cover such a degree of health as may render old age supportable. Both of us have closed the tenth lustre, and it is high time to determine how we shall play the last act of the farce. Might not my life be entitled much more properly a what-d'ye-call-it than a farce[1]? Some comedy, a great deal of tragedy, and the whole interspersed with scenes of Harlequin, Scaramouch, and Dr. Baloardo, the prototype of your hero Oxford. I used to think sometimes formerly of old age and of death; enough to prepare my mind; not enough to anticipate sorrow, to dash the joys of youth, and to be all my life a dying. I find the benefit of this practice now, and shall find it more as I proceed on my journey; little regret when I look backward, little apprehension when I look forward. You complain grievously of your situation in Ireland. I could complain of mine too in England: but I will not, nay, I ought not; for I find, by long experience, that I can be unfortunate, without being unhappy. I do not approve your joining together the figure of living, and the pleasure of giving, though your old prating friend Montaigne[2], does something like it in one of
- ↑ Bolingbroke is reported in a letter to Pouilly to have said, "You, and I, and Pope, are the only three men fit to reign." Voltaire, in the XIIth volume of his letters, denies this anecdote; and adds, "J'aime mieux ce que disait à ses compagnons la plus fameuse catin de Londres: mes sœurs, Bolingbroke est déclaré aujourdhui secrétaire d'état; sept mille guinées de rente, mes sœurs; et tout pour nous!" It appears by Voltaire's Letters, vol. I, p. 13, that in the year 1722, he was at la Source near Orleans, with lord Bolingbroke; to whom he communicated the first sketches of the Henriade, and received from him the highest commendations.
- ↑ Yet there are few writers that give us such an insight into human nature as this old prater.
