business. But I find, by what follows, of our meeting at the Visitation, that you have chosen another route. I shall certainly meet you, if God give me health; and should be glad if you would let me shew you the way to Broughton from thence; being, dearest Sir, Your most affectionate friend, W.WARBURTON. LETTER XXVIII. Our To the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY, at Stamford. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 19, 1738. I beg your acceptance of the inclosed. friend the Doctor told me he had the pleasure of seeing you. He told me, you rejected the lines he shewed you as impostures. I do not wonder at it. You know best whether the thing be possible. But the family is so far above all suspicion of fraud, or having any ends to serve by it, that nothing but an absolute impossibility could make me disbe lieve it. your I hope you are easier in domestics than you was; that you have got servants that are honest, careful, and with a few brains. I very much wish to see you, and hope you will do me that pleasure at Broughton some time next month. However, do me the favour to let me know, that I may be at home; for this summer time I have some short excursion or other that I am every post making, but none half so interesting to me as the seeing you. I hope the young ones are all well, and that Miss Fanny is grown woman enough now to make your coffee; a happiness, some years ago, you used to flatter yourself with the hopes of living to see. You see the burthen of my song is hope, hope, hope; and how much I am obliged to live upon it. But, that this may never fool you or me too long, I * Dr. Robert Taylor. will will tell you a story. Sir Francis Bacon was walking out one evening near the Thames, where he saw some fishermen ready to cast in their nets: he asked them what they would have for their draught; they said, ten shillings; he bade them five; so, not agreeing, the fishermen threw in upon their own fortune, and took nothing. On this, Bacon seeing them look very blank, asked them why they were such blockheads as not to take his money? They answered, they had been toiling all day, and had taken nothing, and they were in hopes that their last cast would have made amends for all: on which he told them, they were unlucky dogs; but that he would give them something to carry home with them; and it was this maxim, which they should be sure never to forget, That hope is a good breakfast, but a very bad supper. So far my story. But I do not know how it is; but I should make but a bad meal of it, either at breakfast or supper. I should like it well enough for a kind of second course, as cheese to digest a good substantial dinner. And so the happy use it; while the unhappy, like the poor, are forced to make an eternal meal upon it. I am, dear friend, yours most affectionately, LETTER XXIX. To the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY, at Stamford. DEAR DOCTOR, October 6, 1738. I hope you received my last. This is to desire the following favour of you. I was lately with Sir Robert Sutton, who is much excruciated with the gout. I advised him to Dr. Rogers's oils, which he had always an inclination for; but, having like to have been killed by some that Garnier the apothecary applied to him two or three years ago, he has abstained from them. them. I told him, I believed those had not the best repelling quality, and acquainted him fairly with their effects, as you have described them to me. On this he is greatly disposed to use them; but he wants to know whether it would not be proper first to use them in the intervals of a fit, or after a fit, to strengthen the joint; whether any gentle aperient is to be taken at the time of the application; but, above all, your real opinion and direction on the whole. As he knows of our intimacy, he desired I would inform myself of you, as from myself, and let him know. I should be much obliged to you, therefore, for a letter concerning the particulars, wrote in such a manner as I may send it to him. You need not decline taking notice that I tell you who the advice is for, for he did not desire that should be a secret. Shaw advised him against the oils, and pretended they had had ill or fatal effects. But he grounds more on your opinion. I am, dearest Sir, yours most affectionately, LETTER XXX. To the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY, at Samuel Gale's, Esq. Bedford-row, Holborn. DEAR DOCTOR, 26 June, 1739. I was extremely glad to hear from you, but am sorry the noisy Bar should call you from your Hermitage. As unfit as I am for Heaven, I had rather hear the last trumpet than a citation from the Court of Chancery. If ever you have seen Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, you have these in the figure of the Devil, who is pulling and lugging at a poor sinner, the true representation of a Chancery Lawyer who has catched hold of your purse. E 2 When When I got home from you in my return from my Cambridge journey, I found my affairs in strange disorder; my single favourite cow, which you used to reverence under the name of Iris, was desperately ill in the hands of a doctor. A robbery was sworn to be committed in this Hundred, and I am to bear my share of the loss; and letters from Oxford acquainted me that Mr. William Romaine, of Christ Church, had called out aloud upon the secular arm to make an example of me*. Thus trebly distressed, I found my only cow in the hands of a quack, my money at the mercy of an attorney, and my reputation worried by the vilest of all Theologasters. You are in the right: this is the scoundrel I wrote to from your house. But the poor Devil has done his own business. His talents shew him by nature designed for a blunderbuss in Church Controversy; but his attack upon me being a proof-charge, and heavy loaded, he burst in the going off; and what will become of him let those who made use of him consider. I beg you would be so kind to buy me one ticket in the Bridge Lottery. I suppose the blanks will sell as usual; and when you send me word of it, I shall send the money by Newbal's waggon to you to Stamford. I am, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, W. WARBURTON. LETTER XXXI. To the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY, at Stamford. MOST DEAR SIR, January 1, 1739-40. I received the favour of yours with a great deal of pleasure; and, as deeply as I am immerged in Moses, your company would be a very agreeable interruption. But what you tell of Mr. Allen frights me in good * Of this circumstance see more hereafter. earnest ; earnest; and next to the pleasure of seeing you, the greatest pleasure you can do me is keeping that gentleman from me. I must therefore beg of you to let him know, that I am so taken up with my own studies, that I have not an hour to spare to look upon any other man's; and that besides, his work, according to all the accounts I have heard of it, is quite out of my way, who am a declared enemy to all systems and hypotheses in Divinity but what arise immediately from the word of God. In short, between you and me, I have heard so much of this gentleman's turn, and from the best hands too, that to him we may say, Danda est hellebori multo pars maxima. It is only you then that can serve him; and you, but in your physical capacity. But I come to a more agreeable subject. I am greatly pleased you will let us have Stonehenge at last*. I think you need not doubt the success of it, if you confine yourself closely to the subject. But you know how dangerous new roads in Theology are, by the clamour of the bigots against me. I take it for granted (by the weather I view from my study window) you have laid aside the thoughts of your Grantham journey. Otherwise, had the weather permitted, I should have gone near to have met you. However, I hope you will be so kind, when you next go to your Living in that quarter, you will remember there is such a place as Broughton. Some time ago I sent Weaver (who told me he was to come and see you this Christmas) my Vindication of Mr. Pope for you; but do not find by your letter you have received it. The Infidels and Libertines prided themselves in thinking Mr. Pope of their party. I thought it of use to Religion to shew so noble a Genius was not; and I can have the plea * Dr. Stukeley soon after published "Stonehenge, a Temple referred to the British Drnids;" of which a copious Abstract was given in "The History of the Works of the Learned" for May 1740. sure |