If my curiosity wanted only to be gratified, I do not stand in need of a letter from yourself, to inform me what you are doing; for there are people about court, who can tell me every thing that you do or say; so that you had best take care of your conduct. You see of what importance you are. However, all quarrels aside, I must ask you, if you have any interest (or do you think that I could have, or procure any) with my lord lieutenant, to advance a relation of mine, one captain Innes, I think in colonel Wilson's regiment, and now in Limerick? He is an exceeding worthy man, but has stuck long in a low post, for want of friends. Pray tell me which way I shall proceed in this matter. I was yesterday with all your friends at St. James's. There is certainly a fatality upon poor Gay. As for hopes of preferment there by favour, he has laid it aside. He had made a pretty good bargain (that is, a Smithfield one) for a little place in the customhouse, which was to bring him in about a hundred a year. It was done as a favour to an old man, and not at all to Gay. When every thing was concluded, the man repented, and said, he would not part with his place. I have begged Gay not to buy an annuity upon my life; I am sure I should not live a week. I long to hear of the safe arrival of Dr. Delany. Pray, give my humble service to him. As for news, it was writ from Spain, to me, from my brother in France, that the preliminaries were ratified, and yet the ministry know nothing of it. Nay, some of them told me, that the answer was rather surly. Lord Townshend is very ill; but I think, by the description of his case, it is not morI was with our friend at the back stairs yester tal. day, day, and had the honour to be called in, and prettily chid for leaving off, &c. The first part of the discourse was about you, Mr. Pope, Curll, and myself. My family are well: they, and my brother in France, and one that is here, all give their service to you. If you had been so lucky as to have gone to Paris last summer, you would have had health, honour, and diversion in abundance; for I will promise, you would have recovered of the spleen. I shall add no more, but my kindest wishes, and that I am, with the greatest affection and respect, yours, Esc. SIR, FROM MONSIEUR VOLTAIRE. In London, Maiden Lane, at the White Peruke, You will be surprised in receiving an English essay * from a French traveller. Pray, forgive an admirer of you, who owes to your writings the love he bears to your language, which has betrayed him into the rash attempt of writing in English. You will see by the advertisement, that I have some designs upon you, and that I must mention you, for the honour of your country, and for the improvement of mine. Do not forbid me to grace An essay on the civil wars of France, which he made the foundation of his Henriade, an heroick poem, since well known. He had been imprisoned in the Bastille, in Paris, but being released about the year 1725, he came to England, and solicited subscrip tions for his poem. my my relation with your name. Let me indulge the satifaction of talking of you, as posterity will do. In the mean time, can I make bold to entreat you to make some use of your interest in Ireland, about some subscriptions for the Henriade; which is almost ready, and does not come out yet for want of a little help? The subscriptions will be but one guinea in hand. I am, with the highest esteem, and the utmost gratitude, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant, VOLTAIRE, SIR, FROM THE SAME. I SENT the other day a cargo of French dulness to my lord lieutenant. My lady Bolingbroke has taken upon herself to send you one copy of the Henriade. She is desirous to do that honour to my book; and I hope the merit of being presented to you by her hands, will be a commendation to it. However, if she has not done it already, I desire you to take one of the cargo, which is now at my lord lieutenant's. I wish you a good hearing; if you have got it, you want nothing. I have not seen Mr. Pope this winter; but I have seen the third volume of the Miscellanea; and the more I read your works, the more I am ashamed of mine. I am, with respect, esteem, and gratitude, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant, VOLTAIRE. ΤΟ TO MRS. MOORE. DEAR MADAM, DEANERY-HOUSE, DEC. 7, 1727. THOUGH I see you seldomer than is agree able to my inclinations, yet you have no friend in the world, that is more concerned for any thing that can affect your mind, your health, or your fortune; I have always had the highest esteem for your virtue, the greatest value for your conversation, and the truest affection for your person; and therefore cannot but heartily condole with you for the loss of so amiable, and (what is more) so favourite a child. These are the necessary consequences of too strong attachments, by which we are grieving ourselves with the death of those we love, as we must one day grieve those, who love us, with the death of ourselves. For life is a tragedy, wherein we sit as spectators awhile, and then act our own part in it. Self love, as it is the motive to all our actions, so it is the sole cause of our grief. The dear person you lament is by no means an object of pity, either in a moral or religious sense. Philosophy always taught men to despise life, as a most contemptible thing in itself; and religion regards it only as a preparation for a better, which you are taught to be certain that so innocent a person is now in possession of; so that she is an immense gainer, and you and her friends the only losers. Now, under misfortunes. of this kind, I know no consolation more effectual to a reasonable a reasonable person, than to reflect rather upon what is left, than what is lost. She was neither an only child, nor an only daughter. You have three children left, one of them of an age to be useful to his family, and the two others as promising as can be expected from their age; so that according to the general dispensations of God Almighty you have small reason to repine upon that article of life. And religion will tell you, that the true way to preserve them is, not to fix any of them too deep in your heart, which is a weakness that God seldom leaves long unpunished: common observation showing us, that such favourite children are either spoiled by their parents indulgence, or soon taken out of the world; which last is, generally speaking, the lighter punish ment of the two. God, in his wisdom, hath been pleased to load our declining years with many sufferings, with diseases, and decays of nature, with the death of many friends, and the ingratitude of more; sometimes with the loss or diminution of our fortunes, when our infirmities most need them; often with contempt from the world, and always with neglect from it; with the death of our most hopeful or useful children; with a want of relish for all worldly enjoyments; with a general dislike of persons and things: and though all these are very natural effects of increasing years, yet they were intended by the author of our being to wean us gradually from our fondness of life, the nearer we approach toward the end of it. And this is the use you are to make in prudence, as well as in conscience, of all the afflictions you have * Charles Devenish, esq. hitherto |