To Henry Mandeville, Esq;
London, June 20th.
YOU can have no idea, my dear
Mr. Mandeville, how weary I am
of being these few day only in town: that
any one, who is happy enough to have a
house, a cottage, in the country, should
continue here at this season, is to me inconceivable:
but that gentleman of large
property, that noblemen, should imprison
themselves in this smoaking furnace, when
the whole land is a blooming garden, a wilderness
of sweets; when pleasure courts
them in her fairest form; nay, when the
sordid god of modern days, when Interest
joins his potent voice; when power, the
best power, that of doing good, solicits
their presence; can only be accounted for
by supposing them under the dominion of
fascination, spell-caught by some malicious
demon, an enemy to human happiness.
I cannot resist addressing them in a stanza
or two of a poem, which deserves to be
written in letters of gold.
"Mean time, by pleasure's sophistry allur'd,
From the bright fun and living breeze ye stray:
And, deep in London's gloomy haunts immur'd,
Brook o'er your fortune's, freedom's health's decay,
O blind of choice, and to yourselves untrue!
The young grove shoots, their bloom the fields renew,
"The mansion asks its lord, the swains their friend;
While he doth riot's orgies haply share,
Or tempt the gamester's dark destroying snare,
Or at some courtly shrine with lavish incense bend.
"And yet full oft your anxius tongues complain
That careless tumult prompts the rustic throng;
That the rude village inmates now disdain
Those homely ties which rul'd their fathers long:
Alas! your fathers did by other arts
Draw those kind ties around their simple hearts,
And led in other paths their ductile will:
By succours, faithful consul, courteous chear,
Won them the ancient manners to revere,
To prize their country's peace, and heaven's due rites fulfill."
Can a nobleman of spirit prefer the rude
insults of a licentious London rabble, the
refuse of every land, to the warm and faithful
attachment of a brave, a generous, a
free, and loyal yeomanry in the country?
Does not interest, as well as virtue and humanity,
prompt them, by living on their
estates, to imitate the Heavens, which return
the moisture they draw from the earth,
in grateful dews and showers?
When I first came to Belmont, having
been some years abroad, I found my tenants
poor and dejected, scarce able to
gain i hard penurious living. The neighbouring
gentlemen spending two thirds of
the year in London, and the town, which
was the market for my estate, filled only
with people in trade, who could scarce
live by each other: I struck at the root
of this evil, and, by living almost altogether
in the country myself, brought the
whole neighbourhood to do the same: I
promoted every kind of diversion, which
soon filled my town with gentlemen's families,
which raised the markets, and of
consequence the value of my estate: my
tenants grew rich at the same rents which
before they were unable to pay; population
encreased, my villages were full of inhabitants,
and all around me was gay and
flourishing. So simple, my dear Mr. Mandeville,
are the maxims of true policy: but
it must be so; that machine which has
the fewest wheels is certainly most easy to keep
in order.
Have you had my old men to dine?
at sixty I admit them to my table, where
they are always once a fortnight my guests.
I love to converse with those, "whom
age and long experience render wise;
and in my idea of things, it is time to
slacken the reins of pride, and to wave all
sublunary distinctions, when they are so near
being at an end between us. Besides I
know, by my own feelings, that age wants
the comforts of life: a plentiful table, generous
wines, chearful converse, and the
notice of those they have been accustomed
to revere, renews in some degree the fire
of youth, gives a spring to declining nature,
and perhaps prolongs as well as enlivens
the evening of their days. Nor is
it a small addition to my satisfaction, to see
the respect paid them by the young of their
own rank, from the observation of their
being thus distinguished by me: as an
old man, I have a kind of interest in making
age an object of reverence; but, were
I ever so young, I would continue a custom
which appears to me not less just than humane.
Adieu! my esteemed, my amiable friend!
how I envy you your larks and nightingales!
Your faithful Belmont.
