am strongly tempted to send a parcel to be printed by themselves, and make a ninepenny job for the bookseller. There are some of my own, wherein I exceed mankind, mira poemata[1]! the most solemn that were ever seen; and some writ by others, admirable indeed, but far inferiour to mine, but I will not praise myself. You approve that writer who laughs and makes others laugh; but why should I who hate the world, or you who do not love it, make it so happy? therefore I resolve from henceforth to handle only serious subjects, nisi quid tu docte Trebati, dissentis[2].
Yours, &c.
MARCH 8, 1726-27.
MR. Stopford will be the bearer of this letter, for whose acquaintance I am, among many other favours, obliged to you: and I think the acquaintance of so valuable, ingenious, and unaffected a man, to be none of the least obligations.
Our miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleased with this joint volume, in which methinks we look like friends, side by side, serious and merry by turns, conversing interchangeably, and walking down hand in hand to posterity; not in the stiff forms of learned authors, flattering each other,
and
