SIR, William Congreve to Mr. Porter August 21. I AM forced to borrow lady's paper, but I think it will contain all that I can well tell you from this place, which is so much out of the world, that nothing but the last great news could have reached it. I have a little tried what solitude and retirement can afford, which are here in perfection. I am now writing to you from before a black mountain nodding over me, and a whole river in cascade falling so near me, that even I can distinctly sce it. I can only tell you of the situation I am in; which would be better expressed by Mr. Grace, if he were here. I hope all our friends are well, both at Salisbury and Windsor, where I suppose you spent the last week. Pray, whenever you write to them, give them my humble service. I think to go the next week to Mansfield race alone. I am told I shall see all the country. If I see any of your acquaintance, I will do you right to them. I hope Mr. Longueville's picture has been well finished. I am, dear sir, Your most humble servant, Ilam, near Ashbourn, in Derbyshire, James Thomson to Mr. Lyttelton. DEAR SIR, London, July 14, 1743. I HAD the pleasure of yours some posts ago, and have delayed answering it hitherto, that I might be able to determine when I could have the happiness of waiting upon you. Hagley is the place in England I most desire to see; I imagine it to be greatly delightful in itself, and I know it to be so in the highest degree by the company it is animated with. Some reasons prevent my waiting upon you immediately; but if you will be so good as to let me know how long you design to stay in the country, nothing shall hinder me from passing three weeks or a month with you before you leave it. As this will fall in autumn, I shall like it the better; for I think that season of the year the most pleasing, and the most poetical; the spirits are not then dissipated with the gaiety of spring, and the glaring light of summer, but composed into a serious and tempered joy. The year is perfect. In the mean time I will go on with correcting the Seasons, and hope to carry down more than one of them with me. The Muses, whom you obligingly say I shall bring along with me, I shall find with you: the muses of the great simple country, not the little fine-lady muses of Richmond-hill. I have lived so long in the noise, or at least the distant din of the town, that I begin to forget what retirement is; with you I shall enjoy it in its highest elegance and purest simplicity. The mind will not only be soothed into peace, but enlivened into harmony. My compliments attend all at Hagley, and particularly her (Lady Lyttelton) who gives it charms to you it never had before. Believe me to be ever with the greatest respect, most affectionately yours, JAMES THOMSON. Miss Talbot to the Hon. Miss Campbell. Sept. 17, 1736. O MIRTH! where is thy joy? O Pleasure! how far art thou removed from real happiness! "Tis after three hours' experience that I make this reflection. So long have I been laughing immoderately in the midst of a gay crowd; and the moment I quitted it, these sober thoughts came rushing upon my mind with so much violence, that I could not help sitting down to give you an account of them; especially as I knew it would suit your present philosophical state of mind, and might, perhaps, help to make ny peace for all I said yesterday in the gaiety of my heart, and much against my conscience. Yes, indeed, my dear Miss Campbell, 't is now my turn to lever le masque; when I have done so, I must assure you that I do really believe there is more true and unmixed satisfaction in the com. pany of a few friends, or a few well chosen books. These are what I must place next to friends, those silent and faithful friends, who brighten our most gloomy moments, and to whom we cannot even then be disagreeable. Then walks and woods, and quiet and early hours, quiet sleep, healthy looks, high spirits, cheerful mirth, (and that is a very uncommon thing, I assure you,) then a great deal of leisure for improvement, and a great deal of good inclination to make use of it. "O care salve beate!" There is no real happiness in any other way of life. This is truly living; everything else is only giggling and sighing away a short disagreeable time. Here is a wonderful inundation of wisdom; and yet I do not quite renounce all happiness any. where else. For instance, last night I enjoyed a great deal, that was very sincere, in seeing our long wished for traveller safely arrived. Here is my lady duchess come to sup here, and the bishop of Bristol telling her that she is very perverse. Apropos, she is very much obliged to Lady Mary for a very pretty letter; but as she writes to to-night, will at present thank her no otherwise than by bidding me say this; 't is from her I send the inclosed. She met two young gentlemen in Sandy Lane, and overheard the speech. I am in haste, and your obliged SIR, C. TALBOT. Dr. Smollett to an American Gentleman. London, May 8, 1763. I AM favoured with yours of the 26th of February, and can not but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem. The curiosity you express with regard to the particulars of my life, and the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified within the compass of a letter; besides, there are some particulars of my life which it would ill become me to relate. The only similitude between the circumstances of my own fortune, and those I have attributed to Roderick Random, consists in my being born of a respectable family in Scotland; in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon's mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena. The low situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my own person. I married, very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lascelles, and by her I enjoy a comfortable, though moderate estate in that island. I practised surgery in Lon don, after having improved myself by travelling in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took my degree of doctor in medi cine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I hope) with credit and reputation. No man knows better than Mr. what time I employed in writing the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three hundred volumes in the course of my labour. Mr. likewise knows that I spent the greatest part of a year in revising, correcting, and improving the quarto edition which is now going to the press, and will be continued in the same size to the last piece. Whatever reputation I may have got by this work, has been dearly bought by the loss of health, which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve. I am going to the south of France, in order to try the effects of that climate, and very probably I shall never return. I am much obliged to you for the hope you express that I have obtained some provision from his majesty; but the truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition which can stoop to solicit either. I have always piqued myself upon my independency, and I trust in God I shall preserve |