repetition; but I have already told you I love you, and implored you not to forget me, which (as I hope to breathe) is all I have to say.1

TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY.

[Thoresby, postmark Aug. 27.]

I AM convinced, however dear you are to me, Mrs. Anne Wortley, I am no longer of any concern to you, therefore I shall only trouble you with an insignificant story, when I tell you I have been very near leaving this changeable world; but now, by the doctor's assistance and Heaven's blessing, am in a condition of being as impertinently troublesome to you as formerly. A sore-throat, which plagued me for a long while, brought me at last to such a weakness you had a fair chance of being released from me; but God has not yet decreed you so much happiness, though I must say this, you have omitted nothing to make yourself so easy, having strove to kill me by neglect: but destiny triumphs over all your efforts; I am yet in the land of the living, and still yours."

2

To MISS ANNE WORTLEY.

Ash Wednesday [March 7], 1709.3 THIS comes to inquire after your health in the first place? and if there be any hopes of the recovery of my diamond? If not, I must content myself with reckoning it one of the mortifications proper to this devout time, and it

1 This letter is unsigned, as is the case with by far the greater number of the letters of Lady Mary and her correspondents in these volumes. The omission of signatures was a habit no doubt engendered by the practice of opening letters sent through the post, which was in these times extremely common.-T.

2 The latter portion of the original is partly torn, and what appears to have been a postscript is too imperfect to be read.-T.

I have not found the original of this letter. It appears, on collation of other letters, that Mr. Dallaway was in the habit of affixing dates, without authority or warning to the reader. All dates, therefore, of letters published by him which the present editor has not had an opportunity of collating with the originals, must be considered doubtful.-T.

may serve for a motive of humiliation. Is not this the right temper with which we ought to bear losses which- ?

To MISS ANNE WORTLEY.1

July 21, 1709.

2

How often (my dear Mrs. Wortley) must I assure you that your letters are ever agreeable and beyond expression welcome to me? Depend upon it that I reckon the correspondence you favour me with too great a happiness to neglect it; there is no danger of your fault, I rather fear to grow troublesome by my acknowledgments. I will not believe you flatter me, I will look upon what you say as an obliging mark of your partiality. How happy must I think myself when I fancy your friendship to me even great enough to overpower your judgment! I am afraid this is one of the pleasures of the Imagination, and I cannot be so very successful in so earnest and important a wish. This letter is excessively dull. Do you know it is from my vast desire of pleasing you, as there is nothing more frequent than for the voice to falter when people sing before judges, or, as those arguments are always worst where the orator is in a passion. Believe me, I could scribble three sheets to- (I must not name), but to twenty people that have not so great a share of my esteem, and whose friendship is not so absolutely necessary for my happiness, but am quite at a loss to you. I will not commend your letters (let them deserve never so much), because I will show you 'tis possible for me to forbear what I have mind to, when I know 'tis your desire I should do so. My dear, dear, adieu! I am entirely yours, and wish nothing more than that it may be some time or other in my power to convince you that there is nobody dearer than yourself toI am horridly ashamed of this letter, pray Heaven you may not think it too inconsiderable to be laughed at—that may be.

I have not found the original of this letter.-T.

2 Lady Mary had written a poem called "The Pleasure of the Imagi. nation."-T.

FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY.

[August, 1709.]

DEAR Lady Mary grows very cool. If I could write a hundredth part as well as you, I should dispatch the post as often as I do the coachman to St. James's; but as it is, if you will exchange pearl for glass, I shall think mine well bestowed. I am just come into the country, where I have met with nothing but what you have in perfection; and could I have any part of your imagination, I should write perpetually. I am now in the room with an humble servant of yours, who is arguing so hotly about marriage that I cannot go on with my letter: [I] would be very glad to bring you into the argument, being sure you would soon convince us in what disturbs so many. Everybody seeks happiness; but though everybody has a different taste, yet all pursue money, which makes people choose great wigs. Because their neighbour sweats in it they dare not be easy out of the fashion. But you have dared to have wit joined with beauty, a thing so much out of fashion, that we fly after you with as much interestedness as you often see the birds do when one superior comes near them. If you could give me a receipt how to divert you, I would try to practise, but find it impossible to be pleased with myself or any thing I do. Send me word what books to read, &c. In haste.

Direct to me at Pet-gh [Peterborough], in Northamptonshire.

TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY.3

[Thoresby] August 8, 1709.

I SHALL run mad-with what heart can people write, when they believe their letters will never be received? I have already writ you a very long scrawl, but it seems it

It might be inferred from this that Lady Mary was in London. The letter, however, is addressed to Thoresby.-T.

2 No doubt her brother, Mr. Wortley Montagu.-T. 3 I have not found the original of this letter.-T.

:

never came to your hands; I cannot bear to be accused of coldness by one whom I shall love all my life. This will, perhaps, miscarry as the last did; how unfortunate am I if it does! You will think I forget you, who are never out of my thoughts. You will fancy me stupid enough to neglect your letters, when they are the only pleasures of my solitude in short, you will call me ungrateful and insensible, when I esteem you as I ought, in esteeming you above all the world. If I am not quite so unhappy as I imagine, and you do receive this, let me know it as soon as you can; for till then I shall be in terrible uneasiness; and let me beg you for the future, if you do not receive letters very constantly from me, imagine the post-boy killed, imagine the mail burnt, or some other strange accident; you can imagine nothing so impossible as that I forget you, my dear Mrs. Wortley. I know no pretence I have to your good opinion but my hearty desiring it; I wish I had that imagination you talk of, to render me a fitter correspondent for you, who can write so well on every thing. I am now so much alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing you books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars. I am trying whether it be possible to learn without a master; I am not certain (and dare hardly hope) I shall make any great progress; but I find the study so diverting, I am not only easy, but pleased with the solitude that indulges it. I forget there is such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. You see, my dear, in making my pleasures consist of these unfashionable diversions, I am not of the number who cannot be easy out of the mode. I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinationsNature is seldom in the wrong, custom always; it is with some regret I follow it in all the impertinencies of dress; the compliance is so trivial it comforts me; but I am amazed to see it consulted even in the most important

1 Nearly all the letters from Miss Wortley to Lady Mary were copied from draughts prepared by her brother, a fact of which Lady Mary could hardly have been ignorant.-T.

occasions of our lives; and that people of good sense in other things can make their happiness consist in the opinions of others, and sacrifice every thing in the desire of appearing in fashion. I call all people who fall in love with furniture, clothes, and equipage, of this number, and I look upon them as no less in the wrong than when they were five years old, and doated on shells, pebbles, and hobby-horses: I believe you will expect this letter to be dated from the other world, for sure I am you never heard an inhabitant of this talk so before. I suppose you expect, too, I should conclude with begging pardon for this extreme tedious and very nonsensical letter; quite contrary, I think you will be obliged to me for it. I could not better show my great concern for your reproaching me with neglect I knew myself innocent of, than proving myself mad in three pages.

My sister says a great deal about Mrs. K.;' but besides my having forgot it, the paper is at an end.

FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY.

[August] 15th, 1709.2

It is as impossible for my dearest Lady Mary to utter a thought that can seem dull, as to put on a look that is not beautiful. Want of wit is a fault that those who envy you most would not be able to find in your kind compliments. To me they seem perfect, since repeated assurances of your kindness forbid me to question their sincerity. You have often found that the most angry, nay, the most neglectful air you can assume, has made as deep a wound as the kindest; and these lines of yours, that you tax with dullness (perhaps because they were writ when you was not in a right humour, or when your thoughts were elsewhere employed), are so far from deserving the imputation, that the very turn of your expression, had I forgot the rest of your charms, would be sufficient to make me lament the only fault you have-your inconstancy.

Probably Mrs., or Miss, Katherine Wortley, another sister.-T. 2 The letter bears the postmark, "Peterborough, Au. 19th.”—T.