TO THE DUCHESS OF QUEENSBERRY.
I HAD lately the honour of a letter from your grace, which was dated just a month before it came to my hand; and the ten days since, I have been much disordered with a giddiness, that I have been long subject to at uncertain times. This hindered me from an acknowledgment of the great favour you have done me. The greatest unhappiness of my life is grown a comfort under the death of my friend[1], I mean, my banishment in this miserable country; for the distance I am at, and the despair I have of ever seeing my friends, farther than by a summer's visit; and this, so late in my life, so uncertain in my health, and so embroiled in my little affairs, may probably never happen; so that my loss is not so great as that of his other friends, who had it always in their power to converse with him. But I chiefly lament your grace's misfortune, because I greatly fear, with all the virtues and perfections which can possibly acquire the highest veneration to a mortal creature from the worthiest of human kind, you will never be able to procure another so useful, so sincere, so virtuous, so disinterested, so entertaining, so easy, and so humble a friend, as that person whose death all good men lament. I turn to your letter, and find your grace has the same thoughts. Loss of friends has been called a tax upon long life,
and
