THE business of the twentieth parts and firstfruits is still on the anvil. We are given to under-. stand, that her majesty designs, out of her royal

the present year, to beg you would be so good as to inform me of a particular affair, of which it behoved me to get the earliest intelligence; and yet I have no answer from you! I have only been informed that you have resigned the post you lately held, in order to go over to Ireland as secretary to Lord Wharton. I wish you joy upon this event, presuming that the latter employ is preferable to the former; though I am very sensible that I shall be a loser by your removal. Still I wish you all manner of satisfaction in your new offices; and heartily pray that God may crown all your enterprises with success. The favour I begged of you, was to send me the family-name, and titles, of my Lord Halifax and to ask himself, if you thought proper, whether he would permit me to dedicate my Livy to him. As you had signified to me by Mr Philips, that you had forgot the sheet which I wanted in Mr Rymer's collection, I had sent you word that it is the sheet 10 T, or the four pages immediately preceding the index of names in the first tome. If you have got it since, be so good as to send it to Messrs Toutton and Stuiguer, carefully folded up, and directed to me. I suppose this letter will find you still at London, because it is reported that Lord Wharton will not set out till toward the month of April. There is nothing new here, in the republic of letters, worth your notice. The jesuits of Paris have passed a severe censure on father Hardouin's opinions, and obliged him to retract them in a very ignominious manner. We shall see what will be the consequence. I should be glad I could be of any service to you here; you would then see how sincerely I am, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant, J. LE CLERC.

bounty, to make a grant of them for charitable uses, and that it is designed this grant should come over with his excellency the lord-lieutenant. The bishops in this town at present thought it reasonable to apprise his excellency of the affair, and to address him for his favour in it, which accordingly is done by this post. We have sent with this address the representation made at first to her majesty about it; the reference to the commissioners of the revenue here, and their report, together with the memorial to the Lord Pembroke. In that there is mention of the state of the diocese of Dublin, as a specimen of the condition of the clergy of Ireland, by which it will appear how much we stand in need of such a gift. This we could not well send to his excellency, because it is very long, and we apprehend, that it might be improper to give him so much trouble at first, before he was any way apprised of the matter; but, if you think that his excellency may judge it agreeable that it should be laid before him, I entreat the favour of you to apply to my Lord Pembroke's secretary, with whom it is, for the original, or a copy of it, and present it to my lord-lieutenant, or leave it with his secretary. I have engaged for you to my brethren, that you will be at this trouble: and there is a memorial to this purpose, at the foot of the copy of the representation made to the Earl of Pembroke, transmitted with the other papers. What charges you are at upon this account, will be answered by

me.

The good impression you have given me of Mr Addison, my lord-lieutenant's secretary, has encouraged me to venture a letter to him on this subject, which I have enclosed, and make you the full and sole judge whether it ought to be delivered.

I can't be competently informed by any here, whether it may be pertinent or no; but I may and do depend on your prudence in the case, who, I believe, will neither omit what may be useful, nor suffer me to do an officious or improper thing. Imix no other matter with this, beside what agrees with all occasions, the tender of the hearty prayers and wishes you of, Sir, your, &c.

for

WILL. DUBLIN,

The reversal of my Lord Slane's* outlawry makes a mighty noise through this kingdom; for aught I can remember, the destroying of our woollen manufactory did not cause so universal a consternation.

A MONSIEUR MONSIEUR HUNTER,

GENTILHOMME ANGLOIS, A PARIS,

London, March 22, 1708-9.

SIR,

I AM Very much obliged to you for the favour of a kind reproach you sent me, in a letter to Mr

* Christopher Fleming, Baron of Slane, having taken up arms for King James, in 1688, in Ireland, where he was colonel of a regiment of foot, afterward lost his estate, and was out, lawed, till Queen Anne reversed his attainder; upon which the house of commons of Ireland, on the 3d of June 1709, unani, mously resolved, that an address be made to the queen, setting forth the fatal consequences of reversing the outlawries of per sons attainted of treason for the rebellions in 1641 and 1688." Lord Slane was, in November 1713, created by her majesty, Vis count Longford.-B.

VOL. XV.

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Addison, which he never told me of till this day, and that accidentally; but I am glad at the same time, that I did not deserve it, having sent you a long letter, in return to that you was pleased to honour me with; and it is a pity it should be lost; for as I remember, it was full of the diei fabulas, and such particularities as do not usually find place in newspapers. Mr Addison has been so taken up for some months in the amphibious circumstances of premier c to my Lord Sunderland, and secretary of state for Ireland, that he is the worst man I know either to convey an idle letter, or deliver what he receives; so that I design, when I trust him with this, to give him a memorial along with it; for if my former has miscarried, I am half persuaded to give him the blame. I find you a little lament your bondage, and indeed in your case it requires a good share of philosophy: but if you will not be angry, I believe I may have been the cause you are still a prisoner; for I imagine my former letter was intercepted by the French court, when the most christian king reading one passage in it (and duly considering the weight of the person who wrote it), where I said, if the French king understood your value as well as we do, he would not exchange you for Count Tallard, and all the debris of Blenheim together: for I must confess, I did not rally when I said so.

I hear your good sister, the Queen of Pomunki, † waits with impatience till you are restored to your dominions and that your rogue of a viceroy returns

* Principal secretary to the Earl of Wharton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland.-H.

+ He refers to Colonel Hunter's government of Virginia.

money fast for England, against the time he must retire from his government. Meantime Philips writes verses in a sledge, * upon the frozen sea, and transmits them hither to thrive in our warmer clime under the shelter of my Lord Dorset. I could send you a great deal of news from the Respublica Grubstreetaria, which was never in greater altitude, though I have been of late but a small contributor. A cargo of splinters from the Arabian rocks have been lately shipwrecked in the Thames, to the irreparable damage of the virtuosi, Mrs Long and I are fallen out; I shall not trouble you with the cause, but don't you think her altogether in the wrong? But Mrs Barton is still in my good graces; I design to make her tell me when you are to be redeemed, and will send you word. There's it now, you think I am in jest; but I assure you, the best intelligence I get of public affairs is from ladies, for the ministers never tell me any thing; and Mr Addison is nine times more secret to me than any body else, because I have the happiness to be thought his friend. The company at St James's coffeehouse is as bad as ever, but it is not quite so good. The beauties you left are all gone off this frost, and we have got a new set for spring, of which Mrs Chetwind and Mrs Worsley are the principal. The vogue of operas holds up wonderfully, though we have had them a-year; but I design to set up a party among the wits to run them down by next winter, if true English caprice does

*See Ambrose Philips's verses descriptive of the climate and country of Scandinavia, dated Copenhagen, 9th March 1709, and inscribed to the Earl of Dorset. They first appeared in the Tatler, and were commended by Pope as the poetry of one who could write very nobly.