to send me to town, and shall set out in three weeks on the grand expedition. I intend to live in publick, and to crowd into the winter every pleasure which money can purchase, and every honour which beauty can obtain.
But this tedious interval how shall I endure? Cannot you alleviate the misery of delay by some pleasing description of the entertainments of the town? I can read, I can talk, I can think of nothing else; and if you will not sooth my impatience, heighten my ideas, and animate my hopes, you may write for those who have more leisure, but are not to expect any longer the honour of being read by those eyes which are now intent only on conquest and destruction.
Numb. 57. Tuesday, October 22, 1750.
Sæpe decem servos: modò reges, atque tetrarchas,
Omnia magna loquens: modò, sit mihi mensa tripes, et
Concha salis puri, et toga, quæ defendere frigus,
Quamvis crassa, queat.
Hor.
Now walks with ten. In high and haughty strain
At morn, of kings and governors he prates;
At night—"A frugal table, O ye fates,
"A little shell the sacred salt to hold,
"And clothes, tho' coarse, to keep me from the cold."
Francis
It has been remarked, perhaps, by every writer who has left behind him observations upon life, that no man is pleased with his present state, which
