lanet, but has now (after long experience
of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning
to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at
all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the
greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved
you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered
from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you
again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long
despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself....

"Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs--and
generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to
have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had
learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil....

"Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had
received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most
improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without
shifting into a new body, or being _paullo minus ab angelis_. I have
often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after
so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of
the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single
thought of the one, any more than a single action of the other,
remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet
like the righteous in the millennium, quite at peace, divested of
all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and content to
enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity.

----

"I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to
fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me,
concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter."

125 Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:--"He was one of those men
of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand _bons
mots_ and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard,
till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this
lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant
as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his
journeys; for he is said to have see