(579) Lewis Watson, second Earl of Rockingham.  He married Catharine, second daughter and coheir of George Sondes, Earl of Feversham, and died in 1745.-D.

251 Letter 65 To Richard West, Esq.  London, May 4, 1742.

Dear West, Your letter made me quite melancholy, till I came to the postscript of fine weather.  Your so suddenly finding the benefit of it makes me trust you will entirely recover your health and spirits with the warm season:  nobody wishes it more than I:  nobody has more reason, as few have known you so long.  Don’t be afraid of your letters being dull.  I don’t deserve to be called your friend, if I were impatient at hearing your complaints.  I do not desire you to suppress them till the causes cease; nor should I expect you to write cheerfully while you are Ill.  I never desire to write any man’s life as a stoic, and consequently should not desire him to furnish me with opportunities of assuring posterity what pains he took not to show any pain.

If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry, you know how pleased I should be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d’ye see, ’tis an age most unpoetical!  ’Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of last century, yet, I assure you, the generality of readers are more diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough’s secret history of Queen Mary’s robes.  I do not think an author would be universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property, nation and administration.

Wit itself is monopolized by politics; no laugh would be ridiculous if it were not on one side or t’other.  Thus, Sandys thinks he has spoken an epigram, when he crincles up his nose and lays a smart accent on ways and means.

We may, indeed. hope a little better now to the declining arts.  The reconciliation between the royalties is finished, and fifty thousand pounds a-year more added to the heir apparent’s revenue.  He will have money now to tune up Glover, and Thomson, and Dodsley again:  Et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantUM.

Asheton is much yours.  He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel with the greatest applause.  I do not mind his pleasing the generality, for you know they ran as much after Whitfield as they could after Tillotson; and I do not doubt but St. Jude converted as many Honourable women as St. Paul.  But I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admire them still more when you heard him deliver them.  He will write to you himself next post, but is not mad enough with his fame to write you a sermon.  Adieu, dear child!  Write me the progress of your recovery,(580) and believe it will give me a sincere pleasure; for I am, yours ever.