KING'S COLLEGE, _May_ 6, 1736.
Dear George,--I agree with you entirely in the pleasure you take in
talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet every day with new
circumstances, which will be still more pleasure to me to recollect. I
think at our age 'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over
past happinesses, that it is still in our power to enjoy as great.
Narrations of the greatest actions of other people are tedious in
comparison of the serious trifles that every man can call to mind of
himself while he was learning those histories. Youthful passages of life
are the chippings of Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with
mottoes; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and
agreeable.--Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true
pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.
Little intrigues, little schemes, and policies engage their thoughts;
and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their
middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in furnishes materials
of conversation for their latter age; and old men cannot be said to be
children a second time with greater truth from any one cause, than their
living over again their childhood in imagination. To reflect on the
season when first they felt the titillation of love, the budding
passions, and the first dear object of their wishes! how unexperienced
they gave credit to all the tales of romantic loves! Dear George, were
not the playing fields at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old
maid's gown, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from
King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as
those poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending
a visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the
cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to have had a
kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and living
disguised in an humble vale! As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I
found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw
Windsor Castle in no other view than the _Capitoli immobile saxum_. I
wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate;
or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep
you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but
shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never
quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at
cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I
can remember things that are very near as pretty. The beginning of my
Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's
hallowed grove; not in thumping and pummelling king Amulius's herdsmen.
I was sometimes troubled with a rough creature or two from the plough;
one, that one should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as
his hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable
circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of yourself,
Charles, and
Your sincere friend.
_WISH TO TRAVEL--SUPERIORITY OF FRENCH MANNERS TO ENGLISH IN THEIR
MANNER TO LADIES._