"It adds to my grief that it is so difficult to me to see you. I am at a distance from London, in Kent; nor have a lodging in London, nor have I been at that place in the Old Bailey since I wrote you I was removed from it. At present I am weak, having had some fits of a fever that have left me low. But those things much more. "I have not seen son or daughter, wife or child, many weeks, and know not which way to see them. They dare not come by water, and by land here is no coach, and I know not what to do. "It is not possible for me to come to Enfield, unless you could find a retired lodging for me, where I might not be known, and might have the comfort of seeing you both now and then; upon such a circumstance, I could gladly give the days to solitude, to have the comfort of half an hour now and then with you both for two or three weeks. But just to come and look at you, and retire immediately, it is a burden too heavy. The parting will be a pain beyond the enjoyment. "I would say, I hope, with comfort, that it is yet well. I am so near my journey's end, and am hastening to the place where the 'weary are at rest, and the wicked cease to trouble;' but that the passage is rough, and the day stormy, by what way soever He pleases to bring me to the end of it, I desire to finish life with this temper of soul in all cases: _Te Deum laudamus_. "I congratulate you on the occasion of your happy advance in your employment. May all you do be prosperous, and all you meet with pleasant, and may you both escape the tortures and troubles of uneasy life. May you sail the dangerous voyage of life with a forcing wind, and make the port of heaven without a storm. "It adds to my grief, that I must never see the pledge of your mutual love, my little grandson. Give him my blessing, and may he be to you both your joy in youth, and your comfort in age, and never add a sigh to your sorrow. But, alas! that is not to be expected. Kiss my dear Sophy once more for me; and if I must see her no more, tell her this is from a father that loved her above all his comforts, to his last breath. "Your unhappy, D. F. "About two miles from Greenwich, Kent, Tuesday, August 12th, 1730. "P.S. I wrote you a letter some months ago, in answer to one from you, about selling the house; but you never signified to me whether you received it. I have not the policy of assurance; I suppose my wife, or Hannah, may have it. "Idem, D. F." [101] Pope had collected this scandal from Savage, who says in the preface to his Author to be Let, "Had it not been an honester livelihood for Mr. Norton, (Daniel De Foe's son of love by a lady who vended oysters,) to have dealt in a fish-market, than to be dealing out the dialects of Billingsgate in the Flying Post?"