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LETTER CLIII.

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TO DOCTOR BIANCHI, AT ROME.

DEAR DOCTOR.

YOUR invitation to Rimini gives me sensible pleasure, by recalling the idea of the spot where I performed my first studies, and at the same time, fills me with mortification, by the impossibility of gratifying my desire to come and embrace you. I am confined by a vow of obedience which fetters down my body to the Convent of the Holy Aposiles, but hinders not my soul from making an excursion, and visiting every corner of the good town where you reside.

Within these few days I read that Rimini is really a renowned city on the score of its antiquity; that T. Livius mentions it as a colony which succoured Rome when that Capitol was distressed by Hannibal's army; that Augustus and Tiberius made it a point of duty to ornament it with several public buildings, witness the bridge which subsists

subsists at this day; that it remained faithful to its masters till the destruction of their empire; and lastly, that after having been successively under the dominion of the Exarchs of Ravenna, the Lombards, the Maletestas (an illustrious Italian family) it became tributary and subject to the sovereign Pontiffs. It is a pity that the sea has retired more than a mile from its walls, and that half of it is now uninhabited. But what is there in all this that you did not know?

One thing is certain, that from my attachment to that place, I may still be considered as one of its inhabitants. It is natural to retain a tender. regard for the country on which we have imprinted our first steps, and where we have passed years, the memory of which is always dear, because they are the prelude of life. I speak here of my infancy, which recalls the idea of what I

Our life may

then was, and what I am no more. be aptly compared to a book, of which the Preface is Infancy, and every leaf we turn, a day which passes, never to revisit our eyes. They, however, who retain any thing of it are recompensed for the rapidity which hurries us on, and ploughs our face with wrinkles, while we imagine ourselves

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ourselves still in the bloom of youth. To the man who performs great actions, or lives many years, it is a book of several volumes, but no more than a flying sheet to him, who only vegetates or enjoys but a short duration here below.

My dear Doctor, with what pleasure do I make such reflections, while conversing with you, for you are a clear-sighted sage, and are perfectly acquainted with the nothingness of life, and the blessing of spending it in promoting the happinessof others and our own. It is the way to beguile time who takes a pleasure in making sport of us while he believes that he can obliterate every thing. It is glorious to perform Works that will last to Eternity, and over which Time has, consequently,

no power.

I know not how our countryman's affair will end. I sincerely strive to serve him; but through the weakness of his head he mars all my labours. However, I excuse him, notwithstanding all his faults, for after all, is it in our own power to have fibres and organs proper for contributing to our happiness?

I thank you for sending a counterpart of yourself to St. Archangelo, to endeavour to cure the good

and

and virtuous man, for whom we both deservedly retain so strong an attachment. You give me comfort, by informing me, that it is not a dropsy in the breast. He must observe a strict regimen if he recovers.

The foreigner, who is to bring me a book, has not yet appeared. He has, probably, stopped to take a view of all the towns which succeed one another on the road to Rome; and like so many antichambers, prepare for the entrance into a magnificent saloon. I shall receive him doubly well, both as he comes from you, and as he is a foreigner. But I could lay a wager before hand that he comes when I am in a hurry of business. That never fails to be the case; and it gives me the more pain, as then I have not leisure to bestow all the time I would upon a man who favours me with a visit, and it seems to have an air of ill will to the person I receive.

Be assured, my dear Doctor, that you are always present with me, and that my heart is continually repeating the sentiments I have vowed to you for life, and with which I am invariably your's, &c.

ROME, this 7th June, 1758,

LETTER

LETTER CLIV.

TO THE SAME.

I Should be extremely sorry if you was informed by any hand but my own, of my promotion to the Cardinalship; a thing so unheard of, and so little expected by me, that it requires all my presence of mind to be persuaded that it is not a dream.

I acknowledge now that you was not in the wrong when you reproached me for not attending to my studies;-I would thank you at present for what you did at that time, if it were an advantage to be raised to dignities which take us from ourselves, and place us against our inclinations in the midst of hurry and confusion.

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What comforts me upon this occasion is, that Providence under whose shade I have both slept and waked has led me by the hand, and that there has not been any intrigue, or even the least desire of mine to attain that rank to which I have now been promoted

Notwithstanding

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