are his own to improve. Mr. Bethel indeed is too good and too honest to live in the world, but yet it is fit, for its example, he should. We are left to ourselves in my opinion, and may live where we please, in Wales, Dublin, or Bermudas: and for me, I assure you I love the world so well, and it loves me so well, that I care not in what part of it I pass the rest of my days. I see no sunshine but in the face of a friend.
I had a glimpse of a letter of yours lately, by which I find you are (like the vulgar) apter to think well of people out of power, than of people in power; perhaps it is a mistake, but however there is something in it generous. Mr. Pulteney takes it extreme kindly, I can perceive, and he has a great mind to thank you for that good opinion, for which I believe he is only to thank his ill fortune: for if I am not in an errour, he would rather be in power, than out.
To show you how fit I am to live in the mountains, I will with great truth apply to myself an old sentence. "Those that are in, may abide in; and those that are out, may abide out: yet to me, those that are in, shall be as those that are out; and those that are out, shall be as those that are in."
I am indifferent as to all those matters, but I miss you as much as I did the first day, when (with a short sigh) I parted. Wherever you are, (or on the mountains of Wales, or on the coast of Dublin,
Tu mihi, magni superas dum saxa Timavi,
Sive oram Illyrici legis æquoris[1] )
- ↑ Whether Timavus or the Illyrian coast,
Whatever land or sea thy presence boast.
