once. And her grace bath cost me thirty pounds to provide tridents for fear of offending her, which sum I desire she will please to return me. — I am sick enough to go to the Bath, but have not heard it will be good for my disorder. I have a strong mind to spend my two hundred pounds next summer in France: I am glad I have it, for there is hardly twice that sum left in this kingdom. You want no settlement (I call the family where you live, and the foot you are upon, a settlement) till you increase your fortune to what will support you with ease and plenty, a good house and a garden. The want of this I much dread for you: for I have often known a she cousin of a good family and small fortune, passing months among all her relations, living in plenty, and taking her circles, till she grew an old maid, and every body weary of her. Mr. Pope complains of seldom seeing you; but the evil is unavoidable, for different circumstances of life have always separated those whom friendship will join: God hath taken care of this, to prevent any progress toward real happiness here, which would make life more desirable, and death too dreadful. I hope you have now one advantage that you always wanted before, and the want of which made your friends as uneasy as it did yourself; I mean the removal of that solicitude about your own affairs, which perpetually filled your thoughts, and disturbed your conversation. For if it be true what Mr. Pope seriously tells me, you will have opportunity of saving every groat of the interest you receive; and so by the time he and you grow weary of each other, you will be able to pass the rest of your wineless life in ease and plenty; with the additional triumphal comfort of
