TO LADY RUSSEL.

HONOURED MADAM,

Dec. 1, 1725.

WHEN I had the honour of seeing your ladyship last, I did not recollect what Mr. Some had hinted to me some months ago, that it was probably upon Sir Harry Houghton's recommendation that Mr. Bradbury inserted my name in the list of Mr. B.'s legacies. I therefore chose rather to trouble you with a line upon the occasion, than to lie under any suspicion of the ingratitude of neglecting the favour. If your ladyship should ever happen to mention my name to him, you will therefore please to let him know that I have a due sense of that instance of his kindness.

I have from my very infancy received so many favours from Lady Russel, that I know not how to make any suitable acknowledgment for them. I hope she will at least believe that she may always command those inconsiderable services which may at any time lie in my power; and which I hope her condescension and goodness will accept, as proceeding from a mind under the impressions of undissembled gratitude.

I would by no means neglect the only return I can at present offer, but heartily recommend both you and your family to the continued care and favour of Providence, and to those peculiar influences of divine grace, which will give the noblest relish to the temporal enjoyments with which you are so

plentifully surrounded, and prepare you for the richer entertainments of God's immediate presence, and for those distinguished glories which await such as have surmounted the dangerous temptations of riches and grandeur, and faithfully devoted themselves and their all to that gracious and almighty Being from whom their enjoyments are communicated, and who is abundantly able to reward them, while their fellow-creatures can only love and admire them. I am, Madam,

Your Ladyship's

most obliged and most humble Servant,

PHILIP DODDridge.

TO MR. HUGHES.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Harborough, Jan. 27, 1726. WHEN I have read one of your letters I think nothing can be more engaging and entertaining, till the next I receive convinces me of my mistake by being still more agreeable than the former. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your last, and am very glad of this opportunity of thanking you for it, and for the kindness and friendship you express in it. You may assure yourself, sir, that time and absence occasion no decay in my esteem and affection to you. On the contrary, they rather increase it, as I persuade myself they daily add beauties and improvement to a cha

racter which was long ago exceedingly dear and valuable to me. I should have been heartily glad if the providence of God had given us an opportunity of conversing more frequently with one another: I have a great deal of reason to think it would have been very improving to me, and no way disagreeable to you. But as our common Master and Father has ordered it otherwise, it is a great satisfaction to me to think that we are both in very agreeable circumstances; both engaged in a course of study and labour the most delightful, the most honourable, and the most important; both free from those incumbrances and perplexities to which other callings and relations might have exposed us; and both using this fleeting life in a cheerful preparation for those mansions of glory, where we hope for ever to converse with each other on far more advantageous terms than we could do if you were at Harborough or I at Childwick. My retirement here is, as you will easily imagine, very delightful to me. I have a great deal of time for study, and have daily opportunities of conversing with persons of good sense, politeness, and unaffected piety both at home and abroad. You inquire into my present course of study. I have not time to give you a full account of it. Most of my time is taken up with the Scriptures, and in reading, composing, and transcribing sermons. I spend some time every day in the classics, which I read with inexpressible pleasure. I am just on the point of finishing Homer's Iliad, with Pope's Translation; which I am sure I need not recommend to

saw.

you, A few days ago I read a new translation of Virgil's first Georgic, with which I am exceedingly taken. It is by far the most literal translation I ever But as it never fails in giving the exact sense of the original, so, which is very strange, it sometimes equals Dryden's both in elegance of language and majesty of verse. To say it exceeds it in the fidelity and the resemblance it bears to the air and manner of Virgil would be saying nothing for it is well known that in both these important respects Dryden has offended beyond excuse. The main fault is, that in some instances the English construction is so transposed as to render the sense perplexed; which is an imitation of the original; which, in my judgment, our language does not warrant.

I am now studying the business of Conformity; and for that purpose am reading Calamy, and Hoadley, as indeed I think it necessary to examine into the affair again, before I determine upon being ordained among the dissenters, which will probably fix me among them for life. On the whole I must say, that as nothing has had a greater tendency to confirm my belief of Christianity, than the most celebrated writings of Jews and Deists, and my adherence to the protestant cause, than the apologies of many of the Roman communion, so the study of the best defences of the church of England, which I have yet seen, has added a great deal of weight to my former persuasion, not only of the lawfulness, but expediency of a separation from it. Yet when I see how many plausible arguments may be advanced on

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the contrary side, I am the less inclined to censure those who yield to their apparent force. I have but little opportunity of reading French, but hope some time or another to procure some of those books you were pleased to recommend.

My affair with Kitty remains in great uncertainty. When it is determined one way or another, you shall be informed. I know not when I shall go to Hinckley, the way thither being now hardly passable. You may depend upon it, that whenever I go it will be with a double pleasure, if it be with a prospect of doing you any service. In the mean time, remember that celebrated passage of Terence :

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ,

Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, induciæ,

Bellum, pax rursum.

Women are the same now that they were seventeen hundred years ago, and love the same foolish, disquieting thing, as when he would not so much as give it a place in his catalogue of specious vanities. Thus speaks the man who had once so much unreasonable gallantry as, in a sermon, to call Eve "the fairest flower of paradise, and the brightest ornament of untainted nature." Would you know what has made me so wise and so rude? Let me whisper it softly in your ear; that this foolish, contemptible thing has lately kept me awake two or three nights together. You mention Mrs. Jennings in your letter: she is well, and gives her service to you. To say she has relinquished all angry resentment upon a certain head, which you may perhaps recollect, would be