24
LETTERS TO AND FROM
two other cathedrals with whose customs you may be acquainted.
Pray, my lord, pardon this idle request from one that loves and esteems you, as you know I do. I once thought it would never be my misfortune to entertain you at so scurvy a rate, at least not at so great a distance, or with so much constraint:
"Sis felix, nostrumque leves [I do not like quicunque[1]] laborem:
Et quo sub cœlo tandem, quibus orbis in oris
Jactemur, doceas[2]."
The greatest felicity I now have is, that I am utterly ignorant of the most publick events that happen in the world:
"Multa gemens[3] ignominiam plagasque," &c.
I am with the greatest respect and truth, my lord, your lordship's most dutiful and most humble servant,
- ↑ The quæecunque of Virgil was more favourable to the zealous admirers of the memory of queen Anne.
- ↑ "But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss'd,
What earth we tread, or who commands the coast."
- ↑ This phrase seems to have been deeply impressed on the dean's mind. He uses it again, in a letter to Mr. Pope, Oct. 30, 1727; "I forgave sir Robert a thousand pounds, multa gemens." The line above is from Virg. Georg. iii, 226.
- ↑ Bishop Atterbury's answer to this letter, dated April 6, 1716, is printed in vol. XI, p. 438.
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