strength of this alliance we both proceed in great safety. I have enclosed you a song, and the answer, which are at present the reigning topic of discourse at Canterbury and 15 miles round. If I had not heard you say you were not fond of music, I should greatly regret I could not send you the tune too, for 'tis most enchantingly pretty. Perhaps you will think it odd the answer should be called a Lampoon, but this is a word the most in fashion at Canterbury of any place I know. Every thing that people do not like, or understand, is comprehended under the name of lampoon, whether it be prose, or verse, song, riddle, panegyric, or funeral elegy; and I am persuaded that if Mrs. Squire's book is arrived there, it is called a lampoon. I have just taken it into my head to be greatly surprized how I can have the assurance to write so much nonsense to you, and perhaps you will think it a still higher degree of confidence that I flatter myself with the hopes of hearing from you much sooner than I deserve: you must give me leave to assure you, there are very few things in this world can give so much pleasure, to dear Misa Talbot, &c. MISS TALBOT TO MRS. CARTER. Cuddesden, Oct. 5, 1743. I HAVE long been accusing myself of ingratitude in leaving a Letter of Miss Carter's so long unanswered, and a Letter too which gave me such infinite entertainment, and for which I was the more obliged to you as it came very opportunely to relieve me in a grievous fit of the spleen, when nothing less original than your notion of a lampoon in a country town could have set me laughing so heartily. It was however this splenetick disposition of mine that prevented my answering you immediately. I was extremely ill most part of June and July, which was most vexatiously and perversely timed, as it threw a gloom over our visit to the Bishop of Gloucester, very unsuitable to the agreeable schemes we had formed, and to the cheerful reception he gave us; he is, in the most amiable sense of the word, one of the most companionable tempers I ever met with. We were all of us ill and uncomfortable at the same time; at length through bad roads and worse fears, we got back again into the balmy air of Oxfordshire. I have ever since been employed not absolutely in fox-hunting, but in a chase that en gages gages me almost in as hard riding and more constant, the pursuit of health. This task of exercise and a house full of company, have really left me no time for writing, but at least they have restored me spirits enough for it which I had not before I have even found myself equal to the fatigues of a horse race, without murmuring at any of its amusements, or wishing it a day or an hour shorter. Having thus writ you in Colly Cibber's style an apology for my life this whole summer, you may perhaps be in some hopes that I have nearly done for the present with that important subject self; but when I tell you I am just engaged in and extremely diverted with reading Montaigne, you will lower your expectations, and allow me to go on with my egotisms. To the history of the summer shall therefore succeed the plan of the winter, since we are now just settling into the quiet comfortable life we shall lead till after Christmas, most mechanically and faithfully day after day. no upon Imagine me then every morning second thoughts that shall be the subject of my next Letter, and I shall be excessively disappointed if you have not the curiosity to write to me immediately and ask me for it. At the same time I must engage you, if you love that same sort of regular clocklike life that we do, to send me the plan of your own own employments and amusements, that whenever my imagination wanders towards Kent, it may know where, and in what kind of engagement to find you. There is something so peculiarly agreeable in employing an idle hour to go the rounds of those friends and acquaintance of whom I think with the most vanity and pleasure, and image them in all the varieties of every cheerful employment, all of them happy in themselves, and now and then, when they have nothing better to do, throwing away a thought upon me. If you ever read Montaigne pray tell me what you think of him. To me he seems infinitely amusing. His character lively and original, and what with right and serious principles would have deserved esteein as well as liking: but unfortunately he wants them to a very great degree; that is, he was a man of natural excellent genius, but spoiled by the vicious pratique du monde, and the indulgence of his own humours, so that his book may be dangerous to an infinite number of people, as it must be entertaining to all. You will think I have chose my studies very curiously this year, when I mention Ariosto for another. He too is wildly and extravagantly charming, but certainly has beauties proportionable to his faults. I should think myself extremely obliged to you on behalf of the whole family, if you could recommend recommend any book to us that would in any degree make us amends, for having read through Don Quixote last year, by tolerably supplying his place when we want to laugh a little after supper. I dare say such sort of books are to be met with, though not so excellent, yet at least amusing, and there is nobody's taste I would sooner trust than your's. This is another reason for your writing to me very soon, and if you do not, you have no idea how much you will mortify, &c, &c. MISS TALBOT TO MRS. CARTER. Cuddesden, Nov. 11, 1743. I HAVE I think, dear Miss Carter, shewn great respect to your plain work by so long deferring to write to you, a thousand nameless accidents have been the cause of it. I will take the first opportunity of reading Erasmus, since he was a favourite of your's and of my Lord Falkland's *. Our family authors must be English, and before I received your's we were very happily fixed in a But Mrs. Carter's maturer judgment induced her to alter In some degree this favourable opinion of Erasmus. See the Memoirs of her Life, p. 258, quarto edition. scheme |