malice, it is now purfued by public refentment. Nothing elfe remained. You were destined to both trials; and the fame power which delivered you out of the paws of the lion and the bear, will, I truft, deliver you out of the hands of the uncircumcifed. I can write no more. You fuffer for a good caufe, for having preferved your country, and for having been the great inftrument, under God, of his present Majesty's peaceable acceffion to the throne. This I know, and this your enemies know, and this I will take care that all the world fhall know, and future ages be convinced of. God Almighty protect you, and continue to you that fortitude and magnanimity he hath endowed you with. Farewel.

J. S.

I

LETTER XXIX.

To Lord BOLINGBROKE.

MY LORD,

May, 1719.

FORGET whether I formerly mentioned. to you what I have obferved in Cicero; that, in fome of his letters, while he was in exile, there is a fort of melancholy pleafure

fure which is wonderfully affecting. I believe the reafon muft be, that, in thofe circumstances of life, there is more leifure for friendship to operate, without any mixture of envy, intereft, or ambition. But, I am afraid, this was chiefly when Cicero writ to his brethren in exile, or they to him; because common diftrefs is a great promoter both of friendship and fpeculation. For, I doubt, profperity and adverfity are too much at variance, ever to fuffer a near alliance between their owners.

Friendship, we say, is created by a refemblance of humours. You allow that adverfity both taught you to think and reafon much otherwife than you did; whereas, I can affure you, that those who contrived to stay at home, and keep what they had, are not changed at all; and, if they fometimes drink an absent friend's health, they have fully discharged their duty. I have been, for fome time, nurfing up an obfervation, which perhaps may be a just one; That no men are ufed fo ill, upon a change of times, as those who acted upon a public view, without regard to themselves. I do not mean from the circumftance of faving more or lefs money, but because I take it, that the fame grain of caution,

which difpofeth a man to fill his coffers, will teach him how to preferve them upon all events. And I dare hold a wager that the Duke of Marlborough, in all his campaigns, was never known to lose his baggage. I am heartily glad to hear of that unconditional offer you mention; because I have been taught to believe there is little good-nature to be had from that quarter: And, if the offer were fincere, I know not why it has not fucceeded, fince every thing is granted that can be asked for, unless there be an exception only for generous and goodnatured actions. When I think of you with relation to Sir Roger, I imagine a youth of fixteen marrying a woman of thirty for love; the decays every year, while he grows up to his prime; and, when it is too late, he wonders how he could think of fo unequal a match, or what is become of the beauty he was fo fond of. ----- I am told he outdoes himself in every quality for which we ufed to quarrel with him. I do not think, that leifure of life, and tranquillity of mind, which fortune and your own wisdom hath given you, could be better employed than in drawing up very exact memoirs of thofe affairs, wherein, to my knowledge, you had the most

difficult

difficult and weighty part: And I have often thought, in comparing periods of time, there never was a more important one in England than that which made up the four last years of the late Queen. Neither do I think any thing could be more entertaining, or useful, than the story of it fully and exactly told, with fuch obfervations, in fuch a spirit, ftyle, and method as you alone are capable of performing it. One reason why we have fo few memoirs written by principal actors, is because much familiarity with great affairs makes men value them too little; yet fuch perfons will read Tacitus and Comines with wonderful delight. Therefore I must beg two things; first, that you will not omit any paffage because you think it of little moment; and, fecondly, that you will write to an ignorant world, and not fuppofe your reader to be only of the prefent age, or to live within ten miles of London. There is nothing more vexes me in old hiftorians, than when they leave me in the dark in fome paffages which they suppose every one to know. It is this laziness, pride, or incapacity of great men, that hath given way to the impertinents of the nation where you are, to pefter us with memoirs

full

full of trifling and romance. Let a Frenchman talk twice with a minister of ftate, he defires no more to furnish out a volume; and I, who am no Frenchman, despairing ever to fee any thing of what you tell me, have been fome time providing materials for fuch a work, only upon the ftrength of having been always amongst you, and used with more kindness and confidence, than it often happens to men of my trade and level. But I am heartily glad of fo good a reason to think no further that way, although I could fay many things which you will never allow yourself to write. I have already drawn your character at length in one tract, and a sketch of it in another. But I am fenfible that when Cæfar defcribes one of his own battles, we conceive a greater idea of him from thence, than from all the praises any other writer can give him.

I read your Paraphrafe with great pleafure, and the goodnefs of the poetry convinces me of the truth of your philosophy. I agree, that a great part of our wants is imaginary, yet there is a different proportion, even in real want, between one man and another. A King, deprived of his kingdom, would be allowed to live in real

want,