“Next Sunday I quit the peaceful groves and hospitable roof of Bullstrode for the noisy turbulent city; my books and serious reflections are to be laid aside for the looking-glass and curling irons, and from that time I am no more a Pastorella, but propose to be as idle, as vain, and as impertinent, as any one; if you will come to town Mrs. Freind and you will find me, however, as like myself as to be your sincere friend.”

“Dear Madam Sally,

“I went to Lady North’s[135] last night, to see all the fine cloaths that were made for the Birthday. Lady Scarborough[136] was richly dressed, the Duchess of Bedford[137] was pretty fine, Mrs. Spencer had a white velvet which is the ugliest thing in the world, but the Duchess of Queensberry[138] was such as should be shown at Courts and feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship; her cloaths were embroidered upon white satin; Vine leaves, Convolvulus and Rosebuds shaded after Nature; but she in herself was so far beyond the masterpiece of art, that one could hardly look at her cloaths; allowing for her age I never saw so beautiful a creature. Miss Pitt[139] had a fine trimming and looked very pretty, but as for the Roses, they do not bloom in January, for she is as pale as a ghost. Lady Mary Tufton[140] had a pretty suit of embroidery. The men were not at all fine. Mr. Lyttelton’s[141] cloaths were ugly, according to Polonius’ instructions, ‘Rich not gaudy, fine but not exprest in fancy.’ I did not see any new fashions, as to the wearing stays, I think they are as usual. I do not know what will become of your fine shape, for there is a fashionable make that is very strange. I believe they look in London as they did in Rome after the Rape of the Sabines.

“I should be obliged to you if you would in your next letter send me word what sized hoops moderate people who are neither over lavish nor covetous of whalebone, wear; because I intend to write to my Hoop maker to have one ready for me against I come to town, and I don’t care to leave the size of it to her discretion. I hope our hoops will not increase much more, for we are already almost as unreasonable as Queen Dido,[142] and don’t encircle much less with our whalebone, than she did with her bull’s hide.”

“Dear Sister,

“I have been walking in the Park this morning, and returned only time enough to dress, so while Deb is tiffing and tiffing till my hair is so pure and so crisp, I am writing a line to you to the great vexation of Mrs. Mincing, who is afraid I should be the worst dressed for it. I don’t wonder an ‘Abigail’ that is kept only as a Minister of the toilette should look upon dressing as the great concern of life, but that other people should make such a point of it I marvel greatly. Some women by endeavouring to be as handsome as they can are not so charming as they might be. I never thought a head agreeably dressed that had not a hair awry; such punctuality may become a tyre woman, but cannot a belle, but however, it becomes everybody to be dressed for dinner, which will not be the case if I do not conclude. I am to go to the ‘Penseroso and Allegro’ to-night. The music of the ‘Penseroso’ some say is best, ‘but Mirth with thee I choose to live.’ Adieu.”

“Bath, April 10, 1741.

“It being now near two months since I have received any intelligence of either of my correspondents, I must needs enclose a letter to Pea, Senior, to enquire after her whether she be still with the Duke to whom I direct the cover, or with the rest of the Peas in her own Podd in Kent.

“I expected the beginning of March to hear you had quitted her grace to join hearts and hands once more with dearly beloved Pea. But Lady Berkshire whom I saw some days ago, tells me the Duchess is in a very bad state of health, which I suppose will make you both very unwilling to part with each other. I have rather fancied therefore some disappointment has happened, and that your friend’s illness may have taken up your time and thoughts too much to let us hear what is become of you, for if both sisters had been together in town, surely both would not have grudged us the pleasure of hearing you were well and happy.... Even I, surrounded with a set of noisy politicians on one side, and backgammon players on t’other, can still make shift to write a line to my dear friend, and ask only how she does, and where she is, and to assure her that I and my Pea are

“I cannot lose the opportunity which just offers me to send a letter to the post, though I troubled your Grace but yesterday. My sister continues as well as it is possible to be, and has found out her disorder with which she is perfectly content, and sends me very merry messages upon it: they are of the seven day sort, so will turn on Sunday, and on Monday when it is over, I shall possess my soul in quietness. I am afraid this hurry of spirits and fatigue, will not prove of service to my Mamma; and if the dire Hyp does haunt a solitary chimney corner, sure it will visit my Pappa now it is sure to find him at home and alone. For my part, I am in the case of poor David, my friends and kinsfolk stand afar off; and when I am to return home I don’t know. That the distemper may not continue, my Pappa has sent away half a dozen servants who have not had it, and says he hopes to have me back again very soon; but indeed I hope to prevail upon him to try how the air of Mount Morris agrees with his servants, before I return. I live here very easy, and I have got books and all the necessaries and comforts, though not the pomps and pleasures of life. The family are civil and sensible people. As for the Master of the house, he is indeed, to a tittle, Spenser’s meagre personage called Care: his chief accomplishment as to behaviour is silence. I never see him but at dinner and supper, and then he eats his pudding and holds his tongue. I believe his learning amounts to knowing that four pennies make a groat, and the sooner that groat is a sixpence he thinks the better. To give your grace a notion of the sort of persons who compose the Drama:—They are above Farmers considerably, have been possessed in the family, for aught I know, since the Conqueror of above £400 a year, they have a good old house, neatly furnished, but there is nothing of modern structure to be seen in it.

“I am now sitting in an old crimson velvet elbow chair, I should imagine to be elder brother to that which is shown in Westminster Abbey as Edward the Confessor’s. There are long tables in the room that have more feet than the caterpillar you immured at Bullstrode. Why so many legs are needful to stand still, I cannot imagine, when I can fidget on two. There is a good chest of drawers in the figure of a Cathedral, and a looking glass which Rosamond or Jane Shore may have dressed their heads in. Not to forget the clock, who has indeed been a time server; it has struck the blessed minutes of the Reformation, Restoration, Abdication, Revolution, and Accession, and by its relation to time seems to have some to Eternity. It is like its old Master, only good to point the hour to industry; ... it calls his servant to yoke the oxen, get ready the plough, wakes the dairy maid to milk and churn, the daughters hear in it the paternal voice chiding the waste of hours, and rise obedient to its early call; even me it governs, sends me to bed at ten, and makes me rise, oh barbarous! at eight.... The mother of the family, a venerable matron of grave deportment, who was well educated, and moves in the form of antique ceremonies, but is really a sensible woman! The daughters are good housewifes, and I like some qualities in them, which I understand better than their economy. I only wish they could sleep in their beds in the morning, and wake in a chair in the evening!” ...

“Before this time you must have been informed by the Duchess or Mrs. Pendarves of my distress, and also my flight from the maternal mansion to the house in the neighbourhood. I am at present very happy as my sister is out of all danger, and I rejoice in thinking she will have one enemy of life and health the less. So much for the state of my mind; the situation of my person is not so gay and cheerful. My best friends among the living are a Colony of rooks who have settled themselves in a grove by my window. They wake me early in the morning.... I have not yet discovered the form of their government, but I imagine it is democratical.... If I continue here long I shall grow a good naturalist. I have applied myself to nursing chickens, and have been forming the manners of a young calf, but I find it a very dull scholar. I intend to gather some cowslips for Mrs. Perceval[145] as soon as they appear; pray let me know if they should be prepared in any particular manner....

“There are some squires here who would make excellent Polyphemus’s; one of them drank tea here yesterday, and complimented me with all the force of rural gallantry, but for some fault in the flattery or the flatterer, I liked neither him nor myself any better for all the fine things he said. After he was gone I did but relieve my spleen with some laughter on the subject, when I was told by the matron of the family, he would be a good match for a woman with twenty thousand pounds, and indeed could one lend out one’s liking upon land security, I think one might very well settle it upon him. To laugh at a poor man is barbarous. He is a great friend of the family I am with, and I fear will come often; and in spite of his respectable manors and fee simple, and ancient mansion, both great and good, I shall not be able to give a serious attention to his discourse.

“I wish you could see my habitation, a right reverend and venerable one it is; the staircase that leads to my chamber is hung with the funeral escutcheons of my grandfathers, grandmothers, Aunts and Uncles, that I seem to be entering the burying vault of the family to sleep with my Fathers. It is a comfort, no doubt, to think one’s ancestors have had Christian burial, but of what use are these tawdry escutcheons? Sure no passion of the mind, no situation of the human creature is without vanity, if the mourner can adorn with pomp, and the breathless carcase be dressed in it.

“... address to me at Mr. Smith’s, Hayton, near Hythe.”

“I long to hear from you, I want to know who you have to entertain, and keep up the spirits your sister’s safety must give you. I hope Mr. Robinson,[146] your brother, is in banishment with you, for you will want such a companion to sweeten a long absence from all your other friends. I heartily wish you were in any place where I could come to you.... The only show we have had since you left us was for Handel, his last night, all the fashionable people were there.”

“I like your situation extremely, but I should wish you one rational companion, for I do not think you were made for calves or poultry, or greater brutes in the shape of country squires. What is come of Pan? He used to find out a pretty female in her retirement, but as he has been sometimes a little dangerous, I think I had rather recommend you to the conversation of the wood nymphs. I have often wished to be acquainted with them, I fancy they are very innocent, and free from vanity and affectation, a little ignorant, and indeed in the fashions and amusements of London, as dress, cards, old china, Japan, shells, etc., but they may have notions of friendship and honour, and such antiquated things.

“I have read no further than Cicero’s[147] consulship. By what I have read of Atticus in other authors particularly the Abbé St. Real,[148] who has given his character, and translated Cicero’s letters to him, I had not so high an opinion of him as I find Doctor Middleton has given you. I met yesterday, at Pen’s, the Bishop of Oxford,[149] Mrs. Secker and Miss Talbot,[150] and they seemed to think Dr. Middleton was not so much the historian as the Panegyrist of Cicero, indeed one observation I have already made myself, I think him too like a modern Lawyer who pleads all causes good or bad that gets him interest which was money to them; but when I have read the whole I will read St. Real again, and then I will tell you more of my mind. I long till you read Horace, and think he would be particularly proper in your present retirement, he seems to know how to amuse himself in such a scene better than any one I ever met with, at the same time that he was the delight of the politest court[151] that ever was. I really think you have much of the genius of distinguishing right from wrong, and not being led away by the false glosses of the world, and want to know whether you find that conformity.

“I told you in my last I wished to spend some time with you in your banishment. I am so sincere in it, that if you were in a place where they are not above being paid for my lodging and board, I would come to you for one fortnight before you go home....

“My Mother desires her compliments to you, and many thanks for remembering the cowslips. The manner of saving them is this only, pulling them out of the Pod, and letting them dry in a north window, and when they are dry, to put them up in a paper bag.

“I have been this morning to St. Paul’s to hear Handel’s Te Deum.”

“Hayton, April 20, 1741.

“Dear Madam,

“I had the pleasure of your letter yesterday, it made me very happy. If my friends at a distance did not keep my affections awake, I should be lulled into a state of insensibility, divided as I am from all I love.... What’s Cicero to me or I to Cicero? as Hamlet would say; and for myself, though this same little, insignificant self be very dear unto me, yet I have not used to make it my sole object of love and delight....

“I want just such a companion as you would be, and how happy would your kind compliance with that wish make me, if the good old folk here would accommodate you; but they are so fearful of strangers, I know it impossible to persuade them to it. They are not very fine people; they have a little estate, and help it out with a little farming: are very busy and careful, and the old man’s cautionness has dwindled into penuriousness, so that he eats in fear of waste and riot, sleeps with the dread of thieves, denies himself everything for fear of wanting anything, riches give him no plenty, increase no joy, prosperity no ease: he has the curse of covetousness to want the property of his neighbours, while he dare not touch his own: the Harpy Avarice drives him from his own meat, the sum of his wisdom and his gains will be by living poor, to die rich....

“The reason for which you wish I would read Horace does me great honour.... Upon your recommendation I had read it before, but depending on my brother’s having it, I did not bring it with me, and I find he has not got it. I will desire my brothers[152] to bring it down with them the next vacation.... As for some of our squires they read nothing but parish law, and books of Husbandry, or perhaps for their particular entertainment, ‘Quarle’s Emblems,’ ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘Æsop’s Fables,’ and to furnish them with a little ready wit, ‘Joe Miller’s Jests.’”[153]

“Dear Sister,

“The order of our Posts at Bath is very strange, the post comes in three times a week, twice of which you may answer your letters the same day you receive them, but the third not till three days afterwards. Last Thursday brought me two letters together from you, in which you informed me that my sister was past the heighth.... I hope next post will tell me that Sally is out of all danger.

“Harry Goddard is here, and informs me that our cousin Betty Lumley is married to a Parson[154] who once delighted in debauchery, who is possessed of about £100 a year in preferment, and has a good prospect of more. What hopes our relation may have of settling the affections of a light and fickle man I know not, but I imagine she will set about it not by means of the beauty but of the arm of flesh. In other respects I see no fault in the match; no woman ought to venture upon the state of Old Maiden without a consciousness of an inexhaustible fund of good nature.”

“Dear Madam Sally,

“I am glad to hear you are well, and that your eyes are brilliant, but pray don’t use them too soon, for you will have reason to repent it. I never saw a more comical letter than my sweet cousin’s,[156] with her heart and head full of matrimony, pray do matrimonial thoughts come upon your recovery? for she seems to think it a symptom.”

“Matt mentions Mrs. Sterne’s match, of which he had an account from Harry Goddard, who is at Bath. Mr. Sterne has a hundred a year living, with a good prospect of better preferment. He was a great rake, but being japanned and married, has varnished his character. I do not comprehend what my cousin means by their little desires, if she had said little stomachs, it had been some help to their economy, but when people have not enough for the necessaries of life, what avails it that they can do without the superfluities and pomps of it? Does she mean that she won’t keep a coach and six, and four footmen? What a wonderful occupation she made of courtship that it left her no leisure nor inclination to think of any thing else. I wish they may live well together.”

“My sister is well again, and once more I possess my soul with tranquillity. I believe you will guess I suffered great and terrible anxiety when I was forced to leave her to a dreadful distemper, whose terrors received great additions from my particular fears of it, and tenderness to her. The want of sleep, at first, a little damaged my constitution, I had a slight fever with disorder for a week, which I believe was chiefly occasioned by it. I did not mention it to my brother, for fear it should make him uneasy, but I am now perfectly well, and from the reflection of my sister’s good fortune, happy too, though great is the change you will see, from London and lolling on the velvet sofa of a duchess, to humbly sitting on a 3-legged cricket[158] in the country.”

“Our friend B——[159] increases in chin and misery, he came to breakfast with my Papa one morning, and complained of the Hyp, for which my good parent advised him to take assafœtida, the prescription was admirable, he might as well have sent him to the Tinker’s to have mended the hole in his heart. Oh! cruel fate that made no cure for love, thought my friend, and sighed bitterly: really I could not help laughing at the precious balm my Pappa was for applying to the wound. It would have ruined a happy lover with me.”

“Whitehall, April 25, 1741.

“Madam,

Since ye frivolous letters j trouble you with are ranked as favours you receive, j’am sure no excuse can be made for any neglect towards you, and it would, nay it does, make me wish ye post went out every day, yt j might have it in my power to confer my favours, such as they are, upon you: j’am not sure if vanity, as well as ye desire j have of doing all yt lays in my power to oblige you, does not have a share in this wish about ye post, for really j have reason to be proud yt a Lady of so many perfections as Miss Robinson, (j can’t name them singly for j should never have done), can sett any value upon my poor insignificant letters, tho’ your approving them might puff up any body’s vanity, yett j have humility enough to think that j owe all the favours you are pleased to show me, to ye subject j write about; it is a subject yt you will be no more tired to hear off than j to write off: then j am sure your next question will be, Pray my lord to ye subject: well then in complyance to your commands j am to inform you yt ye Duchess continues as well as can be, and ye Babe too. My wife desires me to tell you yt your letter revived her exceedingly, yt she had waited with great impatience for it, and yt she hopes to hear often from you. She, as well as myself, rejoice at your sister’s recovery, and desire our compliments to her. You may say everything yt is kind to yourself from my wife, and tho’ j am sure you have a very good genius in turning things as you like, you will hardly outdo her sentiments concerning you. Your being got rid of your feaver gave us great joy, for we began to be uneasy about Fidgett; nobody can see her without admiration, and when one hears her open her lips one is struck dumb; if one was to go on with everything when one receives a letter from you, one’s fingers would become numbed, and unable to answer, was it not for the desire of receiving more letters, makes one’s fingers to write to engage you to answer. In reading your letter j can’t help acquainting you yt there would be great strifes to be a Chaunticleer to be ye real possessor of such a Dame Partlett as you, whether of ye favourite little Bantam kind, or of the ruffled friesland kind; j should think the first more adapted to you for its gentility and rarity and cleanliness, all qualifications, which, tho’ j am no chanticleer j can sing off in your behalf. Nay j will do it. It is time for me to finish my letter to you tho’ j do not conclude my letter with such a pompous ‘humble servant’ as you do, j hope you are thoroughly persuaded that j am not less,

“I should be ashamed after so long a friendship with you to be ignorant of any of your talents, yet I do assure you there are some of them that after so long an accquaintance with them, I have not yet done admiring. It is never without great delight that I see in one whom I esteem so much, that tho’ in company one would swear your parts and spirits were contrived purposely for laughter, and the chearful round of mirth, yet study and thought, contemplation of the ways of men, or works of Nature, and consequently enjoyment of yourself, and ease and happiness, the end of all good, never desert your leisure and retirement. You never had greater reason for this turn of mind, or better trial of your temper on that account than lately, when driven from your friends, and almost alone, in a manner you never were before, and probably may never be again: you were fairly left to the food and entertainment of your own thoughts; and though it would be impertinent now to mention my general opinion of your letters, I don’t remember that I ever saw your thoughts stamped upon a piece of paper with greater force of discernment than in the letter I received from you to-day.... Bating the tribe of your lovers, you cannot have a more hearty friend to your person, or more assured admirer of your merit and accomplishments.”

“I had the joy of seeing my dear Pea yesterday; I cannot express the happiness of such a meeting, but it is saying enough to own it more than recompensed the pangs of parting. It is truly, as well as poetically said, ‘The heart can ne’er a transport know, that never felt a pain.’ My desire to be cheered again by that beloved voice made me desirous of a meeting much sooner than I should be otherwise, in my shameful fear of the distemper, have desired. We talked about an hour in the open air, at about two yards’ distance: she kept her hat so close I could not see her face, but as soon as it has nothing left of the distemper, but the redness, I am to see her. I am now within sight of our house at a farm just at the bottom of the gates. I have a very good room, warm and comfortable. It is so low that it flatters my pride by indulging me with an approach to the ceiling. My Mamma had sent furniture for the room from Mount Morris, as soon as my sister was growing better, that I might come so near as to be accustomed to the family, and so return to it at leisure without any apprehensions.”

“I am forced in the country, every week to make a sermon, at home or abroad, however engaged, made it must be, and swallowed the next Sunday, though I believe it lies but a crude morsel on the Blanketters’[160] Stomachs, which, if they can digest, ’tis often more than I myself can do.... An express arrived last night from Admiral Vernon; Carthagena was not actually taken, but the captain who brings the news imagines it might be taken in about 12 hours after he left it. All the Spanish ships and galleons that were in the Harbour were burnt, most of the fortifications battered down, enough to discover there was great confusion in the town. Not a ship of ours was hurt when he departed. But there is always a black flag attends in the train of Victory; the general joy overcomes indeed all private concern; but those who have friends or relations in the midst of a fire, cannot rejoice till they hear who has escaped it. Those we lost on the 1st of April are Lord Aubrey Beauclerc,[161] who had both legs shot off, and died presently, Col. Douglas of the Marines had his head shot off, Lieutenant Sandford of Wentworth’s Regiment was shot in his tent before the town, Col. Watson of the Artillery was killed by a shot in the thigh, Capt. Moor was killed, Lieutenant Turvin had just taken the Colours from his dead ensign, and was killed with them in his hand (‘There’s honour for you,’ says Sir J. Falstaffe), 197 private men are killed and wounded. I was glad to find my brother not mentioned in the list.”

“We are squabbling about Elections, and proving right wrong, and wrong right, just as we think it will make for some little private interest, without the least regard to truth, justice, or any notion of the good of the country. The Westminster Election was finished in a most partial manner on Friday, in favour of the Court candidates, and Lord Sundon[162] was like to be torn to pieces by the mob in revenge: this has been the subject of much talk, and last night I happened to say to a clergyman (who I thought by his gown was obliged to join with me), that I thought the dishonesty that prevailed in Elections was terrible, and corrupted the private honesty in all ranks of people, when my Parson to my surprise took up the argument that bribery in a King and his Ministers was not dishonest, but politic, and that we could not subsist without it, and ran on to prove that we must conform to the times, and if my neighbour bribes, I must do so too, to be on a foot with him or we must be undone. I own this doctrine shocks me....

“Your friend[163] told me yesterday they are a little disturbed about a law suit which is to concern the 28th. I suppose you have heard of it. ’Tis an old South Sea affair of the Father’s,[164] and very considerable. I am really concerned about it, and shall long to see them out of such a terrible situation.”