OCTOBER 15, 1725.
I AM wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes me hope you are coming toward us, and you incline more and more to your old friends in proportion as you draw nearer to them; and are getting into our vortex. Here is one[1], who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning to his first point, without the thought or ambition of shining at all. Here is another, who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again, than that of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised, but what is made up of a few men like yourself. He goes abroad again, and is more cheerful than even health can make a man, for he has a good conscience into the bargain, which is the most catholick of all remedies, though not the most universal. I knew it would be a pleasure to you to hear this, and in truth that made me write so soon to you.
I am sorry poor P. is not promoted in this age; for certainly if his reward be of the next, he is of all poets the most miserable. I am also sorry for an-
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