I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you some of the ‘stones’ (’hard arguments’ may be called ‘stones,’ since they ‘knock down a pertinacious opponent’) which I could ‘pelt him with,’ were he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all apprehensions for my ‘life,’ or my ‘bones’; but I forbear them till you demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.

And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how ‘well qualified’ I am to attend the lady with the ‘olive-branch,’ I beg of you to dispatch me with it ‘out of hand’?  For if she be so ‘very ill,’ and if she should not live to receive the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the ‘worthy family’ design her, how much will that grieve you all!  And then, Sir, of what avail will be the ‘eulogies’ you shall all, peradventure, join to give to her memory?  For, as Martial wisely observeth,

      ‘——­Post cineres gloria sera venit.’

Then, as ‘Ausonius’ layeth it down with ‘equal propriety,’ that ’those favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging’ ——­

And to the same purpose Ovid: 

      ‘Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.’

And, Sir, whatever you do, let the ‘lady’s pardon’ be as ‘ample,’ and as ‘cheerfully given,’ as she can ‘wish for it’:  that I may be able to tell her, that it hath your ‘hands,’ your ‘countenances,’ and your ’whole hearts,’ with it—­for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),

      ‘Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.’

And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it enamelled, as a ‘beautiful meadow’ is enamelled by the ‘spring’ or ‘summer’ flowers, very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I may have tired you; and the more likely, as I have written without that ‘method’ or ‘order,’ which I think constituteth the ‘beauty’ of ’good writing’:  which ‘method’ or ‘order,’ nevertheless, may be the ’better excused’ in a ‘familiar epistle,’ (as this may be called,) you pardoning, Sir, the ‘familiarity’ of the ‘word’; but yet not altogether ‘here,’ I must needs own; because this is ‘a letter’ and ‘not a letter,’ as I may say; but a kind of ‘short’ and ‘pithy discourse,’ touching upon ‘various’ and ‘sundry topics,’ every one of which might be a ‘fit theme’ to enlarge upon of volumes; if this ‘epistolary discourse’ (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the ‘sentiments’ and ‘aphorisms’ of the ‘wisest of the antients,’ which ‘glitter through it’ like so many dazzling ‘sunbeams,’) I will (at my leisure) work it up into a ‘methodical discourse’; and perhaps may one day print it, with a ‘dedication’ to my ‘honoured patron,’ (if, Sir, I have ‘your’ leave,) ‘singly’ at first, (but not till I have thrown out ‘anonymously,’