Chapter LII: Letter LI: To Mr. M

September 16, 1777.

SIR, he is the confounded’st dunderhead--sapscull--looby--clodpate, nincompoop--ninnyhammer--booby-chick--farcical--loungibuss-- blunderbuss--this good day in the three kingdoms!--You would bless yourself, were it possible for you to analyze such a being--not but his heart is susceptible of a kind of friendly warmth--but then so cursed careless--ever in a hurry--ever in the wrong, at best but blundering about the right.--Why now, for example, when you sent the ----, I can make oath, if need be--that the dunce I speak of longed more for a letter than the animal. The basket was searched with hurry--not care;--no letter? well, it can’t be help’d--his head ach’d--he had not time, &c. &c.--the P---- was disengaged from the basket--the straw consigned to the chimney:--this being rather a coolish morning, a little fire was thought necessary--and in raking up the loose dirty waste stuff under the grate, there appeared a very bloody letter, which seemed unopened:--your hand-writing was discernible through the dirt and blood;--curiosity and affection ran a race to pick up and examine it--when, behold, it proved to be the companion of the P----, but so effaced with blood--that very--very little of my friend’s good sense could be made out.--Your poor letter is a type of what daily happens--merit oppressed and smothered by rubbish.--Alas, poor letter! it shared the fate the poor world, which we inhabit, will hereafter undergo:--one bright gleam of imitation of the mind that dictated it--some few sparks.--Alas! alas! my poor letter--pass but a few years--perhaps a few months--thy generous friendly compost may--thy friend whose heart glows while he writes--who feels thy worth--yea, and reveres it too.--Nonsense, why we know the very hinges of our last cradles will rust and moulder;--and that, in the course of another century, neither flesh, bone, coffin, nor nail--will be dicernible from mother earth.--Courage--while we live, let us live--to Virtue--Friendship--Religion--Charity--then drop (at death’s call) our cumbrous (you are thin) load of flesh, and mount in spirit to our native home.--Bless us, at what a rate have I been travelling!--I am quite out of breath--Why! my friend, the business was to thank you for the pig.--Had you seen the group of heads--aye, and wise ones too--that assembled at the opening of the fardel--the exclamations--Oh! the finest--fattest--cleanest--why, Sir, it was a pig of pigs;--the pettitoes gave us a good supper last night--they were well dressed--and your pig was well eat--it dined us Sunday and Monday.--Now, to say truth, I do not love pig--merely pig--I like not--but pork corned--alias--salted--either roast or boiled--I will eat against any filthy Jew naturalized--or under the bann.--On Saturday night the newsman brought me two papers of J---- 13th and 20th;--right joyful did I receive them:--I ran to Mrs. Sancho--with, I beg you will read my friend’s sensible and spirited defence of--of, &c.--She read--though it broke in upon her work--she approved;--but chance or fortune--or ill-luck--or what you ever mean by accident--has played us a confounded trick;--for since Saturday they have--both papers--disappeared--without hands--or legs--or eyes--for no one has seen them;--bureau--boxes--cupboards--drawers--parlour--chamber--shop--all--all has been rummaged--pockets--port-folio--holes--corners--all been searched;--Did you see them?--did you?--where can they be?--I know not--nor I--nor I--but God does!--Omnipotence knoweth all things.--It has vexed me--fretted dame Sancho--teazed the children--but so it is;--hereafter I suppose they will be found in some obvious (though now unthought of) place, and then it will be, Good Lord, who could have thought it!

Where is the _Jack-ass_ business?--do not be lazy--I feel myself a party concerned--and when I see you, I have a delicious morsel of true feminine grace and generosity to shew you.--I shall not apologize for this crude epistle;--but mark and remark--I do thank you in the name of every Sancho but self--they eat, and were filled;--I have reason to thank you;--but as I do not affect pig--in a piggish sense--I hold myself excepted;--and, although I did eat--and did also commend, yet I will not thank you, that’s poss.

I. SANCHO.

The papers are found, as you will see:--here is one and a piece; it has suffered through ignorance;--but what cannot be cured, must be endured.