and his singing man*. As to the affair of subscriptions, do all at your leisure, and in the manner you judge most proper; and so I bid you heartily farewel, assuring you, that I am ever most truly Your's

M. P.

Richardson, whom I take to be a better painter than any named in your letter, has made an excellent picture of me; from whence lord Harley (whose it is) has a stamp taken by Vertue. He has given me some of them for you to give to our friends at or about Dublin. I will send them by Tonson's canal to Hyde at Dublin, in such a manner, as that, I hope, they may come safe to you.

TO ROBERT COPE, ESQ.

Dublin, May 26, 1720. IF all the world would not be ready to knock me down for disputing the good nature and generosity of you and Mrs. Cope, I should swear you invited me out of malice some spiteful people have told you I am grown sickly and splenetick; and, having been formerly so yourself, you want to triumph over me with your health and good humour; and she is your accomplice. You have made so particular a muster of my wants and humours, and demands and singularities, and they look so formidable, that I wonder how you have the courage to be such an undertaker. What if I should add, that once in five or six weeks I am deaf for three or four days together; will you and Mrs. Cope undertake to bawl to me, or let me mope in my

* Probably a person recommended to the Dean's cathedral. H.

chamber till I grow better? Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes. I hunted four years for horses, gave twenty-six pounds for one of three years and a half old, have been eighteen months training him, and when he grew fit to ride, behold my groom gave him a strain in the shoulder, he is rowelled, and gone to grass. Show me a misfortune greater in its kind. Mr. Charleton has refused Wadman's living; why, God knows; and got the duchess to recommend his brother to it; the most unreasonable thing in the world. The day before I had your letter, I was working with Mr. Nutley and Mr. Whaley, to see what could be done for your lad, in case Caulfeild should get the living which Mr. Whaley (the primate's chaplain) is to leave for Wadman's. Because to say the truth, I have no concern at all for Charleton's brother, whom I never saw but once. We know not yet whether Whaley's present living will not be given to Dr. Kearney*; and I cannot learn the scheme yet, nor have been able to see Dr. Stone. The primate t is the hardest to be seen or dealt with in the world. Whaley seems to think the primate will offer Caulfeild's living to young Charlton. I know not what will come of it. I called at sir William Fownes's; but he is in the county of Wicklow. If we could have notice of any thing in good time, I cannot but think that, mustering up friends, something might be done for Barclay; but really the primate's life is not upon a very good foot,

* Treasurer of Armagh. F.

He

+ Dr. Thomas Lindsay was made bishop of Raphoe, June 6, 1713; and translated to Armagh, January 4, 1713-14. died July 13, 1724. N.

An alderman and lord mayor of Dublin, father of Mr. Cope's lady. He was author of "Methods proposed for regulating the Poor, supporting some, and employing others, ac cording to their Capacities. By sir W. F. 1725." 8vo; and see a letter of his to the Dean, September 9, 1732, on the great utility of founding an hospital for lunaticks. N.

though I see no sudden apprehensions. I could upon any occasion write to him very freely, and I believe my writing would be of some weight, for they say he is not wholly governed by Crosse *. All this may be vision; however, you will forgive it. I do not care to put my name to a letter; you must know my hand. I present my humble service to Mrs. Cope; and wonder she can be so good to remember an absent man, of whom she has no manner of knowledge, but what she got by his troubling her. I wish you success in what you hint to me, and that you may have enough of this world's wisdom to manage it. Pray God preserve you and your fireside. Are none of them yet in your lady's opinion ripe for Sheridan? I am still under the disci pline of the bark, to prevent relapses. Charles Ford comes this summer to Ireland. Adieu.

FROM MISS VANHOMRIGH.

Sellbridge, 1720. BELIEVE me, it is with the utmost regret that I

Rector of St. Mary's, Dublin. F.-Reading the name of Crosse in this page gives me reason to apprehend the letter is misdated; for Crosse, who had been chaplain to the Smyrna company, was not rector of St. Mary's until the year 1722; nor do I believe he was at all known in Ireland, further than, perhaps, by name, until his arrival there, when, by the virulence of party rage, dean Francis, an old tory, father to Mr. Francis, who translated Horace, was most spitefully turned out of the rectory of St. Mary's, which he had enjoyed for eighteen years. Crosse was so universally detested for accepting a living, which had been absolutely refused by two or three others of the clergy (particularly by Dr. Cobb, who lived to be promoted several years after to the archiepiscopal see of Dublin) that I am sure Lindsey, who was an old and high tory, would scorn to be acquainted with him. My real opinion is, that Crosse, in that passage, is no more than a pun. D. S.

now complain to you, because I know your good nature such, that you cannot see any human creature miserable without being sensibly touched. Yet what can I do? 1 must either unload my heart, and tell you all its griefs, or sink under the inexpressible distress I now suffer by your prodigious neglect of me. It is now ten long weeks since I saw you; and in all that time, I have never received but one letter from you, and a little note with an excuse. Oh! have you forgot me? You endeavour by severities to force me from you. Nor can I blame you for with the ut most distress and confusion, I beheld myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you: yet I cannot comfort you, but here declare, that it is not in the power of art, time, or accident, to lessen the inexpressible passion, which I have for -. Put my passion under the utmost restrain; send me as distant from you as the earth will allow, yet you cannot banish those charming ideas which will ever stick by me, while I have the use of memory: nor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul; for there is not a single atom of my frame, that is not blended with it. Therefore do not flatter yourself that separation will ever change my sentiments: I find myself unquiet in the midst of silence, and my heart is at once pierced with sorrow and love. For Heaven's sake, tell me, what has caused this prodigious change in you, which I have found of late. If you have the least remains of pity for me left, tell it me tenderly. No-do not tell it so, that it may cause my present death And do not suffer me to live a life like a languishing death, which is the only life I can lead, if you have lost any of your tenderness for me.

TO MISS VANHƆMRIGH.-1720.

IF you knew how many little difficulties there are in sending letters to you, it would remove five parts in six of your quarrel. But since you lay hold of my promises, and are so exact to the day, I shall promise you no more, and rather choose to be better than my word than worse. I am confident you came chiding into the world, and will continue so while you are in it. I wonder what Mobkin* meant by showing you my letter. I will write to her no more, since she can keep secrets no better. It was the first love letter I have writ these dozen years; and since I have so ill success, I will write no more. Never was a belle passion so defeated. But the governor, I hear, is jealous; and, upon your word, you have a vast deal to say to me about it. Mind your nursekeeping do your duty, and leave off your huffing. One would think you were in love, by dating your letter August 29, by which means I received it just a month before it was written. You do not find I answer your questions to your satisfaction: prove to me first that it was even possible to answer any thing to your satisfaction, so as that you would not grumble in half an hour. I am glad my writing puzzles you, for then your time will be employed in finding it out: and I am sure it costs me a great many thoughts to make my letters difficult. Yesterday I was half way toward you where I dined, and returned weary enough. I asked where that road to the left led, and they named the place. I wish your letters were aș difficult as mine, for then they would be of no consequence, if they were dropped by careless mes. sengers. A stroke-signifies every thing that may

* Miss Mary Vanhomrigh. See a letter dated Oct. 15, 1720. N.