FROM ALDERMAN BARBER.
I HAVE deferred answering the favours of yours of the 9th and 31st of March, in hopes to have something to entertain you with, and I have succeeded in my wishes; for I am sure I give you great pleasure when I tell you the enclosed I received from the hands of my lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Pope, your dearest friends. My lord has been here a few days, and is come to sell Dawley, to pay his debts; and he will return to France, where, I am told, he is writing the History of his own Times; which I heartily rejoice at (though I am not likely to live to see it published) because so able a hand can do nothing but what must be instructive and entertaining to the next generation. His lordship is fat and fair, in high spirits; but joins with you, and all good men, to lament our present unhappy situation. Mr. Pope has a cold, and complains, but he is very well; so well, that he throws out a twelvepenny touch in a week or ten days, with as much ease as a friend of ours formerly used to roast the enemies to their country.
The report of the duke of Ormond's return is without foundation. His grace is very well in health, and lives in a very handsome manner, and has Mr. Kelly with him as his chaplain, the gentleman who
