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and talk at such a rate that all the town must know I have seen something more than human. Come, for God's sake; come, Lady Mary; come quickly!

I extremely regret the loss of your Oriental learning, for that letter I never had, but am heartily glad you kept a copy. I believe one of mine had the same fate, wherein I begged a Circassian woman of you, the likest yourself that could be purchased. Don't think to put me off with a little likeness of you; the girl which I hear you have some way or other procured, and are bringing with you, is not fit for me; whatever you may fancy, Molineux is married, and I am past a boy.

I must tell you a story of Molineux: the other day, at the prince's levee, he took Mr. Edgecomb aside, and asked, with an air of seriousness, What did the Czar of Muscovy, when he disinherited his son, do with his secretary? To which Edgecomb answered, He was sewed up in a football, and tost over the water.

I am

Now I am got among your acquaintance, you must be content to hear how often I talk of you with Mr. Craggs, Mr. Methuen, Mr. Congreve, D. of Buckingham, Sir R. Rich, Miss Griffin, &c. almost angry to go into any body's company where I ever saw you; I partly enjoy and partly regret it. It is not without vexation that I roam on the Thames in a fine evening, or walk by moonlight in St. James's park: I can scarce allow any thing should be calm, or any thing sweet, without you. Give me leave at this distance to say, that I am something so much between a philosopher and a lover, that I am

continually angry at fortune for letting me enjoy those amusements which I fancy you want; and I seldom receive any pleasure, but it is got into my head, why has she not a share of it? This is really true; and yet you are not so prodigiously obliged to me neither, because I wish almost every vanity that can delight them.

Our gallantry and gaiety have been great sufferers by the rupture of the two courts here: scarce any ball, assembly, basset-table, or any place where two or three are gathered together. No lone house in Wales, with a rookery, is more contemplative than Hampton-Court: I walked there the other day by the moon, and met no creature of any quality but the king, who was giving audience all alone to the birds under the garden wall.

How many hundred things have I to say to you, not ten of which, perhaps, I shall remember when we meet. I have seen many fine things, many vile things, and many ridiculous things, all which are an amusement to those who can think; though one emulates the first sort, it's hurt by the second, and vext at the third. If one laughs at the world, they'll say he is proud; if one rails at it, they'll say he is ill-natured; and yet one or other of these one must do upon the whole. I am melancholy, which (to say truth) is all one gets by pleasure themselves: but I should not tell you this, if I did not think you of opinion, that melancholy does me as little hurt as any man and, after all, he must be a beast that can be melancholy with such a fine woman as you to his friend. Adieu. Were I your guardian spirit, your

happiness would be my whole care; as I am a poor mortal, it is one of my most earnest wishes.

Yours.

I beg you write to me soon; you are now come into the region of posts, and under the care of secretaries, the whole succession of whom are your servants, and give me more than pensions and places, when they give me your letters.

DEAR MADAM,

LETTER VIII.

'Tis not possible to express the least part of the joy your return gives me; time only and experience will convince you how very sincere it is. I excessively long to meet you, to say so much, so very much to you, that I believe I shall say nothing. I have given orders to be sent for the first minute of your arrival (which I beg you will let them know at Mr. Jervas's). I am fourscore miles from London, a short journey compared to that I so often thought at least of undertaking, rather than die without seeing you again. Though the place I am in is such as I would not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than any, nay every body else there; and you'll be convinced how little the town has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you know what a place this is which I prefer to it; I shall therefore describe it to you at large, as the true picture of a genuine ancient country-seat.

You must expect nothing regular in my description of a house that seems to be built before rules were in fashion: the whole is so disjointed, and the parts so detached from each other, and yet so joining again one can't tell how, that (in a poetical fit) you'd imagine it had been a village in Amphion's time, where twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were all out, and stood still in amazement ever since. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should ever think to get into this house the right way: one would expect, after entering through the porch, to be let into the hall;-alas! nothing less ;-you find yourself in a brewhouse. From the parlour you think to step into the drawing-room; but, upon opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced by a flight of birds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that 'tis the pigeon-house. On each side our porch are two chimnies, that wear their greens on the outside, which would do as well within, for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of the windows. Over the parlour-window hangs a sloping balcony, which time has turned to a very convenient penthouse. The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it as if it were the true steeple.

The great hall is high and spacious, flanked with long tables, images of ancient hospitality; ornamented with monstrous horns, about twenty broken pikes, and a match-lock musquet or two, which they say were used in the civil wars. Here is one vast arched window, beautifully darkened with divers scutcheons of painted glass. There seems to be great propriety

in this old manner of blazoning upon glass, ancient families being like ancient windows, in the course of generations seldom free from cracks. One shining pane bears date 1286. The youthful face of Dame Elinor owes more to this single piece, than to all the glasses she ever consulted in her life. Who can say after this that glass is frail, when it is not half so perishable as human beauty or glory? for in another pane you see the memory of a knight preserved, whose marble nose is mouldered from his monument in the church adjoining. And yet, must not one sigh to reflect, that the most authentic record of so ancient a family should lie at the mercy of every boy that throws a stone? In this hall, in former days, have dined gartered knights and courtly dames, with ushers, sewers, and seneschals; and yet it was but t'other night that an owl flew in hither, and mistook it for a barn.

This hall lets you up (and down), over a very high threshold, into the parlour, It is furnished with historical tapestry, whose marginal fringes do confess the moisture of the air. The other contents of this room are a broken-bellied verginal, a couple of crippled velvet chairs, with two or three mildewed pictures of mouldy ancestors, who look as dismally as if they came fresh from hell with all their brimstone about 'em. These are carefully set at the further corner for the windows being every where broken, make it so convenient a place to dry poppies and mustard-seed in, that the room is appropriated to that use.

Next this parlour lies (as I said before) the pigeon

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