and stiffened in this tender posture. Sarah's left eye-brow was singed, and there appeared a black spot on her breast: her lover was all over black, but not the least signs of life were found in either. Attended by their melancholy companions, they were conveyed to the town, and the next day were interred in Stanton-Harcourt church-yard. My lord Harcourt, at Mr. Pope's and my request, has caused a stone to be placed over them, upon condition that we furnished the epitaph, which is as follows:

When Eastern lovers feed the fun'ral fire,
On the same pile the faithful pair expire:
Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd,

Sent his own lightning, and the victim seiz'd.

But my lord is apprehensive the country people will not understand this; and Mr. Pope says he'll make one with something of Scripture in it, and with as little of poetry as Hopkins and Sternhold, Your, &c.

LETTER XXVI.

MR. POPE TO MR. GAY.

I FAITHFULLY assure you, in the midst of that melancholy with which I have been so long encompassed, in an hourly expectation almost of my mo ther's death, there was no circumstance that rendered it more insupportable to me, than that I could not leave her to see you. Your own present escape from so imminent danger, I pray God may

prove less precarious than my poor mother's can be; whose life at best can be but a short reprieve, or a longer dying. But I fear, even that is more than God will please to grant me; for these two days past, her most dangerous symptoms have returned upon her; and, unless there be a sudden change, I must in a few days, if not in a few hours, be deprived of her. In the afflicting prospect before me, I know nothing that can so much alleviate it as the view now given me (Heaven grant it may increase!) of your recovery. In the sincerity of my heart, I am excessively concerned not to be able to pay you, dear Gay, any part of the debt, I very gratefully remember, I owe you on a like sad occasion, when you were here comforting me in her last great illness. May your health augment as fast as I fear hers must decline! I believe that would be very fast. May the life that is added to you be passed in good fortune and tranquillity, rather of your own giving to yourself than from any expectation or trust in others! May you and I live together, without wishing more felicity or acquisitions than friendship can give and receive without obligations to greatness. God keep you, and three or four more of those I have known as long, that I may have something worth the surviving my mother. Adieu, dear Gay, and believe me (while you live, and while I live) your,

&c.

As I told you in my last letter, I repeat it in this: Do not think of writing to me. The Doctor, Mrs. Howard, and Mrs. Blount, give me daily accounts of you.

VOL. III.

LETTER XXVII.

MR. POPE TO MR. GAY.

I AM glad to hear of the progress of your recovery;
and the oftener I hear it the better, when it be-
I so well re-
comes easy to you to give it me.
member the consolation you were to me in my
mother's former illness, that it doubles my con-
cern at this time not to be able to be with you,
Had I lost her, I
or you able to be with me.
would have been nowhere else but with you during
your confinement. I have now passed five weeks
without once going from home, and without any
company but for three or four of the days. Friends
rarely stretch their kindness so far as ten miles.
My lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Bethel have not
forgotten to visit me: the rest (except Mrs. Blount
once) were contented to send messages. I never
passed so melancholy a time; and now Mr. Con-
greve's death touches me nearly. It was twenty
years and more that I have known him: every
year carries away something dear with it, till we
outlive all tendernesses, and become wretched in-
dividuals again as we began. Adieu! This is my
birth-day; and this is my reflection upon

With added days, if life give nothing new,
But, like a sieve, let every pleasure through;
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more!
Is this a birth-day?—Tis, alas! too clear,
Tis but the fun'ral of the former year!

it:

Your, &c.

LETTER XXVIII.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Oct. 6, 1727.

DEAR SIR, I HAVE many years ago magnified, in my own mind, and repeated to you, a ninth-beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture: "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." I could find in my heart to congratulate you on this happy dismission from all court dependence: I dare say I shall find you the better and the honester man for it, many years hence; very probably, the healthfuller and the cheerfuller into the bargain. You are happily rid of many cursed ceremonies, as well as of many ill and vicious habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackneyed and trammelled in the ways of a court. Princes indeed, and peers (the lackeys of princes), and ladies (the fools of peers) will smile on you the less; but men of worth and real friends will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which kings and queens cannot give you (for they have it not to give)-liberty, and which is worth all they have; which, as yet, I thank God, Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that and your own integrity, and the satisfactory consciousness of having not merited such graces from courts as are bestowed only on the mean, servile, flattering, interested, and undeserving. The only steps to the favour of the great are such complacencies, such

compliances, such distant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, to engage them in their passions. He is the greatest favourite who is the falsest; and when a man, by such vile gradations, arrives at the height of grandeur and power, he is then at best but in a circumstance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged, for serving their ends: so many a minister has found it!

I believe you did not want advice, in the letter you sent by my lord Grantham: I presume you writ it not without: and you could not have better, if I guess right at the person who agreed to your doing it, in respect to any decency you ought to observe; for I take that person to be a perfect judge of decencies and forms. I am not without fears even on that person's account: I think it had a bad omen: but what have I to do with court omens ?-Dear Gay, adieu. I can only add a plain uncourtly speech: While you are nobody's servant, you may be any one's friend; and as such I embrace you, in all conditions of life. While I have a shilling you shall have sixpence; nay, eightpence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat. I am faithfully your, &c.

LETTER XXIX.

MR. POPE TO MRS. B.

Cirencester.

Ir is a true saying, "that misfortunes alone prove one's friendships;" they show us not only that of other people for us, but our own for them. We