That

own voiding, as she found by the smell. your whole artichoke leaf shows its mother to be smaller than a nutmeg, and I confess you were somewhat unwary in exposing it to censure. Your raspberry she compared with the head of a corkingpin, and the latter had the victory. Your currants were invisible, and we could not distinguish the red from the black. Your purslane passed very well with me, but she swore it was houseleek. She denies your Cavan fly to be genuine, but will have it, that for the credit of your town you would have it born there, although Mrs. Donaldson confesses it was sent her in a box of brown sugar, and died as it entered the gates. Mrs. Whiteway proceeds farther in her malice, declaring your nasturtium to be only a p-ss-abed; your beans as brown as herself, and of the same kind with what we fatten hogs in Leicestershire. In one thing she admires your generosity, that for her sake you would spare a drop or two of your canal water, which by the spongy bottom needs it so much. The only defects of them all, were, that they wanted colour, sight, and smell; yet as to the last, we both acknowledge them all to exhale a general fustiness, which however did much resemble that of your Cavan air.

I RECEIVED

TO THE SAME.

your letter, which begun with lings." You have thirteen in all, and I have got but a hundred and sixty; a trifle! find me ten more than mine, and I will give you ten guineas for the

VOL. XIII.

eleventh. Mine are all down, and only twelve which are not entered in a letter, which I will send you when health permits and I have nothing else to do, and that may be a twelvemonth hence, if my disorder will let me hold out so long. You were born to be happy, for you take the least piece of good fortune cheerfully. I suppose your arithmetick is, that three boys a week are a hundred and fifty nine in a year; and seven guineas a week are three hundred and sixty-five per annum. Can you reckon that the county, and the next, and Dublin, will provide you with thirty lads in all, and good pay, of which a dozen shall be lodgers? Does the cheapness of things answer your expectation? Have you sent away your late younger-married daughter? and will you send away the other? Let me desire you will be very regular in your accounts; because a very honest friend of yours and mine tells me, that with all your honesty, it is an uneasy thing to have any dealings with you that relate to accounts by yout frequent forgetfulness and confusion: for you have no notion of regularity; and I do not wonder at it, considering the scattered, confused manner in which you have lived. Mrs. Whiteway thanks you for the good opinion you have of her, and I know she always loved and defended you. I cannot tell when I shall be able to travel. I have three other engagements on my hands, but the principal is to see the bishop of Ossory. Yet I dread the lying abroad above five miles. I am never well. Some sudden turns are every day threatening me with a giddy fit; and my affairs are terribly embroiled. I have a scheme of living with you, when the College green club is to meet; for in these times I detest the town,

and

and hearing the follies, corruptions, and slavish practices of those misrepresentative brutes; and resolve, if I can stir, to pass that whole time at Bath or Cavan. I say again, keep very regular accounts, in large books, and a fair hand; not like me, who to save paper confuse every thing. Your mind is honest, but your memory a knave, and therefore the Scotch mean the same thing by "minding," that we do by "remembering." Sirrah, said I to a Scotch footman, why did you not go that errand ? Because I did not "mind" it, quoth Sawny. A curse on these twenty soldiers drumming `through my liberty twice a day, and going to a barrack the government hath placed just under my nose. I think of a line in Virgil Travesty. "The d-l cut "their yelping weasons." We expect lord Orrery and bishop Rundle next week.-This letter was intended for last post, but interruptions and horses hindered it. Poor Mrs. Acheson is relapsed at Grange, and worse than ever; I was there yesterday and met Dr. Helsham, who hopes she was a little better.-16. Here has nobody been hanged, married, or dead that I hear of; Dr. Grattan is confined by a boil; if you ask him where, he will sell you a bargain. My chief country companion now is phi. losopher Webber; for the Grattans and Jacksons are neither to be found at home or abroad, except Robin, who cannot stir a foot.

FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.

JULY 11, 1736.

SINCE, it seems, my letters are not for your own perusal, but kept for a female cousin, to her this ought to be addressed; only that I am not yet in spirits to joke. I did not do so ill by your request, as you apprehended by my letter, for I spoke to the duke much sooner than I told you I should, and did so as soon as it was possible for me, or as soon as I could have sent it. But my answer was, that he

had that moment received a letter from lord Orrery, with the most pressing instances for a deserving friend of his, that the duke could not refuse, especially as my lord Orrery had been most extremely obliging, and, for this whole session, neglected no opportunity to endeavour to make his administration easy; though, at the same time he assured me, he would otherwise have been very glad to oblige you; and does agree, that the gentleman you recommended is a very deserving one also. All this you should have known before, had I been able to write;

but I have been laid up with the gout in my hand and foot, and thought it not necessary to make use of a secretary, since I had nothing more pleasing to tell you. I shall always be extremely willing to be employed by you to him; nor do I make any question but you will always recommend the worthy, as it is for your own honour as well as his. will I agree, that you never did prevail, occasion; because the very first you did

4

No more

on any one employ me

about,

293

about, was instantly complied with, though against a rule he thought right, and I knew before he had set himself.

Lady Suffolk is now at Spa, with my brother George, for her health; and as I shall go, for my own, to the Bath, in September, I fear we shall not meet this great while. And now I must finish this long letter, which has not been quite easy to write, being still your gouty, but faithful humble servant.

SIR,

FROM THOMAS CARTE, ESQ.

AUGUST 11, 1736.

HAVING at last, after a long application and in the midst of sharp rheumatick pains, the effects of a sedentary life, finished my History of the Life of the first Duke of Ormond, and of the Affairs of Ireland in his Time, I here send you a copy of that work, of which I beg your acceptance. I have endeavoured to follow the instructions you gave me, and hope I If it have your have done so in some measure. approbation in any degree, it will be so much to my satisfaction.

It hath been a long subject of complaint in England, that no history has yet been wrote of it upon authentick and proper materials; and even those who have taken notice of the military actions of our ancestors, have yet left the civil history of the kingdom (the most instructive of any) untouched, for

of proper knowledge of the antiquities, usages,

laws