college. It does not consist with the honour I beare him and you to go so precipitately to worke; no, not so much as to have any difference with you, if it can possibly be avoyded. Yet, as my sonn stands now, I cannot see with what credit he can be elected; for, being but sixth, and (as you are pleased to judge) not deserving that neither, I know not whether he may not go immediately to Cambridge, as well as one of his own election went to Oxford this yeare by youre consent. I will say nothing of my second sonn, but that, after you had been pleased to advise me to waite on my Lord Bishop for his favour, I found he might have had the first place if you had not opposed it; and I likewise found at the election, that, by the pains you had taken with him, he in some sort deserved it. I hope, Sir, when you have given yourselfe the trouble to read thus farr, you, who are a prudent man, will consider, that none complaine, but they desire to be reconciled at the same time; there is no mild expostulation at least, which does not intimate a kindness and respect in him who makes it. Be pleased, if there be no merit on my side, to make it your own act of grace to be what you were formerly to my sonn. I have done something, so farr to conquer my own spirit as to ask it: and, indeed, I know not with what face to go to my Lord Bishop, and to tell him I am takeing away both my sonns; for, though I shall tell him no occasion, it will looke like a disrespect to my old Master, of which I will not be guilty if it be possible. I shall add no more, but hope I shall be so satisfyed with a favourable answer from you, which I promise to myselfe from your goodnesse and moderation, that I shall still have occasion to continue, Sir, your most obliged humble servant,

1787, Oct. and Nov.

JOHN DRYDEN."

LXII. Extracts of Letters from Dr. Arbuthnot to Mr. Watkins.

London, Sept. 30, 1721.

PRIOR has had a narrow escape by dying; for, if he had lived, he had married a brimstone bitch, one Bessy Cox, that keeps an alehouse in Long-acre. Her husband died about a month ago; and Prior has left his estate between his servant Jonathan Drift and Bessy Cox. Lewis got drunk with punch with Bess night before last. Do not say where

you had this news of Prior. I hope all my mistress's ministers will not behave themselves so.

London, Oct. 10, 1721.

THERE is great care taken, now it is too late, to keep Prior's will secret, for it is thought not to be too reputable for Lord Harley to execute this will. Be so kind as to say nothing whence you had your intelligence. We are to have a bowl of punch at Bessy Cox's. She would fain have put it upon Lewis that she was his Emma; she owned, Flanders Jane was his Chloe. I know no security from these dotages in bachelors, but to repent of their mis-spent time and marry with all speed. Pray tell your fellow traveller so. 1787, Dec.

LXIII. Letters from Richard Savage*, a few weeks before his

death.

LETTER I.

MR. STRONG,

Bristol, June 19, 1743. I AM heartily glad all things are safe with you as to your place.

I received yours, dated June 6, ten days after date. I wish I knew whether this was owing to the fault of Mr. Pyne. You delayed writing so long, that I began to imagine I should never hear of you, or at least from you, again. Mr. Dagget was near a fortnight in London. He tells me you sent to him at his inn (by which I knew you had received my letter,) to know when he could be at leisure to see you. He sent you a kind invitation by your messenger: but never saw or heard from you, to his great surprize, afterwards. He would have been very glad to have seen you. Mrs. Harris is at London, in Newgate. There has happened so great a quarrel between her and Mr. Dagge, that she called him murderer,

* They were addressed "to Mr. Strong, at the General Post-Office;" the friend, of whose name Dr. Johnson has given only the initial, in the letter to Mr. Cave, which he has preserved in the " Life of Savage." N.

"The tender gaoler," to whose "humanity" Dr. Johnson bore" public attestation."

N.

before the judges of the King's Bench, in open court. I am sure he used her very kindly here to the very last. The news-papers never mention her, and we have heard nothing of her since her commitment there. Let me know if you hear any thing concerning her. She was always obliging to me, and I heartily wish her life safe. You may venture to call on her on a Sunday, and remember me to her kindly. As for Mr. Weaver's affair, what he desired you to do, was done for him by Mr. Dagge when in London. Mr. Nash* (though I wrote to him since) has never once wrote

or sent to me.

I received a letter from my sistert, and one from my niecet, the very post after my writing to you. My sister's I answered in a long letter of three sides of paper. I am amazed at not hearing from you that she has received my answer: surely Mr. Pyne would not dare to intercept it. I take it very kind that you called on her. I directed mine to her exactly according to her own direction; and would not, on any consideration, it should miscarry.

Mr. Crozier is dead, and his widow will not renew her action against me. As for Madam Wolf Bitcht, the African monster, Mr. Dagge, unknown to me, offered her, before he went to London, three guineas to release me. She asked time to consider of it; and, at his return to Bristol, sent him word, that she was determined to keep me in confinement a twelvemonth: however, she will soon be perhaps sick of her resolution. Through Mr. Ward's means, I was last court-day but one sent for up by habeas corpus to the Guildhall, where a rule, on my appearance there, was entered, to force her to proceed to execution; which if she does not by the next court-day, her action will be superseded; and if she does, then Madam Wolf Bitch must allow the two shillings and four-pence per weeks. However, as I was standing at our door in the street (which I am allowed to do alone whenever I please,) who should be passing by one evening but Mr. Becket? He was reduced so thin by a fever, which lasted him ten weeks, that I scarce knew him. In

Bean Nash gave him five guineas when first taken into custody, and promised to promote a subscription for him at Bath with all his interest. N. Who and what were this sister and niece of Savage? N.

He was arrested for eight pounds at the suit of a Mrs. Read, who kept a coffee-house. N.

This confirms what we are told by Dr. Johnson, that " he took care to enter his name according to the forms of the court, that the creditor might be obliged to make him some allowance, if he was continued a prisoner." N.

he came, and we drank in Mr. Dagge's parlour one negus and two pints of wine. He told me, the city were highly exaspe→ rated at my Satire*, and that some of the merchants would, by way of revenge, subscribe the two and four-pence to confine me still. But this I looked on as bravado, and treated it with contempt. One day last week Mr. Dagge, finding me at the door, asked me to take a walk with him, which 1 did a mile beyond Baptist Mill, in Gloucestershire; where, at a public-house, he treated me with ale and toddy. Baptist Mill is the pleasantest walk near this city. I found the smell of the new-mown hay very sweet, and every breeze was reviving to my spirits. I had forgot, when I mentioned Crozier, to tell you, that, when he was alive, Mr. Dagge offered him to take the note he charged me with, in lieu of a debt which Crozier owed him, in order that the said Crozier might have been no bar to my release, had Madam Wolf Bitch been pleased to consent to it as far as it related to her ladyship. This Mr. Dagge offered of his own accord, which made it still a more generous action. When I appeared at the Guildhall, the court paid me great deference and respect. Is the devil always to possess that worthless fellow Saunders? can he never open his mouth in conversation, but out of it must issue a lie? can he never set to writing a letter, but immediately a lie must drop from his pen upon the paper? I have a copy of what I wrote to him, taken by Mr. Weaver; and I shewed the original to the two reverend gentlemen, Mr. Price and Mr. Davies, before I sent it, who can all three attest that I have not mentioned you as my author for one of those facts for which the dog says I have mentioned you. As for the impudent manner in which he says I wrote to him, those words shall cost him dear, unless he retracts them, and asks my pardon under his own hand-writing. He sent me an answer to mine, stuffed with prevarication, poor weak reasoning, and false facts; beginning in the haughty style of an emperor, and ending in the low fawning, fearful air of a spaniel. I intend very shortly to expose him in print, as he deserves, and paste him up at the Tolzey, as he has done Mr. Hooke before; and I shall let him know by a message he may depend upon this, unless he pays you the note he owes you, with legal interest and asks of me forgiveness.

Mr. Davies is frequently here. Mr. Price visits me in a friendly manner, and not long ago sent me a present of

* "London and Bristol delineated.",

four pint bottles of excellent rum, and two of as fine shrub, for punch. I am sincerely your well-wisher and servant, R. SAVAGE.

P. S. For God's sake, call on my dear sister, and let her know the state of my affairs.

LETTER II.

R. SAVAGE

To Mr. Strong, at the Post-Office.

June 21, 1743.

I SENT your letter to Mrs. Dowding by Mr. Barret, who says he delivered it safe. Saunders has published another Dialogue in Mr. Cave's Magazine for last month, and it is a most wretched performance. When he attempts poetry without assistance, he exposes himself more than any enemy can expose him. Pray mention not Newgate on the direction of any letter to me; there is no occasion for it, and it may hurt me. hurt me. Pray tell my sister the same, and desire. her only to put Bristol in her direction; and to avoid miscarriages, let her (which she never does) add my christianname to my sur-name. I wrote to my niece this post.

I was yesterday, in the afternoon, out upon a field-walk again with Mr. Dagge, and we also regaled ourselves at a public-house in the city.

Pray lose not a post in letting me know whether the judges have decided Mrs. Harris's case; and if so, how it is determined. It will oblige Mr. Dagge, who, with Mrs. Dagge and Mortimer, desire to be remembered to you.

I broke this letter open since it was first sealed in order to write this Postscript. Pray call on my sister.

I cannot but smile at Saunders-he calls you "poor creature!" he stole that very expression out of my letter to him, where, with great propriety, it was applied to himself. 1787, Dec. R. SAVAGE.

LXIV. Thomas Hearne to Lord Harley, on the Alexandrian MS. of the New Testament.

MR. URBAN,

IT afforded me great pleasure, upon looking over some MSS, in the British Museum, to find, among a collection