* See Letter XLVIII. of this volume.

Her apothecary is a good honest fellow.  I like him much.  But the silly dear’s harping so continually upon one string, dying, dying, dying, is what I have no patience with.  I hope all this melancholy jargon is owing entirely to the way I would have her to be in.  And it being as new to her, as the Bible beauties to thee,* no wonder she knows not what to make of herself; and so fancies she is breeding death, when the event will turn out quite the contrary.

* See Letter XLVI. of this volume.

Thou art a sorry fellow in thy remarks on the education and qualification of smarts and beaux of the rakish order; if by thy we’s and us’s thou meanest thyself or me:* for I pretend to say, that the picture has no resemblance of us, who have read and conversed as we have done.  It may indeed, and I believe it does, resemble the generality of the fops and coxcombs about town.  But that let them look to; for, if it affects not me, to what purpose thy random shot?—­If indeed thou findest, by the new light darted in upon thee, since thou hast had the honour of conversing with this admirable creature, that the cap fits thy own head, why then, according to the qui capit rule, e’en take and clap it on:  and I will add a string of bells to it, to complete thee for the fore-horse of the idiot team.

* Ibid. and Letter LXVIII.

Although I just now said a kind thing or two for this fellow Hickman; yet I can tell thee, I could (to use one of my noble peer’s humble phrases) eat him up without a corn of salt, when I think of his impudence to salute my charmer twice at parting:* And have still less patience with the lady herself for presuming to offer her cheek or lip [thou sayest not which] to him, and to press his clumsy fist between her charming hands.  An honour worth a king’s ransom; and what I would give—­what would I not give? to have!—­And then he, in return, to press her, as thou sayest he did, to his stupid heart; at that time, no doubt, more sensible, than ever it was before!

* See Letter XLVIII. of this volume.

By thy description of their parting, I see thou wilt be a delicate fellow in time.  My mortification in this lady’s displeasure, will be thy exaltation from her conversation.  I envy thee as well for thy opportunities, as for thy improvements:  and such an impression has thy concluding paragraph* made upon me, that I wish I do not get into a reformation-humour as well as thou:  and then what a couple of lamentable puppies shall we make, howling in recitative to each other’s discordant music!

* Ibid.

Let me improve upon the thought, and imagine that, turned hermits, we have opened the two old caves at Hornsey, or dug new ones; and in each of our cells set up a death’s head, and an hour-glass, for objects of contemplation—­I have seen such a picture:  but then, Jack, had not the old penitent fornicator a suffocating long grey beard?  What figures would a couple of brocaded or laced-waistcoated toupets make with their sour screw’d up half-cock’d faces, and more than half shut eyes, in a kneeling attitude, recapitulating their respective rogueries?  This scheme, were we only to make trial of it, and return afterwards to our old ways, might serve to better purpose by far, than Horner’s in the Country Wife, to bring the pretty wenches to us.