This winter would furnish you with many opportunities of doing great good, as well as making a shining figure, which reflection gives me great hopes, that you will think it a reasonable obligation; as in that case, like Pitt's diamond, you would stand alone. I wish I had a house in some measure worthy to entertain a guest that should be so welcome to me. You surprise me greatly in telling me that my Lord Shelburne and you have not met, although he has been some time in Dublin, and to my knowledge is one of your great admirers. Why do not you send to my Lord Dunkerin, who undoubtedly wants only that encouragement to wait upon you? You see I want none to embrace the opportunity of assuring you, that I am, with great esteem, respect, and affection, your very obliged and most humble servant, H. PRATT. FROM ALDERMAN BARBER. London, Nov. 17, 1733 As I have now got rid of the plague of grandeur, and all its dependencies, I take this first opportunity to pay my respects to you, sir, which I beg pardon for not doing sooner. The transition from Goldsmiths' Hall to Queen Square is hardly credible; for in one view to imagine the constant hurry, noise, and impertinence, I lay under from morning till night, in opposition to the peace, the quiet, and great tranquillity I feel in my little retirement, makes me pity your great men, who certainly must be strangers to the great pleasure I now enjoy. Before I left my office, I took care to do justice to Mr. Pilkington, who has received more than I mentioned, and indeed more than any chaplain ever had before, viz.:— 50 From my lord mayor Five sermons preached before the mayor 10 O 400 £130 0 0 St. Paul's happened to be shut up in the summer for two months, when the mayor went on Sundays to his own chapel at Guildhall, and his chaplain read prayers for eight Sunday mornings only; for which the mayor got him from the court of aldermen twenty guineas. I have been the more particular in this account, because I know your great punctuality in things of this nature, as well as to do myself justice. How much he may be a gainer by coming over, I cannot tell; but if he had pleased to have lived near the hall, as he might, in a lodging of ten or twelve pounds a-year, he need not have kept a man, (for I had more for show than business,) nor given the extravagant sum of thirty pounds a-year for lodgings; he might have saved something in those articles. Had he lived in the city, I should now and then have had the favour of his company in an evening; but his living from me brought him into company, and among the rest into that of Mr. Edward Walpole,* from whom he has great dependencies. I recommended him to Mr. Alderman Champion, who got the primate's wife's brother to write in his favour to the primate. And he talks of the living of Colerain's being vacant; if it be, I will do him. what service I can. Thus, sir, I have discharged myself of the duty you laid upon me, in relation to that gentleman, which I hope will be to your satisfaction; for I will never be ungrateful, though I have met with it frequently myself. All your friends in town are well, and in high spirits. Lord Bolingbroke complains you do not write to him. Poor Mrs. Barber has the gout, but is better. It was a great mortification to me that you did not come and eat some custard; but I hope your health will permit your coming next summer. We rejoice much at my brother French's success. I know you do not deal in news, so I send you none. Pray God continue your health, and believe me always, with the greatest sincerity, Sir, your most obedient and most obliged humble servant, JOHN BARBER. P.S. Why Mr. Pilkington should send his wife home in the midst of winter, or why he should stay here an hour after her, are questions not easily answered. I am not of his counsel. * Second son of Sir Robert Walpole. These dependencies, as he calls them, appear to have fretted Barber, a rigid old-fashioned Tory, who seems also to have been rather dissatisfied with Mr. Pilkington's neglect in waiting upon him. Pilkington was soon discovered to have worse faults. FROM THE COUNTESS GRANVILLE.* DEAR SIR, Hawnes, Nov. 27, 1733. I HAVE received the honour of your commands, and shall obey them; for I am very proud of your remembrance. I do not know we ever quarrelled; but if we did, I am as good a Christian as you are, in perfect charity with you. My son, my daughter, and all our olive-branches salute you most tenderly. I never wished so much as I do now, that I were bright, and had a genius, which could entertain you, in return for the many excellent things that entertain me daily, which I read over and over with fresh delight. Will you never come into England, and make Hawnes† your road? You will find nothing here to offend you; for I am a hermit, and live in my chimney corner, and have no ambition, but that you will believe I am the charming Dean's Most obedient humble servant, GRANVILLE. * Grace, widow and relict of George Lord Carteret, and daughter of John Granville, Earl of Bath. She was created Viscountess Carteret, and Countess Granville, 1st January, 171415, with limitation of those honours to her son John, the late Earl,-B. † A seat of Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville, in Bedfordshire.-B. SIR, FROM MRS. CONDUITT.* George-Street, Nov. 29, 1733. MRS. BARBER did not deliver your letter till after the intended wedding brought me hither. She has as much a better title to the favour of her sex than poetry can give her, as truth is better than fiction; and shall have my best assistance. But the town has been so long invited into the subscription, that most people have already refused or accepted, and Mr. Conduitt has long since done the latter. I should have guessed your holiness would rather have laid than called up the ghost of my departed friendship, which, since you are brave enough to face, you will find divested of every terror, but the remorse that you were abandoned to be an alien to your friends, your country, and yourself. Not to renew an acquaintance with one who can twenty years after remember a bare intention to serve him, would be to throw away a prize I am not now able to repurchase; therefore, when you return to England, I shall try to excel in what I am very sorry you want, a nurse; in the meantime, I am exercising that gift to preserve one who is your devoted admirer. Lord Harvey has written a bitter copy of verses upon Dr. Sherwin, for publishing (as it is said) his lordship's epistle; which must have set your brother Pope's spirits all a-working. Thomson is far advanced in a poem of 2000 lines, deducing liberty from the patriarchs to the present * Thus indorsed by the Doctor:-" My old friend Mrs. Barton, now Mrs. Conduitt."-D. S. |