writing grave differtations against it: to encourage them in which laudable defign, it is refolved a preface fhall be prefixed to the farce, in vindication of the nature and dignity of this new way of writing. Yesterday Mr. Steele's affair was decided: I am forry I can be of no other opinion than yours, as to his whole carriage and writings of late. But certainly he has not only been punished by others, but fuffered much even from his own party in the point of character, nor (I believe) received any amends in that of intereft, as yet, whatever may be his profpects for the future. This gentleman, among a thoufand others, is a great inftance of the fate of all who are carried away by party-fpirit, of any fide. I wifh all violence may fucceed as ill: but am really amazed that fo much of that four and pernicious quality fhould be joined with fo much natural good humour as, I think, Mr. Steele is poffeffed of. I am, &c. MR. Pope is going to Mr. Jervas's, where Mr. Adallion is fring for his picture; in the mean time amid clouds of tobacco at a coffee-tauld I write this let ter. There is a grand revolution Will's; Morrice has gutted for a coffeehouse in the city, and Timcomb is relate ed, to the great joy of Crime, 36 was at a great lofs for a perion to cover with upon the fathers and church alors the knowledge I gain from ing: this gives Mr. Lintot great uneafinefs, who is now endeavouring to corrupt the curate of his parish to pray for fair weather, that his work may go on. There is a fix-penny criticifm lately publifhed upon the tragedy of the Whatd'ye-call-it, wherein he with much judgment and learning calls me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave. His grand charge is against the Pilgrim's Progrefs being read, which he fays, is directly le velled at Cato's reading Plato; to back this cenfure, he goes on to tell you, that the Pilgrim's Progrefs being mentioned to be the eighth edition, makes the reflection evident, the tragedy of Caro hav ing juft eight times (as he quaintly exprefies it) visited the prefs. He has allo endeavoured to fhow, that every parti cular paffage of the play alludes to fome fine part of tragedy, which he fays i have injudiciously and profanely abufed 4. Sir Samuel Garth's poem upon my Lord Clare's house, I believe, will be pubniliued in the Eater-week. ly in painting and poetry; and Min. Pipe owes all his kill in afronomy to see and Mr. Whitton, fo celebrated of late fr his discovery of the longitude an ordinary copy of verle⚫. M. Rowe's Jane Gray is to be played in Eater-set, when Mrs. Oldfield is to perionate a ca racter directly oppofte to female satures for what woman ever doped foverenne ty? you know Chaucer has a tale worte a knight faves his head by ditorering a was the thing which all women moi cor veted. Mr. Pope's Homer is retarded by the great rains that have fallen of litt, which caufes the theats to or long a-ang Called, An Ode on the Longitudo, i tvá and Pope's Mifcellanies. 13 Thus far Mr. Gay, who has in hít let. ter foreftalled all the subjefts of diverfion usich it should be ose to you today, that I ft up til two o'clock over burgundy and champaigne; and am become fo za a rake, that I fall be a named in of baliteit. I fear i mot get the gor a bort time to be thought to do any fort by drinking; pardy for a fallonar presence to fit full kong enough to tran by the time be up again, and i may fuse late four books of Homer. Inope you'l cend to the bed and cosca of my prese car: pray case the Sužng to in 15pares, and the crutches kommet for & your frends, flat is to far, 20 The calamity of your gout at cow 100, E.: fare it To tam to conccle w mde a perferion, w precurfor to the coming of Homer, in a treatife called Homerides. He has fince rifen very much in his criticisms, and, after affaulting Homer, made a daring attack upon the What-d'ye-call-it. Yet there is not a proclamation ifiued for the burning of Homer and the Pope by the common hangman; nor is the What-d'yecall-it yet filenced by the Lord Chamber lain. I Your, &c. LETTER LXXVII. May 6. HAVE the pleasure of your very kind letter. I have always been obliged to you for your friendship and concern for me, and am more affected with it than I will take upon me to exprefs in this letter. I do affure you there is no return wanting on my part, and am very forry I had not the good luck to fee the Dean before I left the town: it is a great pleafure to me, and not a little vanity, to think that he miffes me. As to my health, which you are fo kind to inquire after, it is not worse than in London: I am almoft afraid yet to fay that it is better, for I cannot reasonably expect much effect from thefe waters in fo fhort a time; but in the main they feem to agree with me. Here is not one creature that I know, which, next to the few I would chufe, contributes very much to my fatisfaction. At the fame time that I regret the want of your converfation, I pleafe myself with thinking that you are where you firft ought to be, and engaged where you cannot do too much. Pray give my humble fervice and beft wishes to your good mother. I am forry you do not tell me how Mr. Gay does in his health; I fhould have been glad to have heard he was better. My young amanuenfis, as you call him, I am afraid, will prove but a wooden one and you know ex quovis ligno, &c. You will pardon Mrs. R's pedantry, and believe me to be your, &c. P. S. By the inclofed you will fee I am like to be impreffed, and enrolled in the lift of Mr. Curll's authors; but, I thank God! I fhall have your company. I believe it high time you should think of adminiftering another emetic. In one of his papers called The Grumbler. LETTER LXXVIII. The Rev. Dean Berkley to Mr. Pope. Leghorn, May 1, 1714. ASI take ingratitude to be a greater ther to run the rifque of being thought crime that impertinence, I chufe raguilty of the latter, than not to return you my thanks for a very agreeable eatertainment you just now gave me. I have accidentally met with your Rape of the Lock here, having never feen it before. Style, painting, judgment, fpirit, I had already admired in other of your writings; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your invention, with all thofe images, allufions, and inexplicable beauties, which you raife fo furprisingly, and at the fame time fo naturally, out of a trifle. And yet I cannot fay that I was more pleafed with the reading of it, than I am with the pretext it gives me to renew in your thoughts the remembrance of one who values no happiness beyond the friendship of men of wit, learning, and good-nature. I remember to have heard you mention fome half-formed defign of coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a mufe that fings fo well in the bleak climate of England, if the felt the fame warm fun, and breathed the fame air, with Virgil and Horace? There are here an incredible number of poets, that have all the inclination, but want the genius, or perhaps the art, of the ancients. Some among them, who understand English, begin to relish our authors; and I am informed that at Florence they have tranflated Milton into Italian verfe. If one who knows fo well how to write like the old Latin poets came among them, it would probably be a means to retrieve them from their cold, trivial conceits, to an imitation of their predeceffors. As merchants, antiquaries, men of pleafure, &c. have all different views in travelling; I know not whether it might not be worth a poet's while to travel, in order to ftore his mind with strong images of nature. Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling ftreams, are no where in fuch perfection as in England: but if you would know lightfome days, warm funs, and blue skies, you must come to Italy; and to enable a man to defcribe rocks rocks and precipices, it is abfolutely necefiary that he pass the Alps. You will easily perceive that it is felfintereft makes me fo fond of giving advice to one who has no need of it. If you came into these parts I fhould fly to fee you. I am here (by the favour of my good friend the Dean of St. Patrick's) in quality of Chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough; who about three months fince left the greateft part of his family in this town. God knows how long we fhall ftay here. I am your, &c. LETTER LXXIX. THOUGH, as you rightly remark, I You are, doubtless, perfuaded of the validity of that famous verfe, "Tis expectation makes a bleffing dear: but why would you make your friends fonder of you than they are? There is no manner of need of it. We begin to expect you no more than anti-chrift; a man that hath abfented himself so long from his friends ought to be put into the Gazette. Every body here has great need of you. Many faces have died for want of your pencil, and blooming ladies have withered in expecting your return. Even Frank and Betty (that constant pair) cannot confole themselves for your abfence; I fancy they will be forced to make their own picture in a pretty babe, before you come home: it will be a noble fubject for a family piece. Come then; and having peopled Ireland with a world of beautiful fhadows, come to us, and fee with that eye (which, like the eye of the world, creates beauties by looking on them), fee, I fay, how England has altered the airs of all its heads in your abfence and with what fneaking city attitudes our most celebrated perfonages appear, in the mere mortal works of our painters. Mr. Fortefcue is much yours; Gay commemorates you; and laftly (to climb by juft fteps and degrees) my Lord Burlington defires you may be put in mind of him. His gardens flourish, his ftructures rife, his pictures arrive, and (what is far more valuable than all) his own good qualities daily extend themselves to all about him: of whom I the meanest (next to fome Italian fiddlers and English bricklayers) am a living inftance. Adieu, LETTER LXXX. life so pleasantly as to forget all miffortunes, I should tell you I reckoned your abfence no fmall one; but I hope you have alfo had many good and pleafant reafons to forget your friends on this fide the world. If a wish could tranfport me to you and your prefent companions, I could do the fame. Dr. Swift, I believe, is a very good landlord, and a cheerful hoft at his own table: I fuppofe he has perfectly learnt himself, what he has taught fo many others, rupta men infanire lagena: elie he would not make a proper holt for your humble fervant, who (you know) though he drinks a glass as feldom as any man, contrives to break one as often. But it is a confolation to But that you and I are upon equal terms, in all friendly lazinefs, and have taken an inviolable oath to each other, always to do what we will; I should reproach you for fo long a filence. The bett amends you can make for faying nothing to me is by faying all the good you can of me, which is, that I heartily love and esteem the Dean and Dr. Par nelle. Gay is yours and theirs. His fpirit is awakened very much in the caufe of the Dean, which has broke forth in a courageous couplet or two upon Sir Richard Blackmore; he has printed it with his name to it, and bravely affigns no other reason, than that the faid Sir Richard has abufed Dr. Swift. I have alfo fuffered in the like caufe, and fhall fuffer more: unlefs Parnelle fends me his Zoilus and Book-worm (which the Bishop of Clogher, I hear, greatly extols), it will be fhortly, concurrere bellum atque wirum.-I love you all, as much as I defpife moft wits in this dull country. Ireland has turned the tables upon England; and if I have no poetical friend in my own nation, I will be as proud as Scipio, and fay (fince I am reduced to fkin and bone) Ingrata patria, ne offa quidem babeas. T LETTER LXXXI. Mr. Peje to Mr. Jervas in Ireland. Nov. 29, 1716. HAT you have not heard from me of late, afcribe not to the ufual laziness of your correfpondent, but to a ramble to Oxford, where your name is mentioned with honour, even in a land flowing with tories. I had the good fortune there to be often in the converfation of Doctor Clarke: he entertained me with feveral drawings, and particularly with the original defigns of Inigo Jones's Whitehall. I there faw and reverenced fome of your first pieces; which future painters are to look upon as we poets do on the Culex of Virgil and Batrachom. of Homer. Having named this latter piece, give me leave to ask what is become of Dr. orum, oblivifcendus et illis, might be Ho Parnelle and his frogs? Oblitufque meI have fuch meorums as Dr. Parnelle and race's wish, but will never be mine while Dr. Swift. I hope the fpring will reftore you to us, and with you all the beauties and colours of nature. Not but I congratulate you on the pleafure you must take in being admired in your own country, which fo feldom happens to prophets and poets: but in this the advantage of poets; you are master you have rich, as long as people love, or are proud of an art that must profper and grow of themfelves, or their own perfons. However, you have ftayed long enough, methinks, to have painted all the numberlefs hiftories of old Ogygia. If you have begun to be hiftorical, I recommend to your hand the ftory which every pious Irifhman ought to begin with, that of St. Patrick; to the end you may be obliged (as Dr. P. was, when he tranflated the Batrachomuomachia) to come into England, to copy the frogs, and fuch other vermin as were never feen in that land fince the time of that confeffor. You have already done enough for the I long to fee you a history painter. private, do fomething for the public; and be not confined, like the reft, to draw only fuch filly ftories as our own faces tell of us. The ancients too expect you should do them right; thofe ftatues from which you learned Your beautiful and noble ideas, demand it as a piece of gratitude from you, to make them truly known to all nations, in the account you intend to write of their characters. I hope you think more warmly than ever of that defign. As to your inquiry about your houfe; when I come within the walls, they put your friend, like the wandering Trojan, me in mind of thofe of Carthage, where For the fpacious manfion, like a Turkish Animum pictura pafcit inani. with only bare lodging. I rule the famicaravanferah, entertains the vagabonds ly very ill, keep bad hours, and lend out your pictures about the town. indeed does all he can in fuch a circumit is to have a poet in your houfe! Frank ftance; for, confidering he has a wild See what is printed amongst his poems. beaft Seat. L beat ai, be contantly keeps the door chined: every time it is opened, the The Ano muit, the ratty hinges roar. hove lens fo fenfible that you are its faron, man is is ready to drop in your atience; but I filtru myself under its roct, as depending that Providence will preferve is many Raphaels, Trians, and Guidos, as are lodged in your cabiDet. Surry the Ens of one poet can hardly be in heavy, as to bring an di house over the beads of fo many painen In a word your home is filig; in what of that? I am only a lodger relieving myself with neceffary amuse- My mother, I dark God, the easer, if not the better, for my cares; and I am the happier in that regard, as atas the corkioloads of congry bei My ser felidity is retaining the good spiles of hosék men, wo tick be not quite madrig dk; wd n Ending to injuries from others in me, 21 org 2. Encerity with what I sé sowath Tage I |