pray God protect him, for he is an excellent christian though not a catholick.
I hear nothing of our friend Gay, but I find the court keeps him at hard meat. I advised him to come over here with a lord lieutenant. Philips writes little flams (as lord Leicester called those sorts of verses) on miss Carteret. A Dublin blacksmith, a great poet, has imitated his manner in a poem to the same miss. Philips is a complainer, and on this occasion I told lord Carteret, that complainers never succeed at court, though railers do.
Are you altogether a country gentleman? that I must address to you out of London, to the hazard of your losing this precious letter, which I will now conclude although so much paper is left. I have an ill name, and therefore shall not subscribe it, but you will guess it comes from one who esteems and loves you about half as much as you deserve, I mean as much as he can.
I am in great concern, at what I am just told is in some of the newspapers, that lord Bolingbroke is much hurt by a fall in hunting. I am glad he has so much youth and vigour left, (of which he has not been thrifty) but I wonder he has no more discretion.
MR.
