“My Lord,—In the first place, I do, as I am bound, heartily thank God for raising me so great and generous a benefactor as your Grace, when I so little expected or deserved it.
“And then, to return my poor thanks to your lordship, though but a sorry acknowledgment, yet all I have, for the pains and trouble you have taken on my account. I most humbly thank your Grace that you did not close with the motion which you mentioned in your Grace’s first letter; for I should rather chose to remain all my life in my present circumstances, than so much as consent that your lordship should do any such thing. Nor, indeed, should I be willing on my own account to trouble the House of Lords in the method proposed, for I believe mine would be the first instance of a brief for losses by child-bearing that ever came before that honourable house.
“Had your Grace been able to have effected nothing for me, the generosity and goodness had been the same; and I should have prayed for as great a heap of blessings on your Grace and your family. This is all I can do now, when I have such considerable assistance by your Grace’s charitable endeavours. When I received your Grace’s first letter, I thanked God upon my knees for it. I have done the same, I believe, twenty times since, as often as I have read it; and more than once for the other, which I received but yesterday.
“Certainly, never did an archbishop of England write in such a manner to an isle poet; but it is peculiar to your Grace to oblige so as none besides can do it. I know your Grace will be angry, but I cannot help it; truth will out, though in a plain and rough dress; and I should sin against God if I now neglected to make all the poor acknowledgments I am able.”
He then proceeds to mention the great kindness of the Countess of Northampton, and says he must divide what she has given him,—“half to my poor mother, with whom I am now above a year behindhand; the other £10 for my own family. My mother will wait on your Grace for her £10: she knows not the particulars of my circumstances, which I keep from her as much as I can, that they may not trouble her.”
Very beautiful are sentiments like these; and great must have been the anguish of that sensitive and noble heart that had to struggle with such adversities.
Four days after the foregoing letter was written, it was followed by another and shorter one, strikingly characteristic of the playfulness as well as gratitude of the writer’s nature:—
“Epworth, May 18, 1701.
“My Lord,—This comes as a rider to the last, by the same post, to bring such news as, I presume, will not be unwelcome to a person who has so particular a concern for me. Last night my wife brought me a few children. There are but two yet, a boy and a girl, and I think they are all at present. We have had four in two years and a day, three of which are living.
“Never came anything more like a gift from Heaven than what the Countess of Northampton sent by your lordship’s charitable offices. Wednesday evening my wife and I clubbed and joined stocks, which came but to six shillings, to send for coals. Thursday morning I received the £10; and at night my wife was delivered. Glory be to God for His unspeakable goodness!—I am, your Grace’s most obliged, and most humble servant,