and one hired bonfire. Whatever years may take away from you, they will not take away the general esteem, for your sense, virtue, and charity.
The most melancholy effect of years is that you mention, the catalogue of those we loved and have lost, perpetually increasing. How much that reflection struck me, you will see from the motto I have prefixed to my Book of Letters, which so much against my inclination has been drawn from me. It is from Catullus,
Quo desiderio veteres revocamus amores,
Atque olim amissas flemus amicitias[1]!
I detain this letter till I can find some safe conveyance; innocent as it is, and as all letters of mine must be, of any thing to offend my superiours, except the reverence I bear to true merit and virtue. But I have much reason to fear, those which you have too partially kept in your hands, will get out in some very disagreeable shape, in case of our mortality: and the more reason to fear it, since this last month Curll has obtained from Ireland two letters, (one of lord Bolingbroke, and one of mine, to you, which we wrote in the year 1723) and he has printed them, to the best of my memory, rightly; except one passage concerning Dawley which must have been since inserted, since my lord had not that place at that time. Your answer to that letter he has not got; it has never been out of my custody; for whatever is lent is lost; (wit as well as money) to these needy poetical readers.
- ↑ How pants my heart old friendship to renew!
How pierc'd with grief old loves decay'd I view!
