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ELEGANT EPISTLES.

BOOK THE SIXTH.

Recent.

PART II.

LETTER I.*

MR. WARBURTON TO MR. HURD.

DEAR SIR, Bedford-row, October 28th, 1749. I DEFERRED making my acknowledgments for the favour of your last obliging letter till I came to town. I am now got hither to spend the month

The letters which follow between Warburton and Hard would from their date have appeared with more propriety in the preceding volume; but from the multiplicity of letters belonging to the middle of the century, we were under the necessity of omitting them; they are however too excellent to be omitted entirely.

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of November: the dreadful month of November! when the little wretches hang and drown themselves, and the great ones sell themselves to the C and the devil. I should be glad if any occasion would bring you hither, that I might have the pleasure of waiting on you, -I don't mean to the C and the devil, but in Bedford-row. Not that I would fright you from that earthly Pandemonium, a C- because I never go thither. On the contrary, I wish I could get you into the circle. For (with regard to you) I should be something of the humour of honest Cornelius Agrippa, who when he left off conjuring, and wrote of the vanity of the art, could not forbear to give receipts, and teach young novices the way to raise the devil. One method serves for both, and his political representatives are rendered tractable by the very same method, namely, fumigations. But these high mysteries you are unworthy to partake of. You are no true son of Agrippa, who choose to waste your incense in raising the meagre spirit of friendship, when the wisdom of the prince of this world would have inspired you with more profitable sentiments.

Let me hear, at least, of your health; and believe that no absence can lessen what the expres. sions of your good-will have made me, that is to say, very much your servant.

I have now put that volume of which the epistle to Augustus is part, to the press; so should be obliged to you to send it by your letter-carrier, directed to Mr. Knapton, bookseller, in Ludgatestreet. But you must be careful not to pay the carriage, because that will endanger a miscarriage,

as I have often experienced.-I intend to soften the conclusion of the note about Grotius and the archbishop, according to your friendly hint.

LETTER II.

MR. HURD TO DR. WARBURTON.

Shifnal, September 13th, 1755. YOUR truly friendly letter of the 31st past, brought me all the relief I am capable of in my present situation. Yet that relief had been greater if the fact had been, as you suppose, that the best of fathers was removing from me, in this maturity of age, by a gradual insensible decay of nature; in which case, I could have drawn to myself much ease from the considerations you so kindly suggest to me. But it is not his being out of all hope of recovery (which I bad known long since, and was prepared for), but his being in perpetual pain, that afflicts me so much. I left him last night in this disconsolate condition. So near a prospect of death, and so rough a passage to it-I own to you I cannot be a witness of this in one whom nature and ten thousand obligations have made so dear to me, without the utmost uneasiness. Nay, I think the very temper and firmness of mind with which he bears this calamity, sharpens my sense of it. I thank God, an attachment to this world has not as yet been among my greater vices. But were I as fond of it as prosperous and happy men sometimes are, what I have seen and

felt for this last month were enough to mortify such foolish affections. And in truth it would amaze one, that a few such instances as this, which hardly any man is out of the reach of, did not strike dead all the passions, were it not that Providence has determined, in spite of ourselves, by means of these instincts, to accomplish its own great purposes. But why do I trouble my best friend with this sad tale and rambling reflections? I designed only to tell him that I am quite unhappy here; and that, though it is more than time for me to return to Cambridge, I have no power of coming to a thought of leaving this place. How. ever, a very few weeks, perhaps a few days, may put an end to this irresolution.

I thank you for your fine observation on the neglect to reform the ecclesiastical laws. It is a very material one, and deserves to be well considered. But of these matters when I return to my books, and my mind is more easy.

I wish you all the health and all the happiness your virtues deserve, and this wretched world will admit of. I know of nothing that reconciles me more to it than the seuse of having such a friend as you in it. I have the greatest obligations to Mrs. Warburton and the rest of your family for their kind condolence. My best respects and sincerest good wishes attend them. I must ever be, &c.

R. HURD.

LETTER III.

DR. WARRURTON TO MR. HURD.

Bedford-row, September 24, 1755. I RECEIVED your most tender letter, and sympathise with you most heartily.-Let me have better

news.

A very disagreeable affair has brought me to town a month before my usual time. Mr. Knapton, whom every body, and I particularly, thought the richest bookseller in town, has failed. His debts are 20,000l, and his stock is valued at 30,000l.: but this value is subject to many abating contingencies; and you never at first hear the whole debt. It is hoped there will be enough to pay every one: I don't know what to say to it. It is a business of years. He owes me a great sum. I am his principal creditor; and as such I have had it in my power, at a meeting of his creditors, to dispose them favourably to him, and to get him treated with great humanity and compassion. I have brought them to agree unanimously to take a resignation of his effects, to be managed by trustees; and in the mean time, till the effects can be disposed of to the best advantage, which will be some years in doing, to allow him a very handsome subsistence; for I think him an honest man (though he has done extremely ill by me), and, as such, love him. He falls with the pity and compassion of every body. His fault was extreme indolence.

I was never more satisfied in any action of my

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