cannot, it will never tell you, what I inwardly am to you. Quod nequeo monstrare, & sentio tantum[1].
OCT. 31, 1729.
YOU were so careful of sending me the Dunciad, that I have received five of them, and have pleased four friends. I am one of every body who approve every part of it, text and comment; but am one abstracted from every body, in the happiness of being recorded your friend, while wit, and humour, and politeness shall have any memorial among us. As for your octavo edition, we know nothing of it, for we have an octavo of our own, which has sold wonderfully, considering our poverty, and dulness the consequence of it.
I writ this post to lord Bolingbroke, and tell him in my letter, that with a great deal of loss for a frolick, I will fly as soon as build: I have neither years, nor spirits, nor money, nor patience for such amusements. The frolick is gone off, and I am only 100l. the poorer. But this kingdom is grown so excessively poor, that we wise men must think of nothing but getting a little ready money. It is thought there are not two hundred thousand pounds of species in the whole island[2]; for we return thrice as much to
our
