fee of late) and virtues become vices when they ceafe to be for one's intereft, with me, as with others.

Yet let me tell her, fhe will never look fo finely while fhe is upon earth, as she would here in the water. It is not here as in most other inftances, for thofe ladies that would please extremely, must go out of their own element. She does not make half fo good a figure on horseback as Christina Queen of Sweden; but were fhe once feen in the Bath, no man would part with her for the best mermaid in Christendom. You know I have seen you often, I perfectly know how you look in black and in white, I have experienced the utmost you can do in colours; but all your movements, all your graceful steps, deferve not half the glory you might here attain, of a moving and eafy behaviour in buckram: Something between swimming and walking, free enough, and more modeftly-half-naked than you can appear any where else. You have conquer'd enough already by land; fhow your ambition, and vanquish alfo by water. The buckram I mention is a drefs particularly useful at this time, when, we are told, they are bringing over the fashion of German ruffs: You ought to use yourselves to fome degrees of stiffness beforehand; and when our ladies chins have been

tickled a-while with ftarched muflin and wire, they may poffibly bear the brush of a German beard and whisker.

I could tell you a delightful story of Doctor P. but want room to display it in all its shining circumstances. He had heard it was an excellent cure for love, to kifs the Aunt of the perfon beloved, who is generally of years and experience enough to damp the fiercest flame: he try'd this course in his paffion, and kissed Mrs. E--- at Mr. D---'s, but, he says, it will not do, and that he loves you as much as

ever.

Your, &c.

LETTER VIII.

IF you afk

To the fame.

you afk how the waters agree with me, Ι must tell you, fo very well, that I question how you and I should agree if we were in a room by ourselves. Mrs. has honestly affured me, that but for fome whims which she can't entirely conquer, fhe would go and fee the world with me in man's cloaths. Even you, Madam, I fancy (if you would not partake in our adventures) would wait our coming in at

the

the evening with fome impatience, and be well enough pleas'd to hear them by the fire-fide. That would be better than reading romances, unless lady M. would be our historian. What raises thefe defires in me, is an acquaintance I am beginning with my lady Sandwich, who has all the spirit of the last age, and all the gay experience of a pleasurable life. It were as fcandalous an omiffion to come to the Bath and not to fee my lady Sandwich, as it had formerly been to have travelled to Rome without visiting the Queen of Sweden. She is, in a word, the best thing this country has to boast of; and as she has been all that a woman of spirit could be, so she still continues that easy and independent creature that a fenfible woman always will be.

I must tell you a truth, which is not, however, much to my credit. I never thought so much of yourself and your fifter, as fince I have been fourfcore miles diftance from you. In the Foreft I look'd upon you as good neighbours, at London as pretty kind of women, but here as divinities, angels, goddeffes, or what you will, In the fame manner I never knew at what rate

you were upon the point

you

I valued your life, till of dying. If Mrs. and will but fall very fick every season, I fhall certainly die for you. Seriously I value you both fo much, that I esteem others much the lefs for your fakes;

M 4

you

you have robb'd me of the pleasure of esteeming a thousand pretty qualities in them, by showing me fo many finer in yourselves. There are but two things in the world which could make you indifferent to me, which, I believe, you are not capable of, I mean ill-nature and malice. I have feen enough of you, not to overlook any frailty you could have, and nothing less than a vice can make me like you lefs, I expect you should discover by my conduct towards you both, that this is true, and that therefore you should pardon a thousand things in me for that one difpofition. Expect nothing from me but truth and freedom, and I fhall always be thought by you what I al

ways am,

Your, &c.

LETTER IX.

To the fame.

1714.

Return'd home as flow and as contemplative after I had parted from you, as my Lord * retired from the Court and glory to his Country feat and wife, a week ago. I found here a difmal defponding letter from the fon of another great courtier who expects the fame fate, and

who

who tells me the great ones of the earth will now take it very kindly of the mean ones, if they will favour them with a vifit by day-light, With what joy would they lay down all their fchemes of glory, did they but know you have the generofity to drink their healths once a day, as foon as they are fallen? Thus the unhappy, by the fole merit of their misfortunes, become the care of Heaven and you. I intended to have put this last into verse, but in this age of ingratitude my best friends forfake me, I mean my rhymes.

I defire Mrs. P--- to stay her stomach with these half hundred Plays, till I can procure her a Romance big enough to fatisfy her great foul with adventures. As for Novels, I fear fhe can depend upon none from me but that of my Life, which I am ftill, as I have been, contriving all poffible methods to fhorten, for the greater ease both of the hiftorian and the reader. May the believe all the paffion and tenderness exprefs'd in these Romances to be but a faint image of what I bear her, and may you (who read nothing) take the fame truth upon hearing it from me. You will both injure me very much, if you don't think me a truer friend, than ever any romantic lover, or any imitator of their ftyle could be.

The