se 'tis almost impossible not to live
pleasantly, where the Master of a Family is such a one as you there
describe your Friend, who cannot therefore (I mean as to his domestick
Character) be too often recommended to the Imitation of others. How
amiable is that Affability and Benevolence with which he treats his
Neighbours, and every one, even the meanest of his own Family! And yet
how seldom imitated? instead of which we commonly meet with
ill-natured Expostulations, Noise, and Chidings--And this I hinted,
because the Humour and Disposition of the Head, is what chiefly
influences all the other Parts of a Family.

'An Agreement and kind Correspondence between Friends and
Acquaintance, is the greatest Pleasure of Life. This is an undoubted
Truth, and yet any Man who judges from the Practice of the World, will
be almost persuaded to believe the contrary; for how can we suppose
People should be so industrious to make themselves uneasie? What can
engage them to entertain and foment Jealousies of one another upon
every the least Occasion? Yet so it is, there are People who (as it
should seem) delight in being troublesome and vexatious, who (as
_Tully_ speaks) _Mira sunt alacritate ad litigandum, Have a certain
Chearfulness in wrangling_. And thus it happens, that there are very
few Families in which there are not Feuds and Animosities, tho' 'tis
every one's Interest, there more particularly, to avoid 'em, because
there (as I would willingly hope) no one gives another Uneasiness,
without feeling some share of it--But I am gone beyond what I
designed, and had almost forgot what I chiefly proposed; which was,
barely to tell you, how hardly we who pass most of our Time in Town
dispense with a long Vacation in the Country, how uneasie we grow to
our selves and to one another when our Conversation is confined,
insomuch that by _Michaelmas_ 'tis odds but we come to downright
squabbling, and make as free with one another to our Faces, as we do
with the rest of the World behind their Backs. After I have told you
this, I am to desire that you would now and then give us a Lesson of
Good-humour, a Family-Piece; which, since we are all very fond of you,
I hope may have some Influence upon us--

'After these plain Observations give me leave to give you an Hint of
what a Set of Company of my Acquaintance, who are now gone into the
Country, and have the Use of an absent