“I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter.”
Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:—“He was one of those men of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bons mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe.... He was a man, as his friend said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal.”
FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH TO POPE.
“You must receive my letter with a just impartiality, and give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return.
“Dutiful affection was bringing me to town, but undutiful laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country: however, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday....
“You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this point, I doubt, every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite privileges of our Church.
“I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way; you know we always make goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity?
“... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as out of the way as himself.
“Yours.”
Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer.