World

World look after you: But take care, that it be not with Pity, but with Efteem and Admiratiom.

I am with the greatest Sincerity, and Paffion for your Fame as well as Happiness,

Yours, &c.

The Bishop of Rochester went into Exile the Month following, and continued in it till his Death, which happen'd ́at Paris on the fifteenth Day of Feb. in the Year 1732.

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LETTER IV.

From Mr. GAY to Mr. F.

Stanton-Harcourt, Aug. 9, 1718.

HE only News you can expect to have from me here, is News from Heaven, for I am quite out of the World, and there is scarce any thing can reach me except the Noise of Thunder, which undoubtedly you have heard too. We have read in old Authors, of high Towers levell'd by it to the Ground, while the humble Vallies have efcap'd: The only thing that is Proot against it is the Laurel, which however I take to be no great Security to the Brains of modern Authors. But to let you fee that the contrary to this often happens, I muft acquaint you that the higheft and moft extravagant Heap of Towers in the Univerfe, which is in this Neighbourhood, ftands ftill undefac'd, while a Cock of Barley in our next Field has been confum'd to Ashes. Would to God that this Heap of Barley had been all that had perifhed! For unhappily beneath this little Shelter fate two much more conftant Lovers than ever were found in Romance under the Shade of a Beech-Tree. John Hewit was a well-fet Man of about five and twenty; Sarah Drew might be rather called comely than beautiful, and was about thefame Age: They had paffed thro' the various Labours of the Year together with the greatest Satisfaction; if she milk'd, 'twas his Morning and Evening Care to bring the Cows to her Hand. It was but laft Fair that he bought her a Prefent of green Silk for her Straw-Hat; and the Poefy on her Silver Ring was of his chufing. Their Love was the Talk of the whole Neighbourhood; for Scandal never affirm'd that

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they