within this fortnight to Dawley farm[1], and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you therefore from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give you farther proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again by the end of next week; by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business, will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu, Jonathan, Alexander, John! Mirth be with you.
From the banks of the Severn, July 23, 1726.
TO DR. SHERIDAN.
I HAVE yours just now of the 19th, and the account you give me, is nothing but what I have some time expected with the utmost agonies; and there is one aggravation of constraint, that where I am, I am forced to put on an easy countenance. It was at this time the best office your friendship could do, not to deceive me. I was violently bent all last year, as I believe you remember, that she should go to Montpellier, or Bath, or Tunbridge. I entreated,
- ↑ The country residence of lord Bolingbroke, near Cranford in Middlesex.
- ↑ This was written from Mr. Pope's at Twickenham.
