FROM LORD CARTERET.

SIR,

JERMYN STREET, APRIL 13, 1734.

*

I HAD the honour of your letter, which gave me a considerable pleasure to see that I am not so much out of your thoughts, but that you can take notice of events that happen in my family. I need not say, that these alliances are very agreeable to me; but that they are so to my friends, adds much to the satisfaction I receive from them. They certainly enable me to contract my desires, which is no inconsiderable step toward being happy. As to other things, I go on as well as I can and now and then observe, that I have more friends now, than I had when I was in a situation to do them service. This may be a delusion: however, it is a pleasing one. And I have more reason to believe a man, now I can do him no good, than I had when I could do him favours, which the greatest philosophers are sometimes tempted to solicit their friends about. I shall continue to serve Mrs. Barber, by recommending her, as occasion shall offer, where it is necessary; you have done that so effectually, that nothing need be said to those, to whom you have said any thing in her behalf. I hope Dr. Delany is, as he always used to be, cheerful in himself, and agreeable to all that know him; and that he, by this time, is convinced, that the world is not worthy of so much speculation as he has bestowed upon some matters.

but

* His lordship's third daughter, Georgina-Carolina, was married, Feb. 14, 1733-4, to the honourable John Spencer.

Lady

Lady Worsley, my wife, and daughters, to whom I have shown your letter, not forgetting my mother, present their humble service to you. And I desire to recommend the whole family, as well as myself, to the continuance of your favour. I am, sir, with the greatest respect, your most humble and most obedient servant,

MADAM,

CARTERET.

TO MISS HOADLY.

JUNE 4th, 1734.

WHEN I lived in England, once every year I

issued out an edict, commanding that all ladies of wit, sense, merit and quality, who had an ambition. to be acquainted with me, should make the first advances at their peril; which edict, you may believe, was universally obeyed. When (much against my will) I came to live in this kingdom, I published the same edict; only, the harvest here being not altogether so plentiful, I confined myself to a smaller compass. This made me often wonder how you came so long to neglect your duty; for, if you pretend ignorance, I may produce legal witnesses against you.

I have heard of a judge bribed with a pig, but it was discovered by the squeaking; and therefore, have been so politick as to send me a dead one, which can tell no tales. Your present of butter was made with the same design, as a known court prac

you

tice, to grease my fist that I might keep silence. These are great offences, contrived on purpose to corrupt my integrity. And besides I apprehend, that if I should wait on you to return my thanks, you will deny that the pig and butter were any advances at all on your side, and give out that I made them first; by which I may endanger the fundamental privilege that I have kept so many years in two kingdoms, at least make it a point of controversy. However, I have two ways to be revenged: first, I will let all the ladies of my acquaintance know, that you, the sole daughter and child of his grace of Dublin, are so mean as to descend to understand housewifery; which every girl of this town, who can afford sixpence a month for a chair, would scorn to be thought to have the least knowledge in; and this will give you as ill a reputation, as if you had been caught in the fact of reading a history, or handling a needle, or working in a field at Tallagh. My other revenge shall be this; when my lord's gentleman delivered his message, after I put him some questions, he drew out a paper containing your directions, and in your hand: I said it properly belonged to me; and, when I had read it, I put it in my pocket, and am ready to swear, when lawfully called, that it is written in a fair hand, rightly spelt, and good plain sense. You now may see I have you at mercy; for, upon the least offence given, I will show the paper to every female scrawler I meet, who will soon spread about the town, that your writing and spelling are ungenteel and unfashionable, more like a parson than a lady.

I suppose, by this time, you are willing to submit; and therefore, I desire you may stint me to two china bowls

bowls of butter a week; for my breakfast is that of a sickly man, rice gruel; and I am wholly a stranger to tea and coffee, the companions of bread and butter. I received my third bowl last night, and I think my second is almost entire. I hope and believe my lord archbishop will teach his neighbouring tenants and farmers a little English country management and I lay it upon you, madam, to bring housewifery in fashion among our ladies; that, by your example, they may no longer pride themselves on their natural or affected ignorance. I am, with the truest respect and esteem,

Madam,

Your most obedient

and obliged, &c.

I desire to present my most, &c. to his grace and the ladies.

FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE.

FROM MY FARM, JUNE 27, 1734.

I THANK you, Mr. dean; or, to use a name to

me more sacred, I thank you, my friend, for your letter of the 23d of May, which came to me by post. I answer it by the same conveyance; and provided the diligent inspection of private men's correspondence do not stop our letters, they have my leave to do, what they will do without it, to open and read them. If they expect to find any thing which may do us hurt, or them good; their disapVOL. XIII. pointment

K.

pointment will give me pleasure, and in the proportion, I shall imagine it gives them pain. I should have another pleasure, of higher relish, if our epistles were to be perused by persons of higher rank. And who knows, considering the mighty importance we are of, whether that may not happen? How would these persons stare, to see such a thing as sincere cordial friendship subsist inviolate, and grow and strengthen from year to year, in spite of distance, absence, and mutual inutility!

But enough on this. Let us turn to other subjects. I have read, in the golden verses of Pythagoras, or in some other collection of wise apophthegms of the ancients, that a man of business may talk of philosophy, a man who has none may practise it. What do you think of this maxim? Is it exact? I have a strange distrust of maxims. We make as many observations as our time, our knowledge, and the other means we have, give us the opportunity of making on a physical matter. We find that they all correspond, and that one general proposition may be affirmed as the result of them. This we affirm, and in consequence, this becomes a maxim among our followers, if we have any. Thus the king of Siam affirmed, that water was always in a fluid state; and I doubt not but the talapoins (do they not call them so?) held this maxim. Neither he, or they, had ever climbed the neighbouring mountains of Ava; their observations were confined to the burning climate they inhabited. It is much the same in moral maxims, founded on observations of the conduct of men; for there are other moral maxims of universal truth, as there are moral duties of eternal obligation. We see what the conduct is,

and