TO MR. WORRALL.

LONDON, AUG. 6, 1726.

year

AT the same time that I had your letter, with the bill, (for which I thank you) I received another from Dr. Sheridan, both full of the melancholy account of our friend. The doctor advises me to go over at the time I intended, which I now design to do, and to set out on Monday the fifteenth from hence. However, if any accident should happen to me, that you do not find me come over on the first of September, I would have you renew my li cense of absence from the second of September, which will be the day that my half will be out; and since it is not likely that you can answer this, so as to reach me before I leave London, I desire you will write to me, directed to Mrs. Kenah, in Chester, where I design to set up, and shall hardly be there in less than a fortnight from this time; and if I should then hear our friend was no more, I might probably be absent a month or two in some parts of Derbyshire, or Wales. However, you need not renew the license till the first of September; and, if I come not, I will write to you from Chester. This unhappy affair is the greatest trial I ever had; and I think you are unhappy in having conversed so much with that person under such circumstances. Tell Dr. Sheridan, I had his letter; but care not to answer it. I wish you would give me your opinion, at Chester, whether I shall come over or not. I

shall

shall be there, God willing, on Thursday, the eighteenth instant. This is enough to say, in my present situation. I am, &c.

My humble service and thanks to Mrs. Worrall for the care of our friend, which I shall never forget.

TO THE SAME.

AUG. 15, 1726.

THIS is Saturday, and on Monday I set out for Ireland. I desired you would send me a letter to Chester. I suppose I shall be in Dublin, with moderate fortune, in ten or eleven days hence; for I will go by Holyhead. I shall stay two days at Chester, unless I can contrive to have my box sent after me. I hope I shall be with you by the end of August; but however, if I am not with you by the second of September, which is the time that my license is out, I desire you will get me a new one ; for I would not lie at their mercy, though I know it signifies nothing. I expect to be very miserable when I come; but I shall be prepared for it. I desired you would write to me to Chester, which I hope you will do; and pray hinder Dr. Sheridan from writing to me any more.

This is all I have to say to you at present.

I am, &c.

FROM WILLIAM PULTENEY, ESQ.

DEAR SIR,

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 3, 1726.

I RECEIVED the favour of your kind letter at my lord Chetwynd's; and though you had so much goodness as to forbid my answering it at that time; yet I should be inexcusable, now I have perfectly recovered my health and strength, if I did not return you my very hearty thanks for your concern for me during my illness. Though our acquaintance has not been of long date, yet I think I may venture to assure you, that even among your old friends, you have not many, who have a juster regard for your merit than I have. I could wish that those who are more able to serve you than I am, had the same desire of doing it. And yet methinks, now I consider it, and reflect who they are, I should be sorry they had the merit of doing so right a thing. As well as I wish you, I would rather not have you provided for yet, than provided for by those that I do not like. Mr. Pope tells me, that we shall see you in spring. When we meet again, I flatter self we shall not part so soon; and I am in hopes you will allow me a larger share of your company than you did. All I can say to engage you to come a little oftener to my house, is, to promise, that you shall not have one dish of meat at my table so disguised, but you shall easily know what it is. You shall have a cup of your own for small beer and wine mixed together; you shall have no women at

my

table,

table, if you do not like them, and no men, but such as like you. I wished mightily to be in London before you left it, having something which I would willingly have communicated to you, that I do not think so discreet to trust to a letter. Do not let your expectation be raised, as if it was a matter of any great consequence: it is not that, though I should be mighty glad you knew it, and perhaps I may soon find a way of letting you do so.

Our parliament, they now say, is not to meet till after Christmas. The chief business of it being to give money, it may be proper the ministers should know, a little before it meets, how much farther they have run the nation in debt, that they may prudently conceal or provide what they think fit. I am told, that many among us begin to grumble, that England should be obliged to support the charge of a very expensive war, while all the other powers of Europe are in peace. But I will enter no farther into publick matters, taking it for granted, that a letter directed to you, and franked by me, cannot fail of raising the curiosity of some of our vigilant ministers, and that they will open it; though we know it is not customary for them so to do. Mrs. Pulteney is very much your humble servant, and I am, with great truth, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

DEAR SIR,

FROM MR. GAY.

LONDON, SEPT. 16, 1726.

SINCE I wrote last, I have been always upon the

ramble. I have been in Oxfordshire with the duke and duchess of Queensberry, and at Petersham, and wheresoever they would carry me; but as they will go to Wiltshire without me, on Tuesday next, for two or three months, I believe I shall then have finished my travels for this year, and shall not go farther from London, than now and then to Twickenham. I saw Mr. Pope on Sunday, who has lately escaped a very great danger; but is very much. wounded across his right hand. Coming home in the dark, about a week ago, alone in my lord Bolingbroke's coach from Dawley, he was overturned, where a bridge has been broke down, near Whitton, about a mile from his own house. He was thrown into the river, with the glasses of the coach up, and was up to the knots of his periwig in water. The footman broke the glass to draw him out; by which, he thinks, he received the cut across his hand. He was afraid he should have lost the use of his little finger and the next to it; but the surgeon, whom he sent for last Sunday from London to examine it, told him that his fingers were safe, that there were two nerves cut, but no tendon. He was in very good health, and very good spirits, and the wound. in a fair way of being soon healed. The instructions you sent me to communicate to the doctor about the singer,