I. SANCHO. · Section 19

I. SANCHO.

Respects in folio to Mrs. H----.

LETTER XLIX.

TO MR. R----.

August 27, 1777.

DEAR FRIEND,

WHETHER this finds your officially parading on Newmarket turfs--or in the happier society of the good geniuses of B---- house--may it find you well--in good joyous spirits--gay, debonnair--happy at heart--happy as I have seen my meaning expressed in the countenance of my friend Mrs. C----, where humanity--humility--and goodwill--have outshone beauty--in one of the finest faces of your country--but this between ourselves;--and pray how does the aforesaid lady do?--does she ride, walk, and dance, with moderation?--and can you tell me that she continues as well as when she first went down--and still finds good from her western expedition?--And the little Syren Miss C----?--Have there no letters, sent by Cupid’s post, sticking on the arrow’s point, been picked up about your grounds, blown by western breezes across the country?--Tell her nothing can ever hurt her but Love and Time.--May Love bring her happiness, and Time honour!--As to wealth--may she have no more than she can manage with comfort and credit!--Monsieur L----’s letter is a good one--and I think it would make one laugh even in the gout.--God bless this old boy--for he is a true type of beggarly pride--cunning--narrow-hearted--vain and mean--one of Satan’s dupes--who do his dirty work for a little worldly trash--and cheat themselves at last.--I know a man who delights to make every one he can happy--that same man treated some honest girls with expences for a Vauxhall evening.--If you should happen to know him--you may tell him from me--that last night--three great girls--a boy--and a fat old fellow--were as happy and pleas’d as a fine evening--fine place--good songs--much company--and good music--could make them.--Heaven and Earth!--how happy, how delighted, were the girls!--Oh! the pleasures of novelty to youth!--We went by water--had a coach home--were gazed at--followed, &c. &c.--but not much abused.--I must break off before I have half finished--for Mr. ---- is just come in--you are not the first good friend that has been neglected for a fop.

IGN. SANCHO.

LETTER L.

TO MR. M----.

September 3, 1777.

I FEEL it long since I heard from you--very long since I saw you--and three or four days back had some notion, I should never, in this paltry world, see thee again--but (thanks to the Father of Mercies!) I am better, and have a higher relish of health and ease, from contrasting the blessings with the pains I have endured.--Would to God you could say that your dizzy dismal headachs were flown to the moon, or embarked for Lapland--there to be tied up in a witch’s bag--and sold to Beelzebub with a cargo of bad winds--religious quarrels--politics--my gout--and our American grievances!--But what are you about in your last (where you dropt the candid friend and assumed the flatterer)?--You hinted as if there was a chance of seeing you in Charles Street: I wish it much.--My friend, I have had a week’s gout in my hand, which was by much too hard for my philosophy.--I am convinced, let the Stoics say what they list--that pain is an evil;--in short, I was wishing for death--and little removed from madness--but (thank Heaven)! I am much better--my spirits will be mended if I hear from you--better still to see you.--I find it painful to write much, and learn that two hands are as necessary in writing as eating.--You see I write, like a lady, from one corner of the paper to the other.--My respects--and love--and admiration--and compliments--to Mrs.

----, and Mrs. and Miss ----. Tell M----l, he kept his word in calling to see us before he left town!--I hope--confound the ink!--what a blot! Now don’t you dare suppose I was in fault--no, Sir, the pen was disabled--the paper worse--there was a concatenation of ill-sorted chances--all--all--coincided to contribute to that fatal blot--which has so disarranged my ideas--that I must perforce finish before I had half disburthened my head and heart:--but is N---- a good girl?--and how does my honest George do? Tell Mrs. H---- what you please in the handsome way of me.--Farewell, I will write no more nonsense this night--that’s flat.

IGN. SANCHO.

How do you like the print:--Mr. D---- says, and his wife says the same--that you are exceedingly clever--and they shall be happy to do any thing which is produced by the same hand which did the original--and if Mr. D---- can be of any service to you in the etching--you may command him when you please.

LETTER LI.

TO MR. M----.

September 16, 1777.

SIR, he is the confounded’st dunderhead--sapscull--looby--clodpate, nincompoop--ninnyhammer--booby-chick--farcical--loungibuss-- blunderbuss--this good day in the three kingdoms!--You would bless yourself, were it possible for you to analyze such a being--not but his heart is susceptible of a kind of friendly warmth--but then so cursed careless--ever in a hurry--ever in the wrong, at best but blundering about the right.--Why now, for example, when you sent the ----, I can make oath, if need be--that the dunce I speak of longed more for a letter than the animal. The basket was searched with hurry--not care;--no letter? well, it can’t be help’d--his head ach’d--he had not time, &c. &c.--the P---- was disengaged from the basket--the straw consigned to the chimney:--this being rather a coolish morning, a little fire was thought necessary--and in raking up the loose dirty waste stuff under the grate, there appeared a very bloody letter, which seemed unopened:--your hand-writing was discernible through the dirt and blood;--curiosity and affection ran a race to pick up and examine it--when, behold, it proved to be the companion of the P----, but so effaced with blood--that very--very little of my friend’s good sense could be made out.--Your poor letter is a type of what daily happens--merit oppressed and smothered by rubbish.--Alas, poor letter!

it shared the fate the poor world, which we inhabit, will hereafter undergo:--one bright gleam of imitation of the mind that dictated it--some few sparks.--Alas! alas! my poor letter--pass but a few years--perhaps a few months--thy generous friendly compost may--thy friend whose heart glows while he writes--who feels thy worth--yea, and reveres it too.--Nonsense, why we know the very hinges of our last cradles will rust and moulder;--and that, in the course of another century, neither flesh, bone, coffin, nor nail--will be dicernible from mother earth.--Courage--while we live, let us live--to Virtue--Friendship--Religion--Charity--then drop (at death’s call) our cumbrous (you are thin) load of flesh, and mount in spirit to our native home.--Bless us, at what a rate have I been travelling!--I am quite out of breath--Why! my friend, the business was to thank you for the pig.--Had you seen the group of heads--aye, and wise ones too--that assembled at the opening of the fardel--the exclamations--Oh! the finest--fattest--cleanest--why, Sir, it was a pig of pigs;--the pettitoes gave us a good supper last night--they were well dressed--and your pig was well eat--it dined us Sunday and Monday.--Now, to say truth, I do not love pig--merely pig--I like not--but pork corned--alias--salted--either roast or boiled--I will eat against any filthy Jew naturalized--or under the bann.--On Saturday night the newsman brought me two papers of J---- 13th and 20th;--right joyful did I receive them:--I ran to Mrs.

Sancho--with, I beg you will read my friend’s sensible and spirited defence of--of, &c.--She read--though it broke in upon her work--she approved;--but chance or fortune--or ill-luck--or what you ever mean by accident--has played us a confounded trick;--for since Saturday they have--both papers--disappeared--without hands--or legs--or eyes--for no one has seen them;--bureau--boxes--cupboards--drawers--parlour--chamber--shop--all--all has been rummaged--pockets--port-folio--holes--corners--all been searched;--Did you see them?--did you?--where can they be?--I know not--nor I--nor I--but God does!--Omnipotence knoweth all things.--It has vexed me--fretted dame Sancho--teazed the children--but so it is;--hereafter I suppose they will be found in some obvious (though now unthought of) place, and then it will be, Good Lord, who could have thought it!

Where is the _Jack-ass_ business?--do not be lazy--I feel myself a party concerned--and when I see you, I have a delicious morsel of true feminine grace and generosity to shew you.--I shall not apologize for this crude epistle;--but mark and remark--I do thank you in the name of every Sancho but self--they eat, and were filled;--I have reason to thank you;--but as I do not affect pig--in a piggish sense--I hold myself excepted;--and, although I did eat--and did also commend, yet I will not thank you, that’s poss.