Holland House,* where you are highly esteemed by Lady Warwick, and the young lord; though by none any where more than by, Sir, Your most faithful, and most obedient humble servant, J. ADDISON. FROM LORD HARLEY. April 12, 1718. His lordship writes to the Dean, "that he hopes to see him at Wimple this year; that Lord Oxford was well, and talked of going into Herefordshire." He adds, "Your sistert is obliged to go to Bath; presents her humble service, and desires you to accept of a little etui. I beg you will not deny me the favour to take the snuff-box, which comes along with it to supply the place of that which was broke by accident some time ago. I am, with true respect, Your most humble servant and brother, HARLEY." * The Dean had lodgings at Kensington in the summer of 1712; and Mr Addison lived there at the same time, being some years before his marriage with the Countess of Warwick. + Lady Harley. DEAR SIR, FROM MR PRIOR. May 1, 1718. A PRETTY kind of amusement I have been en gaged in: commas, semicolons, italics, and capitals, to make nonsense more pompous, and furbelow bad poetry with good printing, My friends letters, in the mean time, have lain unanswered; and the obligations I have to them, on account of the very book itself, are unacknowledged. This is not all; I must beg you once more to transfer to us an entire list of my subscribers, with their distinct titles, that they may, for my honour, be printed at the beginning of my book. This will easily be done by revising the list which we sent to you. I must pray of you, that it may be exact. The money I received of Mitford as mentioned in your last. The Earl of Oxford has not at all disappointed my expectations. He is semper idem, and has as much business to do now, as when he was governing England, or impeached for treason. He is still in town, but going in a week or ten days into Herefordshire. Lord and Lady Harley are at the Bath, and as soon as I shall have settled my affairs of the printingpress, (sad business! as you very well call it,) I shall go into the country to them. My health, I thank you, is pretty good. My courage better. I drink I drink very often to your health, with some of our friends here; and am always, with the greatest truth and affection, dear Sir, Your obliged and most obedient servant, DEAR SIR, FROM THE SAME. May 29, 1718. I HAVE received yours of the 6th, with the list corrected. I have two colon and comma men. We correct, and design to publish, as fast as the nature of this great or sorry work, as you call it, will bear; but we shall not be out before Christmas, so that our friends abroad may complete their collection till Michaelmas, and be returned soon enough to have their names printed and their books got ready for them. I thank you most heartily for what you have been pleased to do in this kind. Give yourself no farther trouble but if any gentleman, between this and Michaelmas, desires to subscribe, do not refuse it. I have received the money of Mr Mitford. I am going to-morrow morning to the Bath, to meet Lord Harley there. I shall be back in a month. The Earl of Oxford is still here. He will go into Herefordshire some time in June. He says he will write to you himself. Am I particular enough? Is this prose? And do I distinguish tenses? I have nothing more to tell you, but that you are the happiest man in the world; and if you are once got into la bagatelle, you may despise the world. Beside contriving emblems, such as cupids, torches, and hearts for great letters,* I am now unbinding two volumes of printed heads, to have them bound to *A sort of splendid, but very unnecessary ornament, which is banished from modern typography. gether in better order than they were before. Do not you envy me? For the rest, matters continue sicut olim. I will not tell you how much I want you, and I cannot tell you how well I love you. Write to me, my dear dean, and give my service to all our friends. Yours ever, M. PRIOR. FROM PETER LUDLOW, ESQ.* September 10, 1718. I SEND you the enclosed pamphlet by a private hand, not daring to venture it by the common post; for it is a melancholy circumstance we are now in, that friends are afraid to carry on even a bare correspondence, much more to write news, or send papers of consequence (as I take the enclosed to be) that way. But I suppose I need make no apology for not sending it by post, for you must know, and own too, that my fears are by no means groundless. For your friend, Mr Manley,† has been guilty of opening letters that were not directed to him, nor his wife, nor really to one of his acquaintance. Indeed, I own, it so happened, that they were of no consequence, but secrets of state, secrets of families, * Of Arsulagh, in the county of Meath, Esq. grandson of the famous Ludlow, who wrote the Memoirs of his own Times. ---F. It is impossible to discover to what piece of political wag. gery his letter refers. + Postmaster-general of Ireland, whom Dr Swift had greatly befriended in Queen Anne's time.-.-D. S. and other secrets (that one would by no means let Mr Manley know) might have been discovered; besides a thousand, nay, for aught I know, more than a thousand calamities might have ensued; I need not, I believe, enumerate them to you; but to be plain with you, no man nor woman would, (with their eyes open,) be obliged to show all they had to Mr Manley. These I think sufficient reasons for sending it in the manner I do; but submit them and myself to your candour and censure. The paper, I believe, you'll find very artfully written, and a great deal couched under the appearance (I own at first) of blunders and a silly tale. For who, with half an eye, may not perceive, that by the old woman's being drowned at Ratcliff-highway, and not dead yet, is meant the church, which may be sunk or drowned, but, in all probability, will rise again. Then the man, who was followed, and overtaken, is easily guessed at. He could not tell (the ingenious author says) whether she was dead: true but may be he will tell soon. But then the author goes on (who must be supposed a highchurchman) and inquires of a man riding a-horseback upon a mare. That's preposterous, and must allude to a great man who has been guilty (or he is foully belied) of very preposterous actions; when the author comes up to him, the man takes him for a robber, or tory, and ran from him, but you find he pursued him furiously. Mark that: and the horse. This is indeed carrying a figure farther than Homer does he makes the shield or its device an epithet sometimes to his warrior, but never, as I remember, puts it in place of the person; but there is a figure for this in rhetoric, which I own I do not remember; by which we often say, He is a good fiddle, or rather, as by the gown is often meant particular |