Ambition now no more aspires, Contentment mod’rates our desires, From envy free we can behold Another’s honours, or his gold, Nor jealousy our rest alarms, No longer slaves to mortal charms. With prudence, patience comes along, Who smiles beneath oppressive wrong: If then such peaceful heav’nly guests Age introduces to our breasts, Can we his soft approaches fear, Or heave a sigh, or drop a tear, Because our outward forms decay, And time our vigour steals away? Should we regret our short-lived bloom, Which, could it last us to the tomb, Must quickly there to dust consume? If thus life’s progress we survey, View what it gives, what takes away, We shall with thankful hearts declare, It leaves us all that’s worth our care. “I am importuned by a very valuable old woman, who is declining apace, to beg your prayers. She took me from my nurse, and if I have any good in me I owe it to her. She was trusted by my mother with the care both of my sister and myself, and has lived with me ever since. But now, though past seventy, she cannot meet death without terror, and yet I believe I may venture to answer that she has always lived under the strictest sense of religion; but lowness of spirit, joined to many bodily infirmities, will shed darkness on the most cheerful minds, and hers never was of that cast. I fear she has very few months, if weeks, to come on earth, and a notice that you will grant her request would make her, I believe, pass them with some comfort. I am forced to take another page to assure you of my lord’s compliments, and those of my young people; the two latter are very well. I have no other view in sending the above verses but to prove that my confidence in your friendship has received no alteration from the length of time which has passed since I had an opportunity of assuring you in person with how true a regard “I am, Sir, “Your most faithful humble servant, “F. HERTFORD.”