TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.
I HOPE your lordship, who were always so kind to me while you were a servant, will not forget me now in your greatness. I give you this caution, because I really believe you will be apt to be exalted in your new station of retirement, which was the only honourable post that those who gave it you were capable of conferring. And as, in other employments, the circumstances with which they are given, are sometimes said to be equally valuable with the gift itself, so it was in your case. The sealing up your office, and especially without any directions from the king, discovered such sentiments of you in such persons, as would make any honest man proud to share them.
I must be so free as to tell you, that this new office of retirement will be harder for you to keep, than that of secretary: and, you lie under one great disadvantage, beside your being too young; that whereas none but knaves and fools desire to deprive you of your former post, all the honest men in England will be for putting you out of this.
I go on in writing, though I know not how to send you my letter. If I were sure it would be opened by the sealers of your office, I would fill it with some
