The Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope-Feelings of an Exile.

Whether that happens or not, it is fit you should have a sight of it, who, I know, will read it with some degree of satisfaction, as it is mine, though it should have (as it really has) nothing else to recommend it. Such as it is, Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto; for that may well be the case, considering that within a few months I am entering into my seventieth year, after which even the healthy and the happy cannot much depend upon life, and will not, if they are wise, much desire it. Whenever I go you will lose a friend who loves and values you extremely, if in my circumstauces I can be said to be lost to any one, when dead, more than I am already whilst living. I expected to have heard from you by Mr. Morice, and wondered a little that I did not ; but he owns himself in a fault for not giving you due notice of his motions. It was not amiss that you forbore writing on a head wherein I promised more than I was able to perform. Disgraced men fancy sometimes that they preserve an influence, where, when they endeavor to exert it, they soon see their mistake. I did so, my good friend, and acknowledge it under my hand. You sounded the coast and found out my error, it seems, before I was aware of it. But enough on this subject.

What are they doing in England to the honor of letters, and particularly what are you doing? Ipse quid audes? Quae circumvolitas agilis Thyma? Do you pursue the moral plan you marked out, and seemed sixteen months ago so intent upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I die, and are you to enjoy the reputation of it while you live? or do you rather choose to leave the marks of your friendship, like the legacies of a will, to be read. and enjoyed only by those who survive you? Were I as near

the publication of Lord Clarendon's history. Paris, 1731, 4to, since reprinted in England.

The Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope-Feelings of an Exile.

you, as I have been I should hope to peep into the manuscript before it was finished. But alas! there is, and will ever probably be, a great deal of land and sea between us. How many books have come out of late in your parts which you think I should be glad to peruse? Name them; the catalogue, I believe, will not cost you much trouble. They must be good ones indeed to challenge any part of my time, now I have so little of it left. I, who squandered whole days heretofore, now husband hours when the glass begins to run low, and care not to misspend them on trifles. At the end of the lottery of life our last minutes, like tickets left in the wheel, rise in their valuation; they are not of so much worth, perhaps, in themselves as those which preceded, but we are apt to prize them more, and with reason. I do so, my dear friend, and yet think the most precious minutes of my life are well employed in reading what you write. But this is a satisfaction I cannot much hope for, and therefore must betake myself to others less entertaining. Adieu, dear sir ; and forgive me engaging with one whom you, I think, have reckoned among the heroes of the Dunciad. It was necessary for me either to accept of his dirty challenge, or to have suffered in the esteem of the world by declining it.

My respects to your mother. I send one of these papers for Dean Swift, if you have an opportunity and think it worth while to convey it. My country at this distance seems to me a strange sight; I know not how it appears to you, who are in the midst of the scene, and yourself a part of it; I wish you would tell You may write safely to Mr. Morice, by the honest hand that conveys this, and will return into these parts before ChristSketch out a rough draft of it, that I may be able to judge whether a return to it be really eligible, or whether I should not,

me.

mas.

Mrs. Penruddock to her Husband-On the eve of his Execution.

like the chemist in the bottle, upon hearing Don Quevedo's account of Spain, desire to be corked up again.

After all, I do and must love my country, with all its faults and blemishes; even that part of the constitution which wounded me unjustly, and itself, through my side, shall ever be dear to me. My last wish shall be like that of Father Paul, Esto perpetua! and when I die at a distance from it, it will be in the same manner as Virgil describes the expiring Peloponnesian,

"Sternitur,

Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."

Do I still live in the memory of my friends, as they certainly do in mine? I have read a good many of your paper squabbles about me, and am glad to see such free concessions on that head, though made with no view of doing me a pleasure, but merely of loading another. I am, &c.

X.-ON THE EVE OF HIS EXECUTION.*

Mrs. Penruddock to her Husband.

MY DEAR HEART: My sad parting was so far from making me forget you, that I scarce thought upon myself since; but wholly upon you. Those dear embraces, which I yet feel, and shall never lose, being the faithful testimonies of an indulgent husband, have charmed my soul to such a reverence of your remembrance, that, were it possible, I would with my own blood cement your dead limbs to love again, and (with reverence) think

* Steele, in the Lover, publishes the two exquisite letters in the text, which are said to have passed between a husband and his wife on the eve of the latter's execution upon the scaffold. The gentleman was barbarously sentenced to die, at Exeter, during the rebellion.-H.

Mr. Penruddock to his Wife-Reply to the preceding Letter.

it no sin to rob heaven a little longer of a martyr. Oh! my dear, you must now pardon my passion, this being my last (oh, fatal words!) that ever you will receive from me; and know that, until the last minute that I can imagine you shall live, I shall sacrifice the prayers of a Christian, and the groans of an afflicted wife. And when you are not (which sure by sympathy I shall · know), I shall wish my own dissolution with you that, so we may go hand in hand to heaven. 'Tis too late to tell you what I have, or rather what I have not done for you; how, being turned out of doors because I came to beg mercy. The Lord lay not your blood to their charge. I would fain discourse longer with you, but dare not; passion begins to drown my reason, and will rob me of my devoirs, which is all I have left to serve you. Adieu, therefore, ten thousand times, my dearest dear; and since I must never see you more, take this prayer. May your faith be so strengthened that your constancy may continue; and then I know heaven will receive you-whither grief and love will, in a short time (I hope) translate, my dear, your sad but constant wife, even to love your ashes when dead.

ARUNDEL PENRUDDOCK.

May 3d, 1665, eleven o'clock at night. Your children beg your blessing, and present their duties to you.

XI.-REPLY TO THE PRECEDING LETTER.

Mr. Penruddock to his Wife.

1

DEAREST, BEST OF CREATURES! I had taken leave of the world when I received yours. It did at once recall my fondness to life, and enable me to resign it. As I am sure I shall leave

Lady M. W. Montagu to the Abbé-Crossing the Channel. Sea Sickness.

none behind me like you, which weakens my resolution to part from you; so, when I reflect I am going to a place where there are none but such as you, I recover my courage. But fondness breaks in upon me, and as I would not have my tears flow tomorrow, when your husband, and the father of our dear babes, is a public spectacle, do not think meanly of me that I give way to grief now in private, when I see my sand run so fast, and within a few hours I am to leave you helpless, and exposed to the merciless and insolent that have wrongfully put me to a shameless death, and will object the shame to my poor children. I thank you for all your goodness to me, and will endeavor so to die as to do nothing unworthy of that virtue in which we have mutually supported each other, and for which I desire you not to repine that I am first to be rewarded, since you ever preferred me to yourself in all other things. Afford me, with cheerfulness, the precedence in this. I desire your prayers in the article of death; for my own will then be offered for you and yours.

J. PENRUDDOCK.

XII.-CROSSING THE CHANNEL-SEA-SICKNESS.

Lady M. W. Montagu to the Abbé.

DOVER, Oct. 31st, O. S., 1718. for it, that I shall really soon as possible, my safe

I am willing to take your word oblige you by letting you know, as passage over the water. I arrived this morning at Dover, after being tossed a whole night in the packet boat in so violent a manner that the master, considering the weakness of his vessel, thought it proper to remove the mail, and give us notice of the danger. We called a little fishing boat, which could hardly