roads to peace, to solitude, and to friendship. When you are here, although you may have jumbled over some stones, and waded through some mire, you will find our situation good, our air wholesome, and the house, its master, and his territories all your own. Since my arrival from Bath I received very melancholy accounts of our friend in the park, in confirmation of the hints you gave me Her situation is deplorable. Death only can give relief to passions of that sort, but I observe that people in her disposition of mind live generally to a great age. "The days of women are threescore years and ten, and if they be so strong to attain to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but madness or folly." I think so little of the great world, and am so pleased with my retirement, that, unless to see you, I know nothing could make me wish myself a single day from Marston, where every mortal is, as I am, dear sir, your very faithful, and obedient servant.

72.

POPE TO LORD ORRERY.

BRISTOL, Aug. 12, 1743.

MY LORD, I have been summoned from Mr. Allen's to Lord Bathurst, where I passed five days, and then returned, not without hopes your enemy the gout had been repulsed, and that you would give me a challenge to meet you on horseback, and ride toward Marston. But not seeing or hearing from you gives me great fear you are still confined, and I was writing to enquire when Mr. Arbuthnot came from London, and insisted on my going with him, as I had engaged, either to a house Mr. Allen had promised to lend him, or to Bristol. The house was denied us, and he did not care to stay longer

2

1 She died the month following, March 13, 1743, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey on April 8. She was a woman of weak understanding, crazy pride, and irrational self-will, and Lord Orrery is intimating what his caution would not permit him to say plainly, that her passionate, eccentric caprices had passed into the frenzy of open insanity.

2 "I suspect," wrote Pope to George Arbuthnot, July 23, 1743, "that he has an apprehension in his head that if he lends that house to us, others hereabouts may try to borrow it, which would be disagreeable to him, he making it a kind of villa to change to, and pass now and then a day at it in private."

than four or five days; so we are both at Bristol, whither I came by water, through the most romantic scene I could desire to other scenes here of still higher beauty. I cannot now have any hopes of seeing Marston, as the utmost limit of our time. draws nigh. But I cannot live with any ease under the disappointment of that, and under the apprehension of your continuing ill. All the purpose, therefore, of this letter is to beg to know by a line (to be left with Mr. Pyne the postmaster at Bristol) the true state of your lordship's health.

I just hear of the death of Lord Hervey.' Requiescat in pace. Will it not oblige you to return to London somewhat the sooner ? If so, I hope I shall know the first day, and find that part of the kingdom a much better situation than this for friendship to thrive in, and for friends to enjoy life. I cannot say with how much truth, esteem, and affection, I am, my lord, your ever obliged servant.

Nor can you say too much from me to Lady Orrery.

73.

POPE TO LORD ORRERY.

BRISTOL, Aug. 18, 1743.

MY LORD, It was beyond expression kind in you to give me this assurance of your better state of health, and the knowledge that you are upon your legs again, actively setting out on adventures. I shall do the same, on the same day, Saturday, as I believe, and proceed with Mr. Arbuthnot homeward, with sure and certain hope of meeting you at London, and at

He died Aug. 8, 1743.

3

On Feb. 26, 1743, the eldest daughter of Lord Hervey was married to the grandson of the Duchess of Buckingham, Constantine Phipps, who was created Lord Mulgrave in 1767. The duchess left Lord Hervey Buckingham House, with the furniture and all her plate for his life, and Pope apparently infers that the transfer of the property to the next heir would require Lord Orrery's presence in his capacity of an executor under

the will of the duchess.

3 "All hope," said Mandeville, "includes doubt; a certain hope is palpable nonsense." "Hope or expectation," rejoined William Law, "does not imply uncertainty but futurity. Hope is uncertain, not because we cannot hope or expect with certainty, but because the things we hope for are generally not in our power, so as we can be secure of the event." The phrase, often used wrongly, is fitly applied to the promises of God.

VOL. VIII. CORRESPONDENCE, VOL. III.

LL

Twitnam, in either of which places I shall be at your devotion. I had a strong instinct to have gone by Lord Bathurst's, as he can tell you, to Sir Clement Cottrell's, but by a letter from him I find he is yet in London, and the method of my coming at him very precarious, if, after all, he should have room to lodge me, of which he speaks doubtfully, and, be it as it will, this will prevent me, for I cannot part from my fellow-traveller. Mr. Warburton is still with Mr. Allen, and I do not know certainly the time of his return to London, but I think at the beginning of next month. I shall not see Mr. Allen's again this year. I am constantly obliged to Lady Orrery, and I promise, if ever I drag my bones again so far, I will get to Marston from Salisbury, instead of vainly wishing it from Bath, and make that the first and ultimate end of my journey. My health is not bad, but the inward complaint of my breast continues. I heartily wish that your lordship's journies may accomplish what I never expect from mine, and restore you perfectly. My sincerest respects attend you both, and my prayers for the prosperity of this, and the next generation, that is to be yours, and which I hope your eyes will see when I am dust and ashes. I write nonsense, but it is quite night, and I asleep. I expect that James will call for this before I shall open my eyes to-morrow to blush at what I have written. But I add one more line with confidence; for never was a truer word said, or one I can be prouder of, than that I am entirely, and by all obligations your lordship's ever.

74.

POPE TO LORD ORRERY.

Sept. 30, 1743.

MY LORD,-You are too good in making enquiries after a man not worth giving you any account of. He can go anywhere but where he has most mind to go,-to Marston. He was at home but a fortnight before he was seduced into Oxfordshire, in my Lord Cornbury's coach, whence he was carried to Rousham by Sir Clement Cottrell, staid two days, and went to Oxford in full assurance of finding Dr. King, but he was gone the day before to London. However I took possession of his

lodging, and got away the next morning, undoctored the third time. Sic me servavit Apollo. The doctor has had an escape, and so have I. Thence I made a visit to the Duchess of Queensberry' and so returned to Twitnam yesterday, where, notwithstanding the finest autumn in the world, I am wishing for winter and November weather to bring you to town. Lady Orrery and yourself will never rest till you make me imagine by so many warm invitations that it is my duty to convince you I am a very troublesome fellow by passing as many days with you in St. James's Park as I wished to do at Marston. As to your executorship I wish nobody may be more troublesome to your lordship than I shall be in my demands, for I can but plead poverty; I am sure to be welcome to whatever you and Lady Orrery can help me to. I do not want money so much as health and strength, of which I have scarce enough to live upon, and, what vexes me more, scarce enough to speak, write, or behave toward those I most esteem and love, with spirit and alacrity sufficient to show them in what degree I love and esteem them. I can only protest, as I do very honestly, that I care for nothing else in this world than the society and good opinion of the few like yourself, and am invariably theirs and yours of necessity. So adieu, my dear lord, and recommend me to my lady, who will take your word for your ever obliged.

75.

POPE TO LORD ORRERY.

TWITENHAM, Nov. 17, 1743.

MY LORD,-Your every letter is a fresh proof of your goodness to me, as it is unprovoked and comes voluntary. The truth is I have such frequent reason to be ashamed that I never am, like others of my contemporaries. Otherwise there is not a friend I have but I should be ashamed ever to write

1 That is, it was the third visit he had paid to Oxford since there was a talk of conferring on him the degree

of LL.D.

2 At Amesbury.

3 Pope alludes to the annuity he bought of the Duchess of Buckingham, and which would now be paid by her executors.

to, having not done that duty so long. But what shall I say? I have a heart, but I have no eyes. I have the spirit strong, but the flesh is weak. I have nothing to do, and therefore want time. This last is no paradox, but a common case. I know it is otherwise with you, and therefore I do not wonder you can find no time to attend the public. Lady Orrery deserves more attention than Great Britain. But what absolute necessity to attend Mr. and Mrs. Ph[ipps] ? Do but send, or cause to be sent me, an order for my arrear, and even stay from them, when my job is done. Just the same liberty, my lord, would be given you by a greater man. But he desires nothing from you but money,' whereas in truth I desire it much less (let me want it ever so much more) than I do your company. Therefore, to be serious, if you must come after Christmas let it alone, and if you can contrive, instead of getting my whole year paid, (which expired last midsummer) to cause them to pay up the year and half at Christmas, it will be better on this particular account, that for the future the year may be paid rather in winter than summer, as all the trustees are more likely to be in town at that season.

I have just seen Lord Bathurst, who gives me a very satisfactory account of you. I have made your compliments to Lord Bolingbroke, in whose company your letter found me, and with whom I pass most of my time, and shall, while you continue absent. I believe you will see him when you come, for he proposes to stay a month or two. He is in very good health, busy about enclosing a common, and improving his estate here, about Battersea and Norwood. Would to God your lordship's estate was as near.

I am very ready to subscribe to the print, but do not know where, or to whom? Is this all I can do at your request? I would subscribe to the making a new giant's causeway to get

Lord Orrery had evidently announced that he must shortly go to town on business connected with his executorship, which chiefly concerned Mr. Phipps, who was heir to the Duchess of Buckingham.

2 The "greater man who desired nothing from Lord Orrery but money,"

was apparently a legatee or creditor of the duchess.

3 Lord Bolingbroke arrived in England at the end of October, 1743, went back to France in June, 1744, and after a brief stay returned to settle at Battersea for the remainder of his days.