poking life here. What with I so lately saw of poor
Belton, and what I now see of this charming fellow, I shall be as crazy
as he soon, or as dull as thou, Jack; so must seek for better company in
town than either of you. I have been forced to read sometimes to divert
me; and you know I hate reading. It presently sets me into a fit of
drowsiness; and then I yawn and stretch like a devil.

Yet in Dryden's Palemon and Arcite have I just now met with a passage,
that has in it much of our Bob.'s case. These are some of the lines.

Mr. Mowbray then recites some lines from that poem, describing a
distracted man, and runs the parallel; and then, priding himself
in his performance, says:

Let me tell you, that had I begun to write as early as you and Lovelace,
I might have cut as good a figure as either of you. Why not? But boy or
man I ever hated a book. 'Tis folly to lie. I loved action, my boy. I
hated droning; and have led in former days more boys from their book,
than ever my master made to profit by it. Kicking and cuffing, and
orchard-robbing, were my early glory.

But I am tired of writing. I never wrote such a long letter in my life.
My wrist and my fingers and thumb ache d----n----y. The pen is an
hundred weight at least. And my eyes are ready to drop out of my head
upon the paper.--The cramp but this minute in my fingers. Rot the goose
and the goose-quill! I will write no more long letters for a
twelve-month to come. Yet one word; we think the mad fellow coming to.
Adieu.

LETTER XXIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
UXBRIDGE, SAT. SEPT. 9.

JACK,

I think it absolutely right that my ever-dear and beloved lady should be
opened and embalmed. It must be done out of hand this very afternoon.
Your acquaintance, Tomkins, and old Anderson of this place, I will bring
with me, shall be the surgeons. I have talked to the latter about it.

I will see every thing done with that decorum which the case, and the
sacred person of my beloved require.

Every thing that can be done to preserve the charmer from decay shall
also be done. And when she will descend to her original dust, or cannot
be kept longer, I will then have her laid in my family-vault, between my
own father and mother. Myself, as I am in my soul, so in person, chief
mourner. But her heart, to which I have such unquestionable pretensions,
in which once I had so large a share, and which I will prize above my
o