Weymouth Mar: the 14th. 1755. Dear Friend,

When great natural abilities, embellish'd with every "polite an and beautifying Science," are employ'd on the Side of Virtue and Religion, they can't fail of forming the most amiable Character immaginable; and the being cold or indifferent to the profess'd Friendship of one possess'd of such an inestimable treasure, would, in my opinion, argue more than Brutal stupidity. I must confess that even a very distant prospect of such an harsh imputation on me, would fill my tho'ts with trouble and anxiety: How unhappy then must I be in this respect at present, being reduc'd (by my long silence after your repeated favours) to the hard necessity of depending entirely on your goodness for preventing its being immediately inflicted on me? I can pretend but to one excuse fit to offer so worthy a Person as you, for my silence, and that is, that my mind has been so hurried and divided among the various cares of life for some time past, that it has been unfit to offer any oblation worthy the Shrine of Friendship; and if Heaven excuses the performance even of its own Rites till they can be done without distraction, I hope that you the Friend of Heaven will do the same by me.

You well remember, my dear Friend, how often in our former conversations we have wish'd that our happy lot might be cast near each other in some Peacefull Solitude,

244 "Where contemplation prunes her ruffl'd wings, "And the free Soul looks down to pitty Kings."1

But tho' Fortune at present seems to cross our wishes, and makes it necessary in order to gain her Smiles, that we should walk in distant paths from each other; yet I can't avoid flattering my self with the pleasing prospect of some happyer State reserv'd for us in futurity; where instead of examining with pleasure the curious Mechanism of a Clock or Watch, and shewing the excellency of a Pendulum vibrating in a Cycloid, above that in a Circle; we Shall be enabled to trace the infinitely more intricate Wheels and stupendous Springs that move a Universe! There we shall see

"—how systym into Systym runs, "What other Planets circle other Suns."2

'Tis there, my Friend, and only there, that a Field shall open on you so ample as not to cramp your genious, or bound your progress. Nor is it one of the least pleasing circumstances with me, to think that there too my narrow faculties shall be so far enlarg'd as to be able in a adequate manner to shew how greatly and how sincerely you are admir'd by your constant Friend and humble Servt.,

RICHARD CRANCH

P:S. As I am now very solitary in my Bachelorick Hall, having lately lost my Genious, my youung Apollo;3 who is gone from me, not to that fancied Elisium whose charming Scenes his more charming Language could at once both describe and adorn; but to those inefable scenes of real joy, that true Elisium, that Heaven of charms, his dear Belinda!4 I hope you'll therefore have so much pitty on me in my double solitude, as to send your counter part to me in the form of a Letter; which will much relieve yours as above,

R:C

RC ; addressed: "For Mr: Robert-Treat Paine at Lancaster"; endorsed.

1.

Alexander Pope, "The Fourth Satire of Dr. John Donne Versifyed" (London, 1733).

2.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man: In Four Epistles (Philadelphia, 1747), Epistle I, p. 8.

3.

Samuel Quincy.

4.

The heroine of Pope's The Rape of the Lock. Quincy did not marry until 1761.