To Mr Pope
Lyons, Sept. 28. O. S. 1718.
I received yours here, and should thank you for the pleasure you seem to enjoy from my return; but I can hardly forbear being angry at you for rejoicing at what displeases me so much. You will think this but an odd compliment on my side. I’ll assure you, ’tis not from insensibility of the joy of seeing my friends; but when I consider, that I must, at the same time, see and hear a thousand disagreeable impertinents; that I must receive and pay visits, make courtesies and assist at tea-tables, where I shall be half killed with questions: and, on the other part, that I am a creature that cannot serve any body, but with insignificant good wishes; and that my presence is not a necessary good to any one member of my native country, I think I might much better have staid where ease and quiet made up the happiness of my indolent life.—I should certainly be melancholy, if I pursued this theme one line farther. I will rather fill the remainder of this paper with the inscriptions on the tables of brass, that are placed on each side of the town-house.